Dax scanned the building. “There are several men and women here.”
“Underground,” Riordan added. “This seems to be their residence.”
“They’re making their way out here to the parking lot,” Dax added. “Riley, we’ll keep them from seeing you. Can you pick her out of a crowd?”
“We’ll see. I think so. In any case, we have to follow them just in case she leads us to someone else. She might be one link in a long chain,” Riley said.
“Maybe,” Dax said, “but given Mitro’s personality, if this woman can function in the world working as a clerk, she’s probably one of those closest to him. He wants worshippers. He needs a few priests and priestesses. He’ll want them to go out and collect others. If he deems them worthy, he’ll keep them as followers, otherwise, he’ll sacrifice them, and each time he does, he’ll make certain his flock is watching him.”
“If you believe this woman gathering the names of pregnant jaguar women is a high-ranking member of his inner circle,” Riordan said, “then I’m with Riley. Let’s get as far on this trail as we can tonight.”
They watched the group emerge. Three men and two girls came out of the warehouse. All five were dressed in black. One of the men the others referred to as Davi wore leather pants and a vest. His hair was grungy and long. His arms and chest were covered in tattoos depicting very graphic violent scenes, mainly involving naked women. He shoved his dark glasses on his nose and wrapped his arm around one of the women. He seemed to be in charge, the others agreeing with everything he said as they pushed their way through the chain-link fence and started down the uneven road.
Riley studied the two women. Both were about the same height. Both were covered in piercings and wore the same short black skirts, net stockings, corsets and high heels. The woman with the bright, dyed red hair had her breasts nearly exposed by the grungy male groping her as they walked along the dirty road. Davi called her Ana. Riley dismissed her almost immediately. She was too submissive, too easily controlled and enthralled by her male partner. Riley couldn’t see Mitro willingly sharing loyalties. She turned her attention to the other woman.
Riley’s pulse jumped when she concentrated on the one the others in the group called Pietra. She walked a little apart from the others, her eyes overbright as if she was on some drug. Her fingers continually twitched against her thigh as she walked, those long, painted black nails tapping out a rhythm only she heard. She carried herself slightly aloof from her companions. She walked a little faster than the others as if she was eager to reach her destination.
Riley closed herself off from everything, trusting Dax to keep her safe. She listened to that tiny throbbing drumbeat in her veins. It was deep, a nagging thump nearly drowned out by the sound of her own racing pulse.
Pietra. The one they call Pietra, she identified.
Pietra suddenly began muttering, her body jerking around her, those bright eyes going dark, almost demonic. Her face pulled into a mask of rage. She looked around her, a careful, thorough sweep of rooftops, the air above her and the buildings surrounding her.
Riley held her breath. Dax tightened his grip on her, drawing her close to him. Mitro is strong in her. He’s looking through her eyes. Don’t speak, not even to me.
She wasn’t about to make a sound. She could see the difference in Pietra. Her beautiful face had been the mask covering evil. The woman looking around her, lips pulled back in a snarl of hatred—that was the true character behind that sweet, almost childish face. Riley realized that Mitro had chosen this woman to be in his inner circle because she was easily corrupted. She already had the seeds of cruelty and depravity in her.
Mitro appeals to her. She finds him sexy and dangerous. When he kills others in front of her it turns her on. She bathes in the blood of his victims just as she believes the countess Elizabeth Bathory did. Dax pushed the information into her mind. She has killed before. Her mother. A sister. A woman she thought was making a move on a man she liked. She was ripe for Mitro.
What in the world was she doing working in Dr. Silva’s clinic around all those pregnant women? Riordan demanded.
I’m afraid your doctor isn’t able to read minds in the way we can, Dax pointed out. She doesn’t have that advantage. I imagine this woman is quite cunning and can appear innocent and sweet. That would also appeal to Mitro. He loves deception. The thought that he could send a killer into a place where life is brought into the world would be especially gratifying to him.
