Shadow Eater, page 3
part #2 of Shadowlands Series
“Not like that man’s brain,” the male said. “Gave me heartburn.”
“Is that what you do?” Clay said. “You eat people?” Like it wasn’t obvious.
At least now he knew what had happened to the humans who’d never made it to Shelter, the ones who’d crossed the Horizon in the hope of finding some new refuge. The female smiled, and Clay got a good glimpse of yellow, deadly-sharp teeth.
“Oh,” she said, “you’ll find out what we do soon enough.” She opened her mouth wide and gagged a few times.
Before Clay could think, black liquid spewed out of her and all over the wooden bed-frame, spattering his legs. The foul stench was too much. He gagged and vomited.
“Really?” the male growled. “You had to do that? Now we’ve got to clean him up!”
“Sorry, but you know how it is. Not my fault!”
“You could’ve aimed the other way!”
“Oh, sorry, next time I’ll make sure I’m all prepared so I don’t upset Your Highness!”
“Fuck off.” With that, the male gagged and threw up more of the black liquid all over the female.
“You bastard!”
“Don’t call me that, bitch! You wanna show me some respect! I’m a man, you’re just a—”
The female grabbed him by the throat and throttled him. He clawed at her, raking flesh from her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice, just squeezed harder. Within a minute her hands were buried deep in his neck. Blood pumped all over them both. With one final move, she ripped his head from his shoulders.
Clay rolled from under the bed and onto his feet. “That’ll teach you!” she screamed at her companion before tossing his head aside. “Bloody men, thinking they’re all better than woman and shit. He had it coming, trust me.” She looked down to where she thought Clay was and then up again. “Oh.”
Clay moved fast, swinging the crowbar at her face. He caught her hard, smashing her face and sending her staggering backward.
Blood poured from the mess that had been her nose.
“Ou—”
Clay swung again, hitting her in the mouth and making her teeth explode. He swung and swung and swung, bludgeoning her with the instrument, not giving her a chance to fully react to what was happening to her. Her head was caving in, blood and brain spraying everywhere. Again he’d had to kill, to destroy a thing that had threatened his life. His body wasn’t his, it was a machine intent on survival; the primitive instinct rattled his bones and drove him to snuff out the deadly flame before him.
“I think she’s dead.”
Clay stopped and turned to see a man in the doorway. He was holding something long in his right hand.
He was just like them, a thing of decay.
Clay’s breathing was an erratic burn in his lungs.
“Get away from me,” Clay said.
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” the man said.
“I know what I’ve done—I stopped her from eating me.”
“You’ve pissed off our mummy.”
“What?”
“She will not be happy.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Mummy loves her children and you took one away from her. You could’ve come quietly, been good food, and it would have been quick. Oh, but now you’ll suffer for what you’ve done. She’ll peel the skin from your bones one strip at a time. She’ll roast you from the inside out after that. You won’t have a quick death, oh no. She knows how to draw it out.” He lashed out with the thing in his hand—which turned out to be a whip.
It coiled around Clay’s throat. The man pulled on it, tightening its grip to a chocking hold.
“You’re coming with me.”
ASH
I felt like crap leaving Ryder locked in his room, but it was safer for him to stay out of the way until I’d sorted stuff out.
Reamus was nowhere to be found, and without the little orange-haired guy there was no way I was getting access to Daemon’s lair. I headed through the bustling bar and toward the exit in search of Freya, maybe she knew where I could find the Lepre, then I was blocked by Cal’s huge bulk.
The stone guy looked down his nose at me.
“I need to speak to Freya.”
“She gets off in an hour.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? You want me to wait an hour when I can just open the door and speak to her now?”
Cal stared down at me impassively.
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine, do you know where I can find Reamus?”
“No.”
This was becoming tedious, and Ryder’s idea about just leaving seemed more and more appealing. Even stone guys had to sleep, right? But common sense, the survivalist in me, insisted on the back up that was Daemon. I held up my hands, stepped back, and headed to the bar.
