Feral Passion (8 page)

“Kevin!” she shouted, knowing that she had
done this.

Who was the man, beneath her, dead? Her eyes
wouldn’t move, wouldn’t look away as the air settled around them,
the deadly silence shrieking in her ear like the man had shrieked
at the face of death.

“Kevin, please,” she cried, desperation
starting to taint her voice. Her hands, covered in the man’s life
blood, came up to hold her face, fear, pain and horror surging
through her as what she had done finally registered.

“I can’t answer to you anymore, Mary.” The
voice said, filled with regret.

"No! You tell me what I did!” Her knees hit
the ground hard when she stumbled, her hands barely catching
herself. “Kevin, you have to. . . I don’t. . . What happened?”

“Your actions, your decisions and choices
have brought the world to this. The others will not let me be
acquainted with you no longer. You have done this to my world,
Mary. You have ruined my world.” His voice, now angry, was
anguished, as if she had killed his children—which, in a way, she
had.

From behind her, a gurgling sound came. Then
something grasped onto her leg, the sharp touch stabbing into her
skin with a deep cold chill that terrified her. Trying to tear
herself away, a scream built up in her throat when she looked down
to see the decomposing hand of the man that she had killed, his
eyes hollow sockets, filled with black and unblinking.

“I’m sorry, I tried! Kevin, make this stop!”
she screeched, tearing her leg away.

Instead of the clean break that she had
expected, the hand came away with it, the dry smell of ash clouding
her nose. Oh, god. . . He’s going to kill me. . .

“You didn’t try hard enough, Mary!” Kevin
roared, her name a bitter sound. Perched above her, his finger
stabbed down at her. “You didn’t, and you cost the lives of
everyone!”

She stepped back, watching
as the scene around her changed, watched as men,
thousands
of them, came from every
part of the barren field. The air, instead of a gray, turned to a
blood red, as if her eyes were the ones seeing the color, and not
all around them.

A woman, face peeled to nothing but bone and
hanging muscle, stood a few feet away, eyes hungry yet dead, body
limp but moving.

“Kevin,” she begged brokenly, wondering how
the hell she was the cause of the worlds demise. “How do I stop
this? Please, just help. . .”

His white hair shook, eyes turning a deep,
blood red that matched the color on her hands. Her breath came out
hard, jerky.

“You did this,” the woman said quietly at
first. Her decrepit foot stepped forward, the bones that creaked
able to be heard even from where Mary was.

“You killed him,” the woman screeched, right
before flying for Mary like a reaper, eyes and mouth flooding with
red liquid that resembled blood, claws dripping with what reminded
her of poison—yellow, sticking, and steaming.

Chapter 12

“Karren, order sixty-five is ready,” the
short, dark skinned man said from behind the counter. A woman with
long blonde hair and fake breasts bumbled her way to the counter,
flashing a smile and grabbing the drinks.

“I’ll get Macy for the next one,” she called
before sashaying her way to a table in the back.

Raff just caught the man’s eyes as he was
turning back from putting a red drink on the table, and as soon as
the connection was made his face turned hard.

“A friend of mine told me you would be
coming,” he murmured, going around the side of the bar to where the
wall pulled back for an entrance. Raffaele and Chase waited
patiently, exchanging emotionless looks.

“John, take up the bar will you? Ivan wants
me out back to help with some cargo,” he explained, giving a nod to
who Raffaele assumed was John.

“Follow me?” he asked with dry gallantry.

Raff nodded, walking behind the shorter man
through the club. Several woman caught his eye, even returning his
wondering gaze with lustful interest, but he found that he could
care less and held open the door that Michael lead them
through.

The cold night air brushed his skin, giving
him light chills. Suddenly, he wished he hadn’t changed out of his
suit and into dark jeans and a t-shirt. At least with the suit he
had had better gun coverage and something to cover his arms.

As Raffaele had expected, no one was in the
ally behind the bar. Normally, you would have been able to hear
moans and whimpers, but with all of the murders and suspicions
going around, not even the horniest of bastards wanted to take the
chance of getting caught.

