Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (17 page)

Cyrus’s footsteps echoed mine. “Malcolm?” I whispered. I
don’t know what compelled me to stay quiet, but yelling in the small space
seemed unwise somehow. No one answered of course. But it didn’t matter to me.
It wasn’t Malcolm I was really concerned with. This was a venture for the
truth.

I turned the corner toward the open space I’d seen in my
dream. I hadn’t made it to the last step before Cyrus scooped me up and tossed
me like a doll to the floor upstairs the last time I tried these shenanigans.
No one stopped me now. Around the corner, I bounded.

“Are you shitting me?” I yelled into the empty space. “Where
are they?” I asked no one in particular. I wandered around, searching for signs
of textbook vampire shit.

“Where’s what?” Cyrus asked as if he had no clue as to what
I could possibly be talking about.

“Don’t bullshit me. You know what was down here just
yesterday.” He was quiet. “Coffins! There were coffins down here!”

“Why would there be coffins in the basement?” he asked as
though he hadn’t just told me vampires were a fact of life.

“Because I saw them in my…” I stopped and took a breath,
“…dream,” I finished halfheartedly.

“Dylan, I understand this is very difficult for you to take
in. You are one of a very few that are even minutely aware of the facts, and I
do not envy you for this. You must understand your ideas of vampires, or
vampire-like beings, have been created by the media and are likely not
accurate. There would not be coffins in this home. They are not needed.” He
chuckled lightly, “In fact, if you enter the home of a vampire and there is a
coffin, either someone has died or that person is not who they say they are.”

“Then why did you stop me yesterday? I tried to get down
here to verify my fucked-up delusion and you yanked me out. Why?”

“This is a private space and not for you to invade. At
least, that was the case then.” His voice was calm, annoyingly so. It was a
distraction to my frazzled mess of a demeanor that I’d allowed to take the
forefront.

“I’m part of the in crowd now, so I get to see empty
basements?” My foot caught something on the ground as I stomped toward him.

He didn’t speak as I inspected the thing that stopped my
movement. A round grate the size of a salad plate lay in the center of the
room. Dark streaks stained the concrete surrounding the hole. A drain. A drain
in the center of a stone basement. A stone basement in the House of Porte.

“Cyrus, why is there a drain in the floor?” I scuffed my
sneaker over the top of the stains. My head knew what I was looking at, but
wouldn’t really let it be truth. I looked up to find Cyrus staring at me like
he was shoving his thoughts into my head. “Cyrus, why is there a drain in the
floor?” I asked again, this time looking at him and not the hole.

“You know why, and any questions you have about it should
stay put in your head.”

“Cyrus,” I choked back frustrated tears, “tell me you can’t
answer my questions because you are not a part of whatever happens in this
basement.”
Tell me Tatum was not
something that happened in this basement.
I didn’t dare speak that aloud.

“House of Porte is under the authority of Marienne Poisson,
and therefore practices customs that are unlike those at House of Cailleadh.” I
stood very still as he recited this speech he’d likely rehearsed in one way or
another over the years.

His words were mechanical and reminded me of a dozens of
other ‘reasons’ he’d spewed at me for things vampire related. Everything he’d
said to me, that was not the God’s honest truth, was forced.

“Why do they have so much control over you?” I supposed I’d
say anything they wanted me to also if it meant my life. Eventually though, I’d
have to just let them kill me; it’d get so tedious. Unless of course, it wasn’t
death they were threatening.

The look on his face confirmed everything. He was so tired.
Not like me, like he’d been awake for a full day; like he’d grown tired of the
façade and was ready for death, or whatever came after his lonely existence.
Maybe that was my fault for being too damn cool for school.

My little legs cleared the space between us in just a few
quick steps. “
When
we get home, you
and I will have words.” My tone was flat, neither threatening nor soothing just
matter of fact.

Knowing his silence was forced, changed the game. I’d always
assumed he chose to be cryptic, or he was such a lapdog he did whatever he was
told. See what I meant about assumptions?

“How are we liking my office?” Marienne spoke from the
bottom step, causing me to piss myself a little.

“Remind me to get the number for your decorator.” I shoved
past Cyrus and B-lined for the bitch in question. “I don’t give a shit who you
think you are. You’d better pray to whatever fucked-up vampire god you have,
that Tatum is alive when I find her.”

