Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  It stung to know that Ricky had been involved in her kidnapping, but recalling the vacant expression on his face while the Hierophant had instructed him to clock her a good one, she wondered if he might be under some kind of mind-control spell the nocturnis had concocted. Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but her friend hadn’t looked like himself, and no matter how mad he’d been at her the last time she’d seem him, she could never believe that the Rick Racleaux she’d known for almost fifteen years would knowingly hand her to someone who intended to rip her heart out of her chest. In her brain, the equation simply did not compute.

  When she tried to turn her head, though, the agony that followed made the math just a touch easier. If his heart really wasn’t in the whole human-sacrifice thing, did he have to hit her so hard? A pulled punch would have been as good as an olive branch, given the present circumstances.

  Those circumstances really were going to make her hurl if they stayed on the water much longer. Not that hurrying toward their destination sounded like a great idea, considering what she assumed was going to happen when they got there, but getting off the water and onto solid land held a very strong appeal. Mostly to her stomach.

  Her head cast a different vote. When the bow of the speedboat ran aground on a sandy bottom, the force of the impact sent her sliding forward and tapped her injured head gently against the hull. Once again the world went gray, and she felt her grip on awareness slipping, but hey—unconscious of reality meant unconscious of pain, right?

  When she came to, she’d have to remember count her frickin’ blessings.

  * * *

  The second time she awoke had less to do with the flood of hormones in her bloodstream and more to do with the impact of a hard shoulder to the gut as she was lifted and tossed over it to be carried. She promptly opened her mouth and spilled the contents of her stomach down the back of someone’s legs. Was it wrong that when she’d finished heaving, she laughed?

  Her captor seemed to think so. He immediately cried out in disgust and threw her to the ground, sending her landing half on top of her own pool of vomit. Thankfully, that half wasn’t anywhere near her face, or she’d probably have puked again.

  Jesus, she just knew she had a concussion, and these bozos kept slinging her around like a sack of potatoes. If they didn’t start being more careful with her, they’d find her dead of a brain bleed or intracranial swelling before they got her anywhere near their precious altar. And wouldn’t that just piss off the big boss?

  Fil moaned, less for the effect of playing the helpless captive and more because her head just fucking hurt. At least if she’d been in the NHL, they’d have let her go lie down in a dark room for fifteen minutes before making her exert herself any. These jokers started kicking her in the side and ordering her to get to her feet. Did she look like some kind of Woman of Steel to them?

  “I’m not touching her,” someone snapped, and from the proximity of the voice she guessed it was the guy she’d barfed on. “It’s bad enough she got puke all over the hem of my robe, but now she’s covered in it. If she can’t walk, let the reporter carry her. He’ll never know the difference.”

  Another man chimed in—not barf boy, but not the Hierophant, either. No way would all of these bodies have fit in the tiny motorboat, so they must have been waiting here. Wherever “here” was. “No, I can’t stomach the smell of it. She needs to be cleaned off before we bring her into the circle, or I’ll vomit myself.”

  “Throw her in the river. That should wash off the worst of it, and it’s not like it matters if she catches cold.”

  Oh, no, it mattered, but no one paid any attention to her struggles. Given how weak she felt, she couldn’t really blame them. She doubted she could fight off a demonic kitten at the moment, which was why she landed in the river water without so much as a scream.

  That was a good thing, really, because it meant she had her mouth closed and didn’t end up swallowing a gallon of eau de rivière that she would then just have to vomit back up. Once had been enough for the evening. With her hands bound behind her back, she couldn’t swim, but the part of the water she’d landed in was shallow enough that she was able to get her feet under her without too much effort. She considered pushing herself farther out into the current, slow though it was near the city, just to escape, but hard hands reached in and hauled her out before she could act on the thought. Maybe the cold had slowed her reflexes: The river felt icy against her skin.

