by Bonnie Dee
I headed to Amy’s place, while dialing Angela’s number. She didn’t answer. I didn’t know whether Angela or Amy was more at risk of being kidnapped or if either of them were. I tried Amy again, once more getting her voice mail and was ready to throw my useless phone out the car window.
The windows of her ground floor apartment were dark. I rang the doorbell for futile minutes without response. A mounting sense of dread overrode any reservations I might have had about breaking in. I hit the door with my shoulder, splintering the jamb, and crashed into the foyer.
“Amy?”
No answer.
I ran through the living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath, searching, sniffing, smelling Amy everywhere. Her scent drenched everything in the apartment, but she wasn’t there.
She could’ve been on a date for all I knew. She could’ve been anywhere. But deep inside I knew something was wrong. All afternoon and evening an undercurrent of unease had percolated through my system. I’d tried to ignore it, attributing my escalating anxiety to talking with Missy Hardewar’s mother, Brian Addington’s disappearance, Racette’s murder and fear for my mom’s safety. Now I knew there was something else going on. The gut feeling of danger, which had been increasing for hours now, urged me to shift to my animal form.
Amy was in trouble. I knew it in every tiny hair standing up like a vibrating antenna on my body. I could sense her danger and smell her fear. She needed me--now! And I’d been driving all over New Orleans talking to people and ignoring the inner voice warning me of trouble. Now Amy’s silent cry for help saturated my very corpuscles. A growl of anger reverberated in my chest. How could I get to her and protect her when I didn’t know where to go?
Then suddenly I knew exactly what to do. It was elemental. I had to stop trying to work the problem with my brain and let my primal nature guide me. My mother had been right. There was an amazing power leashed within me. Now was the time to let it loose. The unleashed wolf would lead me straight to Amy. Hadn’t I marked her as mine?
I took off my clothes and stood naked and shivering in Amy’s living room. Closing my eyes, I relaxed my control. The beast was just below the surface waiting to surge forth. My body trembled and I felt the familiar ache in my muscles as the change took hold.
It hurt, like being burned from the inside out, like being pulled and twisted on a rack, like having blood laced with Draino blazing through my veins. Transforming hurt like a bitch, but also filled me with a kind of orgasmic ecstasy as I surrendered the reins of my consciousness. I threw back my head and screamed. The scream turned into a howl.
I dropped to the floor landing on four legs instead of two. I shook my head to clear it of the constraints of Rick, and sniffed the air. It was as if I’d been wrapped in cotton before and now everything was sharp and clear. I could smell the subtlest scent, see into the deepest shadows and hear tiny sounds from miles away.
And I could sense Amy as clearly as if she was in the next room. She and I had a connection of the blood. Whether Rick would admit it or not, Amy was mine ... ours. She was my chosen mate. I loped out of the house to follow the invisible trail that would lead me to her.
Chapter Ten
Amy
Unmeasured time passed and a woman in a white lab coat came to see me. A guard unlocked my cell and the woman came in, grabbed my aching arm and pierced it with a needle.
“Antibiotics. Wouldn’t want you to get an infection.” Examining the burn on my arm she added, “This should heal up well.”
More party guests making pre-selections for the auction viewed the caged people. It was terrifying not knowing if the buyers wanted you for a sexual plaything, as a sacrifice to some god or as a main course. Did attractive features, virginity, spicy blood or plump, luscious flesh sway their decision? Not knowing, we prisoners couldn’t attempt to look smaller, larger, more docile, angrier--whatever would discourage the monsters. We could only look terrified, which we all did very nicely.
I have no idea how much more time slipped past before the door was thrown open and armed guards began to open our cages. We were ordered to remove our clothing and were driven naked and shivering to a shower room. Like cattle through a chute, we followed orders, washing and drying our bodies and combing out our hair.
Nudity added to my feeling of vulnerability and humiliation, but prudish instincts quickly disappeared in view of our dire situation. There were worse things than being naked. Having my skin flayed from my bones, for example, would be a much greater calamity than shedding a few clothes in front of strangers.
