Fatal Retribution

by Diana Graves

  In that moment something crashed into the door, again and again. The wood splintered under the force of whatever was hitting it. The women screamed. They let go of me and ran to the far end of the room, hiding themselves in a large standing shower with a glass door. They left me alone, only feet from the nearly shattered door, naked and weak in a tub…bitches. With one last crash the door flew off its hinges and Mato stood where the door once hung.

  “Mato!” I cried, and I didn’t care that I was naked and dripping wet as I held my arms out to him. His hair moved in wind unfelt and the bathroom flooded with warm electric energy. His beautiful face looked pained when he saw me there, and he glared at the women while he wrapped a large black towel around me and lifted me out of the tub. They continued to scream as Mato cradled me easily in his arms and took me out of the room.

  37:

  BEYOND THE BATHROOM was the room I had woken up in moments ago. There was a man lying on the floor in a pool of blood with his neck ripped open, like someone had grabbed his jugular and pulled hard. I looked at Mato. I wasn’t shocked or scared by what he did. I just never thought of Mato as someone who was capable of killing someone. It actually made me feel safer being with him.

  Mato set me on the grey bed and went to the tall white wardrobe.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me. He came back to the bed holding a plain white tank top and brown PJ bottoms. He helped me get dressed quickly. Under different circumstances having his hands touching my naked body might have led to some serious sexual tension, but not at this moment.

  “You look terrible,” he said.

  “I feel terrible.”

  “What have they done to you?”

  “Magic, violence, drugs, more magic and more drugs. What’s going on?” I asked again. I tried to stand on my own but I couldn’t, so Mato picked me up and carried me in his arms.

  “I am taking you out of here,” he said with no strain from carrying me.

  “I’ve guessed that much, but how? Did you come alone?”

  “Officer Ranger is taking care of Admetus and his men.” I must have looked worried because Mato added, “She is not alone.”

  “How did you know I was taken by Admetus or where I was?”

  “I was talking outside the clinic with Ranger when your brothers and a barguest ran out of the clinic and climbed into a van with frantic haste. I pressed them and they told me that your mother’s house had been ransacked and you had been kidnapped. Tristan had delivered the folder to me when he first arrived and I had read some of it. I could guess who took you and where you would be. I convinced them to let me come with them and Ranger insisted that she come too.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived and everything was going to be okay. I hugged my arms around Mato’s neck and let him carry me down hall after hall until we came to large double doors. When Mato maneuvered me into one arm to have a free hand I remember Alcestis.

  “Mato, stop!” I shouted before he touched the door handle. He just looked at me. “How close are we to dawn?” I asked

  “I will be fine if we move quickly,” Mato said. He was still holding me in one arm. It looked effortless.

  “No, Mato. Do you know the story of Admetus?”

  “Only from the documents that were in the folder.”

  “He became immortal by sacrificing his wife to Apollo. She took his place in death so he never died. But, she isn’t there anymore. She escaped with the help of a demon.”

  “And with her not in his place,” Mato began, “he is mortal.”

  “She’s here, and he’ll kill her to get his immortality back. We need to save her, please,” I pleaded.

  Mato looked down at me in his arms and then back at the door. “We will save her if we can.” I hoped we could.

  He opened the door to a large den. Animal skins, mounted antlers, a plethora of stuffed things littered the place like some well lit nightmare. But, the animals weren’t the only dead. At least nine men had been torn to pieces, drained of every last drop of blood or shot. The priest that had kept Raphael away was huddled in the corner, scared shitless. Hell, I would be too if I were one of the bad guys. It looked like we were arriving at the near end of a very long and bloody fight.

  Damon and Ranger were playing in the far left corner of the room. Damon was fighting the warlock that had kidnapped me. His body was still human-shaped blackness, but he had the head of a great black bear. Ranger seemed to be having fun. Two large men were kneeling before her with their hands behind their heads. She had a gun in either hand pointed at their heads.

