Bitter Night (22 page)

She turned and trotted away, her shotgun ready in her hand. Alexander caught himself before he could follow, though every instinct told him she should not go alone. Instead he did as ordered and went the other way.

There was little enough cover left. The house was gone, and with it the bushes and trees that had grown in its shadow. The lack forced Alexander to take a longer, more circuitous route than he wished, knowing that Max had taken a direct line to the grotto.

He came around the back side of the pool enclosure and leaped over the fence. He dropped down in the bushes, painfully aware of the crackling shuffle of the leaves as he landed. He froze, listening. He heard nothing. Slowly he eased out of the garden bed and out along the sidewalk. He padded across to the other side and crouched again by the brick barbecue.

The hairs on his neck rose. The wind gusted. Now he could smell them. So close. Alexander slid to the fence and peered over. Max stood between the grotto and the remains of the house. Five Shadowblades surrounded her, each of them pointing a gun.

“Move and you die, bitch,” Brynna said. “I thought I killed you.” She took a step closer. “Never mind. I’ll make sure you die this time. I owe you for that knock on the head.” Eagerness sharpened the viciousness in her voice.

“Selange wants her,” Thor said in his Texan drawl.

“I want her,” Brynna pouted. “Selange doesn’t even have to know. All she really wants is the Hag and her staff anyway.”

Alexander did not wait to hear more. Max’s face told him all he needed to know. She was not going down without a fight. He backed away from the fence and ran to the other end of the pool enclosure, just around the corner from the Hag’s grotto. He vaulted the clapboard fence. His feet touched down at the same moment he pulled his combat knife from his waistband. There was no time for finesse. He was running full tilt as he leaped over the grotto pool. A rock humped up behind Max. Alexander dug to a halt behind it even as he snatched Max’s hair in his fist and yanked her back. She tried to catch herself, but the rock confused her feet. She sagged against Alexander’s chest. He held her in place with an iron arm, the point of his knife’her knife’jabbing sharply into her neck.

“Do not move,” he warned. He looked at his stunned Shadowblades, giving a predatory smile. “Nobody’s killing this bitch but Selange.”

With that, he pulled back and clubbed the hilt of the knife against the side of Max’s head. He felt her skull give and she slid boneless from his arms. He let her fall, never taking his eyes off the surrounding Shadow-blades. Would they try to kill him? He was not sure, but Cleo looked faintly abashed, and Thor’s face could not seem to decide between a smile and a scowl.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Brynna demanded. “You are no longer Selange’s Prime. In fact, you’re not one of us at all. Take him,” she ordered, gesturing at Thor.

“But I am one of you,” Alexander said, sliding his knife back into his waistband. He spoke more to the others than to Brynna; she was not going to listen to anything he had to say.

“I have been with Selange more than a hundred years. She made me. I am hers forever. I certainly do not belong to some child-witch who has barely come into her powers. Did you think Selange truly cut me loose?” He shook his head, sneering. “Surely you know how devious she is. It was all show to get me inside her enemy’s coven and bring back this trash.” He nudged Max with his boot, glancing back up at his audience. Were they buying it?

“Someone had better bind her before she wakes. Make it solid.” He looked mockingly at Brynna. “If that is all right with you, Brynna, since you seem to be handing out orders tonight. Did Selange make you Prime instead of Marcus?”

She flushed. “He put me in charge tonight. He had other things to do.” She spun around and looked at the others. “Tie her up. Tie them both up. We’ll let Selange decide if he’s telling the truth.”

They used riot cuffs on Alexander’s and Max’s wrists and ankles, then ringed each of them from head to toe with a series of heavy-duty cable ties spaced every two to three inches. Taking charge of Alexander, Brynna tightened the ties so they gouged deep into his flesh. Trussed this way, neither prisoner could leverage enough strength to break free. Bound like mummies, neither could they walk.

Thor put Alexander over his shoulder and Cleo hoisted up Max, who remained unconscious.

“Dump them in the van and keep an eye on them,” Brynna ordered. “The rest of you, look for the Hag. We leave in an hour. If you don’t find her this time, there’s going to be payback. I’m not taking the blame for failing, I promise.”

