Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1)

by D H Sidebottom

Valerie scoffed. “Oh, he intended to kill her alright, but what it means is … the poor girl was still alive when he cut out her heart.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Vomit ploughed up Miller’s throat and he turned aside, blowing out a severe breath to force it back down.

  “You found the heart yet?”

  Miller shook his head and sighed. “Not a fucking trace anywhere.”

  “Shame,” Valerie said as if disappointed. “I needed to take a look.”

  “Any reason why?” he asked, holding his breath for the gory answer he knew was coming.

  She stared at him for a moment, then blew out a breath. “You’re gonna think I’ve lost it.”

  “Valerie, love, you lost it years ago.”

  She laughed, a deep Jamaican chuckle that made him grin. “Here.” She gestured for him to take a closer look at the flesh around the cavity in the girl’s chest.

  Miller cursed. He’d never been good at the blood and gore part of his job and he wondered for a moment if Valerie was goading him, but then he peered closer, his eyes squinting to look at the scar tissue.

  “What the fuck?”

  Valerie nodded slowly. “I didn’t think you’d noticed it when you looked at the knife wound.”

  “But that’s … that’s impossible,” Miller rushed out, his face pressing deeper into the crater to make sure he wasn’t imagining this shit. Then, rolling the girl on to her side again, Miller studied the knife wound, gasping at the small silver line. Just a scar. Where there should be a deep gouge.

  “How?” He looked at Valerie with wide eyes as though she knew the answer. “How is this possible?”

  “Damned if I know. All I do know is that the body tried to heal itself. At an accelerated rate. From what I can determine it was part way there, until the amount of blood loss was so bad that the healing process ceased. The stab wound has mostly been restored to its whole form, yet the chest cavity had started to repair itself then just stopped, I presume when the body was depleted of blood it just … couldn’t continue to heal. And then the perp took out her throat, because there’s no apparent healing at that site whatsoever so it was definitely the last thing on his agenda.”

  Miller fell into a hard plastic chair in the corner of the room, his stare on the girl.

  “You see anything else like this before?” Miller asked, his voice low with shock.

  “Nope.” Valerie shook her head as she leaned against a counter and crossed her arms, the action lifting her gigantic bosom, “but I’ve made some calls. I’m hoping some colleagues have and they can fill me in because I’m utterly stumped.”

  Miller nodded, agreeing as he lifted his weary body from the chair. “Keep me up to date.”

  She nodded back. “And you. I need the girl’s heart.”

  “Don’t we all,” Miller mumbled as the door closed behind him.

  He needed a drink, but he was on duty so he’d have to settle for a burger and a coke, needing the distraction of junk food to numb his already traumatised brain.

  Gehenna was nothing like I’d expected. Physically it was very much like Empyrea but there was one huge difference. Diablo. He was present and involved with his people, choosing to live with them rather than in hell. God, on the other hand, never made an appearance in Empyrea, choosing to live his life in Utopia. In fact, other than the council, I wasn’t sure anyone had ever seen him. My mother and father were head of the English realm and they’d never once been present before our master.

  Demons roamed Diablo’s huge house, coming and going comfortably as if it was their own home. Many were wary of me, moving aside when I passed them in the corridors as I made my way through the huge stone castle.

  Many windows showed me the outside and I smiled at the vast green grass, the endless blue sky and a long horizon of sand and sea.

  Isn’t it funny how you interpret things you’ve never witnessed? We all consider the devil’s lair to be dark, arid, and an expanse of dead lands, but it was far from it. In fact, it was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen before.

  To the left, I could see Delilah. She was kneeling down beside a young girl, their backs to me as they appeared to be weeding the soil, both their heads together as they chatted animatedly.

  “Hey,” I greeted cautiously as I stepped into the small garden.

  Delilah turned instantly and bounced up, pulling me into her embrace. “Don’t ever do that again,” she grumbled as I’d expected. “What the hell would you have done if you’d needed me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, thoroughly chastised when I felt her worry. “I just needed some time alone. It all became a bit too much.”

  She held me at a distance, her eyes roaming over me and analysing. “That’s fine, but next time take some alone time with someone.”

