Blood Shadows (38 page)

Before she could identify the source of her unease, a swirl of dark colors began to illuminate in the room before her. She took a step back toward the window, watching in suspended dread as an extremely attractive, tall redhead simply shimmered into view. The woman was wearing a thin black dress, the hem just below the apex of her thighs, and extremely high, spiked black heels. Her hair was an unnatural color, like the center of a flame, and her eyes were beyond vacant. They were aberrations of nature—unnatural—two vacant coals lodged in a plastic face, peering out at Deanna from a world far beyond this one.

Deanna swallowed hard. “Who are you?”

The female sauntered forward and slowly licked her cherry-red lips. “My name is Noiro.” She rolled her words with a heavy, seductive lilt. “I am the twin energy, if you will, of the Celestial deity Orion.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “His demon sister, if you want it in plain English.” Her voice turned icy cold. “And I am your rival for Nachari’s affections.”

Deanna frowned as she tried to process what the woman was saying. She had no doubt that this…thing…was a demon from hell, but if this Noiro knew Nachari—and she was here on the earth—then where was he? Could Nachari be—

“Shh,” Noiro interrupted, wagging a long finger back and forth through the air. “Now is not the time to think; it is the time to
listen
.”

Deanna stared ahead at the demon, not daring to utter a word, even as she used her peripheral vision to take measure of the room, calculate what objects might be used as a weapon, and determine the most direct route of escape.

Growing up in the tough streets of New Orleans, Deanna was no stranger to conflict or street brawls. As a child, she had been forced to fight the bullies at school in order to keep her lunch money until she had finally grown into her full height. Unfortunately, after that, there had been a handful of altercations with jealous females, girls whose boyfriends had come on to Deanna, albeit without any encouragement on her part. Still, she had learned how to hold her own; and while she knew she was no match for a demon, she also had no intention of lying down and dying without a fight.

“I’ve never even met Nachari,” Deanna said defiantly, trying to stall for time.
Kagen!
She would try the telepathic route; maybe she could call for help.
Marquis, help me!

The demon threw back her head and laughed, flame-red hair swaying back and forth along her shoulders. “Your powers are no match for my own, silly woman. This room is locked. No energy gets in. No energy gets out.” Her eyes narrowed, and the pupils transformed into vertical slits like a cat’s, glowing in the center of the orbs. “I hate you,” the demon whispered.

Deanna blanched.

Not that demons didn’t pretty much hate everyone in general, but the focused rage was like a dagger being thrust at her heart. Why would this particular demon single her out? “You don’t even know me,” Deanna argued instinctively.

Noiro slowly shook her head and frowned. “Oh, I know you, all right. I know that the Master Wizard loves you, that he wants you, that he would move heaven and earth to get to you, when he could have me instead.”

Deanna shrank inside. Unfortunately, she knew all too well where this was headed. Eyeing the narrow brass lamp on the nightstand, she measured how many steps it would take to reach it; the angle she would have to yank at to dislodge the cord, and the swing she would have to muster to connect with Noiro’s skull. It would buy her all of two seconds to escape, and she would have to climb over the bed to get to the door. She thought about the window, which was closer, but the opening was too narrow and the drop was too high. So be it.

“Look. Nachari and I aren’t really—”

“No, you look!” the demon screeched, her phony seductive voice suddenly turning monstrous and unbalanced. “You look into the face of death, and you know that I shall take his body, his soul, and his offspring before he dies!”

Deanna watched in growing horror as the woman’s appearance began to change: Her straight white teeth morphed into a hideous set of crooked fangs and rotten gums; her tongue became forked and slithered in and out of her mouth as she spat in anger; and her beautiful doe eyes narrowed into tiny yellow slits.

As reason gave way to rage, the demoness crouched lower and lower into a squat, preparing to pounce.

Deanna had seen enough.

Summoning all the strength and speed of the Vampyr, she flew toward the nightstand, grasped the base of the lamp with her right hand, and spun around swinging. The center connected with the demon’s forehead just as she launched into the air; a stiff crack rang out, and Noiro catapulted backward.

Deanna leapt onto the bed. She led with her right foot, extending her left foot forward in an effort to hurdle the remaining expanse as she fled toward the door. She let out a high-pitched cry of pain as a pair of gnarled hands grasped her around the ankle and tugged. Deanna thrust her hands out in front of her to avoid banging her head against the tile as her body met the floor. Her head swung forward with momentum but barely scraped the tile. She twisted like a cat, amazed at her newfound agility, and used her strong abdominal muscles to pull herself up and onto the bed, all the while twisting out of the demon’s grasp. She kicked hard at Noiro’s face—if that was even what one could call it—putting everything she had into knocking out those horrendous teeth. “Get. Off. Me!” she bit out, her own anger rising.

Noiro began to levitate into the air then, rising like some ghostly apparition from a horror movie, her aura spreading out around her in thick, inky waves of darkness. Fire shot forth from her mouth, and her eyes glowed like the flames of hell, even as her laughter ricocheted off the walls. “You want to fight?
Me?
” The utterance that came out of her next could only be compared to a sound from the movie
The Exorcist
: It was a low, grotesque, demonic roar; and it sent waves of terror down Deanna’s spine like nothing she had ever experienced before.

“Oh, God…” Deanna murmured, backpedaling on the bed.

She instinctively held her arms out in front of her, both to block Noiro’s descent and to prepare to fight, but the demon simply laughed. And then, a dozen arms came out of nowhere, each one slithering like a vile snake, wrapping around Deanna’s arms, legs, and torso. As Noiro tightened her grip, her body descended toward the bed, rolls of fat jiggling in undulating waves. Slimy scales of skin broke free from demon flesh and spiraled downward like snow, coating Deanna’s quivering body.

