They had me kneel on a pillow near the entrance but facing across the room – with the screen to the left and seating to the right. The chains had been unslung and lowered from the ceiling. On a draped table, instruments were laid out as if at some medieval museum of torture – whips, spiked paddles, ropes, sticks, things that glinted with sharpness.
When they led Grimm into the room through the double doors, I was busy suppressing another shiver. His staggering walk made me examine the goggles on his face. They were blackened and so he was blind. With his arms bound at his back, the man would be helpless.
This was my knight? Neither of us was fit for battle.
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling as he lowered himself beside me, kneeling when they pressed him down.
There were nails sticking from the goggles. Freaking nails. I couldn’t stop staring at them.
“That you, Zorie?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
What use was a hairpin in circumstances like this? Five guards with pistols and what looked like assault rifles, plus Peta, and Einar and Kaage in perfectly pressed dark pants and shirts, with their perfectly-tuned, mesmer minds. I felt the sweep of their powers when they deigned to turn to me.
One of the guards, equipped with a compact headset, spoke into his mic before addressing Einar.
“He’s here, sir. All’s good. No weapons. No followers. Just one female assistant. We have the lookouts on the roof also.”
Kaage answered. “Allow him in.”
“This won’t turn out well,” I muttered, from the corner of my mouth.
“Don’t give up,” replied the tied-up man with the nails pointed at his eyes. Poor Grimm. Who was the rescuer now?
Sad yet amused, I grimaced. “I won’t.”
Lies, all lies. Hope had all but gone from my vocabulary.
I was being sold to a man, and I had no idea what might happen, except that I wouldn’t like it, whereas Einar and Kaage, and their client, would.
The screen came on as Einar strolled to us, cane in hand, with that enigmatic curl to his lips that told me he found this amusing but wanted to watch our reactions. The man always watched – the sadistic voyeur.
I didn’t have to look at the screen, but I did. Better the devil you know.
No sound. The film was taken in a dark room, though I soon recognized it. This was the room I’d seen in the macabre film with the pale, dangling woman. The urge to swallow took me and though I tried to stop myself, I couldn’t. I gulped. Still, nothing appeared. Was it on pause?
“You know, Zorina.” He wasn’t bothering to look at me; instead Einar seemed to be pretending the screen had caught his attention. “When you and Grimm came to us, we only hoped to clear up that mess with Reuben. Who killed him and why? If it’d been you, we’d have killed you also, fast. We can’t have a collectable loose who might be able to hurt us. You might have bred and made more of you.”
Now he smiled at me and he kept looking, with his head angled to the side.
“But...we found out it was your Mister Grimm who did the killing. That was good. And we thought we could make use of him, but unfortunately we can’t. We thought we could use you as his reward, but no, we can’t. Then a client asked for you. When we said training would take time...he changed his requirements.”
Finally Einar shifted his feet and faced me fully. He tucked his cane tip under my chin and nudged until I raised my head. Not a forced command but I knew better than to resist.
“And so, we have this to show you while you wait.” He pointed the cane at the screen. “Enjoy, because when the client arrives, you’ll be otherwise occupied.”
The film flickered into motion. Blurred black and white and then...then...
At the first swing of legs and the sway of upside-down body into view, I tried to rise. There came a moment of vertigo and I found the mesmers, these fucking collectors, had taken me over and were making me stay.
This was not the same woman as before.
Fear skittered in icy pieces, shattering my composure.
My life and sanity clung to me by threads because I knew...I think I knew, from that infinitesimal glimpse of pale skin and dark hair, what was to come.
Or perhaps it was the fleck of purple light, swinging with her body.
I watched. I dreaded. They had it set on slow motion. I ceased to breathe or to think. If my heart beat, it did so contrary to my needs.
I would rather my existence come to an end, than watch.
If this was her, she was gone. Please, no. I shut my eyes, until he made them open.
