by Linda Welch
I got my answer when he casually nodded to one of the demons near the table. This one’s hair shimmered like brushed stainless-steel and pale eyes like gray ice glinted from pale pewter skin. He walked to me, pulled back his hand and cracked the side of my face hard and fast with his palm, a blow which took my breath and knocked my head to one side. My other cheek hit the wing of the chair and I yelped.
Oh, that kind of torture.
But I couldn’t tell Royal where Lawrence was, not willingly. I was not brave, I didn’t possess the proverbial nerves of steel, but I couldn’t condemn a little boy to death at the hands of monsters. I would not be able to live with myself.
As I tried to lift my aching head, I spotted my clothes in a pile on the floor at the end of the table. My jewelry and the Ruger were on top. They had somehow managed to get it off me without burning themselves.
If only I could free myself. The gun could as well be a hundred miles away.
I tried to stoke my anger, but a sense of helplessness and betrayal overwhelmed everything else. I looked into the depths of the room again, my gaze running over Royal, his demon clan, the huge empty space beyond them. Nobody leapt from the shadows to rescue me.
I slowly turned my head to face Royal. I looked him in his gleaming eyes. “I can’t tell you anything.”
A tiny smile ticked at his lips. “Are you sure? We could have a very pleasant relationship, you and I.”
“In your dreams,” I whispered.
“You would give your life for a child?”
My heart faltered, then pounded and the space around me started to fade. I thought I would throw up and pass out at the same time. Yeah, choke to death on your own vomit and save him going to all that trouble killing you, I thought inanely. Because I knew, whatever I told him, he would kill me anyway, as he killed those little boys. As he would kill Lawrence.
Nobody knows I’m here. No one is coming for me. I’ll be stuck in this god-awful place till he dies. I’ll be a missing person, then a cold case. Jack. Mel. What will they think when I don’t come home, what will they feel? Will they go on their way when they figure out I’m never coming back? Will they hang on, till other people live in my house - it will give them something to look at. And Mac! Who will care for my boy, who will love the irritable little beast like I do? Please, someone, take him to Janie, don’t put him in the pound.
A morass of want, need and regret spilled through me. But I would not send them to that little boy. I would do what I could to protect Lawrence; it was the only thing left to me. I hoped, if they hurt me, my mouth would not betray me.
I curled my hands and dug my nails in my palms till they stung. Then I met his eyes. “You won’t learn where Lawrence is from me.”
He spread his hands as if with regret. “So be it.”
He nodded at a demon with hair the color of freshly shed blood and red jade eyes, who stood with muscular arms folded. The demon joined the silver-haired guy and moved to stand on the other side of me. Each worked on untying one of my wrists, the rope rasping my skin. Soon as I realized what they were up to, I got my feet planted firmly on the floor. I tried to ignore my aching face and back. I waited till both ties were undone and they started to haul me upright.
I wasn’t going out without a fight.
I exploded from the chair, crooked my arm and elbowed the silver-haired demon in the face. My elbow caught his nose and he reeled back a step, clapping hands to face then grunting with pain as his fingers nudged his nose. I lunged at the table, plucked up the glass jug and swung to smash it in the other demon’s face. He tried to duck away, but I altered the trajectory and managed to break the glass against his ear.
I stumbled along by the table, heading for my gun, but the bloody-haired demon grabbed my arm from behind, spun me and pinned me to the edge of table. I spat in his face, and as he grinned through the saliva spotting his lips, brought up my knee. Hard.
He buckled, hands going to the offended area.
I took another step, but another demon got between me and my weapon. With a thin smile, he wagged an admonishing finger at me.
So I went for Royal. It was the least I could do. I jumped on the table and aimed a kick at his face. He caught my ankle, twisted it and flipped me over. I went down like a log, landing on my side on the hard wood; my sore face hit with a meaty thunk. Before I could move, they were on me.
