Lucian Draven's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The four bodies lay in the front hall of the cottage. Lucian counted them again. Axel's skull paint had smeared into the floorboards. Luna knelt beside the porch, a shovel across her knees. Dawn pressed at the windows. Burying four men before sunrise was impossible. Lucian knew it. He needed another plan. Luna wiped dirt from her cheek. She still wore the fake fangs she used to look like him. "The ground's too hard," she said. "We'll never finish. Someone will find them." Lucian looked at the corpses. Axel had drawn a crowd Lucian's own band never could. Three bandmates. Four throats. Four bodies to hide, or four bodies to use. An idea moved through him, cold and clean. "We don't bury them," Lucian said. "We keep them." Luna stood. "Keep them? They're dead." Lucian crouched over Axel. He bit into his own wrist. Dark blood welled up. He forced his open wrist against Axel's slack mouth. Blood ran down the dead man's throat. Luna backed into the wall. Axel's fingers twitched. His chest jerked. His eyes snapped open, red now, like Lucian's. "They can play," Lucian said. "They can tour. And they never die." He moved to the next body and did the same. Then the next. Blood, mouth, wait. Three bandmates gasped back to life. They rose off the floor, confused, hungry, staring at their own gray hands. Luna's shovel hit the floor. "Lucian, stop. You said we'd hide them." He turned to her. She had lured Axel. She knew this life better than she admitted. She wanted to be like him. He would grant the wish and bind her at once. "You wanted the teeth," Lucian said. He gripped her jaw. "Now you get them." "No—" Luna twisted, but he was faster. He tore his wrist open again and pressed it to her lips. She fought. She swallowed. Her body went rigid, then still. When her eyes opened, the fake fangs had fallen out. Real ones pushed through her gums. Luna touched her own mouth. She tasted the blood. She did not scream. She smiled, wide and wrong. Lucian stood in the cottage among the five of them. Axel and his three men flexed new muscle. Luna laughed low. No bodies to bury now. No witnesses to fear. Just a crew that could not tire, could not die, could not quit before the next city. "You murdered me," Axel said. His voice was thick. He looked at his hands, then at Lucian. "And you brought me back." "To play," Lucian said. "For me." Axel's red eyes narrowed. He had led his own band once. Now he stood in another man's house, remade by the rival who killed him. He said nothing. But the look told Lucian the truth. He had not buried a problem. He had raised five hungry mouths, and one of them still remembered being the star.