Devil's Playground (9 page)

Leaning up on my elbow, I balanced my head in my hand. My hair slipped over my shoulder, to fall across my breasts. His gaze fell to what was hidden behind the dark silken locks with yearning. I stared at him, betraying nothing, saying nothing, until a crease formed between his brows.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

Actually, it was quite the opposite. Everything he said was perfect. I adored his jesting nature and his playfully erotic banter. Being with him made me understand why people decided to settle down, get married, and have a house full of dirty, smelly rug rats. And then I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was thinking about the possibility of having children with him, something I vowed never to do.

I laughed and said, “You’ve done nothing to offend me, handsome. Unless you deny me another round of that deviant behavior you speak so highly of.” I hopped off the bed and started for the bathroom. “Catch me if you can.”

He licked his lips, smiling, with a look of single-minded purpose.

“Challenge accepted.”

I
awoke to Rush’s strong arms around me and a crashing sound. Startled, I looked all over the dark room but saw nothing.

Rush pulled me closer and asked, “Are you okay?”

Other than the foreign sound that woke me and the hard-earned soreness in my muscles, I was fine. But my gut ached with the knowledge that something was terribly wrong.

“I heard something.”

Rush kissed my cheek tenderly and whispered, “It’s probably just Archer, coming in late from one of his benders. Go back to sleep, beautiful.”

I tried pushing my dread far away.

It was only Archer, like Rush said. It had to be, right? Yeah, I’m being silly.

I laid my head against the pillow, eyes wide, staring at the door.

My honed instincts warned,
But what if it wasn’t?

I got out of bed and crept silently to the door. After inching it open, I peeked through the crack and out into the darkness of Rush’s penthouse.

Rush sat up and stretched, asking, “Kris, what are you doing?”

Then I saw a shadowy form move from behind the kitchen island, to slink beyond the wall that divided the main living room from the bedrooms.

Fuck, that wasn’t good.

I pushed the door shut and turned the lock on the handle. It was barely a barrier between me and danger, but in a fight, every second counted.

Shaking my head, I placed a finger over my lips, the ‘Sss
shhh’
sounding flat with warning. Rush leapt, in all his naked glory, from the bed. He landed silently next to the bedroom closet, and as soon as his feet met the ground, he waved me over. I was instantly at his side.

He raised a hand and gestured to a built-in shelf that housed several drawers. I opened the one at the bottom, to find that it was a locked weapons safe, with a faux drawer front. Rush knelt down and reached inside, swiping his fingertips over the buttons. The door immediately clicked open, to reveal a row of guns.

I slowly straightened, weapons in hand. After a quick clip check, I was happy to find that they were loaded with iron bullets. They could kill a human, but unfortunately, they couldn’t kill a vampire or ghoul. However, that component did slow the monsters down, interfering with the magic that sustained and animated them. Not many people knew that crippling information. It was a secret carefully guarded, because vampires and ghouls weren’t the only supernatural creatures that had a weakness for iron. It also had the same dire effect on necromancers.  

“You’re smiling,” Rush whispered.

I could sense his apprehension building.

“I can’t help it.”

Wicked admiration glinted in Rush’s eyes, as he said, “I’m in love with a beautiful killer.” He looked down, between us. “We need clothes.”

Gripping a gun in each hand, I said, “Getting dressed will waste valuable seconds, but if you insist….”

Rush didn’t have time to answer, nor did clothes remain an issue. The bedroom door slammed open with a crash, and three forms in dark clothing appeared. My gut clenched; the intruders were vampires.

It was hard to think, with the room exploding into chaos, but my body had a mind of its own and moved into action instinctively.

Pop, pop, pop.
I unloaded three shots into the chest of one of them, before he could even fully enter the room.

Rush was standing on top of the bed, bullets flying from the muzzle of his gun, which was aimed at a vampire, who was soaring toward him in midair.  

“Bad vampire!” I said, jumping forward.

My body collided with the monster at the same time that Rush shot another bullet through his skull. Blood exploded from the wound, splattering my face and getting inside of my open mouth. I landed on top of the motionless body and spat his blood out, as I stood. I didn’t have time to charge up my hands and finish him off. There was still one more stalking us, hiding amongst the shadows of the extremely spacious room.

Rush hopped off the bed, landing next to me. He motioned with his hand to step back. We pressed our backs against the wall closest to the bedroom door, guns out and at the ready, with both sets of eyes searching for the third monster. But the damned bloodsucker was nowhere in sight. I frowned, scanning the nooks and crannies of the space.

