“I could have put the whole building to sleep. Much easier.”
“Then they would have woken up and asked questions.”
“We could have just turned invisible.”
“But technology sees through that.” She rubbed his shoulder. “Right now, Jamie is running around the office like a crazy woman. Making phone calls, talking to the others. Just a little distracted.”
The elevator door opened. Kevin stepped forward, but Victoria stopped him. She poked her head out, searching for cameras. Like she suspected, there were none. Tavers wouldn’t record his own living room.
Victoria took the lead, and was impressed.
Tavers’ home reminded her of her own basement, with a much better view. Large windows revealed the skyline to downtown Philadelphia. There was an office in the corner, a living space, a beautiful bedroom. One corner had plenty of seating and two walls of books. A reader’s dream.
“Damn,” Kevin said. “Nice place.”
“I’m almost jealous.”
Kevin took in the surroundings and shrugged. He admired the television and entertainment center before speaking.
“The place looks normal enough. I don’t see any cauldrons anywhere. I’m going to check out the books.”
“You do that.”
Victoria took a cautious step into the office. There were no pictures of family or friends, no personal touches. A stack of paper sat on the desk. She turned on the computer, but it was password protected. Kevin would have to assist with that later.
She looked at the printer. A few pages sat uncollected on top. Nothing of interested jumped at her. A flyer for a fundraiser, a parking pass to a baseball game.
She heard a cry.
Every muscle froze. She listened for it again. There was only silence. Inhaling deeply, she processed the scents. Some dust, dirty clothes, rotten trash in a garbage bin.
She approached the office door. Kevin was still in the corner, poking through various books. He wore a look of disappointment.
“Kevin,” she said. “Did you hear something?”
He shook his head.
The cry came again. Barely audible. Feminine. Victoria left the office and stood in the middle of the living space, near a couch. Kevin tossed the book he held aside and joined her.
“Victoria? What’s up?”
“I hear something.”
“On this floor?”
“Yeah. Like a woman crying.”
Kevin reached inside his coat and pulled out a pair of reading glasses. Sliding them on, his cheeks turned red at catching sight of Victoria without clothes.
“Sorry.”
Victoria smiled. The accident of seeing through her clothes had happened before. She had to wonder how much of an accident it was.
“It’s okay. I won’t tell Leese.”
He searched around them. His expression was one of confusion, curiosity.
Then his gaze settled on the corner, near the two walls of books, and he froze.
“What the hell?” he said.
“What? What do you see?”
“Holy shit. Let’s go.”
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her across the living space. Kevin surprised Victoria when he leapt over the couch. Whatever he’d seen had spooked him.
He ran his hands along the bookshelf.
“There’s another room behind here.”
Victoria swept an entire shelf of books to the floor. She pressed her ear against the wall and listened carefully.
A woman moaned in discomfort and pain. There was a faint, slow heartbeat.
“I hear her.”
Kevin had already pulled the marker from his coat. He drew a circle on the wall and placed his hand in the center. The wall vanished as a standard magical portal formed.
Victoria took the lead. There was so much to see in the hidden room, but her eyes only traveled to one place.
A naked woman lay on the floor, locked in a prison cell. The cell only had a mattress, a garbage bin, and a toilet. There wasn’t even a sink. Torn, ruined clothes sat in a pile near the wall. The garbage bin was on its side, picked through. The woman was perfectly still. Her hand was in the toilet, her head pressed against the side.
“Oh my God,” Kevin said.
They moved together. They passed a table full of keys, locks, and straps. Kevin yanked on the locked door. It popped open immediately, with help from a random key in his pocket. Victoria reached her first and pulled the woman into her lap. It was shocking how light she was, how malnourished. Bones threatened to push through skin.
Dried blood covered her body. Her legs, breasts, and thighs.
Victoria didn’t need her nose, nor see the blue toilet water, to know what she was.
The walls of the cell were also caked in blood. There were markings everywhere, symbols.
Kevin dropped next to Victoria and held the woman’s hand.
“What happened to her?” Victoria asked.
It was a rhetorical question. She didn’t expect Kevin to have an answer.
To her surprise, he did.
“She’s going crazy,” he said. He stood and approached a wall, careful not to touch. “Witches need to practice magic. Or, at least, write it down, get it out. If we can’t, we lose our minds. She’s been hurting herself, using her own blood as ink.”
As old as Victoria was, as many witches as she’d fought and killed, that was something she’d never known.
“She’s been using the water from the toilet,” Victoria said.
Kevin nodded.
“To drink, and heal her own injuries.”
The woman stirred slightly. She looked up at Victoria, only for a moment, before closing her eyes again.
“She needs to eat.”
“On it.”
He shrugged out of his coat, pulling a photo from a pocket as he did so. Using a bare spot near the bars, he created a portal. The room on the other side was a place Victoria had never seen before.
As Kevin always did, he assaulted every sense of the word normal. Her jaw dropped.
