The Fangs of Bloodhaven (13 page)

The human was staring at the ceiling. Tear trails traced down each cheek. “My dad died a few months ago from Kovor. He got hooked on it when he hurt his back, and then they took it away and he was forced to find it on the streets.” His voice broke. “He just had too much.”

Everett closed his eyes and squeezed them with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t imagine losing his father.

“I have to get home,” Torrance said. “My mom will be so worried. I can’t leave her and Tricky by themselves.”

Everett opened his eyes again, worried Torrance would try to get up, but the human looked too worn out and relaxed despite his concerns.

“Who’s Tricky?” Everett asked.

“Patricia,” Torrance replied. “She’s my little sister. She’s seven.”

“So you take care of them?”

Torrance nodded, then hesitated and shook his head. “I try, but Mom does. Even before Dad died, she carried us. But she’ll be worried.”

At the concern in the human’s voice, Everett forced himself to rise. He could relate to a worrying mother. “What can I do to help?”

“Can I call home?” Torrance asked.

“I’ll make it happen,” Everett promised.

Chapter Thirteen

Everett left Dr. Transton and Torrance on the medical level. The human still had red marks on his arms where Everett had held him down to keep him from tearing open his bandages. Guilt filled Everett. He had been on the verge of losing control, again. Twice in the last two days was far too often. He had hurt Torrance, and knew that was the reason the human had been anxious to have him taken away for being a vampire.

Whether or not Torrance knew what happened to vampires when they were taken was a moot point; Everett had channeled his strength to hold the boy down, and in turn had hurt him. He didn’t know how to come to terms with that.

The elevator doors closed and Everett stared at the rows of numbers. He could head home, but the thought of returning to his bedroom to lie there in confusion wasn’t appealing. He could find Adrielle, but seeing her with Vanguard had left a bad taste in Everett’s mouth. He had almost kissed the girl, the werewolf. She had seemed just as willing before the warlock appeared. Everett didn’t hate anyone, but he felt a very strong dislike for Vanguard that didn’t have everything to do with the warlock’s condescending tones.

On impulse, Everett pressed his finger to the small panel. The rest of the numbers above floor ten lit up. Keeping Dr. Transton’s words of caution in the back of his mind, Everett pressed the button for number twenty-two. The elevator rose.

The set of doors behind him slid open and Everett stumbled back. Space spread out with such an expanse it was unfathomable that he could still be in the Asylum. He felt as if he stood at the window to the stars, staring out at the vast darkness lit by bright dots of starlight almost too brilliant to look at.

A form appeared in the darkness, blocking out the stars. A strange, low, bugling sound emanated. Everett felt the call reverberate in his chest. Another creature answered. They drew closer. He rubbed his eyes and stared again.

What looked like two elephants floated through the endless reaches of darkness. One stretched out its trunk and plucked a star like an apple from the velvety sky. It swung its trunk and the star flew across the horizon, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. The other elephant bugled and grabbed a different star. It flung its trunk in the opposite direction and released its hold.

The star sailed straight at Everett. He pushed the door close button on the elevator, but nothing happened. The star flew closer, growing into a giant, flaming ball. Everett hit the button again and again, but the doors refused to close. At the last second, Everett slammed his palm against the rows of numbers. A number lit up and the doors closed the moment before the star made it inside.

Everett let out a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. A glance at the numbers showed floor thirty-one had been selected. He waited with a touch of trepidation at what would be revealed.

The elevator beeped and the doors slid open. At first, Everett saw only darkness. He thought for a moment that he was in another space room, but as his eyes adjusted to the faint light from the elevator, he saw plain walls and a normal ceiling.

“It’s just an empty room,” he said aloud to himself.

“Go away,” a voice replied.

The hair on Everett’s arms lifted. He searched the corners for whoever was hiding.

“I said, go away,” the unmistakably feminine voice repeated.

“I-I’m sorry,” Everett replied. He hit the button for the doors to close. Yet again, the button failed him. “Uh, I’m trying to close the—”

“Go away!” the voice shouted. “Get out of here and leave me alone!”

