The Marradith Ryder Series, Parts 29 and 30

Part 29: The Den

Marradith laid back against the pillows. The room was still spinning. She closed her eyes.

She was trying to figure out how much Scott might know about her powers. Did The Circle know about what she could do, specifically? She did not think that Mama would have told Scott very much.

Things had been strained between Scott and their parents since he went away to school. Now I know why, she thought. She laughed aloud.

What is it now?” Scott snapped. He wondered what exactly was in the tranquilizer, and if it would wear off soon. Marradith was acting whackier than usual.  She was singing to herself under her breath, something about planes and lights in the sky. He’d expected the tranquilizer to put her to sleep, not make her high. 

Then again, she was a Lamia. Maybe what would kill a normal human would only make her loopy.

“I didn’t come all this way to baby sit you.” Scott said.

She sat up again, her eyes fastened on him.

“Why don’t you go back to wherever you’ve been all this time?”

Scott sighed. “I’m just watching you until he gets back.”

“Leighton, you mean? Gramps?”

This set her off on another burst of hysterical laughter. Leighton looked all of thirty…. It seemed impossible that he could be the father of her grandfather, an old man who lived in a retirement home, whom she visited once a month until he died when she was eight years old.

“Yeah. Cute. I suggest you don’t call him that to his face.” Scott grimaced.

“Where were you all this time? I mean, you weren’t in school?”

“Through military school, I was,” he said, folding his hands. He stretched his legs out, like this was going to be a long visit. She wondered if he knew where Leighton was exactly, or knew what was going on with him?

“So, what happened after military school?”

“I got recruited.”

“Who recruited you?”

“Bruce. I have been running his operations in Japan for a couple of years now.”

Marradith paused. She wanted to keep him talking, to get him comfortable. But she knew she did not want to hear what he was going to say.

He smiled. “I ran what was called a den.”

She knew revulsion showed on her face. For a moment she thought she couldn’t move.

“Aren’t you going to ask what went on there?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“My den was not just for Wolves, but vampires as well. They could come and take a human for the choosing. Sometimes for sex, or blood. Other times, just for a safe place to kill. It was all very lucrative.”

“How do you… other than your conscience, which it doesn‘t look like you have one… how do you even survive that?”

“There are rules. It was my den. They were coming into my place of business. Besides. Vampires don’t like to drink from Lamia. It must be the werewolf blood that messes with them. Something about the taste of us. Werewolves tend to see us as their brothers.”

She shivered. Here was her brother, speaking so coldly about sending people to a slaughterhouse.

“Don’t you feel sorry for them?”

“Why? Most of them are whores. Or druggies. They have nothing to offer but their bodies.”

She shook her head. “If Mom and Dad knew…”

“You are so naïve, Marradith. Of course they know. They just didn’t tell you. It was so important to them that you didn’t become one of The Circle, that the Sojourners get their chance at you first. You want to trust Justin. He’s just been waiting around, waiting to come get you.”

“So now you’re here for Leighton,” she said. “What do you think he wants with us?”

“I originally came to replace Bruce. But it looks like I’ll be stepping in for Syd as well.”

“I guess that’s the way you get a promotion. Kill the people above you, or wait for someone else to kill them. Did you know that Justin took Bruce out? That’s how much Leighton thinks of you. He had to wait until Bruce got killed before he’d get you out of Japan!”

His eyes narrowed. She’d hit a nerve.

“And let’s talk about Syd. All the years that they were friends, and Leighton attacked him. Just what do you think he’s going to do when he gets tired of you?”

“I have his blood.”

“Yes. And so do I, and so does Dad, and Danny. Leighton’s killed —devoured— so many humans that his whole body chemistry is coming apart. He needs blood from his own family line to repair him. Don’t you get it? That’s what he wants us for.”

“How do you know that?”

Marradith shook her head.  She didn’t want to explain that she’d caught a glimpse into Syd’s mind, just before Scott came in.

“You know me. Let’s just say, it’s something that I know .”

****

Part 30, Don’t Shed a Tear

 
Syd closed his eyes.

