Legacy (Endlessly Book 2) (3 page)

“You can hang up your coats if you want,” Lex told us as she took off her soaked jacket and muddy boots, and slipped into tennis shoes.

Jason and Hania hung up their wet coats and removed their shoes. The voices on the other side of the door fell into whispers. I detected a jumble of thoughts coming from at least eight minds. I caught more thoughts off in the distance, mostly human. I didn’t like it. There were more people than we’d expected.

I singled out one person at a time, reading each mind’s thoughts. They ranged from apathy to anxiety, but none were as anxious as I was. Some felt un
certain about the new situation and retired to their rooms upon Hania’s arrival. I got so wound up in reading minds I didn’t notice when people began waiting on me.

Verloren leaned down and whispered: “Are
you going to take your coat off or you going to stand here all day like a drowned rat?”

His hot breath rolled down my neck. I shivered.
I don’t want to take my coat off.

Verloren stepped in front of me. He’d pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head to hold the hair out of his face. “You’re cold,” he said, tugging at the front of my coat, “and that coat is drenched. It’s not helping.”

I clenched my arms around my waist. “I don’t want them to see. I just want to go to my room.”

I felt as if I were
being shoved into the spotlight and I didn’t like it. I hadn’t noticed the noise on the other side of the door had stopped.

Lex stepped toward me, smiling. “No one here is going to hurt you
, Ashley. I promise. They’re just curious. It’s best to just rip it off, like a Band-Aid. You don’t look as strange as I do and these assholes have seen me at my worst.”

I felt a tightening in my chest. Lex was right. Just get it out of the way. Whoever was in that other room had heard, and most had been polite enough to leave, giving me space. The stragglers lingered.

I unbuttoned my soaked trench coat, my fingers cold and shaky. Verloren helped me get it off while pushing my wet hair back over my horns. Verloren and Jason’s gun holsters stuck out like sore thumbs. I removed my wet boots.

In my nervousness I’d wrapped my tai
l around my leg so tightly I’d cut off the circulation. I let it fall from under my skirt, but I couldn’t make my wings relax. They’d seized up in the cold. I decided to keep them close to my body where they were less noticeable.

With a little smile Lex extended her hand. “I’ll take you to your room so you don’t have to talk to anyone.”

I took her hand, picked up my backpack, and let her lead me through the door. I looked over my shoulder. Verloren was right behind me. Jason and Hania followed.

The three stragglers in the next room seemed to be occupied by other things. Two tw
enty-something men played a video game, their moves reflected on a large screen. One was muscular, tanned, and goateed, while the other was pale and stout. A voluptuous girl lounged on one of the couches, her nose in a book mindlessly as she petted a black longhair cat.

The space was a large combination lounge-and-game room. Black leather couches and chairs were scattered throughout. The tile from the mudroom ran through the whole place, broken only by a couple of expensive-looking rugs.

Two flat screen televisions covered opposing walls. One screen displayed the game the men were playing. The other was tuned to a random channel where a picture-in-picture square showed a black-and-white image of the empty stairway we’d just descended. A button and a switch with a speaker were clearly labeled, indicating the button operated the speaker and the switch unlocked the door.

The girl with the book wore her bleached hair in a funky razor-cut bob. She had o
n large stone earrings that hanging from a stretched hole in her earlobe. She wore a V-neck t-shirt showing a part of the large tattoo adorning her chest. Her mind was completely engulfed in her reading and she paid no attention to us.

She’s an elf,
Verloren told me.

I recalled something Verloren had told me: elves could talk to animals. I turned and found Verloren directly behind me.

“As you can tell, this is where most people hang out,” Lex told us as she guided me through the maze of chairs. “We also have a basketball court, a pool, and a gym.” A pool table and a couple of card tables were set up in the far corner of the room. Lex pointed to one doorway on the left between a sofa and one of the large TVs. “That leads to the kitchen and dining area.” She motioned to another doorway opposite from where we had entered. “That one goes to the living quarters.” She pulled on my hand, dragging me toward the door.

I overheard thoughts from the tanned blond playing video games. He sized us up then turned back to the TV. I bit my lip. Nerves burnt a hole in my stomach.

