There actually were toaster pastries in there, as it turned out. About half the back was filled with boxes of them.
Slumped against those boxes were two corpses. Both male, one young, one middle-aged. Judging by their uniforms, I guessed they were the original occupants of the truck.
Talon’s food. Talon’s fuel.
They had no wounds, no bloodstains on their clothes, no obvious cause of death. But their lips were blue, and their faces oddly withered. Almost like they’d been sucked dry.
They wore identical expressions of unspeakable terror.
It was that depth of fear and desperation that disturbed me the most. More so even than the fact that their lives had been taken from them. I thought about the vineyard, and what Cooper had seen under the porch. Had the children—Ryan’s classmate Gordon among them—looked like this?
I would have shot Lily Wick in cold blood, too.
And I will kill Talon, if I ever get the chance.
They pushed us into the truck, to ride with those awful bodies to wherever they were taking us. And just for good measure, they added one more corpse: Cooper had killed one of Talon’s men. I wished I could take off my sweater and cover at least one of the poor drained men’s faces, but my hands were still cuffed.
Another of Talon’s men, stocky, red-faced, and pig-nosed, rode in the back with us. Cooper had shot him during the confrontation, and although he had a piece of cloth tied tightly around his shoulder, the wound was still bleeding through. Apparently he was inclined to hold a grudge. He kicked us any time we tried to speak.
As we bumped along—downward, I sensed, descending the mountain again—Cooper tried to be subtle about moving his arms, in what I knew was an attempt to dislocate or break his wrists and escape the handcuffs. But our piggy guard spotted it, and kicked me hard in the belly.
“You sit still,” he said to Cooper, as I lay struggling to get my breath back. “Or I’ll start doing things to her you really won’t like.”
Cooper’s glare clearly marked the man for death, but for the moment, there was nothing we could do but sit in silence and cooperate.
I tried to stay alert, to listen to the sounds of traffic, to notice when we were turning, and in which direction. But I couldn’t concentrate. I was all too aware—and therefore only aware—that we were going the wrong way. Away from Bristol, away from home.
Away from my soul.
The frustration, after having come so close, was so acute that I could barely spare the energy to be concerned about the fact that I was a Wick prisoner. I avoided Cooper’s eyes, for fear he would see it and think I’d gone mad.
I wasn’t entirely certain I hadn’t.
And so I had not the foggiest notion of where we were when, after what felt like at least an hour, the truck finally came to a stop.
By then it was getting increasingly difficult to breathe, closed in as I was by the boxes, the dead men’s eyes, my own mounting agitation. I was almost relieved to see Talon’s face, as he slid open the back door. At least he was letting in fresh air and sunshine.
We were parked outside of a barn. I didn’t see a corresponding farmhouse, only fields and the mountains in the distance, farther away than I’d have guessed. One of the SUVs was beside the truck.
In addition to Talon, there was a woman, plus our pig-faced friend. Talon must have had to drive one-handed, to stand in for the man Cooper had killed.
I didn’t know where the other SUV and its driver had gone, but I did note that we were down from six opponents to three. And two of them were operating below full capacity, with wounded arms.
Not that that improved our position much, when Talon was still hopped up on vitality, and Cooper and I were both restrained.
The cuffs.
Maybe I could manipulate those, somehow. Sure, I couldn’t even move a cardboard air freshener. But that didn’t entirely eliminate the possibility that I could magically unlock a pair of handcuffs, did it? Desperation made people capable of all sorts of things.
But before they even moved us into the barn, Talon Wick walked up to me, smiling, and pulled me into an embrace that was no less unyielding for being only one-armed.
I knew what was coming next, and I tried my best to fight against it. But there was no fighting this.
Talon inhaled against my neck, then slowly ran his cold tongue along my skin, and laughed.
I heard Cooper struggling and shouting, but Talon was blocking my view. There was a thump, then another shout. And then Cooper was quiet, too. No doubt one of the others was doing to him what Talon was doing to me.
