by Alex Archer
She ran through stone hallways lit only by torches burning in sconces on the walls, her bare feet slapping the cold flagstones and her breath coming in ragged gasps.
In the shadows behind her something kept pace, slowing when she slowed and speeding up when she tried to force more effort out of her already tiring limbs. She didn’t know what it looked like, or if it was even human, but there was one thing she knew for certain.
She couldn’t let it catch her.
So she pushed on, running as quickly as her bare and bloodied feet would carry her, frantically searching for a way out.
Doors would occasionally appear on one side of the hallway or the other, set at irregular intervals, but every one that she tried was locked. Most of the time there was only silence when she yanked on the door handle, but at other times she heard screams and cries for help coming from behind the barrier. There was nothing she could do for them, however, so she was forced to continue on.
Step after step, corridor after corridor, in a seemingly endless maze with pursuit never far behind...
When the door appeared at the end of the hall, Annja almost didn’t believe it was real. She glanced back as she reached it, caught a glimpse of a hulking shadow and knew she had only one chance to get this right.
She grabbed the door handle.
Please, please, please...
She pulled, and to her utter surprise the door opened.
A room lay just beyond.
Annja quickly stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her.
The smell hit her first, the thick coppery scent of fresh-spilled blood. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could make out a bath set into the floor a few yards in front of her. The thick fluid that filled the bath looked almost black in the low light.
Oh, no...
She realized what she was looking at even as the surface of the bath was disturbed and the figure of a woman began to emerge from the depths, blood flowing down over her head and upper body.
Annja could feel fear welling up inside her like a tide as she stared in disbelief at the figure ahead of her.
This can’t be happening...
She didn’t realize she was backing up until her shoulder blades struck the door.
Ahead of her, the woman stepped from the bath, arms raised in supplication and longing, a silent invitation for Annja to join her.
It was only when the woman’s eyes snapped open that Annja realized she was looking at herself...
* * *
ANNJA AWOKE WITH a start, leaving one nightmare behind only to discover she was trapped in another.
Her head was pounding, and it was making her vision shimmy and dance. She blinked several times, waiting for her eyes to be able to focus. When they did she found that she was lying on the cold tiled floor of a room somewhere, her hands tied together in front of her with thick nylon rope. Her feet were likewise bound; she didn’t need to see them to feel the rope wrapped securely around her ankles.
A drain sat in the middle of the floor, about six inches in front of her face. Seeing it made her realize the side of her body that was resting against the floor was chilled and damp. The floor had obviously been wet when they’d dumped her here.
She raised her head slightly, taking in the wall in front of her. It was hewn out of solid rock and looked ages old, but the twisted tangle of pipes high on the wall were shiny and new.
Where on earth was she?
She flexed her wrists, hoping that whoever had tied them had done a poor job, but no such luck. She was trussed up better than a Thanksgiving turkey and completely at her captor’s mercy.
Needless to say, that concerned her more than a little.
It was clear now why Novack had been getting nowhere with his investigation; Radecki had been sabotaging it the whole time. Whether he was the killer or just part of the cover-up remained to be seen, but given her current situation, Annja was leaning toward the former.
Which meant she needed to get out of here as soon as possible!
She brought her knees up toward her chest as best she could, tucking herself into a ball, and then rolled over so she could see the rest of the room. It was pretty much like the first half, with the exception of the steel door set into the wall in front of her. The door had a reinforced window that was about a foot square.
More telling was the fact that there was no handle on the interior of the door. That suggested this wasn’t a temporary holding cell; it had been built specifically for that purpose.
Suddenly the drain in the floor took on much darker connotations.
I have to get out of here!
Her first order of business was cutting free of her bonds. Thankfully she had the means to do so right at hand.
She rolled across the room until she fetched up against the nearest wall, then maneuvered herself around so she was sitting with her back against it. She drew her legs up in front of her until she could put her feet flat on the floor, and then braced her hands on her knees, palms inward.
Calling her sword to hand, Annja put the hilt of the weapon between her knees with the blade sticking up. Holding her legs tightly together so the weapon wouldn’t fall, Annja placed the knotted rope binding her wrists against the edge of the blade and began to saw back and forth.
She hadn’t even managed two passes when she heard voices right outside her door.
Knowing she couldn’t be caught with her sword in hand, she dismissed the weapon back into the otherwhere with a thought and tipped herself over so she was lying flat on the floor once more.
Closing her eyes, she worked on steadying her breathing and pretended to be unconscious.
The door swung open with a screech, evidence of either poor maintenance or lack of use. Several sets of footsteps sounded in her ears.
“I know you’re awake,” a male voice she recognized said, “so there’s no use in pretending. The dose of the drug was adjusted to your body weight.”
Radecki.
Annja opened her eyes.
