Scorched

by Sharon Ashwood

  Finally, he turned off the taps, grabbed a towel, and blotted the water from his eyes. Then he looked down at himself, shivering with delayed panic. Oh, God. There was too much leg sticking out of the pajama bottoms he wore. The lightweight pants showed that whatever had happened to his body had left him much more than anatomically correct.

  Oh, God. No wonder he’d felt so horny last night.

  Not enough air.

  He stumbled out of the bathroom, throwing open the sliding balcony door. The force of his shove made the glass all but jump the track. Shit.

  He stepped outside, the concrete cold under his feet. He sucked in lungful after lungful of the October chill, grabbing the painted iron of the railing to steady himself against the swimming sensation in his head. What’s going on?

  Disorientation didn’t cover what he was feeling. It was like going through adolescence all over again, and in eight hours. The big body, clumsy and unfamiliar. The raging hormones. It makes no sense. Why did this happen?

  His brain stalled again, crashing under a wave of panic and outrage. What is this? More demon crap? A curse?

  All he’d wanted was to be human again. Instead, he got Mac 3.0, manly man edition. He made a fist, watching the play of extra muscle in his forearm. He’d been strong already, fit, in perfect shape, but his demon strength had been limited by his human frame. This body could do so much more. He’d grown into that demonic power.

  Maybe that was the point. The demon infection had been stalled by Holly’s magic, so now it had taken a new direction. Under the Castle’s influence, it was still Turning him, just a different way. That makes no sense. People are supposed to renovate houses, not the other way around.

  Mac let the fist go, feeling blood flow into the relaxing flesh. Every time he went into the Castle, something bizarre happened. He sucked another lungful of air, now noticing the stronger swell of his chest. He’d been a big-enough man before. This was—well, like he’d spent his life chasing woolly mammoths instead of felons. Most guys would like this. He should be feeling jubilant. Potent. Powerful. What he felt was pissed off. He’d had enough of magic messing around with him.

  Anger steadied him. Plus, the cold air had cleared his head a little. Straightening, he looked out over Fairview. At least it looked the same as it always did. The pale morning light showed patches of russet and gold in the trees. The distant strip of ocean gleamed pewter gray. Life woke in the town, pulsing.

  It pulsed through him, too. That strange, electric feeling he’d felt before rushed through his blood at full tilt. He was insanely alive. Every muscle and thew of this body wanted to run, fight, and burn off this fierce, hot energy.

  Beneath it all, his demon powers hummed like a dark, Gothic chorus. They had gained ground, leaving him feeling far less civilized. I’m so screwed. How the hell am I going to come back from this one? Am I even a little bit human anymore?

  Well, the upgrade would make fighting idiots like Bran that much easier.

  He noticed the curtain of a neighboring condo twitch. The place had a clear view of Mac’s balcony, which was why he seldom used it. Great. He looked around and noticed a few other female faces in other windows, one with a camera phone.

  He thought of a few fresh obscenities, but a corner of his ego did the happy dance. He stomped on it. Mac stalked back inside, feeling the confinement of the apartment like an assault. Hunger was moving on to nausea. He was going to pass out if he didn’t eat something.

  He grabbed the cold toast out of the toaster and shoved one piece in his mouth. He put two more slices of bread in the slots and punched the button down. With a sigh of relief, he chewed the dry toast, washing it down with black coffee. Then he felt patient enough to actually butter the second piece. He rummaged in the fridge for a block of cheese, ripped open the pack, and broke off a piece with his hands, not bothering with a knife. By then the next round had toasted, and he started the ritual over again. Mindlessly, Mac kept going until he ate nearly every damned thing in the fridge. Then he checked the freezer. Nothing there but frozen peas. He could go to a restaurant, but he wasn’t sure he was up to facing the world as SuperMac just yet.

  Still, more groceries were an urgent priority. Mac refilled his coffee cup. He’d always taken it black before, but now he piled in the milk and sugar, still craving fuel to burn. His bones ached, as though they’d been stretched and pulled. It must hurt to be a werebeast. Never thought about it before.

