Gasping, Smoke wiped the blood from his neck. He popped up from behind the hedge and checked the balcony again. Vormus was back outside. He was waving Smoke up. Scanning the area and seeing the coast was clear, Smoke dashed toward the house. His fingers dug into the rough stones and his feet pushed off the window sills. With the ease of an ape, he climbed his way to the top and pulled up onto one of the smaller balconies. With the stealth of a cat, he hopped from one balcony to the other, finishing up alongside Vormus.
Keeping his voice low, Vormus said, “Today might be your lucky day. No one is inside any of these windows.”
“Then where are they?”
“It’s a big mansion. I figure we should start at the top.”
Below them at ground level, the main door opened and closed. Smoke hunkered down. Vormus pressed back into the shadows along the wall. Three men walked out. One of them was huge, over eight feet tall and built like a lumberjack. Smoke didn’t know the other two, but each was exquisitely dressed. They were heading toward the chopper.
“I’ll be. My dear brother is departing. Fortune favors you this night, Mister Smoke.” Vormus squatted alongside him. “The man on the left, in the tuxedo, with that purposed and arrogant gait, that’s Kane.”
Smoke nodded. The man had a powerful build and formidable looks. He moved with the strange ease of a jungle cat. All three men entered the chopper. The engines whined. The propellers spun, and up it went into the night sky.
“I suggest we get right to the task of rescuing your lady, though this wasn’t what I wanted.” Vormus started toward the balcony doors with a vengeance in his eyes. “I want him dead. But I suppose I can help you find your friend. That will hurt him too, whether my efforts fail or not.”
The first bedroom was lavish. A huge carriage bed big enough for a horse was the centerpiece. Two lit candles stood on the nightstands. The mansion had an old smell about it. Otherwise, the early American furnishings were in fine shape and worth nothing less than a fortune. There weren’t any signs of technology. Not even a phone.
Smoke put his ear to the bedroom door. He pushed the brass handle down, pulled the door open, and stuck his head out. A long hallway went both ways. Fine trim and crown molding the caliber of craft one didn’t see anymore. Wainscoting on the bottom, wallpaper on the top that ran from door to door. Handwoven rugs covered most of the hardwood hallway.
As the two of them stepped out into the hall, the floor creaked. Vormus pushed in behind him. The door right across the hall creaked, stopped, and was flung open.
“Vormus!” said a woman. She was old, skin withered and spotted, wearing an old nightgown down to her ankles, and had a shaggy head of white hair. “What are you doing here?”
“Please keep your voice down, Mums. And you should be sleeping.” He gently stroked her cheek with his hand. “Go back inside and rest.”
“Are you two related?” Smoke said.
“Mums is one of Vormus’s most trusted housekeepers. Doesn’t she do well keeping up this place?”
Smoke nodded, gave a little smile, and said, “That’s an understatement.”
She eyed Smoke. “Who are you? I haven’t seen you here before. A new guard?”
“Of course he is.” Vormus started pushing her back into her bedroom. “Why don’t you go rest, Mums. Are you hungry? Maybe something from the kitchen. Milk? I know sometimes your ulcers flare up. After all, you are human.”
She gazed up at Vormus. “I thought Kane was mad at you. Does he know you’re here?”
“Of course he does,” Vormus said with a smile. “We are working out our relationship. You know it’s complicated.”
“But he left,” she said, scratching her head. “He told me so. I heard the whirly-bird.” She shook her finger at Vormus. “You aren’t supposed to be here. You’re a liar!” She took in a lungful of air and prepared to scream.
Vormus clamped his hand over her mouth and twisted her neck. Snap! He dragged her into her room, closed the door, and looked at Smoke. “I had to. She might be old, but she screams like a banshee.”
“She could have told us where Sid was!”
“Could have. Should have. Sorry, that’s not part of her capabilities anymore. Oh, but my brother is going to hate to see her dead. He really adored her. Our real mother perished long, long ago.”
“I don’t care.” Smoke sauntered up to the next nearest door, tested the handle, and pushed it open. That room was empty. Vormus did the same.
