Voracious (38 page)

Then, standing up slowly, back pressed against the wall, she peered in at an angle through the windows in the front door. She saw tile and a well-worn welcome mat.

Biting her lower lip and holding her breath, she snaked her hand in through the broken pane, fingers groping for the doorknob on the other side. Her hand closed around a cold, metal knob.

Noah unlocking and opening the door. Walking inside.

Exploring the cabin. Finding it empty. Returning to relock the front door and then lie in wait in the bedroom.

An agonized scream rang out, clipped off abruptly by a strangled choke.

Startled, she withdrew her hand, cutting it accidentally on the broken glass.

She recognized the scream, had heard it that first night on the mountain and later at this very cabin. Another long shriek pierced her eardrums, followed by wretched sobbing and pleading before the screams began again.

It was Noah. And this time, she feared, he was not going to live.

Remaining where she stood, she summoned up the dregs of her courage. Then she opened the door.

LEAVING
the door open, Madeline entered the cabin.

In the bedroom, Noah’s anguished screams reached an intolerable pitch. She wondered how anyone could cause such agony in another being, especially how someone could enjoy doing it.

And she had no idea how to go up against someone like that.

She pulled out her pocket knife, which suddenly looked too small. Extending the large blade, she gripped the handle in one hand. Then, eyes darting over an assortment of kitchen objects, she looked for anything else she could use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on the well-worn chairs with the aluminum frames.

Not waiting to lose her nerve, she tiptoed into the kitchen. From here she could see into the bedroom, but the door was mostly closed, and through the crack she only saw part of the rumpled bed.

Fingers closing around the frame of a chair, she lifted it and moved swiftly to the bedroom door as another shriek reverberated in the confines of the cabin. Windows rattled. A spoon on the Formica counter vibrated to a new position.

Madeline readied herself and kicked the bedroom door as hard as she could. It thrust open, slammed against something meaty, then gave way again as the mass fell away to one side. She burst into the room, eyes taking in the situation as her shaking hands gripped the chair and knife with clammy fingers.

Drenched in so much blood that she could barely make out his features, Noah hung from a hook on the opposite wall, white shirt in ribbons around his waist. Madeline blinked. No. Not a shirt. His skin. He had been flayed alive. Visions of the Sickle Moon Killer leapt into her mind—his euphoria in cutting and eating his victims—the scene was intolerably familiar to her.

“Madeline,” he breathed, peering at her with eyes delirious from pain.

On the floor lay Stefan, in what Madeline had come to believe was his original form, a muscular, olive-skinned man with shoulder-length black hair. Noah’s blood covered his hands, and he gripped the same flaying knife he’d used on the train. She’d knocked him over with the door.

She stepped forward, bringing the chair down as hard as she could on his head. His hand went limp from the shock of the blow, and she kicked the knife out of it. Then she stabbed her pocket knife into his heart. Grasping the handle, he pulled it out, and she brought the chair down again, knocking the pocket knife out of his grasp. It skittered across the floor, landing under the dresser.

His hand lunged out to retrieve the flaying knife at his feet as she brought one leg of the chair down onto his hand. The sharp metal leg drove deeply into his flesh there, and she heard the distinct snapping of bones. Not having time to grab it herself, she kicked the knife across the room.

Stefan rolled over on his back, taking her in.

She brought the chair down hard into his face, one leg entering his eye. He screamed, thrashing, his legs kicking her where she stood. She stumbled, fell to one knee, her weight slamming down onto the chair. For a brief moment Stefan lay nailed to the floor, the leg of the chair embedded deeply in his skull.

Metamorphosing, clawed hands reached up and grabbed the chair leg, gripped it firmly, and wrenched it out. He cast the chair to one side with Madeline still leaning on it, and she rolled harshly to the side, banging her head against one leg of the bed.

In an instant Stefan was on his feet, standing over her. She rolled over, clutching her head and stared up at him in a daze from the blow. He lifted a leg and drove it down on her knee. She heard a sickening pop and excruciating pain flooded through her. She grabbed her ruined knee, struggling to sit up. His clawed hand closed around her neck and forced her to her feet.

