Blood Moon's Servant: A Paranormal Thriller Read online

  He popped out of the floor in a shabby motel. The walls were bright purple, the carpet an ugly brown. It was dimly lit with a burnt-out bulb in the ceiling and a tiny window covered over with faded blue drapes.

  The door to the bathroom squeaked as it was flung open. A slender blonde rushed into view, clad in nothing but a towel. “Oh!” She froze theatrically. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I have my ways. Nice outfit.”

  She let the towel drop to the floor. “Better?”

  His eyes roamed over her naked body, examining each curve and dip with lust. “Much.” He crossed to her and unbuttoned his jeans.

  “How does she compare?” Her sweet, ghostly voice floated to him on a nonexistent breeze.

  Alex clenched his jaw and crushed his lips to Chelsea’s. Her muffled gasp drove him forward. His hands traveled greedily over her soft, warm skin. He would not turn and look. He would not give the apparition that power.

  His lost love’s fragrance floated faintly on the air. Lilacs and peaches and everything light and beautiful. He breathed deep and closed his eyes. His heart gave a spasm of anguish. Oh, how he missed her.

  “I miss you, too.” The sadness in her voice sent tendrils of guilt snaking through his gut. They caught in his heart and tore at its scar tissue.

  Leave me alone! he thought as loudly as he could. Anger mingled with his sorrow. She had taken everything from him. Sex was all he had left. He would not let her take that, as well. He lifted Chelsea onto the desk and spread her legs.

  “So, you’ll let me know, right? How she compares to me?” The apparition floated forward into his line of sight. Her loveliness stole his breath. Butterscotch curls framing a creamy face. Plump red lips beckoning to be kissed. An hourglass figure so perfect it put Chelsea’s lush curves to shame.

  “She doesn’t,” he whispered.

  “Doesn’t what?” The apparition drifted closer. Her scent was intoxicating, the sweetest torture he had ever endured.

  “Doesn’t compare. No one ever does.” He hung his head in shame. No one compared to a ghost? What was he saying? What was he becoming? The veil between himself and madness grew thinner every day.

  “Alex,” Chelsea’s whine tore through the moment.

  He jerked his gaze back to her. He needed to focus. Chelsea was the real girl in the room. Why, then, did the bewitching apparition irresistibly draw his eyes?

  “If no one else compares, why are you cheating on me?” The apparition’s starry eyes were filled with sorrow. Self-loathing bubbled within him like swiftly rising acid. Her eyes were supposed to dance with mirth, gaze at him with love, or brim with compassion. They were not supposed to well with tears. He was certainly never supposed to be the cause of those tears.

  He stepped away from Chelsea. “I’m sorry.”

  Her dreamlike voice flooded him with wistful emptiness. “You’re sorry? No one is as sorry as I am, Alex. I’m the one who had to die and leave this earth behind. It’s so cold here without you. Cold and lonely. Watching you with another hurts my heart.”

  “She’s not another. I told you, no one compares. No one.” His voice trembled with the need to comfort her.

  “Doesn’t look like it from where I’m standing.” Her sweet voice rose and fell with a singsong lilt.

  “Then stand somewhere else.” Relief swept through him on an electric rush of victory. He had finally spoken his mind. The apparition was the Blood Moon’s puppet, nothing more. The sad, beautiful ghost was not his dead girlfriend. She was a hollow shell, an empty echo of the one he had once loved.

  “Our first time was in a hotel. Do you remember, Alex?”

  His gut clenched with loss. How could he forget? He had spirited her away late one Christmas Eve to a king bed and rose petals in a penthouse suite. They had taken it slow, the way she wanted. Alex had led her on a journey of discovery, and she had been wide-eyed and willing and more beautiful than an angel. The hours had unfolded between them like so many golden glimpses of the life he longed to lead. She had given it all to him, as undeserving as he was. They had held hands and gazed out the window afterward, hopelessly, powerlessly in love. Christmas morning had dawned, slow and beautiful, blanketed in fluffy clouds of snow. He had held her close while she slept in his arms, the most beautiful thing he had ever dared touch.

  “I remember.” The words were ripped, raw and aching from his soul.

