by Tes Hilaire
“Not far at all. Come on, I’ll show you!”
Excitement filling her heart, she took the man’s hand. He smiled down at her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as he led her out of the chambers and into the big hall.
Mia had to skip to keep up, but that was okay. The bad man maybe wasn’t so bad. He’d found her mommy for her. Maybe, just maybe, there was actually hope for him. Mommy said there was hope for everyone after all.
Chapter Twenty-one
“We’re lost,” Katrina said, her grip tightening down on Mike’s arm as she tried to pull him to a stop.
“We’re not that far off track,” Mike tried to reassure her, though damn, if she wasn’t right. For the first hour or more they’d skipped through the tunnels as they followed the map that Gabby had drawn them, with nary a baddie in sight. Until about ten minutes ago when Mike’s shit-just-got-real sensors started blaring. Katrina had sensed them, too, her emotional radar going off as she warned him about a wave of excitement from this direction, or a boatload of tension from that.
And that’s how they’d gotten off track as they’d adjusted their course time and again to avoid them. Only Gabby’s map, good as it was, hadn’t accounted for them to get this far off course and didn’t have every little passageway on it. Which meant until they recognized something familiar, and could get themselves back on track, they were, in fact, lost.
“They are eager, chomping at the bit.”
And wasn’t that just another way of saying excited, or tense. It was like the baddies knew as well as they that they were near. Yet they hadn’t attacked. And okay, he and Katrina had been trying their best to avoid them, but it was as if the bad guys were trying to avoid them, too.
Treat us like cattle, the beast rumbled.
Mike’s mouth thinned, really not liking that thought. “Which way?”
She nodded her head to the right.
“Then we go this way.” He tugged her left, wondering how long they were going to be allowed to play this game. His answer wasn’t long in coming, they rounded a curve and there, right dab smack ahead of them, was his worst nightmare: A dead end.
“Back. Go back!” He pushed her, only they didn’t get far, the wall shifted, some good dozen shapes parting from it and blocking their escape route.
“Chameleon,” Katrina hissed.
“I don’t suppose those happen to be of the underdeveloped cognitive variety?”
“No.”
“Well crap.” They’d sprung the trap.
***
Kat’s breath stuck in her throat, making her wheeze as she tried to push down the panic. Crap didn’t begin to cover the amount of shit they were in. Okay, yeah, they could probably take on twelve chameleons. Even on a bad day she could probably hold her own against one or two, and with Mike’s beast, the rest would be nothing but an appetizer. The problem was that was exactly what this was: a small taste of Ganelon’s forces. Chameleon were fast, and excellent at blending in. Which made them perfect scouts and excellent front line infantry. Which also meant this was just the beginning of the attack.
“How do I incapacitate them?” Mike asked, even as he tried to push her behind him.
“They’re not merker. They’ll die from a good headshot. I’d say chest, but I’m not sure where their heart is.”
Any other chance for advice was lost when, as one, they moved, spreading out and blending into the walls as they aimed to surround them. Katrina wanted to scream, but she forced herself to stay calm, keep her head about her as she took a step back, trying to gain distance as she pulled the knife Gabby had given her. Beside her Mike surprised her, and instead of going beasty, pulled his gun.
And then they attacked. Mike let loose, spraying the tunnel with bullets. Three chameleon fell, their bodies morphing back into their natural pasty white skin tone. But they were fast and hard to see and when he went to reload his clip, he got hit from the side, the gun flying out of his hand.
Katrina did scream this time. Rage at seeing Mike swarmed powered her knife as she swung it at the shape that moved in from the other side. The blade sunk deep into flesh, sticky purple blood spraying in an arc across Katrina’s torso, the body morphing white as it slid to the ground. And, okay, they did have a heart there, and, yuck, that was gross, but there wasn’t time to get sick as another one lunged at her.
She bent backwards, pulling a move she often did on the stage, her booted foot connecting with the things jaw so that it cracked. It howled, stumbling back. Katrina completed the backward walk over and resumed her footing, watching in amazement as the chameleon slumped, its skin losing its shading.
