“Where are you planning on taking him then for questioning?” Jared asks.
“We just strong arm him into my building and take him to the basement. There is all sorts of hardware materials down there we could use to tie him up.”
“Can you actually tie up a Demon.?” Aylesbury seems to ask himself.
Once we arrive at the church we pull up and walk over to my building, far enough away to not be seen, I stop and ask Aylesbury if he recognises anyone. He looks around and points out a really big guy with dark blonde hair and a growth of stubble. I instantly recognise him and just know he was one of the ones that enjoyed cutting my flesh, the one who spent hours telling me what he was going to do then spent even longer slowly slicing into my body.
“He has a knife fetish. I don’t know his name it might be something like Dar, I’m not too sure. He likes to describe in detail what he’s going to do then he slowly acts out every word and he’s very precise with it.” I tell them
“That’s enough fuel for me. I’ll come up on the right, Jared you take the left. Red, you come at him from the front and walk straight up to him, engage him in light conversation then we’ll take him just as he’s about to take you.” Aylesbury walks off and I get into position.
This could all go wrong in a second. Jared gives me a brief hug, before I move off. I guess he doesn’t want to lose me yet either.
I walk across the road and then horizontally toward The Demon; he sees me approach and makes no move towards me just stands there watching my every move. I walk straight at him and stop directly in front of him.
“Hello Scarlet, I see I’m going to have to sharpen my knives now that you’ve found your way back to me, I always knew you’d come back.” He emphasises and punctuates every word, the way he speaks reminding me of a snake, if snakes could talk.
“Actually I’ll be the one sharpening my knives.” I reply just as Jared and Aylesbury reach him, each of them grab an arm and twist it up behind his back.
He struggles as we move him towards my building. Jared and Aylesbury tighten their grip and force him through the entrance. I squeeze in ahead of them and point to the door under the stairs.
“I’ll kill you for this you stupid whore.” The Demon screeches at me as he is strong armed down the stairs.
“Now, now there’s no need to be nasty, we just want to ask you a few questions.” I say in a really chastising tone.
“Where do you want him?” Jared asks.
“Just hold him there a second I want to see if he’s got anything on him.”
I pat down his legs and feel around his waist, finding a long hard object down the back of his trousers I reach in to pull out the knife he’d concealed there. I pat down his jacket and then pull it open to see what is rattling around in the inside the pocket. I find two vials of blood red liquid. They must be the curse because when I pull the top off, he flinches away.
Once I finish, Aylesbury punches him in the gut. I was a little shocked but then I thought why not, he’d done worse to me. I watch as Jared holds him and Aylesbury punches him in the face and body until The Demon is almost doubled over from the pain, oddly enough he can’t take much for a Demon as Aylesbury only punches him a few times.
Aylesbury must be real strong to have done that, Demons aren’t exactly weak and it would take a lot to inflict pain on one of them, which is why some like The Demon in front of me liked to inflict pain on others, they were fascinated by it.
I advance on The Demon when I think Aylesbury has calmed down a little. I pull the knife that I’d taken from his waist band up to glint in the basement light and then hold it up to his throat.
“You’re going to tell me exactly what The Demons want with me” I say in a low menacing voice.
He just laughs at me and says. “You don’t even have the guts to use that thing, I’ll tell you nothing.”
Aylesbury plants his fist in The Demons face instantly stopping the laughter.
“I have an idea Aylesbury, hold his mouth open.” I pop open the top on one of the vials.
The Demon struggles really hard but Aylesbury and Jared hold him still. I pour the blood mixture right down the back of his throat so he doesn’t get a chance to spit it back out.
“You idiot!” He spits at me. “Do you have any idea what that was?”
“I’m guessing it was The Fallen curse and because you’re immortal it will turn you into one of those vile creatures.”
“What do you want? I’ll tell you anything.”
“I want to know what the counter curse is.”
“There isn’t one, but your blood made the Curse possible and drinking your pure blood will render the Curse inactive.”
“You want some of my blood?” He nods meekly already struggling to keep a hold on his life.
“Tough luck, you should never have messed with me or mine.” I taunt him
He passes out then and Jared lets go, letting The Demon nose dive to the floor.
“What are we going to do with him, we can’t risk that he’ll find his way back and we can’t leave him around here with all these people to snack on.” Jared says.
“You’re right we can’t, were going to take him to The Guild. It’s about time I confronted them and told them what is really happening.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Aylesbury asks as they pick The Demon back up.
“Yes, it needs to be done.”
I walk up the stairs in front of Jared and Aylesbury and open the doors for them. I watch them drag The Demon through the street and get him into the back of the truck.
“He shouldn’t wake up for a while yet but in case he does run him through with your sword, aim for the heart and he should stop for a while. If that fails cut his head off.” I say to Aylesbury from the front seat.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that this truck might be roomy but there isn’t enough room to swing my sword.” He replies as Jared starts the engine and we drive further into the city to The Guild building.
