Demonic Dreams Read online

  Xavier probably could have told him from his side effects what drugs Raphael had injected in him. The first day, his head had hurt. He'd eaten a sandwich, thrown up a bit, and then slept for a long time. It might have been only a few hours, but when he woke up his body had hurt because none of the beds in any of the rooms had mattresses or cushions. They were just steel bunks with blankets and pillows on them. They hurt to sleep on, almost as much as the floor. Gabriel had tried that too. He'd also taken and made a makeshift blanket out of the scrubs which were in every stand in every room, except the killing room. Gabriel hadn't checked there. He hadn't even walked in to examine anything closely.

  They were all sizes from extra-small to extra-large. Blue pants. Blue shirts. White knee-high compression socks with rubber on the bottoms of them. And slippers, not good ones, but like half flip-flop slippers, the back was open, and you just slid your foot inside the toes. Gabriel had found a pair in his size when he had woken up the second time to eat. Ribbon ties on the waists of the pants and on the V-neck of the shirts were why he thought they were some type of hospital scrub. Otherwise, they would have looked like prison uniforms. However, prisoners didn't often get anything that had something that needed to be tied. Too much risk of suicide by hanging or death by strangulation.

  He was eating a ham sandwich when he heard the hatch begin to turn. It creaked like it was rusty and old and in need of some WD-40. All the doors had turn style handles to open them, which was why he thought he might be on a ship. It reminded him of a destroyer he had once toured as a kid. All thick metal with welded pins holding the metal sheets together and no door handles, just the turn things that opened or locked the doors. He had no doubt it was Raphael. He almost lost his appetite. He wasn't sure what his brother intended to do, but he guessed killing him was near the top of the list. However, he wouldn't be able to fight back if he didn't eat. Plus, eating made the drugged feeling wear off. Eating and sleeping were the only things that made him feel even a little better. A grunt came from the area of the hatch, the only exit or entrance he had found so far, and he couldn't turn the handle while standing on the ladder to open the damn thing. He had tried multiple times. He heard the hatch close with a soft hissing whoosh noise instead of a loud bang. It seemed wrong for the door to close so quietly. He took a bite of his sandwich determined that if Raph was here to kill him, he was going to put up a fight and for that he needed to eat.

  Footsteps moved down the hallway. Heavy footsteps that echoed in the nearly silent building. Gabriel focused on chewing. He was terrified of his brother and Aislinn's idea that it had been Raphael that had kidnapped and tried to kill him when he was younger with the help of another man. She was right of course, she usually was when it came to killers.

  Being stuck in this ship's hull was a form of psychological torture and connection. Raphael wanted Gabriel to understand how isolated he had felt growing up, knowing there was nothing he could do about his situation most of the time. His twin knew sign language, as did he, he had thought it had made them closer, but really it had been another wedge because Raphael was mute, not deaf. He could hear Gabriel's voice as they signed to each other. Yet Raphael had no voice and couldn't make noises when they signed. As a matter of fact, the occasional grunt was the only noise Raphael had ever made. And his grunts were like that damn door, more of a whooshing of air than an actual vocalization. Gabriel had always felt guilty that Raphael hadn't formed vocal cords, like it was somehow Gabriel's fault that the twinning hadn't been perfect, and Raphael had suffered because of it.

  The footsteps got closer to the galley and Gabriel opened a bag of potato chips. He set them down next to his paper plate as Raphael turned into the room. He was carrying a case of soda in one hand, a bag of stuff in the other, and had a woman Gabriel instantly recognized as Aislinn Cain slung over his shoulder. She moaned softly as Raphael moved with her. Gabriel didn't know whether to be happy or not. If Aislinn was here, she might be able to help him escape. However, it also meant she wasn't on the outside looking for Raphael to torture him until he gave up Gabriel's location. However, it did mean that Malachi Blake was on the outside looking for Aislinn Cain. Their lives were very complicated, Aislinn and Malachi's. They were somehow perfect together, in a non-coupling sort of way. Both were vicious nightmares cloaked in the garb of psychopathic charm and friendliness. They weren't the type of people you wanted to walk past in dark alleys, they just gave off this vibe that everyone could feel, and it worked as a warning most of the time. Obviously not with Raphael, but his brother was another version of them, just as deadly, just as charming in his own way, and judging by the looks of the killing room, every bit as brutal. Raphael set the case of Mountain Dew down on a table. He sat the bag of stuff on top of it. Gabriel looked at it more closely. It looked like a chunk of beef, except it was the wrong color on one side. Raphael flopped Aislinn down on the table. Her head banged against it making a ringing noise that hurt Gabriel's ears. They had become more sensitive to sounds in this cavernous enclosure with nothing but the sound of his own voice or the occasional banging of a pan if he decided he wanted a hot sandwich.

