by Jory Strong
“She couldn’t tell you. She shouldn’t have had to.”
Hostility was back in Levi’s voice.
“I won’t fail her again,” Aryck said. “I’ll give up my life before I do.”
The Lion didn’t respond, only continued running. The salt-laden scent and the sound of water lapping against metal and wood and rocky shore intensified as they neared the bay. They entered the metal ruin of what had long ago been a port for container ships from around the world, and soon came upon a body.
Levi glanced down at it, his steps faltering, though he didn’t stop. Aryck followed, dread arrowing straight through him at the sight of the outcast female Lion.
They cleared the last of the metal jungle. A boat bobbed gently where it was tied to the dock. The cabin door stood open. Even at a distance the only feeling emanating from the Constellation was one of emptiness.
Agony clawed up Aryck’s throat, making it impossible to call Rebekka’s name. He reached the boat and climbed aboard. The healer’s journal lay on a seat, as if she’d been reading it but laid it aside before she was taken.
Seeing it abandoned nearly drove Aryck to his knees. Hopelessness and failure tried to crush him. He shook them off, refusing to acknowledge the possibility it was already too late.
He’d found her in the encampment and saved her before she could be raped. Against all odds they’d not only left it alive, but because of her, the threat posed to the Weres was over and the slaughter of innocent humans avoided.
This wasn’t a world he could navigate. For a second time Aryck swallowed his pride where the Lion he’d once thought less was concerned. “She must have allies who can help us find her. Who do you suggest we approach?”
“There are only two choices. The Wainwright witches, who drew her into their games and dangled the lure of being able to heal the outcast in front of her. Or the Iberás, one of the Founding Families. They’re rich and powerful, with allies in the Guard and no doubt spies in the red zone.”
“The witches first,” Aryck said, spitting the words.
“There’ll be a price to pay,” Levi warned. Adding a challenge. “Are you willing to pay it to get her back? I am.”
Aryck’s lips pulled back, baring his teeth. The Jaguar rose in his eyes, staring down the Lion. “She’ll never belong to you. She’s my mate.”
“If she’ll have you,” Levi said, satisfaction in his voice at having baited Aryck.
Aryck reverently picked up the journal, the movement loosening Rebekka’s scent and making him wish the warmth trapped in its cover came from her holding it and not from the sun.
REBEKKA sat between the two Weres who were Allende’s personal guards. On either side of the car, there was nothing but the forest that began where the red zone ended to the north.
She thought they must be going to Allende’s estate but it barely mattered to her. She felt overwhelmed with grief at Feliss’s death, with the shock and hurt of Kala’s betrayal, and the sense of failure at having so quickly been discovered and captured.
The events at the dock played over and over in her mind. Silently she berated herself for ignoring the tiny, hesitant internal voice urging her not to take the Constellation in until Levi returned.
The thought of Levi jarred Rebekka out of failure and pain-induced apathy, bringing with it fear, not just over her own fate, but his. Had Kala told Allende about his involvement? Was he already dead?
Sweat trickled down her back and sides at the prospect of being at Allende’s mercy. He wasn’t known for his compassion.
She took a deep breath, fisting her hands in her lap so tightly her short nails dug into her palms. The physical pain helped. It reminded her of all she’d endured.
Since Levi, she’d healed many, many others, not all of them brothel workers. Most were like Feliss, victims instead of victimizers. Those who’d been born with a part of their soul wandering in the ghostlands instead of cast there by the ancestors. But some had deserved their fates.
What she’d felt as she held their metaphysical hearts had been an agony more excruciating than what she’d endured on Levi’s behalf. Though in the end, after she’d witnessed the events of their lives, she’d felt their redemption was equally deserved.
A shudder went through her. There was a difference between pain borne psychically and that endured physically. If Allende intended to kill her, she’d already be dead.
Death was too quick a punishment. And she was still a valuable tool even if she couldn’t be trusted.
Bile rose in her throat as she imagined what he’d do in order to make an example of her. He had only to say the word and she’d become a prisoner in the brothel, forced into serving as healer as well as prostitute.
Rebekka looked out the window, wishing desperately her father would appear. Surely he hadn’t abandoned her now even if she hadn’t seen the cardinal since making her choice to return to Oakland.
If only she could summon him. He’d saved her twice already. He’d touched his mouth to hers and given a part of himself.
My spirit to yours. Surely that meant they were somehow linked.
Could she find him? Signal her need for him in a way similar to how she’d been led to the infected goats?
Rebekka gathered her will and closed her eyes. Focused on him only to have nothing happen.
There was no tingling, no surge of power, no icy emptiness in her chest. She realized then why he’d refused to give her his name when she’d asked for it, guessed that with it, she did have the power to call him to her.
Her mouth went dry as another possibility came to her. Each visit to the Were ancestors had started the same way, with the ritual question, “You ask us to render a judgment?”
What if she were to touch the guards and enter the shadowlands with their spirits? What if she were to stand before the ancestors and answer yes instead of saying she was there to heal?
