Catacombs Read online

  She was going to die, be ravaged. If what he’d done to her face was any example, it would be a painful and brutal end.

  Sticky crimson ran down her chin, over her neck, staining her clothes. Trying to keep her jaw together despite torn tendons and shredded skin, she failed at speech. Useless lolling tongue only smeared gore from ear to ear, mixed it with her tears.

  Tearing the fabric, her coat was yanked down skinny arms, the girl left in only the supper club’s flashy uniform and torn stockings. And that was how they made her walk down the dark, littered alley where she expected they would murder her and leave her to rot.

  It was not a good place to die.

  Hair in the grip of the one who’d torn out her teeth, head bent back, she saw one last view of the stars.

  The man began to chant.

  Groaning in protest of the unnatural bend of her spine engorged a bubble of blood on her cheek. It popped, her bones cracked in symphony with her captor’s guttural pronunciations, and the world lurched.

  Vision distorted, walls leaning toward her as if ready to crumble and crush her to dust, Pearl watched the awful world twist in upon her and turn her inside out.

  This must be death.

  A moment later, it was over.

  The grim reaper had not come. Her heart still banged against her chest, her blood still poured from her ruined mouth, and pain only grew.

  They were no longer standing in the snow, hidden between tight row houses. Now, uneven, time-worn masonry was under her feet, her scream echoing off an arched stone roof, with not a speck of sky to be seen.

  The cry died, and all around them the sound of softly traded conversation, the noise of footfalls echoing as if they stood in a great cathedral replaced it.

  A church?

  But there were no crosses or priests, only a congregation of strangers watching as she was dragged deeper into the sanctum.

  Maybe she had died and this was how she was to be judged, bleeding and broken before heaven’s shining hosts.

  As she was dragged forward, she caught a glimpse of the quiet crowd watching her advance. She found the gazes of curious strangers.

  She disgusted them. Some even sniffed her way, sneering.

  A sharp kick hit the back of her legs; knees knocked into stone so hard her teeth snapped and the pain in her jaw doubled. Hunched over, Pearl clutched her torn cheek, pathetic, scared, and completely confused.

  The angel who’d torn out her teeth and ripped open her face shouted so all might hear, “This apostate is responsible for abandoning the remains of Chadwick Parker where humans would find them. I have brought it before you, my lord, as you ordered.” He threw her stolen coat on the ground before them. “And here is the proof. The dead human’s blood is matted into her coat.”

  Tightening his fingers until her scalp burned, the man jerked her head back so all might look upon her ruined face.

  The men and women gathered around whispered excitedly, but Pearl saw none of it, heard nothing. From the moment her head had been flung back, her eyes were fixed in horror, glued to the thing that waited at the head of the room.

  This was not heaven and she was not to be judged by God…

  It was dim, the chamber lit only with gas lamps instead of the popular electric bulb, but she saw the visage of the fallen one. Light flickered, drawing the pits and edges of its face into stark relief. More hideous than any imagined devil, it spoke, glowing red eyes engaged upon the man who held her down. “Ten days it took you to find the one responsible, and all you have to show me is one unremarkable, toothless female.”

  Towering over her, her captor answered his liege. “Weak as it is, it obviously has not fed in days. My lord, it thought to hide from your authority. Once it emerged, the apostate was captured easily, defanged with minimal effort. Its teeth I offer to you.”

  Like the shabby coat, the bloodied pair of elongated incisors were tossed to bounce like dice toward the feet of the monstrosity.

  The gift was ignored.

  The devil turned his eyes to her instead. The power of that burning red gaze traveled like a living thing to settle on her bloodied face.

  It stared through her, unmoving where it rotted in its seat. Rope-like muscle encased prominent bones—as if the creature’s flesh had wilted in the grave. Grotesque as it was, its form remained massive.

  It wanted to see the whole of her face, demanded that she lower her hand—Pearl could hear him whispering into her mind, urging absolute obedience. There was no possible question of resisting. Weak, her fingers slipped from where she’d relentlessly tried to hold her jaw together, the damage on display for all to see.

