by Lyn Gala
Several pops sounded before the first fireworks rose into the air from her second trap. Either she hadn’t gotten the plastic feet set into the dirt or she had done it crooked. The fireworks darted toward the house. A green screamer careened right at the second story, exploding right before it hit the roof. One of the two smart vamps cursed and leapt back as he was showered with sparks.
For one brief happy moment, Paige hoped that he was going to catch on fire. Unfortunately he patted his clothing and put out the sparks that had landed on him.
The second smart vamp trotted over toward his position and the two of them talked again. Hands gesturing out toward the woods, they split up the territory and started moving toward the dark. Both were far too close for comfort.
Another form appeared at the open door. This one had either a rifle or a shotgun in hand, and for some reason that surprised Paige. These were vampires. They had the superspeed and the good vision and the superhuman smell, so it seemed a little unfair that they got to carry firearms as well.
Page scanned the woods, searching for any sign of movement. Nothing. She couldn’t see Hunter or Brady. She could, however, see the two smart vamps steadily moving closer. Both were off to her right, the closest near enough to make her sweat.
Most of the stupid vamps were at her second trap now. Paige couldn’t make a run for it. When she decided to fuck up a plan, she really went for it. Her best advantage right now was her Glock and a really good aim. She’d grown up hunting in these woods, and she knew that the trees made the sound of the gunshot echo weirdly. A shot would go off and it would sound like it was coming from every direction at once. Hopefully that would be true with vampire hearing just as much as it was with human hearing.
Paige lined up her shot, her Glock pointed at the closest vamp’s head. Two shots in quick succession and he wouldn’t have any head left. That would send him back to hell. Her hand sweated on the grip of the gun. He was so close that her every instinct said to take him out, but if she did, the other would come running. Maybe. These guys were acting human, too human. But she couldn’t assume that she understood them.
If she got out of this alive, she was leaving the hunting to Hunter. She had never been an adrenaline junkie. Other people talked about the thrill of adrenaline, but it upset her stomach.
Changing her target, she aimed at the more distant of the two vampires. Her instinct might tell her to kill the closer one, but strategy told her to make a different move. Before she could second-guess herself, she pulled the trigger twice. Kickback made her second shot go a little high, but the first found its mark. Even in the dim light from the shadowed moon, Paige could see his head explode. Hollow-point rounds definitely made a difference.
The first vamp turned his back on her and ran toward his partner. Shotgun vamp stepped out onto the porch. He walked around the opposite side of the house where he was lost to Paige. But that meant he couldn’t see her either.
Paige eased backward. At this point, she only wanted to get out of this mess. She could stake out Hunter’s car and torture him into explaining what was going on, assuming he was alive. Her stomach churned at the thought of either Hunter or Brady dead or trapped in the lair, but her big plan was a big flop. She didn’t have another play.
Leaves rustled under her and Paige froze. The one smart vamp was still with his downed partner, doing something she did not want to think about. She had no idea what that was, but her imagination was getting a little too disturbing. The stupid vamps were still obsessing with her fireworks display, despite the fact that the last rocket had gone off and the woods were silent.
Taking a little scared breath, she backed farther away from the house. Where the hell were Brady and Hunter? With all this noise, one of them should have shown himself. Of course, maybe Hunter figured that she got herself into the mess and she could get herself out. She could just imagine him sitting at his car with a huge grin, waiting to see whether she got eaten.
But Brady would have come running if he’d been near. She knew that. Absolutely in her gut she knew that he would come for her if he could.
She eased back another few feet and debated whether or not she could risk running. Her legs ached with the need to move, but she couldn’t be stupid. Not now. Or she couldn’t continue being stupid. Objectively, this whole plan was slightly on the side of stupid.
She turned to scan the woods behind her and the last she knew was a terrible pain in the back of her head before the whole world started spinning and her limbs collapsed despite her desperate last attempt to run. And then, darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Paige woke with a groan. Either someone hit her or… She couldn’t come up with an “or”. Someone had hit her. More than once, probably. Her shoulder hurt and her head and her left leg just above the knee. It took her scrambled brain several minutes to remember.
“Well shit.”
Paige opened her eyes a little, but even with them narrowed, the light felt too bright. It cut through her head and made the pounding worse. Instead of seeing a hospital, which she suspected she needed, she was on a bed in the center of a stone room.
Overhead, heavy beams held the weight of the rooms above and the stone was so old that moss had grown over most of the wall. She was in a basement. And from the fact that the only windows were about twelve inches tall and four inches wide, she suspected she wasn’t getting out unless she went through the door.
The door had weathered wood with iron strapping. This place was built to hold someone. The only parts of the room that didn’t belong in the 1800s were the single bulb set high up between the rafters with a wire disappearing into the ceiling and an old gray toilet sitting in the corner.
Ignoring various pains, Paige got her feet on the floor. The bed was another relic from the past. Heavy timbers and hand-forged iron held it together. She wouldn’t be able to take it apart without tools and possibly a blowtorch. So much for MacGyvering some weapon out of bits of the bed. Using the wall as leverage, she pushed herself up. Her left leg got pins and needles and her lower back twinged a warning.
