Hello, lovely people!

Slight warning with this one: some sexy stuff (though very brief) and a sad death.

LookAliveSunshine03

Chapter 8:

A slight detour

The humid bedroom smelled fragrant with mint and jasmine. Wandering around the room, Aro plucked discarded clothes from wherever they had ended up. "Ah…!" With a triumphant flourish, he held up Anna's hairclip. "Here, my love."

Smiling, Anna tied the sash of her dress. "My clever husband."

Aro bounded to her vanity table. His bathrobe drooped around his shoulders, and water still ran down his sternum to his belly button.

It was a place Anna had found him to be wildly ticklish. "So, now, are you going to get dressed?" She asked. "Heidi will be arriving with the morning tour. We must join the others…downstairs."

"Is that so?" Aro lifted Anna's heavy curls, kissing the nape of her neck. She made a soft sound of surprise. Grinning, Aro tied a thick section of her hair away, before planting another kiss on her shoulder.

It took all of Anna's will not to turn and take him then and there. She smiled. But, of course, it won't be the first time now, will it?

Aro gave a chuckle and – there was a dull sound, like something plush and heavy hitting the floor. Glancing up, Anna locked eyes with her husband's reflection.

His bathrobe lay forgotten on the carpet. Lord. "Aro," Anna sighed. "You appear to have dropped something."

"Indeed," he said happily. His wife's gaze blazed a trail straight to his groin. "How careless of me."

Licking her lips, Anna spun around and shoved him back to the bed. Don't get our clothes wet.

They were fifteen minutes late to the feast.

When she was twelve, Beth began writing her lists. Life was chaotic, and she found the new hobby strangely soothing. The first notebook she'd claimed as her own was a freebie Dad brought back from a work convention. It had a cover made from recycled tyres and felt coarse and floppy with five metal rings binding the pages together; only certain tiny pens could fit inside.

On that first page, Beth had recorded her favourite words – number one being breakfast, decorated with felt-tip bacon rashers. Number three was incandescent; while sparklingly magnificent, it could not touch pandemonium.

Both a shout and a song, pandemonium encapsulated havoc and racket, carnage and glee: fittingly, it reminded Beth of baby pandas in a zoo.

Who could resist such chaotic fluffballs? Not Beth. She occupied her recent empty nights with such footage; she had toyed with the idea tonight. Comfortable and content in a nice hotel room, with Demetri safe at her side. Of course, nothing awful would happen during her first night in the Hotel Bohemia. Right?

RIGHT?!

Instead, Beth battled with herself. She had to swallow her temper as Demetri tried to get her downstairs.

Oh, the world outside the hotel looked so peaceful, but Benjamin and Tia had returned to their room, compliant slabs of rock. Beth lurched. She couldn't overlook their vague, peaceful looks, as if their minds were wiped clean.

She couldn't leave Benjamin and Tia on the simple, honest truth that they had wanted to go. No doubt, Iona wanted everyone to get along, but the parallels were blunt, stark, and hit Beth like a savage cattle-prod.

She's like Tuono.

"What are you doing?" Demetri exhaled, crashing into Beth's back. He sounded as pissed off as he had every right to feel.

But the decision was easy, and Beth grabbed him, forcing him to follow her back the way they came.

"Beth!" Demetri shouted. "We must go!"

"We can't." Beth's throat was tight enough to hurt. "Michael – Benjamin – Tia – all of them need to leave with us!"

They found Michael where they'd left him, lying tight on his side.

"Oh, fuck, Michael…" Throwing her glamour back over him, Beth scurried upstairs and leaned into his ear. "Are you alright?! Come on, we have to go! Everyone's ran off…"

She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, mindful of not ripping it, and was relieved when Demetri did the same. Together, they hauled Michael upright. Even with his shaggy bowed, Beth saw his eyes shining with misty tears.

She gripped Michael's hand. "We need to get out of here, hun. I know this is far from what you want to do, but –"

An ungodly scream, like a solid wall of savage joy, reintroduced them to the Russian spider-woman. Belatedly, Michael clapped his ears shut, as Oksana bounced out of the window behind them in a flurry of glass. She yowled in elation, and then Demetri was dragging them away out of the window after her.

"No!" Beth screamed at him. "No, no, no, oh, shit –!"

Beneath the wheeling stars, the wails of dying humans just added to the hell below. While they ran and died, vampires snarled and whooped with joy.

Upon landing, Beth whirled around, crunching broken glass beneath her feet. "Oh, no. No, no, no – why the fuck did you do that, Demetri? We needed to help Benjamin and Tia –"

"Release me." Demetri's eyes were wild, his body tensed for action. "Beth. I cannot fail my Masters. I cannot let this go on."

"You can kill this lot under my glamour!"

"Take it glamour off me." Growling, Demetri launched himself at a vampire. Though she had been shrieking with laughter, in one clean motion, the woman twitched at Demetri's feet.

Beth gulped. It was almost like a dance, until he lit a fire, striking a match with the sole of his shoe; the first of many as the night filled with perfumed smoke.

The neon sign sputtered, and laboured breathing brought Beth back to life. "Someone's still alive…" Even as the smell of blood forced her to clamp a hand to her mouth, she lurched forward.

Demetri was too preoccupied with tidying up the mess to stop her. Still, Beth pushed her glamour behind her, fanning it out like a cape, so he and Michael would remained protected.

But why could Beth smell herbs, like pesto pizza? Christ, she missed pizza…

A woman feebly struggled close by, trapped amongst scattered tables and chairs. Dark spatters, like wet poppies, soaked through her once yellow dress, and Beth held her breath, removing the debris.

The woman squirmed, moaning. Her right leg was bent at a weird angle.

"Please, don't move!" Beth choked out, by she could see why that would be impossible. Oh, shit.

There, curved around the fleshy part between the woman's neck and shoulder, was a bitemark.

Beth felt the woman's scream in her own, fiery throat. It was a long, keening sound, mixed with terrified Czech. Up close, the woman looked no younger than twenty, and her bloodied forehead was white-hot against Beth's icy knuckles. They both stiffened at the contact.

"It's alright." The words spilled out. The same words Anna had said the night Beth was turned. "I'm here, I can help. What is your name, honey?"

The woman's eyes rolled around, trying to find the soft, bodiless voice. "My name…?"

"Yes, that's it." Beth's deep breath tasted of death. "What do I call you?"

"Laura." It came out like a cough, and for a dazed moment, Beth truly believed she had finally gone mad.

But no. The woman repeated it, and her name was Laura, but is poor woman couldn't be her. Not the long-legged girl with savagely straight hair. This woman was small with dark curls. Nothing like her.

"Okay, Laura." Beth moved in closer. She would not breathe again. "I'm going to – going to help you, yeah?"

With her chest fluttering desperately, Laura's head twitched in a nod. She mewled something like a plea.

"I know, Laura. I know, it's horrible, but I will stop it. I promise." A sob built in Beth's throat. She clenched her teeth against it, willing herself to be gentle over as she held her hand down and waited.

Laura was too weak to even struggle. When her heart stopped, the instinct to run hit, lightning-cruel and unyielding, and Beth scrabbled away. She wanted to tear up the ground, shatter into pieces. Her hands were slick, and her mouth tasted sour with bloody vomit.

And, still, the pesto stink. What was it? Maybe it was nothing. Beth turned around, and the realisation ground down with brutal teeth.

Demetri was gone.

To be continued...