Wow, fragile.
“Katrina! Behind you.”
Her chest lightened at the knowledge that Mike was okay. She spun, ducking and slashing at the same time. Only this one must have been watching her kick ass moves because it anticipated her actions and spun outside her strike zone, coming at her unprotected flank. But then Mike was there, his arms snaking around the creature’s neck, grabbing onto its head, twisting sharply. Another crack and… okay then. It was definitely dead. Heads just didn’t go on that way. In fact so were about nine other Chameleon that littered the floor of the tunnel, which with her two kills and this one made an even dozen.
She smiled, shaking her head. “And I thought your beast was bad ass.”
Mike raised his head, met her gaze, started to smile back, but then something caught his attention, his eyes widening as he looked beyond her shoulder.
“Mommy!”
Katrina spun, shock rooting her to the spot. Her heart, which had leapt with joy at the sound of Mia’s voice bottomed out and then flat lined. For this wasn’t the reunion she had been hoping, wishing, praying for. Because there, standing at the far end of the corridor…his hand sizzling with power as he caressed Mia’s throat, was Ganelon himself.
***
Mike woke to the biggest hangover he’d ever had in his life. The kind of hangover that made you want to clamp a vise around your head and curl up into a ball of pure agony. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, every muscle, every bone, every joint in his fucking body hurt. He pulled his knees up, grabbing at his head and moaned. What had happened last night? Where was he? Where was Kat?
He rifled through his memories, what he could string together, and came up with a horrifying realization: this was not a hangover. Hell’s hallways, the attack by those Chameleon, then the man with the child, his hand sizzling…
Mike pushed onto his hands and knees, adrenaline overriding the pain. The man was Ganelon, the child Mia. The man held her hostage, Katrina had tried to bargain while Mike worked his way around, but then Ganelon had laughed and… shit, Mike didn’t really remember. Just that something had slammed into him, taking him into the wall and after that it was lights out.
Okay, first things first, figure out where he was.
He forced his eyes open, took in the chiseled stone beneath his palms. Ganelon didn’t just leave him in the hall, did he? Encouraged by his ability to see, he tried lifting his head, and okay, world spinning. He hissed, pushing himself so he was sitting on his ass, legs bent in front of him so he could support the weight of his upper body on them. And, okay, this was not good. Because he may still have been sitting on hard stone floor like that of the passageway, but those were bars in front of his face.
Good news is it looked like he had company. In the cage butted right up against his was another man. He was down for the count, too. Only this prisoner looked like he might actually be worse off than Mike. The man wore a long shirt, like some sort of tunic out of the time of chainmail and armor. It wasn’t white any longer but stained with blood, both new and old. Worse was the condition of the body sticking out of that tunic. Mike couldn’t see the man’s face beneath the flop of dark hair and tangled beard, but both the arms and legs poking out of that tunic were red with blistering scabs, as if his skin had been flayed from him and was growing back.
And, yeah, let’s avoid that shall
we?
Beyond the man in his cage was another cage. This one was empty, the door swung out as if welcoming visitors. Mike should have found comfort in that empty cage, but he didn’t because that meant he still didn’t know where Katrina was.
As if on cue, there came a moan. A light, feminine sound that matched the agony he felt. Mike twisted his body, following the sound, and was met with a horrific site.
In the center of the large chamber filled with flickering candles and dancing shadows stood a stone alter. The floor around it stained black with old blood and strapped to its surface lay Katrina.
He lunged forward, grabbing the bars, but something about the blackened metal lashed back at him, making him jerk his hands away.
Panic seized his lungs. There was no question as to where they were. He’d seen this place in Katrina’s thoughts not but a short while ago: Ganelon’s torture chamber.
“Katrina!”
She twisted her head, her hazel eyes widening as she saw him trapped in the cage. “Mike! No… no, no, no.” Her head shook from side to side, sobs wracking her shoulders so she jerked against her restraints.
