Poison Kissed (10 page)

I muttered, flinging my head from side to side, rusted chains bursting from my skull and growing into the sofa like weeds to hold me down. “Harder. Show me more.”

Cobalt’s tongue licked around my nipple, hardening it. He sucked it into his mouth, and as he groaned and swallowed, relishing the taste of my sweat, that shiny steel memoryspell sliced deeper.

I lift my head, and my eyelids flick open.

Shock riveted my nerves. My nails clawed at his jeans. I spluttered, “Fuck. It’s working. Don’t let go.”

I knew it. I did see. I’d just hidden it away, all this time.

Light burns sepia, shapes odd and twisted like watermirrors. The shadows stretch and flow, ink puddling on glass, the air twinging sweet with strange flowers. My body feels light and free. I stretch, my thighs cramping sweetly, and suddenly I see her.

I can see my mother. Sprawled on the floor in a heap of bruised limbs and tears, that lovely silver hair torn.

My heartbeat thunders. I swivel my blurred gaze upward, and the killer’s dark silhouette scorches my eyeballs black.

Dread and hunger shoved hot wires through my veins, searing them raw. There you are, you murderous son of a goblin. Show me your face.

The images wavered and faded, the memoryspell blunting again. I screamed in frustration, and tiny sawtoothed insectmen leapt down my throat, yelling and ripping it to shreds. My head throbbed. Cobalt shuddered against me in a fever, his pollen-sweet hair caressing my face. “There’s more. I can’t reach. Please, let me go. . . .”

Swiftly I dragged our clothes aside. Damp leather peeled from my legs like paper. I wriggled to get him between my naked thighs. He felt strange there, his body lean and slim, twisted fae muscles shifting in his chest as he flexed velvety black wings to keep his weight off me.

Above my head, the dead lightbulb swings. My mother moans, and as the image shimmers again, the killer leans over her, his head turning to one side.

I wriggled, fumbling to touch him, make him touch me, get that connection back. My words slurred. “C’mon, C. Don’ . . . flakeonmenowww . . .”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

The images ripple and fade like heat haze. Dimming. Dying.

“Now, C.” My voice scraped raw. In my haste to undress him, my nails on his narrow fairy hips scratched up blood.

His dark eyes glowed silver. He wriggled like a worm from his jeans and slid his warm white body onto mine. After a moment, he even looked into my eyes. Edgy, remorseful, sweet. I wrapped my leg around his thigh to show him where, and he pushed his twisted length into me with an urgent sigh.

His cock was long and thick, and it stung, I’d been alone so long. He felt strange and good inside me, his hot fairy flesh alien but so familiar. My sex-starved muscles stretched around him, stroking him, warming my insides with sweet friction. He moved, and I groaned and parted my thighs to let him in, the sensation exciting yet soothing. He wasn’t the man I wanted, or how I’d wanted it to be. But I didn’t care, not when he slid his open mouth on mine and thrust harder into me, and in my mind he clenched a pale fist around his spell’s wickedshiny blade and rammed the twinkling point deep into my skull.

Bone cracked as he twisted it. Flesh sliced. My ravaged brain screamed, and the memory came scorching back on his breath, a flash brighter than the sun.

My sofa lurches into view, the broken table, the torn rug beneath. Black silhouettes merge and sever, rippling like hot ghosts at first. The shimmer-killer crouches over the cowering shimmer-woman. His back’s to me, dark coat dragging in the dust, his pistol’s evil glimmer a sharp slash of clarity in muddled shapes. He’s saying something to her that even I can’t hear. She writhes, her voice torn, and now I can see her face, she’s sobbing, tears streaking like dirt. “Nooo . . .”

Horror iced my blood, sharpening my slow pleasure to razors. Cobalt licked hotly at my nipple, his teeth scraping sharp delight. The knife wrenched sideways, slicing my brain to mush, and pain clawed my nerves, mixing with the growing tension, making it hurt and pleasure me in equal measure.

My drugthick sinuses ached. I’d never seen this before. Never had to watch the killer loom over her, see her last word ripped from her mouth. A greasy black hatebeast spat vile curses in my heart, and I strained against Cobalt’s body, searching, begging.

