Thirteen drawled, “A fellow purist, eh?”
“Some things are more sacred than money,” the huge albino whispered with a lunatic gleam in his eye, and Thirteen couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him.
“You see that? We’re in agreement again. This is looking quite positive.”
The albino gazed at him in silence for a long, long time, while the voice of the city at night murmured in the cool air around them.
“It’s a very simple equation,” Thirteen said reasonably, feeling the other man’s animosity like an iceberg between them, frozen and hard, the vast bulk of it invisible but far larger and more dangerous than what was out in the open. “I have something you need, and you have something I need. And…” he spread his hands open as if presenting evidence, “you already know you can trust me.”
“And how do I know that?” came the instant, ferocious reply.
Thirteen sat back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. “If you couldn’t, it would be the police who’d be sitting here talking to you right now regarding the matter of one strangled goat.”
The albino spat, “I don’t know anything about a goat!”
Thirteen smiled indulgently. “Of course you don’t. And believe me, I don’t judge. But the police are a little less open-minded than I am, which I happen to know because I have quite a few friends in law enforcement. They might like to search your room for any, oh I don’t know, animal blood or hair, just in case.”
Deadly silence. A black, smoldering glower. Then, finally, the albino’s mouth quirked into an odd, pinched sneer of respect, and he nodded.
Thirteen’s smile grew wider. Then he leaned forward and began to outline his plan.
As the blade sliced through the tender flesh of her left forearm, Ember abandoned all the courage she’d managed to muster on the cab ride to the bookstore, and screamed.
“Well,” said Caesar, her screams rising to an ear-splitting pitch as he dug deeper, “she’s not much to look at, but she’s got a pair of lungs on her to rival Pavarotti’s, doesn’t she boys?”
Chuckles from the four others with him, two of whom held her immobile against her father’s scarred old desk in the back room of the bookstore while Caesar investigated her arm with the cold, serrated tip of his knife.
He’d smelled metal the instant she’d walked through the door, and, desperate to offer him an explanation that would keep them from locating what was hidden beneath her bulky sweater and coat, she’d shoved up the sleeve of the sweater to reveal her scarred, metal-filled arm.
Had she known it would induce this little game of Operation, she might have tried something else.
Agony throbbed through every cell in her body. The room spun; color, sound, and scent were magnified a thousandfold, hallucinogenic in their pulsating violence.
“Well done, Nico. You’re officially off my shit list,” Caesar said to one of the tall, black-haired males standing off to the side who was watching the scene with smug pride. He clutched a bandaged hand to his chest, but when he heard those words, he dropped his hand to his side, broke into a huge, exultant smile, and stood straighter.
“Please,” sobbed Marguerite. Strapped to a chair several feet away with plastic zip ties cutting into her wrists and ankles, she was barely able to hold her head upright.
Ember had nearly gagged in horror when she’d first spied her stepmother. Blood saturated the bodice of her ripped black dress, dripped into a hideously gleaming red pool beneath the chair with an intermittent, sinister splash. Through the rips in the fabric, her breasts and abdomen showed pale against the lurid sheen of crimson. A series of oozing, irregular wounds gave awful testament to what had occurred inside this room before Ember arrived.
“Please,” Marguerite gasped again, her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to keep them open. Her dark hair had come undone from her bun, and hung around her shoulders in a wild, gray-streaked mane. “Please stop. Please let us go.”
“Oh—absolutely! All you had to do was say the magic word!”
The others laughed, while Caesar, seeming energized by the agony, by all the blood, turned away from Ember to gaze in amused affection at the blood-splattered, semi-conscious Marguerite.
Suddenly he went rigid, and sniffed the air like a hound scenting a fox. Then he whirled back around and stared at Ember with eyes very wide and black.
Handsome as the devil, tall and well-made and obviously insane, he cocked his head and let his gaze travel up and down her body while she sat there in an agonized haze, blood gushing from the gaping slices in her arm. His lips parted and a look of erotic, exultant fervor shone from his eyes. He whispered, “Oh my. What a wonderful, unexpected surprise you are, my plain little rabbit. You’re not only a pair of big lungs, now, are you? No, you’re something much more valuable than that.”
Then he moistened his lips and, as Ember tried to recoil in absolute terror and failed because of the iron clamps of his men’s hands around her biceps, wrists, and the back of her neck, Caesar leaned close to her mangled arm and inhaled, slowly and deeply.
After a moment of weighted silence, he straightened, threw back his head, and laughed.
He laughed, and laughed, and laughed—uproariously, with total abandon—while his men exchanged glances, Marguerite sobbed, and Ember’s heart shrank to the size of a peanut inside her chest.
“Holy Horus,” he gasped between hoots, “I swear I have the best fucking luck!”
“Er, sire?” one of the other men asked uncertainly.
Caesar, swiping happy tears from his eyes, waved a hand, indicating he couldn’t yet respond because he was too racked with laughter. As he took a slow turn around the room clutching his stomach, the maniacal laughter eventually faded to a series of long, blissful sighs punctuated by disbelieving chuckles. He dragged another chair across the room and set it right next to Marguerite, sat down in it and began idly playing with her hair while he stared, smiling, at Ember.
