Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN



Lulled to a comfortable, quiet state of repose by the warmth of Aaron’s body, the rhythmic cadence of his heartbeat, Naima slipped free from her fugue state. As always, she felt like she woke from a very lucid dream; she opened her eyes in the darkened motel room and at first felt completely bewildered and disoriented.

What happened…?

She found herself lying on her side next to Aaron, spooned against him with her leg draped across his hips, her hand on his stomach and her cheek tucked into the socket of his shoulder. Almost immediately, she realized what had happened, and sat up in bed, eyes flown wide. With her pupils no longer dilated, the blood lust long gone, she couldn’t make out much in the dark, but saw he was asleep. Something dark had dried on his neck, smeared down the front of his chest. She smelled the faint scent of blood and realized.

Oh, my God, I fed from him!

In a panic, she sat up, clasping his face between her hands. When she pivoted his head, she saw the twin, ragged points along the slope of his neck where her teeth had punched into him. Even in the dim light, she could see his pallor was ashen with blood loss. He felt cold to her, deathly so; it wasn’t until he groaned softly, moving slightly in her grasp that she uttered a shaky laugh of abject relief.

He’s alive! she thought, closing her eyes and pressing her lips softly against his cool, dry mouth. Oh, thank God!

To her horror, she saw she’d also trussed him to the headboard, then left him like that, slumped with his arms outstretched. Uttering a soft, dismayed cry, she fought with the electrical cords that bound him, freeing each of his hands in turn. The cables had cut deeply enough into his skin to draw blood, and his hands were ice cold as they fell, leaden, back to the bed.

I hurt him, she thought, distraught, lifting each in turn, cradling his hands with her own, and kissing his fingers, wanting to infuse her own warmth into him. I could have killed him.

“I’m sorry, Aaron,” she whispered, and she folded herself over him again, listening to the gentle cadence of his heartbeat as she rested her cheek miserably on his chest. She hated herself in that moment, hated what the fugues had done to her; what they’d made her do. “I’m so sorry.”

The first time she’d ever suffered a fugue state had been the night of the fires—the ever-fateful October 12, 1815. God, how she’d fought over the centuries to forget what had happened to her. But even so, the night terrors remained and she still woke herself biting back screams. Sometimes she’d smell things that reminded her of that night—the stink of brandy or wood smoke remained especially powerful and unpleasant triggers.

Hold her now! In her mind, she could hear Allistair Davenant’s voice, shrill with sadistic glee. She could still feel their hands on her—Allistair and his brothers Jean-Luc and Vidal—as they dragged her from the hole beneath Lamar’s library floor. She’d tried to run, but her legs had been cramped from her prolonged imprisonment and they’d caught her easily.

Lamar had not come to the library that night, which was unusual for him. She thought she heard music playing from the house’s upper story, muted and merry, and the rhythmic stomping of dancing feet against the wooden floor overhead. Lamar’s three eldest boys were dressed not for a party, however, but for horseback riding; they wore mud-spattered boots and long, woolen jackets. They had also obviously been overindulging in Lamar’s private liquor stock in his absence. Their faces were glossy and drunk-flushed and they had stunk of sweat and brandy--and something more besides: wood smoke.

“Let’s see now,” Vidal remarked, crushing one of her breasts beneath his hand. Rolling her nipple between his fingertips to harden it, he swept the tip of his tongue hungrily across the crooked uplift of his lips. “Nice,” he murmured. His hand trailed up to her face, his fingers tugging at her bottom lip. “Sweet, too, I’d wager.”

Naima swung her head, fangs extending, and bit him savagely, sinking her teeth into the webbed meat between his forefinger and thumb. Vidal howled, dancing backwards, wrenching his hand free.

“You dirty bitch!” he bellowed, staring at her in outraged surprise. Balling his fist, he swung at her, punching her in the mouth, sending her crashing sideways to the floor. “You’ll answer for that, you half-breed whore!"

Even though she was dazed from the blow, Naima tried to fight them, but they were stronger than she was, much stronger. Allistair pushed a spread of Lamar’s papers and ledgers off the top of a writing desk, then Vidal shoved her face-down atop it.

“I've got your answer, bitch,” he hissed in her ear, folding himself over her, using his weight to keep her pinned to the desk. She felt him reach between them for the front of his breeches. “I’ve got your answer right here. Let’s see if you can take it.”

"No!" Naima tried to scream, but he crammed a handkerchief so far and so firmly between her lips, she nearly gagged. She sobbed, muffled, as he violated her, the desk jostling beneath them, knocking repeatedly, furiously against the library wall. She could feel the moist heat of Vidal’s breath against her shoulder, the back of her neck, with every panting exhalation. She felt the slap of his belly against her buttocks, and sobbed helplessly with every agonizing thrust.

