by Diana Graves
The hands belonged to two women, wearing traditional black and white housekeeping uniforms. They gossiped over my semi-conscious naked body. They seemed indifferent to their task, as though washing an unconscious woman was an everyday occurrence. They didn’t even notice I was moving as the woman, who had just been lathering my breasts, and other intimate parts, started rinsing me off with warm water.
The woman washing me was older, maybe in her sixties. She had short salt and pepper hair. Her makeup was perfect and in dark shades of brown and black.
“I’ve never seen Anax torture anyone before,” said the woman holding my head. I arched my neck to look up at her. She paid me no attention. She had bright makeup and sandy brown curls that fell from a long braid and into my face.
The older woman scoffed at the comment. “Mr. Anax likes to make a big show of it. Have you seen the state the ballroom is in? It’s going to take months to get that smell out.”
I looked past the women. The room was huge, and decorated in a sleek design of black and white that looked odd against the log cabin walls.
“You have large enough tits,” commented the older women callously when she looked down, and saw me looking up.
“Why are you washing me?” I asked. The women both smiled at each other, but neither answered my question. “Let me out,” I tried to move again, but I was too weak. “What’s wrong with me?”
“We drugged you,” the younger woman said. “What did the priest call her?” she asked the other woman.
“Don’t know, but he said that we needed to make sure she couldn’t think straight or she’d control us with your mind.” How could they know that? The older woman looked down at me, and her face was less than friendly. “If you give me any reason to think you can produce a coherent thought I’m going to chloroform your ass again.”
“No, you have to let me go! Please!” I let panic take me, and I cried for what good it did. “I won’t give him any names. He’s just going to have to kill me.” But, I knew he wouldn’t make it quick.
“That’s it,” said the older woman. “I’m getting the chloroform.” And, she stood to get the bottle off the counter. I knew if they knocked me out again that the next time I woke up I would be hanging upside down. I couldn’t let that happen.
“NO!” I screamed. My words were loud, but they had no power.
The woman came back with the bottle and a clean rag, and she smiled as she soaked the rag with the stuff. The younger woman turned my head toward the dripping rag, but my strength was coming back to me, and I put all I had into fighting her. She dug her nails into my skin as she and the other woman tried to get the rag into my face. The younger woman was ruthless as she wrapped her arm around my neck, half chocking me. I clawed at her arm, until the older woman climbed into the tub and straddled me. She grabbed one of my hands with her free hand, and used her weight to hold the rest of me down. I arched my back, and tried to pull away, but they had me trapped.
In that moment something crashed into the door, again and again. The wood splintered under the force of whatever was hitting it. The women screamed. They let go of me, and ran to the far end of the room, hiding themselves in a large standing shower with a glass door. They left me alone, only feet from the nearly shattered door, naked and weak in a tub…bitches. With one last crash the door flew off its hinges, and Mato stood where the door once hung.
“Mato!” I cried, and I didn’t care that I was naked and dripping wet as I held my arms out to him. His hair moved in wind unfelt, and the bathroom flooded with warm emotional energy, anger. His beautiful face looked pained when he saw me there, and he glared at the women while he wrapped a large black towel around me, and lifted me out of the tub. They continued to scream as Mato cradled me easily in his arms, and took me out of the room.
TH
E CAVALRY
BEYOND THE BATHROOM was the room I had woken up in moments ago. There was a man lying on the floor in a pool of blood with his neck ripped open, like someone had grabbed his jugular and pulled hard. I looked at Mato. I wasn’t shocked or scared by what he did. It actually made me feel safer being with him.
Mato set me on the grey bed, and went to the tall white wardrobe.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me. He came back to the bed holding a plain white tank top and brown PJ bottoms. He helped me get dressed quickly. Under different circumstances having his hands touching my naked body might have led to some serious sexual tension, but not at that moment.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“I feel terrible.”
“What have they done to you?”
“Magic, violence, drugs, more magic, and more drugs. What’s going on?” I asked again. I tried to stand on my own but I couldn’t, so Mato picked me up, and carried me in his arms.
“I am taking you out of here,” he said with no strain from carrying me.
“I’ve guessed that much, but how? Did you come alone?”
“Officer Ranger is taking care of Admetus and his men.” I must have looked worried because Mato added, “She is not alone.”
“How did you know I was taken by Admetus or where I was?”
“I was talking outside the clinic with Ranger when your brothers and a barguest ran out of the clinic, and climbed into a van with frantic haste. I pressed them, and they told me that your mother’s house had been ransacked, and you had been kidnapped. Tristan had delivered the folder to me when he first arrived, and I had read some of it. I could guess who took you and where you would be. I convinced them to let me come with them, and Ranger insisted that she come, too.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived, and everything was going to be okay. I hugged my arms around Mato’s neck, and let him carry me down hall after hall until we came to large double doors. When Mato maneuvered me into one arm to have a free hand I remember Alcestis.
“Mato, stop!” I shouted before he touched the door handle. He just looked at me. “How close are we to dawn?” I asked
“I will be fine if we move quickly,” Mato said. He was still holding me in one arm. It looked effortless.
“No, Mato. Do you know the story of Admetus?”