  So did her soaking-wet clothes, once she made it back onto dry land. They acted like a personal air-conditioning system, wicking the heat from her body and leaching it into the surrounding atmosphere. Couple that with the breeze off the river and she could feel her internal temperature plummet. She began to shake, and the stubborn part of herself just hoped the bastards who had kidnapped her wouldn’t mistake it for fear. Right now she was too damned cold, too damned angry, and in too damned much pain to be afraid. She’d save that for when the knives came out.

  “Enough dawdling.” This time the Hierophant spoke. Fil would never forget the sibilant hiss of his voice, the almost effeminate tenor that had greeted her at the top of her stairs. “If she’s conscious she can walk. Bring her.”

  Hands roughly grasped each elbow, positioning her between two of the cultists as they began marching up the narrow beach into the trees. A quick look around confirmed her suspicions. She’d been taken to one of the tiny, unnamed islands that dotted the river north of the city, mostly forgotten compared with their larger, better-known neighbors. Here, the chances of anyone stumbling on their activities was remote—remote enough that Fil knew looking for help would prove useless. She was on her own, at least until her Guardian realized what had happened and flew to the rescue. She had utter confidence that Spar would come for her; she just had to pray he came in time. Until then, her survival rested in her own hands.

  She allowed herself to be guided deeper into the trees while she assessed her captors. In addition to the Hierophant and Ricky—who continued to stare blankly straight ahead and trail the Hierophant like a robotic puppy—the group contained six male figures in dark hooded robes. They looked like escapees from a medieval monk convention. All but two wore their capacious hoods drawn up and forward, obscuring their features. Barf boy and one other had pushed the fabric back to drape around their necks in a sort of cowl.

  The Hierophant looked just as she remembered him from her vision. Of average height, he had the slim, undernourished build of a computer geek, along with the accompanying pale, pasty complexion. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, that indefinable kind of stage that only indicated adulthood, with no sign of youth or age to pin it down further. He wore his black hair a touch too long to be called short, and too short to be called long. Everything about him screamed unremarkable, until you looked at his face.

  He had sharp, thin features that might have been called aristocratic or even handsome if the taint of evil hadn’t been scrawled so plainly across them. His narrow lips wore a tight curve that spoke of cruelty, the kind that said he enjoyed the sight of pain, and enjoyed causing it even more. He made Fil’s skin crawl. The other cultists she hated on principle, but for this man her hatred was visceral, curling in her gut and rattling like a snake on the alert, angry and poisonous.

  She stared at his back as he led the way through the trees. As the vegetation thickened, they had to walk single-file, though one of Fil’s captors made sure to keep a firm grip on her arm and walk so closely behind her she could practically smell what he’d had for lunch wafting forward over her shoulder.

  She could see that they followed some sort of rough path across the uneven ground, which hinted this was undoubtedly the location Wynn had been searching for. Everything indicated they’d been using it for a while. She supposed the island had been an ideal location, far away from prying eyes and unlikely to come under scrutiny from the authorities. Basically the perfect setting for acts of unspeakable evil.

  Fil preferred not to
participate in those acts, so she needed to start coming up with a plan. Fast. She doubted the island was big enough that their little march would take much longer, and if they intended to strap her to some kind of bloody altar, her chances of not dying would likely decrease dramatically. Time to get moving.

  When she saw the trees begin to look sick and stained, bare of leaves and darkened as if charred by invisible flames, she knew they were getting close to the ritual site. Taking a deep breath, she faked tripping over a root in the path and made sure to stumble hard into the man in front of her. The unexpected impact threw him off balance and she had the brief, satisfying image of his smacking into another nocturnis and sending the whole line of them tumbling to the ground like dominoes. Of course, it didn’t happen that way, but her unexpected “fall” wrenched her forward so suddenly that the man holding her loosened his grip for a fleeting second. It was all she needed.

  She yanked against him with all her strength, using her entire body weight to add to the force her movement. She felt his fingers tighten their grip even as they slid over her dripping skin. If she’d been wearing long sleeves, he probably would have caught her by her clothing, but she was out of his grasp and into the trees before he could finish swearing at her.

