“Ah. But you already knew I was a witch, for you’re a were.” He tsk ed at me. “I’m afraid I cannot allow you freedom … Joanne, is it?”
“That’ll do for now.”
Grigorii sighed. “You see, I run a very large and profitable operation here, one that turns on the good behavior of my girls. If they disobey, they become … less useful. But not useless.”
“I guess it’s the octagon for me, eh?” I said, trying to be cheerful even though I was aching and freezing. The dress and shoes were gone, and I was wearing a ragged, oversized gray T-shirt and what the good Lord gave me. My feet were bare and my hair was still damp enough to cause shivers all through me.
“You’re far too pretty to be torn apart,” said Grigorii. “No, you’ve merely been moved to a … specialized section of our enterprise. Sometimes there is a customer who has special needs, and you are here to accommodate him.”
I really didn’t like the sound of that. It was sinister even without the clipped British delivery and Grigorii’s creepy smile.
“Special needs … we’re not talking, like, wheelchair accessibility here, are we?”
“Astute as well as pretty,” Grigorii said. “No, we’re not. There are men who have a need for blood, for pain and humiliation.” His face darkened and he folded his arms. “You will service them, until you are either dead or useless to a man, and then you will be used as bait in our combat ring.” A smile twitched across his lips. “My only regret is that my chance to break you in was so rudely canceled. You are premium stock, Joanne.”
It wasn’t the proposition that did it—spend enough time in my line of work and you hear every lame sexual innuendo in the book, and a few that haven’t made it yet. It was the way he said stock, and the look in his eyes that said that to him, I really was nothing more than a thing that had arrived for his use.
How many girls who didn’t have my fortitude had he used up and spit out like things?
I launched myself at the mesh. It wasn’t that thick, and I was pissed the Hex off. Grigorii would find out firsthand what the seven hells had no fury like.
There was a snap, I smelled burning hair, and I was on my ass across the cell, back up against the brick, electricity dancing across my nerve endings for the second time that day.
Grigorii stood up, laughing outright now. “Oh, Joanne … breaking you is going to be a fine thing to watch. You take care now. I’ll be seeing you soon enough.”
I was trying to restart my heart and command my shocked lungs to breathe, breathe, dammit, but I still managed a snarl. “I’ll be … counting … the seconds. Asshole.”
Grigorii walked away without another word, leaving me with my thoughts. When you’re me, and trapped halfnaked in a cage, it’s not a great place to be.
I listened, mostly, since there was Hex-all for me to look at. I couldn’t even see any other cells, which I’m sure was the idea. People break faster when they’re isolated.
Someone else was breathing a few dozen feet away, and whoever it was smelled like BO and dirt, which I probably did, too, if not worse. Further still, I could hear the low bubble of voices and music, which had to be the party room for the fights. Beyond that, faint enough to tickle my ears but little more, I could hear screaming.
“Bright lady,” I muttered, wrapping my arms around myself. It was the closest I ever came to praying. Even with direct evidence of places and people who were not human, I had a hard time believing any gods who might possibly be listening gave a damn about me. Especially now.
Time went by like a slow river current, carrying my thoughts and panic along with it. You don’t expect to be the victim when you’re someone like me. I relied on myself, on my strength and my skills and my inner monster to deliver me from bad situations. I never conceived that I could switch places with the people whose deaths and disappearances I investigated.
But I had. And my monster had failed me. I was still here.
So what are you going to do about it, Wilder?
“Good question,” I whispered, leaning my head back against the wall. A door banged, letting in a snatch of godawful Russian pop music as well as shouts of approval. I smelled fresh blood on the air and I buried my nose in the T-shirt, which also stank. But at least it didn’t make me want to chew someone’s throat out.
Two men in the uniform I’d come to recognize asthat worn by cogs in the Belikov machine—windbreakers, longish hair, tattoos—dragged a girl past me. She was alive, but barely. A sucking echoed along the corridor every time she breathed from a collapsed lung.
