Under Wraps (28 page)

Chief Oliver snorted. “Parker Hayes. A detective from Podunk, New York.”

“Buffalo,” I whispered through dry lips.

“What was that?”

I cleared my throat. “Parker Hayes is from Buffalo.”

“Whatever. He’s nothing to worry about.” The chief snorted. “He thinks he’s been chasing a mythical killer? That idiot’s been chasing his tail all this time.” The chief shook me hard, and I squealed. “Parker Hayes is nothing to worry about,” he repeated.

A fresh round of tears burned at my eyes.
He’s nothing to worry about because he’s got a fork shoved in his thigh.
I sniffled, and as we walked into the foyer, Chief Oliver wound his free hand in my hair and yanked. I bent down backward, wincing as my spine protested.

I heard another unmistakable, gleeful giggle escape Lucy’s lips, and from the corner of my eye, I could see her helicoptering around the chief and me, angling for the best vantage point.

“Now, you’re not going to do anything stupid like run away or scream, are you?”

“No,” I said, feeling strands of my hair snapping in Chief Oliver’s palm.

“You know, I’d like to believe you.” He shoved me so hard against the wall that I lost my breath and immediately tasted the hot blood that rushed from a fresh cut on my lip. “But I’ve learned that you never can trust a demon.” Chief Oliver leaned in, his breath moist and hot on my ear. “Even just a half-breed,” he muttered.

I heard the tinkle of his belt and then felt the searing pain in my shoulders as the chief twisted my arms hard and locked cold metal cuffs around my wrists. He spun me around and frowned, his bushy caterpillar eyebrows coming together.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, and for a brief moment I thought that the chief might actually feel bad for me. But then he rubbed his hand roughly over my lips and sucked the excess blood from his thumb and grinned. His smile was hungry, ferocious, and my blood had tinted his teeth a freaky, glowing pink. He smacked his lips. “Yeah, that’ll do quite nicely.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and shook it out, tenderly dabbing at my nose and lips. “We don’t want to waste it,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?” I moaned as Chief Oliver shoved me toward the front door. “Aren’t you supposed to be the good guy?”

The chief snorted. “Good guy? Huh. In this city, it takes more than good guys to keep everything in line. Forty-seven square miles of demon-infested city?” Chief Oliver shook his head, his distaste obvious. “And you demons act like you own this town. Looking up to that damn Pete Sampson like he’s some kind of god …”

“But—”

The chief spun to face me, and I could see the spitting hatred in his eyes.

“You know, I’m getting awfully tired of listening to you.”

“I’ll be quiet,” I said, my voice small.

He smiled that twisted, grotesque smile and used one hand to pin me to the wall, the other to beckon for Lucy.

“Lucy, sweetie, do me a favor and watch over our little friend for a second here, will you?”

Lucy skipped—
skipped
—over to me, her dark hair bobbing around her shoulders, her wide lips spread in a pleased grin. I looked her over as the chief disappeared out the front, considered whether—cuffed or not—I could take her. My query was cut short when she pulled out that Taser again, flicking the on switch so the electricity between the two wires shivered and made my teeth ache with memory.

“Come on, Lucy. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” she smiled broadly, and I could see that one of her fake vampire fangs had broken off. “But it’s just so much fun.”

“Chief Oliver is a murderer,” I said, dropping my voice to a stage whisper. “Do you know that? Do you know that he’s already killed at least three innocent people? Lucy, you’ve got to get yourself out of this.”

Lucy’s grin didn’t falter. “Oh, Sophie, it’s all for the greater good. And they weren’t people, they were demons. And all those demons had something we needed.”

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

The smile abruptly dropped from Lucy’s lips, but she still held the Taser just an inch from my exposed skin. “Look, you demons have your restoration league.”

“VERM? That’s for vampires.”

“Haven’t you read the literature? It has tiers for all of you demons. So you have your thing for empowerment and restoration and so do we. The UDA has controlled things for too long and is losing its foothold. It’s time for something bigger.”

“And where do you come in with that?”

Lucy smiled, the pointed pink tip of her tongue curling over her remaining yellowed fang. “I get my own powers. What I get makes vampiracy look like child’s play. The chief promised me.”

“The chief is lying to you.”

