Souls of the Damned (Kat Redding) (18 page)

“No.” I tried to jerk from his grip, but Levi held tight. “Let me go.”

“Where have you been, Sienna?” he asked, leaning close. He sniffed the air around me. “Tell me what you have been doing.”

My heart hammered with his nearness. The closer he was to me, the more likely it was that he’d smell more than the demon’s touch on me. How long did scents linger? Could he smell Jonathan on me? Would he be able to piece everything together, just by smell and touch?

“Please,” I said, keeping my eyes averted from his own. Like a demon, I imagined eye contact with an angel would be really, really bad. “You’re hurting me.”

Levi glanced at where his hand encircled my wrist. For a moment, I didn’t think he would let me go. His eyes hardened and I could quite clearly see the thought pass through his head that he wouldn’t mind breaking my wrist to set an example.

With a grunt, he let me go, apparently deciding hurting me too badly would ruin his father of the year disguise. He looked down at his hand before wiping it on his shirt like I’d left a film of grime on him.

“Tell me, Sienna,” he said. The tone of his voice told me he would accept nothing but the truth.

But what could I tell him that wouldn’t get me into more trouble than I was already in? If I tried to tell him the truth, I’d be dead before I finished the sentence.

I rubbed at my wrist and took a step back away from him. The needles lay right beside me. If it came down to it, I could use them as a weapon, or perhaps threaten to destroy the blood bags. I was pretty sure he could get more, but maybe it would cause him to hesitate long enough for me to come up with a better plan.

“What am I supposed to say?” I asked, dropping my hands to my side. No sense making my intentions clear by putting my hands next to the needles.

“How about the truth?” he asked, some of his anger dissipating. “Why are you here? What could possibly drive you to come all the way out here like this? Who told you about this place?”

There was no way I was going to get Eilene into trouble over this. “I found it on my own by accident.”

His jaw clenched. “I find that unlikely.”

“I went for a walk. I saw someone else nearby and came to see what he was doing. He wandered off, but I saw the building and decided to check it out.” It was a lie, but at least there was some truth to it. I hoped it wouldn’t get the guy killed, whoever he had been.

Levi narrowed his eyes at me and frowned. “You’ve never gone for walks before.”

“I guess I’m still a little restless.”

That didn’t seem to mollify him. “But how did you get in here?”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

Levi snorted in frustration. He walked in a small circle, fists clenched. I think he was debating whether or not to smack me. I wasn’t stupid, and he knew it. That bubble of fear over the place should have sent anyone who came close scurrying away, yet I forced myself to go on. I seriously doubted that was something he expected out of the real Sienna.

He stopped to face me again and took a deep breath. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Then tell me why I smell demon on you.”

My hand trembled with the urge to grab a syringe. It wouldn’t be much of a defense, but if I stabbed him with it and shot him full of Sienna’s blood, then maybe it would have some effect. He did seem to think she was special, so maybe the blood would mess him up. It was unlikely, but it was quickly becoming the only option I had left.

“Sienna,” he growled, taking a step toward me. I instinctively took a step back, putting the syringes just out of easy reach. I could still get to them, but I would have to reach past Levi to do so.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you!” I shouted the words, not faking the anger. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks. I hated to admit it, but I was fucking terrified. I might have the mind of a killer, but in Sienna’s body, I was little more than a scared little girl who wouldn’t be able to defend herself against a man so much stronger than she was, let alone one with supernatural powers.

The sad thing was, I was pretty sure Sienna would have handled things better than I was doing. I felt so naked and exposed without the comfort of my weapons, I didn’t know what to do. The vampire rage had always pushed me on, wiped away much of the fear, allowing me to do things that would get a normal person killed.

I didn’t have that anymore. I was weaker than I’d ever been in my life.

Or so I thought.

At the sight of my tears, Levi’s shoulders sagged. This time, when he took a step toward me, I didn’t back away. He rested a hand on my shoulder and after a moment’s hesitation, he leaned down and kissed my forehead.

“I’m scared,” I said, letting him hear the fear in my voice. If I couldn’t fight him or run away from him, maybe I could make him feel sorry for me.

“It’s okay,” he said, voice kinder than it had been since the day I’d arrived. “I just want to know what happened to you.”

“It’s . . . it’s confusing.”

“Just tell me and I’ll do my best to sort it out.”