He said something to his men in a language Ember didn’t recognize, though it might have been Latin. Whatever it was, his men gasped and shared meaningful glances with one another. They looked back at her with something new in her eyes. Then the men holding her released her arms and pushed her back into her chair.
Ember moaned in pain and clamped her right hand over the throbbing wound in her left forearm, trying to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding.
But the bleeding was bad. Blood spurted between her fingers in a pulsating stream. It looked like an artery had been severed.
“Do you have a first aid kit, little rabbit?” Caesar suddenly appeared concerned, with a furrow between his brows, the laughter vanished as he stared at her arm.
“Fuck you,” Ember hissed, almost unable to answer through the pain.
“I’ll take that as a no. But we can’t have you bleeding out on us quite yet.”
He pursed his lips, twirling a lock of Marguerite’s long hair between his fingers while she leaned as far away from him as she could, sagging sideways over the arm of her chair, sobbing quietly.
Then Caesar brightened, leapt to his feet, and approached Ember with a wicked gleam in his eye. “You know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to try. And you, little rabbit, have just given me the perfect opportunity!”
Ember’s hands shook uncontrollably. The smell of blood was overpowering, sharp and penny bright in the air. Her stomach heaved and she tasted the sour bite of bile in the back of her throat. She stared at the advancing Caesar, so like Christian in his effortless grace and beauty, his perfect skin and teeth and hair, and fought desperately to maintain a semblance of control. She needed to keep her wits about her, because as soon as she could get him away from Marguerite, this bastard was toast.
Trying to rise, she lurched forward in the chair, but hands clamped around her shoulders and roughly shoved her back. She gasped as a bolt of agony seared a path up her left arm and straight down her spine. The room narrowed to a small circle of receding li
ght, as if viewed from the end of a very long tunnel.
Then Caesar slapped her hard across the face.
Her head rocked back; all the bones in her neck popped. Reeling, she cried out and jerked upright in shock.
“That’s better,” said Caesar as she straightened. He sounded satisfied. He leaned down, placed his hands on his thighs and smiled at her. Then he wagged a finger in her face, tutting like a mother scolding an errant child. “No passing out on me. I need you lucid. We haven’t even gotten to the good bit yet.”
He straightened and gestured to his men, and she was suddenly over the table again, her chest and cheek pressed flat against the wood. One hard, large hand held her head immobile when she struggled to free her arms, similarly pinned. Caesar picked up his knife from the corner of the desk, stroked a finger up its edge and said, “Stop struggling or stepmommy loses an ear.”
Panting in panic, Ember fell still. She cut her gaze to Marguerite, who seemed to be praying. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight and her lips were moving rapidly with silent words.
Caesar came and stood over Ember. He gently turned her left palm up, revealing the mangled mess of the inside of her forearm. He put the knife between his teeth, slowly rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt to reveal a tanned, muscular forearm, and held it out directly above Ember’s own arm. Then he took the knife from between his teeth and in one hard, slashing motion, cut deep into his own skin, straight across the vein.
Blood sprayed from the wound. Horror dried her tongue to jerky in her mouth.
No one else in the room seemed particularly surprised by this turn of events, however. Caesar’s men held her down while he calmly held his outstretched arm over hers and let the torrent of blood rain down over her wounds.
“Oh my,” he breathed, his voice trembling with excitement. “Look at all that blood.”
With her head on the desk, Ember was eye level with Caesar’s crotch. Beneath his blood-spattered pants, she saw him grow instantly hard. She squeezed her eyes shut in disgust.
But then…burning.
Itching, like a thousand biting fire ants nibbling on her skin. A wave of heat enveloped her body, and she was drenched in sudden sweat. It became very hard to breathe; the earlier nausea returned with a vengeance. She thought she would throw up.
“Olé!” cried Caesar, satisfied. “I had a feeling that would work!”
Ember looked at her arm, and knew her eyes weren’t working properly. She must be hallucinating from the pain.
Because, as she watched, the gaping, serrated cuts that sliced through the skin and muscle of her arm were swiftly, silently knitting together.
The man holding her head murmured an awed, “Whoa.”
Frozen in horrified astonishment, unable to think or move or breathe, Ember glanced at Caesar. He held up his arm, and there was nothing there except a smear of blood. The vicious cut he’d given himself had entirely healed in the space of a few seconds.
When she looked again at his face, he winked.
Then he reached out and gently stroked a finger up and down her arm, smearing his blood into all the healing wounds on her own skin, getting it into every nook and cranny, deep down into the muscle next to the bone where he’d dug out one of the thin metal plates. She watched his progress with disbelieving eyes, watched as the flesh smoothed itself out and grew together.
It hurt but it didn’t, still burning, still itching, and Ember couldn’t look away.
Caesar leaned down near her ear. “Are you religious, September? Myself, I used to think it all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo jabberwocky, but I have to admit my thoughts are now somewhat…in flux about the matter. I mean, immortality has really changed my perception about the state of life on this planet.”
She finally tore her gaze away from her arm to stare into his eyes. Black and wild, they burned with devout fire.