Riley wanted to weep for those lost women, victims of such atrocities, mothers to be, looking forward to the birth of their children, only to meet a woman like Pietra. Beautiful on the outside but cold and rotten on the inside. The women had trusted her, just as the doctor had.
She waited until the small group had gotten a distance in front of them and Pietra had resumed moving steadily toward her destination, no longer suspicious.
They have to be stopped, Dax. Whatever it takes, we have to stop them. She understood the drive Dax had to destroy evil now.
Dax had devoted his life to the purpose of ridding the world of creatures such as Mitro. His life had seemed filled with honor, but terribly bleak and depressing, a stark, ugly world of vile criminals. She felt the need to be right beside him, no matter how terrifying it was. People such as Pietra had to be stopped. And malicious, evil creatures such as Mitro had to be destroyed.
She felt she understood and loved Dax all the more for the insight. How could she not? He might look at his life as one of duty, but she knew just how much looking at those dead people, their lives taken from them in such brutal ways, had affected him. He lived with the memories every day.
She felt the brush of his mouth over the top of her head. I have you to take the memories away, Riley. Don’t feel bad for me. I don’t. My life just . . . is. It was my choice.
She was well aware he had made his choices, just as she was making hers. Whatever it took, being with Dax was worth it. On some level, from the moment she’d laid eyes on the warrior, so badly wounded, she’d known he was meant to be with her.
She poured warmth and love into his mind. They might be surrounded by evil, but they could sustain one another through it.
She began to hear the muffled sounds of music and voices as they approached another set of abandoned warehouses. They followed Pietra and the others through a splintered door hanging on broken hinges. Inside the room were old mattresses, trash, needles and cigarette butts. They went through the large room without hesitation to a narrow opening that led to a staircase.
The music grew louder as did the voices as they descended. Davi pulled open a heavy door, and music blasted out. Riley clapped her hands over her ears.
Turn down the volume, Dax instructed.
It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to consciously control her ability to hear. There were hundreds of conversations going on. She could actually hear individual ones at the same time. Between that and the melancholy music, she felt a little insane. Everyone was dressed in the same dark clothing, with multiple piercings over their faces. Many wore dark glasses even in the dark of the warehouse.
Riordan nudged Dax and lifted his chin toward a man moving among the dancing crowd. Clearly he was selling drugs. Riley looked over the room and noted several dealers in the throng.
Pietra and her friends didn’t deign to speak to anyone on that level, but swept across the room to the other side. The crowd parted for them immediately, never hindering their progress, which told Riley a lot about Pietra’s status in the underground club. A door on the far side of the room led to another staircase leading down. As far as Riley could tell, the place was a firetrap. There were too few exits and too many people, most of them bored, drunk and high, a bad combination.
Riley felt as though she was descending into hell as they followed Pietra down the stairs to th
e next level. They came to a doorway with two men guarding it closely. Pietra didn’t say a word, but lifted her chin, and one of the guards hastily opened the door. Dax went through fast with Riley. Riordan had to slip beneath the door when the guard shut it just as fast.
Riley nearly gagged. There was a revolting, foul feel to the air. Every breath she took felt as if she was drawing something oily and vile into her lungs. Her heart jumped in alarm. The stench of evil permeated this level. The music jangled her nerves. There were no melancholy strains, but pounding, beating chaotic notes with the crowd mindlessly freak dancing in the space much smaller than the one above them.
The smell of sweat and drugs mixed with soil and blood. The walls of the “club” were dirt, as was the floor. They weren’t in a dance club. They were in Mitro’s lair, surrounded by his human puppets. Great twisted vines rippled across the walls with obscene life. Riley noticed that everyone stayed well away from them.
Again the crowd parted to allow Pietra through. Davi, Ana and the others followed her, winding their way to the front of the room.
He isn’t here yet, but can you feel the anticipation in this room? They’re all waiting for him, Dax said.
