Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (28 page)

The snarls drew closer and the
animal
scent
that much stronger,
almost to the point
I was choking on it.

I reached the ladder first.
Leo shoved me, urging me to go. “I’ll hold him off!” he shouted.

I was about to argue when he raised the gun and shot the Rogue in the eye. It reared, yowling, and I scrambled up the ladder. Leo continued to fire on it as he gripped the ladder and climbed up after me.
Without stopping, I reached the top and pressed my ear to the exit. A low, rhythmic thumping was pulsing through the floor, like a subwoofer.

The hell?

Beneath me
the gun clicked, signaling it w
as out of ammunition. Leo swore
and I frantically pushed against the exit. It barely budged. There was either something very heavy on top of it, or it was locked.

“I can’t get through!” I yelled.

“Try harder!” Leo shouted over his shoulder, climbing up as fast as he could. The Rogue writhed on the ground, shrieking from multiple, smoking bullet holes in its purple flesh.

Facing the door, I gritted my teeth and shoved harder, calling upon my vampiric strength. The hinges groaned in protest, but the door opened as whatever lay on top of it fell over, revealing a dark, messy room resembling a storage closet.

“Leo!” I shouted. “Come on!”

I climbed up and over, holding out my hand. Leo clasped it, tossing the gun onto the cement floor so he could take my other hand. About the time I we
nt to haul him up, he cried out
and I felt something jerk him back.

“Damn,” I hissed, bending over him. A single red eye glowed within the darkness of the hole; the Rog
ue’s teeth had hold of his pant
leg.

Fueled by my anger, hot and fresh, I embraced
my inner vampire
as I reac
hed into the darkness, clutched
the Rogue by the throat
, and lifted
it up to my face. It snarled and snapped, its breath catching as I choked the life out of its scrawny throat.

I could see myself reflected in its good eye. My own irises were red, glowing from within like he
llfire, and my face was twisted,
like that of a demon.

“This one is mine,” I snarled in a deep voice.

The Rogue stopped struggling long enough to whimper, right before I hurled it to the ground. I heard the sickening crack of its skull against pavement, and then the light in its eye went out and it fell still.

Shaking myself out of my demonic rage, I fi
nished hauling Leo up and
crumpled on top of him on the floor.
After I kicked
the door shut, we lay there, panting hard.

“What the hell – was that?” Leo said between deep breaths, sitting up.

I gazed back at him
, catching a flash of my appearance in the cracked body mirror lying
on its side
behind him
.
The room was dark, but not so much I couldn’t discern my reflection. It
looked back at me from within each piece of mirror.
My eyes – my face – looked normal.

I swallowed hard,
feeling a dark shroud of foreboding blanket me
.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

I didn’t add that every time I blinked, I saw a monster with glowing red ey
es
lurking in the darkness behind my closed lids
. A monster that wore my face
and had an insatiable bloodlust.

A monster I was beginning to lose control
of
.

CHAPTER
17

Stunned
silence followed. You’d think I
’d be used to being chased by now, but I didn’t think I would ever become immune to near-death experiences.

Licking my lips and taking deep, slow breaths to try to calm my heart, I glanced around. The room was almost dark, except for the flashing neon glow coming from un
der the closed door on the far wall
.
Up here, the thrumming pulse of the bass was even more prominent, cranked up so much I could feel it in my legs. The air smelled of dust and alcohol, tickling my nose.

The cinder
block walls were lined with boxes and
costume racks. Props of castles,
fake swords, painted cardboard bushes
,
and plastic flowers lay strewn about
the room. It had to be some kind of playhouse, though I couldn’t tell which one from this room
. Pittsburgh had a lot of theat
e
r
companies and pl
ayhouses – up until the Eclipse, when
the government began ruling our lives with an iron hand. Entertainment pastimes such as a
rt galleries, plays, and movies
had al
l been done away with,
part of the
government’s way of keeping a head count
and making sure us civilians
stayed out of trouble. Usually this translated to “obeyed them at all times
.
”

Lost in my own thoughts, it didn’t even occur to me Leo was shaking until I noticed my own hands, locked in his, were also trembling. My eyes shot to his, narrowing with worry. “Hey, are you all right?”

I realized what a stupid question that was the moment it left my
mouth
. He had just watched his father die, and a
s a
monster on top of that. How could anyone be expected to be okay after that?

“He’s gone,” Leo muttered, staring despondently ahead, not even seeing me as I leaned in front of him. “Gone, just like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

I recognized that kind of shock. It was the same way I felt after my father died.

Gripping his shoulders, I ducked my head, finding his gaze. His eyes shifted, finally looking at me. The amount of pain and grief I saw in those baby browns of his was enough to break the most
stone-
cold
of
hearts.

“Leo,” I began, then paused to collect my thoughts. There was no easy way to say this. “I know you just lost your father, but you need to hold –”

Flashing blue and green light flooded the room as the door swung open
, and s
neakers squeaked against the
floor as someone walked inside.

Gritting my teeth against the obnoxiously loud bass, I ducked down beside Leo
, huddling against him as we hid in the shadows.

