Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (15 page)

I thought about all the headless girls in my living room.
Was that all of them? Had she shut down her blood operation on account of me?
It would explain why she wanted my head on a pike.

“Dylan,” Cyrus laid his hand on mine. “I don’t think it’s
your head she wants. I think it’s your soul.”

“Oh, that ol’ thing?” My head swam and I felt very tired.

“It’s not funny,” Mike scowled.

He was suddenly squared off. His shoulders stiff, I could
see the vein in his neck pulsate. His reaction was a little slow for the
situation, but in his defense, he had just been informed vampires, or something
like them, walked around like you and me. And, in this situation, they were the
good guys.

“You’re telling
me
it’s not funny? I know it’s not fucking funny. It was my phantom wound that
bled all over the House of Porte and drenched my dress. It was my legs that ran
through my front door from an unseen demon at my heels. It was my prayers that
echoed through my dark apartment when naked headless zombie bitches burst
through my door. When you are the jackass with a voodoo curse on your head,
I’ll take your advice, until then…” I exhaled, “shut up until Cyrus says to shoot
someone.” He didn’t like that but what other choice did he have? Storm off the
plane and into thin air? Not fucking likely.

“Shoot them with what? As of right now, I have no gun and my
badge means nothing.”

“Malcolm will ensure we are prepared. Marienne is one of
Malcolm’s oldest friends; she is a priceless ally. Once we are on the ground,
there should be a car waiting to take us to House of Porte. Malcolm must have
rallied the Primus attending Masque de Sang and will have a plan when we
arrive. To be honest, detective, I doubt your gun would do much good anyhow.”

“Then what good am I?” He sounded desperate. He rarely
sounded that way unless it had to do with me.
Oh
.

“Your love for Dylan,” Cyrus said without skipping a beat.
Mike looked up from his lap and stared at Cyrus. Surprise was plastered all
over his expression. “You can’t let it cloud your judgment. You may have to
have trust and faith in things very new to you, but your love for Dylan will
force you to do whatever it takes.”

“That is nothing different than it has always been,” Mike
promised.

“You will also need to trust
me
.” They were both quiet for a few breaths. “Trust that you are
not the only man on this earth who would rather she stay alive.”

Mike nodded. He knew what Cyrus meant. He knew and he
understood. Whether he accepted it or not didn’t matter. Cyrus knew Mike loved
me first and would never stop. It would take death, his, not mine. Mike now
knew exactly what intentions motivated Cyrus. He didn’t love me. Honestly, it’d
be stupid of him to even attempt those feelings at this point, but that didn’t
mean he wanted me dead, or hurt. And regardless of our rocky beginnings, I felt
the exact same way… about both of them.

My eyes felt heavy. Sleep felt like a thing I’d only read
about in books. I’d been on two flights in less than twenty-four hours and not
a wink of sleep in between. Unless you counted the weird black lion nap, but
that was really more of a chance for my brain to make shit in my head just that
much more hectic.

The two guys I’d brought with me huffed in silence. Surely
plotting something stupid individually, instead of coming together and figuring
out what the fuck we were going to do. Neither of them was stupid in all
honesty. I trusted both to fight to the death. I just didn’t trust them not to
fight to the death on opposing sides. We were the good guys. Mostly. We all had
a devil on our backs. Just depended on who pulled the strings. You or your
devil.

I walked down a long white hallway.
Lights above flickered a florescent glow – off, on, off, on – reflecting off
the dull linoleum floor. My view was as if I was walking directly in the
footsteps of myself. The hallway continued on infinitely. Closed doors lined
either side of the wide walkway. I was in a hospital. The white walls and
sterile tile fixtures gave it away. Why I was wearing a floor length black
gown, wandering through the halls of a hospital was beyond me. My thick hair
was rolled intricately around itself at the base of my neck. The deep exposure
of my back revealed my usually hidden tattoo, an interesting and moderately
ironic combination. My rarely seen rose covered spine tattoo trailed down the
center of my back and seemed to continue in the stark white spine and skeletal
tail embroidered down the bustle and train of my dress.

I could hear my bare
feet slap against the linoleum floor with each step. I followed myself down the
oddly lit hallway. Past closed doors with tiny windows. Past a fire
extinguisher on the wall. Past rows of sterile metal chairs pressed against the
walls on either side.

A scream echoed
through the hall from behind me. I watched as my head turned to look over my
shoulder and investigate the origin of the scream. My face looked different.
Wrong somehow. Older maybe. My brows clenched. A second later, my feet slapped
the floor hard and fast as I took off into a full sprint away from the screams
that echoed through the hall.

