Night Vision (29 page)

Kaylin was supposed to sleep in Heather’s old room, and as we entered, memories flooded back. I pressed my lips together, trying not to think about all the bloodshed and carnage that had gone on over the past few weeks. Grieve shed his clothes, as he always did, and I stripped off my own. Climbing under the comforter, I turned out the light and lay on my side, staring at the silent fall of snow outside the window. We didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything left to say. When I finally fell asleep, my dreams were filled with the mist and snow and ice, and the screams of Rhiannon, begging me to come rescue her.

Morning light didn’t make anything better. The guards were waiting to fill us in on the state of the Barrows—which were,
for once, doing fine. Peyton, on the other hand, was quiet and withdrawn. Over breakfast, she toyed with her phone, until I finally asked her what she was thinking about.

“I’m debating on whether to call Mother. She probably doesn’t know Rex is dead. She’d probably be glad for the news.” A gloom had settled over her face, and a cloud seemed to surround her.

I kept my mouth shut. The fact was, Anadey probably
would
be glad to hear Rex was dead. She’d betrayed our trust, tried to kill me, tried to have Rex killed, and now I wondered if she was in league with Geoffrey and Leo, but I didn’t want to come out and say so.

But Peyton beat me to the punch. “You think she might be acting with them, don’t you? That she might be cozying up to them.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but considering what she did, I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Luna handed me a plate of eggs and bacon and set a stack of toast in the center of the table. Grieve took a piece, and so did Chatter, but neither of them was saying much. They seemed to give way to me, and I realized that—even to my love and his friend—the fact that I was now Queen took precedence over just about everything.

As we ate, one of the guards knocked on the kitchen door, then let himself in. He knelt by my side, bowing his head. “Your Majesty, a package was delivered for you. We took the liberty of opening it to make certain there wasn’t anything dangerous inside.” He held out a DVD case, but it was one that you burn yourself, not a preformatted movie.

I gingerly took it, staring at the disk. “Where’s the wrapping?”

He handed it to me. Whoever had opened it had done a good job of keeping it fairly intact, because it was easy to see the postmark—New Forest—but also easy to see there was no return address. Just
Her Highness Cicely Waters, Veil House, New Forest, WA
. There was no postmark, so whoever had sent it, had to have paid the messenger to deliver it.

A fluttering in my stomach told me this wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. I pushed myself back from the table and stood, heading into the living room, where there was a DVD player, the others following.

As I slid the disk into the machine and turned it on, Luna flipped on the television. I didn’t want to sit down. For some reason, I was sweating cold, and it felt like I might be better able to handle whatever was on the disk if I was standing up. Chatter joined us, and I suddenly turned to Grieve.

“Take him out. Just do it. Both of you go outside.”

“No,” Chatter said. “If this has anything to do with Rhiannon, I need to see it. And you can’t stop me, Queen or not, Cicely.” There was a finality to his words that made me shiver, and so I just shrugged and hit the Play button.

The screen flickered, and then a room came into view. It was dimly lit, with a red ambiance. Several people were in the room, but they were on their knees, staring at the floor. By the furnishings, I knew they were in a dungeon somewhere. I’d spent enough time hanging around the scene with my mother to recognize a fetish setup when I saw one, though most were run by perfectly respectable and sane people, not sadistic vampires. To the left sat a spanking bench; to the right, stocks and a bondage table. There was what looked like a metal web or netting that covered a redbrick wall.

And in the center of the film, dangling from wrist cuffs from the ceiling, was Rhiannon. I caught my breath, stiffening. This was no fetish bar. She was hurting, that much was obvious. And in most fetish clubs, actual damage didn’t play into the scene, except for some of the underground clubs and vampire setups.

Behind me, Chatter let out a low moan. Rhia was wearing a sheer red gown, with no underwear or bra beneath it. Her hair hung loose, and she was staring at the camera with a terrified expression. But then I realized it wasn’t the camera she was staring at, but something in front of the camera that was invisible to us. Or…
someone
.

