Better Off Dead : A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer Novel (Book One)

  Chapter 17

  LUCY’S MOUTH FELT STICKY, the coppery taste of her own blood making her nauseous. She moved her head first—a cacophony of pain ricocheted through her skull like a bullet. She moaned, reaching up to hold her head. She felt something wet and sticky, and pulled her hand away. She opened her eyes and saw that her hand was painted red with blood.

  Oh god...

  She felt her body shake as she lowered her hands and looked around at where she was. A house, dimly lit and sparsely furnished. The smell of old blood and decay pressed in on her. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light she saw large, strange symbols drawn on the walls. The windows were all bricked up, letting in no light from the outside.

  Lucy turned to check out the wall behind her and jerked back reflexively when she saw her—Delia—not two feet away, sitting still as a statue in a straight back chair. The chair was made of black wood, with intricate carvings of leaves and fruit, the feet fashioned into lion claws. The sight of Delia, so close, her eyes as terribly cold as ever, made Lucy cry out, made her lurch away and scramble clumsily to her feet and stagger away from the vampire.

  Delia canted her head, watching Lucy’s progress intently.

  “What do you want?” Lucy’s voice sounded hoarse and feeble to her. “How did I get here?” And before she finished the question she flashed back to the graveyard, her grandmother and Abbey walking away, and then...

  And then Superbitch here tackled me!

  Delia patiently sat in her chair as Lucy tried to shake off the effects of the head wound which had left her unconscious in the first place. Lucy could feel where Delia had hit her, like she’d been hit by a baseball bat, and just touching it made her eye feel like it was about to pop right out of its socket.

  Delia just sat there, staring, not uttering a word, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Her makeup was minimal: eyeliner and mascara, a hint of silvery eye shadow, and that smirking mouth accented by iridescent pink lipstick. Added to that she wore a sleeveless black silk blouse and matching skintight leather pants; she looked like a very pretty monster.

  Standing, the room started to pitch and spin on Lucy. She felt like she was about to barf. She clamped the hand not covered in blood to her mouth, and choked back what wanted to come out. Squinting shut her eyes, she forced herself to breathe. After a moment the world felt like it had finally stopped spinning.

  To Lucy’s surprise, Delia was still sitting patiently in the chair—hadn’t moved a muscle, and she still had that stupid smile on her face.

  Lucy staggered away from the vampire, her sneakers making little squeaking sounds as she fell against a wall, and then seeing the front door she ran straight for it. She slammed against the thick, unforgiving wood and clawed at the door knob. It wouldn’t budge. She searched with her eyes and with her fingers for a latch, finding only a key hole.

  A dead bolt… emphasis on dead…

  Lucy pushed the thought out of her mind. She couldn’t afford to freak out, not now, not when she was locked in a house with a deranged vampire that hated her guts.

  I’m so screwed!

  Just then Delia rounded the corner and walked with a graceful gait right up to Lucy. She stopped about two feet away, and sniffed the air. “I love your perfume… oh, wait… that’s not perfume… it’s fear.”

  “Stay away from me!” Lucy shrieked.

  “Did you know,” Delia said thoughtfully, “you can taste fear in blood? It’s like adding curry spice to the mix… but better.”

  Lucy gasped when she saw Delia’s teeth slide down into place with a snick, lethally sharp and white as snow. But then she felt that wonderfully familiar heat rage in her skull again, smothering the pain, and leaving her suddenly pissed off instead of scared stiff.

  “You skank! Where do you get off?” Lucy leaned forward meeting Delia’s sinister gaze. “Sure, I might have kissed your boyfriend once—”

  “I saw you with him just tonight,” Delia said in an even tone. “A porch is hardly a private place.”

  Okay, that sucks…

  “Multiple times, then,” Lucy amended. “But don’t forget this was all your idea in the first place. If you’re looking for someone to blame, look in a mirror.”

  Delia shot Lucy with a look that screamed, You moron!

