Scorched

by Sharon Ashwood

  “Too bad. I might have been able to pardon you if it had worked.” His regret sounded real.

  Mac’s temper snapped like rotten elastic. Blood rushed to his face. “What the hell, Caravelli? Why bother? I’m already dead in any way that matters. Everyone I ever loved is terrified of me. I’ve lost my friends. I’ve lost my family. I’ve lost my job. The very essence of who I was has been twisted and perverted. Anything you do is plain overkill.”

  “And yet,” said the vampire, “killing you is why I’m here.”

  Fright and anger narrowed Mac’s vision until all he could see were Caravelli’s burning amber eyes. He hated him. Why the hell did this bloodsucker get to pass judgment? Mac stabbed his finger in the air. “Go sit on a stake. Leave me alone. I came back here to figure this out.”

  Caravelli hoisted the sword, taking a slow, deliberate practice swing. He was toying with Mac, drawing out the kill. Stalling. “Figure what out?”

  “Damn you! Isn’t it obvious?”

  Caravelli looked up, eyebrow raised. “What?”

  “I want my old life back. I don’t destroy. I’m the guy with the badge who saves people. That’s who I need to be.” Mac sucked in a deep breath. “I want to be human again.”

  To his utter fury, Caravelli laughed. He laughed.

  That pushed Mac’s misery one step too far. Faster than a human eye could follow, his hand shot out, grabbing the vampire’s sword arm by the wrist. The laughter jerked to silence. Caravelli tried to tear away, out of Mac’s demonstrong grip. Not a budge. Caravelli swore in some other, antique language.

  Satisfaction blossomed, an ugly bloom born of frustration. Mac tightened his fingers long enough to make a point, and then shoved Caravelli backward as if he were no more than a boy.

  The vampire stumbled, but somehow made it look like a dance step. His look was sharp, as if he had just solved a puzzle. “You were holding back. I thought so. I needed to know.”

  “You pushed me till I fought back.”

  “Anger doesn’t lie. Now you’ve told me just how dangerous you really are.”

  Mac cursed. He’d been trapped by the shreds of demon still festering inside. Brute strength to go with his brutish, voracious appetite.

  The vampire slowly shook his head. “We’re all Pinocchio, wishing we were real boys. If only we are good enough, save enough lives, perform the right rituals, sacrifice ourselves—or someone else—we can turn back into the humans we once were. I apologize. I laughed only because what you said was so familiar.”

  “Give me a chance.”

  “I died when men still thought the world was flat. I didn’t survive by being charitable.”

  There was a moment’s pause. Distant traffic merged with the rush of the ocean. The sharp autumn air carried a tang of wood smoke. It was finally cold enough for Fairview’s residents to stoke up the fireplaces and curl up in the warmth and safety of their homes.

  Caravelli passed the huge sword from hand to hand as if it weighed no more than a ballpoint pen—a not-so-subtle show of his own strength. Mac wouldn’t count on surprising him twice.

  The vampire seemed to be musing, taking Mac’s measure. The air between them hummed with raw male willpower. Demon rage pulsed against the eggshell of Mac’s human facade. It was hard, so hard, not to revel in it, lap it up and surrender to an orgy of fury.

  And get chopped to pieces for his trouble. The silence sawed through Mac’s nerves. “So, are you going to execute me or what?”

  Chapter 2

  The blade swept out of nowhere, too fast for the eye to track. Mac dodged, more by instinct than by any conscious decision. Caravelli swung again, using the impetus to wheel in an airborne circle of leather and steel. The followthrough would take Mac’s head for sure.

  Except Mac slammed to the ground, using the downward slope of the lawn in a quick roll-somersault-vault maneuver that took him over the low iron railing that enclosed a family plot. He heard the sword whoosh through the grass, the quick scrape of metal on gravestone. Shit! He bounded over a series of low fences and grave markers as if they were track-and-field hurdles.

  I’ll take that as a yes on the planning to kill me question.

  Feet pounding the grass, Mac ran, not daring to turn to look. He knew Caravelli was behind him. Yeah, running looked weak. He could stand his ground—maybe even take Caravelli despite the sword—but the price was too high. If cornered, Mac’s demon instincts would grab control. Those episodes gave new meaning to mood swing.