We arrive at The Guild with no incident and thankfully manage to park out front. Jared and Aylesbury haul out The Demon and we head into the lobby, we walk straight past reception, the woman behind the desk running after us.
“You can’t just waltz in here with an unconscious prisoner.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want, if you want to make yourself useful though I suggest you tell Delaney, Scarlet’s here to see him.” I shout back at the stupid woman flapping her arms at us.
Delaney meets us out in the bull pen. “What the hell do you think you’re doing Scarlet, I’ll have your neck for this if you don’t start explaining?”
“That’s exactly why I’m here Captain.” I say my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Somebody take whatever that is and put it in a holding cell, you three in my office now!” He barks at us.
We all walk into his office, Delaney sitting down while we all stand around. I shift so I’m in my Human form the same as Jared and watch Delaney’s face falter as it dawns on him what was going off.
“Why didn’t you tell me my brother was working the same division as me but in Faerie?” I ask my voice as angry as I felt.
“I wasn’t sure he was your brother, your files don’t mention any family, so I didn’t see the harm in sending him to aide you.” He sounded annoyed at himself for not realising his mistake.
“Did you know about my mother? Have you read both our files?” I come to stand in front of his desk. Jared passes me the files that he is holding and I slam them down on his desk.
“You shouldn’t have these files if they find out you’ve got them they’ll fire me.” He was in trouble and he knew it, I had him backed into a corner.
“I thought you were stronger than this Delaney. Now I’m going to sit here and tell you exactly what has been happening in my life lately then you’re going to file the report because once I walk out of here I’m not coming back. Understand.” He nods so I carry on.
“A
s you know I was on a private case looking for Bryn and Bronwyn’s sister Brook. What you don’t know is that it was all an elaborate set up to get me within reaching distance of The Lazarus. They kidnapped me and held me prisoner for three weeks beating me mercilessly as a pretence to get my blood.
My blood was then used to make more of a curse known as The Fallen curse. They have been looking for me ever since my mother was murdered, which I believe they are responsible for.
I escaped and uncovered Bryn and Bronwyn’s plot to give me to The Demon’s and they are now locked up nice and safe at The Manor Hotel awaiting extradition back to Faerie. There are Pack held by The Demons presumably they have already been infected by now and the Lycan Kings Sister lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life after being infected with the same curse.”
Delaney gets up and is about to speak when I interrupt.
“This may have been avoided or at the least not escalated this far if I had known why my mother died and that I had desirable blood. Instead The Guild wanted to control me and keep me for themselves.”
“I was acting on orders from Guild members higher up than me, that’s why I didn’t know I had inadvertently sent your brother to help you. If I’d have known what you were doing all along you’d have been reassigned.”
“Well grow a back bone now Delaney and do your job, there’s a whole Demon faction out in the mountains planning on taking over our world. The Fallen exist and are a mindless army that will do The Lazarus’s bidding. If you don’t act now their numbers will grow and they will succeed in taking over.”
“My hands are tied on this one, Scarlet, there’s nothing I can do.”
Aylesbury speaks up for the first time. “You’re not even going to try?”
“No and I suggest you forget about the whole thing too, there are higher powers at work here.”
“This is all about politics to you isn’t it. Well if you wanna play it like that then here’s my badge. I believe in justice and good prevailing against evil, The Guild obviously only wants power.”
I walk out then leaving Jared and Aylesbury’s talking to Delaney. I take one last look at the bull pen wondering which desk was mine and then head out to wait in the car.
A few minutes later Aylesbury gets in the car. “Where’s Jared?”
“He’s bringing a Guild car, he’s going to take the Fae in for processing; Delaney has agreed to submit your statement although he knows it will just get filed and ignored. You’re on your own Red.” He said.
“No Aylesbury I’m not The Pack will back me up because they want their men back.”
Chapter Thirty One
We pull up at The Manor and wait for Jared to arrive. Aylesbury asks me just as Jared pulls up. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. First things first though I’m going to find Gerry, he can try and get some of my blood and give it to Raven.”
“Who’s this Raven, is she Bastian’s sister the one you told Delaney about?”
“Yeah, come on I’ll take you to her, the Doc’s probably with her anyway.”
We all walk into The Manor and through to the infirmary, it was unusually quiet but I figured they were off on call. They obviously had Pack business to attend.
I went to the window over looking Raven’s bed and watch as she bucks and fights against the curse infecting her system. Then I turn from the screen to look at the lab opposite, there I see Gerry bent over a microscope looking at something, he looks up when I enter. I look back at Jared and Aylesbury and they follow me in.
“What are you looking at?” I ask as he makes a few notes on the tablet at the side of the microscope.
“Actually it’s the sample from The Fallen I found in your clothes when you were brought in half dead. I figured I could use it to come up with something to help Raven. I hope you don’t mind.” He moves over to the fridge and takes something out adding a few drops to the slide on the microscope.
“Of course I don’t mind, I had wondered what had happened to it. I think I’ve got your cure right here though.” I explain to him what The Demon had told us once infected.