Michael leaned against the wall, arms over
his bulky chest, brown eyes watching them closely. “So, you want to
know about the murders?” he asked nonchalantly, picking at lint
absently on his arm.

“More specifically, the last one.”

Michael grunted. “What about it? It’s just
like all of the other ones, nothing special about it.”

Raff growled, putting a hand up when Chase
stepped forward. “Don’t lie, I can smell if coming off of you in
waves.” It was true; the bitter smell was clogging his nose in the
most unpleasant ways.

Brown eyes narrowed, incisors flashing in the
dark. “There were only a couple of oddities,” the man said gruffly,
containing his violent side. Without the smell of sex and drugs
tainting the air, Raff could detect a very faint line of Acutos in
the man.

A half-breed, he concluded, holding in his
annoyance. Half-breeds were. . .odd. More human that Acutos, but
still obtaining the physical appearance of one. Nothing to make
them special except short fangs and changing eyes.

“What would those be?” he asked.

“Just. . . Markings.” In the dark, Raff
watched his face twist. “And it keeps getting closer to the Leaders
house. The murders, the bodies. The evidence.” Behind the barely
concealed anger was worry, a fear that someone who everyone looked
up to could be in danger.

Raffaele stiffened. “What do you mean? Are
you talking about Mary?”

Just the thought of any harm or danger
near the beautiful brunette sent his blood boiling. He clenched his
hands at his side to keep from hitting the man who would dare to
even
speak
of Mary in a
situation like that.

“Mary Waters? Yeah, the murder scenes
just keep getting closer and closer to her. Normally a lot of
people would over look that, but she is our leader and we
do
care for her, and. . . She fits
the description of his targets perfectly. I heard on the grape vine
that her brother has her moved in with him for now.”

He felt a moment of relief. He didn’t know
the man, but he was glad that he was taking precautions.

“What were the symbols of? Might you have
recognized any of them?”

Behind them, the sound of a door opening had
them all turning, Chase being the one to go see what it was
about.

“I heard that they were just straight lines
with dots around it. Might seem like a tattoo I guess, but the aura
that they gave off. . . They told me it was the most malicious
thing they’ve felt. And I don’t doubt them.”

“Who are these people?”

Michael shook his head. “Can’t tell,
sorry.”

Raff pushed a hand through his hair, feeling
a frustration that he hadn’t felt in a while. If only he could get
the direct information, maybe he could help Mary. . . No, help the
women.

“What was the girl’s name?” he asked, not
really wanting to know at all.

“Ashlyn. Ashyln Manson, lived down on Orleans
with her parents, a freshman in college.” Raff’s eyes closed,
feeling. . .deadened. The parents. . . He would have to talk to
them sometime, maybe tomorrow after his meeting with Mary.

“That’s just fucking great,” he said lowly,
eyes closing against the anger at the loss of such a young life.
“Just lovely.”

“I know. People thought she was a sweet
enough girl, and one wrong move has her six feet under.”

“Jesus
fuck
,” he barked, the irritation and aggravation
finally showing. He would have thought about punching the wall at
first. Really, he would have. But he pulled away his hand, could
already feel the aching in it.

“Calm down, man,” Michael warned, glancing
around them.

“God, sorry. I mean. . . Why the fuck would
someone do this? Seriously, there is not one single thing in the
world that can justify something like this!”

“I know. . . If I had the chance, the fucker
would already be underground,” Michael agreed, rubbing a hand over
his face.

“That bitch
will
be underground when I’m done
here.”

Chapter 13

Mary woke to her own screaming.

“Kevin. . .” she whimpered, the word dying on
her lips. “Oh my god. . .” Her arms wrapped around herself, head
bowing. The room felt colder than it should have, the blankets
pulled away, damp with her own sweat.

She was shaking.

The dream. . . God, the dream. Was that going
to happen someday? Was it really going to be all her fault?

A harsh sob tore from her chest, her hands
coming up to her face. There wasn’t any blood, she assured herself.
There was no knife, no blood, no woman with venom dripping from her
hands.

