Chapter Thirty-One
Thirty-One
Cally awoke in a bed, in a sterile room with white walls and too-bright lights overhead.
Eve sat curled up in a nearby chair, eyes closed, breathing softly.
An IV drip ran fluids of some kind into Cally’s arm, and the bed had starched sheets and a metal frame.
She plucked distastefully at the hospital gown she wore.
But it wasn’t a hospital, despite her gown: there were no windows for starters, no clock or pictures on the walls, and the door looked too heavy. It was probably locked.
“Hey.” Eve’s eyes were open. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
“Drained. Like I was on an all-night—” Cally broke off with a cough, her throat too raspy. She accepted the glass of water Eve handed her, and took a sip. “What happened? Did we get him? The vampire?”
Eve nodded, unsmiling. “We got him. You passed out just before they carried Nico from the house. They put these high-tech metal bracelets on his wrists and ankles, and a muzzle around his head.” She gestured with her hands, imitating a mask.
“He was awake by then, and his red…” She broke off with a shudder.
“‘I have looked into the eyes of hate, and seen there the face of evil.’”
Cally didn’t recognize the quote. “They brought him out alive? A prisoner?”
“Yes.”
“I thought they were going to kill him.”
“So did I.”
“Where are we?”
“The basement of an Order building, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, about an hour southwest of Milton. They hooded me again, but I saw enough to know it’s a big place, like the house in upstate New York.”
Cally lifted her arm with the drip. “What’s this?”
“Just saline.” Eve winced. “They took some of your blood, and I couldn’t stop them.”
Bastards. “I wouldn’t expect you to try. Let’s just… play it safe, right?”
“Well, to their credit, they also had an Order doctor check you out. He couldn’t find anything wrong with you. You just didn’t wake up.”
“How long?”
“A few hours.” Eve gave a strained smile. “You scared the crap out of me, by the way.”
“I’m sorry,” Cally said, reaching out her other hand. Eve leaned forward and gripped it tightly. “Why are we here? Why didn’t Darian drop us back at our car?”
“Because you were unconscious. He kept talking about ‘keeping the asset safe.’” Her nose wrinkled. “You’re an asset. Congratulations.”
“Great.” That was consistent for Darian—oscillating between treating her like property and trying to date her.
“He was pretty enamored with you, though. The witch who paralyzed a vampire with magic. I heard him on the phone, talking to someone high up. Mr. Alexander himself, perhaps. Lots of glowing language.”
“Where is he?”
“No idea. Haven’t seen anyone since they put us in here.”
Cally nodded toward the door. “That locked?”
“Yep.”
“So prisoners, huh?”
“Basically.”
“Charming.” Cally sighed. “What time is it?”
“No idea, but it’s late. They took our phones again.” She grimaced. “You’ve been out all day.”
“Crap. Ant—he’ll be awa—expecting me.” Cally frowned at their sterile cage. Where had they hidden the mics?
It was another two hours before they heard footsteps outside their door, and by then Cally had dressed, and in lieu of other options, was sitting on the bed. The bolt pulled back and someone knocked, like it was all very civil.
“Come in,” Cally invited, with a roll of her eyes for Eve’s benefit.
Darian entered, still wearing his smart clothes but without the flak vest, shoes too clean and shiny to be anything other than a new pair. He left the door open wide enough to show an Order grunt waiting in the corridor outside, his weapon held ready.
“Ah, there’s our favorite witch. Nice to see you up and about.”
“Why are we prisoners?” Cally rose to her feet. “Why haven’t you killed the vampire?”
“You’re not prisoners,” Darian replied easily, leaning against the wall with his arms casually folded. “We secured the door for your own protection.”
“Protection from what?” Eve asked.
He smirked. “Yourselves.”
“I want to see Nico Aldobrandini,” Cally demanded.
“Excellent. That’s why I’m here. He’s just woken up.” Darian pushed himself off the wall and held an arm out toward the door. “After you.”
Eve stood too, but Darian stepped forward to block her. “Just Cally, I’m afraid.”