  Her captor had called her toothless; Pearl grasped the slander was meant to shame. It did. She was almost as hideous as the demon.

  Incapable of forming words, incapable of screaming, she could not move, not a muscle, when an arm stretched impossibly far across the room. Boney fingers slid over the ruined side of her face. He probed, snagging her bloody lip to prod the empty sockets and the bits of exposed bone between torn gums.

  Her throbbing, horrible pain faded into nothing.

  An unexpected caress of the devil’s thumb wiped away her steady trail of tears, the long yellowed nail at the end careful not to scratch.

  Just as the pain had vanished, her fear began to drain away until she was empty of all things.

  Red, scorching eyes were all she might fathom, her end and her beginning. Nothing else mattered; nothing existed but that rotting devil and her.

  A flicker of satisfaction and his interrogation began. “Child?”

  The mummified monstrosity cupped her jaw, holding it in place to facilitate her speech. Tongue thick, Pearl found herself answering without hesitation. “Yes?”

  Raspy and horrid, his voice slithered through her ears. “Did you slay the human, Chadwick Parker, and leave his body on the street?”

  She blinked once. More tears fell from red-rimmed eyes, her voice vacant. “He was hurting me. It was the only way to make him stop.”

  The unblinking monster projected his pleasure, looking upon her as if beholding something truly worth devouring. “Tell me what happened.”

  Still as stone, legs awkward under her, Pearl found herself leaning into the corpse-like touch. “It was dark. I didn’t want to talk to him.”

  “And?”

  “He forced me down, tore up my skirt so fast he was inside me before I could scream.” No one would have come even had they heard her cry for help. People didn’t go down dark alleys in search of damsels in distress.

  Humans ignored screams in the night.

  The demon answered her unspoken thoughts. “Because they are nothing but animals.”

  “It hurt.”

  There was no change in the fierce expression of the creature who commanded the room, only more demands. “Why leave the body?”

  What had the devil expected her to do with it? “I had to crawl away before anyone saw.”

  “And in doing so broke a crucial law.” If such a thing were possible, he seemed even more immense, her immediate world nothing but withered lips and glowing eyes full of fire. “Like any vassal under my rule, you must be punished.”

  Her words came jumbled, as if from a drunken mouth. “I’m scared.”

  The beast almost seemed to smile. “An apostate should be scared. You’ll be lucky to survive what’s coming.”

  “I don’t understand.” Pearl blinked, a twin trail of tears escaping dazed eyes.

  “You entered my city without permission, hid from my authority, and thought to hunt here, leaving a mess humans identified correctly. Is that clear enough for you?”

  No. Even with her mind filled by the will of something powerful, Pearl disputed what the monstrosity had said. “Vampires are not real. I’m deformed. I’m sick. If I am faithful, God will have mercy on me.”

  The monster chuckled, then seemed to catch something in her thoughts that stopped his mirth. “You believe such ridiculousness to b
e true.”

  Sniffing, feeling her mind mush as the monster dug deeper, Pearl wept. “I want to go home.”

  Utter silence grew between them. Glowing eyes burned, the creature’s concentration palpable. It clawed its way through her head, scraping through memory, picking apart what she was.

  It startled.

  At length, words came from the demon's mouth. “You have brought me a daywalker. It doesn’t know what it is.”

  A ripple moved around her, strange enough to fractionally distract the girl kneeling on the flagstones. Incessant buzzing murmurs grew, daywalker whispered again and again.

  “This one is to serve her sentence in solitary confinement.” An announcement came from the throne, the room silenced by their rotting lord. “See that she is fed, Malcolm, and seal the door. Brick it shut.”

  The dreamlike quality that had invaded Pearl’s senses came to an abrupt end. When the gnarled hand of the monster receded, her pain roared back to life. Scooped into the crushing arms of the stone-faced angel who offered no pity, she was carried away from the mob and deep into the dark underground.