She struggled, trying to back up. “Please, please don’t. Leo, please, stop!”

The next moment, her head snapped back and the imprint of a hand showed red against her cheek. She cried out, twisting, but she couldn’t get away from her attacker. The others in the room stayed where they were, kneeling, although I saw a couple of them look up when they seemed to think they weren’t being watched.

“I like it when you say my name, Rio. You remember your nickname, don’t you? The one you used to love me to say.” Leo’s voice echoed out from the television, and it took everything I had not to jump up, to run crazed searching for her. Chatter let out a growl and I sensed, rather than heard, Grieve, trying to calm him down.

Rhiannon said nothing, but the next moment her head went back as Leo—or one of his cronies—grabbed her hair and yanked. Her throat was exposed, and I jumped up. But he didn’t bite her. Instead, a thin red weal began under her chin and ran down to between her breasts. She tried to turn her head, but the blood trickled down her chest.

“That hurt, babe? Good. Bitch. Whore of my dreams. You’re going to hurt a lot more before I get done with you, Rio, because, my sweet, you ran away from me. Your cunt of a cousin turned you against me. Wait till Geoffrey gets hold of her—we’re going to serve her up to Crawl, watch him take her apart, inch by inch. He knows tortures I can only dream about. The great Queens of Summer and Winter will be on their knees, begging for every breath.”

My stomach lurched. Chatter cried out and I heard something crackle. Turning around, I saw flames flickering off his hands. I paused the DVD. “Don’t! You
cannot
destroy this house—it will do no good. As horrific as this is, we have to know if she…”

“If he kills her.” Chatter’s look terrified me. I’d thought Grieve was dangerous, but the King-Elect of Summer was about to turn into a flaming pillar and go burning the house down around our shoulders.

I turned to Grieve. “If he can’t control himself, get him outside.”

“No, I told you before.” Chatter glared at me but then slowly withdrew the flames into himself. “Leo dies. He dies a thousand deaths.”

“And every one of them will hurt. Let’s finish this so Luna can use her scrying spell to find out where the fuck they are. Then we rescue Rhiannon and take the freakshow down.”

A moment later, reassured he wasn’t going to explode, I pressed Play and the DVD started up again.

Rhia struggled as someone ripped her robe away. Tears running down my face, I forced myself to stand still, watching. We couldn’t see Leo, but what he was doing was obvious by her movements and soft whimpers.

“Like it, bitch. Love it. Beg me. Come on, beg me.”

The sound of his voice echoed in my memory. Lannan…forcing me to his feet, forcing me to say and do things I never would have done…all through the control of his voice.

“Please, Leo, please…
fuck me
.” The words sounded forced, and I knew—we all knew—they were. Rhiannon choked as the manacles around her wrist opened and she was forced down on her knees. I knew what was going on, it was obvious. After a few seconds, I closed my eyes, my stomach churning. The thought of what he was doing to her was horrifying, but the fact that we couldn’t see him but could hear his grunts made it worse, somehow.

After a few moments, she choked and spit out a long string of fluid. The next moment, she went flying across the room, where she landed with a hard thud on the pillows. Her wrists went back, over her head, as an invisible force pinned her down and another shoved her knees apart.

“You’ll never forget me.” Leo’s voice was ragged, and Rhiannon stiffened. She began to whimper again, but I could tell he was forcing her to enjoy it, controlling her will, and she let out a shriek. I winced, not wanting to see Chatter’s face. I knew from experience that she couldn’t
help it. He had control of her body, though I knew she was fighting against him.

And then, finally, it was over. I held my breath as she was manhandled to face the camera. We could hear whispering, and then Rhiannon, beyond tears, stammered out a message.

“Cicely…Leo…he says that if you don’t turn yourself over to Geoffrey, they’ll turn me.”

