Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (218 page)

Damn!

She tried again.

Failed.

One more time, concentrating hard. Straining. Sweating. She had to get herself free before he returned. If so, if she could stand, catch him off guard, sweep his legs out from under him.

Do it, Kristi, just effing do it!

She bit down hard. Drew her head back fast. This time her tooth scraped through the plastic, caught and she was able to make a little tear. She grabbed both of the tiny ends with her fingers, which promptly slipped off the tape. Damn! She was damp with sweat, her heart knocking, time running out.

She grabbed the ends of the tape again and pulled.

Rrrriiiip.

She was through!

She flung herself to her bare feet just as she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall beyond.

Come on, you cocksucker,
she thought, still slightly unsteady. She clasped her hands together, intended to use them like a club once she’d knocked the bastard off his feet.
Come on, come on.
She was keyed up. Ready. Every muscle taut when she heard keys rattling on the other side of the door.

As soon as the door swung open she rounded on him, her bare foot slamming into his shins.

He howled in surprise, but didn’t go down. Kristi didn’t bother hitting him, just sprang through the open door and yanked it shut behind her.

Locks tumbled into place.

Breathing hard, she felt a rush. She’d turned the tables on him! But for how long? She took off down a darkened hallway and didn’t look back. She only had a few seconds.

He still had the keys.

Jay flew up the back steps of Wagner House and tried the door.

Locked.

No problem. He kicked in the nearest window and flung himself through just as he heard other footsteps clamoring up the porch: Bentz, Montoya, and Kwan. Jay found the doorway to the basement and tried it.

Another damned lock.

This time he kicked at the panels, but the door wouldn’t budge. He swore, looked around the kitchen, and found a metal stool. He was about to crash it into the knob when Mai Kwan climbed through the window he’d just broken.

Mai rolled to her feet and shouted, “Stand back.” Her weapon was already out of its holster. She shot at the handle of the door, springing the lock and shattering wood as Bentz, too, heaved himself through the broken window. Montoya was on his heels.

Jay didn’t wait. Using a penlight, he hurried down the stairs, half expecting a sniper to be waiting, ready to pick him off. But with Mai one step behind, he made it unscathed.

Bentz hit the lights and everything came into sudden, sharp relief.

The large, open room was filled with crates, old furniture, boxes of knickknacks, even photographs. A behemoth of a furnace with ducts stretching upward like metallic arms filled one corner, an empty coal bin another, a fuse box, wires long cut, sat next to a newer electric panel.

“Search the walls,” Mai ordered. “Look for another way out.”

There were several doors, all boarded shut, dusty and obviously unused. None that would open. Mai shook her head in frustration. “I told you we already searched down here.”

“There has to be a way.” The dead air of the basement filling his nostrils, Jay shoved a hand through his hair and stared at the doors. He started trying each one again, more slowly and deliberately, but none of them would budge. Bentz was shoving boxes and crates, and Montoya stalked the perimeter of the room.

Had Kristi been wrong?

Jay checked his watch, felt time slipping away. He’d pinned his hopes that he would find her here, but now…what?

“We need to talk to Father Mathias. Kristi seemed to think that he knew something.”

Mai nodded. “He lives just behind the chapel. I’ll go.” She was already heading up the stairs.

Montoya followed after Mai. “I’ll back her up.”

Jay and Rick Bentz looked at each other across the dusty, moldering basement. “If Kristi said something was going on down here, then something was,” Bentz said. He squinted as he eyed the window casements placed high, near the rafters, where spider webs and old nails were exposed in the ancient beams.

Jay, too, was eyeing the perimeter of the building, looking for something they’d missed, something right under their noses. He studied the furnace and began to sweat as the minutes ticked by. Nothing seemed out of place. Bentz moved a stack of crates out of the way to study the floor while Jay made his way to the electrical box. Inside all of the circuit breakers were thrown to the “on” position. He tried a few. Nothing happened except that the basement was thrown into darkness for a second.

“Hey!” Bentz yelled.

Jay flipped the switch. Nothing there. And the old fuse box wasn’t connected, its wires visibly cut. Nonetheless he opened the metal door and stared at the panel of old fuses, a thing of a bygone era, still in place. He pulled out the first and nothing happened. Waste of time. And then he noticed that one tiny wire, a newer wire, ran out the back of the box.

