“So what did you see in there?” Malcolm asked when they had put some miles between them and the oculus. The youngest boy had color back in his cheeks, a good sign.
“I heard Romulus,” he finally admitted.
“Are you sure?” Malcolm asked, paling at the name of their fearsome general.
Edon whipped around. He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Did he see you? Did he know you were in the oculus?”
“I don’t think so. He kept asking my name. I don’t think he recognized me,” Lawson said. He hung his head. “You were right, it was a mistake to come.”
“Whether or not he knew who you were, we’ve got to move.” Edon glowered.
“Not yet,” Lawson said. “There’s something else.” He told them about the girl he’d seen, the one with the brilliant red hair and sad green eyes, the tracker, Romulus’s spy. “I sent her an image of the butcher shop. She’s going there now. Take me there.”
“You want her to find us?” Malcolm gaped.
“I want her to find me,” Lawson said smoothly.
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rafe asked, looking solemn.
“Leave her to me,” Lawson said, his jaw set, his heart burning with hatred. “I’ll take care of her.”
“What about Tala?” Malcolm wanted to know.
“I don’t know. The oculus didn’t show me Tala.” He gazed out the window, his heartbeat finally slowing to a regular rhythm although his back still ached. He had wanted to see her so badly, but the oculus had shown him someone else. The red-haired spy. He clenched and unclenched his fist. He had lured the spy to the butcher shop, where she would meet her death.
FOURTEEN
The shadows made everything look larger and smell worse. Styrofoam platters and massive rolls of wax paper were stacked on the counters. Hooks from empty meat racks hung from the ceiling, their crooked silhouettes looking even more ominous in the moonlight. Tacked on the brick walls were charts mapping animal bodies, depicting the various primal cuts. Shoulder. Chuck. Loin. Near the entrance were two large glass counters full of steaks and chops wrapped in cellophane.
Bliss took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could, willing her tense muscles calm. She had found the right butcher shop, had driven right up to it, and had seen from the corner of her eye the silver wolf in the shadows, had watched its arched, furry body slink through the back door, and had followed it inside.
She crept as quietly as she could across the wet stone floor. It was lurking somewhere within the darkness, waiting. Her eyes caught a flicker of light in the distance. In the back she noticed the door to the meat locker was open, revealing a carcass swaying like an inverted pendulum. So that was why the room smelled of blood.
She closed her eyes so she could hear. Concentrate. She pinched her nose. The smell was distracting. When Lucifer had taken over her body and had been her only contact to the outside, she’d found she could listen better if she closed her eyes and withdrew from her other senses. So even if she was only human, she was used to the dark. Lucifer had taught her that. She heard a clock tick, the sound of a hook grinding against a chain, the soft click of claws against the concrete—the beast, stirring … and then there, barely perceptible, was the sound of someone else breathing. There was someone else in the room. Someone other than the creature. But where? And who?
The horrible clicking grew louder, and Bliss heard a snarl, deep and primeval and vicious, and then the sound of breathing became louder, more desperate—then, suddenly, a scream from beyond the doorway. Bliss leapt from her hiding place and ran toward it.
Clang!
A knife made a loud noise as it hit the concrete to her right. She swiveled in its direction, then stopped. The knife was a ruse, a distraction. The hound was behind her now; it was trying to steer her away from the door. She could see it watching her from the shadows, its yellow eyes burning. Did it think she was that stupid? She might not have her vampire abilities anymore—but it didn’t mean she was completely useless. She was still fast. She was still coordinated. She still had the speed and skill of a trained killer.
The beast snorted and raked its claws across the concrete. It was angry and getting ready to jump. Bliss figured it was now or never. She pushed her way toward the open door, clambering onto a table and spraying a dozen knives across the room. The wolf leapt but she was faster, and when she reached the oversized steel door, she grabbed the handle and, using its weight as a pivot, swung around so that she pulled it closed behind her. The freezer slammed shut with a thick, wet sucking sound that made her wonder if this was a good idea. How much air was in here? No time to worry about that now. She picked up a couple of knives that had fallen to the floor, and jammed one into the lock to keep it closed while slipping the other into her back pocket.
