Lunacy Page 13

  My forehead beaded up with sweat and tears flowed unbidden from my eyes, but I wasn't going to scream for him, no matter what he did to me. My brain quickly ran over my options. If rape was on their minds, it was better than dying, but I still had no intentions of just lying down and letting that happen. He seemed distracted enough by my tears and the hand that now uselessly clung to the knife in his side. My other arm was still free...

  I may not have been left handed, but I'd be damned if I was going to do anything less than make this asshole wish he was dead by the time I was through with him. He'd likely return the favor, but as long as I dished as well as I took, I was alright with that. I closed my eyes for a second and called to all of that raw power inside of me, glad I had stopped right by the sink while they advanced on me. Alain said something else smarmy -and likely filthy- that I didn't even bother wasting the focus to hear and when my eyes snapped open, they were full of the light of a snow covered mountain top at noon.

  “Suck on this, motherfucker!” I snarled, leaning backward and flipping the faucet on, grabbing a handful of water and throwing it towards him. Everything slowed down in my mind then, as the water droplets became a menagerie of glittering shards of ice that sank into his bare flesh like they belonged there. A few whizzed past him and narrowly missed the other boys. They scrambled over each other to get out of the way, knocking over two chairs and upending the table in the process.

  Alain swore loudly and took a step back, grabbing shakily at the makeshift daggers I'd impaled him with, his fingers having trouble grasping at the slippery icicles. Without wasting a second since my arms were both finally free, I grabbed a plate in my left hand and brought the ceramic down hard onto his head, breaking it into several pieces and knocking the young man to his knees. It sent jolts of fire through my arm, but I managed to grab onto the handle of a skillet in the sink behind me, glad for once that Mom and Dad hadn't bothered to wash the dirty dishes from breakfast before they'd left for work in the morning.

  I braced it with my left hand and wound up like I was stepping up to the plate at Yankee Stadium, following through with every ounce of strength I could muster, swinging the cast iron skillet towards the side of his head. If I'd had the chance to connect, it would have caved his skull in like a blacksmith's hammer crushing an egg against an anvil. But rather than having the skull shattering satisfaction I was hoping for, all that kinetic energy came to a screeching halt about an inch from his head as an unseen force pressed down upon me. The tendons in my arms stood out as I tried to fight against it to no avail, and another man stepped from the shadows.

  His hair was long and feminine, thick and straight auburn to his waist. His frame was very slight in comparison to the heavily muscled wolves before him and they parted to allow him to pass, walking casually forward to come to stand behind Alain. His hand was held out before him at about waist level, fingers splayed wide. Clearly this man was the one who had saved Alain's brains from decorating my linoleum like a Jackson Pollock.

  When he spoke, his voice drew me to look into his eyes, a brilliant blue like the shell of a robin's egg. They had a faint glow, but it was different from the heat of the werewolves' amber gazes. His was like mine, a cold light, but deeper and somehow dark in a way that made me think of bioluminescent grave moss. "Even for being so freshly awakened, your power is truly impressive, little goddess."

  His voice rolled over me in a rush, sliding against my skin like I imagined the hands of an experienced lover might. Firm, assured, exploring… I shook my head to clear the odd haze of lust that fogged over everything. “And who the fuck are you?” I snarled, my hands still trembling with the effort of trying to crack Alain’s skull like an egg.

  His chuckle was velvet rolling inside of me and I finally dropped the skillet, my fractured wrist giving up the ghost. Heat curled in my belly and he spoke before I could scream further obscenities at him. “I am Enoch. But with time, you will know me as Master.”

  I scoffed at that one, rolling his name over in my mind. It sounded familiar. Almost… Biblical. “Holy shit…” I murmured, raising my gaze to meet his and the smug expression on his face. “You mean like Enoch, eldest son of Cain?”

  My parents weren’t very religious, but they’d always encouraged me to be knowledgeable. If you read the Bible like it was a novel, it had some awesome parts. Lots of smiting.

