by Raven Dark
I looked at the ceiling. “Shit.”
“Keep looking anyway, all of you.” Sheriff got to his feet. “In the meantime, I’ve had Grim and the others preparing everything for us to leave. We’re ready to go anytime.” Sheriff headed for the doors.
“Wait, Sheriff.” Mayhem stood and glanced around at us. “I’ll send some food up for all of you while you search. If you have to leave in a hurry, I want you all fed. Sheriff, you, too. Anything you need, it’s at your disposal. Setora isn’t just a slave, she’s family.”
Sheriff clapped him on the shoulder. “We owe you, Mayhem. For what you’ve done for us, and for Setora.”
“I wish I could do more, General. Hell, all this is my fault.” He stared down at his feet, at once looking defeated. “I honestly had no idea that Olan would even consider doing something like this.” He looked at us then, then shook his head and sighed. “The food’ll be coming shortly. Eagle Eye will be on hand if you need anything.”
Mayhem left, and the doors to the rooms clicked shut behind him. The worry I’d seen on his face echoed the storm raging in me. His concern for D had already made me respect him, and calling Setora family, sealed the deal. The guilt must have been chewing him up inside, but I sure as hell didn’t blame him, any more than I blamed Sheriff.
The food arrived a short time later, and we’d taken up the search again. Two of the Angels’ women came in with platters of meats and cheeses, sandwiches, bowls of fruit, and pitchers of wine. There was a bottle of whiskey for Sheriff.
“How are Steel and Hawk, Sheriff?” I asked, grabbing an egg salad sandwich from a plate.
“And how’s Beast?” Sinister added, grabbing a slice of chilled ham.
“Beast is still out, but Horse is watching him. Steel and Hawk are fine.” Sheriff poured a shot of whiskey for himself. “They’ll be moving like turtles for a while, but they’ll join us in a bit, even though I told them both to stay off their feet.”
“When you find out where Olan’s headed,” Sinister said, “we’ll go along to help you.”
“Not a chance, Sin.” Sheriff drained his whiskey glass. “I don’t want you four mixed up in another fight on our account. Ash needs you.”
Savage went to Sheriff’s side and tapped him on the shoulder until he looked up at him.
“Savage says, ‘If you end up facing a fight like Lord Falnar’s, we’re not leaving you out-numbered.’” Sinister smiled at his brother.
“No,” Sheriff told Savage carefully, making sure he saw his lips move. Leaving no room for misunderstanding. “We’ll part ways here. You guys are going home.”
Savage shook his head and linked his hands tightly, like two connected pieces of a chain.
“Sinister?” Sheriff asked.
Next to me, Sinister grinned. “It means ‘Together.’ We’re in this together. And don’t look at me for help, Sheriff. He’s right. It’s like you said when we were patched in. Our problems are yours, and yours are ours. We are Legion now. Ash is short on men, and we will return home, but after. We’re not abandoning you now.”
Sheriff shoved to his feet, grabbing his whiskey from the table. “And I appreciate that. But all of you could’ve been killed at Lord Falnar’s, and again with Saketh. Saketh almost made Reaper and Hawk kill each other for his own sick amusement, for fuck’s sake. As soon as we figure out where that fucker took Setora, we’re leaving and you’re going the hell home. Besides, I want Cherry far away from this. Dice would never forgive me if anything happened to her, and neither would Setora.”
“Well, the offer still stands,” Sinister said, picking up a sandwich. “Let’s just keep searching.”
I suppressed a smile, watching Sinister so easily go head to head with Sheriff. He was probably the only person I’d ever seen who did so without hesitation.
“And the offer is declined, discussion over.” Sheriff downed his glass and put it on the table, then waved at Savage. “Savage, come on, we’ll go through Greeger’s room again.”
The two of them left, and Sinister shook his head at me, his eyes amused. “And I thought Ash was stubborn.”
“I heard that,” Sheriff growled from the adjoining rooms.
We both chuckled.
