Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "She's going to kill me anyway," I said.

  "There are different ways to die, Anita. Don't let her kill you slowly."

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  "Barnabas," he said.

  The dark-haired guard called, "Don't talk to them."

  "If you don't want to watch her kill us slowly, Barnabas, help us get out of here."

  He shook his head and started backing away. "I feel sorry for you, but not that sorry."

  "Barnabas, get away from them!"

  "I'm coming, Tommy." But to us, he said very low, "Don't look to me for help. If she tells me to kill you, I will. I'll make it quick, but I will kill you both if she orders me to."

  "Good to know where we stand, Barnabas," I said.

  "Stop talking to the prisoners!" Tommy yelled, and started walking toward us.

  Barnabas just walked back toward the other man, who continued to berate him for talking too much to us. He made it sound like we were stray puppies that you couldn't get attached to because we were going to be put down anyway. I got the feeling that this wasn't Tommy's and Barnabas's first rodeo that had ended with prisoners dying--fast or slow. There was no help there. We couldn't offer Barnabas enough of anything to get him to betray the Wicked Bitch, and his friend Tommy was even less user friendly.

  Nathaniel said, "It would be a shame if you never got to experience just how double-jointed I am again."

  It seemed like a nonsensical thing to say, but I knew in a moment like this, it had to be important. I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he whispered, "More double-jointed than Houdini."

  I finally realized what he meant: he was almost completely double-jointed. He could rotate his shoulders all the way around and pretty much everything else. It was interesting in the bedroom and when he danced onstage, but in this moment, it might be exactly what we needed. He could get out of the chains, and then he could let me go, if we could distract the guards.

  I had to be the distraction, but how? I was wearing lingerie, so sex was an option. It certainly wasn't a fate worse than death or watching while the Wicked Bitch cut pieces off Nathaniel. If I got the guards close enough and raised the ardeur, it might work, but I didn't know if Moroven would sense it. The ardeur could be a flashy power, and we didn't need more attention.

  I looked up at the chains on my own wrists. My one hand was almost small enough to pull through if I was willing to lose some skin and bleed myself. Wait. The guards would notice that.

  I looked at Nathaniel. "I love you."

  "I love you more."

  "I love you most."

  "I love you mostest," he said, smiling.

  I smiled back, took a deep breath, and started pulling on my loosest wrist, hard.

  Tommy of the black hair called out, "What are you doing?"

  I ignored him, because what I needed was for both of them to come to me and turn their backs on Nathaniel. I put all my body weight onto my left wrist and pulled! My hand moved a fraction in the cuff. If the guards weren't here, I might actually be able to get one hand free, and that would be all I needed to get my other hand free. If the guards would stand there and let me pull on my wrist for about fifteen to thirty minutes while I scraped myself up, I could get away, but I was betting they wouldn't have the patience for it. I was counting on the fact that they wouldn't just stand by the door and watch me do it.

  "What are you trying to do?" Tommy yelled.

  "Get away," I finally said.

  "You can't get away," he said.

  I was going to need some lubrication to work my hand through. Lucky for me, my body made something that would work. If I wanted it badly enough. I stood up and started pulling, tugging, and rubbing my wrist against the manacle.

  Barnabas called from the doorway, "You're just going to hurt your wrist."

  "If I don't get away, she's going to hurt a lot more than my wrist."

  The guards looked at each other and then started walking toward me. "Stop doing that," Tommy said.

  "Or what?" I asked.

  "Or we'll hurt you."

  "Not half as much as the Wicked Bitch of Ireland will when she comes back in here," I said, continuing to tug on my wrist.

  "Are you trying to bleed yourself?" Barnabas asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Why?" Tommy asked.

  They were both in front of me, between Nathaniel and myself. Barnabas glanced behind at Nathaniel, so I leaned my body weight on the manacle and showed them why I was trying to get blood. "See, it moves a little. I think if I had some lubrication that I could get this hand out. Once I get this hand free, then I can just reach over and free my other hand."

  "We're standing right here," Tommy said. "We won't let you do that."

