Taken

Chapter 23

The dark was total. Sophie lay in a small space on concrete, though near her feet was a wooden door. At least, she thought it was a door—it moved slightly when her feet found it. And she was vaguely aware of needing to pee, though it wasn’t critical yet.

She had other problems.

It smelled too horrible to be believed in here, and the thin thread of musk rising from her skin didn’t help. It only accentuated the reek coating the back of her throat. Her mind kept pairing images to the smell—terrible, soul-destroying images of rotten flesh, skeletons grinning through veils of slime, bones and worms, and—

It was better not to think about it, the cricket voices said. Sometimes their words were coming through, reedy little sounds shaping comprehensible syllables. The faces pressed close to hers, insubstantial smoke warming for just a moment until it felt like flesh, but they never stayed.

She lay there and thought about it. If she was crazy—

No. Zach swore she wasn’t crazy. And there were vampires, she’d seen them. Which was more insane, seeing crazy shit or denying the crazy shit right in front of your own eyes?

She tried to breathe deeply, working through the incipient panic attack. Her nose was full, and her muscles were cramping despite the way the faces crowded around, ghostly hands stroking along her limbs, easing them, drugging the pain. Tears leaked hot and soundless down to her temple, dripped over the bridge of her nose.

She’d huddled on the floor so many times, trying to breathe through the sobs, her body on fire with pain. It never got easier to deal with.

It never became routine.

At first she’d tried to predict him, tried to be more pliant, more perfect. She’d tried to find what was irritating him so much, find ways to soothe him, make him happy. Back when she still thought he loved her. Back when she still thought love was pain, or pain was all right if you could just love enough.

Then came the survival phase, where everything began to seem like a dream. Just keeping her head above water was hard enough. Actually thinking about what was happening lost out to just trying to get through the next explosion.

After that was the most horrifying thing of all—being so trapped, so hopeless, that she began to think she deserved it. The world skewed itself a few degrees off, and she began to lose parts of herself.

If she had to get right down to it, she wasn’t actually in school to become a social worker. She just wanted to understand how she worked, how people worked, so she could put herself back together again. And quit looking over her shoulder.

It was no use. The ropes were too tight, and the faces were contorting, some of them crying soundlessly.

Thank God Lucy’s face wasn’t there. Which brought up an interesting line of thought—were these dead spirits, or something else? Zach hadn’t said, and she hadn’t thought to ask.

Another sound intruded. A squeak, a thump. Footsteps. Distinctive footsteps, the heels jabbing hard.

Sophie realized she was making a small whining sound, swallowed hard. The reek filled her throat, the footsteps grew closer. The faces whispered, and she caught enough of their reedy little syllables to guess who was down here, wherever “here” was.

Oh, God. I really didn’t ever want to see him again.

There was a scraping sound, and weak light fell into the closet. It was a closet, she saw, and its dimensions looked vaguely familiar. He grabbed her ankles and pulled, his fingers biting in cruelly, and if the spirits hadn’t been clustering around her, somehow easing the soreness from her muscles, she probably would have screamed in pain.

She lay on her side, still on hard concrete, blinking furiously as her eyes ran with hot tears. He walked behind her, heels landing hard on the concrete, and she suddenly realized why he did.

He wanted her afraid.

Well, I am. But after the past few days of whipsawing terror and comfort, her fear-meter seemed to have busted.

And God, she was so tired of being afraid.

“Hello, Sophie,” he breathed in her ear. The hot, meaty smell grew ranker, if that was possible. She had a sudden mental vision of canine teeth grown long, lips thinned out and flushed with deadly cherry-red.

She found her voice. At least they hadn’t gagged her. “Hello, Mark.” Now that I’ve got a really sensitive nose, I just have to be stuck around hideously stinky stuff. Great.

“You’ve been a very bad girl, my dear.” He kept breathing on her ear. Three days ago Sophie would have cringed.

Now she just wanted a bathroom and some more of Julia’s steak with caramelized onions. So she just kept quiet. He was going to talk for a little while, she knew that tone. The falsely conciliatory cheerfulness.

