Chapter 5
five
Her heels clatter-tattooed on the uneven sidewalk, and Sophie didn’t know she was screaming until she had to whoop in enough breath to keep running.
Lucy’s little jeweled purse bumped against her side, a muscle in her back seized with sharp tearing pain, and cold air whipped her throat as she dragged in another breath, suddenly very sure she was going to scream again.
Her legs flew out in front of her as the rest of her was wrenched violently back, a hard hand clapped over her mouth, and she was too breathlessly stunned to do more than let out a choked cry—a muffled, lonely sound, not worth much with the wind rattling empty branches overhead.
A motor turned over, buzzed into life. “Get us out of here,” the man said, and tossed Sophie into a dark, enclosed space as if she weighed nothing. She landed on something soft, her forehead cracking what felt like a face, and there was a yelp as if she’d kicked a puppy.
“What the hell is this?” A girl’s voice, young, and a sudden sound like a sheet popped smooth before being laid over a bed, resolving into a low rumbling growl much different than the mechanical engine.
“Keep your mouth shut, Julia, until I tell you to open it.” He sounded furious; the voice was deep, commanding, and faintly familiar. Sophie struggled to sit up as the vehicle—it was definitely a van—pulled away from the curb.
What the hell? Someone grabbed her shoulders, shoved her so she half-flew across the narrow space to land hard on something softer than metal but far more solid than upholstery.
“Ooof.” A hard huff of expelled breath. “Careful, there,” the man continued. “Be easy with her, dammit!”
“Who is it?” Another male voice.
I’ve been kidnapped. Oh, God. Lucy— “Lucy!” she gasped, and erupted into wild thrashing. Her elbow whapped something soft, and he oofed again. It might have been funny, really. Downright hilarious, if it hadn’t been happening to her.
Her wrists were grabbed, and the hand clamped over her mouth again. He held her easily, as if she were a child.
Terribly, hurtfully strong hands keeping her immobile. Fresh panic turned the space behind her eyelids red; Sophie’s stomach cramped, her heart hammering hummingbird-quick.
“This is our new shaman.” Silence greeted his statement.
At the same time, that thundering growl swallowed the hum of the engine afresh, shaking through her frozen, terrified body before settling into something very much like a purr.
“You can smell the potential on her. She was back there, near the upir. I think it ate her friend.”
Lucy! Sophie got a good mouthful and bit, hard as she’d ever driven her teeth into anything in her life. So hard her jaws ached, in fact, and there was a hiss of indrawn breath. Her eyes rolled, and she worried her jaw back and forth.
Warm coppertaste filled her mouth, too thick and slippery to spit.
“And she’s blooded me,” the man continued, without any discernible change in tone. “Which takes care of that. So all of you behave, or I’ll have your hides.”
A sharp intake of collective breath, like wind through a field of wheat. A deep, charged silence returned, reverberated. The van’s tires hummed.
“A shaman?” A very young male voice, and it sounded shocked enough for all involved. “Really? A real live one?”
“A potential.” The man’s voice rumbled against her back. “She’ll trigger to us soon enough.”
It was dark inside the rocking van; the vehicle took a corner at high speed and Sophie’s frozen body pressed back against whoever was holding her.
Lucy, oh, God. The image of the body in the alley, its throat torn open and legs splayed indecently, just wouldn’t go away. It couldn’t be possible, it just couldn’t.
Sophie made a low, despairing sound in the back of her throat. The freeze response broke; she burst into motion once more, getting exactly nowhere. The borrowed skirt was riding up, too, adding a whole new dimension to the situation.
The liquid in her mouth coated the back of her throat, terrible iron-hot slickness. He didn’t move his hand, hard fever-warm skin quivering against her lips—small, utterly weird movements, as of tiny skittering legs under the surface.
She blinked, her glasses knocked askew. Glittering eyes peered at her.
A passing streetlamp’s reflection boiled through the interior, outlining a young woman with long dark hair with one hand clapped to her cheek and a slim young man who looked enough like her to be a twin, with the same narrow nose and winged eyebrows.
The young man crouched on the van’s middle bench seat, easily swaying back and forth with the motion of the vehicle, the pale streak over his left temple shining briefly.
“Slow down, Eric,” the voice behind her rumbled. The growl was coming from his chest, and his hand jammed her glasses uncomfortably high against the bridge of her nose, almost into her forehead.
It was him. The guy who had bumped her at the bar.
The van slowed. “What the hell just happened?” the driver asked.
Think, Sophie! Three men and a woman. They’d just kidnapped her, for God’s sake. And Lucy… Lucy was…
“Kyle took on a rabid upir. Least, I think it was bloodsick. Sure acted like it.” He paused, his hand peeling away from her mouth. “And Julia had to go and get involved.”
“I didn’t—” The girl cowered as the man holding Sophie made another deep, strange sound.
Definitely a growl. She froze, her brain nearly smoking with the effort of attempting to deal with this new absurdity. The alleyway became more distant and dreamlike with every passing moment, horror forcing memory to recede. A mental reflex, hatefully familiar.
Oh, Jesus. Please. Lucy’s slack colorless face, the horrible gaping below her chin, the blood-drenched thing with its twisting, plum-colored leer—the Latin Lover who’d been grinding with Lucy on the dance floor, there was no mistaking that ruffled shirt.
What had he done to her?
The taste in her mouth, Sophie realized, was blood. She’d bitten a kidnapper hard enough to break the skin.
God help me. Oh God help. What are they going to do to me?
“Kyle’s dead? Really dead?” The very young male voice again, nearly breaking halfway through each question. “What will we do?”
The man holding her sagged slightlly. His arms were still iron, though, no betraying looseness to exploit.
