Dark Hunger

by Reinke, Sara

  “I’ll kill you!” she screamed, slamming Tessa’s head against the floor once, twice, three violent, furious times, until Tessa tasted blood in her mouth and her line of sight danced with a dizzying array of lights. “You and your goddamn brother! I’ll tear you both apart with my goddamn hands—now you tell me where my husband is!”

  “Get off me!” Tessa cried, wedging her foot between them, planting her heel against Monica’s midriff. She punted mightily, kicking Monica away, sending her across the room and plowing into laden bookshelves. Heavy, leather-bound volumes tumbled to the floor as Monica crumpled. She moved slowly, her hands first, then her legs, groaning.

  Tessa scrambled to her feet, bleeding and limping, and tried to reach the remaining fireplace tools. Her fingers groped for frantic purchase against the handle of a coal shovel, and when Monica grabbed her from behind, Tessa whirled, sending the iron shovel blade smashing into the side of Monica’s head, knocking her sideways and to the ground again.

  “You want Martin?” Tessa said, hoisting the shovel again, driving the blade down in a forceful arc into the back of Monica’s skull. “Go and find him, you fucking bitch.” She reared the shovel back and swung it down again, the iron spade dented now from the repeated, brutal impacts. “Go outside and hunt him down, you nasty piece of shit Davenant whore!”

  Again and again, she beat Monica, until the other woman lay facedown on the floor, struggling vainly to cover her head with her hands. All the while, images flashed in her mind—of Martin dragging her down to the laundry room and whipping her with his belt because she hadn’t starched his shirts to his liking; of Monica snatching the green sapphire pendant from around her neck, her voice cold and mocking. It’s mine now.

  “How do you like it, Monica?” Tessa cried, smashing her head with the shovel. All of the times Martin had beaten her black and blue, all of the times he’d hurt her, shamed her, bullied her, frightened her, and all the while he’d treated Monica like a queen; Monica had never known a moment’s hardship or suffering under his roof.

  “How do you like it?” Tessa screamed, and she didn’t even realize she was weeping, her body racked with sobs, as again and again, she swung the shovel. “How does it feel, you bitch?”

  Finally, she stumbled backward, hiccuping for breath, the shovel dropping from her hands. Monica lay motionless, facedown against the floor, her auburn hair matted and stained with blood. Tessa stood there for a long, stunned moment as the bloodlust drained from her, the adrenaline that had infused her waning, leaving her with nothing but shock and horror at the realization of what she’d done.

  “Oh…” she whispered, shuddering. “Oh…oh, God…”

  Tessa! Brandon screamed. She could hear a heavy, desperate pounding from somewhere downstairs as he tried to batter down one of the doors. He was trapped down on the beach, unable to climb up the wall as Monica had done because without the bloodlust he was, for all intents and purposes, little better than a human. Tessa! I’m coming!

  “It’s too late,” Tessa whispered even though he couldn’t hear her. She turned around and went to push her hair back from her face. Her hands were blood-smeared and she blinked in aghast horror at her palms. “Oh, God, I killed her.”

  Although the Brethren thought nothing of killing humans, it was forbidden that any of them kill another of their own kind. Only the Elders could demand or deliver the death of a fellow Brethren, and only then, by the most extreme of circumstances or offenses. Murder was a human sin; a failing suffered by those beneath the Brethren race, and more than that, it was considered a travesty, an abhorrence punishable by death.

  “Oh, God,” Tessa whispered again, because until that moment, she would have only been punished had the Elders found her again for leaving the farm, defying her husband and the rules of the Brethren. She would have suffered considerably, of that she had no doubt…

  …but now? she thought in horror. Now there would be no mercy for her; nothing anyone could say or do to protect her. Or my baby. She pressed her hands against her belly and closed her eyes. Oh, God, they’ll take my baby and kill me now.

  She heard a soft sound from behind her, a faint scratching and started to turn. Monica leaped up—very much alive and very much pissed off—and her hand clamped against Tessa’s throat. Tessa yelped, breathless and startled, as Monica slammed her back against the nearest bookcase, pinning her with her feet off the ground.

