“But this wasn’t a hunt,” Patrick said.
“Yes, it was,” Jason said. “We just weren’t hunting the deputy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
I answered, “It means we’re hunting the people in that house.”
Patrick turned a pale face to me in the dark. “You can’t mean that we are to kill all of them. Only one man cut off her finger. Only one man is guilty.”
“They watched. They did nothing to prevent it. It’s the same as doing it in the eyes of the law,” I said.
“You are not the law,” he said.
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not. Damn it, no, you are not!”
“Anyone who harms the pack without just cause is our enemy,” I said.
“Don’t quote pack law to me, human.”
“How do we deal with our enemies?” I asked.
Jason answered, “Death.”
“Most packs don’t hold to the old laws anymore, and you both know it,” Patrick said.
“Look, Patrick, I don’t have time to explain it all, so here’s the Reader’s Digest version. Niley and crew raped and tortured Richard’s mother and brother. We are going to kill them for that. All of them.”
“What about Sheriff Wilkes and his men?”
“If Thompson helped rape Richard’s mom, then he wasn’t the only one. Anyone who touched either of them is dead. Do you understand that, Patrick? Dead.”
“I can’t do it,” he said.
“Then stay in the car,” I said, “but shut the fuck up or I’m going to shoot you.”
“See,” he said, “see, your conscience is bothering you.”
I glanced at him huddled in the dark. “No, my conscience isn’t bothering me. Not yet. Maybe later. Maybe not. But now, tonight, I don’t feel bad about what I did. I wanted Thompson to hurt. I wanted to punish him for what he did. And you know what, Patrick? It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough, because I killed him too fucking quick.” Tears were threatening at the back of my throat again. When the numbness and anger wore off, I was going to be in trouble. I had to hold onto the adrenaline, the rage. It would see me through the night. Tomorrow, well, we’d see.
“There had to be another way,” Patrick said.
“I didn’t hear you offering any suggestions at the time.”
“What’s bothering the good doctor,” Jason said, “is that he didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything to stop us.”
I appreciated the “us.”
“I didn’t hold him down,” Patrick said. “I didn’t touch him.”
“All you had to do was say, ‘Stop, don’t,’ but you kept quiet. You let us chop him up. You let us kill him and didn’t say a damn word,” Jason said. “Your conscience wasn’t working so hard while he was still alive.”
Patrick didn’t say anything for a long time. We bumped over the road, avoiding tree branches and dirt-filled holes. There was nothing but the darkness, the golden tunnel of headlights, and the engine-filled silence. I wasn’t sure silence was my favorite thing right now, but it was better than listening to Patrick tell me what a monster I was. I agreed with him, which made it harder to hear.
Then something filled the silence that was even harder to hear. Patrick was crying. He huddled against the far door, as far from both of us as he could get, and cried softly. Finally, he said, “You’re right. I did nothing, and that will haunt me for the rest of my days.”
“Join the club,” I said.
He peered at me through the darkness. “Then why did you do it?”
“Someone had to.”
“I will never forget the sight of you chopping him up. This little girl . . . The look on your face when you killed him. God, you looked blank like you weren’t even there. Why did you have to be the one to do it?”
“Would it have been better if one of the guys had done it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Please don’t tell me this is some macho shit. That you’re this upset because a girl did it?”
Patrick snuffled. “I guess it is. I mean, I guess it wouldn’t seem so horrible if one of the others had done it. You’re this pretty little thing. You shouldn’t be chopping people’s fingers off.”
“Oh, please,” I said.
“I will go to my grave seeing the look on your face at the last.”
“Keep it up, and you’ll go sooner than later,” I mumbled.