  He laughed and the sound of it startled me from my thoughts. “Dearest Kacea, your mind does have a way of wandering off, doesn’t it?”

  So he could read my thoughts. In that case…

  I’m a little teapot, short and stout. This is my handle, this is my spout… My expression was blank, empty, and I watched him closely to gauge his reaction.

  Unsurprisingly, Enoch was amused but slightly displeased. He walked toward me then with the slow, assured gait of a predator. Something not human, and ultimately more dangerous than the furballs he surrounded himself with. Alain, broken and unhappy, moved to make room for the slender man who seemed to control them. He came to a halt mere inches away from me and something like electricity crackled across my skin from his nearness.

  False bravado made me speak to fill the uncomfortable silence between us, getting back to my question he‘d artfully dodged. “But if there was any truth to that, then you’d be almost six thousand years old…”

  Before my very eyes, his completely changed. All color within his eyes was swallowed by an inky darkness more infinite than the depths of the oceans that sent a shudder of fear down my spine. "What are you?" I whispered, my voice thready and not sounding at all like me.

  He smiled then, and it wasn’t the least bit pleasant. A maw full of row upon row of sharp teeth, carnivorous and shark-like, grinned at me. I wanted to run and hide in a corner, curl up in a ball and cry, but I was immobilized with terror. When he spoke again, his voice was different, hollow and oddly ringing. “I told you, silly girl… I am your Master.”

  He reached out to touch me with fingers now tipped with claws as black as his eyes, and the moment his skin touched my cheek, the world around me faded and I was plunged into a void of darkness and an infinite sense of nothingness.

  Chapter 16

  I don’t know how long I was out, but it seemed like an eternity had passed while I was unconscious, floating in that cottony abyss of oblivion. When I did wake up, I instantly wished that I could slip back into the quiet that had cocooned me after Enoch knocked me out. My arm felt like it was on fire, my wrist still twisted at an odd angle that was far from natural, and even farther from comfortable.

  Wincing against the pain, my eyes flicked about and I quickly took in my surroundings. I assumed I’d been kidnapped by Enoch, Alain, and the rest of his band. Make that his pack. I was on a couch in a room that looked like an old parlor. Like something you’d see in a bad vampire movie based in New Orleans, complete with a plush red velvet couch with a matching loveseat and chair adjacent. The walls were done in a rather elegant black and white damask design, and as I set my bare feet to the floor, I discovered that the carpet was just as opulent as the surrounding furnishings implied. It was a sizeable room, and it had two doors that entered it, but no windows. That left me wondering what time of day it was…

  I went to lean on the arm of the couch, resting my hand on the thick padding. It tore a brief shriek from my lips at the agony and I clutched at it with my left, cursing myself for letting them know I was awake. So much for having enough time to hatch a proper escape plan...

  A better idea came to mind. Since I wasn’t restrained, I could try to heal my arm so I’d be in top fighting form once my captors did arrive, as they undoubtedly would. I slumped onto the couch and held my left hand over my fractured right forearm, closing my eyes and focusing, drawing on that deep well of energy within me that sparkled with magickal potential. I visualized the bones knitting back together and the flesh sliding back into the places it was supposed to be without a scratch to show what damage had been done, and then reality punched me
in the throat.

  Every nerve ending in my body felt like it was on fire. More specifically, like I’d just stuck my fingers into an electrical outlet. I convulsed and twitched myself right off the couch. My heartbeat stalled from the voltage suddenly running through me for seemingly no reason. As soon as I stopped fixing my arm, the immediate shock disappeared and only the residual pain remained.

  I could smell charred flesh, and it smelled a little like dinner. It set my stomach to growling and then to roiling when I realized that the tasty meat scent was coming from me. My neck felt hotter than anything else and I lifted my hands to find a silver choker was wrapped around it. “What the fuck?” I murmured, running my fingers all around the thin band, maybe half an inch wide. It felt smooth, and I couldn’t find a seam or clasp on it anywhere. Panicking, I tried to slide fingers under it to try tugging it off. Only succeeding in making myself cough, I gave up finally.