  Chapter Four

  Anchored to the floor by spilt wax, the flicker of a single candle offered the damp crypt’s solitary illumination.

  Pressed against the opposite wall, another sorry soul shared Pearl’s gloom—a man, cowering and crying, whom Malcolm had shoved into the cell shortly before he’d locked her away. Together, they both listened to the splat and bang of brick piled up on the other side of the room’s only exit.

  Their eyes met over that candle, both aware this was their end.

  A moldering cot under her, Pearl rocked, arms tight around her knees, as if the pain of her cheek and gums might be soothed by such movement.

  Nothing helped.

  She was in agony.

  “Please... don’t hurt me.” Like a cornered animal, the man—and unlike the other things she’d seen upstairs, he was a man—stared at her with wide, bloodshot eyes.

  He was petrified.

  Pearl could hear his heart, the thrum of his blood loud, but she paid him no mind, too wrapped up in her own misery to care.

  The panicked stranger watched, bracing, as if she were going to leap up to devour him. “It wasn’t my fault... I told them it wasn’t my fault. I don’t want to die.”

  Head throbbing, she snapped, words lisped by slack, swollen lips, “No one wants to die. It doesn’t change the fact that everyone does.”

  He sputtered out a list of excuses as if she might exonerate him of whatever crime landed him in the same room as her. “The boy. Yes, I took him... but I didn’t mean to kill him. I don’t belong here, dame. You gotta believe me. I do not deserve this!”

  Pearl wanted silence. “The thing upstairs would disagree.”

  The fretting human was so much larger than her, but he cowered as if a slurring, toothless girl was the greatest threat in existence. “Please don’t eat me. I want to go home...”

  “Eat you?” She scoffed. The taste of men was foul and this one smelled especially vile. “I am not going to eat you. Find your way out. Go home for all I care.”

  He took her word to heart, and like a fool, tried to pry open the door. “It won’t budge.”

  Nor would it.

  It was bricked shut.

  Unless he was set free in a few days, the male would die from lack of water and food. Then she would have his corpse for company and the sweet smelling rot that putrefied the dead. And it would grow quiet—fitting that they’d shoved her into an old tomb.

  Pearl had to admit, the candle was an interesting touch... one last moment of light soon to snuff out. The stone walls held no windows, only the notched shelves of a coffin-less crypt, the cot, and the dirt.

  When she’d first been dragged into this horrible place, before her interview with the devil, the stone structure looked like a church. Now she was certain it had been before being desecrated. It was the feel to the place: ungodliness, desperation. Bad things had happened in these halls over various, sundry years. How many other old tombs held prisoners bricked away to rot? How many of them had one final candle?

  Pearl considered burning her clothing to extend the light, but it seemed pointless. Dark would intercede soon enough, and she’d rather be warm—as warm as one can be in a freezing box—than hold onto false hope.

  Knees under her chin, she watched the flame spark on the last fragment of wick, until it was only an ember. The tang of smoke in the air, the space grew stygian. Eyes open or closed, it made no difference. There was nothing to see.

  But there was something to fear.

  Now that all the light had been snuffed out, she could feel it watching from the dark.

  Before having her cast down into this pit, it had looked at her, the feel of its cold hands had caressed her face. She could see the glowing red eyes, the devil peering at her from the lightless abyss. And then he was there, growing from the shadows, seeping up from the floor as if pulling darkness into the form of his desire.

  Screwing her eyes shut, Pearl buried her face against her knees.

  Standing over her, towering and projecting agitation, the demon hissed, “You were ordered to be fed. Why is this human still living?”

  The human started screaming.

  Pearl shrieked herself when a cold touch landed on her stinging scalp. “I can’t!”

  The caress of talon tipped fingers tripped over her skull. The feel of wind moved through her hair, the creature’s nails teasing a lock of blood-matted sable. “Have you not learned how to bleed them without using your teeth? It is not difficult to open a vein.”