Over the next hour, we kept on searching while Doc and Stitch continued looking through the rest of Olan’s notes. By the end of the hour, the food platters were empty. Sinister and I started taking down the various portraits that hung in every room and looking for hollows in the walls and under loose floorboards.
Still nothing.
I was in the middle of trying to pry up a loose floorboard when Sinister shouted from the other room.
“Pretty Boy, check this out.”
I hurried into the bedroom.
Sinister had moved the bed aside and was looking at a portion of the stone wall where a large piece protruded several inches out of the wall. I went over and bent down, looking closely at it. Marks were scratched into the sides of the wall. I dropped to my knees in front of it, feeling a rush of adrenaline.
“It looks like someone tried to pry the stone loose.”
Sinister knelt beside me, and the two of us wiggled it loose until it came free, revealing a large cubby hole. When I saw what lay inside, I almost dropped the stone.
A stack of papers filled the hole. Sinister took the stone slab and set it down while I dug the papers out.
“The notes?” Sinister said hopefully.
I rifled through the papers. The first few were medical charts I didn’t understand, but I knew what they were. We’d found what we were looking for.
“Looks like. Doc, get in here,” I shouted, jumping to my feet along with Sinister.
Doc met me in the middle of the bedroom, Stitch coming up behind him. I handed Doc the medical papers on the top of the stack before he could ask and started going through the others.
“These are more notes on Setora.” My blood raced as I searched through them.
Deeper into the stack, I froze, staring at the paper I’d found. “Doc.” The word came out slowly and I showed him the sheet, plus several similar ones.
His eyes widened. “What the hell? These are records on Setora that go back to the age of six. How?”
I went around behind him and looked over his shoulder at the name signed on the bottom. “Who the fuck is Griesha?”
Doc leafed through more of the papers. “Hell if I know. But…oh, fuck.” His eyes closed. When he opened them, he held up another sheet, pointing to the signature on that one.
When I saw it, I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. The name was the one person we knew who was as obsessed with Setora as Julian was.
“What is it?” Sinister asked.
I was about to spit out the name, but I didn’t get the chance.
“Legion…” D’s voice rang out from the living room. By the time we got there, D had reached us first. Setora’s mother was out of breath, her face slicked with sweat and pale as chalk.
“D?” Doc took her arm gently, supporting her. She looked like he was the only thing keeping her from collapsing.
“I…” She huffed, gripping the door frame. “A dream…” She rasped. “Setora. I saw her.”
“Where?” I demanded. Problem was, I already knew the answer; the signature on Setora’s medical records said it all.
D swallowed hard, shaking with terror for her daughter. “He has her… Damien has her,” she said. “She’s in Hell’s Burning.”
Chapter 12
Wishing for Evil
My jaw was broken.
Or at least I thought it was, by the feel of it when I came to. The left side of it felt like someone had jammed a hot poker through it, not unlike the way my shoulder had felt upon waking in the panic room at Mayhem’s.
I knew I wasn’t in Mayhem’s Hold, and this injury hadn’t been an accident. It certainly hadn’t been one caused by someone trying to protect me.
Upon waking, I blinked open my eyes and saw a ceiling paneled in fine,
dark wood. I was lying in a bed. Confusion settled in as I slowly sat up and looked around.
Something about the room was odd. The interior was built with the best money could buy, with a marble floor and ornate woodwork on the ceiling. I was struck by the odd juxtaposition of luxury and humble practicality. Something about the unlikely combination of wealth and meager décor…
Recognition skittered across my thoughts.
Only the bed, a full-length mirror—which looked old and worn—and a small nightstand with a washbasin on it occupied the room. The walls, sanded grey stone, bore no decorations or accents except torches mounted for light. Even the bed, scarcely wide enough for my frame, only had a thin mattress and a small pillow, as if it had been built purely for functionality, without any thought to comfort. It was also far too hot in here. Desert hot, with nothing to keep the room cool.
I was in a slave’s quarters, but where?
“Wh—” My jaw wouldn’t open.
