Langermann appeared at the top of the stairs and added more lightning to the pounding the Knights were taking. We managed to drive them out of the building.
I cautiously approached the door, and looking out, I saw the Knights retreating to their SUVs. As they started driving away, the ground started to shake. The lead car rounded a bend and was hidden by the forest. A few seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a car crash, followed by two more crashes.
Crossing the parking lot, I reached one of the still-parked SUVs at the same time as one of the Knights running from the building. He looked surprised to see me and even more surprised when I cut him down with an overhead strike.
I continued down the driveway until I came to the chasm that crossed the road. The lead SUV had fallen in, its front end smashed into the far wall, and two more had run into it. Dazed Knights who could still move tried to get out of the vehicles, but several were either dead or too injured. Two more SUVs had managed to stop, although the second one had rear-ended the first.
A woman with gray hair trotted up and stopped next to me. She had a star ruby set in a pendant around her neck. “Like shooting ducks in a barrel,” she said, and hurled a fireball at the pileup in the crevasse, then another at the two SUVs closer to us. The gas tanks of all the cars exploded.
Although several of the mages at the school suffered injuries, none of them were fatal. All of the students had been sent to the fortified buildings at the back of the property, and none of them were harmed.
Predictably, none of the chaos happening in the country was viewed favorably by humans. Witch hunts abounded, especially in small towns and rural areas. Congress swiftly passed laws regulating magic and magic users. All mages and witches were required to register with the new Paranormal Affairs Department. Very few people registered.
In Westport, the paranormals and supernaturals walled themselves off in enclaves. The shifters only traveled in convoys and had witches cast wards around their homes and gathering places. The wards excluded mages, in hopes to keep the Knights from entering. Sam had helped them with that, finding a couple of mage-witch halflings with a strong affinity for witch magic that he could teach the proper spells to.
“But excluding mages won’t keep the Knights out,” I said to Sam and the North Bay Pack alpha. “A lot of those Knights are witches.”
The alpha grinned. “Let them come. It’s a lot more even a fight with a witch, since they can’t shield. And a lot of our young folks need something to do.”
The Knights’ casualties were very high. Just as I guessed, a lot of the Knights in Westport were young, many recruited in the past few months, and severely untrained. A lot of them spoke perfect American English. Without the ley line issues, and the Knights’ rubies protecting them, the entire force would have been wiped out in days.
As it was, the Westport Otherworld had collected and then distributed or used more than two hundred rubies. The Knights pulled back and hunkered down. That was the good part. But the replacement troops, bolstering the local garrison, were older, stronger, more experienced, and I noticed most of them spoke with heavy accents.
Two weeks after the week-long ley line disruption, Michaela and I had a strategic planning meeting at the academy with the heads of several resistance groups. When the meeting ended, she took me to lunch at her favorite restaurant overlooking the ocean. We had a nice meal, but when we walked out to the parking lot, we were surrounded by a dozen Knights.
I shielded, but my sword was too bulky to carry into the restaurant and I had left it in Michaela’s car, so I had only my dagger for a weapon. Several of the Knights moved to grab Michaela, and several more surrounded me. Dhampir don’t have magic, not even the strange, limited magic of a vampire. But they are much stronger and faster than a human. She disarmed one of the Knights and killed him and another one with his sword.
But she was eventually overwhelmed by the use of magic. Three of them held her, and one of them had a knife to her throat.
“Drop your weapon and shield, or we’ll kill the dhampir,” one of them yelled at me in what I had learned was a Croatian accent.
All of the Knights were older, and all of them held their swords in a way that showed long training and experience. Assuming that they were also strong mages, I knew there was no way my shield would hold against an assault by that many opponents. My position was hopeless, so I dropped my dagger and shield.
One of them threw a black bag over my head and tied it around my neck while two others shackled my wrists. My connection to the ley lines was immediately severed. They picked me up and carried me, then dumped me onto a hard surface. The shackles on my wrists were tight enough to be painful, and the cord holding the bag over my head was so tight that it slightly choked me. Hands searched my clothing, reaching into all my pockets.
Another body—I assumed it was Michaela—was dumped on top of me and rolled off.
“Michaela?”
No answer. A pungent smell reached my nose, and a feeling of drowsy lethargy crept over me. Car doors slammed, and an engine roared to life, then I felt the vehicle I was in begin to move. Darkness.
It was dark. I felt groggy, and my mouth tasted like I’d been cleaning the bar bathroom with my tongue. Not at all pleasant.
Cold. My head throbbed, and any movement caused shooting pain between my temples. I lay there, shivering. Only gradually did I become aware that I was lying on some kind of fabric and I was naked. Forcing my eyes open, I saw only black. No light at all.
At first, I thought of the bag the Knights had thrown over my head, but I couldn’t feel anything. I raised my hands to my head. No bag on my head, no shackles on my wrists, no clothes. I realized what had happened to me. Drugged and kidnapped. I tried to pull power from a ley line, but I couldn’t find one. Not even a hint of one far away. Wherever I was, wards had me cut off from the entire Well of Magic. The only good thing was that I was still alive.
