Infamous: (A Bad Boy Romantic Suspense) (33 page)

Alexis didn’t look thrilled by my mirth, which just made me laugh harder. It was hysterical laughter, because none of this was funny ha-ha, but it was certainly absurd, ridiculous, and utterly beyond reason. I laughed until my throat was raw and I started to cough. My face was red and wet with tears. Alexis eyed me with a suspicious look.

“Sorry,” I gasped out. “You have to understand, this is all…insane. My entire life is madness topped with a cherry of what the fuck. All of it.” And I burst into a peal of laughter again, shorter this time, but still deep.

“Are you quite finished?” Alexis asked, lips pursed, straightening her immaculately cut jacket.

“Oh, yes. Yes, I think I am. I’m finished. And so is this entire farce,” I said.

“You think so?” she said, arching a brow.

“Definitely. Because I will never, ever, not in a million years, agree to be turned by you. Or anyone. I want my life back, free of fangs and threats and all of you,” I said. I lifted my arms with effort and pushed my lank hair back. I rubbed the tears off my cheeks and look her right in the eyes.

“Is that so,” she said, flatly.

“It really, really, really fucking is,” I said. I finally felt like I had some control back. They couldn’t make me do anything, because trying to would ruin what it was they needed from me. I had a say in what happened now. I had something approaching power.

“That’s unfortunate. While we can’t kill you, we have other ways of…convincing you. You’ll side with us willingly. Eventually,” she said. She stood and signaled.

“Stoller has taken a strong dislike to you. I think it’s because you’re special to me, personally. He doesn’t like the competition. He’s also rather vain, who knows why. The fact that you hit him and left a mark is something he won’t soon forget.” My stomach sank. I had been hoping, in vain, that my firm declaration would be enough. That I’d be let go and walk out into the sun, towards that mountain I had seen across the sea, ready to get on with my life.

Instead I was sitting in a room with an extremely arrogant vampire and a pissed-off arachnid changeling who clearly wanted to make my life as painful as possible. I had no doubt he would, too. And there was that third voice, the one I hadn’t recognized. I was far from home, not sure where I was, and help was probably too far away. Dimitri and Robert would have to know where I was to help, and there was no way to know if they had any idea I had been taken rather than left.

As I sat there, a cool breeze came in from the window, and the smell of salt and something acidic, like roasting tomatoes, wafted into the room. I turned my face to the window and thought I saw something. I quickly looked away.

“I would rather not employ Stoller if I don’t have to,” Alexis said sadly.

“Yeah, I bet. Look, I don’t care what your power struggle is all about. I don’t care what vampire house dominates or rules or whatever it is you guys do. You can do what you want. It won’t work. I won’t help you,” I said. I sat up as straight as I could and looked her dead in the eye. I set my mouth in a firm, hard line, with an effort put my hands in my lap, and attempted to look like I didn’t have a care in the world.

She was in front of me suddenly, lunging down, teeth bared, eyes that obsidian, hard black, like a shark’s.

“Defying me is not wise. I’ve been generous and understanding until now. It won’t last. I can make it so that Stoller leaves you a hideous, misshapen mess, begging to be turned,” she hissed. I swallowed but did not flinch.

“You talk a big game. And I’m sure you can deliver. But I’m tougher than I look,” I said. She laughed.

“I doubt it,” she said. She walked back towards Stoller, who was grinning at me like a hyena. He waved a hand at me cheerfully, clearly getting ready to enjoy a good round of torture. I pictured myself being peeled like an apple and decided I should probably concentrate on something else. I looked out the window again and it finally dawned on me what the mountain was. I knew where I was.

I was still in Italy, which was a plus. I was looking at Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that had decimated Pompeii and Herculaneum hundreds of years ago. I wondered if Alexis had been there at the time and decided I didn’t really want to know. There’s really only so much you want to know about someone who is about to sic a demented spider person on you.

“You don’t really know me. You just think you do because it’s been so long since you’ve been human, you’ve forgotten that we’re stronger than any creature of the night, no matter how old or powerful,” I said. She pursed her lips.

“And why is that?” she asked as Stoller advanced, carrying something that glinted dully and unpleasantly.