I touched my face, feeling cloth under my fingers. There were bandages wrapped around my head, tied under my chin to hold my jaw shut.
Sweat trickled between my bare breasts, and I looked down at myself. The frock Pretty Boy had dressed me in after dinner was gone. I was naked.
I froze while the memory of what had happened flooded through my thoughts.
I had fallen asleep on Pretty Boy’s lap while he had watched Hawk and Steel play chess. Then the next thing I knew, Greeger had been looming in the doorway to the room. I thought I had seen Hawk lying on the floor, not moving.
I remembered bolting from the bed, grabbing the pitcher off the nightstand, and hitting Greeger over the head with it. It had smashed. Then a sharp pain stabbed into my arm, and I’d dropped to the floor. Then…nothing.
Greeger. He’d shot me with something from that gun. I squinted, trying to make sense of the jumble of images in my head. As they began to make more sense, I felt the blood leave my cheeks.
I had passed out and woken up in a carriage. Whatever drug Greeger had given me had made it impossible to sit up. Lying in the back seat, I was still dressed in my frock then. Doctor Olan had been driving, and Greeger had been sitting beside me, his large frame crammed into the seat. My head had been so foggy, making it difficult to think straight, but not enough to keep fear from chilling my blood.
I remembered Doctor Olan glancing back at me from the front seat, remembered the satisfaction that gleamed in his eyes behind those thin spectacles.
“Ah. We were wondering when you’d come around, little slave.”
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Where are you taking me?”
Every instinct in me screamed to fight, to escape, but I couldn’t. Not when I was drugged like this.
“You’re about to make me a very rich man, Violet.” His voice dripped with greed.
Tamping down my panic, I sat up slowly.
Greeger set his big, meaty hand on my leg. “Be smart, slave.”
Any urge to escape vanished as soon as I looked outside the window. Flat, desert landscape whizzed past us under bright moonlight, the ground a hundred feet or more below the carriage. Short of leaping to my death, there was no way out.
“What, no questions? Aren’t you even curious as to what’s going to happen to you?” Doctor Olan glanced back at me again. “What a stroke of luck I had finding you. Your master is looking forward to seeing you again.”
My master. He wasn’t talking about one of my Four.
“Damien.” For a moment, I was too shocked to feel anger or fear. Wait. “What about Steel and Hawk? What did you do to them?”
He waved his delicate hand. “They’ll be fine. No harm has come to your precious pirates. They’re probably awake by now, running in circles, trying to figure out where we’re taking you.” Though his eyes were on the window in front of him, I heard his smile.
“This won’t work, Doctor. The Legion will find you, and when they do, they’ll kill you. Both of you.” I looked at Greeger, including him.
Perverse pleasure filled me, imagining what Sheriff and the others would do to them when they caught up with us. I let that satisfaction give me strength, let it strangle the fear that coiled in my gut at the idea of coming face to face with Damien again.
“It’s too late for that.” Olan nodded to the desert below. “You’ve been out for the better part of four hours, and we’re only a couple of hours from Hell’s Burning. By the time they find us, you’ll already be beyond Damien’s Wall, surrounded by hundreds of his J’nai. So you might as well accept what’s coming.”
What’s coming. The implications sank in like a cold, steel blade. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t shut out the knowledge of what lay ahead. Hopelessness tried to seize me, but I forced my still sluggish thoughts to focus on a way out. I needed to buy time.
I put my head back against the seat. “So you made some kind of a deal with Damien. How did you know where to find me?”
“Everyone knows Captain Vale is looking for his precious Setora. I’d already met with him to work with a new Violet of his last week. Before I left, he mentioned that if ever I was to treat a Violet belonging to the Legion, I was to bring her back to him.”
“But you work for the Reach,” I snapped. “Your whole life has been dedicated to healing people, and now you’d turn your back on your profession to work for a devil like Damien?”
