Enslaved by the Others (11 page)

His perfunctory appearance and manner made a little more sense a couple of hours later. The smell of rotting peaches from Iana’s strange blood was still on the air when Vivian called out from the pool room, the urgency in her voice and frantic gestures bringing all of us to hurry and gather by the windows.

Red and blue flashes flickered across the snow, splashing against the stone wall to the southeast. We couldn’t see them from this angle, but there were emergency vehicles of some kind on the property.

Tense, excited, we all pressed against the metal bars and craned our necks, trying to spot a uniform or a police car.

No one said anything for the longest time, all of us collectively holding our breath, watching for any sign of rescue. Then a couple of men in police uniforms, a tall, skinny guy in an FBI jacket, and one of Max’s henchmen walked around the side of the mansion, coming into our view.

We screamed and hollered and banged on the metal keeping us from the glass, trying to get their attention, but they never once looked up. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had the sinking feeling that our prison wasn’t just soundproofed. The glass was probably tinted in a way to make it too reflective for anyone to see in from the outside. Max’s man adjusted the collar of his coat and looked our way. His casual glance and smug smile told me he must have known we were screaming for the officers’ attention but were never going to get it.

Being trapped in that room, seeing the police so close and not being able to do anything about it, was one of the most helpless, awful experiences I’d had since Max had taken me. They didn’t look up. Not even once. Obviously they couldn’t tell we were here, couldn’t hear our cries for help. They might have been here searching for me, or they might have been here because word got out about Max’s shadier activities. They knew
something
was wrong. Even from where I stood, even with the wrought iron bars in the way, I recognized the look of the warrant in the officer’s hand as he gestured at Max’s man.

They stood there talking for a few minutes, their lips moving, the occasional hand gesture taking in the house or the expanse of the property.

After awhile, Max’s security guard walked back toward the flashing lights with one of the police officers. The FBI agent and the other officer stayed where they were, their hands moving in sharp, urgent gestures as they had some kind of disagreement. The agent kept pointing at the house. The officer kept pointing back toward the flashing lights. I had the sinking feeling the local cops might be in Max’s pocket, and trying to dissuade the FBI, on his behalf, not to look too closely at what was hidden behind the curtain.

Even a vampire couldn’t say no to a search warrant. I straightened a bit as the FBI agent moved through a door below us and out of sight, the officer shaking his head before following reluctantly in his wake.

Even though there wasn’t anything more to see, we all stayed right where we were, glued to this one tiny hope that we might be found and rescued. A few minutes later, there was a bit of noise from the common room. I glanced back, as did most of the others, in time to see Max ushering Gideon and Sara before him.

She was leaning heavily on the necromancer for support, head hanging, her normally sparkling blue eyes gone dim from what looked like a nasty combination of exhaustion and blood loss. Sara usually had some color in her skin, but at the moment she was even paler than I was, and there were unhealed bite marks visible on her arms and throat. Quite a few more than had been there when I last saw her.

And she sported a brand-new collar, white leather to match the loose silk wrap and pants that washed out her already pale features.

Fighting back the urge to throw myself on Max and throttle the unlife out of him, I scooted around the gathered, gaping throng by the windows and headed straight for Gideon and Sara. Max barely paid me a glance before speaking in hushed, urgent tones to Gideon, clearly continuing some earlier thread of conversation.

“They won’t find them. Stay here, and don’t provoke them or I’ll revoke my hospitality and you can find your own way back to Los Angeles.”

Gideon scowled but didn’t argue. After his tight nod, Max turned on a heel and stalked out, the door sliding into place and locking behind him.

The necromancer’s attention turned to me as I approached. The muscles in his jaw and neck tensed, but he stayed put as I yanked Sara out of his arms and into a hug. She gave a startled yelp before returning the gesture. Disgustingly, she smelled like him, the odor of chloroform and dead things clinging to her like a revolting perfume.

“Jesus, don’t scare me like that,” she scolded, returning the hug once she saw it was just me.

“Scare
you?
Cripes, woman,” I said, pulling back to look her over, “I’ve been worried sick about you. Are you okay? I mean, obviously not, but—”

“Relax! I’m fine. I’m alive. Gideon has been watching out for me.”

