by Sharon Joss
He held his breath as uncertainty twitched across Gordon’s features. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to show you around.”
Relieved, he grinned, reassured that for the moment, at least, he was above suspicion. It was bad luck that the Mage had found him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t move forward with his plan. All he needed now was a little distraction. “Are the wards around this building the same as the ones for the grounds? It’s hard to believe you can make something this big invisible.”
“It’s not invisible. The ward merely deflects the senses away from the subject. To the casual eye, the distractions of nearby un-warded objects such as trees and shrubs become the focal point. How did you find it?”
Mike tapped his nose. “I figured it had to be near the house, and that meant either the sunflower field or the woods. I followed your scent. I knew I was getting close when it disappeared. Then I closed my eyes and felt around for anything that didn’t feel like sunflower. Once I touched the door, the building became obvious.”
Gordon didn’t look very happy. “The sense of smell is difficult to fool. The wards told me someone had crossed the threshold, but I couldn’t tell who.”
Keep him talking. “So why hide it? And why go to the effort to brew wine for a bunch of vampires who can’t even drink it?”
“It’s not like that,” Gordon said. “Ambrose loves this land more than anything. Just because he doesn’t partake of the harvest doesn’t mean he doesn’t take pride in it. And I don’t do all the hard work myself. Most of the grunt work is done at night; Ambrose himself oversees the hand picking of the crop.”
“Hard to picture vampires working those fields.”
Gordon shrugged. “This is a farm. Everyone in the nest works the fields except Rafe and Santino. The only real difference is that the fields are tended at night.”
Mike looked around the distillery. “So where is this intoxicating brew I’ve heard so much about, anyway?”
“In the wine cellars of course. Care to take a look?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Gordon grinned slyly. “Think you can locate the entrance?”
Mike jerked his head toward the door to Ozzie’s clinic. “That would be my first choice.”
“And you’d be wrong. Come with me.” Gordon grabbed a couple of liqueur glasses from a cabinet and motioned to Mike to follow him. He tapped an area of bare cement floor with his foot, and a wooden trap door appeared. Gordon reached down and lifted the door up, revealing a well-lit stone stairway leading down. “Watch your head,” he cautioned.
The shallow steps curved along a wall toward the right. Overhead, recessed lighting turned on automatically as they descended into the cellar. The chilly basement was filled to the very brim with racks and racks of bottled wine alternating with rows of wooden casks. “My god, what do you do with all of this?”
Gordon set the glasses on top of a nearby table made of barrel staves and lifted a bottle off one of the nearest racks. The label was solid black, except for the word, ‘Glamour’ and the year 1965 scripted diagonally across the label in lavender script.
“Nice.”
Gordon slipped a corkscrew out of his pocket and proceeded to open the bottle and pour a half-glassful of pale golden liquid into each of the cordial glasses. “Just a taste. So you’ll know what we’re doing here.” He handed Mike the glass and waited expectantly. Too expectantly.
A feeling of unease crept over him. Gordon had seemed a little too willing to show him around. “I’m not much of a wine drinker.”
Gordon’s jaw twitched; the thin curve of his smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes. He raised his glass in a mock toast, then drained the glass in one gulp. “Go on, Mike. It’s not poison.”
He took a tiny sip. A little sweet, but not bad. He downed the hatch. An unexpected glow of well-being flooded through his body. “Wow.”
Gordon was quick to fill the two tiny glasses again. “This time, roll it around on your tongue a little. Get the taste of it.”
Yeah, Mike thought. There’s a little peachy, pineapple-y, champagne thing going on there. “It’s got little bubbles.”
Gordon laughed. After that, everything went dark.
CHAPTER 33: TRAPPED
The heavy chain was only a few inches long. The big cat had been collared and chained to an iron bolt in the floor with very little slack. Silver-tipped prongs on the inside of the collar penetrated the fur of the cat’s neck, digging into his tender skin. The burning sensation was inescapable unless he remained perfectly still. The cat could lay on his side or his belly with his chin on the stone floor. The walls of the stall were blocks of stone and mortar. No more than six feet high, but they might have gone on forever. He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t move around. All he could do was wait.
