To distract herself as they waited for news, Gabi found a small pair of scissors in one of Julius’s drawers and slumped into a window seat to begin pulling the stitches out of the demon-bite wound on her arm. It was healed enough to be little more than a thick scab, and she didn’t want the stitches growing into it. Her shoulder was itching where newly healed skin had already formed. She flinched as the phone on Julius’s desk suddenly rang, almost dropping the scissors. Razor pricked up his ears from his spot on the chaise longue next to her.
“Athena,” Julius muttered, coming to life and snatching up the phone. “Yes,” he said tersely into it.
Gabi was too far on the other side of the room to catch what the Magus had to say, so she hurried closer, straining to hear. Relief and distress flooded Julius in a confused flood. He didn’t say another word to Athena but was suddenly standing.
“The Magi cast a searching spell. There was some kind of shield spell around his location, but Athena broke it. The Werewolves have found him,” Julius told her. His voice was tight with rage. “We have to go to him now.”
“What?” Gabi demanded. “Where? You can’t go out now; it’s almost midday. Tell me where, and I’ll go to him.”
“I have to,” he insisted tightly. “We’ll go in the Aston Martin, and I have my protective gear from Savannah.”
Gabi remembered the hat, coat and glasses he’d worn to come to her side after the sniper tried to kill her and Derek. Now she understood why he’d been able to wear them in the sunlight; Savannah’s amazing chemical innovations weren’t limited to cars, apparently. Gabi didn’t waste time arguing. She could feel the insane urgency in Julius and knew it was a matter of life or death for Alexander. She ignored Razor’s plaintiff meow as she sent him an order to stay put. They were in the car in seconds and driving out the gates, for once already standing open.
Kyle and three other Werewolves were in a small knot around an opening in the ground. They were holding a thick blanket over the opening, shielding it from the sun as best they could. A sturdy rope lay coiled to one side.
None of them said a word as Julius and Gabi rushed to them. For a moment Gabi couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. The hole in the ground was almost six feet wide and Gabi would guess at over twenty feet deep. It was a perfect cylinder inside, smooth as glass from top to bottom, and it glinted with the telltale flash of silver.
“We can’t touch it,” Kyle said tightly. “He’s too far gone to help himself out, and we can’t get to him.” Kyle’s wolf was dangerously close to assuming control. Alexander had quickly become one of Kyle’s closest friends.
Gabi leaned over a little to see the bottom of the pit, knowing she didn’t want to see what lay inside. With the sun just nearing its zenith, there would be nowhere to hide from it inside the pit. A figure lay curled in a foetal position at the bottom, a metal stake protruding from his ribcage. The sickening stench of burned skin and flesh assailed Gabi’s nostrils, making her gag.
An insane roar startled her. Julius could see and smell all that she could. The coat and hat seemed to be keeping the worst of the UV rays from him, but the skin on his face was already bright red, about to blister.
“Julius,” she said, alarmed. “Get back to the car. You’ll be no help to us if you end up like him.”
“I’m going down to get him,” Julius snarled.
“No,” Gabi said clearly. “I’m going down to get him.”
Julius ignored her and prepared to jump, but Gabi caught his shoulder.
“He needs blood,” she said simply. “I’m the only one here who can help him.”
“I can fetch him out.”
“As bad as it is down there, there is a degree of protection from the sun,” Gabi pointed out. “Once he comes up, it’ll be much worse.”
Julius closed his eyes, his jaw muscles rigid, but Gabi knew she’d made her point. The Werewolves were already lowering the rope down the side of the hole.
“He’ll be like a wild animal, Lea,” he growled. “Do you remember the pain when you gave me blood after the explosion?”
Yes, she remembered it very well, in fact.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabi said firmly. “It’s Alex. It’s one of ours down there. And you can stop him; you won’t let him rip me apart.”
“You can’t let him near your neck,” Julius warned. “He won’t know it’s you; he won’t have any control of himself for at least several seconds.”
