Dark Cravings (22 page)

Boards covered almost every window we passed on the first
floor. I craned my head back to look at the other levels. At each window,
bricks shaped the arched recesses. Through the bars covering the glass panes, I
saw glimpses of shadows. Soft yellow light filtered down from a single unbroken
pane on the fourth floor. That source of illumination was the only bright spot
in the night. Something dark eclipsed it and then darted away. I must have made
a noise, because Dante stopped and gave me a concerned look.

“I’m fine. Just get me inside,” I whispered.

“This way. I went here a few times when I was a teenager. We
can get in through the violent patients’ ward.”

“You came here on purpose?”

“It was a good way to impress chicks.”

“You’d think the muscles would have done it,” I muttered. “When
was this place built? It looks old.”

Dante shrugged. “Sometime in the 1870s. Rumor has it that
the place was shut down because there were reports of abuse and too many ‘accidental’
deaths. Can’t you smell it? The fear? The death? It lingers in the air. Has a
certain taste.”

“Yeah, I smell it and it’s creeping me the fuck out.”

The violent patients’ ward turned out to be a completely
separate entrance. There was a plaque next to the door proclaiming the area.
The windows on either side of the wooden door had long ago been ripped out and
covered with chicken wire. Dust layered the edges of the remaining broken
glass. Dante moved up the steps. Unlike the other entrances, this one had a
rusted chain and padlock to keep out trespassers.

With a quick tug, Dante snapped the chain. Metal rattled to
the ground and echoed in the quiet of the night. Birds in the nearby trees took
flight in a hurricane of flapping wings and rustling branches. The moment the
door creaked open, the violence still living in the musky air assaulted me. The
sensations morphed into images and I pictured skeletal fingers clawing at my
legs, trying to drag me into the pits of hell. Foul breath slid along my neck
as if some invisible force was hovering behind me. And the scent. Dead flesh,
urine, blood. Everything hit me at once and I put the back of my hand over my
mouth and coughed.

The concrete floor had been stripped in most places, so the
only thing remaining was a few broken tiles. Paint peeled from the walls and
littered the ground, along with other bits of broken wood. My steps stirred the
dust and kicked up paint chips piled on the floor. The cement ceiling only
concealed some of the rusted piping covered in mold, fungus and mildew.

Dante stopped and threw his pack to the ground. I opened my
mouth to ask him what he was doing when he pulled his tight shirt over his
head. His rippling muscles shut my mouth and I stared for longer than was
probably polite. It wasn’t until his hands moved to the button on his jeans
that I got my wits about me.

“What in the hell are you doing?” I squeaked.

He lifted one golden eyebrow. “I’m going to shift forms.”

“You can do that?”

“Me shape shifter,” he pointed to his chest, then motioned
to me. “You vampire.”

“Jackass. I meant you can shift whenever you want? It
doesn’t happen on the full moon?”

“Depends on the person, I guess. All of us shift during the
full moon phase, but I can also do it whenever I want.”

Interesting. “Hurry up.”

I turned my back to give him some privacy as he undressed. I
really, really wanted to turn and peek. Heat lined my back and my skin crawled
with the energy swirling around me. His transition must have been seamless,
because the next thing I knew thick, slightly rough fur brushed my palm.

I looked down and took an automatic step back. A gigantic
lion gazed at me with intelligent, almond-shaped, tawny eyes. Dante was
absolutely breathtaking in feline form. His mane was thick and full, melting
from a dark yellow to an almost blackish-orange on top. He padded forward on
paws the size of my head. Jesus, he must have been at least four feet tall at
his shoulders.

While I stared at him with an opened mouth, he moved past
me. After a second, he picked up the pack and I followed the swish of his
thick, long tail. My every footstep echoed and added to the creaking, crumbling
noises of the substructure.

We passed a series of rooms, each with a metal door and a
barred window at the top. I toed open one of the doors and the screeching of
hinges rung out through the darkness. I could make out a metal bed and the
bolts securing it to the floor. The mattress was wafer thin and stained with
yellow watermarks. A rusted bedpan sat in the middle of the bed. Attached to
the ceiling was a caged lamp. Looking into the room, I could almost visualize
the person who once lay on that thin mattress.

I didn’t look into any more rooms after that. We walked down
the hall and I glanced left, then right down the long corridor that appeared
never ending. Halfway down, in the middle of the floor was an old wheelchair
tipped on its side. The wheels spun in rapid rotations, as if it had just
fallen. Unease crept up my spine and moistened my palms.

