She paused briefly at the foot of the hill leading up to Casa Loma. She could turn left here and follow the street to climb the hill or take the steep stairway cut into the hillside. She could see the turrets of the castle rising over the trees, the elaborate folly of a wealthy merchant as tribute to the wife who never lived to see it finished. Now, it was a tourist attraction and a site for extravagant weddings or tasteful corporate Christmas parties.
You need the exercise, she told herself. And climbing the stairs was hard work, or at least hard enough to keep her mind from things she’d rather not think about this morning.
She was halfway up, pausing on one of the landings to catch her breath, when she heard footsteps behind her. She glanced back and saw a fair-haired man climbing the second flight of stairs. He was moving quickly, not looking at her. Ardeth started up again, feeling vulnerable and exposed on the long stairway. She didn’t stop again, despite the burning in her thigh muscles and the beginning of a painful stitch in her side, but the footfalls behind her grew steadily louder.
She started up the last stretch of stairs two at a time, using the railing to help haul herself up. Halfway to the top, she dared a glance back and saw that the man was almost at the landing below her. Something shifted sickeningly in her stomach and she turned around to run up the last steps.
There was someone standing at the top.
She had a brief impression of dark hair, dark clothing. Run, the terrible chill in her spine urged her. Don’t be a fool, her reason answered. It’s just a jogger, or someone out for a walk. He’s not waiting for you. Ardeth looked up again and saw the smile he tried to hide.
She knew her widening eyes betrayed her. He was already moving towards the first step when she ducked under the railing and fought to get her balance on the almost vertical slope of the hill. Slipping on the dew-damp grass, she started to scramble up and to her left, hoping to reach the top before he could head her off. If he came out onto the hillside, he’d have the same trouble moving as she did and she might be able to beat him to the top. If only he didn’t go back up the stairs . . .
A quick glance to her right revealed that he’d done just that and was running across the top of the hill to cut her off. This isn’t happening, a part of her mind whispered in dull panic, this can’t be happening. She was slipping again, gasping as her body hit the ground and she started to slide down backwards. The ache in her side had turned into a knife-sharp pain.
Twisting around, she saw that the fair-haired man had left the stairway and was scrambling across the grass directly below her, to intercept her if she tried to tumble down the slope to safety. There was nowhere to go but across the face of the hill.
She wanted to scream for help but couldn’t get her voice past the band of terror that seemed to have tightened around her throat. She could only listen to her gasping breaths as she struggled over the slanted ground, grabbing saplings for support to halt her slow steady drift downward towards the man moving below her. A glance upward revealed that the dark man had sprinted ahead of her along the hilltop and was working his way through the scrubby trees towards her. There was no escape, no way they wouldn’t catch her. Don’t let them get me, Ardeth prayed and lunged forward, hands clawing at the grass, feet slipping in the dirt.
The dark one caught her as she reached the edge of the denser growth, one hand closing over her shoulder and pulling her around to deliver the backhanded blow that tumbled her to the ground. She skidded down the hill a little, struggling to free her shirt from his grip, then he sat down hard on her stomach and drove the air from her body.
For a moment, darkness swamped her as she fought only to breathe. When the sudden rush of oxygen back into her lungs cleared her vision, the man was crouched over her. There was a long knife with a wickedly serrated blade moving in hypnotic rhythm in front of her eyes. “Another sound, another move out of you and I’ll leave your guts here for the birds to eat, understand me?” he whispered.
Ardeth’s head spun again but she found herself nodding without thinking about it. She felt a distant sense of relief that some part of her had managed to maintain an instinct for self-preservation. She felt the sudden cold kiss of metal against her skin as he laid the knife beneath her jaw. “That’s good. Now sit up, nice and slow.” She managed to get her hands under her and ease herself into a sitting position, aware of the knife poised just below her chin.
The blond man emerged from behind the dark one, breathing hard, eyes angry. “You could leave her in the bushes here. Nobody’d find her for weeks. It’d be even better than the ravine where we left the other guy,” he suggested helpfully.