Her face, as she passed, was a mess—I wouldn’t even have pegged her as human if I couldn’t see her body. One leg was twisted, broken, and she moaned softly as she bumped over the concrete.
“What are you looking at?” one of the men snapped.
I averted my eyes, but as soon as they passed, I slid over to the front of my cell and peered out, careful not to touch the mesh again.
A door banged open again, and with it came the sound of traffic, and more importantly, the scent of outside air.
Suddenly, nothing about my current situation mattered. Not the cold, not the hopelessness of what my shenanigans with Grigorii and the telephone had caused.
Because I knew where they took the weres who lost the fights.
And I was going to use it to get myself free.
I tried to sleep, tried to rest, although my empty stomach kept sending pangs letting me know that it would like some food now, thank you. I ignored it as best I could. I’d need everything I had to make this work.
Perversely, my mind cast back to Enter the Dragon, the scene where Bruce Lee is sneaking around the compound at night and happens upon all of the slave girls. I always thought Lee, from the movie, was a total asshole for not letting those girls go. I also wondered why they didn’t just escape, really—it wasn’t like anyone was paying attention.
At least I had an answer to that now.
I’d watched the film with Will, curled up on the sofa in his expensive loft, bathed in the glow of his expansive plasma screen, everything right and normal with the world. Just me, my boyfriend and Bruce Lee. As close to perfection as I’d likely come.
I laced my hands behind my head and stared at Ceiling Castro some more. I didn’t let myself think about what would happen if this didn’t work. It had to work. Nothing else had gone right for me since I’d gotten that 187 call to Lily’s body.
This would work. I was still me, and my crazy plans didn’t fail. At least, not often. Even after Alistair Duncan, the witch who’d summoned a daemon with seven dead girls as his offering, and more recently the Thelemite cult that had exploited a rift in the fabric of the ether to draw their leader back from her exile, I was still working with a fifty-percent success rate.
That had to count for something.
I drifted in and out, trying not to listen to the faraway screaming, until footsteps and two voices sounded in the corridor, once of which I recognized as Grigorii’s.
“She’s still very spirited, which I believe meets your requirements. She’ll fight you.”
The other voice mumbled something in what sounded like Russian—I only knew enough Ukrainian to be sure it wasn’t that. Grigorii gave that silken chuckle that I had already grown to hate.
“Yes, but not so much that she’ll do you any harm. You’re a were of breeding—you understand how these things work better than I.”
Fuck. Fuckity fuck and double that right on down. Another were was something I hadn’t counted on.
The Russian grinned at me as he and Grigorii came to a stop outside of my cage. I tried to pull the baggy shirt down over my thighs. The Russian was tall and pale, with an Adam’s apple that stuck out and big knobby hands that were perfect for hurting things softer than he was.
He opened his nostrils and scented me, the were equivalent of putting your hand on someone’s ass without an invitation. I gave him the finger and a snarl. Couldn’t hurt to sell myself as the perfect fantasy for
his particular brand of Sick Twisted Fucker.
Grigorii tapped his finger against his teeth. “We can clean her up if you like. She’s a bit rough around the edges, I know. Just in from America.” He winked at me and I fought the urge to go straight through the mesh and sink my claws into his smarmy throat.
“Not necessary,” the were rumbled. “Bring her to the room. I will pay for the night.” He stalked off, heels of his knockoff shoes tapping on the concrete. Grigorii flashed me the OK sign.
“You’ve already put us in the black for the night, Joanne my dear. Too bad you’ll be out of commission for a few weeks. I could get used to this.” He went to an antique circuit box on the wall and flipped a switch, then came over and unlocked my cage.
I looked up at him as he came into the cell and grabbed my arm. “Don’t do this.”
“Why?” he said. “Because I should feel pity, deep down past the black burnt crust over my heart?”
I leaned close to his ear, and smiled. “Because if you put me in that room, there will be no place you can hide from me and the hurt I am going to inflict on you when I get out of here.”
Grigorii jerked me into the hallway, hard enough to make me stumble. “You speak very crassly for someone who has such lovely features. Then again, you do have the body of a porn star, so perhaps that explains it.”