I turned a murderous glare in his direction, a vein throbbing in my temple. He didn’t seem terribly bothered by it, though he didn’t meet my gaze for long. If the bite marks were his idea of “watching out” for Sara’s health, I could give him a few puncture marks of his own to see how it felt.

Sara’s hand on my chin forced me to look back at her instead. She gave it a little shake. “Stop that. He’s done the best he could. What about you? Are you okay? How are you holding up?”

I took a breath and forced myself to relax. “I’m okay. As well as could be expected, I guess. Any idea what’s going on? With the cops, the FBI?”

“Someone broke Mr. Carlyle’s cover,” Gideon said, but from the tone of his voice I wasn’t sure how he felt about it. When I looked back at him, he was staring at the video camera above the door.

Much as I wanted to ask questions about his plans, I didn’t dare. Not while we were being watched. I hated it, but I’d have to trust that he’d give me a signal when he was ready.

I gestured for Sara to follow me back outside. As I led the way, she looked around, one brow raised, otherwise not seeming very impressed with the surroundings. Maybe she was staying in an equally opulent prison. I had no idea if Max had stuck her in a closet or another big suite of rooms. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Gideon trailed after us, adjusting the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt, which was a dark green that matched his eyes. Sara and I sat down and the necromancer leaned against the door frame, watching from afar with obvious interest. The others gave us a wide berth but kept an eye on Sara and me. Mostly on me. Except for Iana, whose golden eyes were glowing intently as she stared unblinking at Gideon, her hands hooked into twitching claws.

“There’s got to be a way out of here. Some way of letting those cops know we’re here.”

Sara shook her head. “I don’t see how. I heard you guys banging on the bars before we came in.”

That gave me pause. I looked down at the seat, then back at the window. The wrought iron bars didn’t have enough room between them to squeeze a hand through to bang on the glass, but they
did
leave enough room for one of the chair legs.

I rocketed to my feet, grabbing the chair and scraping it across the inlaid tile. “God
damn,
Sara, this is why I love you. You’re fucking brilliant.”

Puzzled, she rose, following me at a slower pace. “Uh ... thanks? What’d I say?”

“Grab a chair. Come on, the rest of you, too!” I hefted the one I’d dragged over to the iron bars, adjusting the legs to poke through the holes. As soon as the others saw what I was doing, they all went for chairs and stools, anything that might have legs long enough to reach the windows beyond the bars. We wouldn’t be able to get out, but we might be able to attract some notice from the cops searching the grounds.

I shoved at the chair, braced for the impact against the glass. It shivered and chipped under the blow, but didn’t crack.

The others started doing the same. Iana and I did the most damage. In addition to being soundproofed and tinted, the damned windows must have been bulletproof or something. Hairline cracks were the best we could do, even with supernatural strength, but I was betting the noise might attract attention if we kept it up.

Gideon didn’t try to stop us, but he did turn a newly appraising eye in my direction when I glanced at him over my shoulder.

The rest of us continued our assault on the windows, doing everything we could to make noise. That is, until someone smacked me on the back of the head hard enough that my forehead snapped forward to hit the chair, momentarily knocking me senseless. I fell to the floor and the chair landed on my chest hard enough that I was sure there would be a huge bruise on my ribs and stomach later.

Breathless and stunned, once I blinked the blurriness out of my vision and could do more than gasp air into my constricted lungs, I stared up at the angry guard looming over me. It was the guy with the eye patch and scar, whose bandage-covered nose I had probably broken when I busted out of my first holding cell. His face was reddened and twisted with fury as he glared down at me with his one good eye. A couple of other guards in their sharp suits were driving back the other women, yanking chairs out of their hands and shoving them away from the bars. Most of the ladies fled immediately, two or three screaming in terror, but Iana and Na’man stood their ground.

“You are one stupid girl,” Scar-face said, giving me a kick in the ribs that knocked the little breath in my lungs right back out.

