“You’ve taken it, haven’t you?”
Her eyes flashed, an apple-green glow in the murky light. Then she was gone. I did not like that development. There weren’t many vampires in Arizona and, while Chev wouldn’t allow the stuff at Tenth World, it took only one or two to cause significant damage.
I flexed my arm, feeling the bruises where the vampiress had gripped me and the thin ache where the needle had gone in. I was starting to feel a little thin all over. I tried to cheer myself up with fantasies of exacting revenge on Kevin. Wait until I introduced him to Bronson. Odds were the master vampire wouldn’t think he was a cool guy.
Chapter Thirteen
Emil dragged me out of the cage a little while later. I didn’t fight. For one, my full bladder was making the drain in the cement look reasonable. And, two, I wanted a look at the rest of the house.
The first floor was empty, the windows covered on the inside with waxy brown paper glowing from the sun beating against the outside. We stuck to the inside walls, stepping over a pile of paint cans stacked beside the foot of the stairs. The feel of vampire was stronger on the second floor, but they must have been resting or shut up in rooms, as far from the muted light as possible. Abel was there, behind one of the closed white doors lining a long hallway.
I wondered how his encounter with Malcolm had gone, if Mal had gone all alpha vampire on him. Probably it had been the opposite. Toned down, friendly, half smiling in that way that made people melt from a mile away. He would have played low key, trying to disarm while Abel would have been stiff and smug as all hell over the secret he had locked in the basement. My chest tightened around a riot of feelings.
Artificial light shone from the bedroom at the end of the hall. Emil pushed me through the door and Mickey turned from where she was admiring herself in the mirror. She wore a short red dress with black straps. She was so small, hipless, and thin-limbed that she could have been a child. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, showing off her rosy cheeks and glassy eyes. A purple bruise leaked from the edges of the crisp new bandage around her neck.
“What do you think?” she asked, spinning toward me. My throat closed when I tried to respond, but I managed a weak smile. She turned back to the mirror. “My mother says that people take you more seriously if you wear dark colors. But this feels so nice.” She ran her hands down the fabric.
“You should wear bright things,” Emil said from behind me. “They suit you, fun girl.”
I edged into the room, a large bedroom with two large papered-over windows and several chairs but no bed. The walk-in closet was open and someone rustled around in there. I kept my back to the wall and my eyes on Emil as he watched Mickey.
A woman walked out of the closet—a human—with a blonde bob so shiny I had to squint. She was tall, tan, and bone-thin, wearing a pale pink halter top, slim black pants, and heels. She looked me over and wrinkled her narrow nose.
“This is what I’m supposed to help you with? She’s filthy.”
“Fuck you, too,” I said, enunciating clearly.
“Be nice,” Emil said. “Get cleaned up, then do what she says.”
I ducked my head to hide the anger I could do nothing about. If he thought he’d influenced me, he’d drop his guard.
“Let’s get you cleaned up so that Amy can help you out,” Mickey said, escorting me to the bathroom. “She’s a designer, has her own label in LA. She’s Sophie’s friend.” A dozen stumpy candles lit the room. The scent of artificial vanilla—over the smell of moldering towels, presumably coming from the pile in the corner—was nauseating.
“Mickey,” I whispered after the door had closed, “do you think you can get outside? Go somewhere, maybe flag a car down and get a message back to Malcolm?”
“I’m not to go out.” She sighed, leaning into the shower enclosure to turn the water on. “I miss the pool, but it’s better for us to stay inside. Amy brought some food when she came this morning. She says it is a cross between turkey and soybeans, but it looks like something a dog barfed onto a sidewalk.” She turned around. “But I can get you some if you’re hungry.”
“Why would I want something you described that way?” My eyes filled with tears even as I smiled. She sounded like herself. Herself, but not quite right. How long before they permanently changed her, or until her infatuation with Emil grew into her sole reason for living?
“You should clean up,” she said.
Since it appeared we weren’t going to be disturbed, I used the toilet and washed my hands, scrubbing at the blackened beds of my nails with a washcloth. Strange how your own blood could stain you.