The air stirred behind me. I pulled my Silverstone knife
from its sheath, let the weight of it ground me. My breaths sawed from my
lungs. I turned, tense and ready for a fight. Nothing was there. When I turned
back to the wheelchair, the tires were motionless.

The pounding of my heart was as loud as a drumbeat. Dante
stared at me, his big yellow eyes unblinking like he didn’t hear or sense a
damn thing. I shook my head and tried to calm my lurching heart. Just as I
managed to convince myself I was letting the haunting atmosphere get the better
of me, an ice-cold finger ran down the back of my neck. Something yanked on my
swinging ponytail hard enough to tip my chin up and my head back. I lashed out
on instinct and spun for attack. My blade slashed air.

“Holy fuck.” I gasped and pressed the back of my hand to my
forehead. I struggled to draw in a breath.

The lion at my side stayed silent as he scented the air and
gracefully moved down the left hallway. I pushed my back to the scratchy wall
and followed with slow, careful steps through the darkness. A laugh echoed from
an empty room on my left. Footsteps scampered to my right.

Someone was fucking with me.

I took two more steps when some kind of an intercom system
screeched to life. Dante and I froze as the cracking noise morphed into a
single piercing wail. For as long as I lived, I would never forget how that cry
of pure terror cut through me. The scream turned into sobbing. The intercom
amplified Hannah’s horrified shrieks and filled the hospital with her agony.

“Please, no! Stop, oh god, stop!”

Panic eclipsed every ounce of training I had. I sprinted
blindly down the corridor. The near-deafening roar Dante emitted was nothing
compared to the ragged cries of my sister. The halls were an endless maze. We
turned left, right, sprinted up a crumbling staircase.

“Help me, please somebody help me.” Hannah’s screams were
everywhere and nowhere.

I kicked in one locked door after another and found more of
the same. Dirty, ripped-up floors. Broken furniture. Rusted metal chairs,
basins and other obscure items that hadn’t deteriorated over time.

The smell was the worst. Fear and death lingered in the air.
Old blood carried the haunting memories of horrors past. Through it all, I
listened to my sister beg her attacker to stop hurting her.

“Ella, help me!” She screamed for me and the sound of my
name felt like a blade to the gut.

Through the intercom, metal clinked. “No, no, no, no.”
Hannah’s fear, a heavy weight I could feel and taste on the back of my tongue,
increased with each strangled “no” she uttered. I conjured images of archaic
torture tools laid out on a metal tray. My stomach lurched. I couldn’t listen
to this.

The pack on my back lifted and I turned, knife ready. Dante,
now in human form, caught my arm and shook his head.

“Her scent is strong here,” Dante growled and pointed to the
floor a few feet in front of me.

I followed his finger and stopped moving. Amidst the dirt
and the grime was the outline of a slender bloody footprint. Then another. The
prints were close together, smeared, as if the person shuffled instead of ran.
My gaze rose and I looked at the wall, to the perfect scarlet imprint of a
hand.

Hannah’s blood. Horror filled me at the thought of my
sister, bleeding and abused, roaming this place in the darkness. Why let her
go? Had they played some sick game of cat and mouse?

“Is it,” I swallowed, “hers?”

The muscles in Dante’s jaw went taut as he pulled on a pair
of pants from his backpack. He curled large hands into meaty fists and met my
eyes. Venomous anger shadowed his face. “Whoever these fuckers are, I swear on
my last breath, I will kill them.”

And then, over Hannah’s unrelenting screams and sobs I heard
it. The sound—the god-awful noise—of bone snapping.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
Like crisp tree branches breaking in half. My sister’s scream changed pitch.
Went higher, sharper. My belly churned with vomit and I stumbled over my feet.
I fell into the wall and slapped my open palm against the hard surface as if I
could beat through the immovable obstacle. Tears filled my eyes as rage
unfurled inside me.

I turned, threw my head back and screamed until my throat
felt raw. As if I’d somehow short-circuited it, the sound system shut off and Hannah’s
audible pain vanished. Her terror still echoed in my mind. Around us, the
hospital came to life like a living, breathing entity.

Doors opened and slammed shut. Floorboards creaked. Wind
howled through broken windows and stirred a tornado of debris to life. Dust
pelted my cheeks and stuck to my damp skin. Laughter rang out. Dante and I spun
one way and then the other but saw no one.