“You think of these all by yourself, or does your lovely sister write them out for you?” I said as we halfmarched, half-stumbled down the corridor, toward the sounds. Toward the screams.
Grigorii surprised me by grabbing me and slamming me into the wall, holding his long, thin fingers against my clavicle with a pressure that made my bones creak. “You don’t get to talk about my sister, you whore. Is that understood?”
I swallowed, my heart fluttering against his grip. “I’m sorry.”
“She’s a finer woman than you could ever hope to be. Don’t go opening your mouth on the subject again if you’re as smart as you seem.”
“I said I was sorry,” I told him quietly. Grigorii showed a spark of human in his eyes for the first time, but then the ice sculpture that lived in his skin came back in control and he swallowed, straightening his tie.
He stepped back, letting me go, and gestured me toward a metal door, in a row of similar metal doors that looked to be storage units for the apartments above. I heard soft sobbing from behind the closest door.
I was at the source of the screams.
“Inside,” Grigorii said.
The Russian was already half-undressed, his shirt off to showcase a powerful barrel chest.
So much for me getting a puny human to deal with. I gritted my teeth and stepped inside. “Behave,” Grigorii said before he shut the door. He dropped me a wink, and then I was alone with the were.
He stood up, undoing his belt. “You want me, yes?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Not particularly. You smell like onion soup. I hate onion soup.”
He growled, showing black fangs. In fact, all of his teeth were black. As far as were strains went, that was an unfortunate scrap of DNA. I backed up, fanning exaggeratedly in front of my face. “By all means, take this as constructive criticism, but—breath mints. They’re a wonderful invention, even in Soviet Russia or wherever the fuck we are.”
Once I got started, I didn’t stop. Usually my big mouth is a detriment, but now it just might save my ass.
The Russian grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the iron headboard of the sagging single bed and advanced on me. “I teach you respect, whore.”
“Why is that the one word all of you dumb lumps of Chernobyl-addled werewolf flesh know how to say in English?” I said. “Seriously, are you really that dumb, or is it just all of the cheap vodka rotting your brains out and making your tiny little dick so limp you can’t get it up unless you’re beating on a defenseless half-starved girl?”
I pushed myself into his personal space, staring into his eyes and baring my teeth in a show of dominance. “Is that why you still have your pants on? You’re just totally embarrassed? I don’t blame you.”
The were roared and backhanded me in the jaw. He was strong—it was like taking a hit from a compact car, and I crumpled in the corner, no acting required. A loose tooth scraped against my tongue. I prayed he hadn’t broken anything too important.
The Russian leaned down, unclipping the handcuffs, grinning and breathing into my face. “You scared?”
I met his watery eyes. “You wish.” I snapped my foot out, putting all of my strength into the kick. I was aiming for the solar plexus, which will put someone down no matter how big and mean they are. You can’t fight if you can’t breathe.
My kick went low, but that worked out, too. The Russian howled as my foot connected with his balls, and stumbled back from me. I was up and going for the door. I wasn’t going to run for it, seeing as how splendidly that had worked out the first time. I just needed Grigorii to see exactly what I would cost him if he kept putting me in a room with johns.
A hand closed around the back of my neck and the Russian grabbed me and tossed me onto the mattress, all of his panting weight landing on top of me. He was babbling in his own language—enraged or horny, I couldn’t tell. He pinned my wrists down, grinned as I thrashed wildly under him. Why shouldn’t he—this was what he’d paid good money for.
I’d like to say that I remembered all of my close-grappling techniques, that I stayed calm and focused and didn’t let panic overtake me, but that would be a lie, mostly. I didn’t panic.
But I did let my were overtake me.
A snarl ripped out of my throat and I shoved up with my knees, levering the Russian’s weight off me by sheer force of rage. My claws sprouted, my eyes changed and my fangs grew.
The Russian stumbled back, uncertainty flaring in his eyes. Not many weres can phase at will, without a moon to bathe them and trigger the monster that lives hidden deep within their genes.