  “Do you bring all the girls to hotels?”

  “No! She wanted to meet here, not me. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “I wish I could believe that. But it’s difficult, given your history.”

  “Babe, I’d never, ever want to hurt you. But you are gone. You left me. You died and moved on to that damn better place.”

  “If I moved on, why am I here?” She floated closer still. His skin pricked with longing at the forbidden warmth of her body.

  His heart accelerated, pounding in his chest to the beat of an ancient drum. He was feeling her warmth. Did that mean he could touch her? He lifted his hand. “Can I?”

  Her mane of blonde hair swept from side to side as she gently shook her head. “I’m sorry, no.”

  His heart twisted. He dropped his hand. A void of time and distance yawned between them, a void so filled with pain Alex wished for nothing more than to fling himself into it and scream for all eternity.

  The apparition caressed her lips. Alex held her gaze. “You can’t touch me, but you might be able to kiss me.”

  His heart leapt with joy. It soared high atop a flood of hope that sang and danced through his veins. He leaned into her, gladly tossing aside his last shred of sanity. Her lips would be the sweetest poison he would ever have the honor to taste. She evaporated into smoke with his lips a millimeter from hers.

  “No!” His heart cracked in two. “No, no, no. Don’t go. Please! I’ll do anything, be anything for you.” But no matter what he promised, no matter how much he begged, his love refused to come back to him. Alex collapsed to the floor and fought the grief threatening to consume him. The apparition was not her. It was only a cruel reflection. The Blood Moon’s fury burned as bright as ever.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” He fell forward onto the filthy carpet. The pain was crippling him, ripping him to shreds from the inside out. “Why do you have her appear when I’m about to feel halfway okay? I’m doing what you asked. I’m killing for you. What more do you want?”

  The room was silent. Of course, there was no reply. What had he expected from an entity with no soul? He had become a madman, screaming out his anguish in an empty room alone. A crumpled towel jogged his memory. He was alone with Chelsea, small comfort though she was. He lifted his face from the stained, dirty carpet. Chelsea sat, stiff and frozen, with her legs spread atop the desk. Alex ran a trembling hand through his hair. Had he done that? He unfroze her with guilt still lodged in his gut. He plucked a condom from his pocket and rolled it on with shaking hands.

  Chelsea shot him an irritated scowl. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He grabbed her roughly and thrust into her with none of his earlier lust. He had to do this to prove the Blood Moon wrong. The sex was no longer for pleasure. It was a duty he had to fulfill to preserve what was left of his crumbling sanity.

  “That was amazing!” Chelsea sagged against him, her breath ragged, her body satisfied. He shrugged and zipped up his jeans. “You’re leaving? Already?” Hurt saturated her tone.

  “I gotta go kill someone.” His tone was matter of fact. The words had lost all meaning.

  She scrambled after him, naked and wanting. “Wait, Alex! I want to help you again. Please let me⸻” He slammed the door on her pathetic pleas.

  Rage pounded through his veins. Grief dissected his heart. He had to make someone pay, someone who had been close to her. He stole a gun and a getaway vehicle and used darkness to track the mind of Peter Jenkins.

  Twenty-eight

  Chris sucked in a trembling breath and counted his he
artbeats to remind himself he was still alive. The classroom was deathly quiet, each second of silence saturated with grief. The walls hummed with fear. The windows wept with pain. The shock of Sarah’s death hung in the air like a blanket of drying cement. None of them could shake it off or escape the fact that she had been murdered. Students cowered in the corners of the room, as far away from Alex and one another as possible. Each tight knot of friends avoided looking at the others as if the classroom had become an arena and no acquaintance could be trusted.

  Chris sat out in the open, stuck in the center of the classroom with Susan. She was cradling Sarah’s body in her arms, shielding her friend as if she still needed protection. Dried blood caked Susan’s T-shirt. Crimson streaked the tile floor. Red flakes clung to Chris’s hands. The sight made him queasy. He picked at a patch of red, and it crumbled into dust. He gazed at Sarah in Susan’s arms and fought a lump in his throat.

