“Yeah.” I’d have usually come up with something sarcastic like, “you see anyone else?” but I was too worried about Edward to waste the effort. Sweat had popped out on his face, as if it was taking a lot to keep going. Trouble was, a fireman’s carry would disturb the stake, and if any of us could carry him just in his arms, it was Olaf, but it would mean not being able to shoot. We needed the gun.
“You okay, Edward?” I asked.
He swallowed before he said, “Fine.”
I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t ask again. This was probably as good as it was going to get for awhile.
Edward tried to turn and say something to the kids, but it hurt, and I had to turn for him, moving us both to face backwards. “Cover Becca’s eyes, Peter.”
Peter had Becca bury her face against his shoulder and kept his hand pressed to the back of her head. He didn’t have the Firestar in his hands. I wondered where it was but not enough to ask.
I turned Edward back around, and we started up the stairs again. Olaf was almost at the next bend in the stairs, when he stopped. He was looking down at the steps. I froze and said, “No one move.”
“Is it a trap?” Edward asked.
“No,” Olaf said.
I saw it then, thin rivulets of blood sliding down the steps towards us. It snaked around Olaf’s feet and dripped its way toward Edward and me.
Peter wasn’t that far behind us. He asked, “What is that?”
“Blood,” Olaf said.
“Please tell me that this is your handiwork, Olaf,” I said.
“No,” he said.
I watched the blood flow around my Nikes and knew that our problems had just gotten worse.
61
I LEANED EDWARD up against the wall. He wanted me free to shoot if Olaf told me to. Olaf got to scout ahead and see what the problem was. He vanished around that corner, and I pressed myself to the wall and gave the briefest of looks ahead. The stairs ended just up ahead. The electric lights showed a cave, I think. The lights glistened on blood and bodies.
Olaf backed up, and came down to us again. “I can see the exit.”
“What are the bodies?”
“Riker’s men.”
“What killed them?”
“I think it is our murderous beast. But there is no other way out. The other entrance has been blocked by an explosion. We must go out this way.”
I figured if the murderous beast was up there waiting for us, Olaf would have been more excited. So I went back to Edward. His skin was the color of bad paste. His eyes were closed. They opened when I touched him, but they were brighter than they should have been. “We’re almost out,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, just let me settle his arm over my shoulder. He was still holding onto me, but every step we took, my arm around his waist was taking more and more of his weight. “Hold on, Edward, just a little farther.”
His head jerked as if he’d just heard me, but his feet kept moving with me. We were going to make it, all of us. The blood got thicker the farther up we walked. Edward slipped in it, and I had to catch him and barely managed to keep us both standing. But it was a sudden movement, and he let out a small sound of pain. Shit.
“Watch your step, Peter,” I said. “It’s slippery.”
Olaf was waiting for us at the bodies. There were only three of them. One was a man I didn’t recognize, but I recognized the gun near his body. He was one of Simon’s men. Simon was lying in a pool of blood and darker fluids. The entire lower chest, stomach, abdomen were open. His intestines trailed out onto the cave floor, but his eyes were still blinking upward, still alive.
The third body was Amanda, and she was still moving, too. But Olaf had her covered, so I kept my attention on Simon. He smiled up at us. “At least I killed the Undertaker.”
“He’s not nearly as dead as you are,” I said.
“You’re all dead, bitch.”
“We know you invited company,” I said.
His eyes looked uncertain. “Fuck you.” His hand inched towards his gun that was still lying beside him. Gutted, dying, in more pain than I could imagine, and he tried to go for his gun. I stepped on his hand, pinning it to the earth. Harder to do than normal with Edward hanging on me, but I managed. “Peter, you and Becca go up with Bernardo to the front of the cave.”
Peter didn’t argue. He just carried Becca past us, Bernardo trailing behind.
I pointed the gun barrel at Simon’s head. I couldn’t leave him behind because I didn’t trust him at my back. Even this wounded, I wasn’t willing to take the chance.
“I hope the monster guts you, bitch.”
