The only other odd thing about her husband, were his walks. He took long walks early in the morning for exercise and she had yet to wake to find him still in bed with her since they had come back from the cruise.
The coffee was almost finished brewing when the phone rang. She poured herself a cup and reached over to lift the receiver from the wall unit.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” Angeline told her. “Isn’t it an absolutely heavenly day?”
Lauren glanced out the kitchen window. “It’s going to be.” She tucked the phone between her cheek and shoulder and popped some bread in the toaster. “Is something wrong up at the store?” It was Wednesday and Lauren’s day off.
“No,” Angeline answered, laughing. “Just called to see how the lovebirds were doing.”
That particular phrase of Angeline’s never failed to annoy Lauren, as it did this morning, but she ground her teeth to keep from telling the woman not to use it any more.
“We’re doing fine. How are things in Gulf Breeze?”
Angeline stretched on her king-sized bed and turned over on her naked belly. “Never better. Is he out and about on one of his jungle treks already or can I speak with him a moment?”
Instant jealousy flared in Lauren’s gut, but she stamped it down. “He isn’t in the house so I guess he’s roaming the forest as usual.”
Angeline laughed. “When he comes home, will you have him call me? There’s a business matter I need to discuss with him.”
The jealousy turned to anger. To her knowledge, Mrs. Hellstrom had made no demands, business or otherwise, on Syntian since he and Lauren married. As a matter of fact, Syntian had avoided the woman as much as possible.
“I’ll tell him you called,” Lauren answered, jumping a little as the bread popped up out of the toaster.
“You do that, dear,” Angeline agreed. “Bye, bye.”
Lauren hung up the phone, a portion of her day ruined by the intruding call. She wondered what Mrs. Hellstrom wanted. She doubted it had anything to do with the intimate relationship she and Syntian had once shared, but a nagging worry wouldn’t let her overlook the possibility.
“It’s over between us,” Syntian had sworn to her on their wedding night. “I promise you it is, Lauren.”
And she was sure he had kept his word.
Delbert rapped on his mistress’ door then entered with a tray of fresh fruits, coffee, and papaya juice. He put the tray on her bedside table and helped her adjust the pillows behind her head, studiously avoiding looking at her lush nudity.
“How is he?” Angeline asked as she sipped the hot coffee.
“Furious,” Delbert informed her. “I had to restrain him.”
Angeline clucked her tongue. “That’s too bad.”
“He’s dangerous, Miss Angeline,” Delbert warned her. “Like a rabid dog.”
The older woman laughed softly. “He can be controlled.”
Delbert shook his head. “When he finds out what you’re going to do...” He let the words hang in the air like a bad odor.
“There’s not a damned thing he can do about it,” Angeline reminded him. “He belongs to me and he will continue to belong to me. He can’t change that fact.”
The black man bowed gracefully. “No, ma’am, I don’t expect so, but he’s going to fight you just the same.”
Angeline took a delicate bite of mango, chewed thoughtfully for a moment and then shrugged. “I look forward to it,” she told him.
He refused to look at her when she came down into the basement where he had been confined. He sensed her presence long before the door had opened and the tiny sliver of light from the landing beyond had seeped into the dark, damp room. As she descended the stairs, his nostrils extended; her smell disgusted him. He ground his teeth, growling low in his throat, his hands clenched together, his short nails were stabbing into his flesh. He would not look up, not give her the satisfaction of seeing how furious, and how helpless, he was.
Angeline kept well back from the thick iron bars that separated her from Syntian. A low bench had been placed against the far wall and she sat down upon it, crossed her legs, placing her hands primly in her lap, and waited for him to acknowledge her presence. Her gaze was riveted on his bent head, her ears finely attuned to his labored breathing which told her he was beyond fury, beyond human emotion completely. He was prowling somewhere in the primal range of bestiality from which she had drawn him long ago, lurking there, ready to pounce if she made even the tiniest of error in dealing with him.
Syntian heard the door open again and heavy footsteps came down the stairs. His keen sense of smell told him it was Delbert and the servant was bringing food and water to him.
“Be careful, Del,” Angeline warned the black man.
Delbert approached the cell, placing the bowl of food and the dish of water on the floor, well away from the bars. He took a long wooden broom handle from against the stairs and pushed the dish of water to the cell, within reach of the prisoner inside. Some of the water sloshed over the dish’s low plastic side and bled a black stain on the concrete floor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Syntian watched Delbert poke the food bowl toward the cell. The broom slid off the tin base and the servant had to take a step closer in order to push the bowl any further. Delbert jabbed at the bowl and missed again, necessitating another small step toward the cell.
Angeline screamed as the roaring, spitting demon inside the cage sprang toward the bars and swiped a vicious hand out to grasp the wooden handle. Delbert shrieked with terror as he was jerked up against the bars and his neck was grabbed in powerful grip that lifted the black man clear of the floor.
“Syntian, no!” Angeline shouted, not daring to go to her servant’s rescue. Even as the loud snap sounded in the basement room, even as Delbert’s body went limp and lifeless, she could do no more than watch as the black man’s head was twisted savagely from his shoulders and hurled across the room at her feet. She shrieked with revulsion as he slung the corpse across the room. She slammed herself against the wall, staring wide-eyed at the brutish specter who had crawled up the bars, hands clutching the iron uprights, feet jammed onto the crosspiece, and was shaking them so violently the iron rattled in the concrete.
