Bloodspell (2 page)

Victoria stared at the plastic tubing shackling her wrists. From what Holly had said, it was a miracle that she was even alive. Yet again. A sense of despair crashed like a tide against her and she felt the tears she'd been struggling to hold back coming. She couldn't shake the sense that something terrible had happened, something she'd
done.

You have to remember
!
she urged herself.
Think
!

The memories swirled beneath a black fog in her mind but the more she fought against it, the thicker it became. Her head throbbed, accompanied by a dull ache in her stomach. Her hands pressed against it.

"Something else, Tori. Your monthly came," Holly said, her eyes kindly. "The doctors said it was most likely the trauma."

Victoria didn't know whether to feel embarrassed at the circumstances of having her first period or relieved that she'd finally gotten it. She'd started wondering whether she was abnormal after her sixteenth birthday had passed with no womanly fanfare. A visit to Holly's doctor had only confirmed that the range for young women went from as young as nine to as old as eighteen. He'd assured her that it would come in time.

And now that it was here, Victoria felt nothing, just a peculiar sense of anticlimax. On top of everything else, the one event that was supposed to make a girl feel normal only made her feel more odd than ever. She'd blacked out. Had she gotten her period at school? In the cafeteria? In class? In front of everyone?

A hazy recollection of mocking laughter drifted through her mind. She'd be the Carrie White of St. Xavier's, enacting that awful scene from
Carrie
in the girls' bathroom. By now
everyone
would know. Victoria couldn't even begin to imagine what they would all be saying about her. Her stomach heaved.

A clean-shaven young man in a white coat walked into the room carrying her chart. "Ms. Warrick, you're awake. How do you feel?" he said, not looking at her. "I'm Dr. Mills."

I got into a fight at school,
bled in front of everyone,
almost died,
and can't remember a thing.
How do you think I feel?

"I feel okay, I guess. A little groggy, and I can't remember anything."

"Yes, well, it's temporary memory loss. The grogginess will wear off; it's the medication. You hit your head quite hard when you fell, so try not to push yourself. It's been a tough few days for that body of yours but you have a very strong will to live."

Victoria glanced from Dr. Mills to Holly's drawn face. Holly's wrinkled fingers were still gently squeezing hers. They were warm, reassuring. Victoria gripped back and voiced the thought at the edge of her mind.

"What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you. In fact, you're a healthy, strong young woman who's recovering very well, but you should try to get some rest." Victoria frowned at the bland response. "Do I have leukemia?"

A glance. "No. Those tests were inconclusive."

"I don't understand. How can I be absolutely fine if I've been here in a coma for five days?" Her voice sounded petulant even to her.

Dr. Mills hesitated, looking first at Holly. "We have different theories, none one hundred percent conclusive. But your complete recovery in such a short time ... well, there is no way to explain that medically." He paused, and then smiled brightly studying her chart. "The main thing is that you're alive, and recovering. You are a very lucky young woman."

The luck of the devil ...

Her muscles tightened with unexpected dread and for an instant, Victoria felt violently ill. The beeping of the heart monitor matched her escalating heart rate. How does a normal, healthy girl have a blackout and end up in a hospital for five days with no memory? And why wouldn't Dr. Mills
look
at her?

"I just want to go home," she gasped, black spots marring her vision as the cramping feeling in her stomach intensified. The heart-rate monitor beeped erratically.

"We need to keep you just a few more days for observation," Dr. Mills said, pressing the button for the floor nurse.

"Observation?"

Like she was some kind of freak.

A wave of anxiety overcame her. Heat flooded her limbs and she flung the blankets aside, clawing her hospital gown. "It's ... too hot in here!"

The day nurse came into the room bearing a tray, and Victoria stared warily as Doctor Mills prepped one of the syringes on it. A drop of pale liquid formed at the needle's tip.

Full-scale panic. "What's that for?"

"It's just something to help you rest," he said, emptying the syringe into the IV connected to her wrist. A cool sensation slithered along the hot veins of her forearm.

Victoria's eyes connected with his deep brown ones. What she saw there made her breath hitch. He looked at her with both fear and fascination, the way she'd once felt after seeing a two-headed snake on the Discovery Channel; an aberration of nature, fascinating yet obscene. Unnatural.

Her eyelids drooped as Doctor Mills faded into the background of the room.

"Aunt Holly?" she heard herself say thickly.

"It'll be okay, darling," Holly said, stroking Victoria's hand gently. "I'm here."

"I don't want to close my eyes. The monsters ..."

"I'm right here, sweetheart."

"They're coming ..."

THE NIGHTMARE'S TERRIBLE fingers touched everywhere, holding her prisoner in that space between dream and reality. Flashes of shiny, corrugated metal, the smell of fire and sulfur heavy in the air, and the blood, so much blood, it was everywhere—on the ground, on her clothes, on her hands. Oh God,
her
hands. What had she done? Their faces were gruesome in death, their bloodied arms grasping her, pulling her down into hell with them.

Her body jerked. She was older now, lying in a sterile hospital bed. Molten lava flooded into her body, drowning her. She was imploding, her skin splintering as something unimaginable inside her struggled to get out. She felt it tearing its way through her body, shredding tissue and bone and skin like paper until it was free. The creature turned slowly, agonizingly. Burning red eyes blazed into hers. The demon had her face.

She couldn't stop screaming.

"Tori, wake up," a worried voice said, shaking her. "Victoria! Wake up!"

Her screams dissolved into strangled gasps as she struggled to sit up. A kind, wrinkled face swam into focus. "It's okay, love. It's just a dream. You're safe now."

"Oh God, Aunt Holly, their
faces
!"

"It's okay, it's over now. It was only a dream. Take a deep breath, sweetheart."