Images waver and solidify. I can see her face again, her streaming eyes pleading for mercy. She stretches her ripped hand out weakly, fingers straining, fending him off. The killer stands, cocks his head to sight along a steady arm, and fires.

Slam.

Blood splashes. The empty cartridge clinks on the floor and rolls away. She slumps, still.

I sought Cobalt’s mouth in a fevered kiss, drinking his rainy taste, willing him to work himself farther into my body, that wicked spell an inch or two deeper into my mind. He kissed me back, his tongue alive on mine, letting me use him, fuck him, claim his fairy tricks as my own. I tilted my hips, searching. His breath hitched short, an addict glutting himself on my agony.

I couldn’t blame him.

The killer stands motionless, coolly studying her corpse.

Strange emotion washes my blood warm, parches my throat. Not hate. Not fear. I try to swallow, and an insane cracking sound erupts from my throat.

He tilts his head, alerted. The image tightens, focuses, rippling edges sharpening. His fingers twitch on that glimmering pistol. Slowly, he turns, and a hot fist of anticipation squeezes all the blood from my heart.

Tension racked my nerves, chewing like rats. Cobalt groaned, his cock swelling inside me and his skin flushing dark like he was about to come, and in my mind he peeled his lips back from gleaming eelsharp teeth and ripped a bloody chunk from my chest.

I see his pale chin, bruised and bloody. The marble line of his cheekbone. A soft fall of hair, shining like a halo in the dim light.

Hot blood sprayed. I screamed, the phantom pain wrenching deeper feeling from my guts, a rich anti-orgasm that chewed all the way to my toes. I wailed, magical vibrations shattering the fragile glass walls of my consciousness. My dreamself came crashing through into the present like a burning petrol bomb, and in the mangled black corridor of my memory, the killer’s razor gaze fixed on mine.

Brilliant green eyes, unblinking—so beautiful, my heart spikes.

Blood shining on sensuous lips I’d kissed in a hundred feversoaked dreams.

That gleaming pistol, gripped in slender white hands that crackle and split with glossy black webs. As I watch, a green venomdrop slides down the glossy steel barrel and plinks onto the floor.

A scream hollows my stomach sick, but it won’t come out.

My jaw works. Silence.

He blinks. Just once. Soft snowblond hair tumbles in his eyes.

And then he flexes those clever fingers to squelch the webs away, and walks out.

Hellbirds screeched and clawed in my ears. Blood gushed from my wounded chest, my heart exposed and throbbing. Cobalt ripped the knife from my skull and flung it away in a hail of blood, but the image stayed, scorched into my retinae forever.

Joey. My mother. The gunshot’s evil crack.

He’d rescued me. Taught me, protected me when I was weak, earned my respect and my loyalty. Caressed my hair, kissed me, made me burn for him in ways no man ever had.

All false. All done knowing he’d destroyed my life.

Everything he’d ever done for me was a putrid lie.

A raw shriek of agony exploded in my throat, and died.

Sickness ripped me. I scrambled to get up, to push Cobalt’s fevered body away from mine so I could sprint away into the night, huddle in some hot dry gutter and swallow my tears, scream ragged melody to the darkness and pretend this hadn’t happened.

But wings descended like hot black velvet to enclose me, clog my ears, smother me. I struggled, but suddenly Cobalt’s lithe fairy weight was enormous, his hands like shackles on my wrists, his flesh inside me strong and immovable like steel.

Panic tore my blood. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t breathe. Terror dragged my lips apart, but I had no air to sing. My vision bled scarlet. My body thrashed one last weakened protest, and the light died.

She whimpers, fighting, but it’s too late to pull away. With one final shudder and clench, Cobalt empties himself into her, guilt and desperate need spurting through his memory-drenched blood. The sting of her horror drags deep pleasure over his nerves, better than the orgasm, and he gasps and swallows and drowns in it, letting the fix consume him, already fearing it’ll be too long before he gets another.

Her body jerks, dragging one last hot draft from his balls, and he groans at the delight of it. He fumbles long fingers in her hair, belatedly trying to quiet her as the last shocks rack his muscles. “Sorry,” he whispers through gritting teeth, “sorry sorry sorry,” and he means it, he didn’t intend for it to be like this, kissing and touching and sweet girlsmell on his skin but he wanted her and she needed him and now she’s not moving, she’s limp and flushed and her pretty red eyes have rolled back and she’s not moving, not one little bit.

