Page 1 of Our Vicious Descent
Prologue
All she craved nowadays was blood. When empty, she felt a cruel longing that turned her stomach inside out, drove pain through her limbs, made her teeth beg to meet flesh. Where the tenderness gave way to blood was where she felt the most at home.
An immortal savior had taught her that. From the gentle hands that pried apart her doubts and turned the most ruined parts of her into something that could be loved, she learned to accept her changed fate. Poison spilled between her lips with a bittersweet taste. Her pristine white bow unraveled from her hair and wrapped around her throat like a satin noose. It collected the blood and venom from her wounds, its soft edges seeping with rot.
From darkness she emerged, bringing light in her wake. Mortality left her, though she would never forget the haunted spirits of mortals and knew their fates to be crueler and more lasting than divine punishments. The poison in her writhed, promising a slowdescent into ruin, where her skeleton would rub away into dust and all that would be left were the memories of her.
Memories that would be met with apathy.
Now she crushed her white ribbon in her hand. The bow still dripped; it deigned to turn away from the hollowing of her and face the heat of her rage. She let blood spill where her flesh had become a grave and welcomed the monstrous urges claiming her mind. For she did not only need blood; shewantedit.
She would be a warning—a catastrophe in the dark that couldn’t be ignored.
She would turn her ruination into blessings.A nasty, vicious little creaturewas what they called her. But she would be worse.
1
The first snowfall of the winter was accompanied by spilled blood and a broken promise. Blood seeped into the white powder, its warmth melting the watery flakes. The scent was fresh enough to make Layla’s nose sharpen, and she wiped at the fallen snow on her cheeks. As she turned away from the dock toward the street and the oblivious person nearby, she began to fully register the urges rising in her. Hunger twisted in her like a snake, poisonous and vicious. Her stomach rolled, and she dug her nails into the wood of a dock piling to keep from succumbing to the powerful desires.
Even after two months of doing this, Layla still felt strange acting alone. Working in packs had always been the Harlem lair’s way, but things were different now.
The scent of blood drew her attention back to the man hurrying down the street in her direction. His footsteps tracked the stuff as he ran, leaving behind an inadvertent trail of carnage. Theblood did not belong to him, Layla knew that much. She had left the blood house before she could become a witness to the massacre. These days, no reaper needed more reasons to be watched closely by authorities. Tonight, she would need to be extra careful, lest she bring more attention to her dwindling clan.
So, when the man reached the shadows where she lurked, Layla stepped out, her presence quiet and calm.
He skidded to a halt in front of her. Snow kicked up around his legs and settled on Layla’s boots. Panic drained the blood from his already pale face, chest heaving with his quick breaths. “Why are you here? I paid for your venom back at the blood house—”
Layla shook her head. “I don’t want your money.” She nodded to the bulge in his coat pocket, where glass clinked with his trembling. It was hard to ignore his fear, knowing she was exactly what he was afraid of. The hunger gnawing in her chest only compounded her impatience. “I want my venom back.”
The man’s mouth fell open. “You sold it to me. It’smine.” All his fear seemed to vanish at the notion of losing his investment.
“Do you really want to see how well you’d fare against a reaper in the middle of the night with no Saint to hear you scream?” Layla’s voice went hard as irritation pricked at her nerves. The man backed toward the water, the gentle current lapping at the edge of the rotting dock. She stepped closer to him, but he pulled a gun from his coat.
His hand shook as he pointed it at her. The silver revolver looked ordinary, like the weapons most gangsters and Saints used around Harlem, but Layla had no way to know how deadly it would be unlessshe could see the bullets for herself. “I have Saint bullets. Come any closer and I’ll shoot you.”
Layla couldn’t help but wonder if the man was lying. Bullets made with Saint steel were humans’ only true protection against reapers. A cautious reaper would heed such a warning from a scared human, but Layla had faced enough mortals to know it was often an empty threat. She narrowed her eyes and raised her hands in a placating gesture. “There’s no need for violence. I don’t want to kill you, or even hurt you. I just need that vial back.”
The man began to say something, but a ripple in the water behind him stole his attention. In an instant, a darkness arced up from the glossy surface and took hold of him, dragging him down. His arms and legs flailed, but he remained caught in the beast’s grip. Moonlight glinted off the silver revolver, a bullet exploding from its chamber. Layla lurched forward, but a sharp pinch of pain spread across her side as the bullet grazed her and spun into the darkness beyond.
Through the burning pain, Layla could only focus on one thing: the glass vial of her venom bobbing as the man thrashed and shouted. She reached forward and plucked it from the frothing water before backing away. There was no worse place for her to be than in the presence of a dead body at night. Reapers would pay for it come morning. This time it would not be her.
Layla turned and fled, leaving the man behind, gurgling and bleeding in the merciless water.
***
Blood still seeped from her wound as she returned to the Hotel Clarice. Any other affliction would have healed within moments, but her skin remained split open and raw. Reaching up to place the vial in the back of her dresser almost had her doubling over in pain.Damn Saints. The dozens of glass vials clinked together as she slammed her drawer shut. It was enough to kill at least a hundred humans. Her first sale at the blood house months ago had taught her that.
Layla grumbled out a curse beneath her breath while she pulled her shirt back to bandage her midsection. Another Saint scar to heal and resent. She tried not to think about the implications of an attack involving a man who was high-profile enough to have Saint bullets. Whatever beast was hiding out in the water would have to deal with the consequences. Layla had far more important things to worry about.
The building seemed to groan in response around her. With Valeriya gone, the hotel had to be older than most reapers it contained now.
Layla watched the dust floating in a slant of moonlight from the cracked window. The Clarice had housed countless reapers over the years. How many atrocities, she wondered, had these walls borne witness to before Layla’s arrival? How many more would they stand through?
She fell back onto her bed and pressed her face into the pillows.But even as she tried to sleep, Layla still felt blood and poison pooling in her veins. They widened and bulged, black and brutal beneath her brown skin like snakes wrestling their prey. She dug her fingers into the pillow hard enough to tear through the case and free some feathers. Her hunger seemed to starve what was left from the Alhambra attack. Months had passed since she had been infected with Stephen’s poison and turned into a worse monster that tore everything in her path to shreds—including the one scientist who had created this strain of monstrosity. Despite the Saint heiress having given her the antidote to turn her back, the poison remained, idle and waiting in her system. In quiet nights like these, it spoke to her, begging her for a release.
But Layla refused to feed it. Tonight it would get only nightmares and exhaustion, just as she had for the past two months.
2