Everett’s heart pounded at the hostility in her voice. After everything else he had seen at the Asylum, he had no idea what the girl was capable of.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

He slammed the button with his fist. The doors finally slid shut.

“I’m sorry!” he called before it closed completely.

Everett leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the doors and breathed a sigh of relief.

A sound came from the other side of the elevator. He willed his pounding heart to slow and listened. He realized he was hearing the sound of sobs, the heart-wrenching, scratchy throat, bone-aching kind that left a person exhausted and unable to sleep.

Everett was tempted to push the open button again. The thought of someone in that kind of emotional pain made his heart ache. But the thought of her rage kept his hand from opening the doors. Instead, with a heavy heart, he pushed the button for the first floor.

Everett walked home with a hurricane of thoughts that wouldn’t leave him in peace. The things he had seen at the Asylum opened his mind to possibilities he had never imagined. He doubted his decision to visit the floors above the tenth had been wise, and he wasn’t sure he would do so again, but the fact that creatures like those he had seen existed threatened to alter everything he knew about the world.

His conversation with Torrance remained in the back of his mind. He kept feeling the throb of the boy’s pulse through his fingers as he fought to keep Torrance from reopening his wounds. He had hurt a human, truly hurt him. The angry prints of red across the dark skin of the boy’s arms appeared in his mind over and over again. Everett knew how much pain the teen was in, yet Torrance denied any offered medication.

Gratitude for Jeraldine and Dr. Transton’s good sense filled him. Despite their preconceived fears of vampires, Everett felt that the Asylum was truly there for good. The fact that they had let him bring an injured human into what was really their monster safe house gave him even more respect for the place. He was filled with the urge to help out, to protect monsters, to find a way where those like the elephants throwing stars and the unknown being in the empty room could exist in peace.

Then there was Adrielle. Everett couldn’t quite stifle a sigh at the thought that he had been so close to kissing her before Vanguard showed up. How could he compete with a warlock who could make things disappear? He was a vampire. He wouldn’t survive without drinking blood. All he had to offer was the ability to channel a little strength, and that also depended on the blood reserves he had in his body. His skills were limited compared to the glorified magician.

Yet Adrielle’s golden eyes lingered in his mind, beckoning him, promising safety, laughter, and freedom from a life of hiding in the shadows. After their initial debate about vampires, she had treated him like a normal person. She smiled at him as if she truly saw something special in him. It made him feel stronger, like, with her at his side, he could conquer the world. His heart sped up at the thought of her. Tingles ran across his arms and down his spine whenever she touched his arm.

He had never felt so enraptured by a person. He told himself that the betrayal he had felt when she kissed Vanguard was ridiculous because they were obviously a couple, but he felt like he had been led on, made to think that she cared and saw something in him. The voice in the back of his mind whispered that he may have wanted to see these things so badly his mind had created them, but he refused to believe it. He shook his head, filled with a fog of confusion.

Everett’s steps slowed. He put a hand on the wall of the tunnel, grounding himself with the rough, cool touch of the bricks that had sheltered thousands during the Ending War. The tunnels had made it possible for those who remained of the human race to survive. The fact that the five cities were what were left of the world filled him with sorrow. Why was everyone so eager to destroy those who were different? If humans could live in peace, a place like the Asylum didn’t have to exist. Yet humans weren’t the only danger.

A sound deep within a side tunnel rolled toward him. Everett peered into the darkness, but since the tunnels were no longer used, only the emergency lighting ran down the main path, and even that was faint and flickered at the worst possible times.

As if in reply to his thought, the lights above him wavered, then shut off.

Everett froze. His senses strained, searching for the scraping sound he had heard. It came again, an ear-splitting screech like metal on glass. The sound was louder. Whatever made it drew closer.

Torrance’s words repeated in his mind. “Claws and black teeth...metal on glass.”

