We ran, booking it down the hallway and into the interrogation room where Dagan was supposed to be.
One agent with a gun was leaning against the wall by the door.
“Where’s Dagan?” I demanded.
“Bathroom,” she replied.
“Did somebody go with him?”
“Yeah, Michael.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“Um, like ten minutes, maybe?”
“Fuck.” I started running again.
Thirty seconds of scrambling later and we were standing over the mostly unconscious body of Agent Michael Paul, who was groaning on the floor of the men’s bathroom.
“Of course,” I snorted, “of fucking course.”
“Hey, Dulcie?” said Sam gently. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really, really probably need to keep your blood pressure down.”
“Or what, I’ll explode?”
“That’s honestly not out of the question.”
She was right, I could feel it. Just that little spike of irritation was enough to make me feel a whole ten degrees warmer. It was the same way I’d felt when Bram had super pissed me off and my body had basically turned on itself, leaving me in the state I was in now.
I took a deep breath and exhaled as slowly as I could.
“Can you smell him?” asked Quill. “Dagan, I mean?”
I sniffed the air. Dagan’s smell had mostly skated away on the very soft current coming out of the vents, but yeah, I still could.
Groaning, I left the bathroom. “I swear to Hades, if Dagan just walked out the front door...”
I followed the trail, and everybody followed me. And yes, Dagan had just walked out the front door. So much for security.
“Okay, road trip,” I announced.
Christina came running out of the building just then, panting. “What’s happening out here?”
“Dagan’s gone,” I told her.
“Do we know where he went?”
“No, but he left a pretty strong smell behind him, and I think I can follow it if we drive with the windows down.”
Christina nodded and held up her keys. “I’ll drive?”
“Works for me.”
###
The trail led us to a really nice house.
Like, weirdly nice.
It was the kind of place rich people build on cheap land in Oklahoma. In the better part of Splendor, in one of the neighborhoods still being rebuilt from that one time I had decimated everything trying to kill Sam, and that one other time Meg set an army of super-dead things on the city.
Dark wood, three stories, with wrought iron detailing everywhere. It had the look of a French chateau, except it was the wrong color and it had some weird points and angles in its architecture that made it almost look gothic.
Somewhere inside, we heard a woman screaming.
“Osenna,” I guessed, and I threw open my door.
“Then this is Bram’s house?” Quill asked.
“One of them,” I answered as I took the place in again. I hadn’t seen this particular home of Bram’s, but I wasn’t surprised. I had a feeling he owned a lot of real estate.
The more I considered the situation facing us, the more the pieces started to fall into place. Bram must have left the office and gone home to check on Osenna, under Christina’s orders, and Dagan fucking followed him.
Bram should have known better.
I ran up to the double front doors, which appeared to be made of heavy, dark mahogany. I took a breath, pulled my right leg back, and then kicked with as much gusto as I could muster. Not only did I manage to take down the door, but it flew all the way down the hall, where it burst into pieces against the far wall.
Osenna screamed again, but this time the sound was sharply cut off.
“In here,” I called out to Quill and Christina, but by now we could all tell where everyone was.
I busted down the door at the very end of the hall, stepping over the splinters of the first one, and we found ourselves in a massive living room. Fancy red furniture, blackout curtains over every window, big hearth in the middle of one wall. The ceiling went all the way up to the second story.
“Dagan, Dagan, Dagan,” Darion was saying, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Still so predictable.”
“Let her go,” hissed Dagan. He was in the middle of the living room, head cranked upward, spinning in circles, searching for Osenna.
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Darion. “She’s right here, come and get her!”
Wind rushed in the room and Dagan toppled sideways, still spinning.
I took a step forward, but Quill reached out and grabbed my arm. Bram was nowhere to be seen. Which was just as well, because he was still on my shit list.
“Dulcie, we can’t see him,” Quill pointed out.
“Yeah, but I can hear him.” I drew my gun.
“You can’t just start shooting holes in the walls, hoping you’ll hit something,” Christina said.
“I can hear him!”
I aimed at a general spot on the wall and fired.
“Dulcie, may I remind you that you are in my home,” cautioned Bram, appearing from nowhere to stand in front of me, regarding me with arms crossed and a furrowed brow.
TWENTY-FOUR
Dulcie
I didn’t say anything, but I glared back up at him while I fired three more times into a few pieces of really expensive-looking furniture. Just because I wanted to. Bram frowned at me and arched one of his eyebrows.
“Sorry?” I asked with a little grin.
“Dulcie,” said Christina.
“Dagan, your friends have come to rescue you!” roared Darion from somewhere up high. “How charming.”
Darion was moving fast through the room, flying, and Osenna was with him, muffled. Like she’d been gagged or paralyzed, or something worse.
“Shall I eat them, Dagan?” Darion continued, sounding like he was having the time of his life. “Dice them up and stew them like mother used to?”
Dagan picked up a chair and hurled it at nothing in particular. The legs broke when they hit the wall. I heard a swoosh in the air, so I aimed and fired again.
