by Mina Carter
Marie mumbled something to him I didn’t catch.
“Yes. Given her features and coloring, I’d guess her mother was a water sprite or a woodland nymph,” he mused.
“You’re both insane,” I blurted out before I could bite my tongue.
Not wise to insult your captors, Ty.
“A little for certain,” Leon allowed much to my surprise. “It happens after you’ve lived millennia. You get bored. Lines start to blur. You start to long for the unexpected to break up the monotony. You’ve done that for me, Thyme Bellerose. You are an intriguing specimen. I might even keep you around… as a personal pet… afterward.”
After what? I gulped. That was question I didn’t really want answered.
The van turned again, slowed and then stopped. Driver and passenger doors popped open before slamming closed again. It was quiet for a while after that, just the soft sound of Shane’s breathing, and my heart pounding loudly in my ears to fill the ominous silence.
“Shane,” I rasped, shifting closer, bumping against him. “Wake up,” I pleaded.
Suddenly the rear doors creaked open and the van dipped as Leon climbed in. I smelled him before his face lowered way too close to mine. I tried to roll away, but hit the side of the van. He had me trapped. His features seemed harsher and sharper now. Less human. Almost supernatural like he believed himself to be.
His eyes flashed in the dark the way a wild animal’s did when captured by the headlights of a car.
Icy unease trickled its way down my spine when I realized there was no light inside the van to explain their eerie glow.
“So pretty,” he whispered, his fetid breath creeping over me. My throat instinctively closed at the sickly sweet scent. He leaned back for something. Before I could pull in some non-tainted air he shoved a rag in my mouth and tied it tight, then covered my eyes with a blindfold just as the helpless tears started to fill them. My heart hammered inside my chest. What was he going to do to me next? “Six!” he barked abruptly. “Where the hell are you?”
“Here, Master,” a weird muffled voice lisped in the dark.
“Take these two up to the attic. Make sure they’re secure. Be careful with the girl. She’s nearly immortal and I expect she’s going to be trouble.” I heard the crunch of gravel right before rough hands clamped on my legs dragging me from the vehicle. My feet never got the chance to touch the ground. My stomach somersaulted as I was hoisted high into the air and unceremoniously thrown over Six’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I don’t know what Six was wearing, but it felt like a wetsuit only with a bumpy texture. My chin bounced against the rough uneven surface each time he took a stepped forward. Having my eyes covered seemed to heighten my other senses. Six wore a stench that scalded my nostrils and reminded me of the stagnant fishy muck at the bottom of the bayou. The hum of cicadas filled the air and humidity basted my skin. Off in the distance a car alarm sounded. I tried to be calm, to convince myself not to give into my fear.
So I’d missed my chance to scream before Leon gagged me. The situation wasn’t completely hopeless. I was pretty sure we were still near downtown. Surely, I hadn’t been out that long. Surely with people running around getting ready for the storm someone would notice a blindfolded, gagged, tied up woman being carried into a house.
Please, I prayed. Call the cops.
Six lumbered up some wooden steps, my belly colliding with his hard shoulder. I needed to pee, and I wanted to cry. If my arms hadn’t been bound, I would’ve stretched them out reaching back for Shane.
Boards creaked under our combined weight as he crossed what had to be a porch. Then I felt him duck beneath a doorway? An outside doorway? That would make him over six feet six inches tall.
Six. Being six foot six.
Triple six.
Yikes.
I wasn’t superstitious like Mr. H putting brick dust outside the house to keep out evil spirits, but those kinds of numbers were a bad omen even to a nonbeliever like me.
Six loped up a set of stairs and then another, and another, his footfalls accompanied by a scrabbling sound that made me think of a dog with nails that needed a trim. He started to duck again and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. As if I were drowning without being in the water. I could feel the wall of evil dammed up on the other side. I knew if I let Six take me in there, I wasn’t going to come back out.
I bucked against him. With everything I had in me, I arched and twisted desperately trying to wrench my way free. But my struggles didn’t even faze him. He clamped an arm over me and dove inside. A couple of wide strides later I heard a metallic screech. A door of some sort with rusty hinges? Then there was a brief rattling of chains before I felt my bonds loosen.
This was it. I didn’t hesitate. I shoved him hard with all I had in me. He didn’t budge, but the movement propelled me backward. My head clanged into bars. It hurt but I ignored it, tearing out the gag and ripping off the blindfold. The sudden illumination seared my eyes. Huge cold hands clamped hard around my forearms.
I screamed. My eyes widened as they focused on Six. The texture I’d felt hadn’t been his clothing. It was his grey bumpy scaly alligator skin. Six wasn’t human. Not by a long shot. He was a monster with yellow reptilian eyes and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. One of those things that went bump in the night. Something right out of a creepy Cajun bedtime story parents told their young children to keep them from wandering too deeply into the swamp.
I was well and truly terrified now. Six was real. Not some troubled child’s bad dream. A living breathing nightmare. I wondered what other creatures of legend might actually truly exist. What I didn’t know then was that before long I would become one of them myself.