When Vidal finished, Jean-Luc had taken a turn. “Turn her over,” he’d cried, and the three of them had wrestled with her, flipping her from her belly to her back. While Vidal held one of her arms down, Allistair had pinned the other, and Jean-Luc had forced himself on her. The pain was unbearable; it felt as though she was ripping apart at some hidden, heretofore unseen seam within her body. All the while, Jean-Luc had tried to kiss her, crushing his thick, dry lips down against hers and trying to ram his tongue past the defiant barrier of her teeth.

When Allistair shoved Jean-Luc aside, sending him stumbling across the library, his pants still around his ankles, Naima closed her eyes and wept anew. She tried feebly to fight, but Allistair grabbed both of her wrists, wrenching her arms over her head, leaving her helpless and exposed.

Then from across the room, she heard someone shouting. Abruptly, Allistair was gone, jerked away from her. She heard a heavy crash and felt the floor shudder. When she looked over her shoulder, her gaze blurred with tears, she saw Allistair sprawled flat on his back with Aaron astride him; Aaron, with his fist reared back, his knuckles already blood-smeared as he pummeled his older brother witless.

“…never…touch her…!” he cried, driving his fist down, smashing Allistair’s nose. His eyes were black, his fangs extended, his mouth forced open in a gruesome snarl. “None of you…rot damn bastards…not ever again!”





He pummeled Allistair until Vidal grabbed a cast iron poker from a nearby fireplace tool stand. Naima had scrambled into a corner of the room by this point and pressed herself there, naked, bleeding and trembling with shock. She screamed, hoarse and sob-choked—“Aaron!”—but it was too late. Vidal hit with the poker, smashing it intoback of Aaron’s skull.

”No!” she wailed as he’d crashed to the floor, dazed. Vidal and Jean Luc then set upon him together, both of them stomping and kicking him, driving their boots brutally into his stomach, shoulders, buttocks and spine. Aaron curled into a fetal position, drawing his hands up to protect his head, but their volleys were relentless and furious.

“Worthless bastard!” Vidal howled.

“She’s a half-breed bitch,” Jean Luc shouted. “And you’re little better, you traitorous f*ck!”

“Leave him alone!” Naima screamed, rushing between them. She collapsed onto her knees beside Aaron and held up her hands, trying to shield him somehow. “Please!” she sobbed, begging Vidal and Jean Luc. “Please stop! I…I’ll do whatever you want…”

“No…!” Aaron’s fingers hooked against her arm. His voice was choked and agonized. “No, Naima…”

“Anything you want,” she promised Vidal and Jean Luc, holding out her hands, tears streaming down her face. “Only, please…please stop…please don’t hurt him anymore!”

Vidal studied her for a moment, his expression somewhat incredulous. Then he uttered a sharp bark of laughter. “You’re going to do anything I want anyway, you stupid f*cking bitch,” he said. “And there’s not a goddamn thing you can do to stop me.”

To prove his point, he grabbed her roughly by the hair and threw her aside. He then reared his boot back and drove it mightily into Aaron’s gut. Aaron jerked, uttering a strangled, agonized cry, choking up blood.

That was when she had snapped, when her pain and terror had finally become so complete, they’d overwhelmed her. She remembered her eyes rolling over to black as her pupils had dilated; she remembered the library suddenly seeming awash in dazzling light. She remembered the moist, snapping sound as her lower jaw had dislocated, the descent of her canine teeth from above forcing it out of socket.

She remembered locking eyes with Vidal and then the sound of breaking glass. In her fugue state, she’d telekinetically catapulted him backwards and through the library window, sending him flying across the yard outside. He’d sailed at least four hundred feet—more than the length of a football field—and at a good twenty miles per hour before slamming headfirst into the broad trunk of a venerable old oak tree. The impact hadn’t just broken his neck, or shattered his skull; his head was obliterated upon contact with the tree, as had all of the vertebrae in his spine clear down to his middle back. Bone, brains, meat and blood—that was all that was left of Vidal from the navel up.

She and Jean Luc had both heard Vidal’s shriek cut abruptly short, and the sickening wet sound as he struck the tree. At this, as she’d swung her black eyes toward Jean Luc, he’d scrambled backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet in his sudden, wild terror. Hauling Allistair by the scruff of his shirt, Jean Luc bolted for the library door, and she’d let them go. Though she’d regret that decision for centuries to come, at the time she’d been more worried about Aaron. The fugue state had left her almost as soon as Jean Luc fled the room, and Naima had gone to him, sobbing, clinging to him as he lay on the floor.

“Naima,” Aaron had whispered to her, a breathless groan, as he’d reached up, half-lucid, and stroked his hand against her hair. “I…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”

She whispered this to him now in the motel room as she gently bathed the blood from his face, hating herself for having hurt him—but thankful that it hadn’t been worse.

Because she knew it could have been. Much, much worse.

***

Leaving Aaron to sleep, Naima stole into the bathroom to take a shower. She spent a long time beneath the pelting spray of hot water, her eyes closed. She found herself envying Aaron’s amnesia; how many times had she wished that for herself, that she might forget the past and all of its horrors once and for all, that it might quit haunting her?