There were two of them, a boy and a girl, both looking about my age, maybe a little older. The guy pointed to a table with a black mesh-covered arm. With his spiky black hair, heavy smeared eyeliner, and spiked choker, he looked like he’d just come from a shopping spree at
a
Halloween outlet
.

“Pick that end up,” he said, slapping the girl on her
rear end
as she staggered by, cau
sing her to erupt into giggles.
After a few
attempts
, the girl picked up the table
and proceeded to stumble forward. The guy’s ankle rolled and he nearly went down. “
Jesus, Evie! Try not to run me over
.”

“Sorry, Tommy,” she slurred, grinning stupidly at him. Her eyes had begun to
take on that glazed over look.

His eyes slipped down to her cleavage, and that slippery smile reappeared on his face. I wanted to gag. “It’s okay, baby,” he said. His words were like nails on a chalkboard to me, making me cringe. “Just go a little easy, okay?”

“That’s not what you said in the bathroom earlier,” she said,
licking her lips before they spread into a grin.

“Classy. Nothing like romping around in a dirty bathroom stall to set the mood,” I muttered, and Leo shushed me.

Someone shouted at them from down the hall, and th
e guy rolled his eyes. “Come on. L
et’s get this out there before Jax has my head. We still need to find the cups somewhere in here.”

They shuffled out, leaving the door open. Taking Leo’s face in my hands, I gently tilted his head to the side. “How’s your neck?” I asked, squinting my eyes as I examined it.

Leo winced, his voice sounding dead when he rasped, “I’m fine.”

Part of his flesh looked like it had been through a meat grinder. “We need to clean and bandage
this, before infection sets in. Are you good to walk?”

“Guess I’ll have to be,” he said, standing. “Something tells me you won’t tak
e no
for an answer.”

“Nope
. Come on.” I took his hand and began leading him toward the door. “There has to be a bathroom around here somewhere.”

Ducking out of the room, I blinked several times and coughed at the chemical fog clouding the air. The smell was ten times worse out here in the open, a
nd it wasn’t just beer and dust
either. It was a whole mixture of things: marijuana, cigarettes, and a few other substances I couldn’t quite place but figured were illegal.

M
y temples th
robbed
along with the bone-shuddering drone of the bas
s, the scowl on my face deepening
as I realized there wasn’t a bathroom
in sight
, or at least, not a clearly labeled one. A few people roamed by, laughing hyste
rically or tripping along like
zombie
s
, completely
out of it, their alcohol-laced breaths leaving a trail in their wake.

The hell?
I thought as we walked
down the hall. T
he noise
grew
louder until I could make out the whoops and laughter of a crowd, barely audible over the fast-paced dance tune dominating the air. The borderline o
bnoxious melody echoed off the walls
, something sci-fi or techno sounding.

Leo shouted something behind me, but it was lost as we spilled into the main auditorium of the theater – and straight into a rave.

Neon lase
rs and strobe lights flashed in rhythmic pulses to the beat
, illuminating the gyrating crowd gathered on the stage in the center of the room
.
Plush red seats sat around the rectangular stage, covered with fake cobwebs – or maybe they were real, I couldn’t tell. A DJ’s station sat off to one corner
, where a girl with a full head of dreads
stood bobbing her head to the beat.

My confusion increased as my eyes roved over the
newly
se
tup table, where the two kids I’d
seen earlier lingere
d. Bowls of red punch labeled “human b
lood” sat on the table, surrounded by a fortress of plastic cups. Patrons – all clad in the same Gothic attire, I noticed – eagerly snapped up the cups and dipped them in the bowls, cheering one another as they knocked them back. A few hissed at each other, flashing white plastic vampire teeth.

I don’t think I even blinked; my brain somehow shut down at the stupidity of it all. The only thought in my head was WTF?

Being in the Black Cross Guild, I had heard of these parties. There was a certain type of crowd that was actually
excited
about the vampire apocalypse, going so far as to dress up as the famous undead and pretend to be vamp
ires for a night of
reckless abandon. In a way, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to live it up one last time. Whe
n the likeli
hood of dying the next day was high, it kind of made me want to get drunk too.

Leo surveyed the crowd with a look of grow
ing annoyance. I swallowed and clenched his hand tighter. My eyes caught on a cardboard sign hanging above a shadowy hall across the room; the word “PISSER” had been spray-painted across it.

“There,” I shouted, pointing.

Leo’s eyes followed my finger
and he nodded. We set off around the stage, careful to avoid bumping into anyone. The noise made me nervous, urging me along. In addition to the Black Cross Guild frowning upon these parties, th
e Scarlet Guard was dead
serious about
busting
them. Rew
ards ran high for reporting a “blood b
ath,” and they went to great lengths to try to bust as many as they could in an effort to discourage any positive feelings toward vamps. Having one at a theater – the Pittsburgh Playhouse, I thought, judging from the studio room layout – was incredibly stupid, in my book. It was way too exposed, and the damn music was much too loud for my growing headache.

Gritting my teeth, we rounded the corner of the stage, and a flash of pink caught my eye. My gaze snapped around, landing on the red and pink tinged bangs of a familiar Asian girl.