  He slurped the coffee, stalling.

  What are you doing? Going through the motions of coping doesn’t mean a damn thing. But that was all he had, outside of running through the streets screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Admit it. Who doesn’t want to wake up in a better body? And it’s not like you haven’t switched species before.

  But this isn’t me.

  Well, it is now.

  That’s not exactly a bonus.

  He sat down, the wooden kitchen chair creaking beneath his unaccustomed weight. He felt healthy but insanely hot, like the fever he’d had last night had become permanent.

  Hunger raged, the same way it had the last time he’d been transformed into a demon. The only positive was that this body didn’t seem interested in eating souls. It definitely preferred meat. Lots and lots of it.

  It wanted a fight, the exertion of all this power against another. It wanted to dominate.

  It wanted sex, and not the pretty kind.

  His mind went to Constance, sleek and small and aching for his touch. He had smelled the desire on her, the musk beneath her perfume. He itched to get to her, to claim her the way her hungry lips had said she wanted to be claimed.

  And the vampire hickey? This body could take it. Bring it on, sweetheart. Bite me if you dare. He swam in that thought for a moment, remembering how eager she had been to seduce him. Oh, yeah.

  Oh. Hmm.

  Dragging his thoughts from the mental home theater, Mac set down the coffee cup, careful of the fragile ceramic handle. Maybe the first thing this new body needs is a cold shower. It had all the rampant enthusiasm of a seventeenyear-old. Great. I’m never going to ask anyone to supersize me again.

  Already his stomach was cramping with hunger once more, his enormous breakfast forgotten. This is ridiculous.

  The phone rang. Thankful to connect with the normal world, he picked it up, holding the receiver gingerly. He had visions of squishing it by accident.

  “Macmillan.” He nearly dropped the phone. His voice resonated differently, bouncing around in a larger rib cage. It was also shaking with stress.

  “Hello? Mac?” It was Holly.

  “Hey,” he said, clearing his throat, trying to shrink his voice back to normal.

  “Sorry to call so early. Have you got a cold?”

  He rumbled again, feeling like a sports coupe that woke up as a monster truck. “What do you know about the Castle making superwarriors?”

  “Guardsmen? Mac, are you all right? You sound strange.”

  Guardsmen. Was that what he’d become? But they were originally human, not demon. They were bound by oaths and spells and trapped against their will, sent to the prison by some whacked-out secret society in charge of supplying Castle guards. Nothing to do with him.

  “Mac? What’s going on?”

  How much did he want to say this minute? He was too hungry to think, too impatient to explain himself. Too scared. Too embarrassed. “I’m okay,” he said.

  “I found something on the demon boxes. I figured you’d want the information as soon as possible.”

  His cop side jumped to attention. Good to know it still worked. “Hit me.”

  “They’re not exactly common, but they’re not rare, either. I popped into my grandma’s place and had a look through some of her books. Sure enough, I found something. I made up a charm that should stop you from being sucked inside.”

  “Great!”

  “Lore was over here about something else. I’m sending him to you with the charm. He should be ther
e in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Great,” he said again, inwardly cursing. He wasn’t ready for visitors, but after the effort Holly had gone to, there was no way he was going to complain about timing. “I owe you big time.”

  “No problem, Mac. Take care.” She hung up.

  He hung up, grappling with the jumble of problems he had to solve, starting with the most basic. Crap, what am I going to wear? Nothing was going to fit.

  Mac paused, remembering his raincoat. He’d noticed the sleeves felt short a couple of days ago, when he had been talking to Holly. Had the first signs of this change already started then?

  What if it wasn’t over?

  His stomach growled. He ached. He got up to head to the shower and knocked over the hallway lamp. Everything was too close, too cramped.

  I hate this. He was an alien in his own landscape. Just call me Ogg, cousin of Tarzan.