“Bad enough that you embarrass me with legal difficulties. But then you hide from me, as if I’m some sort of common criminal. And you take up with such undesirable elements. My dear, you have no couth.”

And you’ve been hanging out with the Happy Vampires. Really, Mark, lecturing me is so passé. Why don’t you find something else to do? But that was a sure way to make him angry, so she concentrated on blinking away the tears. The room gradually began to take shape.

It was a basement. Or more precisely, the wine cellar. She’d been down here hundreds of times, obsessing over which bottle to choose, knowing the wrong one would bring a patronizing grin and a promise of punishment.

The racks of bottles had been taken out. Dark, nameless liquid splashed the walls, and the heavy wainscoting over concrete was splattered, as well. The lighting was always dim down here, and she’d been in the small temperature-controlled closet for the brandies and cognacs.

Dear God. He’s emptied out the wine cellar? For a moment she was confused, then she remembered the heavy insulated doors, both on the closet and on the cellar itself. This was an ideal place for someone to scream their lungs out without being heard—and if the splashes on the wall were any indication, a lot of screaming went on down here.

She should have been more surprised. But her surprise-meter was like her fear-meter, completely busted by now. She knew where she was, she’d escaped this house once before.

It wasn’t looking like she’d escape again, though.

“There’s something called a crucion, Sophie. It’s shaped like an X, and when we catch one of those animals we like to strap them onto it and play. It’s not a nice kind of playing. First the arms break, then the legs. And if we keep turning the wheel, other bones break, too. Doesn’t that sound painful?”

You’ve been hanging around with nasty people, Mark. Not me. She tensed, her bare throat feeling very exposed. Very vulnerable. Especially with him breathing that horrible smell all over her.

He nudged her. Her flesh shrank at the idea of him actually touching her. “Are you listening? I want you to listen very closely, darling.”

Just shut up and go away. How could I ever have thought I loved you? She took a long shallow breath in, trying not to taste it.

“I asked if you were listening, Sophie.” Another nudge, rougher than the first. After Zach’s leashed strength, Mark didn’t feel so horribly, hurtfully strong. But she remembered the thing in the alley and how it twisted on itself, how quick it moved, and poor Lucy’s pale face—

The most amazing thing happened.

A pinprick of something hot dilated behind Sophie’s sternum.

Her mouth opened. “You are such a moron, Mark.” Flat, matter-of-fact, as if she was telling him about the weather. “I’m tied up on the floor. What else do I have to listen to?”

She couldn’t believe she’d said it. But the burning itch in her chest demanded she speak. It had been so long since she’d dared to feel any anger at all, and this wasn’t just anger. It was too red, too acid, too hot, to be anything but pure rage.

He was silent for almost thirty seconds. Probably shocked that she’d dared to talk to him at all. Quiet little mouse Sophie, scared of her own shadow.

Not anymore, she thought. There were other things to be scared of now. Things like vampires and werewolves and—

But she wasn’t scared of Zach, was she? Not anymore.

When had that happened?

“Sophie.” Mark’s fingers threaded through her hair and tightened, making a fist. “Where did you learn to talk like this? From your plebeian little friend?”

“The one you wanted killed, you mean? Her name was Lucy, and I hope you rot in hell.”

The blow came out of nowhere, an openhanded slap that glanced off her cheek and smacked her head back, bouncing it off the floor. Stars exploded behind her eyelids, but she didn’t cry out. He hit her twice more, bracing her head with the fist in her hair, a terrible yanking pain each time. Her lip split, and the hot streak of blood in her mouth was cleaner than the terrible smell filling the room.

He pulled her head back, her throat exposed and neck craning, and leaned close enough that she could feel meat-hot breath on her cheek. Stinging warmth dripped into her eyes, and she blinked.

Mark’s face was a caricature, flushed almost purple. The fangs were wickedly curved, needle-sharp and bone-white. They dug into his chin and thin lines of black ooze slid down from the punctures. His eyes ran with orange wetness, a dripping metallic sheen she’d mistaken for fire. It shifted, running down his cheeks and leaving an opalescent slug trail behind, as if he was weeping hellfire.