He felt a little spurt of hope just as he heard footsteps overhead. More police no doubt, drawn by the gunshots.

“Hey!” a big voice shouted as feet pounded through Wagner House. “What the fuck’s going on here?”

He pulled another fuse plug. Nothing. Then another. And gears suddenly started grinding. Jay stepped back as a section of the wall, one devoid of doors, began to slide open.

Swearing, Bentz was across the room in a flash.

Without another word he and Jay walked into a tiny room with a narrow staircase. The door shut slowly behind them, plunging them into near total darkness.

Kristi had no idea where she was going. The tunnel was long, narrow, and lit by thin, flickering lights on a track overhead. She’d made it to a corner when the door behind her opened and she heard a shout.

Dr. Preston!

Adrenaline spurred her on, but she was still weak, her hands bound, her brain not firing on all cylinders.

It doesn’t matter. Just run. Until you come up to a dead end, just run. You have to escape.

He was chasing her, his footsteps ringing on the cold stone floor, echoing through this narrow hallway, a tunnel of sorts. How did she get down here in the first place, she wondered, but just kept running.

“Stop, bitch!”

She didn’t bother to look over her shoulder, knew only that he was gaining on her.

Faster, Kristi, faster!

Her heart was beating wildly, her feet slapping the uneven floor, scraping on the stones. She was a runner…she could do this!

And still he pursued her.

Oh, God, she had to get away from him. Ahead was an opening, she saw it. Lights beyond. Maybe a way out!

With a final burst of speed she raced through the archway and found herself in a huge room…like a dark, underground spa. The dark cavern was filled with candles and mirrors and a stone tub filled to overflowing, water cascading over its sides.

A woman, a beautiful woman with dark hair and sharp features, was reclining in the water. She was taking a damned bath, for the love of God.

“You have to help me!” Kristi said in a rush, and again wondered if this was all some weird dream or if she were still hallucinating from the drugs she’d been given hours ago. Maybe this was all just a weird, horrible reaction.

“Of course I’ll help you,” the woman said, her eyes gleaming with a malevolence that made Kristi’s insides curdle.

Wait. This naked bather was no friend.

Kristi started to back up, but couldn’t; the doorway was now filled with Dr. Preston.

“So, Vlad, do you want to try something new?” the woman asked.

Vlad?
She’d called Dr. Preston Vlad?

Kristi was damned sure, like Alice before her, she’d fallen into a nightmarish wonderland. “What is this?” she asked, afraid of the answer as she scanned the room wildly, looking for escape. There was only one doorway and it was firmly blocked by Dr. Preston or Vlad or whoever the hell he thought he was.

“Something new?”

“Let’s pump her directly into the tub,” the woman suggested. “Just contain her, slip her into the water with me, and slit her wrists. So much easier than pumping all the blood out and dripping it into the tub.”

Kristi’s mouth went dry as she backed away. Surely she’d heard wrong. No way were they going to pump the blood from her veins.

Dr. “Vlad” Preston turned to Kristi. “Elizabeth wants to bathe in your blood.”

Kristi could only stare, her brain devoid of rational thought as she tried to make some sense of this. “Elizabeth?” she repeated.

“The name I’ve taken. Of an ancestor. You might have heard of her? Countess Elizabeth of Bathory?”

Instantly Kristi recalled what she’d learned from Dr. Grotto’s class. About the sadistic woman who had killed young girls, innocents who worked for her, and bathed in their blood in an attempt to rejuvenate her own flesh.

Elizabeth rested her head on the tiles and sighed as if she were in ecstasy. “She was right, you know. I’ve seen a difference since I’ve been using her treatment.”

“Blood baths,” Kristi said, scarcely recognizing her own fear-choked voice. From the corner of her eye, she saw Vlad approaching. He gave her wide berth, but closed in. “That’s what happened to the others? To Monique? Dionne?”

“Yes, yes, and Tara and Ariel, those that are good enough.” She sat up then and said, “But I wouldn’t have the lesser. No tainted blood.”

“Karen Lee wasn’t tainted,” Vlad said.

