by Tracy Tappan
Thomal stumbled up to their table, his face red and sweat-misted, a hand clutching his belly low down. “Toni just kneed me in the balls,” he gasped out, “and ran off.”
Jaċken leapt to his feet. “Damn it, what kind of pantywaist are you, Costache?”
“She really distracted me, okay.”
Jaċken held up a hand to stop any more of that shit from coming out of Thomal’s mouth. “Just find her,” he snapped. He turned and jogged for the door, his stomach twisting into a hard knot of worry. If Toni somehow made it to The Outer Edge and became another Gwyn Billaud, he’d never forgive himself for driving her away.
Chapter Eighteen
Toni darted in and out of the buildings along Main Street, keeping close to the shadows as she headed for the fork at the end of the road. The left fork. Breathing heavily, she shot into the low tunnel, the walls closing in around her. Dark, dank, slime climbing the walls, water drip-dripping steadily down slick rock. A prickle of unease touched her nape. Had she actually wanted the town of Ţărână to appear freakier in order to fit better into her definition of what a “vampire” lair should look like? Well, be careful what you wish for.
Here was a cave, and one that ranked about a million on the creep-o-meter.
She loped along for about three hundred yards, then came to a gasping halt at the end of the tunnel. Just like in the right fork, the cave opened into a large cavern of buildings, although this part of the town was like…Jesus! It looked like The Projects times a Third World Country times…she didn’t know what—a scene out of Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the Thirteenth, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or any one of the choicer slasher films her brother had dragged her to see all those years ago.
Low, misshapen buildings were jammed cheek-to-jowl next to one another in the center of a u-shaped cut out of rock. Some were boarded up and many were dark. A few showed signs of life in the form of a bulb sputtering in a window, the dim light casting eerie, writhing shadows across the cave floor and up the lumpy walls. A pit of burping mud off to the left added a fitting sulfuric odor to the scene, though the worst smell was the out-and-out human stink.
Hardly an Ozzie and Harriet neighborhood like the right fork. More like Amityville, New York.
The surreal wail of a guitar cried out, and a shiver skittered up her spine. How bad did she want to turn around and run back to Garwald’s Pub? Bad.
Crap. She hissed a breath as the distant sounds of shouting skipped down the tunnel. Thomal had obviously recovered enough to announce her escape. She craned her neck, spying over the tops of the buildings to her right the opening of another cave tunnel. This entrance was caged off by about a twenty-foot stretch of steel bars, just like the ones surrounding Roth’s mansion. Worth investigating, for sure. She forced herself back into a run, heading right, and careened around the rundown building closest to—
She slammed to a halt and quickly ducked back against the building. Damn it! There was a crowd of men by the bars, about five on this side, the same number on the other side where the tunnel opening was. The group of them looked like they were gathered at a Hell’s Angels mixer, what with all of the torn black clothing, piercings, tattoos, chains and steel accent pieces.
Arc Costache was in the middle of the mess, on Ţărână’s side, of course, dressed in his warrior blacks and strapped to the gills with the usual dozen or so knives. “I’ve had enough of this shit,” he was saying in an annoyed tone. “Now break it up. If you assholes start flashing your blades around again, somebody’s going to get cut.”
Both sides of men lit off over that, complaining and jeering in what sounded remarkably like playground nana-nana-boo-boo speak.
“Nilan,” Arc barked at a man on his side, “get your friends back into the bar. Tøllar,” he snapped at the leader on the other side, “line up nuts-to-butts and march right back into—” He broke off and pressed two fingers to his earpiece. “Yeah, I copy. What’s up?” Brows down, Arc listened intently to whoever was speaking to him. “Roger that, I’ll start looking for her.”
Oh, wonderful. Toni clenched her teeth together. Damn it, again.
“Dev,” Arc continued into the microphone of his headset, “come down off the wall and give me some backup. I’ve still got some hairballs down here with their panties in a bunch.”
Toni darted into the building she was hiding against and shut the door quietly behind her, suddenly finding herself enveloped in the kind of atmospheric gloom typical of a bar. A neon sign on the wall flickered the name of the joint, The Shank Tooth, while the rest of the lighting was done in a red, ethereal motif that had her blinking her eyes to adjust them. When they did adjust…wow, Twilight Zone, anyone? The creep-o-meter had just been pegged.