“That’s Ms. Bitch to you,” I said and pulled the trigger. A short burst, but more shots echoed mine. I whirled, gun up, and found Peter standing over Amanda’s body. He emptied the Firestar into her body while I watched. Olaf was just watching him do it. I looked for Bernardo and found him holding Becca near the cave mouth.
Edward started to slide to his knees. I knelt with him, trying to keep him upright. He whispered, “The kids, out, get them . . . out,” and he fainted.
Olaf was there without me asking. He lifted Edward in his arms like a child. If the monster came now, we all had our hands full. Shit.
Peter had run out of bullets, but he was still squeezing the trigger, over and over and over. I went to him. “Peter, Peter, she’s dead. You killed her. Ease down.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. I touched his hands, tried to lift the gun from him. He jerked away, violently, eyes wild. He kept dry-firing into the woman’s body. I shoved him back against the rock wall, hard, one arm across his throat, the other pinning his hands still wrapped around the Firestar. His eyes were wide and frightened, but he looked at me. “Peter, she’s dead. You can’t kill her anymore dead than she already is.”
His voice shook when he said, “I wanted her to hurt.”
“She did hurt. Being torn apart is a bad way to die.”
He shook his head. “It’s not enough.”
“No,” I said, “it isn’t enough, but you killed her, Peter. That’s as good as revenge gets. Once you kill them, there isn’t any more.”
I took the Firestar out of his hands, and he let me. I tried to hug him, but he pushed me away, then walked away. The time for that kind of comfort was past, but there were other kinds of comfort. Some of them came from the barrel of a gun. There is some comfort in killing that which has hurt you, but it is cold comfort. It’ll destroy things inside of you that the original pain wouldn’t have harmed. Sometimes it’s not a question of whether a piece of your soul is going to go missing, only which piece it’s going to be.
Peter carried Becca. Olaf carried Edward. Bernardo and I took the lead. We searched the spring darkness with our guns, back and forth, back and forth. Nothing moved. There was just the sound of wind in the tall line of sage bushes that bordered the back of the cave. The air felt so good against my face, and I realized that I’d not really expected to get out, not alive. Pessimism, it wasn’t like me.
Bernardo led the way back to circle the house. We’d try for Edward’s car, but we wanted to make sure no one or no thing was waiting to eat us when we went for the car. Olaf went second, carrying a very still Edward. I was praying hard that he’d be okay, though strangely it felt odd to pray to God for Edward, as if I were praying in the wrong direction. Peter and Becca were just ahead of me. He stumbled as we headed into the thicker brush. He had to be tired, but I couldn’t afford to carry Becca. I needed to have my hands free to fight.
I felt the prickling brush of magic. I called, “Guys, something’s out here.”
Everyone stopped and started searching the darkness. “What did you see?” Olaf asked.
“Nothing, but something out here is doing magic.”
Olaf made a noise in his throat like he didn’t believe me. Then the first wave of fear washed over us. So much fear that it closed the throat, sent the heart thundering, made the palms of your hands sweat. Becca started stru
ggling violently in Peter’s arms.
I took two steps to help Peter control her, but she struggled free, fell to the ground, and ran like a rabbit into the brush. Peter yelled, “Becca!” and went after her.
“Peter, Becca! Oh, shit!” I ran into the brush after them. What else could I do? I heard them just up ahead, crashing through the brush, Peter calling Becca’s name. I had a sense of movement to my right, and I saw something. It was bigger than a man, and even by moonlight you could see it was different colors. I fired into it as it opened a huge razored mouth, but the claw kept coming towards me, as if the bullets were nothing. The closed claw slammed into my head. It knocked me off my feet, and I hit the ground hard. Darkness swirled across my vision, and when I could see again, the thing was right above me. I kept my finger on the trigger, until it clicked empty. The monster never hesitated. It filled my vision with a face that was almost birdlike, and I had a moment to think it was pretty before it hit me again, and there was nothing but darkness.
