Old Flames, Burned Hands Read online

  Gil watched her pace back and forth but said nothing.

  “Am I wrong?” She stopped pacing. “Have you ever killed someone?”

  “Yes. Three. I’ve killed three people.”

  “Three? In all this time, just three?”

  “I learned how to take only what I need without killing anymore,” he said.

  “How can you do that?” Tilda shivered, eyes hateful. “How can you live with yourself?”

  “Don’t judge me.” Gil rose to his feet, his face darkening. “Live through this and then you can judge me. Not a moment sooner.”

  A muffled honking sounded from the street below, filling the silence in the room. Gil crossed to the window and looked down. Then he laughed. “I tried to kill myself once. More than once. Couldn’t do it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I sat on a rooftop and waited for the sun to come up. But I choked at the moment of truth and ran when it started to burn. Life, even one as monstrous as this, is better than no life at all.”

  She chewed her lip. “Would you have died from that? Sunlight?”

  “Yeah. Like a bonfire. It’s a gruesome way to go.”

  “As bad as being eaten by a vampire.”

  “Don’t get nasty, Tilda. I didn’t ask for this.”

  “No,” she said coldly. “You just go along with it.”

  “What do you suggest I do? Call the police? Try to stop them?” Gil leaned his brow against the pane glass. “I thought about destroying them once. I had a plan to burn them in their nest while they slept. I even had a couple barrels of kerosene set in place to do it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I think they knew what I was up to. They started moving around. They’ve got nests all over the city. But the main one is under the university campus. Remember the steam tunnel in the boiler room? There’s a whole labyrinth of steam tunnels under U of T but underneath those is a network of older tunnels, all connecting to a central vault under Knox College. That’s the main nest, the oldest one. I had snuck down a few kegs of kerosene, thinking I could rig up a trap.”

  “Why didn’t you go through with it?”

  “They broke up into smaller cells in different places every night, instead of the one central nest. My plan was a one-shot deal. I had to get them all in one go. If any of them survived, they’d hunt me down. God knows what else they’d do.”

  Tilda slid down to the floor and hugged her knees. “This is a nightmare.”

  “Yes it is.”

  He studied her for a moment but, with her hair cascading over her face, he couldn’t tell if she was crying. He crossed the floor to her. “I’m sorry I completely fucked up your life like this, Tilda. I should have stayed away.”

  “Don’t say that.” She clutched his hand. “I just don’t know what to do right now.”

  “Stay with me,” he said. “You’ll be safe here.”

  He drew her close and Tilda let herself be held. “I’m so tired, Gil. I can’t think anymore.”

  “Then close your eyes.”

  She felt his arms curl under her and he lifted her up and carried her to the bed. She nestled back into his chest and he coiled around her like a cocoon. A faint flush of longing as her body reacted to his but they lay still and after a while, she drifted off.

  SHE stirred and reached out for him but the bed was empty. Sitting up, she scanned the room. Nothing moved.

  “Gil?”

  Stale humid air. Nada mas. Where did he go?

  She slid off the bed and waited for the dizziness to pass. The lantern was a small glow and the darkness of the room was disorienting. How long had she slept? She tiptoed to the couch for her bag but it wasn’t there.

  Then a noise. Odd and out of place.

  “Gil?”

  A scraping clatter cut the silence on her right. Nails on plasterboard. Then a hiss on her portside, like a snake in the dark.

  Tilda uttered his name again but she already knew it wasn’t him.

  That awful hissing. So vile and inhuman.

  The wraith floated up from the pitch, its pale flesh limned in the lantern light. Its maw gaped up and down like some prehistoric fish, ready to eat her. The other one reared up in her periphery, its claw slashing the still air.

  YELLOWED NAILS CUT INTO her arm, drawing blood. Tilda recoiled at its touch and scrambled away. The thing’s claw clicked as it snapped after her like a pincer. She dove behind a wobbly wooden shelf, rattling its contents to the floor. The thing shambled forward and she pushed the shelf over, toppling it onto the vampire.