His mindless howl of fury, bloodthirsty and uncontrolled, echoed from concrete wall to concrete wall. He pulled against the bars in a frenzy to free himself, to get to the female across the room, to rend her limb from limb, to feast on her flesh, to lap up her blood. His lips were drawn back over sharp, gnashing teeth and his eyes glowed a feral scarlet light in the near-darkness. He howled again, throwing back his head and keening like an enraged ape as he clung to the bars and shook them. His cry was a roar of such fierceness it could only have come from that part of him that had been born in the Pit.
Angeline gaped at him. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage, her blood pounding so furiously through her veins, she thought her head would explode. She was trembling from head to feet, her face as pallid as the moon. She brought one hand up to cover her quivering lips as she saw his head lower, his lips stretch into a parody of a grin and his gleaming red eyes settle on her. The look he gave her was so fiendish, so evil, so inhuman, a low moan of fear crept out of her constricting throat.
“Angeline,” he snarled and the sound was low and vibrating like a hellish purr. He shook the cage with less force, but the power was still in his clutching hands and the bars rattled in the concrete.
She edged along the wall, not trusting the protection of the iron bars or the runes that had been spoken over them to keep him at bay. She stumbled against the corner of the bench and yelped as the wooden edge gouged into her calf.
His predatory chuckle, a growl of satisfaction, rumbled through the room. His head was lowered, his hair wild about his lean face and he was looking at her from beneath the heavy slash of his thick brows, his steady stare following her as she slid along the wall.
“Angeline.”
To
her ears, the word was an ominous threat, giving notice. The menace of those three syllables rang a death knell on her nerves and she stilled, watched him vigilantly as he swung on the bars, crawling sideways across them until he was in front of her. He gurgled deep in his throat then dropped away from the bars. The moment his feet made contact with the floor, she knew a wild instant of pure, gut-wrenching terror.
“I’ll s-send you b-back to the Abyss,” she stuttered as she pressed herself against the coldness of the concrete wall.
Glistening white teeth, knife-edged and lethal, were revealed behind a diabolic grin. “No, you won’t.” He sidled along the bars, trailing his hands over the iron uprights. “You can’t.”
Angeline drew in a quick breath. “Yes, I c-can and I w-will!” She could not look away from those piercing, demonic eyes that seemed to hold her in their grip.
He shook his head, his thick hair spraying around his shoulders. “You can’t.”
She gathered her courage and took another step toward the stairs, shrieking with fright as he lashed out, jabbing his hand through the bars, his fingers grasping furiously as he strained to grab her. His cheek was pressed against the bars in his effort to reach her and his inability to do so only served to infuriate him all the more.
“Bitch!” he howled, craning his neck back and bellowing his helplessness to the low ceiling.
“You’ll never get out of there,” Angeline yelled. “I will keep you in that cage for the rest of your life!”
Laughter, as hellish as the infernal regions of the Pit, rang over the room and he gripped the bars again, shaking them so violently, so feverishly, Angeline feared they would not hold.
“I will outlive you, you worthless cunt!” he shouted at her. He rattled the bars. “I am hell-born and my days are without number!”
“But you won’t outlive Lauren!”
The howl of outrage and frustration that met her words was unlike any sound she could have ever described. It was evil intoned: a malevolent, virulent cry of hurt and suffering and mental anguish. It rebounded around the walls like a blast of Satan’s breath. It slithered over Angeline and made her clamp her hands over her ears to shut out the sound.
“Uncage me, bitch!” he screeched at her. He banged his head against the bars so ferociously, the flesh broke and blood ran down his face in thick rivulets. “Uncage me!”
She gawked at him as he repeatedly slammed his forehead into the iron bar. Blood was spraying the floor, dripping down his cheeks, soaking his shirt and matting his hair.
“Stop it,” she whispered, watching him jerk away from the bars and fling himself about the confinement of the cell, going from side to side to side to side, jerking at the bars. “Syntian, stop it!”
He dropped to all fours and pounded his clenched fists against the concrete. His hair flew around his face as he viciously shook his head from side to side, negating her command. His fists were becoming as bloody as his face.
“I said stop it!”
He twisted sideways, fell to his back and screamed, his torment rising to the heavens as he denied his imprisonment. He slapped at the floor with his bleeding hands, leaving wet palm prints on the concrete.
That part of her that loved Syntian Cree, that would always love Syntian Cree, made her take a few steps toward the cage. Tears of guilt ran down her cheeks as she stopped, beyond his reach and tried talking to him.
“You knew I wouldn’t allow you to keep her, Syntian,” she reasoned with him. “You knew that.”
He turned over on his side and drew his knees up as though he were a lost and lonely child. A shudder ran through his body and he moaned: a low, keening sound of pure torment.
“I let you stay with her longer than I should have,” Angeline said. “Long enough for you to give her a child.”