  “Okay, so you can’t actually see yourself in a mirror, but you know damn well what I’m talking about.” Lucy stood up straighter and stared the vampire down again. “Plus, you must be plain stupid. Last time—” Lucy stopped and thought. Last time she could control Delia… sort of. But she had tired quickly. If it hadn’t been for Gabriel jumping in, she’d been vampire tender vittles.

  “Last time what?” Delia said, looking curious and psychotic.

  Lucy took a deep breath, focused on the annoyed heat burning in her head. “Open the door.” She automatically felt her power radiate out from her, and with it a large chunk of her physical strength abandoned her.

  Delia leaned forward looking at Lucy with faux confusion. “Can you say that bit again? I didn’t quite hear you.”

  Lucy gritted her teeth, pulling up her power around her, felt it scorch and lick out of her hot and angry. “Let me out of this house, you nasty bitch!”

  Again Lucy felt herself weaken. She staggered backward into the wooden door, gasping.

  Delia looked as if she were pondering Lucy’s command, rolling it around in her mouth as if tasting the very words. “Nope,” she said with a cheerful chirp. “Don’t wanna.”

  Lucy felt the icy fingers of shock and realization climb up her spine. She could call up an entire graveyard of zombies, and she’d been able to control Delia before. What was different now?

  The house, Lucy thought. The house and all those weird ass markings on the walls.

  “Come on Luce…”—Lucy gulped. Delia had heard Gabriel call her that. And now, hearing it come out of the vampire’s mouth, made Lucy cringe—“Want to try that once more with feeling?”

  “It’s the house, isn’t it? The creepy markings on the walls.”

  “Now you’re getting it.” Delia paced around her, her eyes laughing. “Guess you’re not as dumb as I thought.”

  The annoyed heat flashed in her head again, “Well, I knew it couldn’t be you.”

  Delia’s face turned hard and angry.

  “I mean, you didn’t paint all these marks. This is just somewhere you knew about. Some secret safe house your family owns. You probably have the mystical power of a doily.”

  Delia smiled again. “Safe? No, this house is anything but safe.” She chuckled as she spread her arms out to encompass the entire building. “This is a house of interrogation, a house of torture.”

  Lucy gulped reflexively. She didn’t want to know any more about the house. And she certainly didn’t want to imagine the torture visited within these walls. She especially didn’t want to think about what kinds of torture this wacked out vamp would like to dole out on her.

  “But you’re right,” Delia said. “It is the markings that keep your filthy little trick from working on me again. And no, I didn’t have anything to do with the magic of this place. The markings are old magic, the kind you don’t see much anymore. And they’re very specific. They make everything—except vampires—powerless within the confines of these walls.”

  “I knew it.” Lucy waved her hand dismissively.

  “Even though I’m one hundred percent sure what kind of power you actually have—I’m guessing you’re a necromancer—I’m sure you’re not going to be able to overcome them.”

  Lucy’s mind was practically sprinting through all the thoughts swirling through her mind. If Delia had wanted to kill her, then she could’ve just done it while she was passed out. Why the whole kidnapping bit? Why drag her all the way to this hexed house?

  “So… you’re just going to keep me locked up in this house?” Lucy scowled at her captor. “’Caus
e if you are, I’d like a TV, with cable… and some better furniture.”

  “What are you—?”

  “And you’re going to have to call for pizza or something... no, make that Chinese,” Lucy continued as if she was dictating orders to her personal assistant. “I’m dying for an egg roll, and some sweet and sour chicken.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Delia shrieked.

  “Well, you went to a lot of trouble kidnapping me: knocking me out, dragging me here. And all for what?” Lucy brushed some dust and leftover grass from the graveyard from her sleeve. “I don’t see you killing me, especially since you had plenty of chances while I was passed out.”

  Delia smiled again, her eyes brimming with excitement.

