Bait

Chapter Seventeen

I really needed to lay off the sauce. My mouth tasted like a hamster crawled into it and died. Industrious elves hammered in my head, which only got worse when I rolled to my side. I opened my eyes and sucked in a yelp. A rub to the sockets didn’t change anything.

I was blind.

On my hands and knees I rolled to touch my face but no veil covered my sight. I groped around the unfamiliar area where I’d passed out. My heart fluttered and panic clawed at my throat. I crawled forward and tried to feel for something. Anything.

The soft threads of a carpet met my hands as I scurried aimlessly until I caught the corner of a solid piece of furniture across my forehead.

It cleared my thoughts. I sat back to squat on my heels and pressed my hands to the bump on my head. My poor brain throbbed in time with the hammering elves but the pain over-road the panic.

I gave up the bottle over a year ago. What the hell caused me to fall off the wagon? After a few deep breaths I blinked my eyes to make sure they were really open. Damn. The darkness sat heavy on my shoulders. This wasn’t a hangover. I’d been drinking tea not alcohol. Why did I feel so horrid? A vision of a handsome freckled face came back to me. I’d been at Rurik’s hideout. We’d been in his bedroom. The memory of Rurik’s last words stung and I flinched. He’d scared me and I ran. It all came back, my opening the door, the stranger, and the drug soaked cloth.

Primal instinct prey had to sense danger awoke in me. I needed to get out of here. One inch at a time I explored the space surrounding me. I felt my way around what must be a sofa when I saw a faint line of pale light that traced along the floor. It looked like the bottom edge of a door.

Angels sang in my soul and rose up in a chorus of joy. I could see something. After I scrambled to it, the doorknob refused to budge as I wrenched it.

A deep, low chuckle rolled over the room. It came from behind me and sent an ice cold-jolt down my spine. I spun and stood, pressing my back to the locked door, ready to face whoever hid in the dark.

Light from an igniting match flared within a set of long, red nails. Those well-manicured hands lit an oil lamp and adjusted the flame.

My eyes adjusted to the light and my heart skipped a beat.

Lizzy sat at a small square table, the oil lamp next to her. Her long auburn hair pulled tight into a French twist. The flicker of shadows played on her stern face and a set of tarot cards lay face up in front of her. She smiled and exposed her fangs.

“Hello, Rabbit.” She gestured to a chair across the table from her. “Would you like me to read your fortune?”

I didn’t need the tarot cards for that. Pain and death looked inevitable with Lizzy. “Do I have a choice?”

“We can skip the pleasantries if you wish.” Her smile widened.

I made myself walk slowly to the table and take a seat so as not to appear eager to please her. If we skipped the pleasantries I feared we’d go straight to the real reason she brought me here. Dinner. A cold sweat trickled down the side of my face. I wiped the beads that formed on my forehead with my sleeve.

On the table, the tarot cards sat face up in a cross shape. They were pretty to look at. Each had an individual colorful picture. Lizzy traced a bright painted nail around the card closest to her.

“What do you want with me?” I took pride in the fact my voice sounded confident, even though she made me as nervous as a rabbit in a fox den.

She admired the card. “I would think that is obvious.” Then she lifted it to show me, a knight who brandished a sword while he rode a warhorse. “Rurik.” With a swift flip of her wrist she turned the card and stared at it. “Strange, he used to be represented by the Page of Swords in my readings. Recently, he comes up as the Prince of Swords. He’s grown since I’ve met him.”

Lizzy set it down next to a card with a skeleton dressed in a suit of armor and pointed at it. “This card has begun to appear with Rurik’s recently.”

Something clenched my heart. “The death card?” I glanced up at her sparkling emerald eyes.

She nodded. “That’s what the modern world calls it, but that’s not what it truly means. This combination of cards represents something connected with Rurik is certain to come to an end.”

“That’s rather vague. It’s probably his car.”

