Bete Noire (26 page)

OUI, mon seigneur!” came Sebastian’s singsong reply. The bite to “my lord”, its sarcastic nature, wasn’t lost to Tristan even in his confusion.

He struggled with the fae. He had no idea the small man was this strong. “What the fuck happened to your loyalty! Your pride?”

Sebastian laughed, his breath minty and green smelling. “I had told you I was careful and calculating, didn’t I? And my loyalty is still what it was. But I have my own goals regardless of who holds my leash.”

“And what loyalty is that? To Lucien?” The angle was bad with his arms over his head like this, but Tristan fought it away, pushing and groaning with the effort. “He’s trash!”

The fae laughed and there was that earthy, minty scent again. God, what was that? “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“No,” he groaned, “’course not. He’s only using you anyway, like the kitsune.”

Sebastian lost his amusement then. He looked down right peeved.

Good
.

“That is none of your concern.”

Tristan gnashed his teeth and tested the fae’s hold again. As expected, Sebastian immediately tightened, securing Tristan’s wrists over his head. The knees pinning Tristan’s hips down tightened too. The man may have been “petite” but Tristan saw the potential strength the man could wield the night he saw him shirtless. And, well, he was a shinwa, not human.

“I saw how upset you were with Lucien about the kitsune. Don’t think I didn’t see the seething look you gave him back at the hotel.”

“That is none of your concern!” Sebastian shouted, spitting on him. While the fae was still flustered under his anger, Tristan tried his hold again. He ground his teeth and lifted with his arms. Sebastian may have had the advantage of leverage and his surprisingly heavy bodyweight, but Tristan had the advantage of double jointed elbows. Thanks to Ash and their endless sparring lessons, he knew how to use the abnormality to his advantage. A quick twist of his arms around the wrong way loosened the fae’s grip. Green eyes went wide in alarm as Tristan wrenched his wrists free.

“Ha!” Tristan yelled in his excitement and swung out. His fist caught Sebastian in the chin, snapping the fae’s head to the side. At the same time he caught Sebastian with his other fist from below. The fae’s head rocked back, taking his body with the movement and he fell backwards. With a few precious seconds to act, Tristan scrambled to his feet, almost forgetting to compensate for the weight of the flamethrower and reached for a weapon. 

The fae moved slowly as he stood, rubbing his chin with long fingers. His green eyes fell onto the gun pointed at him. He dropped his hand away in an annoyed gesture, but he smiled as he met Tristan’s gaze. “I am no vampire, monsieur hunter. Do you really intend on shooting me?”

Sebastian was right. He wasn’t human, but he wasn’t a vampire either. That meant, traitor or not, the man wasn’t on Tristan’s docket for th
e dead. After this was all over Tristan had some serious moral mapping to do to decide if all shinwa deserved his form of justice. He needed to know where the line was that he couldn’t cross to protect his kind. When did protecting the human race turn to simple cold-blooded murder? Besides, the fae was unarmed. That had to mean he was just meant to retrieve Tristan for his Master. Lucien didn’t want him dead. Not yet anyway.

Sebastian’s stance relaxed and his face lit up, making those green eyes shine in the dim light. He was damn near smug as if he knew exactly what Tristan was thinking. “That’s right. You cannot kill me, I heard that about you. You target only vampires. That’s very naïve of you, thinking that only one of seven races living outside of human law need to be policed. And that doesn’t even account for those other things not human or shinwa…” He laughed, it was condescending and arrogant. “And to think, you hadn’t even known what shinwa were before I told you. I really hadn’t believed Lucien when he said you knew nothing, even after two months with a vampire mistress. But it seems he was correct all along. You are a newborn babe, so innocent. It’s really very sweet in a horrible way…”

The fae was really starting to piss him off. The gun in his hand started to shake. It was partly the extended time he had to hold the big ass gun up, trained on the fae. The other part, he could admit to himself, was the anger taking hold, fogging everything. “You always talk this much?”