She could hear the creature throwing its weight against the bolted door, making the archway shake. It was larger and more dangerous than she had thought. Tame the hounds? She would be lucky if she got out of there alive.
She looked around. There were a dozen or so carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The air was rancid, metallic. She pushed her way through the animal corpses to the back of the room, toward the sound of ragged breathing.
On the floor of the meat locker lay a boy, no older than she was, chained to the back wall of the freezer. Next to him were a cutting board and a band saw. A meat hook, crusted with blood and rust, swung above his head. The tiled walls were splattered a deep shade of scarlet. The boy’s skin was blue, his hair caked with filth … there were ugly red marks around his wrists and neck, where he was bound with heavy iron shackles. Dear god, what was going on here? Bliss wondered, her stomach churning … If this was what they did to their victims… she didn’t want to think about what Jane was going through and hoped that Jane was still alive …
Bliss shivered, goose bumps appearing on her skin. Now that she wasn’t a vampire, her body did not control its temperature as well as it used to. But was it the fright or the cold that had caused the rows of tiny bumps?
She bent down to touch the boy’s face. It was still warm, at least. She placed a tender hand on his bony shoulder. “You’re going to be okay,” she told him, and wondered if she was also telling herself the same thing.
“Yes, but you’re not.” His eyes came alive then, and before Bliss could blink, the boy had wrapped his fist around her neck and pinned her to the floor, his knees locking against her waist and keeping her arms away from her body. His shackles, Bliss could see now, had not been locked.
“Who are you?” she asked, spitting out the words with difficulty, recoiling from the boy’s viselike grip. Bliss turned to her assailant, surprised to find she had seen his face before. He was the boy she’d seen in the glom. The boy with the same flat yellow eyes as those of the hound she had been tracking.
“I think the correct question is, who are you?” His voice was low and tinged with malice. “You are from the underworld, do not deny it, why else would you carry this?” he said, tugging the thin leather rope that held the Heart of Stone. “You are one of Romulus’s spies!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but if you think I’m going down like Jane, you’re wrong,” she said, stretching her arm and reaching into her back pocket for her hidden blade. Her fingers shaking as she struggled to get a handle on it, she wriggled it out without him seeing, her heart beating too fast.
Quick as a flash, she stabbed him in the thigh with the knife.
He yelled in pain and she was able to push him off her and scramble away, but her freedom was short-lived, as she felt his hand wrap around her ankle and pull her back to him.
She screamed and kicked, thrashing wildly to get away, but he was too strong. Before she knew what was happening, he had his hands wrapped around her throat again.
He began to squeeze the breath out of her and she panicked, struggling and fighting to breathe; it was useless—he was so much stronger—but as she looked into the boy�
��s curiously yellow eyes, an image flashed in her mind.
She saw Lucifer—her father—standing inside an elaborate palace, surrounded by magnificent columns of gold. A cast of thousands was gathered, and Lucifer stood at the top of a marble staircase, looking down at a creature of exquisite beauty. It was a man, but it was taller than a human male, with a certain otherworldly magnificence, wild-eyed and ferocious, with the same dazzling golden eyes.
The image did not come from her memory but from Lucifer’s. When she had been captive to his spirit, when he had taken over her soul, fragments of his memories had drifted into her consciousness. Triggered by random events, memories she’d never had would suddenly pop into her mind. She closed her eyes to recall the scene once more. She could hear Lucifer speak. The language was unfamiliar, its words harsh and convoluted, but she knew she could speak them as if they were her own.
“Release me!” she cried in that strange and foreign tongue. The room froze as the boy stared at her in surprise. He eased his grip and fell away, gaping at her in amazement and confusion, as if he could not quite understand why he had let her go.