I took charge of the Russian woman, who was practically too catatonic to move without encouragement. Guiding her through the process gave me a focus and kept me from panicking. All the while, I kept my eyes open for any opportunity of escape. There was none. The armed guards never took their eyes off us and even if they had, where would we run to?
Our location appeared to be an ancient, sprawling mansion rather than the abandoned warehouse Addington had shown to DuShayne. The upstairs rooms had been converted to hold the cages and shower room and probably that nursery the horned demon in Armani had mentioned.
After we were clean and blown dry, manacles were snapped on our ankles, chaining us together in pairs to keep us from panicking and trying to run. I was connected to Chris and we exchanged a look that was a silent vow not to go down without a fight.
We were marched down a wide staircase to a ballroom. The restoration of the antebellum mansion was perfect. The parquet floor was polished to a high sheen. Gilt framed mirrors caught and reflected hundreds of candles in the ornate wall sconces and chandeliers. Shining, crimson satin-draped walls gave the feeling of being in the devil’s jewel box. The glittering array of fabulous gowns and jet-black tuxes on the guests almost distracted me from the fact that half the faces were inhuman. If I squinted, I could pretend it was the Masquerade scene from Phantom of the Opera, which helped alleviate some of my rising panic. Losing control and falling apart was not an option I would allow myself.
We were led to a roped off holding area at the far end of the room near a raised dais. I clutched Chris’s sweaty palm in one hand and the Russian girl’s in the other. We were like Hansel and Gretel and Gretel facing the evil witch.
Across the ballroom, standing amidst a cluster of bidders, I saw Angela Addington. She was dressed in a slinky, black gown, a drink in her hand and a smile on her red lips as she responded to what the woman next to her was saying. Ha! I knew the bitch wasn’t really a damsel in distress! What I couldn’t figure out was why she’d asked Rick to follow her husband when she’d known it might lead him here.
DuShayne stood at a podium on the dais. He gave a short welcoming speech to the crowd, which I tuned out since I was busy looking around for some means of escape.
“And now, let us begin the evening’s festivities with our annual auction. The first item up for bid is a businessman from Toronto, Ontario.” DuShayne went on to sketch the man’s life and physical statistics, including blood type, as a guard unlocked Owen Mills and brought him up onto the platform. Owen did his best to keep his posture erect. He glared contemptuously at the crowd. I was proud of him.
The bidding began at five hundred. I recognized the lizard-tongued woman as the one who raised her marker. A slit-eyed, scaly creature with a slash of mouth and nostrils notched into its face raised the bid. Several others bid on Owen before the struggle settled between Lizard Tongue and Snake Body. The bid rose higher very quickly, but was settled by the auctioneer’s gavel at ten thousand dollars. Lizard Tongue Lady stepped forward to claim her new acquisition.
A guard grabbed Owen’s arm and guided him toward the steps leading from the platform to the ballroom floor. The prisoner dug in his feet, refusing to walk, but the guard twisted his arm with enough force to make Owen cry out and pushed him forward. However, before the guard could deliver the slave to his new owner, Lizard Lady shot out her tongue to sample the goods.
It was a shocking sight, the beautiful woman in her glitterin
g evening gown with her ridiculously long tongue lolling out and rubbing all over her new toy. I grimaced in disgust. Owen must have tasted good. She wrapped her tongue around his neck like a bullwhip and jerked him closer. It was like witnessing a traffic accident unfolding, shocking in the speed of its violent impact. Lizard Lady’s tongue forced into the man’s mouth and down his throat and then-- there’s no other way to describe it-- she somehow sucked him inside out.
Even as I watched it happen I couldn’t believe it was real. The ripping flesh and gouts of blood spurting through the air seemed like a special effect in a movie. There were slurping, crunching sounds and what was left of Owen Mills was reduced to a steaming pile of mush on the floor. Every bone had been sucked out of him and gobbled up like popcorn, leaving only pinky-white skin, steaming red entrails and a large blob of gray matter still pulsing with his final thoughts.