Guilty spider feet track into his aching wingjoints. He’d known that supercharged blue sparkle on top of the memoryjuice would be too much. But she wanted it, and he had a job to do, oh yes, jobs and secrets and tasties, oh my.

Her girlflesh still fits hot and perfect around him, slick with the mess he’s made. She feels nice. Surreptitiously, he slides a little, enjoying her on him. He’s clean. She needn’t worry about that. He nuzzles her breast, seeking reaction, any reaction. “Min-bin?”

No movement. Still, frozen, pale and perfect like a broken china doll.

Fright stings him scary. He eases himself out of her and scrambles up, wiping his running nose, his long hair cascading undone around his waist. Her body lies limp, slim and white, her pretty head thrown back, sugary blue hair tossed wild on the couch. Her corset still drapes open at the front, and candlelight carves shadows under her naked breasts, her skin still wet from his mouth and smeared blue with his fingerprints and his tears. Her chest heaves suddenly, air screaming past her parted lips, and after a few gasps her breath relaxes into normal rhythm.

His wings flood cold, and he turns away, guilty. The taste of music ripples on his tongue like water. He scrabbles on the floor for his jeans, the pocket, his glassware, a clean one in here especially for her, and he pops the cork from a long glass tube and breathes over the lip like he’s playing a little magic flute. The glass vibrates, singing, a tiny echo of her beautiful banshee melody, and fresh golden sparkle tumbles from his lips into the glass.

He presses the cork in tight and holds the filled vial to the moon, admiring the swirling glints of light. Tasties. Fresh ones. Just as the customer ordered. He holds it to his ear, and inside a faint song floats, bewildered. Stolen. Lost.

A glassy belltone shrills, and his wings jerk in fright, the vial tumbling in his fingers. He clutches at it, his heart thumping. The bells ring again. Her phone, the screen flashing blue shadows onto the kitchen bench. After a few seconds, it stops.

Cobalt slips the vial away and dresses himself with shaking fingers, claws catching in the cloth, silly things always in the way. He drags his messy blue hair into a knot and fumbles in his pocket for his phone.

After two rings, it picks up.

Cobalt swallows, parched. “I got it.”

Diamond chuckles, a chandelier in summer breeze. “Of course you did. Good dog. Have a chocolate drop.”

“Where can I meet you?”

“I’ll find you. Oh, and the rate just dipped. Three hundred. Sorry ’bout that.”

“What? You said—”

“I’m thinking you already got paid, puppy. Sweet, was she?”

Cobalt’s wings jerk back guiltily, fluttering the curtains. “That wasn’t wh—”

“You just fucked Joey DiLuca’s best girl. Congratumalations. Try selling it and see how many people conveniently forgettify who you are.”

“But—”

“I told you fetch. You fetched. Your job’s done. Spit or swallow.”

Clunk. Silence. Hung up on.

Fuck.

Cobalt rubs damp hands on his jeans, baffled. Moonlight glares harsh accusation in his eyes. He steals a guilty glance at Mina, who still sprawls senseless on the couch, her pretty breasts heaving gently up and down with her breath. It’s warm in here. She won’t freeze. Must get rid of the evidence, before she realizes what he’s done and comes after him.

His greedy sinuses tempt him to just snort the thing and forget about it, but he can’t. Not her. Not after what he did with her. He’ll just have to deal with Diamond, the lousy glassnose thief.

He tucks the vial deeper into his pocket, safe and hidden, and dives out the door on a swoop of black velvet wings.

8

In a deserted city street, dawn shatters the darkness. Shadows fall from silent tenements. Somewhere, a police siren wails and disappears. No trams run at this hour, and the lines hang silent and still. A car wobbles slowly past, headlights veering, the unsteady care of a driver stoned out of his mind.

Vincent staggers, shielding his eyes, the warm press of a streetlight pole against his shoulder agonizing. It’s so damn bright. Every sound’s piercing, like nails on a blackboard. A lost gull screeches, and he moans, his head clanging in agony.

He doesn’t know where the fuck he is, how he got here. Dark stains crust his clothes. His skin stings all over, and he drags back his sleeve to see angry scratches, cuts, bites, crusted scabs already half-healed.

