Eat Your Heart Out (Descendants) Read online

  EAT YOUR HEART OUT

  Descendants Novella 2

  JENNY PETERSON

  buzzTeen

  Buzz Books USA

  Copyright 2013 Jenny Peterson

  Published by Buzz Books USA, an imprint of Athena Institute, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use except for “fair use” as attributed quotations in reviews of the stories or the book.

  All characters in this book are fictional. Any likeness to persons or situations in the stories is entirely coincidental.

  For interviews or guest posts, contact publicity at [email protected].

  Also by Jenny Peterson:

  Creature Discomforts

  Demon Over Easy coming Fall 2014

  CHAPTER 1

  The beast descended in a storm of locusts. Worms crawled from the earth, and swarms of moths doused the village fires.

  The village was beset, cutoff, without hope. Abbadon, the great beast, preyed on the villagers by day and night and snared them in his spiders’ webs. The valiant men fought, armed with scythes and axes. But what were the weapons of farmers and woodsmen against a greater evil? The villagers gathered, ready to face their end. But help came from the unlikeliest of sources—witches.

  The bravest of the village yet living followed the witch deep into her coven’s Vale, a place no man had entered and returned alive. There they struck a bargain: Their help for their blood. It was a steep price, steeper than they knew.

  Those original thirty returned to the village changed, something unheard of in the history of man. A hunter. A warrior. Born of women but with the blood of demons. They became the Descendants.

  They were the first of their kind, but not the last. These volunteers passed on their gift to a single member of the new generation, each inheriting at the precise age his or her forebear did. And for more than a thousand years, the progeny of those first, frightened villagers have had the sight of witches, the healing power of vampires, the strength of giants, the blood of demons.

  Yet the coven demanded payment. The witches gave of themselves and expected something in return. Though the thirty new Descendants—powerful in their infected blood—were safe, every other child of their generation became sacrifice.

  It was a sacrifice the village still remembers in its roots and bones and ancient walls. But it was a worthy sacrifice. Using a spelled urn, the Descendants tied the beast Abbadon to the metal and trapped its spirit for the rest of eternity …

  “Wait,” Kendra cut through Bruno’s tale.

  Rachel blinked into the dorm room’s dim light. She stifled a yawn with her left hand—careful to keep her right arm immobile in its wrapping—but the movement still made her ribs pulse with a dull ache. Everything ached. Her right shoulder where the vampire Willem had bit out a chunk seared with heat; her cheek where he had raked his fingernails stung when she opened her mouth. Even her eyelids felt raw and scratchy against her eyes. And heavy, like they were possibly made of the same material as Bruno Guillory’s all-important urn. The large Frenchman was even holding it up as a prop as he paced the room and told his tale to Rachel, Kendra, fellow demon hunter Sid, and her mom, Daphne. The peculiar symbols and letters etched along the golden urn’s surface caught the light, seemed to shimmer as if alive.

  “Wait,” Kendra said again. She unhooked her arms from around her knees and let her legs flop over the edge of her bed with a heavy thump. “So, like Aladdin?”

  From her position leaning against the sink, Daphne Chase choked out a laugh, but covered it with a cough. Bruno frowned and ran a massive hand down the side of his face, one finger tracing the length of a scar slashed from cheek to jaw. “No, I said Abbadon.”

  Kendra waved a hand through the air. “But he’s in an urn? Like, a genie in a bottle? I mean, that’s kind of nuts. A whole new world and shit.”

  Bruno stared at Rachel’s best friend for a moment, his mouth opening and closing. Above, the ceiling fan made a whoosh and a rattle with every rotation, throwing spinning shadows across the walls. Bruno palmed the broken urn back and forth, a crease working between his thick eyebrows.

  “I have demon blood in me?” Rachel said it out loud without even realizing. Kendra’s head shot up, and the girl poked at the gills slashed along her neck—evidence of her own half-demon lineage. “I mean,” Rachel said. She shook her head, but it only made her temples throb and the stitches along her hairline pull taut. She tried for a smile instead. “I mean, that’s totally fine. I just … didn’t know.”

