by Jory Strong
Ice slid down Araña’s spine as she remembered Thane drawing the office building and saying, It also contains living quarters for those who assist Anton as well as those who are required by law to be on the premises at certain times. He must have known when he gave her three days’ time to accomplish Draven’s task that she really had much less of it.
Araña touched the knives for comfort. It could be done. Tir was immortal, and the next time she saw him, he would be free of the collar, his power restored.
But she hadn’t lived with Matthew and Erik so long and not learned the value of gathering information when she could. “How many usually guard the maze grounds and buildings?”
“Anton doesn’t bother with guards because the demon protects him.”
“I saw only Farold, Anton, and the demon when I was held,” Araña said. “Who else is there?”
The gold of Levi’s eyes darkened in hate. “Gulzar.” It was more growl than word, a savage pledge of revenge Araña recognized and understood only too well.
“I’ll help you by doing what I can and sharing what I know,” Levi said. His hand emerged from a jacket pocket with a crumpled piece of paper. She guessed what it was, the notice putting a price on her head.
“I know about the reward,” she said when he would have given it to her.
Golden eyes lightened with surprise. “Then you took a big risk coming here. The same humans who enjoy watching Weres hunt in the maze come here and play out their fantasies of being superior by fucking them.”
Araña shrugged. Levi said, “There’s someone else who might help. A man who thinks his brother could be in Anton’s possession.”
The black-haired stranger she’d seen die with Levi in her vision came to mind. “Who?”
“Raoul. The werewolf bound for the maze and freed in the ambush.”
“Do you trust him?”
Levi opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything. His face hardened as he gave serious consideration to the question. Finally he answered, “I don’t know.”
Araña didn’t know either. Logic said the Were might be an ally. But the way his soul thread crossed and paralleled that of Jurgen’s suggested he might not be.
The door being jerked open kept them from saying anything more. Three drunken men stood in the entranceway.
“Room’s ours,” one of them slurred, pushing through his companions and tugging a doe-eyed prostitute into the room behind him.
The second man followed, unzipping his trousers and pulling out his cock.
The third also stepped into the room. He squinted at Araña, recognition struggling to swim to the surface of his alcohol-saturated brain.
“There’ll be more like these,” Levi murmured, stepping in front of her and blocking her from sight. “It’d be better if this discussion continued tomorrow.”
Araña ducked out of the room, careful to keep Levi between her and the brothel client. He was right. The hallway that had been empty minutes earlier was now crowded.
The dark cloak made her stand out. Taking it off was even riskier.
“This way,” Levi said, pressing his thumb to a spot on the wall.
There was a click followed by a panel sliding open. Araña’s heart began racing in anticipation as the staircase she’d climbed to Rebekka’s room was revealed, and beyond it, the unobtrusive door into the alleyway between brothels.
“Don’t come back here,” Levi said, crossing to a keypad. “Given the assault on the house, I can guess where the two of you will be staying. I’ll be there shortly after sunrise.”
He entered a code. Another lock clicked open.
“We’ll see you then,” Araña said, releasing the cloak and letting it hang as it would. Her hands settled on the hilts of her knives as she stepped outside, into a surreal moment where past and future came together, where a breeze picked up, bringing with it the scent of curry and the rustle of paper as a soiled newspaper tumbled over her foot, signaling the moment when the hunted became the hunter.
RAOUL felt a thrill of victory as the breeze reached him, carrying the scent of prey into the shadowy alley where he waited to see if Levi would emerge to keep their agreed upon meeting. He’d searched relentlessly all day, following the lion whenever he left the brothel, in the hopes Levi would lead him to the escaped prisoner.
Every turn had been a dead end. Every moment spent in Oakland an assault on his senses.
He was tired of paying for whores who stunk of other men and pretended pleasure, or stared out of vacant eyes as he thrust in and out of them.
He was tired of the noise and the stench of humans.
Even the ease with which he could hunt here in wolf form, feasting on those foolish enough to stray into his path, didn’t reduce the growing call to return to the compound surrounded by miles of forest and the human female who would soon smell of him and not his father.
He’d barely noted the cloaked figure going into the brothel. But his interest was aroused when he saw her slip through a side door. And then when her scent reached him…
Raoul opened his mouth slightly, letting air coat his tongue with the taste of woman and sex. She’d been with the demon-possessed human recently. She’d held her body open and let him spend his seed inside her.
It had marked her. And unlike the brand on her hand, there was no hiding it—at least not from a Were.
She was secondary prey, not as important to him as the escaped prisoner. He’d line his pockets with the reward Anton offered for her if he could, but he’d sacrifice her if necessary.
Raoul’s lips pulled back in a feral smile. With a fresh trail, he could easily track her, and he would. The only question was whether to leave the hunt until after he’d met with Levi, or to take it up now.
Alone he could subdue the female. She might be deadly skin to skin, but he had the armor of his fur if necessary, though he’d have to be careful. Even in the red zone he’d be fair game in anything but a humanoid form.