  How much time had passed since this nightmare had begun? Hours? Days? It felt like years. They still hadn’t heard a thing from the police. They had had nothing to eat or drink since Alex had arrived. Jake had been crying softly for hours. Sam’s leg was red and swollen. Everyone had cracked under the pressure, even brave, beautiful Susan. Chris had never felt so alone.

  Alex and Nova were having an intense, hushed conversation by the storage closet. His gut clenched. Their torture was about to begin again. Chris set his jaw and braced himself for the worst. Alex lifted Nova by her throat and shook her in mid-air. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed it on a wave of self-loathing. He longed to help her, but loyalty to Susan kept him still. Alex marched into the storage closet and slammed the door on a sneer. Chris held his breath and waited for him to return with a shiny new weapon and his trademark crazed smile.

  Nova snapped her fingers to get everyone’s attention. Chris pressed his lips into a scowl. The Cardelle siblings had them trained like dogs. Nova cleared her throat and addressed the class in a clipped, business-like tone. “Alex is going to get some sleep. I suggest you all stay quiet. You don’t want to be the one to wake him up.”

  Her phone rang and interrupted her speech. She retreated to a corner and answered the call. Chris strained to hear her side of the conversation. Something felt off. Alex acted like a caffeinated lunatic with enough energy to torture them for years. Why sleep now?

  Nova ended her call and beckoned to Chris. He got to his feet with a soul-weary sigh and trudged to her corner. She grasped his arm and stared straight into his eyes. “Punch me.”

  “Why would I do that?” His hand formed a fist, and his fist collided with her nose. He stared at her, openmouthed. His muscles had acted against their will. “I’m sorry!”

  Her eyes were wide with terror. “Alex has left. We don’t have much time. You need to get everyone out!” She made a show of stumbling backward and colliding with a cupboard. His arms lifted without him telling them to. His palms slammed into the cupboard’s wooden frame. It toppled sideways and crushed her beneath its weight. He stared at her in shock. She glared at him. “Get them out, now!”

  “But how—”

  Cheers erupted from his classmates. A few of the braver ones rushed the barricaded door. Chris continued to gape at Nova. Why had he hurt her?

  “Chris!” she said, “Do it or more of your friends will die.”

  Chris lifted his eyes from the partially squished girl. Nova had been his friend all along. He raised his voice to be heard over the din. “Alex isn’t here! Now’s our chance to escape!”

  The class rose as one and mobbed the barricade like a herd of frantic sheep. Chris and Jake heaved a desk off the pile. Ryan and José pulled the desk beneath it aside. Other kids tore at the pile, their eyes shining with terror at the thought of Alex and the pop, pop, pop of his gun. A few students were trying to tunnel their way through the desks, forgetting the classroom door opened inward. Chris bit his lip and vigorously shook his head. No one was going to escape unless all the desks had been pushed aside.

  He scrambled to rescue a petite dark-skinned girl who was slowly being trampled. He shoved another desk backward and accidentally pinned Oscar Tam against the wall. Two brown guys, Michael Hernandez and Xavier Patelle, heaved an entire stack of desks out of the way, but the top one tipped and crashed onto Angie Dwyer, a cheerleader in training with aqua eyes and a long platinum ponytail.

  “This is insane,” Ryan panted, hauling another desk aside with José’s help.

  A group of three kids, Caleb Maxwell and two girls Chris didn’t know, had managed to reach the exit. They were fighting tooth and nail to create a narrow gap in front of the door. Caleb and one of the girls, a sturdy-looking blonde, held the frantic students at bay while the other girl, a pretty brunette, pried the door toward her chest. A collective whoop erupted from the crowd. Caleb and the girls were mobbed before they were able to widen the gap. Kids pushed and shoved each other, kicking, punching, and climbing over one another in their desperation to escape.

  Arms reached through the gap between the wall and door, helping to pull people through. The pretty brunette disappeared. The blonde slipped after her friend. Ryan and Chris turned as one to scoop up Sam. José barged ahead of them to clear a path through the battling students. Alecia Foster, the girl who had slashed Susan with her pocketknife, booted him in the head from where she stood atop a desk. Ryan reached up and yanked her ankles out from under her. She crashed to the ground, taking out Joe Clark and Christy Kent, a pair of friends who had decided to try tunneling. The foursome made slow, difficult progress toward the open classroom door. The closer they got to it, the more they were jostled, pushed, and mobbed.

