Bete Noire

by Christina Moore

  Well, there it was. Tristan scrunched his nose up. “Wrangle, huh?”

  “Mhm,” the fae answered, lips pressed into a thin smirk. “Well, that is of course, a loose translation. Would you prefer it in French, it’s much more eloquent.”

  Tristan made a rude noise and stiffened his arm, locking his elbow. The tremble in his hand was spreading to his arm. Sebastian saw his trouble and grinned hard, showing a lot of teeth before taking a step back. Tristan automatically took one with him.

  “What’re doing?” he asked feeling uneasy.

  The fae lowered his head, looking at him like an animal on the hunt. Tristan tensed, finding new stability for the gun when suddenly Sebastian turned and ran.

  “Hey!” he shouted and pulled on the trigger, but his stupid ass forgot the safety. “Shit!” He looked away for only a second to click off the safety and fire again but when he looked up again Sebastian was already gone. The sound of gunfire was deafening as it echoed off of the dense stone walls.

  “Stupid ass elf,” he muttered and started forward, taking his time. The last glimpse he had of the man in his rash confusion was somewhere at the end of the hall and to the right. There were three doors, the first two on the left and the last on the right. Question was, which door held the grand prize?

  Tristan was almost a hundred-percent sure the man didn’t dip into that first room. But still, he had to check. He put his shoulder to wall and took in a deep breath as he gave the hallway one last look over. Satisfied that he couldn’t be any more ready, he slipped into the open doorway, gun held out, you know, just like they did in the movies. He felt silly, but it seemed important. Realizing he had been holding it, He let out a long breath when he found the room was empty—save for the pile of broken furniture in the corner. This room, despite the huge pile of furniture, was furnished a little better than the previous two. This room had most of its wall coverings and even a few floor coverings still in place.

  Tristan got a horribly wicked idea.

  Leaving the safety off on his Desert Eagle, he returned it to its holster on his thigh. “Okay, if you want to hide then how about we make things a little more… interesting.” With a concealed smirk he reached around, found the nozzle hanging from his side and pulled the trigger to ignite the flame on the end. Just like Ash explained, he aimed and fired. As promised, flame roared out of the little nozzle like liquid molten lava. It was a hell of a lot more than he expected.

  “Holy shit!” he gasped taking a few steps back. Within three seconds he was sweating. The furniture sparked and crackled as it gave way to the dangerous element. By the time the discharge released a quick ten seconds later, the entire pile was blazing bright orange. Even the wall and part of the ceiling were on fire already.

  He stepped back to smile proudly at the hot little spectacle he created. That’ll keep that fucking elf from hiding, just gotta burn him out.

  There were still two more rooms to inspect. Pace slow and deliberate, he moved back out to the hallway, looking both ways for signs of the traitor. All was quiet, save for the soft crackle of burning word, the roar of fire as it ate up oxygen. Tristan felt a sense of… calm. And control. The situation wasn’t great, but he felt in control—which was more than he could say about his last big hunt.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are, you fucking stupid-ass elf,” he sang in a low, even tone to the empty hallway. He stopped at the next room; the door was sagging on its frame and hadn’t been moved in years. But, just for good measure, Tristan lit the door on fire before going for the last room on that length of hall. As he got closer he heard a noise and stopped, cocking his head, straining to hear. He shut his eyes, held his breath. There. There it was again. It was the sound of… a woman crying.

  Ash!

  With no regard to his own wellbeing, he bolted into the room. He only got a few feet inside when he came to a hard stop, blinking in disbelief at the spectacle before him. This room, like all of the others, was large and mostly empty. There was a hole in the ceiling big enough to drive a bus through with boards crisscrossing the opening. Hanging from one of those boards was a woman, swinging back and forth slowly like a pendulum. She had a black bag over her head and was strung up Spiderman style—knees pulled up, hands between them up-side-down. And since she was naked, the position left her disgustingly vulnerable. Lines of blood that formed before she was upended mapped out a history of pain.

  Of everything Tristan saw in this six-second pause, he knew that he wasn’t looking at Ash. That didn’t make the horror of it any less stomach-turning.

