"What this?" demanded the older (and much bigger) harpy.
"Take Mitschka inside," Mitch demanded imperiously. "Mitschka explain to all."
With a dissatisfied grunt, the harpy turned and led the way across the empty bay. I glanced around, daring to hope the empty garage meant that Rafe wasn't there. His absence would certainly make our task easier.
The large door rumbled closed behind us, shutting out all natural light in the windowless place. Only a few long tubes shone overhead, flickering a harsh light over the empty space.
Passing through a door at the end of the garage, we followed the harpy down a narrow hall. The first few doors we passed had no windows and told me nothing. The next several doors had large windows reinforced with wire to prevent breakage. The glimpse I caught of the rooms as we continued down the hallway was chilling. White tile walls. White tile floors. Narrow padded tables with restraints. Carts with knives. Carts with shining metal tools more ominous than knives.
A growl vibrated in my chest as Mitch shoved me along.
The hallway opened into a huge square room cut from rock with bare stone overhead—part of the original quarry. We were underneath the cliff that the bunker was built against. There was only one way in and one way out, I noted.
Just as Mitch had described, the room was divided into three sections. Both sides of the room had been converted into cages. One cage held my brothers and cousins. The other cage held the pack lasses. The cages were bare of any furniture whatsoever. I assumed that the door hanging on the back wall of each cage led to a bathroom.
The large space in the center was open. About twenty harpies milled around a number of sturdy wooden picnic tables. Berths were cut into the far wall where several harpies lay sleeping. On the wall behind me was a kitchen where several large pots simmered on an industrial-sized stove. Three harpies were working with cleavers at a large wooden butcher block, chopping up a big dog and throwing chunks of red meat into a tall pot.
Anxiously, I searched the cage on my right where the girls sat together along the back wall. Most of them had worn sleeveless summer dresses to the garden party; now they huddled together for warmth in the dank cavern. But it was a relief to find them unharmed.
None of the girls' cell phones seemed to have survived their abduction. (Not that they would have worked in the manmade cave.) The phones that weren't left behind or lost along the way would have been confiscated by their captors.
On my left, my family was standing in white shirtsleeves; their jackets had been abandoned during the warm afternoon back at the house. With their wings wrapped beneath their shirts, warmth wasn't an issue for the gargoyles.
They stepped forward to the bars, eying me curiously. It was a tribute to Sophie's talent that none of my family appeared to recognize me. And my latex gloves seemed to be doing their job, concealing my scent and hiding from the harpies the fact that I was a gargoyle. Again, I was relieved to find my brothers and cousins in good health; clearly, they hadn't been drained of their venom.
Mitch released me and I sidled away from her, rubbing my arm, trying to appear vulnerable while Mitch seemed to be looking for someone. Eventually, an extraordinarily large harpy separated herself from the others and stepped toward us. This, no doubt, was the harpies' Gangboss. The towering pile of rock eyed Mitch suspiciously.
"What this?" she demanded, pointing a stony finger in my direction.
"Girly-girl," Mitch answered. "Belong to another gargoyle."
From the corner of my eye, I watched the faces of my family. I knew the second they caught on. A narrow-eyed look of understanding traveled from my brothers to my cousins as they processed the fact that they'd just seen a pair of familiar green eyes on the face of a girl they didn't know. But their initial expressions of recognition were quickly replaced by confusion. My family knew it had to be me standing there in the red vinyl jacket. But they still didn't know why I was there or what I was up to.
The girls hadn't caught up yet. They were completely baffled.
"Another gargoyle?" echoed the Gangboss.
Mitschka delivered the story we'd prepared together, telling Retschka how she'd been attacked by the dog at the Boulder house. She said that while she was tending to her wounds and before she could return to the quarry, several more gargoyles had arrived at the house. "Mitschka too weak too face off with gargoyles. So bring gargoyle's Girly-girl."
When Mitch finished, Retschka didn't look convinced. "Mitschka kill bad dog?"
"Y-yes," Mitschka answered.
Retschka grunted. "Should have brought dog back for the pot."
