“Sure,” Sebastian said, handing one over.
The Cavern proved easy to spot. The exterior of the windowless, one-story building was painted black. The throb of industrial metal pulsed through closed doors. Pale, skinny boys with lots of tattoos and leather pants hung around the entrance, trying to look menacing. Their withering glances might have worked on me if I hadn’t been holding hands with a thousand-year-old bloodsucker and amazing beta-male punching guy.
I ignored the not-so-scary boys and pushed open the door. Before my voice was lost in the relentless pound of the music, I said, “We’ll collect the grimoire from Parrish, and then we can all go home and go to bed.”
“Sounds good,” I heard William say.
At the door, a grim-faced, bald bouncer collected a five-dollar-apiece cover charge and then waved us into the dark, smoke-filled interior.
The Cavern was misnamed. The place bore more resemblance to an amphitheater.
On the level we entered there was a coat check and the long, dark wood bar you might find in any tavern in Wisconsin. Neon beer advertisements reflected off a rear mirror and rows of bottles of hard liquor. That was where the similarity to a typical club ended.
A sunken stage occupied the center of the room. On progressively lower tiers, tables and chairs had been arranged. At the very bottom, just above stage level, stadium-style seating began.
The place was packed. I couldn’t see a single seat unoccupied. Apparently, we were relegated to the standing-room-only section. People crowded around a metal railing, watching the show. I poked my head around a friendly looking shoulder to see what all the fuss was about.
I’d thought finding Parrish in the crowd would be difficult. I should have known he’d find a way to be center stage. Really, he was such a Leo.
I heard a sharp intake of breath as Sebastian came up beside me. “Dear God.”
“That’s for real,” William added. “Isn’t it?”
It was.
In the middle of a red-tinted spotlight, Parrish stood. His teeth sank deeply into the exposed throat of a bound, gagged, and very fetishized victim. That is to say, there was lots of leather, buckles, harnesses, piercings, and other S&M/B&D gear.
Two steel poles had been sunk into the stage floor. The woman was stretched tautly between them, secured by chains and handcuffs that rattled every time she flinched.
She wasn’t exactly naked, but she might as well have been. The corset she wore pushed her already ample breasts into a jiggling mound of flesh. There was a cutaway that would have exposed areolae, but, apparently in deference to decency laws, a nipple shield with corresponding painful-looking clamps covered the naughty bits.
At least at the top.
The thong exposed an amazing lack of hair between her legs. I’m sure I was supposed to be titillated by the sight, but all I could think was: Wow, she must have paid a fortune for electrolysis. I was also sure the people in the seats behind her must have had a great view of her mostly naked buttocks.
Then there were the thigh-high boots. Even though the heels on them looked like they could have been registered as torture devices, I was actually jealous—they looked cool.
Yet, in my opinion, Parrish was even sexier. He had on his form-hugging leather pants, but he was bare chested. Always an excellent fashion choice for him. The stage lights cast deep shadows that only highlighted the angles and muscles of his body.
As we watched, Parrish moved around his victim’s body, slowly puncturing exposed flesh with sharp canines. Tiny droplets of blood ran from each carefully placed wound. The woman shivered and pushed against the restraints at every bite.
Even so, I’d say she was enjoying it. So was the crowd.
I have to admit I must have gotten into it myself, because I never noticed Sebastian leaving my side. Like the rest of the room, I watched in surprise as Sebastian leapt over the stadium seats to land behind Parrish. Grabbing a fistful of hair, Sebastian forcibly pulled Parrish from his victim.
Then he slapped him.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, probably something more on the lines of a William-style roundhouse. Instead, Sebastian tapped Parrish with a courtly, gentlemanly, I-challenge-you-to-a-duel, girly-man smack on the cheek.
The two men exchanged words. I strained to hear them over the booming bass and the angry shouts of the spectators. The woman strapped in a compromising position on the stage struggled furiously against her bonds, but she was completely forgotten when Parrish returned Sebastian’s slap with a punch in the gut.
