Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (11 page)

“But it is only midnight.”

“And we’ve only paid the coppers to look the other way until three. Now dry up and move!”

Bottles clinked. Prohibition? The conversation and the slang suggested it, but why the hell would I be getting visions of Prohibition-era smugglers? When I see past events, they’re fae memories, locked deep in my brain and poked by my environment.

“We go this way,” Aunika whispered, pointing. “And then run across to the building next door. That should get us far enough—”

I cut her short with an impatient wave.

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m trying to …” She trailed off as she heard what I had—the sound of actual movement, like a footstep on old concrete.

I pinpointed where the noise came from and took a slow step in reverse. Then another. Backing toward the wall, because there was no place to run.

Aunika saw me and did the same, and when a man slid from the shadows, he had two guns pointed at his chest.

I looked at him and my brain shot out
biker
and
cop
. Yes, there’s a world of difference between the two, yet there is an uncomfortable similarity, too. Paramilitary organizations, insular, male-dominated, an edge of machismo, devotion to the job … The guy had the military stance and the bold smirk, that preter-natural sense of calm from a guy with two guns pointed at him. A man accustomed to having guns pointed at him. From which side of the law, though? A tattoo peeking from under a short sleeve looked military …

“Nicely done, girls,” the man said. “But you do know you’re surrounded, right?”

“Good,” I said. “Have your friends step out and say hello.”

The shadows stayed still and silent. Aunika snorted. I slid her a look, one that said not to be too certain he was bluffing. My gut told me he wasn’t.

“So, little Aunika has a friend herself,” the man said. “Or did you hire a bodyguard? If so, you have excellent taste, sweetie.”

“Stop talking like you know me,” she said. “Like I have the first damned clue what’s going on here.”

“Don’t play the innocent for your friend. We’ve been in communication for a while, and you know exactly why I’m here.”

“Stalking me and leaving cryptic messages is not
communication
. I have no damned idea what you people want, and I’m starting to think you have me mistaken for someone else.”

“Aunika Madole. Daughter of Gwen and Grant Madole, both deceased. Sister of Lucy. Also deceased.”

Aunika went still. “Does this have something to do with Lucy’s murder? I’ve been trying to get a hold of Ciro for days.”

There was a flash and a bang as some kind of strobe hit the floor. Aunika fell back, seeming to move in slow motion with the strobing light. I recovered fast, my gun never wavering, but the guy stumbled himself, as if equally caught off guard.

“Run!” I yelled to Aunika as she got her footing.

I went one way, she went the other. I dove behind barrels, expecting gunfire. The only noise that rang out, though, was footsteps. Two pairs, coming from opposite directions. I kept moving, doubled over, as fast as I could move. When I reached a broken window, I vaulted through it. As usual, my move was a bit less graceful than I might have hoped, but I made it out. Even managed to land without twisting my ankle.

A second building twenty feet away was the obvious choice, but I spotted a broken basement window on the building I’d just come out of. I waited until I heard a set of running footfalls. Then I pitched a chunk of brick toward the neighboring building. A man shouted, “She’s next door.”

I slid through the broken basement window, back into the building I’d left. A fine escape plan, except that I failed to check
before going through. There was enough glass left in the frame to slice open my arm as I dropped. I fell, hissing, and crouched there, cradling my arm.

Shit, it was a good gash. Probably stitch-worthy. I tugged off my jacket and shirt. Backing into the shadows, I kept an ear open as I ripped my shirt and bound the gash. Then took out my phone. I had enough bars to make a call. I went to speed-dial Ricky … and my phone vibrated.

Gabriel didn’t even wait for a hello. “Did you get a chance to speak to Ms. Madole?”

“Mmm, kind of.”

“Good. Can you talk now?”

This wouldn’t be the first time he just happened to call when I was in trouble. Gabriel has a sixth sense for trouble, and he would say it’s honed from his years on the street, but I suspect there’s a sprinkling of fairy dust in it, too.

“I’m in a … bit of a spot,” I said.

He exhaled, as if in relief. Something
had
prompted him to phone. That relief, of course, only lasted a second, his voice tightening as he said, “Where are you?”

Not
What’s wrong?
or
Do you need help?
Simply
Where are you?

