Mylunate!
How did the stupid mylunate work? Was it still on my toe? Ryder hadn’t taken it from me. He’d told me to hold on to it because of the danger that surrounded me, but what to do with it? How did it work? There’d been warnings, precautionary rules or something.
I tried to think back to the night he’d told me about it. It seemed that you had to try to imagine a place to go, but there were restrictions, weren’t there? How much and how far—and things from that night were fuzzy because of the alcohol. Damn! Cynthia had also given me information, but I was so uncertain. What was the worst that could happen? I hadn’t really found that out.
And what about Paul? Was he there too? Could I just leave him without trying to help? He was a nice man trying to do a good thing. Could I live with myself if I didn’t try to find him? I could always find my way out of wherever they were taking me and send for help. But who knew what might happen if they got me fully enclosed in some space?
The van jerked to a stop sooner than I’d anticipated, while my thoughts were still contradicting each other.
A meaty grip took hold of my arm. My survival instinct kicked in.
With as much strength as I could muster, I reared up on my left knee and did a roundhouse kick that would have made Rico proud. My foot connected solidly with a mouth, knocking Crew Cut off of me long enough that I could jump out of the van and run.
Ignoring the stabbing pain from my kicking foot, I jammed on the speed and ran up what looked like a long driveway, trying to go all out despite the fact that my arms were behind me.
My breathing was harsh and heavy. Adrenaline roared in my ears. I only made it fifteen yards before I was tackled from behind. A heavy body slammed into me, and I felt the air leave my lungs in a whoosh. I landed hard, smacking my head against the ground in a whiplash effect. Stinging pain stabbed my body, and hitting my head scrambled my brain for a moment.
“She’s a live one, is she?” The amused British tones carried on the breeze, clear as a bell, to where I lay under one of my attackers. My right shoulder and arm throbbed, my forehead stung and I could feel a trickle of what was probably blood dripping down my temple. The sting of failure was sharp. Lying on the ground, breathing through the pain, I saw that the van was parked in front of a Mediterranean-style mansion, likely somewhere in Malibu or Pacific Palisades or something. I hadn’t even made it halfway up the driveway. Was the hidden mylunate cavern nearby?
“Damn it. Another tooth,” I heard Crew Cut snarl somewhere behind me. “Someone’s gonna pay.”
“Back off, Pen. You’ll be paid well enough to get your teeth fixed and then some.” Frank’s silky tones turned steely. “Bring her inside. We have work to do.”
Baldy got off me, grabbed my arm and yanked me upright. Stabbing pain shot through my foot and shoulder, and the world seemed a bit off-kilter, and then I was being shoved toward the sliding glass door of a large estate where Frank, aka Ranik, stood in all his silver-maned glory, wearing yet another sharp, sleek suit. He was large, and he emanated a feeling of power and dominance.
“Why am I here?” I asked shakily, but he said nothing, gave me a silky smile and led the way in. With a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction absolutely spilling from him, Pen shoved me inside. I nearly tripped over my own feet.
My heels clicked against the shiny marble floor. I was pushed through a high-tech entertainment room, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a dining room. Our final destination was just beyond there, through an archway into a sunroom. A luxurious seating area faced the backyard, which was visible through two sets of double glass doors that ran the length of the wall. The juxtaposition was odd—my heart-pounding fright against the calm infinity pool shimmering in the background, like a macabre vacation scene or the setting for a horror movie.
“We’ve brought you a friend,” Frank, who was leading the way, called into the last room we entered. His voice tinkled lightly across the air, as though he were saying something humorous.
That’s when I saw him.
“Taylor?”
“Paul!” I couldn’t help the horrified tone of my voice. Someone had gone to town on his face. He did not look well. His flesh was swollen and purple to the point of being unrecognizable, blood smeared on the floor around his feet. Tied to a straight-backed wooden chair, his arms looked pulled to the straining point and likely numb in that position.
“Why the hell is she here?” Paul demanded, his words slurred as they passed through his misshapen lips. “She doesn’t know anything!”
“But you do.” Frank smiled his cold, reptilian smile and motioned to have me placed beside Paul. With a rough shove, I was shown the floor, where I barely caught myself on my knees, gasping with the pain of landing on my kneecaps. I slipped on the blood and was horrified that so much had pooled under his chair.
“Are you all right?” Paul tried to lean toward me, but the ropes held tight. “You’re bleeding,” he noted, which was totally a surreal and absurd moment, considering he looked like a piece of pulp. Blood had dried in a thick, dry crust over his face, with splatter on his T-shirt. It was sickening. My stomach churned, and I had to take a deep breath.
“What happened to you? Who did this?” My voice sounded small.
“I have associates.” Frank quirked his lips, answering for Paul. “They’ll be back soon, wanting a completion to our business as quickly as possible. We were just waiting for you.”
“I’m so sorry. So sorry...” Paul murmured with a heartfelt sadness. He let his head fall back on the top of the chair, like he couldn’t hold it up anymore.
“Isn’t that sweet.” Frank grabbed the one spare wooden dining chair that had been pulled into the room and placed it before Paul. Taking his time, he sat in a genteel fashion and gave Paul a saccharine smile. “You care for her? That should make this even easier.”