Cally crossed her arms. “She goes where I go.”
“Not on this occasion.” Darian was unmoved. “You have clearance; she, unfortunately, still counts as a civilian.”
“It’s all right,” Eve said, falling back into her chair. “You go. I’ll just sit here and watch the paint.”
Cally hesitated, then scowled at Darian and preceded him out of the door. Darian closed it behind them, sliding the bolt back into place.
The hallway was as stark as their room, bare concrete walls with doors staggered at irregular intervals.
“Where are we?”
“The Order’s New England headquarters,” Darian said as he led her down the passage, keeping it vague either deliberately or through disinterest.
They took a flight of concrete stairs up to another level, where two Order guards flanked an imposing steel door.
Darian grabbed her arm. “Are you sure you want to go in there?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She wanted closure, and seeing her mother’s killer helpless and captured would... Would what, Cally? How would it help? She frowned. “Why haven’t you killed him?”
“It. Why haven’t we killed it.”
“‘It’ has a gender.”
His expression hardened. “It is a monster, a killer that feeds on the helpless, and it deserves no such humanization from us.”
Cally held his gaze. A monster? Yes, Nico was. But Cally couldn’t help thinking of Antoine, and how often she’d call him that. “Why isn’t it dead? Wasn’t that the point?”
“That point was to capture it, which you helped us accomplish.”
“The point was to kill it. That’s what you told me.”
He held her gaze steadily. “We never said we would kill it.”
Damn it, they hadn’t; she’d just assumed. They’d just called it a ‘target’. “What the hell are you doing with it then?”
“We have plans. You’ll find out—in time.”
“Whatever. Open the door, please.”
Darian gestured to one of the guards, and he grabbed the large handle and slid the steel door back.
The room inside was a wide open space, with a clear-walled cube in the center, anchored between ceiling and floor.
A single door was the only way in or out, and multiple steel bars held it sealed, bolts driven into the transparent material, each as thick as Cally’s fingers.
Nico waited inside, wearing pants and a shirt made of hemp or something similar.
Featureless, drab, and designed to dehumanize.
Every crime of prejudice begins by dehumanizing the victim.
But wasn’t it justified in Nico’s case? Did she really feel sorry for him?
He turned as the door opened, his red eyes finding hers, crouching as he watched her like a panther about to pounce. His fist thumped into the wall of his cell. A dull thunk reverberated through the space.
Only then did she realize she’d seen him before: in the Curia’s house, after she’d been with Belle.
Shit. He saw me with Antoine. Will he tell them?
Cally stopped in the doorway, mind racing.
I shouldn’t have come.
The vampire watched her, his eyes narrowed and a hint of his fangs showing.
It’s too late.
“What’s the material?” she asked, to cover her hesitation. “Will it hold?”
“It’s a polycarbonate, thick enough to stop bullets.” Darian’s tone was laced with his amusement at what he probably assumed was her timidity. “Don’t worry, it’ll hold.”
“Then I want to talk to him alone.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Because I need to know if he’s recognized me. If he knows who I am. “I’ve told you already,” she said, like it was the only thing that mattered. “He killed my mother.”
Darian regarded her like he didn’t believe her, then relented. “Very well. Five minutes.”
“Is there some kind of kill switch? In case something goes wrong?” Maybe I can hit it before he—
“Nothing is going to go wrong. The cell is all that’s needed.”
Damn.
He let her walk in, then the door slid closed behind her, the lock engaging with an echoing clang.
Nico watched every step she took with his fangs bared. She stopped a few feet short of the walls of his cage. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear everything,” Nico sneered. “What do you want?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nothing but prey.” He pressed his hands to the glass. “Dead, when I get out of here.” One fist struck again, more out of frustration than a serious attempt to breach the wall.
His answer was generic enough. She tried not to show her relief; maybe he didn’t know who she was.
“I have questions for you.”
“I have no intention of answering.”
