Creature Discomforts (Descendants) (7 page)

Rachel leaned against something tall and strong and wrapped her arm around it. She just had to rest for a second then she’d dance again. Dancing was the best.

“Um, are you hugging a tree?”

Rachel blinked and tried to focus on Jake. Jake was cute. She told him so. Then she dragged her arm from around the tree—he’d been right! Jake was smart too—and wrapped it around him instead.

“Do you think I’m a good kisser?”

Jake laughed. “Let’s get you some water.”

Rachel pouted. It seemed to work so well with Beth Ann, why not try it? “Aren’t you going to kiss me, Jakey?”

Jake wrinkled up his nose at her, so she kissed it. Then she moved down to his lips and kissed those too. He tasted sweet, and his breath was hot. He kissed her back and wrapped her up in his arms, and Rachel remembered how much fun she’d always had with Jake. But then he pulled back with a strange look in his eyes.

“Rach, you broke up with me.”

Rachel didn’t know what to say, so she tried kissing him again. He stepped out of reach, and Rachel wobbled on her feet.

“No, Rachel. I like you, but you can’t just keep doing this when you’re lonely. We broke up.” Jake tucked a strand of hair back behind Rachel’s ear and laid both hands on her shoulders. “Stay here. I’m going to get you water.”

But she didn’t stay there. She looked up and noticed a guy staring at her from across the bonfire. He nodded at her, and she smiled. She pushed through the people and came to a stop in front of the guy. He was the complete opposite of Jake—long, dark hair, dark eyes fringed with dark lashes.

“You’re beautiful,” he said in a low voice that seemed so silky she was convinced she could almost feel it. She stared at the guy’s lips as he spoke, full and nearly red against his skin. “What’s your name?”

“Rachel.” Rachel fiddled with the waist of her skirt and straightened out her tank. Did he really say she was beautiful? “What’s yours?”

“Willem.”

Willem was a great name. It was better than
Jake, that was for sure. She was about to tell him that when Willem pulled her close. She could feel muscles move under the black tee and slim black pants, and she let herself relax into him. The world fell away until it was just the two of them. She looked up into Willem’s eyes and felt somehow safe. Besides, she always had her necklace there full of her mom’s herbs to warn her of any danger. So when Willem dipped his head and kissed her, she let him.

Rachel didn’t know how long she’d stayed like that when she felt a tug on her arm. She was jerked away from Willem, and all the colors and sounds of the party came rushing back, an explosion of shouts and flames framed Sid. She stared up into his face and blinked in confusion. His eyes were hard and his mouth a thin line.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sid hissed. His voice was so much harsher than Willem’s.

Rachel glared. “None of your business,” she hissed back.

“You don’t even know this guy, Rach,” Sid tried again, his voice softening and his hand going gentle and warm around her wrist. He turned her wrist over and pressed a bottle of water into her hand. “Why don’t you come back to hang out with me and Kendra?”

Rachel dropped the water. “And Beth Ann, right? Just go back to your perfect, all-American girl and leave me alone, Sid.”

Something like pain flashed across Sid’s face, and he reached for her arm again, but Rachel stepped back away from him and felt Willem’s hands steady her. Sid opened his mouth, then closed it again and turned on a heel. Rachel watched until he was swallowed up by the party and ignored the tightening in her chest that made her want to run after him. Instead, she whirled back to Willem, grabbed a handful of his shirt in her fist, and pulled him close.

Rachel rolled over, trying to find a comfortable spot, but everything around her swayed. She swallowed back a wave of nausea and clamped her eyes and mouth shut. With a groan, she remembered making out with Jake. And with an even more pitiful groan, she remembered coming on to some
guyliner-wearing weirdo.

Dimly, she heard some sort of rasping whisper—shrill and broken at the same time—and wondered what Kendra could be doing. Rachel rolled over again. But under her hands was something rough and hard, not her familiar bed. Slowly, slowly, she cracked open her eyes just the tiniest bit. They were swollen and raw under her eyelids, and it felt kind of like a fork was jammed into the back of each one. Drinking, maybe not her favorite thing in the world.

“Rachel?” The rasping whisper was back. “Oh, thank the lord, Rachel!”

Rachel pushed herself up but fumbled past strange spaces, almost like bars, and something stringy came loose in her hands. She rubbed at her eyes and blinked into dank light. A clump of long, dark hair that was definitely not her own was gathered between her fingers. She grimaced and shook the hair free then started rubbing her eyes decidedly harder.

Son of a—

“Rachel, help! You have to help me!”