“Would now be a good time to remind you that bullets will not work on Darion?” asked Bram, eyeing me with eyebrows drawn. “All they are doing is destroying the beauty of this room.”
“Will you shut up?” I responded.
To his credit, he did. Everybody did.
A thick cloud of terror fell over the room like a blanket, and everyone crumpled inwards like we were a house of cards in the rain. Clearly, Darion was up to his old ways.
“It’s almost insulting how easy this is,” he crowed from somewhere above me.
“Fuck you,” I spat. “Darion…”
Before I finished my sentence, a strong hand—presumably Darion’s—grabbed me by the shirt and hoisted me up into the air. My legs dangled underneath me, and I fought against his hold, trying to twist my way free.
Darion made this deep-throated cackling noise, like he was trying to scare me. It didn’t work, though, and now I knew exactly where he was. I grabbed at the area where he was holding me, pried a finger loose, and snapped it backwards as hard as I could. Even demons have bones that break, and he screamed like the four horsemen were coming specifically for him.
This gave me a pretty good idea of where his mouth was.
I flexed my hand and, as I watched, my nails curved into claws. Then I reached up, hooked my fingers around his lips, and pulled down. Blood sprayed me in the face, hot and swampy.
I didn’t know if Darion just wasn’t expecting me to react like the feral animal I was, but whatever I’d done to him was enough to make him release me. I flailed, grabbing onto his ankle on my way down. I was hovering about ten feet in the air. And the last thing I wanted to do was break a leg; then we’d all be as good as dead. Darion tried his damnedest to kick me loose and managed to nail me square in the face with the toe of his bo
ot. And that hurt like a bitch.
I released him and fell, landing flat on my back on the hard wood floor.
The wind took a hint and bailed out of my lungs like it was being chased, and I spent the next minute staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Stop it!” shouted a woman I couldn’t see. Probably Osenna, who was, no doubt, being carried around by the invisible Darion.
So she was with him. Got it.
I got to my feet, morphing the rest of the way into werewolf mode. The change cleared the pain in my head, just like I’d known it would. Lately, it seemed that changing into my werewolf shape was lots easier than attempting anything vampire-related. Maybe it was owing to the fact that I wouldn’t drink blood. I was staunchly opposed to it, because it was… gross. There was also something so carnally satisfying about ripping something to pieces with doggy teeth and claws.
Darion laughed, and his voice bounced around the room in ways the walls shouldn’t have allowed even a little.
Something cold pressed against my throat. A knife. I grabbed it by the blade, which was really stupid but whatever, and pulled down hard, leaning forward so Darion rolled over me and hit the floor with a nice, big oomph. I didn’t feel the blade cut into my hand, but I felt the sudden wash of warmth as I started to bleed. No matter—I could heal myself later. Well, if there was a later.
“Oh, dear,” jeered Darion, a little breathless. Then, from slightly farther away, “That doesn’t look good.”
I jumped forward, hands outstretched, and felt my fingers close around an arm and a throat. I tackled him forward and started to press. Blood I couldn’t see welled up under my palms.
Darion tutted. “Careful,” he warned. “You break her, you buy her.”
Osenna made a choking noise.
“Oh, shit.” I rolled backwards off her. Osenna coughed and hacked and tried to breathe.
Darion was staring at me, totally wordless. That was when I realized that I could now see him. The scarf had come undone around his neck.
“You are such a peculiar creature,” he observed. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
Only everyone I’ve ever met and their mother, I thought. “No, actually, everybody I know thinks I’m stark-raving normal.”
“I cannot touch you,” Darion continued, musing, more to himself than me. “Your mind is… inaccessible to me.” Re-wrapping the scarf around his neck, he blinked back into obscurity yet again.
“Sucks to be you,” I said.
“On the contrary, I find you completely fascinating. I have never met a beast I could not burden.”
“Oh, believe me, you’re a burden.”
There, to my left.
I leapt in that direction and collided with Darion and Osenna, and this time I made damn sure I was trying to rip out the right person’s vocal cords. I found Osenna by her hair, pushed her aside, and threw my fist into the air to her left, my right. There was nothing there.
Darion laughed. I reached around, behind Osenna, and grabbed him by the hair, wrenching his head back.
If he hadn’t curled back with the momentum of the wrenching, I would have snapped his neck like a fucking toothpick. But he threw himself down, turning a backflip in the air. I heard the swoosh of his wings beating madly.
I still had him by the hair, and there was something hungry about the way I was holding on to him now. Something red and angry and incoherent inside me that wasn’t paying attention anymore. I heard myself growling, and suddenly, it was the only noise I could make.
I put my hand over Darion’s face to force his head back. I could feel his smile and I could hear his cackle.
“Checkmate, darling,” he said.
I lunged for his throat, mouth open, teeth longer and sharper than I’d ever been able to make them. I sank them into his skin and began ripping and tearing, shaking my head back and forth like a dog after it’s caught something.
Osenna screamed.
Darion’s laugh got louder, arrogant, victorious. Vicious. Gleeful.
But nothing occurred to me until five full seconds later, when my mouth was full of something silvery-bitter and rotten-sweet. Blood. But it wasn’t Darion’s blood.