62
I WOKE INSTANTLY, my skin jumping with a rush of magic that left me gasping. My body strained, writhing as the power rode over and through my body in a burning surge that just kept growing. My hands and legs strained against the chains that held me down. Chains? I turned and stared at my wrists, head still thrashing, my body jerking as the power roared through me. My arms and legs jerked, not because I was struggling against the chains but as a reaction to the power.
The magic began to fade, leaving my breath coming in pants. One thing I knew. If I didn’t get my breathing under control, I was going to hyperventilate. Passing out again would be bad. Heaven knew what I’d wake up to a second time. I concentrated on my breathing, forcing myself to be calm, and take deep, even, normal breaths. It’s hard to be totally panic-stricken when you’re doing breathing exercises. It poured a false calm over my body, and my mind. But it let me think, which was good.
I was lying on my back, chained to a smooth stone surface. There was a curve of cave wall beside me, and a ceiling lost to sight in the darkness above. I’d have loved to believe that Bernardo and Olaf had rescued me and we were back in the cave entrance, but the chains sort of ruined that pleasant thought. This cave was much taller, and without looking it just felt bigger. Firelight bounced in orange shadows along the cave, 1ike being in a ball of darkness and gold light.
I finally turned my head to the right and let myself see what was there. At first I thought it was Pinotl, Itzpapalotl’s human servant. I had a few seconds of cursing myself for believing her when she said she didn’t know about the monster, then I realized it wasn’t him. It looked like him. Same square, chiseled face, dark, rich skin, and the black hair cut long and oddly square, but this man was narrow through the shoulders, thin, and there was no air of command to him. He was also wearing a pair of loose-fitting shorts instead of the nifty clothes that Pinotl wore.
There was a smooth rounded stone like the one at the Obsidian Butterfly. There was a body draped over that stone. Foreshortened legs and arms, short dark hair, and for a moment I thought it was Nicky Baco, then I saw the naked chest more clearly, and it was Paulina, Nicky’s wife. There was a hole under her ribs like a great gaping mouth. They’d torn out her heart. The unknown man stood there holding the heart in his hands, above his head like an offering. His eyes looked black in the uncertain light. He lowered his arms, walking towards me with the heart cupped in his hands. His hands were so thick with blood that it looked like he was wearing red gloves. There were four men standing at attention around the altar. They were wearing some sort of soft leather on their bodies, hoods up and covering them from head to foot almost. There was something wrong with what they were wearing, but my eyes couldn’t make sense of it, and I had other more immediate problems than what people were wearing.
I was still wearing the Kevlar vest and all the rest of my clothes. If they meant to take my heart, they’d have taken the clothes. It was a very comforting thought as the man, the priest, walked towards me with the heart in his hands. He held the heart over my chest and began to chant in a language that sounded like Spanish, but wasn’t.
Blood dripped from the heart, splatted on the vest. It made me jump. The calm of the breathing exercises was wearing off. I did not want him to touch me with that thing. It wasn’t even logic, fear of some spell or magic. It was pure revulsion. I did not want to be touched by a heart that had just been torn out of someone’s body. I’ve put my share of stakes through hearts. I’ve even cut a few out for burning, but somehow this was different. Maybe it was being chained and helpless, or maybe it was Paulina’s body lying limp over the altar, looking like a broken doll. The only time I’d met her she’d been so strong, threatening me with a gun, but lots of people had done that. Edward used to do that all the time. Starting out a relationship on the end of a gun didn’t mean you couldn’t be friends down the road. Unless one of you died. No friendship now. No nothing for Paulina.
The man ended the chant and began to lower the heart towards me.
I strained against the chains though I knew it was useless, and I said, “Don’t touch me with that.” It sounded sure and strong, but if he understood English, I couldn’t tell it because he just kept lowering his bloody hands, closer and closer. He laid the heart on my chest, and I was almost as grateful that the Kevlar kept me from feeling that thing next to my skin as I’d been for the extra protection from bullets earlier.
