Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (20 page)

“Oh, this isn’t good.” The light from the fire flashed on
Mike and his cuffed hands and Cyrus’s bare chest.

Oh, so many
thoughts.

The door of the shed flew open with a bang, and my captor
appeared. He smiled a lovely white smile.

“
Shiiiiit
.” I tucked my butt and
booked it in the opposite direction. I had nowhere to go, but it seemed stupid
to stand there and let him take me.

I ran like an idiot around the small space, weaving through
a naked guy and a jackass with handcuffs. The man didn’t really chase me as
much as reach out to grab me. Cyrus barreled into his side and knocked him off
balance, but he didn’t let me go. He laughed. Were we that fucking funny? Naked
guy, handcuffs…me. All right.

His huge hand held out and spread wide, touched the air in
the center of the room. His laughter stopped. So did the men around him. He
curled his fingers into a fist. Cyrus and Mike crumpled and fell to the dirt.

One last smile slid across his face. His strong arms lifted
my big ass like I was a flour sack, and slung me over his shoulder.

I didn’t kick. I didn’t scream. I just watched as he slammed
the door behind him and left my men behind. I knew it was a bad situation. I
just didn’t care. Too bad this wasn’t offered as a spa package. Hot guys
carrying you around and making you feel happy?
Sign me up!

Oh, there’ll be dead
things? Always a fucking catch.

Chapter Fourteen

The big guy dumped me to the dirt by the roaring fire. I fell
ungracefully, and loose dirt puffed up around me. I longed for him the second
his skin left mine. I watched as he turned from me. I had to force myself not
to reach out to him. Beg him not to leave me.

Whatever form of being that man was, I wanted it and had no
fucking clue as to why. Two men up my ass and I want to add a third? This was
turning into a fucking Harlequin romance. Not in my story.

Yeah, that was easier said than done when it came to these
people, bringing magic to a fistfight.

Muscle man, straight out of a wet dream, made his way around
the fire. His large bare back shifted and flexed beautifully in the light of
the flames. Loose, flopping muslin pants moved around his legs, like a ship’s
sail in the wind. Strips of leather dangled around his waist. Trinkets of
charms, beads, tiny skulls and bones hung from each strip. Metal and bone
clanked together, making music as he walked. Bare feet padded the dirt with
little disruption to the earth under them.

He lifted a circular drum to his chest and began thrumming
away at it. In his hand, a white stick, or human bone, who fucking knew, beat
the skin stretched over the wooden circle.

I lay in the dirt, mesmerized by the guy with the drum.
Flames separated the two of us, allowing sporadic glimpses that only added to
my unwanted longing. Whatever magic he held over me, should be bottled and sold
at Target.

Minutes passed that seemed like hours. The more time that
passed, the less my body yearned for the dreadlock man and the more my head
told me to run like hell. But where? Moss-covered trees that hung branches low
to the ground surrounded me. The shed I’d been locked in was the only sign of
civilization. The brightness of the fire washed out the darkness beyond, making
it impossible to see anything other than what the flames illuminated.

If I was able to get up and get moving before the hunk
caught me, where the fuck would I go? Could I really leave Cuffs and Flash in
the shed to rot alone? Maybe they were in there planning my rescue. It was a long
shot, but a girl could hope, couldn’t she?

Just beyond the flames, coming closer with each breath, a
figure approached. I watched with anxious eyes as Azelie appeared as if from
the smoke and fire in the pit at my feet. Without reluctance, she lifted her
leg and stepped over and through the raging fire to stand before me. The flames
licked at her skin but it didn’t blister; they danced over her skirt but it
didn’t scorch.

Though I wanted to move, no matter how I willed my hands to
twitch, they did nothing. I begged God, or anything that was listening, for
just one twitch to ram my bare fist through her gut. I was stuck in my spot
like a mystical mannequin. Atop her full, black dreads, her head was adorned
with a headdress made of a large animal skull, something with horns. Feathers
and charms swung from strips of leather tied to the horns. Shit, it could have
been dried skin of some human sacrifice knowing her. Azelie’s buttery skin bore
stripes and symbols of dark paint – or blood. Her chest lay bare of cloth, but
covered in rust-colored paint – or blood. Perfect boobs sat high on her chest,
each covered in paint and symbols. Around her waist, bits of fabric, fur and
feathers hung and draped, creating a skirt that left her slight thighs exposed.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, my voice not sounding
like my own, but weak and pathetic.

“Your penance.” Her thick accent was much harsher than
Marienne’s, but nonetheless French. Mostly.