  Tristan had his wand out and pointed at a man kneeling before him, begging for his life. He brought the man down with a single word that I didn’t recognize. Tristan didn’t kill the man. He put him to sleep.

  “Sister!” Michael shouted with a smile.

  I hadn’t seen him since his turn back in Darkness near a week ago, and I felt guilty for it. The vampire, Michael O’Brian, looked the same for the most part. His skin was pale with a well fed rosy quality to it. He looked like Nil with his now messy hair. I counted at least three people that were completely drained of their blood and Michael was calmly sitting cross-legged in a chair with blood on his mouth, as happy as a new pup. He laughed when one of the men that Ranger had in her sights made a move and she blew his head off, painting the wall thick with chunky brain matter and skull fragments. Tristan was right. Michael’s personality had changed a great deal.

  Ranger brought her second gun to the other man, “Please, make a move. I want you to.” Her voice was almost seductive. The man cowering at her feet had short brunette hair and a small beard. He looked like he was a tough guy.

  Damon finally managed to get a hold of the warlock. He picked him up and tore into the man’s stomach, ignoring all kicks and screams. Blood and thicker things purred down from his ravaged stomach filling Damon’s mouth, overflowing and running down his body, a candy apple red made neon bright against Damon’s darkness. When the man stopped screaming and lay motionless in his hands Damon threw him away like a chicken bone picked clean.

  “Cold?” Michael chuckled at me.

  I followed his eyes down to my chest. Mato had only given me a white tank top and jammy bottoms, not a bra. My wet hair had soaked through the tank, making it embarrassingly transparent. I covered myself and gave him the look he deserved, so did Mato. Though, his look was a tad more impressive. Michael didn’t so much as flinch. I would have if he looked at me that way. Being a vampire had either made Michael braver or dumber, whichever.

  Tristan leaped over a coffee table that was made to look like a large oblong tree stump and crushed me in a breath taking hug.

  “Raina!” he shouted.

  He looked down at me while still holding me. Ranger came forward after Damon assured her that the brunette wasn’t going anywhere under his watch.

  “You’re weak,” Ranger said. I wonder what gave it away. Was it that I couldn’t stand without Mato taking on most of my weight, or the totally exhausted face I was sporting?

  “Drink this.” She handed me what looked like a simple bottle of water that had been attached to the belt at her hip.

  “What is it,” I asked.

  “An energy drink. It’s my own recipe, and it’s sort of strong.”

  I drank down half the bottle and found it warm and bitter sweet. “How long will it take before I feel more awake?”

  “You won’t just be awake, Raina. You’ll be bright eyed and bushy tailed,” she said. “It won’t take long,” she added.

  “Where’s Alcestis?” I asked no one in particular.

  “You mean the woman in the wedding dress? Admetus took her through that door just as we rushed in,” Tristan said, pointing at a metal door to the left of a large book shelf. There was a touch screen device on it.

  The water was starting to kick in and I looked around the room, seeing it now with more focus. There were a dozen bodies on the fl
oor. Most were dead, but a couple was simply sleeping. The priest was babbling incoherencies.

  “Somebody shut him up!” Damon demanded.

  Mato looked at Tristan. “Shall I do it or you?” he asked.

  Tristan’s shoulders slumped a bit, but he walked to the priest, wand raised. He would put him to sleep like the others he took care of. He would do it because if he left it to anyone else in the room they’d simply kill him and be done with it.

  “No, please. If I stop he’ll come, he’ll come!” shouted the priest.

  Tristan looked back at Damon. “What is he talking about?”

  Damon looked at me as if he were seeing me there for the first time and something in his posture told me he was worried. Did I really look that bad?

  “He’s talking about Raphael, Alcestis’s husband,” I said.

  “He’s a demon!” shouted the priest.

  “Do we want him here?” Tristan asked Damon, but he was too busy looking at me.