I wrapped my legs around his neck as he came for me again, and I squeezed. Just because I was down didn’t mean he had all the power. I’d learned that lesson a long time ago, with the guy who gave me the bite in the first place. Never be submissive. Never give up your dominance. Dominance keeps you alive.
The Russian gurgled, scraping at my thighs, his own claws sprouting and carving bloody furrows.
The pain didn’t move me, it just made me squeeze harder. The Russian started to turn blue around the edges, lips darkening, but his hand shot out and wrapped around my throat in turn.
“Bitch…” he wheezed. “I’ll kill you and then I’ll take you. You’re mine. ”
“I’m no one’s,” I rasped. “Especially not yours.”
My air was cutting off, and he wasn’t passing out. My were roared, and the silver slid across my vision again, the monster in me eating up everything that made me Luna.
I gave one last desperate squeeze with my spent muscles and jerked my legs to the left.
There was a snap, no more than someone stepping on a stick, and then weight on top of me, suffocating, immobile.
Dead.
I blinked, coming down with a vertiginous jerk in my stomach. The Russian lay on top of me, head at odds with his body, his neck loose and pulpy. Boneless.
“Gods,” I breathed, because what else could you say in a moment like that? I pushed at him, rolling him off of me and onto the floor with a thud. Eyes wide and glassy as any cadaver I’d encountered, his lips and tongue swollen from our struggle. The guy was deader than a coffin nail.
I’d killed him. And I didn’t feel one iota of regret, not when the were had taken over and not now, as my heartbeat slowed and my vision came back and my claws and fangs retreated with my adrenaline. It was him or me, survival of the meanest, nastiest wolf on the block, and I was it.
I’d killed him. I stood up, stepping over the body, feeling drying blood on my legs in the cool draft. I pounded on the door. “Hey!” I screamed. “Hey, Grigorii! You want to see what a good time I gave your friend?”
&
nbsp; My heart was jackhammering against my ribs, slow and heavy, but my mind was calm and blank as a black pool of water. Dimly, I thought that I should be freaking right the Hex out, shaking and crying and vomiting. But I wasn’t. I was acting like a were for the first time in years. Death wasn’t personal and it wasn’t always tragic. Survival was a perfectly good reason for a death, and this was survival at the rawest, most low-down level.
Screw what I should be doing, I’d done the world a favor. I snarled at the body once more, one final fuck you to a waste of oxygen that had dared to challenge me for dominance.
The door rattled and Peter yanked it open, his eyes widening when he saw what was on the other side. He turned and yelled, and Grigorii came, annoyance painted on his face.
“Oh,” he said, looking at the Russian. He moved me aside and knelt, feeling for a pulse. “Oh, my dear,” he sighed. “That was one of our most expensive clients. You’re in a world of trouble now.”
I put up my hands and gave him a toothy smile. “Take me in, Officer. I’m guilty.”
CHAPTER 16
Grigorii was surprisingly gentle as he led me down the hallway toward the one part of the establishment I hadn’t seen yet—the arena. Maybe it was because I didn’t fight, keeping my head down and my hands at my sides.
“You know, you display so much savagery,” said Grigorii. “If I were a nosier man, I might ask what you’d repressed to make your monster fly forth so.”
“My mother didn’t love me enough. My daddy loved me too much. I never got to be homecoming queen. Take your pick.”
Grigorii chuckled. “In a different world, Joanne, you and I might have gotten along very well. It’s a shame, really.”
In a different world, I would have been looking at Grigorii from the good side of a police lineup, not in his cool grasp, being led toward what he thought was my death.
But he’s wrong, the were whispered. We fight. We survive.
Grigorii pushed a set of swinging doors open, which were marked with a water insignia. I flinched as the smell hit me. It was like the Nocturne City morgue, if the air conditioning went on the fritz and somebody had left all of the stiffs lying around for about three days. Flesh and blood, sweat and fear all mingled to create a miasma that made my monster scream.
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