  I stared at her, wondering if she was trying to make a joke but she was serious. I moved my eyes to the little girl. Her back was still to me, her long blonde plait fixed with pretty pink ribbons, but when she turned to me, sensing my gaze on her, I couldn’t hold back the gasp.

  Horrified that it had left me so noisily, I cringed. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

  The girl got to her feet and looked at me with her pure white eyes. She smiled, the prettiest smile I’d ever seen, soothing my worry instantly.

  “Willa, this is Constance,” Delilah said. “Constance, this is my daughter, Willa.”

  “Hello, Constance.” I held out my hand then awkwardly dropped it when I realised she couldn’t actually see it, but then I reached out and took her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  I jerked when Constance’s tiny hands gripped mine and a burst of heat torched my fingers. Snatching my hand back, Constance dipped her head. At first I thought it was in apology but when she lifted her head again, I stumbled backwards. The young girl who had been blind seconds ago now displayed the most vivid blue eyes. Vivid blue eyes with speckles of brown – my eyes.

  “Oh my …”

  “Constance is a seer, Willa,” Delilah explained, her gaze fixed on Constance as if she were waiting for something.

  My hands burned and I looked down at the mass of red blisters breaking out over my palms.

  “You are scared.”

  The tiny Constance, the small frail girl with delicate pink bows and long golden hair had the voice of a god damn foghorn. I jumped back, glaring at Delilah when she tried to hide her amusement. My hand slapped on my chest as I attempted to slow down the furious gallop inside.

  “Don’t be scared,” Constance bellowed. “You are the strength, the healer and the warrior that you will need to be.”

  Coughing to clear the lump of shock from my throat, I whispered, “I’m just a healer.”

  Constance tipped her head slightly, her eyes secured on my own. “No, child. You are the strength. The healer. The warrior. The mage. The hunter. The conjurer. The Almighty itself.”

  I stared at her, my eyes growing wider and wider with each of her words.

  But then she shivered and her eyes narrowed. Her held tilted left and right as if listening to many voices. Then things took a sinister turn.

  I watched in horror as her eyes, my eyes, rolled into the back of her head and her teeth snapped, her fangs burrowing into her lip and a trickle of blood seeping down her chin. Tears of blood leaked from her eyes and her skin paled, her pretty pink face draining of colour until she stood before me as white as the snow.

  “You are death,” she whispered this time, the muted sound of her voice making my blood freeze. I froze when I felt Delilah’s hand sink into my own. “You are death. Fear. Darkness. Devil. Slayer. DESTROYER!”

  Constance trembled and her eyes turned back to their original white glaze.

  Delilah and I stood side by side, staring at the innocent Constance, her gentle warm smile welcoming as though nothing weird had happened.

  Before I had a chance to say anything, a man stepped into the small rose garden. “Master Damon requires your presence for dinner in the great
hall.”

  “We’ll be there in a moment.” Delilah spoke quietly, sensing I couldn’t.

  Constance clapped her tiny hands. “Dinner.” Then she skipped away, her blindness not hindering her at all.

  “What the God frigging scary shit was that!” Delilah choked out, her eyes wide on me as if I could explain it. I just stared back, unable to process what I had witnessed within a tiny frail child. “Never heard her speak like that.” Delilah took my hand and led me from the garden. “She always shouts. Never heard her whisper before.”

  “That’s all you noticed?” I asked, the pitch of my voice shrill but strangled.

  She grimaced, pulling a face that made my gut uneasy. “Yeah, unsettling stuff, huh?”

  “Unsettling stuff,” I repeated. I’d have gone for more of a ‘motherfucking terrifying occurrence’ but hey, what would I know?

  The great hall was bursting with demons when I walked in with Delilah. It made me think of the great hall in the Harry Potter films; three long tables filled with people as one long one sat horizontal on a platform at the top. Every single head rolled our way and I cowered with the amount of hatred in the atmosphere.

  “Now, I need to warn you,” Delilah whispered. “Damon is … well he’s a prick to put it bluntly.”

  “Damon?” I whispered back as my skin prickled with all the hateful glares coming my way. I felt every bit of abhorrence oozing from each person in the room. My eyes scanned for Diablo but I couldn’t see him.