  I’d managed to heal my arm, but I questioned how many of my brain cells I’d fried in the process. The thing around my neck must have been-

  “-A magical shock collar, essentially.”

  I jumped at the sudden intrusion, turning to look over my shoulder up at Enoch. He didn’t have his monster-face on, and he almost looked pretty this way. It was weird, but I shook it off, dismayed to see that there was still a bit of smoke rising from my skin. “And the whole purpose of it is to keep me from doing what, exactly? I smell like bacon, and I don’t know jack shit about what I’m capable of.”

  “And neither do we. A safety precaution for all parties involved, Pet.”

  That pissed me off. I was on my feet without even thinking about it, physically shoving Enoch with a palm to his chest. My eyes blazed white and he shot back a few feet, crashing into the loveseat and tottering over backwards with it. I instantly dropped to my knees, skull clasped in my hands to keep it from trying to split apart from the lightning that poured through every inch of my being.

  His reaction wasn’t quite what I expected. He got up and brushed himself off, a hole burned through his emerald green tee shirt where my hand had touched him. A blackened handprint was scorched into his flesh and I watched as it healed over and disappeared like it had never been. I knelt on the floor, panting as the pain faded once more, looking up at him disdainfully as he walked back over to me. He reached down and cupped my face in his long fingered hands, colder than the grave, and tilted my head slightly to meet his gaze. Then Enoch began to laugh.

  Rage coursed through me, but given the current circumstances, I held Skadhi in check, promising to her that we would bathe in his blood soon enough. Unhappy, but seeming to agree with those terms, she receded and I was alone in my head for the first time in what seemed like forever. It almost felt… lonely.

  Those pretty blue eyes of his were full of mirth, and I vowed silently to wipe that smug grin off his face permanently. “You truly are the perfect weapon, Kacea. What better vessel to hide such power in than the body of a beautiful young girl?” He chuckled. “The Gods truly do have a sense of humor, given your purity.”

  I blushed, and I knew my eyes were darker when I looked up to meet his gaze. “I’d ask how you know, but I really don’t want to know.”

  Unfortunately for me, it seemed like he was going to share the why, regardless. He lifted me to my feet by my upper arms as if I weighed nothing and leaned in close, inhaling deeply. “Underneath that delicious aroma of bacon, there is a scent possessed only by those who have been untainted. Much like the smell of cyanide, not many can detect it. But it’s not an almond scent. It’s more like the smell of lilies on a sunny summer day…”

  Enoch waxing poetic about how my virginity smelled was odd, but he seemed distracted enough by it that I didn’t have to worry about him attacking me for the moment. But honestly, he hadn’t gone out of his way to harm me since I’d woken up. He hadn’t struck me, and the only injury even caused in his presence that wasn’t by my own hand was done by Alain. That meant I was worth more to him alive than dead, and that took a bit of my fear away. Granted, the monster in the closet was very real and standing less than a foot away from me, sniffing me like I was a tasty entrée. But… small victories.

  “Since we’re being civilized, because me attempting to turn you into a human torch has only resulted in me smelling like breakfast… How long was I out and where the hell are we?” I asked, my words bringing him from the almost trance-like state he was in.

  He blinked and his pupils began to shrink, the color returning to the irises which had nearly been swallowed by black. “You were asleep two days. As to our location, it is nowhere near your little Elm Valley. That’s all you need to know.”

  Two days. That meant it was Tuesday, or Monday evening. Everyone back home must have been freaking out, by now. “My purpose in being here?” I was going out of my way to be blunt, all business. The last thing I needed was this creature -whatever flavor of supernatural other he was- to get the wrong idea.

  He smirked and I caught a flash of teeth so sharp they looked like they’d been filed down. But this time it was only his upper and lower canines and the teeth next to them, eight in total, not an entire mouthful of the fangs of a carnivorous predator. “That is for me to know, and you to find out, Little Goddess.”

