Transfusion (Transfusion Saga #1)

Chapter 13

Hello Hex

A gun.

It just had to be a gun, didn’t it.

I waited for the feel of the severe rush of pain as the bullets ripped their way through my body, but instead I felt something else entirely.

In seconds it was as if my whole body was being spun around at a dizzying speed.

Then I heard the gun fire five more times before I realised I was actually encased in someone’s arms.

It took me a moment longer, which was precisely when the arms left me, to realize that Lucius had got to me just in time.

He had enveloped me in his arms and turned quickly enough so that he shielded me from the impact of the bullets, meaning they hit his back instead.

I turned around to the sound of a man screaming in terror as Lucius stalked towards him, throwing an actual desk out of his way as though it had been a bag of feathers.

It crashed into the wall and I winced at the damage, thankfully taking stock of irreplaceable things that had broken, happy to see it was at zero.

Then I watched in utter fascination as the bullets that were embedded in his back started to re-emerge, first from beneath his skin and then from beneath his leather jacket, as his body rejected the metal.

I knew that he could have mentally threw up a veil of protection around his skin so that the bullets wouldn’t have got that far.

But I guess his first impulse had been to get to me and shield the human…the very breakable human.

“No! Nooo! Get away from me, Devil!”

he begged as Lucius must have been letting his demonic features show, because now the man looked a heartbeat away from wetting himself and seeing Lucius this way, then I couldn’t say that I blamed him.

He was certainly a frightening sight to behold and if I hadn’t been used to seeing badass demons, then I would have no doubt been joining the thug with peeing my pants.

But I had never seen Lucius like this.

I didn’t know what it was exactly about the sight of such controlled rage, but I found myself with a hand to my beating heart from fear I would pass out.

He stalked the man who was heading closer towards the back row of artifacts and now I was starting to panic.

“NO!”

I shouted running forward a little and Lucius whipped his head around and snarled at me, making me flinch back at the sight.

By the Gods he was frightening! His eyes were two pools of crimson fire burning with blood lust.

Black veins branched off around his forehead and his eyes, snaking down the sides of his face.

It was thicker down his neck, looking as though an infection had risen from lower down his body and was creeping up under his skin like thin black snakes of venom.

I could tell that he thought I was trying to get him to stop before he killed the man and he obviously didn’t appreciate the interruption.

“Don’t damage the artifacts,”

I told him softly, then nodded to the back wall of drawers, letting him know that was all I cared about.

He turned to look at what I was referring to and then looked back at me, this time with a grin that could only be described in one way…

It was prime evil.

Then he utterly shocked me by giving me a wink before turning his attention back to the man who was currently trying to escape through a locked back door.

One that he didn’t know only led to a storeroom filled with equipment.

So, unless he intended to try and brush his way out to get away from the killer demonic vampire named Lucius, then it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he was screwed.

I knew this the second Lucius appeared behind him and grabbed him so that he could throw him back across the room and opposite the wall of drawers that I was trying to protect.

I couldn’t help myself when I held up two thumbs for his actions in saving the precious artifacts, making Lucius shake his head slightly as if he was seeing things.

Well, it was that or he clearly didn’t know what to do with me.

The guy landed and skidded along the floor as if he had just been thrown out of a moving car.

He was curled in on himself and just as he started to move out of his fetal state, Lucius was back on him.

He hauled him up with a choking grasp on his neck and threw him against the nearest wall.

I gasped, making Lucius look back at me even as he had the guy suspended with his feet off the ground and being held there with just one arm.

I quickly ran to the shelf he was next to and caught the large fossilized piece of a beehive that had been wobbling on its holder.

I let out a sigh of relief and then nodded to Lucius, saying,

“You may continue,”

making him smirk and shake his head to himself once again in what looked like wonderment.

“Fuck you, Bitch!”

The guy stupidly said, making Lucius yank the goons head closer to his face so that he could snarl at it, showing the lengthening of his fangs and this time the guy did piss himself.

“Now really, was that a smart thing to say, huh?”

I said making him quickly shake his head saying no.

But Lucius didn’t care as he cracked his head once more back on the wall, this time choking the life from him.

“Wait!”

Lucius didn’t stop but he did at least look at me.

“What now?”

he asked as if expecting me to say that the wall he was currently strangling someone up against was pissed on by Ramesses III and therefore also needed to be preserved.

“I don’t know, shouldn’t we at least interrogate him or something?”

I asked, glancing in panic at the guy quickly turning purple at the end of his hand.