Her knee screamed in protest as her weight hit it. Stefan stared at her in fury, one eye destroyed and streaming with blood, the other glowing fiery red and widening into a luminescent disk.

She brought her fists up in a flurry of powerful blows, connecting with his gut, solar plexus, throat, and ruined eye. Then she drove her thumb into the eye socket and, screaming, he released her. Her knee buckled, and she stumbled but regained her balance, staggering back against the metal bed frame. She grabbed the metal eagerly, trying to remain standing.

The chair lay just to her left, and she grabbed it again before Stefan had a chance to recover. Swinging it high in an arc over her head, she leaped forward and struck him once again on the head, then brought it up, uppercutting his chin and then shoved it forward, driving him against the wall. The same sharp leg that had claimed his eye now slid into his abdomen.

He stared at her, disbelieving, from the other side of the chair.

With all her weight, she bore into the chair, driving it deeper inside him.

His eyes narrowed, and a solid, bony spike erupted from his chest, rib cage deforming and re-forming into a single lethal blade. Reaching up, he grabbed her hands where they gripped the chair, and he pulled her toward him with tremendous force. The chair legs pierced through him and drove into the wall beyond, raining bloody plaster over the carpet.

She felt a terrible rip in her being, a searing, hot penetration that pierced her skin and entered her chest, punching through ribs and ripping into a lung. The lung collapsed, and she gasped for air as the blade drove further, breaking ribs in her back before bursting through on the other side. Her mouth opened, eyes involuntarily shuttering in the back of her head as blood bubbled up and dribbled down her chin.

The creature, now just inches away, licked the blood from her face with a single, long stroke of his tongue.

He pushed her away, and the agony reached an unbearable level. As the bony spike withdrew from her, so much blood entered her lungs that she coughed and sputtered, no longer able to breathe.

When she was at arm’s length, he yanked her forward again, the spike entering her abdomen this time, tearing destructively through her organs with unimaginable force, snagging on her diaphragm and jerking the last breath from her one good lung.

Madeline fought off a wave of unconsciousness, then realized with a panic that it was actually death sneaking up on her, not blissful unconsciousness at all.

Stefan pulled her nearer, the bony spike piercing her kidneys before it burst through her back once more. Hot liquid streamed down her back, and the stench of bile and urine filled her nose. Images of the Sickle Moon Killer devouring the skin of his victims reeled in her head. What had always repulsed her could save her now. She could do it herself for an entirely different reason. But she wasn’t going to vomit Stefan’s blood and flesh back up like the Killer had done. She had to devour him. Become one with him.

Then she was back next to Stefan, impaled on the jagged spear, lips inches from his throat. Those haunting images would work for her this time. She had done this before, reliving the Sickle Moon Killer’s memories countless times, and she knew she could do it again. Only this time it would not be to cause pain but to end it. With her last bit of strength, Madeline strained forward, the spike driving even deeper inside her, tearing a wider hole in her back. She closed the last inch separating them and brought her mouth to his throat.

Biting down hard, she shook her head, tearing a gash in his neck. But she didn’t let go, though parts of his skin and muscle tore off in her mouth. She swallowed them. Sucking powerfully, she drew his blood into her mouth, taking full, deep swallows of the hot liquid.

He twisted beneath her, tried to angle his neck away, but she clung on, taking in gulp after gulp, resisting the urge to vomit.

He pushed at her, the bony spike withdrawing back into his body, re-forming into his rib cage. She sank her teeth in tighter, sucking and consuming as much blood from his veins as she could physically swallow.

He shoved her away. Her teeth took a large swath of skin with them as she stumbled backward. Bringing her hand up to her mouth, she shoved the skin inside and chewed it, forcing the hot, meaty mass down her throat.

A dizzying warmth spread through her body, a tingling fire that swept over the pain and drowned it out completely. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed, spilling onto the floor. The warmth spread, singing to her in a chorus of sweet voices, extending to every part of her being.