"M-Mitschka not strong enough," she answered, her voice shaking as she tugged on the bandages wrapping her throat. "Lost much blood fighting dog. Could only carry girl."
Retschka stalked closer and grabbed my arm, peering down at the rune Sophie had drawn on my shoulder. "Gargoyles not follow? Try to bring back girl?"
Silently, I ground my teeth in frustration. Retschka knew her gargoyles. And there really is nothing worse than a clever harpy.
"Gargoyles not know what happened. Girl alone in front of house. Gargoyles maybe only just now finding out. If only just finding out, might leave again."
Retschka's head swung around like a malicious owl and her beady black eyes fixed on Mitch. "Mitschka take harpies," she commanded in her scratchy old voice. "Take harpies back and show us many gargoyles."
Mitch sent me a stricken look. And despite my long held prejudice that there was no such thing as a good harpy, my heart went out to the youngster. I tried to give her an encouraging look. After all, the harpies wouldn't automatically know they'd been tricked when they arrived at the Boulder house and found no gargoyles. They wouldn't know that until they got back to the bunker and saw that we'd freed ourselves. And by that time, we'd be able to protect Mitch.
But at that point, the harpies were in a hurry to get back to Boulder. Two of them grabbed my arms and hustled me across the room to the cage where the girls were held. Retschka lifted a ring of keys from a hook mounted on the wall by the kitchen. In a few more seconds, she would open the cell door and I'd be shoved inside…just like I wanted…just like I'd planned. I was going into the girls' cell with all of my wooden jewelry intact.
Everything was going beautifully. Everything was going according to plan. I was going to rescue my pack and they'd finally have to take me seriously. I'd be a hero. We'd be home tomorrow morning when Agent Moreno came by to deliver our identification papers. And maybe Sophie would even change her mind about Ian after I'd returned (victoriously) with my pack.
Right?
What is that old expression? Something about counting your chickens before they're hatched? Evidently, that's what I was doing. Counting chickens. Because I wasn't out of the woods yet.
Retschka used one of the keys to open the door. I waited for my harpy guards to shove me through the opening.
But it never happened.
"What's going on?" demanded a deep male voice.
The hairs lifted on the back of my neck and wintry fingers gripped my spine. Slowly, I turned toward the voice and faced the tall figure dressed impeccably in a charcoal Italian silk suit and a tie that looked like it cost nine hundred dollars.
It was Rafe. Rafe Olander.
Chapter Nineteen
I'd never seen Olivia's brother before but I'd heard plenty about him from my cousins. Victor and his brothers had gone up against him when they'd freed Force and Camie from the Olander lab in Boulder. I assumed he was as powerful as my cousins had told me. Reason and Chaos working together hadn't been able to bring him down with their long knives; Rafe had carried off both their blades buried in his flesh as he made his escape from the lab.
As my gaze made its way up to his face, it was clear that my cousins hadn't exaggerated on his size. The guy had to be at least seven feet of pure malevolence, with long white hair and cold black eyes. I knew about his penchant for torture, and right now his eyes were glittering with a sharp, uns
ettling greed for dark violence.
The look in his eyes was enough to put ice in your veins. But at least his gaze was on me, rather than the girls. Instinctively, I took a step away from the cage where the girls were trapped, taking his gaze with me. For some reason, he seemed absolutely fixated on me. Maybe it was my height. I knew he liked to hurt girls. But I guessed that he preferred to break strong girls.
"What's going on?" Rafe repeated without removing his gaze from my face.
"More gargoyles," Retschka explained in a croak. "Young Mitschka bring back one of gargoyle's girls."
"More gargoyles at the Boulder house?" Rafe questioned sharply.
"More gargoyles," Mitch confirmed bravely, then cleverly added, "More girls."
I watched Olander's face as greed warred with disbelief. But as often happens with nasty folks, greed won out. Rafe would be only too happy to have more girls in his cage.
"Okay," Rafe finally said. "Lock the cell door and take the rest of the harpies. Go back and check. You can leave this one with me." His gaze swung to me again. And stuck.