  The bitch has a plan, damn it…

  Delia said, “It occurred to me that if I killed you, I wouldn’t really get much satisfaction out of it, vengeance-wise it’d be kind of short lived. I want Gabriel to feel this for a long time.”

  Lucy glared at her. “Just get on with it already.”

  Delia rushed at her, grabbed her by the throat and slammed Lucy against the wooden door again. She snarled, baring her teeth. “Patience…”

  She let go of Lucy’s throat and pushed herself away from her. “There is a way,” Delia said with naked hatred in her cold blue eyes. “A very simple way to make sure you can never marry Gabriel… and yet keeps blood off my hands, figuratively speaking.”

  Somehow Lucy knew what Delia was going to say. If she wasn’t going to kill her, and she wasn’t going to hold her captive—and once she was done Delia wouldn’t have to worry about Lucy and Gabriel getting married—that left one more alternative.

  “So you’re going to…”—Lucy gulped down a huge, ice cold ball of fear—“to…”

  “Make you vampire. Yeah, that’s the idea.”

  Lucy stood there, astonished, her mouth gaping.

  “I was going to say disfigure my face.” Okay, Lucy thought. Not my best guess.

  Delia laughed and let Lucy go. “Maybe later.”

  Lucy took off at a dead sprint as she rushed toward the back of the house. Some annoying girl was screaming like an idiot. Lucy suddenly realized she was the annoying screaming idiot. Straight ahead she saw another thick wooden door and she rushed toward it, grabbing the knob and finding it blessedly unlocked. She yanked it open, rushing into the dark little room—definitely not an exit!—and pulled the door shut with a slam. She felt for a latch, but once again she could only feel the subtle notch for a key—another dead bolt.

  Lucy gulped air and then held it. She listened for Delia’s approach. She had all her weight leveraged up against the door, but knew she could never hold it against Delia’s vampiric strength.

  Without ceremony, the pitch dark room filled with light from an overhead light fixture: a large, dusty crystal chandelier. On the other side of the room, peering at Lucy from another open door, Delia flashed a most beatific smile.

  “Silly girl…you can’t actually think you’re going to get out of this…or away from me.”

  All around the bare room Lucy saw those creepy markings adorning all the walls. In the bright light of the chandelier Lucy could see they weren’t just painted on. No, the symbols were brushed onto the walls with blood, having long ago dried to a deep, dark crimson.

  Delia streaked with blurry speed across the room and flung Lucy against the wall. “This was... well, it was fun! But we’ve got more… appetizing business to tend to.” Her fangs lengthened and glowed in her mouth. “This might hurt a little.”

  Lucy was about to scream bloody murder, which was actually kind of what was about to happen, but then her mind clicked onto something she’d completely forgotten about.

  Mr. Winkie, Lucy thought. Come to me. Immediately she felt the sheath and harness materialize on her forearm. Delia was leaning in to bite Lucy’s neck, so she didn’t notice when Lucy felt for the knife, then pulled it out of the sheath.

  Delia’s teeth sank into her throat with merciless efficiency. The pain and shock of being so penetrated, and the instant weakening of having your lifeblood rush from her body, made Lucy shake and moan, the weight of the world crashing down on her.

  But she had the blade in her hand, thin and light as a feather. Miraculously it was pointed in just the right direction. With her blood rushing from her into the vampire’s sucking maw, she thrust up with the last bit of strength she had and slid the blade into Delia’s belly like she made out of butter.

  Delia screamed and pushed herself away from Lucy. She staggered back with her hands holding onto the gushing wound at her core. The blood spilled in splashes on the hardwood floor.

  She laughed, though this time it sounded raspy with pain. “Silver.” She nodded to the knife still clutched in Lucy’s hand, Delia’s blood dripping from it. “Nice. But this wound won’t kill me… it’ll just piss me off! Believe me…” She staggered back against the nearest wall. “I’ll make you suffer for this.”

