Darkest Misery (21 page)

Yet despite that, I was disappointed.

“Idiot,” I muttered to myself, putting the book away.

I'd been making peace with what I had, and it wasn't as though I was unhappy. But I was a misery junkie. I was probably always going to be cursed to want what was out of my reach—namely, the illusion of normal.

Using nothing more than cold-hearted logic, I was aware it made no sense. What was so great about normal? Thanks to my screwed-up biology, I could never have those 2.5 kids, and I didn't want them, possibly also thanks to my biology. I did not want a house in the suburbs or a typical job or a hundred other things generally considered normal.

What I did have was pretty damn good—an amazing, smart, hot-as-hell boyfriend who loved me, even if he had to sleep around. And, uh, maybe a second since I didn't know what to make of Devon these days. Also, for the moment, I had an interesting job, good friends and a world that wasn't about to end.

Yup, there was no question that I ought to be content. So why did I need Lucen all to myself to make me happy? I could only conclude I was selfish, and that irked me.

Maybe I needed to see a therapist. Ugh.

I banged my head lightly against the metal shelf. On my way over, I'd been prepared to follow up reading this book with more research, but my enthusiasm had faded. I wasn't sure if it was logic telling me to knock it off or disappointment, but whichever. I was done searching for miracle cures for Lucen. It wasn't fair to either of us.

My phone buzzed as I left the archive. Devon was awake and wondering where I'd gone.

I wrote back, and we settled on finding me a late lunch and him breakfast before heading to the fort. By now I was aware that a late lunch inevitably meant either kebabs, a fast food chain or stopping by
le supermarché
to make our own.

Opening the main doors, I stuck my sunglasses on and tried to put the morning behind me. Devon remained paranoid and had insisted on meeting me at World, but I could wait for him in the fresh air.

That, I decided, was what I really needed—sunshine, a cool breeze and some time to revel in my own normal. Time to relax and see what living my life was like when I wasn't being targeted by a serial killer, angry preds or trying to save the world. Maybe, just maybe, if I could get some peace and routine in my life, this incessant need for a normal relationship would go away. Maybe that's what all this craving was for in the first place—stability.

I didn't exactly believe this theory, but hope was like a goddamn cancer. Once it got under your skin, you might think you killed it, but it had a nasty habit of returning and driving you off a mental cliff.

Here was to hope.

I sat on a bench inside the building's small but elegant courtyard and waited. Planters had been spaced around two fenced-in trees, and pansies in shades of pinks, purples and white fluttered in the breeze. My stomach growled, a reminder that I'd only had a granola bar for breakfast. My dreams of mornings filled with buttery croissants and pastries stuffed with fruit and chocolate had rarely come to pass. I needed to do something about that.

But my plans for a day of gorging on carbohydrates were rudely interrupted. Something cold pressed into the back of my neck. I jerked out of my thoughts, acutely aware too late that I hadn't been paying attention to my surroundings. My heart stammered.

“Don't move,” said a French-accented voice. “Don't scream, or your friend will regret it.”

I closed my eyes, cursing my stupidity. I couldn't sense anything behind me except the faintest tinge of anger, and the answer came to me in a rush. I was being touched by a fury.

They'd come for me again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I exhaled slowly. The fury's touch made controlling my fear all the more difficult. My very blood seemed to vibrate with tension.

So this was it? They must have Devon. And if so, what did they want—for me to go into World and retrieve the Vessel for them? It was the only thing that made sense, yet even if I were willing to do that, I wasn't sure I could.

“What did you do to Devon?” My hands pawed at my jeans. Screw the order not to move. I couldn't stop them. My emotions gave my energy a huge boost, better than adrenaline although that wasn't helping either. My knife was so close. I only needed to slide my hand a couple inches up my thigh and reach around my hip.

“The dark-haired satyr?” the fury asked. “Nothing. We have the one called Lucen.”

For one awful second, my heart stopped beating. Then I caught my breath and winced. Oh no, not Lucen. Oh, shit. I swore a thousand times in my head, feeling sick. Please not Lucen.

And yet some pessimistic part of me had always assumed it would end up like this, hadn't it? As soon I'd admitted being in love with him, something happening to him became my biggest fear. And furies loved to feed on fear.

Maybe that was all this was. They were playing on my fear and faking me out. Lucen wouldn't be the easiest person for them to grab. For one, he was on the other side of the Atlantic. He also knew how to take care of himself.

I grasped on to that thought with both mental hands. Hope again. Fucking bitch. “Where is he? What do you want?”

“Stop moving. He's fine for now.” The speaker paused, and a second disguised fury stepped in front of me. “Raise your hands slowly.”

I debated my odds and decided they weren't in my favor. Yet. So I lifted my hands to shoulder height, and the second fury took my knife. I hadn't brought the gun with me today, so that was all I had.

From the corner of my eye, I stared at World's main doors. Hundreds of Gryphons were working right behind me, and not one had left the building in these past couple minutes. The audacity of these furies to approach me in this spot was astounding. I was praying it was also their stupidity, but so far they were winning the round. Gryphons inside the building might be aware preds lingered nearby, but as proven with Devon hanging around recently, they didn't much care so long as the preds stayed outside.