“No. We’ll take her with us. Get her up,” the dark man ordered and, with a shrug, the blond moved around to grip Ardeth’s shoulders and pull her to her feet. They held her firmly as they struggled back up to the top of the hill. “We’re going to that van over there. You walk nice and steady, Alexander, and I won’t cut your throat.”
My name, he knows my name, Ardeth thought dazedly as she let them guide her towards the van waiting by the curb. The blond one went ahead to open the back doors.
This is it, last call, Ardeth thought as she was pushed around to the back of the van and sent stumbling inside. I ought to scream, I ought to do something. Someone might hear, someone might save me. But it was too late, the hands were closing over her again, jerking her hands behind her back to bind them tightly, forcing a greasy rag between her lips.
The back doors of the van slammed shut, then she heard the front door echo them. The engine sputtered into life, then the van into motion.
“Where do you want to dump her?” a distant voice asked.
“Go back to the base.”
“You want to do it there?”
Ardeth didn’t see the blindfold coming, then all light was gone. Pain sparked briefly behind her eyes as her hair was tangled in the knot as it was jerked tight. Finished with her, the dark man answered. “We’re not going to do her, Wilkens. Our guest needs her.”
There was a sudden outburst of laughter, echoing wildly through the darkness in her mind. “I get it . . . kill two birds with one stone.”
“So to speak.” Another harsh burst of laughter was drowned by the roaring in Ardeth’s skull. I’m going to faint, she thought distantly, before the last coil of fear inside her tightened and stopped her heart.
Chapter 3
Don’t panic, Ardeth told herself, when she found herself awake again, don’t panic.
Of course, suggested a tiny voice in the back of her mind, if you did decide to panic, only if mind you, you would be excused as having every reason. You are, after all, bound, gagged and blindfolded in the back of a van driven by two maniacs who’ve already killed someone else. Someone they left in a ravine. Someone who might have been Tony. And they know your name. They knew where you’d be. They were waiting for you.
But they hadn’t killed her yet. They had even said they weren’t going to “off” her. Ardeth tried to console herself with that thought, but the tiny voice only cackled and remarked that if they hadn’t killed her yet, it was because they had some other use for her. And what might that be, it mused. Maybe they want you to teach a Sunday School class. Maybe do some research for them. Maybe they just want to have a little gangbang and then kill you.
The vision of that fate was so overwhelming that Ardeth’s mind screamed in protest. It wasn’t until she heard the choking whimpers that she realized she’d screamed out loud as well.
“Shut the fuck up back there,” a distant voice shouted and Ardeth buried her head against the rough carpet of the van’s floor and willed herself to be quiet.
Right. Don’t panic. Don’t faint again. She bit down on the gag to keep from crying. She had to think. OK, Ardeth, think, she told herself. How long before someone missed her? A couple of days, maybe even a week before anyone got concerned enough about her absence at class and her endlessly ringing telephone to
call the police. Maybe less if someone was worried (maybe Carla, oh please Carla be worried, be worried soon!) enough about her mental state after Conrad’s death.
Then . . . if they tried to find her, what would they find? Nothing. She couldn’t remember seeing anyone on her walk. How long would it take the police to reconstruct her movements? Days? Weeks? Months?
All right then, all right. She caught herself on the verge of hyperventilating and slowed her breathing. No help from outside for days, if ever. She’d just have to make it through this on her own.
Why me . . . oh God . . . why me? I’ve been good . . . I don’t deserve this . . . I can’t face it, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!
You don’t have a choice.
That thought steadied her a little. She was a coward, true enough, and physically weak. But she was smart, surely smarter than these thugs. And no matter what they did to her, all that mattered was that she stay alive until help came. Just stay alive.
All right, Ardeth thought again, clinging to the clear, final sound of the words in her mind. So she had to make it on her own. Think then. Where were they taking her? She’d started up the hill at 6:45. How long had she been unconscious in the back of the van? She had to remember to check her watch when they arrived . . . wherever. Yeah, that’d be simple. She was only blindfolded with her hands bound behind her back. Still, it was something to try for.