  Bruno sighed deeply. “Am I able to continue?”

  Rachel slumped against her headboard in answer. The middle-aged Descendant had arrived in Georgia, what, a day ago? And already he was taking over. Rachel knew the Descendants still living in France were the leaders of their little band of demon hunters, but she knew it kind of like she knew statistics. It wasn’t concrete. Tenuous at best.

  Statistics. Rachel wondered idly when her final grades would be in. Though, maybe she didn’t want to find out. She clenched her left hand into a fist.

  Sid’s fingers inched across the space between them and squeezed Rachel’s fist. “I know,” he whispered out the side of his mouth, throwing an eye roll toward Bruno.

  That pulled a small smile from Rachel, and she nearly didn’t feel the sting in her cheek. She eyed Sid. He appeared nearly as bone-tired as she felt. His normally straight back was curved with exhaustion, and the fight with Willem had left his face a mottled purple and green. And those were just the injuries she could see. She hadn’t missed the way Sid winced with every movement. Sid shifted so their knees touched, so she could feel the heat from him. A flush crawled up Rachel’s neck, and she edged away.

  It was hard to believe that a little more than twenty-four hours ago, she and Sid had been fighting the very creature of which Bruno now spoke. Rachel had known something was wrong with the vampire, felt it all the way to the pit of her stomach. But that Willem had been taken over by some greater demon?

  Bruno had jumped back into his story, and as much as she wanted to collapse against her pillows and forget everything that’d happened in the past day, she needed to pay attention. Or at least try to pay attention.

  “Abbadon’s trapped spirit was buried in a lead coffer in consecrated ground,” Bruno said. “It was buried beneath the crypt of a church. But the church was deconsecrated and turned into a family home, and the family’s son unearthed Abbadon’s prison.” He held the urn up to the light and shook it a little, like they may have forgotten it.

  “And the boy was turned into a puppy, and he made the family very happy. The end.” Sid stood with a wince he failed to hide.

  Bruno frowned again. In fact, he looked like frowning was perhaps his natural state of being. “Why would Abbadon turn someone into a dog? No. He warped the child, who then killed his entire family.”

  Rachel groaned. “Of course he did.”

  The Frenchman opened his mouth to continue, but Daphne pushed herself away from the sink and set her face in a placid smile. “Monsieur Guillory, I know we have much to discuss. But these two have been through a lot in the last day. They heal faster than most, but they still need to sleep.”

  Bruno started pacing, flipping the urn between his giant palms with increasing speed. He used words like “urgent” and “ultimate evil,” but Daphne stood her ground.

  Their voices receded to a dull whine that poked at Rachel’s ears. Her eyes wandered around her dorm room, from Kendra watching her closely to the l
ast of her things to be packed. Her duffle leaned against her closet door and bulged with a jumble of clothes and toiletries, but mostly with weapons. Her mom had refused to pack those up until they were actually leaving Saint Etienne University in the morning to head back to Shipley on the Georgia coast.

  Her gaze wandered from Sid’s back where he leaned heavily against her bedframe to the alarm clock on her nightstand. The time blinked green at her: 11:59. She kept staring until the numbers blinked anew: 12:00.

  Happy birthday to me.

  CHAPTER 2

  Was it a happy birthday? Can you say that if in the last twenty-four hours you’ve had a chunk of your arm bitten off by a vampire who turned out to be possessed by an ancient demon? So maybe it should be Crappy birthday to me.

  Rachel laughed darkly. Come to think of it, last year was fairly craptastic too. Was it really only one year ago that this all started? It seemed like yesterday. And it seemed like a lifetime.

  Exactly twelve months ago, the biggest thing on Rachel’s mind was topping a 4.0 GPA and creating the perfect prom experience for herself and her then-boyfriend, Jake. Except when the clock struck midnight and she turned eighteen, Rachel gained her Inheritance. Suddenly, she could see demons and half-demons and was apparently sworn to protect, repel, and kill them. Which really put a damper on the whole “perfect prom” thing.