Vampires could blend well, especially in a dark room, covered in shadows. Then an idea dawned. It was time to flush the boogie man out of hiding. I reached up and pulled the contacts out of my eyes. As soon as my irises were uncovered, they lit up from my proximity to a vamp, covering the room with a red glow. The light was dim but bright enough to spot the one remaining, which was hovering above, on the other side of the room. Rush’s gun exploded. I could smell the gritty aroma of gunpowder.

“Did you get him? Is he down?” I asked, while moving my eyes like a flashlight to search the room.

Rush shook his head and said, “No, I missed.”

“There’s something bumping around in the bathroom. I’m going in.” I started to move but stopped, when a howl broke loose from that direction. “Uh, maybe I should stay put, until we figure out what that was.”

I met Rush’s angered eyes. They stormed like a tempest, raging, promising death to anything that crossed his path.

“It’s a Hellhound. Whoever the fuck sent those leeches after us tonight also wanted a little added insurance.”

My brows creased, as I asked, “Do you mean, to insure that we stop breathing?”

“Yes, we’ve pissed someone off pretty badly, it seems. It’s rare to see a Hellhound outside of the Shadowscape. The iron and manmade structures can make them sick, so they tend to keep down-side.”

I hated feeling like that, threatened. There was no use in being scared, because fear crippled, beating a person down to the core, with more power and ferocity than any monster, real or imagined, ever could.

I gripped the handles of both guns tightly, as I said, “Well, then, it’s good luck that we have iron bullets.” I took a deep breath, pressed my lips, and blew out a whistle. “Here, poochie, poochie!” I whistled again. “I have a treat for you.”

Yeah, I had a treat for the mangy mutt, all right. It came in the form of about a pound of iron, shooting though its brainpan and belly.

The bathroom door slipped open, and I watched, unfazed, as the Hellhound dragged itself over the door’s threshold, in the form of a zombie. What I knew about Hellhounds could fit loosely inside of my pocket; most of that limited knowledge was from firsthand experience.

I had met up with three of those wretched creatures a couple of weeks back. They were guarding the passageway to the Shadowscape, which happened to be nestled in the ground of a creepy mausoleum. Upon first sight, all three of the creatures had morphed into the very thing I was most afraid of. And what I feared more than anything else, at that time, was the torture and suffering of my ghostly friends.

My worst fear had changed, apparently, because I found myself face to face with a dead girl. She pushed forward with a limp. Long dirty brown hair, which may have once been blonde, was caked with dried blood. The mottled locks swayed to cover her face. Her short dress was torn, and one thin arm, with its flesh ripped to shreds, hung limp at her side. The other arm was held out in front of her.

My heart wrenched in pain, and I instinctively reached for her. I could feel my power rev up, as it flowed under my skin, thrumming and needing to rejuvenate the tattered corpse. I envisioned my hands on her, and then my eyes fluttered shut, as I watched her cream-colored flesh fill out, leaving it plump and healthy. I marveled at the beauty of her hair, as it poured, in cornsilk locks, from her head. She looked at me anew, through sharp green eyes, her body whole again.

A hollow echo nagged at the back of my mind, and the sound brought confusion. A small part of me knew that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t real—the reanimated beauty before me was not tangible.

I tried to turn around, away from the sight of her, but I was shocked to discover that I had zero control over my body. Panic filled me, and my fingertips prickled numb. A sharp pain pierced my arm, and the coppery smell of blood filled my nostrils. I felt the metaphysical cord of my power snap, and then darkness blanketed me fully.

***

“Don’t touch her, Sonny. The boss wants that bitch and her boyfriend brought to her unharmed.”

What the hell?
I thought, slowly coming to.

And then I calmed. No matter what was going on, I was all right as long as Rush was alive.

I did a quick check of my person. I was tied up at the wrists and ankles, but other than a bleeding wound on my forearm, which was shoddily covered with a strip of cloth, I was okay. Bare-assed naked but okay.

“The cunt tease owes me, Frisco. I can flip her over and get mine before we get there.”

That didn’t sound too fun.

I couldn’t see, because I wasn’t dumb enough to open my eyes, so I had to assume that it was Frisco who growled back, “You heard me, mother fucker, hands off!”

“That redheaded bitch has defanged your pussy ass.”

“Camille,” Frisco said, in a tone that denoted admiration and longing, “is a queen, and you aren’t good enough to lick the bottom of her shoes.”

