Heart of Darkness: Part One Taint of Shadow Read online

  “Suppose we ought to do ’er?”

  Mason’s cockney lilt rose over the dull throb in her ears. It had gotten hard to think with the ache in her face to fuel the animal rage that built inside her. The moon had continued its inexorable climb, and soon, she didn’t know if she’d have the strength to hold onto her control.

  But she had to. Her wrists felt itchy, chafed by whatever magic the cuffs had absorbed. She believed what the vampire had said. If she changed form, the metal would snap closed and sever her hands.

  “You daft? Paul wants ’er for the seventh. No good to ’im dead.” Miles snorted.

  “Not what I meant.” His twin pumped his hips in an obscene parody of sex. “I mean, do ’er.”

  He made a face. “Yecch. You can fuck ’er if you want, but I ain’t into dogs. Don’t know how Paul does it. Besides, she’d probably just hump your leg.”

  He laughed as she stumbled along doubled at the waist, with a hand in her hair. Regina has betrayed the pack. I have to tell Peter. I have to get back to Noah. Noah...

  A familiar howl rose in the air. She stood straight, ignoring the pain of her scalp as her hair pulled and the vampire cussed. He was calling for her. Prickles of power, rage, fear shot through her, and her muscles rippled, but the bite of metal into her wrists snapped her out of it. Noah.

  “Should we use the amulet, you think? Keep ’er from changing?”

  “Nah, let ’er lose ’er hands if she can’t keep ’er head.”

  So that was how they’d stopped the change before. Someone had supplied these vampires well. Where they’d gotten such magical artifacts, she’d find out later.

  The world upended into a red haze. The urge, the demand, to shift her shape almost overwhelmed her. Blood trickled down her hands, but she barely noticed.

  Peter had given his pack the order to change shape. The alpha shift was a leader’s power and prerogative, the ability to control the shape of his followers. Once a lunar cycle, when the wolves gathered, he called them to the hunt, and they had no choice but to obey. In her mind, she could hear the baying, the sound of wolves as they chased their prey.

  Tonight, she was that prey. They searched for her.

  With the last of her strength, she wrestled the beast down. It hurt, physically, spiritually. No, not now. Not now! You can’t get free without hands! Desperate, she shouted her wolf down. One didn’t reason with the monster. It didn’t listen to logic. It could only hear dominance; she bested it, although it left her covered in sweat.

  Only then did she notice that she’d stumbled. The vampires had just continued on and dragged her by the hair. “You got it back under control then, lovey?” Miles asked. “Fucking mutt. Ass up.”

  She scrambled to her feet. Better to walk, no matter how much she wanted to run.

  The slope had grown steep by the time they arrived at the clearing. A huge stone protruded from the ground here to create a small, rocky cliff outside the trees. On their knees along the far edge, nearest to the unpleasant drop, she saw six other people, hands bound behind their backs by the same type of cuffs she wore.

  Werewolves, all of them. She could smell it, see it in their eyes. The vampires had collected werewolves, and Regina had helped.

  Miles or Mason, Kayla had lost track of which one had her, pitched her forward hard onto the rock. Sharp edges bit into her unprotected knees and drew blood as she rolled over the ground. One of the wolves edged forward, twisting so she could reach his hands to lever herself up.

  “Derek? Is that you?” she asked in surprise.

  “Shh.” He kept a wary eye on the vampiric twins who, in return, made monkey faces. “Kayla. They got you too, huh?”

  Derek Anderson had vanished a month before, after the Army had given him personal leave. The pack had thought he’d gone to lick his wounds after a tragic tour in the Middle East. He’d come back wounded, bent nearly to breaking by the death of half his platoon. His disappearance had surprised no one.

  “Just a bit ago. I was going to the meeting, and Regina... Fuck, Derek, Regina...”

  “Yeah. The whore.” He curled his lip. “At least they’re looking for you.”

  Shocked, she met his gaze. “They’ve been looking for you, too. Peter’s been in daily contact with your commanding officer, and Sonja—”

  He looked away, torment in his eyes. “I hope to all hell she stays out of this.”