“I’m sorry,
ami
,” he said mockingly. “I don’t mean to make fun. I just find the whole situation extraordinary. Besides, you can relax. Your big gun looks mighty heavy. I’m not here to kill you. No, no, Master has plans for you and the woman. I was only ordered to...” He paused, putting a hand to his chin in thought. His eyes unfocused as he tried to remember. “What was the word...,” he mumbled. “Ah! Yes, I was ordered to
wrangle
you, monsieur. It’s such a lovely American term, it’s it? Wrangle. So simple, yet full of implications.”

Well, there it was. Tristan scrunched his nose up. “Wrangle, huh?”

“Mhm,” the fae answered, lips pressed into a thin smirk. “Well, that is of course, a loose translation. Would you prefer it in French, it’s much more eloquent.”

Tristan made a rude noise and stiffened his arm, locking his elbow. The tremble in his hand was spreading to his arm. Sebastian saw his trouble and grinned hard, showing a lot of teeth before taking a step back. Tristan automatically took one with him.

“What’re doing?” he asked feeling uneasy.

The fae lowered his head, looking at him like an animal on the hunt. Tristan tensed, finding new stability for the gun when suddenly Sebastian turned and ran.

“Hey!” he shouted and pulled on the trigger, but his stupid ass forgot the safety. “Shit!” He looked away for only a second to click off the safety and fire again but when he looked up again Sebastian was already gone. The sound of gunfire was deafening as it echoed off of the dense stone walls.

“Stupid ass elf,” he muttered and started forward, taking his time. The last glimpse he had of the man in his
rash confusion was somewhere at the end of the hall and to the right. There were three doors, the first two on the left and the last on the right. Question was, which door held the grand prize?

Tristan was almost a hundred-percent sure the man didn’t dip into that first room. But still, he had to check. He put his shoulder to wall and took in a deep breath as he gave the hallway one last look over. Satisfied that he couldn’t be any more ready, he slipped into the open doorway, gun held out, you know, just like they
did in the movies. He felt silly, but it seemed important. Realizing he had been holding it, He let out a long breath when he found the room was empty—save for the pile of broken furniture in the corner. This room, despite the huge pile of furniture, was furnished a little better than the previous two. This room had most of its wall coverings and even a few floor coverings still in place. 

Tristan got a horribly wicked idea.

Leaving the safety off on his Desert Eagle, he returned it to its holster on his thigh. “Okay, if you want to hide then how about we make things a little more…
interesting
.” With a concealed smirk he reached around, found the nozzle hanging from his side and pulled the trigger to ignite the flame on the end. Just like Ash explained, he aimed and fired. As promised, flame roared out of the little nozzle like liquid molten lava. It was a hell of a lot more than he expected.

“Holy shit!” he gasped taking a few steps back. Within three seconds he was sweating. The furniture sparked and crackled as it gave way to the dangerous element. By the time the discharge released a quick ten seconds later, the entire pile was blazing bright orange. Even the wall and part of the ceiling were on fire
already.

He stepped back to smile proudly at the hot little spectacle he created.
That’ll keep that fucking elf from hiding, just gotta burn him out
.

There were still two more rooms to inspect. Pace slow and deliberate, he moved back out to the hallway, looking both ways for signs of the traitor. All was quiet, save for the soft crackle of burning word, the roar
of fire as it ate up oxygen. Tristan felt a sense of… calm. And control. The situation wasn’t great, but he felt in control—which was more than he could say about his last big hunt.

“Come out, come out wherever you are, you fucking stupid-ass elf,” he sang in a low, even tone to the empty hallway. He stopped at the next
room; the door was sagging on its frame and hadn’t been moved in years. But, just for good measure, Tristan lit the door on fire before going for the last room on that length of hall. As he got closer he heard a noise and stopped, cocking his head, straining to hear. He shut his eyes, held his breath.
There
. There it was again. It was the sound of… a woman crying.

Ash
!