Half a dozen of them hoisted me in the air; hands on my bare calves, thighs, buttocks, waist and back. My head hung down at a painful angle. A blue-haired demon walked ahead of us, pulling on my braid as if he led a recalcitrant animal. I thought my hair would tear free of my scalp.
We didn’t go far, maybe twenty feet. The demons ahead of us parted to reveal a strange looking contraption low on the ground, something like a square, demon-sized platform made of thick lengths of wood put together like latticework. I had not seen it as I sat at the table with the demons blocking my view. It stuck up from the floor on an angle, so the top hung back farther than the base. They hoisted me higher with a kind of merry cheer, then lowered me none too gently to the platform.
Badly planed wood and splinters dug in my skin. Still short of breath after hitting the table, I didn’t have strength left to struggle as they tied my wrists and ankles to the thing. It didn’t support me well, and bits of me bulged through gaps, while the weight of my body pressed other parts into the rough wood.
The entire clan gathered en masse, one body of seething hair and glittering eyes.
They parted to let Royal through. He held a whip in one hand, a nasty-looking tool made of separate lashes, each tipped with a tiny piece of clear, sharp crystal.
I moaned aloud and wrenched my wrists about, instinctively trying to protect my body with my hands.
Royal gave the whip an experimental flick, and crystal sparked. He dipped his head and smiled cruelly.
The first stroke was gently done. He put little effort in it. The crystal seemed to lick my skin, then bit in my waist and one hip like shards of glass and I yelped.
I took air in through my nose, let it seep slowly through my mouth, looked down at my body. The nicks made by the crystal were minuscule, but already they welled with blood. I imagined how I would feel after a score, fifty, a hundred, until my body became one piece of bloody meat.
One. You can do two.
He coiled the whip in, let it loose, snaked it through the air so the crystals glittered like ice and chimed like tiny bells.
The next stroke caught me across the shoulder and breasts. I cried out again, a high thin sound echoing and dying to a whimper.
Two. You can do three. Dammit, you can do it!
Blood trickled on my belly. He reined in the whip.
Chapter Seventeen
As Royal raised his arm, a voice literally boomed through the huge room.
“I challenge you for the life of this woman!”
Head high, he lowered the whip and turned a slow circle. His mouth twisted in an ugly smile. “Ryel, you have no place here,” he said softly, slowly.
The body of demons drew back, creating a path, and Royal walked through them. He stopped fifteen feet from … Royal?
The pain eradicated by sheer astonishment, I stared at Royal One with the whip in his hand, and Royal Two. Face to face, they were identical. What the fuck?
Royal One held very still, his body a single, tense line. “Leave while you still may,” he growled.
Royal Two said nothing as he sternly regarded Royal One. All in black - tight jeans, button-up shirt, jacket and boots - he looked more like the Royal I was used to, but he held a sword in one hand, a long thing like a slim scimitar with a wicked curve at the end.
In an otherwise deathly silence, I could hear my heartbeat. The entire room seemed to throb with it.
“You intrude here,” Royal One growled.
Royal Two’s voice came low and harsh. “It is no intrusion when I come to claim what is mine. I offer challenge. Accept, or slither back to your hole.
”
They glared at each other, while the demon clan shuffled and whispered. Their voices rose, the buzzing of wasps, till I no longer heard the pounding of my heart. Royal One motioned with his hand and their speech abruptly cut off. Silence held the huge room once again, wrapping me like a cold hand.
Royal One nodded. “So be it.”
Royal Two peeled off his jacket and slung it to one side. He clasped the hilt of the sword in both hands and raised it, assuming a martial stance, and every muscle bulged like an enraged bull’s. His copper-gold hair spat sparks as it swirled about his head. His jaw was rigid, his expression thunderous.
He was larger than life. He was magnificent.
Wait a minute! Pointed teeth? So easy to summon the feel of Royal’s mouth on mine. He didn’t have pointed teeth.
Royal One was not my Royal.
