Blood Cursed (18 page)

I tried again, a coquettish smile, hooking one claw into my hair. “I’m a friend of Famine’s, y’know. Special like. You looking for some company—Ugh!”

He gripped the soft inside of my thigh with a thick green hand, too hard, way too close to my crotch for comfort. He growled low, tusks gleaming. “Sure, honey. You’ve got a beautiful big mouth. Wanna swallow my cock?”

His fingers bruised me, and I wanted to roll my eyes. Great. A rude one. I’d heard worse, but this would never do for my image. I tried to laugh, but his claws ripped my skin, crawling upward to where it was tender.

My skin wriggled like wet caterpillars. Eww. If he touched me there, I’d punch his lights out. “Know what? I changed my mind. Get your lousy hands offa me, asshole.”

He yanked my leg, pulling me onto my back with my knee crooked around his shoulder, and ripped my pistol holster from my thigh and tossed it to the floor. “You take a shit, you swim in it, bitch.”

“Hey!” I kicked at him, but he held me fast. No one took any notice. What kinda place was this? I wriggled, furious. “How dare you, minion? Let me go and say you’re sorry right now. What the hell do I look like, a victim?”

He slicked his rough tongue up my thigh, hot and slimy. My skin recoiled like a salty leech, and he gave me a lascivious grin. “Honey, that’s exactly what you look like,” he growled, and sank his blunt teeth into my thigh.

My flesh crunched. I jerked back, skin tearing with a spurt of pain. “Ow! Jesus fucking Christ—”

Electricity sizzled, a hot white flash, and the troll yelped like a girl and let me go.

I scrambled up, wary. Blood trickled down my smarting thigh, shining like rubies with moonfire and shock, and I flicked it angrily away. Yuck. That hurt. What next?

Skinnyfae poked at the troll with his bangstick, and dry white static crackled. “Tsk, tsk. Take it downstairs, bozo.”

The troll gripped his singed cheek and growled, but backed off, his teeth still dark with my blood. Asshole.

Skinny flapped limp gray wings and aimed his stick at my nose. “You. Famine’s girl. Come with me.”

I bent for my gun, but he kicked it aside. “Bang-bang not allowed.” And he darted away.

I stretched my burning thigh and followed, excitement and apprehension fighting like rats under my skin. I’d done it. He believed me. Or was I waltzing into a trap? Either way, too late to change my mind now.

Skinnyfae headed for a dim corridor that curved out of sight. I stumbled to catch up. “Hey, thanks. I mean, who did that guy think he was, chewing on the staff like that?”

Skinnyfae cackled, twirling his stick. “He’s a client. Snap snap, always too quick to choose. Should be more discerning, yes yes. Come along, no wastie. Snap those heels. That’s it.”

The corridor curved to stairs leading down, lit by another single glass bulb. I hesitated.
Take it downstairs,
Skinny said. Right after that troll bit my leg in half. “Uh, look, are you sure the client’s ready? Because I can just as well stay up here—”

“No time, special lady. Not a spare moment. Skip-skip.” Skinny ran down the steps, his scrawny legs scything, and pulled open a heavy door.

Nothing scary. Just more brick corridor, dim orange light.

But the smell made me gag. So faint, I could hardly detect it. But visceral. Dark. Squishy like meat. The horrid, caustic taste of fear.

My ears pricked, and a distant scream kicked my heart into a gallop. I jerked back. “Look, I’ve made a mistake—ugh!”

Skinnyfae darted behind me on dry rustling wings and shoved me forward.

I lurched and staggered, panic swelling my blood, but too late. My heels tangled, and I tumbled into that fear-drenched doorway.

The door slammed behind me, echoing in dull silence. Light glared, watering my eyes blind. Terror slashed me with icy fangs, and I whirled, looking for Skinnyfae, anyone, anything that might attack me.

But I didn’t see what grabbed my wrist and dragged me into blackness.

20

A rough brick wall slammed into my shoulder. Another door crunched shut. I staggered, breathless, my heart thumping wild. Total blackness.

I strained my eyes and blinked, but it was useless. Open or closed, it made no difference. I waved terrified hands in front of my face, scrabbling for light. Nothing.

Sweat dripped over my wings. Heat drowned me. I couldn’t breathe. The air was so black, the heat so complete and horrible and empty, that with a horrid jolt, I knew.

I was dead. This was hell. It was over.