There was no sense of time passing in the bestiary. The dim light came from two bare bulbs suspended over the table in the work area. The alternative was total blackness that not even the cat’s superior vision could penetrate. The world had closed down into two dimensions: pain and darkness. In the darkness, there was safety and fear; when the lights came on, there was only Ozzie and pain. Ozzie always started with the cat.
The veterinarian was afraid of the jaguar, and unlike his careless attitude with the wolves, he would not come into the stall. He had jury-rugged some sort of cattle prod that allowed him to reach through the bars of their stall-like prison and deliver massive electric shocks anywhere and everywhere. As his captives screamed and writhed in pain, Ozzie timed their agony with a stopwatch and made notes. Sometimes, he even videotaped them.
But the cat didn’t react the way Ozzie expected; he seemed to derive some perverse pleasure from the shrill screams of the wolves, and wanted to evoke a similar response from the jaguar. Every time the lights went on, Ozzie had a new tool to try on the cat. Something worse. Ozzie didn’t stop until the cat lost consciousness. Mike suspected that Ozzie was trying to get Tehuantl to come out.
Mike’s cold fury grew every time the lights came on. He didn’t experience the cat’s pain directly, but the electric shocks jolted him just as they did the cat. He felt the cat’s physical suffering as phantom pain, no less real to him than the torture inflicted upon the cat. The smell of scorched hair and flesh and the pitiful cries of the wolves tore into his very soul.
All the while, the silver spikes inside the collar ate into the jaguar’s neck like a slow, agonizing acid. Unable to shift, the cat’s wounds festered. Eventually, as dehydration and starvation set in, the cat shut down. Not even Ozzie’s worst attention could trigger a response any longer.
With the light on, his range of vision was limited to the three stalls across the aisle. The wolf on the right was breathing, but never moved. He smelled very bad. Directly across from him, a big grey with plenty of fight left in him suffered horribly from Ozzie’s attentions. Based on size alone, Mike guessed it was Tanner, Vince’s former Beta wolf.
In the stall to his left, they’d shackled Tom. Unlike the wolves, Tom’s wrists and ankles were manacled with enough length of chain so that he could walk back and forth across the back of the stall. He paced for hours on end; shuffling like an old man who’d lost his mind. Tom’s condition deteriorated quickly. Ozzie seemed particularly delighted with the onset of Tom’s lycanthropy. He took a lot of photos of Tom’s face and hands and feet, and came frequently to take blood samples and gouge hunks of flesh from Tom’s back. After a time, Tom began to blubber and sob every time the lights came on.
Tom’s suffering nearly unmanned him. I’ve done this to him. Everything I touch goes to shit. He gave me everything, and I’ve repaid him by taking his humanity and putting him in Ozzie’s hands.
But as bad as it was for Tom, it was worse for Sarah. She was in the stall next to him. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her grunts of pain. The look of hatred and frustrated rage on Tom’s face when Ozzie was in the cell with her told him more than he ever wanted to know.
Sarah was
a fighter. She screamed bloody murder and fought when Ozzie dragged her out by her hair. The cat continued to play dead, but the big wolf across the aisle went crazy. He snarled and frothed at the mouth in his frustration. Tom cursed Ozzie, promising to kill him; his wrists and ankles stained and crusted with dried blood. Mike fought with everything he had to push the jaguar aside, but the cat refused to yield, and didn’t move a muscle.
Come on, he urged. You’ve got to do something; but the cat remained still as a stone. They were all forced to listen to the sounds of fists pounding flesh, as Sarah’s threats and cursing gave way to begging and pleading as she promised Ozzie anything if only he would stop.
“Just lay still. That’s not so much to ask.” Ozzie’s voice was a low monotone. “Yes, that’s right. Up on the table with you. Lay back. That’s it.” The sound of buckles being fastened. “I know you’ve been looking forward to this as much as I have.”
There were sounds of a cardboard box being opened. Packing being removed. “What a beauty. Now where did I put those batteries?”
