Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (25 page)

Chapter
Eighteen

In a bed, for
the first time in days, my muscles finally began to relax. My eyes were so
heavy they felt like they weighed fifty pounds each. Though I had spent two
days sleeping on the train, I’d sleep for a decade more if I was allowed.
Before she let me go to bed, Mom made me eat something. She said I’d feel
better, but all I felt was hollow. I’d been hungry, starving even, but food
didn’t seem to defeat that sensation. That hunger churned inside.

No matter
how I fought it, my chin quivered the second I turned the television off, and
the world was silent. I was finally alone, really alone. I had gotten what I
was searching for and had nothing left to think of, other than all that had
transpired. Even still, I felt strong. I felt powerful against all things. My own
fucked-up emotions even. Lupe said it, if I could defeat Azelie, I could do
anything, even if I had to cry it out first. And, cry I did.

Tears felt
like they were squirting from my eyes like a cartoon character. I stayed
silent. My mom had cried enough for the both of us while she waited for me to
come home. There was no need to get her up and in my room fussing over me. I
was big enough to cry alone. It didn’t happen often, rarely would be a good
word to describe it, but I was a human. It was what we did.

“Tatum, love
you so much. I’m so sorry,” I whispered into the dark of my room. Snot and
tears mingled on the tip of my nose. “So sorry.” Quivering, ragged breaths
sucked in and out through my mouth. “I’ll make it better. I promise.”

I cried,
solitary and loathing, for what felt like hours. My body ached. My sorrowful
eyes burned at the corners. I had nothing left in me to give but sleep. There
was much to be accomplished, but it would have to wait for another day. Cyrus,
Mike, Tatum, all of it. Later.

I turned to
my side and stared at the picture on my night table. The one I’d brought from
my apartment. Tatum’s perfect smile gleamed next to me. Our wide grins
reflected the feel of the happiest place on Earth. It’d sat on my table at home
for years. She’d given it to me as a house-warming gift when I left Mike and
got my own place. She said it would remind me that I didn’t need a swinging
dick to be happy. One with batteries would work just fine.

I lay there,
lost in memories of better days. Even the time she cold cocked poor Cyrus in
his own house popped in. I smiled at the thought. No matter how devious, her
plan to hook the two of us up had merit. It came from her rotten little heart.
She was always trying to look out for me, even if she was a raging snatch about
it sometimes. I’d even miss the raging snatch part.

I blew air
out through pursed lips, and with it thoughts of Tatum and all the things I did
wrong. It was time to focus on protecting what I had left. Marienne had a
prideful vampire twat agenda and something in my gut told me she wasn’t the
only one with a lust for perfection. Azelie might merely have been the voodoo
broker for her fountain of youth blood collecting venture. There was much to
uncover, more of the occult to ascertain, to beat out of Cyrus and his new
Secondus if necessary. Later.

Sleep was
eminent, but come sunrise, Marienne, her bloody motives, vampires, werewolves,
goblins, trolls, whatever the fuck was out there, were top priority. I closed
my eyes and waited for sleep to come. My eyelids felt thick against my eyes,
swollen from hours of crying. Breaths came slower and shallower. My
consciousness was fading into the land of Nod.

“Dylan.”

My lids flew
open to the sound of my own name. Nothing was there. That didn’t mean shit as
I’d come to learn. “Hello?” I responded idiotically.

Nothing
answered back. My overworked head was playing tricks. Hopefully.

The light
from the hallway left no darkened corners for nasty things to hide. It would
likely remain that way until I died or became a real badass. Until the day I
could twist the ends of my lovely
bitchstache
and
kick ass like any villain worth her salt, the light in the hallway would stay
on. Power or none, a bitch could still be scared of the dark.

Days on end
of no sleep and bloodcurdling shit, left the senses raw and vulnerable to rapid
interpretation. I shook it off and told myself to stop being a pussy. Allowing
my eyes to close again, I quickly fell back into half-sleep.

“Dylan,” a
more urgent tone came through.

I sat up
this time. No mind fucks. I’d heard it with my ears, not in my head. My heart
pounded and my toes went tingly. Tired, swollen eyes searched the room for
signs of life, or death. Nothing.

“What do you
want?” I asked, trying not to sound too spirit
huntery
.
I pulled at the power I knew Lupe had shoved in my throat. Believing was all
you needed. Believing you’re a badass made you a badass.

Nothing
answered me. I waited a long time, minute after minute, but nothing came.
Fearing closed eyes, I sat back against my headboard and turned on the boob
tube. Soft light filled the room and flicked muted colors along the walls.

“Dylan,” the
voice came again, over the air like a car stereo through an open window.

“What?” I
asked, annoyed and terrified at the same time.

“Bitch, pay
attention.”

All body
function ceased. My muscles stopped and refused to come back to life. I didn’t
move. I didn’t breathe. I knew that voice. I knew who was talking to me in the
dark. From somewhere other than Earth.

