HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (35 page)

She was choking. She
was drowning. Then she flew back over the scales of time, over the
hump-back of the sun, through the silvery clouds of Jupiter, past the
dry valleys of Mars, and she saw Earth rimmed by white cloud and
thronged with lands and oceans.

She came back. Back
to the little girl's body. Back to herself in the world. She had gone
only a little way into oblivion, but her way back had been a
tremendous journey. She felt a thrill of relief to be in the world
again, inside a warm, living body, feeling the sun burning in her
eyes, the water caressing her body.

She gulped air so
that her lungs expanded into life. Her throat hurt and she still had
the sensation of oxygen deprivation and then of drowning. She moved
her mighty wings under the water to propel her to the far shore.
Ripples moved in concentric circles away from her. Whitecaps and
little wavelets broke over her face and she shook her head and
laughed.

She saw on the far
shore a tiny figure standing hunched over, waiting to help her out of
the dark drink. She thought his skin was leather and she imagined his
eyes would be the corrupt green of a stagnant pond and oh so knowing.

When finally she
reached him, he waded into the water and took her hand, lifting her
free. He carried her to the land over his shoulder. She folded her
great wings and let them return to her body. He lay her down,
standing over her with his oafish look and his lips dripping slime.

“
Will you go
after him?” he asked.

Angelique hesitated.
True hatred that had driven her for so long and the very real need to
punish Nisroc seemed to fade even as she consulted those feelings and
thoughts. Finally she answered, “No.”

“
You won't go
after him?”

“
No. Leave him
be.” That was what Nick kept telling her even as he took her
life. And so she would let him be. Because, really, was he worth it
now that she knew he had as much strength and will to survive as she?
If she lost one battle and nearly lost her earthly place, what might
happen if she fought again? She had felt during the engagement that
Nisroc was filled with a great power unlike her own...and superior.
She would never have imagined it, but for the moment she knew she was
beaten.

For was he really
worth it at all?

“
Maybe not,”
the monster said, reading her mind.

She stood,
straightening her sad little wet, torn, white dress. She had lost her
shoes. She had lost the red ribbon from her hair.

But she had not lost
anything she couldn't replace.

“
Shall we go
then?” He was Henry again, tall, imposing stick man with the
legion of lost children somewhere deep, deep, deep inside him.

Angelique followed
him up the rough hill until they stood side by side facing the city.
It was bathed in orange melon light, the spires, the rooftops, the
steeples beckoning.

What a glorious day
to be alive! She thought, looking out across the city knowing it was
just one and all the other cities, global-wide, could be conquered if
she wanted to conquer them.

What a magical and
glorious day!

She followed Henry
down the hill, his shadow long and hers short, sometimes her own
shadow lost in his. He was her new mate, the one she could depend
upon, and what couldn't she accomplish with this demon at her side?
Who needed an angel?

SHE was the angel.
She was the Queen of all angels.

THE END

Thank you for
reading! Book 2 and 3 of the Fallen Angels are coming in the future.

LEGIONS
OF THE DARK

By

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright 2011 by
Billie Sue Mosiman

This book was
recreated from OCR scans and copy-edited by David Dodd

This book is
dedicated to my husband,
Lyle Duane Mosiman, for years of
unflagging love and support. He is the best
thing that ever
happened to this writer.

I would like to
thank Ed Gorman and
Martin Greenberg for their help with
this
novel. Had it not been for them,
John Helfers, and my editor at
DAW Books, Sheila Gilbert,
this work would not exist.

But first, on earth
as vampire sent,

Thy corpse shall
from its tomb be rent:

Then ghastly haunt
thy native place,

And suck the blood
of all thy race;

There from thy
daughter, sister, wife,

At midnight drain
the stream of life. . . .

Wet with thine own
best blood shall drip

Thy gnashing tooth
and haggard lip;

Then stalking to
thy sullen grave

Go—and with
the ghouls and afreets rave,

Till these in
horror shrink away

From specter more
accursed than they!

—
Lord Byron,

The Giaour (1813)

It was an early
Monday morning in March. Texas had come alive with drifts of
bluebonnets and mild, warm days. Graduation was in another two
months, and Della Joan Cambian could hardly wait to get to school.

It wasn't just that
soon she'd have her diploma and real life could begin for her as a
recognized adult in the world. She had a growing interest in Ryan
Major, a new boy who had transferred from North Dallas a few weeks
earlier.

Even though she
always went lightly on makeup, often using none at all, today she
decided to try a new shade of lipstick. What could it hurt? Besides,
her color seemed to be off. Her natural olive complexion looked
sallow. She tried opening the curtains on the windows in her room,
letting in the morning light, and looking in the mirror again, but
her skin still seemed to be some horrid shade of yellow-brown.

Applying the
lipstick and hoping it would brighten her entire look, Dell paused
when she saw the lesion on the back of her right forearm reflected in
the mirror. She sat at her dressing table, stunned, her mother
calling from the hall, warning that her primping would make her late
for the school bus. Again.

Dell didn't answer
her mother. She couldn't. Her arm was frozen, Cover Girl Burnt Sienna
poised just a whisper from the mid-curve of her top lip. She blinked,
slowly lowered her arm, and let the lipstick roll from her fingers.
That's how her mother found her, staring like Narcissus at her own
image.

