Bathed in Blood

by Alex Archer

  That she could understand. She was certainly feeling the same way.

  “I’m afraid I have some more bad news,” she said.

  She told him about the thieves breaking into her room last night and stealing Novack’s files. “Did he have other copies?”

  Radecki shrugged. “I don’t know. If he did, I would think they would have been in his home, and if they were...”

  He didn’t really need to say anything more.

  “I have a pretty good memory,” Annja said. “I think I can...”

  She didn’t get any further. A wave of dizziness suddenly washed over her, so unexpected that it cut her off in midsentence.

  She sat there, head down, until it passed.

  “Are you all right?” Radecki asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered, but when she looked up at him the room seemed to tilt and shift a second time. She grabbed the edge of the bar to steady herself.

  “You don’t look so good,” the cop said, but his voice sounded as if it was coming from across the room instead of across the bar.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She shook her head, waiting for her sight to clear.

  What the heck was going on?

  She looked up and saw Radecki watching her closely. He didn’t appear all that concerned. He just calmly took another sip of his coffee and glanced at the clock.

  The coffee...

  She looked down at her drink as a third wave of dizziness tried to drown her. Her head was spinning wildly now. The cup seemed to lurch to the left and then to the right. She was starting to have trouble putting her thoughts together.

  “What...”

  She tried to move the coffee away from her and ended up pushing it right across the bar and over the edge. The sound of the cup shattering seemed to echo in her ears.

  “...did you...”

  Annja looked to where the gun had been seconds before only to find it wasn’t there. A glance in Radecki’s direction showed it sitting on the bar directly in front of him.

  “...do?”

  Radecki didn’t answer.

  Her vision was starting to tunnel, a dark gray haze creeping in on all sides, and Annja knew she was in trouble. She pushed away from the bar, wobbling a few steps on unsteady legs before crashing to the floor.

  The sound of her heart hammering in her ears was almost overwhelming. She knew she had to get away, but she was finding it difficult to remember what she was running away from. Her instinct for self-preservation took over in the absence of logical thought, and she managed to force herself to her hands and knees.

  As her head lolled about, she caught one dizzying glimpse of Radecki as he came out from behind the bar, walking toward her, pistol in hand.

  Move! her mind screamed.

  Annja began clawing her way forward, pulling with her arms and kicking with her legs, fighting for every inch.

  She barely got a third of the way across the floor before she ran out of strength, the haze having all but overwhelmed her. She knew she had only seconds before she succumbed to unconsciousness.

  Too late, the notion of her sword occurred to her.

  She rolled over, staring up at Radecki looming above her, gun in hand.

  With a supreme effort of will, Annja reached into the otherwhere for her sword.

  As her fingers closed around the hilt, she finally lost the struggle, the blade vanishing into darkness along with her consciousness.

  * * *

  RADECKI STOOD OVER the woman, staring down at her unconscious form. He didn’t see her beauty; all he saw was a threat to the enterprise he’d worked so hard and so long to build.

  A threat to his future prosperity.

  His finger itched on his weapon’s trigger.

  He wanted nothing more than to raise his gun and put a bullet through the woman’s skull. End it, here and now.

  The muzzle began drifting upward, an inch at a time.

  It would be so easy...

  His finger slipped around the trigger guard.

  He could say it was an accident. That she had discovered the truth and tried to kill him. Just a few pounds of pressure...

  Abruptly he turned away, lowering the gun to his side.

  She wanted Creed taken alive. She’d been quite clear in that. If he disobeyed her now, she was sure to exact some kind of retribution. The last thing he wanted at this stage of the game was to face punishment at her hands; she was the most merciless woman he’d ever met, and woe to the one who found himself helpless in her control.

  This time, he would do as he was told.

  Even if it went against his every instinct.

  Holstering his gun, he took a few deep breaths. When he was in control of himself once more, he stepped back over to the now-unconscious Creed and nudged her with his foot. When she didn’t respond, he drew his boot back and kicked her, hard, in the ribs.

  Still no response.

  Good.

  He bent down beside her and checked her pulse.

  It was steady and strong.

  Even better.

  He rose to his feet and took his cell phone out of his pocket. He hit a quick-dial key and listened to the phone ringing on the other end.

  In only a moment she answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Our problem is taken care of.”

  “And the other package?”

  “Right here at my feet.”

  There was a pause. “Intact, I take it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Bring it to me.”

  “On my way.”

  22

  Deep in her drugged sleep, Annja dreamed.

  They were not pretty dreams.

  She ran through stone hallways lit only by torches burning in sconces on the walls, her bare feet slapping the cold flagstones and her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  In the shadows behind her something kept pace, slowing when she slowed and speeding up when she tried to force more effort out of her already tiring limbs. She didn’t know what it looked like, or if it was even human, but there was one thing she knew for certain.