Retschka's eyes narrowed on Rafe as she turned the key in the lock. "Some harpies stay here. Stay here to guard."
Rafe didn't seem too happy about that decision. "I can guard the prisoners."
Retschka's mouth split in a shrewd grin. "Some harpies stay to guard prisoners from Rafe."
Rage poured off the tall harpy-spawn for several seconds as he glared back at the Gangboss. Finally, he shrugged if off. "Fine," he hissed. "Leave as many harpies as you like. They can even watch if they want to."
"Watch?" I asked in a high shaky voice. (I was only half acting, the other half was genuinely alarmed.) "Watch what?"
But Retschka and Rafe ignored me.
"Harpies watch," Retschka confirmed with a sly smile. "Harpies like to watch girls suffer. But nobody die."
Rafe stared at her for a long moment.
"Nobody die," the harpy repeated, her voice rising. "Not yet."
"Not yet," Rafe agreed softly, but quite clearly against his wishes.
"Wh-what? What are you talking about?" I asked, shrinking away.
Rafe smiled back at me as his eyes raked down my frame. "I need an initiate," he said in a thick, growling purr. "Someone to christen my new studio."
"C-Christen?" I quavered.
He nodded. "You've heard of christening a ship with champagne?"
"Aye," I started to answer then realized it was a mistake to use the old word. "Y-Yes," I stammered.
Fortunately, Rafe didn't catch my error. "The champagne is a quaint tradition," he rasped. "But I prefer blood."
"Blood?" I choked out. My mind raced as I weighed options…and came to a quick decision. I couldn't let him take one of the girls; that was number one. Number two was the fact that there would be weapons in Rafe's "studio".
I planned to reach one of them before he did.
"Let me show you around," he murmured. He reached for me and locked his long fingers around my arm while Retschka picked out a pair of harpies to stay behind—two beauties named Brutschka and Hitschka. Then the rest of the harpies headed for the exit. Even the three uglies in the kitchen stopped their work and joined the back of the column that filed down the corridor.
Despite the fact that I'd just managed to get rid of most of the harpies, my pack wasn't too happy with the way things were going.
"Leave her alone," Valor shouted while the rest of my family snarled their agreement. "She's not one of us."
"We've never seen her before," insisted the girls.
I'm sure they were only trying to protect me. But honestly, they weren't helping. Turning my head so Rafe couldn't see my face, I sent a sharp glare in Valor's direction. My brother's knuckles were white as he gripped the steel bars of his cage, but at least he swallowed his next round of arguments as Rafe jerked me across the room.
I let Rafe drag me back down the empty hall like a rag doll, reinforcing the idea that I was just a harmless human girl, struggling valiantly…but a mite feebly, going for a mixture of courage and vulnerability. The two harpy guards followed us.
Midway down the corridor, Rafe opened one of the windowed doors and roughhoused me inside, kicking the door closed with the back of his heel. The guy was strong…but his limp was unmistakable. It was nice to know that Reason's knife hadn't been sacrificed in vain.
He manhandled me across the narrow room and lifted me onto what looked like a doctor's examination table…well, except for the chilling presence of the restraints. The thick bands looked like they were made of several layers of Tyvek…which would make them very difficult to tear. Just out of reach, stood a shiny metal cart spread with white paper. On the spotless paper lay several sharp instruments, including my cousins' knives.
Naturally, Rafe would want to torture us with our own weapons. That would appeal to his twisted sense of irony. But his sense of irony would work in my favor, I thought darkly. Because that knife on the cart was going to fit very comfortably in my hand when I got a hold of it. Like an old familiar friend. But it was time to get to work. And I was just betting that limp of his was a sore subject with him.
"Y-you're so big. And strong," I said, acting like I was trying to earn his sympathy. "You must be almost…invulnerable. It makes me wonder how you got that terrible limp? What happened to your leg?"
Yup. Sore subject. Rafe's expression turned black and a vein pulsed madly in his temple.
"I'm sorry?" I said, blinking my heavily mascaraed eyelashes. "Did I say something wrong?"