Before anyone could give her any more advice, Gabi pressed a kiss onto Julius’s blistering lips and grabbed hold of the rope.
Her hurried rappel down the rope was crazy. The walls of the hole were as smooth as glass and made from some kind of crystalline substance marbled with veins of high-quality silver. There was no way a Werewolf could withstand touching the surface. She made it to the bottom without breaking her neck and immediately fell to her knees beside Alexander.
There were no signs of life, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but didn’t help the anxious knot in Gabi’s chest. She clung to the fact that if he was already dead, he would’ve turned to dust. As she made a quick assessment of his condition, she recited the fact like a mantra to herself. “He’s not dust, he’s not dust. Fuck, pull yourself together,” she commanded.
He was as close to a corpse as she’d ever seen anyone get without actually dying. His skin was blistered to the point of turning black, his face entirely unrecognisable, his tendons tight enough to turn his hands to claws and fix him rigidly in position. She blew a sharp breath out her nose, trying to clear the burnt-flesh stench.
“The stake first,” Gabi whispered to herself, praying that she could obey her own directions. She got a solid grip on the stake and gave a hard yank. It slipped from her grasp, and she fell backwards. It seemed to be made from the same material as the walls and was slick with Alexander’s blood. She quickly repositioned herself, one foot on either side of the stake, and this time gripped the slick spike with both hands. It took several heart-stopping seconds of tugging, but it finally shifted a little. She caught her breath and tried again, this time twisting slightly as she pulled, and it flew free with a sickening squelch. A muted groan came from Alexander’s blackened lips, and Gabi flung the crystal shard away, kneeling over him.
“Open a vein,” she instructed herself. Shit, she didn’t want to pull Nex out in these close quarters in case Alexander responded to the scent of the blood before she could resheath. She hadn’t come down here to save him only to have him die by impaling himself on her sword. Her teeth would just make a mess of her own flesh. “Anyone got a pocketknife?” she called up to the anxious faces looking down on her.
“Incoming,” warned Kyle a second before a small, multi-tool Swiss Army knife dropped towards her.
She caught it and flicked open a small blade. She drew in a deep breath, bracing herself, then jabbed the narrow blade into one of the veins of her inner wrist. The pain was sharp, and blood gushed immediately. Gabi quickly pressed the wound to Alexander’s mouth. There was no response. His rigid body remained motionless, the blood dribbling from his ruined lips.
Desperate, Gabi used her free hand to shift him, tilting his body so that his mouth faced upward. His flesh was deteriorating with each passing second. She managed to get some blood to stay in his mouth, and she worked his throat muscles, beseeching him to swallow. Faint movement, a gurgle and then a convulsive swallow. Gabi sagged in relief, forgetting Julius’s cautioning words. Without warning, the blistered, charred thing that was Alexander lunged upward and slammed into her with the force of a speeding car.
They hit the solid wall hard enough that Gabi was surprised it didn’t shatter. Her breath evacuated her chest, and black spots erupted in front of her eyes as her head connected.
“Gabi,” Julius barked.
His warning suddenly clear in her mind, she gathered the remains of her addled wits and shoved her bleeding arm in between Alexander and her throat. He latched onto the offering with the ferocity of
a hyena, and pain exploded as Gabi felt his fangs hit bone. The world swam in front of her eyes, and it was only her suddenly rock-steady connection to Julius that kept her from the precipice of unconsciousness.
“Stay with me,” he ordered from above, giving her the strength to fight the pain, the nausea and the encroaching blackness that swamped her. “He just needs a little more; then I’ll stop him.”
Gabi forced herself to breathe, drawing in air through her mouth and concentrating on expelling it again. Through the distortion in her vision she could already see Alexander’s face begin to heal, the withered flesh plumping up and changing from crispy black to a dark, angry red and then to a harsh sunburn.
“Alexander, stop,” Julius’s voice resonated from above. The sharp bite of his power nipped at Gabi’s skin and raised the hairs on her neck.
