White Witch, Black Curse

Edden's light dropped away. "God help him. I think it is."

I leaned against the wall as my knees went wobbly. That's why I hadn't seen him lately. If Denon had been Art's scion, assigning Ivy to his stable of runners would make it really easy to watch her. And insulting to assign her to me.

"The cot," Ivy said, her hand over her face. "Bring your light to the cot. I think it's a body on there. I'm not…sure."

I came close and carefully angled the lantern's light to the cot, but my hand was shaking and it wasn't clear. Edden had known Denon. Had a friendly rivalry with him. Finding him torn apart was hard. I heard him take a shallow breath, and his light found the bed as well.

I squinted, trying to figure out what I was seeing. What had first looked like a bundle of forgotten clothes and straps…"Shit," I whispered as my mind shifted and it made sense. It was a gray, grotesquely twisted body, the bones warped into unnatural curves as the two viruses had fought for control, each trying to make the vampire into its version of perfection. Pale white parchment skin had flaked off in sheets, drifting slightly in the draft that opening the door had created. The black hair was puddled around the skull, and there were no eyes in the sockets gazing at the ceiling. Canines twice as long as a normal vampire's spouted from the jaw. The mouth had been ripped wide and the jaw was hanging at a broken angle. A hand with several fingers missing hung from the corner of it. God, had he done it to himself?

Ivy jerked, and I swung the light wildly as she tried to go in. Edden grunted, grabbing her arm and using her momentum to fling her to the opposite wall of the tunnel. She hit with a thump, her eyes wide and angry, but he had his arm under her chin and wasn't letting up.

"Stay out of that room!" he shouted, pinning her to the wall, his voice echoing in what sounded like pity. "You are not going in there, Ivy! I don't care if you kill me. You are not going in that…filthy"—he took a gasping breath, trying to find words—"cesspit of a hole." He finished, tears shining in his eyes. "You're better than that," he finished. "You have nothing to do with that perversion. It's not you."

Ivy wasn't trying to move. If she'd wanted to, she could have broken his arm without a thought. Tears shimmered in the light as I angled the flashlight down. "Kisten died because of something I did," she said, anger shifting to pain. "And now I can't do anything to make the hurt go away. He's dead! Art even took that from me!"

"What are you going to do!" Edden shouted at her, his voice echoing. "The vampire is dead! You can't get revenge from a dead body. You want to tear him apart and throw chunks of him at the wall? He's dead! Let it go or it will ruin your life, and then he wins again."

Ivy was crying silently. Edden was right, but I didn't know how to convince her of it.

Edden snatched the lantern from me and turned. "Look at that, Ivy!" he said, shining it directly on the corpse. "Look at that and tell me that is a victory."

She tensed as if to scream, but then the tears flowed and she gave up. Arms wrapped around herself, she whispered, "The son of a bitch. The fucking son of a bitch. Both of them."

The deep chill took the core of my being as I stared at the twisted pieces of what remained. The dusty scent of Art's fingers on me was heavy in my memory as I looked at his broken hand and the flesh pulled tight to the bone. I could feel his touch on my throat, my wrist. It had been a hard death, leaving him mummified, a gross caricature of twisted limbs and contorted bones as the two strains of vampire virus fought for control, breaking him until he couldn't survive even as an undead.

It was easy to imagine what had happened. Dying from the undead blood Kisten had given him, Art called his scion. Denon died by accident or design as Art tried to gain enough strength to fight off Kisten's undead blood. No wonder Ivy wanted a way out. This was ugly.

Edden let the light fall from the cot. His eyes were tired as he flicked it off and only Mia's lantern lit the tunnel. He looked at Ivy's raw misery, then hiked his belt up to try to find a semblance of his usual demeanor. "We'll let the room air out, then get a shoe for a print match. We're done here."

Ivy was against the wall, staring at the black doorway. "He never would have touched Kisten if it hadn't been for me."

"No," I said firmly. "Kisten said it wasn't your fault. He said it, Ivy. Told me to tell you." Setting the lantern down, I crossed the tunnel, my shadow blanketing her. "He said so," I repeated as I touched her shoulder, finding her ice cold. Her eyes were black, but they weren't looking at me, they were focused on the dark hole across from us. "Ivy, if you take this on your conscience, it will be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen you do."

That got through to her, and her gaze flicked to me.