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Wade started sniffing around the shop, trying to catch a scent, while Camille and Morio moved off to the corner and crossed hands. I caught his whispered comments to her.
"Breathe deep. Focus, now focus… the vamps live in the realm of death and we can reach there through the Summoning Dark Ones spell that I taught you last week. If we leave out the last stanza, we won't risk calling them to us. If we're lucky, this just might point the way to them. Add the Moon Mother's energy to the spell if you can."
"I'll try," Camille said. "I can bring down a silver arrow and we might be able to turn it into a compass."
I glanced at Delilah, who had caught the exchange. By now, we all knew Morio had been teaching Camille death magic, but I wondered just how deeply entangled she was becoming with the fox demon. Truth was, none of us knew all too much about him, nor did we know how far in the shadows he walked. He was on our side, Grandmother Coyote had made that clear, but I was beginning to think there was a lot more to him than he let on. Sex magic, death magic… just what kind of youkai was he?
Delilah shook her head and I let it drop. Now was neither the time nor place to enquire. We had too much to do. I turned back to Tim, who clutched the mug in his hands like a shield. He looked over at me and shuddered.
"You asked me some questions?" Haggard, he'd lost any fight he might have had. I could tell that we'd have to direct his every move to get anything useful out of him. It wasn't that he didn't want to help. He was just too exhausted to do anything on his own.
"Let's start with what you saw. Tell us every detail that you can remember." I motioned to Iris, who pulled out a notebook and pen. She had a photographic memory but I didn't want to take any chances.
Taking a deep breath, he let it out sharply. "I was changing in the back when I heard Erin scream. I pulled on my pants—I was naked—and by the time I got to the doorway leading into the main store, I could see three men. They had hold of Erin, and she was putting up a fight, but then one waved his hand in front of her face and she stopped, like she'd forgotten what was happening."
"You said they're vampires. How do you know? What did they look like?" I was clinging to a nebulous hope that Erin had been dragged off by a bunch of FBHs who maybe wanted to rob her. It was a ludicrous hope, but one that would make it much easier to save her.
Tim dashed my hopes though. "They were standing in front of the big mirror, over there." He pointed to a three-way mirror Erin had set up in the main room of the lingerie shop. "The only one I could see was Erin. None of the men showed a reflection. Are there any other creatures that don't show their reflections?"
I closed my eyes, trying to come up with something that would give us hope. "Maybe… a few spirits but… no, Tim. Chances are good that you're right and vampires kidnapped her. Tell me what they looked like. You said three men? Are you sure there wasn't a woman with them?" The four newborns from the theater—the only ones we knew about who were still out there running around—had been two men, two women. Unless the guys had ditched the girls and taken up with a third male vamp, it didn't seem likely it was them. Newborns nesting together tended to be cliquish.
Tim frowned and I could tell he was trying to remember every detail. Erin was his closest friend, and he was hurting like hell. The pain oozed off him like motor oil, burnt and thick. I also suspected Tim was feeling a little bit guilty over hiding out rather than trying to stop them. Sometimes doing the smart thing didn't track as doing the right thing.
"The one who was holding her was stocky, short… He had a buzz cut. The second man was… I don't know… ordinary. Those two looked like they belonged here, today, in this world. But the third… he scared the hell out of me."
I looked up into his eyes. Raw fear. Primal terror. And I knew, right then. "He was tall, with long curly dark hair, wasn't he? And he had a five o'clock shadow and wore black studded leather, didn't he? And you knew, just by looking at him, that you were looking into the face of hell."
Tim nodded, eyes widening. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"Did he say anything?" My stomach felt ready to leap into my throat.
"Just two words. He said, Take her. He's evil, Menolly. I swear to you, I was so scared just watching him that I almost pissed my pants. I wanted to help Erin, but… he looked like he'd eat me up and spit out the bones. I lost my nerve. I hid, damn it. I hid and didn't do a damned thing!"
As I stood back, letting Delilah move in to comfort Tim, I knew then that Dredge had Erin. At least for now. It had to be Dredge. He fed off of fear, and when you looked in his eyes, you knew your life was over, that you'd lost the battle and the punishment was about to begin…
"What's your name, girl?" His voice cut me to the quick. Ice cold, and I knew no tears would work on him, no amount of begging would get me out of what he had planned. "Tell me your name."
Even though I knew better than to give my name to a vampire, I couldn't resist the command. "Menolly," I whispered. "Menolly D'Artigo."
Dredge leaned over me, the crooked smile on his face filled with dark delight. He slid one sharpened nail along my cheek, stopping just before he drew blood. "Well, Menolly D'Artigo, I'm about to carry you up to the highest mountain. There, I'll drop you into the abyss and watch you fall, and fall, and fall."
He ripped open my tunic and my nipples hardened in the cold dampness of the caverns. I heard whispered laughter from around the room and realized we had an audience. Murmurs reached my ears, catcalls and suggestions, but Dredge waved them away. "Patience. We have all the time in the world."
Leaning down, he slowly licked me from breast to navel.
I shuddered, not wanting to respond, angry that my body was betraying me. A quiver in my stomach made me catch my breath, and again he laughed.
"You like? Good. What about this?"
He interlaced his hands, cracking his knuckles. The next thing I knew, a line of razor-thin blades ripped across my stomach, slashing a trail of shallow lines that burned along my flesh. Unprepared for the pain, I shrieked and Dredge shuddered, drinking it in. "Scream as loud as you want. There's no one to hear you. No one to save you."
Another line of cuts and the sudden sting of salt water over the wounded flesh. I bit back my cries for the next few minutes as he laboriously began etching thin patterns along every inch of my body, drizzling salt water over each cut, each scar-in-the-making. After the tenth cut, a spiral right between my breasts, I started screaming. After the thirtieth, I was beyond words. And after a hundred, the torture began in earnest.
"Menolly? Menolly? Are you okay?" Delilah touched my shoulder, startling me. She quickly danced away when I hissed.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. No time for me to get lost in memories. Dredge had Erin and that meant she was doomed unless we got to her before he had a chance to.
"Sorry… just thinking." I saw Delilah glance at Camille, who was holding a silver arrow made of moonlight. "Did your spell work?" I asked, ignoring the glance that passed between them.
