Karen Chance: Touch The Dark

By the time I managed to pry the fingers around my neck loose and throw the arm on the floor, he had stopped moving, frozen like a statue at the end of the aisle. I tried to keep an eye on him but was distracted by the severed arm, which was trying to scrabble across the floor and grab me. I wasn't real clear on what was happening, but my best guess was that each ghost was freezing a tiny bit of the vamp, turning him into a big. ugly Popsicle. I had just begun to wonder what would happen when all those spirits tried to escape from his now unyielding flesh when the explosion came. I'd grabbed a wine bottle and started hitting the arm, so I missed the big event. All I know is that I ended up covered in icy bits of vampire flesh that hit me like tiny hailstones.

Portia drifted over, avoiding the repulsive floor by simply not touching it. She twirled her lacy parasol and beamed at me. "We must go, Cassie. That took a lot out of the boys and they need to rest. But we want you to know that we had a lovely time!" She took Beauregard's arm and curtsied while he made another bow; then they vanished along with the crowd that flowed out of the vamp's remains.

I sat in the middle of a patch of melting goo, too stunned for action, and rubbed my neck. My face stung from where the storm of vamp parts had hit me, but my throat was more of an issue. I couldn't seem to swallow, and it had me worried. I might have sat there quite a while, watching vamp bits melt and fall off the shelving, but Tomas appeared at the end of the aisle.

"Hurry!" He grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me into the main part of the room. I yelped in pain—he'd taken hold of the same wrist the vamp had almost twisted off—and in surprise at seeing him alive. I'd pretty much written us both off, but now it occurred to me to wonder who had been fighting with the vamps if Portia's group had been with me. His hand was dripping blood and for a second I thought it was his, but I couldn't see a wound. My yell must have startled him, because he abruptly let go and I slumped to the floor, wheezing and choking at the strain the scream had put on my abused throat. It was then, while cradling my wrist to my chest and trying not to be sick, that I noticed the bodies.

Other than my first attacker, who was now minus an arm and making gurgling sounds as the ward ate through his chest, the only one still moving was trapped under a shelving unit that looked like it had been torn from the wall and thrown on top of him. It had contained a bunch of metal sheets left over from the urban warehouse theme Mike had done on the club, which had been salvaged from a condemned factory. They weren't some designer's idea of stylish metal siding, but the real thing—thick, razor-edged pieces that Mike had had to be extra careful with when installing. They had apparently gotten up some momentum when the shelving was tossed around, turning them into lethal projectiles that had sliced up the vamp like a loaf of bread. He must have fed recently, because enough blood had poured from the multiple gashes to spread across the floor like a crimson blanket.

None of the strips had taken off his head or pierced his heart, however, so despite his gruesome injuries, he continued to live. He looked in my direction, and I saw him struggle to raise the gun he clutched in one hand. Tomas noticed and without hesitation walked over and pulled out the metal sheet embedded in the vamp's abdomen. He brought it down in a series of quick, meaty-sounding thuds while I stared at him in openmouthed disbelief. Within a few seconds, the thing on the floor resembled a pile of raw hamburger more than a person.

The vamp's eyes continued to glare at me in hatred, aware of what was happening even as he was butchered, and I couldn't scream, couldn't do anything. I'd been in some tight spots before, but the nerves forget what it is to remain bowstring tight every minute of every day when you don't have to live that way anymore. I watched Tomas sever the vamp's head from his body with a final jarring thud, and let out the breath I hadn't even known I was holding. We were alive. I couldn't believe it, and I sure as hell didn't understand it.

Growing up at Tony's had given me a fairly high tolerance for violence, so I was sort of holding things together until I noticed that the corpses of the fourth and fifth vamps had gaping, ragged holes where their hearts should have been. Staking is the traditional and still most popular way of dealing with a vamp, but I guess ripping the heart out manually works, too, although I'd never seen it done that way. I was thinking that I could live without ever seeing it again when I looked at Tomas and, suddenly, the room fell away.

Normally, I get some kind of warning when I'm about to have a vision. Not that I can stop them, but the thirty seconds or so of disorientation that precede them give me time to get out of other people's sight and let me mentally prepare. This time, I got nothing. It was as if the floor just gave way and I fell down a long, dark tunnel. When I landed, Tomas stood about six feet from me on a grassy plain that seemed to go on forever under a pale blue sky. His skin was burnished bronze instead of sun-kissed cream and he was dressed in a sleeveless, dirty, woolen tunic instead of Goth chic, but it was definitely him. His eyes were wild, glittering like two dark jewels in his face, and his expression was triumphant. A group of similarly dressed men surrounded him, all looking like their favorite team had just won the Super Bowl.

Waves crashed onto a rocky shore nearby, their color a green so deep it was almost black, and sent a cold breeze inland in icy gusts. It would have been a stark but beautiful scene if not for the couple of dozen bodies lying around. Most of them looked European, with the closest in an outfit that could have come out of an underfunded pirate movie: white cotton shirt with full sleeves, brown linen knee pants and soiled white hose. The man had lost his shoes and his hair was as wild as his expression.

As I watched in horrified fascination, Tomas thrust a crude bronze knife into the man's still-heaving chest and cut a deep gash that ripped it open from neck to belly. Heat from the wound mixed with the cold air to cause a cloud of steam to rise, but it wasn't thick enough to keep me from seeing him tear through the ribs like he was snapping twigs. Bright rivulets of blood bathed his hand as he brought out the trembling heart and held it aloft; then slowly, as if savoring the moment, he began to lower it to his mouth. His teeth sank into quivering flesh that was still trying to beat, then tore through a pulsing vein that sent a stream of blood gushing across his face and down his chin. The cascade pooled in the hollow in his throat, then sent red fingers down his chest into his tunic, leaving abstract designs behind so that he looked like he was wearing war paint. His throat convulsed and he swallowed, causing a cheer to go up from the watching warriors.

I must have made some type of noise, because he looked across at me and, flashing red-stained teeth in a horrible parody of a smile, held out the grisly mass of flesh as if to offer to share. He took a step forward and I realized I was rooted to the spot, unable to stop him, unable to get away, as that dripping hand with its gruesome offering came closer. My paralysis finally broke and I screamed.

It hurt my throat, but there was no way I could have held it back. The vision shattered and I was back in the gory storeroom, staring wildly at the new Tomas, who, for a split second, was superimposed on the old. His tongue slid out to lick up a tiny drop of red at the corner of his mouth, so small that it had been unnoticeable until he drew attention to it. I remember thinking that old habits die hard, right before I began shrieking at the top of my lungs.

He took a step towards me, hands held out in front of him as if to show how harmless he was, and I saw that they were almost clean again. As he came closer, a final stain on the pad of one palm dissolved, vanishing into his skin like a drop of water into desert sand. I realized that I was scuttling backwards like a crab, crying and swearing, but I didn't care. I slipped in blood and went down, and screamed harder when I saw that my legs were covered in red, like roses had bloomed on my hose and boots. Tomas came towards me slowly, speaking calmly, as if I were a skittish colt he was trying to tame. "Cassie, please listen. We've bought some time, but we must go. There will be others."