Our latest captive screamed another shrill sound of pain, and I resisted the urge to cover my ears. Not because it was unbearable to hear the suffering River and I inflicted, but simply because my ears were ringing.
“Still nothing to say?” I asked the disfigured man in a bored voice. Leaning against the concrete wall, I had a clear view of his panic-filled eyes as River hovered over him. One giant paw scratched the ground on either side of the man’s head, and his rows of razor-sharp teeth snapped menacingly close to our prisoner’s nose.
“I swear to you,” the man howled. “I don’t know where he’s based!”
River’s hell-fire eyes met mine, and I gave him a sharp nod. He needed no further instruction, leaning over the man’s face and letting a glob of his acid drool drip directly into the bound and screaming soldier’s eye.
“Are you quite sure about that?” I prompted when his latest round of screams died down to a moaning wail. “Because I think you’re lying, and so does my friend here.”
River growled his agreement, a sound like a volcano erupting or the earth splitting. It was nothing short of demonic, and it made all the hairs on my arms rise.
“Nevada!” the now one-eyed soldier choked out. “Try Nevada… military base in the desert…” His words were so broken by moans and sobs that I could only just make out what he’d said.
“Like Area 51?” I narrowed my eyes at the mangled man, trying to understand the first clue we had gained in weeks as to the whereabouts of Doctor Florsheim and the mutants he had been creating with my stolen blood.
“Yes!” the man screeched. “Exactly! S-someone mentioned…” He trailed off as he groaned with pain and gasped for breath. “S-someone said he got a government grant. That’s all I know, I s-swear.”
Tapping the steel toe of my boot on the concrete floor, I tipped my head up to stare at the ceiling while I considered his info. The room was dimly lit with ancient fluorescent tube lighting, half of which had blown a long time ago, which didn’t help the shadows crowding my vision.
Ever since I’d let the darkness in, it’d threatened to consume me completely. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted as hell, too… to just let go of that tiny scrap of humanity I still had floating around inside me. How much quicker would I be getting this shit done if I wasn’t constantly ringing up a mental tally of how much blood we had shed?
Steeling myself against the decision I’d already made, I turned my black eyes to the moaning prisoner chained to the floor beneath River’s massive hellhound body.
“Of course it is,” I agreed with him. He’d have told us by now if there was anything else. “Finish him off, River. We need to hit the road.”
I averted my gaze away from the mess I’d already seen him make of our prisoners countless times before. Still, blood and a chunk of gore splattered the toe of my boot, and I needed to shake it off before I left the room and shut the door against the wet, tearing sounds of flesh being torn apart under River’s claws and fangs.
“Area 51, huh?” A low voice came from the shadows to my left, and I snapped a ball of dragon fire into existence, readying it to throw at whoever had dared to follow us. “Reckon we will spot any aliens there?” He stepped forward, shedding the protection of the shadows, and my brows lowered into a glare.
“Finn,” I spat, shoulders relaxing a fraction. “What the fuck are you doing here? Come to lay more guilt on my doorstep? Hate to break it to you—there’s no room left.”
He gave me a tight smile, but his gaze was fixed firmly on the ball of fire floating about my gloved hand. “Do you mind?” he prompted, nodding at the fire. “I’ve seen the effects of dragon fire firsthand and have no wish to experience it for myself.”
I shrugged, flicking my hand and extinguishing the magical weapon in a blink. “It makes you no safer; I have come a long way in my powers.” It was a warning, not a brag. I could kill him as easily as scratching my nose, and the darkness allowed me no room for mercy or compassion.
“I’m aware,” he acknowledged with a head dip.
“What are you doing here, Finn?” I demanded, folding my arms across my leather-jacketed chest and spearing him with what I knew to be a seriously unnerving glare. I’d checked it out in the mirror some weeks back and been shocked myself.
He blanched a little. “The black eyes really add to this reign-of-blood-and-terror thing you two have got going on,” he commented. “But to answer your question, I’ve been following you for some time now.”
“No shit,” I deadpanned. “What made you decide to step up from creepy lurker to making yourself known? You’re that into aliens?”
“Not hardly,” he remarked. “I was following you in the hope you’d lead me to Bride. She and I have a score to settle, but she’s just that little bit too slippery for me to find alone. It seems you are working toward a different goal, though.”