His attention swung back to the brothel. Perhaps it would be better to wait, at least until he learned whether Levi had taken the bait and decided to help him turn the prisoner and the woman over to the maze owner.
As if on cue, the lion emerged from the brothel. Raoul averted his eyes, wary the other Were would feel the intensity of his gaze and find him lurking in the shadows.
It was far harder to suppress his anticipation. Would Levi head toward the bar and their meeting? Or would he decide to go to the maze and attempt to trade whatever information he had to Farold or Anton in exchange for the werelion they held there?
The woman must have come to the brothel and spoken to Levi, delaying him. Otherwise Raoul would have expected Levi to leave earlier in order to get to the meeting place in time to make sure it was safe.
At the end of the street, a waif-thin young boy changed from a run to a walk as if fearful the shapeshifters who controlled and worked in the whorehouses wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from pouncing.
Raoul laughed silently. Stringy muscles and narrow bones, he’d killed a boy just like this one at dawn and left the carcass for scavengers after finding there wasn’t enough meat to waste his time trying to eat it.
The boy approached the brothel, squaring his puny shoulders as if preparing for their ridicule and taunts. “I’m lookin’ for a Were named Levi,” he said, his voice still a child’s.
“I’m him,” the lion said, leaping down the steps in a graceful bound.
“Got a message for you. From the healer, Rebekka.”
Raoul snarled in frustration at seeing his trap ruined. If he’d been close enough to rip the boy’s throat out, he would have, just to keep him from saying more.
“Where is she?” Levi asked.
“With the Wainwright witches.” The boy extended his arm, offering a tattered handkerchief. “The healer wants you to come to her there. She sent the cloth, so you’d know the message was real.”
The boy opened his hand, revealing a darkened token.
“This is from the witches.”
“What do they want?” Levi asked, not taking the coin.
“Nothin’. They said if you didn’t want to take it, showin’ you was good enough. I’m to return it to them before I go home.”
“And if I take it?”
“Then you can pass through the wards at the border of the red zone without pausin’. And you can come see the healer without worryin’ about spells and such.”
“So they’re offering safe passage?”
The boy shrugged. “I reckon. I don’t know. I’m just deliverin’ the message.”
“Did you see the healer?”
“Sure, least I think it was her. She told me her name and said I was to tell you the trapper’s son was back with his mother.”
A low growl sounded in Raoul’s throat before he could stop it. He should have killed the toddler when he had a chance. If the messenger boy spoke true, then in all likelihood the compound was already abandoned, Eston’s mother gone and spreading her legs for some human male who offered protection.
Everything Raoul had been working for seemed lost in a single cruel sweep of fate as Levi took the handkerchief and token, then headed toward the red zone border without even a glance in the direction of the bar where they were to meet.
Raoul fought against changing form, his muscles strung tight in his fury. He wanted to chase the lion down and slay him, to slaughter the messenger boy as well. But reason prevailed.
He left the alley and found the scent of the prisoner’s woman. Sex-laden, marked. Easy to follow. And in doing so, he found he wasn’t the only one who’d recognized her.
His path crossed with two guardsmen as they emerged out of a brothel bar moments after the cloaked figure passed. He recognized them both—the one named Jurgen, and the other, Salim, who’d been driving the jeep when they tried to intercept the healer and the Were.
Another time Raoul might have decided it suited his purposes to kill the humans competing for the same prey, especially since these particular humans were responsible for letting the healer escape with Eston. But already he was adapting, realizing there were other females he could take for a mate. Virgin females who could be bought or stolen or captured.
Claiming his father’s woman would have been the ultimate in victory, the ultimate vengeance. Taking her would have satisfied him the way pissing on his father’s corpse had, but if she was already soiled by another human—
“You’ll take a third of the reward?” Jurgen asked, breaking into Raoul’s thoughts and verifying his suspicion they were all after the same prey.
Tasers. Netguns. Pistols. It took only a second for Raoul to inventory the weapons they wore on their belts openly because of the insignia patches sewn onto their shirts.
“Equal shares,” he said, agreeing to the partnership though he didn’t trust the guardsmen any more than they trusted him.
“Good.” Jurgen touched his netgun as their prey turned a corner ahead of them. “You take the street to the right of her. I’ll go left so she can’t use the alleyways to get away from us. Salim here will catch up to her and drive her forward. If she keeps going she’ll hit the open space near the maze. I can net her there, then taser her until she’s real compliant and real helpful about answering our questions.”
Salim’s hand settled on his gun. “What if she comes at me? I’m not going hand-to-hand with her. Not after what she did to Nelson.”
“Nelson touched her pussy. As long as you don’t do that, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Farold said—”
“Shut the fuck up already. Shoot her and kiss off collecting any money. Even if she lives, a gun going off is going to bring the vice lords running to claim their take. Don’t get close if it’s going to make you shit your pants. Just let her know you’re coming after her and keep her moving so I can use the netgun.”
“Okay, okay,” Salim mumbled.