Dread writhed under my skin like maggots. My moonrich pulse hammered, my ears useless. Tears stung my eyes. I scrabbled for the wall, stumbling along for a few steps, but it reached no junction and offered no comfort. Hot blackness squelched down my throat like tar, and I screamed until my breath died.

The echo faded, leaving me in burning black silence.

“Put your glasses on.” A cold voice clanged like dead bells, no echo.

I gasped, my tongue parched, and flung my arms out, searching left and right. “What? Who’s there? Let me the hell out of here!”

“Put your glasses on, Ember.”

“What the hell for, you fucking idiot? I can’t bloody see!” I slammed my fists against the wall at my sides, hot tears leaking onto my cheeks.
Rile up your captor. Good one, Emmy. Rule one for dealing with an unpredictable boy: Don’t argue. Ever.

“Just do it.”

Blindly I scrabbled at my hip, and found twisted wire. God help me if they were broken. I unfolded them clumsily, my sweaty fingers slipping, and jammed them on my nose.

Scarlet light flashed, blinding me all over again.

I yelled and squeezed my eyes shut, tears dripping through my fingers. Crazy burn-in savaged my retinas, shapes, colors, figures, a crowded room full of outlines. What the hell?

Cautiously, I squeaked one eye open.

Pale colors greeted me, a wall, the outline of the door I’d come in by. I hooked the wire over my pointed ears and blinked my tears clear. Outside the rims of the lenses, blackness still suffocated. But inside, the light rippled, stained translucent red like bloody water, and I could see everything. Like some strange pink night-vision goggles.

Weird.

Figures moved and shimmered, outlined like scarlet ghosts. I saw a woman lying on a bench, a figure huddled in a corner, a thin person striding up and down. Over there, someone backed against a glimmering white wall, wings splayed flat, and another figure leaned over her.

I swallowed. “Who’s there? I’m lost. Can you help me?”

No one answered. But those people were right there. They must have heard me.

“Excuse me?” I reached out, but my claws cracked on rough brick.

I jumped back, startled. I couldn’t see a wall. I flattened my palms and reached again. There it was, solid, a brick wall between me and them.

Glasses that saw through walls. Light that wasn’t there. This was too peculiar. But I could see the door, and that was enough. Leaving now.

I turned, and Skinnyfae grinned.

I jerked back, cracking my head against the wall.

He cackled, his own pink glasses hooked over greasy ears. In this strange light he looked like a weird cartoon, pink edges mingling with black. “Ha ha. Gotcha. Good trick, eh?”

Fury blew through me like a gale, and I shoved him backwards, my palms itching to rip his skin off. “You little bastard.”

He whooped, catching himself on dusty wings. His bald oystershell skull shone as he tutted in mock displeasure, waving his stick. “Language.”

“Screw language, grandpa. Let me the fuck out of here!”

“‘Fraid I can’t do that.”

“Oh, really?” I advanced on him, shaking. “Well, let me tell you something. People know where I am. Important people. They’ll come looking for me, and when they’ve finished, you’ll be a little gray birdshit smear on the wall. How d’ya like that?” It was a long shot. But I was so furious, I didn’t care.

“Mmm. Sounds serious.” He cackled, rubbing skinny wrists together. “I’m quivering. Want a chewy?” And he actually offered me his pack of gum.

I smacked it out of his hand. “Knock it off, you freak! What is this place? And who the hell do you think you are, treating me like this?”

“You know, that’s the first intelligent question you’ve asked all night.” His gaze flashed up at me, cold and hard, and the air rippled white.

My membranes tingled in warning, and I backed against the wall, tensing to flee.

In a flash, his black eyes gleamed red.

Ozone stung my tongue, and magic lit the air like gunpowder. Glamour crystallized around him, an icy cocoon, and shattered.

His scrawny body grew, towering over me, his black skin bleaching white. Drybone hair crackled from his skull, brittle and corpselike. His face thinned, cheekbones hollowing, his bloodless white skin straining shiny over his skeleton like a starving thing’s. Those floppy gray wings parched white, thin insectoid membranes torn with crumbling ragged edges.

He tossed his stick aside, like he’d no further use for it, and the same dazzling electric field zapped between his skeletal three-knuckle fingers like a toy. Pink lenses gleamed on his fleshless nose as he smiled, lips cracking like overdry paper. “So you deserve an intelligent answer. I’m Famine, and this place is mine. Let’s get started, shall we?”

