Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (37 page)

I sighed. “I wish I could believe that.”

She leaned into me, her body pressing against mine and my arms wrapped around her
of their own accord. “Believe me.”

“Believing is difficult for me.
I can’t ignore the lies.”

Her head shook
against my chest. “No more lies.”

As my hand caressed her shoulder, I remembered her scars. “Thos
e
scars on your shoulder
–
the creature made those didn’t it?”

She pulled back, looked up at me and nodded slowly. “
Yes.
Many years ago. I sought it out. It almost killed me
but I spoke with it, explained my interest in it.”

“And,” I prompted when she stopped.

She shrugged. “
It was curious.
It told me of its history
, what it thought of humans. Then it let me go.”

A light went off.
“That’s why it recognized you when we tried to capture it. You knew it would.
” I remembered the shredded net in the basement maze. “You knew a net would never hold it.
Why the farce?”
My mind was in turmoil, my thoughts pelting me like hail in a storm.
What had been lies and what had been real?

“I suspected it would recognize me
, but i
t has been a long time.
I, I wanted to see it again.”

“Great!
” I barked at her, my anger building
, not at her actions but at my stupidity
. “
You wanted to see an old friend
while I sweated
it out
on that fire escape hoping to kill the damn thing.
”

“I meant no harm.
”

“Six women are dead,” I shouted. “My friend is dead. You could have prevented at least some of them
from dying
if you had simply some clean
from the beginning
.
Your admiration for th
is thing
has cost lives.”
I
angrily
brushed my hand through my hair. “It killed your father, for Christ’s sake
,” I reminded her.

She turned away, lowered her head and began to sob softly. In spite of everything, all the lies, I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but
I was still enough of a cop to feel betrayed by her actions and enough of a man to resent her
using me.

“What are you going to do
?” I asked, trying to smother my anger and let some of my concern show in my voice.

When she turned
back
to face me, her eyes were red and tear
-
limned.
“I want to help you kill it. I realize how foolish I have been.
I know it, its habits. Together, we can stop it.”

My heart skipped a beat. Could I dare trust her again? My cop instincts said no, but my
heart said yes. My heart won.

“It’s coming for me,” I said. “I feel it.”

“Yes, it will. You killed its young. It will want revenge. No more games.”

“That’s fine with me,” I growled.
“I’m ready.”

I reset the alarm and turned off the lights. I walked Joria to my SUV
. Inside, by the light of the dashboard, I studied her face. It seemed harsher than I remembered, maybe thinner. She looked weary.

“Where have you been?”

She sighed. “I checked into a cheap motel at the edge of town under an alias. I paid cash so the clerk asked no questions. I’ve been sitting, watching the news and listening to whores, drunks and crying babies.” She chuckled. “I haven’t slept much.”

I motioned to the rear of the SUV. “Lie down. Get some sleep.”

She nodded and crawled into the back. Within minutes, she was sleeping soundly. I couldn’t. Her return had brought up too many emotions
, too many unanswered questions. I couldn’t question her like a suspect but I could tell she still wasn’t telling me everything.
I needed to be able to trust her but the detective in me wouldn’t allow that. Th
is
made it difficult to
resume our relationship where it had broken off by her disappearance.

I was
listing the reasons not to trust her, when
a familiar loud screech broke the silence of the warehouse. Then
the alarm went off.
Something or someone was in the warehouse.
I didn’t need two guesses as to
whom
.
Joria sat up, staring at me.

“Stay here,” I barked at her.

I grabbed my weapon and rushed to the wall switch
,
pulled the lever
and the warehouse erupted in a blaze of light. I scanned the room for my
winged
friend and was devastated to see a young girl
,
whom
I assumed was Amy Mays,
dangling
from the overhead walkway
. She clung precariously in place by her arms.
She was half
-
naked
with
parallel scratches
a
cross her chest
and
b
lood
running
down her
stomach
, but she moved and moaned, so I knew she was still alive. She was the bait to draw me out.

Now,
I faced two choices: I could ignore her, let her die and concentrate on killing the creature, or try to rescue her, placing both
our lives
in
jeopardy
. I knew the greater good would be to kill the creature at any cost, but looking at her, listening to her
pathetic fevered moans
, I knew I could
n’t leave her there
.

I slung the elephant gun over my shoulder and began to climb the ladder to the walkway, keeping one eye open for the creature.
As I reached the top, I spotted the creature near the roof, cowering behind a tangle of supporting beams
,
watching me.
I stood and waved the gun at it.