Don’t worry about him love,
Verloren told me.

It was no surprise
Verloren had picked up my subtlest fear. It was the nature of our bond. He felt my emotions even when I tried to block them. It was more proof that we were soul mates.

“This is Josh, another grotesque.” Lex pointed at the pale blond at his game controls. He waved his hand weakly, never looking away from the screen, then went back to hitting buttons on his video game controller.

Not missing a beat, Lex smacked the back of the other blond’s head as she passed.

“Hey!” the guy protested.

“Next time I’ll punch you in the throat,” Lex mumbled.

I assumed
he was Cory.

As we passed the two men I pulled my wings tighter to my body. Verloren rubbed me in between my wings. Though he was aiming for comfort, his touch stirred me in discomfiting ways. I heard his heart accelerate.

Sorry,
I told him.
It’s hard to control when you touch me.

My body craved the sexual energy to fuel my element. When I reacted to Verloren’s touch, he reacted in return. My body radiated an energy that would attract all males, but it was stronger for Verloren. It was hard to keep my mind out of the gutter, despite the fact that sex was the last distraction I needed right then.

Lex led me down the type of hallway found in an apartment building. Each door was numbered. We stopped in front of “10.”

“This will be your place,” she said. “If you guys ever need anything, there’s a credit card in the kitchen drawer. D
on’t worry about paying it back; it’s part of living here. Get some rest. Tomorrow morning you can meet us in the game room around nine. Right now Hania and I will show Jason around and get him something to eat.”

At the mention of food I touched my stomach. It lacked the slight bulge Verloren loved so much. Both of us were famished. Hania noticed my concern.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We won’t let you starve. We have donors, people who give their blood willingly. There are containers in your refrigerator. I know that it’s not preferable, but… we’ll discuss it tomorrow morning.”

What? Is something wrong?
I asked Hania, shielding my thoughts from the others.

Don’t worry. We’ll tell you tomorrow. It’s complicated.
“Get some rest. We will see you two in the morning.” He said the last part aloud.

Verloren and I entered a luxurious apartment. First we went through a great room that lived up to its name. This was followed by a combined living area and kitchen. Throughout the apartment a beige stone tile floor was offset by crimson furniture. Verloren set his sunglasses on the counter and headed for the fridge.

A door opened to the bedroom. I went inside, flipping the light on. There was a king-sized bed with a thick red comforter. When I opened the next door I found a bathroom with a garden tub and separate shower stall. The whole bathroom was done in a rugged stone tile.

A nice hot shower. That’s what I needed.

I dropped my backpack to the floor, sat down on the edge of the tub, and took off my wet socks. The tile felt warm under my feet. When I looked into the mirror my heart sank. It wasn’t my horns, wings, or tail that bothered me, nor was I concerned about fangs or skin of ghostly white. It was the eyes… always the eyes.

I approached the mirror to examine them. My irises merged with my pupils in two pitch-black pools. That was the work of the virus. They were like two black holes swallowing all light. The fact that hunger had pulled my flesh as tight as a drumhead didn’t help.

Verloren appeared in the doorway, holding up two stainless steel containers. When he grinned at me I pointed at my eyes and said: “I don’t know how you can look into these bottomless pits every day and smile.”

He sat the containers on the counter, placed one hot hand on the side of my neck
, and stared into my eyes. “I don’t see any of it,” he said. “It’s you. It’s your soul. It wouldn’t matter what you looked like. It wouldn’t matter what body you were born into. It will always be you. If I lost you again I would spend eternity looking for you. I would never let myself forget again. When I look into your eyes I don’t see anything but you.” A crooked smile spread across his lips.

“If you perished I would look for you till the end of time,” I told him.

“I doubt that either of us will come back after this life,” he said, picking up the containers from the counter. “Vampires lose their souls. Do you want O negative or AB positive?”

“Human vampires lose their souls. Nothing has been
proven with incarnate vampires,” I told him.

He winced. He was having a premonition and keeping it from me. He blinked.

I sighed. “You know you’re getting better at pretending nothing is happening when you see those. What did you see?” I took a container from him.