That name hit me in the gut like a battering ram. Camille, queen of the phantoms, was apparently the villain of the macabre play I’d once again found myself cast as the lead in.

It made perfect sense, when I thought about it. Both of the victims spoke of a drug of some kind being forced upon them. My memories skipped over the last several hours and landed on a picture of Solo. Handsome and confident, he stood tall in his own miniature kingdom of booze, motorcycles, and vampires. In his hand, he’d popped open that bottle. I remembered how I felt, when he approached me. It was as if I were losing control, much like I’d felt in the Shadowscape with Wolf, when he brought me into the golden chamber that held several stalks of red and white Lothario roses. I’d been right all along.

My God…. Camille and the vampires at Razorbacks must have used an aphrodisiac made from the extract of the Lothario roses on their victims!

On a scale from bad to worse, that news rated off the charts, at
wretched
.

“Make sure that their bindings are tight. We’re close to the commune,” Frisco said. “I’ll call Solo and let him know that we’re arriving soon.”

Sharp pain sliced through my wrists, as Sonny followed Frisco’s orders and tightened the ropes around them. I didn’t whimper, nor did I move. What those fools didn’t realize was that they were taking me to a place that the darkest part of me already wanted to be. I’d planned all along to end up at ground zero, where the perpetrators dwelled. Arriving there bound and at my weakest was just a small setback. 

My head bounced against the metal floor of the vehicle the vampires were using to kidnap me. A heavy smell of gasoline rode the air. I couldn’t make out any other scents over its presence, so I couldn’t tell if we were driving through town or down a country road. The constant bumps had me guessing it was the latter.

Abruptly, the automobile came to a screeching stop. I remained quiet, listening to the goings on of my surroundings. That’s when I heard a pain-filled grunt come from behind me. I had to force myself to remain still, knowing that the horrible sound had been wrenched from between the lips of the man I loved. I swallowed a growl; those two punk-vamps would be the first to die.

I heard the knocking of doors opening. I could smell the piney scent of the country, the deep coppery odor of blood, and the stench of rotting flesh. It was the smell of a debauched place, dwellings that were built next to a cemetery. A place inhabited by a people who made it a point to quickly fill up all those graves to capacity. I had been brought to a vampire’s nest.

“Grab that piece of shit. I’ll get the girl,” Sonny said.

With the door of the vehicle open, there was an excess of light to see by. I cracked an eye and watched the one named Frisco bend over and pick up Rush from the floor. He was limp. I could make out dried blood crusted on his thigh and flaking specks of it running down his leg. I lay there still, my rage building, waiting for the perfect time to make my move.

Sonny’s hands were shoved underneath me, and I was lifted into the air.

“Where do you want them?” Frisco asked.

I couldn’t see who he was talking to. I only knew that his voice came from right behind me.

And then I heard a feminine laugh. The sound was sickly sweet, the woman all too pleased with herself. 

“Put them in the holding shed with the other prisoners. I have fun plans for them.”

I could feel a nervous shift of legs from Sonny underneath me. He cleared his throat. He acted like he was scared of the woman.

“Solo asked me to bring the girl to him as soon as we arrived. I’m not trying to piss him off.”

There was a quiet pause.

“Perhaps you should choose your alliances more wisely, Sonny boy,” she said.

Sonny’s voice took on a petulant tone, as he said, “If I stab my leader in back, he’ll kill me, lady. I have no clue what you’d do to me. So I’ll take my chances with Solo if it’s all the same to you.”

The feeling of movement struck. I didn’t know if it was necessarily a good or bad thing that I was being taken to the head honcho and not immediately shoved in with the prisoners. And where did that leave Rush?  

“Would you like to know what I will do to you if you disobey my order?” the woman asked.

Sonny stopped cold, and his breath shot out from him. And then my body jogged against his chest slightly, as if he were nodding his head. He definitely wanted to know her plans. Hell, I did, too.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I cracked my eyelids. What I saw between the tiny slits solidified all my past assumptions about who the bad guys were. It was the phantom queen, alive and in someone else’s flesh. She stood several feet away from Sonny, throwing ice daggers at him with her otherworldly stare.

I suppressed a shiver. The queen, or as she was more formally known, Camille, was surrounded by men wearing leather jackets. Patches that read,
Harbinger of Death MC
, were across the front and back. But she wasn’t wearing leather or patches that signified any gang affiliations. Instead, she stuck out like a sore thumb, with her bare feet buried in the dirt and her lithe form covered in a green toga of fine silk.