“This,” Einar whispered to my ear, for he’d come to me while I was numb and frozen by the events on the screen. “Will soon be you, only a more exquisitely fine performance. Think of it as penance for releasing your friend. We don’t know how you did it, but I feel sure that will soon be irrelevant.”
I saw her shudders and the writhe of her torso, as if she knew to escape what came. I saw how the Einar on the screen taunted her and played with her before he stepped away.
This, I thought, was the direst life could be, but I was wrong for, a second later, he came into view – Grimm.
The wolf tattoo on his arm was all I saw to truly identify him. The camera never lifted to his face, but I knew the man up there was the man kneeling beside me.
The knife was placed in his hand and he went to her. He swung his hand and he cut her throat. As easy as that. Blood, there was so much blood – all over Grimm, her murderer, on the floor, pouring over her face as the camera panned around them, focusing down on his knife-carrying hand and her weak gasps for air through a throat that was severed.
No. I found myself saying in my head, as I wasn’t to speak. Fuck no. No. No. A simple word, and I was right, a word had no power. And then, she died.
I wanted to scream, to batter Grimm, to destroy them all for taking the life of my friend in such a despicable and callous and useless way, and I could do nothing except kneel there and curse softly while my mind roared.
“Now, you know...” Einar added, unfolding to his full height. “What is to come.”
They had the film on repeat. I had to sit there and watch, and bits of me curled up and shriveled to nothing with each new view of her death.
Oh Cherie. I’m sorry, girl. I’ll make them pay, if I can. But I couldn’t.
And all the while, her murderer sat beside me. He began to talk. I guess he thought he should cheer me up.
He’d murdered her. He’d fucking killed her using that knife. He should’ve died first before doing that.
I didn’t want to hide under that bed anymore. I wanted to kill these men. Rage began to boil up from the charred remains of my morality, of my soul, from the tainted shreds of my forgiveness for the bad things people did, from the love I guess I’d once had for Grimm.
Had they made him do it? Did it matter? Mesmers had done this. Grimm was one.
How could he!
Rage. Fucking rage. It boiled away in me, until the destruction was complete.
Left of me was nothing bar incandescent fury.
Fuck.
You.
All.
Give. Me. My. Chance.
I would kill them. Kill. Fuck, fuck, fucking kill. How impossible that was, I didn’t care. My teeth ground on each other. My bound wrists seemed to swell against the ropes as I twisted them back and forth, back and forth, wearing away skin in my impatience. Einar sent me a probing look.
Grimm spoke on, saying nice wonderful things.
The bastard.
He had a diary he’d done for me, still in his room. He’d drawn things, pretty drawings. In case things went wrong, blah, blah, he thought this and that. I could tell he thought we were both about to die.
He wanted to help me? To keep me calm? To raise my hopes? Too late. Way too late for that.
Man, you fucking killed my friend.
If he could see the blood I was seeing...pouring down her face again.
I wep
t silently, wishing I could spew up all the nastiness.
Rinse, repeat, gore. Stark red blood. Her wriggling in the ropes with her throat gaping. Repeat.
And I couldn’t stop watching.
I couldn’t speak in return, so I frothed and roared in my head, chasing down the shreds of sanity and stomping on them, raging, round and round, flailing, screaming. My eyes were hot with anger.
I would scorch them where they stood. Just free me!
Einar and Kaage looked past my shoulder. The guards looked more alert and someone, it must be the client, walked into the room behind me. He kept walking in a solid, confident way, moving past me a few yards to my right, and I saw him.
The client was Mavros. The man they’d sold me to, the man who planned to watch me die while being tortured, it was Mavros.
Was this salvation?
Whether this was some plan to rescue me or not, I found didn’t care. He’d known where I was, that I was with them. If he’d hastened this by one day, if he’d not been a mesmer in the first place, if none of these assholes had never, ever, ever taken an interest in me, Cherie would still be alive.
Mavros passed me by, said nothing, barely sent a glance in my direction, and continued on to the chairs. They directed him to sit, and he did so elegantly, with some lithe woman by his side.