  There were no knives, no spoons, no forks, just a few spatulas and egg turners in the drawers. Gabriel looked away from the bag of meat. It made his stomach churn as his brain tried to decipher what it was. Aislinn groaned and rolled her head to the side. Gabriel didn't stand up and go to her side because if she woke up she might mistake him for Raphael and attack and he didn't think he could fight her off, even if she was drugged. Her rage was beyond that of most people's. She'd be like a caged animal trapped from the wild that was trying to be domesticated. She groaned again, and her head rolled the other way.

  "What did you give her?" Gabriel finally found his voice and asked his brother. It didn't tremble like he had expected. It sounded almost normal, which was the exact opposite of how his insides felt. Raphael took something out of his pocket and set it on the table. The bottle was labeled Morphine. For that Gabriel was thankful. Aislinn could process natural pain killers very fast, but synthetics like Fentanyl were almost deadly. Even hybrids like dilaudid were rough on her system. She'd be in no shape to do anything when she woke if he had given her one of those. Morphine would clear her system fine and she would wake up grumpy and pissed off but not in a psychotic break from reality. Raphael pulled out a second bottle and set it on the table next to Aislinn. Gabriel moved closer to read it. Oxycodone 10-325. He was giving her Percocet too. Aislinn metabolized drugs quickly, but Gabriel wasn't sure why he had gotten Percocet to give her. There was no name on the prescription bottle, just like the vial of morphine. It looked like he had robbed a pharmacy.

  "Where'd you get these?" Gabriel asked. Raphael held up his phone and opened the web browser. You could buy anything off the internet, even prescription opiates. Gabriel had known that, but he didn't know anyone that had actually tried it or done it. Raphael put his phone away and pointed at Aislinn's leg. Gabriel slowly walked around the table putting as much space between his brother and himself as he could as well as space between him and Aislinn. His twin had drugged and kidnapped her. She was not going to be happy when she woke up. She was in a set of the blue scrub like outfits. Blood had seeped into the pant leg on one side. The side she'd been burned on really badly at the carnival explosion when she had been trying to save Xavier's life. It had covered up an old scar that she would only say had come from someone intent on removing her leg. Gabriel hadn't asked a lot of questions. Now she was going to have another scar, his brain stopped him from thinking about it because his brain said no she wouldn't have another layer of scars there. Raphael picked up the bag and walked to the galley stove. He pulled out a skillet. Gabriel watched him do this in horror. He began to sweat heavily, his hands shook, his brain told him not to think about it. His brain told him to focus on how he and Aislinn were going to get out of this alive.

  His survival chances had improved now that she was here, but what had Raphael done to her? He didn't know,
and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. There was a needle next to the morphine vial. It had the cap still on the needle. Gabriel had a moment when he wondered if he could cause an embolism in his brother by injecting him with air. Gabriel didn't know if it would work or not. Psychopaths seemed to have amazing adaptations for survival. He also wasn't sure he could kill his twin no matter how much the larger of the redheads deserved it.

  Then Gabriel realized that Aislinn was in the same scrubs that he had found throughout the bunker. Raphael had undressed and redressed her, meaning she probably didn't have a single weapon left on her person. One more thing to piss her off. She wasn't modest by any means, but she wasn't a huge fan of being vulnerable. And nude and redressed by a psychopath would be considered vulnerable, even if she had been drugged. So, would him taking all her weapons. She might kill him just for that.