The drug consumption here is appalling, Riordan said, looking around at the frantic, moving bodies.
There are bloodstains on the floor, the walls and up there on that dais. Dax indicated the platform at the front of the room where Pietra had draped herself casually over a chair, her elegant legs crossed, her foot tapping a rhythm to the pounding beat.
Riley studied her face. Her eyes were nearly glazed, her mouth twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile. The whites of her eyes were nearly gone. A sick black spread like a disease, nearly covering all of her eyes. Riley shuddered. A small sliver of the most evil creature on earth dwelled inside of Pietra, binding itself to the woman’s own revolting, malevolent nature.
I need to feel the soil, Dax. She could feel the pain, hear it just underneath the beat of the music.
That’s not going to happen. If you put your hands into the soil and his resting place is anywhere beneath us, and he’s there, he’ll know exactly where you are.
Riley shook her head. She couldn’t explain, but she already knew Mitro wasn’t in the ground. He was out hunting. The soil was calling to her. Begging her. The mutations he’d created were in pain. Their eagerness for blood was not natural. The human sacrifices fed to them burned like acid, but they had no choice.
The vines stirred restlessly, the wooden liana clacking against one another, leaves lifting as if they might reach for her. Each time the plant moved, it released a gaseous stench of evil into the room, threatening to choke her.
Dax, I can turn the very soil against him. I hear it crying out against an abomination. Nature has an order, and he goes against everything nature stands for. This might be our edge.
And he might kill you, Riley. I don’t want to take that chance.
There is no living without you. You’re here fighting him. I have to fight him in my own way. I look at that horrible woman sitting up there all smug, knowing she marked six women to be murdered, their babies sacrificed before they were even born, and it sickens me. She’s marked Jasmine now, too.
Riley was passionate about her argument. She was angry and determined this was going to end. She might not be a warrior, but she was a child of the earth. She could heal the soil and plants before Mitro returned if Dax would just give her the chance. If Mitro tried to escape Dax and Riordan through the earth, he would be in for a huge shock. She just needed the chance to stop him, and he’d provided the perfect situation without realizing it.
Dax leaned down and put his mouth against her ear, but spoke directly into her mind. You’re certain you want to do this?
More certain than anything in my life other than I love you with all my heart, she assured him. Let me do this, Dax.
First and foremost, she wanted this nightmare to end for him, but the simple truth was Mitro couldn’t be allowed to continue with his revolting depravity. Arabejila and every one of her ancestors who had come after her had poured their strength, their gifts into her, making her a vessel for them.
She looked around the room. It was more of a basement, only much deeper beneath the earth. Mitro could bring the high walls down on his followers in seconds should he choose. He could open the earth and dump them into the very pit of hell should he want—and she was certain he probably had constructed this room with that idea in mind. His worshippers would all perish here, in this living tomb while he rose again and again somewhere else once he was bored, or the hunters got too close.
He thinks he’s safe for now, Dax conceded. He has no idea we’re even in the city.
And he obviously doesn’t have a clue who I am, Riordan added.
Let’s do it then. Riley will need to be at the opposite end of the room, shielded from Pietra. If Mitro uses her eyes to check the room before he arrives, we can’t have him spotting her, Dax cautioned.
We have to look like everyone else so we don’t draw attention, Riordan suggested. Everyone is dressed the same way. Black seems to be the color of the day. Change her features as well as your own. Appear younger. Blur your features. If she happens to spot us, and she might, at a glance, she might not really notice us.
The soil and the plants surrounding them moaned continually. The vines wept poisonous gas. The wooden stalks rattled continuously. They were ravenous, their hunger insatiable. Each plant waited like a bloated spider for prey to come to it. A fight broke out at the far end of the room, up near Pietra. She stood on the dais and watched with glowing eyes as a much larger man shoved a thin, drunken male back toward the wall.