In the distance, someone sobbed. Hearing Hannah in real time
made it worse somehow. We struggled to pinpoint the sound. A series of left
backtracking turns led us into some kind medical wing. Broken glass cabinets
hung open. Yellowing bandages and empty medicine bottles littered the ground.

A flutter of sound drew my attention to the right. The
gossamer curtain separating what looked like operating rooms rustled. My senses
narrowed and I picked up the faint, slow steady drip. D
rip. Drip. Drip.
Was it blood or the lingering moisture weighing the air from leaking pipes?

Rust and mildew converged on my taste buds. A shadow danced
in front of the wavering sheet and with it, my pulse sped. I looked to the thin
gap between sheet and floor for feet. Nothing. I raced to the fabric, ripped it
aside and held my breath.

The nearly empty room stared back at me.

I walked farther into the room, passed a lone metal gurney
with a large basin on top of it. For a moment, I was actually afraid to move in
front of it. Terrified that something was going to jump out at me.

The air directly in front of me grew heavy and I staggered
back into Dante. Pain lashed through my head and I gripped my temples as I
doubled over in agony. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, a girl no older than
fourteen stood before me.

Her blonde hair was coiled and twisted on top of her head in
some old-fashioned kind of a hairstyle. The curls framing her face and drifting
across her shoulders resembled writhing golden snakes.

Against her porcelain skin, large, luminescent electric-blue
eyes glowed. She gave me a girlish grin of delight that was all wrong with the
fangs and dark-red blood dripping from her chin.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked.

“I’m Lizbeth, your dear old auntie.” Her smile vanished and
hatred frosted her eyes. “And now it’s time for you to die, bitch.”

I’ll admit—for a moment, I was speechless. In all the times
Julian pushed lascivious images of him with another woman through the bond, I’d
never seen her face. If I had, I might have known just how twisted my sire was.

The slender body, narrow hips and small breasts of the
vampire before me were a familiar sight, one I’d been seeing for years. Only I’d
gotten the X-rated version complete with whips, chains and sex toys. Now I felt
like a pervert. The pixy face, slender nose and pouting mouth didn’t belong to
a woman. Jesus, she was a child!

My shock faded. She’d kidnapped and tortured my sister.
Arranged it so I’d hear Hannah’s screams and pleas. My dear old aunt was going
to get her ass kicked. I pivoted left and lashed out with my leg, which should
have buried my boot in her stomach. The air shifted. Cold hands caught my ankle
and twisted. I fell face first in the direction of the floor.

My reflexes kicked in and I caught myself a centimeter
before my face hit the stone. Dust and debris kicked up and tickled my nose. I
looked up as Dante cupped the butt of his matte-black gun, took aim and fired.
Bang.
My ears rang.

Lizbeth moved so fast, I barely saw her hand move. She
plucked the bullet from the air before flicking it at me. Burning-hot steel hit
my arm and I yelped. The queen phazed in, out, stopped in front of Dante and
smashed her foot into his groin. He doubled over and when he did, she gripped
his hair and brought his forehead down on her knee.

The entire thing took her two seconds. She turned to me and
screamed.

“Get up! I have been waiting for this moment. Don’t
disappoint me.”

I rose and brushed the dust from my pants. Lizbeth hurled a
wave of crackling energy at me with a flip of her twig-like wrist. The power
slammed into my chest, stunning me. Before I could recover, her hand whipped
across my face in an open-palm slap. I flew across the room and collapsed in a
heap. Blood welled at the corner of my mouth. I put the tip of my tongue there
and winced at the sting.

“You worthless bitch,” she hissed as she stalked closer. “How
dare you think you can waltz in and take what is mine!”

“If you’re talking about Julian, you can have him. If you’re
talking about the queen thing, I don’t want it.” From the ground, I threw a
Silverstone blade at her. End over end, the knife spun through the air. Lizbeth
caught the weapon an inch from her chest and dropped it to the ground with a
clatter.

“Liar!” Her fangs flashed white in the darkness. She lunged
at me. “I’m queen, not you. Julian was supposed to kill you! Your own agency
set it up, but he fell in love and couldn’t go through with it. How fucking
common.” She sneered, punched me in the face. Stars exploded before my eyes.

“The Vampire Queen and the Demon Son.” Another hit.
“Everyone thinks the prophecy has been fulfilled. But they’re all wrong. I know
the truth!”