I knew he wasn’t going to let me leave until I told him something he would believe. He smelled Beligral on me. I couldn’t lie about that. Perhaps I could use it to my advantage.

“I needed to get out, you know? I wanted to see the world. I wanted to find Kat and make sure she was okay.” The words tumbled out of me. I did my best to stick to the truth where I could, hoping it would be enough to cause Levi to back off.

His hand tightened at the mention of my name. “Did you find her?”

“Yes,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I found her.”

Levi sucked in a breath, but didn’t yell, didn’t squeeze my shoulder to the breaking point. I had to keep reminding myself that he didn’t know I wasn’t Sienna. He still thought she believed him to be her dad, a man who helped cure the incurable. He wouldn’t give himself away by admitting he wanted the real me dead.

“What happened, Sienna?” He spoke gently, as he would to a scared child. It made me wonder if he would ever let her grow up, or if he planned on treating her like a little kid forever.

“She took me in,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I was happy at first, but then I noticed some things that didn’t seem right. When I tried to leave, she wouldn’t let me go. Even when I really wanted to come back to you, I couldn’t escape her. She locked me in a room and wouldn’t let me out.”

In a way, it wasn’t a lie. I might not have locked the door on Sienna, but I sure as hell kept guard so she wouldn’t escape. And now that she was locked away in a cage in Ethan’s lab, it was damn near the truth.

Levi’s hand did tighten this time, but not because he was angry at Sienna. He looked toward the ceiling and I could almost hear him counting slowly down from ten under his breath. I think he would have torn my head off my body if he’d seen me for what I really was right then.

It did make me wonder whether all of this was just an act or if he actually cared about the girl. He’d threatened to torture her before without batting an eye, yet he seemed so genuine. Was it because he truly cared about Sienna? Or was it because he cared about what she was unwittingly giving him?

“And the demon?” he finally asked, lowering his gaze. I immediately dropped my own so our eyes wouldn’t meet.

“She took me to it,” I said. “She wanted it to touch me. That’s when I managed to get away. There was a werewolf and they got into an argument. It was enough of a distraction that I managed to slip away.”

Levi licked his lips, mulling over what I’d told him before asking, “What was the demon’s name?”

I very nearly let it slip, but caught myself at the last second. I didn’t much care for the demon’s well-being, but I needed him to do the body swap. Something told me Levi would find a way to destroy the demon if he found out who it was. I couldn’t risk it.

My eyes flickered to the summoning circle around the room. Could Levi summon demons into his dimensional bubble? If I told him Beligral’s name, then he very well might summon him right then and there to confirm my story. That would be bad.

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one told me his name. I didn’t stick around to look at him either.”

Levi cursed under his breath. He finally took his hand off of me as he turned to pace. He ran his hands over his face a few times and once more looked to the ceiling as if he might find the answers he sought there.

“What is this place?” I asked, hoping that in his distracted state he’d let something slip.

He glanced at me and then looked around the room. He shrugged a shoulder and gave me one of his jovial smiles, the kind I knew meant he was going to feed me some bullshit line that he hoped I would swallow.

“You know how I bring those people to the house?” he asked, waited for my nod, and then went on. “I spend a lot of time trying to cure them of their afflictions, but sometimes it doesn’t work.” He motioned toward the bodies in the back. “Sometimes they get sick and they die.”

“And the blood?” I asked, nudging one of the blood bags. “Where does it come from? Why do you need my blood for it?”

His smile faltered. “That doesn’t concern you,” he said. “Your blood is so pure, it goes a long way in curing the sick. That’s all you need to know.”

It wasn’t much of an answer, really, but I couldn’t press him much more without raising his suspicions. I was already walking on thin ice as it was. I really wanted to ask him about the candles and the chalk circle around them, but I knew he wouldn’t admit the truth, even if I told him I’d seen similar elsewhere.

“Come on,” Levi said, opening his arms for me. “Let’s get out of here.”

It took all of the willpower I possessed to walk over to him and let him put an arm around me. The hair on his arm looked obscene, causing me to cringe ever so slightly away from him. There was just so much of it. I could almost feel it crawl over my skin as he touched me.

“You’re special,” Levi said as he led me from the lab. “You have to be careful. There’s a reason I keep you close, you know? If the vampires and demons of the world knew where to find you, they’d come after you and destroy you.”