“Because we know we will die. So we don’t take any moment for granted,” I said.

I sat there, waiting for Stoller to start cutting, looking up at the ceiling, feeling the cool ocean air on my skin. I thought about how long that wind had traveled to get there, what it had seen, what it carried with it. Sweet scents of faraway places? Warm summer nights from far out on the ocean? The sound of gulls or bells from the coast?

I watched the rusty blade begin its descent, Alexis’s disappointed frown, the look of glee on Stoller’s face at the pain he was about to inflict…

And I thought about the wind. And the things that might ride in on it.

When I was little I used to play make-believe a lot. I don’t have any brothers or sisters and my parents, while great, both worked. So I spent time alone pretty often. This was back before letting your preteen stay home by themselves could earn you a visit from Child Protective Services. My parents had taught me all the important things, like not using the stove, staying away from sharp objects, and not answering the door. I was a reasonable kid and assumed they wouldn’t warn me about anything that wasn’t a good thing to avoid. I also generally obeyed rules. I wasn’t an adventurous kid except in my mind. I guess I was a little afraid of what would happen if I strayed from the straight and narrow, even then.

One night when both my folks were working late, I was pretending I was a monster hunter. I’d just watched some old mummy movie and thought it sounded like a really cool job. I tied a sheet around my neck, made a sword out of cardboard, and proceeded to search my house for critters. I didn’t find any.

I did, however, scare the utter shit out of myself when I heard a growling, shrieking noise outside. I was convinced it was some kind of demon creature. I hid behind the couch until my mom came home. I slept in her bed that night. Later, when I was grown-up, I heard that sound again outside my college dorm. It was a raccoon; they have a really disturbing scream. I laughed, secure in the knowledge that monsters weren’t real and that every strange bump, squeak, or screech could be explained.

These days I know monsters are real, they bite, and some of them are really, really, really good in bed.

Unfortunately, right now, I’m not dealing with the good-in-bed kind. I’m dealing with the would-like-to-rip-my-skin-off-strip-by-strip sort. They’re a lot less fun.

Of course, they think they’ve got me. They think that, if they cut deep enough, for long enough, I’ll take their side and then they can use me and my “gift” for their vampire political machinations. I’m not real keen on this idea, as you can imagine. In fact, at the moment, I’m pretty pissed off about the whole thing.

I never really knew there was a lot of anger in me. I always thought of myself as the shy, quiet, bookish type. Never took major risks. Then I decided to take a post-college trip to Europe. Expand my horizons. Experience the world. And everything went straight to hell.

Turns out there’s a whole lot out there that’s weirder than just what people get up to in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. There are vampires. And werewolves. And changelings. And probably even more things than that. Monsters are real and if I could hunt some of them like I used to pretend to as a kid, like the ones that are currently about to torture me, I’d be pretty tempted.

But there are some good ones out there.

And what these assholes don’t know? There’s a change in the wind coming. Literally.

I looked up at Stoller defiantly, doing my best not to look directly at the sharp object in his hand or the look of evil glee on his face. From the corner of my eye I saw a large man who looked vaguely lupine about the ears and eyes come into the room, lean over Alexis, and say something inaudible. Her face tightened.

“Wait,” Alexis said, sighing a little and holding up her hand. The spidery man looked disappointed. No cutting into me yet. I didn’t relax. It wasn’t like I was suddenly safe.

I just had to be patient. And hope that I wasn’t putting my trust in the wrong people.

“What?” asked Stoller irritably. He was eyeing some other instruments on a little table and I really didn’t want to find out what the shiny corkscrew-looking one was for. Alexis unfolded herself and paced the room in a way that made me both envy her effortless grace and wish she’d trip and smack her face on something.

“Oh, nothing. Just our little meatsack here somehow managed to get tracked down by her erstwhile lovers. They’re apparently in the city looking for her.” She waved her pale hands and looked at Stoller with dislike. I felt a sliver of hope, although Dimitri and Robert being in town didn’t necessarily mean I was saved. I just had more of a hope of getting out of here with my limbs still attached than I had before.