Would it destroy her gift if the ancestors chose punishment? If, rather than healing, her touch led to the making of an outcast?
Rebekka trembled at the prospect of risking it. Healers who killed or willfully harmed another corrupted their gift. Everyone knew it.
She was as frightened of turning her gift into a thing that destroyed others as she was of whatever Allende had in store for her.
Rebekka wavered, hands clenching and unclenching in uncertainty. If she attempted it, she’d have to be quick and accurate. Even then there was no guarantee it would work without the touch of her palms to the bare skin over the guards’ hearts.
Every choice seemed ultimately to lead to death—either spiritual or physical.
To taint her gift was to taint her soul. How could it be otherwise? Gift and spirit for a healer were the same.
To taint her soul was to never be able to stand before the Were ancestors, to never again be welcomed in Were lands. She’d been warned about both.
And yet to go meekly, in the hopes she could endure whatever punishment Allende intended to mete out . . .
The slowing of the car sent a raw panic through her. Visceral terror followed with the sight of a man standing by the side of the road, an apparition dressed in a black, hooded cloak and wearing a leather mask to conceal his face.
Too late she attempted to place her hands over the guards’ hearts. They grabbed her wrists, keeping her palms from contacting their skin as if they’d guessed she might be capable of bringing them to the attention of the ancestors.
She struggled against being removed from the car. Struggled then to escape and flee into the woods, but she was no match for even a single Were, much less two of them.
Thick arms tightened around her chest with enough force to make breathing impossible. Immobilized her with the silent, ruthless promise that continued resistance would lead to broken ribs as she was taken to where the man waited.
“Good, she has some instinct for self-preservation,” he said, his voice making Rebekka think of jagged, metal edges. “I was afraid she’d hardly be worth
the money when your lord said she was a healer.”
A gloved hand emerged from the cape, a velvet bag in its palm. With the flick of a wrist he tossed it to Allende’s man.
The guard caught it, and Rebekka heard the unmistakable sound of coins. He pocketed it then accepted a length of rope.
“Bind her wrists in front of her and put her in the sidecar. There’s a metal loop in the floor. Secure her to it.”
Rebekka looked to the right and noticed the narrow path for the first time, and in the center of it, several yards away and hidden from the road, the motorcycle. She began struggling again, only to feel the sharp pain of ribs being compressed almost to the breaking point.
She stopped fighting, tears streaming down her face, breath whooshing in and out of her lungs as the grip around her chest loosened. Pride kept her from pleading, from begging as the guards carried out the masked man’s instructions.
When she was bound in place, secured so she couldn’t escape the sidecar, the man pulled a strip of cloth from his cloak. Rather than order the guard to do it, he wrapped it around her head, blindfolding her.
The bike shifted with his weight. The engine started and they began moving.
“WITCHES,” Aryck spat again as pain engulfed him when he crossed the wards separating the red zone from the area Levi said was set aside for gifted humans.
The same curse sounded in his thoughts but remained unspoken a short time later when they found one of the Wainwrights in the doorway of a sigil-marked house, there to usher them inside with ominous words. “Levanna waits. She saw your coming and knows the reason you seek her out.”
The matriarch sat in a darkened parlor. An ancient, sightless crone who made Aryck think of midnight horror stories told to shivering cubs around the fire pit.
“Time runs out for the healer,” Levanna said. “It runs out in the brothel as well. After Allende metes out the punishment he wants witnessed to those he feels betrayed him, or intended to, he plans to sell their contracts to the Pleasure Venture. It arrives in port shortly.”
“What do you want?” Aryck asked, unwilling to drag the bargaining process out and risk being too late to save Rebekka.
The matriarch turned white-moon eyes on him and the hairs rose at the back of his neck. “A favor owed. One from each of you.”
“Accepted,” Levi said, Lion stare offering the same challenge it had on the Constellation.
This time Aryck couldn’t be goaded. He was the enforcer. Son of the alpha. His life, his eternal soul, he could forfeit. But even for Rebekka he wouldn’t betray the Weres, or destroy the very thing her presence on their lands had brought about. “I won’t become a tool to use against the pack or those it forms alliances with.”
Laughter greeted his pronouncement, making his skin crawl as though he’d landed in a spider’s nest. “Done,” the witch said.
From the depths of her black garments she pulled a small willow cutting, the ends brought around and lashed together to form a circle reminding Aryck of Rebekka’s amulet. A red cardinal feather hung in the center, attached to the frame by a beaded string.
Levanna cupped the charm, holding it against her lips and whispering a spell. When she was done she held it between her thumb and forefinger.
An unnatural wind stirred, moving through the willow circle and carrying the feather to the end of the string at the same height as the hand holding it. It continued to point in the same direction when she transferred it to Aryck.
“I saw only one man with Rebekka,” Levanna said. “Perhaps you’ll reach her in time. Perhaps not. Annalise will show you out.”
As Aryck followed the witch with the skunk-striped hair to the front door, he said to Levi, “Do what you can to save the outcasts. Rebekka would want it. Seek help from the Iberás you spoke of earlier. I’ll go to Rebekka.”
