Frayed Page 5

  Nash raised his hand. "You don’t need to go on."

  "I do," she whispered. "It can help save Rush and the missing children." Nash shrugged his opposition, but Lucy continued, voice flat, wanting to get through it. "They call themselves Dissenters. At one time, they believed themselves to be on a holy mission to find the source of each Versipellis and dispel the evil forever. As body after body has been covered with earth in their wake, the mission has distorted into something wicked. The latter Dissenters seek a cure for their own familial bloodlines above all else."

  "And that’s wicked?" I should have kept my damned mouth shut.

  "Is it not wicked to torture others for self-gain? Rush told me of their methods. They are older than their skewed religion." She would have cried, most definitely, if she were human. "There are limitless ways to make someone wish for death, each more barbaric than the last." Her voice rose, all resemblance to my beloved babysitter vanishing. "They hung Rush from the ceiling with meat hooks. When his tender young skin ripped apart, they found unblemished flesh and started over. The soles of his feet are tough with scar tissue from hot coals when he lost his balance trying to stand on a two-inch board for hours at a time. And when these abominable things yielded no answers, they crushed him with stones. Bones were excruciatingly broken over the course of days."

  "How did he escape?" Nash could hardly believe the tale.

  "By the grace of our Lord, he changed, caught them off guard, and ripped them to pieces. He even ate a few. The most devilish of his captors." I caught a chill, not from the visual, but from our shared approval. Breaking eye contact, Lucy carried on, "If these men are using such methods… If such things are being done to children, they need to be rescued swiftly or slaughtered mercifully before they turn into monsters of hate and fear. My boyfriend was lucky to escape with his body intact, let alone his sanity."

  "If these men seek answers, why are they torturing to just this side of death?" I asked.

  "They have studied the inner beast for ages. What angers it, what draws it to the surface, when and how. If they can harness that power, it may be possible to chase it out-"

  "Like an exorcism," Nash finished.

  I added, "The optimal time to drive it out would be at its weakest time, before the first change. If that were even possible." I was sick at the revelation, at the purpose for the children, the weakest ones of our kinds who hadn’t changed yet. I leaned forward, pressing my face into hardened, angry, terrified palms. "Oh, God… I have to call my brother immediately."

  Standing to grab the cell phone from my pocket, I absent-mindedly asked, "What are they even doing in our territory? Massachusetts is a long fucking way off." Listening to speed-dial, I was met with blank expressions when I looked up. It took another minute before my brain wrapped around the heinous truth. "They came for Rush."

  Lucy nodded. "He suspected he was being followed a day before his disappearance."

  "So he went jogging? Alone? In a wooded area?"

  Nash sat forward. "He presented them with a time and place that would not compromise Lucy’s well-being."

  She smiled. "That’s what I think, too."

  Listening to my brother’s recording, I said, "They must be smart enough to know that you’ll look for him, right?"

  "Likely," she answered. "Do you think they are still in the area?"

  "With this many missing so close together?" I nodded my head. "They couldn’t have gone far."

  Nash grabbed Lucy’s forearm imploringly and stood. "You need to leave tonight. Now. They obviously don’t like loose ends."

  "Being me," she surmised.

  She stood and they froze, gazing into one another’s eyes. For the first time, I caught myself feeling sorry for them—vampires, corpses, dead flesh. I could sense his fear for her and the underlying passion that connected the dots to their ancient romance. I was peeking into that tiny, personal space that proved Nash right. We all carried a piece of humanity, some just more prominent than others.

  As the phone beeped in my ear to signify the beginning of my message, I hung up. This was too important to record on a machine that anyone could get their hands on. It was privileged information.

  When I dialed Blaire and got the same beep, I cursed. "We’re in the middle of a goddamn emergency. Why isn’t anyone answering his phone?" I fought the urge to throw my cell phone across the house.

  Nash tried to act casual. "I’ll see Lucy to a safe location."

  "I never consented to leave my home," Lucy said in a brass voice.

  "You must."

