Chapter 7 #5
“Do they serve food here?” Skylar asked.
“No, no they don’t. This is strictly a blood club,” Rafe punched his fist through the drywall, continuing to rip apart the debris.
Logic warned him the vampires weren’t baking a cake. A fresh rush of putrid air escaped the room as the opening expanded, and his suspicions were confirmed that something much more nefarious was cooking.
“Jesus, that reeks. Yeah, tonight we are truly inside what you’d class as the underbelly of blood clubs.” Rafe tugged another piece of drywall free and tossed it aside.
“Could be worse.” Greyson noted.
“It’s pretty bad,” Xavier weighed in.
“The smell of death.” Kenji removed another piece of wall. “That’s definitely a dead body.”
“More than one. Let’s get this open.” Greyson tugged at a two by four and tossed it down the hallway.
“That shit is nasty. Fucking lying fae.” Rafe brushed the dust off his hands, angry the tip had turned out to be nothing more than another lie. He turned to Skylar, his expression serious. “I want you to stay behind me. Kenji look out for her.”
“I’ll be okay.” She nodded.
“Kenji?”
“No worries,” he assured Rafe.
“Don’t get all sappy on me, wolf. She’ll be fine.” Greyson gestured to the hole. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Beauty before age.” Rafe pressed through the small opening and took in his surroundings.
A rack of sharpened kitchen knives adhered to a metal strip lined the far wall.
Stainless steel cabinets and countertops without a single smudge appeared unused.
Yet as he approached the sink, the familiar stench of rotting flesh slapped him.
“What the fuck?” Rafe shook his head as he caught sight of a severed foot lying over its drain.
“What is it?” Greyson scrunched his nose and waved a hand at him. “Well. I can see we have a problem here.”
“There’s a foot in the sink. What’s that?” Rafe pointed to a green goo splattered across a wall.
“Could be a fungus,” Xavier commented. “I’m beginning to regret saying yes to Kade.”
“Laz!” Rafe called out into the industrial space.
“Topper!” Xavier yelled.
“Neither one of them is here,” Greyson stated. “Something isn’t right.”
“That fae was fucking lying to you.” Rafe’s mind churned as he studied the room.
“Is this a kitchen? Or a lab?” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.
“You can’t even keep blood in here. It’s cool but not cold enough for a blood bar.
Where are the refrigerators? Why is this hidden?
Where the fuck is Topper? And where the fuck is the waiter? The wolf?”
“Did you say there are severed body parts in the sink?” Kenji asked as he and Skylar stepped inside the room.
“Stay back.” Rafe shot him a sharp look of annoyance. “Keep her back.”
“But what about the man?” Skylar asked, her eyes widening. “Did those things out there…those…”
“Vampires.” Greyson finished her thought.
“Did they do this?” she asked, attempting to peek around Kenji’s broad shoulders.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know,” Rafe replied.
“But vampires—”
“We’re not all the same,” Greyson feigned indignation.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Rafe countered. “Think about this. Vampires drink blood. They don’t usually separate parts of the body. They don’t eat the flesh.”
“Or save it. Jesus,” Xavier exclaimed. “What in the hell is going on? That smell reeks.”
“There’s something very evil here,” Greyson growled in warning.
“There’s nothing in here.” Rafe glanced at the severed foot. Rage simmered underneath his cool exterior as he strode across the room. Towards the back, a dimly lit hallway led toward a single red door. Rafe held a finger up to his lips and pointed. “Let’s go.”
Greyson flashed several feet ahead of him, his feet planted firmly on a black rubber mat. “Feeling lucky?”
“Every damn day of the week.” Rafe peered inside its tiny peephole and jiggled the door handle which appeared to be locked. “Nothing is easy.”
Rafe stepped back and lunged at the door. His muscles tensed as he slammed his shoulder against the cold metal. As a loud screech sounded, he burst into the empty room.
Though it was dark, he could make out the forms hanging from the ceiling, the scent of death hung heavy in the air.
“I wouldn’t call this lucky.” Greyson said as he stepped inside after the wolf.
“Shit.” Rafe reached for the light switch and flipped it upward. He sucked a breath at the sight. “What the fuck is this?”
Like meat in a butcher shop, black body bags hung eerily still from hooks in the ceiling. Rafe glanced to a human body laid out on the bloodstained floor. “Skylar, stay back. I mean it.”
“Jesus Christ.” Greyson stepped past him to examine what remained of the human, strands of her long black hair brushed into a puddle of blood on a metal drain. “I don’t see any fang marks. Look here.”
“What’s with all the body bags?” Rafe asked.
“I assume they’re human.” Xavier retrieved a blue rubber glove from his coat pocket and snapped it onto his hand. “There must be twenty of them.”
“Gloves?” Rafe’s eyes widened.
“I travel prepared, my friend.” Xavier tapped on the outer canvas and reached for a zipper. “Perhaps we should open one of these bags? Take a look-see.”
“Shh. Hold up.” The room fell into silence as Rafe went on alert. An ominous foreboding crawled over his skin. His wolf urged him to shift, but he resisted.
“What?” Xavier whispered.
Rafe whipped his head around as Skylar and Kenji entered the room. Her focus fell to the lifeless naked body sprawled on the floor. Her eyes widened in horror, her fist balled with tension.
“Oh my God,” Skylar gasped.
Greyson moved to block her view and shook his head at Rafe. “Kenji. We gotta get her outta here.”
“This isn’t for ladies such as yourself,” Xavier insisted. “We shouldn’t have brought the human.”
“Shhh. Something’s off. Listen,” Rafe told them. “Can you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.” Xavier stepped closer to Skylar and sniffed the air. “Death.”
“I heard something.” The hair raised on the back of his neck.
“It’s not quite just death.” Greyson sniffed the air. “It’s something else. It’s sickness.”
“The stench of Hell.” Kenji noted.
“No heartbeats. But something…something’s in here,” Greyson warned.
“Stay back,” Rafe’s wolf released a low growl, his instinct warning him of an unknown danger. Something in the room was alive.
Greyson nodded. “We’re not alone.”
“What is that?” Skylar asked, her voice but a whisper.
Rafe whipped his head towards the noise in the corner and took a step forward.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The familiar scent of Hell rushed into the room. The evil washed over Rafe, its demonic tendrils crawling like bugs over his skin. In the corner a body bag slowly swung back and forth.
Rafe’s heart pounded in his chest as he scanned the room. Multiple bags had begun moving. No longer able to restrain the beast, his vampire emerged, demanding to be released.
Skylar released a blood curdling scream as the body bag closest to them dropped to the floor, ripping at its seams. Demonic energy pulsated through the room as the bag tore open, green fluid oozing onto the ground.
“Keep her back,” Rafe commanded. “You need to go now. Greyson will take you.”