21

Famine strode up to me, static flickering between his starved fingers. He grinned, ravenous, withered gums exposing his teeth.

Cold sweat dripped into my boots. His body was emaciated, the wasted muscles in his chest contorted like wire. Famished indeed. Like he hadn’t eaten for a month, and I was dinner.

He looked transparent and brittle, like spun candy. Like ice. Or glass.

Glassfairy. My stomach shriveled. If he could read my mind like Diamond did, I was in real trouble.

“Famine. Uh … hi. Look, this is a mistake.” I backed off, feeling behind me for safety, but now where the wall had loomed dense and unbreakable, there floated only empty space.

Famine swooped beside me, a white blur. “No mistake, Ember.”

His sick oceansalt scent coated my mouth. He knew my name. Knew I was coming for him. I tried to flap away, jittering. “Get away from me!”

But he was too fast. Like a striking snake, he grabbed my hair. Strands snagged in his bonebare knuckles. He dragged my head down until I gazed into his strange red eyes. I struggled, clawing at his flaking chest.

But his gaze drilled my eyeballs, boring deep into my skull, and my will melted like steam on the wind.

I gibbered, flailing for sharp defiant words, but my brain fuzzed over with welcome warmth like hot chocolate sprinkles, and a silly smile painted my lips. He was nice. I liked him. He was my friend.

Fear hammered inside my heart, yelling and banging its fists like a caged beast, but the noise was distant, echoing, not something I had to pay attention to. My belly warmed, the ache in my bitten thigh fading with a tingling caress of Famine-scented air. He smelled like the sea, stormy and fresh and delicious. Slow delight sparkled my blood like summer rain, and pleasure eased into my body until I murmured happily. I didn’t want to escape. I just wanted to gaze into his lovely albino eyes and feel like this all night.

Famine released me, stroking my hair with one bony claw. He was so pretty, such delicate pale skin, such rich ruby eyes. I rubbed my cheek in his crisp white hair, and he smiled, so gentle, I ached. His whisper stroked my skin, relaxing. “Better. Step backwards.”

Alarm sparked my nerves, but my legs were already moving, eager to please him. He slipped something warm and soothing around my left forearm, then my right, and I smiled and wriggled against it, enjoying the smooth sensation. I felt warm, safe, happy.

And then he broke his gaze, and my contentment shattered.

Black ice crystals tinkled to the floor, the residue of vile fairy spellcraft. I jerked away, but hot metal yanked my wrists, dragging my arms above my head and wrenching my shoulders back. Wildly, I swung my head around, trying to see, and my bones spiked cold.

Iron strips shackled my wrists tight, and fat chains gleamed taut, binding me to an unseen ceiling. Something hard banged against my legs, and I looked down. More shackles gripped my booted ankles, locked to the floor with wire, holding me fast. The chains crunched and yanked tighter. Dragging me to my tiptoes. Stretching me.

My shoulder tendons shrieked. My feet clattered on the floor, scrabbling for a hold, the bricks just half an inch too far away for comfort. I couldn’t kick. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t get free.

My bowels watered, and I rattled my chains, terrified. “Let me go, you sick freak!”

Famine laughed, his dry lungs hacking.

Shit. I swiveled my eyeballs, frantic, hunting for weapons, blades, whips, and spikes and other nasty toys. In my strange pink-tinted vision, outlines of people still shimmered through the walls, and with bile lurching sick in my throat, I understood what my addled brain hadn’t made sense of before.

Those people were hurting each other.

One held another wriggling one down while he did vicious things to her with a long thick object I didn’t want to identify. A body screamed, spreadeagled on the floor in a shining wet stain, while another poked him with sharp needles the size of chopsticks. Someone dragged a limp body by the ankles, insensible or dead. A thin one shivered in a corner, moaning. No one did anything to her. She just trembled and muttered like her mind was broken, like they’d tormented her until her brain was spaghetti and she couldn’t talk or think or endure any more.

The rich stink of suffering fouled the air like rotting meat. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

In the light of my strange pink glasses, colored auras bloomed around each person, sick hues shimmering rancid. The ones in control glowed blue and scarlet with triumph and passion, their exhilaration burning bright. And around the tortured ones, the air bled black and silver, roiling waves of pain and fear and disgust, emotions spilling from their torment like blood from a wound. And the torturers sucked it up, drinking it greedily from the air, their grins splashed with luminescent gore.