  I shook my head with Lucy. "No. This is the closest we’ve come to them. If we run and hide, everyone dies and those bastards dissolve into another city. No. Unacceptable. We stay and cross our fingers that Lucy’s worth killing."

  Lucy seemed pretty cheery, considering.

  After minutes of inner deliberation, Nash agreed. "Fine. But we need to feed to be at full strength."

  "As long as it’s not my neck, then carry on."

  Grabbing a periwinkle silk scarf from the back of a large armchair in the living room—such a human gesture—Lucy pointed up the stairs. "My roommate is out of town. You can sleep in her room. First door on the left." The scarf glided overtop of her light hair as she cinched it under her chin like a bonnet.

  Nash stepped closer. "Will you be alright alone? If you need to call one of your lepe for company, we can wait."

  "I plan to make a few calls, but don’t wait. I don’t expect the crazies to arrive until daylight. Hit at the weakest time, right?"

  "It would be smart of them to attack once I have retired for the day," Lucy concurred.

  On their way out, Nash requested, "Call when you locate your leader."

  "Yeah, I wish I could take a picture of Blaire’s expression when I tell him about the shit that’s befallen our territory right under our noses. It would be a real knee-slapper."

  Nash smiled. "We can only dream." He locked the door and shut it behind them.

  Left in the quiet cabin that smelled of freshly cut roses and undead flesh, the hair on my body prickled with the immediate sensation that I wasn’t alone.

  Chapter Eight

  Spending the better half of an hour, I secured all entry points and closed each shade. Confident no one could sneak up without creating a lot of noise, I ascended the stairs to the roommate’s quarters. She was a vampire, too. To my shifter senses, the unmistakable smell perfumed the air like stale bread.

  The dark wood room was sparsely adorned. No photographs or trinkets. Only a hairbrush and a potted Aloe plant decorated the dresser top, and a Robert Frost book of poetry sat on the side table all by its lonesome. The elephant in the room was a super-sized cedar box with small doors on the front. No way in hell was I climbing in there, even though it was five feet tall. However, I did muster enough courage to peek inside, all the while thinking, Curiosity killed the leopard. To my surprise, past the downy pink pillow and comforter was a corner shelf holding a TV and DVD player. Guess vampires get insomnia, too.

  I turned off the overhead light, choosing to relax in the brown armchair close to the window, and tried to call Darien and Blaire again. The aggravation of no answer lulled my heavy mind into an annoyed half-sleep peppered with facts and fictitious monsters stealing apples from my dreamscape. I was locked in this skewed world for an unconscious eternity. Until one of the monsters, that is, suddenly smelled pungent. A bitter, foreign aroma jolted me out of the chaos.

  It was still dark outside. My eyes stung from just enough sleep to yearn for more rather than face a dose of reality. After talking myself into consciousness and standing, it didn’t take long to discover the dead phone battery. "Great." I tossed it in the chair and walked softly to the door expecting to hear people moving about.

  When I got my head out of my ass and reminded myself that vampires were noiseless, that gut feeling refused to wane. Sucking up the anxiety pooling like a reservoir in my chest, I dashed downstairs. "Nash? Lucy?" I mumbled. "
Are you here?"

  The odd stench from my dream filled the living room. My human half wanted to cover my nose. My leopard half, however, made me lift it and sniff the air. It was so repulsive I knew something was deeply wrong.

  Half a second passed and I was out the back door tracking the foe, whatever it was. My inner voice demanded, Seek and destroy. An excited growl burbled in my throat at the thought of something to chase. Something to catch and feel between my teeth. A fiendish smile bloomed. But as I stalked through a huge overgrown field that had not been farmed this season, a twisted vision befell me. The kind that never pales with time.

  The kind that never releases you.

  There was a person on the other side. Under the pre-dawn sky, across a herd of floating dandelion wisps and dewy grass blades, a naked female slouched under a hardwood along the tree line. I shuffled forward on autopilot, eyes trying to focus out the distortion.