  “Damon Torres. Rax’s father.”

  I stopped dead when my eyes found Rax. He was sitting at the head table next to Tabitha, the bitch who had challenged me in Fred’s. Delilah stiffened beside me when she saw them and her hand squeezed mine tightly. They had their heads together, conversing quietly. Their eyes were fixed firmly on one another as though they shared a secret no one was privy to. Rax was so attentive to her that he didn’t realise I had entered. The smile he gave Tabitha hurt my gut. It was wide and natural, and when he tapped the tip of her nose with his finger and smirked, I knew she’d said something inappropriate.

  I blinked and shivered when the mass of candles dotted around the room flickered as a draft dispersed around the room.

  Finally feeling the draft and sensing the quiet that had grown, Rax looked up, his eyes roaming the room until they found me. Hastily he moved away from Tabitha and I hated the look of guilt that floated across his face. Why would he be guilty if their conversation had been innocent?

  Tabitha, also noticing me, curled her lip cruelly, her smug smirk mocking me. Her hand slid under the table and I watched, angry and defeated, when Rax visibly tensed.

  The breeze suddenly dropped and the flames on each candle burst high, dancing wildly and revealing eerie shadows across the walls as a range of confused mumbles echoed in my ears.

  “Willa!”

  Grateful for the excuse not to give my attention to the saccharine sweet couple anymore, I quickly looked around for the caller, the strange atmosphere in the room instantly going back to normal. Dexter waved me and Delilah over to the head of one of the long tables. He budged Jaron up, making room for us. Smiling in thanks I slipped onto the bench beside him and smiled across the table to Zak and another guy sitting next to him.

  “This is Carlos, my bond brother,” Zak whispered in my head, gesturing to the guy with a head full of white hair, the shock of long strands falling down his back.

  “Hi, Carlos.” I thrust my hand out. “Willa.”

  He frowned but held a smile. “I’m not sure we’ve met.” He planted a firm kiss on the back of my hand, his piercing grey eyes snapping to my blues when he inhaled my scent.

  “Zak told me who you are.”

  Carlos frowned harder, his eyes flicking to Zak as he dropped my hand. Feeling like I needed to explain, I leaned towards him. “We can link.”

  “You can link with Meat?”

  I nodded, spooning some vegetables onto my plate from one of the many serving plates spread down the table. “Yeah. We have no idea why, especially since Zak can’t talk but …” I finished with a shrug, awkwardness flaming my cheeks.

  “Well, that’s great.” Carlos beamed at Zak and me, his love for his brother evident and fierce in his eyes when he nudged Zak happily.

  The vile whispers and hard glares coming from the others in the room made my shoulders hunch as I tried to ignore them. I dropped my eyes to my plate, trying to concentrate on the meal and keep my eyes away from the air full of red, angry auras. I could understand them though; I was an Empyrean. Hell, I’d probably slayed one of their friends before. But it worked both ways, some of them hurting my friends and family just the same.

  I flinched when Jaron suddenly shot to his feet and glared around the room. “Right, simmer the fuck down!” he growled. “Willa is not here to hurt you. Yeah, you know her as an Empyrean, but what you don’t know is that she’s also half Gehenna.” There was a range of gasps and I wanted nothing more than to slide under the table. “She’s here on the specific orders of Diablo, so unless you’re prepared for his wrath, I’d shut the fuck up and get on with eating!”

  The murmurs ceased instantly, many looking contrite as their eyes moved my way. A few of the red auras softened back to their usual blue or green, although some remained. I frowned when I noticed at least a dozen or so grey auras. My eyes scanned again and my gut twisted in horror at the amount of sick Gehenna. Sorrow pulled at my chest and I swallowed when the mouthful of carrots I’d just shovelled in became stuck in my throat.

  “So, Willa.” Carlos spoke chirpily. “How you liking Gehenna?”

  “It’s so beautiful,” I answered quietly, grateful for the diversion. “Nothing like I had expected.”

  Carlos and Dexter chuckled. “What did you expect, wasteland and monsters?”