Granted, she didn’t tend to frequent places that catered to the underbelly of human society. So maybe it was standard to find small groups of people dressed in Alice Cooper garb huddled around tables like edgy nonconformists, mouthing their drinks and murmuring incoherently while a hermaphroditic musician made artistic love to a guitar on stage. Right. To someone used to this scene, it was probably perfectly normal, if a bit felonious, and didn’t feel at all like the type of bar where Freddy Krueger might hang out with Leatherface, Michael Myers, and Jason, in keeping with the whole slasher symbolism.
Now how bad did she want to rush back to Garwald’s? She closed her eyes and gave herself a mental shake. She really had to stop thinking like that.
Stealing over to the far end of the bar, she caught the bartender’s attention. The grubby man came striding over, but barely got to within three feet of her when his eyebrows nearly jumped off his forehead.
“Holy snakes,” he gasped, “you’re a human.” He closed the final gap between them, sucking air through his nostrils so hard his chin jerked back. “And unmated,” he added in outright horror. “Who the farks brought you here?”
“Some friends,” she quickly lied. “May I please use your phone?”
He made a face. “What ass-brain would bring an acquisition to The Outer Edge?”
“It’s a local call,” she continued in a rush. Heads were starting to turn her way, nostrils quivering. “A 619 area code, I swear.”
The bartender looked at her as if she’d just asked him who he thought would win the next Olympic Figure Skating pairs competition. “You can’t reach topside by phone, dummy, don’t you know that? Only with the Internet.”
She fought for calm, her nerves stretching to the breaking point. Someone exhaled sharply up near the stage. The guitar hit an off-key note. “Do you have a computer I can use, then?”
“Get!” he shooed her as if she was a cat. “You don’t belong here, missy.”
No kidding. Compared to the rest of the patrons, she was a schoolmarm from The Waltons. “Please, I’ll pay you anything you—”
The door slammed open.
The guitar twanged into silence and faces began to turn, one by one, to squint at the open door.
Toni exhaled a sigh that vibrated her lips. She herself didn’t need to turn around to know who’d just entered the bar.
“Yeah, I’ve got her,” Jaċken said from the doorway, presumably talking into a headset. Footsteps approached, then stopped at her side. “All right, Toni, let’s go.”
She turned her head to give him an icy stare. “No.”
Jaċken released a tight-sounding breath, as if his ribcage had shrunk around his lungs. The noise was loaded with impatience and frustration. Poor man, was his kidnap victim being difficult? “It’s not safe here.” He paused. “I’ll toss you over my shoulder if I have—”
“Don’t you dare,” she seethed, her eyes catching fire. “You touched me in Roth’s office the day you took the letter opener from me.” She held up a rigid index finger in front of his face. “That was your one freebie. There won’t be another.”
He planted his hands on his belt, his gaze dipping over her. She could see in his eyes that he was assessing her, probably remembering how easily it’d bee
n to overpower her in Roth’s office.
The helplessness she’d felt that day flooded over her again, swamping her body, the remembered fear like a knife turning in her. Her soul screamed the unfairness of her situation. She stepped up to Jaċken, teeth gritted, and rammed a forefinger into his hard chest. “I might not be able to throw a knife as well as you, pal.” Well, a letter opener. “But I do know how to perform some pretty inventive acts on a man’s testicles. And I don’t mean just kneeing them. Believe me when I—”
“I do believe you,” he cut her off, his lips tight.
“Good.” She stepped back. “Because I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere.” Right outside this bar was a tunnel that probably led someplace very important. She turned back to the bartender, who looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “May I have a Manhattan, please?”
“Cancel that order,” Jaċken overrode her. “Dr. Parthen won’t be staying.”
The bartender moved to the other end of the bar. Who could blame him, but Toni still felt sided against. She pressed taut fists to the top of the bar. Not since she was seven years old had the urge to throw a temper tantrum been so strong.