  She couldn’t let it catch her.

  So she pushed on, running as quickly as her bare and bloodied feet would carry her, frantically searching for a way out.

  Doors would occasionally appear on one side of the hallway or the other, set at irregular intervals, but every one that she tried was locked. Most of the time there was only silence when she yanked on the door handle, but at other times she heard screams and cries for help coming from behind the barrier. There was nothing she could do for them, however, so she was forced to continue on.

  Step after step, corridor after corridor, in a seemingly endless maze with pursuit never far behind...

  When the door appeared at the end of the hall, Annja almost didn’t believe it was real. She glanced back as she reached it, caught a glimpse of a hulking shadow and knew she had only one chance to get this right.

  She grabbed the door handle.

  Please, please, please...

  She pulled, and to her utter surprise the door opened.

  A room lay just beyond.

  Annja quickly stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her.

  The smell hit her first, the thick coppery scent of fresh-spilled blood. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could make out a bath set into the floor a few yards in front of her. The thick fluid that filled the bath looked almost black in the low light.

  Oh, no...

  She realized what she was looking at even as the surface of the bath was disturbed and the figure of a woman began to emerge from the depths, blood flowing down over her head and upper body.

 
Annja could feel fear welling up inside her like a tide as she stared in disbelief at the figure ahead of her.

  This can’t be happening...

  She didn’t realize she was backing up until her shoulder blades struck the door.

  Ahead of her, the woman stepped from the bath, arms raised in supplication and longing, a silent invitation for Annja to join her.

  It was only when the woman’s eyes snapped open that Annja realized she was looking at herself...

  * * *

  ANNJA AWOKE WITH a start, leaving one nightmare behind only to discover she was trapped in another.

  Her head was pounding, and it was making her vision shimmy and dance. She blinked several times, waiting for her eyes to be able to focus. When they did she found that she was lying on the cold tiled floor of a room somewhere, her hands tied together in front of her with thick nylon rope. Her feet were likewise bound; she didn’t need to see them to feel the rope wrapped securely around her ankles.

  A drain sat in the middle of the floor, about six inches in front of her face. Seeing it made her realize the side of her body that was resting against the floor was chilled and damp. The floor had obviously been wet when they’d dumped her here.

  She raised her head slightly, taking in the wall in front of her. It was hewn out of solid rock and looked ages old, but the twisted tangle of pipes high on the wall were shiny and new.

  Where on earth was she?

  She flexed her wrists, hoping that whoever had tied them had done a poor job, but no such luck. She was trussed up better than a Thanksgiving turkey and completely at her captor’s mercy.

  Needless to say, that concerned her more than a little.

  It was clear now why Novack had been getting nowhere with his investigation; Radecki had been sabotaging it the whole time. Whether he was the killer or just part of the cover-up remained to be seen, but given her current situation, Annja was leaning toward the former.

  Which meant she needed to get out of here as soon as possible!

  She brought her knees up toward her chest as best she could, tucking herself into a ball, and then rolled over so she could see the rest of the room. It was pretty much like the first half, with the exception of the steel door set into the wall in front of her. The door had a reinforced window that was about a foot square.

  More telling was the fact that there was no handle on the interior of the door. That suggested this wasn’t a temporary holding cell; it had been built specifically for that purpose.

  Suddenly the drain in the floor took on much darker connotations.

  I have to get out of here!

  Her first order of business was cutting free of her bonds. Thankfully she had the means to do so right at hand.

  She rolled across the room until she fetched up against the nearest wall, then maneuvered herself around so she was sitting with her back against it. She drew her legs up in front of her until she could put her feet flat on the floor, and then braced her hands on her knees, palms inward.

  Calling her sword to hand, Annja put the hilt of the weapon between her knees with the blade sticking up. Holding her legs tightly together so the weapon wouldn’t fall, Annja placed the knotted rope binding her wrists against the edge of the blade and began to saw back and forth.

  She hadn’t even managed two passes when she heard voices right outside her door.

  Knowing she couldn’t be caught with her sword in hand, she dismissed the weapon back into the otherwhere with a thought and tipped herself over so she was lying flat on the floor once more.

  Closing her eyes, she worked on steadying her breathing and pretended to be unconscious.

  The door swung open with a screech, evidence of either poor maintenance or lack of use. Several sets of footsteps sounded in her ears.

  “I know you’re awake,” a male voice she recognized said, “so there’s no use in pretending. The dose of the drug was adjusted to your body weight.”

  Radecki.

  Annja opened her eyes.

  The traitor stood before her. Beside him were two men who had the look of enforcers—hired thugs brought in to do the heavy lifting so Radecki didn’t get his hands dirty. They were dressed identically in dark jeans, dark T-shirts and leather boots, the classic uniform of muscle heads the world over. They stared at Annja with all the emotion of a pair of mannequins.