  The second wraith slammed her to the floor, locking its cold grip around her throat. Up close, its face was even more repulsive. The lifeless eyes and blackened mouth. A sewer rot stench billowed from its maw into her face. A dark tongue prodded out between the sharp teeth like some perverse moray.

  Tilda convulsed and clawed at it, kicking out like she was on fire. The wraith pressed down with its weight, writhing on top of her and Tilda could feel her mind shut down at its horror. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. When she felt its black tongue on her cheek, instinct kicked in and she lashed out, driving her thumb into its eye with everything she had. It shrieked and she pushed harder. The eyeball popped like an egg and something wet spurted onto her palm. It jerked and coiled up, clutching its ruined eye.

  Tilda scuttled away in a panic, colliding into furniture but moving fast, putting distance between herself and that thing. She could hear it thrashing and shrieking behind her. Trying to orient herself in the room, she hazarded a guess where the door was and bolted. The other one sprang up to block her escape as if it had shot straight up out of the floor. Its jaw clicked as it snapped its teeth.

  She backpedalled searching for a weapon, anything to fight back with. There was nothing. The wraith sprang and she kicked at it violently but it kept coming. Its lamprey-like mouth gaped open and bit into her stomach, shaking savagely like a wolf on a lamb. She pounded it with her fists but the vampire was clamped fast like a leech and would not let go. Its teeth were sharp and its spittle stung like venom.

  She screamed Gil’s name.

  Gil was there, dropping out of darkness onto her attacker.

  Slamming a knee into its back, he yanked back the thing’s head but the teeth remained clamped. Gil dug his fingers into its mouth and pried the monster’s jaw open. When Tilda slipped free, he pried the mouth open wider and wider until the jawbone snapped off in his hand. Black blood gushed forth and the thing shrieked in torment with its jawbone flapping loose. Tilda twisted away to avoid the dark vomit of blood from the monster’s broken mouth. Gil was unrecognizable, the rage twisting his features into something demonic. The wraith flailed at them both with its ragged claws. Gil slammed the thing into the wall of aquariums in a catastrophe of broken glass. It flailed and flopped in the splintered shards.

  The other one came from behind. It slammed into Gil like a truck, propelling him into the shattered aquariums. It shoved his face into the broken glass again and again. Gil broncoed the thing from his back and spun about, his face hatched with bloodied lacerations. The vampire launched at him again, chomping at Gil’s face like a crazed dog.

  Tilda scrambled for something to bash the monster’s skull with when a trinkling of glass sounded on her left. The jawless one lurched at her, its face and limbs prickled with glass. Her groping hand found a metal candlestick and she broke it over the thing’s head. It stumbled drunkenly and fell to one knee.

  A cacophony of noise thundered around her as if a bull had been set loose in the room. She lost sight of Gil and the other wraith. Then an otherworldly shriek sounded from the dark. A window exploded, something dark sailed clean through the pane. When Gil appeared, his mouth and chin were foul with blood. His eyes on fire.

  The shard-encrusted wraith slashed clumsily at Tilda. Gil kicked it down then rifled a shelf and came back with a hatchet. He planted a boot on the thing’s head and swung at its neck with the short-handled axe. Two
powerful swings before the vertebrae snapped and the monster’s head rolled free. Its legs jerked and kicked as if trying to run away. Gil spat on the carcass and kicked the severed head across the room.

  Tilda stammered between racking breaths. “Where’s the other one?”

  “It got away,” he said. “Or most of it did.”

  He nodded at something on the floor. A pale forearm lay among the broken glass, chewed off at the elbow.

  HOW much horror can the mind endure before it snaps? A bloodied stump of an arm on the floor and a severed head booted across the room. Tilda felt the ground flip-flop under her. When the wound on her stomach flared hot and stinging, she doubled over and hit the floor.

  Kneeling over her, Gil saw the blood seeping wet through her shirt. He pulled away the material to find puncture wounds below the navel, leaking blood in a slow pump. He flattened his palm over the wound and felt the blood pumping hot through his fingers. Crossing the floor, he tore apart a shelf for the gauze hidden there. A roll of medical tape.

