Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred (16 page)
Read Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Online
Authors: Lynn Viehl
Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction
“Certain preparations must be made,” Segundo said. “Energúmeno has ordered a meal prepared for you, señor. This way.”
Genaro followed the steward out of the reception room and through a curving corridor into a formal dining area. Two places were set: one at the head of the long stone table and one to the right. Bountiful platters of food had been set out, and the girl who had driven the cart stood waiting with a bottle of wine.
Genaro had no desire to eat or drink, but sat down in the chair the steward drew out for him. “I’ll just have water, thank you.”
Segundo inclined his head, and then left the dining room with the girl.
Genaro drank down half of the water in his glass. As unnerving as the interview had been, it had been worth the risk; Energúmeno would be an invaluable ally.
The girl returned several minutes later to refresh his empty water glass. The gap in her teeth didn’t seem as noticeable this time when she smiled at him, and the red poppy in her hair emphasized how dark and glossy it was. “Is the food not to your liking, señor?”
“I was waiting for your employer.” He nodded at the empty place setting.
“Energúmeno prefers to dine alone.” She sat down beside him and helped herself to a cluster of grapes. “You should have tried the wine. It is very good. We make it ourselves.”
Genaro’s satisfaction abruptly vanished, leaving behind a cold knot in his belly. He was not being feted; he was being stalled. “Perhaps another time.” He stood. “I have some business to attend to in the city. Will you take me to my car?”
“Of course.”
She led him out of the house and to the waiting cart. As she started toward the gate Genaro felt his nausea fade, and realized he’d overreacted to the situation, and had behaved abominably toward his companion. “I apologize.”
“To me?” She glanced at him, her lovely face amused. “Why would you do that, señor?”
“I was rude to you earlier,” he admitted, his eyes drawn to the elegant way she handled the steering wheel of the cart. The girl had thin, delicate hands, one of which sported a tattoo he hadn’t noticed before now. His penis stiffened as he imagined her clasping it in her pretty hands and stroking it. “That was unkind.”
Her slim shoulders moved. “I am used to it, and it never lasts.”
“What is your name?”
Her lips curved. “Quinequia.”
Looking at the silver dove that had been inked onto the back of her hand made his erection grow harder. “Come back with me to the city.” He had never begged a woman to do anything, but he knew he couldn’t leave without her. He plucked the poppy from her hair and drew it down her cheek, caressing her with its soft petals. “Spend the night with me.”
“Energúmeno does not allow us to leave the compound.” Quinequia stopped the cart by the front gates, taking the poppy from his fingers and replacing it in her hair. “Here we are.”
Genaro didn’t see his car or driver, but ignored the police officer waiting for them. “If you won’t come with me,” he wheedled, “I’ll stay here with you.”
“That is also not permitted, señor.” She nodded to the officer, who came over and took Genaro’s arm, pulling it behind his back. “Energúmeno wishes you to go with this man. He will take you where you belong. As soon as you walk through the gates, you will forget me.”
“Go,” he heard himself say in a slurred, dull voice as the cop handcuffed his wrists behind his back. “Forget.”
Quinequia smiled. “Very good, Jonah. You should do well where you are going.” She patted his shoulder before taking out a handheld radio and speaking into it in Spanish.
As the cop helped Genaro out to the battered police car, he glanced backward at a young, flat-faced Mexican woman who stood watching them. “Who is that?”
The cop grinned. “Just some girl with bad teeth.”
An insect buzzing in Charlie’s ear made her frown and swat her hand. When the bug only got louder she opened her eyes and stared through the mesh of damp hair at sunlight-gilded bamboo. Her heavy limbs didn’t want to move, not when the memory of nearly having sex with Samuel Taske came back to her. Even worse, she’d enjoyed it more than all the other times when she’d had real sex with the men she’d known. Which should have made her feel pathetic, and oddly didn’t.