“Just kill me if that’s what you want,” I begged from hands
and knees still stuck in the dirt.

“
What’chu
have here?” her
miniature hands lifted the metal charm around my neck. Her rosary dangled from
her wrist. The rosary I’d left on the black carpeted floor of the luxury
vehicle.

My eyes widened. However she’d acquired her crucifix, was
not my concern. In reality, it likely put me and mine in a more fucked
situation than originally presumed. It was either obtained by human means, a
traitor in the mix, or by spiritual ones. Neither allowed room for rescue.

I turned my head from her and pulled away. It was the first
movement my body was allowed since she’d come through the flames. For whatever
reason, my will beat out whatever mumbo jumbo she had filled my head with. I
wasn’t about to ask her why or how; it didn’t matter anyway. I’d have to figure
this shit out on my own. Sneakily, I’d get myself backed away from her. I
planned it like that in my head anyway. I shuffled backward on my knees as
quickly and quietly as I could. “It worked didn’t it?” I had forced those dead bitches
away more than once. My jabbering was only a distraction from my excellently
planned escape. Twenty seconds to scrape up a plan that was what I got.

“Did it?” her smooth voice chuckled.

I scooted again. “You bet your ass it did.” I didn’t know that,
not for certain. But who cared, right? Between voodoo bitches, vampires, and
whatever the fuck I’d stepped in in Fresno, I was dead anyway. Barring any
miracles from Heaven, that was. I couldn’t in my right mind let that bitch take
me down without a fight, even if that fight simply consisted of my sarcastic
remarks and a set of filthy knees. I sat back on my heels. “This and more.” I
lifted the trinket from my throat and aimed it at her like I was Harry fucking
Potter. “You’re not the only witch bitch in town.” I rocked back, and in a
movement I could never replicate, I was on my feet.

I wanted get the fuck out of Dodge, but it was nearly
impossible when you didn’t know where in the hell Dodge is.

Tiny feet stepped softly like a feline toward me, forcing my
clodhoppers to stumble backward. “You have power.” She made it a statement more
than a question.

“More than you know, bitch.” Okay,
bitch
was probably not a good idea. Not to mention how lame it
sounded in my current pathetic, shaking voice. I backed further. Long willow
branches slid over my head. The hypnotizing drumbeat reverberated in my ears
from the other side of the fire.

My back hit a tree. Branches hung between Azelie and me.
“Bitch,” she clucked her tongue. “Didn’t your mother teach you never to bite
the hand that feeds you?”

“No.” My mother taught me to never let them see you cry,
never back down, and never pull hair unless you’re using it to slam a bitch’s
face to your knee.

That is not a bad
idea.

She moved closer to me, nearly close enough to smell her
breath. It wasn’t often someone was shorter than I was. Azelie hardly stood
tall enough to look me square in the nose. After all the shitty things she’d
done to me in the last few days, it was stupid to let her get that close to me.
But what other choice did I have? Become one with the tree?

Before my head could tell my gut it was stupid, I reached
out with both hands and grabbed the bitch by the horns. Took one step into her
and pulled her perfect little face downward. My knee met her nose with gumption
and a lovely meeting it was. The crack of a broken bone echoed through the
night.

I didn’t waste any time gloating over her bleeding face. She
held her nose as I shoved past her and booked it for the shed.

“Mike! Cyrus!” I screamed. “Run!” No sound came from the
structure as I neared it. They could’ve been dead in there. Or, maybe they got
out somehow and were lurking in the dark waiting for the right time to pounce.

My fat little legs pumped, carrying all this weight along with
them. At some point, I considered looking into a gym membership. Maybe, even a
little sleep. Bright-eyed and bushytailed was not in my immediate past. The
future didn’t look good either.

The drumbeat continued, letting me know the man playing it
hadn’t moved. I was free.

Of course, I wasn’t free. Life, or whatever this was, didn’t
work like that.

“Dylan,” my father’s voice whispered through the night.

“Daddy?” I stopped in my tracks. I
knew
I had seen him in the dark in that shed.

“Dylan, come, don’t leave me,” Gordon Hart, my father, and
the catalyst for my entire existence, called to me.

“Where are you?” I whispered back.

“He’s here.” Azelie spoke.

“Why is my father here?” My nostrils flared with the need to
catch his scent one more time. I wanted to kill her, run my fist through her
chest and rip out her beating heart, but the deep internal need to see my dad
stopped me before I could let the rage boil over and escape through murder.

“He’s with me.”

