Chapter 23
twenty-three
Eventually, but by painstaking bit, the faint unglow from the majir described her surroundings.
Sophie lay in a small space, on concrete, though near her feet was a wooden door.
At least, she thought it was a door—it moved slightly when her feet found it.
And she was vaguely aware of needing to pee, though it wasn’t critical yet.
She had other problems.
It smelled too horrible to be believed, and the thin thread of musk rising from her skin didn’t help, only accentuated the reek coating the back of her throat.
Her mind kept supplying images to match—terrible, soul-destroying pictures of rotten flesh, skulls grinning through veils of rancid slime, bones dripping with decay, writhing worms, and—
Through it all, the cricket-hum continued. Sometimes words came through, reedy little sounds shaping comprehensible syllables. The faces pressed close to hers, insubstantial smoke warming for just a moment, but they never stayed.
She lay very still, thought about it. If she was crazy—
Zach swore she wasn’t. And there were vampires, she’d seen them. Which was more insane, seeing spooky shit or denying it right in front of your own eyes?
She sought to breathe, working through the incipient panic attack. Her nose was full, her muscles cramping despite the faces crowded close, ghostly hands stroking her limbs, easing, drugging the pain. Tears leaked hot and soundless down to her temple, dripped over the bridge of her nose.
Where are my glasses?
She’d huddled on the floor so many times, trying to breathe through the sobs, her body on fire with pain. It never got easier to deal with.
Never became routine.
At first she’d tried to predict him, to be more pliant, more perfect.
Tried to find out what on earth was irritating him so much, think of ways to soothe him, make him happy.
Back when she still thought he loved her; back when she still thought love was pain, or pain was all right if you could just love enough.
Then came the survival phase, where everything began to seem like a dream. Just keeping her head above water was hard enough. Actually thinking about what was happening lost out to just attempting to endure the next explosion.
After that was the most horrifying phase of all—being so trapped, so hopeless, that she began to think she deserved it. The world skewed itself a few degrees off, and she began to lose parts of herself.
If she had to get right down to it, she wasn’t really in school to become a social worker or therapist. She just wanted to understand how she worked, how people worked, so she could put herself back together again.
And quit constantly, fearfully flinching, looking over her shoulder, anticipating the worst.
It was no use. The ropes were too tight, and the faces were contorting, some of them crying soundlessly.
Thank God Lucy’s face wasn’t there. Which brought up an interesting line of thought—were these dead spirits, or something else? Zach hadn’t said, and she hadn’t thought to ask.
Different sounds intruded—a squeak, a thump. Footsteps. Distinctive, the heels jabbing hard.
Sophie realized she was making a small whining noise, swallowed hard. The reek filled her throat; the footsteps grew closer. The majir whispered, and she caught enough of the reedy little syllables to guess who was down here, wherever “here” was.
Oh, God. I really didn’t ever want to see him again.
A final long scraping sound, and weak light fell into the closet.
It was a closet, she saw, and its dimensions seemed more than vaguely familiar.
He grabbed her ankles and pulled, fingers biting in cruelly, and if the spirits hadn’t been clustering around her, somehow ameliorating the muscle soreness, she probably would have screamed at the pain.
Sophie came to rest, blinking furiously as the light stung dark-adapted eyes. He walked behind her, heels still landing hard on the concrete, and she suddenly realized why.
He wanted her afraid.
Well, I am. But after the past few days whipsawing between terror, more terror, unwilling comfort, and weirdness, her fear-meter seemed to have busted.
For fuck’s sake, she was so tired of being afraid.
“Hello, Sophie,” he breathed in her ear. The hot, meaty smell grew more rank, if that were possible. She had another sudden, vivid vision of canine teeth grown long, lips thinned out and flushed deadly cherry-red.
She found her voice. At least they hadn’t gagged her. “Hello, Marc.” Now that I’ve got a really sensitive nose, I just have to be stuck around hideously stinky stuff. Great.
It was a good thought, a sane thought, and she clung to the grim almost-amusement—for whatever it could be worth.
“You’ve been a very bad girl, my dear.” He kept panting on her ear. Three days ago Sophie would have cringed.
Now she just wanted a bathroom, and maybe a bit more of Julia’s steak with caramelized onions.
So she just kept quiet. He was going to talk for a little while; she knew that tone. The falsely conciliatory cheerfulness, the lilting menace.