  “She can’t stay out of anything. You know how she is.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Although grim, his tight smile still showed an affection he couldn’t keep down. “That woman drives me around the fucking bend. She’s my CO’s kid, you know.”

  Sonja Carter and her big German shepherd, Charlie, had grown next to infamous among the city’s werewolf population. As far as they knew, she was the only lone wolf in the area, and she used the fact to everyone’s benefit. She’d become the paranormal community’s private investigator, peacemaker, and negotiator.

  So Kayla did know, but she went along with him. “Yeah?”

  “Spoiled commander’s brat. Daddy’s girl.” He looked into the sky, and she could see the gleam of unshed tears in his eyes. “I dumped her years ago. Before she was one of us.”

  “Why?”

  He looked from the stars to the ground. “A lot of reasons. They seem stupid right now.”

  “Come on. Buck up.” A deep breath didn’t help settle her nerves. “They’ll find us. They have to.”

  Neither of them believed it.

  Silence weighed on them. “Who are the rest?” she asked him, as much to break the tense quiet as to keep him company. It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, but the answer to that one still scared her. It didn’t matter that the answer would come too soon. She wasn’t ready to know.

  “I don’t know them. We haven’t had much of a chance to get to know each other. They’ve kept us isolated and—and weak.” He changed his answer at the last moment.

  What he’d almost said was something else she didn’t want to know. “Have they had you all this time?”

  “A few weeks. I spent the last full moon by myself, and it must have been about a week after that they grabbed me.” He glanced sidelong at the other captives. “They had a couple already by then.”

  The way he said it, the look in his eyes, disturbed her. But now wasn’t the time or place to talk about it. “Where did they grab you from?”

  “Backwoods Idaho.”

  Not far away, but far enough. “Why were you out there?”

  Raw emotion sat behind his gaze. Windows into his soul, just like the adage went, and by the display, his spirit still bled. “Looking for answers.”

  “What was the question?” Her voice was gentle.

  “Wish I knew.”

  Now it sat there, the next logical question. She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. Superstition nagged at her. If she asked, the words would make the situation real, the consequences possible. If she acknowledged it, gave it substance, then the pack wouldn’t find them. They’d stay here, tortured by the lunar tides, held by the dead until the biters went through with whatever plan they had.

  But she had to ask. “Why do they have us?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. The chain between his cuffs rattled. “I don’t know. They’ve said they need seven a few times, but I’m not sure why.”

  “I heard them say that, too.” Or perhaps we should just call her number

  seven. A ball of lead settled into her stomach. Convenient for her to come to us. She’d given them what they needed. I should have just gone with Noah. Then I’d be with him, we could be bound...

  And the vampires would have taken another member of the pack. It was hard to wish she’d taken different actions. It would have meant she’d condemned them to the uncertain fate she faced.

  “Seven’s never been my lucky number.” Derek’s voice distracted her. A low growl of an undertone rumbled beneath the words.

  She looked up. The moon rapidly app
roached the zenith. They had half an hour at the most before the change was uncontrollable, and the curse of the wolf would live up to its name.

  Fear spiked through her, and her nostrils flared. All around her, eyes had turned to gold. The scent of something primal hovered in the air. She had diverted it, but now it rushed back in full force. On her wrists, the cuffs tightened.

  Reckless energy made her bold. “What are you going to do with us?” she demanded.

  “Paul wants a little doggie to sit in his lap,” Mason said with a sneer. “One isn’t enough. Don’t you worry, missy, he’ll give you a bone.”

  “You talk too much.” Paul’s smooth voice cut through the sniggering of the twins. He stepped out of the trees and stood before the prisoners. “Go and retrieve the items from the cache. Be quick.”

  The vampire unrolled the sleeves of his pressed shirt then rolled them again more neatly as the twin biters scurried off into the forest. “Their manners are unfortunate, but they’re very useful,” he told her, “and they do have a certain old-world charm. They remind me of the London of my youth.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Do you know what I liked best about those days, Miss Schinn?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Go on. Have a guess.”