Rafe just snarled in response.
"Did one of the gargoyles in the other room do that to you?"
"One of the blonds," he ground out from between his clenched teeth. "But I suspect you know that."
"Blond hair and blue eyes?" I said, looking up at him with an innocent, wide-eyed stare.
Rafe's face turned cruel. "He'll be the first to suffer. And the last to die."
The idea of such cold brutality made my blood rise in a surge of anger. "The harpies will never let you kill those gargoyles," I argued, almost forgetting to disguise my voice.
He nodded grimly. "The harpies have served their purpose."
I guess I should have seen that coming but it took me by surprise. He was like one guy (although a big one) and there were at least twenty harpies he was talking about going up against. "You're going to kill the harpies?"
He jerked his chin in a short nod. "Every last one of the superstitious mongrels."
"Well, you'd better get to it soon," I told him matter-of-factly. "Because the more gargoyle venom they drink, the more indestructible they'll get."
"They're not getting much venom," he snickered darkly. "I've told them they must wait for that. And indestructible won't help them against the poisons I've brewed in my lab."
"Your lab?" I questioned, even though I knew all about his history with Olander Labs.
"Let's just say I have a strong scientific background," he sneered. "And a fully equipped laboratory at my disposal."
Aye, I thought with an inward sigh. Poison would probably work quite nicely against the harpies. It wouldn't even have to be anything fancy. Common, everyday rat poison would probably work…if you could fool them into consuming it.
"I'll make sure it goes into their food," he continued. "Or their drink."
"And what better place to leave their bodies than at the bottom of a lake in a rock quarry?" I murmured.
It looked like he had it all figured out. I glanced through the wire-reinforced window at the harpies standing guard on the other side of the door and wished their hearing was as good as mine. Because if they'd known what Rafe had planned for them, they'd have been all over him in a heartbeat.
"Then I'll start in on the girls," Rafe went on in a silky voice that matched his grim fantasies. "And carve them up, one by one while their boyfriends are forced to watch. And when I'm done with the girls, I'll kill the boys. Slowly."
As I listened, my stomach churned. I wan
ted to reach for his throat and rip out his Adam's apple. Anything to stop him from saying one more ugly thing. But I knew I needed to think more compassionately, like a girl. Because I needed to convince him that's exactly what I was. "Why?" I asked, trying to sound worried but strong. "Why are you doing this?"
He shrugged. "Revenge. Those little bastards killed my sister. And crippled me for life. I want them to suffer." A slow smile overtook his face. "But I won't say I won't enjoy it. Especially the girls."
"So, you're going to carve me up," I said in a fading voice.
He scowled down at me. "Not yet. The harpies won't let me do much more than spill a little blood. They've said I can hurt the girls but I can't kill them. And they won't even let me touch the boys. But—like I said—the mongrels won't be around much longer."
I smothered a growl, surprised to find myself on the harpies' side for a change. But they were the only things standing between Rafe and the death of my pack so maybe my sympathy was warranted. I fixed a frightened look on my face and stared up into Rafe's soulless eyes.
"Are you afraid?" he murmured.
"Y-yes," I answered. "Of course I'm afraid."
And after treating me so roughly, he turned suddenly gentle, tangling his fingers in my hair and rubbing the bronze strands between his thumb and forefinger as he gazed down at me with hooded eyes. And somehow the overt hunger in his somnolent gaze was even worse than the prospect of torture at his hands. At that dark moment, I was glad it was me sitting there in his studio instead of Elaina or Camie or one of the other girls. I couldn't stand the idea of Rafe touching one of the pack lasses.
"Don't be afraid," he said in a smooth whisper. "You'll find there's a certain amount of pleasure in pain. Although…I doubt you'll enjoy it half as much as I will."
The guy was so sick. I fought a mad urge to gouge out his eyes. But he was huge and I wasn't going to take him down with my bare hands. I had to get to one of the weapons on the cart.
"Wh-what are you going to do with these restraints?" I asked tremulously, edging away from the thick bands like they scared me but actually trying to move closer to the tray with the blades.
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