Now, the van. She’d had only a glimpse of it, but even if she’d seen it clearly, she wouldn’t know more than the colour. Too bad you didn’t pay more attention to Tony’s car lectures, Ardeth told herself, then clamped down on the hysteria-edged laughter she could feel bubbling in her throat. The carpet in the van smelt like spilt beer and gasoline. A unique smell, surely. She could see it now, the headline screaming “Kidnap victim identifies culprits by smell.”
The men. That’s right, she told herself, try to remember the men. What do they always say on cop shows? Male, Caucasian, early thirties, one dark, the other blond, eyes . . . she shuddered when she thought of their eyes. No. Don’t think about the men.
Just think about the van, the motion. How far are we going? How far? The steady hum of the van’s engine and the rough vibration of the floor beneath her seemed to dull her senses. She let her thoughts dissolve into the sound and the motion. Even if she couldn’t faint again, it was easier, so much easier to be in shock. She just wondered how long the state would last.
She made it last until the van jolted suddenly, sending her body rolling against the side, and bruising her hip on the wheel cover. She’d been drifting, her mind filled with peaceful, grey fog. Distantly, she’d heard the men talking, a foreign language of business deals and baseball scores that she could not stir herself to try to understand. The only thing that made sense to her was the dark man’s name—Roias.
The van jerked again. One of the men swore and Ardeth bit back her whimper as her back slammed into the side of the van. They must be in the country now, off the paved roads.
At last the van coasted to a halt. “Well, bitch, we’re here,” one of the men, Wilkens she guessed, said cheerfully.
“Open the door and get her downstairs,” Roias ordered. Ardeth heard the front doors slamming. The side door slid open.
“All right, I’m gonna take you out now. And you’re going to march nice and pretty where we tell you, or I’ll start cutting you up into little pieces right here.”
“Be sure you have a bucket handy if you do. I don’t want any of this to go to waste,” Roias remarked, which set the other man off into gales of nasty laughter that turned Ardeth’s spine to ice. Any what to go to waste? she wondered and then shied away from the horrific possibilities her mind insisted on presenting. They want you alive and unharmed, she told herself. That’s something to hang on to.
When Wilkens hauled her to her feet, she struggled obediently along beside him, straining to hear every sound around her. It was oddly quiet, no street noise. They were definitely in the country.
She stumbled on the stairs and Wilkens cursed, hauling her up by her bound arms. She counted the stairs to keep her mind busy. There were fifteen of them. Inside, she felt the change in the air and in the sound of her feet on the floor. She was being marched down a long, echoing hallway, with wooden floors.
There was a pause and Ardeth heard the snap of bolts and the heavy grinding of a metal door being pulled aside. “Move it,” Wilkens snapped, pushing her forward. She staggered into a rush of dank, chilly air. A basement, she thought, as Wilkens began to manoeuvre her down a long set of curving stairs. The steps were narrow and she could feel the vast emptiness tugging at her. One misstep or an overzealous thrust from Wilkens and she could end up with her brains splattered all over the floor. It might be better that way. This could be your last chance, the nasty little voice whispered. It might, she acknowledged, but knew she wasn’t brave or desperate enough to take that way out. Not yet.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and kept moving. “Wake up, Your Highness. Din-din’s here,” Roias called out, from somewhere ahead of her. “I know it’s early, or is that late for you? But if you don’t take it now you won’t get any more.” Wilkens laughed and quickened his pace, dragging Ardeth along beside him.
She heard the clink of metal on metal, then the long protesting squeal of a rusty door opening. “Bring her in here,” Roias instructed, and Wilkens pushed her suddenly forward. She stumbled and fell to her knees, then crouched there, afraid to move. Wilkens’s hands closed on her arm, then she felt the cool blade of a knife between her wrists. She cried out once, the sound mercifully muffled by the gag, before she realized that he was cutting the rope that bound her. Freed, her hands tumbled limply to her sides. She could barely feel her fingers.
