Dark Rapture (57 page)

She felt at the padlock. It was thick and cold but the rusted mechanism gave easily with a fervent twist from her powerful hands.

Chapter Seventeen

Spain, 13
^th
century

Flames set the midnight sky afire with a wash of red fury. Esmarelda could feel the heat pressing upon the fur of her cheek as she neared the castle walls. She quickly released the body of the she-wolf she had borrowed and resumed her own. A hasty thank you was lost in the wind. The wolf scampered away with one last glance over the wreckage.

The north wall had been smashed in and crumbled to the ground while the interior wooden structure burned to cinders before Esmarelda’s eyes. There was no one about. Not a stray animal, nor a villager fleeing the raging fire.

“Why?” she whispered as she sped faster across the rocky land toward the blazing structure. “Where have they all gone?”

And then a realization hit with the blow of a hammer to the stake. The villagers had finally taken revenge.

“No!” Esmarelda scrambled over the fallen castle wall, her skirts catching and pulling her down into the simmering rubble. “Adriano!” She screamed until her throat was sore, but her voice could not be heard over the roar of the wicked flames.

The fire snapped and hissed at her as she picked her way through the piled fieldstones. A beam from the great hall fell from the ceiling in a crash before her. Esmarelda fell back across the stones, her back catching the fall in a stinging crunch.

Pray God he is not inside, she thought. Please, let him be safe!

She had risen early this evening. Adriano had a habit of sleeping well close to midnight before he rose. Esmarelda had traveled for what she figured had been dozens of miles, so delighted she was that the wolf’s strength afforded her swift earth movement. She hadn’t even fed. No, the early evening hours had been spent dashing through the forests, racing across the open plains, reveling in her freedom, her utter lucidity with the world. In the wolf’s body, all senses were heightened. Sensations she’d always felt she knew became new and exquisite. The forests brewed with an abundance of textures and flavors and sounds. Flowers were no longer one color, their petals burst forth in three dimensional shapes and smells.

And then she had felt a sharp chill pierce her heart. Something was wrong. The smell of smoke led her home to the castle. Home to a horrific sight.

“I must find him!” she screamed into the raging blaze. “Adriano!”

***

Los Angeles, present

“Hey Rico,” Vince waved the master of the house down as he passed by. “You see Scarlet?”

Rico settled onto the suede couch next to Vince, finding the man quite drunk. Not from alcohol either, he was extremely drunk on the blood the family provided for every party they held. Rico had watched Vince gorge on two beauties earlier in the entertainment room before wandering down the hallway after the curious little bitch.

“Can’t say that I have seen her,” he lied. “You two have a date tonight?”

Vince shrugged and cast a sheepish grin towards the ceiling. He was wasted, totally high on adrenaline. “Nah, Rowdy told me he thought he saw her. Can’t imagine why she’d come here after— Ah, well…” he trailed off, his head falling happily to Rico’s shoulder.

“If I see her I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

Vince floated his cloud in seventh heaven. “Cool.”

***

Once inside the inner room, the scent of rotting corpses permeated the hole in the door, but it was noticeably less vile. Scarlet breathed deeply as she stepped toward the center. The only thing in the room was a massive stone sarcophagus, which had been bound tightly with the use of thick chains whose links were the size of her fist. Eight streams of the linked metal ran from bolts in the floor, over the coffin and back down to the other side where they had been securely bolted, for years possibly.

Seeing the flame simmer to a low orb, Scarlet knew with a shake of the lighter she had little butane left. She looked around. There was a small window near the ceiling where three iron bars sifted beams of moonlight across the floor. She glanced back toward the door. As long as the corpses were on the other side, she felt safer. Not in the least comfortable, but she really had no choice.

Groping around in the oily darkness, she felt through webs of spider nets, smearing them across her coat with a disgusted shiver. The chains were icy at first touch and surprisingly taunt. She pulled to see if they would give, but stopped, hearing the door in the other room scrape open.

Someone had found her. Yes! Vince had come looking for her!

She blindly raced toward the adjoining door.

“My, but the rats are getting rather large this time of year. I thought I heard something down here.”

Having been in total darkness, it took a while for Scarlet to adjust to the candlelight that floated nearer. As it thinned out to a fine flame she was able to see who held the black taper.

Rico’s eyes narrowed to slits, though his expression was not angry, more worried. He held out his heavily ringed hand. “Come. The pit is no place for you.”

“No place for me?” Scarlet gasped, thankful she could look at Rico and avoid the horrors at her feet. “My God, Rico, what the hell is this? It’s a human garbage dump. Do you have something against burial?”

“We’d be digging graves all the time if we were to start that,” he said casually. “Not exactly practical, nor a welcome to the landscaping, of which I’ve spent quite a lot of money.”

A tiny whimper caused Scarlet to jerk her head towards the maggot infested pile in the corner. A blonde girl with brilliant red fingernails had
moaned
. Scarlet saw her heather-dusted lid flicker.

“Rico, that woman is still alive!”

“Well now, that’s entirely possible.” He turned and held the candle high. Seeing the same movement Scarlet had spied, he walked over and stamped fiercely on the girl’s head. Her skull cracked, though there was little blood left to spill from the openings.

He turned back, casually offering his hand is if there were nothing amiss with the room the two stood in.

Feeling her stomach begin its hollow gripping again, Scarlet held out a shaky hand. “I can’t believe you, Rico. You’ve no scruples whatsoever.”

“Scruples,” he said with a deep-throated chuckle as he received her hand and stepped across an abandoned cadaver. “Aren’t you the one to speak of scruples. Coming here to rendezvous with your lover. Did you have another tryst beneath the willow tree planned?”

Scarlet was shocked to hear he had witnessed she and Vince’s little excursion. She tried to pull away from him but he in turn jerked her hand so she tripped forward and stumbled into his arms.