  Her eyes were white, the pupils rolled up. He smacked her cheek and called her name, barking at her to wake up.

  Nothing changed. He slapped the gauze over the bloodied gash and taped it into place. The smell of her blood tweaked his nose, the particulate iron and hemoglobin, her hormones. The saltiness of it. Tilda’s essence distilled down into a scent that made his mouth water and his heart beat faster. His erection immediate and aching. He wagged his head like a dog to shake it off, pushing down what was boiling up fast.

  He smacked her cheek and shook her hard until her pupils swung back into place and her eyelids fluttered as if dusted.

  Vertigo see-sawed the earth under her. Tilda clutched his arms, convinced she was dying.

  “Easy. I’m right here. I got you.”

  “Oh God this hurts.”

  “You got bit. Just relax.”

  Horror burned hot in her eyes. “It bit me? Oh Christ, Gil… ”

  “Don’t tense up like that. Be still. The wound’s bandaged, the bleeding’s stopped.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed through it. Her memory jolted and she recalled giving birth to Molly. Her midwife coaching her to just breathe through the pain. It hadn’t worked then either.

  “How bad is it?” She struggled to sit up, clawing back the gauze to see the wound.

  “Stop.” He pulled her hand away but the damage was done. The wound pumped fresh as the gauze peeled away.

  “Am I infected? Am I going to become one of those things?”

  “You have to die first before that happens. But you’re bleeding again.”

  “Jesus this hurts. Can’t you get it to stop?”

  “I don’t know how. Not the normal way.”

  “What’s the not-normal way?”

  He bit his lip in hesitation and then slid out from under her. “Lie back,” he said. Then he popped the button on her jeans and yanked the waistline down. Slid between her legs.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s something in my saliva. A coagulant. Lie still.”

  She laid her head against the floor and stared at the ceiling. Breathe, she reminded herself. And then she felt his lips on the wound, his tongue lapping at the fleshy spot below her navel. She lifted her head and saw his eyes roll over white.

  Tilda had a smell and Tilda had a taste. It was there in her sweat and on the back of her neck and the soft tissue of her thigh. But in her blood, both were amplified to an intoxicant that detonated his brain. He lapped her up, greedy for more and his erection ached and he shuddered as he came and laid his head against her belly with a low growl.

  Tilda exhaled a long sigh. The pain receded instantly, like a candle being snuffed. She reached down and ran her nails over his scalp, unsure of what had just happened. “It‘s gone.”

  He grunted, as if winded.

  “Gil…”

  “What is it?”

  “Did you just come?”

  “Yeah.” He looked up at her with a guilty smile. “Couldn‘t help myself.”

  She ran her fingers along his cheek. “That‘s weird.”

  “Yup. Does it bother you?”

  It should have but it didn‘t. All that mattered was that the wound didn‘t burn anymore and the weight of his skull felt good against her belly. Quiet bliss and then she felt his hand on her foot. His grip was too hard, the fingernails cutting into her skin.

  “Easy. You’re hurting my foot.”

  His head came up. “I’m not touching your foot.”

  They both looked down. The severed arm clutched her ankle, its fingers scuttling up her leg like a hermit crab. Tilda kicked it off in a panic and scrambled away. The severed limb thudded against a wall and she heard its nails clicking on the floor, scratching away in the dark.

  Her skin crawled. “That’s revolting. How can that thing move?”

  “The rest of it’s still alive.” Gil’s face instantly dropped, eyes bald with fear. “Oh shit. It got away.”

  Tilda didn’t follow but the fright in his eyes was contagious. “Will it come back?”

  “No. But it saw you here. It’ll tell the others.”

  The coven will know about her, she thought. And how Gil broke their law. “What will they do?”

  “They’ll kill us both.”

  “You have to hide,” she said. Another thought stopped her heart. “They don’t know who I am. They wouldn’t be able to find me. Will they?”

  His face clouded. “The one that was here knows your scent. He could track you down, lead the others to you.”