  “The food?”

  He laughed. “Partially correct. You see, that was when my kind knew their place.” When he smiled, she could see his fangs, sharp and perfectly white. “On the night my sire made me, he took me up to the top of the Tower of London, and he told me to look around. ‘This is yours,’ he said. ‘Every soul within it lives at your discretion.’”

  Uncomfortable beneath his gaze, knees sore from the stone, she shifted.

  “And that is the truth of it, my dear. Now surely, you will think this very cliché, very Bram Stoker indeed, but we have conquered death.” He shrugged, as if it were no more than a win at canasta. “The last, true plague of humanity, and my kind has beaten it. We have come out of that victory with superior strength, speed, agility. We are superior.”

  “You still have a problem with sunlight,” she spit at him. Restless, reckless. The wolf wouldn’t wait much longer.

  He inclined his head. “I concede the point. But in all other things, we remain the cream in a vat of milk, if you like the analogy. Most of us have forgotten that. Some of us have not. And it is high time that all of us remember.”

  She could hear Mason and Miles chattering at a distance but coming closer. “So you’ll start a war?”

  “There has always been a war. Some misguided souls have simply forced a very unnatural peace. Tell me, have you never wanted to purge the lot of us from your city?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded. “We, for our part, consider you road blocks. Speed bumps, really. But you put up an excellent fight. Very respectable. You have proven yourselves worthy to assist in our cause. And that is what this is all about, Miss Schinn.”

  “Oy, where you want this?” Between them, the twins carried a long wooden box.

  “Set it off to the side.” Paul glanced around. “Where is Regina? We’re on a rather tight schedule here, and we cannot start without her and her friend.”

  The twins set down the box. From within, she could hear the rattle of ceramic items as they clattered against each other. “Why do we need two of ’em?”

  “Four quarters must be covered, and we must have a balance in energy. Thus, two wolves and two vampires.”

  The pair exchanged looks. “Ain’t there three of us, then?”

  Paul gave a long-suffering sigh. “You two count as one. You’re twins. If it were just one of you, it’d be a half, now, wouldn’t it?”

  “Ohh.” In unison, they nodded. At any other time, Kayla might have found it funny.

  A short scream split the air, followed by a sharp slap. Regina entered the clearing, dragging a woman bound with rope. “The pack took longer to lead off than I thought they would. I’m sorry,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Peter’s a noble asshole and wanted to make sure I was all right.”

  Paul had done a good job with the marks he had made. They were artful wounds, intended to look fierce in the moonlight but cause a minimum of damage. And she would wear them for weeks. Lycanthropic healing wouldn’t touch magical injuries, such as those made by a vampire.

  I hope they infect and rot off her face, Kayla thought venomously.

  “Where did you lead them?” Paul tested the rope around the woman. It wrapped under her breasts, over her arms, and looped around her wrists, savagely tightened to bite into her skin.

  “North. They’re heading away from us. I told them I thought you’d be heading back toward the city.” A smug, self-satisfied sneer distorted Regina’s lips, made uglier by the scratches Paul had left along her face and neck. “They’re so worried about her. Noah just about turned himself inside out. Didn’t he, Todd?”

  Sick. Kayla felt sick, nauseous with dread, worry, and lycanthropic energy. Todd, Noah’s best friend, almost his brother, stepped out onto the stone platform.

  Oh no. They got him, too.

  “He loves her.” Something was wrong with his voice. It was flat, quiet, unhappy, but not panicked. He had no ropes, no cuffs, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Yes, well, he’s an idiot.” Regina dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “By next week, he’ll be humping another bitch in the pack.”

  Kayla made herself breathe. “Todd?”

  He met her eyes for an instant then looked away once more, but she’d already seen the shame in him. All emotion emptied out of her but the cold, sour charge of betrayal. No, they hadn’t caught him or forced him here. He’d come of his own accord.

  “Can we please get started?” Paul sounded impatient. “We haven’t any more time to dally. Miles, Mason, arrange our guests while I sort the jars.”