Mary stared down at her shaking hands,
knowing that the red on her hands was. . .real. She screeched,
grabbing for the sheets. “Ulrich!” she screamed helplessly, wiping
her hands on the sheets till they were raw.

“Oh god, Ulrich!” Her voice, even to her own
ears, sounded desperate, hysterical.

Her body moved to grab the phone by her bed,
hands shaking almost bad enough that she couldn’t get the right
number onto the screen.

The phone ringing was the only sound in her
room, besides her jerky breaths and muted cries of panic. She
prayed that he answered, that he wasn’t busy and. . .

“Mary?” a groggy voice asked.

She tried to catch her breath, only managing
to let out a whimper. “Ulrich. . .”

“Mary? Mary, what’s wrong. Are you okay?
C’mon, tell me what’s wrong.” No longer sleepy, but alert and
awake. The sound of rustling clogged her senses, inanely making her
wonder what the hell was going on.

“I had. . . Please come get me. There’s so
much blood. . .” She took the phone from her ear, staring down at
her hands. Faint ghostly tendrils of blood streamed down from her
hand. It touched nothing but her, nothing but the hand that she had
killed the man with.

“I’m on my way, okay, honey? Just stay there,
don’t leave the house. I’ll be there in five minutes, promise.”

Her eyes widened, voice cracking when she
begged, “No! Ulrich, please don’t hang up. Please don’t, I can’t. .
. Just. . .” Mary broke down into crying.

With her eyes closed, all she could see was
the dead body of the man. It felt as if the knife were still in her
hands, and the woman’s open mouth flying at her seemed all to
real.

“I won’t hang up, Mary,” he promised her
soothingly, obviously starting to panic himself.

“Please. . .” The ashy smell was coming back.
Streams of the blood were just floating around her like string in
the air.

The phone fell from her ear, and she was
shaking too much to get enough strength to pick it up. The memories
of the dream held her in enthralled horror, re-plays going on and
on. She swore that she was transported back to that demented
world.

It barely registered to her that the door had
opened, that her brother had barged in so violently that the whole
house seemed to vibrate. “Mary, oh my god. . . Honey, Jesus, what
happened?”

He strode to the bed, his voice worried. When
his hands come out to touch her, she flinched before she was even
aware of it. The shaking got worse; she wished that she could stop
long enough to get a word out to Ulrich.

“What. . .
happened
,” Ulrich asked, sounding horrified. She
heard him walk to the bed again, and this time he ignored her
flinch and gathered her into her arms. Mary could feel the small
tremor that ran through him and only wished that she hadn’t
panicked and called him.

“I. . . Blood. . . The man. . .” Mary started
to get frustrated when she realized she wouldn’t be able to explain
through all of the endless shaking.

“Shh, it’s okay. Just calm down, Mary.”
Through the soothing sound of his voice and the light pat of his
hand on her back, she could hear the faint emotion of fear.

Finally, she forced her head up and somehow
found the will to speak through her choked throat. “Kevin. . . He
was there. I killed someone,” she said, terror lining her voice as
the words quietly slipped past her lips. “I stood above him,
holding the knife. Ulrich, I killed that man,” she said, voice
cracking brokenly.

His head shook, hand clenching on her back.
“No you didn’t. I know you would never do that, Mary. It was a bad
dream, okay? Just a bad dream and it’s okay now.” There was a
forced sureness in her voice that she couldn’t help but notice.

“No, I
killed
—”

“Mary, you didn’t,” he said, the back of his
teeth grinding.

“Yes, my hands are blo—”

“No you fucking didn’t,
Mary
.” The bark of his voice made her wince, her eyes
dropping to her hands. No longer was the ghostly faint blood
dripping from her hands.

Climbing off of him, she slowly shook her
head and turned from him. “Don’t talk to me like that,” she
whispered, opening the door with a shaking hand.

Ulrich stood, hand coming out imploringly,
his face lined with regret. “I’m sorry, I just. . .Don’t say things
like that, ever. I’m a cop, I can’t be hearing my own sister
talking about murdering people.”