by Mindy Klasky
Yeah, right.
I let my fingertips stray to the incision that Richardson had made on my neck. The wound had already stopped bleeding. It was going to hurt like hell when I ripped it open again. It was that, though, or gnawing away at my own wrist. Neither was going to be any fun. But this wasn’t exactly the time to worry about a little pain.
I went back to pacing. Three steps. Turn. Three steps. Turn. With every circuit of the cell, I replayed my plan, reviewing it ten times, twenty times, a hundred. Once, I adjusted a hold, realizing that I’d do better if I disabled Richardson’s leg in my first pass, if I kept him from chasing me as soon as I fought my way to the stairs. Over and over, I reminded myself that there was no tapping out this time. No easy surrender.
Three steps. Turn. Three steps. Turn.
At last, I heard the deadbolt slide on the door at the top of the stairs. I broke my cadence, scurrying to the back of the cage. I bit my lower lip, bracing myself for pain. I folded the fingers of my right hand into a claw, ready to rake my throat, to open the small wound, to release enough blood that Richardson would have to come investigate.
But something was wrong. The split-second silhouette at the top of the stairs didn’t reveal one body, didn’t show just Richardson. I had one instant to panic, to realize that my perfect plan was out the window. I barely remembered to close my eyes before the overhead light flashed on. I blinked hard, once, twice, three times, willing my eyes to adjust after so many hours of absolute darkness.
Richardson was accompanied by two vampires—hired muscle with the bodies of young Marines and blank expressions that told me they weren’t going to listen to any human girl beg for mercy. The mercenaries followed along behind Richardson, their fangs bared, their fingers folded around sharpened wooden stakes.
But there were more than three vampires in my basement purgatory. There were four, and a human man besides.
James Morton marched down the stairs in front of one vampire guard. Chris Gardner walked in front of the other.
CHAPTER 16
TIME STOPPED.
The last remnants of my brilliant plan evaporated like a cup of water poured into the Sahara Desert under a blazing midday sun. I had spent the past however-many hours convincing myself that I could take on the most powerful vampire I’d ever met, possibly the most powerful vampire in North America. Now, I was facing that enemy and two more.
At least, in theory, I had gained a pair of allies.
A pair of allies, who might have provided valuable assistance, if they weren’t already restrained and under the complete control of our vampire enemies.
James’s chest was bare, and his arms were pulled sharply behind his back. It didn’t take me long to piece together an explanation—Richardson and his men had somehow gotten the drop on James, surprising him enough to strip off his shirt, to remove the cloth that would have given him some limited protection against the silver chain that now looped around his wrists. The links followed the contours of his hands as if they’d been molded to him.
I could smell his burning flesh.
Purposefully shoving down my horror at James’s torture, I turned my attention to Chris. He was clearly Enfolded—his head hung heavy on his neck, and his shoulders slumped as he shuffled closer to my cage. His hands were limp at his side, as if he’d never used them for anything more active than typing at a keyboard.
Which, come to think of it, was probably the case.
Chris’s guard hurried him along, shoving him hard between the shoulder blades. Chris caught himself against the bars of the cage, folding his fingers around the metal just in time to keep from collapsing to the floor. All of the vampires recoiled at his action, as if the mere thought of grabbing onto silver was repugnant to them. Chris leaned against the cage like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He seemed beyond hearing, beyond seeing. He was reduced to a beast, oblivious to everything around him.
I couldn’t imagine what had brought James and Chris together. For that matter, I couldn’t begin to figure out how they’d found me. Sanctums were inviolate—that was the whole point of having a super-secret vampire lair. How could James and Chris have possibly tracked me here?
Their presence did nothing to change an essential truth: our odds were terrible. Neither James nor Chris was in any position to help me fight off Richardson and his goons. And now, I’d lost the opportunity to draw my own blood, to lure my captor into my silver cage.
If I did nothing, though, I would certainly die. Richardson could just climb to the top of the basement stairs and lock the door for a few days, until Chris and I succumbed to weakling human thirst. I didn’t want to think about what James would do after that.
Well, no time like the present.
I took a step back, remembering to act Enfolded. I had to hope James would figure things out quickly enough to help me.
“What —” I started to ask and then stopped, as if the word had frozen in my throat.
Richardson’s smile was oily. “Good girl, Sarah. Still no questions.”
Good girl. Like I was his pet dog.
Some dogs, though, shouldn’t be kept penned all day. Cages made them mean. I glanced at James, hoping that he could hear past the pain in his wrists, hoping that he could concentrate enough to help me. I was rewarded by his steady blue gaze, by the slightest of nods. He understood the game I was playing.
He started swearing, and he rounded on Richardson, pulling the silver chain taut between himself and his gloved guard. “You’ve kept her Enfolded the entire time?”
“What else would I do with a feeder bitch?”
“She’s not your Source,” James said, biting off each word.
“And that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve tasted her, once. If I want to feed from her now, there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Not you, or your impotent court of law. And certainly not the private club you call the Clans of the Eastern Empire.” As Richardson spoke, he pulled on leather gloves. He took his time opening the cage’s silver lock, turning the key with exquisite precision. He glided through the doorway as if he were stepping onto a dance floor.