Thirty-five
LIKE the day she’d been blindfolded by Annalise and taken to a client, Rebekka couldn’t guess how far they traveled, or where they were when they stopped and the motorcycle engine was silenced.
She expected to be left blindfolded. Instead the man removed it, and she immediately knew why.
It took effort to keep from whimpering at the sight of the house. It sat in isolation, surrounded by a dense forest of pines. Every window was covered by bars, not to keep the predators out, but to keep the prey in.
Behind the mask, pleasure emanated from the man. “Should I tell you what’s in store for you now, or would you prefer to take a tour of the house first?”
“Now,” Rebekka said, somehow managing to force the word out.
He laughed, a sound resonating with such pure evil her skin chilled and broke out in gooseflesh.
“You’re going to be quite a bit more fun for our potential initiate than I anticipated.”
She couldn’t stop herself from shivering, from desperately searching the woods for a flash of cardinal red. He saw both actions and laughed again.
“No one will come to rescue you. But it would hardly be sporting if you didn’t have a chance to save yourself.”
The man moved around the motorcycle, leaned down, and untied the rope from the metal loop welded into the floor of the sidecar. “I’ve changed my mind. I think you’ll better appreciate your situation from inside the house.”
He stepped away and jerked hard, using the rope binding her wrists like a leash. “Come along. Your company will arrive shortly and I’m sure you want to be ready for your guest.”
Rebekka knew she should preserve her strength and energy, but she couldn’t bring herself to go passively into the house. She fought like a fish at the end of a line.
It was a hopeless battle, leaving her shoulders aching and her wrists raw and bloody. It was a struggle that ended with the rope draped over a staircase banister and tied there, forcing her hands to remain raised above her head.
“This will do as a starting point,” the man said, breathing heavily, not from physical exertion as a result of her fighting him, but from his excitement over it.
He dangled a key in front of her face. It was threaded onto a velvet ribbon.
“This opens the front door,” he said, demonstrating the truth of it by walking over and inserting the key into the lock, twisting it so she heard a telltale click.
He unlocked the door and removed the key, separated the ribbon strands so he could wear it around his neck.
“Your visitor will let himself into the house. He will disrobe if he so chooses, though I’ve found few potential members choose to do so, not when they’re so very aware of being captured on camera initially.”
Rebekka’s attention jerked to the ceiling. Cameras were mounted there, sickening her, reminding her of the maze and the gambling clubs that profited from those running in it.
Cold, evil laughter made her look at the masked figure once again. “Your face is so expressive. I can tell you’re thinking about Anton’s little venture. It might amuse you to know that for a while he served as the family priest for several of our members.
“In some ways this is similar to his sadly defunct operation. But in all the ways that count, it’s different. Only those among the crème of Oakland society are invited to run in our houses and join the elite who make up our membership. To be accepted they must do one thing, prove they really do enjoy the combination of murder and sex.”
He waved at the cameras. “If the prospect loses his nerve, this little film catching him in the act of rape buys his silence. It unfortunately doesn’t buy your freedom, or save your life, unless you’re able to capitalize on your visitor’s weakness and get the key—which by club rule must be worn around a guest’s neck—and leave the house. If you accomplish that, then you will be given money enough to start a new life elsewhere.
“You will be escorted to that new life by men in our employ. Any whisper of what took place here will end in a death meted out by a professional in such matters.
“If, despite the lack of nerve and initiative to end things with a k
ill, your guest manages to keep the key in his possession and prevent you from escaping, it merely buys you time to regain your strength so you’ll provide at least somewhat of a challenge to your next visitor.”
He touched the key. “Somehow I don’t think you’ll get a second run, not unless you’re willing to sacrifice your gift for your life. I suspect that’s why Allende offered you to me, because in some way, your talent for healing has become a problem to him. Would you care to satisfy my curiosity on the matter?”
When she didn’t answer, he shrugged and returned to the staircase. He climbed the few steps necessary to untie the rope serving as a leash.
“We’ll forgo a tour of the upstairs, I think. There are several rooms with beds and a few with assorted clutter to add excitement to the chase. There are even a couple of them with doors that close and lock from the inside, though you’ve got to reach them first.”
He paused to study the staircase. Cold chills went through Rebekka when he said, “A lot of very satisfying, dramatic scenes have concluded with a desperate attempt to get to the second floor. But now it’s time for a quick tour of the downstairs before getting you prepared for your visitor.”
He led her through the house, jerking the leash if she didn’t follow quickly enough to suit him. Living room, dining room, bathroom, except for the cameras, they appeared perfectly normal, like a house owned by a merchant, comfortable but not luxurious.
In the kitchen, skillets hung from the wall but the cabinets and pantries were bare. The drawers were empty, save for the long, sharp knife he extracted from one of them.
“In the usual situation you’d be allowed some time to prepare your defense. You’d simply be set free in the house and left with the knowledge that at some point there would be an ‘intruder’ if that was the particular fantasy being played out, or perhaps an angry husband returning home to deal with an unfaithful wife, or—”