Page 14 of Ghoul Huntress (Maelstrom Duology #2)

14

Vargr woke to a stomachache, a chest ache, generally a whole lot of ache. He slipped from the king-sized bed, smiling at the look of Cyn buried under both pillow and Rutger’s bulging arm.

Then he saw the red on the sheets where he’d been, looked down and saw it on his naked body too, smeared and trickling. The splits in his skin, the small holes, and all of them were bloody. His arm chose then to gush a little before it settled and merely leaked.

“What the fuck,” he whispered.

Hurting, but staying quiet because he needed to figure this out first before he alarmed the others, he padded into the bathroom and stood before the floor to ceiling mirror. Already his chest was rising and falling way too fast.

Trouble.

The beaster before him was impressive in many right ways—dark blue-and-gray wings curved above his back with paler blue streaks outlining feathers, the stone of his shark-fin hair and the changes on his shoulders, his brilliant blue eyes.

Impressive in one very wrong way—the blood pulsing from him. Wounds were widening as he watched. Holes in his chest gaping more, ragged cuts on his arm that parted and showed flesh. Pain tore into him. Groaning, he slumped.

“Fuck!” He gasped and clutched at his chest as if to tear away the pain.

He fell to one knee, head bowed, spilling more red down his thighs. The blood dripped from his cock and leg, puddled under his foot. His vision blurred and he slapped a palm to the floor.

What was this? Why? Had he been attacked in his sleep?

In that same moment, Cyn came skidding into the room with Rutger behind her.

“Crap.” Fear and rage flared in her eyes. Rutger stiffened.

“What is it?” he asked them, trying not to be weak and beg for aid.

“I know what it is.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, which did not bode well.

“What? I’m not dying today. What is it!”

“Your wounds from the stinker have come back.” She bit her lip. “Your demon nanites were dropping. I think… they’ve failed you.”

“Maura did say that.” Rutger stooped, dropped to one knee beside him. “He must need more. If we leave now, Mo will take a day to return to War Quarter.”

“Too late.” The wounds were worsening quickly. He shook his head. Think. How? He needed more nanites to heal and they had none. “Bandages will slow it.” He heaved to his feet only to slide in blood and fall sideways. Hand outstretched, he twisted. The floor was coming, and this would hurt.

Rutger lunged and caught him. “Uh!” He shoved an arm around Vargr’s back, skin slipping on blood, and helped Vargr stagger with wet, bloodied feet toward the bedroom. “Cyn! Yell to Mo, Kiko, and Vincent. We need to go. ASAP. We’ll bandage you once we’re in Mo. Fuck, we’ll have to go down the side of this tower again.”

“No. Stop. He’ll die before we get back.” She ran both hands into her black hair. Her face was paler than he’d ever seen—like an avenging pissed-off vampire.

He grinned sloppily, found his mouth difficult to work. “What do you have…” He coughed, spat blood that spattered on the bed as they approached. “In mind?”

Dying was on the cards today.

Grunting, Rutger helped him sit. “This had better be good.”

“You need demon nanites, well I have them. I’ll cut myself, and you get to drink it.”

He barked out a laugh. More blood spattered. “Damn it, Cyn, always with the gory answers.”

“You don’t get to say that. Not when you’re... that.” She winced, looking at him. “Lie him down and I don’t know… a cup? I have a knife.”

She found a pile of their clothes, a pack, pulled a sheathed knife from the mess and unsheathed the blade.

It was daylight out there still, and pricks of brilliance lanced from the shuttered window, bouncing off the flat of the knife.

Cyn looked from wrist to wrist, frowning, clearly looking for somewhere to cut.

Surely a needle was?—

She sliced the knife tip along her wrist, stony-faced, and he heard Rutger swear.

Before she bled, he’d turned away. God, she wanted him to drink her blood. Dizzy, he stared at his feet. What the hell. Minutes later a full cup arrived before him, in Rutger’s hand. He took it, brought it shakily to his mouth with the help of someone else’s hand, and he began to drink.

It tasted… wrong, and he grimaced.

“If this doesn’t work...” The voice faded out. His voice. Nothing around him seemed in focus or real. He swayed, licked his lips.

“I know. I know. Fuck it had better. I don’t like wasting my blood.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“I think he needs more. Hold that cup under me, there.”

“Cyn—”

“Do it! I’ll heal. You know it.”