“Why?” I asked. This was as close to an explanation as I’d ever get from him. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

He didn’t answer. He only smiled as he led me to where his truck was parked out front. He opened the door for me and I got in. Only then did he close the big doors to the building. He stood there a moment and then touched a hand to it. A twinge of fear rolled through me, telling me he’d reestablished his security bubble.

The ride home was thankfully silent. Levi had a contemplative look on his face and would glance at me every so often. There was a questioning look in his eyes, telling me he didn’t completely buy my story. It was either that, or he was trying to figure out which demon I’d come in contact with. I had a feeling he knew quite a few of them personally.

He pulled up in front of the house and shut off the engine. He didn’t move right away, so I remained seated as well, knowing he had more to say before I’d be dismissed to my room.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he said. The warning was clear in his voice.

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Sienna. I don’t want you leaving the house again. I can’t protect you if you do.”

With that, he opened the door and slid out of the truck. Our conversation was done.

He led the way into the house. He didn’t fake a smile or pretend that it hadn’t happened, like I’d expected him to. He held the door open for me, eyeing me carefully as I passed, and then gave Eilene only a quick, angry glare before heading downstairs, presumably to check on our guest.

Eilene waited until I started up the stairs before speaking.

“You know what you have to do,” she said.

I glanced back. She was standing there, looking all the world as if she was ready to die at that very moment.

“I know,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “But not yet. I need time to think.”

Eilene heaved a sigh, but didn’t press me any further. She didn’t need to.

I headed up the stairs to my room with the knowledge that time was indeed running out.

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. I tossed and turned, waiting for the moment when Levi would come in and demand to know what I was hiding. I was under no illusions that he didn’t suspect something. How long before he figured it out on his own?

Of course, how could he possibly suspect who I really was? At worst, he might think Sienna had somehow been corrupted by the demon he’d smelled on her. He probably also knew she’d had contact with a werewolf, as well as the vampire me. None of that pointed to there ever having been a body swap.

Then again, Eilene had figured it out pretty fast. There’s a mother’s intuition, sure, but she wasn’t Sienna’s mom any more than I was the actual girl. If she could figure it out, then so could Levi.

I sat up in bed and stared toward the window. It would be so easy just to get up, sneak out, and go home. I could give Sienna’s body back and do my best to keep her from returning to Delai. Maybe Beligral would know of some way to break Levi’s hold. I should have asked him before going through with this insane plan.

I wondered how everyone back home was doing in my absence. Was Ethan taking care of Sienna? Had she managed to fight back the vampiric urges that had overwhelmed her before? What about Jeremy? Was he out prowling the grounds even now? I really wished I had a way to contact them to make sure they were safe.

What really scared me was the fact I wasn’t there in case Baset or Adrian decided to make a move. Neither knew of what had happened to me. What if Baset changed her mind and decided not to wait a month before putting me to work? There was no way Sienna was going to be able to do the job, in my body or not.

And, of course, there was Jonathan.

I sighed and lay back. He’d seen me leave. Maybe he would take the initiative and keep an eye on my place for me. Even if he simply sent Keira over to walk the grounds with Jeremy, it would be enough.

I tried hard not to think about those few blissful hours I spent with him before coming here. It would only make me want to go back home that much more. I’d felt safe in his arms. I’d been able to completely forget about the horrors of my life, for just a few hours. It was a feeling I feared I’d never have again.

A creak in the hall tore me right out of any pleasant thoughts I might have had. There was a soft murmur of voices just outside my door. One was obviously Levi. His deep voice was kept low so I was once more unable to make out what he was saying. A weak cough told me he was talking to Eilene.

I watched the shadows beneath the door, waiting for something to happen. I sat up in bed, wanting nothing more than to creep across the room and press my ear to the door, but knew that they’d hear me moving around. From the position of the shadows, I could tell Levi was standing close to Eilene. Was he threatening her? Comforting her? I couldn’t tell. Why were they standing outside my door in the middle of the night?

One of the shadows grew closer and I quickly lay back down. I didn’t have time to throw the covers back over myself, so I simply closed my eyes, turned my head toward the door, and tried to breathe slow and regular, all while my heart raced in my chest.

The door opened slowly, spilling light from the hall over me. I wanted to peek to see whether it was Levi or Eilene checking on me, but it was too risky. I didn’t want to talk to Levi, especially if he was looking for more blood.

