I began to pray as we were roughly shepherded toward a black panel van at the end of the row that Merrick wouldn’t bother searching our pockets. I was certain that I’d connected with Race’s cell and that he could hear what was going on, because I was feeling too much fear for myself and Caroline to be feeling as much rage as was coursing through me right then. The only other time I’d felt an all-consuming hatred like this was right after the accident with Alex, when Race had noticed I was bleeding. I wanted the connection to last long enough for one of the vampires to let slip where they were taking us.
My hope was short-lived. As Merrick was pulling open the sliding door on the passenger side, he ordered his goons to search us. They took their time rubbing their hands all over us, their rough fingers lingering between our legs, on our asses, squeezing our breasts. Panic began to overwhelm me, and I fought desperately to control it. I couldn’t go through another experience like I had, not again, but I also couldn’t fall apart and give in to fear because Caroline needed me. I had to be strong, to keep a clear head for both of us, if I was going to devise a way out of this mess.
“Cell phone on the piece of tail, Boss,” my captor said, pulling my phone from the pocket of my jacket.
Merrick turned, taking the phone from him. “Ooh, seems we’ve got a call in progress—I wonder who it could be?” he put the phone to his ear, grinning as Race began to bellow loud enough that even his mother could hear him.
“You are fucking DEAD! I am going to rip your worthless fucking spine out with my bare hands, you sorry piece of SHIT, if you harm one hair on their heads!”
Merrick glanced at his muscle. “Get ‘em in the van, and don’t worry about being careful when you tie and gag ‘em—oh, and girlie? Piece of advice: don’t even think about turning into that fucking mutt you become. I see one paw on you and Silas here gets to fuck lover boy’s mommy to death.”
He turned his attention to Race as Caroline and I were thrown into the van. I strained my ears to listen even as duct tape was slapped over my mouth. I looked over as vampire number three was wrapping some kind of cord too tightly around my wrists to see that Caroline was crying freely, and the one Merrick had referred to as Silas was laughing at her, purposely frightening her further by licking her tears off her face with his fangs bared.
“You listen good, freak,” Merrick was saying into my cell phone. “Your pretty little piece of ass and Mommy Dearest are coming with me. You know where we’ll be, and you’d better be there before nightfall if you want a chance to see them alive again.”
With that he crushed the phone in his hand, reminding me that Lochlan had done the same to Race’s cell the day that we’d decided to leave Cleveland. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell it was with vampires crushing cell phones—did they get off on that shit or something?
Silas stayed in the back with Caroline and I as the third vampire climbed into the front passenger seat. Merrick slammed the sliding door shut and a moment later was climbing into the driver’s seat. I turned and reached for Caroline’s bound hands, trying desperately to tell her with my eyes that we were going to get through this, that we would be okay.
I failed miserably because I had no idea if that was true.
***
The ride to our destination took hours—hours in which my fellow captive and I were forced to endure hands on our bodies, tongues on our faces, and lewd expressions from Silas and Al, the third vampire. Both of them wanted to have sex with us, but Merrick told them no. I was actually thankful to him for that for all of half a second, until he followed that denial of their desire by saying he wanted to wait until Race was there to watch as they fucked and fed on what was his.
I was aware a long time after our departure that we’d entered a city by the changing of the landscape outside the windshield. My suspicions as to our destination were confirmed when we passed Key Tower, the tallest building in the city of Cleveland (and the state of Ohio, for that matter). My hands were being held in a death grip as another skyscraper suddenly took up our entire field of vision.
“Welcome to Silk Tower, mutt,” Merrick taunted me. “Take a good look, you’re probably never going to see it again.”
Silas and Al joined him in laughing as we passed into what I assumed was the garage. A few minutes later we were parked and Al was out of the van and opening the sliding door. My heart broke as Caroline whimpered when Silas reached over to drag her out. Al reached for me next, and I fought the impulse to kick the bastard in his teeth. I couldn’t risk a fight because I couldn’t take them all on by myself, and I couldn’t risk them hurting Caroline. I would not give them a reason to do Race’s mother harm, which meant that I could do absolutely nothing.
I was powerless to stop them, and the thought chilled my superheated blood.
Merrick led our party over to an elevator. “Hey Boss, you think the freak will come?” Al asked him.
Merrick snorted. “Oh, he’ll be here. Can’t wait to show that fucking piece of shit freak of nature who’s really in charge.”
What the…? I wondered with a frown as the elevator doors opened and we got on. What did Merrick mean by “who’s really in charge”? Was he referring to the fact that he’d always outranked Race in Vienna’s cadre of supernatural thugs?
Or had something happened to Vienna?
Impossible, I thought. There was no way someone as apparently well known as Vienna Silk could simply disappear and nobody knew about it. She was a business mogul that even a smart-mouthed police detective knew the reputation of, one who had to make public appearances on a regular basis. She was also a ruthless vampire that her former associates had warned us to be careful of—if she had been injured or worse, somebody had to know about it.
My mind whirled with questions as the long ride in the elevator finally ended. The doors pinged open and Al and Silas pushed us out behind Merrick into a grand foyer. Across from us were two ornate wooden doors trimmed in brass, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the extravagant taste of Vienna’s former lover.