He drank the second cup without looking up, then a third. By then he was feeling stronger, and he breathed once and long, and he looked up, a little fearful of what he might see.

She was on an armchair, perched on the arm with flames dripping from her fingers, as only rebel demon-girls do. The flames extinguished as he watched. Rutger was sitting next to him, he realized.

“It’s working.” He swallowed. “Thank you.”

“Fuck.” She swiped at her eyes and Rutger placed a hand on his shoulder, gently.

“Stop crying over me. Besides, it was me who did all the bleeding.” Then he shook his head. “Sorry. Correction. We both did. You okay?”

“Me?” She giggled. “Course the fuck I am.” There were red-stained bandages on both her wrists.

“Good.” He nodded. “Good. You’d do anything to turn me into a vampire, you two would. Come here.” He beckoned to her, and she came over and sat on his other side. They ran arms around each other, and he hugged her, then rested his head on hers before he hugged Rutger also. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank you for the hug, you asshole. I thought I was going to have to think up a damn funeral speech. Cyn, we have to get Maura to figure out a better way than this.”

“We do.” She nodded. “Wow, do I agree. Messes up the sheets.”

The bed looked half red.

“Eh.” Rutger shrugged and smacked him, lightly, on the back. “I think we’re past needing cleaning done. Ready to leave anyway? We still need to get back as soon as we can. He may need more nanites.”

“Talking over the top of me is done.” He stood, stamped his feet. The demon nanites were firing up for sure. That aggressive fizzing need to stick sharp things into the world had returned. “Let’s go. You’re right, we should get back soon, and it’s dusk anyway.”

They packed up quickly, and exited to the corridor where Mo waited, told him to start the engines and plot a course back. While he and Cyn threw bags and packs into Mo, Rutger went off to make sure the others were ready. Their first meal of the night could be on the move.

Kiko and Rutger jogged out the door opposite theirs that led to the other half of the penthouse. Concern was written on their faces, and Kiko waved a note, shoved it at Vargr.

“Here. Read it. By the hair on my beard he’s gone and done an experiment I’d never have let him do.” Nervously Kiko eyed the window they’d smashed through on arrival, and Vargr saw what the problem was.

A figure stood out there, on the wide balcony, unmoving, stone still. The pale sky cut him out like a cardboard toy.

“Oh, fuck.” The note was shoved into his hand, but he didn’t look down. “He’s gone into the sunlight? For how long?”

“We don’t know. Kiko didn’t know he’d left until I woke him.” Rutger took a step toward the light. “Another five minutes, and we’ll get him in. I gather the experiment was to see if he could turn back into flesh once night fell.”

“Another fool.” Cyn was beside him. She sighed. “We don’t have to wait. I’ll drag him in. Mo, how do we get Vincent inside you? Have you a larger entrance? He’s stone. He won’t go through that door.”

“I will open the rear ramp.” The hydraulic noises coming from the vehicle intensified and further back a door lowered, becoming a ramp.

“I just hope Vincent hasn’t put on too much weight.” She marched off. “Be ready to grab him… the idiot.”

Why would he try this? “Is this a complicated sort of suicide?”

“He spoke of being curious.” Kiko answered in a measured voice, as if he were still thinking this through. “I think maybe he wanted to know what the future would be, for himself and the two other trolls. He wanted to know if they had to hide in the dark forever.”

Cyn was already towing Vincent backward across the glass-littered carpet, making loud rumbling and squealing sounds, leaving a gouge in the elegant rug. A stone troll and yet she was managing his weight quite nicely. He reminded himself not to arm wrestle her, unless he had her drugged. The woman was strong.

Feeble rays of light painted stripes on the floor and on Vincent.

“I get that. I do. Living in the dark like roaches, it worries me too.” He jogged forward, willing to risk a bit of sunburn, after all, the nanites he’d eaten would help him heal. How long would Cyn’s donated snack of blood last him though?

A day should be possible, but he didn’t want to contemplate falling apart again like he had. He was ravenous, and likely that was due to the lost blood. The demon nanites must get energy from somewhere.

They maneuvered, hauled, and shoved Vincent up the ramp, and he prayed the small stone bits ground off his edges were nothing important. They laid him down in a corner, on his back with blankets packed around him and heavy cargo straps holding him flat. No one knew when, or even if, he would change back into being alive.

He thought he saw some brighter brown patches appearing but wasn’t certain.

The doors were shut, and everything was locked down. Kiko and Cyn had gone forward already. It was time to forge onward, down the scraper, and back to War Quarter.