Sara flung herself at him, snarling, but was thrust stumbling back, landing on her ass with a smack loud enough for me to grimace in sympathy. She didn’t have the benefit of my strength or reflexes, and was still dealing with blood loss to boot, but she didn’t look too badly hurt. She winced a bit, struggling to get to her feet, but I hadn’t recovered enough to help her.

“Move!”

I might have said something caustic to the guy if I had the breath for it. Instead, I stayed right where I was, flailing a bit as I tried to figure out how to make my everything stop hurting and get away from the asshole. He grabbed one of my arms and slid me closer, flipping me on my stomach to slap a pair of handcuffs around my wrists before yanking me up to my feet. I stumbled along with him as he pulled me by the arm. Gideon gave me a little finger wave and a smirk as Scar-face dragged me past him. I stuck my tongue out at the necromancer in return since I couldn’t give him a one-finger salute.

The guy pulled me along with him, past a couple more guards keeping an eye on the door who watched with dull curiosity as we passed. He took me into Max’s room, pulling me to one of the upholstered benches. Rather than let me sit on it, he put a foot on the back of one of my calves, sending me to my knees on the carpet, then sat down on the bench himself.

Rude, inconsiderate bastard.

I resettled myself as comfortably as I could under the circumstances, muttering under my breath the whole time. Scar-face didn’t say anything, though he did look a bit too pleased with himself for me to think that whatever Max had in store for me was over yet.

A little while later, the other two guards brought the chairs and stools from the pool room into Max’s room, leaving them next to the door. The flunkies glanced at me curiously once or twice, but for the most part concentrated on their task.

Once it looked like all of the chairs were out, the lot of them shuffled into Max’s room. Two of them stayed on their feet while the rest sat in the chairs, playing with cell phones or staring with obvious boredom into space.

One of them called out to Scar-face. “How much longer?”

“Dunno. Top floor is done, but they’ve still got a lot of ground to cover before they’ll ’ave searched the whole grounds. Pull out a pack of cards or something. We’re going to be here for a while.”

The other guardsmen grumbled a bit, but didn’t argue. The one who had asked how much longer went back into my gilded prison only to return a couple of minutes later with a book in hand.
Catch-22.
Of course.

Time passed. It got dark outside. The men took turns grabbing dinner from inside. Though I got pretty hungry and thirsty during the wait, I didn’t bother asking for anything and nobody offered to get me anything.

A crackle of static from a radio I hadn’t seen was followed by a voice I didn’t recognize. “We’re clear. Move the chairs to the basement, then report in. Stokes, stay with the girl.”

Everyone but Scar-face got up and cleared out, each of them carrying a couple of chairs. There were three chairs left behind, but I doubted any of them would come back to finish the job. Scar-face—Stokes—had eaten and resumed his seat on the bench, though he didn’t seem very pleased to be left with babysitting detail. To be fair, I wasn’t too pleased about it, either.

We waited in uncompanionable silence for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes. Max stalked in, moving with the liquid grace of a hunter on the prowl. His eyes gleamed with predatory intent, the tension in his shoulders and the thin lines around his mouth making his agitation obvious. One sharp gesture was all it took for Stokes to get up and hightail it out of the room.

I might have laughed at how nervous the guy got and the wide berth he gave Max as he nearly ran from us, but now I was alone with an angry, probably hungry, vampire.

Once the door shut behind Stokes, Max closed the distance between us. He didn’t say a word, but the weight of his displeasure was palpable. The subtle gleam in his eyes turned into a fierce, red glow and the pressure of him digging into my mind to take control was so sudden and painful that I could barely breathe.

I was in such deep shit.

Chapter Ten

Max didn’t have to touch me to make me hurt. I couldn’t move as he used our locked gazes as a channel to bring memories to the surface. One, of his progeny pinning me to a bed in a cold, damp room, making sure it hurt as he sucked the life out of me. Another, of being held in Max’s arms, of the disgust and revulsion that had wracked me once I realized how much I wanted him to keep biting me. And another, of just how good it felt to be bound, to bend to his will, the warm glow of basking in his praise—and the pain in my heart when he was disappointed with me, the aching burn of loss when Royce and his minions wouldn’t let me go so I could return to his side.