A hungry shiver racks his limbs. Fever roasts his body. Sickness pours off him in waves, and he doubles over, retching. Clotted scarlet mess splashes the pavement.

He wipes his mouth, and the meaty stink of blood and vomit makes him retch again.

The night just gone scorches in his memory. Sex, that luscious girl torturing him. Fingers, tongues, kisses rich with blood, her secret flesh throbbing in his mouth as she came. And that hot, sinful vampire boy, Christ on a barbecued cross. Burning teeth stabbing Vincent’s flesh, the searing pressure of a hard cock deep in his body while the girl’s wet warmth suckled on his own, the pleasure so deep and raw, it hurt. Taking, drinking, swallowing, bleeding, feasting, over and again and forever until his head swam, his body strained limp in agony and delight, his ripped veins screamed at him to stop before he died.

Vincent pushes himself upright, his balance swimming. Well, he’s not dead. Not yet.

But fever liquefies his muscles, and he staggers, tripping on scattered newspaper. His breath sears his throat. Sweat drips into his collar, down his legs, over his chest. The empty pit in his stomach swells, gnawing at him like a beast, and he’s hungry, so fucking starving, like he’s not eaten in a week.

His vision swirls, a crimson waterfall of blood and flesh and pain. He chokes, his mouth parched like sandpaper, and his tongue slices on strangely sharp teeth.

The sting invigorates him. Blood seeps into his mouth, and nerves drain hot sensation all the way to his bruised balls.

His spine tingles. Fuck. What was that?

Carefully, he licks his teeth again.

Sting. Slice. Cruelly, impossibly sharp, his gums split and tender at the front where a pair of new canine teeth erupt.

He presses his tongue against the sore spot, and his old tooth squelches loose, letting the new one in.

He spits, and the bloody tooth bounces away across the concrete.

Double fuck.

He scrapes clotted hair from his eyes and lets them water in the sunrise’s red glare. Buildings veer into focus, their outlines sharp and black, too sharp. A bird flits on distant roof tiles, and he can see feathers, a scratch on its beak, its dull glinting eyes. He stretches his head back, and deep in the sunlit sky, stars shine.

Another sick flush dizzies him, and hunger and denial war in his guts. It can’t be. He’s just caught some dirty flu. Better go home, sleep it off.

An engine growls to a halt, and a girl wobbles out of a taxi, fumbling drunkenly in her bag for cash.

Vincent’s ears prick. He can feel it. The scent of perfume and female skin tantalizes him. He can see her legs under her shiny golden skirt, long and tanned, the faint blue pulse inside her thigh as she bends over.

She pays the driver cash, and her heels click as she stumbles onto the pavement. Her back is bare, her party dress’s strings sliding over smooth beachtanned skin. Blond hair swings, a glimpse of pale throat. She slings her bag over her shoulder, flashing delicate wrists where veins darken and throb.

Hunger rips holes in Vincent’s guts, and his cock fills with a rush of fevered blood. Black compulsion chews at him, strange and exciting. His own pulse thuds in his head, surely a mirror of her own. What would that feel like, under his lips? Her heartbeat’s sweet throb on his tongue? Her honeywet flesh swelling in his mouth as the skin splits?

He can’t tear his gaze away. Saliva spills hard and painful into his mouth, and crazy laughter grips his guts with dismay.

He’d heard that bloodfever was quick. But not like this. For some stupid reason, he’d imagined it more civilized. Not fevered, thirsty, rapacious like a starving beast.

The truth hardens black and unyielding in his heart. Somewhere deep and secret inside him, his conscience thrashes like a dying beast, drowning in scarlet dread.

But the damage is done. There’s no cure. It’s this, or die.

The girl stumbles around him, muttering, “Pizzoff.”

He grabs her elbow, and his fingers crush effortlessly tight. “That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

“Huh?” Fear lights her glazed eyes. She wriggles, but he pulls her fast into his arms, and they stumble back off the street into a barred café doorway. She gurgles a scream, but the street’s deserted and he’s already scrabbling for her skin, her collarbone, her throat, anywhere he can find. Her dress rips, and her breasts spill into his hands, so soft and warm. She fights, but he’s got her in the corner and in fever’s scarlet rage, he’s easily too strong, the force in his fingers alone enough to hold her. Stronger than he’s ever been before.

