The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (20 page)

He flexed his fingers against the handle of his knife. All around him, the war went on. Demons like the ones
in front of him chewed and tore and swallowed what was left, while men and women screamed in agony.

But he couldn’t hear them anymore. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the jarring thump of his heart and the hiss of breath as he tried to catch it. He could feel, though. His skin was so tight, so sensitive that it seemed he could see through every pore.

The creature in front of him made a deep, threatening sound that said,
I hear what you think, human.
It leaned forward, pressing its wet nose to Reece’s throat and sniffing.
Once, twice.

Then slowly it reared back again, hunching to bring its eyes level with Reece’s. He stared into that white abyss, his insides rioting, his instincts screaming, and he thought,
Die.

His hand moved of its own volition. He swung the blade into the creature’s throat with the power of an ax, cutting through ligament and cartilage, burying it deep, then deeper still. Blood hit him in a hot gush that fired something inside him. He yanked the blade free and saw that only the spine kept the creature’s head attached.

The demon fell as the second one lunged. He killed it the same way, then caught the third as it leapt over the corpses of the others and went for Reece’s jugular. Less than a second had passed since the first cut.

Blood was everywhere. On his skin, his clothes, his hair. It colored his sight and fed the monster inside him. Long denied yet ever-present, it let out a howl of its own. He stepped into the clearing, whistling like he’d heard earlier. One by one, the handful of demons still standing lifted their heads and growled their warning.

A sharp
rap, rap, rap
came from behind him, and suddenly all the sounds that had muted rushed at him like a runaway train.

A spray of bullets caught one of the beasts from the left and its head exploded. Reece felt the splatter as he pivoted and cut another that charged him from behind. He missed the throat and sliced its leg. That pissed it off. It came at him full speed—moving so fast he couldn’t see it.

Shots came from behind him and the demon dropped. Reece looked back to see Karen lowering her gun. They shared a quick, shell-shocked glance, then turned back to fighting. It seemed to last forever.

It seemed to end in an instant.

Reece stood, covered in blood, staring at the carnage surrounding him. Casper and Gary emerged from opposite sides, grim and gory as they called to the other survivors. Reece stared at them, trying to slow his heart rate. He felt as if his world had imploded.

He went to the boulder where April still cowered. He dropped to his knees beside her, wanting to touch her, to tell her that the monsters were dead and she had nothing left to fear. But he couldn’t do that.

Because one monster had survived the battle. It lay awakened inside him, sated but not replete.

R
oxanne perched on the bed in Louisa’s spare room, listening to the phone ring at Love’s. She could picture the office tucked away in the kitchen between metal shelves and the walk-in refrigerator. It was barely big enough for the bulky steel desk her dad had bought secondhand twenty years ago or the new safe Ryan had just installed last January. Lot of good it had done him. He’d be pissed about that.

She wasn’t even sure if Love’s had reopened for business, but she couldn’t make up her mind on who to call first—Ryan or Ruby—so she decided to call the bar and leave it to fate who answered.

The phone rang again and a deep voice said, “Love’s.”

“You’re open,” she said to her brother.

“Roxanne? Jesus Christ, Roxanne, is that you?”

The worry in Ryan’s tone made her eyes fill with tears. She blinked them back and leaned against the pillows.

“It’s me. I’m sorry. I couldn’t call before.”

“Are you hurt?”

“A little banged up but nothing serious.”

His pause told her he wasn’t a fan of her answer, but he let it be. “Where are you?” he asked. She heard him moving before a door slammed, terminating the background din of banging pots and pans.

Santo had warned her it could be dangerous for her family to know where she was, so she kept it vague. “Someplace north. Someplace safe.”

“When I get my hands on that fuck who took you—”

“Ryan, I know how it looked on the news. But you’ve got it wrong. Santo is helping me.”

“So you haven’t been kidnapped by a psychopath? Because that’s exactly how it looked.”

“No. There was something out there in the dark that the film didn’t pick up.”

“Something?”

She covered her eyes, knowing exactly how what she said would sound. Knowing the disbelief Ryan would feel hearing it. Only a few hours ago, she’d felt it herself.

“Demons,” she murmured. “There were demons out there.”

“As in entities from hell?” he asked calmly.

“As in the same entities from hell that helped rob the bar,” she answered.

At last a reaction. The breath whooshed out of him. “So it wasn’t Reece?”

“You thought it was Reece?”

“Yeah.”

She considered telling him he hadn’t been too far off the mark, but she couldn’t. Not until she’d spoken to her twin herself.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “Back up. Start from the beginning.”

As quickly—as
sanely
—as possible, she told him about the stain, the bugs, the robbery and shootings. The hellhounds and how Santo had gotten her away.

“Those things that attacked us . . . you can’t even imagine them. One of them tried to turn me into a squeak toy.”

“Wait—did they look like wolves? Because one of the witnesses said something about wolves—”

“Only if they were mated to gorillas. They were huge and pretty much bulletproof, so I’m going to say
no
to the wolf theory.”

“This Santo guy called them hellhounds? How does he know what they are?”

Her brother would never buy the truth if she told him that Santo was an angel sent to protect her. He might accept that Roxanne thought it was true. But swallow that fish whole? Not a chance.

When she didn’t answer, he said, “Rox, did it occur to you that he might know what they are because
he’s one of them
?”

“He’s not. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

“But you know he’s not a cop anymore, right? You can’t take what he says at face value.”