  I looked at Tristan. “Yes, we want him. He loves Alcestis, and he’ll help us keep her alive so we can kill Admetus,” I said.

  “No!” pleaded the priest, “You can’t trust a demon!”

  Tristan ignored the man. He raised his wand and spoke the incantation, and the priest fell over onto his side, sleeping.

  Ranger went back to the brunette, who was hugging the ground at Damon’s feet. “Open the door little man,” she ordered. Suddenly Michael was by her side, glaring down at the brunette. I hadn’t seen him move. He simply appeared there. It was going to take me a while to get used to Michael the vampire. It looked odd. A little guy like Michael helping a bad-ass police woman with two huge hand guns interrogate a muscle bound bad guy.

  “There’s a shit load more guys just like us on the other side of that door,” warned the man.

  Michael laughed a tickling boyish laugh, and the bad guy flinched. “If they’re just like you we’ll have no problems. We got through you guys fast enough.” Michael looked over us, one by one. “Not even a scratch.” He laughed again. Was he not counting me? I was pretty banged up.

  I walked over to Damon. He was still looking at me like I was a small child caught in the middle of a wild fire. I patted his upper arm. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Why did this man capture you?” he asked.

  “Because I know the truth about him, or at least enough to make me a threat. He was going to torture me to get the names of everyone I might have shared information about him with. He was going to saw me in half…long ways,” I said the last part quietly. “I want to make sure he dies tonight. I want to see it. I want to feel his pulse leave his neck. I won’t feel safe otherwise.”

  I never thought I would ever be capable of cold blood murder, but when I said those words my pulse sped, my body began to tremble with anger and I knew I was going to kill Admetus tonight or die trying.

  “I understand,” was all he said. He turned his attention back on the brunette and the locked door. “How do we open the door?” Damon asked him.

  But that man was looking past Damon. “Holey shit. What’s that?”

  We followed his eyes to a dark mass of black smoke that was building in the corner of the room. I could smell brimstone.

  “What the hell is that?” shouted Tristan.

  Mato was suddenly standing next to me as still as death. We were all looking up at the growing smoke that was now forming the shape of a great dragon. The bag guy was screaming. Apparently demons are really scary. Like, I hadn’t noticed. I felt safer standing between Damon and Mato.

  I looked at Michael expecting to see fear, but he looked amused and slightly eager. Becoming a vampire has definitely made him stupid. Raphael might help us now, but he was still a demon. Under any other circumstance he’d devourer our living souls or torment our lives. That’s what demons do. That’s how they get their sick jollies. The fact that Michael wasn’t scared of a demon meant his life expectancy had just plummeted. Vampire or no, you don’t fuck with demons.

  Raphael’s form was human, if you can call it that. His skin was grey, and his eyes were the royal blue I remembered them to be. With him, he brought the stench of the underworld. His muscles worked under his black leather as he walked toward us. His hair, the color of the setting sun, was pulled back leaving inhumanly high cheek bones. His light moved with him, a purple hue.

  “Where is she!” he shouted at us.

  “Raphael!” I shouted back over the noise that wasn’t there but was still hurting my ears. It was like there was some kind of resonating hum that came from him, too faint for even vampire hearing, but it was there nonetheless.

  “Witch?” he questioned.

  He brought his full gaze upon me. Raphael had to be at least seven feet tall. He looked down at me and I felt every inch of him looming over me. Pat me on the back, I didn’t shit myself!

  “Admetus took her behind that door,” I said, pointing to the door in question. “We are all trying to save her and kill him, but this man,” and I pointed to the brunette, “won’t tell us how to get through the door.” I spared a thought for using mind control of John, but if I could keep my secret a little longer, why not?

  Raphael looked at the man. “You!” he said in his booming voice. We all walked backward, leaving the man standing alone by the door. “Tell me how to open the door!”

  “You, you need the code for the computer to start the sequence, an eye scan, voice recognition and thumb print—I can do it,” he cried.

  “Do it then!” said Raphael.