“Great. Why couldn’t someone have kidnapped me about ten years ago before the parts started getting rusty?” she muttered. Actually, a better question hit her—why hadn’t they killed her? She’d pretty much figured the two options were that her plan would work or she’d be dead.
She didn’t have much of a chance to worry because a click warned her that someone was about to open the door to her prison. Turning to face the door, Paige shook her arms to loosen the muscles and reviewed every unarmed combat class she’d ever taken in the academy. The door opened out, so she wasn’t going to have a chance to hide behind it, so she just had to play it by ear.
The door came open and Paige sucked in a quick breath as she stared down the business end of a large handgun. It looked like a .357, but it was hard to tell because the light behind the man was so bright that Paige was having trouble seeing more than a silhouette.
“The master wants to see you.”
“Good for him,” Paige answered without moving. Annoyed people made mistakes and she was talented at annoying others. Pissing off the captor was a shitty plan, but those were the only kind she was coming up with lately
“Move!” The man’s voice went up a half-octave. This wasn’t an experienced guard. And unless Paige missed her guess, he was a human guard. She had no idea why she thought that, but her gut just whispered that she was facing a human. An annoyed human. Annoyed people might make mistakes, but they also shot people and that wasn’t in her plan.
She showed her hands, palms out. “You don’t have to wave that thing around.”
“I’ll shoot you,” he warned with a false sort of bravado. Yep, this was a flunky.
“Hey, you don’t want to do that. You shoot me here and the blood is going all over this very nice floor,” she said sarcastically as she toed the hard packed dirt.
“Get out here. We’re going to see the master.”
P
aige sighed. She was out of plans, good or bad. That left going with the flow until she figured out how to run like hell without getting eaten. “The master. Got it. Master, huh? A little cliché, but then you guys have the dungeon theme going for you, so clearly you embrace your clichés.” Paige stepped out of the room. The hall was narrow and dark, the same retro fitted light bulbs set between ceiling beams that were much higher than a modern house.
“That way.” The man pointed with the gun toward the opposite end of the hall where she could see a set of dark wood stairs.
“No problem. Just don’t shoot me in the back by accident.” Paige moved toward the stairs. She wanted to run. Running would get her away from the man with the gun, but she forced herself to move with a deliberate slowness.
She’d trained a lot of officers and she always told them that the more dangerous the situation, the more they had to get control of their emotions. She really couldn’t imagine a more dangerous situation than this one and she couldn’t let her emotions send her screaming up the stairs, no matter how much she wanted to.
At the top of the stairs, Paige saw that someone had cleaned up the Carter place’s foyer. A curving stair led up to a second-story balcony and there was a definite lack of dirt, cobwebs and raccoons. These abandoned houses usually had all three in abundance. A huge cherry wood table stood in the middle of the cracked marble floor.
She must have stopped too long because she got poked in the back by the gun.
“To the left, the archway,” her escort ordered her. Paige followed his directions and headed to the left. Her guts were really knotting now. She’d seen a number of demons, but none of them were the sort to set up in a mansion. Well, they might set up in one, but they didn’t seem the type to clean one. Truth be told, vampires were a little less impressive than she’d expected.
The guard shoved Paige into a room with a piano listing badly to the right and heavy, stained drapes over the boarded-up windows. Now this room had a demonic vibe going. It even had a demon. The woman stood near a fireplace in a black dress that clung to her curves and black heels. With her blonde hair swept up, from the back she looked like she was ready to go to a cocktail party. Next to her foot sat a box with what looked like ash and garbage in it. Someone had been cleaning the fireplace, but Paige was guessing it wasn’t this lady.
She stood with her hand on the heavy mantle and there was something in the curve of her spine that just didn’t look human.
“So, you’re the master? Your flunky needs a gender lesson.”
“What have you done with him?” Her voice was low and a shiver went through Paige. This woman was thoroughly and completely pissed.
“Who?” Paige asked as casually as she could.
The woman spun around and pinned Paige with a cold glare. Her pale blue eyes were so light that, for a half second, they gave the illusion of being pure white. It ruined the perfect image the woman was clearly trying to project.
“Oh, Brady,” Paige said casually. Maybe she felt a little suicidal, but verbally poking this woman felt good. She’d stalked Brady, so she had a vulnerable spot there. It was the only advantage Paige had.
The woman was vibrating with rage now. “What have you done to my demon?”
Paige tried to smother any signs of hope. If Brady could still confuse and aggravate the bitch, maybe that meant he had gotten away.
“Your demon? Lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The woman’s fists clenched and Paige braced for a physical assault. It never came. Instead, the woman took an exaggerated breath. “I chose the body. I cast the spell that opened the portal. He is mine.”
“Not even a chance,” slipped out before Paige could edit herself. The woman’s body language mutated, her body curved and arched in ways that made Paige suspect death might be a blessing. Well, if she’d lost the fight, she might as well go down fighting. “He’s a free man, free to tell you to fuck yourself because you had no right to ruin his life. So no, Brady is not yours.”
