Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (40 page)

"But how will she find us?" Nathan hissed through the darkness. "We need a rendezvous point."

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I held up my hand. This wasn't the time for them to start arguing. "I'll remember the way. We'll meet at the end. If there's trouble, if someone discovers us, it's every man for himself, okay?"

"No!" they both whispered in unison.

I shushed them. "Do you want someone to hear you? Listen, I can take care of myself. I'll be invisible. It's you I'm worried about."

"I'm not going to leave here if you're in trouble. That's asking too much!" Nathan shook his head vehemently. "I won't do it."

"Listen to me!" I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "I have blood ties to both of you. You can keep track of me that way. If something happens that you lose me, or I can't communicate, you'll know it's too late. Promise me that if you can't hear me, you'll leave." The pain that flashed through Nathan's eyes was visible despite the darkness that surrounded us. He nodded once in agreement.

"Then let's go," Cyrus said softly, motioning toward the wall. "Carrie, I'll boost you up." We'd found a spot where the barricade had broken near the top, so the climb wouldn't be too difficult. The drop on the other side might be another thing entirely, so I braced myself mentally as I placed one foot into Cyrus's cupped hands.

Carrie!

I looked at his upturned face, his features sharp with desperation in the faint moonlight. I touched his cheek. "Hey, we're not going to the firing squad. Boost me up." It wasn't the death drop I'd anticipated on the other side. In fact, the wall seemed to be taller on the side we climbed. After landing, I stayed low, crawling to hide behind a nearby tree. It wouldn't provide great cover, but it was nice to have something tangible between me and the guardhouse.

Cyrus followed, then Nathan. I beckoned to them, but Cyrus shook his head, motioning toward the maze. Apparently, we'd done all the planning he thought we needed. In the time I'd stayed with Cyrus at the mansion, I'd never ventured into the hedge maze. I'd see the Fangs go into it. I'd seen Dahlia run to it to escape pursuing vampires at the New Year's party. But I'd never braved it myself. Mazes have always given me the creeps. I don't like the uncertainty of not knowing where to go or how to get back. It wasn't any better tonight, when possible death was thrown into the mix. I followed Cyrus, Nathan close behind me. A rule I'd learned about mazes as a child was

"always go left." I saw now it wasn't a fail-proof rule. We twisted right and left, following angles, then curves, through narrow corridors and wide, circular spaces.

"How do you remember this?" I asked, feeling secure enough in the cloistered darkness that I raised my voice.

"Shh!" Cyrus whispered urgently. "There could be guards. This path intersects theirs several times."

"There won't be. Dahlia ate them all." I wished I hadn't said that. Thinking of people being eaten destroyed the modicum of confidence I'd built up since coming over the wall. "But how do you remember your way?"

"Practice. Also, concentration and patience. All things that I am out of," he said, distractedly. "She ate them? All of them? I rather liked a few." It seemed too short a time before I had to leave the cover of the maze. I'd dreaded the close, confusing space but I dreaded the house at the top of the hill more.

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"Okay, got the stone?"

I held out my palm. Nathan pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. Leather, for some reason, was unaffected by the charm, something we'd discovered when he, but not his watch, had disappeared when he'd handled the stone. He opened the pouch now, spilling the amulet into my hand.

"You're good to go," he said quietly. "Be careful, Carrie."

"I will." I could already feel myself vanishing. "I'm going in now." They watched me all the way up the hill, even though they couldn't see me. I know, because I stopped halfway and looked back. There was something voyeuristic about it, watching them watching me and knowing they didn't know. They stood side by side, too visible at the opening of the maze. They should have known better, but I wasn't going to blow our cover by shouting at them. Nathan's features, sharpened by stress and the eerie shadows of the maze, showed his pain and fear more acutely than I'd ever seen them. Because he'd admitted to me, and to himself, that he loved me, he thought I was doomed. It was the same for Cyrus. How alike they were. They both thought their love would the thing that killed me. How alike, and how self-centered.

Keep moving, sweetheart
, Nathan prompted through the blood tie. A little guilty that he'd heard my thoughts, and surprised that he knew I'd stopped, I turned and continued the long walk to the house, and to the Soul Eater.

Chapter Twenty-Two: To Worse

"So, you didn't tell them anything? In the whole time you were there, you didn't tell them why you were coming here or who you were looking for?"