“Amy’s here to get us ready,” Mickey said, “and she is worse than you with patience.”
“Ready for what?”
“You should see the gowns she brought.” She brushed her hair, oblivious to the mark on her neck. “This is nothing. The others are fit for the red carpet, very haute couture. You’re going to look beautiful.”
Her face darkened. I touched her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
“You can’t…” Her expression screwed up her face, drawing lines around her mouth and pinching her lips. “I don’t want Emil to see you in those dresses.”
“Good, because I don’t want to wear that bitch’s pretty dresses.”
“I don’t want him to see you in them,” she hissed. She was shaking, the brush in her hand clattering against the tile countertop. The outburst was so unlike her that I had to work not to step back.
“Mickey, I won’t get between you and him.” The lie oozed out of my mouth. I would love to get between them, preferably with a flamethrower. “I want you happy and healthy. You deserve to be happy. What is it that you and Thurston were so excited about while we were packing?”
“Las Vegas,” she murmured, her eyebrows drawing together. “He wanted to see…water. The fountains there.”
“The Bellagio. Remember, we’re going to go to Vegas. Get out of here, just the three of us. Go see the fountains. Go to Disneyland. Remember?”
She dropped the brush and a noise rose out of her throat, half growl, half sob. Her hands fell, knuckles hitting the counter before hanging limp at her side. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Me siento enferma,” she whispered. “I don’t feel good. I don’t feel good.”
My stomach wrapped itself in knots. Outside, the Amy beast dragged a chair across the floor, cursing as she did so. I picked up the brush and stroked it gently through Mickey’s hair. I doubted we were putting on a fashion show. Concern with our appearances meant we were leaving, and leaving meant a different set of options.
We would get away. This time, these hours, would be like a bad weekend. We weren’t permanently injured. I already carried scars. Another few wouldn’t kill me. Mickey…Mickey would be able to deal. She was too bright for this to extinguish her.
“Honey, we need to—”
Her head jerked to the side and she swayed toward the door. “You have to hurry. Clean up, clean up.” She pushed me toward the shower and scampered out of the room.
The room was filling with steam and my skin itched from the filth and the humidity. I wanted to burn my clothes, but I shook them out and folded them in case I needed to get back into them.
The idea of undressing, of having nothing between my body and these vampires, made nausea swirl through me. My heart rate elevated and, even when I got under the hot water, I was chilled.
I lathered the soap and scrubbed gently around the wounds on my upper body. Even though it looked like I’d been torn into by a pack of dogs, they were healing fast, though I was sore as hell. My forehead was green and yellow and some of my extensions had torn out, leaving my hair thin and uneven.
But other than appearing to have some kind of medieval plague, I was fine. My mind was my own. I’d eaten. I was clean, now. Everything was fine. All I had to do was let an angry woman dress me up, then I’d have a chance to get away.
I peeked out the bathroo
m door. Long, bright dresses hung from the curtain rod, dripping with things like sashes and tails, lace and glittery beadwork. Amy’s hands were on her hips, and her lower body jutted slightly forward from her torso. It might have looked normal in a fashion magazine but it was an unnatural stance. Of course, this was an abandoned house papered shut and filled with vampires, so nothing was exactly normal.
She snatched a slip off the back of the chair, crossed the room in two long strides, and handed it to me.
“Put this on. I need to take your measurements and figure out which of these I might be able to squeeze you into.”
I closed the door, pulled on the slip, and wriggled out of the towel. Amy sighed when I came back out. “I was told you’d be smaller.”
“I’d be happy to leave, if I’m not to your satisfaction.”
Laughter from the doorway made us both jump. Amy pressed her hand to her throat and took a quick step forward. I backed against the wall. Richard Abel filled the room before he even entered it.
He wore a white dress shirt, wrinkled and untucked, and a pair of loose slacks. His hair drooped in his face, making muscles in his cheek twitch when the strands brushed it. Amy emitted a soft wanting noise that made my lip curl.