“It was a blur,” he
said. “I couldn’t keep up. It had something to do with the forest, but it was foggy or… smoky?”

His eyebrows scrunched together.

“Maybe you should let me see them,” I suggested. “I might help.”

He smiled sheepishly. “The feeding restrictions are odd,” he muttered, changing the subject.

“Yeah. There is more to it than Hania is letting me see. It looks like we’re going to find out tomorrow.” I kept the bond between the blond werewolf and me deeply hidden.

It was odd
I never felt hungry unless someone brought it up. I opened the container and sniffed the contents. It smelled good. I drank it.

“It won’t taste that great because it’s cold,” said Verloren, “and you’re not taking it from its source.”

It did taste stale, but it wasn’t horrible. It reminded me of bad hospital food; you never prefer it, but you have to eat it. I pulled the empty container from my mouth and gasped for air. I had been hungry for so long. Verloren chugged his. A small drop of blood formed in the corner of his mouth, then dripped down his chin and throat.

My body reacted instantly. I heard a metal container rattle on bathroom tile. It
took me a second to realize I’d tackled him, knocking us both back into the bedroom and onto the bed. Instinctively I’d gone for the blood drip and, once I’d gotten that, I’d shifted to his mouth.

Verloren chuckled as I pulled at his wet clothes. I winced when I touched his gun.

I wish you wouldn’t wear that thing. It makes me nervous.

His warm hands cradled my face. We kissed passionately.
Anything for you,
he thought as we gave in to our instincts.

3
Crumbling walls

The next morning the place was quieter. As I probed the blocked minds around me I sensed there were fewer people in the compound.

When Verloren and I walked toward the game room, people ignored us. I heard Jason before I saw him. He was playing video games with the two blond men. They were cussing and yelling about who’d killed whom. It was nice to see him fit in.

Lex and Hania sat at a card table, lost in conversation. Hania wore his usual brown cloak. We sat across from them. Verloren squeezed my hand to calm my fidgeting.

Hania looked worried. “I’ll get to the point. Almost everyone here knows what’s going on. The exceptions are you two, Jason, and the new man who showed up last night.”

“New?” Verloren asked.

I started scanning people’s minds to see what they knew.

“Yeah, Jenny brought home a stray,” Lex said.

An Asian man sat on a couch staring at us. Tho
ugh his face had subtly changed and he no longer wore glasses, I recognized him immediately.

The demon,
I thought, addressing only Verloren,
from the club.

Not long before we’d faced the Quatre we’d spent an evening in a club. That was when Verloren told me about demons and angels. He described how, in place of shifting, they constantly evolved. They never died. Though each one started out the same, their lives and environments determined their abilities. With a single word they could influence people to act, even if the action went against that person’s will. If they influenced people to do good, they became angels. An angel could save a life, though the effort would drain the angel’s strength. On the other hand, a de
mon wielded negative influence and if this being took a life it only added to the demon’s strength.

Verloren’s eyes twitched and his eyelids fluttered. Another premonition he
hid from me. He focused on Lex and nodded at the demon. “Are you sure about him?” he whispered.

I searched Verloren’s mind, but then he threw up a wall so fast it made me wince.
He shook his head at me.

“We ca
n take care of it,” Lex told him.

What do you mean, take care of it?
I asked all three of them.

Lex looked at me as she told me.
I think the three gargoyles should be able to handle whatever he dishes out, even with a large group like ours.

I don’t like the fact
I can’t read his mind at all,
I told them.
He’s not putting up a wall. It’s just blank.
I opened my mind to my three companions, creating a telepathic conference call. Now we could communicate freely.

Verloren scanned the room, and thought:
Those girls over there chatting… read the one with long black hair.

That’s Fabiola Nino,
Lex told us
. We all call her Fabi.

I pushed and pried at her thoughts, then lo
oked at my companions. “Nothing,” I said.

“She’s an angel,” said Lex.

With my mind open I thought:
Apparently we have found a weak spot in my ability to read minds.

“Let’s not worry about it now. We have more important things to
go over,” Hania said. He stood and motioned for us to follow him. As we walked past the guys playing video games Hania said: “Jason, come with us.”

The muscular blond, Cory, taunted Jason. “What the hell? You pussin’ out, man?”