Sarah was silent. Tom was the only one who could see what was happening. “Don’t you dare,” he sobbed. “You fucking animal, I will kill you. I swear it.”
An electric hum filled the air. Ozzie moved to stand in front of Tom’s stall, his back toward the cat. A long black baton hissed and crackled in his hand; sparks flashed from its tip.
“I see we have a volunteer. Just to let you know, dog-boy, this is the Dominator Tru-Jolt Baton. Twenty inches of fabulous fun delivering five hundred thousand volts of stopping power at my fingertips. Check out the rubber handle and nifty wrist strap.”
Ozzie opened the door to Tom’s stall and the manacled man threw himself toward Ozzie, heedless of the weapon. Ozzie never flinched as he raised the baton and touched it to Tom’s chest.
Tom’s reaction was immediate. He fell to the ground and cowered. Ozzie moved into the stall, delivering repeated shocks until Tom lay unconscious in a fetal position on the floor. Mike caught the scent of fresh urine and feces.
Ozzie shut off the stun baton. “Interesting. That wasn’t the reaction I expected.” He prodded Tom with his foot, but there was no resistance.
The room had gone silent. Across the aisle, even the big wolf Tanner crouched; silenced, licking his lips nervously.
“I guess you’re just too fragile to be much fun yet. I guess I’ll have to wait until the full moon before I can really play with you, dog-boy.”
Ozzie came out of Tom’s stall and closed the door behind him. He stood in front of the big wolf’s stall this time. The wolf growled a warning that echoed through the entire cavern.
“Now I see here we have a second volunteer. You probably feel neglected, don’t you? And I’ll just bet that you’d love to bite me. Let’s see you try.” He turned the baton back on and opened the iron door to the stall.
The wolf lunged, but the short chain prevented him from reaching his tormentor. Ozzie began tapping each of the wolf’s feet and legs, sending the wolf scrabbling to get away. Yelps turned to screams, each time Ozzie moved the baton. With his back to the jaguar, Mike didn’t need to see Ozzie’s face to know he was enjoying what he was doing.
“Now I get it. A little goes a long way, doesn’t it?” The wolf screamed hysterically; eventually collapsing into a catatonic huddle on the floor as the scent of his burning flesh added another chorus to the stink in the air. Finally, Ozzie turned to face the jaguar.
“I have you to thank for my new toy, kitty cat. After your little dance with Torkelson, Ambrose let me order this. You know, they’re illegal in New York. I tell you it took a bit of doing to get my hands on this beauty.”
Ozzie squatted down in front of the stall. “I’ll just bet you’d like me to open your cage, wouldn’t you? I don’t believe you’re sleeping for a minute. But it doesn’t matter. With a twenty-inch reach, I don’t have to. Check this out.”
Ozzie inserted the baton through the bars and touched the big cat’s nose with the baton. A white light exploded in his brain and the jaguar bellowed in pain and anger. He fought the baton as the spikes inside his collar dug deeper into his neck. Ozzie laughed. Another and then another and another surge of electricity surged through them. The memories of Hector Clemente returned, and Mike prayed desperately that the cat would finally release Tehuantl. The battery gave out before Ozzie was satisfied; he took the remainder of his impotent lust out on Sarah.
Despair filled Mike as he tried everything he could think of to get the cat to let him out. With thumbs, he could get that wretched collar off their neck and get them out; away from Ozzie and his sick games. His neck felt as if it were on fire. But the cat wouldn’t budge. Time and again, he appealed to Tehuantl, but the shaman told him that the cat was implacable. He is waiting. Sooner or later, someone will open the door and come close enough to see if he’s alive. It always works this way.
When the lights went out and they were left alone in their misery, Tom and Sarah talked. Tom would tell Sarah to be strong. “Don’t let him win. It doesn’t change who you are inside. He can’t touch you where it really matters.”
Sometimes, he spoke to Mike and the wolves as well, telling them not to give up. Mike felt his heart break with every word of encouragement Tom spoke, but in time the lycanthropy virus began to take its toll. As Tom’s sanity ebbed, his vocabulary dwindled until the only word that remained was Sarah’s name. For hours in the darkness, Tom moaned and cried her name like a prayer, over and over. Only her soothing voice could calm him.