The fury in front of me tucked away my knife, and the one behind me removed whatever it was he'd had pressed to my neck. “You have strong magic on you. Where is it?”

I gritted my teeth. “My skin, dumbass. Don't you know Gryphons write their protective spells on themselves?”

“I've never gotten close enough to one to find out before. No matter. Get up slowly and walk with us.”

Well, that wasn't what I'd expected. I was certain they were going to ask me to retrieve the Vessel.

Bracing myself, I stood. My sunglasses slipped down my nose because I was sweating, but I didn't dare push them up until I had a better sense of the furies' intentions. They weren't trying to hurt me, just like the furies back home hadn't.

Just like Nyles—AKA Mace-head—had promised they wouldn't.

But why not? I wished I knew what they needed me alive for because then I'd have a much better idea of what I could get away with.

“Come.” The fury behind me gave me a slight shove forward. With my adrenaline flowing, I could sense his cold, creepy power as I followed his friend toward the street. An SUV with dark-tinted windows started its engines as we approached.

So I was being abducted like Mitch. Peachy. This was not how I'd wanted to solve the mystery of his disappearance.

“Get in.”

“Where are we going, and what do you want with me?”

“You will find out soon enough.”

I paused. The non-speaking fury opened a back door, but I refused to move. Once I got in this car, it was all over. This was my last chance. I had a building of Gryphons nearby and—supposedly—Devon on his way. The furies might have weapons, but I wasn't helpless. I'd better make my stand while I could.

“Prove to me you have Lucen.”

The fury sighed. “I thought you might ask that.” He grabbed my arm and came around to my side. With his other hand, he opened a video on his phone.

My hope deflated. The camera footage was dark and shitty, as cell phone videos often were, but there was no denying it was Lucen. He was tied up in unidentifiable location, his eyes wild but willful. “Jess, don't listen to them! Don't—”

The garbled sound cut out, and a second later the video ended.

Okay, they had Lucen. Shit. My last chance to do something crazy and heroic had been shot to hell because there was no way I was risking Lucen's life. Still. “How do I know you haven't killed him since?”

“You don't. Do you want to take the chance that you could have saved him? We have no use for him. You come nicely, and we let him go. Choose quickly.”

I didn't see what choice I had. I got in the car.

The last thing I heard from outside was Devon's voice yelling my name. Then the car door shut, and the driver sped off as though the devil were chasing us and not merely one satyr incapable of catching up.

I always thought Heaven would be warm. Or maybe the truth was I'd always thought I'd end up in that other place when I died. Then Steph and I would sit around roasting marshmallows and dipping our toes in a toasty lava lake.

But no, I got cold. Emptiness. And oddly enough, a massive headache.

That seemed like my first clue I wasn't dead.

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, strolling through the misty wherever-I-was. All my senses felt muted. I had gauze in my ears, a white veil over my eyes, and the air was empty of smells and sensations. My energy was dulled too. I was alone. Part of me had always feared I needed to be around people to feed on their misery like the pred I was. Perhaps this confirmed it.

I walked forever and nothing changed.

I shivered but never grew warmer or cooler.

I was as static as the world around me. Lost or trapped or imprisoned in my own head. It hardly mattered which if I couldn't do anything about it.

“There's my Jesse-bear.”

That voice. I turned, something my feet hadn't felt capable of a moment ago, and now I was no longer certain about the not-dead thing.

My father smiled at me.

My dead father. Almost twenty years dead.

He appeared as he always did in my memories, the way he'd looked as he'd walked out the door the morning before he was killed on the job. His reddish-brown hair was slightly thinning, but his hazel eyes were bright, and the few freckles on his nose were an unfortunate mirror of the ones I'd inherited from him.

He wore his Gryphon uniform. We'd buried him in it. Threw dirt on the job that had gotten him killed. For my mother, I think it had been a very symbolic act, but not for me. At the time, I'd wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps.

And here I was. The job had killed me too. At least the Gryphons had. They made me, therefore anything that happened to me was their fault.

“Jesse?”

“Dad?” I hesitated for a moment, then I ran over and threw my arms around him.

Finally, I had senses again. I could smell his spicy aftershave and rub my cheek against his uniform fabric. His warmth chased away some of my chill. But as soon as he released me, the cold came flooding back. “Am I dead?”

“Do the furies want you dead?”

The furies, right. There was something about the furies I should remember. “Maybe they do, but not yet.”

“Then you're probably not dead.”

“Then where am I?”

His eyebrows chased his receding hairline. “I haven't the faintest idea. Listen.”

“But…”

Where there had been no sound a moment ago, there came noise. Low and rumbling, then harsh and clanging. I spun in place, searching for the source, but nothing had changed.

“What is it?”

“Reality.”

I frowned. “It's getting closer.”

“No, it's getting louder. You're waking up.”