  Raphael started to cook whatever had been in the bag. Gabriel's stomach churned, and he nearly heaved right there in the galley. The discolored side had been Aislinn's burn scar from the carnival. Raphael had torn it off or cut it off and was now frying it like bacon. It didn't smell like bacon. Gabriel had smelled human flesh cooking before, but never fried, it was usually cooked like a roast or tenderloin. Slow cooked to make it tender. Gabriel looked at the gauze. Then he had to see. He carefully unwrapped it, so it could be put back on.

  There it was. Ace's burn scar was gone. Some of the muscle had been cut from her leg, and while Gabriel wasn't a doctor, he'd seen enough cut up bodies in his time to realize that some of her tendons had also been cut. He gagged and tried to wrap the wound back up. That was going to be what the Percocet was for, she was going to need it when she came to. Her leg was going to hurt, and she was going to be a little lame. The cut tendons didn't fill Gabriel with confidence. She would have trouble standing on it, she would definitely not be able to run.

  The tendons weren't attached anywhere. They were just free and kind of dangling. The only thing he could say for his brother was that he had missed all the arteries and veins. The wound was clotted, and while it seeped tiny amounts of blood and a clear fluid that Gabriel recognized from his time hunting Dr. Erikson, it would heal and probably look better with the scar gone. However, aesthetics wasn’t really Ace's thing. She mostly didn't care how she looked as long as people didn't stare at her scars too much.

  Gabriel focused on how he was going to get himself and a wounded Aislinn out of this ship's hull and save both their lives in case the cavalry didn't show up. Did they know she was missing? Of that he was sure, Malachi kept pretty close tabs on her. He said it was for her own protection, but Gabriel wasn't sure if it was that or just to make Malachi feel better. Everyone knew Ace was Malachi's Achilles heel. Gabriel concentrated on anything and everything except his ham sandwich, the thought of which churned his stomach, and the smell that was in the galley. He looked at the syringe and vial of Morphine and wished it was Fentanyl. Psychopaths didn't seem to process synthetic drugs very well. Malachi, Aislinn, Caleb, none of them could handle Fentanyl, he imagined his brother would be the same way. Could he fill the syringe and jab it in his brother's back and wait for him to pass out, and then what? Beat him to death with the frying pan he was using?

  Gabriel moved as quietly as he could to the other side of the table. He picked up the syringe and carefully filled it with as much morphine as the syringe could handle. Gabriel didn't know how much he needed to bring down a big guy like Raphael. He'd seen how Aislinn and Malachi both reacted to morphine. It put them in a sort of mini-coma for several hours. However, they preferred it to the effects they had with full synthetics like Fentanyl and Nubain. Xavier had once told him he believed full synthetic opioids decreased brain activity in psychopaths by not just bonding with opiate receptors but also other receptors that they needed just to function. However, it was just a theory since Ace hated to be studied while on drugs, especially since she was aware that the semi-synthetics like Percocet were capable of creating dramatic mood swings. However, she also had reached the stage of her life where injury after injury, most of them work related, had made it so she didn't have a choice. Every new injury required her to rest, take a few days off and treat the pain. If she didn't, the demon inside her would rear its head and take over, slipping her into the darkness for long periods of time. She was hard to deal with when she was consumed by the darkness. She couldn't hide that she was a psychopath even if she was capable of emotions psychopaths weren't.

  Gabriel filled the syringe quickly and quietly. The vial was nearly empty by the time he finished. He placed the empty vial on Aislinn's stomach because it would have made noise if he had set it down on the table. He rushed his brother. His footsteps sounding like bombs exploding as he moved. He had to be quick. Raphael was bigger and stronger than him and if he screwed up and Raphael injected that amount of morphine into him, he was probably going to die.

  His brother turned as he took the last step closing the gap between them. He plunged the needle into his brother's behind and depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe. Then he was airborne. As he lay on the floor collecting himself, Gabriel took a brief moment to consider if this was what Ace felt like when dealing with a super psychopath that was tossing her around like a rag doll. No one had ever just flung Gabriel away from them. He wasn't the largest person he knew, but he wasn't a tiny man either. Despite the significant height difference of more than a foot, Raphael and Gabriel were had the same body build. If Raphael weighed more than his twin, it was because of his height, not because he was more muscular or stocky.

