My Soul to Keep (22 page)

Sorcha shook her head, bewildered. “I don't understand.”

“You all say the same thing. Really, though, when you think about it, it's not that difficult to comprehend.”

A sinking dread began to take hold, clenching Sorcha's stomach into knots as suspicion took root. She sniffed, smelled the stench of lycans on the air. And others buried deep beneath the earth with her. Others, but not humans. All of them close, nearby.

“I see you're starting to get the picture.” She turned back to the door.

Sorcha lunged, intent on escape. The witch turned suddenly, her hand raised high. As if she were some mesmerist, she curled and uncurled her fingers several times, working them over the air. A familiar buzzing filled Sorcha's head.

Without the witch saying a word, Sorcha heard her, felt her silent command seize hold. As if she were nothing but a puppet to be led and controlled, she began undressing. In front of the witch she removed every stitch of clothing until she shook, naked in the chill room. Her skull pounded, and the twisting pain in her temples made her want to weep.

She glared into the witch's demon-dark eyes,
despising her for her power, her
gift.
Whatever demon possessed her must revel in her talent. A talent that held Sorcha hostage, that she couldn't even attempt to fight.

“Is it worth it?” Sorcha asked, relieved that she still possessed the ability to speak. Powerless to resist, she moved toward the bucket of water and began washing herself with the sponge, wincing at the bite of icy water.

“Is what?”

“Selling your soul,” Sorcha bit out.

“Ah.” The witch tilted her head thoughtfully. “You know how it works, then. No surprise, I guess. I did find you at Tresa's.” She fluttered a hand. “My demon loves this little operation, so he leaves me to my own devices.”

Sorcha sneered. “You must be pretty sadistic when your demon can't come up with anything worse for you to do than what you would want to do anyway.”

The witch laughed, the sound grating. “That's about right. My only regret is waiting this long to contract with a demon. I could have been immortalized at twenty-two instead of fifty-two. I held out much too long. And for what?”

Damp and shivering from her cold sponge bath, Sorcha quickly donned the pants, top and armored vest. “The matter of your soul, I suppose,”
she retorted. “That's what keeps most witches from selling out.”

“Who needs a soul or God's favor if you're going to live forever?” The witch angled her head. “I hope you make it in the arena. Half the scum down here can't do much more than grunt their names.
You
I can talk to. You'd be nice to have around. For a while anyway.”

She turned toward the door again, and the tightness in Sorcha's skull began to ebb. “Wait.” Sorcha took a struggling step forward, desperate for some idea of what was to come. “What's this arena you keep talking about?”

“I'll return for you later,” the witch called over her shoulder. “The gamekeeper likes to meet every competitor before they enter the games. He'll tell you what you need to know.”

“Wait!” Sorcha called out. “Who's this gamekeeper? What games?”

As the door clanged shut, the pain in her head stopped completely and she was able to move, to surge forward and pound out her frustration on the door.

After several moments, it became clear that she was only exhausting herself. The witch was not returning. Sorcha collapsed on the cot, feeling drained, spent. In a matter of moments, she sank into sleep.

Sorcha rolled over on the bed and stretched long and slow, feeling the pull deep in her muscles. Gradually, she blinked her eyes open. Stared at the bright fluorescent bulb dangling at the center of the room. The nape of her neck tingled, kicking her into alert. She was not alone. Frowning, her gaze darted around.

With a gasp, she sprang into a sitting position, rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes and glaring at the witch. “You again?”

“Did you sleep well? Excellent.” The demon witch nodded as though Sorcha had answered. “Follow me. It's time.” And then she was gone and the door yawned open.

Sorcha remained on her cot for a moment before rising and stepping out into the eerily silent corridor. The demon witch was still there, waiting for her, a vacant smile plastered on her face.