“Bad enough that you embarrass me with legal difficulties. But then you hide from me, as if I’m some sort of common criminal. And you take up with such undesirable elements. My dear, you have no couth.”
And you’ve been hanging out with the Happy Vampires. Really, Marc, lecturing me is so passé. Why don’t you find something else to do? But that was a sure way to set him off early, so she concentrated on blinking away the tears. The room gradually took shape, became familiar.
A basement. Or more precisely, the Hammerheath mansion’s wine cellar. She’d been down here hundreds of times obsessing over which bottle to choose, knowing the wrong one would bring a patronizing grin and a promise of punishment.
The bottle-racks and slatted wooden flooring had been taken out. Dark liquid splashed the walls; the heavy wainscoting was splattered, as well. The lighting was always dim down here, and she’d been in the small temperature-controlled closet for the brandies and cognacs.
Dear God. He’s emptied out the wine cellar? For a moment she was confused, then she remembered the heavy insulated doors. This was an ideal place for someone to scream their lungs out without being heard—and if the splashes on the wall were any indication, a lot of screaming went on down here.
She should have been more surprised. But her surprise-meter was like her fear-meter, completely busted by now. She knew where she was, she’d escaped this house once before.
It wasn’t looking like she’d escape again, though.
“There’s something called a crucion, Sophie. It’s shaped like an X, and when we catch one of those animals we like to strap them onto it and play. It’s not a nice game. First the arms break, then the legs. And if we keep turning the wheel, other bones break, too. Doesn’t that sound painful?”
You’re the one hanging around with nasty people, Marc. Not me. She tensed, her bare throat feeling very exposed. Very vulnerable. Especially with him breathing that foul, horrible smell all over her.
A nudge against her rope-wrapped back. Her flesh shrank at the idea of him actually touching her. “Are you listening? I want you to listen very closely, darling.”
Just shut up and go away. How could I ever have thought I loved you? She took a long shallow breath in, trying not to taste it.
“I asked if you were listening, Sophie.” Another poke, rougher than the first. After Zach’s leashed strength, Marc didn’t feel so horribly, hurtfully overwhelming. But she remembered the thing in the alley and how it twisted on itself, how quick it moved, and poor Lucy’s pale face—
The most amazing thing happened.
A pinprick of something hot dilated behind Sophie’s sternum.
Her mouth opened. “You are such a moron, Marc.” Flat, matter-of-fact, as if she was informing him about the weather. “I’m tied up on the floor. What else do I have to listen to?”
She couldn’t believe she’d said it. But the burning itch in her chest demanded she speak. It had been so long since she’d dared to feel any anger at all, and this wasn’t just irritation.
The sensation was too red, too acid, too hot, to be anything but pure rage.
He was silent for almost thirty seconds—probably shocked that she’d dared to talk to him at all. Quiet little mouse Sophie, scared of her own shadow.
Not anymore. There were other things to be terrified of now. Things like vampires and werewolves and—
But she wasn’t scared of Zach, was she? Not now; not anymore.
When had that happened?
“Sophie.” Marc’s fingers threaded through her hair. Tightened, making a fist. He did love to pull by the handful. “Where did you learn to talk like this? From your plebeian little friend?”
“The one you wanted killed, you mean?” Sophie’s voice bounced off the blood-spattered walls. “Her name was Lucy, and I hope you rot in hell.”
The blow came out of nowhere, an openhanded slap glancing off her cheek, forcing her head down, bouncing her temple off the floor.
Stars exploded behind her eyelids once more, but she didn’t cry out.
He hit her again, again, bracing her head with the fist in her hair, a terrible yanking pain each time.
Her lip split, and the hot streak of blood in her mouth was at least cleaner than the filth coating the room.
He wrenched her head back, throat exposed and neck craning; he leaned close enough she felt meat-hot breath on her cheek. Stinging warmth dripped into her eyes.
Marc’s face was a caricature of rage, flushed almost purple.
The fangs were wickedly curved, needle-sharp and bone-white.
Their points dug into his chin; thin lines of black ooze slid from the punctures.
His eyes ran with wet orange, a dripping metallic sheen easily mistaken for fire.
It shifted, running down his cheeks and leaving an opalescent slugtrail behind, as if he wept hellfire.