  Get up and do something, his brain yelled at him while his knees still felt a little weak and his body felt like a house had landed on him.

  What did you do? Raphael signed coming into Gabriel's line of sight.

  "Injected you with morphine," Gabriel said. "I can't let you cook and eat parts of Ace. What do you think you are doing?"

  "Consuming her essence," Raphael replied. Then his knees buckled, and he fell to the floor on them. The sound echoed like a charging elephant slamming into a tank. Gabriel's legs suddenly started to move. His survival instincts pushing him out from underneath the path of the falling giant. If Raphael fell on top of him, it might crush the air out of his lungs and keep his diaphragm from inflating. Or he'd be trapped until Aislinn came to and was able to help push him off. Gabriel's feet and hands slid his body backwards and to the left, closer to Aislinn and further away from his brother.

  Now he had to figure out what to do with him once he was unconscious. Gabriel still wasn't sure he could kill Raphael. Like Eric and so many others, he deserved his spot in the Fortress. Death wouldn't be punishment. The worst punishment a psychopath could experience according to Aislinn was introspection. The Fortress had lots of time for introspection. It also probably had a few people willing to help Raphael realize his faults, starting with Eric Clachan. Of course, Eric would probably be a little nicer if Raphael didn't eat part of his sister.

  Chapter Two

  THERE HAD BEEN MOMENTS of semi-consciousness between the shack where I had met Raphael face to face for the first time and my realization that I was hearing Gabriel's voice. Maybe I was rescued? I doubted it. It seemed like I had been on a plane at some point which seemed unlikely. Whatever was in that syringe was messing with my brain still. I was laying on a cold hard surface that reminded me of the morgue tables Xavier used from time to time. I could hear someone breathing, heavily. The air smelled stale, like it had been recycled too many times. There was a dankness and dampness to the air that made me ache just a little. My leg was throbbing. I rolled over and felt cold metal on me. My eyes found a room full of stainless steel appliances, not the ones found in a morgue, which was good, but like a kitchen. There was also the smell of something burnt in the air, maybe burnt pork chops or steak. I wasn't sure. It had a rich odor like burnt fat, but not bacon fat. Something a little leaner maybe. Gabriel was kneeling next to the table I was laying on. His face was dark red and sweat beaded up on his forehead.


  "I am really glad you aren't dead, but why do you look like you just ran a marathon?" I asked Gabriel. I really was glad he wasn't dead. He pointed with his thumb towards the kitchen stove where there was a skillet smoking. "Burning food makes you hot and sweaty?"

  "Oh damn," Gabriel jumped up, ran over to the skillet, grabbed it, and tossed it into the metal trashcan. Then he turned the stove off. Whatever he'd been cooking continued to stink and smoke from inside the can. Little tendrils of smoke wafted up every once in a while.

  "I hope there is actual food and not just what you were burning," my stomach growled despite the burnt smell. He stuck his head over the trashcan and vomited. Maybe he was drugged too, and the food made him sick. Maybe that's why he had let it burn.

  He pointed to the table next to mine. There was a partially eaten sandwich and a bag of cool ranch Doritos on it. I hated cool ranch Doritos and ham sandwiches. I opened a hot Mt. Dew. Maybe the caffeine would help my headache. Gabriel wretched again, and I realized I would never be able to eat if he kept doing that. It was the sound more than anything else. On the floor near the spot where the skillet had been burning meat there was a syringe.

  "Did you take up a drug habit?" I asked Gabriel. "Is there anything other than ham? I'm still not a fan of pork."

  Gabriel got in the fridge, gagged, covered his mouth, and threw a package at me. It landed on the table which impressed me. It was ham with little bits of cheese in it and pimentos. Cheese landed next to it after a moment. Not the good kind you get from a deli, but slices individually wrapped in cellophane. I shrugged and looked around for bread, found it, got up, and went and grabbed it. I also found chips that were in their own little bags and weren't Cool Ranch Doritos. I grabbed a bag of nacho cheese Doritos and took it with the bread back to my spot at the table.