“What the hell are they doing?” William asked.
Beating the crap out of each other as far as I could tell. Because, just then, Sebastian came back with an uppercut that popped Parrish’s head backward with a snap.
“We have to break them up,” I said.
“Yeah, but how?”
It was times like these that I wished magic were more sensational. If I could call down a fireball or whip up some kind of cosmic light show, I could distract the crowd long enough to get down there and haul them both out. I closed my eyes and tried to think. Taking in a few slow, deep breaths, I centered myself. I thought maybe, if I cleared my mind, something would occur to me.
In the pocket of my jeans, I felt the Mercury dime heating up.
A gun poked me in the small of my back. “Your time is up, little Witch.” It was Rosa.
Tenth House
KEYWORDS:
Bad Luck, Orthodoxy, Ambition
The muzzle of the gun poked me like a sharp stone in the rib cage. Rosa placed a firm hand on my shoulder, and her lips brushed my earlobes as she said, “Nice and easy. We’re going to slip outside.”
I shuffled in the direction she suggested, propelled by her iron grip. William, who had been engrossed in the action onstage, looked at me askance. His face twisted into a frown when he recognized Rosa.
“Don’t even think about it,” Rosa mouthed over the noise of the bar.
William took a hesitating step forward. I shook my head. He’d gotten far too involved in all of this mess anyway. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I lost another friend to Vatican assassins. William backed away, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him reach for his cell phone as he headed for the rear exit.
With everyone’s attention on the fight between Sebastian and Parrish, Rosa easily maneuvered us through the crowd toward the exit. My mind raced as I tried to think of what I could do. I couldn’t risk kicking her or trying to twist out of her grasp; the gun was far too close. Lilith wasn’t an option with all these people around, unless I wanted to kill them all. I kept hoping to catch someone’s attention, but with the way Rosa held me, the threat wasn’t obvious. To anyone looking, we probably seemed like lovers. It wouldn’t have mattered. Rosa could have been carrying an antiaircraft missile while wearing a flying nun outfit for all that anyone cared. Everyone was focused on the vampire smack-down. Even the bouncer had abandoned his post.
Which was my first break. The front door area was jammed with people intent on a closer look. Rosa and I were fighting against the tide, which meant our progress slowed dramatically—at least until Rosa got the clever idea of moving us along the wall.
Which was my big break. Beyond the coat check, illuminated faintly in the darkness, was a fire alarm. The letters Pull Handle in Case of Emergency were printed in glow-in-the-dark yellow paint on the hand-sized switch. I decided my imminent demise definitely qualified. With Rosa concentrating on getting us to the door, I grabbed the bar and pulled with all my might.
When the Klaxon blared, I felt the pressure against my back lighten slightly. It was enough.
I twisted to one side but moved in tighter. My intention was to crowd in past the business end of the gun. Since I saw mostly elbow and the startled expression in Rosa’s eyes, I figure I’d done it. I stomped on the bridge of her foot as hard as I could, hoping to shatter bone. Her scream of pain was lost in all the chaos. Just then, the bodies we’d been fighting against
surged back toward the exit. I crouched and pressed myself flat against the wall. I watched as the fleeing crowd swallowed Rosa whole.
I wedged myself into a pocket between the desk surrounding the coat check and the wall. Even though I curled myself into as small a ball as possible, I still managed to receive my share of kicks and shoves. Someone had turned off the music and was using the loud speakers to advise everyone to make an orderly exit. The voice also reminded us to stay calm and to remember that the closest exit might be behind us. I pulled myself up and looked around as best I could. There did seem to be an alternate exit on the opposite side of the bar. The question was, could I get there?
I didn’t want to have gone to all the trouble to lose Rosa, only to end up on the same sidewalk after the evacuation. More importantly, Parrish had probably stashed his motorcycle—and thus the grimoire—in the alley. It would also be the most likely place for a rendezvous with either Parrish, Sebastian, or both.