  And now, one year later, Rachel and Jake were no more, Rachel had protected, repelled, and killed her fair share of demons hanging around Georgia, and her GPA looked like something you found at the bottom of a shoe after a long night. Shitty. That’s what it was.

  The bed sagged a bit, and Rachel focused her eyes to see Kendra sitting close. The girl’s gills fluttered when she sighed. “Happy birthday,” Kendra whispered.

  Kendra stood and faced Daphne and Bruno, who were still arguing whether or not to continue the lecture. “Look, Mr. Guillory,” Kendra said loudly. “We’re all tired. This can wait for the morning. I don’t think Abbadon is going to take over the Eastern Seaboard in that time.”

  Bruno didn’t look so sure. Something like a growl rumbled out of his throat, but the man nodded and let himself be herded from the room. Sid followed, his steps slow and careful. He pulled a half-smile that didn’t reach his bloodshot gray eyes and nodded a goodbye to Rachel.

  Their dorm room finally empty, Kendra gently pulled Rachel to her feet and helped her change. Rachel groaned, trying in vain not to twist her ribs or disturb her right shoulder. Even with Kendra helping, the whole process brought tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

  When the light was out and Kendra was quiet in her own bed, the girl’s voice floated across the room. “Rach?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Rachel kept still for a long moment, staring at the way the orange glow of the lamp outside their window made a patchwork on the ceiling. With the others gone, the silence of Caster Hall hit Rachel. Even in the dead of night, the place usually whispered and creaked with the sounds of two hundred college kids. But now, she and Kendra were practically the only students left in the dorms. She burrowed deeper under her quilt and blinked against the darkness. Was she okay?

  “No,” she finally whispered.

  A deep sigh from Kendra. “That’s kind of what I thought. But we’ll be not okay together. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Rachel shifted onto her side and clamped her eyes shut. But she only saw Willem behind her eyelids. The way those marks had crawled across his pale vampire skin at the end, and the words he’d spewed. And then the actual thing he spewed, the dark, oily mass that spilled from his lips and slithered off into the night. Was that Abbadon?

  She pulled a long, shuddering breath until her ribs screamed.

  * * *

  The sunshine helped.

  It winnowed through the tall windows and warmed her feet where they stuck out from under her quilt. Rachel pushed strands of dark hair out of her eyes and arched her back. It wasn’t just the sunshine. Her Descendant blood—which she now knew had a shot of demon in it—was working. Her ribs still ached, and her shoulder felt stiff and tight, but it was nothing compared to two nights ago.

  Rachel blinked in the early morning sunlight. The fan overhead still whooshed and her bed was soft and familiar, but the rest of her dorm felt cold, a bit like a hotel room where you never get truly comfortable. The neat stacks of books—arranged by class and volume size, much to Kendra’s teasing—were gone from the shelf over her desk. The corner where she usually piled dirty clothes was bare, and the wall where she’d tacked vintage travel posters was plain and white once more. That made something pang in Rachel. Like it was already forgetting her.

  Even Kendra’s bed was empty, a sight that made Rachel push up to her elbows. Kendra’s patchwork quilt was dragged from her bed and wrapped around the girl’s shoulders as she sat hunched over her desk. She was a swath of discordant orange and pink with an explosion of caramel-colored curls poking out the top like a dandelion. Rachel twisted in bed to see better and caught sight of the big, clear tub full of Kendra’s crating supplies.

  “Are you making me a new dress?” Rachel said by way of good morning.

  Kendra spun in her chair. “Too much on my mind. I couldn’t sleep.” Yet now that Rachel was awake, Kendra seemed in a hurry to hide away whatever she’d been working on.

  Rachel and Kendra took their time packing the last of their things. With the duffel snug over her uninjured shoulder, Rachel looked around her dorm room, taking it all in one last time. She fingered the still-splintered wood on the back of the dorm’s door: The scar where she’d lost her temper and flung her dagger at the departing form of Beth Ann, Sid’s ex-girlfriend. Rachel screwed her lips to one side. Maybe not the best memory to recall.