Room by room, they cleared the top level and didn’t find a sign of anyone. The mansion was a cold dead place. Lifeless. Without energy. Yet every room was lit with candles and free of dust or cobwebs, and every bed was freshly made with the finest linens.
At the last door before the stairs went down, Smoke heard footsteps coming up. He ducked into one room and Vormus another. Smoke kept his door cracked open.
Two guards in pea coats came up the steps carrying assault rifles. Chatting among themselves, they started to pass.
“Hold on a sec,” one said to the other. He stepped backward in front of Smoke’s door. Stared at the crack. Started to push it open.
Smoke crouched in the dim light beside a wardrobe.
The guard stepped within and peered around. His squinting gaze found Smoke, who hit the guard hard in the chin and knocked him to the floor.
The second guard rushed inside.
Vormus jumped on the man’s back and lowered his mouth toward the man’s throat.
“No!” Smoke said.
It didn’t matter. The man was dead.
Not at all mussed, Vormus took a knee by the body. “Did you say something?”
“Quit killing them. We could get some information out of them.”
“I’m not holding back.” Vormus looked at the man Smoke had knocked out. “What are you going to do when he wakes up? He’ll be nothing but trouble, a loose end. Take one of those shiny knives and kill him. I know you have it in you.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Smoke gestured out the door. “After you.”
CHAPTER 31
Vormus dropped a man’s corpse to the floor and flung the blood off his fingers onto the wall. He’d killed four more people on the second story and ripped the last man’s throat out. “Sorry, sometimes my anger gets the better of me.”
Smoke had a sentry in a choke hold and said in his ear, “Where’s the woman named Sidney?”
The guard was a mule of a man, strong and stubborn. He shook his head.
Vormus squatted down and poked the man in the face with his bloody finger. “Tell the man what he wants to know. Your fate is in far better shape with him than it would be with me.”
The man spat on Vormus.
Vormus grabbed the man’s arm and bit down.
“Quit it, you devil!” Smoke said. “You act like a dog.”
Vormus released the man, stood up, and wiped the spittle from his face. “The mortal will not live to see the day. My patience thins with you, Smoke. Sneaking around. It is not my way. I will have my vengeance!”
Smoke put the man to sleep. They weren’t getting anywhere, and so far, Sid was nowhere to be found. His gut said Kane Lancaster would be back soon. Darkness wouldn’t last a whole lot longer, and Vormus was getting really agitating. Smoke took out both of his semi-automatic pistols. “Let’s get on with it.”
They took the grand staircase down into a huge foyer. Gas lanterns glowed, giving off a yellowish illumination. There were murals on the walls. Vases and busts on pedestals. It seemed more like a museum than a home. Smoke led the way from room to room. Dining rooms, living rooms, all with stone cold fireplaces. The kitchen was huge but lifeless, except where a double-doored modern refrigerator hummed in the corner. Smoke pulled open one of the doors. There wasn’t much to eat. The pantries had little, either.
Peeking from behind Smoke’s shoulder, Vormus said, “He doesn’t eat that much. Mums usually prepared the food, but her food wasn’t the best. Bland.”
Smoke c
ould understand Kane not eating, but what about Sid? There wasn’t any reason to believe she was here. If she wasn’t here, where was she?
“I have to admit, I’m just as surprised as you are.” Vormus opened and closed some cabinet doors. “It doesn’t make much sense that she isn’t residing in one of the bedrooms. It’s disappointing actually. As I understand it, she is with him wherever he goes.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’ve been privy to his musings for quite some time.” Vormus turned on the kitchen faucet and ran some water over his hands, then dried them off on his clothes. “I hate him so.”
“Maybe she’s on the yacht.”
Vormus shrugged. “Hmmm … possible. Of course, there is another place, though I find it unlikely.”
“What place?”
“The dungeon.”
“You’re holding out on me.” Smoke pointed the pistol at Vormus’s head. “These bullets aren’t made of lead. One shot will turn your chest into a sink hole.”
