Blood Lust (The Blood Sisters Book 1) (24 page)

Don’t engage. Don’t talk
about it
. But Jessica was desperate, like an itch
climbing up her leg, she was desperate to ask, desperate to find out more. Was
it true that Mom was here? Dad? She needed more. Lourdes might have thought she
was torturing Jessica, but instead she lit a fire beneath her.

Jessica
would get free. She would find them and if there was anything left of them, she
would free their souls at the very least. Even if it meant losing them forever.
The torment of the underworld—her parents didn’t deserve that.

 
Lourdes stepped up closer and Jessica turned
her nose away. The stench of death and decay that hung on Lourdes, burned
Jessica’s nose. “It wasn’t until puberty set in and Amanda’s powers manifested
that we were able to really track her again. Did you ever wonder why?”

Jessica
couldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t look at her because if she did, Jessica might
play right into her game, but it was damn hard. She wanted to know. That
question had left her wakeful at night more than once, more than twice. The
answer would fill in so many gaps, Jessica’s heart yearned to know.

If
she was going to find out, it wasn’t going to be from the queen of the
underworld. She’s a twister of words. Evil. Jessica kept her eyes on the
ground.

Lourdes
backed up, a sneer on her face. “No matter, then Jessica. I’m not through with
you. I’ll never be through with you. A fighter like you? Perfect for my army. A
legion will follow you and Amanda will be mine.”

She
walked away, toward the wall and Jessica looked up out of curiosity. Was
Lourdes not part of the conversation they just had? Jessica wasn’t going to do
anything for her, but when Lourdes turned back around she was holding a flaming
poker. In the
center,
a branded circle
with the face of evil glowed at Jessica.

It
mocked her and everything she believed in.

Jessica
reared
backward
, grabbing the chains.
“What are you doing?” The demons steadied her so she couldn’t get away, and
panic, real panic set in.

“Don’t
worry,” Lourdes hissed her mouth full of fangs. “Having your soul stripped away
only hurts…well…forever.” She lifted Jessica’s shirt and pressed it right
against the side of her waist.

Jessica
screamed, no matter how much she didn’t want to, she couldn’t keep in her reaction
to the pain any longer. Tears flowed
fr
om
her eyes until Lourdes removed the branding iron. The chains were unhooked from
the wall and Jessica crashed to the floor. She caressed her injury, able to
feel where the heat penetrated her skin.

Only
it wasn’t staying in one place. It was growing throughout her body. What—what
did that bitch do to her?

Jessica
leaned her head back and moaned. Something was different inside of her. It was
clawing, like a disease, a parasite moving through her body. It wasn’t a demon,
but it was a sickness—a mold. Jessica was losing part of herself.

 
Bit by bit … how long could she hold on?

Lourdes
stepped up and stroked her hair back. “You will answer my call. You will fetch
your sister. You cannot deny me this, Jessica Blood.”

Dying.
It felt like being carved out from the outside in. Jessica’s body convulsed and
vomit rose into her mouth. It tasted
unnatural,
Thick and pasty, Jessica gagged as if it would kill her. Her arms cradled her
stomach as she
retched
, the vomit leaving
her mouth like one giant worm.

Jessica
slithered away from it and lay flat. She heaved for air and thought of the only
one who could fix this. There was only one Blood sister who healed, but to
get
that close to her?

What
if Jessica couldn’t resist Lourdes’s orders?

Lourdes
placed the tip of her boot on Jessica’s fallen chest and slipped a needle
beneath her skin.

It
pinched and Jessica gasped, feeling the serum raced through her body. Her
tattoos lit up with a shimmer. Glowing back and forth like a race track until
the colored ink settled back to its normal hue. Something about her tattoos was
different, they made her body itch.

Lourdes
smugly smiled. “You will fetch me your sister, won’t you?”

Jessica
shook her head, then her expression turned to a grimace. The tattoos on her
body lit up, burning her flesh. She wouldn’t answer yes; it didn’t matter what
Lourdes did to her. It didn’t matter…it didn’t…

Rolling
over, she scrunched her hands into fists. Her tattoos felt like they had
transformed into
flames,
burning into her
skin, complete with a hissing sound, smoke. Jessica’s mouth came unhinged and a
sob lodged in her throat.

“Get
her gun and jacket,” Lourdes said with a flick of her wrist. “She has work to
do, and I think she’s beginning to understand.”