She couldn’t see the entire room through the portal, but what she saw took her breath away. Shelf after shelf of magic. Boxes, trinkets, vials. What looked like combat vests or ammo belts hung from the wall. There was a conference table and a computer.
To add to the sight, Kevin’s coat floated where he’d left it, as if invisible hands kept it from falling.
He opened a small refrigerator.
“A cold-cut sub, a soda, a candy bar. Is that a good place to start?”
It took a moment to speak.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
Kevin rejoined her, not bothering to close the portal. He passed his floating coat and dropped to his knees.
“Healing water only goes so far,” he said. “The body still needs food.”
Victoria pulled the woman into a sitting position, leaning her back into her chest. Kevin started with healing water, to rouse her, then broke off some of his sub. She took a few sips, with water dripping onto her skin.
“Here,” Kevin said. “Eat slow.”
Kevin’s tenderness impressed Victoria. His voice was calm, soothing. The woman nibbled at a piece of ham. Her eyes shot open, and she nearly ripped the sub from Kevin’s hand. The water was next. She made a mess, drinking as it poured all over her.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She said nothing.
The woman sank back into Victoria’s arms, content to eat. Her eyes darted around the cell. She reached for the soda at Kevin’s feet and opened it. Half of it went in one gulp.
“I’m Victoria. This is Kevin.”
She nodded, as if she understood, but again, no words.
“Let’s get her out of here,” Victoria said. “Move to the couch. Get her cleaned up and find some clothes to wear.”
Kevin nodded and took her hand, which she accepted. He gently helped her to her feet. She stood a few inches taller than Kevin. She continued to eat, a soda in one h
and, sub in the other. He guided her by the shoulder. Her expression was one of confusion, but relief peeked through.
Victoria walked ahead, and was near the gate when she heard a cry behind them. The food and soda dropped.
She turned to see the woman behind Kevin, an arm around his throat. There was wildness in the woman’s eyes now, rage. She choked Kevin with his tie while locking his wrist behind him. His face turned red as she pulled him to the ground.
Victoria called his name and took a step forward. He held a hand up, signaling for her to stay.
“Don’t,” he said, barely able to talk. He touched the woman’s shoulder gently. “It’s okay. We won’t hurt you.”
Victoria relaxed. She could see that if Kevin wanted to, he could fight back, break her hold. But he restrained. She admired him. She wasn’t sure she’d show the same restraint if she was in his position.
“Kevin. I don’t like this.”
“She’s … just scared.”
To make an already tense situation worse, the magic keeping the portal open faded. The wall took its place, making the woman jump. She gripped Kevin tighter.
Following the woman’s gaze, Victoria saw Kevin wasn’t the focus of her anger. There was a metal reclining chair close to the cell, near the center of the room. It had restraints, with straps and handcuffs attached to the sides. Bolts secured it to the floor.
Victoria didn’t want to think about what it was used for.
She approached the chair and gave it a stern kick. The bolts strained to do their job. Another kick, and two of them broke. The third sent the chair crashing to the floor.
The woman released Kevin. Victoria stood aside as she left the cell. Kevin coughed as Victoria grabbed his shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded and took his own sip of water.
“Yeah. What the hell was that about?”
“Some very terrible things happened to her in this room.”
They stood back as the woman approached the chair. She circled it, like a predator eyeing prey. Tears ran down her face as her lips twitched. Darkness took over her eyes.
Victoria knew what was next, and the woman didn’t disappoint.
She gripped the top of the chair and threw it across the room. She clawed the seat with her bare hands, ripping it open. A refrigerator in the corner was next on the list. She yanked it open, throwing about the rancid smell of rotten food, and pushed it on its side. There was a TV mounted in the corner. She tried to rip it from the mount, but when it wouldn’t budge, settled for destroying it with parts of the broken chair.
Satisfied with her work, she retrieved the sub from where she dropped it. Passing Kevin’s floating coat, she ran a hand along the sleeve, a look of wonder touching her eyes.
“You can wear that, if you want,” Kevin said.
She made no such motion, leaving it alone as she left the cell. She slammed the door shut after her.
“Or not.”
She approached Kevin, catching him by surprise. He took a step back, uncomfortable with the invasion of personal space. She ate another bite of her sub.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. He glanced at Victoria. “Looks like she’s feeling better—”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. She pulled it toward her, angling for her chest.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I don’t really want to feel your—”
She placed his hand between her breasts.
“Okay,” Kevin said. His head and eyes moved about, trying to look at anything other than the woman’s naked body. “And now, this is happening.”
She set her hand on his chest in return and gave him a smile.
“Victoria? What’s happening here?”
The vampire let out her own smile.
“It could be a thank you. But I think she knows you’re a witch, too.”
“I’ve met other witches. I didn’t feel them up.”
“Yeah, well, it’s obvious she’s very different.”
*****
Everything was calmer twenty minutes later. Kevin tried to give the woman a robe from Michael’s bathroom, but she only wore it for a second before tossing it aside. Victoria could finally look at the woman, study her.