  After the shower, he grabbed his largest pair of sweat pants and a muscle shirt. The shirt, straining across his chest, made him look like something from a cheesecake boy-toy calendar.

  Great. Just great.

  The door buzzer rang. Mac walked to the hall and pressed the button for the outside door, not bothering with a greeting. As he moved, he could feel muscle shirt pulling tight across his back. Prowling back to the kitchen, he rummaged in the cupboard until he found some soda crackers. He tore the package open as Lore walked in.

  The hellhound reached the kitchen, stopped in his tracks, and looked Mac up and down, the only change in his expression a slight lift of his dark brows. “You’ve been working out.”

  Mac chewed a cracker. “I had a makeover.”

  Lore narrowed his eyes, considering. Hounds seldom showed emotion to outsiders. The merest flicker was like anyone else having a spazz attack. “Did you mean to do this?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not an illusion.”

  “Nope.”

  “Huh.” Lore was silent for a moment, and then held out a brown paper bag. His hands were large, the type that would deliver a bruising blow in a fight. Mac could have crushed them in his.

  “Holly asked me to give you this,” Lore said.

  Mac stuffed another two crackers in his mouth and took the bag, unrolling the top. It held a small cloth pouch pulled shut by a drawstring long enough to hang around his neck. Mac pulled it out of the bag slowly, cautious just in case it didn’t mix well with whatever transforming spell he was packing. When it seemed safe, he slipped the string over his head and tossed the bag on the counter. The pouch looked primitive, filled with who-knew-what witchy herbs and rocks, but it was small enough to stuff under his shirt and out of the way.

  Lore watched him silently, dark eyes following Mac’s every movement. “Holly said that charm protects against demon boxes. You’re going after Sylvius.”

  Mac looked at Lore sharply. The hellhound’s expression was guarded. It was like looking into the gaze of a streettough stray. Which, in a way, he was.

  “How do you know about Sylvius?” Mac asked.

  “He’s a friend.” Lore folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the refrigerator. “I would have said it was sure death to attempt to rescue any prisoner of the guardsmen, but you can do it. The gods have obviously prepared you.”

  For a moment, Mac forgot about refueling. He had no idea what hellhounds believed in, but he didn’t like the idea of being prepared by some entity. That smacked of being the anointed one, or inflated one, or whatever. More crap he’d never signed off on.

  “How do you know what I can do?” he asked. “How do you know what goes on in the Castle? You haven’t been there for a year.”

  For the briefest instant, Lore looked smug. “Hounds are good with locks.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’re half demons. We have power over doorways and thresholds. Things between one realm and the next. Prophecy. Now that I’m free, the Castle door is no problem for me.”

  Mac choked on a cracker crumb. He poured a glass of water and drank it down. Then he started back in on the crackers.

  Lore watched him with steady eyes. “We’ve been watching you.”

  “That’s creepy.” The hellhounds in general were pretty weird—not harmful, but too silent, too watchful for comfort.

  As if reading Mac’s mind, Lore lowered his gaze, studying the kitchen floor. “When you returned to Fairview, some thought it was a miracle. You had fallen into the dark, but came back in defiance of your curse. Our elders thought the gods had called you here for a purpose.”

  Mac made a dismissive noise. If the gods were calling, they could leave a voice mail.

  Thoughts chased across the hound’s strong-boned features, whole arguments Mac would never hear because he didn’t belong to their closed, silent community. Finally, Lore said, “You don’t believe me. Hounds don’t lie. We can’t.”

  “Whatever.” Mac reached for another cracker, and realized the box was empty. He crumpled it in disgust.

  The hound stiffened, pulling away from the fridge to stand straight, his hands half clenched at his sides. “Events are moving quickly. You need to listen.”

  Mac threw the box back on the counter, a white haze of frustration flooding his mind. “Screw all that. I need to eat. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.”

  The words came out between clenched teeth. The alternative was roaring like a wounded bear. He didn’t want to deal with gods and legends. He had more immediate problems.