Through my shock, I heard the collective gasp of breath from the crowd and realized that once again Lizard Lady’s behavior was a social blunder. Eating your prize before you’d taken it home was evidently unacceptable.
“Holy, fucking Christ! Jesus God, help us!” Chris muttered a profane prayer.
My brain responded the way it always did in traumatic situations, distancing me from the event with ironic, twisted humor. That has to be the most expensive two-second snack, ever.
Screams came from the group of prisoners. One man let out a keening wail that went on and on. I turned toward the annoying, siren sound. It wasn’t helping my frayed nerves or the situation. I realized with a start that the wailer was Brian Addington. Angela Addington was a black widow spider and her new husband, her victim.
I knew that woman was trouble, Rick Plazier. Somehow the proof that my client was innocent and Rick’s was evil didn’t comfort me at this particular moment with my ankles in chains and a puddle of melted humanity lying on the floor only yards away.
Chapter Eleven
Rick
In my beast form I raced along faster than any normal wolf could, faster even than a car. I wasn’t constricted by having to travel on roads, but could cut across country, leaping ditches, running down slopes, through culverts and along the top of levees until I was out of the city and in the bayou once more. I raced through the undergrowth, brambles tearing at my fur, branches whipping my body and mud squelching underfoot. It seemed I was going nowhere except deeper into the woods, but the pull of Amy’s presence was getting stronger and I followed that uncharted trail.
Suddenly I burst out of the swamp and onto a surprising expanse of mowed grass in the middle of the wilderness. Set back from the edge of the wetlands was an antebellum mansion with columns gracing the front and a semi-circular driveway filled with expensive cars. Lights glowed in the windows and shone out onto the emerald lawn.
I came to a halt, lifting my nose to scent the air. If this was where Amy was being held, there should be guards posted to keep out unwanted visitors. But a good sniff revealed nothing. No guards seemed to be patrolling the area as I padded cautiously toward the imposing house. I could hear and smell people and other creatures inside, but nothing outdoors. Evidently the Invictus Malus felt safe enough to remain unguarded at this secluded estate. I wondered why DuShayne had had Addington show him a warehouse he never intended to use, but it didn’t matter now. This was the spot and inside the building was my woman.
I smelled Amy’s fear and felt her desperate need for help like an insistent force tugging on me as I raced toward the house. Loping along the wall, jumping over bushes and pummeling flowerbeds under my racing feet, I searched for an opening into the building. There were French doors opening onto a patio. My toenails clicked across the flagstone patio and I jumped up against the slick glass, claws sliding down the smooth surface. I hit the door latch with my paw, but it was locked.
Desperate to get inside, I dropped down to all fours and ran back several yards then turned and made a flying leap right at the door. I crashed through the pane, glass shattering, and landed on the hard, tiled floor. My feet scrabbled for purchase amidst the shards of broken glass. I regained my balance and lifted my head, once more sniffing the air. Amy was here and close.
Racing through one room then another, our connection led me unerringly to the place where she was being held. A pair of solid mahogany doors blocked me from the room, keeping me from her. This time there was no glass to break. I whined and sniffed the crack at the bottom of the door. The myriad scents coming from that room were overwhelming. There was Amy, of course, and a lot of humans stinking of fear and sweat, and there were things I couldn’t identify. Not animal or human, but “other” like me. Their smell was potent and dangerous, full of blood lust and sexual arousal.
My fur bristled and I growled, ready to rip flesh, bite off a few limbs and tear out some throats. I clawed at the shiny door, leaving long white scratches on the dark red wood. I was beyond logical thought or planning and acted solely on animal instinct. Roaring with fury, I leaped against the barrier so hard it shook in its frame. Perhaps my super-strength would have eventually broken through the door, but just then someone inside the room pulled the door open.
Not expecting the loss of resistance, my next lunge took me straight through the opening. Both doors slammed wide, knocking the person who’d opened them backward. I tripped over my own feet as I tried to dig my claws into the slick floor, and fell gracelessly face down, sliding across the waxed parquet.