Tell me where you are, and I’ll be there.

I eased farther into the room, watching the bars to be sure I still had cell service. Then I gave him a version so condensed that even Ricky would have been asking questions to sort it out. Gabriel only said, “Where are you
precisely
?”

The chime of his car door sounded. The Jag roared to life as he said, “Olivia?”

“An empty building to the left of the drop-in center. Maybe one or two down. I’m in the basement. Text me when you get close.”

“Ten minutes.”

“It’s ten miles through the city.”

“Ten minutes. I’ll text you.”

A
fter I got off the phone, I planned to head back into the tunnels to wait until I could reasonably expect a text from Gabriel. But my room led to another just like it, which in turn led … nowhere. There appeared to have been a doorway, at one time, but it had been sealed off by a pile of wood and dirt and brick, as if the ceiling had collapsed.

I climbed onto the mound of debris. My injured arm protested, but it only took a few minutes to clear enough to squeeze through. I poked my penlight through, making sure I wasn’t going to drop into a pit. I saw a room with a floor. Good enough. I wriggled through, touched down, and my foot slid, sending me falling backward, arms windmilling uselessly.

I dropped onto something both hard and soft and stinking of mold and mildew, and when I put my hands down, I recoiled as I touched … well, I wasn’t sure what I’d touched, only that I didn’t particularly want to do so again.

I peered down to see the side of a rusted metal bed, and a memory flashed, of the abandoned mental hospital, those rows of metal beds and the woman from my vision—my great-aunt—lying in one of those beds, her eyes gouged, tongue cut out, and the horror of that memory had me leaping up. My foot slid
again, and I went back down on the bed, my left hand gripping what I’d touched before—the moldering remains of a thin mattress. My right hand had landed on something hard and knobby. When I saw what I was holding, I yelped and scrambled, shoes sliding on the slimy muck of the floor, and I had to grip the side of the metal bed and propel myself up. Then I stood there and looked down at the bed—at the body in the bed, a skeleton covered in tatters of cloth.

I lifted my penlight and saw two other beds, two other skeletons. I shone my beam over the one I’d landed on. My fall had dislocated the hip bone, and the left leg now lay separate from the body. What I’d grabbed had been the arm, and when I’d jumped, I hadn’t let go fast enough and I had pulled that away, too. The ulna and radius bones now hung from the side of the bed. I crouched and lowered my light for a better look, and sucked in breath when I saw why it dangled there.

Enough remnants of flesh remained to hold the forearm and hand bones together, and they hung suspended by manacles. When I shone my light over the other two bodies, I saw each had one hand in a rusted metal manacle.

Handcuffed to the beds.

The nearest body wore a tattered and grayed nightgown. The skull still had long dark hair. I was moving toward it when I tripped over something, and I shone the light down to see another corpse on the floor, also skeletonized, wearing enough clothing for me to suspect this one was male. I crouched beside it. He’d fallen facedown, hands outstretched over his head, as if—

“Well, go on, then,” a voice said. “You’ve earned it, boy. Have your fun.”

A door clanged and the body vanished. Beside me, something hissed, and I turned to see a dark-haired girl, no more than seventeen, wearing a thin shift. She sat on the edge of the bed
with one hand cuffed to it. She leaned forward, her lips curled back as she hissed.

“Oh, enough with you,” a man said as he walked in. He raised a metal baton. At the press of a button, it jolted to life, electricity flashing. The girl pulled her legs up into the bed, her arms wrapping around them as she stared at the man, her eyes black with hate.

Two girls sat on the other beds, both also dark-haired and dressed in shifts. They kept their gazes down, defiance gone, like dogs that have been whipped often enough to know it does no good.

At the sound of dirt under boots, a young man walked in. He was maybe eighteen, light-haired and blue-eyed. He took a step toward the first girl and the man chuckled.

“Not that one, boyo. Wait until you’ve had some time in the saddle before you ride that filly.” The man waved the prod. “Take the little gal there. A good, gentle ride for a virgin.”

“I’m not a virgin,” the young man said, with a lilting accent.

The man chuckled. “Whatever you say. Just take my word for it and start with her. You can always come back for the others. It’ll cost you, though. This is your only free ride, and then you pay.” The man winked. “You’ll get the employee discount, though.”