“What did you say?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
Jason made a small sound that might have been a laugh. If he only knew how unfunny the comment had been. I was having enough trouble with what I’d just done. I didn’t need a sobbing Jiminy Cricket to emphasize the fact that I’d fallen into the abyss. The monster wasn’t breathing down my neck; it was inside my head. Inside my head, fat and well-fed. What made me so sure the monster was home was the fact that I didn’t feel guilty. I felt bad because I was supposed to feel bad and didn’t. I had to have some personal line that could not be crossed, and I’d thought torture was it. And I’d been wrong.
Tears tightened my throat, but I’d be damned if I’d cry. It was done. I had to let it go—or at least push it back long enough to get the job done. The job was to rescue Daniel and Charlotte. If I didn’t get them out, then it had all been for nothing. I’d added a new nightmare for nothing. But it was more than that. I couldn’t face Richard if I let them die. I’d been angry with him, pissed, but now I wasn’t. I’d have given a great deal for him to hold me right now. Of course, he’d have probably agreed with Patrick. Richard would be a very wise man if he didn’t attempt to lecture me tonight.
But it wasn’t just Richard. I’d met the entire Zeeman clan. They were so close to perfect that it made my teeth ache. The family might never recover from a loss like this. My family hadn’t. I was counting on Daniel and Charlotte to recover from the torture. I was counting on them being strong enough to not let that alone be enough to destroy them. I hoped I was right. No. I prayed I was right.
Thompson had told us what room they were keeping them in. It was in the back, near the woods, as far from the road as possible. Not a surprise. There might have been information that Thompson had that could have been useful. Maybe I should have used less torture and more threat. Maybe that would have gotten us more detailed info faster. Maybe, maybe not. I was new at interrogation by torture, lacked the proper technique, I suppose. I would have said I’d get better with practice, except I wasn’t doing it again. I might have the screaming meemies forever from just this one incident, but if I did it again, it was over. They’d have to wrap me up and put me away. I kept flashing on the feel of the cleaver biting into the floor. I remembered thinking that I didn’t feel it go through the bone. I just felt it bite into the floor underneath. I saw the fingers go in a wash of blood, but not as much blood as you’d think, for some reason.
“Anita, Anita, the turnoff.”
I blinked and slammed on the brakes, throwing everyone forward. I was the only one wearing a seat belt. I usually remember to have everyone buckle up. Careless of me.
Jason peeled himself off the dashboard, pushed back to the seat, and said, “Are you okay?”
I backed the van up slowly. “I’m fine.”
“Liar,” he said.
I eased the van back until I could see the white sign that said, “Greene Valley House.” You didn’t expect to find a house with a name at the end of a dirt road, but there you are. Just because the road isn’t paved doesn’t mean the people don’t have style or maybe pretensions. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to tell the difference.
This road was gravel. The gravel pinged against the underside of the van, even at less than twenty miles an hour. I slowed down further. Roxanne knew the house. She’d grown up with the Greenes’ son. They’d been best friends until the hormones kicked in and he started trying to play boy to her girl. But she knew the house. There was a clearing about halfway down the road wher
e we should park the van. The clearing was right on schedule. I pulled the van into the weeds. They whisked against the metal, whipping the tires. The black van was sort of invisible, parked in the trees. It was also sort of wedged. We wouldn’t be moving it quickly. Of course, I wasn’t planning on us having to make a run for it. My priority was to get Daniel and Charlotte out as unharmed as possible. I had no other priority. It made things simple. We secured the hostages, then we killed everybody. Simple.
Part of me hoped that Richard got here in time for the assault. Part of me didn’t. One, I wasn’t sure how he’d take the news about his family. Two, I wasn’t sure how he’d take my game plan. And I didn’t want to argue. I’d paid the price to get here. We’d play it the way I wanted it.
Someone touched my arm, and I jumped so badly I couldn’t speak for a second. My heart filled my throat until I couldn’t breathe. “Anita, it’s Jason. You okay?”
The passenger-side door was open, and Patrick wasn’t in sight. I heard movement coming up on my side of the van. It was Nathaniel. He tapped softly on the window. I lowered it.
“Everyone’s out of the back,” he said.
I nodded.