The crowd gave a collective, eager gasp. Instantly, the entire atmosphere of the room changed. All conversation ceased, but the group began to chant, a low sound at first, but quickly swelling to a frenzied volume as one vine snaked out and shackled the boy’s wrist, dragging him into the plant. Instantly vines came alive, wrapping around the struggling body.
“Eat! Eat! Eat!” the crowd shouted over and over.
The hapless victim screamed as more and more vines surrounded him, much like giant snakes, wrapping him up and squeezing.
“Eat! Eat! Eat!” The sound swelled in volume.
They sounded as if they were summoning some creature from the very depths of hell. Taproots sprang from the ground, great cables of liana, twisted and gnarled, writhing like snakes across the ground toward the terrified boy.
The sense of anticipation heightened. The crowd watched with glazed eyes and shocking smiles, urging the taproots to gorge on the blood of the victim. The taproots found him in seconds, rearing back and stabbing deep in multiple places. The boy screamed. The crowd roared. Blood ran into the roots so that they swelled and turned deep red black.
Horrified, Riley turned her face into Dax’s chest.
I’m taking you out of here. Riordan and I can return and . . .
No! I see what he’s doing. Don’t you? He really does believe I’m Arabejila. Riley understood Mitro now. Arabejila was all good. She couldn’t conceive of this kind of twisted evil. He knew that. He counts on that. Determination stiffened her spine. Mitro had made one huge error.
I don’t see how knowing that is going to help. Mitro can’t possibly know we’re here.
No, not yet, but he created this for Arabejila. To shock her. To hurt her. He believes she couldn’t face such an abomination of nature. He wanted to use the very thing that is such a part of her to hurt her. This is his slap in the face to her, and at the same time, he believes she would be unable to function in the face of such an atrocity.
She probably couldn’t. Not right away. But she’d recover.
Riley’s head went up. She turned to face the twisted vines. His mistake is, Dax, I’m not Arabejila. I’m no
t all good. Arabejila and the others gave me a gift and a power he has no concept of. I can take back this ground. Consecrate it. He won’t be able to penetrate below this room or use the walls. He’ll have only the ceiling, and you and Riordan can keep him from that.
Dax studied her upturned face, the orange and red flames burning bright. His skin was hot against hers as if the volcano in him was very close to the surface. He slowly nodded his head.
Riley had never been more relieved—or more scared. She knew this was her purpose, her moment. The women in her family had prepared her for this and she felt ready, but confronted with such evil, she had to admit, the prospect was daunting if not downright terrifying.
Dax set her on the floor of the club. The crowd was already going back to their mindless dancing or drinking and doing drugs. No one paid attention to three more people dressed the same. Riordan and Dax didn’t use a shield, which might attract the attention of the shadow of Mitro in Pietra, rather they simply blurred their images a bit, and looked much younger to blend in.
If Mitro returns, Riley, he’ll know you’re here. Hurry and do whatever you’re going to do right now if you’ve made up your mind.
Riley sank to the floor and, refusing to let her nerves get the better of her, plunged her hands into the soil. There was an edge to Dax now. He’d gone from lover to warrior and she had no doubt that at the first sign of Mitro returning, if she wasn’t ready, he’d take her out of there without consulting her. He was lethal, capable of exploding into violence instantly.
The soil cried out to her for aid, thick with the oily sludge of the abomination of the undead. Riley summoned every healing skill given to her by the women who had gone before. They were there, whispering to her, guiding her through the cleansing ceremony. The ground was leeched of every mineral and nutrient. The only way for the plants to survive was the twisted feeding of the mutated taproots Mitro had provided. Even the insects had fled.
Riley closed her eyes and blocked out the chaotic music and the strange buzz as the crowd danced, marionettes performing for the puppet master pulling their strings, living and dying at his whim. She went deep, searching, calling, drawing . . . Past the terrible stench of the undead’s resting place. The ground was soaked in blood and rotting corpses. Human bones were scattered throughout layers of soil.
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