  Chris glanced over his shoulder to check on Alecia and her knife. A jolt of ice-cold shock froze him to his core. They had forgotten Susan! Jake was struggling to tow her toward the exit all by himself, and Susan was fighting to drag Sarah’s body along behind them.

  “You go back for her,” Ryan shouted. “We’ve got Sam.” José scrambled to take Chris’s place.

  It was twice as hard making his way back through the crowd. It was like the time he and Zack had had to fight their way out of a 21 Pilots concert while everyone else was pushing to come in. A solid wall of humanity had been united in their purpose to move in one direction. Chris had been nine at the time and had simply clung to his brother while Zack shouldered his way out in his efforts to get Chris to the bathroom before he lost the contents of his stomach. He had done it, too. Chris was determined to reach Susan just like Zack would have wanted him to.

  “You’re going the wrong way!” Melody Lowe, a redheaded sweetheart who had been crushing on him since kindergarten, squealed in high-pitched horror. She made a wild grab for his arm. He leapt onto a pile of desks to avoid her and scurried along the shaky, shifting surface.

  He dropped to the floor next to Susan and Jake. “Come on!” He grabbed Susan’s hand. “We need to get out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving her,” Susan wailed. She clung more tightly to Sarah.

  There was no time to argue. “Help me carry her.” Chris struggled to lift Sarah’s body. Jake winced but took her feet. Susan helped to lift her, and the three of them rushed the exit.

  The pop, pop, pop of gunfire made them faceplant onto the floor. Bullets whizzed over their heads. The terrified screams of his classmates rang in Chris’s ears. He clung to Susan and prayed for the bullets to miss. A shuttering crash sealed their fate. The door had been slammed with a bone-jarring smash. More screaming filled the air. Alex was hurling the desks back into place. Kids dove aside and collapsed to the floor in trembling, whimpering heaps.

  The room fell deathly silent. Chris peeked through his fingers. Alex lifted the cupboard off Nova and put the gun to her temple. “You’re lucky I still need you.” He smacked her across the face and turned to the rest of the class. “Get up, you worthless scumbags.”

  Chris struggled to his feet and pulled Susan up with him. He did a quick head count. Thirteen students were clustered together in
terror, which meant about twenty people had managed to escape. He allowed himself the ghost of a smile. Nova’s plan had worked. His smile slipped quicker than a plummeting airplane. Ryan, José, and Sam were huddled near the exit. They had been seconds from freedom when Alex showed up.

  “I leave you alone for fifteen minutes.” Alex slapped Nova across the face, the crack deafening in the silence. Her head snapped backward and clonked against the cupboard.

  Chris shriveled up inside. He was a wimp and a coward. Nova had been trying to help, and this was her thanks? He opened his mouth to speak up in her defense. His throat closed of its own accord, and the words refused to come.

  Alex produced his phone. Nova reached for it with the resigned expression of someone about to document a disgusting horror film. “Not this time. You’ll be joining your classmates for this exercise.” He hit record and glowered at the rest of them. “All of you will fight each other. The last three people standing get water. Show no mercy!”

  Everyone hesitated for a fraction of a second. Alex waved his gun and they obeyed. Alecia headed for Sam, thinking she’d make an easy target. She wound up facing Ryan and José, instead. Elaine Reynolds and Brett Armstrong lunged for Susan. She snapped out of her comatose state and swiped at them with long, deadly fingernails.

  Chris got tackled by Caleb Maxwell. He reeled in shock and took a blow to the face. Caleb must have been trampled by the mob. No wonder he felt like a good fight. Chris was about to disqualify himself to go rest when Nova went down under half a dozen of his classmates. His insides curdled. No one knew she was the reason most of the class had escaped.

  Chris broke free of Caleb’s chokehold and pried his classmates off Nova with desperation-fueled strength. Ryan tossed him aside and floored Nova with a brutal kick to the head. Chris gaped from the floor. He hadn’t pegged Ryan as the violent type. Then again, he hadn’t thought his classmates capable of turning into a raging mob, either.