After weighing my various options, I decided the safest and most direct route was to crawl over the top of the bar. I felt a little foolish clambering up onto it from a stool, but no one was watching me. I slipped and stumbled over various hastily abandoned drinks. Yet, somehow, I made it to the other side of the room without being molested. When I slid off the bar, I easily followed the flow of people streaming out the back.
Most people clustered just outside the doorway under the awning. A halogen security lamp brightly illuminated a narrow, cobblestone alleyway clogged with Goths and cigarette smoke. Everyone seemed to be on a cell phone or chattering anxiously with one another. Some had managed to smuggle out their drinks and were making a party of it all.
The alley ran perpendicular to State Street. I could see the neon lights of the shops and bars down one end. The majority of the crowd congregated in that direction. Still, I didn’t feel safe from the Vatican agent yet. She could be lurking anywhere.
I headed in the opposite direction. A small parking lot occupied the space between the club and another establishment. Twenty or so vehicles vied for room along with a number of Dumpsters, recycling bins, and a stack of wooden pallets. About half of them were motorcycles, and most of the motorcycles were Harleys. I made my way over to them, hoping I’d recognize Parrish’s saddlebags despite the darkness and all the people milling around.
The first bike I approached clearly belonged to someone named Butch, as the vanity plate spelled out. Butch, a heavily muscular woman wearing a leather vest and sporting tattoos that might have either been dragonflies or faeries, didn’t appreciate my scrutiny of her saddlebags. I apologized profusely and scurried off toward the next likely candidate.
And ran right into Sebastian.
At first, I almost walked past him, since his back was to me as he rooted through the bags. Then I recognized the trench coat. And the fangs.
“Garnet,” he said. He sounded relieved to see me. An ugly slash decorated one of his cheeks, but otherwise he looked undamaged. “The grimoire is here,” he said, showing me the tip of the leather-bound book before returning it to its hiding place. He swung his legs over the bike and started it up. “Let’s go.”
I almost said no. I didn’t want to leave without knowing Parrish was all right, but Sebastian interrupted my thoughts.
“We don’t have much time,” Sebastian said. “The Hunger is consuming me. I need to perform the spell as soon as possible.”
“But it’s flawed.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He shook his head. “We have to try. I don’t know that I can survive much longer.”
Just then I spotted Rosa—who was difficult to miss with her bandaged nose and two black eyes—making her way down the alley toward us. That decided things for me. I clambered onto the back. I held on tightly as Sebastian reversed the bike out of its parking space and roared down the alley away from State Street and out into the night.
* * * *
While we idled at a stoplight, I got up the nerve to ask, “Where’s Parrish? I mean, you have his keys.”
Okay. So, I didn’t say I was quite up to asking the tough question, the one that went more like, “So, did you kill him, or what?”
I couldn’t imagine him handing over the keys to his beloved bike while he still had any say in the matter. At the same time, however, I didn’t see Parrish so easily defeated that Sebastian would only have a scratch on the cheek to show for it. Still, Sebastian was almost five times older than Parrish.
When Sebastian didn’t answer, I tried a different approach. “Why did you bitch-slap him, anyway? What was that about?”
Against my cheek, I felt his chest rise and fall in a deep sigh. “I don’t like performance art.”
The light changed, and the speed of the wind rushing past swallowed any chance of further conversation.
What did that mean? Was Sebastian offended because Parrish violated some kind of vampiric code of secrecy by doing his business onstage in front of everyone? That seemed somewhat unlikely, since Sebastian hardly ran in the same circles as most vampires. It wasn’t like he was the local chair of the Secret-Keeper’s Vampire Club.
He’d said “performance art,” so something about the public nature of Parrish’s show must have rankled him. But what? Could it be some kind of chivalry thing? Maybe he didn’t approve of the situation the victim found herself in?
He must have known she was willing, though. That she was into it seemed pretty obvious to me.
