Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (8 page)

“I can do lots of things if you pay me,” she giggled and
leaned across the couch staring at Cyrus for the first time since she’d seen
him at the door.

He just stared back, face slack, and uncaring of her antics.

“Hey, I know you.” She sat up. “You came for Regina.”

“What happened to you? You’re more fucked up now than you
were five months ago. And that was pretty bad,” I asked, changing the subject.
No need to get sidetracked here. I had an ass to save. Mine.

“Life happened,” her small voice answered, quickly blowing
me off. “Why are you here?” she asked Cyrus.

“Helping a friend.”

“How’s Regina?” The look on her face switched quickly from
drug induced haze to sympathetic longing in the blink of an eye.

“She’s dead,” I answered impatiently.

“What? How?” The effects of the drugs began to rear their
fucked-up head.

“Someone cut her head off,” Cyrus responded cold.

Angela sat in disbelief. “When?” Her itty bitty jaw wriggled
back and forth as she ground her teeth down to nubs.

“May,” I replied.

“Who did it?” The tension in her body rose, unable to
control her instincts.

“Someone we can’t prosecute.” I moved closer to her, a
desperate attempt to snag her attention before all rational thought went out
the window. “I need your help finding Zephyrinus.”

“What does he have to do with it?” It worked, her eyes
shifted to me and stayed there.

“Nothing. His role in this ordeal is miniscule to say the
least, but I need him nonetheless. I need him to save myself from the same fate
as Regina. Please.”

I knew she’d help me for cash, but having her sympathy too
would ensure she didn’t dick me around in the process.

“What has happened?” The tension faded as quickly as it
came, and in its place, sorrow swept in and stole the show. “Everything has
changed.” Her words decorated the room with balloons and streamers in
preparation for her impending pity party. “Sandora left.” She sniffed back
snot. “She didn’t even warn me first. One day during the summer, she was just
gone. The coven broke up after and I was left with nothing.”

But a fancy new drug
addiction.

“I hooked up with
Zeph
and his
people about a month ago.” She picked at her face. Her jaw still wriggling as
she thought about Lord knows what. “I can call him if you want. I can have him
come here.”

Seriously? It’s that
easy? Thank you methamphetamines for this lack of integrity
. “Don’t tell him I’m here. It’s just better if he thinks
you’re alone.” Regardless of Angie’s willingness to play for pay,
Zeph
was uncharted territory and better dealt with via
surprise attack.

“What exactly do you want from him?” she asked, phone poised
in her tiny hand.

“I just need to talk to him about his grandma.”
That’s all, really. Honest
.

She looked at me confused. It was a strange thing to come
all the way up from L.A. for – hey, so, how’s your grams, man? A phone call
could have done the job clearly, but she bought the bullshit and called him
anyway.

Thank you, drugs,
for making my informant really, really stupid.

She made the call. A few quick words with the man, and that
was that. Our friend would be by any minute.

“This is all too much to handle. Seeing you again, and you.”
She pointed to Cyrus. “I feel like I knew you in another life. Practically, I
guess, I do.”

“Sorry I didn’t think to tell you about Reggie. I honestly
didn’t even think about it. I can’t believe you didn’t see it on the news.”
That was the truth. If it were me in that situation, I’d have wanted to know my
friend had died.

“It was finals. I was lucky to see my own reflection let
alone the news. We thought we were so tough. Vampires,” she scoffed. “There’s
so much more out there. So much
true
magic and myth. Vampires are a dark fantasy for teenagers and horny
housewives.” She stole the words right out of my head. “I’ve found something so
much better.”

“Well, actually…” Cyrus started to intervene. I put my hand
on his shoulder and shook my head. Although it would be funny to burst her
bubble, she was the last person I thought deserved to know the truth. Or what
Cyrus swore to me was the truth, anyway. Jury was still out. Sort of.

“I don’t know that I would condone methamphetamine over
blood drinking. I guess they both have their dangers, but I doubt drinking
blood did that to your face.” Honesty again. I was on a roll.

She laughed, squeaky and high. “Silly girl. These drugs keep
me grounded.” She lit a candle in the far corner of the room. “Without them,
the devil uses my head as a jungle gym.” She stood across the room from us,
oversized sweater hung over one shoulder, tiny shorts barely covering her
naughty bits. She smiled. Her darkened eyes squinted up into half-moons above
her cheeks.

A blanket of light rushed through the room a millisecond
before the front door slammed behind us. Before I could convince my body to
react, Cyrus was tackled from behind and knocked to the ground with a thud.
Angela squealed and bounced about near her burning candle, clapping her hands
like a child at Disneyland.