Samuel had stripped her out of her wet sarong but had wrapped her in one of the robes, a gesture she found curiously touching.
Always a gentleman, aren’t you,
mío
?
She’d have preferred to see him sleeping on the other side of the bed, which lay empty, as did the rest of the room.
Always a gentleman, aren’t you,
mío
?
She’d have preferred to see him sleeping on the other side of the bed, which lay empty, as did the rest of the room.
The buzzing sound distracted her again, but this time she realized it wasn’t being made by an insect. The faint, high-pitched noise came from outside the sliding doors, which had been left open. She saw Samuel dressed only in a pair of cutoffs and standing with his back toward her, and got out of bed, belting the robe as she went out onto the deck.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked as she came to stand beside him.
“You needed the rest. You were exhausted.” He glanced down at her. “How do you feel?”
“Rested and annoyed.” She glanced back at the position of the sun, and estimated it was an hour after dawn. “How long have you been up?”
“I never went to sleep.”
“So tonight it’ll be your turn to crash.” The buzzing sound grew annoyingly loud, and she peered out at the water. “That sound, is that—”
“It’s a boat coming toward the island,” he confirmed, turning her back toward the room. “You should get dressed.”
“Okay.” She watched him retrieve a shirt from the closet. “What are you going to do?”
He pulled the shirt over his head. “I have some preparations to make for our visitor.”
The flatness of his voice both spooked and reassured her at the same time. “There’s a pair of suture scissors in my bag, in the treatment room. The blades aren’t very long, but they’re sharp and made of surgical steel.”
He nodded and went to the door, where he retrieved her teak chair-leg club. “Meet me in the kitchen.”
Charlie went into the closet, ignoring the skimpy female clothing as she sorted through what had been stocked for Samuel. Most of the garments were far too big for her, but she found some black stretch swim trunks that covered her from waist to knees, and paired them with a red tank, the hem of which she stretched out and knotted over her right hip.
No shoes had been provided for them, so she went downstairs barefoot, and found Samuel pouring a pot of watery soup through a strainer into one of two clear plastic bottles.
The smell made her wrinkle her nose. “You’re making soup,
mío
? At a time like this?”
mío
? At a time like this?”
“I don’t recommend tasting it,” he said as he strained the rest of the liquid into the second bottle. Once he set the pot and the strainer aside, he screwed on the bottle tops.
Charlie couldn’t hold back her laugh. “Sam, those are enema bottles.”
“Yes, they are.” He wrapped one with a cloth before he handed it to her. “Tuck it in your waistband behind your back. You’ll have to be close to use it, but just go for the eyes.” He saw her expression and smiled. “I made it by boiling together onions, lemon juice, and several types of chilies. Consider it a kind of homemade pepper spray.”
Now she understood why he’d used enema bottles, which were made out of thin, very flexible plastic designed to administer the liquid contents with a gentle squeeze. “You’re brilliant.”
“I’m stupid. I should have spent last night fashioning spears and setting up pit traps.” He also handed her the suture scissors. “You’re an expert on where to inflict the maximum damage with these. I’ll fare better with the club.”
“Don’t kill him,” she warned as she pocketed the scissors. “He’s the only one who can tell us where we are, and how to get back home.”
“I believe we’re somewhere off the coast of Mexico,” Sam told her. “Everything I’ve touched thus far in the house was brought over from the mainland.”
“Your ability is working again?”
“Now and then.” He tucked his wrapped bottle into the back of his shorts before he picked up the club. He also handed her a length of tourniquet hose. “Once I have him pinned, bind his hands with this.”
“All right.” She looped the hose around her wrist and wove the ends in a loose knot. “But if he has a gun, we stay out of sight.” When he started to argue she held up her hand. “You saw what he did on the bridge. He can take you out with one shot, and then I’ll be alone with him.”
“If that happens,” he said flatly, “you’ll have to kill him.”
