Beautiful Death by Christina Moore Page B

like a full bodied wine. His breath came in and out of him too fast. He wished he hadn’t eaten dinner so recently, he really wasn’t up to seeing it again.
    Damn, he knew he should have left when he had the chance. He never once imagined that he’d see something like this in his lifetime—a human ruined to nothing but dark meat and crimson liquid. He wanted to turn away, to run from the horror of it, but he couldn’t. Not anymore. He was its unwilling captive.
    He swallowed past the lump in his throat and looked up. There was no reason to, but yet, there it was and he did, and oh god he wished he hadn’t. Blood and bits of meat clung to the ceiling like bad fright house decorations. His breath caught when he recognized a shape in the meat as a fingertip. He quickly looked away and some other little horror caught his eye. He watched in revulsion as a thick chunk covered by a scrap of skin slid slowly down a cabinet front, leaving a slick crimson trail. He tasted bile in the back of his throat when he recognized the meaty bit as a breast.
    So, it was a woman.
    The dismembered body part made a heavy plop into a puddle, splattering congealed blood across the floor. He put a hand to his mouth, half covering his nose. He wasn’t sure if it was to mask the smell or encourage his gag reflex to behave.
    Oh my god, what the fuck did this? The frantic thought hit Tristan’s forebrain as a scream he couldn’t let out.
    Ash’s whisky voice sounded softly nearby. “The vampire I seek. Come.”  
    Tristan swallowed hard, dropping his hand away. He whispered, “Yeah, but, does this vampire really know—” He had started to turn his head to look at Ash, but another monstrosity caught his attention. Bile burned the back of his throat as his brain translated too quickly what he’d seen. Set out on a sooty plate, as if waiting to be served, was another eye, the color indistinguishable from across the room. With it, there was a heart, still dark with blood and another body part Tristan was very familiar with.
    There was a man too.
    Something solid and firm touched his arm and the panic overtook him. “Oh fuck!” Tristan jumped back and hit the wall near the doorway, heart pounding and head throbbing with the new rush of adrenaline. He sucked in air as fast as he could, letting it out faster as he tasted the foulness of the air. The place was suddenly toxic, threatening to kill him, or at least take his sanity. He managed to look up and find it was only Ash’s hand on his arm. The other man was staring sympathetic eyes at him, almost as if willing him to calm himself through his composed demeanor.
    “We shouldn’t be here,” Tristan whispered.
    “The wisest words I have heard from you yet.” Ash’s expression was as cold as the hand he held onto Tristan’s arm with.
    Feeling defiantly himself again, Tristan stared down at the hand with too long fingernails, making sure Ash knew he was annoyed. The other man scoffed, snapped his hand back and retraced his steps out of the room. Without a second’s hesitation, Tristan followed him and stopped to take deep breath outside the kitchen where the air felt cleaner.
    By the time Tristan got his shit together, Ash was already halfway up the rickety stairs. Tristan stopped at the bottom, looking up. “I’m going to laugh when you pull a Humpty Dumpty on those stairs.”
    Ash harrumphed and took a sudden leap up, skipping three steps and landing on the top floor. All he needed was a fancy little finishing move like they did in gymnastics.
    “Show off,” Tristan muttered. Ash was already out of sight, lost to the darkness that was the second floor. Tristan let out a resigned sigh as he made his attempt up. One of the steps about halfway up broke under his weight. He cursed under his breath, but managed to avoid putting his knee through the wood. He frowned at the big hole left in the middle of the stairs wondering how he was going to get back down without breaking a leg.