“The wrists are no good, no circulation left. It’ll have to be the arm,” Wilkens said and then shoved her forward again. Ardeth sprawled onto the stone, unable to catch herself with her lifeless hands. Hands seized her hair and hauled her up again, thrust her forward until her aching body met cold metal bars. A cell, she thought distantly. I’m in a cell. Or a cage.
“Put your arm through the bars,” Roias ordered and she tried to lift her arm. Disoriented, she couldn’t find the opening in the bars. Someone took her arm and thrust it through. Wilkens’s hand was still in her hair. “Now hold your arm out straight. And don’t move it, no matter what.”
Ardeth nodded against Wilkens’s grip, against the bars that pressed into her cheek. “All right, Your Highness. It’s all yours,” Roias said mockingly. In the sudden silence, Ardeth heard the faint clatter of chains moving, the fainter rustle of material on stone. The sound drew near and instinctively she tried to shrink away. Wilkens’s hand rammed her head harder against the bars and he hissed a warning.
She straightened her trembling arm and waited, realizing suddenly that she was crying.
Something brushed her wrists and she started to jerk away. Wilkens’s warning held her still as the cool, smooth touch settled on her hand, then moved up, as if searching. Finally the coolness settled on the vulnerable inner curve of her elbow. Warmth replaced the chill and Ardeth realized what was touching her. It was a mouth. It sucked at her skin for a moment, the warm tongue tracing the throb of her veins.
She tried desperately to understand what was happening, what this strange ritual had to do with any of the fates she’d envisioned after her kidnapping. Wilkens’s grip on her hair and shoulder suddenly tightened and she had only time to wonder why before two pinpoints of pain shot through her inner arm. The pain faded almost instantly, but she could feel at its source, beneath the warm mouth, a strange pressure.
In the echoing black silence, she heard the soft, almost sensuous sound of sucking.
She almost screamed then, as she realized what was happening. Someone—or something—on the other side was sucking her blood.
Wilkens’s hand moved to loosen her gag and she spat it out. “Go on, scream if you�
�d like. His Highness probably expects it by now.” Roias’s voice was a croon of pleasure and Ardeth bit her lip to keep from obeying him. It doesn’t hurt, she told herself. No matter what else, it doesn’t hurt. I won’t scream. I won’t give them the pleasure.
She felt the tears tracking down her face and pressed her cheek harder against the bars. How long could it last? Her arm already felt like lead and her panic had begun to dissolve into an almost welcome lassitude. After another moment, she heard Roias say “That’s enough for now.” The mouth did not move; the steady pressure did not abate. “I said, that’s enough. We’ve got work for you tomorrow night, and we all know you work better hungry.”
He’s not stopping, Ardeth thought dizzily, he’s just going to keep going until there’s no blood left in me. Then she heard Wilkens’s curse and a sudden groan from beyond the bars. The mouth left her arm. Someone was pulling her arm back, undoing her blindfold.
Ardeth opened her eyes carefully, squinting against the dim dazzle of the lights. Roias crouched beside her, smiling. Wilkens stood beyond him, a long pole in his hand, the end pointed through the bars. A cattle prod, Ardeth thought, with distant satisfaction at her own knowledge. That’s what they use to control . . . “Go on,” Roias said, as if reading her mind. “It’s time you met His Highness, the Count.” He took her chin in his hand and forced her head around to face the cell beside hers.
She bit off her scream, choked it down into a strangled gasp. She was staring into hell-bright eyes, burning in a skeletal face shadowed by tangled grey hair. Beneath the torn clothing, the form looked like a man’s, but there seemed nothing human in that hot gaze.
“This is our guest, the Count. Count, this is your dinner for the next little while. I’m sure the two of you will get along just fine.” Roias released her chin, but she found herself unable to look away from the creature crouched across from her. She was drowning in the molten gaze, caught by the mad hunger burning there.
The Night Inside Page 4