But it was too late—she’d lost too much oxygen; everything went black—and Bliss felt the life seep out of her.
FIFTEEN
Lawson steered the car away from the butcher shop, through the busy streets of town and out to the old gravel roads. The rumble of the tires against the rock was a comforting noise, like the soft roar of ocean waves, and if he wasn’t careful, it would lull him to sleep. The girl was still passed out on the backseat. Malcolm said she was fine, he’d felt her pulse, and she would wake soon enough. The youngest was sitting next to her, monitoring her progress. He’d learned her name from her identification card in her purse.
The trap had worked. Malcolm had shifted, the markings of his wolf form the closest to Lawson’s, and led her inside the shop, where Lawson lay in wait. He’d sent Edon and Rafe ahead to protect Arthur, in case she came with a pack of hounds. But now Lawson hoped he hadn’t done much damage. He’d meant to kill her, but when she spoke to him in the ancient language of the wolves, the words that had been lost to them since Lucifer’s curse, he knew she was not an enemy. Speaking Hroll was punishable by death. So it meant that maybe, just maybe, Bliss Llewellyn was even a friend.
His mind raced. If she was not one of Romulus’s trackers, what did she want? Why was she looking for them? Why had the oculus shown him her image? It slowly dawned on him—he had asked the oculus to show him Tala, but it had shown him Bliss instead. There had to be a connection between the girls. But what was it? Could Bliss lead him to Tala in some way? There had to be a reason for the oculus’s answer.
It didn’t help that when he looked at Bliss, it was as if his insides had turned to jelly. The oculus had masked the full effect of her beauty, and now that he didn’t regard her as the enemy, he was unprepared for the reaction her presence stirred in him, and had even as he had meant to kill her in the butcher shop. Instant. Physical. Painful, even. He shook the feeling away; he had to ignore it. He wasn’t that kind of wolf anymore.
“She is awake,” Malcolm called from the backseat.
“Where are you taking me? Who are you guys? What have you done with my aunt Jane? What the hell is going on?” she demanded.
“Lawson said you speak Hroll. This means you can’t mean us any harm. He’s sorry about what happened back at the shop. I’m Malcolm, by the way,” Malcolm said sweetly. “And that’s my brother. Lawson.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” Bliss said, her tone sarcastic. “Now why don’t you tell me where you’re taking me?”
Lawson caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. “I’d like to, but I need to know who you are first. I don’t know what to make of you. I thought you were a tracker, but you speak our tongue, which means you aren’t, but if you’re not a spy, then what are you? But I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first: what do you know about Tala? Where is she?”
Bliss furrowed her brow. “Tala? I don’t know who that is, I’ve never heard of her. I told you, I’m looking for my aunt Jane.”
Lawson’s heart sank. He’d had a feeling it wouldn’t be as simple as he’d hoped, but there was still the possibility that Bliss could lead him to Tala, even if she didn’t realize it herself. He just had to figure out how. He cleared his throat. “Next question, then—what are you? You’re no ordinary mortal.”
“I guess not. Seeing that I used to be a vampire,” she snapped.
He hadn’t expected her to say that. Malcolm yelped from the backseat.
“Easy there, Mac,” Lawson said, looking back at Bliss. “You’re one of the Fallen.” He was not pleased. The Fallen were no friends to the wolves. They had left them to their fate, to their curse. The wolves had a role to play in their story, Arthur had told him, but Lawson wanted no part in it.
“I used to be. It’s a long story.” She looked away.
“I’ve got time.”
“There was … something wrong with me. I killed myself. Or at least I killed the vampire part of me. What-ever I was … I’m not anymore. I’m just human now.”
And she expected him to believe that? He wanted to laugh. “No one’s just human. Especially not the Fallen.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But that’s my story.”
“Not all of it,” he said. “Why were you looking for us?”
Bliss paused, and Lawson wondered if that meant she was about to lie. “I wasn’t looking for you exactly,” she said finally. “Like I told you already, I was looking for my aunt Jane. She’s missing, and I think … the hounds have her.”