She had never imagined harming another person; it went against her calling to heal and everything she believed in. She had thought those beliefs had protected her, too, until that morning on the bridge. “Count on it.”
They left the villa and went quickly down the walkway toward the water, stopping at the edge of the sand. Samuel led her behind a cluster of sea grape bushes and crouched down there with her, parting the branches to look down at the dock.
The boat, a large ocean cruiser, lay anchored several hundred yards away from the pier. A tall man stood at the helm, and another walked along the deck railing, a rifle parked on his shoulder. Neither of them was the gunman.
“He brought friends,” she murmured. “Why are they just sitting out there?”
A metallic click answered her, and Charlie felt the rounded end of a gun pressed firmly against her nape.
“Don’t move,” a pleasant voice said in English. “Put your hands on top of your head.”
Charlie glanced over at Samuel, who had a rifle pressed against his back, before she slowly lifted her hands into position.
“Very good. My name is Segundo, and I am in charge here. Mr. Taske, you may drop that chair leg. Very good.” In Spanish, he said, “Take the bottles and the scissors.”
Once they had been divested of their only weapons, Segundo told them to stand up. “Now, keep your hands on your head and walk down to the beach.”
“This was my idea,” Samuel said quickly. “Ms. Marena had nothing to do with it.”
“So polite,” Segundo said in a mocking tone. “Still, you’re already protective of her, which is excellent. It is a pity that you didn’t consider her welfare before we arrived, but I doubt it will happen again.”
Without warning Samuel spun around and tried to snatch the rifle from the man behind him. A hard arm clamped around Charlie’s neck as she was dragged back. A third man shot Samuel in the chest with the prongs from a Taser.
“Sam.”
She fought wildly to free herself, until Segundo pressed a blade under her chin.
She fought wildly to free herself, until Segundo pressed a blade under her chin.
“Be very still now,” he told her. “I don’t want to slit your throat unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Even while Samuel was being jolted by the shock device, he managed to wrench the rifle out of the guard’s hands. A fourth man hurried up and shot him with another Taser, and the combined jolts sent Samuel to his knees. Although he was shaking helplessly now, the guards kept pumping more electricity into him.
“Please tell them to stop,” Charlie begged. “We won’t try anything else. I swear.”
Segundo waited another moment before he called off the guards. Samuel wavered, almost falling over before they grabbed his arms and with difficulty dragged him along the path to the beach.
“Do you work for the man who brought us here?” Charlie asked.
“Tacal?” He chuckled. “No, dear girl. And you needn’t worry about him; he’s been dealt with and won’t trouble you again.”
“Then why are we here? What is this place?” When Segundo didn’t answer, she added, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t keep us. We’re American citizens. We have rights.”
“It always surprises me how Americans believe they are entitled to freedom,” Segundo said as he forced her to follow them. His colorless voice took on a slight foreign accent. “Even when your lives depend on obedience and submission, you resist. You fight.” He stopped halfway down the beach and gestured toward Samuel’s sagging form. “And then you are shocked when you’re made to suffer for it.”
Finally Charlie placed his voice. “You’re the man who made the recordings that have been playing over the speaker.”
“You have an excellent ear, Ms. Marena. I hope your tolerance for pain is equally developed.” To his men he said,
“Pare aquí.”
“Pare aquí.”
Samuel’s head drooped as the guards forced him back down on his knees in the sand. One of them produced a bottle of water and poured the contents into Samuel’s face, causing him to sputter and cough.
“He’s had enough,” Charlie said as Segundo maneuvered her to stand a foot in front of Samuel. “I’ll take whatever punishment you had planned for him.”
“Oh, we never punish the men, dear girl.” Segundo beckoned to the largest of the guards. “We just make them watch.”
“Watch what?”
“The consequences of your actions.” He smiled. “You and Mr. Taske did put on a convincing performance last night, but you did not, in fact, have sexual intercourse. That is a violation of the rules, for which you will now be punished.”
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