“Well I’m sorry dear but now you’ve taken Bastian’s blood you will heal far more quickly than you did before and if I put a line in you’ll just heal around it and into the tube, the only way for me to get enough blood out of you for Raven is to cut you repeatedly until we get enough, it could take a while, depending on how much you bleed before you heal.”
He sounded like it was going to be a bad thing for me but I could hardly refuse. Bastian would kill me and take the blood for himself anyway.
“Just point me in the right direction Doc.”
He sits me down in a chair and straps down my arm. Aylesbury sits down at the side of me and holds my hand. I look at him and arch my brow.
“It’s going to hurt and you should always have someone there to hold your hand when something hurts.”
“Ah, Aylesbury that’s so sweet.” I say my voice dripping with sarcasm. He just rolls his eyes but I keep my hand in his.
Gerry pulls out some lotion and rubs it on my wrist. “Now this lotion will numb the skin slightly, however, after the first couple of incisions it will wear off and start to hurt. So it doesn’t take too long I’m going to do three incisions. But I’ll warn you the amount of times we have to do this may cause you to scar.”
He made the first three cuts horizontally across the under side of my wrist and all I could feel was the pressure, I couldn’t even feel my skin knit back together afterwards. After the first four or five slices it started to sting, I stop watching when it starts to hurt and bury my head into Aylesbury’ shoulder.
I wince as the scalpel slices again and again. I could feel the tears running down my face, it felt just like what The Demons had done to me repeatedly. I try to think about something else and find myself thinking the scar would look like I’d been clawed.
It didn’t take too long altogether, around half an hour. By the end of it I was a little shaky and all Jared could do was pace up and down.
“That should be enough, from what you said I should be able to just give her this intravenously and see the improvements immediately. I’ll just bandage this up and then you can be off.”
If it wasn’t for me the curse wouldn’t have worked in the first place. Still I didn’t want to have to do this for every Fallen we rescued.
“Will we have to do that every time, if we manage to rescue anyone I mean?” I ask as I get up supported by Aylesbury. My wrist throbbing, thankfully it wasn’t my sword arm, I doubt I’d be able to lift the thing with my arm this weak.
“No my dear, I have enough for Raven and then I will use the rest to make a serum that can be injected into the blood stream a little like an antidote. You needn’t worry now about getting the book that may or may not contain the counter curse.”
I sigh in relief then turn to Jared and Aylesbury. “Come on we’ve got prisoners to load up.”
“If you come back in a few hours hopefully she will be awake.” That was the best news I’d had in a while. I couldn’t wait for Bastian to find out his sister was going to be okay.
We headed downstairs to the cells through a still empty building. I walk in and see no one is on guard but the corridor door is open. I walk over to Bryn’s cell to find Roan in the process of unlocking it.
“Roan, what are you doing?” I ask and he stops mid action, turning to me his face no longer a bloody mess but his eyes hold something unreadable.
“I’ve done this for us Scarlet, so we can be together.” He rambles like some of the Psychos I’d hunted down previously.
“What have you done?” Jared asks advancing on him.
“I persuaded the Beast Master to go to the caves and finish this once and for all. What I didn’t tell him was I’d bargained with The Demon Lord, your life along with the Fae’s for His Majesty’s, I just need to give them these two back and then we can carry on with our lives.” His voice was bordering on man
ic.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t get chance to even think about it before the room exploded in action, the minute Roan moves Jared grabs me and pushes me into a corner while Aylesbury tackles Roan to the ground quite swiftly. Then he hauls him up and drags him out of the corridor and into the cell adjacent.
Both Jared and me follow them, as I enter Aylesbury is just shutting the door. “Aylesbury you just tackled the Beast Master’s second into submission, just how much do you bench press?” It was a stupid question to ask at the time like this but I couldn’t believe it, no Human could take down a Lycan especially one so high up in The Pack, Roan had become Bastian’s second because of his strength.
He just flexes his muscles and kisses his shirt covered bicep for effect. Jared rolls his eyes.
I face Roan and asks. “Where is Bastian?”
“He’s with the rest of them at the caves the last I saw he was bleeding and chained to the wall. Just ignore him, you’re free now we can be together.”
“You stupid fool, your not thinking clearly, The Demons will still come after me it’s just a matter of time. You’ve given up your status in The Pack, turned your friends over for slaughter and all for some stupid unrealistic crush.” I get up close to the bars. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole after this, you make me sick.”
“What shall we do with them?” Aylesbury asks.
“Make sure the Cells are locked tight, we’re going to the caves.” I say and walk out.
I head into the garage and find some gear lying about, throwing it into the truck. I had no idea what I would need out there and going against hell knows how many were real shitty odds. I pick up ropes, blades, a crossbow and some bolts and shove them all into the truck.
Jared was on the phone as he walks into the garage. Aylesbury picks up a sword sheath and measures it to his back to see if it would fit. He looks at me and says. “Got a plan?”
I just shake my head and load the rest of the random equipment onto the truck.
“Who are you on the phone to?” I mouth at Jared.
Hunted (Scarlet Dawson Book 1) Page 20