The train of my
dress made an unsuitable sound as it dragged behind me along the floor. It
sounded like running water. The whir and slap, whir and slap rhythm I created,
reverberated off the walls around me.

My body jumped and
jerked but didn’t stop when something banged from the other side of a closed
door. With each slap of my feet, another door came to life. Whir – slap – bang.
Whir – slap – bang. Scream.

I didn’t look this
time. I just ran. I ran down a never-ending hallway of madness. Whir – slap –
bang - scream. A song began to build as I ran. I heard my breath coming through
intermittently. The rhythm built. A score composed of fear and madness. Whir –
slap – bang – scream.

An end approached. A
door. The exit. The grand finale to this composition. Feet away, it came
faster. Whir – slap – bang – scream – SLAM. My body made it through the door
and slammed it behind me.

But I was just a
bystander. It was me who ran through the door, but I still stood in the hallway
staring at the door. In silence. No bang. No whir. No slap. Just me. SCREAM.
And that.

“Dylan?” Mike’s tone was urgent as he squeezed my arms.
“Dylan.” My torso shook.

I felt my eyes twitch and flick open. It took a second
longer for the scene to fill my vision.

“She’s okay,” Cyrus assured.

“Dylan?” Mike urged my attention to focus on him.

“What? Why are you squeezing me?” I shook him off and tried
to right myself.

I sat up and realized I was on the carpeted floor. Squished
between two rows of airplane seats. I felt fine. Why was I on the floor? My
brows furrowed and I looked about my environment. My little messenger bag sat
in the empty seat next to me. Mike stood over me in the row and Cyrus sat
behind me in the aisle that ran through the middle. A gaggle of passengers
stood gawking at me.

“She’s fine. She’s had a long day and needs some rest,” Mike
told a stewardess and motioned for the passengers to move along.

A middle-aged woman leaned over the back of the seat nearest
Mike. “I have a Valium in my purse if she needs it,” she whispered.

Mike smiled and I could see the thoughts forming in his
head. He wanted to take it from her. He wanted me to take it and sleep. Sleep
while he and Cyrus saved Tatum. Sleep while Tatum waited, while he killed
Cyrus. Sleep until he had me back home and safe in his bed. None of that would
happen like it was happening in his head, but I knew Mike. He was processing
all the possibilities.

“No, thank you.” He smiled and shook his head. He had
finally processed the most likely of all the scenarios. We all die.

The woman smiled back and moved on to her seat. She passed
me and smiled sympathetically down at me, before she noticed Cyrus. Her eyes
moved over him and back to Mike. Then back again. Her sympathetic smile changed
to pride and she gave me a wink before moving on. In her eyes, I had two
attractive well-built men looking after me. I was in a very good situation - in
her eyes. What could be wrong with two hunks at your beck and call?
Want to find out? I’ll trade you.

“I’m fine.” I waved Mike off.

My big body was bigger than the space I was crammed in, so
getting up was something like…well…pulling your fat ass out of a small space.
It took a few minutes and I cussed a lot, but I made it back into my seat. I
felt my face flush and turn red with exhaustion and embarrassment.

I sat for a minute before I asked anyone who would listen,
“What the holy fuck was I doing on the floor?” Judging solely by the difficulty
removing myself from said conundrum, I could only imagine the flailing that had
to happen to get me down there in the first place.

Both men sat as near to me as they could get, while still
avoiding each other. Of course. “We were talking and you fell asleep.”

“I’m so tired,” I said mostly to myself, shaking off the
sensation of sleep still floating around my head.

“It’s no wonder. You’ve been awake for nearly two days, give
or take a nap or two,” Cyrus butted in.

Mike shot him a disdainful glance. “Like I was saying, we
were talking and you sacked out. I knew you needed sleep so I left you alone. A
few minutes ago, you just started screaming and kicking. Before we knew, it you
were huddled on the floor between the seats crying.”

Crying? Me? Never.

“I had the weirdest dream.” I didn’t remember screaming in
my dream, just hearing a scream coming from somewhere else.

Cyrus looked at me like my head had fallen off and rolled
down the aisle. “What kind of dream?”

Nothing as fucked as the Cyrus turning into a lion dream,
but
fucky
nonetheless. “I was watching myself walk
down a hallway.”

“That’s it?” Mike asked disbelieving.

 
“Someone screamed so
I ran and found a door. I went through the door then you guys woke me up.”