Sorcha crossed her arms over the stiff armored vest she wore. Sometime during the night, when she
woke briefly, a peace had settled over her. Calm, cool resolve. She had little power against the demon witch. She needed to stay sharp, needed to watch. Learn and observe everything … play by the rules of her enemies until she learned their weakness. Then, she would make her move. Break and escape … or strike and kill. Whatever was necessary.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“It's time for you to meet the gamekeeper. He evaluates all the new recruits before putting them in the field. He prefers to assess your worth so that he can best decide your role in the games.”

Sorcha bristled at the thought of anyone judging her worth … like some slave monger. “And who's this gamekeeper?” Really, she was asking
what
he was. After coming face-to-face with both lycans and a demon witch, she couldn't imagine a human commanding such a crew.

Above them, a train roared. Sorcha braced herself, her legs apart. For a moment, it appeared the very walls shook.

“All you need to remember is that the gamekeeper is someone very important. He's in charge. You'll only help yourself if you make a good impression.”

“Why aren't you in charge?” Sorcha looked the deceptively frumpy woman up and down. “You're certainly powerful enough—”

The witch slid her a sly glance. “I don't choose to be. Let's just leave it at that.” Turning, she vanished down another corridor. After a moment of hesitation, Sorcha hurried after her.

“Why not?” she persisted, following close on her heels. Their steps fell flatly on gray concrete.

“You're full of questions.”

“I like to be informed.” All the better to learn about her enemies.

“You're just nosy … looking for a way out of this. You all are. Full of questions in the beginning. I'll tell you what all the players come to realize: there is no way out of this. The only thing left is to survive. Remember that. If you want to make it, train, study your opponents. Just don't die.”

They cleared a door and passed through a wide room with benches bolted into the floor. In several spots chained manacles extended from the walls, the bracelets wide open at the moment, dangling. Empty. But waiting. She rubbed her wrists as she passed, almost imagining herself chained and sitting on one of those benches.

“This is the holding area.” The demon witch waved to the room. “You'll spend plenty of time in here. Unchained if you behave. Or chained.” She shrugged as if it mattered little to her.

“What's your name?” Sorcha demanded, desperate,
digging for a connection, an advantage, something, anything to hold on to.

The demon witch glanced back at her, her smile revealing a flash of white teeth, a stark contrast to the coppery, well-lined skin of her face.

“Ingrid,” she answered. “Not that it's important for you to know. The only thing you need to be concerned about is following the rules. And winning in the arena.”

Several doors lined the room's walls. Ingrid took one that led up a winding set of stairs.

“This will be the most important meeting of your life,” Ingrid continued. “Let your attributes shine. You're attractive. Clever. Play it up. If he thinks you're an asset, he'll strive to keep you around longer.”

Around longer
… She meant alive. With cold clarity Sorcha understood that at once. Just as she acknowledged that she would do whatever she had to.
To make it.
To see Jonah again. Because now she got it. Now she realized she wanted that more than anything else. She wanted
him
. Even more than revenge on Tresa.

The stairs ended. Ingrid stopped before a door. “Here we are. Any questions before we go in?”

“Yeah.” Sorcha lifted her chin. “Tell me, Ingrid. Do you give everyone this little pep talk and do
they actually believe you give a shit about whether they live or die?”

Ingrid smiled, pushing the door open. Instead of answering, she said, “Don't be nervous.”

The room on the other side of the door was nothing like what she had seen since waking up in this nightmare. It had all the elegance and prestige of a prized private suite at a stadium. A bar and buffet were set against one wall, a uniformed waiter standing, ready to serve. Buttery leather chairs and couches sat in the middle of the room, arranged with precision on a Persian rug.

On the far side of the room gleaming glass stretched in lieu of a wall. Clean, pristine glass, winking and shining with light. She had forgotten that anything clean existed in this world.

On the other side of that glass a balcony extended out into the air. From where she stood, she couldn't appreciate the view. A half dozen cushioned chairs occupied the area. In one chair a man sat, his back to her. A thin cigarillo extended from his elegant hand. Her heart sped up, her pulse quickening in her throat.
The gamekeeper.