Chapter 8
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Thyme
I no longer concerned myself about whether or not the things Leon had told me were true. Whether they were or not didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was getting out of there somehow. Fast.
The alarm I had felt earlier was at maximum level now, remembering the maxim that you should never let a kidnapper get you into their lair.
Yeah, I’d already blown that.
The odds were getting worse with every moment that I wasted.
Beyond freaked out, I could feel my mind on the verge of shutting down. I started to shiver, uncontrollable shaking that made my chains clink as I watched Six shuffle in with Shane, dropping his limp body into another cage and securing him with a collar and shackles in the same manner he had me earlier. The creature was surprisingly dexterous considering the thickness of his digits and the length of his black claws.
He paused briefly in front of my enclosure on the way out, his lips curling back, growling, giving me another glimpse of his sharp teeth. I scurried to the back of my confine. He needn’t have bothered with the reminder I thought as the door clicked closed. I was too frightened right now to try anything with him.
How had things gone so horribly wrong?
I had been so happy. Everything I ever wanted within my grasp, all my dreams about to come true. How had I ended up like this? Chained up like an animal in a steel cage. A leather collar around my neck tethered by a chain to a bar. My hands cuffed uselessly in front of me.
I stared at Shane willing him to open his eyes. Repeatedly, I hissed across the room at him begging him to wake. I dared not yell. I didn’t want to bring the swamp thing back.
My urgent efforts to bring him around were so far in vain. While Shane continued to sleep, I heard things that no one should endure. Screams and moans that made my pulse leap. Male and female voices, each reaching an agonized pitch just before falling completely silent.
The attic we were caged in was a large space with only one small square window up high on the far end. A bare bulb hanging from a cord in the center of the sloped roof provided the only illumination. The walls were finished out, but the space was devo
id of any other contents except one other dark cage like the one holding Shane and me. The collar it contained hung from its chain like a noose from the gallows. I wondered about who might have worn it before we arrived. Were they one of the ones who had been screaming?
Fear spawning terrible images in my mind, my stomach twisted into a tangled knot. I heard the sound of footsteps approaching then a key scraping in the door to the attic. Leon entered our prison. He wasn’t wearing his hat though he still had on his dark suit. Surely those black protrusions from his skull weren’t real horns? But I had a terrible feeling that they were, and that those red splatters on his hand weren’t stage blood.
Heart racing, nowhere to run, I pressed my body further into the back of my cell, the bars digging into me as his manager still dressed in her business attire followed him in.
Leon studied me for a long moment with those dark creepy eyes. “Not so defiant now.” He shook his head sadly. “A pity, Ty Boo. A real pity. And it’s unfortunate that we won’t get to play as long as I would like, at least not while you’re still alive.”
My eyes grew wide. “Shane!” I screamed voice cracking under the strain of my terror. “Shane!”
Moaning, he finally stirred, struggling to pull himself into an upright position.
“He can’t help you, Boo. But don’t worry. Katrina has given you a reprieve from the pre-ceremony fun I had planned. The blasted thing’s gone and blown up into a Cat Five overnight. Mayor Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the entire city. I’ve got to leave for a while, secure my properties and make the rounds. I need to maintain a sense of business as usual considering that you and Shane went missing after visiting my club.” He turned to his manager. “Marie, get whatever you need. I want her ready for the ceremony. Tonight. Understand?”
“She won’t be strong enough. Her birthday’s still a couple of days away. Why should we rush things?”
“Because it feels right. I’m surprised you don’t sense it. The darkness is gathering over the city. Something monumental is about to happen. The humans realize it, too. They are in full panic mode. It’ll be easy to dump all the other bodies right now. Plus I don’t want to wait anymore, not when we’re so close.” His narrowed eyes swept over me. “You said it’s possible to jumpstart the process if the Offspring gets overly emotional. I think we can manage to get what we need from the girl. Just look at her. Her eyes are even darker than they were at the club.”
“If you insist.” Marie nodded.
“I do.” Leon’s thick lips curved into a dark smile as he pasted a kiss on Marie’s cheek. “I’ll leave you to it, darling.” He crossed to Shane’s cage, leaned close, and whispered something I couldn’t hear. Shane’s arms shot out through the bars, his handcuffs clanging against the metal. Leon easily stepped out of his reach and laughed.
“You’re insane,” Shane shouted. “You’ll never get away with this.”
“Your pretty fiancée said much the same thing earlier. I’m going to truly enjoy exploring every inch of her nubile body.”
Shane tore at the collar around his neck and yanked on the chain, shaking his fingers after touching the dark metal links as if they had burned his flesh. He suddenly became frenzied, straining to bend the bars of his cage while Leon casually sauntered unconcerned out of the attic.
After the door closed, Shane’s bright eyes met mine. Even across the space that separated us, I saw it; the exact moment it sank in how hopeless our situation had become. He stopped struggling. Our mutual despair flowed through the emotional connection we shared.