She could no longer see. Her vision made out only a brilliant glow, and she lay in ecstasy as the song filled her body, entered her bloodstream, her breath, the synapses of her brain. She closed her eyes.

And visions filled her head.

Beyond the magnificent gates of the Sumerian city, the olive-skinned young man standing above the strange, dark void, seeing the flash of movement, something wet and sinuous, down in the depths. Reaching in to touch it and hit with a fiery light that knocked him hundreds of feet through the air …

Awakening, later, no longer human, but a thing that could change shape …

Wandering, lost and alone through a desert, starving …

Stumbling upon a band of nomads and falling into a feeding frenzy, ripping them apart and devouring the soft insides, drinking their water, stealing their clothes …

Later, stunned that the memories and experiences of the nomads were now his own, the knowledge of desert survival and so much more, he becomes addicted, desiring to eat more, vowing to eat more …

Learning to control the changes, to heal superficial and grievous wounds alike, to appear as anyone the creature desires, to manifest weapons from his very body …

Madeline’s eyes snapped open. She rose to her feet.

Power surged through her. With every pulse of her heart, the creature’s blood coursed through her veins. And with each heartbeat, her body touched that blood. Her psychometric gift could feel everything about the creature, all of its experiences and memories, all of its abilities. She knew every terrifying and wondrous detail. Knew so much that she didn’t know where she ended and the creature began.

Every muscle in her body tightened with that knowledge, her mind focused on the creature across the room. She lowered her head and brought her arms up. Healing surged through her, closing her wounds in a single instant.

Still standing against the wall, the chair embedded deeply in his body, Stefan struggled. He gripped the chair’s seat and pushed forcefully, freeing the legs from the wall. He tossed the chair to the side and stepped forward.

Two long, gleaming spikes emerged from his arms, ending in vicious points.

Madeline didn’t move. She no longer knew fear, only power and purpose. Focusing the fiery energy singing within her, she lifted her hands higher, breathing out, flesh transforming instantaneously to reflective silver, the metal sweeping down her entire body until she was solely comprised of the deadly alloy.

As the creature swung one speared arm, she ducked to the side and thrust her hands forward. Each metallic finger detached, hurling into him at high velocity, disappearing deep within his flesh.

He staggered back, one arm spike returning to flesh as his concentration severed.

Fresh metallic fingers surged out, replacing the old. She extended an arm up and summoned a sharp saber, its hilt and her hand joining in a single mass. She lunged forward, driving the sword into his belly. He howled in agony, stumbling backward. Her hand severed from the blade, leaving it embedded inside him.

She summoned a second, matching sword, and as Stefan’s body crashed onto the floor, she drove the blade into his chest, crunching through ribs until she struck the wooden floor beneath. Her hand separated from the blade.

Stefan twisted on the ground, screaming. His body passed through torturous changes, forming into victims past, then lumps of bone and sinew, then arms flailing in a bloated mass of bleeding tissue, finally returning to his original form once again. Then he fell still, one tremendous disk eye forming and blinking in shock. It withered and returned to a human eye as he gulped for air. A single tear pooled and spilled down his face. And then he was gone.

The metal in her body receded, revealing flesh once more. She looked down at herself, her body completely healed, untouched. No hole in the chest. No ragged wound in the abdomen. Even her knee was perfect.

She rushed over to Noah, who still hung on the wall. He looked up at her with tearing eyes, intense pain clenching his jaw shut.

Carefully, she cupped her hands under his arms and lifted him up off the hook, amazed at her own strength, but at the same time already knowing she had it. She could feel every ability of the creature just waiting for her to use it.

Gently she laid Noah on the bed. The creature had stripped all the skin off his chest, but Noah’s back and face luckily suffered only superficial cuts. Blood seeped into the linens as he lay back on the sheets.

Tenderly she moved each strip of skin back to its original place while Noah cried out and shuddered in agony.

“Just lie there,” she told him when she was done, “and you’ll heal.” She kissed him on the lips. “Just like always.”