  “You…fucking bitch!” Monica screeched, blood and spittle flying from her lips, the bones of her jaw, her teeth standing out in stark, gruesome contrast to the red, spongy meat beneath her torn, ruined skin. Tessa saw a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye, then Monica rammed the business-end of the cast-iron fireplace poker through her midriff.

  Tessa cried out, choked and strained, as the barbed end punched through her belly, spearing through the meat of her gut and thrusting out of her back just shy of her spine. The pain was immediate and indescribable, more excruciating than anything she might have ever even imagined possible.

  Oh, God! she thought, as Monica turned loose of her throat, leaving her to stagger clumsily sideways, the strength in her legs abandoning her. She blinked in stunned, aghast horror at the shaft of the poker protruding from her belly, the handle blood-smeared and jutting less than a few inches beneath the edge of her breastbone. Already a bright, scarlet stain had started to spread at the point of impact, seeping through the heavy down filling of her ski coat and soaking the pale pink nylon exterior. Oh, God…my baby!

  “I’ll kill you!” Monica seethed, her lips smeared with bloody froth. She wrapped her hands around the handle of the poker and Tessa screamed, her voice ripping shrilly as Monica jerked her off her feet, swinging her by the poker, throwing her the length of the room. Tessa could feel the hooked tip of the implement ripping through flesh as it was wrenched back out of her body; it flew free just as Monica threw her, sending a trail of blood slapping up against the ceiling, spraying Tessa in the face.

  Tessa smashed against another bookshelf and collapsed into a shuddering heap against the floor. The pain was too much, too great; she couldn’t move save to press her hand against her belly. The front of her coat was soaked now with blood; she stared down at it in shock, watching as it dribbled down the contours of her knuckles, streamed along her fingers in steady, thickening rivulets. She couldn’t sense the baby; there was nothing but the pain and a terrible, leaden coldness that seemed to have filled her, swallowing that fragile corner of light and warmth where once she’d been able to feel her child growing.

  Oh…oh, God…oh, no, please!

  She looked up, her eyes flooded with tears, her mind fading rapidly to shadows and saw Monica leap at her. It was almost like watching something out of a movie; Monica moved as if in slow motion, her footsteps plodding and clumsy. When she sprang forward, hands outstretched, her fingers blood-smeared and hooked into claws, Tessa shrank, cowering.

  Oh, God, no, please not my baby, she thought, and out of the corner of her eye, lying among broken glass shards, fallen books and splintered wood, she spied the broken end of the shattered decorative dragon beam.

  At this, she felt something in her galvanized, some fire she might have once attributed to her grandmother Eleanor but now realized was her own—her own strength and determination—reigniting in full, furious force. She shrieked in agonized protest, and curled her fingers around the shaft of wood.

  “Not my baby!” she screamed, swinging her arm up just as Monica began to tackle her, smashing the dragon’s head—gape-mouthed and fork-tongued—directly into Monica’s. The trident of sharp points at its lips, the spear of its tongue punched into the side of Monica’s skull, crushing bone and mashing brain matter, burying clear to the delta of its wooden jaws.

  She uttered a startled squawk; Tessa realized she could see the dragon’s bottom jaw bisecting the roof of Monica’s mouth in a grim, gruesome plane and then a thin stream of blood suddenly dripped down from Monica’s right nostril, spattering agai
nst her face. Monica blinked in dazed fascination at the glistening droplets as they rolled down Tessa’s cheek, then her gaze cut to Tessa’s.

  “You…you can’t…” she began, then her eyes rolled back into her skull, black yielding to white, and she crashed sideways, falling to the rug in a still and sudden heap.

  Oh, God! Tessa kicked Monica’s legs and hips, knocking her away. The shaft of the broken crossbeam jutted skyward at a listing angle from Monica’s head; beneath her, blood pooled against the Oriental rug, spilling from her mouth and nose, the grisly wounds to her face and skull.

  Tessa pressed her hands to her stomach and rolled onto her side, curling up into a fetal coil as her tears spilled. She didn’t even hear Brandon come rushing into the room, his footsteps heavy and frantic. When he collapsed to his knees beside her, trying to touch her, she recoiled and screamed, punching at him, trying to punt him away.