“Did you pass through the door also?” Cyrus asked, a
seemingly strange question, but it made all the sense in the world to me.

“Didn’t you hear what she just said?” Mike badgered Cyrus.

“No. No, I didn’t” It was an odd question admittedly, but
strangely relevant.

“What? That made sense?” This from Mike. Obviously, still
the nonbeliever.

“Is that important?” I waited for him to tell me it meant my
tits were going to fall off or something.

“No.”
Bullshit
.
The look on my face must have screamed louder than I could have with my voice,
because he tried that answer once more, “No, I’m not sure. Everything has
relevance in one way or another.”

“How do you deal with this?” Mike asked me.

“I usually end up screaming,” I replied honestly.

It’s not easy dealing with the cryptic gang. I’ve never, in
my life, wanted someone to just shut up and talk at the same time.

“It’s very obvious my mental state is teetering. Can we all
please just try and help Dylan instead of making things so much more
difficult?”

The fight between damsel in distress and bad
mamajama
tore me at the seams. My intuition forced me to
stay strong and persevere, no matter the cost. Hell, my dad taught me that. The
girl in me was terrified and begging for help from the nearest swinging dick.
Luckily, for me, I had two at my disposal. Too bad, they were too far stuck up
my ass to see the big picture.

The guys, not their
actual dicks. Ouch.

Chapter Eleven
          

A car waited for us in the loading zone
just as promised. Black and luxurious, I half expected to see the driver that
drove through a vapor body a night ago, but it wasn’t. Another face, another
fare, another case of the shittiest day imaginable.

What
will happen on the shittiest day? If they just continued to get shitty, where
is the drawing point? The head. I shudder to think.

The closer we got to House of Porte,
the faster my heart beat. The last I’d seen of that place was Azelie laughing
in the doorway while I ran for my life, leaving Cyrus behind. He had no clue
what happened to him or her, for that matter, once I was gone. I could only
assume she left when I did, to plot her revenge, leaving Cyrus to wake from his
zombification. I’d believe that until I got word otherwise.

Mike watched out the window, taking it
all in. The sights through New Orleans to House of Porte were the least of my
worries. I let him enjoy it while it lasted. Hell, I enjoyed them when I first came
here too. That was short lived to say the least.

“Are you ready for what’s ahead?” Cyrus
asked.

I breathed heavily and nodded, looking
at my hands in my lap. It was a rare occasion when I was left fairly
speechless, but I had no words. In my head, I was cursing the name Azelie
d’Entremonte, but outwardly, all I could manage was to simply not explode. Fear
was seeping into my thoughts and that was never a good thing. I tried to snuff
it out and shove it down. Churn it around until it became anger and rage, at
which time, I would unleash it unto the world. For the time being, it would
only come out as a whimper and a pout. And that, my darlings, would never
happen as long as I had any control.

“Keep your faith,” Cyrus virtually
demanded.

He reminded me of the rosary I’d taken
from Azelie. I dug in my bag and pulled it out. It was hers. I’d pulled it from
her hands before I left her laughing at me. Although it was now in my
possession, did she have some sort of link to it? The few times I’d been in contact
with her, she’d been wearing it. It wasn’t until I snatched it off her hand
that it left her sight. If she was linked somehow to the cross, one of two
things were likely true; either it was now her link to me and I’d been walking
around with a damn mystical GPS, or I could somehow use it against her. Seeing
as I had no clue what I was talking about other than a childhood filled with
horror movies, I was going mostly on what I’d learned from television.

I looked down at it. Twisting it in my
fingers; bead by bead through my fingers. Having no clue how to use it
properly, I was again going off what I’d seen on television. God didn’t only
live in Catholic churches, sorry.

“Do you think…“ I looked up at Cyrus
and stopped breathing.

His face, so perfect, was now covered
in maggots and rotting flesh. I gasped and brought my hands up to cover my
face. It wasn’t happening, Cyrus was not a decomposing thing sitting in the
seat next to me. I looked again, and I was quickly proven wrong.

“What?” he said, little white wriggling
larvae fell from his open mouth.

I gagged. As quickly as I could, I
shoved myself back and against Mike, who sat on the other side of me. I put my
feet up and as far away from Cyrus and his bug mouth as I could. I clenched my
fists tightly and held them both close to my chest. The edges of the cross dug
deep into my hand. “No! Stop, please!” I pleaded.

I closed my eyes tight, as tight as
humanly possible. “Please,” I whispered verging on a sob. My hands squeezed,
tighter and tighter. The skin on my palm popped as the corner of the crucifix
pierced it. The pain brought half my thoughts away from Cyrus to focus on my
hand.