Every cell of my body told me to run, to shove past him, to try for the stairs.
Every cell of my body, though, had mastered a different discipline, down in the Old Library. I knew how to wait until the moment was mine, until I had a fighting chance.
Richardson raised one hand and crooked a finger at me. “Come, Sarah.”
Again, with the dog commands.
Hating that I had to look so weak, I closed the distance between us with my version of Enfolded sloth, modeling my movements after Chris’s utter lassitude. I had to put Richardson at his ease, had to make him believe that I would do whatever he commanded. I could only win if he had that comfort, that security.
When I stood beside him, he turned his attention to the minion holding James’s chain. “Bring him closer. He needs to learn what happens when he leaves his playthings lying around.”
James snarled and reared back from the cage. His tormentor, though, was clearly experienced with recalcitrant prisoners; he delivered a brutal jab to James’s back, to the right kidney of a breathing human man.
And, apparently, to a vampire as well. James staggered forward, his face contorting from the pain of the blow. That was nothing, though, compared to the rigid agony that shot through his body as his chest made contact with the silver bars of my cage. The guard pushed hard from behind, gripping James’s hair and forcing his face around so that he had no choice but to watch Richardson. Red welts had already risen on James’s chest, and the stench of burning flesh deepened as the guard held him in place.
I felt Richardson’s voice in my bones as he taunted James. “At first,” he said, curling his gloved fingers around my nape, “I thought that I would trade this feeder for Schmidt. But now I can use her to gain so much more. James, you won’t be much use to your court once the human authorities discover you’ve slaughtered an innocent girl. You’ll have no choice but to fl
ee the human’s justice system, to leave behind your precious Eastern Empire. You’ll have to look elsewhere for protection. You’ll have to look to me. But you know all about that, don’t you, James? About submitting to my will?”
James’s voice crackled like a glacier calving into the sea. “That has nothing to do with these humans, Richardson. Leave them Enfolded if you have to, but let them go. You and I can settle the rest of this without them.”
“Settle?” He actually threw back his head and laughed, like some villain from a nineteenth-century melodrama. The sound scraped across my nerves and I shuddered involuntarily, hoping against hope that Enfolded humans still shivered at the sound of pure, unadulterated evil.
James’s quick eyes took in my movement, but he kept his words directed at Richardson. “You want me back. I’m here. And this time, I come to you willingly. Just let the humans go.”
For answer, Richardson squeezed his fingers together, yanking my head to his shoulder. He bent over me, darting his tongue against my previous wound, testing, probing. I felt his fangs spring.
I had a heartbeat to act.
“Now!” I shouted.
The room exploded. My exclamation made Richardson leap back in surprise, opening a gap between our bodies. He lost his grip on my neck, but he immediately clenched his fingers around my wrist, the leather of his gloves scraping hard across my scabs and bruises. I knew how to roll out of that grip, though. I knew how to turn, to use my forearm’s ability to rotate as I ducked to my knees, as I harnessed the additional flex in the joint of my shoulder. That was the move that James had taught me, the one where I had broken my arm when I’d let myself get surprised.
I wasn’t the surprised one this time.
Richardson compensated for my shifted position a fraction too late. I broke completely free from his grasp and danced deeper into the cell. I was barely aware that James was bucking off his own guard, raising his arms as high as he could behind himself, threatening the vampire’s unprotected face with the flailing ends of his silver chain.
And somehow, miraculously, Chris was moving as well.
At my shout, he had leaped forward, suddenly full of energy, as if he had never drunk the vampires’ poisonous cinnamon cocktail. He hardened his fingers into rigid rods as he whirled around to attack his own guard. That vampire had let himself relax too completely; he had trusted too much to the power of Enfolding. His fangs descended with a sickening pop, but he never had a chance to use them. Chris jammed his fingers into the vampire’s eyes, using his momentum to send the creature crashing, blinded and howling, into the silver bars.
Chris used his freedom to dart between James and the other guard, slashing out with his immune human fingers to strip off the silver chain. James roared as his hands came free; his fangs descended, and he spun to attack the vampire who had pressed him so mercilessly against the tarnished bars. By that time, Chris’s first victim was stumbling back to his feet, tears streaming freely onto his burned cheeks as he struggled for revenge against the human who had broken his Enfolding.
Broken his Enfolding. It made no sense. There was no way for Chris to be free, to be fighting.
But I had no time to consider how that had happened. Richardson had recovered from my initial attack. He’d stripped off his gloves, and now he was bearing down on me like an avalanche.
My body responded with the reflexive routine of training. I kicked the side of his knee, putting all of my weight behind the blow. He clutched at my foot as he fell, upsetting my balance, and I joined him on the floor—pretty much as expected.
Well, not completely. Richardson’s basement was pitifully short on padded blue mats. My breath exploded out of me as I hit the hard stone. Even as my lungs labored to expand, fought to give me the oxygen I desperately needed, my brain raced on. I scrambled for Richardson’s hand as he grappled for my right arm. I folded my fingers around his wrist, bent back with the precision James had taught me.