“Let’s get some food,” Rutger suggested. “Before we strap ourselves in. I need something in my stomach. Hold off on the descent until I get a few snack bars, Mo.”

“Of course. None of you are adequately restrained in your harnesses anyway. Take as much time as you like. It’s not as if you cannot eat while I drive. Are you sure we are in a hurry?”

Vargr chortled. “Mo is dissing you. Hey, Mo! Rutger needs to do his manicure first!”

“Remind me why I helped Cyn fix you again? How am I supposed to eat while we drive straight down? I’d throw up on your pretty seats, Mo!” He opened the door linking the carriages, held it. “Come.”

He shook his head, looked to where Vincent was laid out. “What if those straps loosen? Is there a seat in here I can use, Mo?”

“There is.” With a click and a whine, a seat popped and unfolded from the wall opposite Vincent.

“Then I’m staying.” He untangled the seat harness, hopped into the seat.

“If anyone stays with him it should be me. You’re recovering.”

He shrugged and clicked shut the belt. “Too late. I want to be here.”

He needed some quiet time, needed to think.

After a slow assessing look, Rutger nodded. “Take care then.” He left, closing the door.

It wasn’t as if either of them could do much if Vincent did snap the harness ties. He’d weigh a ton and would drop straight down into the bulkhead—or whatever it was called—that the door was set into.

Mo had descended halfway down the wall when Vincent’s skin flooded with color, and he turned back into being alive. He blinked at Vargr.

“Don’t wriggle. Don’t move. We’re currently climbing down Maelstrom Tower . Once we level out, I’ll get you loose.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause so much fuss. How long did it take?”

“For you to change back? I guess the sun truly set about ten minutes ago. We had to head back fast, so we pulled you in.”

“Okay. Why?”

“I could ask you the same.” May as well say. “I started bleeding again. The old wounds opened up because my demon nanites dropped too low. We think.”

The urge to look niggled, and he stared at his arm and his bare chest. No more holes. No blood. Thank god.

“Okay. You look good from here.” Vincent’s craggy forehead folded into giant wrinkles. “So you healed again?”

“Cyn fed me blood. Hers, since she has the right nanites. It worked.”

“You must have been bleeding bad?”

“I’m always bleedin’ bad.” He chuckled, though curiously he didn’t feel that thriving ferocity as he had last time. It must mean the demon level wasn’t as high. “But to answer your bleeding question… sort of…” he waggled his hand “… to the death. That bad.”

“Ugh. I see.” Despite the strap across his forehead, Vincent nodded. “You’ll survive.”

“And you will too. I didn’t do my thing on purpose. Why did you go outside in the daytime? Was it really just an experiment?”

The straps creaked as he took a huge breath, exhaled, his gaze focused on the wall leading down to the cockpit.

“It was that,” he said quietly, “and it was because I wanted to see the sun again. You know? I needed to. No matter what happened, I needed to. And I did see it. Just for a few seconds as the full warmth and brightness came over me, I saw the sun as it flooded in, breaking over the top of the tower across the courtyard. So beautiful. It blossomed like a flower of light.”

A lump had appeared in his throat. Vargr swallowed, blinked. He got it. “I understand.”

“There are only three of us and I don’t know if there will ever be more. At least I now know I can do my sacrifice to the sun and come out of it, alive.” The gentle smile on his face communicated more than his words.

There wasn’t much he could add to that. They remained in silence, both of them thinking over what had been said and done, he supposed, until Mo bottomed out and crawled around to be level.

“You can release all safety harnesses for the time being!” Mo sang out. “This is your captain speaking.”

“What the…” Grinning, Vargr shook his head at Mo’s emerging humor, then he unstrapped and went over to check on Vincent and help him up. Kiko and Rutger arrived as he was doing so, and they pulled the stone beaster to his feet, tugged his robe into place.

“Shoo there.” Vincent swatted at their hands and grumbled at them to leave him be, before he gathered the three of them into a short but rough, claustrophobic hug. “Thank you for bringing me in.”

“You’re welcome,” Rutger said, clapping his hands together. “Now we get a real breakfast!”

Fucking smoked herrings and powdered eggs? Someday, maybe they’d figure out how to farm again. When they lost the Ghoul Lords.

“Hey.” He looked in the direction of the cockpit. “Where’s Cyn?”

