by Jess Haines
After a week of sitting and stewing in mystery, I could almost believe Max had forgotten I existed. A couple of the girls had loosened up enough to say more than two or three words at a time to me, and I knew all of their names now, but not much else. We weren’t buddies by a long shot and, while they might have been comfortable with each other, I was clearly still too much of an outsider—too Other—for them to want to get chummy.
A good portion of my time was spent working out nervous energy in the pool or reading books. The library had a fairly extensive collection of classics and some recent literary fiction, though I couldn’t help but wonder if he had books like Memoirs of a Geisha, Stoker’s Dracula and The Handmaid’s Tale stocked for his captives because he had a sick sense of humor or if the irony went right over his head. Whatever the reason, the reading material was about the only thing that kept me from going completely bonkers. This was like some weird vacation, except I wasn’t staying in a hotel I could check out of whenever I wanted, and I was more worried about vampire infestation than bedbugs.
When Max did show up, I nearly had a heart attack. With my nose buried in a book, and after getting so used to the comings and goings of his security and maintenance people, I didn’t even notice his entrance. It was his voice that made my heart seize up in terror, except he wasn’t talking to me, or paying me much attention at all.
“Did you miss me, sweet?”
My fingers tightened abruptly around the paperback copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, tearing a page in the process. I peered over the top of the book, otherwise going still. Sick relief that he was talking to someone else didn’t unravel the knots in my stomach. I didn’t want to give him a reason to look my way or to notice me.
Halfway across the room, Max was sitting on a divan beside Vivian, one of the girls who made it a point to avoid talking to me. It was late, dark, with only a few lamps casting pools of light to hold back the shadows. Everyone else had cleared out when I wasn’t looking.
Vivian was staring down at her hands clenched together in her lap, nodding a little too emphatically in response to Max’s question. He smiled and held out a hand, palm up. Though hers shook, she untangled her fingers and placed a hand in his. He lifted her wrist to his mouth and bit down, his gaze flicking in my direction. Too awkward to leave the room, too late to hide behind the book—I focused on Vivian’s face instead, heat burning my cheeks. Though she didn’t make a sound, her breathing had sped up, her mouth slack, her eyes closed.
It felt like walking in on people having sex who were a little too involved to bother stopping on their voyeur’s account. The reminder of why the other girls were here was enough to turn the blood to ice water in my veins.
The reminder that this might be why I was here as well paralyzed me with fear.
Max pulled away from Vivian before long, his tongue scraping over the place he’d bitten. Even from this distance, I could see the slick coat of red staining his fangs and tongue, like he’d been sucking on a cheap, too red lollipop. Her trembling increased marginally, but she didn’t pull away or do anything to fight as Max licked at the punctures. I had to wonder if he was making such a point of it for my benefit or hers.
He pressed a light kiss to the bite, set her hand back down in her lap, then reached over to tilt her head so he could press another to her brow. It might have been sweet if she hadn’t so obviously been making an effort to keep from bolting in terror at his touch. Considering how cavalier he was with human life, it was no wonder she was afraid. Any bite from him could be her last.
His gaze briefly slid back to me before he rose and stalked back to the exit on quiet feet. He glanced at me once more over his shoulder, then to the book in my hands.
“You might find something like The Picture of Dorian Gray more enlightening.”
I nodded mutely, staring back at him as he slid out of the room like a shadow, the door lock engaging with a click. Just before the door shut, I almost called after him to ask if Sara was still here and alive, but the thought of having his attention on me again for any reason filled me with sick dread. What if he decided to feed on me next?
And exactly what kind of object lesson did he think I might learn from Dorian Gray? It wasn’t like I was about to sell my soul to Max for the sake of beauty or wealth. Unless he wanted me to read and reflect on my relationship with Royce, which was already borderline Faustian. Or had been, before he sent me away from what might have been a very long and decadent life together. He had stashed me in Los Angeles while he dealt with whatever troubles were threatening me in New York. Royce never had been quite clear on what I was hiding from, aside from the police, though I trusted his judgment enough to accept it was serious business.
Whatever the reason, I had to keep in mind it was Max Carlyle making the suggestion. Who knew what he might be thinking? The guy was crazier than a shithouse rat.
Once I was sure he was gone, I put my book down, clearing my throat. Vivian didn’t look up, her attention fixed on her hands, once again clenched in her lap. I moved to her side. She shrank away when I sat down next to her, like she thought I might hurt her, too. I held out a hand in offering as a lump formed in my throat, too big to talk around. She tilted her head to look, biting her lip, I supposed either too afraid to move or speak. Knowing what that felt like, I kept my mouth shut, leaving my hand where it was.
After a very long moment, she slipped her hand into mine. I gave her cold fingers a light, and what I hoped was reassuring, squeeze. Her trembling didn’t let up in the slightest but her bunched shoulders did come down a bit. Long, wavy strands of dark brown hair clung to the perspiration on her skin.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
Every tear that slid down her pale cheek was like another knife in my heart. Once again, all I had done was sit back and watch as Max assaulted someone. Some part of me was too cowardly to interfere. All I could offer her was a bit of empty comfort, a human touch to remind her that she wasn’t alone.