“Give us a few minutes,” Jason said.
Nathaniel went back to the rear of the van without another word. He did follow orders well.
“Talk to me, Anita.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You keep staring off into space for minutes at a time. You’re not even here. We need you for this to work. Daniel and Mrs. Zeeman need you.”
My head turned slowly of its own accord, and I glared at him. “I have done my best for them tonight. I have gone above and beyond my personal best for them tonight.”
“Until they’re safe, it’s not over.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? If I don’t get them out alive, then what I did was for nothing.”
“And what do you think you did?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You saw.”
“I helped hold him down.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
Jason put a hand on each shoulder and shook me gently. “Damn it, Anita, get a grip. It isn’t like you to wallow in the horror. You’re a good soldier. You kill and keep going like you’re supposed to.”
I pushed him away from me. “I tortured a man, Jason. I reduced him to something that writhed on the floor, mewling with terror and pain. And I wanted to do it. I wanted him to hurt because of what they’d done to Charlotte and Daniel. I wanted to do it.” I shook my head. “I’ll do my bit tonight, but forgive me if it’s a little harder to keep going than normal. Forgive me if I’m not superwoman, after all.”
“Not superwoman?” he exclaimed, putting a hand on his chest in mock surprise. “You’ve lied to me all these years!”
It made me smile, and I didn’t want to smile. “Stop it.”
“Stop what? Cheering you up? Or is life supposed to stop because you did something horrible? I’ll tell you the real horrible truth, Anita. No matter what you do or how bad you feel about it, life just goes on. Life doesn’t give a fuck that you’re sorry or upset or deranged or tormented. Life just goes on, and you gotta go on with it, or sit in the middle of the road and feel sorry for yourself. And I don’t see you doing that.”
“I am not feeling sorry for myself.”
“You aren’t all broken up about Thompson. You’re broken up because of what you did to Thompson and how it makes you feel. You don’t give a rat’s ass about him. You’re just weeping and gnashing your teeth about how much of a monster you are. Well, I get enough of that from Richard. I don’t need it from you. So get your act together. We’ve got people we care about to save.”
I stared at him. “You know what’s really bothering me?”
“No, what?”
“I don’t feel bad about cutting Thompson up. I think he deserved it.”
“He did,” Jason said.
“No one deserves to be tortured, Jason. No one deserves what we did—what I did—to him. That’s what the front of my brain keeps telling me. It keeps telling me I should feel sorry about it, horrified. This should be something that breaks me. But you know what?”
“What?” Jason asked.
“It won’t break me, because right now the only thing I regret is that I didn’t have enough nerve to cut off his dick and keep it as a souvenir for Richard’s mom. Killing him, even torturing him, wasn’t enough. The Zeemans are like the fucking Waltons. To think that anyone could come in and take that away—spoil it forever—just makes me so angry—so angry that all I can do is kill them. Kill them all. There’s no regret in me.” I looked at him in the dark. “There should be regret for something, Jason. I can kill and not blink. Now I can torture and not regret it. I’ve become one of the monsters, and if it will save Richard’s family, I am happy to be one.”
“Feel any better?” Jason said.
“Yeah, I do. I’m a monster, but it’s for a good cause.”
“To save Richard’s mom, I’d do a hell of a lot worse than cut a few fingers off,” Jason said.
“Me, too,” I said.
“Then let’s do it,” he said.
We got out of the van and went to do it.
44
EVERYONE HAD MELTED into the woods like stones thrown on the surface of some dark lake. Even Ben, who was carrying Roxanne, had vanished. I moved through the trees at a slower, more human pace. Nathaniel stayed with me like a well-trained dog. I almost wished he’d gone off with the others. His company was not comforting because though he was able-bodied and a wereleopard, I wasn’t sure I should be taking him into a fight.
He crouched beside me, hand on my arm, pulling me down. I went to my knees beside him, gun ready. He pointed to our right, and I heard it: someone crashing through the underbrush. It wasn’t one of us.
