And somewhere, deep inside me, a door opened.
The beast, my beast, took one look outside of her prison walls, and decided she wasn’t going to be confined again.
I screamed against the pain that ripped through me, swallowing the mixture of blood and drugs as I did. The demon that sat on top of me gave me a cruel smile as he moved to hold my arms down. The beast within surged forward, and my screaming came to an abrupt halt. His hands turned black as coal. He jumped away from me, but it was already too late. A devil wearing my face smiled up at him.
Chapter 16
“No,” he whispered, backing away.
The fire in his veins wouldn’t abate. Not until it consumed him.
The darkness spread up his arms, throughout his chest, and to every unseen nook and cranny. I cocked my head to the side as he began clawing at himself. He tore at his clothes, his hair, tearing his very skin in a desperate attempt to escape the fire that took him.
And I felt all of it. His clawing. His tearing. His burning flesh and melting skin.
It was awful. Horrific.
My beast didn’t care.
He opened his mouth, maybe to shout or to scream, but no sound came out. It was the kind of pain, so raw, so intense… it was almost unimaginable. He was in his own personal hell and I felt every moment of it as he died.
Pleasure and pain coiled inside of me as I sat back and let the beast have her way.
Blue light shined behind his eyes as the skin around his face turned black and charred, mirroring the rest of him.
First his hands stopped moving. Then his arms. His legs. When the fire behind his eyes winked out, and all that was left were pits black as sin, I knew he was dead.
A single wind swept down the alleyway, and the husk of the once living bouncer disintegrated into ash. The only hint as to what happened to him was a single blue ember, and then it winked out of existence.
The beast looked to the imp that was backing down the alley. He had thought he could challenge Death, but the site of me scared him? My beast smiled, and it wasn’t kind.
She shifted my body onto its knees, like we were going to make a move for him, and the imp took off running. He bolted like the coward he was, leaving the rest of the men he led here to die. She turned her eyes to the alleyway before us, where the dead bodies that had risen were dropping like flies, their purpose fulfilled now that the once living had joined them in the afterlife.
A hand plunged through the chest of a demon, spraying blood across the already navy tainted cement. The body fell to the ground, and standing there among the chaos, was Julian.
He shook his once blond hair and blue flung from it in droplets. Rain dribbled down his undamaged body. His shirt was torn, exposing lean, unblemished muscle. Blood soaked his pants, his own and theirs. But despite what they’d done in an attempt to kill him, he was perfect. Whole. Only a single cut ran from his brow to his chin, but in the time that we took to stare at one another, that, too, had healed.
Death. He truly was Death.
Could he even be killed?
I wasn’t certain, but his flawless unmarked body, free of scars, made me wonder.
“Ruby?” he asked quietly. Hesitant. I wondered what he saw that made him tread so carefully.
“They hurt her.” The voice that came out of my mouth was cold. Flat.
Julian nodded his head and held his bloody hands up in surrender. “I know, and I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them all sooner. Thank you for taking care of her,” he said softly.
The beast didn’t respond as he walked towards us. His steps were small; measured and careful. He tread like he was walking on glass. Only when he was standing before us did she speak again.
“They’ve hurt her before, but I could not save her last time. She does not wish to leave this world, and yet…”— the cold voice trailed off —“if they hurt her again, I will burn it to the ground.” There was the softest menace in her voice. The promise of unspeakable horror. A true apocalypse brought forth from our hands. She would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like child’s play, brought forth from a benevolent God, because she would wipe the earth clean of all humankind.
It would be the most brutal healing and genocide the earth has ever seen.
And she—I—had the power to do it.
Julian didn’t flinch. He didn’t give any indication that he was afraid. Feeling his emotions filtering through, there was wariness and some residual pain, but not fear. The beast appreciated that. She could respect that.
Julian crouched on one knee before us, but he made no move to touch. He was smart for that. “I will do better, but right now, I’d like to talk to Ruby.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. He wasn’t asking permission. He was telling her that it was time to recede.
The beast wasn’t keen on that idea. She had been locked away for a very long time. So long, she didn’t even know who put her in her prison.
“How do I know that I will not be caged again?” she asked. It wasn’t child-like or inquisitive. The voice was lifeless, but there was an icy undercurrent that held a rage of its own. Julian stared at us for a long moment and spoke with absolute authority.
“Because I will kill any who try.”
The beast liked that. She liked that very much.
I reached out to coax her back, and this time she agreed to recede, knowing that she would not be imprisoned again.
“Take care of her.” Her parting words.
An invisible force shoved me into my own body again. A whimpered moan escaped my lips as the weariness of the night weighed on me. The gravel that pricked at my knees hurt, sharper than it should. The dizziness in my head was all too familiar after the first time being drugged. My consciousness was already beginning to wane.
“Ruby,” Julian said as he breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you okay?”
“Force…drugs…want…h-home,” I slurred. The effects were already coming back. I probably had moments before the paralysis and out-of-body experience returned, but this time, I wouldn’t be alone. The beast was there, waiting through it with me.
Julian didn’t hesitate as he picked me up and strolled down the alley. I looked over his shoulder at the scene behind us. Dead bodies lay in heaps on the alley floor. Their arms and legs were bent at odd angles. Some had gaping holes in their chest cavities, others were decapitated.
Julian truly was a monster.
But then again, maybe I was, too.
Ashes blowing in the wind, the last thing I saw before we stepped into the shadows and it all went black.
The endless darkness only lasted a second before he was carrying me through my front yard. He can shadow walk. Now I knew how they got around so easily. The thought was only of passing interest when I realized Moira’s car wasn’t there.
The driveway was dark, but Julian navigated just fine as he ascended the porch. “Where’s your spare key?” he asked. My head lolled against his shoulder.
“Don’t…one,” I mumbled. He didn’t say anything, didn’t sigh in annoyance. He simply moved to hold me with one arm. There was a sharp crunching sound, that I assumed was him breaking the lock, and then the door opened.
The blood curdling screech that awaited us stirred me from the drugged-out haze settling in. Julian let out a curse as something flew at him full force before settling on my chest. We weren’t even through the doorway completely, but Bandit was here and waiting.
“Hey…bub-by,” I slurred. My raccoon wrapped his arms around my neck and purred louder than I’d ever heard him. Maybe that was just the drugs.
Julian kicked the door shut behind him and flipped the light on as he moved into the house. My living room disappeared as he rounded the corner to my room. He laid me down in bed, pulling the covers around me. I was already far enough gone that my arms and legs were useless, and the feeling of helplessness crept in. The beast inside me twitched, pacing uneasily. She didn’t like this anymore than I did, but sometimes there was truly nothing you could do except wait it out.