Chapter Nine
It was odd, but it stung my pride as the days passed to see Max come and go, drinking from the girls or from Na’man, the one guy he kept locked in here with us. He left the others shaking, emotional wrecks in his wake—while completely ignoring me.
He occasionally took one of them out with him, then returned them a few hours later as pale shadows of themselves. I did my best not to think too hard about what he might have done to them during those little excursions. I could guess by the traumatized looks and empty gazes, the way they shivered and cried once he was gone.
Those were the times I was thankful he seemed to have lost his interest in me. And hated myself more for being too afraid to try to stop him from hurting them, and for being grateful it wasn’t me.
It was even worse when I finally worked up the courage to ask him—from safely across the room during a rare daytime visit—if Sara was okay. He looked at me with such a flat, emotionless expression, his gray eyes washed out to the point of appearing nearly colorless in the dim sunlight, that I couldn’t find it in myself to say anything else. I had to turn my gaze away. He didn’t stay long after that, taking blood from Iana and then leaving without a word. It was disheartening, to say the least.
His perfunctory appearance and manner made a little more sense a couple of hours later. The smell of rotting peaches from Iana’s strange blood was still on the air when Vivian called out from the pool room, the urgency in her voice and frantic gestures bringing all of us to hurry and gather by the windows.
Red and blue flashes flickered across the snow, splashing against the stone wall to the southeast. We couldn’t see them from this angle, but there were emergency vehicles of some kind on the property.
Tense, excited, we all pressed against the metal bars and craned our necks, trying to spot a uniform or a police car.
No one said anything for the longest time, all of us collectively holding our breath, watching for any sign of rescue. Then a couple of men in police uniforms,
a tall, skinny guy in an FBI jacket, and one of Max’s henchmen walked around the side of the mansion, coming into our view.
We screamed and hollered and banged on the metal keeping us from the glass, trying to get their attention, but they never once looked up. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had the sinking feeling that our prison wasn’t just soundproofed. The glass was probably tinted in a way to make it too reflective for anyone to see in from the outside. Max’s man adjusted the collar of his coat and looked our way. His casual glance and smug smile told me he must have known we were screaming for the officers’ attention but were never going to get it.
Being trapped in that room, seeing the police so close and not being able to do anything about it, was one of the most helpless, awful experiences I’d had since Max had taken me. They didn’t look up. Not even once. Obviously they couldn’t tell we were here, couldn’t hear our cries for help. They might have been here searching for me, or they might have been here because word got out about Max’s shadier activities. They knew something was wrong. Even from where I stood, even with the wrought iron bars in the way, I recognized the look of the warrant in the officer’s hand as he gestured at Max’s man.
They stood there talking for a few minutes, their lips moving, the occasional hand gesture taking in the house or the expanse of the property.
After awhile, Max’s security guard walked back toward the flashing lights with one of the police officers. The FBI agent and the other officer stayed where they were, their hands moving in sharp, urgent gestures as they had some kind of disagreement. The agent kept pointing at the house. The officer kept pointing back toward the flashing lights. I had the sinking feeling the local cops might be in Max’s pocket, and trying to dissuade the FBI, on his behalf, not to look too closely at what was hidden behind the curtain.
Even a vampire couldn’t say no to a search warrant. I straightened a bit as the FBI agent moved through a door below us and out of sight, the officer shaking his head before following reluctantly in his wake.
Even though there wasn’t anything more to see, we all stayed right where we were, glued to this one tiny hope that we might be found and rescued. A few minutes later, there was a bit of noise from the common room. I glanced back, as did most of the others, in time to see Max ushering Gideon and Sara before him.
She was leaning heavily on the necromancer for support, head hanging, her normally sparkling blue eyes gone dim from what looked like a nasty combination of exhaustion and blood loss. Sara usually had some color in her skin, but at the moment she was even paler than I was, and there were unhealed bite marks visible on her arms and throat. Quite a few more than had been there when I last saw her.
And she sported a brand-new collar, white leather to match the loose silk wrap and pants that washed out her already pale features.
Fighting back the urge to throw myself on Max and throttle the unlife out of him, I scooted around the gathered, gaping throng by the windows and headed straight for Gideon and Sara. Max barely paid me a glance before speaking in hushed, urgent tones to Gideon, clearly continuing some earlier thread of conversation.
“They won’t find them. Stay here, and don’t provoke them or I’ll revoke my hospitality and you can find your own way back to Los Angeles.”
Gideon scowled but didn’t argue. After his tight nod, Max turned on a heel and stalked out, the door sliding into place and locking behind him.
The necromancer’s attention turned to me as I approached. The muscles in his jaw and neck tensed, but he stayed put as I yanked Sara out of his arms and into a hug. She gave a startled yelp before returning the gesture. Disgustingly, she smelled like him, the odor of chloroform and dead things clinging to her like a revolting perfume.