There was a long moment when no one moved. The light played over my eyelids, turning them orange. I wanted to squint against it, but worked hard to keep my face blank. I kept breathing regularly, and refused to swallow, knowing it wouldn’t look natural.

“She’s asleep,” Eilene whispered from the doorway. “You don’t need to stare. She’s not going anywhere.”

Levi grunted and the door closed with a click.

My eyes snapped open, but I didn’t sit up. The shadows beneath the door moved away, down the hall. A moment later, the front door opened and then slammed closed. I sat up just as the truck started up outside.

A clock started ticking in my head. Levi was leaving, but for how long? My best guess was that he was heading to his lab to pick up some supplies for his newest “guest.” That gave me what? An hour at best? What could I accomplish in such a short amount of time, in a house where the only thing that could stop him was a living, breathing person with a death wish?

I’d just thrown one leg over the side of the bed, not quite sure whether I was willing to risk sneaking out or not, when the door opened. I froze, expecting Levi to come waltzing through the door with a knowing smile on his face. Instead, Eilene stepped inside.

“I hope you aren’t thinking of leaving,” she rasped as she leaned against the door frame. She looked like she would attempt to bar my way if I so much as thought about it.

I eased back into bed. “Levi’s gone.”

“He is,” she said. She took a deep breath and groaned as she pushed away from the door frame. She walked across the room with slow, shaky strides, and collapsed with a grunt onto the bed beside me. “That’s why I’m here.”

I frowned into the darkness. The light from the doorway was behind her, casting her face into shadows my weak eyes couldn’t penetrate. The hall light created something of a halo around her, making her appear to glow.

She just sat there for a long time, looking at me. I didn’t break the silence, not sure what I could say. I wasn’t stupid; I knew what she wanted. I wasn’t going to prompt her into something I was unwilling to do.

“Here,” she said, lifting her hand. The light caught the blade of a knife.

“What’s that for?” I asked, playing dumb. I went from wanting Levi to stay away for as long as possible to hoping he returned in the next few minutes. She wouldn’t push the issue as long as he was around.

“What do you think?” Eilene asked. “This is your best chance.” I shook my head. “I can’t. Not now.”

“Levi is gone,” she reminded me, as if I’d forgotten. “This is the perfect opportunity to do it without risk of interruption. No one here will stop you.” She shoved the knife practically under my nose.

I made no move for it. “I need more time.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “You’ve had time. Did you manage to find anything while you were out? Have you come across some magical way to remove Levi that doesn’t involve killing the one thing that is holding him here?”

“I found a few interesting items,” I said carefully, not looking into the shadows of her face.

“Something that will sever his connection with this realm?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He showed up before I could work anything out.”

Eilene thrust the knife toward me again. She didn’t do it in a threatening way, but I could tell by her posture that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’d been waiting for this moment for years. She wouldn’t be easily dissuaded.

I took the knife from her, just so it wouldn’t be waving under my nose any longer. I set it on the bed next to me.

“There is nothing anywhere in Delai that can help you,” she said, glancing toward where I’d set the knife. “I’ve told you this before. You have to kill me. If you wait too long, you will lose your chance. And then what? Are you willing to spend the rest of your life trapped here? Do you want to watch me wither away without hope of dying? Every waking second is agony. Can’t you see how it hurts?”

I didn’t have to see her face clearly to know she was in pain. It would be a mercy to kill her. I would save not just those Levi would torture in the future, but would save Eilene from more agony.

“I can’t,” I said, moving my hand away from the knife.

“You can.” Eilene suddenly sprang forward and grabbed me by the nightshirt. Her hands were shaking badly as she tried to pull me closer with what little strength she had. “You have to.”

My heart just about broke as tears spilled down her cheeks. Her entire body shuddered and she let me go, slumping in on herself as if her entire body had simply given up the fight.

“You have to,” she whispered, almost to herself.

In all my time, I’d never met anyone so willing to die. I had the means to do it, had killed countless people without a second thought, yet now I hesitated. Killing Eilene would put an end to Levi and his experiments, but it would also break something in me, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to fix. I’d never escape her memory. I would regret killing her until the day I died.

If only there was a way to set her free, rather than killing her. She might die within minutes of escaping, but at least it wouldn’t be by my hand. She might get a chance to say good-bye to Sienna, would be able to hold her stepdaughter’s hand one last time before slipping peacefully away.

And that’s when the plan started to form.