I leaped to my feet and scanned the room. There was a host of people dressed in formal clothes standing in clusters, sipping champagne or eating hors d’oeuvres. Some appeared human, others were monsters with fangs, spikes or distorted features. All were staring at me. At the other end of the room was a platform and podium where DuShayne stood. Clustered in an area beside the platform enclosed by velvet ropes were humans waiting to be sold.
I absorbed the entire scene in seconds then saw Amy standing at the edge of the group of naked people by the stage. I ran toward her. Vaulting onto the platform, I landed in front of her with a flourish of tail, lifted my muzzle and howled in victory. The other prisoners screamed and backed away.
Amy’s eyes widened and a smile curved her lips before she glanced past me. “Rick, look out.”
There was a roaring in my ears. My body lifted and flipped through the air, somersaulting like an astronaut in zero gravity. I yelped as I was spun in a corkscrew high above the heads of the assembled guests. I caught close-up glimpses of the ceiling mural as I rolled past. My body smashed against the wall with a bone-jarring thud and I fell to the floor.
Crawling to my feet, I shook my head to clear it and looked around to see who had tossed me like a twig in a whirlpool without even touching me. My strength could do nothing against powers like that. I couldn’t see who had whammied me, but I was facing a crowd full of enemies who appeared to be overcoming their initial shock. My window to act after taking them by surprise was quickly closing.
I started toward the stage again. A creature that looked like a cross between the Hulk and the Thing blocked my way. I had to admire the tailoring that managed to cover his massive body in a tux. He took a wrestler’s stance in front of me and roared into my face. I growled back and leaped into his rocky embrace. Before the monster could crush me in his massive arms, I ripped out his throat. Hot blood showered me and the Thing dropped me to the floor.
I was getting damn sick of hitting that floor. I flipped onto my feet and ran toward the stage once more, clawing, biting and pushing my way through the crowd. I was glad of the cover they provided. It kept my unknown attacker with the special powers at bay. A woman’s razor-sharp, scimitar fingernails slashed at my side as I darted past. Then a vampire sank his fangs through the ruff of fur at my neck and bit down. I felt a sharp pain but I shook him off and kept going. Some brave soul on the wait staff hit me over the head with a silver tray of hors d’oeuvres and I let out a yelp, but kept running the gauntlet.
Suddenly, I came face to face with another wolf snarling and
snapping back at me. Since I’d been turned, I’d met few of my kind, going out of my way to avoid them, not wanting to see myself as part of that freakish group. I’d somehow convinced myself my lycanthropy was an aberration and I wasn’t really like them at all. But this beast was my mirror image with long, pointy ears, golden eyes and white, sharp teeth.
I lunged toward the other wolf before it could lunge at me, hoping to take the advantage. Our encounter was a blur of fur and fangs I could scarcely recall later on. Perhaps the human part of my psyche withdrew completely as I went into full-on wolf mode. I remember the pain of sharp bites on my shoulder and neck, a ripped ear and a painful cuff across my nose, and then I found myself flat on my back on the damn floor again, pinned by the other wolf’s superior strength. His jaws clamped around my throat but he didn’t bite down. I whined and squirmed, but couldn’t shake off his weight.
“Stop! Don’t kill him.” DuShayne came into my view. Energy crackled like electricity off his cadaverous body and I knew he was the one who’d thrown me with magic powers. He raised the palm of his hand. A pressure that had nothing to do with the body on top of me, held me to the ground. The other lycan backed off, still growling low in its throat. I lay as immobile as if I were chained.
“We’ve always sold humans at our auction, but perhaps we might put this party crashing lycanthrope on the block and see if he is of interest to any bidders.” DuShayne looked at me speculatively then at the gathered crowd. There was a murmur of agreement.
I strained against the invisible bonds holding me to the ground, but couldn’t break them. DuShayne lifted his hands, drew some kind of pattern in the air and directed a lightning bolt of power at me. It hit sizzled and fried my synapses with an overload of energy. Pain laced every cell of my body.
I realized what DuShayne had done as my body began to transmogrify back to human form. As I twisted and writhed, I dimly heard him give a command. “Chain him with the humans.”
