Page 43 of Love Me Darkly
After he was sure enough time had passed, he strode to exit the room. He paused, spotting a scrap of red fabric on the floor. Lips twitching with a smirk, Mateo crouched to pick it up. Melody’s panties whispered between his fingers as he ran them through his hands, still holding the warmth of her skin. His cock twitched, trying to come back to life at the lingering scent of her. He crushed the panties in his fist and then shoved them into his pocket on his way out the door. He couldn’t linger over that scrap of lacy silk much longer, or he’d go looking for Melody and find a dark corner of the club for them to pick up where they had left off. He had given in to his driving need and now knew her taste. He knew the feel of her around his dick, tight and wet and heavenly. He knew the sounds of her moans, had reduced her to begging with a single thrust.
He knew, no matter his determination or intentions, that once would never be enough.
“There is more at work than blood here, Agent … More than the breaths of life and death.”
Mateo crept up the staircase on slow, silent feet, his sidearm clenched in both hands and thrust before him. The voice echoing from the walls hypnotized him, drew him forward like an invisible tether. The deep, rasping resonance of that voice echoed through Mateo on rippling waves. Every word, every crisp consonant, every growl sent a pang through him. Pangs of rage. Pangs of despair. Pangs of terror.
Blood trailed in his wake, trickling from the deep gouges marring his body; his chest, his shoulder, his gut. He’d been split open and left to bleed to death, yet he continued forward on legs that remained steady. Pulled forward by a force that was greater than his own strength, more powerful than the weight of grief pressing down on his shoulders. His stomach churned as he neared the French doors of the master bedroom, both of them swinging open on their own accord. Tendrils of something black fell around him like drifting snowflakes, fluttering on currents of air like falling feathers. Mateo held out his hand, and into his palm fell a thick, shining lock of hair. His blood stained the strands as he fisted it and pushed forward, gun pointed through the open door.
The pale glow of hundreds of candles filled the space. They covered every available surface, dripping wax and putting off a noticeable heat. Mateo jerked at the collar of his shirt and edged forward, his arm lowering and the gun along with it as he approached the bed. Two figures lay tangled with each other on pure white sheets, the sounds of their pleasure coming at him as if through a pane of glass. He leaned in until he stood close enough to get an unobstructed view of their faces.
He went slack-jawed as he came face-to-face with himself. Or, some shadowy version of himself. He lay on top of a woman, his hips rhythmically working as he lay between her spread thighs. A light sheen of sweat glistened along his back and shoulders, and dark strands of tousled hair hung in his eyes. Bright, young, and clear, those eyes. And so full of emotion and wonder as he gazed down at the woman.
Mari.
She stared back at him, eyes glittering with devotion, lips parted on soft, lyrical moans. She was younger too, soft and sweet and free from worry. She brought her hand up to the back of his neck, displaying the new, sparkling, untarnished ring that had been slipped onto her finger just that afternoon.
Mateo watched them with tears in his eyes as blood trickled from him in copper rivers, forming a black pool around his feet.
“Mateo.”
Her voice pierced through the haze, clear as a bell, poignant and devastating. She whispered his name, moaned it like a prayer.
“Mateo … Mateo …”
Her voice grew higher in pitch and then volume, and then she was screaming. Head tipped back, lips parted, she cried out, fingers clenching the sheets. The tone of her voice changed on a discordant note, and then she was howling, crying, wailing. Her head thrashed side to side, and the utterance of his name became desperate and panicked. He tried to reach her, to push through the unseen barrier that would only allow through it the gut-wrenching call of his name. His shadow self was oblivious to her despair, rutting in her like a savage as deep gouges tore down her arms and legs, across her throat and belly. Her blood spilled in ruby waterfalls, its scent tangling with that of sex.
Mateo pounded against air, his fists encountering the hard, transparent shell of his arrogance, his ego, his faith in his own strength and intelligence. It boxed him out as the blood poured from her eyes and nose, bubbling in her mouth to choke off her cries. It held him back as the body beneath his shadow self began to change, growing longer and lither. The skin darkened, gleaming onyx in the candlelight. The lock of hair in his hand became a single braid, long and coiled in his bloody palm.
