Chapter 10 #2
“And you let him escape!”
“I thought he was dead.”
The higher-voiced demon shoves his fellow Brood. “He tricked you, you fucking moron.”
Deacon’s body tenses behind me. Something bright and pure swells in my chest. Not dead. Not dead at all. Tricked them. Escaped. Reid was always so clever.
The original demon snaps, “Well, what do you expect me to do now?”
My body thrums and sparks with surging hatred as slow, haunting clicking sounds down the hall. Like the carefree whistle of an executioner. The sound of Finn’s claws before he plays with his food. If I’m lucky, these two idiots will be dinner.
When Finn enters, the demons stammer before him.
“My liege—” one says.
“It’s not what it looks like,” the other finishes.
For a moment, Finn only stares at the broken chains hanging from the ceiling. The stagnant pool of Reid’s blood. His two quaking underlings. His claws click together faster now, as if in thought. “What did you two do with my dear cousin?”
The first demon drops to his knees. “I thought he was dead, my liege. He’d bled so much after your last go at him. I left for less than a minute…He was seconds from ash, I was sure of it.” He swallows thickly, eyes cast down. “I’m sorry.”
“And how am I supposed to get the girl’s name now?”
Deacon has the good sense to tighten his grip on me because I lunge without thinking. Finn was torturing Reid for information on me. And he all but died without giving me up. The thousands of ways I crave Finn’s body in chunks dance in my head. I’m beginning to sweat, I need the kill so bad.
“I’m sure you can—”
“Fuck—” Finn roars, grabbing a bloody pair of pliers and hurling them into the concrete wall behind his underling’s head.
“Fucking Driscoll. Fucking Reid. I just need her fucking name.” Silence pounds through the room.
Finn’s breaths come in short, furious bursts.
The chains that hang from the ceiling rattle. “Who knows of this?”
“Nobody,” one demon stammers. “Just us.”
“We’ll have to keep it that way, us three.
If my father discovers I lost his wayward nephew…
” Finn sucks his teeth, tapping his claws together manically.
“Let’s just say it will be hard to convince him of my place in his new world order.
” When Finn begins to laugh, his lackeys do the same.
Finn’s is a genuine belly laugh. Like he knows he’s overacted and finds humor in his own insanity.
I can scent the relief in the demon lackeys’ bones.
“Your father doesn’t appreciate you enough, my liege,” the high-voiced demon says. “You have been working tirelessly to track her down.”
“You’re right. Up,” he tells the kneeling demons. When they look at each other, unsure if he’s serious, he repeats, “Up, up. Come on, off the floor. We’ll find my cousin and then the girl.”
Exhaling in tandem, the two demons stand.
“Thank you, my generous, merciful liege,” the first one says with a comforted smile.
“We won’t fail you.” The other nods.
“Of course you won’t.” Finn grins, slinging his arms over their shoulders like they’re the Three Musketeers.
His underlings grin nervously, eyeing each other.
Pitiful, pathetic idiots. Deacon and I exchange a knowing glance.
Finn’s smile only grows as he turns his head from one Brood to the other. “Because you’ll be dead.”
And with that, Finn jams his long, sharpened claws into the eye sockets of both men. They scream—hair-raising, gut-clenching sounds—and I scent urine in the air before they collapse, dead.
Finn’s continuing laughter is giddy as he stands in the torture room alone, soaking up the carnage of his kills. The sound could peel paint from the walls. My hunger for his death only multiplies, and I squirm in Deacon’s grasp.
Then Finn quiets, face hard as stone, and he walks out. When the door snicks shut behind him, Deacon lets me go.
“He’s alive,” I manage around this strange new bloodlust. I try to breathe through it, but the room is clouded with the scent of demon blood.
“Unless Finn finds him before we do.”
Deacon’s words only exacerbate the pain that cleaves through me. The need. I lean on the shelf of savage utensils to keep upright.
Deacon glares at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
But I can’t speak around the dragging pain, as it morphs further into bloody hunger. A sucking feeling inside my chest, as if I cannot think of anything but my desire to kill. My daggers are clasped in my hands before I realize I’ve clutched them.
Finn’s gone, and there are no other options outside the massive white-blond thug I’ve spent the evening with.
My blades hum in my palms. This is right, I think.
He deserves to die. He killed a mortal tonight.
It’s as good a time as any to try to put an end to him.
I can find Reid on my own. I whirl on Deacon—
But he’s already standing over the bodies of Finn’s men. One is ash, but the other is still gurgling, blinded, gasping for air on the soiled concrete floor. Finn’s claws must have missed his brain.
I’m drawn to the sound like a dog to a whistle. Some past training calling me home. Put him down. Nothing waits for demons beyond my blade. Not even the underworld. Just…true death. It’s my job to deliver him to the void.
When I kneel over the Brood, Deacon takes a breath. “Your scar…” I can feel it, tight and painful, warping and tensing in my skin. “Kill him, Vivienne. I think you need it.”
I’d tell him that’s insane, but it’s so plainly true. The bloodlust I’ve harbored my whole life—that innate predatory instinct to kill born only to aeons—has been dialed up beyond recognition. I’d noticed it during our brawl at the Cineplex, but now…the pain when I refuse it. Unbearable.
Blood gurgles from the demon’s mouth, as he lifts a weak hand toward me and I move without thinking. My daggers fly, hacking into primordial flesh and bone, until the Brood that witnessed—welcomed—Reid’s torture is well and truly dead.
Panting, splattered in demon blood, and surrounded by ash, the pain finally subsides. Stale air funnels into my nose. Sighs flutter from my lips.
“You know,” Deacon says thoughtfully as he offers me his hand, “you can tell a lot about a girl by the way she slices a man’s fingers off.”
I ignore his offer and climb from the floor in a horrified daze. What is happening to me?
“We should go,” Deacon says. “Before Finn arrives with his next party guest.”
“I have to tell the Elders about this place,” I say quietly.
Fiona will be my first stop when I get back to school.
Sure, a lot of what goes on in the Manor seems either consensual or harmless, but if demons like Finn are using these back rooms as their torture dungeons or to play human chess with unwilling mortals, the Citadel hunters need to get down here ASAP.
“Knock yourself out,” Deacon says as we walk quietly back down the hall. “They’ll just set up shop somewhere new.”
I’ve come to hate nothing more than when Deacon is right.
Outside the Manor, chilled by frigid night air, Deacon climbs onto his bike and I slide on behind him.
I’m exhausted, and sickened by myself, and am clinging to the only silver lining of the night: Reid is alive and has escaped Finn’s clutches.
Relief shimmers inside me despite the new vicious development in my psyche.
He may still be on the run, but he’s free.
“Think he’ll return to Harker?” I finally ask.
“I’m not sure.”
I swallow the sinking feeling. Reid will know the price of his escape.
Finn is after him now as much as me. I doubt he’ll risk putting me—and all the other students at Harker—in danger.
Coming home means he could lead Finn to the school he’s searching for.
But that’s fine. I’ll find him. After all, it’s what hunters do best.
“Hold on,” Deacon instructs, starting the engine.
He’ll never learn. “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Then he guns it so hard the force sends me flying clean off the back of the bike.