“What in holy fuck?!” I jumped away from the madness
breaking out at my feet.

A brown-skinned man sat on top of Cyrus’s back, pummeling
the back of his head with closed fists. Tattoos trailed up and down each arm,
but most of them were too faded or muddled to know what they were. I tried to
think. I tried to figure out what the fuck was happening. Everything had
changed so quickly my sluggish head couldn’t keep up.

Did I just get
bamboozled by pixie-vamp and her Mexican minion? What do they want? Money?
Shit, I’d have given her money. Good Lord, just don’t hit him in the face
again. I don’t think he can take one more knock to the nose.

Angela continued to jump and laugh. The guy sitting on top
of Cyrus didn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. I had to act fast. My
thoughts ran through my head clearer and clearer as the seconds passed, but the
action in the room was happening lightning fast.

Cyrus pushed his body up from the carpet, but the guy on his
back held on like a bull rider. He continued to beat Cyrus across the back of
his head, but Cyrus didn’t submit. Not like he did with Mike. Muscles in his
arms strained as he lifted the larger man off the ground with his back. The
man’s long hair fell over his face, masking it from my view.

In the corner, Angela’s laughter turned to song. Well, maybe
a little more like chanting. Her tiny fingers pointed at Cyrus as she repeated
whatever the hell she was saying over and over again. The flame on the candle
flickered and danced next to her. Cyrus grunted and groaned under the weight of
the man on his back.

Fuck.

Without thinking, I kicked at the man. I didn’t waste time
with kicking him in the ribs as I had with Mike. I cared what happened to Mike.
All I promised was to bring this asshole back alive. Injury free was not in the
contract. Landing a Converse dead in the center of his hair covered face, I let
all my aggression push through my muscles and fueled my inertia. He grunted but
didn’t move from Cyrus. I kicked him again. This time, thoroughly pissed off
and filled with the need to survive. The pain jarred him just enough for Cyrus
to get a leg up – not literally mind you. He did, however, manage to knock that
asshole off him long enough to scurry from the floor. Angela hadn’t stopped her
song and didn’t seem as though she was going to.

The man stood too and flung his hair from his face. Well,
looky
who we have here.

“Hey!” I yelled. No one seemed to care. “Zephyrinus.” He
looked at me and snorted like a bull before charging at Cyrus.

My heart leapt from my chest for a second. I’d seen Cyrus
get his ass handed to him on more than one occasion—hours ago to be exact. I
didn’t want it to happen again. Annoying or not, he was the only thing I had.
Him and Mike. But would Mike drag me up to Fresno to find a druggie ex-vampire
and her warlock boyfriend to help save me from certain death via voodoo hexes?
Unlikely. Although, I could usually trust Mike not to get his ass kicked.

To my surprise, Cyrus anticipated the attack. For once. He
ducked and
Zeph’s
reach missed and went right over
the top of him. Angela’s song grew louder and more urgent. Cyrus shoved his
shoulder into the center of
Zeph
and lifted. He
hefted the man on his shoulder and rammed his back into the cinderblock wall
that joined this apartment with the one next door. The man grunted and slumped
over Cyrus’s shoulder.

Cyrus backed up and dropped him to the floor. He wasn’t
unconscious and Cyrus was going to have to make a tough call whether or not to
kick him while he was down. I didn’t care how he did it. I just needed to get the
asshole in the car and on his way back home to granny before sundown.

Angela’s annoying pixie voice hadn’t stopped and I noticed
Cyrus begin reacting negatively to apparently nothing. My eyes slid back and
forth between Cyrus and Angela. Was she actually controlling something?
Controlling Cyrus?

No time to find out. I charged across the room and
coldcocked the little bitch across the jaw. It wasn’t hard. She was so damned
high and focused on Cyrus and her man, she didn’t even see me coming. I was
thankful. I wasn’t in the mood for another fight with a witch. Her little body
crumpled to the floor with a thud.

“Put him down,” I said coldly.

Cyrus obeyed without hesitation. Once Angela was down, it
seemed Cyrus was far more agile. One kick to the head and the man on the ground
was out cold.

“You didn’t kill him, right?” Just double-checking. The last
thing I needed was another magically inclined enemy.

“No. He’ll have a headache, but he should be intact. Is this
the boy?”

“Not really a boy anymore. In my vision, he was younger. His
face was fuller.”

“He didn’t keep the devil away,” Cyrus said, holding up
Zeph’s
arm.