“Now, now, Kaitarina. You know I don’t like being told no.”
On the far side of the room, Ganelon stepped out of one of the shadows. Mike tried to check his hatred, studying the man as he casually sauntered across the room. Not tall, not short. Not large or small. The brown haired man was nothing if not completely average in appearance. He’d be the kind of guy Mike would never look at twice, except for one thing: the beast. His beast could see beyond the unremarkable shell to the core of this man, and what his beast saw was pure evil.
Ganelon passed by a set of upward stairs, then stopped by the shelving unit that flanked the stairs’ archway. Mike’s gut clenched as he saw what lay on that shelving unit. Various types of knives, whips and manacles, scalpels and needles, and rows upon rows of weaponry that Mike had no name for other than that they were devices of torture.
And there lay Katrina, like a damn sacrificial lamb, on Ganelon’s table.
He had to get out of this cage. Had to get to her. Or at least had to divert this madman’s focus.
“I gotta say, Ganelon. Your accommodations leave something to be desired.”
Ganelon didn’t even spare Mike a look, his hand tracing over the shelf as he contemplated which instrument would be his torture device de jour.
Mike looked around the room, trying to find something, anything, he might be able to use. But the only thing of note in the room beyond the table, cages, and flickering candles was that shelf full of torture devices. And aside from getting Ganelon to use them on Mike, there was no way he was going to get a chance at obtaining one of them.
Ganelon picked up a strangely curved hook, frowned, set it down, then went back to the first blade in the line-up: A silver knife. That knife looked all too much like a Paladin blade. Though why couldn’t it be? This man had once been a Paladin. Before he’d fallen. Before he’d been squeezed of all humanity and brought back as this monster.
And, yeah, Mike had seen that in Katrina’s thoughts as well. Just as he could see into her thoughts now.
She knew what was coming. Had seen Ganelon work a victim over with that knife before and knew any torture she’d received at the hands of Si’ane and the others would be nothing compared to this.
“Still my tried and true favorite.” Ganelon lifted the blade before him, his face reverent as he smoothed his hand down the flat side of the blade. “And it just loves the taste of demon blood.”
Mike… Katrina’s panic swirling over him.
Mike grit his teeth, trying to keep the beast from completely taking over. Brains, not brawn, were what he needed now.
“You know, I expected better from you, Ganelon,” he said aloud. “Or at least I expected something more than a coward.”
And that got a reaction. Ganelon shifted his gaze to Mike. And though there was no flicker of emotion, no hint that his words had affected him at all, Mike could all but feel the anger boring into him. “Go ahead, Paladin. Finish that thought. You have my attention now. Tell me why you think I’m a coward?”
“Have to be a coward. A man of any worth wouldn’t attack those smaller and weaker than himself. Strapping down his victims. Using weapons when they have no defense.”
Ganelon fingered the blade, moving over to the table, even as his dead gaze locked on Mike. “I wonder, Paladin. What would be more enjoyable? Carving out piece after piece of your hide, or watching you writhe as I ruin this beautiful body.”
He lowered the knife towards Katrina’s chest.
Mike roared, his beast ripping him from the inside out. He grabbed onto the bars, ignoring the sizzling pain that rode up his arms into his body.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!”
Ganelon flashed a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “How quant. The succubus and the Paladin. Mated. And if what Christos says is true, this is not the first time either.”
He lightly traced his knife down Katrina’s sternum, slicing through the fabric of her shirt. Katrina bit her lip, her breath coming in short little pants as Ganelon pressed the fabric aside. And all Mike could do was yell at him to stop and rattle his cage.
“How interesting that the lines between dark and light are getting blurred. Don’t you think…beauty?”
And then he flicked his blade back up, sharp pain vibrating across their bond a moment before her body caught up to the intrusion of steel in skin, blood welling up in its wake.