When we sailed through the next set of lights, I found myself disappointed.
I hoped Parrish was all right.
I squeezed my arms tighter around Sebastian’s slender waist.
When we next stopped, Sebastian surprised me by speaking first. “Listen, I was jealous,” he said. “It was far too easy to imagine him doing those despicable things to you.”
Oh, right. The whole ex- versus current-lover thing. I should have thought of that right away.
Parrish was so dead.
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
“If I told you I made him regret ever touching you, would that make me sound sexy or scary?”
“Both?” Especially since that made it sound as though I had a chance of seeing Parrish walking around again someday.
I felt Sebastian’s shoulders relax somewhat.
With bar-close still a couple of hours away, the night pulsed with activity. Cars flashed by, carrying with them the throb of bass turned up to window-rattling levels. Though cooler, the air still held a touch of the day’s warmth.
Cottonwood seeds floated in the headlights like snow. We approached the lakes. They smelled faintly fishy, but couples strolled around the shore boardwalks. Overhead, bats flashed dark wings as they snatched insects from the sky.
“Where are we going?” I asked at the next stop.
“Do you know anyone at Circle Sanctuary?” Sebastian asked.
Circle Sanctuary was a covenstead in a small town outside of Madison. They owned acres of land, all of which they had dedicated to the Craft. “No,” I said, although strictly speaking that was a lie. I was passingly familiar with their newsletter editor, since the store bought an advertisement every month. “Why?”
“Because I was hoping for an alternate place to perform the ritual,” he said. “I imagine my house is crawling with Vatican agents by now.”
“So why go back?”
“The elixir, the main ingredient of the spell, is there.”
I gave Sebastian’s waist a squeeze. “You’ll die without it, Sebastian. We have to go back.”
“I’d hoped to be a bit stronger before having to fight them,” Sebastian said as the light changed.
“I’m strong enough for both of us,” I replied, but the roar of the engine drowned out my words.
I was thinking of Lilith, of course, not me. I didn’t feel particularly strong. I ached. Lilith’s earlier tantrum had left my muscles battered and bruised.
The road widened. Buildings got farther apart, and green spaces grew wider and wild
er. The smells shifted from exhaust to clover. City lights dimmed, and the stars above seemed brighter.
I squeezed Sebastian’s waist, willing him to read my mind. We could just keep going, I thought, not deal with any of this and just run away.
Except that come morning, Sebastian would be a crispy critter.
What else could we do? I’d come to realize that I was culpable in the deaths of the agents in Minneapolis. Lilith might have done the dirty work, but I was the one who asked her to do it. I couldn’t ignore that truth anymore, and I refused to be responsible for any more deaths. If we went in to Sebastian’s with the intention of killing, we were the murderers, not the Order. I couldn’t live with myself; it would be better to be dead.
It would, actually. It would be much better to be dead. If the Vatican thought we were dead, it would be case closed. The file that carried my name would be stamped Fini or whatever the Latin was for “Done.” No one would ever come looking for me again.
The same would be true for Sebastian, although he had a head start in the being-dead department.
Being dead was sounding better and better.
Except for the whole ceasing to exist part, that was.
But the thought had some merit. How could we convince the Vatican agents we were dead? Staging our deaths seemed risky, especially since the Order was actively attempting to help us achieve that goal. I could just see us playing dead in the middle of the living room, and the Vatican deciding to be thorough and putting a bullet in my head while cutting off Sebastian’s.
What if we could implant the image of a successful raid in their minds? That seemed much more possible. Sebastian, being a vampire, had access to the whole “glamour” thing, although I had no idea if it could work on that kind of scale. Maybe if I could boost his magic with my own, somehow?
The feeling of the motorcycle slowing derailed my train of thought. Sebastian pulled the bike into a tangle of weeds that served as the shoulder. “We need a game plan,” he said, cutting the engine.
Tall, Dark & Dead Page 25