  “I believe you,” Lucy said breathlessly. She struggled to keep herself standing, her one hand clutching at her injured neck—the vampire’s teeth had ripped a chunk out—the other hand holding the knife. The blade and her hand were drenched in the vampire’s blood. “But it will slow you down.”

  “Not enough to save you,” she laughed. “Stupid cow!”

  Lucy looked at her hands, dripping with her blood and the vampire’s blood, and an idea popped into her head. “You said the markings on the walls protected vampires, making anything else’s powers useless.” Lucy dropped the knife, stumbling toward the closest wall marking. She reached out to the creepy crimson design and swiped her bloody hands over it, immediately feeling a sizzle and then a flux of power. Suddenly she knew, right then and there, that the spell (at least in that room) had been broken. She could feel it.

  “Shit!” Delia spat as her eyes flashed murderously at Lucy. She lurched forward, forgetting the painful gash in her stomach, and ran right for Lucy, her eyes crazed, her fangs dripping with strings of saliva.

  Lucy called her power up around her, the familiar heat flickering in her head. “Delia, stop.”

  As if she’d run into an invisible wall, Delia halted in her tracks; though she was still seething and trying to reach her arms out to grab at Lucy.

  Lucy fell to her knees, suddenly too weak to stand. She pulled her hand away from her neck wound again to find it drenched and dripping with even more blood.

  I’m dying…

  Delia stalked closer, as if she were trying to pull free of whatever was holding her back.

  “I said stop, super bitch!” Lucy’s power flashed hot in her mind, and she felt it reach out and hold Delia back.

  But the vampire was smiling.

  “You’re fading fast. Won’t be long before all that delicious blood of yours is all over the floor. And when you pass out…” She clapped her hands together in exultation and smiled all the more devilishly. “You’re mine.”

  The psycho-bitch-monster-of-death has a point. Once I pass out—which I’m already starting to feel—I won’t be able to hold her back at all. Lucy shivered as darkness crowded her peripheral vision. Either she’ll kill me, or… or I’ll wake up with fangs.

  “I’m torn,” Delia said, obviously feeling better, her wound probably almost healed already. “Should I just turn you and get this over with? Or… I could make you drink just enough of my blood to heal you, and then I can carve you up for a while, see how you like it!”

  While Delia was monologuing her ass off about the ravages she was going to inflict on her, a very simple thought revealed itself to Lucy. She didn’t know if her little ability covered it… and even if it did work, would it last after she’d passed out?

  “Or I could wait until you’re dead, dead.” Delia twirled with excitement. “With only the tiniest sparks of life left, and then bring you back as—”

&n
bsp; “Go to sleep,” Lucy said, her eyes locked on those of the vampire.

  Her monologue abruptly interrupted, Delia stared at Lucy with slack jawed disbelief.

  Lucy breathed in one deep breath, calling up what was left of her strength, feeling the hot annoyance burn in her skull. Delia was just about to say something when Lucy said: “Go—to—sleep—Delia! And don’t wake up again until I tell you to.”

  She gave a snort of laughter, shaking her head, but then her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, her arms shaking as she tried to hold herself up from the floor.

  “No... you... you can’t...”

  “Sleep... ” As the word fell from Lucy’s lips, so fell Delia to the ground. Her frosty cold blue eyes stared out at Lucy for a few very uncomfortable beats before they too slid shut, and Delia’s entire body went slack with sleep.

  Hopefully she’ll stay that way after... after I... A dark curtain started to fall over Lucy, only the sound of her own breathing filled her ears, a frightening cold enveloping her body, making her numb and scared.

  I’m really going to die…

  She felt a tear trickle hot down the side of her cheek.

  This… so… bites!

  From the other side of the room came an earsplitting crash, the sound of splintering wood and metal being ripped apart. Lucy tried to keep her eyelids open, but they fell like a curtain as a very large, very scary shape burst through the wall, roaring like a freaking T-Rex.

  Great… It rushed on all fours toward her. Something else that wants to kill me.