The traitor stood before her. Beside him were two men who had the look of enforcers—hired thugs brought in to do the heavy lifting so Radecki didn’t get his hands dirty. They were dressed identically in dark jeans, dark T-shirts and leather boots, the classic uniform of muscle heads the world over. They stared at Annja with all the emotion of a pair of mannequins.
“Get her hooked up,” Radecki said, quickly confirming who was in charge.
Annja didn’t know what he was talking about, but the amused smirk on the officer’s face let her know she wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.
As the two thugs moved toward her, Annja wished she could call forth her sword, but the pistol holstered on Radecki’s belt would’ve made any such move a losing proposition. She might keep the men at bay for a time, but in the end, Radecki would still hold all the cards.
For now, she’d wait and see.
She could still feel the sword waiting in the otherwhere, and as soon as her hands were untied, she’d be able to access it again.
The thugs moved in, one on either side, and, grabbing her under the arms, lifted her to her feet. They brought her over to Radecki, who was now standing in the middle of the room holding a small black box that reminded Annja of a remote control.
Still smiling, Radecki tapped the button on the remote.
A whirling noise sounded from above her head, and Annja looked up just in time to see a cable drop from the darkness above. Her head was still pounding so it took her a moment to understand just what it was, and by that time one of the thugs had caught the hook that was set on one end, hooked it through the bindings circling her wrists and nodded to Radecki.
The winch was already reversing itself as Annja began to struggle, and within seconds she found her arms being dragged up over her head toward the ceiling.
Too late, she realized what was happening and tried to twist her arms free, kicking her feet, but all she managed to do was set her body swaying back and forth like
a pendulum as she hung by her wrists a few inches above the floor.
The bindings tightened, but not so much that they cut off her circulation. Still, she knew she would lose strength the longer she hung like this, and soon she wouldn’t be able to feel her hands at all, not to mention how completely vulnerable the position left her.
“Much better,” Radecki said with a wide smile. He came over and put one hand on her hip to steady her. “It seems I have you right where I want you.”
Annja answered with her usual defiance. Hanging a good foot or so above him, she was in the perfect position to look down, smile and then spit in his face.
“For a woman in your circumstances, that wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” Radecki said as he wiped the spittle from his face. His voice had lost its jovial tone and was now flat and hard. “Gentlemen, if you wouldn’t mind...”
Annja had expected Radecki to react with violence, but she wasn’t prepared for the hammering blows that came from either side as the two thugs began to work her over, haymakers falling like rain with frightening regularly. Her body twisted about with each blow so Annja had no way of predicting where the next punch would land. Within seconds she was doing all she could to hold on to consciousness against the overwhelming pain that enveloped her.
“Enough!”
The order was spoken with absolute authority, and the blows instantly stopped. It took Annja a moment to realize that the order hadn’t come from Radecki.
Annja glanced up to see who’d given the command.
Diane Stone stood in the doorway.
23
“What’s going on here?” Stone demanded, her hands on her hips and a hard look in her eye.
With the biggest threat to their operation—Novack—now taken care of, Radecki no longer felt as vulnerable and decided it was time to show more steel around his associate.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” he replied. “Just teaching our guest to show some respect.”
A month ago he never would have responded in such a fashion, but Stone didn’t show a hint of surprise. Her face remained impassive, but Radecki thought he saw her nostrils flare.
Get used to it, he thought. He was done lying down and letting her walk all over him. She didn’t scare him anymore.
“I’ll be the judge of what should or shouldn’t concern me,” Stone told him, but she left it at that and turned her attention to their prisoner.
“We meet again, Ms. Creed. How unfortunate for you.”
That, at least, was a sentiment he could agree with. Creed had been nothing but a pain in the neck since she’d stuck her nose into this whole mess, and he was more than pleased to finally be able to remedy the issue.
Creed didn’t say anything, but her eyes watched them like a hawk. Radecki would bet that even now she was trying to plan her escape. She was in for a rude surprise either way; like those women five hundred years before, no one with any hint of beauty ever left this place alive. Not while the “Blood Countess” was in charge.
“What’s the matter?” Stone asked the prisoner as she took a closer look at her. The guards Radecki had brought with him stepped back, away from Stone, as if afraid of the woman. Truth be told, Radecki really didn’t blame them.
“Cat got your tongue?”
Creed stared at Stone with a disdainful look on her face. Radecki had to give her credit; she had some stones, that was for sure.
“Where am I and what am I doing here?” Creed asked.
The woman’s words were forceful, but she was still twisting about in the air, her feet a few inches above the floor.
Stone must have found it amusing as well, for she laughed in response. “Really, Annja—may I call you Annja?—you aren’t in any position to be demanding anything.”
Radecki watched as Stone stepped forward and grabbed Annja’s chin in her bare hand. The prisoner tried to twist free, but Radecki knew from personal experience that Stone was much stronger than she looked, thanks to the treatment.
If he had his way, he’d just take her out back and put a bullet through her brain, but apparently Stone had seen something that had captured her interest. As Radecki looked on, Stone turned Creed’s face back and forth, examining her closely. Radecki had seen Stone behave this way before and wasn’t surprised when she asked, “Has she been tested for the marker?”