“Jesus, don’t scare me like that,” she scolded, returning the hug once she saw it was just me.
“Scare you? Cripes, woman,” I said, pulling back to look her over, “I’ve been worried sick about you. Are you okay? I mean, obviously not, but—”
“Relax! I’m fine. I’m alive. Gideon has been watching out for me.”
I turned a murderous glare in his direction, a vein throbbing in my temple. He didn’t seem terribly bothered by it, though he didn’t meet my gaze for long. If the bite marks were his idea of “watching out” for Sara’s health, I could give him a few puncture marks of his own to see how it felt.
Sara’s hand on my chin forced me to look back at her instead. She gave it a little shake. “Stop that. He’s done the best he could. What about you? Are you okay? How are you holding up?”
I took a breath and forced myself to relax. “I’m okay. As well as could be expected, I guess. Any idea what’s going on? With the cops, the FBI?”
“Someone broke Mr. Carlyle’s cover,” Gideon said, but from the tone of his voice I wasn’t sure how he felt about it. When I looked back at him, he was staring at the video camera above the door.
Much as I wanted to ask questions about his plans, I didn’t dare. Not while we were being watched. I hated it, but I’d have to trust that he’d give me a signal when he was ready.
I gestured for Sara to follow me back outside. As I led the way, she looked around, one brow raised, otherwise not seeming very impressed with the surroundings. Maybe she was staying in an equally opulent prison. I had no idea if Max had stuck her in a closet or another big suite of rooms. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Gideon trailed after us, adjusting the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt, which was a dark green that matched his eyes. Sara and I sat down and the necromancer leaned against the door frame, watching from afar with obvious interest. The others gave us a wide berth but kept an eye on Sara and me. Mostly on me. Except for Iana, whose golden eyes were glowing intently as she stared unblinking at Gideon, her hands hooked into twitching claws.
“There’s got to be a way out of here. Some way of letting those cops know we’re here.”
Sara shook her head. “I don’t see how. I heard you guys banging on the bars before we came in.”
That gave me pause. I looked down at the seat, then back at the window. The wrought iron bars didn’t have enough room between them to squeeze a hand through to bang on the glass, but they did leave enough room for one of the chair legs.
I rocketed to my feet, grabbing the chair and scraping it across the inlaid tile. “God damn, Sara, this is why I love you. You’re fucking brilliant.”
Puzzled, she rose, following me at a slower pace. “Uh ... thanks? What’d I say?”
“Grab a chair. Come on, the rest of you, too!” I hefted the one I’d dragged over to the iron bars, adjusting the legs to poke through the holes. As soon as the others saw what I was doing, they all went for chairs and stools, anything that might have legs long enough to reach the windows beyond the bars. We wouldn’t be able to get out, but we might be able to attract some notice from the cops searching the grounds.
I shoved at the chair, braced for the impact against the glass. It shivered and chipped under the blow, but didn’t crack.
The others started doing the same. Iana and I did the most damage. In addition to being soundproofed and tinted, the damned windows must have been bulletproof or something. Hairline cracks were the best we could do, even with supernatural strength, but I was betting the noise might attract attention if we kept it up.
Gideon didn’t try to stop us, but he did turn a newly appraising eye in my direction when I glanced at him over my shoulder.
The rest of us continued our assault on the windows, doing everything we could to make noise. That is, until someone smacked me on the back of the head hard enough that my forehead snapped forward to hit the chair, momentarily knocking me senseless. I fell to the floor and the chair landed on my chest hard enough that I was sure there would be a huge bruise on my ribs and stomach later.
Breathless and stunned, once I blinked the blurriness out of my vision and could do more than gasp air into my constricted lungs, I stared up at the angry guard looming over me. It was the gu
y with the eye patch and scar, whose bandage-covered nose I had probably broken when I busted out of my first holding cell. His face was reddened and twisted with fury as he glared down at me with his one good eye. A couple of other guards in their sharp suits were driving back the other women, yanking chairs out of their hands and shoving them away from the bars. Most of the ladies fled immediately, two or three screaming in terror, but Iana and Na’man stood their ground.
“You are one stupid girl,” Scar-face said, giving me a kick in the ribs that knocked the little breath in my lungs right back out.
Sara flung herself at him, snarling, but was thrust stumbling back, landing on her ass with a smack loud enough for me to grimace in sympathy. She didn’t have the benefit of my strength or reflexes, and was still dealing with blood loss to boot, but she didn’t look too badly hurt. She winced a bit, struggling to get to her feet, but I hadn’t recovered enough to help her.
“Move!”
I might have said something caustic to the guy if I had the breath for it. Instead, I stayed right where I was, flailing a bit as I tried to figure out how to make my everything stop hurting and get away from the asshole. He grabbed one of my arms and slid me closer, flipping me on my stomach to slap a pair of handcuffs around my wrists before yanking me up to my feet. I stumbled along with him as he pulled me by the arm. Gideon gave me a little finger wave and a smirk as Scar-face dragged me past him. I stuck my tongue out at the necromancer in return since I couldn’t give him a one-finger salute.