I sacrificed a second to look at her. My eyes widened. She was a collectable and some sort of military operative. Mavros had brought a specialized pet.
Clever fucking man.
“We thought you might like to watch an earlier occasion,” Einar said to Mavros, before he nodded at the screen.
After everyone politely stepped back so he could view the screen without obstruction, Mavros rested his chin on his hand and leaned into the chair. His assistant yawned.
My heart stuttered and my head felt ready to blow. My anger escalated, scratching to get out.
The film kicked into motion and everyone watched her die, yet again.
And again. It was a short clip.
“Impressive,” Mavros murmured.
“Thank you.” At that, Kaage began to stroll toward me.
I was next.
Give me strength. My simmering rage exploded and I saw her move – Peta, as if she’d noticed my turmoil. She looked to me, wide-eyed. I felt a sundering...a crack in what was possible.
I stuck out my tongue, I wiggled it, and then, I realized I’d found the key – the piece of the puzzle I’d been missing.
*****
Grimm
Unstrapped and brought from my room with the goggles on, I had to negotiate my way up the stairs with those nails still a threat. I’d grown used to them, so I ignored them and made sure my feet went where they should.
To either side, a man held my arms and steadied me. Only once did I trip and go to one knee. They laughed and prodded me. I ignored them too. I never wasted energy, except when it came to women.
I knew where we went from the echoes and the direction we’d taken, after we’d reached the top of the stairs. When they made me kneel, I could tell Zorie was next to me from her scent and the uniqueness of her mind.
I’d never known her thoughts, but her emotions had often come to me. She was frightened, sad, and angry but mostly just scared, so I began to talk. If we were to die, the one last thing I could do was perhaps to ease some of her pain.
I tucked away my own fears though I’d never been as vulnerable as this. A simple slap against the goggles would render me blind, with nails embedded in my eyes. It would be excruciating.
Maybe I talked to soothe myself as much as her.
I told her about the book in my room and where I kept it, beneath the bed. I whispered about all the sketches I’d done, of how her beauty, intelligence...and her willingness to sacrifice herself for her friend had inspired me. That last made me shudder, but I kept on. It was true.
I told her that if ever she were free again, even if I were dead, to find that book and keep it. There was love in this world despite all the misery. There always would be.
I said all this quietly, in the hope no one else would hear, though Einar had been close. I’d heard him whisper. I was past caring about being found out or mocked.
Then, though I’d been aware that anger was overtaking her sadness, the sudden torrential storm of rage rolling from her rendered me silent.
What had happened?
I rocked back and tried to get my feet under me, ready to lunge upward.
Then the shooting began. And the screams. The shattering of glass and the crash as it cascaded to the timber floor. I heard the fall of bodies and the multiple cough of a silenced firearm.
Someone, a woman from the lightness of her footfalls, ran to us and I heard her fumble. I could vaguely detect her collectable nature.
“Do it,” Zorie said. “Good girl. That’s it.”
These fucking nails. I needed to be loose. Maybe I could scrape the goggles off?
The shooting continued, but sparse, then a burst of semi-automatic fire from high above, and more.
Chapter 31
Zorie
The rage had burned away their control. I’d been bursting with anger, my head filled to a level that made me want to tear at something, then pop, gone. The rage remained, and their control – I could tell it was there but not affecting me.
Whereas I, I swung my attention to Peta, I had alternatives.
When it happened, the violence seemed almost synchronized with my epiphany.
Glass burst over us, and I looked up, squinting at the fall of shards from the little stained-glass windows high above. Where the glass had originated from, a shadow blocked the starlight. It made me think there was a person up there.
Then I looked down and saw the wonders the sniper had wrought. Talk about raining destruction. A single guard, hiding behind a chair, fired his rifle upward. A series of coughs sounded and he dropped, spinning, shot and spewing blood on the chair’s upholstery.