Lucy’s small palm snapped against my cheek, and she leaned in, the Taser a millimeter from my neck. “Don’t you say that about Chief Oliver. All he’s concerned about is protecting the people—the human people—of this city. You have no idea what you’re talking about so just shut your mouth!”

The chief wandered back in, his red-rimmed eyes taking in Lucy and me. “You two getting along in here? Not that I care …”

Lucy stepped away from me, but her fierce eyes were still on mine. She held the Taser so tightly that I could see her knuckles had gone white.

“Chief Oliver, I—”

The chief put his hands on his hips and stared at me. “You know, Sophie, I’m really getting tired of listening to you.” He angled his gun at me again, and I cringed, pinching my eyes closed tightly. When a full second passed without gunfire, I chanced to open an eye. I saw the chief, gun still steadied and trained on me in one hand, the other rummaging through a duffel bag left open on the hallway table. Chief Oliver produced a silver roll of duct tape and tossed it to Lucy, who caught it and peeled off a piece, tearing it with her teeth.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re a demon or not, all you broads talk too much,” the chief said.

I was about to protest, to plead my non-talking-broad case, but Lucy smacked a piece of tape over my mouth, smoothing it with her delicate hand.

The chief came up behind her, grinned, and patted her on the shoulder. “Good work, kid.”

Lucy beamed like a proud kindergartner.

“Now take her car and get out of here.”

The smile abruptly dropped from Lucy’s lips. “But I wanted to see the ceremony!” she whined. “You said I could be there when the portal opened and I’d get my powers.” Lucy was stamping her foot again, her black hair bobbing. “I got the stuff you wanted!”

I blinked.

I remembered Kishi’s voice that day at the Crystal Ball in San Jose. I remember her saying that the woman who bought the Sword of Bethesda was rather nondescript, but had long black hair.

“Lucy,” I murmured.

“Huh?” she called over her shoulder, annoyed.

I tried again, then realized with the tape stuck over my mouth I was probably letting out nothing more than an incomprehensible moan. The chief blew out an annoyed sigh, aimed his gun at my nose, and whipped the duct tape from my mouth.

“Ow!” I moaned. “Geez.”

Lucy raised a perturbed eyebrow. “That’s what you wanted to say?”

“I wanted to say that it was you, Lucy, who bought the Sword of Bethesda.”

Lucy smiled, looked lovingly at the chief. “Uh-huh. Good on you for figuring it out way too late.” She tossed a hard glance over her shoulder. “I’m staying. No one’s going to come looking for her car, and even if they do, so what? The ritual will be completed and no one will be any match for us.”

“They won’t, will they?” the chief looked amused and patronizing at the same time while Lucy nodded.

“Lucy, I—” I was barely able to get out the second syllable when the chief slapped the tape over my mouth again. He patted both my cheeks and smiled, and in one quick motion, yanked a pillowcase out of his duffel and dropped it over my head.

I blinked in the immediate darkness.

Suddenly we were moving again, the chief’s hands clamped over my arms, tight, cutting off my circulation as I stumbled in front of him. I heard Lucy scampering behind us, complaining about how to dispose of my car, about how she wanted to stay and be a part of “the ceremony.” The chief remained mostly quiet, grunting occasionally, until I heard him open a car door. Almost immediately I felt myself being launched inside, sliding on my belly across a foul-smelling leather bench seat and cracking my skull on what I can only assume was the other car door.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” I heard him mutter before I felt the door slamming against the soles of my bare feet. I groaned, them immediately strained to hear the last few seconds of the chief and Lucy arguing outside.

“But it’s what you promised!” I heard Lucy whine.

“Stop it. I don’t have time for this.”

“But—”

“I’m warning you…. Just get in the car and drive away like we talked about. I’ll come and get you when everything is through.”

“Chief!” Lucy’s whine was high-pitched and piteous. I heard a few more muffled words, a quieted howl, a scuffle. Then a gunshot rang out through the night. I blinked in the darkness of my pillowcase, felt the cool heat as all the hairs on the back of my neck pricked. I felt my heart thumping wildly in my chest and made a mental note that if I were to ever get out of this situation alive, I’d keep a cardiologist on speed dial. And also surgically attach my cell phone to my hand.

I worked to sit up, then scooted myself across the bench seat, leaning my pillowcased head against the cool glass of the window. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t see anything except for a splotch of yellowish street light and a single dark figure standing in the night.

