Devil Inside (58 page)

Harley took a deep breath.  “Is that normal?”  She felt like she was asking her mom for sex advice. 
Well, I guess this is what asking your mother for advice is like…

Nya shrugged.  “I’m willing to bet it’s more intense for you than other Nocte though.”

Harley sighed.  “I’m sure it is,” she shook her head.  “Let’s just get back to the hotel.”  Nya laughed and Levi shook his head and actually smiled a full smile.

              The next night Harley, Levi and Nya were searching the streets for Amber.  They wandered aimlessly near Sunset Blvd waiting to pick up on the signal of a Burner.  When they did they interrogated him or her hoping to gain more information about how to locate Cutter, the Rogue or Amber.  So far their encounters had proven to be fruitless.  Harley found it strange to be hunting in a group.  Since her first hunting with Cassandra and the few times she and Cas had hunted together, she had always prowled the night alone.  It was strange but comforting she realized watching Nya and Levi walking together in front of her.  Levi was as intense as always and Nya was her usual insane self and Harley couldn’t help but smile at her two closest Nocte friends.  There were more than friends—they were her family.  The feeling made her heart tighten in her chest.

             
Harley was startled out of her sentimentality by her phone vibrating.  She stopped walking to pull her cell from her pocket and Nya and Levi stopped with her.  The display showed that it was Cassandra calling.  Harley’s heart beat harder.  If Cassandra was calling her it most likely meant the Nocte had found something.

             
“Hello?” Harley answered the phone, breathlessly.  She immediately jerked the phone away from her ear.  What could only be the loud, rattling sound of Cassandra’s phone being dropped stabbed against Harley’s ear.  “Hello?” she repeated, placing the phone against her ear again.  She felt her blood turn cold and sharp spikes of anxiety shoot through her chest.  Harley listened to the cacophony of sound from the other end of the phone for several moments before she could make out what was happening.  Nya and Levi had moved closer to her and stood on either side of her, their heads leaning closer to hers to hear better.  She could feel the warm air of their breaths flutter across her chest.  They were alarmed as she was.

The sounds of chaos from Cassandra’s phone gave way to the sounds of fighting.  Harley could make out the sound of the Nocte fighting hard.  Sounds of pain and exertion traveled through the airwaves and kicked Harley’s alarm into panic.  She could feel her own Nocte go on high alert with her.  She looked at Nya and Levi and knew they were thinking the same thing.  The sounds of pain were unmistakably female, and Harley knew on an instinctual level that they were Cassandra’s.  Harley had sparred with the fierce Nocte multiple times and she knew personally what an incredible fighter she was.  Harley knew, without a doubt, Cassandra was fighting someone incredibly powerful if they were getting the best of her.

When Harley looked at Nya she saw that the general was already pulling her own phone from her pocket and searching the apps for the one she needed.  All Nocte phones were tracked through GPS.  Not because Nya didn’t trust them.  But for situations just like this.  It took only a moment for Nya to locate Cassandra.

“She’s in Santa Monica.  Thirteen miles south of us.”  Nya’s eyes were already dilating leaving barely any hazel visible at all.  The effect was eerie and sprung Harley into action.

Without another word the three of them turned and sprinted towards their truck that was still parked at the hotel.  Harley didn’t bother to hang up the phone.  Instead, she gripped it tightly as she ran.  She didn’t want to disconnect in case Cassandra was able to either retrieve the phone or shout to them…or…
Well, hell!  Who am I kidding?
Harley thought. 
I just don’t want to leave Cassandra.
  The open phone line seemed like a lifeline to her friend and she was unwilling to let it go.

Less than five minutes after Harley’s phone rang, the three of them were jumping into their SUV.  Nya drove and she threw her phone to Levi in the passenger seat.

“She still hasn’t moved,” he told them.  He was pulling his own phone out of his pocket and dialing someone.  “Can you hear anything else?” he asked Harley.

She held the phone to her ear again.  Her hand was slick with sweat and she was out of breath.  Something that she rarely experienced since becoming Nocte, and she knew it wasn’t from the mad dash to the truck.  “I just still hear fighting.”