"Dell, honey,
what's the matter?"

In place of words,
Dell raised her right arm until the mirror caught the pink festering
oval of flesh. Her mother approached slowly and stared down into the
mirrored reflection.

"Mom?"

Her mother reached
out one hand as if she would touch the lesion, but her fingers danced
in the air before disappearing from sight. "It's … it's
just …"

"Mom? Will you
look me over? Are there more? Are they everywhere?" Suddenly,
Dell pushed back from the dressing table. In no time, she had her
blue sweatshirt pulled high above and then over her head. As she
lowered her arms to rip the shirt off, her mother caught and held her
tightly. She was imprisoned by the sleeves, held in a position that
afforded no movement.

"Don't,
honey."

"Does it mean
… ? Am I … ? Will I be like you now? Mom?" She
felt tears well, and the room blurred. Over her mother's shoulder she
could see her own face in the mirror. It was as if she had never
really looked at herself before, as if who she saw reflected was a
stranger. She was not just sallow. She was sick.

She could feel an
irritation on her left shoulder. Now that she was concentrating on
her body, she felt what might be another lesion on the back of her
right knee. They were all over her, evidence of disease at work.

"Let me go,
Mom."

Her mother released
her, and she threw off the shirt and began turning and twisting to
look over her body.

It was not as if
she thought this day might never come. Of her immediate family, she
was the last to contract the disease. They had all pretended it had
skipped her. She might be spared. Others were. Her Aunt Celia hadn't
ever gotten sick. Sometimes a few escaped their destiny. But very
few.

The lesions
indicated the beginning of a mutated form of a rare blood disease the
medical community called porphyria. Next would come the terrible
sensitivity to sunlight. Then her lips would feel paralyzed and
betray her, so that she could not even smile. It would all pass
swiftly. What took the real disease of porphyria decades to do to an
afflicted human, the mutated virus would do to her within days.

The horror of it
was enough to bear, more than enough to make her raving mad. But even
worse was not knowing if she would turn into a Predator, a Craven, or
a Natural, like those in her family. No one could predict the outcome
of the process until the disease had run its course.

Once her mother let
her go, Dell sagged onto the edge of her bed. She felt panic ruling
her, causing her mind to race out of control. She hardly knew what to
do. How was she to control an event that was rushing toward chaos,
she asked herself. "There's no point in checking anymore,"
she said in a resigned voice. "I feel one on my shoulder and
another behind my knee. I can sense things. If I can tell where they
are without looking, then I'm sick, and that's all there is to it."
She lay down on the unmade bed, pulling her legs up and hugging them.
She still had on jeans and shoes, but she didn't care. She heard the
school bus outside, heard it brake with a hiss, and after a minute,
move on without her. She would miss a trig test and have to make it
up. She wouldn't see Ryan today. Or all week. If she fell ill, how
could she let her interest in him continue anyway? How could she have
imagined she ever had a chance at a normal life?

"I'll call
Mentor," her mother said, leaning down to pat her cheek the way
she used to do when Dell was little and ran a fever.

Dell nodded,
closing her eyes, trying not to think about it. Mentor came on house
calls when summoned in a crisis. He had to be there for the young
ones who were so devastated by the change. So it was true. Her mother
knew it too. There could be no mistake if Mentor was sent for. This
wasn't chicken pox or some other innocuous illness. It was not
melanoma or another skin disease. It was the thing that stopped the
human heart from beating. It was the monster that defied death and
lived on within you, hungering and unholy.

That was the one
true thing about the supernatural life she was about to enter—how
unholy it truly was. It wasn't true, for example, that a vampire
produced no reflected image. Her mother was proof enough to dispel
that old myth. She looked in mirrors to apply makeup so that she
would not appear to be so pale. It wasn't true that crosses or holy
water affected them. In fact, most of the old myths about vampires
were wrong—all made up, fictional, and totally inaccurate. Soon
Dell would know from inside the reality of the vampire's life, what
it was like to be the same as her parents and her brother.

Dell choked back a
sob and turned her head into the pillow.

"I'll be right
back," her mother said. "Don't worry. Don't cry. Please
don't cry."

Dell heard her rush
from the room like a draft of wind from an open window. When she
wanted to, her mother could do miraculous things. True and real
things. Move like shadow. Sleep standing up. Know her daughter's pain
as her own. But she couldn't keep her from death. And she couldn't
keep her from crying.

Not today.

~*~

While waiting for
help, Dell's mother sat on her bedside and smoothed her brow. Dell
kept her eyes tightly shut, trembling in increasing waves that shook
her body. She felt faint and thought she was going to pass out. "Mom,
I'm going to faint."

Her mother shushed
her and leaned in close to kiss her cheek. "The family's
coining," she said.

Dell teetered on
the brink of consciousness, moving in and out, feeling first her
mother's cool hand on her face and then not experiencing anything but
a sense of loss. She wanted to ask for Aunt Celia, but she couldn't
seem to speak. She was moving inexorably toward unconsciousness, but
fought against it, afraid of what lay ahead. She never knew when her
mother moved from her side or when Aunt Celia and her daughter,
Carolyn, entered the room. She never knew when Mentor arrived. Her
first realization that he was there was when he spoke, reaching her
through the veil of unconsciousness that kept her wrapped solidly in
its arms.