Page 12 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
Ryan made it to Deck Six before a handful of teenagers appeared on the stairs behind them. Dianne’s heart nearly stopped when she saw them. It was like something out of a horror movie. A zombie movie. Only these kids weren’t dead, nor did they have bloody mouths, slack jaws, and unfocused gazes. No, they’d been transformed in some way that Dianne couldn’t process. They looked like nightmare creatures from a medieval painter’s fevered dream. Eerie glowing energy leapt and sparked around them in a visible cloud.
They locked their malevolent gazes on Ryan and her.
A moment later, the tallest male teen landed in a crouch next to Ryan just as he reached the landing. A wave of energy rolled over Dianne, blacking her out for an instant. When awareness returned, she saw the teen crumpled on the stairs above them in the midst of the other adolescents, who writhed and struggled to get free of him.
Ryan threw Dianne over his shoulder again before she could protest, holding her with one arm. The world around her moved again. One stride. Two strides. And then he grabbed the banister and jumped to Deck Five just as the elevator doors opened, regurgitating adults who surrounded them in a hissing, screeching, seething mass.
Rough hands pulled Dianne from Ryan. Painful electric jolts stung her all over her body. She came violently alert, but her vision had come unmoored from her brain. Nothing that she saw fit together in any meaningful way. Vivid flashes of vermillion, lime, and dirty eggplant pierced her good eye like glass shards. Worse were the sounds. Like hundreds of snakes, insects, and wounded animals.
She felt herself being carried and struggled to get free. But the stench of rotten eggs smothered her. Coughing and flailing, she struck bone and flesh, a scream clawing at her throat but her lungs too clogged to give it breath.
Ryan appeared, distinct and clear in the sensory morass. Dianne’s gaze locked on him. A visible blue-white aura surrounded him, and his gaze flashed with lightning under thunderous brows. He looked like an avenging angel.
Ryan grabbed one of the creatures clutching Dianne. She heard bone snap, followed by a sickening howl and its weight lifted from her. A thud coincided with Ryan engaging the second creature still gripping her.
After an interminable period of grunting and snarling, the creature’s grasp slackened. As it exhaled, the scrabbling of thousands of claws crawled up Dianne’s spine and then faded away. Her vision cleared at the same time, leaving her cold-stone sober and shaking.
Ryan pulled the man from Dianne. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead, which terrified her. Other bodies lay slumped along the corridor where the creatures had sought to escape with her. Some of them lay in unnatural positions. Dianne snatched her gaze away and sat up, pushing herself against the wall between two cabin doors.
Ryan leaned over, his hands on his thighs, panting. Dianne focused on his face, which had dozens of razor-thin cuts that bled into the sweat streaming from his brow. His clothing, soaked in blood and sweat, hung in tatters.
He turned his head towards her. Their gazes met and held for a moment.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he knelt and began running his palms over Dianne’s body. Something about his efficient, but gentle, strokes almost undid her.
But she couldn’t allow herself to cry now, not when this stranger had just put himself into harm’s way for her sake.
“I don’t think so.” Her voice croaked from her. “At least, not as badly as you.” She raised a finger to touch his cheek as he bent over her, probing her bruised knee with sure, careful fingers.
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. He sat up, dropping his hands from her. “Do you think you can walk? We need to get to my cabin before more of them find us.”
Dianne bent her right leg. The knee protested, but she didn’t think anything was broken or torn. “Can you help me stand?” she asked.
He nodded and reached for her hand, pulling her to her feet without effort. Dianne wobbled and braced herself against the wall until she got her balance. As long as she didn’t have to outrun a horde of crazy people, she thought she could make it down one deck to Ryan’s cabin.
“Ready?” he asked. At her nod, he said, “Take this corridor to the center of the ship. I’ll guard our rear. Stop at the end and stay out of sight until I confirm the stairs are clear.”
Dianne nodded again and began picking her way around the men on the floor, using the corridor wall to keep her balance. She did her best to ignore the ordinariness of their features, the Hawaiian shirts, the polos, the shorts, sandals, and flipflops. The blank stares on several of them. The blood and broken bones.
Up ahead, a cabin door opened, and a woman peered around the frame at them. Her eyes widened. Dianne ignored her. As they passed, the woman’s gaze traveled to the corridor behind them. She screamed and slammed her door shut.
Dianne fixed her view on the end of the long, claustrophobic passage and refused to think about anything other than reaching it. She felt Ryan’s reassuring bulk behind her. Her knee throbbed as she walked, and her right eye had swollen completely shut. The whole side of her face ached.
After an interminable effort—which likely only took a few minutes—she reached the opening to the next set of elevators and stairs near the center of the cruise ship. The whole time they’d encountered no other passengers or crew in the strangely silent vessel. Just as she stopped and before Ryan could move around her to verify that it was safe to head down the stairs to Deck Four, the ship’s PA carillon sounded, which was unheard of at this time of night.
“Attention, this is James, your assistant cruise director. We’re experiencing a technical issue with our onboard electrical system that requires us to have everyone return to their cabins until further notice. Safety lighting will now switch on, and all elevators will be offline.”
The overhead lights dimmed, and lights along the base of the walls glowed to life.
James continued. “Crew members are stationed on every deck and will assist anyone having difficulty reaching their cabins. Please refrain from calling the service desk with questions for the next two hours. I’ll provide you with updates while our technicians assess the issue. Please be assured that our backup generators have engaged and that this is simply a precaution. The ship remains on course to dock in Split, Croatia, at seven a.m., and all passengers will be able to disembark at eight.”
Ryan, who’d moved to Dianne’s side while the assistant cruise director spoke, glanced behind them and then down at Dianne. “Wait here.” He spoke in a low voice and didn’t stay for her response.
She peered around the edge of the opening while Ryan ran through the empty space in front of the elevators to the stairs, where he jumped to the landing leading to the deck below. He waited a moment, his head tilted as he assessed what he could see of the next deck. Then he waved her forward.
Dianne pushed off the wall, only to be yanked by her hair. A hissing female voice burrowed into her ear and crawled down her spine. “Ah, ah, my pretty. Going somewhere? Come back and party with me.”
Then the woman, whoever she was, began to drag Dianne backwards as if she weighed nothing, even when her knee caused her to stumble and nearly fall. In fact, they seemed to fly down the passageway that Dianne had only moments before struggled to travel. The stranger pulled Dianne through an open cabin door not far from where the bodies of the drugged partygoers had fallen.