“She went up top again with instructions that I was to make sure you were okay. She said she needed to see the stars. I think it’s more than that.” He paused and a frown came and went. “I told her I’d bring her some food.” Rutger studied him. “You go up there. I’ll play cook.”

“Sure.” Something told him Cyn was pining for an emotional thing, same as Vincent. An epiphany maybe? This world would play havoc with anyone’s mind. “I’ll make sure she’s okay then.”

“Hmmm. I guess that’s what I was trying to say.”

“I’ll have my herrings microwaved on high with a white sauce and cracked pepper. Medium rare.”

“Perfect.” Rutger kissed his fingers. “I knew you were a gourmet.”

“I’m so tired of canned and packet stuff I might even rip up some of the grass outside and eat it. With that white sauce, of course.”

They headed forward, passing Kiko where he’d sat at a desk, studying a design of an animal on white paper. He waved his pen at them.

“Breakfast?” Rutger asked.

“Brupper, you mean. Like my mechacat?” He swiveled the paper. “Mo asked me to design one.”

A mechacat? Vargr turned his head to see it properly. “Looking good. Size of a tank, I hope?” He was itching to follow Rutger, who’d disappeared through the next door.

“It’s a cat sort of size.” He scratched the pen through his beard. “So far.”

“Uh-huh. Keep going.”

“Of course.” He bowed over it again.

Mo rumbled and stomped onward, making the passageway shake and rock. They’d passed through the tunnel and just now exited the gate as well. The land spread before them.

The hatch to the roof was open, and he sprang at it and caught the little railing, hauled himself out into the darkening sky. Stars were showing. Without the glare of civilization they were as startling and pretty as gems.

The seats had not been unfolded. The hull up here was bare of everything except his demon-girl. She sat, facing away from him, on the black-painted metal at the nose end of the vehicle.

Thin fire trailed from her hands and from translucent wings that flared into the sky. Her wings weren’t thick with fire, they were nearly invisible, but they did exist. Flame weaved into the night, and some threads reached higher than the aerial above the cockpit that was twice Vargr’s height.

This was a light display he’d not expected to find.

After a deep breath, he trudged forward in small steps, careful to keep his footing, though really, he could have flown if he tipped off or slid, and the inward-curving parapet was there too. He could grab that if he had to.

The steel was cool under his bare soles.

On his way to her, he contemplated why he’d not even tried to fly at Maelstrom Towers . It wasn’t fear, he simply had not thought to do it. The freedom of flying in a vast open space called to him, now that he bothered to unleash his imagination. They were far from the Ghoul Lords. The Lure would not touch him as it would a human.

Yet, he hesitated.

Yes, there was fear too. That also was stopping him from launching himself into the air. He’d never had such freedom inside the scrapers.

He paused a few yards back from Cyn. “Can I come nearer?”

“Of course you can.” She didn’t turn.

“You’re on fire.”

“Oh! Shit!” After a moment where she stared at her hands and turned them over, staring, the flames died down before finally extinguishing. “I didn’t realize. I was thinking.”

“Not sure you could have hurt me. I have demon in me too. Though I’m not at the burning hands level.”

“Hah. To level up you need to kill a Ghoul Lord or eat a Pokémon.”

“I’m on a diet, and I think those are extinct.”

He sat behind her, sliding his legs to either side of hers before wrapping her in his arms. He felt her breathing slowing, her hands come up to clasp his forearms.

“Are you okay?”

She brought his arm higher and nuzzled it before lowering it again to below her breasts.

“Do you want the real answer or the nice one?”

“Real. You never answered my other one—why you were avoiding us. Maura said we are the only reason those demon nanites aren’t completely taking you over.”

Were avoiding? More like are , up here on the roof.

“Many reasons. Despair at what’s coming and what’s been. Rage, when I get really crazy. A need for violence. None of those are socially acceptable. It’s me, in a way, who nearly killed you with those nanites, even if they saved you too.”

This did not make sense. He frowned but let her run on.

“I feel dry, distant from humanity, from our need to get rid of the Ghoul Lords and save everyone. I want to kill them, yes, but the other seems useless sometimes. Are humans useless?” Her fingernails dug into his arm. “My good, nice emotions are running out like a pot with a hole in it, draining away.”

The wind created by their passage whistled at his ears and now he saw how much faster Mo was going. It made for a bumpy journey. Was this for his sake?