“Yes, beastie, feast,” Darion encouraged, laughing, almost hysterically now. While I was still staring at the carpet, he backhanded me off him. I fell, a rain of blood following close behind me.
I rolled into a crouch and cast my eyes wildly around the room. A murderous rage was doing its best to rampage through me; all I could think about was killing him.
I looked down at my hand. Still red, still pouring out like I was trying to show a waterfall who was in charge. Silver now, too, sticking to me like spray paint.
Again, I’d hurt the wrong person.
“I’d love to stay and play, but I’m afraid I have a previous engagement,” said Darion. He was close enough to Dagan that Dagan flinched.
Then, for half a second, I saw Darion again: the scarf draped around his shoulders, but not tied in front, though there was a knot where it clearly had been connected a second before. His arm was wrapped tightly around Osenna. She had a gag around her neck, which was clearly meant to be around her mouth but she’d managed to wriggle out of it. Her hands were tied behind her back. There was a huge bite mark on her shoulder, and silver drops of blood were emptying from it.
I’d never seen somebody look so afraid.
I only saw them for that half-second, though. Then, there was a flash of vibrant blue light, and they were gone.
###
When they say an emotion is coursing through you, they mean it’s like somebody filled a needle with liquid piss-off energy and shot it between your toes. At least, that’s what it felt like to me.
Anger moved through my body like a bad drug, an actual rushing sensation I could feel from my eyes to my fingertips to the balls of my feet.
Dagan was still sprawled in the center of the room, blood pouring out of his eye. I could only hope the eyeball was still intact. There was so much blood, though, I wasn’t sure. He didn’t look like he was breathing. I could hear his heart beating, hellishly fast, so he was alive, but he was barely moving. He stared at the ceiling like it was about to cave in on him, and he couldn’t be bothered to get out of the way.
Fear, and resignation puffed out of him in tiny hormonal clouds.
I heard grunting behind me, and remembered very suddenly that we weren’t the only two people in the room.
I turned around and started walking toward the rest of my group, all of whom were staring at me with wide eyes and a few open mouths. Clearly, I’d put on a show.
“Are you guys okay?” I asked, then remembered I was completely naked. That was the one drawback of turning into a wolf.
“Dulcie,” Bram said as he unbuttoned the final button on his dress shirt and tossed it to me. It took him a long few seconds to do so owing to whatever power Darion had over him. Points for Bram that he kept his attention riveted to my face. I caught the shirt with a nod and threw it over my shoulders, turning my back to everyone as I buttoned the rest of it. I rolled up the arms and faced the group again.
The berserker rage inside of me was falling away, but slowly, like the tide pulling out.
Everyone else in the room wasn’t okay. They were pushing themselves up against the wall, groaning and panting, sweating, pale as ghosts that had seen other, way more disturbing ghosts. Quill was helping Christina to her feet, Bram was trying to push his way off the wall, and Knight was just standing there.
Knight was just standing there.
“When did you get here?” I demanded, shock and something else taking turns attacking me.
“I’ve been here.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t care to ask. However he’d gotten here, he was here now and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. And he looked just as out of his mind as everyone else did.
He was leaning against the wall, panting.
And
he was staring at me. He looked scared. He looked terrified. Like I’d ripped somebody’s heart out with my teeth and still had it, beating, in my mouth.
I stopped walking. “What?” I snapped.
He scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”
“About what?”
He pushed himself off the wall and ambled forward, visibly furious, even if his body was still trying to shake off Darion’s power. “That was reckless.”
“Which part?”
“All of it!” he yelled, gesturing to the totally demolished living room. “Shooting at an invisible flying demon with a hostage. Biting somebody you couldn’t fucking see!”
“I didn’t see you jumping in to help.”
“Because I couldn’t!” he railed at me, and then shook his head. He walked over and knelt beside Dagan. “You okay, man?”
Dagan didn’t answer. He sat up with Knight’s help, slowly, and looked at me.
“What,” Dagan said slowly, “the hell.”
I realized that my mouth was, in fact, drenched silver with siren blood. It had a really nasty taste, especially the longer it sat on my tongue. I spat out what I could and ran the already blood-soaked shirt sleeve over my mouth.
Some emotionally-sober part of me thought, that isn’t good. But mostly I was mad I hadn’t gotten Darion to bleed more.
“What the hell was your plan?” Dagan demanded. He cupped his hand over his eye and gritted his teeth. His heart rate wasn’t slowing down; I could hear it.
Neither was mine. Actually, I think it was getting faster.
“Kill Darion,” I retorted. “Did you have something else in mind?”
“Not almost killing Osenna!” Dagan yelled at me.
Yeah, well, that was fair.
“She’s fine,” I said defensively.
“Dulcie?” Quill put in from behind me. “Osenna’s literally missing an entire piece of her arm.” He pointed to a lump on the floor, which I now realized was about the volume-size of my entire mouth.
“Fuck,” I swore, but I really didn’t sound like I cared. Which was disconcerting, because I did care. I think. Somewhere deep down.
Vanity Scare Page 20