“Or what? Your detective will arrest me?” She laughed a
smooth haughty laugh in my face.

I stepped closer, pressing my chest against hers. For once,
I got the chance to look eye to eye with my target. “You’ll be
begging
for the law when I’m through
with you.” A memory of my body covered with blood, hooker and vampire boy, hit
me. I smiled. “I have nothing to lose but my humanity.” I let my shoulder slam
into hers when I passed her and headed back upstairs.

She didn’t follow and that was fine with me because I had no
intention of sticking around for girl time. I’d exhausted my badass and needed
a break from danger to let it recharge. “Mike,” I called to him from the base
of the big-ass staircase. “Let’s roll.” I tried to stay as calm and as Arthur
Fonzerelli
cool as I could. ‘
Ey
.

He didn’t budge. His back to me, he stood in the place I’d
left him. “Mike, come on.” Nothing.
Shit
.

Reluctantly, I stopped at the door and turned to fetch the
boy. “Mike, come on, we’re leaving. We’ll figure this shit out on our own.” I
put my hand on his arm and was forced to walk around to face him when he didn’t
move. His face was slack and drawn like he’d seen a ghost, then gotten drunk
with it. “Dude, hello?” I waved my hand in front of his face.

He looked down at me and smiled. “You know, I really didn’t
believe.” A long line of blood streaked down his neck and soaked into his
collar.

I grabbed his chin and moved his head to better see his
injury. A thin slit in his skin bled slowly. “You fucking believe me now,
jackass?” I squeezed his chin between my fingers.

He smiled like a drunken frat boy and pulled me in closer to
him. “I love you,” he giggled.

“Yeah, cool. This is not the time for that sort of fuckery.
Get it together.” I shoved his face away with my fingers, grabbing him by the
hand to drag him out the door with me. “Cyrus! Let’s get the fuck gone!” I
yelled as I booked it toward the door.

He was at the door waiting by the time Mike and I made it
there. “We’ll figure something else out! Let’s go!” I yelled flying out the
door, Mike in tow.

Halfway down the walkway, Marienne’s voice echoed through
the night, “What a lucky girl you are, Dylan, darling. Two beautiful and
delicious men at your service.”

I couldn’t stop myself; she’d hit a nerve. “You keep your
fucking fangs off those
men
or you’ll
end up in the fucking ground, you shit sucking cunt!”

“A pure soul that one has. Bon
appétite
!”
her laughter shook my eardrums.

I didn’t have time or energy to stay and fight with that
Frenchy
. I had an idiot blonde and her equally retarded
ginger boyfriend to hunt.

“Oh, Dylan,” she called after me. “If you’re looking for
McTavish, you might want to check Lafayette number one.” The doors slammed
before I could turn and look at her.

All of that crap for
her to yell his whereabouts at me from her doorstep?

“What the fuck is Lafayette number one?”

“A place we will be walking to.” Cyrus stood at the curb
where our car had been waiting.

“Malcolm didn’t tell you where he’d be?” I asked, finally
beginning to understand the weight of what was surely about to go down.

“Yes. Here.” He took off walking down the residential
street. “He has not answered my calls since we landed.”

He answered my question before I could even ask it. It was
the most logical approach at this point. Blood drunk, Mike smiled like an idiot
behind me as he shuffled along. “What’s wrong with this one?” I asked, pointing
up at him.

“It happens. He’ll be fine,” Cyrus assured indifferently.

Thanks, that
explains everything
. “Come on.” I pulled at
Mike’s hand and sped up to catch Cyrus.

“Where are we going?” I followed behind him, either way.
Where the hell else would I go?

“To find Malcolm.”

“And this is how we find him? Wandering New Orleans in the
middle of the night?”

“No. We find Malcolm by starting with the only lead we have,
Lafayette number one.”

“I’m glad you know what the fuck you’re doing.”

“I don’t. Google does.”

“Lafayette Cemetery number one.” An electronic voice came
over the speaker of his phone. “One mile, six-hundred feet. Turn left in twenty
feet.”

“A vampire is in a cemetery looking for his non-vampire
girlfriend, who went missing a few hours ago? Did we end up on the WB and no
one told me about it?” I felt like I was trapped in a shitty horror movie and
no one knew their lines.

“What is the WB?” he asked like it was a foreign language.

“Never mind,” I sighed.