“How dare you!” The woman’s face twisted into something dark and deadly. “He is not human. Do not abuse his greatness by calling him a human name.”
Okay, this woman’s trolley had left the tracks. She was crazy. “That’s just what he calls himself and I came here looking for him. I didn’t do anything to him.” Paige crossed her arms and gave the woman a saccharine smile.
The bitch’s eyes narrowed. “You lie. I will force him to see the lies that fall from your mouth.” She strode over with long steps and Paige’s short legs couldn’t retreat quite fast enough. The woman slapped her so hard that Paige’s ear rang and she fell to the floor. Scrambling to her feet, Paige fisted her hands and prepared to go down fighting, but the woman had already moved to the double doors on the far side of the room. The armed flunky still waited next to the doors Paige had come in. No escape there.
The woman pushed the pocket doors back and Paige sucked in a breath. Brady stood there, his hands in old-fashioned shackles. The thick iron half circles with one straight side looked a lot stronger than standard handcuffs. As his eyes scanned the room, he saw her. Brady’s arms bulged as he fought against the chains, but the woman grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room.
“This is what you claim loyalty to. A human. An animal. She would turn on you in an instant.”
“Then why’s she here if she wanted to turn on me? Why didn’t she burn the house down?” Brady asked. The question was logical, but the tone was more than a little snotty. He certainly wasn’t following the rules about de-escalating a conflict. Then again, neither had Paige.
“She would control you.” The woman’s voice turned silky and she raised a hand, but Brady shied back, the chains rattling at the sudden movement.
Brady gave a dark laugh. “And you aren’t?” He tugged at the chains.
“I’m your creator! I brought you into this world.”
“You opened the door,” Brady snapped. “I fought for this body. I earned the right to come into this dimension.”
“Because I called you. Me. I’m the one who lit your way into this world.”
Brady looked at her coldly. “Lady, I don’t owe you anything, no more than you owe whoever brought you into this world.” That hit a nerve. “You haven’t been here for all that long, have you?” He studied her up and down. Normally when a man gave a woman that much attention, the gesture bordered on sexual harassment. Somehow Brady managed to make it look dismissive.
The woman bridled, her hands fisting at her sides. “You will learn manners.”
“I doubt that. Paige was trying to teach me table manners and it just never took. But hey, you’re welcome to try.” This was a darker side of Brady than Paige was used to seeing. Now she could see how his own body language had turned alien. His shoulders were back a little too far—his neck stretched a little too much. He looked awkward in his own skin. He also looked furious.
Instead of blowing up the way Paige expected, the woman got a calculating look on her face. “You’re a fool if you think to judge me by how I look.”
“I’m judging you on how you act, lady. You wanted a toy to control and I will not be a toy.”
“I am stronger than you and you will yield.” She reached out and caught Brady’s chin. Brady raised his hands to push her away and she caught the chain connecting the shackles and threw him toward the center of the empty room. “Time for a lesson. Keep an eye on her.” The woman gave a wave in Paige’s direction, and the flunky raised his gun a little higher. Paige held a palm up toward the guy to show that she didn’t plan to make any trouble. Not unless she had a reasonable chance that it would work, anyway. Dying was not on her agenda.
“Leave her alone,” Brady warned.
“She’s human. And you will learn the human’s proper role in this world.”
Paige wanted to point out that the flunky was human. If she had worked for this woman and heard that little speech, she’d be filling out applications elsewhere, but the f
lunky with the gun didn’t seem to react.
“What do you mean?” Brady looked over toward Paige and she could see his alien body language fade until she could see the old Brady. Worry carved a deep wrinkle through his forehead.
“If you want your little human, then you’ll have to fight for her. Demons fight for their status, and as of right now, you have none. So earn some.” The woman turned her back on Brady and walked toward the fireplace. Brady clenched his hands. He wanted to attack. Thank God he had the common sense to pick a better time because they were definitely at a disadvantage here.
“Is that what happened to you?” Brady pushed himself back up to his feet. “Did someone make you fight for your power? Take your power? Make you feel helpless enough that now you want to control someone else?” Brady’s words sank deep into the bitch, making her twitch as each barb hit home.
She took a large, heavy key from the mantle and threw it at Brady. He caught it awkwardly and then just stared at her.
“What’s the game?” he asked.
“Earn some respect or start showing it to your betters.” The woman crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one leg. It was a pose out of a magazine, but the hairs on Paige’s arms stood up.
“Brady, if you underestimate her because she’s a woman, I will kick your ass,” Paige warned him darkly. He flashed her a half grin. Message received.
“I’m okay killing a woman,” Brady said as he got the key in the lock and then seemed to turn it for a really long time before the mechanism unlatched and he could shake the shackles off. They fell to the wood floor with a clatter and Brady’s body moved with inhuman graced as he circled the woman. She watched with one eyebrow up, and Paige really hoped that Brady would kick her ass.