He touched a hand to the deeper wound and grimaced.
Stupid Bluestone weapons.
Stretching his neck, Gabriel headed back toward the street where he could hear the distant sounds of laughter and carnival music coming from the town fair. Was there really a happy festival still going strong just around the corner? It seemed ironic.
Let me just sheathe my zombie-killing blade and dust this dead guy ash from my hands and I’ll get right back to riding Ferris wheels and trying to win ugly teddy bears.
He shook his head as he neared the edge of the alley. Hopefully Scarlet had found Heather and they were both still safe in the coffee shop.
A noise behind him caught his ear and Gabriel paused, looking down the dark alleyway in anticipation of more Ashmen. He saw nothing but shadows and—
Stabbing pain pierced his neck and his vision immediately began to swirl into darkness. He dropped the knife in his hand and felt himself collapse under suddenly weak knees.
What the hell?
Against the heaviness swarming into his veins, he tried to keep his eyes open as he scanned the street. Through his blurry vision, he made out a woman with dark hair in the distance walking towards him. He couldn’t make out more than that, but he watched her walk and, dammit, he knew that walk.
Dread filled his insides as numbness overtook his body, rendering him utterly defenseless.
The figure drew close and hovered over Gabriel’s face.
“Hello, lover,” Raven’s blurry lips said. “Did you miss me?”
Raising a gun-like weapon in her hand, she shot again at Gabriel’s neck and a dart of some sort hit him. Mustering all the strength he had, he yanked the dart from his throat, but his body was too heavy to fight back and the dart rolled from his numb fingers.
His arms went numb. Then his legs. Then his whole body.
The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the silver-eyed girl who’d once been his best friend, smirking at his weakness as she shot at him again.
Heather had stopped crying an hour ago, but her body was still shaking.
Raven had bound both her wrists and ankles with coarse rope before tying her body against a concrete pillar in an old warehouse. Her arms were strung above her head, her wrist ties hanging from a hook in the pillar, and her legs were pinned to the pillar, ropes winding up her calves, thighs and torso.
Squirming against her bindings, she let out a whimper. The skin on her wrists and ankles was already burned raw from her attempts at freeing herself and all the shaking her body was doing only made things worse.
The warehouse was empty save for a pillar across from her and a small table behind that. On the table were several tubes, a collection of plastic baggies, a small plastic bin, and something silver and shiny Heather couldn’t quite make out.
Probably some sort of evil witch torture device.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die—
No.
Heather took a deep breath and tried to think about something else. Anything else.
Like ponies.
Ponies were a happy thought. They were nice and gentle and they never kidnapped people or strapped them to cold warehouse pillars.
Ponies, ponies, ponies—
“Tie him up by the girl and for God’s sake don’t kill him!” Clare’s—er, Raven’s—voice was like nails on a chalkboard as it floated into Heather’s ears.
Any attempts to think of ponies came to an abrupt halt.
A thud. Some shuffling. And soon three Ashmen emerged from the warehouse shadows with a large, unconscious Gabriel in their hands.
Dragging him to the pillar across from her, they tied Gabriel up in the same fashion as Heather and stiffly exited, leaving them alone.
Heather perked up and hope soared in her chest.
Gabriel is immortal! He can totally bust out of his ropes and find a way to get us out of this hell-hole-warehouse-dungeon place before the wicked witch comes back—
Drool dribbled from his mouth and ran down his chin.
Heather slumped back against the pillar.
Or maybe not.
Sighing in despair, she shook at her impossible ties again. Was this Raven chick an ex-sailor or something? These were like ninja knots.
Giving up on the ropes, she stared at Gabriel’s body and whispered as violently as she could, “Gabriel!”
He made an mmph noise.
“Gabriel!” she whispered again.
He slurped up the drool, but didn’t respond.
Heather turned her voice up full volume. “Gabriel Michael Archer, wake up this minute!”
With his eyes still closed, he grumbled, “My middle name isn’t Michael.”
“I don’t care. Wake up!” she snapped. “We need to get out of here before crazy Raven and her dead minions of ash come back.”
He opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. “What the hell?” He looked up and tugged at the bindings on his hands. “Where are we?”
“Raven’s den of horrors,” Heather said. “Turns out my boss—you remember sweet ol’ Clare from the carnival?—yeah, she’s Raven and she’s addicted to fountain water and she’s cra-zy.” She sang this last word. “She kidnapped us and now we’re her captives. Which is not sexy, despite the very spy-like feeling this whole situation has to it.”
“Raven is addicted to fountain water?”
“Really?” She glared at him. “That’s what you took away from everything I just told you? Focus, Gabriel. We need to get out of here!” She shook her ties again, biting back another whimper at her burning skin.
Gabriel kicked at the ropes around his feet and growled in frustration when they wouldn’t loosen. He turned his attention to his wrists, hung from a hook above his head like Heather, and started twisting against the crappy rope that bound them, grunting and yanking.
Heather gave up on her ties, her skin too raw to withstand any more friction, and watched Gabriel try to bend his body out of the knots for several minutes. Without success.
With a curse, he stopped wrestling with the ropes and fell back against the pillar.
Heather looked him over, taking in his appearance. “Why is your shirt all bloody?”
He exhaled. “Because while you were at the carnival passing out coffee and smiling at clowns, I was getting jumped by a crew of Ashmen with Bluestone weapons.”
Heather lifted a brow. “I’d feel sorry for you except I spent most of the night tied to a tree in a graveyard while my boss shot and killed Laura and then proceeded to beat the crap out of my best friend. So yeah. I’m fresh out of sympathy.”
His eyes shot to hers. “Is Scarlet okay?”
“I don’t know.” Heather swallowed. “I hope so.”
She tried not to think about Scarlet unconscious in the cemetery. Scarlet was tough. She was fine, right?
Right?
Heather’s body started to shake again. She tried to calm down, focusing on a new splotch of blood seeping through Gabriel’s shirt.
“You—you haven’t started healing yet,” she noted.
“Nope,” he said bitterly. “I will soon, though. Hopefully.” He grit his teeth as he shifted against the pillar and they hung in silence for a few minutes.
Heather’s body stopped shaking.
Gabriel kept scouring the warehouse like some magical escape plan was written on the walls.
Looking down at her bare feet, Heather frowned. The expensive pink heels she’d had on earlier had been casualties of all the ashy kidnapping and mayhem.
So sad.