“Hello, love,” said a different voice, a far worse voice and, with a sinking feeling, I turned around.
Nameless pressed the door shut and leant against it, grinning at me. His eyes took me in, then flicked across me to the bed and back again.
“What do you want?” I asked, gulping.
“How about a little cuddle, love?” Nameless curled back his lips revealing his charming array of missing teeth that left a dark void in his yellow smile. I suspected he had a bigger void where his brain was supposed to be.
“Get out,” I hissed.
“Oh, don’t be like that. Not when that nasty little bitch downstairs already bit me.” Nameless took a step towards me. Like a dance, I stepped backwards, then moving away from the window, I kept my back to the wall as I tried to maintain distance between us. There was precious little I could use to defend myself and Nameless knew it as he moved closer.
“The boys and me, we share rooms in the attic.” He jutted his chin upwards, then looked around. “Now, this is cushy. Four-poster, eh? I quite like the idea of roll in a big bed like that.”
“I don’t.” I sidestepped as Nameless lunged at me. He fell against the chest of drawers. Pushing on them, he righted himself and turned, looking for me. I had no choice but to move closer to the bed. Looking around myself, I saw I had few options. Get to the bathroom and hope to God there was a lock, or at least a bolt. I hadn’t thought to check earlier. Or, I could try and get the key off Nameless, unlock the door and get out before he could grab me.
Or scream the place down and hope that someone gave enough of a shit about Auberon’s orders to rescue me. Except... What if I got someone who wanted to join in with Nameless’ sick little plan?
“Play nice, you naughty little witch, or I might have to get nasty with you just like I did to your little wolfie friend.”
“What have you done to Annalise?” The constant simmering of my magic, unable to find an outlet, was giving me a headache that hovered behind my eyes.
“Gave her something to think about.” He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be disgusting. I’m not into animals. I like my women two-legged.”
“If you’ve hurt her, I’ll...”
“You’ll what?” Nameless sneered, moving slowly closer to me. “You ain’t got no magic here, ‘ave you? You ain’t got nothin’.”
I tried sidestepping past him to the door, but he was faster, manoeuvring so he stood in my path. He grabbed at me, his sweaty palm wrapping around my wrist, one foot swiping my ankles as I raised my knee, aiming for his nuts. Down we went in a messy, smelly tangle of limbs. He planted himself over me, forcing me to the floor. I screamed when his hand slid up my leg, pushing my skirt up around my thighs.
“Like the floor, do ya?” He laughed, teeth nipping at the top of my dress. I wriggled a hand free from his grasping paws and punched the side of his head repeatedly until he slapped me, my head bouncing against the carpet. “Was looking forward to a nice, comfy mattress, but I’ll take what I can get.” He planted his mouth on mine, his tongue wriggling against my lips as I clamped them shut. In a swift, sharp move I drew my head back and head-butted him. Bloody hell, if that didn’t hurt like a...
Nameless screeched and raised an open hand. The sound of the slap rang in my ears and, for a moment, I actually saw stars. I kicked and thrashed and grabbed his ear, wrenching the lobe until he screamed; his hand rained down on me, slapping and hitting. Stunned, I barely noticed as he pulled at my dress. A seam tore, the ripping sound nothing compared to his rank, heaving breath.
It felt like a fog surrounded my head. Everything seemed dim and distant. I could hear shouting and footsteps but they could have been a hundred feet away, or merely two, then Nameless lurched backwards, flailing, screaming curses.
Someone was kneeling beside me, a hand stroking my hair almost gently. I blinked, and must have lost consciousness for a moment because when I opened my eyes I was in a man’s arms and being deposited on the bed.
“Evan?” I whispered. My throat felt scratchy, raw, and I whispered his name again, waiting for the answer I wanted to hear.
Fourteen
“What’s that?” said a man’s voice as I struggled to sit up. A pair of hands went under my armpits, boosting me upwards, and a pillow was moved behind my head. The voice continued, “Sorry about that.” Pete’s voice, I thought, with a flash of annoyance. Pete, not Evan. “That dick, Barker, sees a woman and thinks he has a chance.”
“What’s it to you, prick?” shouted Nameless, his sudden screech making me shiver. The name, Barker, seemed strangely appropriate for him. “That whore needs to be taught a lesson.”
I blinked a few more times before I could focus properly. Moving my neck hurt but if I rolled it gently to the side I could see Nameless. Blood ran down his nose and smeared his mouth like he’d just eaten raw meat. As I watched, he spat on the carpet and something small and white shot out. One of the men holding him let go, stooping down to pick it up, rising slowly. He grabbed Nameless’ hand, forced it to uncurl until his palm was facing up, then dropped the little object in it. Oh, a tooth. Served him right, I thought with a flash of anger.
“Not by you,” admonished Pete, returning his gaze to rest on me. He didn’t look compassionate, or concerned. He didn’t look anything. I’d never seen anyone so devoid of emotion. “Are you hurt?”
I thought about it, wriggling my fingers then my toes, raising my shoulders and testing each limb. The whole process took only a minute or two. My head hurt and my arms and back from the fall and being pinned down, but nothing else. “No,” I said, “I’ll be okay.”