When she stepped out of the tub, she was enveloped in a filmy cloud of steam. She wrapped a towel around her body and stepped out into the vanity area to finish drying off. The room phone on the bedside nightstand began to ring, loud, shrill and startling. Naima whirled at the sound with a frightened yelp, and then, realizing what it was, held out her hand, using her telekinesis to snatch the phone from its cradle before the godforsaken noise woke Aaron.

She had no idea who the hell could be calling, except maybe for Eleanor, because no one else knew where they were. But why wouldn’t Eleanor use my cell phone number if she needs me?

“Hello?” she asked, plucking the receiver out of thin air, where she’d left it to dangle. She cut a glance at the bed; Aaron had murmured fitfully, rolling onto his side again, but hadn’t roused.

“Mrs. Morin?” a man’s voice asked—miss-UZ, not MISS.

Naima frowned. “Who is this?”

She’d intended to sound fierce and had apparently succeeded, because when the man spoke again, his voice was shaky. “I…um…this is Les from the motel front office. I’m sorry to disturb you…”

Nearly laughing out loud at her own paranoid reaction, Naima heaved a sigh of relief. I’m getting to be as bad as Aaron, convinced someone’s out to kill me.

“It’s alright,” she told the clerk. “You didn’t bother me. Is there something you needed?”

“Actually, ah…yes, ma’am. It seems your husband’s vehicle is illegally parked in a fire lane.”

“My husband?” Puzzled, Naima again looked at Aaron. “Oh, no. He’s not—”

“I didn’t get your license number when you checked in, so we had to ask the sheriff to look the plates up. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience. Would you or Dr. Morin mind to move it?”

“Dr. Morin?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Mason Morin. That’s who the vehicle is registered to.” Now the clerk sounded slightly bewildered. “You gave the name Morin when you checked in, ma’am.”

“Of course,” she murmured, walking over to the room window, stretching the cord as far as she could. She drew the heavy curtains aside just enough to peer out, and spotted Mason’s Escalade right where they’d left it—and sure enough, less than ten feet away was a sign clearly indicating they were in a fire lane.

“I didn’t want to tow you…” the clerk began anxiously.

“Thank you.” Naima let the drapes fall closed again. “I appreciate that. I’m sorry you had to go to all that trouble. I’ll be glad to move it.”

“It was no trouble at—” the clerk began, sounding notably relieved. Naima let the phone go, telekinetically sending it back to its cradle and hanging it up, thus missing whatever else the kid had to say.

How the hell am I going to do this? she wondered as she slipped her pants and tank top back on. Aaron had told her she’d be hard-pressed to drive the truck by herself all of the way back to the compound, since she had to concentrate to use telekinesis to control the brakes. She considered waking him up, but quickly dismissed the idea. He hadn’t fully healed from his earlier injuries, never mind the abuse she’d subjected him to when they’d made love. He needed to rest.

I can do this, she told herself, shrugging Aaron’s hooded jacket on and pulling the truck keys out of his pocket. It’s not far, maybe fifteen feet. I can handle that on my own.

She stole outside, using her hand to brace the door behind her so that it shut quietly. As she hurried across the parking lot, her breath frosted in the air around her face. She kept her hair close-cropped, nearly flush with her scalp, and it was still damp from the humid shower, leaving her quickly chilled. There were only two streetlamps illuminating the motel parking lot, and one of them was blinking on and off as if the bulb was on its last legs. All at once, as she approached the Escalade, Aaron’s words echoed in her mind.

Whoever killed Michel cut the brakes on your truck. It’s been my experience that people don’t do that as a friendly sort of gesture.

Naima had laughed about this only moments earlier, but now, in the shadow-draped and relatively empty parking lot, it no longer sounded so ridiculous or impossible. When she reached the truck, she looked behind her cautiously, then opened her mind and telepathically scanned the parking lot. Satisfied she was alone, she unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed in.

Aaron’s being paranoid, she thought, dismissive again, as she started the engine. All of the dashboard lights sprang to life, casting the interior of the cab in an eerie green glow. Whoever killed Michel was after Michel. And whoever it was is probably long gone now that the damage is done.

She dropped the truck into gear, and stepped lightly on the gas, just enough to get it rolling forward. She then put it into neutral gear instead of drive, and steered it to a different area of the parking lot, this one closer to the wing where their room was located. Once she started to ease into a parking place, she concentrated on the brake mechanisms, using her telekinesis to apply the brake pads and come to a stop.

Besides, she thought, turning off the truck and opening the door. I didn’t even know I’d be using this truck for anything today. If someone was trying to kill me, they’d have to be a fortune-teller, because even I didn’t know I’d be driving clear to Carson City until Eleanor asked. And even then, I have my own car. This isn’t even mine. It’s…

The thought trailed off as she closed the truck door behind her. Standing in the parking lot, eyes suddenly wide, Naima realized.

It’s Mason’s truck.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, breaking into a sprint and racing back for the motel room. “Mason!”