“Only from the documents that were in the folder.”
“He became immortal by sacrificing his wife to Apollo. She took his place in death so he never died. But, she isn’t dead anymore. She was brought back with the help of a demon.”
“And with her not in his place,” Mato began, “he is mortal again.”
“She’s here, and he’ll kill her to get his immortality back. We need to save her, please,” I pleaded.
Mato looked down at me in his arms, and then back at the door. “We will save her if we can.” I hoped we could.
He opened the door to a large den. Animal skins, mounted antlers, a plethora of stuffed things littered the place like some well-lit nightmare. But, the animals weren’t the only dead. At least nine men had been torn to pieces, drained of every last drop of blood or shot. The priest that had kept Raphael away was huddled in the corner, scared shitless. Hell, I would be, too, if I were one of the bad guys. It looked like we were arriving at the near end of a very long and bloody fight.
Damon and Ranger were playing in the far left corner of the room. Damon was fighting the warlock that had kidnapped me. His body was still human-shaped blackness, but he had the head of a great black bear. Ranger seemed to be having fun. Two large men were kneeling before her with their hands behind their heads. She had a gun in either hand pointed at their heads.
Tristan had his wand out and pointed at a man kneeling before him, begging for his life. He brought the man down with a single word that I didn’t recognize. Tristan didn’t kill the man. He put him to sleep.
“Sister!” Michael shouted with a smile.
I hadn’t seen him since his turn back in Darkness near a week ago, and I felt guilty for it. The vampire, Michael O’Brian, looked the same for the most part. H
is skin was pale with a well fed rosy quality to it. He looked like Nil with his now messy hair. I counted at least three people who were completely drained of their blood, and Michael was calmly sitting cross-legged in a chair with blood on his mouth, as happy as a new pup. He laughed when one of the men who Ranger had in her sights made a move, and she blew his head off, painting the wall thick with chunky brain matter and skull fragments. Tristan was right. Michael’s personality had changed a great deal.
Ranger brought her second gun to the other man, “Please, make a move. I want you to.” Her voice was almost seductive. The man cowering at her feet had short brunette hair and a small beard. He looked like he was a tough guy.
Damon finally managed to get a hold of the warlock. He picked him up, and tore into the man’s stomach, ignoring all kicks and screams. Blood and thicker things poured down from his ravaged stomach filling Damon’s mouth, overflowing, and running down his body, a candy apple red made neon bright against Damon’s darkness. When the man stopped screaming and lay motionless in his hands Damon threw him away like a chicken bone picked clean.
“Cold?” Michael chuckled at me.
I followed his eyes down to my chest. Mato had only given me a white tank top and jammy bottoms, not a bra. My wet hair had soaked through the tank, making it embarrassingly transparent. I covered myself, and gave him the look he deserved, so did Mato. Though, his look was a tad more impressive. Michael didn’t so much as flinch. I would have if he looked at me that way. Being a vampire had either made Michael braver or dumber, whichever.
Tristan leaped over a coffee table that was made to look like a large oblong tree stump and crushed me in a bear hug.
“Raina!” he shouted.
He looked down at me while still holding me. Ranger came forward after Damon assured her that the brunette wasn’t going anywhere under his watch.
“You’re weak,” Ranger said. I wonder what gave it away. Was it that I couldn’t stand without Mato taking on most of my weight, or the totally exhausted face I was sporting?
“Drink this.” She handed me what looked like a simple bottle of water that had been attached to the belt at her hip.
“What is it,” I asked.
“An energy drink. It’s my own recipe, and it’s sort of strong.”
I drank down half the bottle, and found it warm and bitter sweet. “How long will it take before I feel more awake?”
“You won’t just be awake, Raina. You’ll be bright eyed and bushy tailed,” she said. “It won’t take long,” she added.
“Where’s Alcestis?” I asked no one in particular.
“You mean the woman in the wedding dress? Admetus took her through that door just as we rushed in,” Tristan said, pointing at a metal door to the left of a large book shelf. There was a touch screen device on it.
Ranger’s energy drink was starting to kick in, and I looked around the room, seeing it now with more focus. There were a dozen bodies on the floor. Most were dead, but a couple were simply sleeping. The priest was babbling incoherencies.
“Somebody shut him up!” Damon demanded.
Mato looked at Tristan. “Shall I do it or you?” he asked.
Tristan’s shoulders slumped a bit, but he walked to the priest, wand raised. He would put him to sleep like the others he took care of. He would do it, because if he left it to anyone else in the room they’d simply kill him and be done with it.
“No, please. If I stop he’ll come, he’ll come!” shouted the priest.
Tristan looked back at Damon. “What is he talking about?”
Damon looked at me as if he were seeing me there for the first time, and something in his posture told me he was worried. Did I really look that bad?
“He’s talking about Raphael, Alcestis’ husband,” I said.
“He’s a demon!” shouted the priest.
“Do we want him here?” Tristan asked Damon, but he was too busy looking at me.
I looked at Tristan. “Yes, we want him. He loves Alcestis, and he’ll help us keep her alive so we can kill Admetus,” I said.
“No!” pleaded the priest, “You can’t trust a demon!”