“Someone get a first aid kit,” Pete barked and footsteps shot off. He nodded at Nameless. “Get rid of him.”
I watched as Nameless struggled, no match for the burly pair holding on to him. “You’ll regret this, you bitch!”
“Wait!” I sat up straight, my head pounding, the sudden dizziness making me nauseous. The men stopped, watching me, traces of fear flitting across their faces. For all their armaments, they were still afraid of me. They were probably waiting for my head to spin, or a curse to fall from my lips, but instead, I said clearly, so they would all hear, “If you got bitten, you’ll probably turn into a werewolf.” I’d no idea if it was true, of course, but Nameless paled. “Enjoy the next full moon!” I called brightly, laughing as he was dragged, cursing, from the room. I knew I sounded slightly hysterical; right now, that was part of my charm.
“That true?” asked Pete, after a long pause during which we listened to the sounds of the three men retreating, the stomp of their feet against the carpet, Nameless shouting.
I shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see.” Maybe they would shoot him instead of Annalise, just in case? One could live in hope.
After a moment, one of the men came back and, keeping his distance, tossed a white box on the bed. Pete opened it, extracting a few things. After putting on thin plastic gloves, the kind a doctor wears, he sat on the edge of the bed and ripped open a small packet. He smoothed an antiseptic square over the few small cuts I’d sustained. I tried not to wince as it stung.
“My shoulder hurts,” I said as he screwed the wipe into a ball, dropping it on the nightstand.
He manipulated it while I winced. “Not broken, or dislocated. Probably just bruised.”
“Yay.”
“Did he...”
“No,” I replied quickly.
“I would have shot him if he had.”
“Don’t hold back on my account.” I think Pete smiled then, but it was so fleeting, I couldn’t be sure.
He packed up the medical kit silently and stood, peeling off the gloves. “We’re not the bad guys, you know.”
“Neither am I,” I shot back.
We looked at each for a long moment. One of us was lying.
“Keep still for a while. I’ll post a sentry on the door so you don’t get disturbed again.”
There wasn’t a whole lot I could do after Pete left, so I
lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Every so often, I could hear voices outside the door, so, good to his word, Pete had posted at least two men on the door. They may have been fine for blocking anyone’s entrance, but they were also blocking my exit.
After a while, when my head stopping hurting so bad, I got up and walked over to the window. Pete, or someone else, had drawn the curtains so I peeled them back. It was dark outside, the moon full and heavy in the sky. Nameless was going to have a bad couple of nights, wondering if he would turn. I couldn’t see any patrols crossing the grounds, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. I wondered if they found anything, but I supposed I would have heard some kind of excitement if they had.
I didn’t hear Daniel enter the room this time. One moment I was alone, then I turned, starting suddenly when I saw him standing in front of the tapestry.
“You came back!” I think the surprise in my voice was evident.
“What happened to you? I heard there was some kind of commotion.”
“One of those creeps thought he’d try attacking me.”
Daniel looked appalled. “Are you okay?”
“Bruised and a few cuts, but nothing worse. Do you know if Annalise is okay? He said he hurt her.”
“The wolf-girl in the cellar? I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything. Maybe he was bluffing?” Daniel didn’t sound too hopeful.
“Maybe. Do you know what they’re going to do with her tomorrow? What Auberon has planned?”
“I heard one of the guards say the execution would be before dusk tomorrow. They invited a lot of people. No one knows there’s a werewolf, they just think it’s some kind of special event.”
“Some event!” I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling glum. “We’ve got to get out of here, Daniel. They’re going to kill Annalise tomorrow, and probably me too, after I tell Auberon no.”
“Couldn’t you lie and say yes?" Daniel looked at me hopefully.
I’d thought about that. “Auberon will want me to prove my loyalty and it will be something cruel and vile that I can’t… Annalise will still be dead. I can’t risk someone else to save my ass.”
“I guess not.” Daniel held up the cardboard tube he was holding and started pulling off the top. He knelt on the floor, pulling out the papers inside and unrolling them, revealing plans that looked similar to the ones Anders showed us, except these were older and the plans looked hand-drawn. “I’ve been looking at the floor plans and there’s a passageway that we could use to get out of the house. I tried it earlier and it’s clear. It leads to the stables. That’s the place closest to the perimeter.” He pointed to the place on the map, then swept his finger along where the wall stood.
“The stable yard is booby-trapped. The whole of the grounds are protected by magic,” I pointed out, even though I figured he probably knew that already. He’d probably done it. “Is there any other way out?”
“Front entrance, but it’s completely open from there to the drive. Anyone leaving that way would be picked off easily. The rear door leads to the courtyard, then the stables. The east wing has doors that go to the walled garden and out onto the grounds. There really isn’t anywhere to hide, and I doubt we could sprint for it.”
“What about the other tunnels? You said there were more.”