A forked tongue shot out of Noiro’s mouth and flicked back and forth in rapid waves…taunting. “Do you want to play for a while…or die quickly?” She spewed green vomit at the headboard behind Deanna’s head, and a dozen little green maggots squirmed down the oak bedpost toward the bed.

Deanna clenched her mouth shut, knowing instinctively that the worms would enter her body through her mouth if they could. And then she watched in absolute horror as five claws from one of Noiro’s hands merged together, becoming one round, serrated blade. The blade began to twist and turn in rapid succession like a bit at the end of a drill. Noiro held the aberrant hand over Deanna’s forehead and raised her eyebrows in question.

Deanna squirmed and shook her head.

She moved it lower over Deanna’s abdomen and shrugged her shoulders.

Deanna grimaced and started to whimper.

And then, with a wicked smile upon her face, she held it even lower, between Deanna’s legs, and snickered.

“No!” Deanna protested, horrified at the thought. “No…please.” A small green maggot leapt at her mouth, and she quickly shut it, catching the worm by the head before it could enter any further. She spat it out with revulsion.

“Then where?” Noiro asked, her voice dripping pure, malicious venom. She pressed the blade against Deanna’s inner thigh, and Deanna screamed beneath a closed mouth, the sound coming out as a high-pitched hum.

“Ah, the stomach then?” Noiro hissed, raising the blade once again.

Deanna’s eyes filled with helpless, horrified tears, and she shook her head in defeat. The stomach would be horrendous; it would take forever, and she may or may not die. “The head,” she bit out between pursed lips.

Noiro smiled brightly. “A lobotomy then?”

Deanna bit back a sob and slowly nodded her head. As Noiro raised the spinning blade to her forehead, Deanna closed her eyes and said a quick prayer to her father:
I’ll be home soon,
Daddy—please be there to meet me.

Nachari Silivasi struggled to regain a sense of time and space, to orient himself in his ever-changing reality as he sped through the endless tunnel. On several occasions, he could feel Noiro’s presence close behind him as the colors, sounds, and smells assaulted his heightened senses; and he had to continuously remind himself to stay focused, prepare to act quickly, remember to think clearly, get ready to strike immediately upon emergence. Noiro would not be an easy opponent. She was a demon, after all, and it would require all of his cunning to defeat her swiftly. And time was definitely of the essence.

Now, as his astral body began to slow, adjusting to the slightly less dense conditions of the earth, he drew all of his strength and power inward, amassing it into a tight ball of focused power, preparing to strike the moment his spirit reentered his physical form. He could almost feel the glorious expanse of his shoulders, the burgeoning strength of his waiting arms, the familiar support of his powerful legs beneath him; and although he was aware that his body would be weakened and unsteady from months without use, he had no doubt that he could compensate for atomic deficiencies with mental focus. Yes, he could hardly wait to feel his heart beating beneath his chest once again.

And then it happened.

Emergence.

A transition so smooth and seamless that it was hardly even felt.

One moment he was spinning without end at speeds that defied the laws of physics; the next, he was simply sentient, aware, and grounded on earth.

Slightly confused and off balance, Nachari ran his hands down his chest, expecting to feel his earthly, physical form beneath him, even as his eyes searched for the familiar sight of a hospital bed and white sheets, understanding that his brothers had kept him in the clinic, but…something was wrong.

Off.

Not as it should be.

As Nachari surveyed the scene around him, the impressions he got were not
sterile and white
but
earthen and brown
. The texture beneath him was not soft and smooth, but hard and uneven. His body had not emerged in a horizontal position but parallel to the ground. And there was no beating heart in his chest.

Nachari spun around in horror, his eyes taking in the familiar meadow around him. He scanned the trees, the cabins, and the grass. For a moment, he spied the exact spot where he had died, the place he had lain that fateful day when he had flatlined in order to go after Napolean, but his mind could not grasp hold of it.

There simply wasn’t time.

All five of his senses acutely alert, he listened for a second presence. He scented the air for Noiro’s distinct, identifying fragrance. He scanned high and low with his eyes for the faintest hint of movement, switching effortlessly to infrared detection in order to identify any unusual patterns of heat. He turned his palms upward and felt for microscopic disturbances in the air, movement from something larger than a squirrel or a rabbit. He detected a deer not too far off in the forest, and a mountain lion several miles away, but nothing human—or demon, as it were—in the meadow. He licked his bottom lip to test the presence of acidity in the air, searching for proof that the demoness was there.

But she simply wasn’t anywhere to be found.

She simply wasn’t there.

And then it hit him. Like a thousand pounds of bricks crashing down on top of him:
Deanna.

Noiro had gone to the clinic. And he had emerged in the meadow—without his earthly body.

Time stood still.

His breath caught in his throat.

Moving faster than he had ever moved before, Nachari raced against time, praying that he wasn’t too late.

twenty-five

Kagen Silivasi sat at the end of Nachari’s bed, staring at his youngest living brother with bitter hopelessness. He just couldn’t believe this was it. All the days, the nights, the endless prayers and hopes—the countless smiles and memories from the past—they had all come down to this, a silent exit into final death.

Another brother lost.

He turned to look at Marquis and Nathaniel, each one perched silently in a chair beside Nachari’s bed, and he had to turn away. There was nothing to be said or done; they were not even strong enough to comfort Deanna. Hell had visited the Silivasi family with a vengeance, and it was about to take the heart and soul of their clan…forever.

Kagen rotated his wrist to check his watch again, six thirty-five; and then, he shot up from the bed and backed away as a furious gust of wind swept through the room like a cyclone. All at once, a deafening roar shook the clinic walls, and a ball of blazing fire descended through the ceiling and tunneled into Nachari’s body with the power of a freight train.