  As the sky awakened with filtered light, the alabaster figure was clearer. Her arms hung limply by her sides, palms upward in a macabre yoga pose. Extremely long hair caught in the breeze like a yellow sheet on a clothesline, the only thing about her that moved. Her head draped to one side, completely slack. And her face… Jesus, the skin bloated outward, stretching and pulling features in shocking ways. Ways I never considered possible.

  Was she dead?

  Stopping inches away, it was apparent the putrid smell was actually the abominable combination of multiple odors. Potent. Alarming. They smelled of the earth but nowhere I would dare tread. They masked her scent, whatever it should have been. I could only tell that she was young because her flesh showed no age markers.

  Oh shit.

  "Lucy?" Squatting and leaning forward, her hair was heavy against the back of my right hand as I swept it aside, using my left one to balance on the ground between us. Blonde hair. Delicate features. Soft brow. That’s how I envisioned her before the monstrous makeover. "Oh God, Lucy." A sense of duty and failure plunged through my heart. "I was supposed to protect you. What happened?"

  Two things happened at once, actually.

  The grayish sky began its submissive withdrawal to daylight.

  And her head jerked forward, eyes bulging open.

  "Wow!" I hopped backward and froze.

  Her mouth opened. The overly taught skin made me fear that her teeth would rip right through the thin veil of lips. Painful gurgles filled the silence instead of words. And, as true dawn broke over the sky as seamless as water spilling from a glass, a long hiss escaped before her throat swelled shut. The filmy flesh of her neck pulsated, once beautiful cheekbones engulfed her temples, and a sickly green puss started sliding out of her tear ducts thick as honey. The sun was frying her.

  "Shit!"

  Acting on impulse, I lunged forward to shield her. It was too late.

  While I was airborne, her body suddenly convulsed, ballooning outward. Having enough time to turn my head, I noticed something shiny in the distance. Just as swiftly, she burst apart like a goddamn piñata. Little bits of gore, ligament, and bone tore through my clothing, into me, blasting me backward. The earth bounced against me.

  And I didn’t get up.

  The world had come undone. Static invaded my sight and hearing, making me nauseous. Dueling sparks of pain and numbing tingles swept into me, over me, that is, until the chill came. It leapt into my core. Nothing was that cold except death.

  I thought it would kill me, and I was ready to change and bite the living fuck out of death before it would take me so easily. But then the little bits of Lucy began to burn. Again. I raised a shaky arm to see smoke billowing from every puncture. Her bone in my bone, flesh in my flesh, blood in my blood, burned to dust. I felt like the inside of an incinerator. Or an ashtray. And I screamed. Screamed until my eardrums should have disintegrated from the unholy vibration.

  Trying to scratch out the bits that felt like thousands of burning cigarettes was futile. Finally, intermittent thoughts turned to sanctuary. Shade from the damaging sun. I used every inch of anger, obduracy, and bitch I had in me to reach the tree line.

  The feeling of not being alone was there again. But this time I heard the ‘not theres.'

  A chorus of voices urged, "Get out of the sun," "We can help," "Come to the trees," "Hurry! They’re coming."

  My survival instincts didn’t care that disembodied voices were luring me into unfamiliar woods. Crawling on all fours, I collapsed, short by two feet.

  A male voice said, "Give us your hand." Before trying, he demanded, "Reach!"

  Stretching my arm overhead, a tickle of air gathered around it, forming suction, not unlike a small storm, and pulled me to the graces of shade. Unable to locate bodies or faces, I wheezed, "Thank you."

  Shadows shifted amongst tree trunks and branches, never still enough to see clearly, and too translucent to be real. It gave the illusion of a forested ocean current.

  The same voice said, "You need to shift to heal." He spoke in my ear, but no one was there.

  More voices whispered across nothing, "Shift now or die."

  Trying to nod in agreement, my eyes shut as I focused on my leopard half. Smelling pinesap and deer, old pesticides and wild onions, my body relaxed into the knowledge that I would be healed in seconds.

  That’s what I thought, anyway.