She finally saw clearly, though what she saw just made her want to pass out again. She was in a cage, a rusty, person-sized cage hanging from what looked like the ceiling of a cave. Another wave of nausea hit that had little to do with the hangover. Rachel scrambled to the other corner of her cage—only about three feet across—and heaved as the whole thing swayed again, the chain holding her aloft shrieking against its mooring. A few yards away in another cage, Beth Ann sat curled up in a ball, mascara streaked down her face and snot under her nose. One of her false lashes still clung to a wet cheek.

“Finally!” Beth Ann cried. Her voice found every corner of the cave and bounced off the dripping rocks. “Rachel, what should we do? They said they’d be back for us, and you wouldn’t wake up, and I think … I think they’re going to
hurt
us!”

Okay, think. Think,
Rachel told her brain. Her brain wasn’t listening. Rachel pressed her face to the bars and squinted in the gloom. The cave wasn’t all that big, really. It was taller that it was wide, and the area they were held in a sort of room complete with a ratty, puke green couch and shelves spilling over with knickknacks. Another shallow chamber behind the couch looked like a bedroom, and there were tunnels leading off each end of the central room. Hazy light filtered into the cave from one of the tunnels, but the other disappeared into total darkness. Above, a plate-sized hole pierced all the way to the outside so that a shaft of pure light struck the cave floor between them.

Them. They
. “Wait,” Rachel said. “Did you say ‘they’? How many were there?”

Beth Ann was rocking back and forth now and quietly sobbing. “Um, five? I think. I was…” She clenched her eyes shut and counted on her fingers. “No, there were five, all guys, though they said something about a master. And
ohmygod, Rachel, do you think they took Ali?” Beth Ann’s voice tumbled out of her in a building whine. “Do you think they
killed
Ali? And if they killed her then what are they going to do with us? And—”

Rachel tuned her out.
So only six vampires including the leader. That was … good? Rachel had read nests could grow to twenty, so only six was definitely a good thing. A moaning laugh crept through her. Yeah. She’d never even faced one vampire, let alone six. Rachel shook away the thoughts and concentrated on what she could learn. Below, their two cages hung maybe four feet off the rocky ground, and in the dim corners of the room opposite the couch she spied a pile of what looked like women’s clothing. Something silver caught the meager light from amid the clothes, and Rachel recognized a laptop, dented at the corners and smeared with long-dried blood. She wrenched her eyes away. It was no good thinking of how all those poor girls must have died. Or worse, were turned. She wasn’t going to let that happen to her or Beth Ann.

“Beth Ann,” Rachel said, trying to keep her voice steady and smooth. “Beth Ann, look at me.” The girl obliged. “The guys who took you, they’re very, uh, persuasive. Kind of like a cult, okay? So don’t look into their eyes or you’ll be, you know, persuaded.”

“Like being hypnotized? My mom said that’s evil.”

Rachel waved her hand and nodded. “Yes, just like being hypnotized. And yes, these guys are evil. I mean, obviously.” She took a breath to calm the exasperation leaking into her voice and smiled at Beth Ann. Then she saw the girl was still clutching her ever-present LV bag. “Your purse! What do you have in it?”

Beth Ann shrugged. “I already checked my cell. No signal. Not even a single bar.” She rubbed her bare feet against the bars of her cage. “The losers even took my shoes. At least you still have your ugly boots.”

“My boots?” Rachel looked down to see her scuffed brown boots still on her feet. “My boots!” She dug her fingers into the hidden sheath inside the right boot and drew out her silver dagger with a cry of relief. Her other hand went for her locket before she remembered she’d taken it off to wear a navel-grazing pendant. Her hand inched down her stomach to the pendant … a piece of raw wood wrapped partially in gold wire. The vampires had left a Descendant in a cage with her dagger and what could easily become a stake.

Rachel scooted back toward the side of the cage and ignored Beth Ann’s wide eyes. “Other than the cell, what else do you have in there?”

“Why are you holding a sword?” Beth Ann asked, her voice climbing an octave.

“Never mind that. Your purse.”

Beth Ann didn’t move for a moment then she lifted the diminutive bag and rooted through it. “Rachel, I know I’ve never told you this,” she said, head still down, “but you’re, like, really weird, and I don’t like you.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t like you, either. What’s in that ridiculous purse?” Nothing like a crisis to bring two people together.

“I’ve got blotting sheets, bobby pins, lip gloss…”

“We’re not giving them a makeover!”

Beth Ann glared. “Do you want to know what’s in here or not?”

Rachel waved a hand so she could continue.

“My cell, breath mints, and a compact.”

“The compact! Give me the compact!”

Rachel shoved her arm through the bars, straining to reach Beth Ann’s outstretched hand, but it was no use. They were still a good six inches apart. Still, the sun coming through the shaft in the ceiling was warm on her skin and gave her a smidgen of hope.
If she could just get that compact.

“We’re going to have to swing,” she announced.

