Death Wish (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #5)(79)

Continuing on down the hall couldn’t possibly be a good idea, but I did it anyway. Shaz tugged on my hand as if trying to stop me. I could feel his wolf’s unease. The wolf didn’t understand ghosts nor did it want to.

Another scream rang out. It turned my legs to jelly. Each step that brought me closer to the room was harder to take. I forced myself to turn the corner and peek inside. I felt the blood rush from my face. Vertigo hit me and I lost my balance. I would have hit the nasty, contaminated floor if it weren’t for Shaz.

Arys stood in the doorway watching the ghostly scene play out before him. A woman lay strapped to the bed. She was a spirit, re-enacting her horrific death. The ghosts dispersed from Arys to take their places and play their roles. One of them, a doctor, smiled at me before reaching for a phantom tool that no longer truly existed.

He approached the bed with his macabre little medical saw raised high. Nurses stood off to either side, watching intently. Their faces showed little expression. They felt nothing as they witnessed yet another murder. How many times had they watched something like this take place?

The air seemed to have been sucked from the room. I felt like I was suffocating as I watched the doctor turn on the rotating blade and lower it to the imprisoned woman’s forehead. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but listen as the blade sliced through her flesh and into the bone beneath.

She screamed, that same scream I’d heard twice already. The nurses moved in to hold her as she flailed, straining at her bonds. The doctor didn’t let up as blood spattered his hands and face. Only when the woman lay dead and still did he stop. Then the scenario restarted, and the entire thing began again.

I shook my head, my mouth open in a silent scream of my own. I couldn’t watch that again. Holding tight to Shaz’s arm, I dragged him with me away from the door. Arys turned to us with a strange sort of half smile tugging at his lips. The dark power in this building was affecting him in a bad way.

“Arys, we’ve got to get out of here. This place, it’s not good for someone with power like ours.” I tried to appeal to his sense of reason, but I could see that it was long gone.

He advanced on Shaz and me with a predatory gait. “There’s something very bad here. I know it’s dangerous, and yet, all I can think about is which one of you I want to bleed first.”

Oh, great. This was just what we needed.

I gathered my power, ready to use it on Arys if I had to. The act of tapping my power drew the attention of the spirits inside the room, and they all turned to gaze at me as if I were interrupting their gruesome scenario.

“Arys, we have to get upstairs. You need to keep it together. You don’t want to hurt us.”

My pleas fell on deaf ears. He was lost in the rush of the hospital’s influence. His voice was low and smooth, seductive. “I always want to hurt you, my wolf. I’ve just had many years to practice restraint.”

“This is not the time nor place to lose your mind,” I growled, my fingertips dancing with gold and blue energy. “I have business here. Enough of this horror movie shit.”

The last few words echoed in the silent hall. Where my fear ended, my fury began. I was ready to knock Arys on his ass if he couldn’t control what the place was doing to him. I was here only to make demands of the FPA, not to be harassed by dead people that I did not kill, and most certainly not to fend off Arys.

“Let’s go,” I said to Shaz, jerking a thumb toward the exit to the stairwell.

Arys remained where he was, outside the door to the room of terror. He watched us ease away. Amusement danced in his eyes. “I’ll give you a head start.”

“Is he f**king serious?” Stunned horror filled Shaz’s face. He was all fangs and claws as the wolf surfaced in response to the threat.

“Come on.” I didn’t waste time. I knew a crazed vampire when I saw one. I ran for the stairs with Shaz hot on my heels.

The sudden and total absolute black as we ran up the decrepit staircase was blinding. I tripped before reaching the first landing. I fell down on one knee in the glass, dirt and hospital debris. A spider web brushed against my face, and I fumbled to get it off me. Shaz grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. Wearing heeled boots had been a bad idea.

We were rounding the corner of the landing when Arys caught us. He grabbed me from behind, jerking me off my feet. My hand slipped from Shaz’s, but I shouted at him to keep going.

Never in all the time I’d known Arys had he ever treated me so viciously. He slammed me back against the wall, causing broken plaster and drywall to rain down around us. Something thumped into the side of my head, but I was too busy fighting off the power drunk vampire to pay it any attention.

Pinning me to the wall, Arys went for my throat. A burst of power went out from me. It threw him off his feet, and he crashed into the stair railing before tumbling down the steps to the floor we’d just escaped. It didn’t slow him down for long. He got right back up, lunging up the stairs.

I threw an energy barrier up between us. He hit it hard enough to stumble back, but it held. I stared at my lover on the other side, wondering what had happened to him. Arys had always proven to be the stronger of the two of us, the rock. I had never seen him manipulated by a force bigger than he was. This building housed things darker than I had imagined, things dark enough to affect my vampire.

Arys sneered at me from the other side of the invisible barrier. Gliding his hands over its surface, he smiled. “This is amusing.”