Scott was upstairs with Marradith.  He could hear them talking, vaguely. Syd laid on the floor, bleeding. He could feel his energy fading.

He closed his eyes, and he reached out…

 ***

Will was headed back to town in the taxi that had dropped Scott off at the mansion. He’d breathed a long sigh of relief when the car pulled back onto the road. They had put five miles behind them when Will leaned forward and spoke.

“Turn back,” he told the driver suddenly, hardly believing the words were coming out of his own mouth.

“Are you sure, sir?” the driver said amiably.

Will took a long time to answer. He wanted to say no. He wanted to scream. Sweat started to break out on his forehead. No Woman, No Cry flowed over the radio.

“Sir?” the man urged, his eyes flashing with irritation in the rearview mirror.

“I am sure, go back.”

The words spilled from his mouth.

Will leaned back against the vinyl seat, with both hands clutched into fists. The traffic seemed to go in slow motion. Bob Marley’s soft growl reverberated in the close space: hey little sister. Don’t shed no tear…

Will was sweating. He felt Syd, clawing into his mind. This is what its like to be controlled, he thought.This is what it feels like to do their bidding. This must be what that poor bastard at LessCost felt the day he shot those people.

Will was going back to Leighton’s house.

***
 
Leighton wandered through the woods.

After leaving the greenhouse, he stumbled out into the darkness. The drugs he’d taken were beginning to wear off… his body trembled. He sat down for a moment and looked skyward. The moon was full, but obscured by the trees. Soon, he’d start Changing again.

He needed Marradith.

Her blood was the elixir that would fix him.

He could have taken Justin’s blood, it would help him. But he was convinced that her blood would be more powerful for him. At this point, with relief so close, he felt there was no need in settling for a substitute.

Now that he was shivering, cold, and his body was going through metamorphosis, he considered going back to the greenhouse to finish Justin.

And where would be the fun in that, he thought. He liked the idea of Granthem slowly bleeding out, hanging, unable to get down. Quite a few of his enemies had died there in such a manner, their blood dripping onto the flowers.

He could feel all the lives of those he’d devoured. They seemed to get stronger while he got weaker. The Old Ones, those far older than even Syd, had often warned that too much drinking of human’s blood was dangerous. Vampires were made to take blood into themselves, chemically metabolizing it. When Wolves took in human blood, they absorbed everything whole: memory, speech, illness. And each of those components threatened to rip apart what made up his own personality.

He stood. He had to get to the house. Get to Marradith.

He heard laughter.

“Caroline,” he growled between barred teeth.

She was in the darkness, moving around him. So quick that he only caught a flash of her in the moonlight.

“Why can’t you rest? Why do you spite me?”

She answered, but he could see only her eyes in the darkness.

“I’ll rest soon.”

Suddenly, she was in front of him, with her smooth marble lips pressing against the side of his face. “It won’t be long now,” she whispered. He knew she could not be there. But he felt his pulse race.

“When you are dead, and lay in hell,” she said. “I will have blessed rest.”

 

***

 

Marradith was still.

Something had changed.

Other than the fact that the drug was wearing off, and she felt steady, she was quite sure.

She felt a shift. Something had happened with Justin.

She put a hand over her mouth.

“What?” Scott asked. He seemed a little upset at her expression. Over the last hour she’d used every tactic she could think of for him to let her go.

It was time to try something new.

She’d been thinking, that perhaps Scott did have the same powers that she did. Maybe not. But if he knew, he wouldn’t get too close, would he?

“I’m gonna be sick,” she said.

“Ah Christ,” he got up and fetched a wastebasket from the corner of the room.

When he handed it to her, she got up on her knees.

She clasped both hands on either side of his neck.

Marradith closed her eyes as the electricity poured from her hands and flowed through his body.

©2009 Lori Titus

Lori Titus’s The Marradith Ryder Series appears each Wednesday on Flashes in the Dark. She is the short story editor for Sonar4 ezine. Her stories have appeared on MicroHorror, Shadeworks, and The Daily Tourniquet. Her first anthology of horror stories,Tales for the Dark, is scheduled for release in 2010.

Tags: Lori Titus, The Marradith Ryder Series

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