She laughed. “Under different circumstances, I think I would have liked you.” The laugh and smile faded. Her eyes narrowed as she pointed at two other cards, one of a woman holding a chalice and the other of a wheel. “This set appeared three days ago. I have discerned the Queen of Cups is you, Rabbit. The Wheel of Fortune has been following you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You are approaching one of those moments in life when fate takes a hand in your affairs. Strange coincidences, fortunate meetings, and lucky breaks can all shape your destiny.” Her eyes burned with zealous belief. “Too bad I plan to change all that.”

I swallowed hard. Destinies were for heroes, not for lost souls. Although I’d had my share of strange these past few days, I couldn’t believe what she said. Fortune telling belonged in fun fairs. Lizzy’s parlor didn’t resemble anything fun.

The other cards puzzled me and I scratched my head, causing my loose curls to tangle, while I looked at them. A devil card sat in the center of the cross with what looked like a King carrying swords. Below them a card showed a naked couple holding hands.

“This—” she lifted it “—is why I brought you here. The Lovers.”

So, she’d already heard. I barely crawled out of his bed and the vampire witch knew. It never once occurred to me I’d have issues with Lizzy if I got involved with Rurik. She made her desires for him at the party clear but she also expressed her preference for Dragos. It didn’t matter. Rurik hated me, anyhow.

I shifted my sight from The Lovers. A hollow space expanded from my heart and encompassed me at the thought of losing him. Am I really just going to let him go so easily? I deserved to lose him if I didn’t ever try to win him back.

“I’ve heard Rurik has taken an unhealthy interest in you.”

I glared at her. “Unhealthy?”

“Rabbit.” She tsked. “How long before your mercenary friends find out about your relationship and destroy him?”

I blinked. Colby’s clandestine skills were slipping. Then again, Tane could have told her his plans. I shrugged. “I’m protecting him until I can prove his innocence.”

She gave a low chuckle. “Not very well. The location of Rurik’s ‘hide out ’ at Marie’s home will be leaked out for your friends. They’ll be too angry to care who it comes from.”

A cold claw of fear clenched my spine. “Why?” I whispered.

“They’ll be so upset after finding your broken, empty body.”

The claw tightened and my mouth went dry. I scanned the dim room for an escape but I couldn’t see past the nimbus of pale light from the oil lamp.

As if reading my mind she reached over and clamped my wrist in her red painted talons, preventing me from flight. “Naturally, they’ll assume Rurik drained you of your life’s blood.” She pulled my arm and drew me against the table’s edge, closer to her face. “In their fury they will slaughter his whole clan.”

Her grip held me like iron and my hand went numb. “I thought you wanted to keep him safe.” My mind raced over the methods of killing a vampire. I could stab her with a wooden stake but I’d have to break a piece of furniture to get it. The strength needed to pound one through a vampire’s chest was considerable and I didn’t think I could do it.

Lizzy yanked me to my knees by the table. The cards fluttered to the ground in a rain of large confetti as our arms swept them from the surface. She loomed over me in her thigh high, black leather stiletto boots. Her black silk blouse shone with the flame light. “I will swoop in to save my darling. He will be distraught and vulnerable with the destruction of his people at your hands, Rabbit. I wonder what level of pain he’ll experience when he finds out you were the bait planted by these mercenaries.”

More methods of monster killing ran through my thoughts. I’d been told with enough faith a holy item could vanquish a vampire, but I didn’t have either. The pain increased as her hand applied crushing pressure on the bones in my wrist. I couldn’t hold in the moan it caused. “He already knows.” I gritted through my teeth.

Her grip lessened. “What?”

“I said, he already knows.” Though her squeezing eased, the pain continued and I choked on a sob. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of making me cry. “He found out just before you kidnapped me, Lizzy.”

“Why should I believe you?” She tangled her fingers into my hair and snapped my head back. “And that’s Mistress Elizabeth to you,” she hissed with her face inches from mine.

“I have pictures that placed him at a mass murder. He discovered them in my suitcase. He knows I played a part in the attack at the party and hates me for it.”

She smiled and laughed. The scent of decayed blood floated from her mouth, I gagged at the putrid stench. Her iron hold on my wrist disappeared as she hugged herself, bent over with laughter.