“Why? He tried to kill you, that’s a good enough reason as any to end his life and I think your father would agree with me on this one,”

he added making me snort a short laugh and say,

“Well, yeah, that’s a given but what I mean is, that there could be more of them and that would be kind of handy to know, don’t you think?”

Lucius rolled his eyes and said,

“Fine!”

Then he let the guy go so that he dropped to the floor like a sack of turnips.

He started gasping and spluttering the second he tried to breathe air through his burning lungs.

Then, after a few more deep breaths, Lucius hauled him back up against the wall ready for our interrogation.

So, I leant towards him, getting in his face and started to play bad cop…or were we both bad cops?

“Who do you work for?!”

I shouted at him, making Lucius look down at me with a raised brow in question,

“What, it’s one of the first things they ask in the movies,”

I said in my defense with a shrug of my shoulders, making him shake his head at me.

“Been to many interrogations, have you?”

he asked drily.

“Nope, this is my first…you?”

I asked unable to help myself.

He looked down at me and replied in a dry tone,

“A few, yes.”

Telling me with his sarcasm that his real answer had been ‘you have no idea’.

Then Lucius turned his attention back to the task at hand.

“Well…answer her, asshole!”

Lucius snapped when the half-strangled goon looked at him for guidance, as it was clear here who the biggest threat was.

“I…I…can’t, th…th…ey will… kill me,”

he stuttered making my eyes widen in shock,

“Seriously, I mean you have a big angry Vampire about to snap your neck like a twig and you’re worried about someone else killing you later on?”

I asked him with disbelief at the sheer idiocy of the man.

“Now, tell us what it is you want with the box, starting with who sent you for it?”

I asked again with a forceful tone.

The second he didn’t answer I nudged Lucius and said,

“Go on, show him,”

making him once again frown at me.

“Show him what?”

Lucius asked, and I swear it was starting to look like a double act comedy show.

Seriously, if we were ever going to do this again we would have to work on our communication.

“The fangs, show him the fangs again,”

I said with another nudge making him roll his eyes at me.

But at least he went along with it and suddenly snapped his face around, this time with fully extended fangs that looked deadly enough they could have ripped half the guy’s neck out.

The man screamed in fear, turning his face away clearly terrified.

Meanwhile, Lucius looked down at me to find me looking smug and I mouthed the words, ‘Told you so’ at him, making him again shake his head at me.

But then my victory was short lived as the man started to beg instead of spilling the beans like I had thought he would.

“I…can’t…I…”

“Enough of this!”

Lucius snarled.

“AHHH!”

The man’s plea ended in a long wail of pain as Lucius sighed in annoyance before yanking the blade still in his shoulder and then driving it into the other one, essentially pinning him to the wall with it.

I glared at Lucius in response to his brutal actions, as it didn’t exactly scream trust us with the information and we will let you live type of gig that I had been hoping for.

“What?”

Lucius asked making me roll my eyes.

“Look, just tell us what we want to know, and we will let you go,”

I said making Lucius snap his gaze back to me and growl,

“No, we fucking won’t!”

I couldn’t help but groan out loud and grit my teeth, before hissing,

“Yes, well he didn’t know that, did he?”

“Ah, well in that case, we will let you live if you tell us what we want to know,”

Lucius said, this time making me smack my forehead.

“I think that ship has sailed, Lucius.”

Yeah and was half way across the Atlantic before it sank, I wanted to add but one pissed off look from a Vampire who was clearly losing his patience and I thought it best to restrain myself.

“Fuck this! Tell us what you know, or I will kill you and do it slowly, and when I say slowly, I mean one piece at a fucking time.

Now, last chance, who do you work for?!”

Lucius said in a threatening tone so deep I could have sworn his demon was trying to break free and take a bite.

When the guy didn’t answer quick enough, which in Lucius’ mind was three seconds, he then placed emphasis on his threat by twisting the knife in his shoulder until blood spurted out from the wound, making him cry out again.

This was when the man found his breaking point and opened his mouth to speak, only managing to say a number before he started to choke.

“Th…ree… tt…wo… two…AAAAHHHH!”

He started to splutter out before it all ended in the most blood curdling screams.

“Lucius, what are you…?”

“It isn’t me!”

he shouted back after dropping the man and now we both watched as he started spitting out blood that looked contaminated with black chunks of thick congealed plasma.

He started coughing even more violently and Lucius held a hand out across my chest and pushed me back a few steps as if he knew what was coming.

“What’s happening…what’s wrong with him!?”

I asked in shock as it was as if he had just swallowed a bucket of acid and it was eating him from the inside out.

“Could it be a cyanide capsule?”