The rest? I smiled even as I commanded Peta to come over and untie me – the rest were down. Kaage, Einar, all five guards now.
A loud burst of fire, that definitely wasn’t silenced, thudded into the timber of the walls and blew out several more windows above and to my right, showering Mavros with fragments. His assistant crouched then surveyed the room. Mavros was down too, clutching his throat. Blood pumped between his fingers.
I hesitated but the heat of my rage prompted me, reminded me. He’s a mesmer. One of them. They need to be exterminated.
“Do it,” I told her.
The scratch of rope across my wrist heralded the last knot being ripped loose and untied. Peta’s fingers were swift.
“Good girl. That’s it,” I grated out, not looking at her, because people were stirring. Not all were dead.
As I rose, Einar did also, with a pistol booming in his hand. Blood stained his side. Where did he aim? Mavros’s assistant had slid under a chair and was straining for the gun dropped by the last surviving guard when Einar’s third shot hit her and knocked her backward, a trail of blood looping from her head and spattering the floor.
Glassy-eyed and mean-mouthed, with fear evident in his crazied response, Einar expended the rest of the clip on the windows above. He walked backward as he fired, seeking out whoever had shot everyone else. I figured the last automatic gunfire above had taken them out. He sprinted past me toward the doors and I felt the lingering brush of a command to follow him. I refused the call, so did my Peta. Because now, I had her. Mine, not his.
She brought me a pistol and I checked it. Loaded, safety off. Fifteen rounds. The weight made me smile. Power. I had some at last. The scratchy pains in my back reminded me of what I must do, as did the film rewinding and restarting, showing Cherie dying. They’d shown it at least twenty times.
Einar was headed for the stairs. I knew it from the sounds he made, from the blood trail when I followed it to the doorway, and from traces of his thoughts. A sound made me turn, slowly.
Grimm
... He stood, rising high, so much bigger and taller than me, but he was restrained and blind. I didn’t have time for this. This asshole had...
He had excuses, I knew that. I was sure. And they did not count. Fuck excuses.
But I needed to see his eyes and I waited while Peta unbuckled and slipped up the goggles. He blinked tiredly at me, before surveying the chaos – the dead and the wounded, and the moaning Mavros.
Grimm was another mesmer. Even one was too many.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Who’s missing?” Grimm licked his lips and checked out the blood trail going past me. “Einar?”
I nodded. “Yes. Einar. The man who...” I swallowed, overcome by grief. “Who helped you kill Cherie.” I waved the gun in my hand. “Remember her?”
“Oh.” He straightened even more, looked down then raised his gaze to mine again...a frown forming on his brow. “I never meant...” Then he paused as if gathering courage, thoughts, donations for the blind. Who knew?
I thought I saw tears glinting there, in his eyes. In the depths of those poetic lover-boy, mesmer, betraying eyes.
He met mine, just in time to see me pull the trigger. I shot him in the chest and watched him fall. Then, I hesitated. I walked to him and nudged his groaning body with my foot so he rolled onto his side. I ignored his gasps.
Nine millimeter pistol. Right side of the chest. Small exit wound. The bullet must’ve barely tumbled. You could survive a chest wound, with care and a lot of luck. I gulped, felt the hurt in my eyes, the burn then I redirected my aim and shot Kaage where he lay, five times, also in the chest. My aim was true. I’d had good teachers. Done. I turned and headed out after Einar.
Grimm might live. He might not. I’d so wanted him to die when I’d pulled the trigger, then a second later I’d regretted it.
“Damn.” I swiped my hand across my eyes and kept moving.
I knew where Einar was going and I had Peta. All the advantages were mine, for once. I even had more ammo, when Peta caught up with me and handed me the clip she’d found.
“Thank you,” I said to her as we both clattered down the stairs, stepping over Einar’s blood. “I need you, you know, with me. If I let you go, properly, you’ll be a weeping mess.”
Wicked Weapon (Dark Hearts Book 2) Page 19