The truck tires squealed as Nya floored it out of the parking lot.  Unfortunately, at this hour there was still a lot of traffic on the L. A. streets.  Nya darted in and out of lanes but was never able to pick up any real speed until they reached the I-10 where she floored it.

Levi was calling a second number, the first having apparently been unsuccessful.  Harley tried to focus on the sounds of the fighting.  She could still hear Cassandra fighting, but by the sounds Harley could make out, she still wasn’t winning the fight.

“Evie!”  Levi shouted into his phone.  “What’s happening?”  Harley was concentrating so hard on the sounds through her own phone that she couldn’t hear Evie’s response.

“Aren’t you with Cassandra?” he snapped.

Pause.

“Cassandra’s fighting with someone.  She called us but dropped the phone.  We are on our way there now.  Where are you?”

Pause.

“Well get there.  NOW” Levi growled Cassandra’s location and disconnected the call, slamming his phone into the console between the seats.

“What happened?” Nya asked.

Cassandra was supposed to be leading the group that included Evie and Rafe.  Harley, like Levi and Nya, had assumed they were all still together.

“They split up,” Levi spat.

“Why?” Nya asked, not taking her eyes off the road as she flew past a semi-truck.

“Apparently Cassandra got annoyed with Rafe and split the group.  She took the two local Nocte and Rafe and Evie went off on their own. 

Nya risked an outraged look at Levi before returning her attention to the road.

Sudden silence brought Harley’s attention back to her phone.  She leaned forward straining to hear what was happening.  She could just make out soft gurgling sounds that caught her breath in her throat.  She knew what that sound meant.

“Nya,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Hurry.”

How they managed to reach Santa Monica in 15 minutes without a cop noticing their NASCAR speeds, Harley will never know.  Nya followed Levi’s directions and they screeched to a stop in front of an adult book store that was dark and deceptively quiet.  Harley finally hung up the phone as the three of them leapt from the SUV

“Are you sure this is it?” she asked Levi.  But her question didn’t need to be answered as the wind carried the scent of blood to all three of them.  Harley’s Nocte had been mostly silent on the ride to Santa Monica, readying herself for the fight to come.  However, the sweet metallic scent of blood drew a low menacing growl from Harley’s throat.  Her stomach dropped and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she recognized some of the blood as belonging to a Nocte.

Silently, Nya lead the way into the bookstore.  Harley fell in step behind her.  She didn’t have to look back to know that Levi was bringing up the rear.  The world around them seemed to have stopped.  There were no other sounds besides their footsteps on the pavement, the rest of the street was eerily silent.  The mannequins in the window modeling studded leather seemed to watch them approach the store through eyeless faces.  The glass door, covered with posters and ads for adult entertainment of all kinds, was locked.  Cassandra and whoever she was fighting must not have come through the front.  It took no more effort from Nya than opening a refrigerator door to snap the lock and pull the door open.

The smell of blood was predictably stronger inside the store and it was easy to tell that it was coming from the storage area located behind a door at the back of the main storefront.  In addition to Nocte and human blood, Harley could also pick out another kind of blood.  The scent set something off inside her Nocte and creature roared against Harley’s insides.  Only by clenching her teeth tightly could Harley stop the roar from ripping its way out of her.  Whatever—whoever—Cassandra had been fighting had incited her Nocte to the point that Harley wasn’t sure she could contain her.  As it was, she could feel her eyes dilate to black and her breath was coming out in short, nostril flaring gasps.

The three Nocte followed the scent of blood through the racks of lingerie and videos towards the back.  The store was completely silent and some part of Harley knew that meant the fight was over.  That’s why she didn’t question Nya’s lack of hesitation at opening the storeroom door.  The implication of the silence were not lost on Harley.  Holding her Nocte back from complete fury was taking all of her strength.  Were Harley to let go and release the devil inside herself she could only imagine the frenzied rampage that would result.  She could feel the Nocte’s desire to bite her way through everyone she could find until she found the source of the unknown creature that had bled with Cassandra.