“Bastard,” Paul muttered.
Had I just become leverage? I shivered, feeling so cold suddenly. I reached out to search Frank’s mind for any hint at what he was planning to do with us but encountered blankness. Not even a smidgeon of feeling was coming through. He was a master of constructing a mental fortress.
Footsteps sounded from one of the other rooms. We listened silently for a moment as the steps grew louder amid angry-sounding voices.
“Back off, Rosser! I’m not in charge,” I heard Jory say sharply. She rounded the archway in her cloglike sandals.
“Why have you taken him? What the hell is happening here?” The older male voice sputtered angrily from somewhere behind her.
“Not my business,” she hissed over her shoulder as she appeared in the archway. She seemed upset, which was strange. There was nothing being done to her. No one was threatening her life. Damn bitch.
“Paul! Oh, God, Paul!” The gray-haired man I’d seen in Paul’s memory appeared and blanched at the sight of his son. He tried to rush across the room toward him, but after a nod from Frank, Crew Cut and Baldy grabbed him and shoved him back. He struggled with urgency to get past them, but they held firm.
“Get off me, you sons of bitches!” Rosser demanded, stalling his efforts to pull away.
“Rosser, your son has been a bad, bad boy.” Frank shook his head. “He won’t tell us the location of the mylunate.”
“So you beat him? Please! Let me take care of him! He’s my son! He needs medical care!” Rosser’s voice cracked.
“Not until he spills the beans,” Frank said pleasantly enough.
“Pauly!” Rosser renewed his struggles, only to have Baldy thrust a fist into his gut, causing him to grunt and gasp for air, stilling his resistance.
“I’d stay put if I were you,” Frank offered helpfully.
“Dad, what the hell were you thinking?” Paul asked tiredly through his swollen lips. “How could you make plans with terrorists?”
Tears of helplessness began dripping from Rosser’s eyes. He loved his son and couldn’t handle seeing him like this. With gasping breaths, he said, “Pauly, Pauly...I didn’t want you to know... I’m so sorry... The business was in trouble... I’m in trouble... I acted on tips I was given and sank the whole ship. I’m going to jail if I can’t cover the loss.” To Frank he yelled, “Do you have to keep him tied up? He’s not going to hurt anything!”
“Wrong,” Frank replied coldly, calmly. “He’s feeling a bout of patriotism, humanity, call it what you will, and despite numerous attempts at persuasion, he won’t come clean.”
“Tell them where the mylunate is, Pauly,” his father pleaded. “Then I can get you out of here.”
“They’re terrorists, Dad. They’re going to kill people! I just...just can’t believe that you...would do this.” The depth of Paul’s disappointment, his sudden comprehension of who his father was, was almost painful. This was an intimate conversation between father and son that was happening with an audience.
“Goddammit! You don’t fuck around with these guys! They’re going to kill you!” Rosser’s voice rose in panicked distress.
“I know. I’ll die with a clean conscience.”
I looked up at Paul from my position on the floor, soaked in the violence that surrounded me, and realized that he truly believed that he was going to die. He’d given up. I could only imagine what all had been done to him, and he’d spent his time here making peace with himself.
“But what about your father?” Frank pulled a gun out of his side pocket and aimed it at Rosser, who was visibly startled to see it pointing in his direction. His face flushed.
“What the hell is this? Who the hell do you think you are to come into my house and start making demands on people? I’ve been here for you almost twenty years now! Where’s the loyalty? The appreciation? Put that goddamn gun away!”
“Rosser, I am loyal to myself. Loyalty to anyone else is foolish and only brings pain,” Frank stated grimly.
In that moment, gone was the facade of levity, and in its place were the cold-blooded eyes of a killer. We all got a good look into the dark depravity that was Ranik Grayson. Even Baldy and Crew Cut cast nervous glances at each other before looking back at Ranik. He had secrets. Secrets that had twisted him.
Silence fell as Rosser looked into Frank’s eyes and saw the coldhearted truth. He looked down at the gun that was pointed directly at his chest, and his anger drained. Terror was born.
Rosser’s pleading eyes turned to Paul. “You’re going to let him shoot me? All you have to do is tell him where the stuff is!”
“Dad, do you really think he’s going to let us out of here alive even if we give him what he wants?” Paul shook his head sadly, sorrowfully. “You signed our death warrants. Take a good look around. We’re all dead. Every single one of us.”
And that included me. That’s when my shivering started. I was truly terrified.
“I’m out of here,” Jory muttered. “You know where I am.”
“Until later, Jory, love.” Frank’s icy voice came out softly. Then he turned on Paul. “So where is the mylunate? And let’s be clear that this is the final time I will ask you before I shoot your father.”
“Pauly! Please! I’m your father!” Rosser’s breathing had become quick and shallow with fear.
The horror of the moment swamped my senses. Paul was resolved, but waves of shock and scalding pain were clenching his insides. He was remembering a warm, loving time when his mother and father had still been together, and they’d had a lovely beach holiday in some tropical place. He could remember his father chasing him down the sand, letting him get away, but just barely. They were both laughing, enjoying the game. I could feel what this was doing to him viscerally and could only wish for a miracle intervention that wasn’t going to come.