“Split up,” Jurgen said as they reached the street parallel to the one their prey had turned on.
FEAR spread through Tir like an inky black stain. His jaw ached from unconsciously clenching it as he worked his way through pages of long-dead languages, translating one symbol into another and then another and another, until he came upon a word he could speak and whose meaning he knew.
Prayers. Invocations. Incantations.
All of them using his blood to heal. Most of them turning it into something separate and living, something that could be offered like wine in a cup without his presence being necessary.
His emotions swirled like a building storm. For centuries he’d kept his sanity by imagining himself in possession of the translations. And now—
The tattoos on his right arm were translated and none of them unlocked the collar or made it disappear.
Terror grabbed and twisted his guts—that he’d have the same results when he finished transcribing the glyphs on his left arm.
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping over the floor, a harsh, abrasive sound that jerked the bookseller from his own tasks.
The promise of violence gathered around Tir, and he caught himself looking upward. Stopped himself from raising his arms as if he could call out to the heavens and bring bolt after bolt of lightning down until nothing remained of mankind but smoldering ash.
Araña had bargained with the vampire’s servant. She’d made an agreement that might well cost her life, all because he’d been convinced these texts would free him and allow him to protect her.
Tir suppressed a scream of rage and frustration and fear. The muscles on his neck stood out, pressing against the collar as if by sheer force of will alone he could rid himself of it.
His hands balled into fists as he wrestled his emotions under control. Whether the remaining texts held the key or not, he needed to finish the translations and go to Araña.
He should never have let her out of sight to begin with. Caught up in the promise the book represented, he’d forgotten his thoughts when he returned to the healer’s house and knew Araña was back. A blink and she could be gone from his life forever.
HEAVY boots crunched rough gravel behind Araña, making no effort at stealth. Eyes bored into her back, almost inviting her to start running.
The footsteps sped up as she did, gaining slightly but still in no hurry to catch her. Not surprising.
There were people around. Vendors closing up their shops and stalls. Messenger boys on their bikes or on foot, hurrying to turn their coin into shelter for the night and food.
Her enemy wanted her alive.
She was counting on it.
A risk. But an acceptable one.
She walked in shadow, her hands caressing the hilts of the blades. The sweet promise of vengeance was a siren song she couldn’t ignore, the desire to kill Jurgen a black lust coating her heart and spreading through her veins. Maybe she was demon after all.
She glanced back. Instead of finding Jurgen or the black-haired stranger she thought was the werewolf Raoul, it was the guardsman whose soul thread was red mottled with black. Salim, who she’d seen in the vision of Levi’s death.
Herding her.
Premonition or instinct, it didn’t matter. When the roles of predator and prey were interchangeable, traps could work both ways. Erik and Matthew had taught her the value of a backup plan. Araña started running. A shout went up behind her. She didn’t look back again, even when her ears told her a second man had joined the first.
But she smiled, and ran faster, angling to the north and east, to the place where she’d emerged from the maze on the night she escaped it. She gambled that her pursuers didn’t want to draw attention to their hunt by firing their guns. And the gamble paid off. The opening that had been guarded by the spider was bricked off, but in the grove of trees in front of it, the slick knots resembling cancerous growths remained, spaced out along the path, one to a bough—just as they had been the night Gallo watched another prisoner stumble into the trap thinking he’d reached freedom when he esca
ped the maze.
Araña hesitated only long enough to glance back at her pursuers. Jurgen was steps ahead of his companion.
A fitting end, she thought, not needing to feel the slide of her knife between his ribs to have her thirst for revenge satisfied.
She darted forward, into the grove.
Above her, leaves trembled slightly, but she was left alone, as she had been the night she escaped the maze and took this path to freedom.
A scream marked the moment her pursuer followed her into the deadly trap. Araña stepped from the path, turning to crouch behind elephant-eared plants.
Softball-sized spiders slid downward on silky strands of thread, leaving the tree limbs smooth, free of their unnatural blemishes. There could have been twenty of them, or forty, hurrying to aid the one that had jumped to immobilize their prey when he passed underneath.
Not Jurgen. Perhaps he’d sensed a trap and yielded the lead to his companion. Or maybe his companion’s misfortune came from surging ahead before reaching the trees.
Either way, the guardsman named Salim lay screaming for help, unable to thrash or move his limbs because of the subduing poison the spider on his neck was injecting into his bloodstream.
Jurgen pulled his taser gun and fired it into the body of the spider. If it felt the jolt, either of the barb or the charge that followed, it didn’t show any sign of it.
The first of the other spiders reached the paralyzed man and began using the trailing length of silk it had descended on to bind his ankles together.
“Hurry, oh god, get it off me, Jurgen.”
Araña left her vantage point, merging into shadow with the intention of circling around and killing Jurgen while he was occupied with the spiders.
Instead of firing on even the first of them, Jurgen kept his pistol aimed for an attack. “There are too many of them. I don’t have enough bullets to take them all out.”
“Shoot them! Shoot them! Please, you can have my share of the reward.”