  There weren’t a lot of places she could go on the tiny island, and she knew they’d catch up with her before long. They knew the area infinitely better than she did, and they were the ones with the motorboat. Running had been a delaying tactic, something to give Spar just a little more time to discover where they had taken her, because she knew he’d be searching, and she knew he would never stop until he found her. To help him out, she would stall for all she was worth.

  Fil quickly discovered that keeping her balance while running through heavy woods with her hands tied behind her back should qualify as an Olympic sport; it was that difficult. Her shoulders jerked every time she swerved to avoid a tree trunk or jumped over a stone or root because she instinctively wanted to put out her hands to assist her movements. If she lived through this, she was going to need a massage in the worst way.

  “She can’t get far. Split up and find her. We have a schedule to keep.”

  She heard the Hierophant’s orders and could tell he sounded more annoyed at the bother of recapturing her than worried by her escape attempt. He knew as well as she did that there was nowhere for her to go.

  Behind her, the nocturnis crashed through the brush like elephants. She began to alter her course based on the sounds around her, keeping the noises of pursuit behind her. She also tugged and twisted at the rope around her wrists, attempting to loosen the strands and work herself free. She could do a lot more to save herself if she weren’t tied up, and if she could manage to get out of the rope, it would be worth it to double back toward the beach where they’d landed. With her hands free, she could start the boat’s motor and get herself back across the river. For now, though, she just needed to concentrate on staying out of the bastards’ clutches.

  Pulling and twisting against the rough hemp quickly began to rub her skin raw, but she thought she could feel a little more give in the bindings. Pausing to draw breath, she crouched down among the branches of a young evergreen and peered into the darkness. It didn’t take long to convince her that staying on the move was a better idea.

  Hearing footsteps drawing closer, Fil quickly rose to her feet and took off again through the bushes. She heard cursing and knew her pursuer had gotten closer to her than she really wanted to think about. She’d have to be more careful, more on guard if she wanted to stay free long enough for Spar to reach her.

  She wished she knew how long she’d been unconscious and how long it had taken to transport her unconscious body from her apartment to the island. Either that, or that she’d remained a Girl Scout beyond the first cookie drive. Didn’t they teach kids how to do stuff like tell the time by gauging the position of the stars in the sky? Or did that only work with the sun? Hm, she’d probably been right when she’d told Grandma that the Scouts weren’t for her. Clearly, she’d have made a lousy one.

  At this point, all she could do was guess. Judging by how far north they had traveled on the river and the need to maintain discretion when transporting kidnap victims through the streets of a major city—or so she assumed, speaking as one herself—she thought it must be closing in on midnight. Did that mean ritual sacrifices didn’t have to be timed to specific points on the clock? So much for tradition and symbolism. Fil was learning something new every day.

  Today, she’d like to learn how not to die. That would be great.

  Fil wasn’t one to follow the phases of the moon, but she didn’t remember seeing one in the sky above the beach, and the thick, heavy quality of the darkness all around her indicated they were under a new moon at the moment. It would make hiding easier, but avoiding anyone sneaking up on her that much more difficult. Well, unless she dropped her shields and really looked.

  Putting on a burst of speed, she did her best to widen the distance between herself and her pursuers before she paused again, this time leaning against the bole of a young maple tree. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a centering breath and then opened them to take a new look around her. She couldn’t say she liked what she saw. Thin mists of blackish green and dirty red drifted through the trees, lending the woods an unnatural glow. Wherever the vapors touched, the trees and plants seemed to shudder and withdraw, bending as far away from the foul air as their roots would allow.

  If just the remnants of evil could do that, Fil figured it explained the appearance of the trees she’d seen before. Closer to the ritual site, the power of the Order’s evil must act like poison to every living thing around. The thought stirred her anger. The forest hadn’t done anything to deserve this desecration, but then again, neither had any of the people the nocturnis had killed and dumped in the woods on the mountain. Neither had the villagers in Afghanistan, or Ricky, or Fil herself. She supposed that was the real definition of evil—the very lack of discrimination in what was venerated and what was destroyed.