“You can have your boyfriend back in a few minutes, Cory,” said Lex.

“Whatever,
” Cory responded. “You’re the one who’s drooling all over him.” He made a mock embrace, accompanying it with obscene noises and gestures. I started to laugh, then stifled it. I wanted to stay on Lex’s good side.

“You dick!” Lex spat at him, her
cheeks flushing. She walked off and we followed. Cory and Josh laughed.

I looked over my shoulder at Jason. He wore an evil grin. Cory started humping a chair. “Get her, Jason!”

Laughter followed us as we walked down the hallway past our apartments. At the end of the hallway we descended a stairway to a room with wooden floors. After a moment I realized what it was: an empty basketball court. A glass wall separated the room from a large pool.

We crossed the court to a thick steel door and entered a small gym crammed with every piece of fitness equipment one could imagine. We wove in and out of the equipment and found another heavy steel door. As Lex opened this one we entered a hall. Screams and snarls erupted from somewhere down at the end.

Jason jumped back. “Fuck you guys! I’m not going in there! You’re not doing that to me again!” I saw his eyes yellowing as he backed out the door.

“He’s going to shift!” Verloren barked. At a blinding speed he had me up against the wall with his back to me, his arms stretched wide in a protective stance.

Hania sang a song quickly in the same strange language as before. Jason froze. “It’s al
l right, Jason. It’s all right,” Hania said softly. “We’re not going to lock you up. We have something we need to show you. You need to be aware. This is why we have feeding restrictions for Ash.” Hania gave me a glance of apology as the wails continued.

Jason remained crouched
and ready to shift. Hania sung a word. Jason relaxed. Verloren stepped away from me.

It wouldn’t have hurt me,
I told Verloren.

Sorry. It’s habit to protect what I don’t want to lose.

The wailing died down.

Hania spoke: “When I came back to the States I found a crazy mess. Some of the incarnates and vampires had gotten out of control. Gangs were forming, attacking and killing individuals, and battling other gangs to the death. They couldn’t be reasoned with.”

“The riots,” I said mindlessly.

“That’s what they told the public, but the reality was worse—indiscriminate slaughter beyond anything known before. They ripped, bit, and sometimes ate parts of their victims. They were cannibals, and when they left their victims ‘alive,’ those victims became cannibals too.”

Lex spoke up: “We have people in high places, and they recognized the un-human nature of this behavior. They acted quickly. They captured a couple to study and we destroyed the rest. We brought the study subjects here under heavy anesthesia.”

“See for yourself.” Hania gestured toward the end of the hall.

The screaming resumed as we neared, then the smell hit me. I pressed my nose to my sleeve.

“They smell pretty bad,” said Lex.

“Oh my god. It smells like fucking troll ass in here,” Jason complained.

At the end of the hall to the left another hall started. This one was lined on both sides with prison cells. The screaming reached a high pitch.

In the cell were two creatures who had once been a man and woman. Their grayish green skin was bruised, puffy, and starting to sag from their bones. Wherever they had wounds maggots festered. They gripped the bars, rattling the cell doors. The flesh on their fingertips had worn away, leaving the bone exposed. Blood and dirt covered their bodies and matted their hair. Their teeth were like shards of broken glass, and they gnashed them loudly. They’d long since bitten off their tongues. Their screams never stopped.

The girl’s face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The man’s throat was shredded, his windpipe demolished, leaving me to wonder how he made any sounds at all. Their eyes seemed to reflect my own: bottomless black pits. My stomach sank as my body tingled with shock.

“No auras,” Verloren whispered, shaking his head. “No souls.”

Hania strained to be heard over the wailing. “Their souls have moved on with the death of their bodies. They have no pulse.”

“What?” I breathed.

Hania pointed to the wailing girl. “That one,” he said. “I read what was left of her clouded memories when she was unconscious. She saw you, Ashley… at a
club. Her mind went fuzzy and blank after that.”

I looked at the girl. That was why she looked familiar. The outfit was the same one she had worn that night. She was th
e girl I had fed from at the same club where we’d seen the demon. From her battered, torn clothes I knew he must have captured her.