He didn't move, although he must have been aware of their arrival. She recognized the beast in him. And he had to have recognized it in her. Scented it. Felt its arrival a few feet behind him.

A dovenatu ruled this little world?

He was like her. A dovenatu in charge of his very own little corner of hell. Why not? Her father had been a dovenatu and half mad, driven to all kinds of depraved schemes. A dovenatu wasn't always like her, like Jonah. She swallowed the painful lump in her throat at the thought of Jonah. Now wasn't the time …

It stood to reason some dovenatus were as rotten as their lycan brethren.
Worse.
Because at least a dovenatu had a choice. He wasn't ruled by hunger, possessed by moon fever. A dovenatu possessed free will. This dovenatu's free will led his goons to capture her and hold her hostage in a rotting little room. All for his pleasure.

Ingrid put a hand on her elbow. “Come. We don't want to keep him waiting. He hates that.”

The nape of her neck shivered, scraped her flesh with a familiar dread at this comment. She shoved the sensation aside. Despite her anger and fear, her thoughts burned in a straight path, determined to make a good impression. Whatever that was. Until she managed to escape, he held her fate. She'd follow Ingrid's advice.

Ingrid slid the glass balcony door open with a
swoosh.
In the air, the clang of weapons rang out harshly. The balcony looked out over a small stadium of maybe three hundred seats. Far below,
in the center of the arena, a barren stretch of sandy earth served as some sort of fighting grounds. Three men and two women practiced, ran through drills in full armor, putting forth an impressive display of skill.

Far below, six lycans stood guard at the single entrance into the area, a steel-barred gate between them and the practicing fighters.

Ingrid motioned for Sorcha to wait. The witch moved to stand beside the gamekeeper, waiting to be acknowledged as he clapped vigorously at the antics below.

The blood rushed in her ears, everything slowing to a crawl as he turned, still clapping, to face them. She gazed at his profile, a sick feeling slithering through her.

No. No, no, no.

He turned to face her, and she realized she had spoken aloud.

The gamekeeper stared at her, and she couldn't deny it. Not with those horribly familiar brown eyes drilling into her, so cold, dead and utterly mad. A madness she had seen before. Had lived with all the days of her youth.

A time, a life, she had fled and never thought to see again stared her in the face.

“Sorcha.” Her stomach plunged and a hard
shudder racked her body. The breathy sound of her name on his lips brought a surge of bile to her throat.
No, no, no, no …

Her father said her name again, stronger, firmer, full of delight. “Sorcha, my dear!”

Even though she had no possible chance of escape, she turned, a strangled cry choking from her lips as every horrible memory of the man bombarded her. She ran back into the elegant suite, intent only on escape.

The wild thought occurred to her, flitting like a frenzied moth through her head:
Again, again I'm running from my father, running for my life.

As that awful, familiar buzzing filled her ears, forcing her legs to lock and wait for Ingrid's bidding, she knew. This time there would be no escape.

Stop.

The word wasn't uttered aloud, but she might as well have heard it spoken. Ingrid might as well have yelled it for all that Sorcha heard it and was forced to obey.

Without a sound, Ingrid pulled at something inside her, some force that Sorcha could not resist. She stopped. Her muscles locked tight and frozen, waiting for a command.

It was a terrible sensation. She couldn't move forward. Couldn't turn around and flee. She could only wait for Ingrid's bidding.

Ingrid's smoky voice rolled over the air. “Come here.”

And like that, her muscles loosened, liquefied. She wasn't even certain if Ingrid spoke the command aloud or if she just heard it inside her head. Whatever the case, Sorcha moved, rotated on her heels. The control the demon witch wielded was total and complete. Sorcha might as well have
been physically bound. She felt like one of those marionettes, only guided by chains instead of strings.

“Let me go!” she hissed between her teeth.

Ingrid shook her head, her look disgusted. “You know what I can do, so why do you even bother? You can't run. You can't escape. Why would you even think to try?”

How can I not? How can I stay and endure him? How can I share even one breath in the same space with him?