“What am I supposed to do?” Paul choked on his words. “You want to take money for killing innocent people. Who are you? I don’t know you.”
“Not me, Pauly! I’m just a go-between guy!”
“Same difference.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Rosser shook his head. “I can’t fix it.”
“It’s too late. For all of us.”
“Pauly, no!”
Paul’s look was full of pain, his eyes moving over his father’s face intently, as though trying to memorize the details. “I love you, Dad. I’m sorry. I grew up to be the man you always wanted me to be. I can’t be responsible for innocent people dying. And I don’t think you want me to, either. We’ll see each other again. Soon.”
He was staring into his father’s eyes as the bullet entered his father’s chest. A soundless scream came as Rosser’s mouth opened in protest and nothing came out. The loud report of the gun seemed to echo in the vast emptiness of the room, and it was like time slowed.
“No!” My reaction felt delayed. He’d actually shot him! Death was here. Present in the room. He was claiming a soul before my eyes.
Rosser could only look down at his chest as crimson spread across his white button-up shirt. Then his legs buckled, landing him on his knees, and his face creased into lines of pain. A single deep, guttural sob tore from Paul’s chest. He closed his swollen, purpled eyes with an anguished sound trembling on his lips.
It had really happened. Rosser was dying and no one was going to help him. This wasn’t a dream to wake up from. Oh, shit! Oh, my God! I gasped for breath after breath, horrified and mesmerized by the sight all at once. Sweat broke out across my face and neck.
In the next moment, all thoughts fled as cold fingers of fear dug in to my mind, gripping it firmly. My thoughts swirled around a single question.
Was I next?
Frank sighed, tilting his head to the side as though looking at a small curiosity, and watched Rosser collapse to his belly, his breathing labored, heavy and slowing little by little. It wasn’t like in the movies. This wasn’t fast. It was slow and agonizing. Frank was taking a certain amount of pleasure in watching Rosser suffer his final moments. A light of satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. That was more frightening than anything. It was so inhuman.
Rosser took a final rattling breath and released it, only to be silent once and for all.
Gone. Done. Not coming back. Paul was right. None of us was going to survive.
I’m so sorry, Ryder. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. Or would it have made a difference? Maybe we would both have been taken, both of us facing death. No. This was best. I wouldn’t have been able to handle seeing his death. And maybe this was going to be my death, but I wasn’t going to make it easy.
Frank was not going to let me out alive willingly, but I still had mylunate on my toe. When I had the chance, I was going grab hold of Paul, somehow, and hopefully get us both the hell out of here.
“Hog.” Frank turned to Baldy. “Why don’t you go out and let me know when our guests arrive? And I do hope you’ll have a different answer for them, Paul, when they ask for the mylunate this time. As you know, they are experts at torture. And while you might be able to handle the pain, I don’t think Taylor here is made of the same stuff.”
“Is that why I’m here?” I asked shakily. “To force Paul to talk?”
“That is a good question. A very good question.” Frank chuckled as he pondered it. It was like he was trying to decide whether or not to tell me something. With a look like he was indulging in a guilty pleasure, he said, “You are about to be very surprised, Taylor, dear. You see, your name is not really Taylor.”
“Wh-what are you t-talking about?” This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to hear, but I suddenly got goose bumps. What did he know about me? I was starting to get that weird, fated feeling again.
“What am I talking about? I’m talking about loose ends, my darling. You are a loose end.”
“A loose
end?” Shit, this felt surreal.
He smiled charmingly, becoming giddy with his game. “Do you know who your father is?”
The door from the Gods’ plane opened in my mind, a calming breeze sifting through my heart and soul. This was Dreya. She was with me. I could feel her energy signature, even if only a little.
Back was the feeling of inevitability, where all roads led to this one destination in time. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I was supposed to be here at this moment. I knew I was meant to have this conversation with the devil.
“What do you know about him?” I managed the question in an even tone.
“He’s from another world,” Frank said dramatically. He motioned his hands wide, encompassing the universe in a grandiose gesture. When all I did was continue to stare at him, he seemed disappointed and added, almost sulkily, “You don’t seem surprised. Either you already know, or you don’t believe me.”
“I know, and I believe you,” I said quietly.
“His name was Chagin Battler.”
Chagin. The name echoed through my mind, rolling around a few times as I tried it out in the privacy of my thoughts. Finally, I had a name to put to my father, even if I didn’t have a picture. I was the daughter of Chagin. I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean to me. I looked inward and didn’t feel any particularly good or bad thoughts.
“Would you like to know your real name?”
“My real name?” I frowned.
“Your parents named you Tayla, after your father’s mother. She’s still alive, you know.”
Tayla? I had a grandmother who was still alive? “Where is she?”
“She works as a slave to Ral’e, the warrior king of the Brausa.” He shook his head with silent mirth, making his lips tremble.
“Why is that funny?” I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.
“I was paid by Ral’e to kill her son, and now she’s made to serve him that ordered the assassination—the warrior king.”
Quicksilver Dreams (Dreamwalkers) Page 39