I asked when Lucius hadn’t answered me.

“No, this is nothing man made…this is a… Death Hex,”

Lucius said pausing once to look at me with a dire expression before finally answering me with the last thing I ever expected to hear.

Then I looked down in time to see the man’s stomach cave in on itself making me want to gag.

Instead, my instincts kicked in and I curled into Lucius’ side, hiding my face against his leather jacket.

At first, he tensed at the contact and I was just about to pull away but then his arm wrapped around me, securing me to his side and warning me not to look yet.

I waited until the sounds of gurgled death were finished before I peeked my head out from Lucius’ hold.

All that was left was what looked like a melted body on the floor minus anything structural to hold it upright…like its bones.

“Oh Gods, that’s me never eating stew again,”

I said making another gagging sound causing Lucius to give me a sideways glance and look briefly amused.

“What the hell could do something like that?”

“Someone extremely powerful, for the Hex was placed to stop him from…”

“Snitching on whoever he works for, yeah, yeah, I got that…what I mean is, what type of being could cast something like that?”

I asked again interrupting him.

“Well, I think I already answered that bit, Prin…”

He started to call me Princess and I lost it.

“Don’t call me princess, Luc, or I swear I am going to start calling you Dracula,”

I threatened, making him smirk.

“You know I met him once,”

he said as he bent on a knee near the putrid blob of a corpse.

I frowned and found myself asking,

“Who?”

“Vlad ?epe?, or better known as…”

“Vlad the Impaler!?”

I interrupted again in shock.

He didn’t reply, so I gathered this was who he meant, seeing as I had just teased him about calling him Dracula.

“What was he like…and what are you doing?”

I asked the second he started to sniff over the vile sight.

“Familiarising myself with the scent of the Hex so that I may track it should it arise again.”

“Ah, okay, I didn’t know you guys could do that,”

I commented before taking a sniff myself to see if I could pick anything up.

Let’s just say that I regretted it instantly as I all smelled was melted skin and hair, making me put a fist in my mouth to stop myself from gagging.

Lucius looked back up at me over his shoulder and questioned drily…

“Us guys?”

“Yeah, you know what I mean,”

I said showing him my non-existent fangs, with a wave of my hand making him grumble under his breath,

“Happily not.”

Then he rose back to his full height, once again making me feel like a short ass and said,

“He’s misunderstood.”

I frowned now having no clue as to what he meant.

“Well yeah, sure he is, I mean he’s dead for a start so I’m sure you couldn’t get any more misunderstood than a dead guy,”

I commented dryly, making Lucius roll his eyes before correcting me.

“Not him.”

Then I watched as he walked towards the other casualties in the room.

“Who is?”

I asked feeling as though we were having this conversation out of sync.

“Vlad is…now what happened here, did they turn on each other?”

Lucius asked me, nodding down at the two men that were now both unconscious, one of which was still cupping his balls, the poor bastard.

“What, no…! I did that,”

I told him making him snap his head back at me and the look he gave me was priceless.

Anyone would have thought he had turned to find me wearing my panties on my head and walking on my hands.

I swear he was a second away from his mouth dropping open in that comical way.

But instead of letting his utter shock get to embarrassing levels, he did something better with his mouth and unfortunately that wasn’t kissing me senseless.

No, instead he spoke in a tone that was clearly astonished.

“You did this?”

he asked again, repeating my words in clear bewilderment that I found insulting.

So, I crossed my arms over my chest, cocked my hip out a little and said,

“Yeah, Lucius, I did this.”

Then he looked back to the men again, this time taking a better look and obviously now calculating a list of their injuries.

Something he confirmed when he turned back to face me and said again, only this time with even more amazement,

“You did this?”

“Yes, geez, what do you want me to do, film it next time as proof!”

“Next time? Are you planning on making this a hobby?”

he said sounding surprised but from the mirth dancing in his eyes, I could tell he was also teasing me.

Which was astounding in itself, as I didn’t even know that Lucius had it in him to tease anyone, as I had certainly never seen it before.

Which, painfully, made me think of my mother and ask myself what had he been like with her?

I hated whenever my thoughts would spiral down this rabbit hole filled with nothing but a dark taboo of history I really didn’t want to face.

Because, no matter how much I loved and adored my mother, it was an inner battle I fought when feeling as though I would never be as good as her.

“Well, that depends,”

I replied trying not to let my dark thoughts seep into my words and coat them in bitterness.

“On?”

he enquired,

“How often I am going to turn up to work and find thugs waiting for me.”

This answer didn’t please Lucius, I could tell.