“No.” I didn't want to wake up. Regardless of anything else, I was certain of that. Being lost in my unconscious, or plain old dead, had to be better than waking up. The very notion spawned fear that ballooned in my chest, suffocating me.

He took my arms, and this time I felt it in a whole new way. My real arms, wherever they were, had been touched. Something within me knew it and struggled against it, but that Jess was paralyzed. Trapped in this Jess.

“They have Lucen,” said my father, who never knew Lucen. “They have the Vessels. You have to stop them.”

“What if I can't? It'll kill Mom if I die on the job like you.”

He patted my cheek, but his hand was no longer warm and smooth. It was cold and rough, not a hand at all. “Then don't die. Wake up. Fight.”

A thick, ugly scream woke me.

Mine, apparently. It ripped through my dry throat, and I lashed out, limbs flying blindly. My legs collided with something firm, and only then did I open my eyes.

The fury hovering above me spat out something in an unfamiliar language and jumped out of the way. Instinctively, I lunged for him, blind to any sense of self-preservation, but my body wouldn't cooperate. My legs shook, and my muscles gave out. I fell face first to the cold ground.

The fury kicked me in the arm. While I moaned, his feet disappeared from view and a door slammed shut.

I didn't move, partially because I was afraid if I tried, I'd fail and then I'd really be panicking. So I stayed where I was, a lump on the floor, and took stock of my health and situation.

For starters, I was cold. The damp air clung to me, giving me the impression I was in a basement. It sure stank of mildew and decay, but there was also an earthy smell to it that reminded me of my mother's New Hampshire home.

My eyes told me little. The room was dark, but it wasn't true pitch blackness, so light had to be coming from somewhere. Mostly, I could see the floor, which was cold, gritty and hard. Concrete, I assumed. This told me nothing useful, so I moved on.

My headache was my most pressing concern. It was a dull, all-encompassing pain that covered my skull and could have been brought on by anything. I had no memory of being hit on the head, yet the furies must have knocked me unconscious. If I thought hard about it, I could vaguely remember being jabbed in the arm with something. Perhaps they'd drugged me. It might explain the strange dream about my father.

Gingerly, I tested my muscles next, sliding my legs straight against the floor, slowly moving my arms. I even wiggled my fingers and toes. Everything appeared to work, and aside from generalized achiness, I felt okay. No stabbing or throbbing pains plagued me. I was fairly certain I hadn't suffered any serious damage.

That was something. Not much, but something.

I raised my head next, but it clearly was too optimistic a move. The room swam, and nausea bubbled up in my gut. Okay, never mind. I didn't need to add vomit breath to my list of problems, and my throat was sore as it was.

I rolled on my back instead and hoped the dizziness would pass in time. From my back, the ceiling appeared disturbingly low. Maybe this was like the basement in my grandparents' very old Cape. Most people had to duck when they went down there.

Wait, did houses in Europe have basements? They didn't everywhere in the U.S., but this was not the sort of question normal people researched before traveling abroad. What if I wasn't in a house? What if I wasn't even in France anymore?

I closed my eyes and tried to dredge up memories, but I had absolutely none of leaving Grenoble. I must have blacked out before we reached the city's edge. For all I knew, I was still there or halfway to Siberia. Until I got out of this room, I doubted I'd find out.

On that thought, sitting up, take two.

I took a deep breath, and more slowly than before, forced myself upright. The dizziness spun me around for a moment, then cleared. I opened my eyes and rubbed my unhappy head.

The room's light was coming from the gaps around a poorly hung door. Possibly it was warped by age, as it appeared far older than me. First thought:
This place is seriously ancient.
Second thought:
I'm in a dungeon.

That sent me into another head-spinning dizzy spell.

The walls were a mix of rough stone and old, unpainted wood. Not nice wood, but splintery, unfinished wood. Now that I could see it better, I could tell the floor was stone too. Mismatched slabs had been thrown down over dirt. All that was missing was a pair of iron shackles. Alas, I had a feeling those could be arranged.

But this was crazy. I knew there were plenty of old castles scattered throughout Europe, and presumably many had dungeons. Or did people call them basements in this enlightened age? Whichever, assuming my judgment—and years of watching medieval-set television shows—hadn't led me astray, why did I have to end up in one? This was creepy, even for preds.

Maybe this suggested I was still in Europe, or maybe not. The U.S. had freaky basements too. I'd been in my share of them.

I had no idea. My head hurt. I'd been drugged. I had to get out of here.

These people had Lucen.

Whoa. That was what I needed to focus on.
Priorities, Jess. Who cares where you are?

I reached under my shirt and wrapped my fingers around Lucen's pendant. The metal felt strangely warm, the only thing that did. What I wouldn't give for my Gryphon jacket.

Moving would get my blood flowing. Moving would make me warm.

Gathering my courage, I climbed to my knees and paused, waiting to see if my head could keep it together. The nausea had faded, and the dizziness had followed. Right foot then, and left. I stood.

The ceiling
was
low, but I could stand fully upright. I shuffled over to the door, breathing heavily, my body like a sack of flour on my feet.