Distinct track marks riddled the tattooed skin of his
forearm. “This is your body on drugs,” I said.

“And this.” He pointed to a star and some other symbols in
ink on his arm.

I grabbed the limp limb to inspect it more closely. Well,
I’d be damned. I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened my photo gallery.
“Tell me, does this look familiar?”

I pulled up the pictures I’d taken of the mirror in my room
at House of Porte. Comparing the two, I knew there was more to this nonsense
than I had anticipated. Darker magic was waiting deeper down the rabbit hole. I
had only scratched the surface.

“It’s Dionysus,” Cyrus identified with little interest.

“
Dio
-who-
sus
?”

He sighed, “A story for another day.”

“Can I get that in writing?” He’d put off so many
conversations I felt as though his promises were a bit flippant to be believed
on his word alone. The man stirred on the floor. “We better haul ass,” I said,
giving him my own kick to the head.

Cyrus looked at me like a dad would. I only shrugged my
shoulders.

“Grab his feet,” I said.

“Just go get the door.” Cyrus handed me his keys and lifted
the big guy from the floor with ease.

I raised my eyebrows and stared at the scene before me.

“Another day. Go.” He nodded his head toward the door.

He promised stories for future dates. I just hoped I was
alive to hear them. When, if, that happened, I wanted it all. Every last gory
fucking detail. Ignorance was not bliss. Ignorance could get you killed. Or
worse. Trust me, there was always something worse.

Worse than dead
bitches traipsing through your door unannounced? You bet your cursed ass.

Chapter Six

We were on the freeway and headed back home before
Zephyrinus opened his eyes. Cyrus had a small tool kit under his back seat. The
duct tape and rope brought an odd look and comments regarding midnight rape
sessions from me. Cyrus gave me stern looks and moved on. Together, we shoved
the big guy in the back seat and tied him up. I slapped the tape over his mouth
with vigor. Perhaps it would take his fancy goatee off when I finally let him
remove it.

We’d left Angela right where she fell. I didn’t care either
way, but Cyrus suggested we blow her candle out before we left. I’d thought,
let it burn. But maybe he knew something I didn’t.

Muffled screams and groans filled the back seat. The big guy
wiggled and kicked. Well, tried to. I’d tied up those legs pretty well.

“You’re fine. Calm down back there. You’re irritating me.” I
rubbed my aching temples.

“Don’t make me turn this car around,” Cyrus said in a high,
scratchy, mom-type voice.

I laughed. He laughed. It eased the tension, just for a
little bit. Laughter cured the soul, or so they said. Maybe it could clear the
soul too.

I heard distinct words forming behind his makeshift gag.

I looked to Cyrus. “You want me to…” I followed with a hand
motion insinuating I bop the bastard on the head.

Cyrus thought for a moment before sternly shaking his head.

I shrugged. No argument from me. Yet. Another hour of his
whining and I might not even ask next time.

“Look,
Zeph
, I’ve been charged
with taking you back to see your dear old granny. I don’t give a shit who you
are or what you do after I deliver you to her. Only that you are alive and in,
basically, good shape when you get there. Your grandma asks a hefty price for
saving my life.” I turned to look him in the eye. “I have no problem paying
that price.” I tried to sound ominous. I don’t think it worked. He didn’t seem
fazed by my speech.

Cyrus turned the radio up to drown out the sound of his
screams through the duct tape. It worked. We drove for an hour before we were
deep in flat land again. Just vineyards and orchards. A few farmhouses dotted
the landscape, but otherwise, we were alone on the road for a few miles ahead
and behind. The faint glint of a car up ahead was the only sign of life.
Occasionally, a car would pass us heading north, but they were few and far
between. A Sunday evening cruise. Oh, yeah. Groovy.

After a good while of our ignoring him, Zephyrinus shut up.
I was sure he was plotting his escape back there. I suggested we knock him unconscious
again, though Cyrus protested vehemently. We hadn’t talked much to each other
during the ride. Except to argue over whether or not I got to beat our captive.
I couldn’t handle the silence anymore. My adrenaline was still coursing through
my veins even over an hour later. I should have been dead on my feet, literally
and figuratively. I couldn’t even consider closing my eyes. Adrenaline was my
only saving grace.

“So…let me get a few things straight. Seeing as though we
are stuck in this car for the next three hours, it looks like you don’t have
much of a choice to hear me jabber on, but I’d appreciate immediate and
accurate responses.” I looked at Cyrus as dead in the eye as I allowed myself.
The side was about as far as I let it go.
 