  Lore edged back, cautious now.

  Mac steadied his breath. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it. I’m done with being special. I don’t do destiny.”

  “That’s your decision.”

  “Damned straight.”

  Lore held on to the ensuing silence until Mac met his eyes. Then he carried on as if Mac had been listening intently all along. “Nothing happens without reason. If you’ve been brought back and changed, there’s something you need to do. Something even bigger than rescuing my friend.”

  Mac felt irritation bunching his shoulders. “Like what?”

  “If the task is yours, you already know.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s the way it works.”

  “I don’t want to play.”

  The hound’s expression went from neutral to icy. “Destiny doesn’t make you special. It’s simply more responsibility.”

  “I just want my life back.”

  The words, however true, suddenly sounded childish in Mac’s ears. That just made him more annoyed. “Get out of here.”

  Disappointment flickered in Lore’s eyes, then vanished as he shuttered his expression. “When you need help, call us.”

  He left without another word. From the kitchen, Mac heard the door click shut.

  Crap. That was stupid.

  Mac had never asked Lore why he had brought up the prophecy in the first place. Or why he had offered the hounds’ help.

  Hellhounds never involved themselves in other people’s business. What was their interest in whatever it was the Sparkly One was supposed to do? Was there trouble in the hellhound kennel?

  He’d been so wrapped up in his own shit, he’d missed all that. Motivation was something a cop should never overlook. He’d be damned if that would happen twice.

  There was something going on there. He could smell it.

  God, I’m hungry.

  Chapter 14

  October 5, 2:00 p.m.

  101.5 FM

  “That’s what I mean, Oscar. What can the supernatural community do about humans who believe they have the right to kill us on sight? We all know there’re even tribes of so-called Hunters that have existed for centuries in Eastern Europe. Some say they’ve even evolved into a species of their own. Their whole culture is based on exterminating vampires. What have I, George de Winter, ever done to them? And yet they would still kill me at a moment’s notice and the law protects them from retaliation. How do we shield ourselves from so
mething like that?”

  “But really, isn’t there a greater threat from random violence against supernaturals, the vampire slayers who appoint themselves vigilantes?”

  “Most of them are rank amateurs, but you’re right. Every so often they do get in a lucky stake.”

  Alessandro slept. For vampires, dreams were usually lost in the deep, deep sleep of the Undead, slipping away during the long climb back to consciousness.

  The odd quality of this one stuck with him, though. There was a magpie the size of city hall trying to carry off the T-Bird, and he was trying to stop it with a garden hose.

  Why the hell am I spraying it with water? The hose is long enough to wrap around its neck. This is a stupid dream.

  The image blanked as absolutely as if someone had pulled the power cord.

  Merda!

  His hand shot out from beneath the covers, grabbing the stake inches from his chest. It was pure vampire survival reflex. His eyes squinted open a moment later, tears forming in reaction to the daylight peeking from beneath the blinds.

  Through the haze, he saw Ashe’s rage-mottled face. His other hand shot up, snatching her throat. Delicate rings of cartilage tempted him to squeeze and crush.

  He really wasn’t a morning person.

  Ashe wasn’t letting go of the stake, but was yanking on it with rabid persistence. Alessandro started to sit up. She tried to poke her thumb in his eye. That did it. With a snarl, he flipped her over onto the bed, knocking the stake from her hand. It hit the wall and skidded under the bed.

  “Agh!” she yelped, clawing at the hand he still had wrapped around her throat.

  He snarled, letting her see the fangs. “I’ve had it with you, hunter. I’ve held back for Holly’s sake. You crossed the line.”

  She brought her knee up sharply, catching him in the ribs. He grabbed her hair, using the leverage to tip her head back and sniff her throat. Her eyes went perfectly round in a moment of pure abject terror. The stink of it roused the predator in him. In the single tick of the clock, Ashe wiped the look from her face, but she couldn’t hide the slight trembling of her chin.