  “My god,” he whispered, not believing that he was really seeing everything right. He was already moving towards her as fumbled to get the flamethrower off. When he reached her he dropped to his knees, grunting with the pain that jarred up his legs into his hips and reached out to remove the bag over her head when she screamed. The sound was positively hair raising, shuddering down his spine like a cheese grater and piercing his ears. It was a scream that spoke of death. He’d heard a scream like it once before, from his Mother as she was burnt alive.

  Her scream turned into a mumbled of mushed together French words as she begged for her life.

  “Hey, no... shhh, it’s okay. I’m not—I’m here to help.”

  She flinched back at hearing his deep voice in her ear and let loose with another smaller, yet no less terror-inducing, scream. She started to thrash, looking like a fish on the end of a line. The scent of fresh blood found Tristan as she reopened the lacerations on her wrists. He muttered a curse under his breath and caught her to stop her from swinging any harder. She was either too scared or just plain didn’t understand him. At his touch, her writhing doubled, almost knocking him off his knees.

  “Hey,” he said gently, “um… lady. No, it’s okay. I’m really not going to hurt you.”

  Between trying to calm her with his gentle words and keeping her from knocking him off balance, he realized what she was saying. “Non, non, non”, an endless chant of “no”.

  He frowned, wishing she wouldn’t make so much noise and yanked the hood off, careful not to catch her nose with it. The girl sucked in a sharp breath, ready to scream again, but swallowed the noise, blinking big brown eyes right into his.

  “Hey,” he said with his pick-up tone and a warm smile. “I’m here to help. Are you okay?” Of course she wasn’t fucking okay. She was naked, bleeding and hanging upside in an abandoned castle occupied by a vampire and faerie.

  Her only answer was a quick, tear filled blink. Her lashes stuck together with old blood. She gave her wrists a little tug and Tristan let her go, a sign of good faith. She licked her lips in a quick, nervous gesture.

  She whimpered and then a word slipped out of her chapped lips, “Aider?”

  Tristan shook his head. “I don’t understand French, sweetheart.”

  She blinked again, looking calmer. “Help...?” she whimpered.

  “Yes,” he answered, nodding. “Ah, oui.”

  She took in a deep breath that came back out shaky, making her lip quiver so that she almost bit it. When she didn’t do or say anything again, he slowly reached for his knife. She may have been frightened, but she was seeing everything with a clarity one only had when they were fighting for their life. She squirmed, whimpering out a shaky non, each new word louder than the last.

  He mumbled a curse to himself and then to her, said, “It’s okay, sweetheart.” He put his empty hand up, palm out. But she wouldn’t look away from the knife. “Look,” he said calmly. She whimpered, wiggling harder. “Look,” he said again, firmer and she turned wide eyes to his empty hand.

  “See, I’m cutting that.” Not you. He pointed with the hand she was now looking at to her ropes and then to his knife. “Cut ropes, okay?”

  She sucked in a short breath and breathed out, “O-K.”

  He moved slowly, not wanting to scare her any more than she already was. He could only imagine what happened here. He reached up slow enough for her to watch the kn
ife. When his hands were at the knots between her legs and she didn’t flinch, he sawed into the ropes. They were thick and new, and covered in dark blood—something Lucien or the fae brought with them. They planned this, which made him wonder what other treats they had in store.

  Finally he cut through, freeing the girl. She fell into his arms and he barely kept from stabbing her with the knife on accident. She was frozen for a stunned moment, blinking up at him. Then the panic hit and she tried to get away. He wasn’t going to stop her but her feet didn’t work and she ended up falling face first into a drying puddle of her own blood, sobbing.

  “Hey,” he said softly, reaching for her. “It’s okay.” He lightly touched her shoulder, the only skin on her back that wasn’t lacerated and raw. He shut his eyes for a moment, lamenting the pain she’d been through and hoped she could recover from it with her sanity. The crackle of quick spreading fire brought him out of his revere. He looked up and while he couldn’t see actual flames, he saw the light from them.