The demon who was not Royal dropped his whip and lifted one hand. A sword flew through the air and he neatly caught it by the hilt, but did not lift it to meet Royal’s challenge. He looked past the real Royal, to me, as a subtle change came over his face, and he was not quite Royal anymore. His build was slighter, his hair longer, his cheekbones sharper with hollows beneath them.
With only a flash of his eyes, the baring of pointed teeth as warning, he lunged at Royal. Royal caught the blade on his and they snarled in each other’s faces over the crossed hilts. Then they broke apart as if by mutual consent and backed away.
The other demons moved back to give them space. Royal and the other guy slowly circled, blades resting on their shoulders, each studying the other’s face. They darted in.
It was beautiful, in a lethal kind of way. All graceful strokes and weaving bodies. A dance. A deadly dance. Blades flicked and swung and parried as if separate entities from the men who wielded them. Bodies spun, ducked and swayed. Their feet seemed to barely touch the floor.
I don’t know anything about fighting with a blade, but I quickly realized they were evenly matched. I didn’t think one could overcome the other, until one of them tired. The clash of blades made an unholy racket, the sound amplified, clattering back and forth across the room as if a whole platoon fought.
With one eye on the combatants, a prayer for the real Royal in my heart, I worked on the ropes which bound me.
The demons completely enclosed the arena in which Royal danced. The size of the room gave them ample space in which to maneuver and as the two darted about, the demons flowed back away from them, then flowed in again, the motion of a huge, undulating snake. I watched them glide back and forth to give Royal and his opponent space to duel, and hoped they’d get splinters in their bare feet from the rough wooden floor.
The ropes were not real tight to begin with and I twisted my wrists one way and the other until they felt looser. The wood rubbed the tender skin on the underside of my wrists and the rope chafed me, until my wrists were abraded almost all the way around. They became slippery with blood soaking in the coarse fibers, lubricating my skin as I tried to ease my hands through the rope loop.
I kept a watchful eye on the demons, but none paid me any attention. They had their backs to me while they watched the duel. From my elevated position, I saw over their heads to the space where Royal fought.
Biting the inside of my mouth, I wriggled my right hand free, wincing as skin on my wrist and back of my hand messily peeled away.
I tried to unpick the rope on my left wrist, but wrenching at it had tightened the knot and I didn’t have time to take my time, so to speak. I tore my hand free, removing more skin. I sat up, leaned over, and with shaking hands worked on the ropes around my ankles.
I held my breath as I slowly slid down off the contraption to the ground and stood right behind the demons, afraid one or more would look back at me or hear me move, then backed away from them, but not too far. I looked at the table and saw it sat only a few feet from the curving wall. I looked around, peering to penetrate the shadowy perimeter of the room, but the single arched opening was the only exit. If I could sneak around the demons, if I could reach the archway, if I could outpace the demons who would surely come after me, if… .
I gave up on ifs. I couldn’t leave Royal behind.
I hunched over and made my way behind them, back to the table. I was sure they would hear me. With their supersensitive hearing, how could they miss me scrabbling along? But they were totally captivated by the duel. One step at a time, Tiff.
When I reached the table, I squatted behind it and rested for a moment. I was so scared I would be seen, that the cries of the demon horde when they saw me would distract Royal, giving the other demon an opportunity to kill him; that Royal would die.
But the longer I waited, the more chance of all that happening. I grabbed the Ruger off the top of my clothes, staggered upright and climbed on the table.
Royal and his dueling partner moved too fast for me to get a bead on them. I spread my legs, lifted the gun in both hands and fired over their heads.
The report sounded like a shot from a cannon, followed by a ping as it ricocheted. Most of the demons reflexively ducked. The others froze. Royal and his adversary stopped moving, and stared at me.
As Royal met my eyes across the distance separating us, the demon stepped and spun, his blade making a diagonal at Royal’s neck.
I fired again.
I aimed for his shoulder, but my hand shook and the bullet hit him just above the collarbone. The impact spun him halfway around.