  Tessa, it’s me! It’s Brandon! he said in her mind. Tessa, I’m sorry! I couldn’t get inside! I had to break a window! I couldn’t find you…I could hear you screaming but I…I couldn’t…

  His hands stopped fluttering about her when he caught sight of the blood. Oh, Jesus, you’re bleeding! he cried, his voice shrill and panicked. What happened? Oh…oh, Christ, are you all right? Tessa! Tessa, please, answer me!

  “Oh…oh, God…!” she wept as her twin clutched at her. She clapped her hands over her face and shuddered against the floor. “My baby,” she gasped. “Oh…oh, God, Brandon…she killed my baby!”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “What are we doing, Rene?” Lina asked as she pulled the Mercedes to a stop across the street from a towering three-story Victorian mansion. Complete with lushly landscaped flower beds and shrubberies, a steeply pitched, slate-tiled mansard roof, ornate stained-glass windows and granite stairs leading to a stately, sprawling front porch, the house looked like something out of Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Without question, it was one of the crown jewels in the overflowing architectural coffer that was Pacific Heights.

  Lina sat behind the wheel, her hand draped against the gearshift as the engine idled and she looked at him expectantly. Her expression grew even more quizzical as he unbuckled his seat belt and opened the passenger-side door.

  “You’re going to sit here for just a moment, ma chère,” he told her with a wink as he used his hands to help swing his prosthetic foot from the car to the sidewalk. “And I’m going to get out and stretch my legs a wee bit.”

  He closed the door, but as he rounded the hood, she rolled down her window, shielding her eyes with the blade of her hand against the bright afternoon sky and squinting at the houses. “No, I mean, what are we doing here?”

  She’d gawked almost nonstop since he’d directed her to the neighborhood, having dropped the Jeep off at the airport rental car terminal earlier. “Do you know someone who lives here?”

  “Not really, chère,” he murmured, crossing the street and mounting the broad, steep risers leading up to the mansion’s front porch. “Not anymore.”

  You could take the girl out of the bayou, but you couldn’t take the bayou out of the girl. While any other woman in the neighborhood with a husband whose net worth was roughly the equivalent of a small country’s annual operating budget probably had a slew of household staff on duty to tend to such menial tasks as answering the doorbell, Irene opened the door herself, dressed with a lavender silk robe lashed around her waist and a steaming, oversized cup of coffee in one hand. He didn’t know if she recognized him or not, if something in his face had seemed, at least from initial glance familiar enough to make her unafraid, or if she simply answered her door fearlessly at every knock or ring. But she opened it wide without a moment’s hesitation, and looked at him for a curious moment. “Yes? May I help you?”

  The years had touched her, thickening and softening what had once been a reed-slender figure. Age had graced her face with delicately etched lines framing her mouth and eyes. Her hair was short, a youthful spiky cut dyed a lighter shade of blond than he remembered. Her skin was olive-toned and tanned; she smelled lightly of faded perfume, cocoa cappuccino and raspberry lotion.

  Mon Dieu, you’re still beautiful, he thought.

  Her blue eyes cut down the length of his form as if searching for something, but when they settled again on his face, he watched her expression shift—first perplexed, then startled, then utter disbelief. The coffee cup dropped from her hand, shattering against the stone tile of the front porch.

  “Oh, my God!” she whispered. They were the first words she’d ever said to him and as she offered them again now, a tremor worked its way from her hands to her shoulders, shuddering through her. Her voice sounding strangled for breath, stunned and strained. “Oh, my God. Rene?”

  “Hello, chère,” he said with a smile, his own voice choked, his eyes burning with the sharp sting of tears.

  The last words he’d said to her had been callous and cold, hateful things shouted as she’d fled his mother’s house in Thibodaux. He wouldn’t have blamed her one bit if she still hated him for that, even all of those years later, but instead she stepped toward him, hands outstretched, oblivious to the broken cup, the spilled coffee at her feet. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, rising onto her tiptoes and gasping against his ear.