The shock of what they found inside the storeroom silenced Harley’s Nocte.   At first she thought the growling sounds were coming from her own throat, but slowly she realized they were coming from Nya to her right.  She couldn’t tear herself away from the sight in front of her but she could feel the rage and fury and despair flowing from the Nya and Levi both on either side of her.

Tied to the wall in front of them was Cassandra.  Her wrists were bound to structural beams by handcuffs most likely acquired from one of the supply boxes scattered around them.  The once fierce Nocte stared back at them with lifeless black eyes, having been drained of all her life force.  Her mouth hung open slightly and fresh blood still dripped from her bottom lip.  There was a gaping wound in her stomach that showed through her torn tee-shirt.  It was the burns to the side of Cassandra’s face that left no doubt as to how she died.  The burns were in the shape of hand prints.  Palm to cheek, fingers to temples and thumbs across the nose, creating a grotesque mask-like effect.

Cassandra could only have been dead for a few minutes.  She had been left posed for them to find.  The Rogue must have known they were on their way.  As it was, smoke was already beginning to seep from the wound in the Nocte’s stomach.  In a matter of minutes their friend, the warrior, would be reduced to ashes.  There would have been no point in posing her had the Rogue not known how quickly they would arrive.

Harley  was been frozen in shock, much like when she saw Jamie stabbed and killed in front of her.  Her insides like ice and Harley felt her fists clench hard enough to dig her nails into her palms.  The sharp pain broke the spell and she started forward towards Cassandra.  Her Nocte was still silent, coiled in barely contained rage. She couldn’t stand to see her friend hanging there in supplication any longer.  Cassandra was one of the strongest Noctes she had met and being left in this position was a disgrace to her memory.  Levi put a hand on her shoulder to stop her but she shrugged it off.

Harley could smell the burning growing stronger as she neared Cassandra but that didn’t stop her from snapping the handcuffs with her bare hands and lowering her friend to the floor.  She stepped away from the body as the flames that burned from the inside out grew in intensity.  She looked back to Nya and Levi.  Harley had never seen Nya so angry.  The fury and pain carved the woman’s dark face into stone and all the hazel was gone from her eyes now.  Levi’s fury was no less intense and Harley was sure that her own was equal to her companions.

The three of them held a silent vigil as their friend’s body was reduced to ash.  There was nothing any of them could say.  The spell was only broken when they heard someone else enter the store.  Harley knew right away it was not the Rogue. He was long gone and had been before they even arrived.  Moments after hearing her arrive, Evie stepped silently into the storeroom.  She had known what was waiting for her just as they had.  There was no surprise on her face, just her own sadness and rage.  Seconds later Rafe followed Evie into the small storage room.  His face was carefully neutral but Harley saw him swallow and his breath catch in his chest.

The sight of the arrogant Nocte broke the frozen stillness that had griped her since finding Cassandra’s body.  Cassandra had split the group because of some the Rafe had said or done.  In that moment Harley’s pain and rage exploded free, directly at Rafe.  She didn’t even remember crossing the room.  One moment she was standing over the ashes of her friend the next Nya, Levi and Evie were all holding her back from attacking Rafe.  His eyes widened in alarm, but he didn’t seem surprised or on the offensive.  Instead, a look of acceptance softened his normally haughty features.  Harley continued to fight the three Nocte holding her back.  She nearly broke free but it was Levi’s soothing words in her ear that finally calmed her enough to come back to reason.

“Look at him.  I hate him as much as you do right now.  But look at him.  He didn’t mean for this to happen.  He’s stupid, pathetic, arrogant and an absolute piece of shit.  But we need all the fighters we can get right now.”

Harley’s breathing was ragged and she could feel spittle flying from her mouth as she tried to focus on Levi’s words.  Slowly, her and her Nocte’s rage exhausted itself enough for Harley to recognize the sorrow that she saw on Rafe’s face.  In one final expression of her feelings she spat at him.  The spit landed on his neck and he didn’t even bother to wipe it away.