  I channeled all the energy I could to shift, usually the same amount it took to wiggle my toes. But the more I tried, the stronger the toxic smell grew. It swelled within me, strangling all senses. The wheeze in my throat grew increasingly distressing. My heartbeat was unable to keep proper rhythm.

  "She can’t shift. There’s no time," someone exclaimed.

  Abruptly, a warm blanket of air swarmed overhead, and a weighted darkness cocooned me. Someone was lying on top of me.

  "Shadowshifters…" slid from my lips. I should have realized sooner.

  A mellifluous "Sshhh" heated my ear as invisible fingers swept across my forehead.

  Shadowshifters are strangelings, even amongst other therianthropes, because they are not flesh bound. They’re elemental. In darkness, whether of night or shadow, they shift into the air itself. Able to draw together as one effective entity, shadowshifters can also channel their human form if they remain separate from the rest. Their ghost-like abilities are the cause of many urban legends and folklore. In human form, they resemble albinos. No one knows why. No one’s really asked before.

  "They’re here," a timid voice announced. The woods fell deadly silent. I was proud I could slow my breathing enough to lose the rattle.

  Safe in the darkness of shadowshifters, heavy footsteps inspected the dust—all that was left of Lucy—and combed the field for my whereabouts. It sounded like two men. The tension in the air built, a coil readying to spring, as they circled and talked secretively to one another. Either immensely stupid or vastly intelligent, they never ventured past that line from field to woods.

  After the longest five minutes ever, the heavy-treaders tenderly exited to the south, the way they had arrived. The claustrophobic wall of air dissipated. Once again, shadows swayed in depth around me. To everyone’s horror, when the warm mass over my body retracted, the surge of cooler air tailspun me into an uncontrollable seizure.

  "She’s been poisoned," a female someone gasped.

  Chapter Nine

  I woke up in bed with the worst hangover I’d ever had and, possibly, my first documented case of amnesia.

  Between burnt amber Egyptian Cotton sheets, I inventoried the destruction of my bedroom. If it hung on the walls, it was currently on the floor. Like the framed black and white photo of Grandma Fay in her prized gele that had belonged to her mother. If something had been on a shelf, it was so much broken confetti encasing the hardwood floor. If it had a specific home, it was everywhere but. Amongst the mess were rare beads that used to be valuable necklaces. And, to the displeasure of my sinking heart, the remnants of a pearl necklace my family and I presumed I’d wear on my wedding day. There were even high
heels embedded in the beige walls like a damn crime scene.

  First my car. Now my room. My karma was jacked. And when I tried to sit up, I realized karma wasn’t the only thing off. Every limb, muscle, and centimeter of skin hurt immensely just to perform such a daily chore as sitting up.

  Also, my room was uncharacteristically freezing, and quieter than a tomb.

  Dressing in the thickest sweatshirt and pants I owned—black cotton with lambs wool lining—I gingerly descended the stairs to the living room. More a geriatric venture due to spasms and a constant shudder, my arms remained huddled tight against my chest.

  The living room was a hub of activity. With the entire household utilizing the space, the massive room seemed more the size of a waiting room. Darien stood in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. His white shirt was dirty. Warren and Lydia sat shoulder to shoulder on the plush couch, their black clothes bleeding together. Lydia’s hair was twisted and pinned back with two pencils sticking out in chopstick fashion. Joshua was deep in paperwork, scribbling notes and every so often wrinkling his nose in vexed concentration. And Gage was standing at the far end by the foyer lifting seventy-five-pound dumbbells like acorns. The TV was on, but nobody paid attention. Physically, they were in the same space. Their thoughts… Not so much.

  I lingered on the last step. Everyone turned and stared.

  "You guys have got to stop doing that," my voice croaked dryly. A twisted damp rag would have sounded better. "What happened? Did you fight the bastards in my room and I slept through it?" Trying to act like smiling wasn’t the hardest activity since dressing myself, I waited for a response. Something. No one returned the smile or cracked a smartass reply.

  Blaire emerged from the study on the other side of the foyer behind Gage. His stride was wide and sure. Until he saw me. Then he fell under the same catatonic spell as the rest.