“Hey, guys, where are we going?” Mike asked as if he’d just
joined our regularly scheduled programming already in progress.

“Jesus,” I groaned and shook my head. My tolerance for life
was waning with every stupid comment and bullshit filled event.

“Turn right in twenty feet and your destination will be on
your left.” The machine declared, echoing in the still night air.

The full moon cast light and shadow along a seemingly
never-ending white brick wall that lined the street behind overgrown trees.
Beyond that ivy-covered wall was Lafayette cemetery.

Fuck. I have to
poop.

Chapter Twelve

Overgrowth of plant life covered the white brick that
surrounded the old cemetery. A ‘No Trespassing’ sign brought modern times to
the obviously well used graveyard. A narrow break in the vines showcased an
entrance fifty-feet or so ahead.

It being the middle of the night, chains and a thick lock
held the wrought iron gates closed. I eyed the pointed tops and decided right
then and there that whatever I was looking for would have to come out to play,
because there was no way in hell my ass was scurrying over those spikes.

A clank and a grunt echoed off the small shops and two-story
houses across the street from the aging cemetery. Cyrus leaned against one half
of the gate, allowing the chain to stretch and create an opening large enough
for us all to crawl through. Not caring how he’d done it, I asked no questions
and proceeded through the space.

Tall concrete and stone grave markers jutted up from the
mossy dirt and filled the landscape. No light, other than the moon, reached
beyond those first few rows of headstones. Any other day of the week, I’d be
excited to check out the old cemetery, not many of these in L.A. In fact, it
was rare even to see a standing headstone; let alone full-on crypts.

“So cool,” I said under my breath.

“We can sightsee it another day,” Mike snapped at me. He’d
recovered from his daze and wasn’t very happy about being dinner for a vampire.
I wondered if he tasted like pork.

Tough shit, he should’ve listened to me.

“Where do we start?” I asked.

Cyrus dialed a number on his phone and held it away from his
ear while it rang. It took me a second to catch on, but once I was on the same
page, it didn’t take long for my ears to get in tune with the plan.

We were all very quiet as we listened for Malcolm’s phone,
hopefully, to alert us of his whereabouts. Or, maybe he’d just answer the
fucking thing. Cyrus dialed and waited three times as we moved silently through
the rows of tombs and crypts, before I caught the faint sound of a jingle.

Not wanting to lose the scent, or sound, whatever, I ditched
the Bozos and moved on my own toward it. They’d follow. Hopefully. I made my
feet touch the ground softly with each step. The jingle grew louder and I knew
it was a phone ringing. A few more steps, and it sounded like I should have
been standing in front of Malcolm and his shitty, generic ringtone. But there
was nothing. Just a muffled ringing. I pressed my ear to the backside of a
crypt. Of course, I heard nothing through the thick concrete walls.

Where in the fuck…I put my hands on my hips and tapped my
foot. As I did, the noise grew louder and softer and louder and softer. My
heart skipped. The ringing stopped. I kicked at the dirt and revealed a tiny
blinking light. Using the toe of my sneaker, I scooted dirt away to find the
source of the blinking. Buried under a thin layer of dirt was a phone.

Fuck me.

Dusting off the caked on dirt, I woke up the screen with the
little button on the side. Eight missed calls, it read. Cyrus
Atossa’s
name listed in the missed calls let me know I
hadn’t just coincidentally found some random person’s lost phone. If that
asshole was here, he lost his phone and didn’t bother to come back for it. That
is in no way a good sign for the three of us occult halfwits.

“You guys,” I said, still investigating the phone. “I think
we’re fucked.”

A cliché
thunk
echoed through the intimidating mausoleums that filled
the graveyard. A grunt followed and the textbook thud of a body fell to the
mostly dirt ground. I turned in time to see Mike’s body on the ground in a heap
and Cyrus quickly become an unlucky Whack-a-Mole. A freakishly tall skeleton of
man stood over the two, a shiny black leather paddle held tight in his hand. My
heroes. Marienne’s alien henchman had plonked them both over the noggin and
knocked them out cold.

Holy sweet sesame
seed cocks.

An inhumanly quick glance around the dark cemetery told me
we were alone. I didn’t trust that for a second, but it was all I had. A sick
grin spread over his long face. His translucent ghostly skin practically glowed
in the moonlight, illuminating an eerie hue of blue luminescence like a
textbook ghost. The irony was not lost on me.