They
left her and Jessica’s body continued to disintegrate. Every moment they were
gone, Jessica felt the decay growing, shifting, and spreading like a plague
within her. She was done, worse than dead.

Jessica
feared she might take Amanda with her, right over the edge.

Stars
twinkling, body breaking, spirit moaning.

Coaxing,
vexing. Aching?

Amanda
didn’t know which end was up, couldn’t form a complex thought, and for all she knew,
a straight line might have been a curly cue., Everything blurred together like
smudged ink across a page. Good and evil, night versus day, did any of it
really matter? Had anything ever really mattered?

Her
power, once a strong glowing orb of energy was now a mute pinprick in the
distance. The demon drugs were strong.

“Bring
me another dose!” Vaughn seemed to scream his demand over and over, just
minutes apart. “Full concentration. She’s close to breaking.”

Her
skin trembled, her bones burned. Amanda’s body slumped in that chair and her
chin rested against her chest. There was no future or past. All that mattered
was the present and the present was blurry. Her vision darkened and the
sight
faded from her mind.

Inside
of her was a hunger that food couldn’t satisfy. There was only one thing that
Amanda wanted. Only one thing…

“More,”
Amanda’s throat cracked like glass shattered along the sidewalk. Lips dry and
parched so badly they were cracked; it wasn’t water that her soul ached for.
Drugs. It was drugs.

She
fought against it, but it was too strong. Too much. Amanda wasn’t tough like
Jessica.

Oh,
Jessica. How her soul ached to see her sister. Would she come? Would her sister
finally come?

Someone
gripped her hair and forced her head back. Amanda groaned with pain although it
felt as if she was removed from it, like she and it were on opposite sides of a
pane of glass. The pain, the fear, all of it was so far away. Drifting, flying.
Yes, to fly and spread her arms like an eagle.

Vaughn
sneered and jammed a needle against her neck. “It’s working, darling Amanda.
Your eyes are foggy with a green smoke. How does it feel to have your soul
slowly destroyed by me? Half of your soul is probably already trapped in the
underworld. Soon, there will be nothing pure left in you.”

It
hurt, oh God how it hurt. Like a twisting, clawing gnat gnawing on her from the
inside out. The demons were everywhere in in Vaughn’s club. They made her soul
shriek, but the drugs dulled the screams, dulled every sensation, except one.

Amanda
was floating away. She was losing the quite whisper inside herself, her power,
her ability to heal. Faded and muted like a smoldering flame beneath a pile of
cold ash. Once, it had refused to go out, it was a fire in the darkness, no
longer, it was at rest. Not put out by magic, but by the glimmer of hate now
growing in its place.

Vaughn
ran his hand down her face like a master petted his dog. “Your will to speak is
leaving you, Amanda. Soon, you’ll crave something other than drugs. Soon you’ll
be begging for me to take you to my bed.”

Never
,
the refrain rang through her head like a show tune. No, Amanda would rather be
dead than bed this monster. Off in the distance, lights sparkled. The room
swirled like a whirlwind and Amanda lips fell open into a slack smile.

Death,
yes, maybe it was coming for her. She would welcome its dark, warm embrace.

How
had this happened? How—

Taken
to a cavern, Jessica moved even though she didn’t want to. Lourdes smiled; her
lips turning up in a way that made her look even more dangerous. Her clawed
finger pointed upwards and Jessica’s eyes followed.

The
rock walls spiraled upward and at the top, was a beacon of light. There?
She had
to crawl all the way up there? Jessica
wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t return to the earth just to destroy. Just to fetch
her sister?

No.

But
just thinking the word no lit up the tattoos on her back like city street
lights. To keep the pain at bay, Jessica had no choice but to race up the
cavern walls.

“Go
now.” Lourdes’s voice was and at that simple order, Jessica braced the wall
with her fingertips. “Bring me my prize, Jessica Blood, and you will be
rewarded, but if you cross me… Hell will be waiting.”

Jessica’s
boots pushed up on the rock and up her body went, but she didn’t want them.
There was nothing more Jessica wanted than to protect her sister, but still her
body moved. The rocks sliced her hands open, but she ignored the gashes and the
rush of pain. Keep pushing, keep going, that’s all her body wanted to do.

And
Jessica was helpless against Lourdes’s command.