Royal took his head off.
The body stayed upright for a instant, then collapsed to the ground. My eyes, and those of every demon, followed the head as it trundled meatily over the wooden boards and hit the wall nose first. It rolled back and came to rest on one cheek.
I dropped to my knees.
Royal raised his head and stared a challenge at the demons. I lifted my gun, expecting all hell to break loose - Royal and I couldn’t fight off thirty demons - but they backed away. Convinced they would turn on us, I watched in disbelief as they walked to the wall and passed through the arch in ones and twos. Caesar paused and met my eyes, but I couldn’t read his expression, then he followed the rest of them.
Royal lowered his bloody sword, then dropped it. It hit the boards with a clatter. I didn’t see him move. He was just here, arms reaching for me, easing me off the table. He went to his knees, taking me with him, gently holding me, my face in his chest, my legs sprawled on the floor. I couldn’t take my finger out of the Ruger’s trigger guard and my hand clenched the butt so hard it was bloodless.
“Tiff,” he said softly in my hair. “Can you stand? We have to get out of here.”
I wanted to stay on his knees. I didn’t want him to ever let me go. But I nodded on his chest. He eased me off his knees, stood, and helped me upright. Reaction set in, and I shook, the Ruger jerking in my grasp. I let him take it from my hand, then his arms enfolded me again. I felt hard metal on my naked spine and his fingers move to engage the safety.
“Ow!” I said.
He pushed me to arm’s length, brows almost meeting just above his nose as his gaze swept my body. “You’re hurt.”
And naked. And Royal Mortensen is seeing all of me, I thought, as if it mattered under the circumstances.
He let me go, undid the top two buttons of his shirt, lost patience and ripped it open. Buttons popped off and flew everywhere. Bunching the material, he used the shirt to gently wipe drying blood from my body. The little nicks were not deep and the bleeding had already stopped. He tore the material in strips with appalling ease and bound my wrists. He looked me over again, and apparently satisfied, helped me dress and put my necklace, bracelet, watch and the Ruger in my pockets.
With his arm along my shoulders, we crossed the room to get his jacket. He bent to pluck it from the floor and tried to drape it over me.
“Are we going home?”
“If we are lucky.”
I can be practical at the strangest times. “Then you’d better wear it, else you’ll be a mite co
nspicuous in Clarion. What do you mean, if we’re lucky?”
He put his arm around my waist and turned me in the other direction. “We have an hour to leave. It’s a big place.”
“Why an hour?”
“The tradition of combat dictates the victor has one hour to quit a hostile arena.” He frowned at me. “But surely you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The rules of challenge. That we would go free if I won the duel.”
“How in hell could I possibly know that?” I said as I shook my head.
He grasped me by the shoulder and held me in place. “But… . What did you think you were doing?” He looked aghast. “You did not think, did you. You and your little gun - “
“I did think! Kind of. I figured if I shot enough of them we could make a break for it.” I wrenched my shoulder free. “And it’s not a little gun.”
I didn’t understand what he said beneath his breath, but I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary. He put his hand in the small of my back and propelled me onward.
His feet slowed, stopped, and I saw we stood between the body and the head near the wall. Royal just stood there, looking at the head with an odd, angry … yearning.
“Who is he?” I asked in a low voice.
Royal glanced at the body with emptiness in his eyes. “My brother Kien.”
What do you say to a man who just killed his own brother? What could you say? Nothing would be adequate. I looked at Kien’s head and felt no remorse or horror that an evil man lost his life, but I felt terrible Royal had to be the one who did it.
As if he read my thoughts, he put one finger under my chin and tilted my head up. “It would have happened eventually. It was inevitable,” he said stiffly. “He was always corrupt, even as a child. Although this is the first time we fought one-on-one, it is not the first time he tried to kill me. We were of the same blood, but never true kin.”
There must be something I should say, but I couldn’t think what. I stuttered something unintelligible.
