Kristen Painter - Out for Blood

“Ridiculous.” Now the creature traveled a bridge too far.

Mortalis put a hand up. “It’s not uncommon.”

Chrysabelle nodded, flipped out the tiny blade on her ring, and pricked her finger. She held it up, the tiny ruby bead on the tip like a beacon Mal couldn’t look away from.

The raptor inhaled as he bent toward her, his tongue reappearing. She lifted her hand, grimacing slightly. The tongue’s three segments delicately wrapped her finger, found the blood, and retreated.

The creature was quiet for a moment. “You are comarré?”

“Yes,” Chrysabelle answered.

He shook his head. “Your blood is dirty. This confuses me.”

“What the hell do you mean, her blood is dirty?” Mal took a step toward the fae. “Her blood is as pure as it gets.”

The raptor tipped his head toward Mal. “Vampire?”

“Yes.”

The raptor mumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “Darkness, all darkness”; then he inhaled in Mal’s direction. “Your blood is in her?”

“Yes.” Mal looked at Chrysabelle. He had no idea how the creature had picked that up.

With a small nod, the raptor continued. “I must taste your blood as well.”

Chrysabelle’s hand latched on to Mal’s wrist before he could protest, the pleading look on her face making it impossible for him to object. He held out his hand and she used her ring to prick his finger as well.

“Here.” Mal shoved his hand toward the raptor and the creature licked up the offered drop.

After a few long seconds, the creature went down onto his haunches and began to speak. “The gold is ancient. Sacred. Imbued with holy magic tainted by another for dark purposes. This gold was a ring, its circular shape a symbol of how unending, how indestructible its power. But this power is what concerns you. This power is what now flows within you. This power has become part of you, greater than you.”

Mal clenched his hands into fists. “What the hell is the power?”

The raptor took a breath. “In its unadulterated form, the ring held the power to raise the undead and bring them under the sway of whoever wore the ring.”

“A zombie army,” Amery whispered.

“No longer,” the raptor said. “Now the power is joined with the comarré’s blood. Now it will raise the comarré every time she dies.”

Chrysabelle nodded. “That’s already happened.”

The raptor held up his shackled hands. “Because you are joined with the vampire through his blood, every time you are resurrected, the power uses one of the souls trapped with him instead of a random soul.”

“The names.” Chrysabelle turned to Mal, her eyes wide and her breath ragged.

He nodded. “Now we know why they’re disappearing.” He faced the raptor. “So as long as I have names to spare, Chrysabelle will come back to life?”

The raptor stood. “No more questions. I will be paid.”

“Wait,” Chrysabelle said. “These souls that the power uses, do they get released or reborn through me? I don’t understand.”

“No more questions,” the raptor growled. He rolled his shoulders back, straining the shackles. “I will be paid.”

Mal pulled Chrysabelle behind him. “Don’t worry, I’m going to pay you.”

The raptor stilled. Then his mouth drew back in a gruesome smile. “Very good, vampire.” He swung his big head around toward Mortalis. “Out.”

Mortalis snorted. “That wasn’t part of the deal and you know it.”

With a sharp crack, the raptor snapped the shackles and came face-to-face with Mortalis. “You think these hold me, shadeux? I am here to escape the tedium of the Claustrum, not because you commanded it. I have done what you wished. Now I will be paid.”

“It’s all right,” Mal said. “But Chrysabelle goes with you.”

Mortalis glared at the raptor. “Give your oath you will not leave this room.”

“My oath,” the raptor answered.

Mortalis nodded to Amery and the two of them took the few steps to the door. Mortalis opened it halfway. “Chrysabelle, you first.”

She grabbed Mal’s hand, her eyes filled with the unspoken words he already knew. He nodded and squeezed her hand back. “Me too. Now go.”

Worrying her bottom lip, she nodded and slipped out the door. Amery followed, Mortalis behind him.

And just like that, Mal was alone with the raptor.

So, vampire, you offer the payment for the comarré.”

Mal pulled the chocolate bars from his back pocket and held them out. “Here.”

The raptor laughed. How the oddly soft sound wasn’t shredded into something awful by those rows of teeth, Mal had no idea. “Sweets. How… sweet.” The creature latched on to Mal’s forearms, dragging him closer and knocking the chocolate to the floor.

At the touch, the voices went into a dead, shivering silence, but the movement shocked Mal more than the quiet, hurtling home the reality that the raptor was now in control.

The voices crouched in the back of his brain, as far away from the raptor’s contact as they could be. Even the beast trembled, cowering like a beaten dog. Mal’s skin began to itch as the names crawled back along his arms until, for the first time since the names had appeared on his body, there was bare skin where the raptor’s long, clawed fingers touched.

“So much emotion,” the creature hissed. “Rage, bitterness, the desire for revenge, pain… all of it delicious, all of it there for my taking. Enough to sustain me for a very long time.”

“Then take it,” Mal ground out.

“But I can get all of those in the Claustrum. What I want is something else within you, something rare and sweet.”

“Great. Take whatever it is and let’s be done,” Mal snarled. All he wanted was to be rid of this creature and be back at Chrysabelle’s side. To sink into her warmth.

The fae leaned in, his razor-toothed maw widening in what Mal realized was another smile. “You’re thinking of the comarré now, aren’t you?” He tipped his head, bringing the rows of pin teeth closer to Mal’s face.

The raptor’s nostrils flared. “Oh yes. I smell her in your blood. You’ve had her recently, haven’t you?”

“You bloody—”

“I know what I shall take from you, blood eater.” His bleach scent washed over Mal as vile and wrenching as a fish kill. “I will take your love for her.”

Mal froze. “You can’t—” Pain sapped his words, his strength, his will. His head fell back and his vision clouded. Emotion drained from him like blood spilling from a gaping wound.

A vast hole formed inside him and as the raptor released him, the voices rushed in, filling the emptiness with a raging chaos. Mal stumbled, falling into the back wall. The mirror cracked. He slid down, unable to wrench control back from the curse that had just been given free rein in his head once again. He felt himself losing ground, felt the chaos spread to madness. He pushed against it.

“No,” he whispered, but it was too late. The darkness had won.

“Thank you.” Chrysabelle accepted a cup of tea and a small plate of cookies from Velimai, but set the tray on the nightstand without touching any of it. “I’m not that hungry at the moment.” Her stomach hadn’t felt right in a week. Not since everything had happened with Mal. The stress of not knowing was killing her. Or maybe it was the possibility that he was never coming out of this… coma or whatever he’d lapsed into.

Velimai nodded and sat in the far corner. Chrysabelle closed her eyes, but the image of Mal passed out on the floor and the raptor slack-jawed in ecstasy standing over him flashed through her head again. She opened her eyes. Watching him lie lifeless in the guest room of her house wasn’t much better. At least this room was in the part of the house that had already been helioglazed.