The screech of the chain was like needles against her ears and sent the alcohol-brined contents of her stomach churning and her head throbbing. It took three tries to even get their swings lined up, but finally they did it. Rachel jammed her shoulder against the bars, strained until it felt like all of her tendons would snap, and reached for Beth Ann’s hand. The compact was cool and smooth against her palm, but she clamped her fingers down and pulled it into her cage.

She slipped the compact into the side of her bra for
safe-keeping and got to work whittling the wooden pendant into something a lot more deadly. Ten minutes later, she was ready. Now she just needed a vampire. The Corpus said nests operated on a strict hierarchy, and each vampire had a specific role. In a nest this small, she had to bank on the hope that only one vamp would be assigned guard duty. But there was only one way to find out.

Rachel braced her shoulders against the back of the cage, pulled in her feet,
then struck. Her boots slammed against the door, and the boom ricocheted off the cave walls and pounded against her aching head. Her stomach roiled. Maybe she wouldn’t be fighting the vampire so much as puking all over it. But she took a breath, braced herself, and struck out at the door again. And again. Each time, the rusted metal lock gave a tiny bit.

But it didn’t give soon enough. A guttural roar echoed down the dark tunnel, and a brute of a thing stumped into the cavern.

“If you don’t stop with that racket, we’re going to eat you first!” The thing bellowed. Beth Ann started whimpering.

Rachel answered by kicking the door again. The vampire stalked closer. It looked nearly human, Rachel realized. It must be young. The longer a vampire lived, the less human it became. It was never anything
drastic, she’d read, but just a sense of otherness. This vampire was short and nearly square, with broad shoulders, meaty arms, and bandied legs. Its irises were still the color of its human origin—not the black they’d eventually turn—and when it bared its teeth in a hiss she noticed its gums hadn’t receded yet to permanently show fangs. A new vampire then. Perfect.

“Girl,” the vamp hissed. “I’m warning you.”

Rachel looked at the vampire, smiled, and kicked the door.

“That’s it.”

The vampire came closer still. One step. Then another. Then …

Rachel shoved her hand out of the cage and held the compact open in the shaft of light. It hit the mirror and refracted straight into the dim cave. The vampire’s mouth hung open in confusion for a moment then the light found him—a direct hit from the sun. Its hair and skin erupted like water boiling in a kettle. In the instant the small circle of sunlight hit the vamp’s temple and hair, its skin melted and dripped down its face, a demon candle. Beth Ann screamed and the creature shrieked and dropped to its knees, trying in vain to push the skin and hair back up to its temple. But as soon as it left the sunlight, the skin healed into dried folds and flaps that would forever dribble down its ruined face.

And then came the fangs. All across its gums, razor sharp teeth slid down to cover human teeth. The vampire snapped and slavered. It grabbed the door to the cage in both hands and wrenched it open in one ungodly loud squeal of twisting metal.

“I’m going to drain you,” it hissed. Its tongue was thick against the new teeth, its lips clumsy. The words slurred like soup and gristle. “I’m going to take my time killing you.”

But Rachel was ready. When the vampire reached in to grab her, she plunged her hidden dagger right through its palm and skewered it. She kicked out at its face, wrenched her dagger back, and landed lightly on her feet, her legs planted wide against the rocky ground and her arms up: her silver dagger in one hand and her short stake in the other.

The vampire snarled and charged, and Rachel whirled and slashed. The vampire was quick though, and her dagger just grazed its shoulder. She found her footing and crouched, ready for attack.

She knew it’d be quick—she remembered from the Corpus that they were faster than humans, but not necessarily stronger—but this was more than she’d expected. The vampire was on her in a flash and a gnashing of teeth, and Rachel only just got her dagger up in time to protect herself. She sliced again, and this time her dagger’s edge found flesh. The vampire roared in pain and pushed fingers against its open neck, but nothing could stem the spurt of black blood.

Confusion rippled across its pale face and it blinked its eyes—still so human—in something like realization. Rachel wasn’t just a college girl it could scare and kill. She was something more. In its dying moments, the vampire understood that too late.
But its eyes. Rachel couldn’t stop staring. Her fist was held high, the stake in her hand, but she hesitated. He was so human, with blue eyes like Kendra’s. Rachel shook herself, shifted her gaze to the fangs, and plunged the stake into the creature’s heart.

Rachel turned away and faced the open terror in Beth Ann’s face. The girl wasn’t just afraid of the creature that had exploded in a wave of ichor behind her, but afraid of Rachel as well. That crawled across Rachel’s skin and settled deep inside.

“C’mon,” she said, striding across the cavern to Beth Ann’s cage. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“No,” whispered a silky voice from the dark tunnel behind her. “I don’t think so.”