“Eilene,” I said slowly. “Have you ever left Delai before?”

She shook her head. She wiped the tears from her eyes with a bony hand. Her skin seemed to absorb the moisture, as if the few tears were revitalizing her old bones.

“I tried once,” she said. “Once I figured out what was happening, I made an effort to leave. I got into Levi’s truck and drove away. He caught me before I could get anywhere close. I think a part of me was too scared to leave.”

“Have you ever tried since then?”

“Why should I?” she asked. “I’d never make it, especially like this. I’m too sick to do much of anything anymore.”

“Do you think it’s possible for you to leave?” My mind was racing. While Levi was trapped within the borders of his own realm, I doubted his summoner would be held by the same restrictions. It was probably why he allowed her to degrade so much. It was the perfect way to keep her trapped without actually locking her away.

“Even if I could, how do you expect me to go like this?” she asked bitterly. “I can hardly walk a few feet without getting winded, and you expect me to walk clear across town?”

“I could drive you.” Hell, I could carry her if it came right down to it. She couldn’t weigh all that much in her sickened state. Even Sienna was strong enough to carry her in short bursts, I was sure.

“That would never work. The roads would be blocked up within seconds of us leaving. Levi would hear us if we tried to take his truck, and stealing one is out of the question.”

“Then we find some way to drive cross-country. He has to have a lawn mower somewhere around here.”

Eilene gave me a flat look I could see even in the dark. “How far do you really think you’d get like that? The noise alone would draw every one of his watchers to us.”

The sad thing was, she was right. I’d known it even before I’d suggested it. The town was surrounded by a border of trees. Even if we tried to make a run for it cross-country, in a stolen vehicle, it was unlikely we’d get far before having to get out and walk. He’d probably created Delai that way so it would be easier to control his victims before he managed to take complete control of their minds.

But I couldn’t just stab this woman and call it a day. I had to try something.

“I want to try,” I said. “I want to make one last attempt to free you. If that fails, then we’ll do it your way.”

“And how do you expect us to leave here?” she asked. She sounded both frustrated and angry. I seemed to do that to people quite a lot. “I can barely walk. I sure as hell can’t run.”

“You have medicine,” I said, remembering the bottles I’d seen in her medicine cabinet. “Does it help with the pain?”

She nodded. “It doesn’t get rid of it completely and it makes me sleepy.”

“But it helps, right?” At her nod, I went on. “Do you think it might help enough that you could walk long distances?”

“It might . . .” A frown creased her face.

“We can take a roundabout way to the road, but we’ll have to move fast.” I was speaking more to myself than Eilene at this point. “We’ll have to time it when we know Levi will be occupied for more than an hour. I know it won’t be easy, but you’ll have to walk fast without many breaks.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

I placed a hand on the side of Eilene’s face. Her skin felt clammy, cold, as if I was touching someone who was very near death. It would be a wonder if she made it more than a half dozen steps out of Delai before succumbing to her illness.

But it would be worth it, damn it. I was
not
going to let her die under Levi’s control.

“You can,” I told her. “If we can get out, you might get to see Sienna again—the real Sienna. I can’t promise you that we’ll make it, but it’s worth a try. Don’t you think it will be worth the risk if it means you might see your daughter again?”

That seemed to decide it for her. She closed her eyes and nodded, pressing her face against my palm as if she could
feel
her stepdaughter through my touch.

I picked up the knife and tried to hand it to her. She blinked rapidly a few times and shook her head. She lifted her face from my hand and stood.

“Keep it,” she said. “I have a feeling you might need it.”

I held out the knife for a moment longer, not liking the feel of the blade in my hand. Even if it came right down to it, I still doubted I’d be able to kill her. As long as there was the slightest chance she could survive this, I wouldn’t do it.

But I took the knife back anyway. I shoved it beneath the mattress where Levi wouldn’t find it. I just hoped he wouldn’t notice it missing from the kitchen before we had a chance to go.

“How will we do this?” Eilene asked. “He’s never gone long enough for us to get away without him noticing our absence.”

“Leave that to me,” I said, a plan slowly formulating in my head. “I’ll let you know when the time comes. Just be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

Eilene stood there for a long time, just looking at me before sighing. “This is insane.”

“I know.”

“I hope you know what you are doing.”

“So do I.”

With one last skeptical look, Eilene turned and walked out of the bedroom.