I perched my arse on a stool and creature-watched. Reamus would have to go by at some point—he was always bustling about on some errand.
There were plenty of human-looking Shadowlanders in today, and maybe I was being paranoid, but I could feel their eyes on me when I wasn’t looking directly at them. Like the tall pale guy in the aqua robes. He was standing with his hawkish profile on display, talking to a slightly shorter, stocky Shadowlander with dark hair, but I could swear they had been staring at me a moment ago, that they were talking about me. Did they know who I was, what I could do? I’d kinda let the cat out of the bag in Inferna. Is this why Avery was being so protective? Was he worried that some other Shadowlander would come along and kidnap me?
“Hey, Ash, how’s it going?”
I started at the sound of Henry’s voice. The bar had been unattended a moment ago, “Where did you come from?”
He chuckled. “I was crouched down, cleaning the drip trays. So, how are you?”
“Okay.”
He cocked his head. “Are the rumours true? Are you one of them now?”
Was I? I didn’t know what I was anymore. “I don’t know, Henry. I can do stuff that isn’t human, but aside from that I’m still me.”
He nodded. “This place changes you.”
“Has it changed you?”
He dropped his gaze. “I wish it hadn’t.”
I wanted to ask more, but a litany of curses behind me drew my attention. Only one creature I knew had such a foul mouth.
“Excuse me,” I said to Henry and hopped off my stool, making a beeline for the Lepre who was staggering through the crowd, a pile of boxes balanced precariously in his arms. I nabbed the top couple of boxes off his pile and began to walk abreast of him
“Ach! Not again! You humans are persistent, I’ll give you that. Kinda like cockroaches.”
“Nice.”
“No not nice, irritating and incredibly exhausting.”
We were at the foot of the staircase leading up to the crimson corridor when he stopped and sighed. “He won’t see you, he won’t see anyone. Nothing personal, lass.”
“What about the full moon?”
Reamus’s expression darkened. “You let me worry about that.” He began his ascent and I followed.
“If he won’t see anyone, then how will he see his girls?”
Reamus growled softly. “He probably won’t.”
That stopped me short. If he didn’t see his girls and he didn’t see me, then how would he sate his carnal hunger?
“Reamus, please tell me you have a plan.” We were at the top of the stairs now, and Reamus lowered the boxes to the plush carpet and straightened, hand at the small of his back. He jerked his head toward the boxes.
I frowned and placed my boxes on the floor next to his before carefully lifting the flaps of the nearest one. Thick silver chains glinted up at me.
I met Reamus’s gaze. His lips were set in a grim line, his heavy brows low over his worried eyes.
“There’s no need for this, trust me. I can help him. All you need to do is let me into his lair.”
Reamus closed his eyes, his shoulders rising and falling in what I hoped was defeat. When he opened his eyes, they were still clouded with concern, but now I suspected the concern was for me. “I know what you are, what you can do, but he could still hurt you.”
A chill raced up my spine, but I plastered a cocky smile on my face. “Aw, Reamus, I didn’t know you cared.”
He huffed, brows snapping down again. “I don’t. Your funeral.” He picked up his pile of boxes, adjusted his grip, and waddled off. “Come on then, let’s get this over with.”
Fear and anticipation bubbling in my chest, I gathered the rest of the boxes and followed.
Persistence did pay off after all.
***
Reamus closed the door to Daemon’s lair behind me.
“Just hammer thrice when you want out,” he said.
I nodded, wondering how Daemon could suffer being penned in like this. I understood he could be dangerous, I remembered the beast that had chased me from his lair the first time we’d met. I also remembered the way he’d made me feel in the dungeons of Inferna. Daemon was a contradiction. Cold and aloof one moment and heat and need the next. Maybe this was what drew me to him.