I finally succeeded in sucking in a single giant breath, a gasp that sounded like a sob. I used the air to lend strength to my wristlock, applying all of the torque that I could harness.
But it simply wasn’t enough. Richardson was stronger than I was. He was stronger than James. He was able to resist more than I could ever deliver. He howled as he ripped his arm free from my ineffectual grasp.
Even as my mind screamed for me to regroup, even as I calculated the angle for an armlock, for some faint chance to rip apart his elbow, I felt another body beside me. Somehow, in the chaos of our fight, Chris had scrambled into the cage. I spared him a fraction of a glance, realized that he’d left James to fight off both of the vampire henchmen, a battle that could not possibly last for long.
“Go,” I panted at Chris. “Help James.”
Chris shook his head, though. He reached for my wrist, settled his hand over my hematite bracelet. “Menesai,” he said.
The room froze.
I moved between heartbeats. I had time to look at Chris, to see his hand on my wrist, to see confidence on his face. I had time to glance at James, to see the brutal crimson burns across his pale, pale flesh, the welts that he ignored as he launched himself at the guard who had abused him. I had time to see both vampire mercenaries, the hired guns who were just starting to realize that they might be in far deeper than they’d planned. And I had time to look at Richardson, to measure his shock, his bare astonishment as his lips moved like frozen crude oil, repeating the word that Chris had said.
Menesai.
My wrist vibrated, as if someone had set a tuning fork against my hematite band. Another note jangled from my finger, emanating from my coral ring. The tones traveled up my arm to my spine, down my back, through my legs and my feet.
Each wave sharpened my vision. Each ripple honed my hearing. I was moving faster than I ever had before. Richardson began the ponderous motion of reaching for me, of clutching at my arm. It was child’s play for my foot to rise to meet him. I easily forced him back, down, onto the hard stone floor, before he had a chance to react. I planted my toes in his armpit, locked his arm into place, twisted hard, with a vital strength that flowed through my body like molten sand.
The tang of lemon exploded across the back of my mouth.
Within a minute, the three rogue vampires were locked inside the silver cage. Richardson writhed on the floor, cradling his broken arm as he shouted imprecations. Chris’s guard pressed the heels of his palms against his eye sockets, moaning between harsh sobs. James’s tormentor was garroted by the silver chain, the burning links carving deep into his throat, but neither of his colleagues was in any shape to free him. Utterly without pity, I closed the silver lock on the cage, tugging twice to make sure it was secure before I stepped away.
My perfect vision faded; my flawless hearing fled. The world around me sped up, rushed to meet my pace.
I could make out my own ragged breathing now, and Chris’s. My nostrils flared at the stench of charred meat. I looked down at my blouse, realizing that the wound on my throat had reopened, that my blood soaked through the fabric on my shoulder, half-way down the sleeve. Amy job as a Court Clerk was turning out to be hell on my wardrobe.
At least I’d received some decent jewelry in the deal.
I stared down at my hematite band. I remembered now.
I remembered James giving me the bracelet and the ring. I remembered him lifting them out of a mahogany box, folding back an ocean of snowy white linen. He had interviewed me, the very first night that I arrived at the courthouse; he had offered me a glass of water. I had swallowed politely, not even noticing the hint of cinnamon at the back of my throat. He had reached out a finger, touched the center of my forehead, whispered, “Be mine.”
Now, I could remember James asking me questions, conducting an interview that I had completely forgotten upon his command. He had taken other things out of that mysterious box—a bottle of blood-red ink, a golden pen, a scrap of parchment. He’d ordered me to write my name, and I had complied, only
to find that I’d spelled out something in ancient hieroglyphics. He’d barked out another command, in a language I’d never heard before, and I had scratched out a string of Greek letters.
The memories were crystal clear now, as if the events had only happened the night before. I’d caught glimpses, shadows, but whatever James had done to make me forget had basically held fast—until Chris spoke his magic word.
I whirled to face James. “You did Enfold me!”
He winced—either at the raw emotion in my voice or at the pain of his blistering wounds. “Once,” he said.
“But how— “
He inclined his head toward our three prisoners. “Not here, Sarah. Not now.”
“You owe me the truth!”
He hung his head in apparent acquiescence before giving Chris an exhausted glance. “I need to call Empire security. Will you tell her?”
I wheeled on Chris as well. “What the hell is going on here? All of a sudden you two are best friends?”
Chris sighed and shook his head, even as James said, “Hardly.”
Richardson’s oaths escalated to wordless snarls inside the cage, flooding my veins with my body’s final dose of adrenaline. Chris glanced at the silver key in my hand, at the tarnished bars, as if he feared they would not hold. “Come upstairs, Sarah. James can make his call, and I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”
I started to protest by reflex. But James was already turning toward the stairs, already certain how I would ultimately respond. With his back toward me, I couldn’t see the horrible burns on his chest, but I knew they must be painful; I could see it in the stiffness of every step he took.
Chris stepped closer to me, his caramel eyes pleading. “Please, Sarah,” he said.
I grumbled, but I climbed the stairs. Chris closed the door behind us, and I nodded as he shot the deadbolt home. He guided me into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”