  Breath came sharp, laced with the scent of his own sour sweat. He headed for the roadway north of the cemetery, where there was traffic. Even psycho vamps hesitated to slice and dice their victims in front of human witnesses.

  Again, Mac ducked, a sixth sense saving him as a blow lanced out of the sky, perfectly silent. The wind in the trees had masked the rustle of air through Caravelli’s clothes.

  Frigging leech!

  Mac zigzagged to make himself a harder target. He dodged angels and crosses, urns draped in stone veils and the virgin weeping granite tears. He knew he was running too fast for a human, saving himself through sheer speed.

  From the corner of his eye, Mac saw Caravelli land on the branch of an oak, coat eddying around him, pausing before he leapt again. Mac veered beneath the hawthorn trees, hoping their twisting branches would shelter him. He could see the road now, make out individual cars and streetlights. The bus shelter glowed like a holy temple of safety.

  Mac jumped another grave, almost stumbling over it before he saw the overgrown marker. It was a bad takeoff and he landed awkwardly, the lumpy ground wrenching his foot. Crap! He let himself roll into the fall and back onto his feet, pelting forward.

  This time he heard Caravelli’s approach, the vampire’s boots on the grass, and he jerked aside. The tip of the sword kissed his ear, a nip meant to be a killing blow. Shit!

  Gathering a last push of speed, he sprang over the low iron fence of the cemetery, thumping to the sidewalk just in time to see the city bus rumble around the corner. Mac sprinted toward the bus shelter, waving his arms for the driver to stop.

  For God’s sake, Caravelli, stay in the graveyard with the other dead things!

  The bus loomed, its bright bulk slowing as Mac ran forward. The door wheezed open and Mac ran up the steps into a hot fog of humanity. At the smell, a sudden rush of soul hunger ached in his gut. He turned and looked, but the vampire was nowhere in sight.

  Thank you, God.

  He grabbed the sticky pole as the bus lurched forward, using his free hand to dig in his jeans pocket for coins. They clanked as they fell into the fare box.

  “Nearly missed me,” said the driver, steering back into traffic.

  “Yeah,” said Mac, still breathing hard. “Lucky I caught you.” Life-saving lucky.

  He picked his way over feet and backpacks until he found a sideways seat near the back exit. Advertising lined the bus walls.

  PREGNANT AND NEED HELP?

  WEREWOLF PACK SILVERTAIL VOTES FOR LEASH-FREE PARKS!

  CHEAP PAYDAY LOANS!

  ADDICTED TO VAMPIRE VENOM? YOU’RE NOT JUST ANOTHER JUNKIE. WE CAN HELP.

  Mac read the bus number. The five. That route went downtown, which was where he lived, anyway. Not that he could go home. Caravelli would be waiting. What the bloody hell am I going to do?

  He checked his watch. Just after eight. His arm felt heavy with spent adrenalin. All over his body, nerves pinged as they reset to a normal resting state.

  So are all the vamps after me, or just the Fanged Avenger? Hard to say. Mac had been back in town a few weeks, but had only just started to venture outside his apartment for more than groceries. The places he’d been scouting for gossip didn’t cater to vamps. Still, it was safest to assume the worst.

  So what next? He couldn’t think. He was too pumped on fear and outrage, his pounding pulse making all else seem bizarrely slow.

  A droopy guy across the aisle was staring blankly at Mac, the wires from his earpho
nes trailing like white brainspaghetti to the pocket of his hoodie. The girl slumped next to him was chewing gum like a nervous sheep. Peppermint weighted the stuffy air.

  Nothing special. Just humans. They had no idea how precious ordinary was. Once upon a time, Mac had been them.

  The whole supernatural thing had started in Y2K, just after he’d made detective. The vamps had come into the public eye at the turn of the millennium, creating a ratings bonanza for more than one euphoric talk show mogul. The other supernatural species had followed. The reason for the big reveal: the shrinking, computerized world made it impossible to live in secret any longer. The supernaturals wanted integration. Citizenship. Credit cards. A piece of the economic pie.

  Good luck. Humans were quick to give lip service to pan-species rights legislation, but slow to make real changes. Too many humans wanted the spooks and weirdoes gone. Others wanted to exploit them.