  "How are you going to stop me?" I asked, pulling harder on my wrist. I was going to have to be careful or I'd end up spraining my wrist before I got any blood to loosen things. I wanted so badly to look past them to Nathaniel and see if he was getting loose, but I didn't dare.

  "Don't make us hurt you," Barnabas said, and he sounded like he didn't want to hurt me, but he would.

  Tommy grabbed my arm just below the wrist. I think he thought that would keep me from pulling on it. I heard chains moving, and it wasn't me, so I started pulling wildly on the other wrist, which no one was holding. It made a lot of noise so that even I couldn't hear if Nathaniel was moving his chains.

  "Stop it!" Tommy yelled, squeezing my left arm hard enough that it hurt a little, but not as much as the scrapes I'd already put on my wrist. I tucked my legs up and let all my body weight hang from my wrists, which surprised Tommy so that he let go, which let me rattle the chains like a fake ghost at a bogus seance.

  Tommy hit me openhanded across the face. It was a good hit; it rocked me a little so that I just hung there in the chains for a second while my head and the rest of me caught up. He grabbed me by the front of the nightie and dragged me upright. The nightie wasn't a shirt; it wasn't even a dress, so he ended up flashing everything below my waist. Women can complain about men staring at their breasts, but trust me, there are worse things to have stared at.

  There was that frozen moment when the men looked down and I could almost feel the click in Tommy's head, as he thought of something else he could do to me. I tasted blood when I swallowed. He'd busted my lip a little when he hit me, and the taste of my own blood made the beasts inside me rise like heat over my skin. They didn't like getting hit in the face either. I was alone in my head with all my beasts for the first time ever, with no more experienced lycanthrope inside me to help me. My body felt like it was starting to catch fire, so hot.

  "What the hell are you?" Tommy whispered. He was still holding my arm.

  I saw Nathaniel between their bodies. He was free and picking up the knife Rodina had dropped. Barnabas started to turn; if I hadn't seen Nathaniel, if there hadn't been two of them, if my beasts had had a few seconds more to rise, if I had had access to anyone's power besides my own, but I didn't. I called the only power I had that would kill and distract while it happened. I'd learned how to drain life energy through the touch of skin to skin from Obsidian Butterfly. She hadn't meant to teach me how to do one of her tricks, but one of my gifts was that if a vampire used a power on or around me often enough, I retained it either temporarily or forever. This one was forever.

  It took Tommy a second to realize something was wrong, and then his hand where he touched me started to dry out, as if I'd put an invisible straw in his skin and he was a juice box. He tried to let go of me, but he couldn't. He yelled, "What are you doing?"

  "Defending myself," I said, and my voice sounded distant, peaceful, because it felt good to drink him down, so much energy.

  "Barnabas, help me!"

  Barnabas started to reach out, but Nathaniel leapt onto his back and thrust the knife into his chest. The man made a sound and plunged his elbow back into Nathaniel, trying to get him off his back, which meant Nathaniel had missed the heart. He stabbed him aga
in and this time Barnabas fell to his knees with Nathaniel still riding him.

  Tommy was screaming now, and his body was covered in deep lines, as if he was in a desert where the sun was draining him dry, but it wasn't the sun or the heat, it was just me. I had no idea if anyone was close enough to hear the screams, but I couldn't stop even if I wanted to, because the moment I stopped feeding on his energy, he'd be free to turn and help Barnabas fight Nathaniel. He was still stabbing, trying to get a killing blow as the other man struggled. I could not afford for another trained man to join the fight Nathaniel would lose. So I stared into Tommy's eyes and watched his skin run dry until it was like leather, and still he screamed, higher and more piteously but I couldn't afford pity. Pity would kill us.

  Nathaniel staggered to his feet covered in blood and breathing hard, but the other man didn't get up. Nathaniel had won. We'd survived because he'd killed Barnabas. I stared at the dried husk that was the man I was slowly killing. The strong hand that had grabbed my arm was just bones covered in dry skin. It didn't even feel like a hand anymore, and still I fed on the very essence of his life. If I stopped now, I could give back the energy I'd stolen and he'd heal, but I didn't want him to heal. We were fighting for our lives. Tommy didn't get to live any longer than Barnabas had.