My heart continued to thump, and my mouth fell open as the figure slowly lumbered toward the car. I pressed the soles of my feet against the car door and launched myself across the seat, cowering against the other locked door. I was breathing hard and sucked in a mouthful of cotton pillowcase while the tears spilled from my eyes. Was Lucy dead? Was I next? The chief had murdered before—horrendously murdered—three innocent people, and now Lucy’s foot stomping and demands had gone deathly silent.

I pinched my eyes shut and waited for my life to flash before them. I waited for the split-second feeling of calm that was supposed to come when you accepted fate.

Neither came.

So I went with the next best thing: spastic movements. I had learned in a self-defense class (or by watching
Oprah)
that a moving target was hard to hit, so, when escaping an attacker with a gun, you should run zigzag. I wasn’t going to let the fact that I was trapped in the coffin-sized backseat of a police car hamper my best defense so I threw myself spastically around the backseat the second I heard the click of the car door open.

“What the hell are you doing back there?”

I kicked. I thrashed. I bobbed. I weaved. I panted a little and wished I’d spent more time at the gym working up my cardio. I heard the groan of the leather seat and I cringed, imagining Chief Oliver as he leveled the gun and shot me dead, too. With a second burst of adrenaline I dove for the floor mats, and then heard the jangle of the key as it slipped into the ignition, the groan of the engine as it turned over.

“You’re fucking nuts,” I heard the chief mutter. “You’re all fucking nuts.”

I lay still on the floor of the car, the industrial carpet scratching my bare arms as the chief kicked the car into gear and headed down the drive. I wanted to ask him about Lucy. I wanted to ask him if I’d be next. Instead, I lay with my cheek pressed against the car seat while the tears rolled down my cheeks.

I’m going to get out of here, I told myself, I have to.

I stiffened and scooted forward, pressing one ear against the car door. As we rode, I struggled to listen to every sound, to count every jerking movement of the car—turns, stoplights, anything that could be used to identify where he might be taking me. But there was a sickening, sweet scent inside the pillowcase that I hadn’t noticed before and it was making me tired, making my eyes so heavy.

I wonder if this is how it happens on
CSI, I thought, before falling off into darkness.

Chapter Twenty-One

I woke up to a soft voice calling my name.

“Sophie? Sophie?” I heard.

I stirred, and realization hit me. “Mr. Sampson? Mr. Sampson, is that you? I can hear you in my head.” I had to work to move my dry, heavy lips.

There was a soft hand on my shoulder, and then I heard the jingle of metal, the clank as it brushed against concrete. “Sophie,” Mr. Sampson said, “I’m not talking to you inside your head. Can you open your eyes for me?”

I tried, wincing at the star of pain that blossomed above my right eye, that stung my swollen, dried, blood-caked lips. Mr. Sampson came into focus looking disheveled and broken, his face marred by fresh pink scratch marks. He smiled softly at me, and I noticed that his usually perfect teeth were replaced by a mouthful of heavily pointed incisors, that a thick shock of brown fur was circling out of the tears in his shirt.

“Oh my gosh.” I lifted both my wrists, grimacing at the thick chains encircling them. “Oh my gosh.” I gaped at Mr. Sampson. “What the hell is going on here? What is this?” I rattled the chains. “I’ve got a whole Jacob Marley thing going on. And you!” I gingerly touched the heavy cuff around his neck, and he pulled away, ashamed.

“Sophie, do you have any idea where we are?”

I scanned our concrete enclosure, frowned at the pentagram etched out in chalk dust on the floor. “Hell?” I asked weakly. “Although I think if that were the case, the pentagram would be a little cliché.”

Mr. Sampson tried to smile, and I felt the tiniest bit of relief at being alive. “I’m not dead, right?” I confirmed.

Mr. Sampson shifted his weight, the clank from his chains reverberating in the silent, cement room. “No, you’re not.”

“I was attacked by a fake vampire, and now I’m here.” I looked around, incredulous. “This doesn’t happen,” I continued softly. “This shouldn’t happen. This is real life.” The words were out of my mouth before I had time to stop and consider that I was crying to a man halfway through a werewolf transformation, chained to a metal wall in what looked like a giant kennel.