Alexander snorted. If she kept that up, she’d soon find herself with a bullet in her brain.

Just beside the driveway, a firebreak road looped out around the property, tracing the edge of the orchard. Two gray box vans were parked there. Thor yanked open the rear doors of the first one. There was a bench seat behind the driver’s seat, and the rest of the back was open. Thor slid Alexander inside, more gently than expected. Cleo tossed Max in beside him. Her head thudded loudly on the floorboards.

The minutes ticked by slowly. Neither Cleo nor Thor spoke as they stood watch. About a half hour later, Max woke. She did not move nor open her eyes, but Alexander heard the shift in her breathing and felt a purposeful tension hum through her body. He waited for her to speak, to condemn his betrayal. She said nothing. She did not have to; he knew. Waste of skin.

THE RETURN TO SELANGE’S COVENSTEAD WAS A SILENT, tense affair. Neither the Hag nor her staff had been found. Brynna was both furious and edgy. She’d spent a few minutes arguing on her cell phone and now sat fuming in the passenger seat, frequently glancing back at the bound prisoners as if they might be her salvation.

Alexander knew what he had to do. He had no alternatives. He glanced at Max. With luck he could keep her alive, but she would never forgive or trust him again.

They pulled into the underground garage of Aulne Rouge just before dawn. The heavy steel doors rolled closed with a loud rumble after the two vans rolled through. They parked and got out. Thor pushed open the rear doors, yanking Alexander out by his feet and flopping him over his shoulder. Cleo followed suit with Max.

“Selange is going to be happy to see you two,” Brynna gloated as she bent over Max, whose eyes had finally opened. Brynna ran her fingers over Max’s cheek, then bent closer. “She’ll peel your skin off you and rip your bones out while you watch. You’ll scream until your throat is shredded and you’ll shit your pants. You’ll beg for her to stop and she won’t. I can’t wait to see it.”

A slow smile unfurled on Max’s lips. “That bedtime story might terrify you, Kitten, but it sounds like Disneyland to me.”

Brynna sneered and pulled back. “We’ll see about that.”

But Alexander could almost feel the rats still squirming in his gut. He remembered what Max had told him’I’m a very good victim, and Giselle likes to practice.

They were taken to cells located a level below Selange’s chambers. Each was a cage of iron bars wrapped in steel mesh. An outer frame of woven bone, wire, salt, and wood was layered with imprisoning spells. They were designed to hold the most powerful Uncanny and Divine creatures, though Alexander had doubts that they could have held the messenger angel.

Thor wordlessly laid Alexander down on the floor inside his cell and locked the outer doors. Cleo carried Max inside and dropped her with a sodden thud, then kicked her in the stomach with her booted foot. Brynna brought in a green-and-white-striped rope and hooked it through a loop welded to a crossbar on top of the cell. She tied a hangman’s noose and dropped it gleefully around Max’s neck, then pulled the rope until Max was balancing precariously on her tiptoes in the center of the cell, gasping for breath. Brynna tied the rope off.

“That will keep you thinking,” she said viciously, then locked the cell doors.

Next she went to a thermostat on the wall and pushed the temperature button. Heat began to pour through the ducts. Brynna kept pushing until the thermostat read 101 degrees. Then she went to a sink on the wall and turned the cold-water spigot on.

“When your mouth is so dry that you can’t swallow anymore, when your body stops sweating because it can’t afford to lose the fluid, when you’re so hungry that you start cannibalizing yourself to keep from dying’I want you to think of me and remember that I am responsible for your own private Disneyland. Enjoy it, bitch.”

Alexander snarled silently. He should have killed her when he had had the chance.

Brynna left, leaving the two prisoners alone. Except they were not, Alexander knew. The room was fully wired for sound and video. Somewhere, Selange was watching.

He rolled over and managed to squirm upright, leaning back against the bars so that he could watch Max. She did not look at him. Her chin was held high by the rope and she could hardly keep her balance.

Hours passed. Sweat dripped from the both of them and water continued to run tantalizingly in the sink. The heater ran continuously. Alexander’s eyes were parched and his lips cracked. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. He watched Max with furrowed brows. Her injuries the previous night had nearly killed her. How long would it take her to break?

