Scarlet Night (Limited Edition) (21 page)

“Serena? Serena!” he rushed in and began scanning the room through burning eyes,
“God-fucking-dammit! Serena! Answer me!”

A short ways to his left a breathy cough and a stifled whimper sounded and he honed in o
n it, starting towards the source.

Then the beast called.

Crying out in pain as he tried to hold it back, his vision turned red and fell to the floor; Serena still unconscious several feet from him. Reaching out to pull her to him, he cringed as the bones in his arms began to fracture and lengthen all at once. Trying to pull himself together to reach Gregori’s daughter, he shrieked out in pain as his back lurched forward. He growled, seething in pain as he continued to fright to get to Serena. If she was truly special—if the beast saw
anything
in her that would give him the chance to force it to stop—then he
had
to reach her.

Both of their lives depended on it!

“G-god damn you!” he gritted against the pain as he struggled to fight the change, “I… I
know
you can f-f-fucking hear us!” he growled and shook his head, “
Me
! You
can
hear me! You can hear—AHH! Shit!—hear me… and you sure as shit can understand!” trying to ignore the violent shift of his organs he fought to crawl closer, “And… I
swear
on everything I hold sacred; if you allow her to die then I’m going after her!” the change slowed and the pain numbed. He smirked through his agony and nodded, “Y-yea? Don’t like
that
, huh? Not having a body put a damper on your fucking plans? Try to see how much death and destruction you bring as fucking
worm food
, you dumb bastard! You
need
me and
we
need
her
! Now… let… me… GO!”

The pain hit him like a semi-truck and knocked him to the floor. Every centimeter of his body burned and ached and throbbed and stung as everything shifted at once
.

And all he could do was smile.

“Th-thank you!” Though it was excruciating, he could feel his body shifting back; the beast working overtime to put him back together fast enough to save her! Nodding as the torture subsided, he pulled himself up, “We’ll settle this later, asshole!”

With nothing left to hold him back, he rushed forward and scooped Serena’s body from the floor
with ease before retreating back into the halls to escape the growing flames.

As he turned a corner and broke through a curtain of fire he was met head-on by a massive creature as it lunged
at him. Before he could react, both of them were thrown back and through the wall behind them. Zane roared as the layers of mortar and plywood and drywall and electrical wiring shattered and snapped around him as he struggled to protect Serena’s body in the process.

She couldn’t be injured!

She wouldn’t be injured!

They would be sure of it!

“I won’t—” he snarled as they crashed to the floor on the other side of the wall and the world went redder and hotter. “W-we…” he smirked and set Serena down carefully—making sure to keep her out of his and the therion’s range—and nodded to himself, finally allowing the pain to come, “
WE WILL
NOT
LET YOU HURT HER
!”

The change came all at once, hitting him out of a mutual need rather than simply wanting to see him suffer from prolonged agony. One moment he was in Hell—howling and cursing in agony—and the next they were whole.

Perfect!

The therion that had caught him off guard huffed angrily at the sight of them on the other sid
e of the wall and sprinted on all fours towards them. Seeing their opponent’s reaction, a mouth far-too-big for its face curled up in an amused sneer that tickled the lobes of their misshapen ears and they ran a long, narrow tongue over the bottom row of razor-sharp fangs. Catching sight of this, the therion’s face shifted—its once confident dark-orange aura recoiling as fear settled in—and it halted in mid-stride to rethink its approach.

But there
was
no other option for it.

No choice that wouldn’t ultimately lead to the same outcome.

“
DEATH!
” They cackled and leapt through the hole they’d made in their previous form.

The therion’s eyes went wide and it scrambled to turn in the narrow hall and flee only to have them come down on its back; a talon from one foot slamming down and hooking the vertebrae of the whimpering therion’s spine.

As they relished in the succulent cocktail of terror and pain that rolled from their prey in great waves, a shiver coursed through their body and their scarlet aura shot from their chest and ensnared the therion. Retracting the talon and stepping down, they hoisted the massive mythos into the air to face them in all their glory; that it might know—when it landed in Hell—what
not
to fuck with!

“
YOU WERE WRONG TO PISS HIM OFF, MUTT!”
they cackled, running a clawed hand across the therion’s sternum and letting its life gush down its torso and flow in torrents to their feet, “
BUT WE ARE
VERY
GLAD THAT YOU DID! NEVER BEFORE HAS HE LET US OUT SO
FREELY
!”
They wet their black lips before extending their tongue and dipping it into the gaping wound in its chest. They moaned as their enemy’s life-force flowed into their mouth, and the light spectrum shifted momentarily as their eyes reacted to the energy. “
OH
YES!
VERY
GLAD, INDEED!”