“Dylan?” Cyrus grabbed my arms.

“Get your fucking hands off her!” Mike
bellowed.

“What’s her problem?” The driver yelled
from the front seat.

“Shut up!” Cyrus and Mike said
together.

“Dylan, look at me,” Cyrus said, calm
and soothing, and filled with concern.

“Uh
uh
.” I
shook my head and protested like a child.

“What’d I say asshole?” Mike pulled me
closer to him practically on his lap.

“Dylan,” Cyrus said one more time.

I let one eye crack open. I prayed it
was Cyrus, my beautiful Cyrus, and not the rotting putrid meat my head told me
would be there. His hands on my arms looked normal. My other eye slid open.
Guarded, I let my gaze slide up his arms, normal, and to his face. Beautiful
and flawless as ever, his perfect green eyes looked at me with pain in them.

“What in the fuck was that?” I asked,
breathless. I didn’t move from my fetal position on Mike’s lap. My hands still
clenched and in pain.

“I have no clue,” Cyrus said, still
locked on to my eyes.

I left Mike’s lap to explore Cyrus’s
face. I touched it with both hands; his skin was warm and smooth, no signs of
decay or bugs. It was impossible. There was no way, in my normal human
existence, that a man could be covered in rot and maggots one minute and
perfectly fine the next. However, we weren’t in my normal human world anymore.
We were in the everything-is-fucked-run-for-your-life
Fuckety
Fuckedville
. Yeah, fuck this place.

“I don’t know what that was, but I
don’t want it to happen again.” I shook my head, trying to shake off the nasty
I’d just experienced. It didn’t work. I closed my eyes, but all I saw were
things crawling about, so they opened right back up. “Your face…it was rotting
and covered in maggots.” No need to sugar coat things.

Cyrus curled his lip in disgust and I
was sure Mike did something similar behind me.

“In your head or…” Mike pushed me to
explain exactly how fucking nutty I’d gone.

“No, as clear as I am sitting here
right, now, you had fucking larvae squirming in and out of your rotten holes.
They fell from your mouth when you opened it to talk to me.” I gagged before
the last word came out. My mouth filled with saliva, but I refused to puke.

I searched his face for any signs of
decay and came up flat. All I found was a dark smudge under his eye. I reached
out to rub it off. It was still wet and smeared across his cheek. Spread out,
it took on the color of blood.

“You’re bleeding,” I said and put my
clenched fist over my mouth, secretly terrified his skin would suddenly fall
off or something.

He swiped at his face, trying to fight
off something he couldn’t see. Mike leaned over the top of me and took Cyrus up
by the chin. He turned his face toward the rear window and into a bit more
light. Seemingly dissatisfied, he turned it loose, harder and faster than
necessary.

Cyrus met my eyes again and scrunched
his eyebrows together. “No I’m not,” he said. “You are.”

It was his turn to manhandle my face.
He, however, was much kinder than his detective counterpart. His warm hand held
my chin as he wiped his other across my lips. Confused, he looked over my face
and finally moved to my hands.

He held them both. One opened freely
the other still held Azelie’s rosary. My head wouldn’t wrap around the fact
that the blood I was seeing was real. And mine. Cyrus plucked the cross from my
hand to reveal a thick blob of drying blood. The pain I’d felt when I was
squeezing the damn thing to death, would likely become a beautiful scar.

“Shit!” I exclaimed and tossed the
cursed thing to the floor of the car where it could fucking stay as far as I
was concerned.

“Shit is right,” Cyrus agreed.

“Can someone, please, explain to me
what in the fuck is happening here?” Mike, ever so skeptic, was about to get
himself a nasty awakening; me too, as if I hadn’t had enough of those.

“Dylan is under attack,” Cyrus paused,
dramatically or otherwise, it was annoying and Mike’s grumble proved it. “It’s
not anything we can fight with guns and fists, not at the moment anyway. As of
this moment, it is a spiritual attack.”

“Hasn’t it always been?” Down to the
shambling dead bitches in my living room, there was not one instance of any of
these gross things making physical contact. It hadn’t dawned on me before it
was all in my head. Or that it was all what that bitch put in my head. Cyrus
had said once you had to believe before something could take hold of you.
Unfortunately for me, by the time I realized what was happening to me, I
already believed. I tried not to. I told myself I didn’t. But, it was too late.
My heart knew what my head refused to believe. I did that a lot. Sue me.