Hania kept his ey
es fixed on me. “I believe the vampire virus has mutated with you, Ashley. Instead of creating another vampire, it creates these mindless eating machines. Even beyond death, they come back.”

I blinked rapidly at these beings, feeling their hunger. A deep-rooted agony filled their minds. My tears clouded my vision as the creatures continued their endless screams. My wall crumbled under this tidal wave of misery. I couldn’t block out anything.

Verloren reached for me as I clasped my hands over my ears. The screams only grew louder. Without ever intending to, I had created zombies. Now I felt their pain. A tear rolled down my cheek.

“FUCKING STOP!” I roared.

Silence.

I opened my eyes, uncovered my ears, and heard only clicking sounds. We watched the creatures in the cell. They stared at me, their arms hanging at their sides. The only sound was the clatter of teeth as their jaws opened and shut. I cautiously moved toward the cell.

“Don’t get too close,” Lex stepped forward to stop me, but Hania pulled her back.

“Wait,” he said.

The creature’s eyes followed me. The smell made me want to gag. Their minds were open fields, waiting. They didn’t have a single coherent thought other than pain and hunger.

Just get away from me,
I thought, cringing.

They stepped back in unison. Their chewing slowed, but they continued to snap their teeth.

“Sit down,” I told them.

They both sat down on the bench. They stared at me, waiting. They had no other thoughts. I wasn’t forcing them to move, I was just telling them how. They both followed instructions. How could they do anything else?

“I’m not making them do it,” I said.

Hania shuffled toward me, the hem of his cloak whispering across the ground. “Get up,” he commanded the monsters. They didn’t
move. He sang a spell to them. They never flinched. He pulled his wand from his cloak and pointed it at them, trying another spell. They didn’t move.

Hania turned to me. “Would you mind if I read you?”

I glanced at Verloren, who nodded his approval and offered my hand to Hania. His rough palm felt warm against mine and I noticed his knuckles were swollen. He stared above my head as if he saw something fascinating floating above me. I felt his mental invasion. He searched every inch, even the vault. That was where I locked up all the fear and anxiety I kept from Verloren.

Time passed; I wasn’t sure how much.

“Necromancer,” Hania said, letting go of my hand. He snapped out of his daze and said: “The mutated virus reanimates the dead bodies after you feed from them. Their bodies die, they become brain dead, and when they reawake, they operate by instinct. Their first urge is to survive, which requires food. Their diet is the same as yours but, with their minds gone, they lack the coordination to get it. When you bit them you created a mental link, becoming the whole of their thoughts. You can control them.”

“So how do you kill them?” I asked.

“We shoot them in the head. Just like a vampire.” Lex cast an apologetic glance at Verloren. “That’s why we had you drink the blood in the containers. All of those people that were here when you arrived, most of them were humans. Donors. Sarah, a vampire, uses her mind control to get them here.”

I flinch
ed when she mentioned the name Sarah. That had been the name of the fairy child whose presence in the Quatre had caused us so much grief.

Lex continued,
“Then Coylene, a born knowing, tampers with their memories. They think they came here for a blood drive. But they won’t be able to remember how to get back here or know that it was in the middle of nowhere. We are lucky enough that Coylene knows how to draw blood and how to get the equipment to do it.”

Jason butted in,
“So she makes fucking zombies and now we have to fuckin’ bottle feed her?” He rolled his eyes and mumbled: “This shit just keeps getting better and better.”

Verloren growled at Jason.

“Oh come on, Verloren.” Jason smacked him on the shoulder. “I never pictured you as the type for high maintaince chicks.”

Verloren ignored him and turned to Hania. “What if after she fed from a human she destroyed the brain? I’ve seen her crush a human skull.” He
wrapped his arm around my waist and thumbed an inky tear from my cheek.

His touch ignited my longing.
I felt his chest rise and fall and recalled the skull-crushing scene Verloren had mentioned. He’d been an asshole I’d known before I changed. I’d been out for revenge and I only gave him what he’d long deserved.

“As long as she destroys the brain, I don’t see any problems,” Hania said. “I’m not really sure about the consumption of the virus.” With a silent thought he told me
:
You know it will create a link.