Feeding on raw emotion. Gobbling up the suffering like hungry parasites.
People go to Famine’s to play games,
Vincent had said.

My glasses gripped my nose, the wire tightening with glee. I thrashed my head from side to side, but I couldn’t knock them off. I wanted to be sick. Ultimate power, ultimate submission, not just physical but emotional as well. It was disgusting. It was compelling. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

My skin rippled cold. Famine’s dungeon lay a world from the sweet-tempered bar upstairs. He’d torture me, probably to death, sucking out my last drop of agony for a tasty snack, and with my luck, I wouldn’t die soon enough.

I struggled, but my limbs felt watery, my strength drained by his nasty spell. I tried to bleed the tremor from my voice with sarcasm, but it came out wobbly and small. “Very clever, stinkweed. What do you want with me?”

Famine poked a taunting bony finger at my nose. “Should’ve thought that’s obvious. Real question is, what d’you want with me?”

I’d almost forgotten why I’d come here. Find the gemstone, get free, escape this bizarre torture den. My dazed eyes skittered, trying to focus. He wasn’t wearing any jewelry I could see, nothing around his neck or on his wrists. His pale shirtless body was clean.

His black persuasions still licked my skin, stroking me in places he’d no right to touch. His invisible spelldark caress numbed my wits. I wanted to bolt screaming into the street. But I also wanted to stay, be consumed, lie down and let this weird pain-vampire drink me up.

I licked wet lips, stalling. Find the gem. Only the gem mattered. “What do you mean?”

Famine jabbed sharp claws at my belly. “Fancy hunting me. How rude. We’ve never even been
introduced
.”

He sounded genuinely incensed, and green mist sparkled from his hair, swarming like tiny gnats. My fingers tingled. Visible emotions. The glasses worked on him, too. I could use that.

I tried my charming smile. “Well, we can remedy that. I’m Ember. Pleased to meet you. I didn’t mean to be rude. You frightened me, is all. Perhaps we can—”

“Not interested.” Famine slapped my naked hip, scolding.

Ow. Sweat smarted over the spot. My blood heated, unkind memories of my mirror fantasy taunting me. “Huh?”

“I don’t want your body, Ember, lovely though it is. So you can give up trying to seduce me.” He grinned, exposing flayed gums. “Got any other tricks?”

I simpered. “Oh, I didn’t mean anything like that. I just thought we could be friends … .”

His voice hardened, contempt flashing yellow on his breath. “You don’t have any other tricks, do you? You’re just a grasping little whore.”

Memories of Diamond’s insults sucked my mouth dry. It wasn’t like that. Was it? “Screw you, okay—”

“Shut up.” Famine’s flat tone stopped me dead. “Just be
silent
. Your tart’s tricks won’t work on me. And you don’t know any other way to get what you want.”

He stroked drybone fingers across my forehead, cold like a skeleton. I recoiled, but I had nowhere to go. Famine hacked a laugh and scraped his palm over my temple, a gruesome parody of a lover’s caress, and inside my skull something wet and sticky
pulled
.

Agony ripped my head raw. I yelled, horror stuffing my stomach with cold worms. God, it hurt, like skin flaying, ripping wet and bleeding from the muscle, only this was my
head
and the bastard was tearing out my
thoughts
and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I’d thought Diamond’s glassfae tricks were invasive. This was infinitely worse.

Famine sighed, satisfied. “Mmm. Thought so. You’re useless. You’re so dirtypretty and lovely to taste, but you’ve got nothing else. They all want to touch you but no one wants to talk, do they, because you’re a stupid, boring, useless little whore. Yes?”

“Shut your face, boneweed.” I bared my teeth, defiant. But his taunts attacked my heart, vicious truth-wasps that stung and stung.

I struggled, trying to shake off my dismay. It was stupid. What did I care what he said? But he drilled a brittle claw into my forehead, probing deeper, and his spellsharp perception scraped my mind’s surface raw.

His gibes shouldn’t hurt me. They weren’t true. But despair carved me up inside like salted razors, smarting long after the wound was made.

I scraped my dry tongue across my lips. “I don’t wanna talk about this anym—”

“You’ve got no friends, Ember. No one cares about you.” He darted behind me, slipping a skinny arm around my waist, his jutting bones poking into my back. “Just liars and hungry boys. Because you’re not worth it. If you were worth it, you wouldn’t have to flirt and fuck to get attention.”