I blocked the next fist aimed at my face and jumped up. I
arched into a back flip, landed low, crouched and swung my leg out. Lizbeth
phazed to the right. I sprang up into a roll and caught her square in the nose
with the base of my palm. Cartilage broke and the flow of blood was immediate.
Down her chin, the bright crimson fluid soaked the thin fabric of her silk
dress.

Shock registered on her pretty face and I wondered if I was
the first person who had ever actually hit her. Off guard, she stumbled back
and I caught a glimpse of her flat white ballet shoes. They had baby blue
sparkles on them. She pressed a hand against her already healing nose. I took
advantage of her momentary distraction. Pouncing, I pulled out the stake I’d
tucked in my boot. I was a second too late. Lizbeth reared back in the same
moment I lunged. The stake sank into her chest, three inches from her heart.

She smiled at me with blood-covered lips. Masochistic
pleasure filled her eyes when she ripped the wood from her chest. She no longer
looked fourteen. The weapon clattered to the ground and I listened to it roll
across the floor. The gaping wound sealed shut before my eyes. The bloody hole
in her dress was the only evidence I’d staked her.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” she said in a little girl’s
singsong voice. “More than I enjoyed torturing your sister.”

My sister. Hannah’s blonde hair and green eyes filled my
mind and I clung to the image. I was going to die at the hands of this
psychotic bitch while my sister bled out. My skin tingled. My world spun. Then
it hit me. Lizbeth wasn’t the only who could phaze.

I threw myself into the spinning images in my head and
clutched on to the only stable thing in the chaos. Hannah. I came out of the
phaze stumbling and ran right into one of my worst nightmares.

Hannah was strapped to an old, hinged surgical board, hands
and feet bound with leather straps. Tears poured down her cheeks and her blonde
hair was a tangled nest. She was naked and quivering. Along her arms and legs,
dozens of cuts flayed open her skin. Blood dripped to the floor. Puncture
wounds bruised her neck, arms and the insides of her thighs. Beside her was a
small table, complete with antique surgical equipment. Fresh blood still tipped
some of the instruments.

My sister turned her head, looked right at me. Another
scream, deeper, more desperate, interrupted the sobbing. Her eyes were wide and
glassy and held no recognition at all. Her thrashing intensified and I could
see the blood welling where the bindings cut into her skin.

“No, please no.” Her voice quavered.

That was the same voice she’d had when she’d found our
mother dead on our front steps.
Mommy, please, no. Wake up.

My hands shook as I tried to rip the leather bindings apart.
When my fingers slipped off the blood, I fumbled with the buckles to get her
free.

“It’s me, Hannah. It’s Ella. I’m going to get you out of
here. You’re safe.”

She started to keen, anguished and petrified at my touch.

I repeated her name, but it was as if she didn’t hear me.
The moment I got her leg free, she kicked me. I stumbled back, lost my footing
and slipped in the blood and dust. The second I stood, Lizbeth appeared out of
nowhere.

“No one runs away from me.” The queen flew through the air.
I barely saw the trace of her body before she tackled me into an empty exam
table. The edge slammed into my lower back. Something cracked. The gurney crashed
to a stop against the opposite wall. I landed on the floor and had the wind
knocked out of me in the process. Snarling, Lizbeth pinned me to the ground.
Her long, pointed fangs extended in excitement.

Like a viper striking its prey, Lizbeth sank her teeth into
my neck. I grabbed a fist full of her curls and pulled in an attempt to pry the
vampire from my throat. I kicked and scratched as the queen—fangs in flesh—ripped
her head from side to side like a rabid dog. Skin tore. Blood gushed. I
screamed out in pain, rolled to my side and managed to throw her off me. She
scrambled on all fours, my blood dripping from her mouth. Each time her palm
made contact with the cement floor, her nails clicked.

Pounding footsteps sounded in the hall outside of the room
and I looked to the door with hope. Dante, blood dripping from a wound on his
forehead, stumbled through the door. Relief washed through me.

“Get Hannah out of here!”

“Ella—”

“Now!”

I barely got the words out before Lizbeth was on me again.
The bitch was fast. Despite her size, she was strong. In a matter of seconds,
Lizbeth had me face first on the ground. The bony knee she drove into the
middle of my back kept me immobilized. I reared my head back and hit her square
in the face.

“Whore,” she hissed.

Hot blood dribbled onto my back and it felt like it was
melting through the fabric of my shirt. I scrambled away from Lizbeth. A piece
of broken wood became my only goal. I curled the makeshift weapon into my hand
and waited.