His grin slipped into a sneer and stayed there. Long fingers
flipped and twisted the paddle like an old-fashioned gunslinger.

He was almost hard to look at. Grotesque, nearly emaciated,
the highlights and shadows of his bones under the thin skin stretched over
them, made him all the more terrifying. I couldn’t out run him. His long legs
could catch me in just a few strides. I didn’t have a weapon; the two sleeping
lumps were it. What was a girl to do?

Our standoff was over as quickly as it had begun. Just as
I’d assumed, he made it from the boys to me in two strides, and so quickly, I
didn’t have a chance to react. Adrenaline spun me around away from him.
Malcolm’s phone slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground. My legs only
stumbled and stammered, and didn’t really go anywhere in the end.

Skinny, alien arms wrapped around my waist. I felt his
muscles tighten, flex and struggle to manhandle me as he’d obviously, and
horribly incorrectly, assumed he could. A few seconds of this downright comical
struggle, and I became confident his skinny ass could never heft my big fat
butt anywhere if I didn’t want him to. So much for inhuman vampiric strength;
it, looked like Cyrus was right about something.

He pulled and tugged. I resisted and tried not to laugh. I
was stopped in my tracks, but so was he. It was a battle of wills and mine was
winning. Searching my ass-kicking database, I leaned forward and stuck my butt
out and into his thighs, throwing off his center of gravity. Leaning over as
far and as fast as I could, I pulled the lanky man over my back. I’d seen this
move on TV more than once, and anticipated I was halfway to flipping his
scrawny ass over me and onto his back. I leaned farther and farther until I
thought I was supporting his full weight, but he didn’t budge. I took a second
to glance at his feet and realized I hadn’t even lifted him off the ground. His
legs were too long and mine too damn short.

Fuck
.

Jackie Chan movies aside, I had very little martial arts
training. Honestly, aside from whacking some heads off, I wasn’t much of a
fighter in the physical sense. That was more Tatum’s area of expertise. The
man’s full weight, seemingly on my shoulders, and I was thinking of that stupid
bitch. She’d left me just like Cyrus had, only she’d done it on purpose. She knew
what I was getting into and she let me walk right into the mouth of evil
without batting a fucking eye. She’d changed, became even more of a bitch than
she’d ever been. A year ago, she’d had traveled through hell and back to keep
me safe – kind of like hopping on a plane back to Satan’s asshole.

You’re a fucking
idiot, you stupid twat!

The man’s laughter echoed in my ears and reverberated off
the cement and stone that filled the cemetery. His mockery of me, and my fat
ass only fueled my adrenaline. Instead of trying to pull his long body over
mine, I utilized my weight in a much better manner. Without an ounce of
warning, I leaned my ass into his thighs and let myself fall. And fall I did.
Hard and fast. My chunky ass made contact with
Twiggy’s
crotch with a quite audible crunch. I secretly hoped I’d broken his man parts
into tiny little fleshy bits. I turtle-on-its-back-
ed
it off the skinny guy and left him groaning on a patch of cement.

Vampire or not, nuts are nuts, and they are not forgiving of
a fat ass coming down on them at warp speed. His groans filled the night as I
kicked my two boys still passed out cold in the dirt.

“Get the fuck up! Let’s get out of here!” I yelled as I
kicked them each in the ribs.

Emotional hell ride be damned. There was shit that needed
taking care of and I had no time to screw around with that dingle berry. Not to
mention the spark of confidence his thorough ass kicking provided my frazzled
nerves.

Twiggy alien guy struggled to get to his feet. Not wanting
another knock down drag out, I left the boys to tend to the guy now on his
hands and knees. Without a thought, I released a kick to his gut – up and out.
Though I imagined my foot exiting his body via his spinal
column,
that
really didn’t happen. But the inertia knocked him back on his face,
gasping for air.

He fell flat and choked out a few choice words. “You fat
fucking bitch,” he laughed. “Where will you go?”

I didn’t utter a syllable. My size nine Converse All Stars
stomped in the center of his back. He hadn’t expected it. Air shot from his
lungs, puffing dirt around his transparent face. My foot didn’t stop there. I
reared back and kicked him again. And again. Over and over until blood spurted
from his lips and trickled down his cheek.