“So? It’s not like they’re at our doorstep. We can do this,” Stoller said, shrugging.

“I really dislike you,” I muttered. He gave me a sharp look but said nothing. Alexis was regarding me thoughtfully, which, in many ways, was way worse than Stoller holding a knife over me.

“You don’t know those two like I do. Once they’ve…fixated on someone, they don’t let them go. Not easily, anyway,” she said.

“More the fools them, then. By the time I’m done with her she won’t remember her own name, let alone theirs.” Stoller’s eyes glinted and I swallowed.

“Dammit, Stoller, I’ve explained this. We need her…intact, mostly. She has to agree to this willingly or it’s all for nothing. So yes, you can hurt her. Even maim her a little. But you can’t do one of your Uber Tortures where they’re left dribbling morons,” Alexis said. Which was both a relief and utterly terrifying to hear on several levels.

I sat there contemplating what I could do to get word to Dimitri and Robert. I had a kind of ace up my sleeve these two were clearly unaware of, but then I didn’t know how many guards Alexis had stashed around the place. That big werewolfy-type guy probably wasn’t the only one. And I really didn’t want my rescue getting thwarted on account of Robert or Dimitri getting dead.

I had to trust that they’d come for me and know what they were doing. Which was difficult. Nothing about this entire situation screamed, “Please, trust some vampires you barely know with your life.” Mostly it screamed, “Get me the fuck out of here!”

Alexis and Stoller continued to argue and I sat there, feeling stupendously useless. I couldn’t take either of these two physically, and in any case I was still weak and tired from the drugs and lack of food. I’d get about five feet before falling over and being right back where I started. Plus, I had no money, my passport was God knows where, and I was in a foreign country. I’d have to find the embassy somehow and explain all of…this. Which was unexplainable. My options were so limited they weren’t really options.

“…we could get them here and kill them, easy. It’s not like they like each other much anyway. We could let them kill each other and be done with it. And then get back to her.” This was Stoller, sounding unusually clever. So far he’d mostly come across as a thug. Now he was strategizing. That’s never good, when the cruel start to come up with ways to be crueler.

“And how do you propose that? They aren’t going to just waltz in here and start fighting each other over her,” Alexis said, sounding strained and grumpy. She clearly wasn’t used to things not going her way.

“We’ll put her in the pit. Cut her a little. Let them scent her out. Then we’ll send in…you know. Him,” Stoller said. Him? Great, that sounded fantastically ominous.

“What do you mean?” Now Alexis sounded less grumpy and more interested. Uh oh.

“You know what he can do. Twist their minds. Make them see each other as the threat. They’ll be at each other’s throats in no time. Problem solved,” Stoller said. This was sounding less and less good.

“Alright. Make the arrangements. Don’t cut her anywhere vital,” Alexis said. She turned to me and smiled; it was both beatific and horrifying.

“Well, my dead, it seems your knights-errant are on their way. We’re just going to help them along and then…deal with them. Then we’ll deal with you.” She patted my cheek and I turned away.

“Now, now, don’t be that way. We’ll catch up later. I don’t really want to be around for the main event. But I’m looking forward to chatting when it’s all done. Ta-ta!” she said and breezed out of the room. I squirmed, eyeing Stoller, who was eyeing me.

“She said not to cut you anywhere vital. Your face isn’t vital, is it?” he said. I was up and trying to get away in a second, but he was too fast. His spidery limbs were wrapped around me and holding me against his bony body in seconds. I squirmed, struggled, fought.

“This will only hurt for a second…oh, who I am kidding. It’s going to hurt for a lot longer than that!” he said cheerfully.

Then he started to cut.

The only good thing I can say about Stoller is that, in the end, he left my face alone. My arms, however, looked like they’d been through a very precise shredder. I’d never really thought about my arms before, whether I liked them or not, how fair the skin was, all of that. Looking at them now, I thought they’d been rather nice. Now they’d be scarred for the rest of my life.

None of the cuts were very deep, but they were all painful and done for maximum hurt. Stoller had then poured rubbing alcohol on them, which, as you can imagine, added insult to injury. I didn’t make a sound, though. I wanted to scream but I didn’t. And only one traitorous tear slipped down my cheek.