“Listen…” Jaċken smoothed a horizontal hand through the hair. “We can do this easily if—”
“You’re a bully, Jaċken, you know that?”
His face reddened, much to the fascination of their audience.
“And, gee, I’m sorry if I’m not making things easy for you.” Her breathing sped up. Frustration, anger, and powerlessness collided, churned, rose up and pushed tears to her eyes. “Damn it.” She bowed her head and pressed her thumb and forefinger to her eyelids.
“Shit,” Jaċken muttered. “Toni…I don’t have to take you back to your room, okay. We can go anywhere you want. I know…what it’s like to feel trapped, and—”
“Oh, that’s rich!” She bolted her head up, her lips trembling. “You don’t know anything!” What the hell did Jaċken want from her, anyway? For her to soul-share with him again just so he could push her away like he’d done five days ago? Ten minutes ago! “Aren’t you the one who told me to get my hinie away from you? Well, follow your own advice and leave me alone!”
She jerked away from him.
“You’re in danger here. Please…” He matched her step for step, an emotion she didn’t recognize swimming into his eyes. Desperation?
She braced her hands on his muscular chest and shoved, which produced no movement from him whatsoever. “Damn you! I’m so sick of you Masters of the Universe men!” She snatched up an empty beer bottle and swung it at his jaw.
He tilted his head out of the way.
Heat pressed outward against her cheeks. That’d been laughably easy for him to dodge. Growling, she hurled the bottle at him, then ran outside.
Dev was now by the tunnel, dealing with the gathered hoodlums, Arc off somewhere.
Her arrival on the scene brought all speech to an abrupt halt: this side, that side, every man froze. Two beats of silence passed, then the space-time-continuum pressed “play” again, and a redheaded man from the other side, the one Arc had called Tøllar, stuck his head between the bars and sniffed noisily—and, really, quite rudely—in her direction. “Unmated!” he yelled, then the big-bad-mo-fos did the strangest thing. They turned and scurried like bunnies into the tunnel.
“Shit!” Dev swore. “Jaċken!” he shouted as her nemesis came crashing out of The Shank Tooth. “We’ve got tattle-tailers.”
“Ah, fuck,” Jaċken spat. “Lørke or Jøsnic will be coming any second, then. I’ll deal with them, you get her to the mansion. Now!”
“Roger that.” Dev grabbed her by the knees and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
“Hey!” she protested. “Put me down!”
The big lunk ignored her, of course. The earth started to pass before her vision as Dev vaulted into a run, the barred tunnel that could be a means of escape rapidly receding behind her. Crap! Reaching between Dev’s scissoring legs, she grabbed his testicles through his pants and gave them a good, firm squeeze.
Dev yelped and fell to his knees.
She tumbled off his shoulder, rolled onto her butt, her hair in her face, then scrambled to her feet.
Still kneeling on the cave floor, Dev gave her a look of abject shock. Behind him, all hell was breaking loose over by the bars. Nilan’s band of saggy-pants minions was shouting in panic, while a stream of vile curses was seething steadily past Jaċken’s bared teeth. What was going—? Then she saw him, or…or…. It.
Chapter Nineteen
Toni stood rooted to the spot as a giant’s form took shape out of the shadows of the barred tunnel, the black-haired man having to duck to accommodate a height of well over seven feet. Her chin sagged down to her chest. Had her brain been capable of rational thought just then, she might’ve considered the man’s body to be a medical miracle, more like boulders stacked together into human form rather than muscle and flesh. His face likewise resembled stone, or stone age, like something Paleolithic, with its huge, hinged jaws and wide, barbaric forehead. His right temple was marked with a saber-toothed tattoo, some of the black “teeth” stabbing into his eye socket. Saber-toothed tattoo…. Dear God.
The giant was dressed like the head subjugator in a Medieval torture chamber: black leather pants with spiked kneepads, a shirt of see-through black mesh interwoven with metal links, and steel-toed boots with rings of knives surrounding the calves. Spiked bracers covered his wrists and forearms, and two more large knives were jammed into his belt—knives which he was even now drawing as his black eyes locked onto her with ruthless satisfaction. Her belly went gelatinous.