The young man stepped toward the smallest of the girls. I’d like to say she looked fourteen, but she didn’t, and he stopped short, revulsion glimmering in his blue eyes.

“Now, now, boyo,” the man said. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Why you worked so hard loading up the barge? She’s not really a child. Not even human.” The man reached out and tapped his cattle prod to the smallest girl’s bare leg and she jumped, hissing and baring her teeth.

“I know what they are,” the young man said.

“Well, you seemed to need a reminder. You don’t like seeing them chained up, but they’re like dumb animals, without the sense to stay. We give them what they need, and they don’t even have the decency to be grateful.”

“I’ll … I’ll take the young one.”

“Like I said, she’s not young. She just looks it. Which you will appreciate a lot more when you’re my age.” The man cackled and leaned back against the wall. Then he smirked. “Oh, I suppose you want some privacy.”

Before the young man could answer, his boss smacked him on the shoulder.

“I know, I know. You don’t want an audience. Just holler for me to let you out. We lock them in, just in case. And don’t be taking too long or I’ll know you’re trying for a double.”

He opened the door and turned to leave, and the young man lunged, blade in hand, driving it into his boss’s back.

The older man gasped. His mouth worked. Then he teetered and toppled face-first to the floor.

“Just because they are not human does not make them animals, you filthy whoremonger,” the young man said, bending to pull out the blade. “They are
sidhe
, and if you treated them proper, they would have treated you proper, too. That is how it works.” He turned to the girls. “Not that I expect anything for doing this. It is the Christian thing to do.”

The girls only stared at him. Then the oldest hissed, lips curling back.

“That’s right. You are foreign
sidhe
. You speak a foreign tongue.” He laid the blade on the ground and said, slowly, “I am not going to hurt you. I am going to let you go. Do you understand?”

He straightened, his hands out, the lamiae watching him carefully. Behind him, the older man rose, silently pushing up, his face contorted in pain. He held a gun.

“Prosecho!” the oldest lamiae said, pointing.

The other two both shouted warnings, but before the young man could turn, the older one fired. The bullet hit the boy square in the chest, and he went down.

“You stupid shant,” the man said, bloody froth flying from his lips. “You hoped if you let them go, you’d get all the free barney-mugging you wanted?”

“No,” the boy wheezed. “I just … It was right … Respect …” The man snorted. “Respect? Them? Dirty little whores?” He toddled to the door, barely able to stay upright. Then he patted his pocket, took out a key, and locked it from the inside. “How’s this for respect? May that be your dying thought, you dumb mug. That you just killed your poor little faeries … and they are going to take a lot longer to die than you or me.”

With that, the man crashed to the ground, and the boy’s eyes closed, and the girls started to shriek.

T
he vision snapped, but I still heard the girls shrieking as I spotted a fifth skeleton, that of the older man, slumped just inside the door.

“You hear them, don’t you?” a voice whispered at my ear. “Their screams.”

I turned to see the young man standing behind me as he gazed at the skeletons of the girls.

“I hope
he
hears them,” he said, glaring at the dead old man. “I hope he
still
hears them in hell.”

He turned to the door. “Others heard. They came around, hoping to buy a poke, and they found that door locked, and they heard the poor
sidhe
—heard them crying and wailing and begging. And they walked away. Did not want to get involved. And then, after the
sidhe
passed, one returned.”

My penlight faded, taking the room into darkness, and when it surged bright again, the boy was gone, and the girls lay in their beds, and—

One glimpse of them and I squeezed my eyes shut and wished for the skeletons again. Cold, expressionless skeletons. Horrifying in their way, but not nearly so much as this, the image burned on the back of my eyelids. The girls, in their beds, contorted in their
last agonies of death, chunks ripped from their own arms, as if they’d tried to chew their way free. The two smaller ones with their eyes closed, the smallest’s face screwed up as if squeezing her eyes shut against the horror of her own death. The oldest had her eyes wide, hate and defiance, as if she refused to look away, refused to hide from what had happened, faced death snarling, lips curled back in a final hiss, her body pitched forward, throwing herself against her bonds with her last breath.