  Nathaniel's voice was hoarse, almost as if he'd been the one screaming. "Can I undo your wrist? Is it safe to touch you?"

  "No," I said, and I swallowed all the power I'd gained from the man in front of me. I pushed the urge to feed and feed and feed back in the dark box of my soul, and Tommy fell to the floor like a broken doll.

  Nathaniel reached up one hand and undid my right wrist. He still had the completely blood-soaked knife in his other hand. It felt good to have one wrist free, but the magic was still there, still blocking me. I reached over and undid the other wrist myself. The moment that I wasn't touching the chains I could suddenly hear all my people; every metaphysical link was there again. Nathaniel was there again, bright and like another beating heart. I swayed with the fear from Dev, and Damian came back to life inside my head like a piece of myself that I hadn't known was missing.

  Nathaniel reached out to me and then dropped his bloody hand before he touched me. "I can feel you again."

  "Wipe your hands on his sweater," I said, motioning to the dried husk that was lying at our feet beside the bloody mess that was our other victim.

  Nathaniel squatted down and wiped his hands, and the knife on the sweater, and then stood back up. "He's still screaming."

  "I can't hear him."

  "I can."

  "Hand me the knife." He gave it to me without comment. I knelt down, and now I could hear a high-pitched noise. He would stay alive in there, maybe indefinitely. Obsidian Butterfly had used it as punishment for her people, placing them in stone coffins until she wanted to get them back out and forgive them. I plunged the blade through the dry paper skin of the lower chest, turned the blade sharply up and in, until I felt the thicker meat of the heart. Most of the rest of the insides had dried out like the skin, but the heart was still there, almost as thick and alive as normal. I drove the blade up into that beating source of life until the screaming stopped.

  I stood up and offered Nathaniel the blade again. He shook his head. "No, you keep it. It took me a lot to kill the other one. You did it in one strike. I'm not good enough with a knife yet."

  "It comes with practice," I said.

  He nodded. I knelt down and was getting Tommy's gun out of its holster to give to Nathaniel when Rodina came down the stairs so quietly we didn't hear her at all. She had a Glock in her hand pointed nice and steady. Some days you just can't win for losing. Fuck.

  82

  SHE LOOKED AT us, smiling, and finally laughed, "Here I come to rescue you, and I'm not sure you need it."

  "Why would you help us?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Because the Lady Bitch is not our Evil Queen."

  "And you think I am?"

  She looked at us and then to the floor at the bodies. "Maybe I don't know much about being good, but I don't think that's it."

  I couldn't argue, so I didn't try. I just stripped the gun off of the body that I had killed, and handed it to Nathaniel along with an extra magazine. If you're going to loot the bodies, take the extra ammo. The gun was a Glock, never my favorite. It just didn't fit my hand right. Nathaniel checked to make sure it was loaded, automatically. It was good to see he'd been paying attention.

  "Thank you for letting me see you feed on her, Anita. I have had my fill of that pale bitch."

  I gazed into those black eyes so like her brother's and realized, "Somehow, I rolled you when I rolled your brother."

  "Yes, the only other one that could ever do that was the Queen of All Darkness herself. I knew we had been following the wrong heir."

  I didn't argue with her; I'd been arguing with people for months that I wasn't the heir to the Mother of All Darkness. It was getting silly to keep protesting, so I'd stop. I didn't like it, but I could stop playing the lady who protesteth too much. I got the gun off of the other body, though the grip was slippery with blood. Nathaniel might not have killed the guard with the first blow, but he'd hurt him enough that he didn't go for his gun; that was a serious win in my book.

  We needed to move. Rodina had a backpack with tactical boots that fit me if I stuffed them with the thick socks and a black hooded sweatshirt to go over the lingerie. I had done my best to ignore how cold I was until I got the clothes on, and then I could finally shiver. She even had an extra hooded sweatshirt for Nathaniel.

  She led us up the stairs with a short sword bare in her hand. She'd holstered her gun. She told us silence was essential and we followed her, but I said, "We need Damian."

  "We'll be lucky to get the two of you out of here. He's still with the pale bitch and both her servants."