“I’m working on it. For right now we’re driving, and we’re going to get the hell out of Dodge with our new shaman.
” His grasp loosened fractionally—not enough to wriggle, but maybe she could breathe again. “Now. What’s your name, honey?”
The blood smeared over her mouth crackled as cooler air hit it. Sophie took a deep breath, filling her lungs to the floor, and screamed.
He silenced her almost instantly, bleeding palm sealing her mouth once more. “All right, we’ll do it the hard way. Head south, Eric. Don’t stop for a while. What’s the take?”
Immediately, the two on the bench seat began digging in pockets. The boy wore a denim jacket and the girl rummaged in her shirt—no, her bra, producing an impressive roll of bills.
“Good pickings,” the boy said, his eyes glowing in the dimness. Slickness glittered on his cheeks—tears, maybe?
The girl bit her lip, trembling, fingers jittering as the money fanned out. She threw the rest of the cash down as if it burned her fingers.
“Kyle…” The driver sighed. Banged his fist sharply on the wheel, once. “What about his body?”
Body? Sophie tried pitching away from the kidnapper holding her. No luck.
“He died in battle. The majir will take him home.” Har captor didn’t even have the grace to pretend he noticed her trying to squirm free. Her nose was full, plus the blood and spit smeared across her mouth was a pretty effective gasket. Her lungs burned, throat crawling with that awful slickness.
She’d tasted blood before, plenty of times. It always made her sick and light-headed, bracing for the next punch and hoping Marc would run out of steam soon. The past threatened to close over her head, black water swallowing an exhausted swimmer. Her ribs heaved, panic attack looming.
Come on, Sophie. You have to think, you have to do something!
But she literally couldn’t get any air with his hand over her mouth and her nose blocked, and the blackness was so awfully thick.
Then, thank God, he eased up a little. “Be nice and quiet, shaman. Take a deep breath.”
Shaman? What the hell? She sucked in a scant ration of cool, blessed air. The panic retreated, with a vicious little thump under her breastbone promising eventual, inevitable return.
Her eyes were adapting, the shadowed interior revealing itself bit by bit.
The cluttered van smelled of musk and fast food, and with each mile slipping away under the tires she was farther and farther away from Lucy’s car—and Lucy’s body.
The police and ambulances would arrive, but nobody would know she’d been out with her friend.
If she could just escape, get to a phone, something, anything…
What did these people want with her? She was a nobody.
At least, now she was.
Marc? Maybe. He had money. But why would he want her kidnapped? He’d want something far more personal. Oh, yes, he would.
Unless… were they taking her to him?
Oh, please, kill me. If they were dragging her to see him, it was all over.
“I’ve got almost eight hundred, I think,” the driver said. “Could be more or less, I wasn’t keeping close track.”
“We’ll drive for a while, then stop for food.
” The guy holding her braced them both easily as the van took a sharp turn, accelerated, and settled into a higher hum.
“We’re on the freeway now, sweetheart. Just be nice and easy.
You’re safe.” He let up on her mouth, but his fingers still rested on her cheek, clearly ready to gag her again.
The wet warmth fogging her glasses was tears, she discovered.
Her entire face was damp, her nose running, blood smeared around her mouth.
Did getting kidnapped and half suffocated make a person drool?
The embarrassment, the shame was almost worse than the fear. Almost.
I’ve gone insane. It’s the only explanation.
“Please don’t hurt me.” Much to her surprise, she sounded fairly steady.
Her tank top—Lucy’s tank top—was all rucked up, a slice of her bare back resting against the kidnapper’s T-shirt.
He was so warm, and the van was heating up as well, engine working hard.
Her naked legs prickled with gooseflesh.
“We’re not going to hurt you.” The young boy crouched on the bench seat swayed as the van changed lanes. He swiped at the tears on his cheeks, scrubbing them away angrily. “Zach, are you sure? She’s a bleeder.”
“She’s got the mark, I smell it on her. If I can, you can, too.
” Her kidnapper’s hands fell away, and Sophie was suddenly aware she was virtually recumbent; he was wedged up against the closed side door.
Her gaze flicked toward the front passenger’s seat—maybe she could signal through the window or get away somehow, if she could just get that far.
Think, Sophie. Think!
“A shaman.” The driver sighed. “Goddammit.” There was a sound—palm striking steering wheel now, sharply. Nobody in the vehicle was happy, it sounded like. “Kyle.”
“We’ll sing him to the Moon the moment I’m sure we’re safe.
We’ll hold Silence for him until then.” The guy she was half-laid on sighed as well.
Zach, the boy had said; she didn’t want to know more, but maybe the names could be useful.
“It’s just us now. But we’ve got a shaman.
Julia, find her a coat. Brenn, gather up the money. You’ll hold it for me.”
The crying boy hopped off the seat, grabbing cash from the girl’s hands and combing the floor with quick motions, gathering up fallen bills. He paused, ducking his head, when his gaze drifted across Sophie’s. That streak in his hair was strange; the girl had one too.
The boy also seemed not to notice he was still weeping, even while the tears dripped on his denim jacket.
“Please,” Sophie whispered. “You can just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“She’s whining.” The girl’s lip lifted, white teeth glimmering. “What a fucking bleeder.”
A confused burst of motion. Sophie landed hard on her side. A burst of starry pain rocked through her skull—hit my head, she thought, dimly—and the weird rattling growl crested again, drowning out engine-noise.
Her ears roared too, like a high wind in acres of trees. A familiar sound, one she’d heard many times before, usually while Marc was yelling. Always so loud when he started in on her, the noise robbing her of breath and light, closing down her vision into a tunnel.
“Shut up, Julia!” Zach the kidnapper snarled, but Sophie slid down into a darkness starred with weird spangled lights, and was gone.