  Why was it touching her, lightly following the shell of her ear with a claw?

  Petrified, Pearl tried not to breathe, not to move. Still the red-eyed monster explored, dipping his yellowed fingernail lower to explore the curve of her throat before pulling away.

  Moments later, across the room there was a wet, squelched squeal from the human.

  His screaming stopped.

  “There, I have done it. His throat is open. Drink.”

  Pearl refused to budge.

  Another threat was issued. “Do you wish me to force you, child? Obey me at once.”

  Her disgust was obvious.

  “So be it.” The thing took her by the hair, tilting her head back. Something hot and wet dripped on her cheeks. Papery lips fell on hers, the devil’s mouth opening so coppery fluid might pour from him to her.

  Gagging, Pearl tried to push him off. It was no use. He was going to drown her if she didn’t swallow. Obeying, blood went down her throat like acid all the way to her belly. The instant the demon pulled away, she retched, every last drop spit up on her lap.

  “I see...”

  It drew away, Pearl curling into a sobbing ball on the cot.

  She didn’t need to see him to know what the red-eyed monster was doing. Sounds of slurping, of human pain, mixed together until the dying man’s stuttering heartbeat told the story.

  When it was done, a corpse thudded against the floor, and once again it slithered closer. “Shall I offer a female? Can you drink from them?”

  In sharp jerks, Pearl shook her head.

  A smile altered the monster’s growl. “What of children, babies... do they not tempt you?”

  She was going to throw up again. “God, help me.”

  Again he dared to lay his hand atop her head, to finger the spot where chunks of hair had been ripped out by his minion. A laugh layered the devil’s offer. “And what of me, do I entice your attention?”

  Pearl vehemently refused, shrinking from the feel of unyielding arms slowly encircling her shoulders. The cot creaked, the weight of the demon settling close enough those glowing red eyes hovered inches from her face.

  When instinct moved her to struggle, to kick and scream as if she stood even a chance of forcing the vile thing from her, the devil seeped into her mind. He manipulated her just as he’d done when she’d been dumped before his throne—slipping b
ehind her barrier of fear—taking it away until his prey lay still and calm.

  He had her quiet. He had her controlled. “Tell me your name in this life.”

  Torn lips parted. “...Pearl.”

  “And you find me so repulsive, Pearl?” The creature did not require a reply. Instead he offered a lesson. “I offered you dark, so you might not gaze upon what you openly recoiled from at first sight, and still you cower. I offered you food, the comfort of my presence, a gentle touch... yet still you dare to refuse my attention”—the red-eyed demon let that horrid gaze go to her ruined mouth—“my Pearl.”

  Powerless, she unfolded when his body shifted against her, bowing back at the feel of a light grip about her throat. Unable to see beyond the glow of his eyes, she could only feel—the chill of him, the whisper of his breath on her face.

  Pinned to the mattress, Pearl lay listless while his fingers both crept and cradled. He moved her at will, laying her head to the crook of his shoulder, her legs entangled in the tattered fabric of his rotting garments.

  “So lovely...” He was more enraptured than she, fingertips ghosting over the arch of her brow, teasing the fringe of her lashes.

  The icy touch receded, but not before the tatters of her jaw were made to part.

  There was a crunch, a sound similar to the snaps of splitting wood, and the thing began to bleed. Having rent its own tongue straight down the middle, it laved it against the roof of Pearl’s mouth, over her teeth, until the sweetest flavor she had ever tasted began to trickle down her throat.

  Blackberry cordial. Melted ice cream. It was like sipping moonlight laced with wine.

  Sluggishly, thick blood flowed, the forked tongue of her tormentor toying with hers. She found herself keening, pants of trapped air puffing from her nostrils as she succumbed to hunger and drank. Sucking his tongue, frustrated when the source of nourishment healed before she’d had her fill, she tried to bite.

  Her teeth could not keep his flesh open no matter how she gnawed.

  Without her fangs, she could do little more than inspire a rumbling chuckle in the demon’s chest.