“You bitch,” he said thickly, but his tongue wouldn’t work quite right. The fangs were in the way.

She knew that tone. He was about to beat her senseless. But instead of the cowering, complete fear and confusion, the still-hot point of rage behind her breastbone became a flood, pouring through her body.

“You were never any good in bed, either,” she said, loud and clear. “All that grunting and whining.”

He made an inarticulate noise, half roar, half wounded cry, and erupted into motion. Sophie curled away—and the second miracle happened.

The cricket voices rose around her in a swirling tide, insubstantial hands clutching and ripping. Mark’s fist glanced off her cheekbone; he leaped to his feet and kicked her, a red explosion of pain spearing through her ribs.

Something inside Sophie turned, shifted…and woke up. The feeling poured through her, like a gulp of too-hot coffee, exploding in her middle. It was so unfamiliar she couldn’t think of what it was for a long taffy-stretching second, before the realization hit her like thunder after lightning.

It was power. And it was hers. The majir borrowed from her, slid through her as if she was an open door. Now that she had ceased resisting, they filled her like water. And she wondered if the other shamans ever felt like this.

She would probably never find out, now.

The ropes loosened. They slithered like fat snakes, rasping against flesh rubbed raw. The second kick caught her in the back—she was rolling away, her muscles on fire from a long time lying on concrete, unable even to shift her weight. He screamed, the torrent of obscenities and beast sounds splashing inside her head and making it difficult to think. He was always so goddamn loud when he started in on her.

Her head hit something soft and a shower of foulness splatted over her hair. She kept rolling, squirming away—his foot caught her under the ribs again. He screamed and kicked, catching her just under the jaw. A red explosion smashed through her head; she scrambled blindly and got her feet under her.

He wants to kill me, she thought, dazed. Of course. I’ve known that for a long time. She hit the wall, the spirits crowding around her, and her legs almost failed. Cramped and bruised, she found herself hitting the wall again, her back thudding against it as Mark crouched, one hand on the floor like he was part of some crazy football game. “You bitch,” he said, again, thickly. Or the thing that had been her husband said it with a mouth full of sharp teeth and clotted scum.

The heat and power inside her crested, her entire body shaking and buzzing. Warm salt ran in her eyes. She was bleeding, her hands held up fruitlessly, the swirling ghostlike faces crawling up her arms. Their touch was warm and forgiving, and she no longer tried to hold them at arm’s length. The rattling intensified, became a rattlesnake buzz.

Mark gave a sound halfway between a wet lip smacking and a throaty growl. His entire body bunched up, and Sophie knew she was going to die. He was going to kill her the same way another vampire had killed Lucy. She was going to die down here in a stinking wine cellar.

Three days ago she might have screamed.

Sophie opened her arms. The spirits streamed through her, whispering. Don’t worry, they said. Everything is going to be all right. Not long now.

And the world…exploded.

No, not the world. The door to the wine cellar, driven in with megaton force, broken bits of wood whickering through air gone suddenly hard and viscous. The spirits streamed away from her, a tide of quicksilver and smoke, bright eyes and claws glittering. They splattered against Mark’s face like Silly String, steam rising as they bit and clawed at him. A completely inappropriate desire to laugh bubbled up inside Sophie’s chest, right next to the simmering crimson rage. Go ahead! Burn him! Hurt him any way you can!

The thing came through the shattered door, pouring like liquid and resolving into a low shape running with fur, smoking with black blood along one side, a white stripe sliding down its length. It landed in a compact ball, a sound of claws snicking against the concrete, and its growl trailed off in a series of clicks.

She sagged against the wall, staring, as Mark whirled, flying wood smacking him with obscene little chucking sounds.

And Mark, the monster, the huge, terrifying thing that haunted her, actually screamed. It was a high girlish sound, all the more absurd because she recognized the striped thing that uncoiled, stalking forward with graceful eerie authority.