  Meanwhile, as the humans bickered about what to do, the monsters were building houses, businesses, and communities. In ten years, few of the students riding this bus would remember a time when an ad for Zom-B-Gone perimeter fencing was anything but normal.

  But Mac would. And I remember when old friends would say hello, not cross themselves and run the other way.

  The vehicle took a corner too fast, forcing him to grab the stained vinyl seat for support. He could see the lights of the downtown now, with the dense sparkle of the Fairview University campus to his right.

  The bus stopped, and a woman got on, towing a stroller, a toddler, and an armful of grocery bags. Mac got up and let her have his seat. He stood in the aisle, grabbing the overhead rail as the bus jolted back into motion.

  Then Mac heard a footfall on the top of the bus, too soft for the humans to hear. His gaze automatically tracked the sound to a point above the exit door. He heard it again, and then again—the scraping scuff of boots. Annoyance needled him as he realized what was going on. Caravelli hadn’t given up. He was on top of the bus, just waiting for Mac to get off.

  Crap. Sure, he could call 911 on his cell to report that a homicidal vamp was bus surfing, but why bother? Even if the cops came pronto, Caravelli would be long gone. Human law enforcement just couldn’t keep up anymore.

  Silently cursing, Mac turned to get a better view out the window. They’d reached the city center. As the bus trundled to a stop, half the passengers stood, gathering backpacks and newspapers.

  Keeping his head down, Mac left the bus right behind sheep girl. The cold night air bit at his face, heavy with the greasy fog of the burger joint on the corner. Mac hustled, staying with the throng past the big-box bookstore, past the pharmacy, past the stereo shop. He could feel Caravelli looking for him, the weight of his predator’s gaze sliding over Mac’s skin. This is getting old, fast.

  Frustration raked through Mac, a whip snap of rebellious temper. Damn it! He spun, searching the street, but could see nothing but humans hurrying about their lives. But he could hear—or was it his imagination?—the vampire’s chuckle.

  Temper leeched the color from Mac’s sight. Knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists, aching soul hunger souring to an urge to rend and tear. I’m going to kill him.

  No, you’re not. He’s goading you. Making you easier to kill. Making you a monster.

  The demon inside him trembled with eagerness. It was a hairbreadth from grabbing his mental steering wheel. Mac drew in his breath. I will not surrender. Not to him. Not to myself.

  Walk away. But where? His apartment was too obvious. He needed to hide. Where?

  Mac had an idea, then wished he hadn’t. But it made sense. Nanette’s strap-’em-and-slap-’em funhouse was open around the clock, a place mostly for weres with liberal views on pain. Caravelli wouldn’t think of looking for him there. It was a good place to lie low for a few hours. Very low. Like under the bed.

  Mac dodged traffic across the busy main drag. He slid into the revolving door of the department store, passing through the stench of the perfume section—that should hide his scent—and then into the connecting shopping center. From there, he exited onto a side street.

  He couldn’t feel Caravelli’s presence any longer. With luck, he had lost him. In two more blocks, he turned the corner into an alley. The flashing neon from Nanette’s Naughty Kitty Basket caught the metal of the iron gates that stood open at the alley entrance. The alley itself was dark and cramped, paved with the same crumbling cedar bricks laid down when the city was young.

  And it was empty. Nanette’s back door—the one Mac wanted—was far down the alleyway. There was another door he had to pass first, and it usually had at least two hellhounds keeping watch. Caravelli kept them on his payroll. Mac approached cautiously.

  Tonight there were no guards. Sloppy.

  Then again, the door hardly needed security. No one was ever, ever going to break in. There was nothing anyone wanted to do or witness across that threshold.

  Hell has no atmosphere and the cafeteria sucks.

  Mac’s pulse pounded in his temples, quick and fast. He didn’t like having to pass that doorway in the old brick wall, but he had to and he turned to look at it. It was about nine feet high, the vertical oak planks reinforced with black iron straps. A heavy bolt secured it from the outside. It looked like something out of Tolkien.

  Behind it was a land of nightmares. He’d been there. It wasn’t literal hell, but a place called the Castle, a prison for the supernatural. It might as well have been the real pit of fire, because he’d be damned if he ever went back inside.

  “Macmillan.”