“Hounds? Why do you think that?”
“From the way she was taken.”
“And how was that?”
She described the room: everything torn up, as if raked by sharp claws, the whole place—bedspreads, curtains, sheets, pillows—shredded to pieces. “There was blood everywhere, and strange claw prints on the wall.”
Lawson felt the hair on his arms rise as he listened to her tale. The hounds were afoot and had taken other victims, it sounded like. But why? Who was this Bliss Llewellyn and what was her connection to the hounds? Was he still right in thinking she would lead him to Tala somehow?
“My turn to ask questions now,” she said. “What are you?”
“I’m a wolf,” he said proudly. “We were once the Abyssus Praetorium.”
“The Praetorian Guard,” she whispered. “The guards of the abyss. The keepers of time, guardians of the passages.”
“You know our history.” He was pleased.
“Yes I do. Lucifer’s dogs. The Hounds of Hell,” she whispered, her face paling.
“Never call us by that name!” Lawson roared. The car veered to the side of the road and stopped abruptly. Bliss was thrown against the front seat, and blood trickled from her forehead. She was shaking.
Lawson turned and glared at her. Malcolm cringed. “Lawson, please,” his brother begged. “She doesn’t know.”
Bliss stared back at the two of them angrily. “Know what? Wolf, hound, all the same, isn’t it?”
“No!” Lawson shook his head. “Never.” He looked down at the steering wheel, at his white knuckles. “My brothers and I escaped from the pack a year ago, and we’ve been hiding and running ever since. We’ll never be hounds, not if I can help it.” He thought of Tala for a moment, wondered if those were empty words, remembered all his friends who were still left behind. “The masters turn wolf cubs into hellhounds on their eighteenth moon day. We had to run before we were turned.”
“Right,” Bliss said, and her tone of voice told him everything he needed to know. She didn’t believe a word he’d said. That made two of them. Ex-vampire indeed. He gunned the engine and steered the car back to the road, and no one spoke until they reached the cave.
SIXTEEN
“Arthur says it’s a show cave from the 1960s,” the younger boy—Malcolm—was telling her. Bliss followed them out of the car and inside a
dark cavern. She didn’t see that she had a choice for now. She was their hostage, even if the older one—Lawson—didn’t want to admit it. She only hoped he would take her to Jane; at least they would be together.
Bliss wasn’t sure she believed his story about not being a hellhound. Even though she’d witnessed his wrath at being called such, she knew he’d meant to hurt her back at the butcher shop. Hellhounds are uncontrollable, violent, and vicious—yeah, he’d been all that.
Lawson. She hated him a little for being so strong—she was jealous, she supposed. She used to be a vampire, immortal, powerful; now she was just an ordinary girl with two broken legs. Bliss was annoyed with herself as well, for even noticing that he was attractive—handsome, with a strong jaw, a high forehead, and thick, dark hair. He was a killer—she’d seen it in his eyes. He was dangerous, brutal. She would have to watch her step around him—why had she told him so much about herself? Best not to reveal anything more, she decided.
The cavern was one long space that wound in an arc like the crescent of the moon, with a makeshift kitchen in the middle and a few scattered and dark utility rooms off to the side. Bliss followed Malcolm, who was still talking. “Arthur said back then they didn’t care about preserving natural beauty, instead they put in linoleum and charged admission, whatever that means. But they’ve got some cool exhibits in the back.”
“Who’s Arthur?” she asked.
“He sort of … takes care of us—he moved here after the attack. Thought it would be safer if the hounds returned.”
“The hounds? They attacked you too? Why?”
Bliss noticed Lawson giving his brother a hard look, and Malcolm grew quiet. She looked around at her new surroundings. The whole place smelled of mold and dust; it made her nose run and her eyes water. The cavern was cold and humid, like a basement with a broken steam pipe.
Wolf Pact: A Wolf Pact Novel Page 7