“The question you should have asked is, ‘what will you
do
?’ Shit, I might have even answered
you.” I grabbed Malcolm’s phone from the dirt and left the bleeding man with a
snarl on my face.

Call me fat.
Asshole.

“Get your ass up,” I nudged both men with my
vampire-stompers and kept walking.

They had both been rousing from their relaxing slumber while
I was kicking the shit out of twig man. They’d be fine. Me on the other
hand…there was nothing a few prescriptions couldn’t fix.

I was halfway to the cemetery gate when I heard Cyrus and
Mike shuffling behind me. I could hear their clothes rustling almost louder
than their groaning.

“I don’t know what you two are bitching about. I’m the one
that did all the grunt work here. You got a knock on the head and a quick
reprieve from the gore. I’m one dead thing away from a straitjacket. It was
stupid to come here in the first place. Stupid to listen to one word that woman
had to say after what she did to Mike. Shit, there’s more here than we ever
expected I think, and we just stepped ass deep in it. Marienne is the Primus
around these parts. Did you really think she was going to let us get away with
this shit? Jesus, Cyrus, you should have known better. I’ve been in this vamp
gig for like two seconds and I know not to trust a damn soul. And, Mike,
excellent police work back there. Didn’t you attend an academy of some sort?
It’s a damn good thing I’m not the damsel in distress type; we’d all be
fucked,” I rambled on over my shoulder, not wanting to stop long enough to feel
the weight of the situation.

Their grunting and moaning was so loud they were going to
wake the damn dead. Something I was not about to deal with. “Guys, come on now,
are you really hurt that bad?” I slowed to turn around. “Do I need to take you
to the…” My breath caught in my throat. “Hospital,” I choked out.

Pale, naked, headless dead girls stumbled along behind me.
Mike and Cyrus were nowhere in sight.

Son of a butt
monkey.

Heart fluttering from my chest, I stumbled backward into a
large standing headstone. The cemetery gate was in sight, and barring any
unexpected supernatural speed from the
Not
Too Live Crew, I could outrun them and make it to civilization. The grunting
continued, from where I had no clue. Rotting stumps should be silent as far as
I was concerned.

Their white legs moved in a jerking, 8mm film sort of way.
Very student film. Each pair of hands bound by long strands of hair. Each girl
moved like the other. Each tied and beheaded like the other. Each sharing a
strikingly similar tattoo. A symbol tied even in death to their tormentor. Each
dead girl that followed me in the dark bore the mark of Azelie d’Entremonte.
I’d imagined them all victims – caught in a game of good versus evil – but I
was wrong. These girls didn’t need my help, these girls willingly participated,
and this was the consequence. No matter how heinous their fate, they made their
bed – I guess they got fucked in it. Now, I was left to sleep in the sticky
mess.

Planning to hightail it out of there, I righted myself
around the grave marking, and planted my feet, ready for a sprint to the gate.
I turned and ran as fast as I could. I didn’t think about it. I just ran. The
gate grew closer, freedom, no matter how temporary, seemed imminent.

I remembered the beast at my back the night I ran for my
life toward my apartment.
 
How I ran
faster than I ever had in my life that night. Who knew twenty-four hours later
I’d break my own record.

I reached the gate faster than I should have. If only my
high school P.E. coach could have seen it. Maybe he just needed to sic a few
zombies after me. I hit that gate at full speed, slamming into it with my full
body. The dead things followed behind, but their shambling bodies couldn’t keep
up. Blood pumped at full speed through my veins. I felt my heart beat in my ears
as I fumbled with the latch on the gate. I shook it and screamed when it only
clanked and jiggled in my grip.

 
“Fuck off!” I yelled
at the walking corpses. It’d worked once before, might as well stick with it.

Having no other choice, I ran. I stuck to the edges, no
other better place for another gate to be than along the perimeter. I came to a
corner; my legs were moving on their own too fast to catch it, I slammed into
the wall with my shoulder. Again, my grip failed me and Malcolm’s phone went
flying. I didn’t allow it to stop me. My legs pumped and pulled my body through
the night and toward safety. A small shack with a blue roof was just ahead and
beyond that, looked to be an exit. I ached, muscles burned. I wanted to stop,
to give up and let these limbs take a break. The gate, a smaller version of the
first, was locked tight. I stopped to jiggle and kick the thing, but in the
end, all I accomplished was a sore toe and noises that threatened to alert
unwanted assistance.