There was no time to think, nothing but the surging
adrenaline that kept me alert when Lizbeth grabbed me by my ponytail. This was
my only chance. She flipped me onto my back so hard my head collided with solid
concrete. Stars danced in front of my eyes, but I could not lose focus.

“The prophecy,” she hissed in my ear, “foretells of a demon
son. A son. Not your mate, but the child you shall bear him. The first and only
demon-vampire hybrid. I’ll make sure that never happens.”

The knife in Lizbeth’s hand gleamed. All I could see in the
reflection of the silver blade was the determined glint in my electric eyes.

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

With the last bit of fury I had, I plunged the broken wood
into Lizbeth’s heart, just as she drove her knife into my stomach just above my
pubic bone.

White. Hot. Pain.

Lizbeth twisted the knife up from my belly to my sternum in
one quick jerk. I heard the sound of wet, ragged cutting. Above me, the queen gasped
in shock and looked down at the stake in her chest. Her eyes widened. The
perfect porcelain of her skin shaded to gray. Not so perfect anymore.

I watched her demise with fierce satisfaction.

The graying skin wrinkled, sagged and rotted away, one
gruesome layer at a time, until only bone remained. Seconds later, ash was all
that remained of Lizbeth Tepes, Queen of the Vampires.

When I tried to breathe, I couldn’t. Sticky, thick blood
pooled beneath me. I looked down, saw the crimson stain spreading. I lifted my
gaze to the horrified expression on Dante’s face.

Hannah clung to him with broken, ragged fingernails. She
sobbed into his chest, all the while trying to curl her body into a tiny ball.
His big hand smoothed over her tangled hair and he clutched her closer. From
the hard, cold floor I stared up them and knew Hannah would at least make it
out of here alive.

Footsteps pounded nearby and I tensed. Demons? More
vampires?

Micah’s scent filled the room and relief washed over me. I
tried to reach out to him but couldn’t feel my limbs. Only numbness. He threw
himself to the ground next to me and dust plumed into the air.

“No, oh god, baby. No.”

He tore off his shirt and with shaking hands pressed the
balled-up fabric to the open wound splitting me in half.

Pain engulfed me when he applied pressure. I cried out.
Micah bent and rested his forehead against mine as he stroked my cheek with
wet, bloody hands. “Shush, it’s okay. I’ve got you now. It’ll be fine.”

It so wasn’t going to be fine.

“I love you,” I croaked.

Liquid rust stung the back of my throat. I coughed and something
thick bubbled out of my mouth. Micah wiped it away and pressed his mouth to
mine almost desperately.

When he pulled back his lips were painted in my blood. “I
love you more than anything. Jesus, Ella.”

My eyes fluttered shut and the darkness closed in. Micah
slapped me.

“Stay with me,” he ordered in a fierce whisper.

Behind him, a shadow filled the doorway. Wisps of smoke
curled into the darkness and I knew it was Castro. “She needs blood if she is
to survive this.”

“The prophecy,” I rasped.

Castro knelt beside us.

“Save your strength, little hunter.”

I shook my head and knew I had to say to this. “A demon
son.” I coughed. “Not you, but the child we’ll have. A son.”

Micah’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Arm, Micah,” Castro demanded.

Without hesitation, Micah laid out his arm. In one quick
slash, Castro drew a blade across Micah’s flesh. The delicious scent of his
blood filled me. Micah pressed his dripping arm to my lips and I choked on the
rush of liquid. When I tried to pull away, Micah held my head and urged me to
drink. Instinct took over and I swallowed.

A pint, or two, of Micah’s blood later, Castro intervened. “Enough,
let me take over,” he said.

Micah withdrew his arm and, when I would have said
something, the blistering heat of Castro’s blood burned my lips. I gasped, but
didn’t pull away. I couldn’t get enough. They repeated the ritual back and
forth, forcing blood into me until some of the damage started to heal. The
dizzy haze clouding my mind in a gray mist began to clear.

“This is going to hurt.” That was my only warning.

The knife in my gut came out more painfully than it had slid
in. My back arched off the ground and splashed down into the pool of blood
beneath me. Micah placed a hand on either side of my waist to push the long
gash together.

The smell of burnt flesh hit me first. Then there was the
pain of fire. Castro used the palm of his hand, now radiating heat like a
branding iron, to cauterize the wound. My flesh sizzled and crackled.

I passed out.