And then Leo’s arrogant voice broke in. “My little whore here, my little Fae-fucker, is right. Cicely, you mistress of demons, get your ass to the town square by tonight or I’ll unleash a foe worse than you’ve ever dreamed. You think Myst is bad? I know how to drive this little beauty of mine insane. I know how to
break her
, and then after I break her, I’ll drink her down and turn her. And
you
will have been responsible for creating a monster. Now aren’t you sorry you poked your fucking nose into our business?”

Rhia let out a cry. “No, don’t do it. Don’t do what he—” She stopped as the crack of a blow echoed through the room.

“Tonight. Eight
P.M.
If you aren’t there by midnight, your cousin will have vanished forever and a new queen of fire will rampage across the land. And won’t that be a
delight
with two demented Queens on the loose. We know Myst still lives. Oh, and Chatter? She’s
mine
, so suck my dick.”

And then the DVD ended.

As the screen went blank, the house grew deadly silent. My breath came in shallow pants and I was doing my best not to go stark fucking mad. Not trusting myself to speak, I slowly stood up and turned off the TV.

Peyton roused herself out of her gloom. She stood, straightened the hem of her sweater, and was the first to break the silence. “
Whatever
you need me to do, I’m here.”

Joining her, Luna pointed to the sofa. “Please, move this and bring in a small table. I’ll get ready to cast the spell and we’ll find out where they are.”

I turned to Grieve and Chatter. Grieve looked somber; Chatter looked ready to kill. He had changed in the past ten
minutes. We all had. Without a word, he and Grieve grabbed the ends of the sofa and shoved it out of the way. Then they went out to talk to the guards. I moved off to the side while Peyton helped Luna get things ready and put in a call to Ysandra Petros.

When she answered the phone, I told her what had happened.

“I’ll be right over,” she said. She was not a woman for small talk.

“You may not like what you see us doing.”

“I’m not worried about that. The Council needed to do more, and they didn’t. They aren’t even getting around to casting the spell of protection till later this week. I’m tired of the bureaucracy.” And with that, she hung up.

“Ysandra’s coming over. I think she’s going to help us.” I wanted to run to Lainule, to tell her what was going on, but she wasn’t here anymore. And Regina and Lannan were asleep for the day. But that meant that so were Geoffrey and Leo. If we could pinpoint where they were before dark, we could take them out more easily, even though I didn’t want it to be easy on them. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted them to realize their lives were ending and know that I was responsible. I wanted to torture them like they were torturing Rhiannon.

As Luna set a black candle and a crystal ball on the small circular table now in the center of the room, I stared at the DVD player. I couldn’t bear to think that my last vision of my cousin might be…

“Cicely?”

I turned. Luna was standing behind me, her hand on my arm. “What do you want to do with that DVD?”

“What I want…is to destroy it. But I think…first Regina needs to see it. And the Consortium. Then, perhaps, they’ll realize just what we’re up against. I keep thinking they don’t realize how ruthless Geoffrey and Leo are.” I stared into her eyes. “But maybe I’m fooling myself? Maybe they realize and just don’t care? Or maybe they care, but not nearly as much as I want them to.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. Luna decided for me, reaching around to pop the DVD out of the player and put it back in the case. She paused, then slid it into her purse. I started to protest, putting my hand on her purse, but she caught hold of my wrist and shook her head.

“No. Leave it. I don’t want you staring at this. I don’t want you haunting yourself with it. I’ll keep it until we show it to the Consortium and Regina. After that, we can destroy it.” She slowly untangled my fingers from the strap of her purse and ran her hand over my cheek. “I wish I could help more. I hate seeing you worry. I hate seeing everybody upset. Come, we’ll get ready and I’ll cast that spell and do what I can to find where they’re keeping her.”

There was a sound in the kitchen and I whirled around, but it was just Grieve and Chatter returning, with Ysandra behind them. She was wearing a fur-trimmed trench coat and she slipped it off, revealing a white starched shirt with a ruffled front over a long quilted skirt. Her hair was, as usual, in its chignon, and her rectangular wire-frame glasses gave her a studious look, but she really was a beautiful woman when you looked beyond the stern exterior.