I sat up and felt around. I was on a cot with a rough blanket under me. I crawled under it, and after a few minutes, began to warm up a bit. Being awake did nothing to make my head feel better. Whatever they used to knock me out was nasty. Eventually, I fell back to sleep.
When I awoke next, the headache was gone, though my head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton. The blanket scratched my skin, and the surface under me felt like canvas. Still no light.
I sat up and wrapped the blanket around me. The cot was set against a rough wall on one side. On the other side was open space. I extended my legs off the cot, and my feet found a rough cold stone floor. I stood up and reached above me but couldn’t touch the ceiling. I shuffled across the floor, counting my steps. Six feet to the wall, or rather, a rough wooden door with metal straps running across it. No handle, hinges, or any other features.
I sidled to my right until I reached a corner, then down the next wall around the room until I reached the cot. Feeling my way past it, I found a corner with a metal bucket. I followed the wall until I reached the door again, then turned completely around and retraced my steps to the cot.
I was in a room measuring eight feet by eight feet. The cot and bucket were the only things in it other than me. I sat back down on the cot and wrapped myself in the blanket.
I vaguely knew I should be panicking. Terrified. The drug probably was keeping me calm. That was a good thing, since I couldn’t do anything about my present condition. If my captors had wanted me dead, I would already have been dead. My mind raced furiously. There was a possibility they planned to torture me. But other than my knowledge of the destruction of the Illuminati, I didn’t have any information worth doing that for. The book, of course, but no one knew I had it. I doubted anyone alive even knew it existed.
Michaela. They had used her to get me to surrender. What did they want with her? Would they experiment on her the way I thought they wanted to do with Lizzy?
What a mess. I had never felt so helpless or alone. I wanted to cry, but I was too damned cold to do any
thing but huddle in my blanket and shiver.
All I could do was wait. Sooner or later, someone would take me somewhere that I could reach a ley line, and when they did, there would be hell to pay. As soon as I could tap a ley line, someone was going to die.
I waited a long time before I fell asleep again.
Thirst. My mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck to the roof and I had a hard time manufacturing any saliva. My eyes felt scratchy. The air seemed colder, the walls sucking my body heat away from me right through the blanket.
I had no idea how long I had been locked up in that room. The cold from the floor turned my feet to ice, but I had to pee. I crossed the floor to the corner with the bucket, peed and pooped in it. No toilet paper. I crawled back onto the cot and wrapped the blanket tightly around me. After a while, I stopped shivering.
Sensory deprivation. No food, no water. It would have been easy for the Knights to kill me, so I figured they were softening me up for interrogation. Such methods had been part of my training with the Hunters’ Guild. People died without water in three days. That gave me some idea of how long I had been captive.
I must have dozed off again, because a noise—the first sound other than my own breathing I had heard—woke me up. The door opened, and light from outside blinded me.
“Food and water,” a voice said. Outlined by the corridor light, the form of a person bent over, then straightened up and retreated. The door closed, and the darkness enfolded me again.
I cautiously crossed the floor and found a metal bowl with a spoon. The contents were hot and it smelled like stew. A metal bottle sat next to it. I took a sip from it. Cool water. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. I carried the bowl and the bottle back to the cot and set them on one end. I wrapped myself in the blanket and took another drink of water. A spoonful of the stew. I savored it, swallowed it. A deep breath, then another drink, another spoonful.
I ate and drank slowly, mindful that eating or drinking too quickly might cause me to be sick. When I finished the stew, I licked the bowl clean. I only drank half of the water, setting the bottle under the end of the cot next to the wall where I couldn’t inadvertently spill it. I wished they had emptied the bucket. The smell of my waste permeated the room.
A long time and two more sleep cycles later, the door opened again. I stood, but the man at the door said, “Sit down. Don’t move.”
I followed his directions, and he went and picked up the bowl and the bottle, and also the bucket. A second man stood in the doorway, pointing at me with something in his hand. After so long in the darkness, the light blinded me, and I couldn’t make out any details.
The first man went out and came back with another bucket, then put another bowl and a bottle on the floor. The door closed, and I was left in the dark. The bowl held the same stew they had given me before. After I ate, I used the spoon to scratch two marks on the wall above the cot.
There were seven marks on the wall when the routine changed. A man took the bucket away, but instead of giving me food and leaving, he stood aside and a new man entered the room.
“I had always heard the Scorpion was a fearsome warrior. Imagine my surprise when I discovered she was only a little girl,” Bonato said. I recognized his voice, even if I couldn’t see him clearly. “Tell me, why are you here in Westport?”
I didn’t answer.
“There are rumors that the Illuminati are no more,” he said after waiting a couple of minutes, “that some catastrophe befell them. Some of my brethren speculate that one of the Illuminati’s many enemies destroyed them. Others think their own dark magic led to their downfall.” Again, he waited, but I didn’t say anything.