“Come on down, bastard!” I yelled. “It’s time to die!”

The creature was in the mo
o
d to talk also. “Not my death, human
, but yours
. I have lived centuries, waited decades to reproduce.
Three of my young
, my children
, are dead
. My vengeance upon you will be fierce. I will drink your blood slowly over
many
days; then I will rip your body apart while you
still live
.”

I was surprised that the creature’s English was
so
good
, better than
mine
was in fact
.
Its
taunts
did
n’t
bother me. I had heard worse from streetwise punks I had arrested for pissing in public, but in this case, I assumed the threats were real.
I kept the gun trained on the creature as I walked towards the girl.

I immediately saw the inherent problem in my rescue attempt – to free her, I would have to set aside the gun and use both hands to pull her up
onto the walkway
.
This would leave me defenseless.
I
approached
the
dilemma
from a different
perspective
. Under the creature’s watchful eye, I descended the ladder and began to gather boxes
, placing
them
beneath the dangling girl. If I could not pull her up, I would let her drop
on
to the cartons, hoping they would break her fall. I considered a few broken bones better than evisceration. In the back of my mind
,
it bothered me that the creature
had so far
not attempted
to stop me.
It just sat and watched me with curiosity.

I climbed back up the
ladder
and walked out on the walkway. In a blur of gray, the creature swooped down past me and out of sight below me. At
first,
I thought he was after the girl, but his goal was the light switch on the wall. Suddenly, the warehouse was plunged into darkness, the only light
filtering in through the skylights from a pale moon. I went to my knees and cradled the elephant gun in both hands. I waited several minutes but nothing happened.
The creature was toying with me.
With a sigh
,
I
crawled
to the girl
. She moaned and looked up at me.

“Please he
lp
me,” she
begged. Her voice was weak. She looked as if she were about to pass out.

“My name’s Detective Hardin. I can’t pull you up. I have to let you drop.”

Her eyes
opened wide. “No, please.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her, hoping I was right. “I have a soft place for you to land. It’s only a few feet.”

Before she could protest, I grabbed her arms and slid her
body
from
around the walkway brace. I
watched her
plunge
into the darkness
, her eyes staring at me
.
With a loud thud
,
she smashed into the cartons
fifteen feet below
and rolled off
them on
to the floor
with an audible groan. At least she was still alive.
To my horror, I noticed Joria rush from the Explorer to her side. I hoped the creature didn’t see her.

I heard the flapping of the creature’s wings and swung around just in time to see
it
rise above the walkway. I fired wildly and missed, blowing a large hall in the metal
wall
behind it
.
The recoil jarred my shoulder savagely.
The creature seemed to sense or perhaps had seen that the elephant gun had two barrels. It did not attack
but flew away
. I lost it in the darkness. I raced to the ladder
, holding the elephant gun in one hand
as I slid down the ladder.
I had to get Joria and the injured girl back to the relative safety of the SUV.
I couldn’t cover them and fight the creature.

Suddenly, the ladder shifted. I looked up into the eyes of the creature on the walkway above
me
as i
t
used its enormous strength to
wren
ch the ladder away from the wall. The ladder began to tilt backwards
with me on it
. I had no choice but to jump.

I landed
hard
and rolled but the creature wasn’t finished
with me
. It flew into the ladder
as it fell
and shoved it toward me. I scrambled out of the way but not quickly enough. One of the rails clipped my back before lodging across a wooden crate. If not for the crate, the entire weight of the steel ladder would have crushed me
beneath it
.
Nevertheless
, my back exploded in pain. I
rolled to the wall,
crouched
and flattened myself against it
cool metal
, tears streaming from my eyes
while I held
the elephants gun
out
in front of me. If the creature had chosen that moment to attack, it could easily have killed me.
I pulled out a flare, struck it on the floor and tossed it into the center of the warehouse. The corners remained in shadow but
the flare
provided enough light to see the immediate area.

The girl was lying on the floor,
moaning,
while Joria cradled her head in her arms. They were both fully
exposed to the creature
, outlined by the flare
.
Ignoring the pain in my back
, I crawled over to
them
.
Joria searched the air above us frantically while I examined the girl.
The
gashes
on
the girl’s
abdomen
were
deep
and
no longer bleeding
but
they
were
obviously infected.
Her entire chest was an angry red and swollen from capillary damage caused by the venom.
I did
n’t
know how much blood she had lost, but
at least
she had no major neck wounds as had the others.
The creature had taken her
strictly
to use
as bait
.
Or,
I reminded myself
, as a
snack
after it
was through with
me.