My Precious Nightmare

Chapter 44: Deader and Raid

"You don't get much deader than that," said Sky through her teeth, squinting her eyes against the brightening sky.

But Aster had to sift through all the ash with his boot before he was satisfied. The bones remained, but even human bones required a proper incinerator to destroy. Aster wasn't even sure there was an incinerator that could decimate these bones. However, Husani had never said the bones had to be destroyed. He had only said the heart and body had to be separated and burned. Even with all the incredible, supernatural phenomena he'd witnessed over the past six months, Aster found it extremely doubtful that anything could grow back from a heart on an increasingly shrinking beach. Tide was coming in, and salty ocean water was far from embryonic fluid.

"Where'd you throw the heart?" he asked Sky, just in case.

"Like hell I know. I was too busy freaking out."

He only considered searching for it before the pain in his eyes reminded him of the coming dawn—and a most likely starving puppy dog behind him. Not to mention his own blood thirst wasn't exactly making things comfortable for him.

Thus, with a satisfied grunt, he turned on the spot and started the climb up the steep hillside and through the foliage, trusting her to follow.

Sure enough, a minute later he heard her ask: "Have you heard anything about Lea?"

"It's not like I was keeping tabs on her," he said thinly. The shrimp didn't have a cell phone, and it was dubious to Aster that Husani would have kept it after dropping her off at the hospital.

"Can't you, like, call the hospital and ask?"

"There are four hospitals in San Diego. I have better things to do than call them up just to sit through all their stupid hoops to find out." Like sleeping. Ugh, what a night. Not to mention the lemon wash scentlessness had been replaced with the nauseating stench of burnt, rotten fruit. He was drowning in it.

He felt her hitting his back and assumed it was Sky shoving at him to emphasize her anger at his answer. But then her hands were followed by her breasts and stomach, and he felt more than heard a gut deep growl.

Sighing, he turned. Sure enough, her pupils had dilated despite the brightness of the day and burned a bright gold. Her fangs hung in front of a panting, red mouth. But she didn't attack him, as he expected her to. Instead she just pawed his chest, lost, inhuman eyes to his neck like a dog begging for food.

He shivered. Still, despite his initial urge to be repulsed, he lifted her up as he had so many times over the past few days and brought her to his neck, where she nuzzled in and bit down. It didn't even hurt anymore.

This isn't normal at all, he thought with clenched teeth. He made plans to track down Husani and carried the sucking, mindless Sky back to the helicopter. Lane had already fallen asleep in the co-pilot seat. When he started to put Sky back down, she gave a whine, but surprisingly obeyed, leaving his neck with a gentle lick, her eyes closed. He stared down at her for a second longer before climbing in and shutting the cargo door.

The flight back home was a quiet one. Luckily he had some high intensity welding goggles for when the sun rose, but Lane scrunched up into a tighter ball against the onslaught. There were various tricky maneuvers to loading up the helicopter in the underground hangar, but by the time he landed Lane had woken up, which solved one problem of who he was going to carry in first. It didn't occur to him until later that he didn't need to carry the mutt anywhere. She had legs, didn't she? But since he was nearly inside the mansion already, he ignored it.

Once the pup and Lane were tucked away in the same bed, with the cooler of blood within reach of Lane, Morianton yawned, knocked his head a bit, and wandered back to his office to begin the search for his short teacher.