  Damn, guess he went a little overboard with the flamethrower.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  The woman looked at him a moment and then broke down. She let out a Claire Danes “Juliet” worthy sob and collapsed against him. He sighed and held her to his chest while she cried, whispering soft soothing words to her. Though if she understood anything he was saying, he couldn’t tell. Right then, he didn’t really care. They were wasting too much time. But if he pushed her, she might fight him and he needed to get her to safety. He didn’t know how, but he had to. In the midst of comforting her, brushing her hair with his hands, Tristan noticed her ears. They were pointy. She wasn’t human, apparently. One of these seven shinwa Sebastian spoke of?

  A real elf? Maybe.

  After a few minutes of snot-bubbling sobbing, she quieted, relaxing against him. He was about to stand them up when she slid her arms around his waist, hugging him back. He pulled away, not wanting her to get the wrong idea but then it happened before he realized what she was really doing.

  “No,” he gasped as she threw herself back. She was laid out on her back and looked vulnerable if it weren’t for that big ass gun pointed at him.

  “Damn.” He put his hands up and stood slowly. She stumbled to her feet, shaking all over and staggered backwards. Her legs were trembling violently, threatening to spill her to the floor at any moment. Tristan’s gun was way too big for her hands and she had it use both to keep it held up and pointed at him—both forefingers set on the trigger and trembling as violently as her legs. She would shoot him, but maybe just on accident.

  “It’s fine, we’re fine.”

  “Bad,” she said.

  He shook his head and not for the first time tonight, wished he had pulled his hair back as it stuck to his cheeks and neck. “Non.”

  “Bad,” she said again louder. She was trying to convince herself as much as him.

  He sighed, backing away and to the left, showing her a clear getaway. He had intended to help her, get her out to the car, put her in Ash’s long coat. Save the girl’s life. Now he just wanted to get away from her and if that meant giving up his gun, then so be it. He had a job to do and it was getting late.

  “Look lady. I’m the good guy here.” He shook his head, eyes on the gun. “You can just leave if you don’t trust me.” He looked up again, meeting her teary eyes and slowly motioned towards the open doorway keeping his hands up. “I’m here for the guys who hurt you, not you. Just go.”

  She took a tentative step towards him and stopped, staring him down, taking in every inch of his face , trying to find the lie in his words.

  “Go on,” he encouraged.

  She took a step. Then another. The closer she got to him, the more her hands shook the big ass gun. Tristan stood completely stoic, afraid to even breathe deeply or else she might snap and shoot him. When she was even with him there was a loud bang from down the hallway that echoed like a gong throughout the castle. The girl yelped and the gun went off.

  Tristan was already falling to the ground, moving out of the way. He hit the ground and his left cheek burst into pain. He groaned and looked up in time to see the girl spin and fire at the open doorway. She screamed around the thunder of the gun going off. Tristan couldn’t be sure what the girl was shooting at, but he had a pretty damn good idea. He pulled up on a knee and touched his left cheek, scoffing when he came away with blood. By the time he looked up two seconds later, the girl was gone.

  The telltale thud of his big gun hitting the ground and the sudden cut off of the woman’s screaming left an eerie cold feeling in his gut. The only sound left was the roar of fire as it ate at the old furnishings of the long forgotten castle. The fire was spreading too quickly.

  Dammit all.

  Still kneeling, eyes scanning for eminent danger, he reached down to his boot for the knife. Fingers had just touched the cool surface of the handle when a figure shot into the room. An instant sneer twisted Tristan’s features as Sebastian stopped in front of him, the girl held in his arms with her back against his chest. Her big doe eyes were full of tears and terror as she looked to Tristan, silently asking for help.

  “Ah! Monsieur hunter. Glad we meet again. A terrible mess you have made with your fire toy. I will have a hell of a time trying to put it out. But, before that...” He stepped forward a single step. Tristan must have made some involuntary movement, betraying his intent to stand with the knife because Sebastian said, “Now now, you don’t want to be doing that.”

  Sebastian may not have been vampire, but he’d proven to be stronger than the average human. Than Tristan. And Tristan had only two goals in that moment, free the girl and kill Sebastian. Simple and yet—Tristan groaned as he jerked the knife from the boot holster.