Merrick produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the doors, pushing them open and saying, “Welcome to my humble abode. I’d offer to let you make yourselves at home, but I don’t want you getting too comfortable.”
The room we were standing in was a lavishly furnished living room with a fireplace and a flat-screen T.V. that had to be at least 55 inches. Most of the chairs and tables were antiques and were distinctly feminine, but I could tell that someone—probably Merrick—was trying to give the room a more masculine feel.
“Where should we put ‘em, Boss?” Al asked.
“Shouldn’t we call some more of the guys?” Silas added.
Merrick contemplated both questions for a moment. “Yes, the freak might actually show up with some help now that he’s in the pocket of Diarmid Mackenna. Better call for some backup.”
He then sauntered across the room, skirting the coffee table to come stand in front of me. “But what to do with these two?” he murmured, looking me up and down as though he had a pretty good idea what I looked like without any clothes on.
Silas ran his nose along Caroline’s ear. “Boss, let me have this one,” he said. “Please, man. I can smell the fear, can taste it. I get so fucking hard when I can taste it, my balls are aching.”
Caroline screamed behind her duct tape gag as he pressed himself into her from behind. Anger over her fear surpassed my own and I started screaming muffled obscenities as I struggled to free myself from Al’s painfully tight grasp. Merrick grabbed me by the throat again, squeezing hard. I felt my eyes bulging as I tried desperately to draw air through my nose.
“You don’t like the idea of Silas here having a piece of Mommy do you?” he asked. “How much do you want to spare her, mutt, hmm? Would you be willing to let him have you instead?”
My blood was already pounding in my ears from the lack of oxygen, but my heart sped up even further. I could feel my animal side snarling, begging me to change form so that
I could tear his throat out. I wanted so much to give in to her, to let the burn in my muscles and the spirit of the beast within me take control, but I could not. I simply could not bear it if they punished Caroline for my actions.
And though I also could not bear the thought of having to allow one or more of these bloodsuckers to have their way with me, I would do whatever it took to spare Caroline the same hell I’d gone through just weeks ago.
I nodded as much as Merrick’s grip allowed me. He smiled, baring his fangs. “So nice to know that—in fact, I might just take you up on that. Hell, if lover boy takes too long to get here, I might just have to have a taste of you myself. I’m not much for bestiality, but you are a delicious-looking piece of ass. If you were a normal human, I wouldn’t hesitate to fuck and feed from you at the same time.”
He demonstrated his willingness to “have a taste” by replacing his hand with his mouth, drawing his fangs and his tongue across my throat and pausing right over my pulse point. I breathed rapidly through my nose and fought the desire to scream, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good.
Still, I trembled as Merrick licked and nipped my skin, sagging with relief when he at last backed away. “Get ‘em in a bedroom before I fucking snap and take the bitch right here.”
Al and Silas laughed, then pushed Caroline and I toward a door to the left of the fireplace. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as Merrick headed for the phone on the side table next to the couch, but then we passed through the door and he was out of sight. The door we were herded through led to a hallway with four doors, two on each side. We passed the first door on the right and were taken to the second room on that side, where the vampires threw us roughly to the floor and backed out, locking the door as they went.
Caroline began crying in earnest. I rolled to my knees and pushed up on them, scooting myself over to her. I grabbed her by the hands and squeezed, trying my best to reassure her as I looked around. The bedroom we were in was well furnished, but clearly a guest room, as the bed, dresser, nightstands and other pieces in the room, while appearing expensive, weren’t as pretentiously lavish as the furniture in the living room. I wanted to get up and explore it, to see if I could find something to use as a weapon, but I needed my hands free first—and to get my hands free, I was going to need my teeth.
Letting go Caroline’s hands, I raised my own to the tape across my mouth. Spittle from my screams had wetted it a little around my lips, but it was still stuck to the rest of my skin like glue. Oh, this is gonna hurt, I thought perversely as I lifted my bound hands to one side and peeled back enough of the tape for a good grip…and then pulled hard.
I had to grind my teeth together to keep from screaming, because by God did it hurt. But the old adage that said to tear it off quick because the pain won’t last at long appeared to be true, as was the saying “Breathe through the pain.” I drew several sharp, quick breaths through my nose as I waited for the stinging to stop. I looked down at Caroline, asking softly through slightly swollen lips, “Do you want me to get your tape off? It’s going to hurt a little, but you’ll breathe easier.”
Race’s mother stopped sobbing, though the tears continued to fall. My heart broke for her even as she struggled to sit up—she should never have had to go through this. Her son was not normal and she’d accepted that. She had accepted that there were things in this world that were as much if not more frightening than those in the stories her parents had told her as a child. But that didn’t mean she had to live in the nightmare—ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
No wonder Race had kept her in the dark about vampires. Her first encounter with the bloodsucking assholes might well be her last.
When she was semi-upright, Caroline nodded. I reached up with my hands and felt around the top of the tape over her mouth—she’d cried quite a bit, and as I had hoped the grip of the tape was looser there. I pulled it down a little at a time, exposing most of her mouth, but only the center was coming away easily.