I put my mouth near his ear. “Get behind whoever it is. Drive them towards me.”
He nodded and slipped into the trees. I got behind a large tree, using it as a shield. My plan was to shove the Browning into whoever it was and find out what was happening in the house.
Someone gasped, and now they were running full-out. I felt the movement in the trees without really seeing it. The shapeshifters were driving him towards me. Nathaniel had found the others and spread the word. If it was some innocent hiker . . . I couldn’t think of an apology strong enough. Oh, well.
A figure crashed through the trees and right past me. I had to grab his arm and spin him around into the tree to get his attention. I shoved the gun barrel under his chin and only then realized who I had. It was Howard the psychic.
“Don’t kill me,” he gasped.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I can help you.”
“Start talking,” I said.
“Milo and Wilkes’s deputies are up there, arguing about who gets to kill the man.”
I pressed the gun barrel into his throat until he had to go on tiptoe. He was making a wild sound high in his throat. “Did you enjoy Charlotte Zeeman? Was she a good lay?”
He tried to talk but couldn’t do it around the gun barrel. I thought about shoving the barrel through his throat until he gagged on his blood and died. I took a deep breath and eased down enough for him to speak instead. “Dear God, I didn’t touch the woman. I didn’t touch either of them. I’m a clairvoyant, for God’s sake. I couldn’t bear to touch someone during a rape or torture,” Howard said.
I believed him. And I knew if later I found out he was lying, the world wasn’t big enough to hide him. I knew with a cold certainty that if he were guilty, he would pay. “You said Daniel’s at the house? Where’s Charlotte?”
“Niley and Linus have taken her to use her blood to call up his demon. They’re going to have the demon search the land for the lance. Niley plans on leaving tonight.”
“You can’t send a demon to find a holy relic,” I said.
“Linus thinks the blasphemy of it will appeal to his master
.”
“Why are you running away, Howard?”
“There is no spear. I lied.”
I eased up on the gun more and blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You know how hard it is to make a living as a clairvoyant. So many horrible memories, and you usually end up working with the police for no money. I’d been using my powers to get myself in good with wealthy people who weren’t so careful about the law. I’d promise them something, but it wouldn’t be real. Then they’d be too embarrassed to go to the police about it. Or couldn’t complain that they got cheated out of a stolen object. It worked. I only swindled crooks. It worked.”
“Until Niley,” I said.
“He’s crazy. If he ever finds out I tricked him, he’ll kill me and have Linus feed my soul to that thing.”
“They’re going to kill Charlotte to try and find something that isn’t even here, you asshole.”
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry. I am really, really sorry. I didn’t know what he was capable of. Oh, God, let me go. Let me run away.”
“You’re going to get us into that house. You’re going to help us rescue Daniel.”
“There isn’t time to rescue them both,” Howard said. “They’re going to kill the man and sacrifice the woman now. If I get you into the house, the woman will be dead before you can get to her.”
Roxanne appeared on the other side of the tree, just there, like magic. Howard gasped. “I don’t think so,” she said. She opened a mouth full of fangs and snapped them near his face. Howard screamed.
She pressed clawed hands into the bark of the tree on either side of him and clawed long furrows in the bark. Howard fainted.
I left him with Roxanne and the vampires and Ben. When he came to, he’d get them into the house and they’d rescue Daniel. I’d take the rest and rescue Charlotte. There would be no choosing. No either/or. We would save them both. I had to believe it as I threw myself into the black woods. I unleashed that power inside me and sent it outward, casting like a net to catch . . . a faint, ruffling scent of evil. They’d know I was coming now, but it couldn’t be helped. I ran like I’d run earlier in the day with Richard. I ran as if the ground told me where to go, and the trees opened up like welcoming hands. I ran in the dark and couldn’t see and didn’t need to. I felt Richard running, running towards us. I felt the hard edge of his panic and ran faster.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 128