Her skin was dark. Victoria guessed she was from the Middle East. Long, dark hair. Her body was completely hairless. Either Michael kept her shaved, or there was magic at work. Her smile was bright, if awkward. She probably hadn’t let out a genuine smile in a long time.
Dried blood still speckled her body. They tried to lead her to the bathroom, to bathe her, but she refused to leave Michael’s secret room. They settled for bringing in a chair from the living space for her. A shower would have to wait.
They were content to leave her be, roaming and naked, while they took stock of the room.
The secret space that Michael Tavers had put together was so many things. Disturbing. Creative. Amazing. Besides the restraining chair and cell that housed his prisoner, there was also a witch’s cauldron, a collection of books that dwarfed his fake library, in the living space. There were potions and trinkets scattered about, but thankfully not anything on Kevin’s scale. A laptop sat on a tiny corner desk.
Victoria stood near the cauldron as Kevin studied a bookshelf. He flipped through various books, his expression a mix of awe and fear. What Michael had done to the poor witch weighed on her. He went to great lengths, held a woman against her will, used her for her magic. All in the name of stealing demonic powers. Michael wasn’t satisfied with having the most powerful supernatural creature under his thumb. He wanted more power. Humans always wanted more power.
Kevin approached, shaking his head in disbelief. He waved a book, its pages yellow and torn. Holding the book out, he blew across the cover. Dust still managed to touch Victoria’s arm.
“Sorry,” he said. He gestured around them. “This place. It’s … ” He couldn’t finish.
“I know.”
“There’s so much I could learn here. This is a spell-book. From another line of witches. There are books on demons, ghosts. Some have writing I can’t even read. It looks like a witch’s words, but, not quite.”
“Maybe I’ll buy the company after all, just to keep this place around.”
His eyes lit up.
“Really?”
“Or maybe … we should destroy this place.”
He didn’t object, but was clearly disappointed. She could almost see him drooling as he eyed the shelves.
“You think I obsess over magic? Micheal Tavers had me beat, and he wasn’t even a witch.”
“Yes, and you see what danger it can cause? Look at that witch. He made her a slave.”
He glanced at her, sitting on the chair. She crossed her legs, her foot bouncing. She flashed them both a smile, and Kevin looked away, his cheeks turning red at her lack of modesty.
“I won’t tell Leese you grabbed her boob.”
“I did not grab her … !” He struggled to compose himself, drawing a laugh from Victoria. “What do you think her story is?”
“That’s a tough one. If I have to guess … ” Victoria looked her over. “She’s probably been property since she was a kid. Sold from rich asshole to rich asshole.”
“So, she’s been like a … magic battery all her life?”
“I don’t think so. Hell, no one would sell a witch. I’m thinking Michael found out what she was, and bought her. In the past, she was probably used for … ”
She didn’t want to say. She didn’t need to. Kevin understood.
“He strapped her to this chair. He had her touch everything he needed. Used her to make his own potions.”
“Fucking asshole.”
Victoria leaned back, surprised at the outburst. She watched the woman, her heart breaking for her. She didn’t want to imagine what her life had been like.
Kevin frowned as he looked back and forth between them.
“You’re not going to kill her, are you?”
Her annoyance was
real.
“No, Kevin. I’m not going to kill her.”
“Well, you know. She is a witch. And you used to have that rule—”
“I’m not sure she truly knows what she is. She knows she’s different. Knows you are different. But, really, if you were locked in a room, and you didn’t have your gear, could you get out?”
He brought a hand to his chin, the thought running through his mind.
“Probably. Nick my finger for some blood, make a portal. Can she talk, or no?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what she can or can’t do.”
“Well, we did a good thing here, right? We saved her life, figured out how Michael got his magic. What’s next?”
Victoria sighed, her gaze falling on the laptop in the corner.
“I doubt Michael left anything behind. But, can you unlock that for me? Maybe we can figure out where she came from. If she has any family.”
“Yeah, sure. You know the deal. I just need some stuff from Michael. Nail clippings, hair.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing she would not enjoy the next few minutes.
“Oh bathroom, here we come.”
They approached the doorway leading to the living space. Kevin grabbed a potion from his floating coat on the way. He stopped and turned to look at the witch. She’d eaten her sub, but nursed at the can of soda.
“Is it okay to leave her here?”
Victoria nodded.
“I can hear her. We’ll be fine.”
They crossed the living space to the bathroom. It smelled clean, and Victoria realized Michael must have had someone maintain it, regardless if he was there or not. The towels on the rack were fresh, the shower spotless. She felt her hopes sink. Finding hair in a scrubbed bathroom wouldn’t be easy.
She opened the vanity and found his toothbrush.
“Will this work?”
Kevin frowned as he peered into the shower.
“I don’t think so. I need something off him.”
Victoria leaned near the sink when she heard something. Freezing in place, she shifted her ears. What she heard surprised her.
Soft, quiet footsteps. Bare feet, heading in their direction.
She put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, silently telling him to stop searching. He was confused, until the woman stood in the doorway.
Damned and Cursed | Book 10 | Fallen Skye Page 8