Darque Wants (71 page)

Adelaide felt a pang in her stomach at the mere thought of this demon, with ghostly white hair and grey eyes that she had never even met before, losing his foot. “Is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked.

He gave a curt nod, gesturing at a tall absinthe sitting on the side table. “Force him to drink that, while I prepare for the incision” he explained.

Adelaide nodded and grabbed the cool bottle of strong alcohol. She slipped a straw she fetched from the top drawer into the bottle and pressed it towards his lips. The soldier, whose eyes were barely open, whose pasty skin was covered in sweat, looking like he scarcely possessed the strength necessary to even suck the drink into his mouth, but, after some urging, she was able to get him to drink some of it. As soon as his Adam’s apple bobbed with the drink tumbling down his throat, he began to grow even limper. Adelaide raised an eyebrow. “What is in this stuff?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s just something to make him sleep through this. A mixture of Absinthe and opiates.” He picked up a scalpel from his personal table and cut at the demon’s ankle. It twitched a little as he worked, but otherwise, he remained sleeping.

Adelaide gulped as a deep purple, almost black substance began to ooze from his leg. Once Berit had sliced all the way to the bone, he placed the bloody scalpel onto the side table and picked up a small hand-saw, which he then used to cut through the bone.

“How much Energy do you have?” he murmured in a calm voice.

Adelaide shrugged. “Enough to raise the dead.”

Berit chuckled at this as he continued to work. “All right. Do you mind if I use you?”

Adelaide shook her head. “Of course not.”

“All right. As soon as I finish with this, I need you to heal the fringes of skin. You see this, here?” he asked, shoving his gloved finger deep into the ankle, pointing out the bits of skin that he had left and their jagged edges.

“Okay,” Adelaide replied. She turned towards his table of tools, and, with shaking hands, picked up the second, clean scalpel and stepped away from him. As she pressed it into her wrist, bracing herself for the cut, a little voice in the back of her head berated her for volunteering herself in the first place, but she ignored it, pressing the blade into her wrist and grunting at the sharp pain that sprouted on that end of her arm, throbbing as she dipped the scalpel in and rubbed her sharp, red blood on its surface. She took a deep breath as she handed the scalpel to Berit, then stepped back away from him, leaning on the pillar at the head of the demon’s bed. Her head spun from the blood that was oozing from her new wound and she had not given herself enough time to recover from the battle on the day before.

As she stood there, struggling to get her bearings, a deep and guttural screamed surged through the room, soaring over the subdued tones of the nurses and the grunts of pain. Adelaide, like everyone else in the tent, snapped their heads in the direction of the demon that had uttered that noise. Her eyes went wide as she watched his body writhe in pain. His eyes had lost their purple pupils, instead becoming one uniform, almond-shaped, white organ. Thick beads of sweat sprouted on his forehead, but went nowhere, adhering to his melting skin. Steam lifted from his body, drifting into the air. Adelaide felt her stomach lurch and it took everything in her to resist vomiting in front of everyone, and possibly disrupting an operation.

“He’s been bitten.” Berit explained as he finished with the leg. “One of us doctors must euthanize him before the change completes itself. We have just been so busy with other matters”

Adelaide watched the demon suffer as Berit continued.

“He has reached the last phase of the transformation. There isn’t much time left…”

If Berit said anything else after that, Adelaide didn’t hear it, for she had closed her eyes and was attempting to focus all of her attention on healing herself. Through her efforts to clear her mind, she could hear the demons harsh screams. She just squeezed her eyes tighter and willed him to just shut up, but he wouldn’t.

Soon enough, Adelaide had lost herself and it wasn’t a demon’s screams she was hearing, but her own sister’s. She was back home in her angel dress, but she brandished a silver sword, because the vampires had invaded. They charged through her childhood home, pillaging everything they could lay their hands on. Their dark shadow had obliterated the warm light that filled all of the rooms and their white furniture became covered in soot and ash. They stopped their running and destruction only for long enough to grasp an angel and kill it.

Adelaide held fast to her sister Chloe, grasping her tiny, seven year old hand as hard as she could as she ran through their state room. Yet she was still several yards away from the door when she felt something tug hard on her sister. She yanked back, but the vampire was too strong for her. He ripped Chloe clean out of her hands, her Diamond Head piece slipping out of her long, brunette hair and crashing to the ground. Adelaide swung her sword at the vampire, fueled by the sound of Chloe shrieking for help, but she felt another vampire grab her from behind. She turned and sliced his free hand off. He grunting in pain, and wrapped his hand around her throat, squeezing as hard as he could, but she drove the sword right into his chest, lifting his heard clean out of the cavity. He fell to the ground with a deep thump and a panting Adelaide turned back to Chloe, but she was too late.

The vampire had bitten her. He sat over her sucking on her neck. “Hey!” Adelaide roared, raising her sword, but he ran away as quickly as he could, becoming reduced to a mere blur of light before her angel eyes.

Chloe lay there writhing in pain. Adelaide was too late. Chloe was gone.

Adelaide’s eyes flashed open. Her eyes watering from the pain of that memory. Vampires were impossibly dangerous when they wanted to be… and they did want to be. With her wrist tingling from the wound she had sustained and the healing her body had gone through, she leaned off of the pillar, wondering what could possibly move Samson to enact a betrayal of his own race that deep. She decided that she needed to find out.

Chapter Five

Adelaide crossed the camp in almost no time at all and was pleased to find that no one had beat her to the questioning-and-torturing gig. In fact, there wasn’t even anyone standing outside of the tent guarding the angel. Adelaide assumed this might have just been because Samson was too weak to break free and escape, or it could be that he no longer had anywhere to escape to. She pushed through the flap, and stopped, her body practically vibrating in anger as she beheld his strong, heavy frame collapsed in the back corner the of the tent like an old sweater. His golden hair, which had flown through the air as he had zoomed in between the trees, trying his best to kill her, hung like a limp, dead thing, over his sharp, blue eyes.