Tristan ignored the man. He raised his wand, and spoke the incantation, and the priest fell over onto his side, sleeping.
Ranger went back to the brunette, who was hugging the ground at Damon’s feet. “Open the door little man,” she ordered. Suddenly Michael was by her side, glaring down at the brunette. I hadn’t seen him move. He simply appeared there. It was going to take me a while to get used to Michael the vampire. It looked odd. A little guy like Michael helping a bad-ass police woman with two huge hand guns interrogate a muscle bound bad guy.
“There’s a shit load more guys just like us on the other side of that door,” warned the man.
Michael laughed a tickling boyish laugh, and the bad guy flinched. “If they’re just like you, we’ll have no problems. We got through you guys fast enough.” Michael looked over us, one by one. “Not even a scratch.” He laughed again. Was he not counting me? I was pretty banged up.
I walked over to Damon. He was still looking at me like I was a small child caught in the middle of a wild fire. I patted his upper arm. “I’m fine,” I said.
“Why did this man capture you?” he asked.
“I know the truth about him, or at least enough of the truth to make me a threat. He was going to torture me to get the names of everyone I might have shared information about him with. He was going to saw me in half…long ways,” I said the last part quietly. “I want to make sure he dies tonight. I want to see it. I want to feel his pulse leave his neck. I won’t feel safe otherwise.”
I never thought I would ever be capable of cold blooded murder, but when I said those words my pulse sped, my body began to tremble with anger, and I knew I was going to kill Admetus tonight or die trying.
“I understand,” was all he said. He turned his attention back on the brunette and the locked door. “How do we open the door?” Damon asked him.
But that man was looking past Damon. “Holy shit. What’s that?”
We followed his eyes to a dark mass of black smoke that was building in the corner of the room. I could smell brimstone.
“What the hell is that?” shouted Tristan.
Mato was suddenly standing next to me as still as death. We were all looking up at the growing smoke that was now forming the shape of a great dragon. The bad guy was screaming. Apparently demons are really scary. Like, I hadn’t noticed. I felt safer standing between Damon and Mato.
I looked at Michael expecting to see fear, but he looked amused, and slightly eager. Becoming a vampire had definitely made him stupid. Raphael might help us now, but he was still a demon. Under any other circumstance he’d devourer our living souls or torment our lives. That’s what demons do. That’s how they get their sick jollies. The fact that Michael wasn’t scared of a demon meant his life expectancy had just plummeted. Vampire or no, you don’t fuck with demons.
Raphael’s form was human, if you could call it that. His skin was grey, and his eyes were the royal blue I remembered them to be. With him, he brought the stench of the underworld. His muscles worked under his black leather as he walked toward us. His hair, the color of the setting sun, was pulled back leaving inhumanly high cheek bones. His light moved with him, a purple hue.
“Where is she!” he shouted at us.
“Raphael!” I shouted back over the noise that wasn’t there but was still hurting my ears. It was like there was some kind of resonating hum that came from him, too faint for even vampire hearing, but it was there nonetheless.
“Witch?” he questioned.
He brought his full gaze upon me. Raphael had to be at least seven feet tall. He looked down at me, and I felt every inch of him looming over me. Pat me on the back, I didn’t shit myself!
“Admetus took her behind that door,” I said, pointing to the door in question. “We are all trying to save her and kill him, but this man,” and I pointed to t
he brunette, “won’t tell us how to get through the door.” I spared a thought for using mind control on the man, but if I could keep my secret a little longer, why not?
Raphael looked at the man. “Human!” he said in his booming voice. We all walked backward, leaving the man standing alone by the door. “Tell me how to open the door!”
“You, you need the code for the computer to start the sequence, an eye scan and voice recognition and thumb print—I can do it,” he cried.
“Do it then!” said Raphael.
The man just nodded, and got to doing as he was told, and we stood back and watched. He stopped every few seconds to shake his tensed limbs, and then continue the sequence. I almost felt bad for him, almost.
“It’s done-done, but you can’t go in.” He flinched as he said the last part.
“Why!” Raphael shouted in his strange voice that I knew would haunt my dreams.
His hands were in great leather clad fists the size of a human head. He bared his teeth, razor sharp, and meant for chewing tougher things than birthday cakes. The brunette actually pissed himself. He whimpered, and huddled in a ball on the floor. He tried to answer Raphael, but incoherent babble came out instead of words. He was broken. Raphael lifted his hands to hit him. One hit might kill the man. The demon was just that big and that strong. He would kill him, and we’d watch. Not that we weren’t planning on killing him anyway. Maybe we were, but we still needed him.
“Raphael!” I interrupted him before he could hit him.
“What?” he spat. He turned all that anger toward me, and I flinched under his gaze. Ah, shucks. I thought I was going to play the bad ass tonight. Damn.
Damon came up in front of me, shielding me from the demon. “She means nothing by her rudeness. I apologize—”
I had to interrupt Damon. I never let people speak for me. It was a rule. “I do mean something by it. Raphael, let me talk to the man. You’re frightening him too much for him to function.” Raphael let out a heavy stinking sigh of black smoke from his nostrils. What did Alcestis see in him?