  Mac turned to see Caravelli wheel around the corner of the alley, sword in hand. The neon caught the aureole of his curly fair hair, turning it to a multihued halo. The iron gates framed him, a lattice silhouette around the dark, threatening form.

  “Back off, fangster.” Mac kept his voice level, but anger rose on a flood tide. He waited as Caravelli approached with the cautious grace of a matador.

  “You deaf as well as dead?” Mac said, the words stumbling. The demon inside struggled for control. It would feel so good to let it loose, so easy, so free.

  Mac fell back a few steps, bumping his shoulders against the wall. I can still walk away. I don’t have to be the thing I hate.

  The vampire was right in front of him now, all aggression. Caravelli’s hand slammed against the bricks, barring Mac’s path. Mac jerked away, but Caravelli leaned in. The vampire’s face, with his strange golden eyes, was inches from Mac’s. “You might have just spared me the trouble of cleaning my sword. There is the Castle door. Go inside and don’t come back.”

  Nuh-uh. Mac’s hand slammed into Caravelli’s midriff, sending the vampire sailing across the alley to smack with a slap of leather and flesh into the ancient bricks. The sword fell with a clang, spiraling end over end before it skittered into the wall.

  Mac didn’t notice the half dozen hellhounds slouching out of Nanette’s back door.

  Chapter 3

  The mountain of dark brown fur, high as a man at its shoulder, swung his head to growl at Constance, lips curling to reveal scythe-sharp teeth. Drool pattered from the werebeast’s jaws to the floor; ruby eyes flared like coals of hellfire. The beast’s—Viktor’s—deepening rumble vibrated in her breastbone, warning thunder.

  There was only one thing that would appease the horrifying monster.

  His great, glowing eyes fastened on the spit-soaked, raggedy doll in her hand. Gingerly, Constance held up the toddler-sized toy, doing her best to avoid the damper sections. Viktor hunkered down on his front paws and slid the growl into an expressive whine. As a final plea, he gave a tongue-lolling head tilt.

  “Ha!” Constance flung the tattered doll into the murk of the damp, stone corridor, vampire strength giving it distance. The stuffed doll sailed through the air, vanishing against the shadowy ceiling before landing with a faint thump in the dust. “Go, boy! Fetch!”

  Viktor wheeled and plunged toward the toy. His jaws champed the air with ferocious glee,
the banner of his tail thrashing as he gave a puppyish bounce. Constance lifted her long skirts and sprinted after. Her shoes were silent, drowned out by the scrabble of Viktor’s nails on the stone floor of the corridor.

  She kept poor, mad Viktor in sight. He might forget what he was chasing and go trotting off to parts unknown, stuck in his beast-form, dangerous, doomed, and dim-witted as a loaf of bread.

  They had been chasing the wretched doll for hours, and her feet were starting to hurt. Still, a game of fetch was about Viktor’s only pleasure. She wasn’t going to deny him. Besides, it wasn’t like she could rule her loved ones from the kitchen, the way her mother had. First, she didn’t have a kitchen. Second, vampires were notoriously bad cooks. She had to come up with something besides mealtimes to keep the household together—so she threw the doll.

  Giving what we can is what families do. What does it matter if we’re not blood relations?

  Mind you, not every family had a senile werebeast on its hands—though she did dimly remember a human uncle who’d come close after one too many pints of ale.

  Constance stopped running long enough to push her hair out of her eyes. She watched as Viktor scooped up the doll and shook it with nightmare fury. The sheer savagery in Viktor’s growl scuttled over her skin, raising gooseflesh.

  Some creature of the night you are, Constance. Scared of a dog.

  She would have been happier by a bright fire, or anyplace with light. It was always dark in the Castle’s windowless, cavernous halls. The maze of hallways and chambers, stairs and archways, audience rooms and lifeless grottos meandered into infinity around her. It was all stone—irregular, gray, damp, and mortared with magic a millennium old.

  Torches dotted the corridors, set into black iron brackets in the walls. They wavered, but never went out, throwing smears of smoky light for a scant few feet beyond the flames. It was never enough to really see what was there, hiding in the shadows. The Castle liked its privacy.

  Understandable. The Castle was a prison for foul things like her. There was no outside, just the endless, rambling interior. Prisoners roamed free to make alliances, to set up kingdoms and networks of spies, to make war, or to suffer as the slave of another.