“Don’t fight it Tom,” she told him. “You have to go with it. You are becoming at one with your inner self. You are evolving. The beast is one small part of the greater universe that is you. Everyone fears change. Don’t fight it, embrace it. Go to your peaceful place. Picture yourself in a canoe floating with the current beneath azure skies. Your wolf is always with you. Feel the warm sun on your faces. Feel the gentle current take you. You are together on this journey. You are growing and expanding in new and unfamiliar ways. Allow the current to take you to the new life that awaits you.”
“Acceptance is the key, Tom. The key to happiness lies in acceptance, not in anticipation of outcomes. That which you fear most can only harm you when you resist. Release your emotional attachment to the past. Move forward into a stronger and better self. He is you and you are him. There is no one else. There is only you. Follow the call.”
She spoke softly, but her words carried. When she spoke, it was as if she spoke to all of them. Mike could feel the silent alertness of the others in the cavern.
“Don’t fight the beast, reach out to him. Embrace him. Give him a name. He is your partner; accept him. Learn his ways. Seek to understand him and he will always have your back. Let your spirit drift within the current, not against it.”
Sarah told him the key to surviving and thriving with ALVS was to retrain the unconscious mind to accept the physical changes and the conscious mind to open itself to the new mass consciousness which came to all lycanthropes. Over and over, her words to Tom spoke of acceptance, of allowing, of curious inquiry, and seeking to understand. She often wept after Ozzie finished with her, but she never faltered when she spoke to Tom. “You are going to survive this. We’re going to get out of here. We will. You have to believe that. Answer me if you understand,” she pleaded.
And Tom would moan her name and all who could answered with a series of whines and grunts which echoed Tom’s acknowledgement. Even the cat chuffed a reply. Eventually, Tom lost his power of speech completely, and sounded no different from the rest of the pack.
Mike nurtured a slim hope that Rafe or Silas or one of the other wolves might come looking for them. Sarah’s absence should have been noticed by now; by the hospital and her patients, certainly. And if her family realized she was missing, they would of course report it. She worked the ALVS information booth at Mythica on Saturday nights. He had no idea how long they’d been down here, but somebody must have noticed that Sarah and he were bot
h missing. Maybe they’d call Tom and discover he was gone too. Yolanda might have said something to Vince before she left. If she left.
They all grew weaker. Ozzie provided Tom and Sarah with water and a little food, but it wasn’t enough. The rest of them got nothing. A lethargy overtook him. He began to drift; to follow the current of Sarah’s sweet voice down the river.
Tehuantl?
The priest had been surprisingly quiet since they’d been captured by the Fae.
Tehuantl, how is it that the Fae knew you? How did they recognize you?
He didn’t expect an answer, but he could feel the shaman’s presence.
We are different tribes of the same clan.
The voice in his head sounded as real as if he were standing right in the cell beside him.
Long ago, when the Great Creator made the first predators, each was given a clan to tend. The soul of a spirit priest from each clan resides within each of the First Predators. All First Predators and spirit guardians recognize each other. Many of the elder Fae tribes also have this gift.
Tehuantl. We have to get out of here. If you and I work together, we can overpower the cat.
Of the three of us, you are the weakest. Of the three of us, you are not a predator. Of the three of us, you are the only mortal. When your spirit dies, there will no longer be three of us. The First Jaguar and I will be one again. Tehuantl vanished and refused to return.
Damn him; he’s waiting for me to die.
After Sarah’s voice faded and all was quiet, Farley would come. His toenails clicked against the stone floors, announcing his arrival through the warded exit at the back of the cavern. The cat’s ears would flick forward, but the jaguar never stirred. The dog always scratched at the floor in front of the stall for a few moments before settling himself down with a sigh. They’d all sleep then; but when the lights came on, the dog was already gone.
CHAPTER 34: THE VISIT
Mike knew something was up when Gordon and Cobb came into the bestiary. Gordon led the vampire past his stall to the very back of the cave to show him the warded exit.