The therion whimpered again, trying to struggle against them, its aura sagging more and more as its death became a certainty.

“
WE HOPE YOU’LL UNDERSTAND,”
they came down with their claws once again, taking the front half of the therion’s face off and letting it slam wetly into the wall before leaving a trail to the floor, “
IT’S
JUST
BUSINESS!”

Zoey was certain that she hadn’t blinked her eyes once since waking up
alone on the forest floor to the smell of smoke and the psychic cries of her clan-mates. The journey from the woods was torturous, each step bringing her that much closer to an already agonizing truth that she wanted so desperately to prove false. Isaac’s absence and her clan’s attack couldn’t be a coincidence—not with how he’d been acting the night before—and she had
ignored
every sign just so she could…

She choked on a sob that was soon-after drowned out by the howling of sirens.

As a fire truck shot by—flashing lights and blaring wails warning any in its path to move aside—she threw out her aura and hooked it. As her psychic tether pulled her off her feet, she drew herself in until she was able to grab hold of the roof-mounted ladder and hitching a ride with the EMT caravan to whatever remained of the Vail Clan’s headquarters.

Though it seemed like hours, the truck came to a screeching halt in front of the building only minutes later, and as the crew began to flood from the vehicle, Zoey threw her aura out and carried herself to a ledge on the third-floor and snuck in through a window.

The elevators were already out of service in response to the fire, and the shriek of the building’s alarm made any sort of clear thought as to
how
to get underground difficult. Finally, fed up with logic and calculations, she opted for the more Zane-like approach and tore the elevator doors from the wall and lifted the cab out of her way to open up a straight drop in the shaft.

Like an Olympic diver, she hurled herself over the platform and into the plunging depths of the pitch-black elevator shaft; relying solely on her aura to gauge the distance to the bottom. As she plummeted in a nosedive, she threw out several auric tendrils and began ripping each level’s door free from the wall, positive that their escape would be hindered if they were forced to clear them on the way out.

With the bottom fast approaching, Zoey focused her aura into three sections and secured a hold in the shaft as a fourth tendril shot out and broke through the passage to their clan’s lobby. Using the auric slingshot she’d set herself into, she launched herself through, using the momentum and added force to catapult herself into the depths of the inferno and following after the familiar auric signals of her friends.

It wasn’t hard to find them.

Zane had already transformed and was dripping in the blood of more therions than she cared to guess. Scanning the area, she “saw” Serena, unconscious and badly beaten, in a room on the other side of the hall and she started towards it before coming across Zane’s handiwork.

Bits and pieces of his previous opponents—still wearing the color and claw of their bestial forms—littered the bloodied hall and adding the stink of blood to the lingering traces of agony and terror left behind. Her eyes took in the aftermath of her friend’s onslaught before coming to rest on him as he squared-off against another therion.

One with an all-too-familiar aura…

Her eyes widened, “Isaac!”

A myriad of questions went through her head as she watched the two circling one another, searching for an opening to rip through.

Had Isaac been planning this the entire time?

Was his affection for her
really
just an act?

Was he responsible for whatever had happened to Serena?

And, probably the most burning question of all:

Did
she care if Zane ripped him apart?

She shook her head
, again abandoning the burden of thought and rolling on pure instinct, and went to rush towards the two. An angry and tortured shriek tore past her lips as she approached, causing the two to shift their gazes at whoever was
crazy
enough to come between their death match. Seeing Zoey coming at him, Isaac turned his body to face her; his usually fierce and intense eyes now glassy and dull. Zoey stopped several feet in front of him and frowned at the empty expression—no sense of recognition or familiarity; neither love nor hatred to give away his motives—that he gave to her.

There was
nothing
of him in those eyes.

Trapped in the dead orbs, Zoey wasn’t aware of the newcomer until their guttural growl echoed through the hall and up her spine. Daring to look away from Isaac and towards the sound, she saw that another therion—aura boiling over with rage from the evidence of its allies’ deaths surrounding it—that zeroed its sights on her and started a mad-dash in her direction
.

It couldn’t see the vacancy in Isaac’s eyes.

It couldn’t see the concern hers.

It only saw what
it wanted to see: a vampire standing in front of its leader amidst the strewn body parts of countless other therions.

She cried out and took a step away from the approaching threat. “Isaac!”

But he didn’t respond; didn’t even bat an eyelash as the other therion grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against the wall, snarling as it pulled back its opposite hand for the killing blow.

Seeing this, Zane let out a furious bellow and grabbed her attacker’s
shoulder to pull it back. Dead-set on Zoey’s death, the therion blindly rolled its shoulder free and threw Zane back. He crashed into the ground and growled as he lifted himself up again.