  "We can't leave him," Nathaniel said. He must have thought at Damian, because suddenly the vampire was loud in our heads. Go, he thought at us, I'll join you in Wicklow.

  "He says to leave. He'll catch up with us in Wicklow," Nathaniel said.

  Rodina smiled. "Agreed."

  I'd managed not to think about Domino until I saw Rodrigo waiting for us in the hallway just off the stairs. Then my careful compartmentalizing fell apart. Rodina stepped between us. "This is Ru, the other third of our triplet."

  He looked identical to Rodrigo until I got to his eyes. They didn't look like dark caves or even the teasing hardness of Rodina's. There was something softer about this one. He dropped to one knee. "My Queen."

  "Where's Rodrigo?" I asked.

  "He is my brother and your man now, as Ru and I are," Rodina said.

  "Anita, we have to escape first," Nathaniel said.

  I looked at him, and if I hadn't had a bloodied knife in one hand and a gun in the other, I'd have touched his hair. He was right. Domino was dead; we weren't. "Get us out of here. Rodrigo gets a pass until we're safe."

  "Your word of honor?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  He came around the corner like a mirror image of his brother. "I see my death in your eyes."

  "You forced my lover's blood down my throat after you killed him."

  She looked at her brother. "Rodrigo, really?"

  He looked strangely embarrassed and shrugged. "It seemed fun at the time."

  "Fun!" I said, and took a step toward him.

  Nathaniel grabbed my arm, "Anita, we need out first." He looked at Rodrigo and said, "And you, stop saying stupid things like that."

  Rodrigo looked at me; his cave-dark eyes held more thought than cruelty in that moment. "If I had not done that one stupid, cruel thing, we would not be standing here now, Anita Blake."

  "Out first, Roddy," Rodina said. She led the way and we followed, because what else could we do for now? I had to put the gun in the pocket of the sweatshirt to take the flashlight they gave me. The knife stayed out, because I had nowhere to put it. Rodina led the way down a tunnel that opened in the rock. I
t was narrow and hit my claustrophobia so that I swear I could feel the rock beginning to close around me. I put the blade against one wall and the flashlight against the other so that my hands would let me know that the walls weren't really narrowing around me. It was just my phobia. It wasn't real. I could smell fresh air. I could smell the sea. There was gray light ahead. Rodrigo vanished out of the opening, and when I got to the end of the tunnel, it was a black rock overlooking a sheer drop to the sea below.

  Rodrigo was standing to the left on the rock, offering me his hand. I so did not want to take it, but the light was dying and I couldn't see what he was even standing on or why he wasn't tumbling down onto the rocks below us, so I took his hand. He helped me up shallow stairs that were literally carved into the rock face. I'd have never even seen them, let alone been able to navigate them. Rodina was guiding Nathaniel up the steps behind us. Ru brought up the rear.

  Rodrigo hunkered down behind a rise of thick grass and flowers at the top of the cliff. He motioned for me to stay low, so I did. There was the wind blowing the grass, making the flowers nod, and there was a ruin of black stones toward the end of the highest point of the cliff. "The Black Castle," he said. "Everyone thinks the only thing left is the ruin, but the fortress is inside the cliff. Her hiding place has always been here, as the castles above her have risen and burned, but always she has been the puppet master to the men above."

  When he was sure the coast was clear, he led us through the grass and wind. There was a couple taking pictures of themselves straddling a rusted cannon that looked out over a harbor. There were more tourists or maybe locals picnicking or taking pictures of the sea as the light began to fade to twilight.

  "And no one knows she's here?" I asked.

  "No," Rodrigo said.

  "One of her great strengths is that she hides in plain sight," Rodina said. She opened her backpack and said, "You can't walk around with a bloody knife in daylight, Anita."

  I didn't like it, but I gave up one weapon, because she was right. We'd been fighting for our lives, but everyone up here was having a great day by the sea.

  Rodina pulled up her hood to hide her hair and said, "We're tourists. We're going to blend in." She took Nathaniel's hand in hers and hung on his arm as if she'd always been there. Rodrigo apologized but said, "It is for safety's sake."