“This is good,” he said, gliding through the room, one hand in his pocket, the other rising to brush the sleeve of a diaphanous blue gown. “Light colors stand out in the dark.” His gaze wandered over the other dresses, silver and deep blue, red and black. Then it landed on me, and I couldn’t keep from wincing. His energy was focused and so hostile it felt like it was cutting into me.
Amy tottered into the closet and scraped some hangers around. Abel didn’t look away and I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him. He was frowning.
“Mister Abel,” Amy panted over her armload of gowns. “Do any of these please you?”
“Hang them up.”
In my mind, I turned and ran. In the inescapable fever dream that was my life, I locked my knees and stood still. He moved until he was behind me, then simply stood there. Every second wound the tension tighter. The bite marks ached, deep below the surface of my skin. I started sweating, hot then cold.
“Which do you like, Sydney?” he asked. My eyes jumped to the dresses as Amy arranged them. The curtain rod was starting to sag, but even if it broke and fell, the windows were covered.
“It’s hard to tell, with them just hanging there.” I crept away, half expecting him to lunge for me.
Amy hovered, spewing details as I touched the gowns, stroking smooth satin here and examining a billowing cuff there. She didn’t care that I wasn’t interested. She was putting on a show, for him. At least that meant that he wasn’t feeding off of Mickey—for now.
The paper covering the windows was brown and waxy, maybe a few layers thick. But it was only paper. There were seams where it overlapped, gaps between the heavy tape.
“I prefer darker colors,” I said, moving toward the center of one window. I slid my hand behind a billowing white train, and my fingers swam deeper until they found a break in the paper.
I pulled on the dress at the same time I tore the paper. The curtain rod put up token resistance before clattering to the floor. And then I was scrambling, scraping, and pulling through layer after layer of heavy, waxy paper. Daylight flashed at me and my heart, tense and restrained for so many hours, soared.
Fuck you, Richard Abel, meet the Arizona sun.
Amy tackled with a howl. I landed hard on my side, curling reflexively. Her hands rained down on me, glancing blows that still stung. One landed behind my ear, stunning me and stealing my hearing.
“Cease,” Abel’s voice thundered, full of anger and power. Her back arched and she whimpered as she crab-crawled away from me, whispering “Forgive me, forgive me.”
Sophie burst into the room, then retreated with a hiss from the light. I pushed myself up, panting and bruised but not caring as I reached for the paper. It fluttered, inches away. If I could just—
Abel grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the corner. Away from the light, away from the only weapon I had.
“Fucking let go,” I snarled, shoving at his hands when he pushed my shoulders against the floor. He dropped his knee into my stomach and my next curse was a pained wheeze. Then he raised a wicked pair of scissors. I stilled.
“I could almost like you, Sydney, if you weren’t so pathetic. You act like you don’t want to give in, but then you provoke me like this.” He leaned close, until the wet hardness of his fang touched my ear. “Begging for punishment.”
“Fuck you.” My voice was little more than harsh breathing. He ground his knee down and opened the scissors. I stared up at him, my hands digging into his thigh.
I heard the snip. I heard it, but I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Because it looked like he was chopping a chunk out of his hand, out of that web of flesh between the thumb and first finger. It looked as though he cut it partway, then tore the hanging flesh away with his other hand.
Blood poured down onto my chest and I screamed, banging my head against the wall and popping something in my ribs as I scrambled to get away. The scissors clattered onto the floor. His right hand fisted in my hair, holding my head tight, and the other—bloody and mangled—inserted itself between my lips.
I screamed. I screamed, and then I drowned.
Chapter Fourteen
“One foot in front of the other, with the toes pointed slightly outward and landing before the heel,” Amy said. “Toes first.”
I walked across the empty bedroom. One foot landed in front of the other, pointing my toes outward and trying to make them land first without falling over. Richard had said to do what she told me, and I was trying even if she wasn’t satisfied.
“Add a little swing in the hips. But no, not too quickly. You’re supposed to stroll, like you’re moving through a comfortable place. Not stomp like a goose.”