The woman beneath his shadow self turned her head and looked at him with eyes that gaped wide and black, the orbits empty. A red substance stained her full, pouting mouth, sticky and shining, dripping down her chin. He licked his lower lip and found the same substance on his tongue. It tasted like life and death. Metal and vitality. Blood. His blood.
Melody.
It dribbled down her chin and splattered her chest as she parted her lips and muttered, “Blood and breath … blood and breath … blood and breath …”
His shadow self roared like a beast, the muscles in his back contorting and bulging in the shadowy light. His flesh tore apart as if someone dragged a knife over his skin, spilling even more blood. It poured down his back and arms as the Seal of Azrael appeared in bloody gashes, every line and curve pouring out red.
And then, the floor opened to swallow him up and he was falling.
He descended into water, sinking like a boulder. He clawed for the surface and kicked his feet, but plummeted steadily downward. The water was dark, with only a shaft of light allowing him to see the flailing of his own limbs and the shadows of things in the depths with him. They drifted in and out of focus—nude corpses of women with pentagrams carved in their wombs, their eyes glazed over, dismembered body parts, fetuses with spindly limbs and misshapen heads. His own head floated past, the eyes and mouth wide with shock, maggots fighting for freedom in the crevices. A ballerina spiraled up out of the darkness, a mop of dark hair covering her face and a pink tutu hanging in shreds from her waist. He opened his mouth on a silent scream and reached for the little body, finding that his fingers went through her as if she were made of air. A ballet slipper fell off one pointed foot, drifting down into the depths. The plump, youthful skin shrank and shriveled, taking on a gray pallor. The fingers became gnarled, the limbs skeletal. He thrashed and screamed, inhaling mouthfuls of water and sinking away from the decaying figure of his child, floating up and up into the light, out of his reach.
“You think this will end with her?”
The voice followed him into the darkness, penetrating the miasma dragging him down until the water parted to let him out of the other side. He hurtled down, down, until the void opened again to envelop him in flames. They licked at his clothing, charring the fabric away onto flakes of ash that floated up with curls of smoke.
“You think this will end with her? You haven’t even begun to see the shape of it yet … the sheer scope of it.”
The voice echoed from within his mind, louder than his screams, clearer than the excruciating agony of being burned alive.
“But you will …”
Mateo found himself incapable of movement upon opening his eyes. He drifted upward slowly, his blurred vision clearing by degrees. The fiery heat had followed him into wakefulness, drenching him in enough sweat to plaster his T-shirt to his body and his hair to his neck and forehead. The metallic tang of blood clung to the insides of his nostrils, and the pressure in his lungs made his chest swell and burn. It took a few minutes of steady breathing for him to fully return to himself, his eyes darting to take in the stark environment of his hotel room. His eyes stung from the intense gleam of the sun pouring through a gap in his curtains. He squeezed them shut and turned his head, willing the strength to return to his limbs so he could leave the bed.
The inside of his mouth was dry, his tongue thick and fuzzy like cotton. A dull throb began at the bridge of his nose and spread outward, making flashes of light and color swirl on the insides of his eyelids. He heaved himself onto his side and slapped around on the nightstand until his fingers closed around his work phone. The screen wavered and blurred as he managed to pry one eye open. He made out that it was some time past nine a.m. and he had missed five calls.
Slamming the phone back down, he groaned. He had fallen into bed six hours ago, sleeping in fits and starts for most of the night. The last time he had closed his eyes, it was six-thirty a.m., and he had thought to allow himself just a few more minutes. Those minutes had, apparently, turned into hours while a nightmare had held him under like an unbreakable hold on the back of his neck.
Mateo managed to get his feet on the floor, slumping forward and resting his elbows on his knees and then his head in his hands. The ringtone for his work cell blared through the room, making the throb in his head increase to a steady pounding. He ignored it. The hands he used to push the sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes had begun to shake. His heart rate started to slow, but his blood still rushed as if priming him for a fight. On top of it all, he felt as if an oppressive weight rested on his shoulders, making him physically incapable of doing anything to relieve the sensation of feeling as if he would be crushed.