  She smiled at the place she and Kendra had called home for the last nine months, and shut the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  Turned earth and rain. Rachel breathed deeply, eyes shut and a smile on her face as the familiar smells of the greenhouse swirled around her. Daphne Chase’s greenhouse at the back of their property was one of Rachel’s favorite places in the world.

  Rachel twisted her brown hair—it was badly in need of a trim—off her neck into a high bun. The humidity was slick against her arms and made her thin tee cling to her back. Daphne wandered from the work shed at the very back of the greenhouse, her fingers trailing in the neat rows of herbs. That shed was once off-limits to a younger Rachel, and now she knew why. It was where her mom hid her secret demon hunter identity before Rachel Inherited. She also knew what she’d find in there: rows of sharp knives, drawers full of sharpened stakes, drying herbs and flowers that would become protective charms.

  “How are you feeling, honey?”

  Rachel dragged her eyes from the scarred wood door of the work shed. She stretched side to side and pressed exploratory fingers against her right shoulder.

  “Better, actually. It’s kind of crazy how much better.” Rachel peered at her mom. Her brown bob was shot with more gray than she remembered, and the woman’s already petite frame looked in need of a burger or ten. Rachel cocked her head to the side. “How are you?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  Rachel waited.

  Daphne’s shoulders collapsed and she drew Rachel into a ferocious hug. “I’ve been worried about you. You’ve seemed … not yourself the last few months. And now with some crazy demon I’ve never heard of on the loose, it’s just …” She pulled back and cupped the side of Rachel’s face. This close, Rachel noticed fine lines feathering out from the corners of her eyes. Daphne smiled and dropped her hand. “At least Sid finished it with that Beth Ann girl. Are you happy about that?”

  Rachel made an exasperated huff and climbed atop a stool to buy herself time. “Mom. We’ve talked about this, like, four thousand times. Sid and I are just friends.” She squirmed. If they were just friends, then what had it meant that night when Sid had leaned his forehead against hers, told her she was
amazing. Rachel had panicked and pulled away, promised they’d talk about it in the morning, whatever “it” was. She hadn’t brought it up again, but neither had he, so …

  Daphne’s eyes were sharp. It made Rachel squirm again. “Seriously, Mom.”

  “Okay,” Daphne said. She totally didn’t believe Rachel; it was painfully obvious. “And your classes? How’d the history final go?”

  Rachel slumped. “It went, um.” She twisted her lips in a weak smile. “I’m just not sure—”

  “Hey!”

  Rachel wrenched her head around at the sound of Kendra’s voice. Her stomach fluttered in something like relief. Telling her mom she was barely keeping a 3.5 GPA was not high on her list of fun topics. Neither was discussing Sidney Martin. And neither was Abbadon. Rachel bit at the inside of her cheek. What she wanted was a day at the beach and a magazine with more photos than words.

  Instead, she twisted on the stool to face Kendra and hitched a smile onto her face. “You didn’t have to come! Your mom probably wants to see you.”

  Kendra crossed the space between them in a few big strides. She put both hands on Rachel’s shoulders and affected a sugary Southern Belle accent. It sounded alarmingly like Beth Ann Page. “Rachel, my dear birthday girl. Your crazy ass demon is my crazy ass demon.”

  Rachel giggled and rolled her eyes. No one quite knew how to turn her mood around like Kendra.

  “Someone’s happy,” Sid said, pushing aside the heavy plastic slats over the door and joining them in the greenhouse. Bruno stumped in close behind, and Rachel groaned to see a bulging folder tight under one arm and his best friend, Urn, under the other.

  “Spoiler alert,” Sid said, throwing a glance behind him. “It’s not Monsieur Guillory.”

  “Pardon,” the hulking man said. “Were you saying something about me, Sidney?”

  Sid narrowed his eyes and stalked to another stool near Rachel. He collapsed onto it and hooked his heels over a rung, jiggling one leg. He scrubbed one hand through his dark blond hair and nudged Rachel. “You look better.”