“Personally, I think they are in hiding. We have rooted out several traitors in our midst, Illuminati spies. None of them have been willing to tell us what happened to their masters—where have they gone? No one seems to know. One Hunter even led us to where he said a great city once stood, but we found only virgin forest and no trace that anyone had ever been there.”
He crossed the room and bent over to study my face illuminated by the light coming from outside the room.
“The Scorpion. The Illuminator’s whore. If anyone knows where they have gone, it would be you.” Suddenly he shouted, “Where is Benedict? Where is the black mage?”
He struck me across the face with an open hand, snapping my head around.
“Answer me, you bitch!”
When I didn’t answer, he snorted. “Do you like sitting alone in the darkness so much?” He grinned. “I can make your life easier. Answer my questions and I’ll let you out of here. Light. A bath. Warm clothing. Decent food. I find it difficult to believe that one so young has descended so far into the dark that your soul is blackened beyond redemption. I offer you a second chance. You can save your immortal soul.”
He went to the door but stopped in the doorway and turned back. “Once you lived in luxury. Do you really wish to waste away and die in a dungeon? Repent, and you might even ascend to your previous station. You’re not uncomely. I’m sure that a number of high-ranking Knights would be curious about a girl trained by the Illuminator himself. I know that Marshal Olivetti is rather enamored with you. Consider your options.”
The door closed, and I was alone in the dark again. They hadn’t replaced the bucket or left me any food and water.
So, they wanted information. If I told them the truth about the destruction of the City of the Illuminati, would they believe me? Probably not, but that was a secret I would carry to my grave. But if they were keeping me alive because they hoped I could tell them of the Illuminati, what about Michaela? What reason could they have for sparing her life?
Chapter 24
Twenty-six scratches on the wall. In spite of my hunger, I was getting very tired of that stew. The temperature never varied, and I grew used to the cold. After Bonato’s first visit, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started exercising. Although I was losing weight, I figured if I ever had a chance to escape, I needed to keep my muscles in shape. After calisthenics, sit-ups and pushups, I ran in place until I dropped. When I woke up, I did it all again.
Bonato came back nine times. He alternated between playing good cop and bad cop. Sometimes he promised me paradise, other times he offered a loving and pampered life. Twice he beat me. I did appreciate his skill and the fact that he didn’t break any bones or cause any internal injuries. But he definitely knew where his blows would cause the most pain.
The wards they set on my prison blocked all access to the ley lines. As a result, they couldn’t use magic to interrogate or torture me. Bonato’s belief that the Illuminati were waiting somewhere to strike, and that I knew where that place was, seemed to be unshakeable.
Olivetti visited me three times. The first time, he beat me. It was relatively mild—painful but not damaging. He started out by offering me the chance to be his sex slave. When I didn’t profess joy at the opportunity, he got angry.
“I can get you out of here,” he started. “Not only get you out, but place you in a comfortable situation. All you have to do is repent. Tell the Seneschal what he wants to hear. Then a ritual exorcism, and you’ll be in a beautiful room, with a view and a maidservant to tend to your every need.”
I hadn’t yet said a word to any of my captors, and I didn’t answer him. As the silence stretched, he became more agitated.
“Look,” he said, coming forward, grabbing my arms and pulling me into a standing position. He looked my body up and down, then returned his gaze to my face. “All you have to do is answer his questions and be nice to me. Do you understand? It’s not like you’re a virgin. We know about the Scorpion, about you. Benedict’s assassin whore. But he’s cut you loose. Why would you owe him any loyalty?”
He was holding my upper arms, squeezing them hard enough to bruise. When I didn’t answer him, he shook me like a rag doll. I tried to knee him in the groin but hit him in the lower abdomen instead. He let go of me with his right hand and slugged me. I fell
on the cot, but he reached for me and threw me on the floor. I curled into a ball, protecting my stomach and head. He only kicked me twice, then grabbed me by the hair, pulled me up, and hit me again.
He left me lying there and stormed out. I didn’t get fed again for what seemed to be a lot longer than the normal time between meals.
The second time Olivetti visited, he tortured me. His devices of choice were a cordless curling iron and a cattle prod. He stayed away from my face, hands, and feet. Any place he burned would normally be covered by clothing. But as painful as the burns were, the curling iron was better than the cattle prod, even though I knew the burns would leave scars for life, especially after some of them became infected.
Olivetti’s third visit was memorable because he tried to rape me.
“Stand up,” he said when he entered the room. I complied. He walked over, grabbed the blanket I had wrapped around me, and pulled it away, throwing it onto the cot. He unbuckled his pants and said, “On your knees.”
My hands shot out, and I grabbed him around the throat. I kicked his legs out from under him and followed him to the floor, landing on top of him. Jamming one knee between his legs, I used that leverage to choke him as hard as I could.
He hit me in the head. Once, twice. The third blow was much weaker. But the gagging noises he was making attracted the attention of the two guards out in the corridor. They stepped in and dragged me off him. Olivetti didn’t come back after that.
When my wounds festered, I started running a fever, which weakened me. That made it harder to exercise, but I persisted.
Well of Magic: An Urban Fantasy (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 4) Page 18