The heart lay on my chest like so much meat. There was no magic to it. It was just dead. Then the heart took a breath, or that’s what it looked like. The skin rose and fell. It sat on my chest, naked and attached to nothing and pulsed. I was suddenly aware of my own heartbeat. The moment I noticed my heartbeat, Paulina’s heart stuttered, then began to beat in time with mine. And the moment the rhythms were shared, I could hear a second heartbeat. Except that Paulina’s heart had no blood to pump, no chest to resonate in. It should have been a pale sound compared to the real thing, but it was a solid pulsing beat. It was as if the sound reached through the vest, through my skin, my ribs, and pierced my heart. The pain was sharp and immediate, stealing my breath, bowing my spine.
“Hold her,” the man yelled.
The men who’d been standing by the altar ran to me, strong hands pressing on my legs, pinning my shoulders. My spine tried to bow with the pain, and a third set of hands pressed down on my thighs, three of them pinning me to the stone, forcing me to ride the pain and not struggle.
Paulina’s heart was beating faster and faster, speeding, speeding, towards some grand climax. My heart thundered against my ribs, as if it were trying to tear loose of the tissue. It was as if a fist were beating on the inside of my chest, trying to smash its way out. I couldn’t breathe, as if all of my chest was caught up in the frantic race, and there was no time for anything else.
The pain was centered in my chest, but it spread down my arms, my legs, filled my head until I thought that it might not be my heart that exploded. It might be the top of my head.
I could feel the two hearts like lovers separated by a wall, tearing it down between them until they would be able to touch. There was a moment when I felt them touch, felt the thick wet sides of the two organs slide into each other. Maybe it was just the pain. Then the heart stopped like a person caught in mid-motion, and my heart stopped with it. For a breathless moment my heart sat in my body and did nothing, as if waiting. Then it gave one beat, then another, and I drew air into my lungs in a frantic rush, and as soon as I had air, I screamed. Then I lay there, still listening to my heartbeat, feeling the pain begin to fade like the memory of a nightmare. Minutes later, the pain was gone. My body didn’t even hurt. In fact, I felt energized, wonderful.
The heart on my chest had shriveled into a gray, used up piece of flesh. It wasn’t recognizable as a heart, just a dry ball smaller than my palm. I blinked up and saw the face of the man holding my shoulders down. I’m sure he’d been looking down at me for a while, but I hadn’t seen him or hadn’t understood what
I was seeing.
He wore a mask over his face. Only his lips, eyes, and ears showed through the thin covering. His neck was bare, then a ragged bow neck of the same material of the mask covered him. I think part of me knew what I was looking at, before the rest of me would accept it. It wasn’t until I turned my head as far as I could to one side, and saw the hands that I knew what he was wearing. The empty hands bunched at his wrists like limp, fleshy lace. It was human skin. I’d finally found out what had happened to some of the skin the flayed ones had lost.
The eyes that stared out of that horrible thing were brown and very human. I looked down the line of my body and found that the other two men holding my legs wore the same thing, but the skins weren’t all the same colors. One dark, two light. The chests had thick cord sewn across it where the breasts and nipples would have been, so there was no clue to whether the skin had been male or female.
The first man I’d seen stepped forward. “How do you feel?” His English was heavily accented but clear.
I just looked at him for a second. He had to be kidding. “How am I supposed to feel? I just woke up in a cave where you just performed a human sacrifice.” I glanced at the men still holding me down. “I’m being held down by men wearing flayed human skin suits. How the hell am I supposed to feel?”
“I am asking after your bodily health. Nothing more,” he said.
I started to say something else sarcastic, but stopped and really thought about his question. How did I feel? Actually, I felt good. I remembered that rush of energy and well-being that had spread over me when the spell finished. It was still there. I felt better than I’d felt in days. If it hadn’t required human sacrifice, it would have been a great medical treatment.
“I feel okay.”
“No pain in the head?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said. He motioned, and the skin guys moved away from me. They moved back to stand against the wall by the fourth man who hadn’t been needed to hold me down. They stood there like good soldiers, waiting for their next orders.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 189