Alexander’s eyes finally opened, and he stared at Gabi in horror and confusion as he quickly released his ravenous grip on her wrist.
“Gabi,” he rasped, “I’m sorry. What the fuck?”
“Never mind that, explain later,” she told him, cradling her wrist against her chest and grimacing. “You have to get out of the sun. Can you climb up on your own?”
Alexander blinked, backing away from her and glancing around the narrow confines of the pit and then up towards where the others waited. He was looking infinitely better than he had just minutes before, but still not the picture of Vampire health.
He looked back to Gabi and nodded. “I think so.” Then he reached for her arm. “Let me heal you a little first. I’m…I’m sorry. Whatever happened.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she groused. “I didn’t bring you back so you can die out here. Get moving. Julius can heal me later.” She turned him and pushed him towards the dangling rope.
He gave her one more searching look, then grabbed hold and nimbly, though not at his usual speed, pulled himself upward.
“Julius, take him straight to your car and get back to the Estate. I’ll follow with Kyle,” she ordered, hoping that Alexander’s plight was obvious enough for him to do as she said.
A strong wave of unhappiness clouded their connection, and she knew he’d accepted the reality of the situation. In the full onslaught of the midday sun, even a great Master Vampire had to know when to concede defeat.
The blanket disappeared, and the sun beat down on her head as Gabi used her one functioning hand to create a clumsy loop in the rope so the Werewolves could pull her up. She heard Julius bark out something to Kyle, and then he was gone.
By the time Gabi made it to the top of the pit, the blood loss was making her light-headed. Combined with the blow to her head and her savaged wrist, she was feeling pretty damn awful. Kyle caught her by the arms and hauled her up onto the sparsely grassed ground, forcing her to sit with her head between her knees while he opened a bottle of water.
“Butch,” he growled to one of the other Werewolves, “there’s an emergency kit under the passenger seat of my van.”
Gabi remembered once doing a patrol with Butch. In fact, Butch had been driving when they chased some rogue Werewolves and his beloved car had been shot full of holes that night. She wondered if he’d forgiven her yet. Kyle passed the water bottle to her, and she lifted her head long enough to take a drink.
“Bloody Hell,” Kyle finally exploded, plonking down next to her, and what else could Gabi add?
She nodded in mute but heartfelt agreement. Butch returned moments later and hunkered down next to them in the grass.
“Give me your arm,” he said to Gabi, already scrabbling through the kit and pulling out swabs, antiseptic and bandages. Gabi raised her head again and eyed him suspiciously.
“He’s okay, Hellcat,” Kyle assured her. “He was a medic in the special forces back in his heyday.”
“Hmph,” Butch snorted, “I’m still in my heyday.”
With the pain in her arm growing worse as the adrenalin wore off, Gabi capitulated without any further argument; she gingerly placed her mangled limb in Butch’s care. She was beginning to shake in reaction. Butch tossed Kyle a bottle of pills before setting to work. Kyle shook several tablets into his palm and handed them to Gabi, who swallowed them along with another long swig from the water bottle.
“Can you even hazard a guess as to who or what would do that to Alex, or why?” Kyle asked her.
“Not the slightest clue to the who or the why,” Gabi admitted, turning to look at Kyle rather than watch Butch’s ministrations. “But I have my suspicions about what. This has a strange feel to it, and I seriously doubt another Vampire would’ve been able to make this pit.” She bit back a hiss of pain as Butch began flushing the wounds.
“Geez, I thought only Werewolves did this kind of damage,” Butch muttered, a tinge of grudging respect in his voice.
Gabi flashed him a withering look. “It certainly wasn’t Werewolves,” Gabi continued to Kyle. “Shifters and humans don’t have the powers required to do this, which leaves only the Magi.”
“Why would the Magi do this?” Kyle sounded outraged.
“Not our Magi, but the Dark ones,” she clarified.