She tipped back and forth here and there, but mostly remained straight, showing no outward signs of strain. He could not tear his eyes away from her. He could feel the raw power of her’it was like standing naked in front of a hurricane. She held inside herself a violence, a wild recklessness, of the sort that could erase a town or tear apart a forest. Instead of weakening her, captivity seemed to peel away everything else but her essential force. She was terrifying and enthralling. He could imagine why a man might stand up against a killer storm just to feel the full breadth of its power as it swallowed him.

It was close to sundown when Selange finally deigned to visit them. Max had begun to pant and her skin was dry. Her body was shutting down to protect itself. She looked gaunt, but her presence filled the chamber.

The door opened and Selange entered. She wore spike-heeled boots over red velvet jeans and a loose white blouse. She stopped outside Max’s cell, examining her from head to foot. Then she came to look at Alexander.

“What exactly are you up to, Alexander?”

He had thought of what he needed to say all day. “You gave me a task. I completed it. I brought her to you,” he said hoarsely.

“You failed the challenge,” she said, her nose rising, her lip curling. “You screamed like a child. You made me look weak in front of the entire Conclave.”

“Let them think you are weak,” he said dismissively.

“They will learn better soon enough. I may have failed the challenge, but I have not failed you. I have lured her back to you, and I bring news besides.”

“News?”

“Your angel delivered a scroll to the witch Giselle last night.”

Selange frowned, her gaze narrowing. One finger rubbed back and forth along her upper lip. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “I beg you to forgive me. You know I am bound to you by chains of loyalty and love. I wish only to serve you once again.”

“Marcus is my Prime now.”

“He is inexperienced and I am stronger. You need me. You need all the strength you can get.”

She gave him a measuring look, her eyes cold. Then nodded. “You were not strong enough last night. But you have done well, bringing her to me. I will give you a test of loyalty. If you pass, then you may return to serve me. But be warned, I will not tolerate any more whining from you. If I let you come back, then you will do what I say when I say it, no matter how much you don’t like it. Do you understand?”

“Of course. I will do anything you want. Whatever it takes. I want to come home.”

“Fine. Tonight is your test. Without the Hag’s staff, I have to find another weapon. I have to summon and bind to me something equally powerful. For that, I will need blood magic.”

She paused as if waiting for a reply. Alexander had none. Selange was a flesh mage; she drew her power from people. They gave off so much magic in their daily lives’in their passions and wars, in their joys and their despairs. Magic poured off them in waves, and flesh mages such as Selange collected it for their own spells. But sacrifices gave off a much greater power.

“Who?” he asked, hoping she would believe the rasp of his voice was from his parched throat rather than sick horror.

She smiled at his discomfort. “Children. I must have at least thirteen of them, but twenty-one would be better. They must be innocent’unmolested and drug-free. None may be older than six. You and Marcus will take the Shadowblades tonight and find me what I need. I will conduct the spell at sundown in three days.”

“So soon? Can you be ready that quickly?” Alexander asked, his stomach churning. Selange was not given to taking such desperate risks. He wished to hell he knew what the message in the scroll had been.

“There is no choice.”

With that she returned to Max’s cell, opened it, and went inside. “I can feel it on you. Where is it?” She did not seem to expect an answer. She held a flat hand out just inches from Max, stroking from side to side. Her fingers hovered between Max’s breasts. She shook her head. “So easy? I thought you would be a harder nut to crack.”

She slid a small knife from a sheath in her sleeve and sawed a slit in Max’s shirt.

Max tried to twist away. “Fucking bitch,” she whispered.

Selange ignored her, sliding her fingers into the tear. She grasped a pouch and pulled it out, sawing through the strings to free it.

She smiled, gripping the pouch until her knuckles turned white. “This will help. With this and a champion of my own, I think the Guardians cannot force me to do anything.”

“Guardians?” Alexander repeated harshly in surprise, then coughed raggedly. But their involvement made sense. No witch could control an angel. But witches served the Guardians. What was Selange doing? Why would she choose to defy them? There was no power on earth that could protect her from them.

Selange ignored him. “I’ll be back to question you later,” she said to Max. “Try to be more polite when I do.” She gave Max a shove, knocking her off her delicate balance.