I turned, expecting to see the decaying, shambling body of
my long dead father. A zombie she’d resurrected just for me. My hands trembled
with the idea. Instead, I turned to come face-to-face with my best friend in
the whole world – not. Azelie’s face, inches from mine, boasted a pair of honey
brown eyes instead of her startling blue set.

“Frizzle,” my dad’s voice came through her lips using a
nickname only he and I knew.

“Daddy-” my voice cracked and I fought back tears. I was
focused on the scene unfolding before me, all the while praying in my heart the
door of the shed would fly open and one naked guy and one handcuffed guy would
come barreling out to my rescue.

“Frizzle,” his deep voice spoke in a tone I recalled as
serious. “I’m here. I need you to help me. Only you can. Can you be a big girl
and help Dad?” he asked, like he did in the garage working on his old car.

“Yeah, Dad,” I nodded. I felt as if I was five-years-old
again. So small. So innocent.

“’That ’a girl,” she patted me on the head.

“I love you, Daddy.” I wrapped my arms around the tiny body
of Azelie, fully anticipating the broad shoulders of my dad. He didn’t answer.
“Dad?” I looked into her eyes. Blue. He was gone.

“Do you want your father?” Her face was soft, almost
endearing, even with gore from her surely broken nose drying over the top of
her war paint.

I nodded, tears forming at my lash line.

“Come.” She held her hand out to me.

Willingly, and most stupidly, I took it. Allowing her all
the control. All in the name of love. Not the lame, fleeting love that lay
stuck, cuffed and naked, in that damn shed. Real love. Love not faltered by
death.

She led me back to the fire and away from my men and
potential freedom. Dreadlocks had never stopped his drumming. We stopped close,
flame licking close, to the fire. She took me by the arms and pulled me close
to her. Nose-to-nose, she seemed inches taller than before. Her eyes locked
onto mine. My leg twitched with the urge to run. Fingers clenched into tight
balls eager to knock her lights out. My heart, that stupid immature thing, fluttered
and skipped with anticipation. I wanted my dad back, even if it meant making a
deal with the devil. How quickly our human perceptions of danger and loathing
could flip when the impossible was offered up on a fancy platter with a turd
garnish. Who ate the garnish anyway?

Lifting our arms to the sky, she led the dance. Her tiny
fingers tickled along the tender skin under my arms, leaving my hands lifted
high. Her eyes never left mine. Our chests rose and fell in unison. Her naked
boobs grazed mine with each breath. Hands wrapped around my waist and found
their way under my shirt, kneading along my back. My hands still in the air,
she lifted my shirt from my body and over my head, exposing my thick pale
torso. I stood in bra and pants, nearly the opposite of her bare top and
covered bottom.

The tears that had welled moments before, dripped from my
lashes and streamed down my cheeks. I swallowed hard. Devil, deal, this is it.
Naked in the woods Go-Go dancing with my arch nemesis. Apparently, resurrection
was costly.
Wonder how Jesus did it?
Oh, yeah, God. Well, I wasn’t so lucky.

From her waist, she produced a wreath of decay and herbs. I
prayed it was only animal parts she was placing on my head. I closed my eyes
and envisioned my father standing in the present. With me. Me and Mom and Dad.
A wet goop smeared across my belly. It smelled foul, similar to the shit-smear
I had on my face with Lupe. Something similar to an old pad at the bottom of a
public bathroom trash can.

Words I didn’t recognize came flowing smoothly from her
lips. I held the image of my dad in my thoughts. His long legs and big hands,
he seemed like a giant when I was small. The two brown eyes Azelie had stolen
from him, brown with flecks of gold and green. Curly, black hair, just like
mine. His bright smile, so contagious no one would be sad in his presence. My
eyes felt heavy. I breathed a little slower. Covered in filth and death, and I
felt like I’d killed a fifth of tequila sitting on a bathroom floor.

Her hips swayed with mine. I felt like I was at a 60s
concert. Free and vulnerable. My arms floated around me. Her hands and arms
touched along my ribs and back. Azelie was my puppeteer, seemingly moving my
limbs at her will. Her mouth breathed along mine, dancing over my skin. With
each inhale, she breathed me in, sucking in air more and more intensely over
every inch of me. Pulling the life from my body. No, not the life. The soul.
Every exhale pushed against each cell, fighting its way in. She wasn’t so much
as taking my soul away, as she was blending our two together. As easily as I
breathed, my essence was becoming hers. Whether or not hers was also becoming
mine was yet to be seen.