I finally
forced my body to respond, and swallowed my heart back down. My voice stuttered
from my lips, almost not wanting to say the name, “Tatum?”

It’s funny how life works. If someone
had told me a year ago, I’d be sleeping in my old bed with a gun shoved under
my pillow, talking to the ghost of the best friend I’d murdered, I’d have
punched them in the tits. Now, I waited for Jesus Christ and Freddy Mercury to
pop up and take me to dinner.

Welcome to the occult, ladies and
gentlemen. One fucked-up bucket of ghostly voodoo blood after the other. Are
you ready for this shit?

From the author:

Our girl Dylan has come a long
way from where she began. Her journey has only just begun and we hope you’re along
for the ride. Thank you for coming back for thirds. Get those grubby little
hands ready, the 4th instalment is in the works.

Catch
ya
on the flip side.

~R

Come hang out with me!

www.RMGilmoreAuthor.com

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Like Dylan Hart? Check
out little
Lynnie
Russell. Her becoming is only the
beginning.

Becoming
–Excerpt

Lynnie
Russell Trilogy

I woke up naked in the woods for the second time in
two days. And like the morning before, I had blood on my hands. I looked around
for a pile of bodies. There were none. The last thing I remembered was Garret
chasing me through the woods. I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.
Was it better not to know who or what I maimed to have blood dried under my
nails?
 
If the alternative was having to
know I’d killed my only brother, it was better not to know, even for just a
little while. Living in denial is perfectly acceptable if it’s only to keep you
sane.

I told myself I’d killed an animal. Just an animal.
My heart couldn’t accept anything more.

I was sitting in the center of a ring of trees that
I knew wasn’t too far from my trailer. I’d never liked that spot before. I’d
always heard tales of evil fairies that lived in those trees. Sounds downright
stupid now, but coming up in Havana you don’t get much exposure to anything but
what your mama and your friends tell you. Damned old superstitions. That’s what
you get when you have too many old women in one room for too long.

I sat for a few minutes hoping memories would come
back to me like they did before. Nothing happened. The last thing I remembered
completely after I’d changed was watching Garret cry while he walked back to
the house. After that it’s like someone turned off a light. There was nothing.

After a little while of sitting in the dirt and
watching the sun come up through the trees a started thinking how I’d make it
home naked as a jaybird. Garret should be at work, I thought. Unless he was so
worried about me that he’d stayed home. Or I’d killed him. No, I shook my head
wildly at the thought. No, I told myself, no it’s just not possible. He’s fine.
He went home wondering where the hell I went off to and that’s all. I told
myself this over and over again until I believed it.

“
Lynnie
?!” I damn near
jumped out of my skin when I heard Hattie’s voice screaming in the woods. “
Lynnie
you out here?” She called out.

Where’s Garret? I asked myself. Maybe he went off
to work, I thought. I hoped. I prayed.

I sat very still. I didn’t even breathe. I knew
there would be questions. Most of them I couldn’t answer without giving myself
up to the law. Or starting a damn witch hunt.

“You see anything?” Garret asked her.

Damn, I thought. Garret had stayed home from work.
Then I thanked God he was alive, twice before I started worrying about what I
did do. Lord knows what happened to me after Garret left me in the woods. Maybe
I done something worse than kill Rusty. What if I sliced up some babies and
puppies while I was that damn green dog and they were looking for the thing
that done it?

I hated myself then. I couldn’t imagine feeling any
lower than I did sitting in the woods, naked, and wondering if I’d killed some
babies.

“Damn it,
Lynnie
!” Garret
yelled out in a voice I knew was about to cry.

I thought maybe I could tell him. He would help me.
But then he would know what I done to Rusty. He’d never forgive me. I felt
helpless and alone.

Lord, I need you, I thought. Please help me. I
don’t
wanna
die. I don’t
wanna
break my brother’s heart. Please help me. Please, Lord, please.

I was crying again. But I was silent, only tears. I
pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face into my legs and waited for a
miracle.

Courage built in me. It started at my toes, moved
up through my legs, into my heart, and on up to my head. I jumped to my feet
and started running without looking. I ran on legs that didn’t feel like mine.
My feet hit the ground so fast they nearly didn’t make a sound when they
flapped onto the dirt and leaves. My heart beat like a drum in my chest. I
never looked back. I ran until I could see my old doublewide through the trees.
I ran right over the paw tracks I’d made the night before and leapt through the
broken window.

I collapsed on my bed the second my feet hit the
mattress. I could hear Garret and Hattie talking far away in the woods behind
the trailer. They didn’t see me. I had time. I left the comfort of my bed and
grabbed some jeans and a T-shirt from my closet. I was pulling on my jeans
while I ran out the front door. I’d gotten my keys from the table by the door
before I let the screen door slam shut behind me.

I didn’t know where I was going b
ut
I knew I couldn’t stay there.

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