"It wasn't just the car crash this time, it was something worse. Did you ever see
The Omen
? Well, in my dream, I was the baby ... I was the devil."

"No one could live through what you've been through and not have terrifying moments," Holly said kindly, stroking Victoria's back with a soothing motion. "Now try to get some sleep, it's early."

"Aunt Holly, I should have died with them. It's just not fair to be so
lucky.
"

"Hush now, darling. You've been through a lot the past few days. Please just get some rest. Things will look better in the morning, I promise. I love you."

"Love you, too."

As Holly left the room, Victoria stared into the darkness. The clock on the nightstand said four a.m. Sleep was an elusive bedmate. Whenever she was able to fall asleep, she had terrible dreams, although none quite as bad as the one she'd just had. Most nights, she lay awake in bed thinking about anything and everything, afraid to close her eyes until the dawn's light chased away the monsters. Tonight was no exception.

Despite occasional flashes, she still couldn't remember everything that had happened in the parking lot, and when she tried to think about it, her head ached as if the memory was blocked by some obstruction. Under Dr. Mills' orders, she hadn't returned to St. Xavier's, and given the circumstances, she'd been excused from the rest of the school year. It'd been a relief not to have to face the Stepfords or anyone else at the exclusive high school that had for the past two years made her life a living hell.

St. Xavier's had been a special scholarship from their church—one which the benefactors had insisted would give Victoria an edge come college time. A loner by nature, making new friends had always been difficult at best, and after a few months, Victoria had given up, preferring to keep to herself. Then the Stepfords had taken everything to a whole new level as Brett had let it leak that she was his parents' charity case. It had been a nightmare from there on out, and a different Victoria had begun to emerge, one fluent in cynicism, distant and aloof. For the first time in her life, she had become a social outcast.

"I am officially a freak," Victoria murmured out loud. She hugged her middle, her fingers encountering a soft, furry head. Leto. She stroked him and he purred in response.

"Hey, how're you doing?" she whispered, fondling his soft velvet ears.

Leto had been a fixture in her life as long as she could remember. He was the only living memory she had of her parents, and whenever she confided in him, spilling out her secrets, everything always seemed better ... and less lonely. She pulled him unto her chest.

"I've missed you. I hate these nightmares so much ... mom, dad, school, the hospital. It's all so ugly." Leto watched her, unblinking, as Victoria thought of Brett, remembering the way he'd looked at her with such horror, blood covering his face. She shivered. "I wish I knew what happened, but it's like I don't
want
to remember or something inside of me doesn't want me to."

She scratched his head. "You love me, don't you, Leto? At least you don't think I'm a freak, like everyone else does."

She sighed and glanced at the clock. Six a.m. Her body still ached and she sat up slowly, pushing a grumpy Leto aside. Streaks of pale golden light seeped through her bedroom curtains chasing away the shadows of the night.

For a minute, she stood transfixed by the light dancing across the dark material—light into dark, dark into light; hypnotic, a silent metaphor for something she felt but couldn't express. Her eyes burned as she jabbed the backs of her thumbs fiercely into them. She'd promised herself no more tears.

Today is no different than any other day,
Victoria told herself.
You're just one year older, nothing more.

Selecting a black sweatshirt and a pair of black jeans, Victoria finger-combed the snarls out of her thick, dark hair and surveyed her reflection in the mirror. She'd lost more weight since the hospital, and the black clothing only made her look more gaunt than usual. In the dim lighting, even her eyes looked dark. The girl in the mirror smiled at the irony. Black was fitting; it was a day of death after all.

As if on cue, pins and needles surged through her hands and she rubbed them tiredly against her jeans. The tingling hadn't stopped since the hospital, but Dr. Mills had said that it would go away eventually. Leto jumped down from the bed and rubbed his silver-furred body against her legs, yowling as static electricity sparked from her jeans to his fur. His large, green eyes fixed on hers accusingly.

"Oh Leto, I'm so sorry! I'm a live-wire lately." She pulled him into her arms after a last glance at the mirror and scratched his ears as she started toward the stairs. Leto stared at her with oddly knowing eyes and purred loudly, pressing his face into the crook of her arm. Strangely enough, the tingling in her palms lessened.

Victoria peered over the landing. She knew Holly was up to something, especially given how excited and secretive she had been during the days leading up to Victoria's birthday. Although not her real aunt, Holly had been her grandmother's best friend, and when Victoria's parents had died when she was nine, Holly had taken her in and brought her to her home in Millinocket, Maine.

An hour north of Bangor with a population of just five thousand people, Millinocket was the most picturesque town Victoria had ever seen, home to lush forests and pristine rivers and lakes, resting against the backdrop of Mount Katahdin. It was a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Greenwich Village in New York where she had lived with her parents until the tragic accident that had torn her life apart.

Holly's house was located just on the outskirts of the main village and backed onto the thickly wooded forest of the North Maine Woods. It felt safe in a way New York no longer did without her mother and father. The minute she'd set foot on the threshold, it felt like home, and Victoria had found that she didn't want to live anywhere else.

"Don't make a sound," she told Leto, and tiptoed toward the kitchen. It was empty. Sighing with relief, she poured herself a cup of coffee just as a second dizzying wave of queasiness made her double over, pins and needles spearing her entire body. Her back arched backward, hot coffee scalding her hand and flying everywhere.

"Ouch! Son of a—"

As Victoria shook her stinging fingers, her elbow caught the edge of a crystal vase sitting on the counter and tipped it off the side. Time slowed to a crawl and she could foresee the next four seconds of flawless inevitability ending with one of Holly's prized possessions shattered on the floor. Blood thundered in her ears and surged to the tips of her fingers in electric response.