  Smiling guiltily, I nodded. “We’re all ignorant until we know the truth, I’m afraid.”

  Carlos gave me a soft smile. “That we are.”

  I shivered, feeling eyes on me. Looking up I found Damon Torres staring at me. His gaze wasn’t nasty but it wasn’t friendly either. I stared back, trying desperately to get a read of him but I squinted as a deep heat seeped into my head.

  Shaking my head, I turned back to Dexter when he said my name. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said I was sorry to hear about Marie, your friend.”

  I gave him a sad smile. “Thanks. I miss her.”

  “She was definitely a wild one.” Jaron chuckled. “But not the brightest star in the galaxy.”

  I laughed, remembering their game of pool. “She had a good heart, and I can only take comfort that she’s finally reunited with her mate.”

  Eyes shifted to Zak when he paled and looked away. An uncomfortable silence bled around the table and I leaned into Delilah. “What did I say?”

  “Zak lost his mate only a year ago. It’s still pretty raw,” she explained in my head as she dived into her supper, spearing a lump of broccoli with her fork as though it was a formidable adversary.

  “Oh no. What happened?”

  “No one knows. He found her himself … in a bad way, in their home. Someone had broken in, raped and slaughtered her. They never found who did it.”

  Losing my appetite I placed my fork on to my plate and pushed it aside.

  “Not hungry, Bab?” Jaron asked. I knew he’d sensed my guilt at bringing painful memories to the table. I looked at him and he gave me an easy smile and a shake of his head. “It’s over.” He said nothing else before he turned to look up at Rax who had approached our table.

  “Fuck me!” Dexter bit out. “Finally put down the dog and decided to acknowledge your mates.”

  Rax snapped his eyes to Dexter, a fierce blaze firing in his eyes. “Shut it, Dex.”

  Dex snorted, holding his hands out in front of him in surrender as Rax turned to me. “Can I speak to you alone?”

  My new friends tensed, sensing Rax’s need to explain his relationship with Tabitha. One by on
e they started to move but I put my hand out. “No, please stay.”

  They each looked at me then at Rax. “Leave us!” Rax barked.

  “Stay!” I growled.

  “Willa,” Rax snarled. “I don’t have time for this shit. I need to talk to you.” He glanced back as his father, stood, and lifted a glass. “NOW!” he bit out as he grabbed my hand and yanked me up, my knee thudding on the underside of the table.

  “Whoa!” Jaron narrowed his eyes on Rax as he stepped in front of him, glancing at Damon suspiciously. “Why the rush? Looks like your father is about to say something. Aren’t you at least curious about what he has to say?”

  Rax shot his eyes to Jaron, narrowing them as if trying to converse with him.

  I was suddenly interested in what Damon had to say, especially as Rax appeared in such a hurry to drag me out of the room, his hand still in mine as he pulled me out from the bench.

  “Hang on,” I shouted as Rax swiftly led me from the room, the double doors banging closed behind us. “I want to hear what your father has to say.”

  “No, Seraph, you don’t,” Rax mumbled. “You really don’t.”

  “Why?”

  I was trying to pull back, my head turned to the side as I strained to listen to Damon’s loud voice when he addressed his people.

  “My father is a weak man,” Rax said, still pulling me down a corridor. “He will stop at nothing to ruin us.”

  “Us?” I questioned as I skipped beside him, trying to keep up. Rax was practically dislocating my shoulder in his rush to get me away.

  “Holy – fucking – shit!” Delilah hissed in my head. “Where the fuck is he taking you?”

  “Erm, I’m not sure, why?” I answered, looking around me for clues as to whereabouts we were as we sped through numerous unfamiliar hallways.

  “Because if I were you,” she growled, “I’d direct him to the infirmary.”

  “Why?” I gasped out loud, dreading what Damon had just revealed about Rax’s health. It was obviously something serious if Delilah was telling me to take him straight to the medical wing.

  “Because I’m gonna rip his hairy balls off and use them as fucking ping pongs!” Delilah whispered so calmly I couldn’t help but gulp. “That’s after I’ve dipped his knob in acid and then fed it to his father’s hellhounds!”