He shrugged. “Give any man enough money, and he’ll sell his own mother. Never in a million years did I expect to actually find you. But as soon as that pirate general said your name, I knew you were the slave Damien was looking for. All I had to do was get you away from those degenerate lowlifes.”
My fists clenched at his insult toward my Four. My family. I needed to get him to land this carriage, and I needed to do it before we got near Hell’s Burning.
I closed my eyes, trying to think. What would Cherry do? She wouldn’t just sit here and let herself be taken like this.
“You do realize you’re carting me back to a monster, Doctor?” I made his title a sneer, not having to fake my loathing. “You’re no doctor, Sharland Olan. You’re no better than a fucking poacher.”
Olan’s head whipped around, his face twisting with rage. He gave his assistant a curt nod. “Greeger, shut her up.”
Before I could react, Greeger threw his huge fist into the side of my face.
I heard a crack, and pain blazed in my jaw.
Blackness had found me, and now, here I was, waking in this slave room.
In Damien’s house, or at least on his property somewhere.
That cold, hard truth sank in and helplessness tried to take hold. Greeger had broken my jaw, and Olan had left me here. Away from the Legion, from my Four, and at the mercy of my old master who planned to do who knew what with me.
What did he plan to do with me?
The last time I’d seen Damien, on the roof of that ruined castle in Delta, he’d told Sheriff he’d been trying to protect me. That he was the only one who could protect me from Julian. But that hadn’t made any sense. Damien didn’t care about me. He never had. Not when he’d tried to sell me to a Critian barbarian. Yet the possession he felt toward me during his fight with Sheriff had been unmistakable.
I wasn’t sure if he still planned to sell me. He might keep me for himself. Either way, now that I was under his roof and watched by his guards, he’d do everything in his power to ensure I never left unless it was in the hands of a buyer. If I didn’t find a way out of here fast, the life I now knew—my life in the Grotto with my masters—would be over.
The urge to bolt for the doors or find some other way out rose up, but I tamped it down. I didn’t hear anyone outside the room, but Damien probably had at least one guard standing watch outside the door. There was no window in the room to escape through, and no other exit.
I laid back down slowly, trying to think, refusing to let fear take over.
The Dark Legion would be searching for me by now. But did they even know where Olan
had taken me?
My Four would come for me. They would. But if they did, how would they get me out? Damien would have this place crawling with J’nai, especially when he knew two of the Legion had taken me from here before. The guards would make certain there was no way for anyone to get in and no way for me to get out of the Compound.
Maker, if my masters even tried to rescue me, Damien would have them all killed. He’d probably make me watch just to hurt them and to punish me.
My whole body shook with terror for Sheriff, Hawk, Pretty Boy, and Steel. For Doc, for anyone else they brought with them. Half of me begged the Maker to send them to me before Damien could do whatever he had planned. The other half prayed he’d keep them far away from here. Keep them safe.
Hot tears stung my eyes. I sniffed, blinked them back, and pushed aside the thought of my masters, anything to keep a cool head. But that only caused my thoughts to settle on something equally painful.
My mother.
She had to be worried sick about me by now. All those years searching for me, only to lose me again?
New images flickered through my thoughts. Images of her. It took me a moment to make sense of them.
After Greeger had hit me and I’d passed out, I had dreamed of her. She’d been standing in my garden. I’d called to her, reached out to her. She had tried to get to me, running across the meadow towards me, but the distance between us never grew any smaller.
She had called out, asking where I was. I tried to tell her I was here, with Damien, in Hell’s Burning. Apparently, some part of me had realized where I was, even when the rest of me hadn’t. But had she heard me? She kept asking where I was, but if there had been more to the dream, it was now gone from my memory.
Had the dream been real, or just another hallucination brought on by the virus, like Julian and the warrior woman?
Maker, was there even a virus? If Doctor Olan had been capable of kidnapping me, he could have been lying about that. On the other hand, he’d said Violets shared a hive mind. I knew that, at least, was true. My mother really could have been there, in the dream. If she had been, and if she knew where I was, maybe she had told my masters.