  A flicker of malignant light peeked through the trees to Fil’s right, and she darted left. She thought that way led toward the outer edge of the island, and she’d prefer not to be herded that way, figuring the cover would thin out beside the water, leaving her more exposed. She’d have to double back around to stay out of sight.

  The sharp crack of a branch had her veering again, away from the source of the sound and back toward the deeper woods. She could feel blood beginning to trickle over her wrists beneath the rope that bound her and tugged harder; if she was lucky, maybe the stuff would act like a lubricant to help her slip free. She thought she was making progress when something grabbed her ponytail and jerked suddenly backward.

  She flew off her feet and back onto her bound hands. The impact on the already sore joints and raw skin forced a strangled cry from her throat. She could feel dirt and bits of leaves sticking to the bloodied wounds she’d created during her struggles and wanted to laugh when she found herself hoping she lived long enough to develop an infection. Hello, hysteria.

  “What an utter waste of time,” the Hierophant sneered, wrapping the length of her wet tail of hair around his hand and using the grip to haul her to her feet. “As you can see, you’ve accomplished nothing but to increase the pleasure I’m going to take in making you suffer before you die, bitch.”

  “Bitch?” she bit out as he began dragging her back toward the center of the island. “I’m not the one resorting to hair pulling. Is this going to turn into a catfight? You’re not going to whip out some acrylic nails and try to scratch up my pretty face, are you?”

  He ignored her—well, except for a particularly nasty tug that made her scalp scream along with her already aching head. The exertion of her run had not helped her concussion symptoms one little bit.

  She had to walk bent over and twisted because of the grip he held on her ponytail, and she fought back new waves of nausea. She’d already seen that all barfi
ng did was make her miserable. She doubted this guy would be as squeamish as barf boy if she puked on his robes, though if he didn’t lay off the hair pulling and head jerking, they were both going to find out.

  He led her back toward the twisted dead and dying trees until the forest opened up into another clearing. The Order seemed to like these spots, although in contrast with the area in the park where they had disposed of their victims, this open area had clearly been stripped bare by men. Or at least at their direction. Whether they’d cleared the vegetation themselves or used magic or the labor of some kind of demonic minions, Fil didn’t care to speculate. All she knew was that as soon as they entered the clearing, the rich, fresh, earthy smell of the forest turned to a putrid stink, like death and rot and burning sulfur. It made her wonder if all those stories about hell being a pit of fire and brimstone might not be pretty damned accurate.

  Several torches impaled in the earth illuminated the edges of the clearing, and a stone-lined pit contained a roaring bonfire near the center. For a moment, Fil blinked, blinded by the sudden change of light. Pain stabbed through her skull.

  The ground here appeared as either bare, blackened earth or patches of some kind of lichen-y, mossy growth that reminded her less of a plant and more of the slimy, poisonous algae that occasionally grew on ponds not exposed to enough sun or fresh water. She thought at least some of the smell came from that, because to her other vision it glowed with the same greenish, purplish, blackish light that had emanated from the plant that tried to eat Wynn. It made Fil wish fondly for another jar of black salt.

  The foul carpet climbed the sides of tree trunks and up the faces of a pair of stone blocks placed facing each other roughly five feet apart. Between them a thick slab of paler stone stretched like a tabletop. She didn’t need to inspect it for bloodstains to recognize an altar for human sacrifice. Some things didn’t require little labels for identification purposes.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as she realized she stared straight at the site of her own imminent murder. Digging her heels in, she gave one last mighty wrench against her binding and felt a surge of adrenaline as one hand slipped free of the ropes. It felt like she left every inch of her skin behind to do it, but she didn’t care. With her hands free and her life on the line, she intended to fight like the fucking demon they wanted to feed her to.