  Even as they hauled her to the center of the rock, she couldn’t tear her gaze from Todd. Just last week, he’d come to their apartment for dinner. He’d brought a six pack of beer and some brownies. They’d served him bratwurst. After dinner, they’d all talked about hopes for the future over a friendly game of gin rummy.

  They’d never guessed he was in league with vampires. They never would have thought about it, not ever. Loyal to the pack, to his own blood, to Noah. She didn’t understand.

  The wolves made a tight circle at the center of the stone, still on their knees under a moon that had nearly reached its height. Paul set small ceramic jars in front of the others, the lids shaped like the heads of wolves. They reminded her of canopic jars, the containers the ancient Egyptians had used to hold a mummy’s internal organs.

  Her stomach rolled. They smelled of spoiled blood, rotten meat. Her human side wanted to gag.

  The wolf within growled.

  “I have the empty one here, but I’d prefer not to stain my shirt.” Paul walked out of her vision. “Todd, if you will...”

  “Let me.” Regina sounded too eager.

  The twins stood behind Derek, positioned across from her in the circle. “Hoo, girl-on-girl action!”

  Derek stared behind her, his face half-turned, as if he wanted to look away but couldn’t. Muscles twitched in his jaw as his teeth clenched. She could hear the unknown woman crying, sobbing with hysterical fear.

  Suddenly, Derek’s eyes flew open wide, and then he squeezed them shut as he flinched away from whatever he saw. Kayla smelled rich, new blood. Meat. Wet, viscid wheezes replaced the sobs. Then only a soggy slither remained.

  The body hit the ground.

  A gloppy splatter echoed in the jar.

  Paul set the last canopic container in front of her, the rim around the lid’s seal smeared with crimson fluid. A heavy, narcotic high buzzed in her head. The moon was too high. There was too much blood, adrenaline. Around the circle, she saw the others fighting the same internal battle.

  The four captors stood at the cardinal points of the compass. Regina’s arm was red to the elbow.

 
Paul chanted something in a language Kayla didn’t understand. She tried to focus on it, to pick out the sounds of words, but they made no sense at all. In chorus, his cohorts responded with a ritual answer.

  From his position in the north, Paul chanted. From the east, Regina answered. An almost audible crackle of power arced through the air, through the circle of wolves, and the jar in Regina’s quarter began to glow with an unholy indigo hue.

  The moon inched higher.

  Once more, Paul chanted, phrases measured and even. Together, the twins replied, voices as one from the south. Derek’s face, twisted now with his struggle to keep his beast at bay, lit with blue-purple light from the second container.

  Her skin tingled with energy.

  The moon touched the top of the sky but hadn’t reached the center.

  Chanting in an unfaltering rhythm, Paul called upon Todd in that strange, awful language. If he would break, he would break now, and she prayed he would. Todd, who liked chocolate chips in his vanilla ice cream. Who helped Noah carry their couch up the stairs when they moved in together. But Todd answered, his voice clear if uncertain. The third jar fluoresced.

  The hairs on her arms and neck stood on end.

  Closer, closer. The wolf inside her crouched, ready to spring.

  As Paul chanted, louder now, strong, confident, the magical charge in the air built to a painful intensity. A scream strangled and died in her throat. Before her, the jar began to glow, lit by an unknown source from within. Power poured into her and raged, trapped without a conduit out. Her eyes rolled back into her head.

  The moon reached its peak.

  The wolf went berserk.

  Now, she could scream.

  Chapter Three

  Darkness came late in May. Stars speckled the sky long after young children had gone to bed as the summer sun reigned supreme and darkness retreated to wait for winter. People walked the streets, full of laughter, happy to shop in the diverse little stores that lined the sidewalks. The city loved summer, and it showed.

  By the time she arrived at Moon Blessings on the typically busy, downtown Tacoma avenue, the crowds had thinned and most stores had closed their doors. Inside the shop, the incense burners no longer smoked, though the scent still lingered in the air. The door wasn’t locked, but the neon Open sign had been turned off. A bell tinkled when she opened the door.