“Hey.” Adelaide snapped, fearlessly crossing the tent to reach him.

“Hey.” He replied in a tired voice.

She clenched her jaw. “Look at me.” She demanded.

He shook his head. “Why should I?”

She reached down to him, grasped his jaw and forced him to look up at her.

When he did, she almost gasped at the way they had mangled his face. His nose was broken and dark, dried blood was plastered on his cheek. She glanced over his shoulder and sure enough, his wings had been cut off. Nothing remained but bloody nobs of bone and the odd feather. She dropped his chin and stepped away from him, her skin crawling. An angel was not meant to look like this.

He let out a dark chuckle. “That’s what I thought.”

Adelaide shook her head. “Don’t do that.” She ordered. But it was too late. She could feel his disdain like a knife in her skull.

“This is what your people does to angels.” He muttered.

Adelaide gulped. It made her sick, but she had to ignore it. He had tried to kill her. He worked for vampires. It wasn’t as simple as he was trying to make it seem. “I came here to ask you questions, not to have a conversation.”

He raised a frayed eyebrow. “Then you’re going to be disappointed.”

Adelaide shook her head. “No no no. You’re going to tell me everything you know, because you enlisted with the creatures that murdered my sister and I demanded at least that from you.”

He scoffed. “It’s not that simple.”

Adelaide sank to the ground, realizing that he was right. “Who the hell are you?” she breathed.

“I’m an angel.”

She glared at him. “You’re a sick excuse for a living thing. You are hardly angel. You don’t even have your wings.”

“Because demons took them from me.” He hissed.

“Because you tried to kill me.” Adelaide countered.

He shook his head, leaning back against the wall. “I did what I needed to do to survive.” He replied.

Adelaide really thought she might vomit then. The whole thing was despicable. “How could you be so selfish?” she demanded, bringing herself within a foot away from him. She wanted show him that she was not intimidated by him by the least bit.

He met her gaze, bringing himself within inches of hers.

She could smell his sweet angel breath and could hardly deny that it aroused her.

“Selfish?” he hissed. “How can you accuse me of being something you do so well? You are the queen of selfish!”

Adelaide gulped. “I am fighting this war for my kind. If the demons win, you know what that means for earth. You know what that means for my family and for yours and for every other glorious living thing out there.”

“So you abandoned your kind to fight for the very thing that we hate? How noble.”

“It is not as simple as you are making it.” Adelaide replied, thinking only of Daman. “Besides, you’re the one working for vampires.”

“I was born working for vampires.” He snapped.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“That family you mentioned? Yeah I don’t have one. They were taken after the invasion of the undead and used as blood slaves for the royal family. My mother was pregnant with me. By some twisted miracle of fate, I didn’t die inside of her. So they used me too. Until I grew up and I got big and the demons declared war and they realized they were wasting an asset.”

Adelaide’s eyes filled with tears. She had never even been fed on before and here Samson sat, having witnessed hardships she didn’t even experience in her worse nightmares.

“I didn’t get lucky like you did. I’m a male. I’m a threat, not an agent of pleasure. My choices were limited.”

“What are you saying?” Adelaide’s face flushed with the mention of her sexuality.

Samson pursed his lips, grunting as he used his sheer strength to break through the cuffs. They rolled away from his now free hands like child’s playthings. Adelaide tried to move away from him but he grabbed the body of her face and squeezed, drawing her chin towards him. “I’m saying they would never feed on you. Even if they did they would never do it to an extent that would harm you in any way. Sex with an angel is the best sex there is.” He replied.

“I wouldn’t know.” Adelaide sneered.

Samson let out a dark laugh, one that made Adelaide fear for her safety. “You’ve never even made love to one us? How traitorous of you.”

Adelaide yanked her face out of his grip, slapping his hand way. “How can you say that to me? If the vampires win because of something you did, you would have murdered all of the angels.”

“What if Constantine had found you first?” he demanded.

Adelaide clamped her jaw shut. “I-…” when she ran away, she needed food and shelter, she didn’t care who it came from.

What if Constantine had found her first?

Samson shook his head. “You would fallen in love with him and he would have fallen in love with you and you would have done whatever it took to convince yourself that when he won the war, it didn’t matter that it meant the end of your family. You have been blessed with a body no man can resist… not even me. And you know that.”

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating.” Adelaide snapped.

“Why? Because it’s true?” he snapped.

“I’m a good fighter and I fly better than any angel out there. That’s why I’m alive.”

Samson shook his head. “No it isn’t. You’re alive because Daman loved you and now Constantine does. You use your body to get what you want and you come in here and preach morality to me? You’re nothing but a prostitute.”

Adelaide slapped him, her hand hitting his face so hard that her palm turned white from the impact. She gasped, surprised at her own actions. “Don’t say that to me!” she hissed.

“I never tell you anything!” he roared.

“Oh fuck you.” Adelaide replied, standing up.

Samson stood up as well, facing her.

She tried to ignore the fact that he was naked, tried to ignore the fact that his huge member dangling just inches away from her hand.

“At least, not like this. But…” he scanned her with his invasive eyes. “But you are exquisite… and I’ve never had sex with an angel either. I might forget who I am and why I’m here…” He whispered stepping so close to her that she could feel his penis against her hip bone. It had filled out and was slowly rising with his every word. “I might forget why withholding information… and I might tell you everything.” He spoke those last words so close to her that she could feel his moving lips on her face.