  Frustrating, but not surprising. I assented. “Fine… Be that way. Any chance I can get a bite to eat around here?”

  "Ah, yes. You've been out for two days. You're probably famished." I nodded emphatically. The thought of food began to override all my instincts as to my safety. As if on cue, my stomach growled loudly enough that I knew I wasn’t the only one who heard its rumblings. Enoch extended his hand to me and I stared at it for what seemed an eternity, uncertain of so readily accepting the kindness of my captor.

  “Come now, Kacea. Your body is a temple, and all temples require a sacrifice. Right now, your temple is screaming for food. Wouldn’t want to have to smite some locals to sate that need, would you?”

  I was quiet, drawn in by the potentially serious statement hidden behind his joke. “I am all about some smitin’…” I began, keeping my tone light and my mind as close to serene as possible, “but dinner does sound pretty good, right about now.” I placed my hand in his, shocked again by how frosty his skin felt.

  He led me from the parlor, going through a confusing maze of hallways that had me wondering if there was going to be a minotaur I’d have to do battle with and then butcher for dinner at its center. I was half disappointed when there wasn’t one. There was, however, a very tasty aroma originating from the kitchen we were approaching. Feminine laughter wafted out with it, hollow and humorless.

  “It really is ridiculous that you’ve kept up with your cooking skills, Jamison. What good could possibly come of a skill which gives you no nutritional benefit?”

  Enoch opened the door and finally let go of my hand. It was like he thought I was dumb enough to try running away. After nearly turning myself into a crispy critter, I knew better than to even attempt escaping… For now.

  With one foot inside the door to the kitchen, and apparently connected dining room, the smell was overwhelming and I was practically drooling. So many tasty smells… Breakfast smells. Eggs, bacon, cheese, pancakes, syrup… And under it all there was a cool smell like the inside of an industrial meat locker. Cold and dead, with a hint of copper that could only be blood.

  There was a woman leaning her elbows on the breakfast nook, and she looked remarkably like Enoch. Long auburn hair, slim build although a bit shorter, similar facial features as she turned at our approach. But unlike Enoch, who I assumed to be her brother, her eyes were a deep and rich brown the dark chocolate richness of espresso.

  “On the contrary, Zillah. It gives me plenty of nutrients when it keeps my flock healthy, so I don’t have to go out hunting on a piecemeal basis and end up inadvertently killing, and then having the amateur problem of needing to hide a body.” The voice of the man at the stove snapped us from staring each other down.

&nb
sp; “Body?” I echoed, and all their eyes turned to me. “What the fuck are all of you?”

  Zillah rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip as she looked to Enoch. “Seriously? You couldn’t just tell the walking, talking Happy Meal that we’re essentially what modern society would call ‘vampires’?”

  Chapter 17

  My words echoed my thoughts at her ridiculous declaration. "No way. No way in hell."

  The man at the stove laughed, and it was a musical sound that sent a chill down my spine. In a good, toe curling kind of way. "How can you deny the existence of vampires when you so readily accepted werewolves?"

  I looked him over more closely, even though his back was still to us. He was tall-ish. Probably a little over six feet. His hair was dark and hung in loose ringlets that fell past his shoulders. He was lean with broad shoulders and nice triceps, from what I could see of them, anyway.

  Within, I felt Skadhi move forward, as if there was something about him that she liked too. Aloud I replied, "Would you jump for joy if you discovered you weren't at the top of the food chain anymore? I doubt it."

  He paused, thinking it over as his hands worked on whatever delicious smelling breakfast food he was making. Finally, he nodded his assent. "I suppose that's reasonable enough logic." He turned to look over his shoulder at me and my heart skipped a beat as the most arresting pair of grey eyes I'd ever seen met mine. "But everyone has to face reality some time, little goddess. And humans haven't been the biggest predator for eons."

  The woman, Zillah, rolled her eyes and tossed an apple at the back of the cook's head. He caught it blindly and took a bite of it. That stunned me a little. Since when could vampires eat food?