“Please, Rico, just get me out of here. I’m—”

“Afraid?”

“Yes! No! I’m disgusted. How can you live like this?” He wrangled her into his steel embrace. Scarlet beat his chest with her fists. “You are a demented beast!”

Ignoring her judgment of his character, Rico bowed his head to her neck and pressed hard kisses to her skin.

“What are you doing? Stop it, this is ridiculous. There are dead bodies everywhere! I want to leave right now.”

His lips played across her shoulder bone while he fought vigorously to control her struggles. “And will you not offer me the same affection you give Vince? We are, after all, family. What’s mine is his and what’s his is mine.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you have me.”

“You don’t have much of a choice, lovely one. Vince will not care, or, I think, believe you, should you tell him. He trusts me. Which he should. I would never betray a friend.”

The word betray slipped like a butcher knife through Scarlet’s heart. She stopped struggling. She had been so close to making love to Vince on the rooftop. So damned close…

“Then why are you doing this?” she stuttered.

Rico’s breath whispered across her lips as he spoke. “Is it wrong to crave the affections of one so lovely? Since you have already seen fit to betray your lover, I believe you may have declared yourself open and available.”

“Let go of me!” She wrenched a hand free from her captor and tried to twist the other out of his grasp. “I did not betray Sebastian!”

Rico tried to grab Scarlet’s free arm but she kicked high and the toe of her shoe tore through the pin-striped fabric on Rico’s thigh. He released her and she slipped over to the door.

“If you ever touch me again,” she paused by the door, drawing a deep breath into her lungs. “I’ll kill you.”

Without looking back, she ran toward the main hallway, pushing through the crowd. Rock music assaulted her thoughts, scrambling a mixture of dead bodies, Rico’s vile kiss, and Vince’s devious grin into a psychedelic spin of visions.

She wanted nothing to do with the horrors of Rico Bellange, or his newest pupil, Vince Lyons. As she started the car and the engine roared loudly she screamed, releasing her pent up frustrations to the air.

***

How she got home in her state of mind, she wasn’t sure, but as Scarlet dashed towards the castle entrance and stepped inside the comforts of home she kept repeating one vow over and over.

“I’ll never kill again. I’ll never kill again. I’ll never—”

“
Chèrie
?”

She turned to see Sebastian gazing curiously at her. He looked a bit haggard, his face abnormally pale and there were deep circles beneath his eyes. She swallowed her heart, which had risen to her throat, and tried to act casual.

“What is wrong? You nearly jumped out of your skin.”

“Um…nothing,” she answered quickly, glancing up the stairs in an attempt to avoid his curious gaze. “You surprised me…that’s it. I thought you still might be at the studio. I’m fine really. I’m going to my room now.”

“You look frazzled. Where were you? I called Gary a few minutes ago, and he said you hadn’t stopped by.”

“Yes, well, I was…um…”

“He thought you might be with Vince. Is this true, Scarlet? Why would you be spending time with Vince Lyons instead of your brother? What’s that on your shoe?”

He bent his head, as did Scarlet, but her scream halted him before he got a good look. Scarlet shook the greasy maggot from her foot and scrambled toward the stairs, shrieking hysterically. Sebastian reached out but only touched her shirt as she sprinted up the stone stairs.

“No! Stay away. I can’t do this! I’ve got to get away from all this death. I promise I’ll never kill again!”

“Again?” Sebastian raced up the stairs. “Scarlet wait!”

She slammed the bathroom door behind her and scrambled out of her dress, feeling as if the tiny grease worms squirmed about her entire body. Her screams turned to havoc and she pulled at her hair, feeling the corpse worms crawling on her scalp and eye sockets like the woman on the floor. She dashed into the shower and flipped the water on as Sebastian entered the room. Hot water burned her flesh.

“
Chèrie
, no, no, what are you doing?” Sebastian twisted the water off and stared helplessly at her as she squirmed and itched and pulled at her hair. “Stop it! Please, Scarlet, you’re scaring me.” He wrapped her in his arms but she pushed away.

“Don’t touch me! I have to get them off.” She flipped the water on again.

Quickly, Sebastian harnessed Scarlet’s arms to her sides and pulled her from the water. “You’re hurting yourself,
chèrie
. There is nothing on you!”

Scarlet pulled her legs up and pushed against the wall, sending her and Sebastian crashing to the floor. She grabbed a towel and held it to her chest. “Get out! Now! Leave me alone!”

As her demands persisted, Sebastian backed out of the bathroom. “All right. I’ll be waiting for you in the study.”

Scarlet slammed the door behind him and fell to her knees. Her head went down to the floor and she scanned the smooth gray stones for anything that was moving or squirming. Satisfied she was safe from the hideous worms, she fell to her side, curled up and sobbed bloody tears into the towel.

***

It had been hours. She did not come to him.
I’ll never kill again
, kept resounding inside Sebastian’s head. Could it be true? He’d never thought Scarlet would do such a thing. While it was her vampire nature to desire the kill, he had tried so desperately to squelch that over the past year. There was no reason for Scarlet to take life, to be ravaged by taunting nightmares. He’d tried to protect her from those horrors.

Obviously he had failed.

Sebastian pushed the bedroom door open with the toe of his boot and peeked inside. She sat on the window ledge in a thick white damask robe, her knees pulled to her chest, her hair veiling her face. The sun just tipped the horizon. The white-washed sky cast an eerie sheen across her skin.

His heart sank. Everything he had imagined could go wrong, had. His suspicions were correct. The dream of his dancer in the devil’s arms had come true. He knew it.

He spoke gently as he neared her, “You are a child of darkness, Scarlet. The moonlight is your halo. The morning sun can never compete with your beauty.”