  The fae’s expression contorted into deep anger. The moment his hand was free of the girl’s mouth, she let out a scream. But the sound was abruptly cut off and replaced with the crack of bones. Tristan watched, horrified, unable to stop it from happening as the fae twisted the girl’s neck and ended her life.

  “No!” he shouted and took a step forward.

  Sebastian dropped the girl to the ground like an unwanted toy. She crumpled to his feet in a heap, her neck at an obvious wrong angle with her face well past her shoulder, backwards. Sebastian met Tristan’s gaze and the look in those brilliant green eyes was deadly. Tristan stiffened, feeling less sure.

  “I had warned you.”

  Tristan mumbled something about Sebastian fucking himself, to which the fae laughed and took a step towards him over the body of the poor girl he was unable to save. He frowned at her for only a moment, sorry he couldn’t save her. He looked to Sebastian again. The man was grinning happily as if he knew exactly what Tristan was thinking.

  With just the one knife, Tristan knew he had to get to either his gun in the hall—therefore getting past Sebastian—or the flamethrower at his back where he left it to cut down the girl. He knew which he was going for.

  He stepped backwards and Sebastian followed the movement, mirroring him. The guy wasn’t going to let him have an inch.

  “Why’d you kill her?”

  Sebastian raised dark brows, taking another step with Tristan. The look on the fae’s face was answer enough.

  “She was innocent.”

  “You think so? My, you truly are as naïve as I thought. She was nothing, a whore of vampire desires with nothing to offer but her pretty life.”

  “You’re a son of a bitch, you fucking two-faced elf!”

  The taunt did exactly what Tristan had hoped. Sebastian jumped for him with a roar. Giving up on the idea of going for the flame thrower, Tristan charged with his knife out, positioned to take Sebastian in the heart. At the last moment, Sebastian made this graceful move, like a pirouette and twisted out of the way. The spin put Sebastian behind Tristan, pressed shoulder to shoulder. Tristan gasped as a pair of hot, slender hands grabbed his face and jerked his head back. He lost his balance as a foot took h
im in the back of a knee.

  “Fuck!” he gasped as he went down. There was no stopping the fall. And as he landed he knew he’d lost the fight. An elbow cracked him in the middle of the forehead and his vision blinked out. Weight pressed down on his chest as the fae took a seat on him.

  “Not such a strong vampire hunter now, are we?” Sebastian said in French, voice low and soft before switching back to English. He patted Tristan on the cheek. “You’re going to sleep now. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you in your sleep. That would be dishonorable after all… And don’t worry if you’re stiff when you wake, that is normal.”

  Tristan groaned, wondering what the man was talking about and there was a warm chuckle as the weight on his chest let up. He had a moment to take in a deep breath before his shoulder burst into pain. An ice cold eel scaled in razor blades slithered its way through his veins. The cold burned him from the inside out. It hit his brain like dry ice, instantly cutting off all communication with the rest of his body. And as he gave over the pain, let his body shut down, he hoped that the lying bastard of a fae was actually telling the truth and wouldn’t kill him in his sleep… that was if he wasn’t dying now. Because he was pretty sure he was.

  21: 6 Underground

  TRISTAN wasn’t dead but felt like maybe he’d been really close. He was someplace cold. Cold and achy. No, the ache was his head. Why did his head hurt? Oh yeah, that lying bastard, Sebastian, he elbowed him in the face. Asshole hit hard... for a faerie. And what the hell was that electricity that scorched his veins before he passed out, some kind of faerie drug?

  He groaned, sitting up as he clutched his head and smacked his lips. His mouth was dry and tasted tangy with a hint of something leafy, side effects of the drug Sebastian doped him with.

  “Tristan?”

  “Ash?” He forgot to breathe for a moment. “Holy shit, where—are you okay?”

  He stopped when he saw where he was—really saw it. He was seated in the corner of a small square room only slightly bigger than his shoebox bedroom back in Japan. There was a puddle of dirty, smelly water gathering in the corner opposite where the stones were slightly caved in. Not all of the stink was from that water. There was a perfume to the air that spoke of dead things. Long dead. And dank basement musk. The same decrepit, moldy gray brick of the rest of the castle made up three of the walls with the occasional chip or defect. The fourth wall was lined in bars, rusted and closely spaced.