“They were hellhounds, Ryan. I was up close and personal with them.”

“Christ.” A heavy pause followed and Roxanne forced herself to stay quiet and let him work through his thoughts. Ryan could smell a lie. When she was a teen and he her guardian, that had really sucked, but she had faith that it would help him believe her now. After a moment he said, “The police are looking for you both, you know that?”

“I figured. No word from Reece?” she asked.

“Nada. We didn’t even know if you were alive. I thought . . .” His voice broke. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I thought . . .”

“I’m sorry, Ryan.”

“You know you can trust me, Roxanne,” he said in a somber voice.

“I know.”

“Whatever trouble you’re in . . . whatever it is you think I can’t handle, you’re wrong. I’m your brother. I see more than you think I do.”

“Like?”

“Did you die? Did it happen again?”

The question made tears sting her eyes. “Yes.”

“Was
he
there?”

“Who?” she asked, stilling.

Ryan puffed out a breath. “Him. The one in the dark.”

“How do you know about him?” she asked.

“You told me. After you . . . after you drowned in the lake. You were still in the hospital and you woke up and told me not to worry so much because you had a friend who took care of you when you went to the dark.”

“I don’t remember telling you that.”

“You were kind of out of it at the time. You told Ruby about him after the car accident. You said you cried when you left him.”

Roxanne’s face felt like it was on fire and something ached in her chest at a memory she couldn’t bring into focus. But she remembered the feeling of being safe, of being connected, of being where she was supposed to be.

She cleared her throat. “Ruby never mentioned it.”

“Neither one of us wanted to bring up dying. Hell, I still don’t.”

She understood. It had been a taboo in their family for as long as she could remember. It hurt her, when she was young, that no one would talk about it, but how could she blame them? She wasn’t the one who had to sit beside the bed and wonder what would happen next.

“Did Reece talk?” she asked. “After the lake or the accident?”

Ryan’s silence stretched for a long moment. “No,” he said at last. “Reece came back screaming.”

“What?”

“Every time. They had to sedate him.”

“The doctors always said that we couldn’t trust our memories,” Roxanne said. “They told us we’d had hallucinations.”

“I know,” Ryan said.

Yet his tone told her that he believed the hallucination theory about as much as she did.

“Why don’t I know any of this, Ryan?”

“Like I said, who wanted to bring it up? We didn’t know what to make of it and Dad said it would upset you to be reminded. I figured he was right.”

“Santo thinks the demons are here to use Reece,” she said. “When he dies, he becomes the freedom train from someplace called Abaddon.”

“Abingdon? Maryland?”

“Ab-a-ddon. Hell.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it the first time. I’m just a little freaked out right now.”

So was she. But at the same time, it felt good to be talking about all the things they’d avoided her entire life.

Ryan cleared his throat again. “So. What does Santo think
you
can do?”

She should have expected the question. It had taken him only seconds to form it. Had her brother always
known something dark and twisted waited in the twins’ future?

“He thinks I counteract what Reece does. He thinks I stop them.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.”

And she didn’t. Even now. All she had to go on was Santo’s interpretation of what had happened.

In the background she heard Ryan’s chair squeak. The sound was so familiar, it filled her with a longing to be there. To see him.

“Roxanne?” he said after a moment. “Be careful. Don’t get in so deep.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it. You
cried
when you left it the last time.”

“You think I’m going to die and not want to come back?”

“Maybe. Maybe that’s what dying is. For all of us. You just have more experience with it.”

As she let that little gem settle inside her, she heard Ryan rap his knuckles hard on the desk. She could picture him, shaking his head, staring out the big window into the kitchen.

“Fuck. What do I know? We had a guy in here the other night bending spoons without touching them. Spoons. Bending them with his brain. I was amazed.”

She almost smiled at his blatant subject change, but too much of what he’d said was bouncing around inside her, making her question everything she knew about herself.

“When are you coming home?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know.”

“When
will
you know?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t like that answer.”

“It’s all I got.”

“I don’t like that one either.”

“I’m safe, Ryan. I’m with Santo by choice. That’s all I can tell you.”

“How do you know you can trust this guy?”

“You saw the footage on the news. Did you see where I was during it all?”

“Inside the van until Castillo shot out the window and you hauled ass onto the pavement.”

“That’s not how it happened. But just tell me this: Where was Santo?”

“Outside trying to shoot the delivery guy.”

“Outside, guarding me from something that wanted to
eat
me.”

“You need to come home.”

“Why? So they can eat you, too? Santo thinks he can stop them. If I can help him, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“What the fuck, Roxanne? You’re not some superhero. Whatever has kept you alive before may not be around forever. You get that, right?”

Yeah. She got it. “You and Ruby need to be careful. Trust your gut, Ryan. If you see something that doesn’t seem right . . . chances are it’s not.”

“I hate this conversation.”

“I know. I just wanted to tell you I’m safe. Don’t believe what you see on the news. Santo is a good man. I owe him my life.”

A sound behind her made Roxanne glance over her shoulder, her senses already telling her Santo had come in. It seemed wherever he went, her radar followed, picking up the way he moved, the way molecules parted for him. The way her heart beat double-time when he was near.

He stood in the doorway wearing a clean white T-shirt and the soft sweatpants Louisa had given him. The shirt stretched tight over the taut muscles of his arms and chest, emphasizing just how
big
he was. How sculpted and hard. His black hair held a damp sheen. His black eyes held heat.