Fashionably Dead and Loving It (Hot Damned #14) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,54

and dark. It didn’t matter since Demons and Vampyres could see as clearly in the darkness as they could in the light. My chest tightened in pain and anger as I stared at the horror in front of me.

“Who would do this?” I asked.

“A monster,” Levi said emotionlessly. “Someone with as little humanity as our father.”

“Harsh but true,” Lizard said, smacking his bat on the palm of his hand.

Ten half-dead, bloody beings with green-tinted skin writhed and screamed in agony. Their limbs were mangled and their flesh was rotting. Just like my dream. Slimy foam poured from their mouths and their eyes rolled in their partial skulls. Some of them appeared to be missing appendages as they moaned and gnashed their teeth.

The fastest creature had no lips—as if they’d been bitten off by a deadly kiss. His arm was mangled and chewed away so that the bones showed. And he looked hungry.

My nightmare had come to life.

As he approached, I shot up into the air and said a little prayer to my Uncle God in hopes that Zombies couldn’t fly. Lizard and Levi followed my lead and we floated about thirty feet above the tragedy below. The Zombies hadn’t flown in my dream, but reality was turning out to be far worse than any nightmare. There had been no child Zombie in my dream. My brother was correct in his assessment that only a monster could have done something so inhumane.

“I will find you, whoever you are, and you will pay dearly,” I whispered.

A screeching woman with her eyes gouged from her head threw herself on the ground below me and reached out with desperation. Her intestines dragged on the filthy floor beside her and I gagged. The stench was awful.

“I’m here to help you,” I called out over their cries and moans. “I’m not here to hurt you. You’ve already been hurt enough.”

There seemed to be little to no understanding of my words… except for the child. She watched my every move and didn’t make a sound. While everything around her was devastating, she was like a tiny Angel trapped in the worst part of Hell.

“Cover me,” I instructed. “Keep the others away. I’m turning the little girl first.”

“Roger that, boss,” Lizard said, swooping down and taunting the Zombies into following him to the far side of the large warehouse.

“I’ll hold her,” Levi said. “You do your bitey thing.”

“My bitey thing?” I asked, giving him a sideways glance.

He shrugged and grinned. “Is there a technical term for it?”

“Umm… no,” I said. “Bitey thing is descriptive and clear. I’ll go with it.”

“Need to move fast,” he said, diving down and grabbing the child from behind to stop her from following the others.

She didn’t fight him. She didn’t try to bite him. As he flew her to the opposite corner of the cavernous building, I poofed over. Had the little girl been able to hold on to some of her humanity since she was so young?

“Do it,” Levi insisted. “Lizard is good, but not that good. Have to move fast.”

Her arms were trapped at her sides in Levi’s strong embrace. She hadn’t bared her teeth. I wasn’t sure how much she could understand, but I was going to tell her something to waylay her fears in case she could comprehend words.

“I’m Astrid. I’m a Vampyre,” I said softly. Her curly dark hair was matted with crusted blood and covered her face. Her leg hung from the socket and there were open wounds all over her small frame. “What was done to you is wrong. I’m going to try to fix it. Right now, you’re the living dead. I’m going to make you undead. Do you understand me, sweetheart?”

I was a mother. She was a child. The situation was almost more than I could stand.

Gently pushing her hair out of her face, I froze in shock.

The sound that left my lips came from the darkest and most tortured part of my soul. A blast of something painful and electrifying shot through my body. White-hot rage warred with euphoria. The need to scream with joy was mixed with terror I’d never known. I shook like a leaf and clenched my fists at my sides to keep from doing damage. I needed to get a handle on myself.

“No, no, no, no,” I ground out, staring at a face I knew so well. Granted, I hadn’t known this exact version of the face except through photographs, but I knew who she was and what her