With no regard to his own wellbeing, he bolted into the room. He only got a few feet inside when he came to a
hard stop, blinking in disbelief at the spectacle before him. This room, like all of the others, was large and mostly empty. There was a hole in the ceiling big enough to drive a bus through with boards crisscrossing the opening. Hanging from one of those boards was a woman, swinging back and forth slowly like a pendulum. She had a black bag over her head and was strung up Spiderman style—knees pulled up, hands between them up-side-down. And since she was naked, the position left her disgustingly vulnerable. Lines of blood that formed before she was upended mapped out a history of pain.

Of everything Tristan saw in this six-second pause, he knew that he wasn’t looking at Ash. That didn’t make the horror of it any less stomach-turning.

“My god,” he whispered, not believing that he was really seeing everything right. He was already moving towards her as fumbled to get the flamethrower off. When he reached her he dropped to his knees, grunting with the pain that jarred up his legs into his hips and reached out to remove the bag over her head when she screamed. The sound was positively hair raising, shuddering down his spine like a cheese grater and piercing his ears. It was a scream that spoke of death. He’d heard a scream like it once before, from his Mother as she was burnt alive.

Her scream turned into a mumbled of mushed together French words as she begged for her life.

“Hey, no... shhh, it’s okay. I’m not—I’m here to help.”

She flinched back at hearing his deep voice in her ear and let loose with another smaller, yet no less terror-inducing, scream. She started to thrash, looking like a fish on the end of a line. The scent of fresh blood found Tristan as she reopened the lacerations on her wrists. He muttered a curse under his breath and caught her to stop her from swinging any harder. She was either too scared or just plain didn’t understand him. At his touch, her writhing doubled, almost knocking him off his knees.

“Hey,” he said gently, “um… lady. No, it’s okay. I’m really not going to hurt you.”

Between trying to calm her with his gentle words and keeping he
r from knocking him off balance, he realized what she was saying. “Non, non, non”, an endless chant of “no”.

He frowned, wishing she wouldn’t make so much noise and yanked the hood off, careful not to catch her nose with it. The girl sucked in a sharp breath, ready to scream again, but swallowed the noise, blinking big brown eyes right into his.

“Hey,” he said with his pick-up tone and a warm smile. “I’m here to help. Are you okay?” Of course she wasn’t fucking okay. She was naked, bleeding and hanging upside in an abandoned castle occupied by a vampire and faerie.

Her only answer was a quick, tear filled blink. Her lashe
s stuck together with old blood. She gave her wrists a little tug and Tristan let her go, a sign of good faith. She licked her lips in a quick, nervous gesture.

She whimpered and then a word slipped out of her chapped lips, “
Aider
?”

Tristan shook his head. “I don’t understand French, sweetheart.”

She blinked again, looking calmer. “Help...?” she whimpered.

“Yes,” he answered, nodding. “Ah,
oui.”

She took in a deep breath that came back out shaky, making her lip quiver so that she almost bit it. When she didn’t do or say anything again, he slowly reached for his knife. She may have been frightened, but she was seeing everything with a clarity one only had when they were fighting for their life. She squirmed, whimpering out a shaky non, each new word louder than the last.

He mumbled a curse to himself and then to her, said, “It’s okay, sweetheart.” He put his empty hand up, palm out. But she wouldn’t look away from the knife. “Look,” he said calmly. She whimpered, wiggling harder. “Look,” he said again, firmer and she turned wide eyes to his empty hand.

“See, I’m cutting that.”
Not you
. He pointed with the hand she was now looking at to her ropes and then to his knife. “Cut ropes, okay?”

She sucked in a short breath and breathed out, “O-K.”

He moved slowly, not wanting to scare her any more than she already was. He could only imagine what happened here. He reached up slow enough for her to watch the knife. When his hands were at the knots between her legs and she didn’t flinch, he sawed into the ropes. They were thick and new, and covered in dark blood—something Lucien or the fae brought with them. They planned this, which made him wonder what other
treats
they had in store.