It felt like ice hardening around my heart and mind, encasing me, constricting me, as Talon sapped me of my vitality. He was whispering now, like a lover, teasing my skin with his repulsive breath.
I shivered and gritted my teeth and endured it as best I could, trying to go away in my mind. I thought of the Mount Phearson, of home. Of Cordelia, my old friend the black walnut tree. Sitting in her branches as a child, imagining myself in the stories I read there.
There was magic in those stories.
There still is.
The thought melted through the frost, just a little, but it was already too late. Talon had taken too much. There was no magic left for me.
I started to lose consciousness, hanging limp in Talon’s grip. I heard him speaking to one of his people, but I couldn’t focus on the words.
It didn’t matter what he was saying. All that mattered was that our enemies—or two of them, at least, including Talon—had fed until they were strong, and we were weak. Too weak and helpless to even protest as they dragged us inside the barn.
Cooper did rouse himself enough to swear and make empty threats when the woman stripped me down to the skin. But he needn’t have worried. It wasn’t rape they had in mind, but theft. They took Cooper’s clothes too, and found the East Seed in his boxers.
Then they tied us, still naked, to chairs. After that things got hazy. I might even have slept—or maybe just passed out.
When I opened my eyes again, I found Cooper unconscious in his chair, head lolling, one foot twitching. I wasn’t close enough to touch him, even if I hadn’t been tied. I didn’t dare try to speak to him.
Talon sat at a card table a few feet away, flipping through a magazine. His jacket was slung over the back of his chair, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up. His clothes were stained with several splatters of blood. And he was using both hands to read, his cast discarded on the table.
Had he used my vitality to do that? I didn’t think feeders could heal the same way vitals could, even after they’d fed. But when I thought about it, the Wicks did seem to have a history of bouncing back quickly from even serious wounds. They must have some skill with magical healing, an art human witches had never quite mastered.
The woman who’d taken my clothes sat across from him, doing something on her phone, but there was no sign of the pig-man. Maybe he’d gone to get some care for his bullet wound.
Two now. We’re down to just two.
But I was willing to bet they were the two who had fed on us. With as much as they’d taken, after draining two men to death earlier, they would be able to bring this whole barn down around us, if they wanted to. And we were too weak to do anything about it. Sapped of his vitality, Cooper wouldn’t even be able to heal a wound. We were completely at their mercy.
A point Talon soon made, when he noticed me watching him.
“Ah!” He gave me a polite smile, showing no teeth, that made him resemble his father even more. “There you are. I’ve been waiting to thank you.” He held up his right arm, flexing it for me. “Looking good, isn’t it? Just needed a little more juice. I didn’t want to spend any on it until I had you secured, but now, do you know I think it might be stronger than ever?”
I said nothing, only glared at him, but Talon chuckled as if I’d given some witty response.
“I have to tell you,” he went on, “you are absolutely delicious. So much power.
You waste it, you know, so I don’t consider it much of an imposition to take it. Anyway, I wanted to show you something.”
He got up and went to crouch beside Cooper.
“Don’t!” I said, before I could stop myself.
Talon looked back at me and smiled again, the same polite smile that was neither perverse nor cruel, but merely asking how it could help. “Sorry?”
I didn’t answer. I was hardly too proud to beg for Cooper’s life, but I instinctively understood that begging would only make things worse. Beneath his concierge’s smile, Talon most definitely was both perverse and cruel.
As if to confirm this, Talon sank his teeth—like an actual vampire, instead of one that only fed on vitality—into Cooper’s bare shoulder.
Cooper’s eyes flew open, and he let out a feeble cry. For a second he thrashed, but his lids soon fluttered closed again, as Talon jerked his head forward over and over, like a snake striking in rapid succession.
When Talon finally straightened up, his mouth was bloody, and I got a good look at the wounds in Cooper’s shoulder, arm, and neck. They weren’t closing.
I struggled, straining toward Cooper, and my chair moved a little. From my changed angle, I could see more bites along his chest and neck. This wasn’t the first time Talon had woken him up this way.