His perfect green eyes used to cause me to go all girly and
weak in the knees, lose my train of thought and higher motor function. That
sentiment faded over time as my feelings toward him waxed and waned, and then
waxed again, but it didn’t change the fact that his eyes were perfect green
shimmering gems stuck in two eye sockets, that just so happened to be attached
to one sexy mother fucker. Dead things, voodoo bitches, cryptic bullshit aside,
a good-looking man was a good-looking man, any day of the week. And this bitch
hadn’t had a good screw in quite a long time. Longer than I’d like to mention
honestly. Piling on to the shit heap, the fact that he’d so gracefully shoved
his tongue down my throat in the very recent past, staring longingly into his
eyes was not a good idea. Besides, it was just revealed that vampires, in some
form or another, existed. It wasn’t clear whether or not Cyrus was part of this
crew of blood drinkers, but I wasn’t taking my chances. Maybe he did have the
ability to entrance horny women with his gaze.
Shit, I watch HBO
.

“Go ahead,” he replied without looking back at me.

“Okay…” I paused to collect my thoughts in an attempt to not
piss him off. Basically attempting to behave in a manner foreign to me.
“Malcolm commanded you drive to Fresno to fetch a college girl who he found on
a Facebook page.”

“I didn’t drive. Peter did.”
Hardy fucking
har
.

“Jesus,” I sighed and closed my eyes. “Anyway, you met
Angela, or Shantressa or whatever she wants to be called, and Sandora and those
idiots during your visit. Yes?”

“Correct.” He nodded slightly.

“But you didn’t meet Diego during your visit. You also had
no clue Sam was a tool beforehand? Before he gnawed a chunk from the meaty
flesh of my neck.” The last came out a bit bitchier than I’d intended. It was
still a sore subject, obviously. And a fucked up scar.

“Correct.” He nodded slightly.

It seemed implausible, but knowing what little I did about
those vamp types, I knew they were nothing if not secretive. It could be
possible, maybe that Cyrus was purposely left in the dark when it came to the
Vampire Massacres back in May. Handfuls of blood-drained hookers popped up in
their backyard, yet the vampire hierarchy had no clue as to who could have been
responsible. Doubtful. But, it was possible Cyrus himself was out of the loop.
A headless vampire cohort on the front steps of the only VIP vampire club in
Los Angeles definitely could not go under the vamp-
dar
of the head cheese, vampire ginger fuck, Malcolm McTavish. Someone knew
something, even if that someone wasn’t Cyrus.

“Nothing tipped you off at the time that she was up to
something? I mean, what are the odds Regina, in cahoots with Azelie, just so
happens to weasel her way into the den of
the
Primus of the west coast just after a handful of naked, bloodless hookers pop
up in her backyard?” I probed further, but honestly didn’t expect much.

“Thank you for joining us in the logical party. I’ve been
pondering this exact question for the better part of five months.”

A thought popped into my head, a devious and rotten thought.
“Do you think Malcolm knew? I mean, do you think he brought them all together
on purpose?”

“That I don’t know. I started questioning the situation when
poor Regina appeared at the entrance of Embrace, missing her lovely head.” He’d
been present for that, in secret of course, but Cyrus had seen the officers
hauling away the lifeless, and headless, body of Regina. The first decapitated
naked bitch I’d seen in my life. I thought then perhaps Cyrus was her murderer,
but I was quickly proven wrong. Now, with his obviously long-considered
theories, I could pretty well bet he wasn’t even in on the cover up. He was a
true patsy. His face shifted, an outward expression of concern not meant for
anyone in particular. “Why
her
?” he
asked, never really acknowledging that he was speaking to me.

“Why Sam? I liked him.” I pouted for a second at the memory
of sweet Sam. He was so big and fluffy, and fucking heavy when lying on top of
me. I thought it back then too, why Sam?

“In my humble opinion, I believe Regina snowed that poor
man.” This was an absolutely correct and obvious explanation for Sam, the now
dead vampire boy.

“I bet I know a few fuckers who can answer all these
questions for us. Wrangling them down for questioning might be similar to
giving a cheetah a bubble bath though.”

I considered for a moment Malcolm’s involvement. I recalled
his face, covered in light scarring, his cross tattoo that took up the better
part of his chest, his accent, which was probably the only cool thing about him,
his long, wavy, red hair that made me want to punch babies, and his skin,
similar to a loaf of white bread, seemed so frail. He seemed too fragile to be
an impervious vampire king.

“About vampires…” I started.

“Yes?” Cyrus’s face twisted up into a squint. As though,
perhaps, just maybe, he didn’t want to talk about vampires. It wasn’t out of
the norm, but too damn bad.