“I’m gonna have to tear it off. I know it will be hard, but try not to scream,” I instructed her. She took a breath and then nodded, and so I grabbed a corner and pulled. Though she did as I asked and didn’t scream, she was unable to keep from crying out, her hands flying to her face to try and stave off the pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” I said. “Are you going to be okay? I’ve got to try and get my hands free.”
Caroline nodded again. “Juliette, what—what’s going on here?” she said haltingly.
For a moment I didn’t answer, as I was taking a look at the knot Al had tied. I was definitely going to have to use my teeth to try and get it apart, I realized sourly, then looked up at my terrified companion. “The one the others call ‘Boss’ is Merrick. Race used to work with him doing... Well, pretty much whatever they told him to. He said it paid well, though he hated it because he didn’t want to be the monster they were slowly turning him into. Said you’d raised him to be a better man than that, and that if you knew how he made his money you’d be ashamed of him.”
I sighed, looking around again as I continued, “Merrick is the number one thug of a powerful vampire named Vienna Silk. I thought she was behind this because Race quit on her, but given some of Merrick’s remarks, I’m beginning to think we’re not his only victims.”
“What, you think he killed his boss?” Caroline asked.
I nodded. “I think it’s a strong possibility. I mean, Saphrona and her father both know her, and they both said she wasn’t one to be trifled with. Knowing what I do about vampires, I have to assume that if she were calling the shots, we’d have seen or heard from her by now.”
“M-maybe she’s just not here yet,” the older woman suggested.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. After all, this is her building. And Merrick’s acting awfully damn smug for someone who’s supposed to be riding shotgun.”
“But if this Vienna person is so powerful, how could he be the one in charge? Wouldn’t people know something had happened to her? Don’t you people have some sort of underground communication network or something?”
“Word does get around when something happens to someone in a supernatural community who is well known,” I said. “If I’m right and he’s killed or imprisoned her, he’s hiding behind her name, continuing to do business in her name because his own has no power.”
Caroline scoffed, and pride swelled in my chest when I saw a spark of fire come back into her eyes. “Pathetic,” she spit harshly.
I stopped talking to concentrate on the knot. Caroline, either needing to fill the silence or perhaps simply feeling the need to talk in order to shore up her nerves, said as I worked, “I think it took us three, maybe four hours to get here—though I’m not sure where ‘here’ is.”
I paused long enough to tell her, “We’re in Cleveland. It’s where Race and I both lived before we went back home.”
Cocking her head to the side, Caroline contemplated that for a moment. I went back to tearing at the knot, and found myself longing for the destructive capacity of my canine teeth.
“If Race was still in Dayton when you talked to him, when that—that asshole Merrick talked to him—that means he was at least an hour behind us,” Caroline observed. “It must be about six-thirty now, or just after. Nightfall is in about ninety minutes.”
I couldn’t help but wonder how she knew that, but then realized that anyone who paid attention to the movement of the sun and moon throughout the year would be able to figure it out. She might also have taught herself and Race to judge the time by the position of the sun or moon so that he could go out and spend time in animal form whenever he felt the need.
I stopped what I was doing and grabbed her hands. “Caroline, look at me,” I said, and waited until her eyes had met mine. “Race will come for us. I know he will. And he was with his pack—our pack—so he’ll bring help. You have to trust him—he’ll be here.”
She smiled a brittle smile. “I know he will. In truth I’m a li
ttle afraid of that. He’ll come here, and in his anger at what’s happened he will be forced to do more bad things. He might even…”
Though her voice fell silent, I knew what she’d been about to say: “He might even have to kill.” I could not deny that was a very distinct possibility, so I didn’t bother to try and convince her otherwise. I knew Race well enough in the short time we’d been together that with mine and his mother’s life at stake, he would not hesitate.
I went back to the knot in the cord binding my wrists, a thrill of triumph zinging its way through me when I managed to finally loosen it. I pulled with more enthusiasm, and when at last the binding was not painfully tight, I made use of my inhuman strength and snapped it the rest of the way, freeing my hands. I rubbed my wrists for a moment to help restore proper circulation, then turned my attention to the binding around Caroline’s hands.
“Juliette,” she said after a moment. “I—I’m worried about what they’ll do to us while waiting for Race to come. I don’t…I don’t want to be raped.”
“I don’t want to be raped again,” I said as I tugged at the knot in her cord.
Caroline gasped. “Again? What are you talking about? Sweetheart, please don’t tell me you were…”
I nodded, surprised that I wasn’t feeling the familiar rise of panic clawing at my throat. “Almost a month ago, by two vampires working for another crazy bitch vampire. One night they kidnapped me for a few hours, bound me in chains, drugged me, and beat the shit out of me. Next day they tied me to a bed and raped me.”
“Oh, you poor child,” Caroline rasped, and a tear fell on the top of my hand.
“They’re dead now,” I said casually. “Saphrona’s brother ripped their heads off with his own two hands after Saphrona herself killed the bitch. We piled the parts in the corner of her father’s back yard where I lit them fuckers on fire and sent their worthless souls to hell.”
From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) Page 30