“I can drain him and hurt him at the same time, you see,” Talon said. “Keep him totally helpless. Make sure he never fully wakes. Tear him to pieces, if I want to. Quickly. Or slowly.” He shrugged. “Whatever I’m in the mood for.”
Talon looked me up and down. I squirmed in my chair, acutely aware of my nakedness, as he smirked at my (not especially ample) chest. I was never one of those girls who was comfortable exposing my body, but even if I was, nothing makes a person feel quite so vulnerable as being naked and tied up in the presence of an armed and evil man.
I had no doubt that vulnerability and humiliation were the precise purposes for leaving us naked. Talon didn’t strike me as a man with a lot of sexual energy, and I didn’t think I was in any real danger of that kind of assault. Or so I told myself. But I still squirmed.
Until I noticed how much he seemed to enjoy that.
“You know, I could bite off a few pieces of you, too.” His tone was thoughtful, as if he had nothing better to do than mull over the possibilities. And maybe he didn’t. “Or have Dahlia here do it. I might enjoy watching that.”
He nodded back at the woman, who’d sat in silence at the table this whole time. She was watching us with slightly parted lips, which she licked when she caught my eye.
“What do you want?” I asked Talon, even though I knew.
“Thank you for asking.” He stepped closer to my chair, so I had to tilt my head back to look at him, and slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. A businessman, discussing a proposal. “I’d like you to break your sanctuary spell, and give me the West Seed.”
I didn’t think I could break the sanctuary spell, even if I wanted to. I knew of no way to take back the piece of my soul I’d sealed it with. And I’ll admit that the thought of building in some sort of cancellation policy had never occurred to me.
Not that I would give in, even if I could.
Would I?
We were in about the worst situation imaginable, and I could see no way out of it. Would I give up my sanctuary, give up the seed, give up Bristol, to save my life and Cooper’s?
I didn’t think so. The fate of Bristol’s citizens might well be worse than death, if the Wicks ever succeeded in growing a sapwood forest there. But the question was, unfortunately, academic. I had nothing real to bargain with. I couldn’t even think of anything to bluff with. Which left only stalling, until I could think of something.
“And how do I know you wouldn’t just kill us if I did?” I asked. “Or let Marjory Smith kill us?”
Talon laughed at that. “I can give you my word that I will leave you be—for now—if you do this favor for me. But whatever is between you and Marjory Smith isn’t really my business, is it?”
“Doesn’t sound like a very good deal for me,” I said. “You get the seed, and Bristol is left unprotected, all just so you’ll let us out of this barn? Even if the Garden Club didn’t come for us, which they would, you and your clan would come for Bristol eventually.”
“All true,” said Talon. “In fact, it’s an uncommonly shitty deal for you.” He tittered over his use of naughty language, and I wanted nothing more than to kick him in the mouth. Or kick him a bit lower down. “No point in lying about that.”
He leaned forward, his hands on the arms of my chair, his face uncomfortably close to mine. When he took a deep breath, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from whimpering in fear that he was about to feed again. Judging by the twinkle in his eye, he saw me do it.
“But it’s the only deal you’re going to get,” he whispered. “And you’re in no position to bargain.”
I couldn’t think of an answer to that. At least, not one that would satisfy me without provoking him to violence. So I kept my mouth shut.
Talon, still too close—I wished I had the courage to spit in his face—smiled slowly, showing me teeth that looked unnaturally white and healthy in his sickly face. Even now, pink-cheeked and full of vitality, there was something weak about him.
It’s that delicate mouth. And the petulant, spoiled look in his eyes.
“I’ll tell you what.” His words were as soft and slow as his smile. “I’m not going to drain you. Much. I’m going to keep you awake, and alert, and thinking about it. While I attend to your sweetheart, here.”
And then he turned with surprising speed, and took another bite out of Cooper.
Cooper cried out in pain, but this time, through I could only imagine what kind of effort and strength of will, his eyes snapped into alertness.