Relaxed. Swinging. Slow. Toes first. I tried again. She’d wrapped duct tape around me at my knee, midthigh, and across my chest and biceps since that’s how the dress would fit and I needed to learn to walk in it. The blood covering my slip had dried, but Amy still wouldn’t let me try the gown on and it wasn’t fair. That was the dress Richard wanted me to wear. My gaze kept going to it, my feet directing me toward where it hung in the closet.
“She’s zoning out again,” Kevin muttered from the corner.
“I am not,” I whispered. My throat tingled pleasantly, an aftereffect of the blood I’d been gifted. I glanced at the door, afraid that Richard might have glimpsed my slip in focus. I could feel him, just down the hall, his presence beating like a giant second heart. All I wanted to do was go to him.
Amy clapped her hands in my face, and I startled, tipping in the four-inch heels. I gasped when my ankle rolled, the sharp pain sinking me to the floor.
“I told you those were too high,” Kevin said, leaving the fold-out table covered in a microscope, glass slides, and piles of notes. “At b-best she’s the—shit, that’s hot—loner that gets the trick makeover. She’s never going to be a beauty queen.”
I whimpered when Amy grabbed me under my arms and pulled me up. She dropped me onto the edge of the chair and I slid off again, crying out when I hit the ground.
“She’s not trying,” Amy hissed, crossing her arms and stomping across the floor. “Where’s Emil’s girl? She’ll listen to her.”
“I am, too, trying,” I protested. I was. I wanted to do well.
“The other one’s burned out. You’re only feeding Sophie and Mr. Abel while she’s feeding the rest. Think about that.” Kevin wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me into the chair. “And this one was in cardiac arrest twelve hours ago, so maybe give her a minute before demanding that she strut her stuff.”
He frowned at me and I smiled back. Be nice to my servants, Richard had said. That meant no picking up the chair and breaking it across the chemist’s face. Or did it? Surely something about that could be considered nice. My ankl
e throbbed. I rotated it experimentally, then grimaced. It was already swelling.
“I’m not going down with her if she fails.” Amy slammed the closet door, her voice rising shrilly. The paper now securely taped over the window rattled. “I’ve been with Sophie for a month, and I’ve been good, and Mr. Abel barely acknowledges me. Except when he’s hungry. This bitch is here a day and he’s already given her his gift. A day! I…I don’t know what I’ve done to disappoint them, but whatever it is, I can’t do it again.”
“You’re correct about that,” Richard said from the doorway. Amy snapped upright. I pulled myself to my feet and tried to straighten my slip. I wanted him to see me at my best, strong and smooth as a feather. No, not that. Quiet, the way he liked me.
“Sydney,” he said, his voice a caress over my name, “go downstairs and get yourself something to eat. Then rest.”
“Yes, sir.” I moved for the door, trying to hide the way I was limping. He grabbed my wrist, and I sucked in a breath. His eyes were bright, so bright where the rest of his face was drawn tight and hard. He was under a lot of stress. I wished that I could ease it.
He turned my head back and forth, peering into my eyes. I’d hurt, but once his hand and his attention were on me? It was like I’d downed a bottle of champagne a little too quickly. Like I was feeling the warmth of the sun following a long winter.
“I’m good.” He frowned and I scrambled to think of how that could have bothered him. “I’m good, sir.”
His hand, which had tightened on me, eased. I swayed toward him, but he released me with a push.
“Take the shoes off before you go.”
I wanted to tell him that they didn’t hurt, that he didn’t have to worry about me. But instead I bent down and released the straps from around my ankles. I handed the shoes to Amy, who skirted along the wall to take them from me, then trotted down to the basement.
The fruit and cheese were warm, but they were tasty enough. As soon as I’d eaten, I became tired. Instantly, as though someone had turned a switch off in me. Richard had been right; I did need to rest. I lowered myself to the floor of the cage. It was amazing how he seemed to know exactly what was best for me.
Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) Page 16