Page 68 of The Curse of Blood and Silenc

Thirty-Five

Serenity

I took a step toward Louis,but a loud, unnatural howl stopped me in my tracks.

The wolflike and yet not wolflike creatures lunged at Enzo, Dimitri, and Gianna in a blur of matted fur and twisted limbs. Enzo met the first one mid-leap, his hands sinking into its throat. Dimitri and Gianna moved in perfect sync, back-to-back, as two more of the hell-creatures circled them. The fourth one went straight for the fallen girl, its jaws opening impossibly wide.

I lunged for her arm, sweat-slicked fingers scrabbling against her leather jacket. The wolf’s teeth gleamed too close, blinding white in the darkness. My heart slammed so hard I could barely breathe, barely think. I grabbed again, fingers trembling so badly I could hardly keep my grip. The jacket slipped through my hands like water as massive jaws snapped inches from her leg.

Then Louis was there. Not the Louis I knew, the thing wearing his face. His hands tangled in my hair and the woman’sblonde strands, yanking us both back with inhuman strength. He slammed us against the crypt wall so hard my teeth rattled. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and the taste of copper flooded my mouth.

Rough stone scraped against my back as he held us pinned, its cold bite nothing compared to the ice in his eyes. Those weren’t Louis’ eyes anymore—the warm brown that had danced when he teased Joy and me was gone, replaced by something dark and ancient that looked at us like we were insects to be crushed. My chest seized with each desperate attempt to breathe, ribs screaming in protest where they’d hit the wall. Fear clawed up my throat, and beneath it surged something even worse—grief for the man who’d been Joy’s and my protector, now twisted into this monster.

Behind us, I heard the sounds of battle: snarls and growls mixing with the impact of bodies, the wet tearing of flesh, the crack of stone as someone or something hit the tomb walls. But I couldn’t turn to look. Louis held us immobile, the things under his skin writhing faster, like they were feeding off the violence around us.

I tried to summon my power. Healing light flickered in my chest, wanting to help, wanting to burn out whatever was inside him even though Angelo said it was impossible.

You can’t heal me,” he whispered in my ear, his breath cold where it should have been warm. The voice was Louis’ but fractured, multiple voices trying to speak through one throat. “Louis isn’t here. We are many.”

I stuck out my chin in utter defiance. “I can heal you. I know I can.” I struggled against his grip, trying to turn to face him so I could look into those eyes and find some trace of the man I knew and loved. “Louis, please. I know you’re in there. Fight them.”

His grip tightened, fingers digging into my scalp. “The crypt,” he hissed, but this time his voice was different. Strained.Fighting. “Get...the dybbuk box...before...” The things under his skin twisted violently, and his next words came out in that horrible splintered voice again. “Foolish girl. He’s trying so hard to reach you. It’s almost... amusing.”

Tears streamed down my face. The thing wrapped Louis’ fingers tighter in my hair, using me like a shield as he turned on the other girl. “Now, bitch, if you want your little vampire to live, you’ll get the dybbuk box.” His voice had that horrible multi-toned sound again, like a choir of the damned singing through Louis’ throat.

“Please don’t kill him,” she pleaded. Raw anguish broke through her careful control, and I realized this must be Rose—the one Gianna had mentioned. Valentin’s wife.

He shoved her and she fell onto one knee, catching herself against the crypt wall. “Get the dybbuk box or we bleed him out.” The things under Louis’ skin writhed faster, excited by her pain. “Slowly. While you are forced to watch.”

I didn’t even know what a dybbuk box was, but from the way Rose’s face had gone white, it was something that should stay locked away in that crypt.

She gritted her teeth, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth where he’d slammed her into the wall. “I can’t get the box if my wrists are tied.”

Louis slapped her across the face so hard her head snapped to the side. The crack of palm against flesh echoed off the tombs. “Shut up.”

“But she’s right. She can’t pick up the box with her hands like that.” My voice shook, but I had to try to reason with the thing inside him.

He looked at me and red flames ignited in his black eyes, like someone had lit hellfire behind them. It stole my breath away, turned my lungs to ice. He held out his hand, and I watched in horror as his fingernails lengthened, curved, turned intorazor-sharp claws that gleamed in the moonlight. Each finger elongated with a wet, cracking sound, like joints and bones breaking and reforming.

Then his claws swiped through Rose’s bindings with surgical precision, cutting her loose but leaving thin red lines on her wrists where they’d grazed her skin.

“Get the box,” the thing inside Louis growled, “or your vampire will die a slow, agonizing death.” Those claws flexed, dripping something dark that sizzled when it hit the ground. “Perhaps we’ll start with…yes…his eyes.”

She glanced at me, and in that moment I understood. Once she gave him that box, she was dead. We both were. Some things were meant to stay buried in those crypts.

“Rose, don’t give it to him!” Dimitri cried out from the fray. He ripped into another wolf’s throat, blood spraying across his expensive shirt. “Seriously? I just bought this shirt. And honey, if you open that door, we’re going to have a very long conversation about poor life choices!”

He was fighting wolf after wolf, trying to reach us, each movement a deadly dance. Every time one fell, another materialized from the shadows in an endless game of whack-a-mole. Dimitri and Gianna fought back-to-back, their movements lethal and precise, but they were getting nowhere. Blood and fur matted the ground around them.

Gianna cried out, her voice strained with desperation, “Serenity, use your shield to protect us!” She ducked under snapping jaws, only narrowly avoiding teeth that could tear through her vampire flesh. Blood matted her usually perfect hair.

“You’ll never do it in time,” Louis taunted, the claws of one hand pressing into my scalp. His other hand shot out, his razor-sharp claws hovering over Rose’s chest, right above her heart.“Use your power to protect them, and I’ll rip Rose’s heart out and eat it.”

He leaned closer, his breath cold in my ear, and my entire body went rigid as the memory of Joy’s slumped body flooded back. Her blood on the floor, her face so swollen I barely recognized her. Bile rose in my throat as those same hands that had beaten Joy pressed against my skin. “And I’ll make you watch. Just like I made you watch what I did to Joy.”

I wanted to scream, to fight, to do something—anything—but the memory of Joy’s battered body paralyzed me. Because I knew with sickening certainty that he’d do worse to Rose. And he’d enjoy every second of making me watch.

Rose put her hand on the door and it slid open as if by magic, ancient symbols lighting up under her touch.

---