Max lifted his head. Sweat mingled with blood dripped into his eyes. "What did I tell you?"

Anne regarded him coldly for a moment. "Why do you have to make this so difficult? I really liked you. I was even going easy on you. But you just keep pushing and pushing." There was a sickening crunch, one he'd come to identify as bone being crushed between the blades of a wire cutter. He concentrated on the sound in an effort to ignore the pain as she snipped another finger to the first joint. If this was taking it easy, he silently thanked himself for being so nice to her all those years.

"I don't like doing this," she said with a sigh. "Well, I do like it. Reminds me of the old days. Torture was kind of my thing."

Another section. He'd been keeping track. So far, she'd done away with his pinkie and half his ring finger on his left hand. He'd looked down once, saw the split flesh and splintered bone littering the floor, and puked. Now he kept his eyes up, focusing on the oculus that would eventually open and let in frying sunlight.

Don't pass out before Bella gets in here. Pull yourself together, 'cause she is going to freak.

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The huge doors scraped open. Anne spun him to face them. "Oh, look who's here!" A vampire pushed Bella's wheelchair. They'd dressed her in a black velvet gown with laces on the front, and her hair was down, like some princess in a low budget fantasy movie. Only this princess looked worried and tired. He tried a lame attempt at a wave and realized he'd only managed to wiggle his injured hand, flinging droplets of blood across the marble floor. She gasped and paled.

"You look like Morticia Adams," he quipped, but his voice was hoarse from screaming. She moved as if to lunge from her chair, and the vampire behind her gripped her shoulders. "Don't move again."

"Do not hurt him again and I will not be tempted to," she said, as threateningly as she could manage.

Max hoped the tremor in her voice was from fatigue and not worry over him.
I'm not dead
yet
, he thought, willing the words to materialize in her brain. But he didn't have telepathy, and he knew it was pointless.

"I was just trying to get your baby daddy here to tell me what you two were up to." Anne knelt beside him and lifted his bare foot, fitting the wire shears over his little toe. "You wouldn't want me to maim him any more than I already have, would you? Why don't you spill it?"

Bella lifted her chin and looked away in casual defiance.

"Why should I? You will kill him anyway."

Good girl, Max thought, digging his fingers—the whole ones—into the leather cuffs as Anne snipped the toe away. He didn't want to scream in front of Bella. Hell, he hadn't wanted to scream when it was just him here. But it was a losing battle. He didn't scream now, but a low, shuddering whimper escaped him, possibly more pathetic than crying out.

"Stop it!" Bella shouted, again trying to rise. The vampire behind her pushed her down, striking her across the face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Anne threw her implement of torture down and stalked toward Bella.

"Stay away from her," Max shouted, but he wasn't entirely sure how he'd back up that command, with his hands tied and blood leaking out of him all over the place. Still, if she was going to do something to Bella… He pulled on the restraints, wincing at the pressure on his mangled digits. His hand slipped down a fraction. The brutal, agonizing pain put a damper on the tiny victory.

Ignoring him, Anne confronted the vampire behind Bella. "If you touch her again, you'll fry right along with him."

At least Anne didn't seem interested in hurting Bella. That took a load off Max's mind. Anne was very, very good at hurting. The thought of Bella learning that firsthand… Jesus, he had to get her out of there.

"Speaking of frying, when does that happen, exactly?" He jerked at the gauntlets again, half praying he'd get free and half afraid of how he'd fight two vampires when he wasn't exactly in fighting shape. "I mean, this is getting kind of boring."

"Oh, this is boring you?" Anne returned to him spinning him to face away from Bella. Anne went to the table and rubbed her hands together like a kid looking at a dessert cart.

"We can move on to something else. Like… this?"

She came forward with the cordless drill, giving the trigger a few experimental squeezes.

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"How about it?"

"I'm not telling you anything. Obviously,
she's
not." He jerked his head to indicate Bella.

"So, I guess if you really want to torture me, go ahead, but you're wasting time." Anne grabbed the rope securing him and gave it a tug, pulling him up so his feet had no chance of touching the floor. "I'll decide whether or not I'm wasting my time."

"There has to be something left to burn, when the boss gets here," the other vampire warned. "Or I won't be here when she does."