  “Oh, my God, it’s you! It’s really you!” She stepped back, cupping his face in her hands, her eyes swimming with tears. Her brows were lifted with visible, dumbstruck wonder. “I can’t believe it. You…you look just the same. You haven’t aged a day! How is that possible?”

  “Never mind,” Rene whispered, touching her face, brushing his fingertips against her features, still so poignantly familiar to him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  In that moment, as she looked into his eyes, he opened his mind and reached out to her. Her voice faded even as she began to speak, her gaze growing distant and dreamy, just like with the young couple he’d inadvertently stopped along the New Mexico highway.

  “Forgive me, chère.” He leaned toward her and kissed her mouth, letting his lips settle softly, briefly. As he closed his eyes, treasuring that fleeting moment of her breath against him, a single tear spilled. “For everything.”

  He stepped away, letting his hand linger against her cheek for one last moment before pulling back completely. Irene stood motionless on her front porch, a soft breeze fluttering the hem of her robe against her calves as she blinked sleepily at him. She watched him walk away without being aware of it; he’d turned off her mind and she wouldn’t remember that he’d ever been there. He’d erased her memories of that horrific last day in Louisiana, and all of the painful, terrible days that had preceded it. In less time than it took to bat an eye, he had rewritten history for Irene, giving her something kinder and more gentle to look back upon—a boy named Rene LaCroix whom she had loved in the folly of her youth, a boy she might have once married, but who had been killed in Vietnam; a boy she could think of in fond recall, and maybe weep for every once in a while; a boy who had never broken her heart or let her down. The boy he’d once been, and the man he always wished he could have been for her.

  “Good-bye, Irene,” Rene whispered, and turned, walking away.

  Lina met him halfway across the street, her pace brisk, her cell phone in her hand, her expression as anxious as a toddler in need of the toilet. “We have to go.”

  “Je sais,” he replied. I know. She hadn’t felt comfortable leaving Tessa and especially Brandon alone in Tahoe to begin with, and figured she’d found his detour an aggravation. “I’ll make it up to you, chère. I’ll buy you lunch on the way back east. Any place you’d—”

  “No, Rene.” She caught his arm as he started to walk past her, her fingers closing fiercely enough to give him pause. For the first time, he realized she didn’t just seem anxious. She looked stricken. “Brandon just sent me a text message. We have to go now. He said something’s happened to Tessa and the baby.”

  “He said Monica and Marti
n Davenant must have been in Anthony, New Mexico, together,” Lina said once they’d returned to the motel. It took a lot to position his prosthetic so that he could use it to work a clutch pedal, which is why Rene seldom did it, but there had been no way in hell he’d have sat riding shotgun in his own goddamn sports car when Tessa needed him. He’d made the little Mercedes scream as he’d thrown it in gear and turned its V-6 engine wide open and loose on the highway.

  I’m coming, Tessa, he’d thought, gripping the steering wheel so tightly, he’d caused the gunshot wound to his left palm to seep blood again. There was no way she could have heard him, not from such a distance, but he hadn’t given a shit. He’d opened his mind to her anyway, straining desperately, searching for her. I’m coming home to you, pischouette. I’m on my way.

  Rene wasn’t a praying man. His grandmother Odette had forced him as a child to accompany her to church each Sunday, dressing him up in suffocating button-down shirts and hand-me-down dress pants and wetting his hair to comb it into some semblance of order. When she’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer one year after Arnaud Morin’s suicide, Rene had flirted with the idea of religion again for the first time in ages. The cancer had been caught too late and the best they might have hoped for was that Odette would die without suffering too badly. At least that’s what Rene had prayed for. It hadn’t turned out that way, despite the best efforts of prayer, hospice and all of the morphine Rene’s newfound and considerable wealth had been able to afford. Odette had died incoherent from pain, without knowing Rene or anyone else around her, crying out in garbled French for family members and friends who had long ago preceded her.

  He hadn’t prayed ever since, but he did on the long drive back from San Francisco, pleading with God or whoever the hell was out there, all-knowing and omnipotent. Please let them be all right, he’d thought. Tessa and the baby—I’m begging you. Take whatever you want from me—my other goddamn leg, my life. Whatever you want, anything, but not Tessa. Not the baby.