I shook my head. “Not different. Just cleaning up the playing field before I get to her.” I paused, then shrugged. What did I care if Finn knew what I was doing? He had no hope of stopping me. “Doctor Florsheim took a vial of my blood some months ago. He’s been using it to experiment on soldiers, creating mutant, manufactured supernaturals. He’s frankly an easier target than my so-called mother, so I am disposing of him and all his creations first. I do hate surprises, so I would really rather have this component dealt with.”
“Makes sense.” He nodded, scratching his chin and glancing to the closed door at my back. “So, we’re heading to Area 51 next, then?”
Sighing, I drummed my fingertips on my leather clad bicep. “We?” I repeated, and he gave a curt nod.
“If that soldier was telling the truth and your Doctor Florsheim is working within Area 51, you’re going to need my help. They don’t fuck around out there. Think of it like Blood Moon labs but on crack and all government approved. There’s no such thing as aliens, at least not so far as humans can prove. There is a whole myriad of supernatural creatures in this world, and when one gets picked up by the military instead of a crazy loner like Dupree… well that’s where they end up.” Finn paused as a ground-shaking roar went up from the room I’d just left, and a glance through the window confirmed River was taking care of the clean-up. Flames licked at the glass as he torched every surface and eradicated any sign of the murder we had just committed.
“Thank you for your concern,” I responded politely when River’s growls died down and the door clicked open behind me. “I think we have this handled, though.”
Without waiting for his response, I turned and stalked back down the concrete hallway of the abandoned prison I had commandeered for my death mission. The ominous click of claws on concrete assured me that my feral lover was following behind, and I squashed down a trickle of fear that threatened to surface within me.
River was terrifying in his hellhound form, there was no disputing that. But he was still loyal to me, and for now that served my purposes perfectly.
“Wait!” Finn called after us, rushing to catch up, and then—stupidly—he placed a hand on my arm to halt me.
Pausing mid-step, I looked down at his hand on my sleeve, and he thankfully had the good grace to remove it in a hurry, even as a growl rumbled from deep in River’s obsidian-black chest.
“I can help you on this, Kit. I promise you.” He met my gaze without flinching. “If this is what you need to do before going after Bride, then I want to help. The sooner the better.”
“What’s in this for you, Finn?” I demanded, growing tired of the interaction already. It had been close to a month since I’d spoken to anyone—other than my torture victims, that was, or if one-sided conversations with the wild, demonic creature that used to be my lover counted.
“She killed Lucy,” he replied in a pained voice, his eyes full of pain and desperation at needing to say her name. “What more reason do I need for wanting that bitch to suffer?”
The darkness swirled and hissed at the corners of my vision, sniffing at Finn like they smelled secrets… Secrets he wasn’t ready to share, if the tightness to his jaw was any solid indication.
“There’s more to this than just Lucy,” I said in a bored voice. “But I don’t care what sordid past you have with that woman. You can tag along to Nevada, but I won’t be burdened with your safety. You get caught or killed, that’s on you.”
He gave me a short nod, his shoulders dropping as the tension drained out of him. “Understood,” he agreed. “How are we getting there? I noticed you didn’t have a car outside.”
As I continued down the corridor with its flickering lights, my lips cocked in a half grin. “Well, if you don’t know the answer to that, how have you been following us?”
Finn gave a small snort of laughter at my side and dropped the act. He knew perfectly well I’d been travelling via rune portal. What I didn’t know was how he’d been following them.
“I’m not a mage, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he informed me, and I shrugged. I’d already crossed mage off my list a while ago, and now… well, now I didn’t really give a shit. So long as he could kill when needed and not get in the way, we’d be fine.
“You don’t want to know?” he pressed as I shoved open the heavy iron doors and stepped out into the moonlight.
“Not really,” I admitted. “I get the feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.” River padded out onto the dusty pavement close on my heels, and I spun to face my newest companion. “So?”
He gave me a toothy grin that reminded me of the first time we had met. Back during my first foray into Blood Moon labs, when we’d created enough confusion that a few prisoners got free, Finn had grinned at me just like that after ripping a man’s heart from his chest.
“I’m a demon,” he replied like it was some huge, earth shattering revelation.
Clearly, he had forgotten he was speaking to the most powerful Ban Dia on Earth and her hellhound sidekick, but reality must have kicked in when I arched a brow and said, “Cool. Now let’s move, we’re burning moonlight.”
Piercing the tip of my finger with my own dragon claw, I cast a blood portal, and before Finn could fully formulate his response, River and I were gone. Leaving him gaping, no doubt, at my rapidly cooling rune circle.