“That’s not tr—” I choked, tiny black gnats of spell-craft clogging my throat. It was true. My friends were all Jasper’s friends. My girlfriends drifted away when I took up with him. And I didn’t remember the last time a guy talked to me without his greedy gaze fixed on either my pulse or my cleavage.

Except Diamond. But only because he wanted something just as sordid.

Famine’s stealthy mindtricks settled on my brain like evil black fog, and fight as I might, I couldn’t shake them off. His spectral fingers tunneled deeper, darker, searching out the places that hurt and stabbing them sharp. God, I’d acted like such a desperate whore with Diamond. The fact that I’d wanted his attention sickened me. I’m a sad, pathetic, needy woman. A wisp of careless affection, and I’m anyone’s.

“It’s true, Ember. You know it is. Show me your fear.” Famine’s grip on my screeching mind-skin tightened, and self-disgust tore up my throat from deep in my heart. It burned, that self-loathing, bubbling through my brain like acid, chewing hungrily into my soul.

My heartbeat stumbled into a sprint. Sweat broke out in rivers, soaking my dress with the rotten stink of terror, and an evil green aura rippled the air, spreading outward from my body like ink.

I gurgled, sick. I knew what he was doing. Dragging out my deepest, most secret fears and desires so he could feast on me. But I couldn’t stop him. Already he sniffed the air, drinking in the pulsing green liquid of my despair.

Frantically, I tried to tear my mind loose, think of something else, banish the fear and desperation from my heart.

But I couldn’t help it. Everything Famine said was true.

Famine snaked in front of me, green ichor spilling over his chin. He stretched his parched wings with a sigh, and they swelled with glowing blue fluid, life pulsing inside, the crumbling edges plumping out to a silky taut edge.

Feeding himself. Growing fat on my misery.

He settled bony hands on my hips. “Mmm. That’s it. Trust me. Feed me your fear. Show me what you’re really afraid of.”

He leaned closer, and my own green fearjuice splashed my face. He sniffed my lips, humming sweet oblivion, his hypnotic warble rooting me to the spot. My muscles cramped in terror. I couldn’t move my head. Couldn’t turn away.

He forced crunchy white lips onto mine. His tongue forced inside, cold and salty with insane hunger.

I gagged, my mouth filling. His mesmerizing magic flowed over me like water, warm and threatening, drink or drown. I wanted to scream and stab him dead with my claws. I wanted to open my mouth and take him in, embrace him, savor the faint as he stripped me raw and swallowed me.

Desperate, I kicked at my determination until it sparked. I wouldn’t let him have me. Not like this, mind-raped and babbling. He’d have to kill me first, and then no one would get to swallow anyone.
Screw you, hungerboy. I’m not on the menu.

Defiant orange sparks sizzled my hair, and the green fear-haze roiled black with my anger. But Famine just murmured in delight and kissed me harder, desire salty on his tongue.

Confusion yammered. I’d tried to swallow my fear. But it hadn’t worked. He ate everything I gave him, fear and defiance and anger, too. I could feel his body heat growing, absorbing me, his thinparched skin swelling with glowing blue moisture. How could I ever escape?

Famine gave a hungry laugh. His lips slid over mine, no longer dry and crackling but succulent, pulsing with stolen life. “You can’t escape. You’re mine. Just give in to me.”

“No.” I fought, writhing in my shackles until metal sliced my skin. But the pain only sharpened my mind, casting off confusion, leaving my fear exposed and raw for him to taste.

I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to go to hell. And try as I might, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t afraid.

“Tell me what you fear.” Famine’s dark persuasion caressed me, hot magical fingers digging deep into my nastiest memories, and my mind reeled with dark, threatening images of everything I’d ever feared.

Dark places, a closet where they’d locked me in as a child, spiders black and hairy and crawling down my throat. Smothering, drowning, loss of breath, nightmares that wake me in freezing sweat. Vomiting and cowering in the dust as a kid, the gangly redheaded thing who got boobs before everyone else. Mean girls with flouncing wings kick me in the guts and skinny fairy boys pull my hair and slide long bony fingers up my skirt. No school for fairy girls, not if their glamour isn’t right, and mornings I curl tight in my nest under the bridge with the torn blanket pulled over my head, quivering lest someone see what I am and hurt me.