He shook his head, then answered aloud when he realized Stone hadn’t even bothered to glance in his direction. “Not yet. I was busy dealing with our other recent acquisition.”
Stone turned. “Any trouble?”
“No.”
The drugs Petrova had cooked up to simulate a heart attack had worked beautifully. Once the “body” had been moved down to the morgue, it had been a simple matter for Petrova to fake an autopsy, fill out the required paperwork and order the remains to be taken to the crematorium for disposal, as there was no known next of kin. No one but Radecki, who had been driving the disposal unit, would ever know that the individual would never reach the crematorium, never mind that the deceased was actually very far from being dead.
Why waste raw materials like that when you didn’t need to? he thought to himself.
Stone must have been thinking along similar lines, for she asked, “When will the harvesting procedure begin?”
“Probably already has,” Radecki replied. “I turned her over to the techs about fifteen minutes before coming down here. It doesn’t take very long to do the prep work, so they should have her hooked up to the extractor by now.”
“Good. We need to ramp up our output. Demand for the product is increasing exponentially.”
Radecki shook his head. “I keep telling you, we can’t sustain such an increase. The raw materials simply aren’t there. We need to raise the price. Fewer customers at a higher rate of return will make this far more sustainable.”
Stone glared at him. “Let me worry about the raw materials. You just do your part and keep the police off our backs. I want her tested and the results on my desk by morning, is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Radecki answered sourly as he watched Stone walk away without a backward glance.
One of these days...
He turned his attention back to their prisoner, spinning her around so he could see her face. “Be a good girl and don’t give the nurse any trouble, huh, Creed? I’d hate to have to come back here and teach you a lesson about discipline.” He paused, pretending to think it over.
“Actually, go ahead and misbehave,” he said, patting her condescendingly on the cheek. “Teaching you a lesson is exactly the kind of thing I’d be happy to do right now.”
To his chagrin, Creed chose not to fight.
“Maybe some other time, then,” he said cheerfully. He was about to order his men to take her down, but then thought better of it. The nurse would probably have an easier time of it if Creed was exhausted from hanging there a while. He’d send his men back for her later.
“Let’s go,” he told the other two. “We’ve got work to do.”
They left the cell, making certain to lock it securely behind them, and then headed for the elevator, taking it one floor above. Radecki’s two companions turned left while he went right, heading for the large conference room that served as the nurses’ duty room.
Most of the crew was still on shift down in the medical facility, but he found two of the senior staff sitting around enjoying their cups of coffee. He grabbed the closest, a plain-faced woman in her midfifties. He vaguely remembered vetting her for the project nearly two years before and he knew she could be relied on to do the job properly. A glance at her name tag reminded him of her identity—Phillips.
“Got a job for you,” he told her as she turned to greet him. “There’s a new test subject down in the containment area. Stone wants a full panel done right away. Bring the samples to my office once you’re done so I can get the results to her as quickly as possible, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He waited for her to gat
her a specimen kit, and then headed for his office on the next floor above while she went to deal with the prisoner.
* * *
ONCE THEY LEFT her alone in the cell, Annja got right to work. She didn’t know how much time she had before the nurse would show up to take the sample. She had to be free before her company arrived or she’d miss her best opportunity to get out of here.
She’d been hanging from her arms for more than five minutes and had lost a good deal of sensation. Her escape plan depended on her hands and arms, however, so she hoped she had enough left in the tank to manage.
The hook at the end of the cable supporting her had been slipped through the bonds that tied her wrists together, now leaving her hands free. Reaching up, she grabbed the point where the steel cable met the top of the hook. Her hands felt like slabs of meat from the reduced circulation, but she forced them to do her bidding, knowing that all she had to do was hold on for a minute or two and then it would be all over.
Once she was satisfied that she had a decent grip on the top of the hook, she used what strength she had left in her arms to pull downward while at the same time swinging her legs in a jackknife position up over her hands. She wrapped one foot over the other, pinning the cable between ankle and shin and taking her weight momentarily off her hands.
Her stomach and back muscles shook with the effort to hold herself there, but she knew they would hold for a moment, and a moment was all she needed.
The second the downward drag on her wrists eased, she jerked them upward, lifting the ropes that bound her free of the hook.
Hands now free, her body knifed back downward, and she let herself go with the momentum, somersaulting as she fell so she hit the floor feetfirst.
She’d imagined executing a perfect two-point landing, like a gymnast coming off the jump at the end of the uneven bars. In reality, her feet hit the damp floor and shot out from beneath her, sending her sprawling on her side against the cold tile with a dull smack.
Luckily she didn’t hit her head.
She lay there for a few seconds, willing the pain away and waiting for some feeling to return to her hands. When it did, she pulled her sword from the otherwhere and used it to cut herself free.