  “Get her hooked up,” Radecki said, quickly confirming who was in charge.

  Annja didn’t know what he was talking about, but the amused smirk on the officer’s face let her know she wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.

  As the two thugs moved toward her, Annja wished she could call forth her sword, but the pistol holstered on Radecki’s belt would’ve made any such move a losing proposition. She might keep the men at bay for a time, but in the end, Radecki would still hold all the cards.

  For now, she’d wait and see.

  She could still feel the sword waiting in the otherwhere, and as soon as her hands were untied, she’d be able to access it again.

  The thugs moved in, one on either side, and, grabbing her under the arms, lifted her to her feet. They brought her over to Radecki, who was now standing in the middle of the room holding a small black box that reminded Annja of a remote control.

  Still smiling, Radecki tapped the button on the remote.

  A whirling noise sounded from above her head, and Annja looked up just in time to see a cable drop from the darkness above. Her head was still pounding so it took her a moment to understand just what it was, and by that time one of the thugs had caught the hook that was set on one end, hooked it through the bindings circling her wrists and nodded to Radecki.

  The winch was already reversing itself as Annja began to struggle, and within seconds she found her arms being dragged up over her head toward the ceiling.

  Too late, she realized what was happening and tried to twist her arms free, kicking her feet, but all she managed to do was set her body swaying back and forth like a pendulum as she hung by her wrists a few inches above the floor.

  The bindings tightened, but not so much that they cut off her circulation. Still, she knew she would lose strength the longer she hung like this, and soon she wouldn’t be able to feel her hands at all, not to mention how completely vulnerable the position left her.

  “Much better,” Radecki said with a wide smile. He came over and put one hand on her hip to steady her. “It seems I have you right where I want you.”

  Annja answered with her usual defiance. Hanging a good foot or so above him, she was in the perfect position to look down, smile and then spit in his face.

  “For a woman in your circumstances, that wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” Radecki said as he wiped the spittle from his face. His voice had lost its jovial tone and was now flat and hard. “Gentlemen, if you wouldn’t mind...”

  Annja had expected Radecki to react with violence, but she wasn’t prepared for the hammering blows that came from either side as the two thugs began to work her over, haymakers falling like rain with frightening regularly. Her body twisted about with each blow so Annja had no way of predicting where the next punch would land. Within seconds she was doing all she could to hold on to consciousness against the overwhelming pain that enveloped her.

  “Enough!”

  The order was spoken with absolute authority, and the blows instantly stopped. It took Annja a moment to realize that the order hadn’t come from Radecki.

  Annja glanced up to see who’d given the command.

  Diane Stone stood in the doorway.

  23

  “What’s going on here?” Stone demanded, her hands on her hips and a hard look in her eye.

  With the biggest threat to their operation—Novack—now taken care of, Radecki no longer felt as vulnerable and decided it was time to s
how more steel around his associate.

  “Nothing to concern yourself with,” he replied. “Just teaching our guest to show some respect.”

  A month ago he never would have responded in such a fashion, but Stone didn’t show a hint of surprise. Her face remained impassive, but Radecki thought he saw her nostrils flare.

  Get used to it, he thought. He was done lying down and letting her walk all over him. She didn’t scare him anymore.

  “I’ll be the judge of what should or shouldn’t concern me,” Stone told him, but she left it at that and turned her attention to their prisoner.

  “We meet again, Ms. Creed. How unfortunate for you.”

  That, at least, was a sentiment he could agree with. Creed had been nothing but a pain in the neck since she’d stuck her nose into this whole mess, and he was more than pleased to finally be able to remedy the issue.

  Creed didn’t say anything, but her eyes watched them like a hawk. Radecki would bet that even now she was trying to plan her escape. She was in for a rude surprise either way; like those women five hundred years before, no one with any hint of beauty ever left this place alive. Not while the “Blood Countess” was in charge.

  “What’s the matter?” Stone asked the prisoner as she took a closer look at her. The guards Radecki had brought with him stepped back, away from Stone, as if afraid of the woman. Truth be told, Radecki really didn’t blame them.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Creed stared at Stone with a disdainful look on her face. Radecki had to give her credit; she had some stones, that was for sure.

  “Where am I and what am I doing here?” Creed asked.

  The woman’s words were forceful, but she was still twisting about in the air, her feet a few inches above the floor.

  Stone must have found it amusing as well, for she laughed in response. “Really, Annja—may I call you Annja?—you aren’t in any position to be demanding anything.”

  Radecki watched as Stone stepped forward and grabbed Annja’s chin in her bare hand. The prisoner tried to twist free, but Radecki knew from personal experience that Stone was much stronger than she looked, thanks to the treatment.