Mike screamed, the beast roaring with him, hatred shadowing all thoughts but one: They would get out of this cage. Then they would kill the bastard who dared hurt their mate. After that they’d take Kat and her daughter out of this hellhole and take them so far away nothing, not no one, could ever hurt them again.
Chapter Twenty-two
Someone was messing up Damon’s beauty sleep. He was pulled from the welcome darkness of a healing sleep into a world filled with screams, growls, and rattling metal. Damon tried to snooze through it, couldn’t, and gave up. Popping his eyelids open he pulled himself to sitting, glaring at the man going berserk-o in the cage next door.
And, whoa, the man really was berserk. Like one of those crazy berserker Paladin kind of berserk. Those flashy headlights and guttural growls were a dead giveaway. Huh, he hadn’t heard that there were any of their kind left. Guess there must be one of, if not the last one. Of course, that point was moot. If the Paladin was in Ganelon’s cage, then there wouldn’t be any berserker for much longer.
It wasn’t hard to figure what the Paladin had his panties in a wad about. A woman lay strapped to the table. Ganelon had obviously just gotten started on her. She even had most of her clothes on still. The tank she wore had been split down the middle, but she still had on a bra and cameo pants.
Currently Ganelon wielded his knife as a branding tool. Heating it with an influx of power, then drawing it menacingly close to skin as he tormented her with anticipation and guilt ridden commentary. Not that Damon could hear what daddy said, not over this distance and not with the crazy man all but howling in the next cell over, but over the last few months Damon had all but memorized the tabletop productions his dad was famous for.
“You really need to shut up,” Damon hissed at the Paladin and got absolutely no response. He sighed, the man was going to have to learn the hard way, it seemed. Ganelon was trying to ignore all the noise, but the little hissy fit the man was having was pretty damn hard to ignore and doubtlessly ruining his train of thought.
And sure enough, scene and cut. Ganelon stopped in his tracks, spun around, glaring at the man who was too stupid to just shut the fuck up.
It took him a good dozen strides to cover the expan
se; the cold fury in his face would have been enough for any sane person to get the hint. But crazy just kept taunting and screaming.
Ganelon stopped before the cage, just out of the man’s reach as his mouth curled up in a sneer. “Did you wish for something, Paladin?”
“Your head on a platter,” the man growled, ignoring the sizzle of the black bars as he tried to take another swipe at grabbing Ganelon’s robes.
Ganelon tsked. “Now, now, Paladin. You need not be jealous of my attentions for Kaitarina. Your turn will come.”
In the back of the room a shadow shifted. Damon blinked, his gut sinking as he saw the girl in pink shift forward out of the shadow of the large shelving unit by the stair. Not now, kid. Not now.
And then the man was screaming again, only this time it was in pain. The girl shrunk back just as Ganelon spun and started back across the room. Damon jerked his gaze to the man who was curled, one hand clenched over the other, blood dripping through his fingers at an alarmingly rapid rate.
“Nice going, asshole,” Damon muttered, and was awarded with a glow-y eyed stare. And Lucifer’s hordes, that jaw, the nose, mouth… Glowing eyes aside, Damon knew that man. Detective Mike Ward.
Well crap. Damon had always known his former fellow in blue had some Paladin genes in him. Had dear ole dad extracted that little tidbit during one of their sessions? Damon didn’t remember giving the man up, but then again, he didn’t remember half of what happened on that table. Either way daddy must have figured that out and decided to acquire him. Though maybe not. Maybe his presence had something to do with the kid’s mother. And that was her mother strapped to that table. The woman’s body, bone structure and wide eyes screamed succubus. Between that, the curling blond hair and the way the kid kept on looking at her with such longing and pain and guilt all at the same time? Yup, didn’t take a genius to figure that out.
After that one quick glare, Mike had returned to his postal employee routine. Stupid fuck. Ganelon’s patience was really running low from all the banging and roaring. He spun around, slamming Mike with a sizzling blast of power. Mike slammed into the back of his cage, slumped to the ground.