“Not good enough for me, then.” Elizabeth settled back in the water and said, “Let’s do this before I shrivel up like a prune.”

Kristi wasn’t giving that whacked out woman one drop of her blood. As Vlad approached, she reeled, kicking him hard in the shin again. She tried to sprint past him, but he was onto her plan. He threw himself at her and they went down in a heap, wrestling and fighting. He was strong as an ox and heavier, forcing her to the floor.

“Vicious bitch,” he growled, grabbing hold of her bound wrists and forcing them over her head so that she was heaving and sweating beneath him.

Elizabeth stood. “Don’t ruin her! Don’t crush her vessels…I want…”

“I know what you want!” Vlad spat out, but he was staring down at Kristi. To her horror, she felt his erection, stiff and hard, through his black pants. She fought the urge to heave as a smile slid snakelike over his lips and he pushed his groin down a little harder, making certain she knew what was about to happen.

She was going to be raped and drained of blood.

Oh, God, she had to fight. This couldn’t happen!

She tried to squirm, but got nowhere, and within seconds he’d bound her feet again and forced a pill down her throat by holding her nose until she gasped and coughed.

Within minutes the drug, whatever the hell it was, started to take effect again and she was weak as a kitten, her brain disengaged as if she were drunk.

She tried to flail, but her swipes found only air as he cut off the tape surrounding her wrists. While she wanly protested, he hauled her into the warm, almost soothing water.

“About damned time,” Elizabeth complained petulantly.

“I had to wait until the drug took effect.”

“I know, I know.” Elizabeth slid to one side, her skin slick against Kristi’s. “Look at her skin. Flawless. Perfect…” She glanced up at Vlad. “She’s the one. Her blood will do it.”

Do what? Save her from aging? “Nope. You’re done,” Kristi managed to say, but they ignored her, and though she tried to wriggle away, she couldn’t. To her disbelief, as if from a long way away, she watched as Vlad very carefully slit her right wrist.

In a swirling plume, her blood began to stain the water.

Mathias was dead. Murdered. Apparently while he’d been praying at his bedside.

A statement? Mai Kwan wondered as she called in a report to her superior, then searched through the priest’s small rooms, trying to come up with a clue as to why the man had become a victim. And why did Kristi Bentz think he was involved with Wagner House and some kind of weird vampire cult?

No vampire had been at this murder scene.

Too much blood left behind.

Montoya was with her every step of the way, through the slashing rain as thunder cracked, backing her up as they’d entered Mathias’s rooms. He hadn’t said much but had taken in the entire gruesome scene.

“What do you think?” he asked as she bent over the body.

“He pissed off the wrong guy. Look at this,” she said, pointing to the priest’s neck. “His throat is slashed, jugular, carotid, hell, nearly to his spine.”

“Almost decapitated,” Montoya said grimly.

“Rage. Whoever did this was in a blind fury.”

“At a priest?”

“
This
priest. It’s personal.”

Which didn’t bode well for Kristi Bentz and Ariel O’Toole.

Mai stepped over the body, walked to the priest’s desk and started going through his files, all the while wondering what Bentz and McKnight had found. If anything.

Mai hated to think it, but she sensed that Kristi Bentz was already dead. And, judging from the state of Father Mathias’s body, violently murdered.

Kristi tried to force her eyes open, to find some energy to fight, but she could barely stay awake, her muscles refusing to aid her as she lay in the soothing bath, the water turning scarlet.

“I feel it,” Elizabeth said into her ear as Kristi tried to move away from her slick, clinging limbs. “I feel it rejuvenating me.”

Oh, for the love of God. No way!
Again she tried to push away even though she thought that without Elizabeth’s arm around her she might sink into the tub, slide beneath the murky surface and drown in her own blood. The mirrors in the room allowed her to watch in horror and disbelief as her own face went white. Vlad the Horrible stood at the edge of the tub, ready to climb in with them.

Her skin crawled at the thought and she wanted to scream, to rail at the heavens, to call for help. But it was too late. Her voice let out only the barest of whispers and Vlad, as he glared down upon her, knew it. The smile upon his wicked lips, the light of anticipation in his eyes, told her he enjoyed her suffering, her ultimate fate.