Samantha Young: Blood Past

It seeped through the walls and shimmered in the air, it clung to her skin and frightened her with its otherworldliness. A streak of colour shot by her and Eden jerked her head around to see the dark blur slice its way through the men. The yells of agony, grunts, flesh tearing, grew in crescendo as blood splatter sprayed against the wall, filling the foyer with the breath-stealing scent of copper.

Pain ricocheted through Eden’s jaw, tearing her eye as she fell backwards.

Damn! she screamed inwardly in rage as Teagan punched her and flipped her onto her back. She shot her leg up between his legs but he expected the move and sidestepped. It was enough to give Eden the space to roll away from and to her feet. She ignored the crazy massacre in the background, her entire focus on bringing her cousin down once and for all. She thought of the men and women he’d killed. The torture. The rape. The sadism that was beyond humane thinking. She thought of how he’d made her endure his crimes. How she hadn’t been strong enough to stop him.

Well… now she was.

Trying to remember all she’d learned over the last few weeks, Eden began to pace around him, waiting, with a patience she never knew she was capable of, for him to attack first. When the powerful punch came Eden reacted fluidly, sidestepping, grabbing his wrist, twisting it, pounding her knee into the weak part of his upper thigh, pushing him down, pulling his arm up. Snap.

His harsh scream didn’t fill Eden with the satisfaction she’d thought she’d feel.

A strange mix of desolation and relief crashed over her as she realised she wasn’t going to enjoy her cousin’s death as she had assumed she would. That part of her no longer existed, that part that could find some pleasure out of the darkest pieces of her heart. Yes, she wanted Teagan dead, but that’s all she wanted. She just wanted him gone. There was no joy in that. The darkness existed inside her, as it did in all things with a soul, but she no longer belonged to it. She belonged to light, a light that made her duty necessary but ugly, not something to revel in. And there was no way this piece of scum was returning to her to the dark.

Her cousin’s elbow came up and connected with her face, snapping her head back with a powerful blow. Eden staggered, hot pain blazing across her nose and down the muscles in her neck. She shook herself and readied her stance as Teagan jumped to his feet, locking his broken arm back into place.

“You’ve learned a few tricks while you’ve been gone but I could do this all day. Without a sword, you have no way of taking me down.”

As a particularly harsh scream sounded behind them, they both turned. Eden’s eyes widened in relief and… truly… fear and horror as she took in the sight of Darius standing in amongst a litter of decapitated bodies.

“What the…?” her cousin breathed behind her and for once she heard actual dread in his voice.

Darius’ face was expressionless, covered in streaks of blood, his black eyes dark and unreachable.

“Here,” he said to her and Eden blinked fast as a sword suddenly soared through the air towards her.

But just as she reached for it, a familiar arm darted out in front of her and caught it.

Noah.

Eyes wide, she took in his haggered appeared, the exhaustion from the drug still dragging in his eyes. There was blood and gore splattered over his chest and face, and a sadness in his eyes that made her heart stop.

“Mhairi’s gone,” he whispered, stepping past her and pointing the sword at Teagan. “She got me out but one of his thugs killed her.” He slanted a gaze at her. “You don’t have to do this. I can do it for you. With pleasure.”

“What do you mean the old bitch is dead?!” Teagan spat, his eyes flaring as they washed over Eden. “You should be changing! Why the hell aren’t you changing?”

“Because,” Darius omniscient voice echoed behind them, “you read the scripture wrong. All of the immediate bloodline must die in order to reverse Eden’s transition.” As relief poured through her, Teagan launched at them.

“Noah!” she shouted, stepping back and giving him the go-ahead.

At the change in Noah’s demeanour — Eden could see it took everything he had to pull his energy together to face her cousin — wariness entered Teagan’s grey eyes and he stepped back, readying himself. Noah nodded at him, his silent words telling him that this was how it was always going to end between them. Teagan’s jaw clenched as it did when he disagreed with someone, a creature blinded by his obsession.

Teagan slid back from Noah’s swings but Noah kept on him, cutting the sword through the air near her cousin’s flesh until he had him backed into a corner. At one last attempt to save himself, Teagan threw his body at Noah. Noah dropped to the floor and Teagan stumbled past him, coming up to turn to face him and finding the edge of his blade instead. Relief washed over Eden, perhaps even some satisfaction. But as she’d come to realise only moments before, there was no pleasure.

Teagan’s headless body had barely hit the floor before Noah dropped to the ground, the sword clattering out of his hands. Eden hurried over to him, falling to her knees before him, cradling his face in her trembling hands. “You’re OK?” she whispered.

He nodded, his eyes washing over her face. “I couldn’t save her.” Blinking back tears at the thought Mhairi’s demise and the awful task that lay before her of informing Tobe and her parents, Eden shook her head. “Don’t. Not your fault.” His bitter smile told her he felt differently.

Choking on tears Eden stood to her feet, dragging Noah to his and holding on to him. She turned to face the ancient Ankh who stood hovering over Cyrus and Val’s unconscious forms, a carnage of gory, bloody, pulpy, grisly unreality all around them. Limbs and heads and inside and entrails spilled across the floor and walls and Eden found herself swallowing back vomit. She focused her eyes on the warrior who had created the carnage, desperate to get the imagery out of her head. “We better get out of here. The Tribunal might be on their way.”

Darius actually nodded in agreement. “I suspect you might be right. I will help you get Cyrus and Valeria out of here before I leave.”

She nodded, unsure of how to speak to this man, this… whatever he was… “I’d appreciate it.

Could you… we need to return Mhairi’s body to her family.” Darius nodded. “I will take care of it, rest assured.”

As they hefted Cyrus and Valeria up off the floor in the foyer Eden could tell even Noah was shocked by the scene. He met Eden’s eyes with a hollowness she’d never seen before. She shook her head, too afraid of Darius to make a comment.

“There,” Darius huffed, throwing Cyrus none too gently into the back seat with Val. “Will you two be alright from here without me?”

“Um…”

The ancient warrior jerked a hand back to the house. “I have a little cleaning up to do.” He winked at her. He actually frickin’ winked at her!

“Sure,” Eden agreed quickly, helping Noah into the passenger seat. “I can take it from here.” Gravel shot up and cracked against Cyrus’ paintwork as Eden sped out of the driveway but she didn’t give a rat’s ass. At this point, she wasn’t sure who she was more afraid of. The Tribunal.

Or Cyrus’ best friend.

A confident knock on the lounge door lifted the three of them out of the silent fog they had been sharing. “Come in,” Cyrus commanded, jerking Eden to attention.

She sat curled up on one of the couches, Val at the other end, Cyrus sitting up at the mini-bar with a glass of untouched scotch. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours and for once in her life Eden hadn’t wanted to be alone to deal with it. Val and Cyrus may not have been the most talkative people on the planet but sitting with them in silence beat sitting alone in silence. The intrusion of two of Cyrus’ security men, two Warriors of Neith, awoke her with a jolt, her brain unfuzzing and focusing on the two men who strode towards Cyrus with purpose. The older of the men reached Cyrus first, his black jeans and sweater reminding her of the garb Noah favoured.