“It’s the demon nanites doing that. I feel something lesser than what you do but similar. It sets me on fire on the inside. Makes me want to be more aggressive, and not so… nice.”

Eating a Pokémon was a hard limit, though.

“I wonder if I will run out of feelings completely, the good ones anyway.”

“You saved me, and definitely did not almost kill me. Get that part straight, at least.” He squeezed her closer. “And what has this to do with avoiding sex? You know that helps you defeat the Lure.”

“Does it though? Or rather is it the best and only way? Maura told me a theory. The more my demon nanites rise, the higher the concentration of them in my blood… she thinks it possible I could become immune to the Lure—more than anyone, except the troll beasters.”

“Fuck. I don’t like that theory.”

“I may have to go full demon. It might be what we need. None of you are fully able to resist.”

“And so?—”

“And so if I don’t have sex with you or Rutger, your nanites decrease in my blood, and my demon ones multiply.”

It was a theory he didn’t want her to test. “You’re afraid of this?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

No one sane.

“It’s already affecting you, your mind. I forbid you to do this.” He set his jaw.

“Think on your words. On the consequences if it becomes necessary. You think you can stop me if I decide this?”

She had a point, even if he hated it.

“You have to let me choose, and I will anyway. If I do it, it’s because logically it’s right. Even if I’m losing track of right and wrong. Which is weird.”

“Cyn… Fuck. Okay.” He calmed himself. Besides, he could say this and still think about it. Maybe even stop her. This was the wildest thing she’d ever suggested. “Promise me, that you’ll at least give us warning.”

“I will.”

He inhaled, leaned his chin on her head. “And know this—we will be there for you. If it ever happens, once it is done and over, we will pull you back from Hell itself to make you safe.”

“ That sounds like a prophecy,” she whispered above the breeze. “Except it needs to sound fancier to be one.”

“Noted. I’ll add a hear ye, and an ominous buzzard can sit on the prophecy letter once I scribe it in blood.”

“Crow, has to be a crow.”

“Picky. But also noted.”

Rutger arrived soon after, bearing gifts. Well, plates of something that was probably fish and pasta and cheesy eggs. They sat on the red seats, and he poked at his plate with a fork.

It was more a pact than a prophecy, he decided. That made it sound less threatening and less likely to happen. A lot of shit would have to go down to convince him she needed to go full demon.

He was going to have to tell Rutger about it.

Damn.

Later. Eating was his top priority. He scoffed down some fish then pulled a face.

“If you see any edible berries on any shrubbery...” He waved his fork, with his mouth still partly full of the terrible food. “Tell me. I’m going to leap off and get it. Fuck, I’d die for a brussels sprout even. Or broccoli.”

Rutger paused in mid-chew. “You are a sick man.”

“I know.” He stabbed another bit of food.

Mo hit a huge bump and his butt left the seat and his fork flew into the semi-darkness. Fingers would do the job.

“When will we reach War Quarter, Mo?”

“Before dawn as long as we have no setbacks, Vargr,” came the announcement.

“Okay.”

“We’ll be coming in at a different angle until we get through the gap between the missile strike area and the partly collapsed quarter, and so I’m expecting to run closer to that unknown quarter. Be prepared for the unexpected.”

It would take many hours of travel, and they didn’t stay outside Mo for the whole time. When an opportunity rose, he walked away to the rear of Mo with Rutger and told him about Maura’s full-demon theory, and how Cyn was thinking of acting on it.

Rutger looked noncommittal, as he often did, giving away little, then he said they needed to wait and see, and that it was possible she might be right, if the situation turned bad.

Possible.

He hadn’t thought the beaster would ever come down on that side of the equation.

Dawn was only an hour away when Mo approached the home stretch, where they’d change direction to drive through the gap between the destruction wrought by the missile and the partially destroyed quarter.

The three of them climbed out onto the hull again.

Mo ran the length of the unnamed quarter, beside an immensely long heap of rubble created by the upper stories that had sheared away and fallen.

There was a presence at the false and ragged Top. No geometrically perfect skyline existed—it was no longer miles high, poking past the clouds and into the upper stratosphere, but the Ghoul Lords had taken it over anyway. Some part of what they’d fashioned had congealed and flowed over the edge, ominously coating the facade of the scrapers and dripping like creamy gray frosting on a lop-sided cake.

“Fuck,” he said quietly.

“I advise quick ingress into my interior before we draw closer,” said Mo. “It is possible snipers could reach you. I’m lowering the nose shield.”