Even though emotionally I felt scattered, my mind cut through the fear and panic like a sharp ax. I focused on the locked door while I stumbled to it. My left wrist could move but in agonizing jerks. When I examined the locking mechanism I saw it needed a key to open.

“How did you ever get those pictures?” She wiped a tear from her eye.

I twisted and leaned against the door, my sore wrist cradled in my right hand. “I’ll tell you if you give me the key to this door.”

She fingered a chain that hung on her neck, the key dangled between her breasts. “Come and get it.”

“Lizzy, are you making a pass? I’m really not attracted to crazy.”

Her smile turned feral. She turned the knob on the oil lamp to increase the flame and lit the room then sauntered to a desk in the far corner by the window. Thick red drapes blocked the view to outside, and inside the top drawer she pulled out a thin stack of photos.

Suddenly, I felt foolish for ever believing in those cursed pictures Colby gave me. The flame flickered in the lamp. I should have burned them.

Lizzy returned to the table, shadows played on her face and helped me remember another way to rid myself of a bitch vampire. She wanted to steal Rurik, kill his coven, and worst of all murder me. If this worked, there’d be no regrets. If.

I approached the table as she displayed the images face up. They were duplicates of the ones in the manila envelope, except no Rurik. A different vampire replaced him. “I don’t understand. Why frame him for this massacre?”

“Dragos hates Rurik and everything he represents with a passion. Your band of mercenaries wouldn’t take the contract without proof of some kind of misdeed. Dragos had the pictures made and then Tane’s pet, Eric, convinced them one of the dead girls was his daughter.” She chuckled. “Vampire slayers hired by vampires to do their dirty work. Quite poetic, even for Dragos.”

“He had those people slaughtered just for that. Why didn’t he just go after Rurik himself?”

“You do not understand our politics. Rurik has a great deal of supporters. If Dragos were foolish enough to kill him, it would cause an uprising. All those centuries of power gone for one little city.”

“I take it Dragos is more than an Overlord.”

“Oh yes, he rules them all.” She swept my hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. It gave me the creeps. “Don’t worry your pretty, little head. I’ll take care of Rurik. Once his clan is destroyed, he’ll be powerless and Dragos will let me keep him.”

I couldn’t stand the way she spoke of Rurik. It made him sound like a pet. My blood boiled at the thought this dominating witch touching him. She reached for me again but I stepped back. “Why did Dragos attack Rurik’s original lair two nights ago?”

“He did what?” She growled. “That impatient fool! No wonder Rurik hides in Marie’s home. No matter, Rabbit. I will see if you taste as sweet as Dragos dreamed you would.”

Before she moved, I lifted the oil lamp from the table and smashed it at her feet. Her eyes widened when the oil splashed on her legs and caught fire. The flames spread up her limbs with forest fire speed. Her ear splitting screeches filled the room as did a foul, rotten smell.

I pressed my hands to my ears and back peddled to the far wall. Heat scorched my skin and smoke choked my lungs. The fire ate at the furniture as Lizzy flailed around the room. I could have planned this better. Instead of being eaten by her, I’d burn with her.

She managed to tangle herself in the long thick red drapes behind the table. They flashed into an inferno that licked the ceiling. She cried out again and burst through the window pulling the curtain with her. She didn’t fall very far. The room sat on the first floor.

I grabbed what remained of the scorched pictures and climbed out after her.

She flailed on the ground but her movements became weaker.

I allowed myself a moment of satisfaction as I watched Mistress Elizabeth, Wicked Bitch of the West, burn.

Shouts from inside the house startled me out of my dark pleasure. I ran across the garden, clutching the original pictures. Branches caught at my red t-shirt as I pushed between some thick bushes surrounding Lizzy’s property. At least my jeans protected me from scratches. The busy street was visible through the hedge. I needed to make things right for Rurik.

My mind raced with excitement, I finally had the evidence to prove his innocence. Who should I go to first? Colby, to stop any further attacks, or Rurik, to try and win him back?