He saw the blood pooling from the deep gashes across the human’s chest. The terror that had been in Torrance’s eyes was something Everett hadn’t seen before. He didn’t want to know what sort of creature could cause such fear.

Everett took off down the tunnel toward the Neighborhoods. He ran headlong, waving his arms in front of him so he wouldn’t smack into a wall. He could vaguely make out the star-washed dim gray that marked the tunnel exit. If he could just reach it, he could lose whatever the creature was in the Neighborhoods. He had to make it home.

Everett’s sneaker hit something. He tripped, plunging forward. He had spent enough time watching Finch and Gabe’s tumbling classes to pull in his arms and roll instead of breaking something by putting out a hand to brace his fall. Everett slammed hard into one of the pillars that supported the center of the tunnel. The air was forced from his lungs with a gasp.

Everett drew in a ragged, painful breath and tried to listen above his pounding heartbeat. When he didn’t hear anything, he rolled onto his back. His ribs sent shooting pains through his side. He breathed shallowly for a few minutes. The pain eased, then faded to a manageable level. Grateful for the fast healing of his vampire genes and the fresh blood Celeste had gotten for him which made the process possible, Everett rolled over and carefully pushed to his feet.

He walked as silently as he could toward the faint gray light. He couldn’t push down the feeling that something was watching him from the darkness, yet when he looked back, only impenetrable obscurity remained. He stepped into the starlight feeling as though he had truly escaped with his life.

When he reached the porch, Everett collapsed on the swing. He stared in the direction of the tunnel a few blocks away, sure whatever had been following him would appear.

“Had a good night?”

Everett nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Celeste’s voice.

He stared at her. “Don’t sneak up on people!”

She smiled down at him from the doorway. “You’re jumpy.”

“Yeah,” Everett replied, willing his heart to slow. “I, uh...” He didn’t want to tell his older sister that he was worried about a raging dark creature with black teeth appearing from the tunnels. She would either believe him or think he was crazy; he didn’t know which would be worse. “I thought everyone was asleep,” he finally answered.

She took a seat next to him on the swing and gave them a push with her feet. Everett crossed his legs on the bench and sat back, letting himself sway with the rhythm of her feet.

“Rett, I’m worried about you,” she finally said.

He looked over to find her watching him. “Worried, why?” he asked, keeping his tone light.

Her eyes narrowed, making her look very much like their mother when she knew something was up. “You’re not telling us the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Everett told her. At her increased scrutiny, he sighed. He had never been able to keep anything from her. “Just not all of the truth,” he admitted.

She sat back and waited.

Everett debated what he could tell her. He had promised Dr. Transton that he would keep the Asylum a secret, yet it was obvious he went somewhere every night. Celeste had kept his night ventures to herself, covering for him when she could have ratted him out to their parents. All growing up, and especially since he found out he was a vampire, she had been his confidant, his friend, and sometimes even his therapist on days when it felt like too much.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and let out a small breath. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but this can’t go any further than us.”

“I know,” she replied. Her brown gaze held him, but she didn’t push.

Everett appreciated the chance to collect his thoughts. “Well...” he said, stalling. He figured it was better to tell it to her straight like ripping off a stuck bandage than to draw it out. “I’ve been at a monster asylum.”

It sounded ridiculous as soon as the words left his mouth. He expected her to burst into laughter.

Instead, she watched him closely without so much as a smile crossing her face. “A monster asylum.”

Everett nodded. “There are all kinds of monsters there. It’s hidden in the middle of the city, and has far more levels than it looks from the outside.” His mind raced as he tried to describe everything. “There are floors with snow, a swamp floor, sand like you’re in the desert. There’s even a level that looks like it’s straight from outer space; I don’t even know how that’s possible!” It felt so good to finally tell someone. The words rushed from him. “There’s a zombie and a warlock. I didn’t even know warlocks were real. I called him a magician and he was really offended.” He paused, then said, “I’ll probably keep calling him a magician.”

Everett realized Celeste was extremely quiet. He stopped talking and watched her, afraid he had said way too much.