Corin & Angelique (After the Fall of Night) (26 page)

“Well, at least we won’t have to worry about running into any rats. I’m pretty
sure he’s finished them all off.”

Tomes started past Corin.

“Wait!” Corin blocked his move. “We’re not alone.”

“What do you mean? Who else could—”

A figure sprang out at them from behind a stack of crates, releasing a piercing shrill.

Tomes stumbled back, but quickly regained his footing.
Managing to catch the individual in the light’s direct beam, he gasped. “Louisa!”

“Stay behind me, Tomes,” Corin told him, seeing her demented state.

Stepping into the room, testing her mental stability, Corin extended a hand, but she hurled herself at him in a frenzied attack with fangs and claws elongated in pursuit of blood. He managed to shove her away, but in the process, she lacerated him with her long, curved talons, leaving four gashes across his left jaw.

“Louisa!” Tomes yelled out
and she spun back, her brow furrowed and eyes narrowed, as if recognizing something in his voice.

Tomes
pushed past Corin and eased toward her.

“Careful, Tomes, she’s insane,” Corin warned. “The transformation was too
much for her mind to handle.”

“I’m her husband. I can get through to her. She won’t attack me.”

“I know you want to believe that, but don’t be foolish. All she knows is her insatiable hunger.”

“Louisa, it’s me, Tomes. Let me help you.” He focused on
his wife, speaking calmly while inching closer.

A low, guttural growl resonated in her throat. Holding a defensive stance, she
watched, eyes locked on his every move. Then, grabbing her head and pressing it in her hands, she suddenly cried out.

“Tomes stop! Don’t move any closer. I know you want to save her, but she’s
already lost. She’s not the woman you remember.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Her mind is burning…torment.”

“I can’t just walk away…leave her like this. She’s my wife.”

“There’s nothing you can do to save her now. She’s little more than a wild, starved animal. Death would be a blessing.” Corin knew his words sounded cruel, but he had to make Tomes see the truth. “Look at her, I mean, really look at her! This is not Louisa!”

“You’re saying we should kill her, aren’t you?” Tomes responded, his voice
low, all the while keeping his gaze on Louisa. “I can’t do it. I won’t’ kill her. And I’m not leaving her in this reeking pit of death either!”

Corin knew there would be no reasoning with Tomes. He was a man looking
upon a woman he’d thought was lost to death, who now magically stood before him living and breathing, like a miracle from God. The wonderment had blinded him to the fact that her reanimation was far from a blessing, but rather a curse from hell.

Louisa settled down, gaping at Tomes. He stood silent, locked in her gaze,
entranced by her peering green eyes. Tomes’s love for her made him easy prey, enabling her to use her newfound witchery in an attempt to lure him to her.

Regardless of her madness, she possessed a natural survival instinct, an innate
ability to utilize her nightwalker powers for the purpose of feeding.

“Tomes!” Corin yelled just as Louisa attacked.

Viciously catching Tomes’s shoulder with her fangs, she latched down, drinking in his fresh blood. Tomes struggled to push her off, but she had the superior strength and overpowered him. She pinned him to the ground, her talons cutting into his flesh—scissors to paper.

“Louisa, no! Stop!” Tomes tr
ied to fight her off.

Corin rushed to his aid and seized Louisa at the back of her neck. He
punctured her flesh with his talons, causing her to cry out. Yanking her up, he dragged her away from Tomes before relinquishing his hold. She retreated to a back corner of the room, releasing a high-pitched shrill like a hawk, calling her keeper—Boldor.

Hurrying to Tomes, Corin bent down and examined his injuries. It looked
bad, but he didn’t have time to attend him. Boldor would be responding to Louisa’s call, if he wasn’t already en route, having sensed her distress.

“We have to go.” He lifted Tomes to a sitting position, all the while keeping a
watchful eye out for Louisa whose sharp, piercing cries still echoed.

“Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Tomes winced. “I can’t see anything.” He reached for his flashlight on the floor at his feet, the beam of light slicing the darkness, striking a bare area of wall. “The staker, I dropped it. Do you see it?”

Corin spotted the weapon and quickly retrieved it for him.

“What is she doing?”

“She’s calling Boldor to her rescue, and we need to go before he arrives.
”

“This is our chance.”

“No. Not now. You need attention. Our fight will have to wait.”

Corin pulled Tomes to his feet and guided him to the stairs, but before
starting up, the room grew quiet and Louisa spoke out, drawing Tomes’s attention back with one single word.

“Hus
-band,” her voice was hypnotic.

“She knows me.” Tomes’s light found her in the darkness. “She remembers.”

“She doesn’t remember you. “It’s a trick, Tomes, only a trick. She wouldn’t have attacked you if she’d had any past remembrance of your life together. She’ll use any means at her disposal to pull you back. She sees you as nothing more than food.”

“H-husband.” She stared into Tomes’s eyes, attempting to entrance him again,
and succeeding.

“Let me go.”
Tomes fought against Corin’s hold, trying to go to her, but Corin restrained him.

“I won’t let you do this. All she wants is food.” Corin knew what he had to do
to end the madness and slipped the staker from Tomes’s hand. “Forgive me,” he whispered.

Surrendering his hold on Tomes, he held a steady aim on Louisa
, and when she lunged in attack, he pulled the trigger, striking her mid-chest. She dropped to the floor, gnarling and hissing, the blackthorn nail embedded in her body. And while she was down, Corin charged into action. He pulled the machete from the sheath hanging at Tomes’s back and proceeded her way. Raising the weapon high, he came down with one powerful blow, severing her head from her body with a single strike. Her life ended, she instantly disintegrated, her remains crumbling to ashes.