There was a darkness inside me, something other than the Shadows I consumed. There was a precipice that I sometimes found myself upon, and I was afraid that one day I would fail to step back in time, or even worse, that one day I would willingly step into the abyss beyond.
Today I didn’t need to trail my fingers against the rock face to find my way, but I did so regardless. It grounded me, the chill from the rock lending me a strange kind of clarity. I found him in his chamber, asleep on his bed. His face, in slumber, was devoid of the harsh lines that gave him a forbidding air. I moved closer until my thighs brushed the bed.
What now? Should I wake him?
I glanced back the way I’d come. I didn’t have all day, I needed an answer, and I needed it now.
Wake him it was.
Placing one knee on to the bed I leaned in until I was hovering above him. “Daemon. Daemon, wake up.” Damn, why was I whispering? I needed to wake him up. “Daemon!”
Before I could react, I was hauled onto the bed and pinned beneath his hot hard body, and by hot, I mean temperature hot.
His eyes were glazed as he looked down on me, his lip curled in a snarl.
“Daemon, it’s me, Ash!”
He growled low in his throat and I froze. There was no recognition in those eyes, but then he didn’t see the way we did, so I wasn’t sure what to make of them. This close I could see they were mesmerising orbs of moonlight that seemed to draw me to him.
His fingers bit into my flesh and I yelped. “Daemon, snap out of it!”
He paused mid-growl and blinked as if surfacing from a dream. The next moment he was standing on the other side of the room and I was left sprawled indelicately on the bed. Damn, he could move fast.
I sat up, cleared my throat, and smoothed back my hair. “We need to talk.”
“No, you need to get out of here. I’ll hurt you if you stay.” His rumbling tone was soft and unyielding.
“Yes, I know the full moon is just around the corner, but I have a proposition for you.”
“No. I don’t want it.”
I slid off the bed and made to approach him, but he held up his hand in warning. “You need to go.”
“But I can help you.”
“No. You can’t.”
I strained to see into the shadows he had slipped into, but they seemed to wrap themselves around him almost lovingly, shielding him from view.
“Reamus has chains, you know. If you refuse to see anyone, even the girls, then he’ll chain you.”
“I know.”
I didn’t get it, what could be so bad that he would refuse my aid, refuse the girls? It made no sense.
A low moan drifted from the shadows, followed by a menacing growl.
“Daemon.”
“NO! Get out of my head, get out! No!” He burst from the shadows, claws, and teeth and rage and I leapt out of the way just before he could make contact. I stumbled back, watching as he tore the bed apart, roaring, sobbing, stopping to clutch his head then repeating the cycle.
There was something very wrong with Daemon, and I finally understood it had nothing to do with his incubus hunger.
There was no help for me here.
CLAY
He was in another room, this one all pink and lilac, with a sparkly rose lampshade above his head and paintings of flowers and sunsets all over the walls. The decay creature had dragged him down five flights of stairs, leaving his neck red-raw from the abrasive grip of the whip. His throat ached and throbbed, but the pain was a secondary thing to the creature that sat before him.
On a pink sofa with lilac cushions sat a huge woman with the same gnarled horns on her bald head as his other attackers, except her bulbous flesh was flush and pink, smooth and free from rot. She looked mean, her eyes pure black orbs. A glass bowl sat next to her, filled with transparent stones. In her lap sat a huge blade, her fingernails, long and pink, scratched absentmindedly at the hilt.
Clay was on his knees, defenceless and frightened, his crowbar left behind in the room he’d been dragged from.
“Well,” the woman said. She sniffed as if she’d been crying, or had a really bad cold. “Look at you, all covered in blood and innards.”
Innards? “No thanks to those—”
“Did I say you could speak?” the woman yelled.
Clay pressed his lips together, best to stay silent and think of an escape plan. There was no way Ash was here. He knew it, like he knew she was alive. Deep within his heart he felt her, as he always did. If she were here, she’d be dead, that was that. And even if she had stumbled across this place she wouldn’t have stayed long enough to let herself get into this same situation.