When he was done he took several pieces of blood-soaked cloth and handed them to the large, burly guard, who gave me a look that could have been sympathetic. When he got back, Stoller wrapped my arms in silence and used what I might almost consider care.

He stood back and looked at me. “You did well. I pegged you for a screamer,” he said with what might have been grudging respect.

“That means a lot, coming from you,” I said, with what I hoped was the most biting sarcasm. Mostly I think I just sounded tired. Bloodletting will do that. And pain.

“These vampires, they think they own everyone. It’s a shame, really,” he said, surprising me. I looked at him from my place on the floor.

“You work for them,” I stated, because I have a very keen grasp of the obvious.

“So? Doesn’t mean I like them. They pay, I do the work. But they’re fuckers, through and through,” he said, putting away his tools. I sat there staring at my bandaged arms and wondering if any of this could get weirder. Was Stoller trying to be…comforting?

He lifted me up and carried me down some stairs, past two large guards of the same lupine-ish bent as the other. They studiously looked away. I was too exhausted to fight. I felt drained, literally, and didn’t much care where we were going.

Stoller surprised me again by bringing me to a small garden that overlooked the scene from a crumbling balcony. It was warm and bright and there were straggly bits of green here and there. He put me on a stone bench and stood back.

“They’ll be here by nightfall. They’ll find you and then they’ll tear each other apart,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Who is ‘he’? The one you mentioned to Alexis? What will he do to them?” I asked, propping myself up and wincing at the stabs of pain in my arms.

“You’ll see,” he said, and left. I looked around and saw that the garden was set in a semicircle that had once probably been grand. Now it was dilapidated and mossy with the smell of wet, moldy wood and rock. There wasn’t much around, just flagstones and seats, and what had once been some kind of fountain. It had a small amount of muddy, dirty water in the bottom and a cracked figure that at one time had had a nice physique. It was now lumpy and eroded with time, and its face had a strange grimace.

Set into the walls were man-high archways that all seemed to lead into various levels of darkness. I wasn’t sure what they were for but they reminded me of pictures of the Coliseum. And I felt very much like a sacrifice.

I watched the light fade towards sunset, feeling emotionally numb and physically exhausted. The sun set red, which felt portentous. I’d heard no one in the few hours I’d sat there, my butt going cold, arms aching. I felt like the last person on earth.

Then came the snuffling sounds. Just like the ones I’d heard before in Robert’s house. I looked up as the sounds grew, seeming to come from everywhere. Which they were. All of the archways were now filled with glowing eyes of the wolfish persuasion. I also saw the glint of sharp canines here and there, the hint of a furry ear. I guess we were going to have an audience.

I sat up straight, feeling all the hairs on my body stand up as if I’d suddenly been shocked. They were here, I could feel them. Dimitri and Robert were somewhere close. I had to warn them before it was too late.

I tried to stand but my traitorous legs gave out. I cursed, feeling stupid and clumsy and useless. The drugs, though mostly gone, had left me too weak. I was going to have to wait until they came to me. And then hope I could stop whatever was coming before it got them killed.

You know how werewolves always do that long “awoooooo!” sound in the movies? Well, in real life, it’s a little less like that and more like a throaty growl that grows and grows until it’s louder than any animal you’ve ever heard. And if it’s many of them in a group, each with their own unique vocal range, it becomes a kind of hair-raising chorus. It sounded mournful, hunted, full of regret and also some anger. I looked up at all the eyes surrounding me and wondered what they were thinking when they made that sound. What they were feeling. How much of them was still human in their wolf state.

The air around me crackled suddenly, charged with more than just sound and emotion. I sensed…something was there but I couldn’t see it. Probably the cryptic “he” Stoller had referred to. I had what I can only describe as a
very
bad feeling about it.

I saw Dimitri and Robert approaching from the far end of the garden. They appeared in one of the archways, dressed somberly, their faces set in hard lines. When they saw me, their faces brightened, but I shook my head and tried to stand, holding out a hand to stop them. When I fell, they both rushed to me with an eerie speed.