Unfortunately for Talon, they hadn’t tied our legs. Cooper snapped one knee up, into Talon’s chest, and headbutted him at the same time. I couldn’t see where their skulls collided, but I heard it, loud enough to make me wince. Talon fell to the floor with a very satisfying cry.
Cooper started to struggle to his feet, carrying the chair he was tethered to on his back, but Dahlia was at his side by then. She hit him in the back of the head with her gun. That stunned him long enough for her to attach herself to his neck, right where it met his shoulder.
She put her arms around his chest, slipping them between his body and the chair, and hugged him tightly to her.
Talon managed to get back up as Dahlia fed, and joined her. Biting, feeding. Consuming Cooper.
They’ll kill him.
“Stop!” I screamed.
To my surprise, Talon did stop, and jerked Dahlia’s elbow to get her to do the same. He took a step back, panting and wiping blood from his chin.
“She’s right,” he said. “We don’t want to overdrain him. Yet. Sit him back down and tie his legs.”
While Dahlia attended to that instruction, Talon turned back to me. He wasn’t smiling this time.
“We don’t know each other well,” he said. “If we did, you’d know I’m not someone who minds taking his time about things. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, as they say.”
I was barely following his words, being far too occupied with both terror for Cooper, and a furious attempt to keep from sobbing, or showing any other weakness.
“So here’s how this will work,” Talon said, in a harder voice that got my attention. “You will get one chance each day to agree to my demands. You’ve already wasted your chance for today, I’m afraid. So between now and tomorrow, you’ll have no choice but to give it some thought. While you watch me hurt Cooper, as a result of your foolish hesitation. Perhaps you’ll be wiser in the morning.”
But I guessed he thought Cooper had been drained enough for the time being, because he strode back to the card table, and resumed his seat. When she finished securing Cooper’s legs, Dahlia did the same. Once again, Talon read, while she occupied
herself with her phone. Playing a game, by the look of it.
My hatred for both of them swelled to a level I genuinely wouldn’t have thought myself capable of. I didn’t merely want to kill them. I wanted them to suffer. Suffer for days.
I took several deep, long breaths through my nose as I studied Cooper, trying to calm myself enough to assess his state. He was covered in bites and scratches, and of course they weren’t healing. His head was rolled back, his mouth open. But he was breathing—weakly, but noticeably.
He’ll live. Talon won’t let him die until he gets what he wants.
But as soon as he does, he’ll kill us. No matter what he says.
I might be able to talk Talon into accepting only the West Seed, rather than a complete break of the sanctuary, if I could convince him that that was truly all I had to offer. He wouldn’t be able to enter Bristol with the spell still in place, but maybe he would agree to let one of us retrieve the seed for him, while he kept the other as a hostage.
And are you so sure Cooper would give up the West Seed, in exchange for you?
That was maybe the least helpful little voice I’d ever heard in my head. I chose to ignore it.
It didn’t matter anyway. Even if I did manage a bargain, I no longer had even the smallest hope that Talon would let us leave that barn alive, in the end. Whether he was lying outright, or actually meant to keep his word, was irrelevant. I was certain he would never have the strength to stop himself from killing us.
I’d seen his face, as he was biting Cooper that last time. His expression was one of pure joy.
Balls, how in the name of all that is good am I going to get us out of this?
I slept fitfully in the chair. They either fed on me again in the night, or I dreamed that they did.
I woke aching with cold, my limbs numb. Weak early morning light was streaming into the barn, illuminating motes of dust and a strand of spider’s web that stretched from the back of my chair to the leg of the unconscious Cooper’s. I peered around, but couldn’t find the spider itself.
That might make it sound like I was even more dazed and traumatized than I was, that I would be focusing on a bug at a time like that. But I was thinking of my friend Max, who often used spiders at the Mount Phearson Hotel to tell him things. Could he send them this far? Would he be able to find me somehow, psychically, if he knew I was missing?
Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2) Page 11