His pulse thunders, the power intoxicating. Her sweet fleshscent tortures him. His growing teeth ache and swell. His cock hurts like fury, so very hard and ready, but he doesn’t care about forcing it up into her, fucking her, releasing inside her, skin on fresh wet skin. He cares only about feeding this raging hunger.

He tears the last strap away, baring her, and lust for the kill roasts his body alive. He shudders, spit washing his lips.

She sobs, clawing weakly at his shirt with ripped nails. “Please don’t hurt me. You seem like a decent guy. I’ve got condoms. We can fuck. Just don’t hurt me.”

Her words mean nothing, the whining of a cornered animal. His gaze fixes on the pulse at her throat. His senses home in like laserbombs, and all he can see or hear or smell is blood.

He thuds the heel of his hand under her chin, cracking her head back into the wall and exposing that luscious meal. His jaws stretch, and he sinks his teeth in deep.

Crunch.

Blood explodes into his mouth. Hot, salty, metallic, delicious with life’s magical shimmer. He swallows, wet warmth gushing over his chin, and he can’t help but groan in delight.

The girl gulps and thrashes, incoherent. His balls ache, pleasure swelling deep and raw. God, it’s better than fucking her. He bites harder, clumsy, and his infant teeth scrape on gristle. Torn flesh slops between his lips. He sucks hard and hungry, and blood shoots into the back of his throat.

It splashes, and he swallows, and rapidfire orgasm spears raw fever through his cock, along his limbs, deep into his body.

Her nails scrape the wall as he gasps, spasms grinding his muscles tight. She’s bleeding on her own now. Hot crimson delight streams down her neck, over her breasts. He gulps and slavers and licks it up, ravenous. He adores her coppery taste, her skin rasping on his tongue, the way his teeth graze her soaked nipple. His hard-on won’t relax. The pleasure won’t fade. The hunger won’t die, and he dives for her neck again, sucking out more.

The pressure eases on his tongue, and he whimpers. But her body weakens, and she slumps in his arms, the blood flowing listless. Her head falls back, bloody blond hair dripping.

Empty. Dead. The spark gone. Already, the blood cools.

Panting, Vincent releases her, lets her crumple. Her limbs fold, her sightless eyes still. He gasps for breath. His mouth is already sticky. He spits, and clots splat the pavement.

His hunger growls, only partly sated.

He looks down at himself. Drenched in crimson and sweat, hardly a spot of white left on his shirt. The goresoaked fabric plastered to his chest. Blood streaking the come stain on his jeans. Charming.

But not boring. Not mediocre. Not just a weak human, not anymore.

A twisted metal hand clamps his shoulder.

He jerks around, cracking his skull into the wall.

Iridium grins, his lank bronze hair shining, and his crippled shoulder convulses with gritty laughter. “That, my friend, was fucking brilliant. Wanna come over and play?”

Vincent licks bloody lips, his pulse pounding with guilt and hungry fear. “Jesus. Don’t tell. I didn’t mean it, okay? I didn’t mean to—oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfuck . . .”

Tears blot his eyes scarlet, and he grinds his palms into his cheeks. He killed that girl. Ate her. Drank her fucking blood. And the cursed hunger still won’t fade. He’ll do it again and again, until . . .

Iridium drags his hands away, insistent. “Listen to me. Different to them now. Rules don’t apply. Vincent, look at me.” Hot iron claws tilt Vincent’s chin up. He blinks, and Iridium’s mismatched eyes shine with crazy sympathy. “Understand, okay? Know how you feel.”

“How the fuck can you know how I feel?” The words tear from him on a scream. It’s not real. Not true. If he closes his eyes, it’ll go away.

“ ’Cause you’re like me now. Always in pain. Always wanting. So hungry, it hurts.”

Vincent swallows, bloodrich.
It’s not going away. Ever.

Iridium licks silvery lips. “Can teach you to manage it. Trust me.”

Desperation cracks Vincent’s bloodstained heart, and he nods. Hesitant. Inevitable.

Iridium crunches a crooked arm around his shoulders, his twisted metal body’s warmth a strange, compelling comfort. “There. Don’t cry. Got so much to talk about.” And he turns Vincent’s back on the dead girl, and leads him away with a soft metallic giggle.