“Three. One of our ancestors was a smuggler, so he added extra ones. They run here and here.” Daniel pointed to two other spots on the map. “But, like I said, I think this one has caved in, and I haven’t tried this one. This one might be okay, but it leads to a cottage on the grounds. No one lives there now, and it’s kind of a wreck because there was a fire a few years ago. The tunnel might be fine, but I don’t know if we can get out when we reach the end. I haven’t tried it.”
“Where is the cottage?”
Daniel searched the map, placing his thumb on the map somewhere beyond the stable yard. It wasn’t far from the perimeter either and a river wound its way past, a couple of hundred yards north.
“I can take us through the secret passages; but our biggest problem is being seen once we leave them. As well as the security, there’s cameras, too. Lots of them.”
“I saw the control room the night I was captured.” I stared at the map, my options limited. “So the tunnel to the stable yard is our best bet?”
“I think so. I can disable the traps when we need to go outside for the last part, but I don’t know if the tunnel is still accessible. I’ve never tried it and, as far as I know, it’s been disused for decades. Plus, the moment anyone notices we’re gone, the alarm will go off and even if we get over the wall, without some way to flee, we’ll be caught.” Daniel’s voice rose in panic and I crossed over to lay a hand on him. It was small comfort, but I needed him to be strong.
“What if we had outside help?” I asked.
Daniel thought about that for a moment. “There’s a coven that’s been keeping an eye on the place. I sense them sometimes.”
I nodded. “I’ve met them, and one of my friends who came with me met them too. They know who your dad is, what he does.” It occurred to me then that Daniel had never reported them, even though he knew they were there, and that gave me a little more hope.
“I thought as much. Even if we get away, my dad will know I’ve helped you and he’ll still be able to come after us. Maybe we can turn him over to the police? If they know he’s responsible for all those deaths, they’ll arrest him, right?”
“You got any evidence?”
“No.” Daniel leant against the wall, his arms crossed. “I’m just as guilty as he anyway. I didn’t know what he was doing at first, I swear. Then I saw the news one day, and I knew. I knew he was killing all those people. I didn’t want to help him.”
“Daniel, he forced you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have stopped him earlier.”
“You couldn’t have. He’s got an army of goons killing for him. My friends say they’ve tried reporting him to the police but they don’t do anything. Someone’s protecting him,” I explained. “Look, can we talk about this later? Let’s just get out of here first.” I thought for a moment. There had to be some benefit to my being here. If I could find out the Brotherhood’s next moves, I’d have something to take back to the Council, something that might help other witches. Maybe it would help contribute towards a time when we wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted. “Do you know what he wants me to do, aside from hunting witches for him? You said he needed a stronger witch to do stuff you can’t do.”
“I’m not sure, but I think it involves money. I’ve tried various schemes for him, messing with computers and stuff to create money, but I can’t do it. I’m good with growing plants and herbs, but not technical stuff like that.”
“I don’t understand. I thought he was all about getting rid of witches?”
“Yeah, it started like that, but he knows what they can do. He can be rich and powerful in his own right if he has a powerful witch serving him. He can annihilate anyone who stands in his path. He could even rule the world. Who would ever stand up to him?”
“And that’s what he wants me for, so he can be rich and powerful?” I waved my hand around the room. The house wasn’t exactly in disrepair. If anything, it was warm and comfortable. Plenty of people seemed to live here and that had to cost a lot. “Isn’t he rich enough?”
“Is anyone?” Daniel countered.
I thought about that, about what Auberon would be able to achieve if he had unlimited power and money. It wasn’t a comforting thought. “We are definitely getting out of here.”
“I’m coming with you. You can’t leave me here, Stella. For years, I’ve been wondering if this will be the day when he kills me, when he realises I’m useless.”
I watched Daniel, the morose, slumped way he sat, the hopelessly sad eyes and thought about everything he’d had to deal with, how even though he was afraid, he still hid the knowledge of Anders’ coven from his father. Not to mention, how he’d helped me so far. He w
as right, I couldn’t leave him behind. “Okay, you help us get out of here, Annalise too, and we’ll take you with us. Deal?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
“And if we die, no hard feelings, okay?”
Daniel pulled a face, for the first time, showing a spark. “There might be some hard feelings.”
“Fair enough. Here’s what I want you to do. First, we need to get a message to my friends and for that, I need the barriers to be down long enough that I can send one without anyone noticing. Can you do that?”
“I think so, yes.”
“You also need to explore that other tunnel, find out if we can definitely get out that way, too. Can you try it?”
“Maybe. No one’s expecting me for a while. What about the wolf-girl?”
“Annalise,” I reminded him, because it seemed important that he saw her for what she was: a person with a name, not just an animal. “Are there any secret tunnels to the cellar?”
Daniel searched the map, then shook his head. “None that go directly to where she, sorry, Annalise, is kept.” He pointed, tapping the map. “There’s another stairwell that goes from the kitchen here to the storage cellar. It’s not used often because we don’t store much there anymore and it’s not really as direct as the other staircase.”
“How do we get past all the guards?”
“I don’t think I could take them all with magic. They’re built like brick shithouses.”
“I get the picture. How many of them are there?”
“At least twenty at any one time, though there will probably be just over thirty, maybe forty, when all the patrols come back in. Easily double that tomorrow.”
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