The thinking, cognizant, still-intelligent portion of his brain, that portion that had not reverted to the savage beast he had once been, the primal organism intent on killing and maiming and destroying, heard the female speaking and made some sense of her words. Although what the female was saying was hurting him even more, he strove hard to listen, to understand, to grasp the sounds and interpret them into meaning.
“She’ll have your child to remember you by,” Angeline told him, taking still one more step closer to the cell. “You have given her what you set out to give her, Syntian. You have given her a life; you have given her friends and respect and a reason to live.”
The female’s words were excruciating tortures that drove into his skull like arrows. They brought despair and racking agony that tore at his brain and pierced his heart. Those hideous sounds: words that he understood, with meanings he knew spelled his doom, filled what was left of his being with utter hopelessness.
“You are mine, Syntian,” the female was telling him. “I shared you with her and now I want you back.”
He twisted his head until he could see her face. There were tears in the female’s eyes, but then again, females often controlled their mates with tears. Tears meant little to them and meant nothing to him. But there was sorrow in her face, in her damp eyes, and he recognized that for he had seen it many times in his own face. He looked away from her and stared up at the bars over his head.
Angeline moved as close to the cell as she dared and looked into his bleak face. She wondered if her words were getting through to him, breaking through the shell of resistance he had erected. There didn’t appear to be any sign of human intelligence in his staring eyes. There was no telltale spark of humanity glowing there. There was only a keen awareness of pain and a tortured expression on his sensuous lips that said he was suffering.
“Can you understand what I am saying to you, Syntian?” she asked, pleading with him in a voice breaking with its own grief. “Don’t you see that I am doing what is best?”
As he lay on his back, he turned his head toward her and stared at her for a long time.
“You belong to me,” she said. “I will never allow you to see Lauren again.” She heard him groan as though in great pain. “I mean what I say, Syntian.”
His eyes filled with agony and he stretched out his hand to her, his palm up, his fingers splayed in an attempt to be touched.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t trust you.”
He turned over on his belly and crawled to her on his knees, like a broken animal, a wounded beast seeking solace. He pulled himself up and sat in front of her, gripping the bars, peering at her with a face filled with misery.
“No,” she said. “I am not going to allow you to make me feel guilty.”
He turned his head to one side and whimpered. The sound was pitiful. Slowly, he reached his hand through the bars, asking for her compassion.
“No.” She shoved the tin plate of food toward him.
Syntian glanced down at the raw meat, still oozing with blood, smelling rank. His mouth watered and he licked his lips, but he looked back up at his tormentor and flexed his hand, extending his arm as far through the bars as he could stretch.
“Please,” he whispered coarsely.
Angeline shook her head and pushed herself from the floor. “You are mine,” she told him in a cold voice, “and mine you will stay.”
He watched her walk to the stairs and start to climb. “Angeline,” he begged her, striving still once more to reach out to her. “Don’t do this to me.”
She would not turn around. With her hand gripping the banister, she pulled herself up the stairs, ignoring his whining cry for release. She heard his quiet sobbing, felt his heart breaking, sensed his bewildered pain and hopelessness, but it made no difference. With one last look behind her, at his seeking hand, his pleading face, she shut the door, closed off the light, and left him alone in the dark with Delbert’s corpse.
Chapter Eighteen
Sheriff Ben Hurlbert finished filling out the report, flipped the top of his notebook closed and pocketed his pin. “I don’t know what else to do, Lauren,” he said glumly. “I’ve got an A
PB on him and we’ve searched these woods around the house five times over.” He shook his head. “There just ain’t no trace of him.”
Lauren looked at him with despair. “He can’t have disappeared into thin air, Benny,” she reminded the man. “His car is still here; his belongings are still upstairs in the closet.” She stood up and paced the room, her hands running over one another. “There hasn’t been any calls like you said I might get.”
“Well,” Ben admitted, “he’s a wealthy man, Lauren. If we was gonna get a ransom demand, we’d have got it by now.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Something’s happened to him, Benny,” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “I can feel it!”
Ben got up from his chair and moved over to her, folded her into his strong arms and nestled her head in his palm to lay it on his wide chest. “There, there, now. We’ll find him, darlin’. It may take us awhile, but I swear to you we’ll find him.”
Nate Biggins, the deputy who had come to the old Herndon place with Ben, sat on the edge of his chair, scanning the room for the ghosts everyone knew haunted the old mansion. He thought he heard a moan and he jumped up, searching about him for the source of the sound, but sighed a deep breath of relief when he realized it was just the rafters moving overhead. He looked at Ben and smiled sheepishly.
“Go on outside, Nate,” Ben snapped, annoyed with the man.
Biggins, more than glad to leave the gloomy interior of the old house, dipped his head to Lauren as he passed and hurried out the door.
“That boy is scared of his own shadow,” Ben scoffed.
Lauren pushed out of his arms and ran the base of her palm under her left eye, wiping away the tears. “I’m sorry, Benny. I just—”
“Don’t you worry none about it,” he told her, reaching out to pat her shoulder. “I understand.”
She sniffed and moved away from him, sitting once more on the loveseat near the marble fireplace. “It’s just been so hard.”
“I know,” he said, not knowing what else to answer.
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 24