He walked over to the one with the broken arm and hauled him up with a fist full of his jacket, doing so as though he weighed nothing at all.

Then he twisted his wrist so that he could take in the unconscious man, once again assessing the damage.

“You broke his arm?”

Lucius asked as it was clear he was still in disbelief.

“Well, he didn’t do it when he fell that’s for damn sure and I needed to force the knife out of his hand,”

I replied leaving out the fact that I got the knife off him without needing to break a limb…but hey ho, I thought that best to keep to myself.

However, I couldn’t help but get annoyed as he still didn’t seem to believe it was me.

He confirmed this when he dropped the man on the desk with an audible thud and asked,

“And just how did you accomplish that?”

I groaned aloud first and said,

“You have met my father, right? How do you think I did it, by asking it nicely to break?”

I said sarcastically, once again making his lips twitch.

“Your father taught you to fight?”

he asked as if needing this confirmed, which I didn’t exactly think was the best time to discuss how capable I was at beating a man’s ass.

“Since I was three years old,”

I told him, making Lucius mumble under his breath,

“That explains a few things.”

I was about to ask him what he meant when suddenly the door was flung open and three security guards all piled in.

“Stop!”

Lucius demanded making all three men freeze as if time had been paused.

“Oh shit, what are we going to do now?”

I asked, however Lucius seemed unfazed by the fact it looked like we had just been caught at a murder scene, although I was not sure what to call that pile of human goo on the floor.

“Forget what you have seen since entering this room and go back to your posts,”

Lucius demanded with a flick of his wrist making them do as he commanded, leaving us alone once more.

After this he pulled out his phone making me notice what he was wearing and having to quickly prevent any drool from escaping the second that I did.

He was wearing a pair of dark jeans the shade of charcoal that molded perfectly to his long strong legs to the point where I couldn’t stop myself from staring at his ass.

Then he wore a black leather jacket that zipped up his abs, had pockets at the sides I wished I could slip my hands into and a stiff belted standing collar that he wore open.

Underneath, I could see the long-sleeved t-shirt in a ribbed light grey material that looked both lightweight and worn deliciously tight to his powerful body.

I also wanted to groan every time he bent his arm, making the leather around his large biceps tighten, groaning at the strain.

“I need you here at the museum,”

he said without so much as an ‘hello’ or ‘how’re you doing?’ I guess Lucius was too important to bother with the formalities.

It reminded me of the Spanish and the way they would answer their phones, saying ‘Digame’ which literally means, ‘tell me’ or basically, ‘speak’.

Which was sometimes how I had heard my dad answer the phone to one of his, should we say, ‘subjects’ for lack of a better word.

“Let’s just say I found some new friends for Ruto to play with,”

Lucius replied to whoever it was on the other end and he did so with a knowing grin, one that made me want to shiver.

Especially when one of the guys started to come round and the second he did, Lucius grabbed the back of his head and bashed it on the table so that his nose exploded, and he blacked out once more.

And he did this without a single show of emotion on his face… I swear it didn’t even twitch.

“Nice,”

I commented drily, making him grin at me.

Then he listened to whoever was on the phone for a few seconds more who must have asked the question, ‘will that be all?’ because Lucius looked over his shoulder down his back as if remembering something.

“Bring me another jacket,”

then he ended the call after this demand that was snarled in annoyance.

He then fed his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and unzipped his jacket before peeling it off his torso.

I swear the lump in my throat became the size of a plum for I had to turn away from him just so that I could swallow it down without looking like an idiot.

The sight of his tight T-shirt molded to his muscles was having the equivalent effect on me as if I had seen him emerging naked from some tropical waterfall, flicking his wet hair back like he was on some damn shampoo advert.

I had to clear my throat before I spoke again, hating the effect just the sight of him had over me.

“Umm…so, what about that…uh…mess on the floor, because no offence, but I don’t think we can make everyone who comes in here ignore it forever,”

I told him giving my nose a rub as the stench of the man puddle was making its way across the room.

“Can you fix it?”

I asked in a comical tone whilst holding my nose and after following Lucius closer to it, seconds later really wishing that I hadn’t.

“No,”

was his simple answer, unfortunately for me though, it wasn’t the one I wanted to hear.

“Well, you’re going to have to do something because we can’t leave him…it…there forever.”

The next thing I knew he clicked his fingers and like Hades himself, flames suddenly appeared, burning away all traces of the body and with it leaving behind a big black melted patch on the floor.

“And that?”

I questioned, wondering how I was going to explain that too.

This was when he finally looked down at me, grinned that bad boy grin of his and said…

“Now that I can fix.”