Hands up, Vormus said, “Only the worst of the worst get put down there. It’s unlikely she’s in there at all. I don’t have any objection to checking it out.”
“Lead the way.”
Smoke followed Vormus into the foyer. Under the grand staircase was a heavy oak door with an arch in the top. The vampire-shifter grabbed the iron handle and pulled it open. A stale breeze of cool musty air wafted out. “After you,” Smoke said.
A stone spiral staircase led them down into an area that for all intents and purposes looked like a dungeon. Small gas lanterns lit the grey slab walls. There were open alcoves with wine racks and whiskey barrels in them.
Vormus plucked out a wine bottle and inspected the label. “Shifters drink a lot.”
Smoke wandered through the dungeon corridor. There were heavy iron doors, some open, some closed. Alcoves protected by steel bars. Straw beds covered in filth. There were bodies too. Decayed and crumbled. Some shackled. Others mangled. Staring at one of the bodies, Smoke’s nose started to run. He sniffed.
“Disappointing.” Vormus kicked at a pile of bones. “Usually there are a few folks down here pleading for mercy. More often than not, this is where my brother keeps those who disappoint him. It seems his troops are keeping good order these days. Come on, there is more to this place.”
Smoke counted more than a dozen cells and alcoves. Just as many bodies. He followed Vormus even deeper into the den, stopping inside a chamber filled with archaic torture devices. Blood stained the floors, tables, and walls. Covering his nose, Smoke said, “Looks like Uncle Fester’s basement.”
“You have an uncle with a basement like this?” Vormus asked with surprise.
“No.”
“Then who is—”
Smoke moved on, taking the lead this time. He wasn’t sure if Vormus was trying to rattle him or not, but he didn’t have all day to try and track down Sid. He needed a sliver of her whereabouts now, because soon they would have to leave. He could feel it in his bones. He came across a corridor that he hadn’t seen yet. It led straight back to another door, and it didn’t have any cell doors or windows on either side. Taking it slow, he approached and came to a stop ten feet away. A stone gargoyle four feet tall squatted on either side of the door. The eyes of the statues were closed. Smoke pointed a gun at each one’s head and said to Vormus, “What’s in there?”
“I can’t say, but I do know this. No one gets in there without Kane.” Vormus came alongside him and spoke in his ear. “Certainly there is something important in there. I don’t think there is anything more important to him than your sweetheart right now. Come to think of it, maybe that is what he does. Locks her up in here while he’s gone. The gargoyles would… secure her.”
Smoke considered Vormus’s thoughts. The vampire’s words were powerfully suggestive. What he said made perfect sense. Kane would stop at nothing to prevent Sid from escaping. Smoke had come this far. He couldn’t just leave now, not knowing. It would eat him alive. He might not get a better chance than this. Whether or not Sid was on the other side of that door, he had to find out. He eased forward.
“I wouldn’t go any farther if I were you,” Vormus said. “I can’t help you from this point on.”
“You haven’t been helping me anyway.” Smoke went forward.
“Those gargoyles will shred you—and even me—to pieces.”
“We’ll see.” Smoke kept going.
The gargoyles’ eyes snapped open.
CHAPTER 32
Smoke squeezed off two shots.
Blam! Blam!
The blue-tipped bullets ripped right through the gargoyles’ chests. The demon-faced winged monsters kept coming.
“I don’t think those bullets are going to work,” Vormus said.
“Criminy!” Smoke aimed at their skulls.
Blam! Blam!
The blue-tipped bullets punched clear clean holes through the advancing gargoyles’ skulls.
“They don’t have brains,” Vormus said.
Smoke’s instincts told him to run, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He had to know if Sid was behind that door. He kept shooting.
“You fool! You’ll get yourself killed!”
The bullets blasted through bits and pieces of the gargoyles. Stone flesh plastered the walls with dusty gargoyle guts. These weren’t like the smaller one he’d fought before that had turned into powder with one shot. These were vibrant and living. Powerful and quick.