He said, “Imagine a world without suffering. A world without sickness, or poverty, or war. A world without death. It’s possible, you know. I am going to make it possible.”
“By murdering the innocent?” Her voice was hoarse, shaking with fury. “Like those people at the Vatican—”
“That was just to get your attention,” he scoffed, straightening to gaze imperiously down at her. “Unfortunately you humans don’t respond to anything but a show of power, so…I gave you one.” He smiled, a chilling, rabid smile that made her skin crawl. “I’m afraid more displays of power will be necessary before your species is brought to heel.”
He motioned to her arm. Ember followed the direction of his hand and gasped when she saw all her wounds were healed. The only thing left were streaks of blood, glistening red in the overhead fluorescents.
Her arm was whole. Unblemished. Perfect.
Tentatively, she flexed her hand open; there was no pain, not even the old stiffness. She stared down at it in total disbelief.
“You’re welcome,” said Caesar, and all his men laughed. He motioned for them to release her and she sagged back into the chair, stunned.
Caesar came and stood over her again, and now all his lightness and teasing were gone, all the chipper, chilling playfulness vanished. He was utterly serious, the light shining blue off his black hair, his face wiped clean of emotion. Even his black eyes had gone flat; this seemed more ominous than any of his other moods.
“It’s been lovely getting to know you, little rabbit,” he said coldly. “But I’m afraid playtime is over. Tell me how to contact your boyfriend or I’ll cut off stepmommy’s head. And I’m pretty sure that’s not something that can be healed with a few drops of my blood.”
From behind him, Marguerite let out a low, anguished moan. Ember hesitated, and Caesar added, “Although I’m willing it try it if you are.”
“No,” Ember whispered. She swallowed and sat up straighter in her chair, a loud buzzing in her ears. “Please, listen. Just let her go and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I promise you I’ll cooperate. But please—let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
One corner of Caesar’s mouth curled, the tiniest smile. “Au contraire, little rabbit. She has everything to do with this. She’s what I like to call motivation.”
Without taking his gaze from hers, he backed up slowly until he was beside Marguerite’s chair. The whole time he’d been holding the knife, and now he raised it to Marguerite’s face. She stiffened in horror and let out a choked sob.
“Her left eye first,” he said softly, savoring the words. “Then her right. Then her ears. Then her lovely, lovely lips. And then—if she’s still alive at the end of all that—her head. After I scalp it.”
Ember felt the room begin to spin. This was not how this was supposed to happen. She had to get him alone, away from Marguerite…she had to think—
She begged, “Please—please Caesar—”
“No negotiating!” He pressed the tip of his knife against Marguerite’s cheek, and she froze, a little mewl of terror escaping her lips. Caesar moved the knife up to a millimeter beneath her eye socket, and his question came deadly quiet.
“How do I contact him, September?”
Trembling in rage, Ember looked him in the eye and said, “All right. I’ll tell you, but there’s something you should know first.”
Caesar’s brows rose, and Ember screeched, “He is going to tear! You! Apart!”
An eye roll, then an aggravated sigh. With a glance at one of his men, Caesar directed, “Search her for a cell phone, will you? This is getting tedious.”
Ember’s heart seized. Her mind screamed No!
It took all of four seconds for her coat to be stripped off, rifled through, and tossed aside. Then she was surrounded, thrown to the desk and pinned once again, her arms yanked roughly back and held aside while a pair of hands shoved up her long, bulky sweater to her waist.
“Here we go,” said a satisfied voice as her cell phone was pulled from the back pocket of her jeans. The man tossed it to Caesar who caught it easily in on hand.
His eyes, wolf bright, had focused on where her sweater bunched up around her waist. His lips parted; he took a slow step toward her, his expression one of outraged disbelief.
Then faster than her eyes could track, he was beside her. He yanked up the sweater, revealing what lay beneath. Then he looked at her with such violence in his eyes she thought he might kill her with his gaze alone.
In the darkest, most threatening voice she’d ever heard, Caesar whispered, “Oh you silly, silly rabbit. Tricks are for kids.”
He flipped her onto her back, slammed a hand around her throat, and tore off the sweater with his other hand, ripping it down the middle as easily as if it were tissue.
And the air in the room went electric.
“Don’t touch it!” Caesar screamed when one of his men reached for the black nylon vest strapped around her body. Front and back, the vest sported pockets filled with thin orange bricks of plastic explosives.
Ember kicked out with both her legs, but the big black-haired males grabbed them before she could make another move, and her arms were similarly subdued. Shaking in fear, anger, and desperation, she was stretched out over the desk, utterly helpless.
Across the room, Marguerite stared at her in white-faced, open-mouthed horror.
“Semtex,” said one of Caesar’s men, looking down at the nylon vest with an expression of grudging admiration. “That’s some serious shit, boss.”
“Serious shit indeed—and enough of it to blow anything to kingdom come,” hissed Caesar. He leaned directly over Ember, staring down at her with hatred and a crazed sort of fury, his teeth peeled back over his lips. “Where’s the detonator?”
Ember spat in his face.
He snarled and squeezed his hand harder around her throat, cutting off her air supply.
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