Kyle paused, thinking. “What would killing Alex accomplish?” He wore a puzzled expression. “Or why didn’t they just kill him outright? Why go to this much trouble and leave him here to die?”
Gabi didn’t have the answers. Her brain was fuzzy with pain and blood loss.
“Sounds to me like they’re trying to distract you,” Butch put in as he placed a dressing pad on Gabi’s arm and began to bandage it in place. “Keep you looking one place while they get up to mischief somewhere else.”
“Shit,” Gabi swore as Butch’s words set her intuitive alarm bell ringing in agreement.
CHAPTER 11
Gabi was hungry, sore and cranky as Hell on the trip back to the Estate. She’d barely registered where or how far they’d travelled to find Alexander earlier, she’d been so focused on finding him and in what state. The trap had been set in an abandoned quarry on the south-eastern side of the City, at least thirty miles from the outskirts of the urban border and, at normal car speed, more than half an hour’s drive from the Estate. Julius had covered the distance in a little over ten minutes. But Kyle was driving his van at closer to the speed limit. He didn’t have Julius’s ability to mind-wipe any police who stopped them, and his van didn’t have the Aston Martin’s ability to outpace any police car in the City. The other Werewolves were going back to SMV HQ for a quick debriefing, and Gabi knew that she and Kyle should be doing the same, but first she needed to make sure Alexander was all right with her own eyes.
Her phone rang, and she muttered a curse when Athena’s name flashed on the screen.
Kyle glanced over to see who it was. “Be nice,” he said as Gabi pulled a face. “She was really worried about Alex and pulled all kinds of strings to get that Tracker to find him.”
Gabi took a deep breath. Kyle was right; she had no reason to be irritable with the Magus, but Magi weren’t high on her list of ‘people I like right now’. Even if she was certain the City Magi weren’t directly involved in Alexander’s near demise, she was beginning to think that Magi politics was the root cause of all the current unpleasantness.
“Fine,” she groused, hitting the answer icon. “Athena?” she said, putting as much polite query in her tone as she could muster.
When she ended the call, she’d somehow been talked into letting Athena join them at the Estate. Perhaps it was the catch in the Magus’s tone, the discernible angst when Gabi had described Alexander’s condition. Gabi was fairly sure Athena had been close to tears, a fact that astounded her. Having seen the Magus and Alexander together several times in the past few weeks, she’d assumed the relationship was one of sexual gratification rather than affection or love. She hadn’t thought it possible for anyone, let alone a Vampire, to have gotten that deep under the ice-witch’s skin, but it seemed she’d been wrong.
Athena was waiting for them outside the gates to the Est
ate in her Toyota Prius. Gabi sighed at the woman’s boring predictability. The Prius started up and followed them through the gates. Gabi okayed her with the Werewolf guards on duty, checking to make sure Julius and Alexander had made it back okay. She was assured they were at the mansion. Kyle drove to the front of the main house and cut the van’s engine. Gabi got out rather gingerly, her savaged arm secured to her chest in a makeshift sling, blood beginning to seep through the bandages. The lump on the back of her head was the size of a tennis ball, and Roger Federer was batting that tennis ball against the inside of her skull. Repeatedly. Gods, how had she managed before Julius came along, she wondered. It was a good thing they hadn’t been called to any other emergencies; right now she was about as dangerous as a three-day-old kitten.
Athena gasped when she took in Gabi’s appearance.
“Lord and Lady, what happened?” Athena asked, genuine concern in her voice. Their trip to the Princep’s Court had certainly changed Athena’s attitude; it was as though she’d become more, for lack of a better word, human. Three months ago Gabi would’ve laid a heavy bet against Athena ever losing her pathological dislike of other races.
“Alex,” Gabi said shortly.
Athena looked slightly sick.
“Don’t worry; he’s fine now. We’ll explain inside,” Kyle interjected, one arm behind Gabi’s back as though he expected her to fall over at any moment.
To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) Page 12