With what seemed like no more than a casual flick of his wrists, he sent the blades whizzing at Jaċken and…her?
Jaċken dove out of the path of the weapon, hitting the ground and rolling.
Dev surged to his feet and pushed her out of the way just as the knife hit his upper back with a meaty thunch. He yelled in pain, staggering forward a step.
She blinked at him in horror, catching a glimpse of the hilt: intertwining black saber-teeth with an undulating red crystal on it. Then—sch-plop! Part of Dev’s shoulder exploded into her face, warm blood hitting her cheeks and spraying onto the front of her sweater. Dev dropped like a scarecrow that had lost its stuffing.
“No!” She fell down onto her knees beside him, alarm nearly blinding her with a dizzying rush of adrenaline. She jammed both hands over his wound, pressing hard to staunch the flow of blood.
“R-run,” Dev croaked at her.
Blood was oozing steadily through her fingers. “We have to get you to the hospital!”
“You’re in…danger,” Dev gasped painfully. “L-Lørke can get past the key code box.”
What? She whipped her eyes up.
The giant had just come to the blockade of steel bars and, without missing a beat, he wrapped one enormous hand around the code box protecting the door and ripped it off its bolts. Sparks flew out from the gnarled metal wreckage, showering over the giant, and a high-pitched siren started to wail.
Toni lurched to a standing position, the earth sloping beneath her feet like a carnival tilt-a-whirl ride. In defiance of every law of physics and science she’d ever learned, all the rules of nature she believed in with every fiber of her being, that giant was enduring what had to be a fatal electrical charge. And grinning at her.
His pupils glowed a bright, unnatural red as he flung the gate wide and came at her, his body looking bigger and taller with each step he took.
“Run, damnit!” Jaċken was racing to her rescue from over near The Shank Tooth, his legs pumping like a couple of pistons, his boots tearing up the ground. He had two knives already half-drawn….
But Nilan and his friends, who obviously agreed that, yes, running was the best course of action, did just that. As the panicked mob turned and scattered, they bowled Jaċken down and heaped on top of him.
She herself tried to run, she really did. Her neurons were fir
ing all of the necessary fight-or-flight messages, with flight taking huge precedence, but panic had paralyzed her. She could do no more than stand and stare as the giant drew up right in front of her.
Dizzied by his looming presence and the scorching heat coming off his body, she swayed backward. He reached out a hand, but not to steady her. No. He twisted a large paw into the front of her bloody sweater, then balled his other hand into a huge iron mallet and delivered her an unbelievable hammer of an uppercut. The blow snapped her chin back so hard it felt like her head came ripping partially off her neck.
She hurtled backward through the air, her sweater ripping out of the giant’s hold, and crashed to the cave floor onto her shoulder blades, flipping a backward somersault and sprawling facedown. A choked sob escaped her as agony blasted through her jawbones and ricocheted around in her skull. A strange buzzing noise shut down her ears and her eyeballs rolled into the back of her head.
The feel of a hand tangling in her hair jolted her back from her momentary slip into unconsciousness. The giant yanked her to her feet, and she cried out at the burning pain in her scalp. More black dots danced before her vision, making it seem like she was hallucinating when she saw Thomal, Nỵko, and Arc stampeding toward her from various directions of the cave. Not close enough….
The giant tossed her onto his shoulder. Somehow she managed to act through her swimming senses and drive the sharp point of her elbow into the median nerve of her captor’s neck. His grip loosened and she threw herself off his shoulder, hitting the rock floor with jarring impact. More birdies did laps around her head, singing her a lullaby, luring her back toward unconsciousness.
The giant locked a fist around her throat and hauled her to her feet. She heard a whoosh, and then the giant grunted, the hilt of a dagger suddenly appearing out of his shoulder. He spun in his attacker’s direction.
Jaċken!
Straight-arming her into immobility, the giant cocked back another knife. Jaċken was much closer now, an easy target…no! Her vision blurred and narrowed, blackness coalescing over the surface of her eyes. She wrapped a feeble hand around the giant’s wrist, the muscles in her neck straining as she fought to pull any amount of oxygen into her lungs.