Tears
marred
her vision, it had been a long
time since she felt the hot streak of them flowing down her face. It helped
nothing to cry. It didn’t help her find a way
out
and didn’t help Amanda.

When
she found Amanda, when she stared into her sister’s face… There had to be a way
out. There had to be. She was a Blood.
Bloods
were stronger than this.

Jessica’s
boots were muddy, her legs in her leather pants were bathed in sweat, and her
arms shook with fatigue, but the exhaustion with herself, with the gnawing in
her
gut,
was worse. Jessica Blood fought
demons and evil, she didn’t become them.

But
that’s what she had become. A minion, being forced to do Lourdes’s bidding, but
Jessica wouldn’t. Please. No. Jessica wouldn’t be made to hurt Amanda—she
wouldn’t.

Still
her legs marched under orders, not her own will. Still, she headed straight
through the cavern, as if she had a purpose. The pain running up her legs
didn’t matter, nor did her ankle throbbing intensely. She just kept going.

Keep climbing. You’re
almost there.

 
Near the top, the pinprick of light opened
further. Reaching for it, with her fingers
the
light
expanded, until it was big enough for her body to fit through the
space.

Jessica
swallowed as she stepped through, and her boot crashed onto the vastness of the
desert. Off in the distance a giant wall protecting what must have been
Vaughn’s club and stronghold. It was square in diameter with a guarded entrance
and back exit.

 
Her neck cracked as she rolled her head to the
side. Her legs wobbled with distress, but Jessica continued on with a single
purpose.

Find
her sister. Destroy Vaughn.

Bring
Amanda to me.
Lourdes’s voice in her
mind was loud,
her
will strong throughout
Jessica’s body. But, she couldn’t hurt her sister. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

There
was no hell worse than the knowledge that she would betray Amanda. Lourdes
couldn’t
inflict
any pain that would be
greater than that.

Then you will be
destroyed. You will be locked away for an eternity of suffering. Torment. Do
you wish to join your parents so soon, Jessica Blood?

Tears
filled Jessica’s eyes and she crashed down, onto the desert floor, she could no
longer ignore the burning pain in her back and arms from her tattoos. She
wanted nothing more than to die right here and be swallowed whole. Without
Amanda, she was nothing and to think that she’d be responsible for…

She’d
be tormented one way or the other, and it would better to be Lourdes’s pet than
to harm Amanda.
Laying
in the sand, Jessica
thought to lie down and sleep, let all of this be a bad dream, but the doors to
Vaughn’s stronghold opened and demons with guns, many guns, stepped out of the
compound.

Snipers
on the roof would soon have her in their sights. Jessica heard them scrambling
into position.

Her
body responded, an impulse she couldn’t stop. Putting her weight on one foot,
she grabbed the shotgun over her shoulder and swung it into her free hand. “I’m
here to take back what Vaughn stole. I’m here for Amanda Blood.”

Gooood
.
Lourdes’s voice drowned on, happy and singsong, but with such malice and ill
intent, Jessica’s blood ran frigid.

“You
think we’re just going to let you walk right in and take her?”

“No,”
Jessica fired into one demon and quickly shifted to the next.

The
demon bodies fell, piling up by the door. Jessica advanced with a hobble on her
broken ankle, when a sniper on the wall fired a shot. It clipped her shoulder
and pushed her
backward
.

Squatting
behind the door, Jessica gasped and grabbed her arm. The wound in her shoulder
was bleeding, but despite the waves of pain, it wasn’t bad. She cringed as she
felt the bullet rooting around inside her, but instead of going further in, it
was coming out.

Surprise, my dear Jess. I
was keeping this a secret, just in case you decided to turn your gun on
yourself. Wouldn’t that have been fun to watch? The agony, and suffering?

Jessica
squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head against the wall, the bullet spun
and churned inside her shoulder, on its way out. When it was finally over, she
glanced up too many guns drawn on her. The demons wielding them, all had
sneering faces.

“Radio
Vaughn. Tell him now we have two
Bloods
.”

A
demon laughed. “Right, boss. Two
Bloods
have to be better than one.”

“You
should just
chop off
my head and burn my
body,” Jessica said with disdain for herself as the demon wrenched the shotgun
from her hand. “Bury my head in the sand. Keep it for a trophy, I don’t care.”

“You’d
like that, wouldn’t you?”

She
would. She
really
would.