“Honestly…” he started, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t know’?”
Mike’s tone suggested an ass whipping was on the horizon.

“I mean, this isn’t something I’ve
educated myself on. Magic, voodoo to be exact, is not my area of expertise.
Malcolm will be able to answer your question as soon as we get to House of
Porte. He has a history, of sorts, with mystics.”

“The ginger with the accent? He’s into
voodoo?” Mike’s disbelief mimicked my own.

“Not exactly, but he will know more
about Dylan’s situation than I do.”

“This isn’t one of those
Secundus
Primus butt sex secrets, is it?” He was pretty,
sure, but his lack of knowledge or willingness to share made me want to punch
infants. “I don’t have time for this. Every minute I’ve wasted trying to stop
this bitch from executing whatever plan she has in place for me, is a foot I’ve
dug deeper into my own grave. Now, get on with it, or you’ll have to deal with
me, and I’ll warn you, I’m one dead thing away from killing a mother fucker.”
By the time I was finished, I was on my knees and leaning over the top of Cyrus
with my finger crooked and jammed into his face. I hadn’t realized I’d grown
that intense. Proof – this goat was losing it.

“I can only guess and assume, and I
don’t think it’s the best practice in this case,” he sighed, scooting back
against the door. “Here are the facts: Azelie is a vengeful bitch. You have
quite obviously gotten on her bad side, and now she has successfully gotten
into your head. To what purpose, I don’t know. To what end, I don’t know. You
visited Lupe. You hold the only mystical protection I can provide.” He put his
palms up and shrugged a hair. “I’m here with the vampires. I don’t know magic.”
His eyes slid to the left and back. It was a fleeting moment, but I caught it
and it said everything I needed it to say.

“Tell me about the black lion.” Mike
was lost I was sure, but he wasn’t needed for this conversation. Cyrus knew
about magic. He may not know voodoo and he may not be able to save me from it,
but the little fucker knew magic. I dreamt about it. In my head, it was
logical. If vampires, and witches, and devil worshipers were full-fledged
citizens of this good old U.S. of A. then dammit, so were hot Persians who were
also lions.

His jaw clenched and twitched. I stared
him down. All that fear was churning inside and becoming glorious rage once again.
Emotional rollercoasters were no fucking joke.
Just hang on and pray you’re on the upside of things when you come out.

“What I am is of no relevance here,” he
said so quietly only I could hear him.

“So, it’s true?” I asked, not really
believing I’d just heard what he said. Not believing he actually admitted to
it. That I dreamt it and it was true. What did that mean about him? “I dreamt
that. How did I dream that?” I didn’t know who I was talking to,
him or me
, but I hadn’t expected his answer.

“There is so much I want you to know,
so much you need to know. Perhaps your dreams are a way for your inner psychic
to find its way to your consciousness.” Crazy man, say what?

“Now she’s a psychic? Jesus, Dylan, how
the hell did you get yourself sucked into this bullshit? Vampires, voodoo, and
psychics. I had half a mind to actually believe what you were spewing out, but
now, I know you’re fucked,” Mike said. I could feel him shaking his head in
shame.

“I am only suggesting Dylan knows more
than she thinks she knows. Guesses, hunches, gut instincts, call it what you
will, but you all have it in some form. Some are just better at listening to
themselves than others, detective. You included.”

“House of Porte,” the driver announced
from the front seat.

It was too late. Any further discussion
would have to wait. We’d arrived at our destination. Cyrus had the door open,
and was gracefully escaping before we could stop him for further questioning.
He had a way of doing that. Sooner or later, he’d have to come clean. Or face
my wrath.

Mike and I followed him up the walkway
and through the gate. The cement underfoot had been covered in white chalk
drawings the last time I’d seen it, but was only a boring sidewalk now. A
pathway for human feet to pass over. The double doors were closed and not
framing a tiny hell bitch, like the last I’d seen it, but Azelie’s laughter
still echoed in my head. I looked around to make sure it was just me. Of course
it was.

Cyrus made it to the door and knocked a
fancy knock. I didn’t bother following. Mike scoffed. He looked like a cop
standing at the door. Hands loose at his sides, guarded and ready for anything.
Ready to draw his service weapon if necessary. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready.
Not really. Sooner or later, he’d learn. Just as I had. I just hoped it wasn’t
the hard lesson I’d gotten. And to make matters worse, he didn’t even have a
service revolver to draw if he wanted to. His crap-happy trigger finger would
get us all killed before it’d protect us. That or he’d be swallowed up by
naivety just as I had.