“Your territory is Milton,” she said, pressing on anyway. Maybe he’d get talkative if she persisted. “I—we—know vampires are territorial. How long have you held it?”
He watched her impassively, the way she might watch a circling mosquito before her hand flew out to crush it in mid-air.
“You’ve fed on humans there for decades, haven’t you?”
“Chattel,” he corrected.
At least he was talking. She smiled, thin and humorless. “Those same chattel have captured you. How many have you killed over the years?”
“Too many to count.”
Good. Keep him engaged. “Three a year? Five?”
He scoffed. “A hundred, every year. More, even.”
“How many years?”
“Why do you care, Chattel?”
She needed to hear him say it. Maybe honesty would work. “Do you know why you’re here? Why we came looking for you?”
He went still like she’d seen vampires do before, his hands pressed against the clear wall as he watched her from between them. She had his attention now.
“I hunted you because you killed my mother.”
“No, I didn’t.” His denial was instant, and his lips twisted with something like disgust.
She stepped forward. “How long have you held Milton?”
“Longer than you’ve been alive, Chattel.”
Then it was him. “You killed my mother. That’s why you’re in that cage.”
“I told you; I didn’t.”
He was just toying with her. Why was he denying it? “You’ve killed hundreds!” She almost shouted it. “How can you claim innocence?”
His head tilted back, chin coming up, and he drawled his reply half in contempt and half in anger. “I don’t like girls,” he said, biting off every word. “Dumb fucking chattel. You’ve captured the wrong vampire.”
Cally stared at him, too shocked to move. There was no reason for him to lie, no reason to deny it. It made no difference if he admitted it or not; he was still the Order’s prisoner, and he’d boasted willingly enough about how many he’d killed.
She believed him. Besides, that reaction: the sharp, instant denial; the scorn and revulsion.
It wasn’t him.
But how could that be? Milton was his.
“Are you telling me you let another vampire hunt in your territory?” She made no effort to hide her disdain, still trying to provoke so that he answered.
“There’s no ‘let’.” He crossed his arms, grinning mirthlessly and letting his fangs show. “But if an outcast walks in, what am I to do?”
Cally fought to keep her expression neutral, even as her stomach churned. No. A coincidence, nothing more. Her mind ran in circles, and her fists clenched without conscious thought. It couldn’t be Antoine, could it? No… he already told me. Nico’s just sowing dissent.
“Does he know you’re here?” he asked, leaning closer to the glass wall of his cage. “Do they know you’re Antoine’s chattel?” He raised his voice, enunciating clearly. “The chattel of Anthony Du Pont?”
The floor tilted, and only through sheer willpower did she resist the urge to swing around, checking all the corners for the cameras and microphones that the Order would have. Her mouth went dry, but all she could do was brazen it out.
“Of course they do,” she said, turning on her heel and heading for the door. She couldn’t get out fast enough. She never should’ve come. “Enjoy your stay, Nico. I hear the food here is excellent.” Shit… was that what they intended for my blood?
He laughed bitterly. “We are both prisoners, Chattel, but at least the walls of my cage are clear.”
Cally ignored him, rapping twice on the steel door, and it slowly slid open. Darian stood waiting, his arms crossed. Three more guards had joined the two by the door, and they ringed her in the corridor.
But it was Darian’s expression that captured her eyes. His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes narrowed and hard, and where there had once been infatuation and hope, now there was only pure hatred.
Cally stopped when she saw him, lifting her chin in defiance. He heard. He knows.
“Bring her,” he ground out, and Nico’s laughter echoed out of the room, until the cell door slid shut and cut it off.
An Order grunt grasped each of her arms, and Darian turned on his heel, striding angrily off down the corridor.
Her escort pulled her along behind him, and two guards brought up the rear, their weapons held ready, far enough back and eyes watchful. Too many for her to fight, and no chance for escape.
Cally dragged her feet, a hollow ache spreading through her chest, so tight it was hard to breathe.
They would kill her for this; she knew it. And then Antoine would die too.
Two vampires and a witch from one day’s work.
How happy Darian must be.