  A cold thought bit her marrow. “To the house? To Molly and Shane?”

  He had barely nodded and Tilda was on her feet, sprinting for the door.

  “Tilda, wait.”

  “No! Not if those things are going to the house. We have to stop them.”

  “I can’t fight them all, Tilda.”

  “Then we have to get Molly and Shane out of there. Hurry!”

  Tilda rabbited through the door, her heels pounding the steps two at a time.

  DUSK had painted the underbelly of the clouds pink, striking in its clarity against the outline of the streetscape. Night coming fast on its heels. Tilda hurried down the alley maze without looking back. Gil appeared alongside her and took her hand.

  Traffic was light for this time of day. Tilda scanned the street. “We need a cab,” she said but the only taxi in sight was occupied, its toplight switched off.

  “Forget the cab,” he said.

  Music blared out over the street, a heavy bass rattling the windows nearby. Its source was an electric blue Toyota Sirrocco, pristine and without a scratch. Two young men sat inside the idling vehicle, vacantly watching the street and making no attempt to hide the weed passing back and forth.

  Gil squeezed her hand and marched for the car. He yanked open the driver’s door, startling the young man behind the wheel. “I need your car.”

  “The fuck you doin’, asshole?” The orange-tanned driver sneered. “Don’t touch the fucking car.”

  Gil yanked the young man from the driver’s bucket like a blighted potato and threw him over the hood of the next car. The companion shot out, his sculpted eyebrows raised in shock, but his posturing wilted as he approached Gil. High as he was, he sensed that something was not right, that the pale man before him was not trouble to be messed with. He backed off, fanning his arms and cursing but it was all bark.

  “Get in,” Gil said to Tilda without taking his eyes from the two men.

  They climbed into the running vehicle and Gil pulled into traffic, clipping the bumper of the car parked in front.

  “Can you turn that shit off?” He nodded at the instrument panel, the rumble of the bass all but shirring the meat from their bones. Tilda stabbed the panel and killed the music.

  Gil stomped the accelerator and then clutched, geared up. “Shit. I haven’t been behind the wheel in years. Maybe you ought to drive.”

  “Just go.” Tilda turn
ed to peer out the rear window, expecting to see red flashing lights chasing them.

  The engine growled and the exhaust rumbled under them. When the traffic slowed, Gil swung out into the oncoming lane and forced his way through a red light. Tires screeched and horns bleeted as they bullied through the intersection. Tilda clutched the Jesus grip as he swerved past the crawling traffic, swiping the side-mirrors from a handful of parked cars. Maybe she should have driven after all.

  His driving was aggressive and erratic, leaving a cacophony of honking horns in their wake but it worked. They swung onto Neptune Avenue and Gil threw the car up onto the curb and cut the engine. Tilda ran for the house.

  The Pathfinder was parked out front but the house was dark. Her heart clenched as she bolted for the sidedoor. Were they too late?

  Don’t think that way. Just find them.

  She burst into the kitchen. Dark, the only light coming from a dim bulb under the hood fan. Fleetwood Mac was blaring throughout the house. The stereo that Shane had wrecked earlier remained broken on the kitchen floor, its cables splayed across the linoleum.

  “Molly!” Tilda shot down the hallway. “Shane!”

  The living room was dim, lit by a low wattage lamp. The figure in the armchair didn’t move. All Tilda could see of Shane were his legs sprawling out from the easy chair. Her heart pumped into her throat, fearing the worst. “Shane?”

  Shane didn’t look up as she stepped into his periphery. Slumped back, the easy chair facing the turntable and a tumbler in his hand. A bottle of Glenlivet sat on the table and a mess of vinyl records scattered at his feet. He swished the ice in the tumbler. “You forget something?”

  Her knees wobbled. “Where’s Molly?”

  “She didn’t want to be here.”

  Tilda dialled the big volume knob to zero. “Where is she?”

  “Spending the night at Zoe’s.” He would not look at her. “It’s funny. She’s more pissed off with me than you. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?”

  “Shane, listen to me. You have to leave. Go get Molly and go somewhere.”