Marie paced in front of my cage, a cell to her ear. “Can’t be helped. That’s when he wants to do it…by ten tonight. I want everyone here. I’ll have to be the conduit. This one is the last Offspring we need.” She looked at me as she started rambling off a list that sounded like the ingredients of some foul witch’s brew. “Yes, get at least twelve chicken feet just in case I need to make extra.” She rolled her eyes. “An apocalyptic advisory. Don’t be ridiculous. Just because the weather service has radar they think they’re qualified to make predictions. It’s not as if they’re true oracles.” Her heels clattering across the wooden floorboards reflected her irritation as she headed toward the door. “I’ve lived in New Orleans for hundreds of years, through revolutions and reconstruction. Hurricane Katrina will be gone and forgotten just as quickly as all the other storms that have come before it.”
Chapter 9
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Thyme
After Marie Laveau, whom I was beginning to suspect might very well be the actual historical figure in the flesh, was gone, Shane turned his back to me and sank to his haunches.
I didn’t say anything for a while. Frantic thoughts rushed through my head as I stared out the window. The sky was sunny and blue. It was hard to believe there was a monster hurricane out there headed our way, much less that I was facing a more imminent threat within.
It wasn’t our fate that concerned me. What about my mamere? She had to be worried sick. Who would get her and Mr. H out of town? The evacuation was mandatory, but like most people in the city neither of them had vehicles. I prayed Shane’s parents would help them.
I stared at my fiancée’s tense shoulders too scared to let the tears I could feel building flow. Things I wanted to say were damned up inside me, too. I was so wracked with guilt. I’d brought this evil down on us. I should’ve followed my instincts. Refused the tour. Left The Hot Spot when Kip and Monica did. We would probably both be home safe and sound if I had.
“Shane, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.” My voice flowed thick with regret. “If I hadn’t…”
“Stop!” Shane snapped, whipping his head around, eyes flashing furiously. “Don’t you dare try to take the blame for this. It’s all on me. I got tanked and didn’t watch out for you the way I should have. Dammit, Ty. I totally failed you. You should hate me.” He stopped abruptly and turned away again, silent for a long moment. “I want you to promise me that you’ll stay alive.” His voice once again soft. “That you’ll do whatever it takes.”
“No.” I sniffed. “I don’t think I can make that promise.”
He craned his neck around to face me again. I could see tears brimming in his eyes. Tears he didn’t try to hide. The sheen of them reflected the light bulbs’ glow. “You will. I’ve seen the way Leon looks at you. Flirt with him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Pretend. Lie.”
I shook my head sliding down to the floor, drawing my knees up to my chest and draping my handcuffed wrists over them. “I’d rather die.”
“If you don’t, that’s likely what will happen.” I heard him say before a shroud of silence fell over both of us once again.
Hopelessness weighing me down, I dropped my head onto my arms. A loud bang made me jump. I lifted my head in time to catch Shane knocking his head against the bars of his cage. Again. On purpose. “What are you doing?” I shrieked. “Stop it!” I could see a trickle of blood dripping from a cut on his forehead.
Ignoring me he reared back poised to do it again.
“Please, Shane,” I cried. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’ll stop.” His eyes were like shiny grappling hooks piercing my gaze and holding me captive. “But only when you agree,” his voice deepened, “to do what I’m begging you to.”
“But what about you?” I whispered.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s only you they seem interested in. I don’t matter.”
“You matter to me. Shane Winthrop Lamar! Don’t give up. If you do they’ve already won.”
His eyes closed. He didn’t speak, not anymore, though I wished he would. What if these moments were all the time we had left? There were so many things I wanted to tell him. A lifetime’s worth.
Still sitting up, feeling too vulnerable to lie on the floor, I eventually drifted into a light restless sleep with my head on my arms. I thought
I heard Shane’s voice speaking softly but the words were like a dream.
“You were always too good for me. Too sweet. Too pure. Too innocent.”
*****
I woke with a start, feeling something heavy and alive moving slowly across my lap. I gasped when I realized that there was a Burmese python with brown blotches bordered in black slithering its way around my waist. Paralyzed by fear I barely breathed.
“That’s Zombi.” The feet of a chair scraped against the wood as Marie pulled it into the room, placed it next to my cage and took a seat. “Z-20 is what I call him. The original died years and years ago.” Her headdress was gone. Her hair was black and loose. She wore a silk robe and had removed all her makeup. She looked different, softer and saner than Leon for sure, but who didn’t? And though I didn’t understand how it could be possible, if she were truly who she claimed to be, she didn’t appear to be a day over thirty.
The snake coiled tighter around me and Marie cocked her head to the side seeming to gauge my reaction. “Z-20 likes you, too. I really don’t see what the fascination is for him or Leon. And normally I really wouldn’t care since you aren’t going to be around for very long, but there’s something about you that’s making my instincts buzz, and my instincts are something I’ve learned never to ignore.” She tapped her full lips thoughtfully. “And I’ll tell you something else, and you listen up, too, Shane Lamar. Don’t underestimate Leon. He’s the real deal. One of the Favored. A direct descendent of the Dark Heir. He has taken many names over the course of history but he covets only one title now. Leon is used to getting what he wants and he’s powerful enough to get it.” Her dark brown eyes bored holes into me. “What’s going to happen tonight is going to be unpleasant. There’s a good chance you’ll be begging for death long before it comes.”