“I need some clarification. You know, before I can accept
this new concept. It just might save my life.” That could very well be true to
fact.

“How can you still not believe there are things, beings,
outside your realm of normal? They’ve been there longer than you have. You, I
mean society, is just too blinded by blinking, shining, flashing things to
notice, to be bothered with ancient things long forgotten, unless of course,
it’s wrapped in a sexy, sparkling, harmless package.”

“Okay, then explain it to me please. I’ve been dying to
know. Literally.”
Almost.

“What do you want to know?” he offered, as if he actually
planned on answering every question I had built up in my noggin.

“I think I deserve to know everything. When I say
everything, I damn well mean it. Honestly, I’m pretty pissed you didn’t bother
to tell me all of this, oh, I don’t know, yesterday.
Friday
. Shit, I’d have accepted an email mid-July if it meant
saving my ass from all this mess.”

“Would you have believed me?” He took his eyes off the road
and looked at me.

“Would I have had another choice?” I quickly turned my head
away, vampire trance protection and all. All right, I was still a little too
skippy
in the panties to make eye contact.

“There’s always a choice. I told you, at Midnight’s Dream, I
told you to take the head and kill the heart. You listened. You may not have believed,
but you certainly heeded my advice.”

“What else was I supposed to do? Leave them there and find
out the hard way? I actually trusted you, for some stupid reason.” It was
stupid sure, but it seemed so far my life depended on trusting Cyrus, the hunky
shit brick.

“You wouldn’t have found anything out. Those boys were no
more vampire than I am.” He shook his head; a sense of sadness flittered over
his expression.

“What kind of bullshit is
tha
-“

He cut me off. “They deserved it.” His shrug knocked away
any sense of sorrow over the deaths of the two boys. “Besides, the nation
needed a scapegoat, a perfect vampire scapegoat.”

“That’s your excuse for dragging me through a month of
nightmares about heads floating around the room with huge fangs?” That was a
fun filled time of beer and sleepless nights.

“You’re better for it today.” He spoke as though these
events hadn’t completely turned my life on its ass.

“Really? You call this better?” I pointed to my general
disheveled appearance.

“Your book surely needed a death defying ending, don’t you
think?” He didn’t smile. He didn’t change his flat expression one iota. “You’re
ready. More ready than you were,” he said flatly, as if I should understand his
meaning.

The idea that he’d convinced me to lop the heads off two
would-be vampire boys, as some sort of morbid grand finale to a
shitastic
expedition of naked bloodless hookers seemed
ludicrous.
 
And was obviously Cyrus being
facetious. His secretive preparation for my future with the bloodsucking
bastards, well, that seemed far more plausible. How easily he’d begun my
descent into the occult. A mere suggestion was all it took. He suggested I
visit Embrace. He suggested I meet with Malcolm. Well, after Tatum’s violent
beating. He suggested I chop off a few heads. He suggested it, and I went right
along with it like the sad little puppy I was. Fuck that puppy.

“Ready for what?” I asked, hoping he’d actually say
something that made sense. My voice sounded squeaky and a tad too pitiful for
my tastes.

“For everything that is coming your way,” he explained ever
so ambiguously. “The second you interfered with Azelie, she knew. She knows
everything. She lives a hundred lives through her minions. Everything you’ve
encountered thus far, has prepared you for what is to come. In theory.”

“How do you know this? What are you some kind of Voodoo
Whisperer?” I slapped my hands against my thighs in frustration. “And why
didn’t she recognize me right away when we first met? If she knew
I had thwarted her master plans, why didn’t
she stop me?” I sat forward in my seat, my body turned in his direction.

“Didn’t she?” Another indefinite, dismissive statement.
Purposely blowing me off. He was cruising for a bruising.

“Well…” I stopped and actually thought about it. She had accused
me of taking blood, or something like that, when I was in her shop, but she
never actually exclaimed, ah ha! I know who you are. “Not really.”

“And if she had? If she had said, ‘Oh, child, you stole my
blood, now feel my wrath’, what then? Would you have stayed? Would you have
spent one
more minute
in that town? With me?” He
cleared his throat as if to strike that last comment from the record. “Azelie
d’Entremonte is a vengeful thing, and she leaves nothing to chance. From the
moment you stepped into her shop, you were hers. She needed you to trust, not
just believe, to have faith in her ability, to infiltrate your mind. Perhaps
she
was the reason you entered her
little hovel to begin with. And what of Diego? And Regina? Did they not try to
stop you?” To the teeth, as it were.