Like apes, they overpowered Smoke in a violent attack. One gargoyle caught him in a bear hug from behind and squeezed him like a huge stone vice, trying to make Smoke drop his pistols. In front of him, the second gargoyle’s clawed hands tried to rip out his throat.
Smoke pulled his knees up and launched a kick into the attacking gargoyle’s chest, slamming it back into the wall. It came at him again, a stone cold automaton with death in its black eyes. Smoke managed to squeeze off two shots and blow one of its hands into pieces, but the relentless gargoyle’s other hand clamped around his neck and started to crush his windpipe.
He jammed his pistol in the gargoyle’s ribs and kept firing off shot after shot. Bullets tore through the monster and into the ceiling. Smoke kept squeezing the trigger.
Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Blue-tip. Brace yourself, Smoke.
He fired again.
Red-tip!
The bullet entered the stone gargoyle. Smoke squeezed his eyes shut and hit the floor.
Boom!
The entire tunnel shook. The gargoyle turned to chunks of debris and dust. Smoke was lying on the floor with his head pounding and ears ringing. The last gargoyle still had him locked up. Smoke couldn’t get a good angle to get a shot off. He climbed up on his knees, got his feet under him, and thrust himself backward into the wall, ramming the gargoyle into the wall again and again as hard as he could.
Its grip didn’t loosen. It tightened.
Smoke’s lungs burned like fire. His busted ribs that had healed up were sore again. Feeling himself start to black out, he summoned his reserves. With a growling scream, he rushed toward the wall, lowering his head at the last moment, and sandwiching the gargoyle between him and the wall at full force, with jarring impact.
The gargoyle’s grip loosened.
Smoke scurried away.
The gargoyle lashed out, grabbed Smoke by the ankle, and pulled him in. The monster opened up its mouth and chomped its fangs.
Smoke stuffed the gun’s barrel down its throat. “Enjoy your meal.” He squeezed the trigger.
Boom!
Covered in dust and concrete gargoyle guts, Smoke swayed up to his feet. Wiping the dust from his eyes, he surveyed his surroundings. Vormus was nowhere to be seen. Smoke turned and faced the door. A huge deadbolt sealed it shut.
If anything moves on the other side that isn’t Sid, I’m killing it.
Pistol ready in one hand and holstering the other, he pulled the heavy deadbolt back with a grunt. The door shoved inwar
d. Sid sat on the bed of a finely decorated and well-lit room with stony walls. Her dark eyes were expressionless. Her athletic form had thinned. Her chin hung a little. “Smoke?”
“Who else would make a midnight house call in a place like this?”
“I-I thought it was you, but I just can’t believe it.” She pushed off the bed, staring into his face. “You shouldn’t have done this. You didn’t have to.”
“Yes I did.” He holstered his other pistol. Deep in Sid’s eyes something wasn’t right. He could sense her worry, fear, and anxiety. She’d been held captive for a long time. Given everything she wanted, but threatened constantly at the same time. Smoke loved her. He’d do anything for her.
But he wasn’t a fool. He sensed Stockholm Syndrome in her, and he knew that snapping her out of it wouldn’t be easy. He extended his hand. “You can be free of here, Sid. Once and for all. I need you.”
Her gaze drifted away. “I don’t know. It’s dangerous. The others...” She found his eyes with hers. “I need to get dressed.”
She was wearing a long maroon nightgown and looking as radiant as ever. She made her way over to a chest of drawers and pulled it open. She slid a pair of jeans on, grabbed a knit shirt, and with her back to him, dropped the gown and slipped the shirt on. But then she slowly slouched, turned her head, and looked back at him. “I can’t go.”
Throat tightening, he said, “Why?”
“I don’t have any shoes.”
“I see some under the bed.”
“Oh.” Listlessly, she sat on the bed, picked the shoes up one by one, and put them on. And then she sat there, staring at him with a blank expression on her face.
Smoke noticed a bottle of wine on the nightstand and an empty glass that she had been drinking from.
She might be drugged.
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series Page 78