Damn, he wanted to kick himself.
“The blood of my daughter,” the woman said. “My poor, sweet Annabelle.”
The man at Clay’s back said, “She was a treasure.”
“Yes, she was,” the woman said. “As was my dear son, Robert.” The woman sighed. “Though it was his big mouth that got him dead, I’m sure.”
“Looked like her handy work, mummy,” the man said.
“She did warn me about the coming of it.”
The man said nothing.
Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Clay. “But that was by her hand. I know my son hurt her deeply with his misogyny. Maybe she was wrong to kill her own blood, but I understand it was inevitable. Of course there would have been a reprimand for her actions. Death to our ranks is something we must avoid.” She leaned forward. “But for you there will be no leniency. You brought death to our door, human. Your species is renowned for its murderous nature. But you forget you are now nothing but a worm, a worm that should have waited to be eaten.”
Clay kept quiet. If he moved, all it would take was a crack of the man’s whip and he’d be had by the throat again. He could make a racket, try and get the creature’s attention.
The creature! She was in trouble! Those other two things had said they’d strike. He had to get back up there!
“My poor cursed babies,” she said. “If only we could find you a cure so you could be like your mummy again.”
“One day,” the man said.
“Damn him and his poisoned flesh!”
The man behind Clay gagged and fled the room. Clay could hear him retching.
“A vile thing from Enchansa did this,” the woman said. “All of my babies are cursed to rot.” She closed her dark eyes for a few moments. “Only living flesh can prolong the inevitable. How I wish Annabelle would have spared her brother.”
Enchansa? He silenced the part of him that wanted to ask the woman what that was. He’d find out a different way.
The man returned. “Sorry, mummy.”
“Don’t apologise to me, my darling. Are you okay?”
“Yes, mummy.” He sniffed. “What shall we do with this human? Will you make him suffer for hurting my sister?”
“His suffering will go beyond any known understanding of the word. I will make him live in agony for day upon day, keeping him with us until the very last twinkle in those jade eyes fades.” Her dark eyes were wide, glinting with vitriol. “You took my daughter away from me. She was my brave girl, my beautiful rose.”
“Shall I take him down?” the man said.
“Yes, Phillip,” she said. “I would like that very much.”
“Which room?”
The woman thought for a moment, manicured nails tapping her chin. “Let’s start with the one with the gurney.”
“Very good, mummy.”
“But first, bring him closer.” She lifted the knife.
The whip creature’s eyes lit up and Clay’s stomach dropped. Phillip shoved Clay forward. “Move it.”
Clay frowned as he stumbled toward the big woman. The closer he got, the sweatier his palms got. It really was a massive knife and he had no way of getting away from it. “Give me your arm,” the woman said.
Not likely. Clay clenched his fists and grit his teeth.
“Phillip?”
Her rotting son grabbed Clay’s right arm and forced it straight, holding it firm then twisting it round as a sacrificial offering for the scary beast on the sofa.
“Now for the little test,” she said. “Hold him still, Phillip.”
The woman picked up the bowl full of clear stones and held it under Clay’s arm. She placed the knife at his flesh, the cool metal causing him to tense.
“Red stones are poison, blue are safe. Let’s see if you’ll be a tortured meal, or just tortured.”
The Mum sliced into his forearm. She didn’t cut deep, just enough to draw blood. Clay winced, squirming in Phillip’s iron grip. The man grunted, squeezing his arm with bone-crunching intensity.
Crimson trickled down his pale skin, dripping into the bowl. He watched as it hit the stones, seeping into the gaps between the oval objects.
“Red or blue, red or blue,” The Mum said, sitting back.
Phillip was breathing fast with anticipation, his hot breath rich with the scent of decay.
Steam curled from the stones in delicate wisps of white, and then the stones began to change. From their see-through state, they turned to white, as if light were pouring out from their insides.