  The man just nodded and got to doing as he was told and we stood back and watched. He stopped every few seconds to shake his tensed limbs and continue the sequence. I almost felt bad for him, almost.

  “It’s done-done, but-you can’t go in.” He flinched as he said the last part.

  “Why!” Raphael shouted in his strange voice that I knew would haunt my dreams.

  His hands were in great leather clad fists the size of a human head. He bared his teeth, razor sharp and meant for chewing tougher things than birthday cakes. The brunette actually pissed himself. He whimpered and huddled in a ball on the floor. He tried to answer Raphael, but incoherent babble came out instead of words. He was broken. Raphael lifted his hands to hit him. One hit might kill the man. The demon was just that big and that strong. He would kill him and we’d watch. Not that we weren’t planning on killing him anyway. Maybe we were, but we still needed him.

  “Raphael!” I interrupted him before he could hit him.

  “What?” he spat. He turned all that anger toward me and I flinched under his gaze. Ah, shucks. I thought I was going to play the bad ass tonight. Damn.

  Damon came up in front of me, shielding me from the demon. “She means nothing by her rudeness. I apologize—”

  I had to interrupt Damon. I never let people speak for me. It was a rule. “I do mean something by it. Raphael, let me talk to the man. You’re frightening him too much for him to function.” Raphael let out a heavy stinking sigh of black smoke from his nostrils. What did Alcestis see in him?

  “Fine, speak with him.” He moved aside, standing too close for comfort. But, how far away is comfortable when a demon is in the room?

  “Hey,” I said lightly. I sounded downright motherly as I bent over the big bad guy. Well, I guess he wasn’t the biggest bad guy in the room. Mato was a powerful vampire, Tristan a skilled wizard, Damon a shape shifter, Ranger was a kick-ass cop and Raphael was a freaking demon. Hell, even Michael was scarier than this guy.

  “Go away!” he managed to yell at me.

  He was clawing at his cheeks with his eyes shut tight. I blinked slowly. My heart was pounding with the diversity of monsters in this room, and I was drained as hell. Dizziness, nausea and a killer headache pounded against a thin barrier. They threatened to pour over that barrier with every movement, every light that caught the eyes. I needed to rest.

  “Please, tell me your name?” I asked.

  He opened his eyes. He looked su
rprised by that question. What had he thought I was going to do, cut off each of his fingers until he told me what I wanted to know?

  “John,” he said.

  “John, I promise none of those men will touch you if you tell us everything you know about what’s on the other side of that door, about your boss, Admetus.”

  “Anax?” he questioned. Perhaps he only went by that name these days. I nodded and he seemed to think about it, his eyes moving over the room with a wild quickness. He nodded his head with too much enthusiasm.

  “I walk right out. Go home to my wife and kids, promise me. Make them promise me too,” he cried. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

  The part about his wife and kids took me back a bit. I guess it never occurred to me that the bad guys were anything other than hired thugs. I bet he even went to church, no doubt a devoted Christian, PTA member even.

  I nodded and turned to the others. I had to make the bargain worded just right. I didn’t know about barguests and humans, but wizards, vampires and demons take promises extremely serious. If they can find some kind of loop hole in my bargain they’ll use it.

  “Do you all promise to let John walk out of this building unharmed and to abandon now and forever any and all attempts of revenge on John and those he loves if he helps us to my satisfaction?”

  “What a solid contract little girl,” Raphael commented.

  “I see no way to harm him if we agree,” Mato said.

  “Do you agree?” I asked.

  Michael said, “Okay.” So did Tristan. Mato said he agreed with visible dislike.

  Raphael waved a large clawed hand in front of his face. “I don’t give a shit about this mortal or his loved ones. I want Alcestis.”

  “Do you agree?” I asked again. My voice sounded tired, annoyed.

  “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.

  I looked at Damon and Ranger and they shrugged like they could care less about him as well.

  “Say it.”