Noon sun burns hellish on the dry concrete riverbank, the shadows of the row of cafés and expensive flats short and dense. Gulls swarm and squawk in water-fragrant heat haze, fighting over dropped french fries. The river’s hot brown glint dazzles. On the far side, high-rise buildings stab the flawless blue sky, their outlines hazy in superheated air.

Joey fidgets at the café table, his phone sticky in his hand. Normally, the heat curls his creature lazy and content. Today, he’s twitchy, unsettled. He knows exactly why, and it only makes him twitch harder.

Aluminum chairs clatter and scrape, the rich smells of garlic and tomato mixing with sour riverwater. Fairies giggle and slurp frozen cola. People chatter, drink, laugh over their lunch beneath the canopy’s warm shade. Across the table, Iridium slurps raw oysters from their pearly shells, slicking his blackened tongue over misshapen pewter lips, and the salty stink twists Joey’s guts raw.

For the fourth time that morning, he hits Mina’s speed-dial and presses
CALL
.

It rings, and rings.

He hangs up, itching. She’s still not there. Isn’t like her not to call. He knows what she’s been doing—mindscrape, with that dirtyfingered blue fairy—and deep under his skin, serpentine rage bubbles. He should never have let her go. Should’ve taken her home, made sure she was okay.

Disgust salts his mouth. Like she’d let him take her anywhere.

Beside him, Delilah slants teasing lashes at him as she licks hot chocolate fudge from her spoon. Her skimpy white sundress shows off athletic limbs, her dark skin glistening in the sun. “Can’t find your girlfriend? Too bad.”

Iridium snickers, and sucks up another oyster, the barbed wire wrapped around his wrist glinting bloody in the sun. “Figured you were too pissy to have gotten laid last night. Should keep that banshee on a leash.”

Joey drops him a sharp snaky grin. “Better pissy than overcompensating with comfort food.”

Delilah laughs and attacks her banana split with relish. She’s already polished off bacon and eggs, hash browns, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, fried cheese balls, a latte, and a strawberry milk shake. Demons. Always hungry, never satisfied.

At the next table, a skinny brown spriggan glamoured up as a teenage girl swipes a woman’s handbag from beneath her seat, snuffling in delight. Joey pushes aside his salad, swallowing a darker craving for raw meat still warm. Sometimes the snake needs feeding, too.

His fingers twitch for a cigarette, for his phone to call Mina again. Something’s not right. She should’ve called by now. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”

“I told you, Kane brushed me off. I’m in the mood to irritate him.” Delilah licks fudge-coated lips and pokes one long purple nail at his plate. “You gonna eat that?”

“Be my guest.”

She grabs it and tucks in hungrily, her voice muffled by lettuce and red onion. “Is there no dressing on this? What kind of fucking puritan are you? And where’s Vincent? I told him to get his fluffy gay ass down here.”

“Don’t twist your G-string. I’m here.” The empty chair grates aside, and Vincent flops into it. He’s flushed, chocolate hair dripping with sweat, dark shades covering his eyes. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shivering. “I’m starving. What’s to eat?”

Iridium sniffs, and licks the scent from wet pewter lips. His glamour fractures for an instant, and he grins, knowing. “Big night?”

“Screw you, metalboy. Caught the flu off some skanky whore.” Vincent wipes a dark smear from his nose, grabs two of Iridium’s oysters, and swallows them whole, sweat trickling over his throat.

Joey’s senses sparkle with danger, his tongue twitching in two in his mouth. Vincent stinks of blood and fear and fever. Either the world’s nastiest sparkle hangover, or . . .

But his thoughts drag back to Mina, the image of her with her shifty fairy dealer—touching, kissing, his hands on her skin, it’s how that shit is done—the thought of them together ripples cold reptile blood into his veins. What if the grotty little insect took advantage of her while she was distracted? Worse, what if he hurt her?

Joey’s fingers crackle.
He’ll be a dead fucking insect, that’s what.

Delilah pokes his shoulder with a sharp purple nail, and he starts back to reality. “What?”

A green-eyed demon scowl. “You listening?”

Joey scrapes his hair back, irritation spiking his scalp. “Sure. Whatever.”