“No!” Tomes wailed, coming out of his trance during the final moments of the
slaying, but not soon enough to stop it.

“It is done.” For Tomes’s sake, this was how it had to be.

“You killed her. That was my—”

“It wasn’t Louisa. And I had to make a choice—you or the monster.” Corin had
no regrets.

Tomes started to fall.

Corin rushed to his side and took on the brunt of his weight. Needing a free hand, he wiped the machete blade on his pants leg and slipped the weapon back in the sheath. Holding onto the staker, he half-carried Tomes toward the stairs, and ushered him to the top.

Tomes looked back from the door, into the darkness below. A tear traced his
cheek.

“I wish it could have been different.” Corin could see
Tomes’s physical and emotional pain.

“I hate it, but I know she was already lost. I blame Boldor. He’s the one who
put her through this torture. One day, I’ll have his head, even if it takes the rest of my life.”

Chapter Eighteen

Deceived

Corin put Tomes in the passenger seat and headed for the estate. Settling him
in a second floor room, he tried to mend his injuries with his healing power, but could only partially repair the damage.

“This is the best I can do for you, the cuts are too deep. But it should help
speed up the healing process. It’s going to take time for you to regain your strength after losing so much blood.”

“I’ll live,” Tomes groaned. “You should tend to yourself.” He pointed to
Corin’s jaw where Louisa caught him with her talons.

Corin ran his fingers over the gashes and his flesh regenerated itself, making
him good as new.

“Tomes, about Louisa, taking her life, I—”

“I know you had to do it. I wanted to believe she’d come back to me, but the monster down in that basement wasn’t the woman I knew. The human part of her was gone. She nearabout killed me. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m sure she would have succeeded.”

“I’m sorry you’ve lost her twice.”

“It’s worse this time, worrying that she’ll never be at peace. Monsters without souls don’t go to heaven.” Tomes sighed. “My only hope of ever seeing her again in the afterlife would be to live a wretched life and hope to join her in hell one day.”

“You don’t know for sure that she’s in hell. There could be something more.”

“I was raised in a Christian family, taught that after death we either go to heaven or hell. Being the undead, I would think you’d know what comes next.”

“I’ve never felt driven to journey in search of those answers. I’d rather not
know if all that awaits me beyond this life is a pit of fire and brimstone.”

“But you believe in heaven and hell.”

“Yes. I know they exist.”

“Might God show mercy on her, Corin? Does He ever show mercy on your
kind?”

“I try not to dwell on things that torment my mind, and more importantly, are
beyond my control, but in my opinion, cursed is cursed.” Corin moved about the room, worked up by the subject of conversation. “If it were so easy for a nightwalker to find favor in the eyes of God, I’d be the first in line repenting, making my personal request for salvation. Whether or not that means we’re all marked for hell, I can’t say for certain. Since we have no soul to offer, hell may not even want us…maybe just the monster we harbor.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. What becomes of your soul when you’re changed?”

“Our mortality is taken prior to resurrection and our human bodies die. During this time of death, our souls are collected by the Angel of Death. I encountered this dark angel in my brief but memorable fall into the afterlife during my change,” Corin told him. “And when this angel comes, he knows who are cursed—possessed by the virus—and he treats them accordingly. Just as he collects the souls of mortal men, he also takes ours, but those of us afflicted with the virus—damned to immortality—are left with nothing but an empty existence along with the remembrance of who we were in life. I don’t know, maybe this is supposed to be God’s show of mercy on us, leaving us with our memories intact, but for me, it’s more of an eternal affliction. It left me forever longing for what I’d lost—my soul, the light of day…heaven. I confess, I don’t entirely understand how it’s all accomplished, or what later becomes of our souls. All I know is that the angel takes them away, and we never get that precious part of us back. This gives you a little insight into how it is and always shall be for our kind.” A hint of dejection sounded in his voice.

“I’m so sorry for you, Corin, and for Louisa.”

“What’s done is done. There’s no sense dwelling on it.”

“But I can’t help dwelling on it, because of Louisa.”

“If God were to choose to grant mercy on any of us, Tomes, it would certainly be Louisa. Now, you’d better get some rest while you can. Something tells me Boldor isn’t too happy right now.”

“You think he’ll retaliate?”

“I suspect he will.”

“I’ll rest, but you have to let me know if there’s any sign of him,” Tomes
stipulated. “Nothing, not even this aching body, will stop me from facing him.”

“You’re one determined man,” Corin told him. “Now rest. I’ll be close by if you
need me.”

Corin left the room, troubled by the unfavorable turn of events. He couldn’t
help feeling responsible for Tomes’s injuries, knowing the threat Louisa posed. He’d allowed his judgment to be clouded by sentiment and the result only added more heartache for Tomes.

“I
can’t let anything like that happen again.”

When it came time to take on Boldor, he had to be at the top of his game, and
that meant no distractions. He’d promised the kill to Tomes, but with circumstances what they were, he didn’t see how he’d be able to keep his word.

Tomes couldn’t fight in his condition, regardless of his determination to the
contrary. Corin knew it was up to him to face the nightwalker, and in order to ensure he would be the one to walk away victorious, he would have to stay focused. And that meant leaving his emotions, and this one, lone human who’d managed to worm his way into his life, out of the equation.

* * * *

Boldor landed, shape-shifted into his human form, and thundered into the house. Rushing to the basement and finding nothing left of Louisa but her ashy remains, he released a loud, ferocious roar.