Page 43 of Craving Darkness
His demon was truly terrifying as he dropped to all fours. His arms and legs grew to twice their original length, growing into thin, bony limbs that bent backward, closely resembling spider legs. His fingers and toenails lengthened into long, sharp claws that made me swallow back my bile when I saw them. But it was his tongue that made me start to yank frantically on my bindings.
I suddenly remembered what little I knew about the Aswang from our short lesson about mythical creatures back in tenth grade. It was said to be a creature from the Philippines that hunted children and pregnant women so they could eat the unborn baby. That long tongue with the pointy, razor-sharp forked end, the one that just whipped around the room as if he were tasting the air, is what they use to eat their victims.
“Holy shit. This can’t be happening right now.” I kept rambling to myself as I pulled on the ropes until my arms began to burn from the friction. The pain was enough to center me and helped to bring my focus back to escaping. I took a deep breath and concentrated hard on the footboard, knowing I didn’t have time to be slow and stealthy. The time for stealth was long over. It was time to get the hell out of here.
Chapter 29
Kallista
The Aswang was playing with me; I just knew it. I would yell for help, but I knew that my mother had sent the guard away so he wouldn’t hear the “exorcism” she assumed would be performed once she left. They probably wouldn’t come anyway since my mother believed that he had planned to beat me again since she’d witnessed it many times in the past. She just hadn’t known that the first time she’d actually left me alone with who she thought was a priest was actually a monster intent on eating me.
The Aswang was climbing the fucking wall, literally. He dug his sharp claws into the plaster and scaled the wall like he was fucking Spiderman. I had my feet free, so I scooted back until I was able to sit up on the bed to give my arms more slack. It seemed to amuse the demon since he made strange chuffing noises that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
I tried to calm myself, taking deep breaths so I could concentrate on the headboard, all while I tracked every movement the Aswang made as he gouged deep grooves into the plaster.
“My mother is going to kill you for damaging her walls,” I muttered, then sighed with relief when I felt the first crack in the headboard. When he got to the top of the wall, my mouth dropped open as he simply held on and began to crawl across the ceiling. “What in the hell…”
His long tongue swept through the air again, this time much closer to my body, nearly making contact with the end of the bed where my feet had been just moments ago. With my heart racing frantically, I had to close my eyes to find my concentration again. When I felt the wood crack, my eyes popped back open, only to see the Aswang had moved across the ceiling to hang directly above me.
My breaths were coming out in rapid pants as I did my best to hold back the terror that made me want to curl into a ball and cry. I wasn’t going to die this way. No way in hell would I let myself be eaten alive by a demon who looked like a hellhound and a bat had a baby.
I pulled hard while using my ability to break the wood. There was a loud cracking sound, and suddenly, my hands were free. He cocked his head and watched me, and I could swear that my actions only amused him. He was that confident, believing nothing I did would stop him from getting what he wanted.
He lashed his tongue out again, and with a yelp, I quickly rolled to the side, landing with a grunt on the floor. The Aswang dropped from the ceiling and landed on my bed with more grace than I would have thought possible. I tried to scoot away, my hands still tangled behind my back, with a large piece of the wooden headboard still stuck in the ropes.
I pulled frantically to free my wrists, knowing my chances were dimming with each second. I could tell he’d let me play enough. The way he was watching me now was no longer with amusement. His expression changed to one of hunger as he stalked closer until he was on the edge of the bed.
His tongue whipped out then, and with nowhere to run or hide, it struck me in the leg. The forked tongue was wicked sharp, slicing into me like a scalpel, burrowing in until it found a vein, and somehow I could feel the pull as he fed from my blood as if his tongue were a straw and I was a fucking milkshake.
The pain was excruciating, and I could no longer hold back my scream. He pulled back his tongue, and I grabbed my thigh, where the throbbing continued. He bunched his muscles in preparation to pounce on me, and I knew my time was over. I glanced down at my leg, just then realizing that my hand was free. Sometime during my struggles, I had slipped my wrist through the knot.
I pulled my other hand from behind my back, seeing the large, jagged piece of wood caught in the ropes. I gripped it tightly and looked back up at the Aswang just as he launched himself at me.
Valen
The sky was lightening into a grayish purple as the sun began to make its ascent in the sky, and I was eager to get going. It had been two full days since I’d last seen Kallista as I left the loft to go get her breakfast. So much had happened since then, and I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through with the vampires and then being forcefully taken back home with the father she had run away from.
Only Crispin and I climbed into the SUV that was waiting to take us to the estate where her parents lived. The Sentinels weren’t able to stay awake during the daylight the way Crispin was, so it would only be the two of us. It wasn’t a long drive, but by the time we had gotten close, the sun was already breaking the horizon. We slowed down before we got to the long fence line that bordered the property. That’s where the two of us got out and made the driver wait for us to return.
Together, we scaled the fence, aware thanks to Crispin’s tech guy that there were armed guards surrounding the property as well as attack dogs. It was going to take stealth and probably some brute force to make it into the house without setting off any alarms.
“This would have been easier if it were still dark outside.” I had to agree with Crispin. Trying to be stealthy when the sun was starting to light up the whole damn place was definitely not ideal.
Everything was fine until we came to the first patrol. Super fast vampire speed kept the man from reaching his com unit, though, and he was put out of commission and stripped of his gear and weapons before he could make a sound. The dog wasn’t as easy to dispose of, though.
As soon as the German Shepherd caught sight of us, he began barking, alerting any guards left in the area that there was trouble. The men were easy enough to dispatch, but we were both loathe to hurt the dog for doing what he was trained to do. In the end, Crispin surprised me with his ability to shift. In one second, he was a man; in the next, he was a giant fucking wolf standing over the German Shepherd with bared teeth.
The dog took one look at him and laid down on the ground with a whine. Crispin backed off and once he shifted again, he pet the dog while whispering to him in a calm voice that had the dog licking his hand. It was the dog who escorted us the rest of the way to the house, straight to a side door where he sat wagging his tail.
“Such a good boy,” Crispin crooned at the dog. “Do you want to come home with me? I have a little girl who would love a pretty boy like you.” The dog let out a yip and licked his hand again. Crispin turned to look at me. “Alright, chances are, the place is already up with staff moving around. It’s up to you how we make this play.”
I’d thought it over in my mind since yesterday when we’d found out where she’d been taken. The possible scenarios all ended with us getting caught and having to fight our way through. I shook my head. “Let’s just go in as quietly as possible and head straight for her bedroom. The last door in the right wing, right? Your man isn’t wrong about this?”
“I’d place my life on it,” Crispin promised.
I nodded. “Okay, that’s the plan then.”
Everything went well. We hadn’t seen anyone on our way, though we heard plenty of activity come from the direction of the kitchen. We passed an open doorway with a maid inside making a bed, but she had headphones on and was humming to herself, so we were able to sneak past the open doorway without her being any the wiser. But the plan for stealth went right out the window once we made it up the stairs to see a long empty hallway and heard a blood-curdling scream come from the door at the end of the hall.