She would know him anywhere now, with the spirits crawling under her skin, the rattle of the copper-bottomed pans buzzing in her veins. The feeling was delightful, new strength that laughed at the deep drilling pain in her side whenever she took a breath, snickered at the way blood kept dripping in her eyes, and snarled at the way her legs kept trembling, threatening to spill her on the concrete.

The thing that had been her ex-husband let out a screech and jumped for Zach, who faded aside with scary grace, striking out with one elegant-clawed hand. His form blurred like ink in running water, never pausing, fur shifting along its lines. He was sleek and deadly, and she recognized the crackling in the air around him because it invaded her own veins.

It was the rage. And it was good.

The spirits knew. They whispered that he was too far gone, that the anger had taken him and he was just as likely to kill her as Mark. They whispered that he was over the edge, and that she should back away, make herself small and quiet so they didn’t notice her.

For the first time in her life, Sophie didn’t want to hide.

She launched herself forward, the spirits crackling around her, their faces turned to pictures of astonishment, and landed on Mark’s back, barely aware she was screaming. Her blood-slippery fists pounded, something tore in her side again and a red sheet of pain fed the thing roaring inside and outside of her skin.

He threw her. She was weightless for a long second, the spirits pouring around her in a confusion of long hair and open, awestruck mouths. The wall loomed; she hit it with a sick thump, her head snapping back and something else breaking.

The rage ate the pain and turned into a thunder crack. The noise was incredible. The shapes in front of her eyes refused to make sense for a moment, hazed with red.

Zach and the thing that had been Mark circled. The vampire was making a sound like horny nails dragged over concrete, its throat swelling and its clothes ripped up one side. Zach hunched down on all fours, moving fluidly, still making that odd clicking noise. His muzzle lifted, white teeth showing, and they closed in a welter of noise and tearing.

Darkness fuzzed around the edges of her vision. She tried to push it away, taking in hitching little breaths. The faces were closer now, taking on weight. They looked so, so sad.

The vampire jetted forward with that scary, liquid speed, and Zach froze for a split second, his eyes flicking past the threat to Sophie. Don’t worry about me! she wanted to scream. Pay attention to him! He’s coming right at you!

Zach faded aside, somehow not there as the thing that had been Mark let out a short sharp victorious cry. The lean furred shape twisted amazingly, the ribbons of his slashed T-shirt fluttering like pennants, and made a movement almost too quick to be seen. His hands lengthened into claws, light shearing off each of them, and foul blackness exploded. The noise trickled away into shocked silence, and Sophie heard her own breathing again, bubbling, each gasp a hitching agony.

The body thudded down.

Zach crouched over him, the clicking growl fading bit by bit. His fur moved restlessly, motion sharply controlled. His eyes were wide, dark, and there was no trace of the man she’d kissed in them.

There was just an animal, its hide twitching, favoring its left front paw. The white streak down its side was slicked with blood and darker fluids. It paused, the clicking settling into a sort of chuffing.

Sophie stared. Oh, God. He just killed Mark. The red pain jabbing in her ribs cranked up a notch, darkness closing around the edges of her vision like a camera shutter closing. The faces moved between them, gossamer-thin now, and so sad. They were crying, crystal droplet tears vanishing as they fell.

The animal sniffed. It turned, a loose fluid movement, and faced the door. Sophie tried to get up, but her body wasn’t having any of it. The pain was fuzzy, and very far away now. The darkness was closing in.

The clicks and chuffing shifted. It occurred to her, in a sideways leap that might have been intuition or might have been the spirits whispering, that he was trying to say her name.

The single bulb in its glass shield grew dimmer. Or was it that her eyelids wouldn’t stay up? A bubble of heat burst on her lips.

Just before complete blackness crawled through her, she saw the shadows at the wine cellar door. They were moving jerkily, their eyes glowing and dripping.

They were the vampires. There were plenty of them.

And down here Zach was all alone.

Sophie fell away from consciousness, still trying to scream.