She could feel him now, and the terrible pain he endured, the one whose blood had been forged into the metal that now hung in thin loops around her neck.
Harris Kiernan had warned her what the female guards did to the prisoners, torturing the men to the point of death, each of them once a week, something that had been going on since shortly after the prisoners’ arrival a year ago. He’d told her to prepare herself for a rough ride on every front—that her job here in India, to take charge of the vampire known as Adrien, would only be the beginning of a difficult trek.
Difficult didn’t begin to describe her journey of the last two years. It had started with an attack on her neighborhood while she’d been visiting her sister in Oregon. A vicious group of vampires had gone through her neighborhood on a rampage, killing, raping, and stealing, an event the US government still called “an unparalleled gang-related attack.” That night she’d lost what was most precious to her: a beloved husband, a daughter Jessie, just five, and her son Josh, who had been eight at the time.
She’d grieved without cessation until two months ago when she’d learned that her son was still alive. Josh, now ten, still lived, which is what had brought her here. Kiernan had held her son captive for two years, though well cared for, she’d been assured. And all Lily had to do to get him back was take charge of a powerful vampire and use him to find what was called an extinction weapon. Then Josh would be returned to her.
Lily carried a damp washcloth in her free hand, intending to hold it to her nose given the terrible conditions in the cavern-turned-prison. As she drew near the opening, she saw that the doorway was lined with intricately carved stone blocks, a sign that she had entered a secret vampire world.
The first hint of the stench inside reached her and she jerked her wrist, bringing the washcloth to her face.
The woman glanced at Lily. “Some say it smells like a garbage bin behind a restaurant, only a hundred times worse. I don’t smell it, of course. I’ve got a nose like a hyena.” Then she laughed, whipped her head around, and moved within. “Like the prisoners inside, anyone can get used to the smells.”
Lily remained for a moment near the entrance, breathing through her mouth as much she could, the washcloth pressed over the bridge of her nose. Finally she lifted the lantern high and followed, watching as dirt gave way to a floor made of stone pavers.
Crossing the threshold, she saw that the space rose to at least fifty feet in height, a typical-looking cave made of jagged dark rock, although portions of the walls appeared to have been worked with chisels at one time. Maybe there were even patterns but given the dim light, she couldn’t tell.
She hadn’t gotten more than fifteen feet when a wave of dizziness washed over her and she stopped.
The dizziness again. From the time she’d put the chain on, her senses had come alive in a way she’d never experienced before, as though she could know things if she just focused.
But this time the feeling of knowing became more and more specific until the space in front of her shifted, moving fast all around the edges. A vision emerged as the women brought one of the prisoners from his individual space, an open cell separated from other cells with walls of stacked stones. She recognized him from the dossiers she had on each vampire. He was the one called Adrien, the one she’d be taking with her.
He was naked, the state all the men were kept in, and his dark hair, not quite black, hung in lank, filthy strands almost to his shoulders.
He stared from beneath tight brows as he walked forward, a kind of soft light illuminating her vision. The chains between his manacled feet dragged against the stone, making a scraping sound she wouldn’t soon forget. Male guards stood nearby with Tasers, one of the most effective weapons against vampires. Something about the vampire metabolism made them susceptible to electricity.
Adrien was tall, six-six according to the file on him, and much paler than the resident Indian counterparts, clearly descended from European stock. Despite the length of his captivity, he was well muscled, and in this vision he didn’t have a single wound or scar on him. He was incredibly handsome, his cheekbones strong, a shallow indentation in his chin, his lips full, his brows straight. She had seen pictures of him, but she hadn’t been exactly prepared for the breadth of his shoulders or the flexing of his powerful thighs as he moved.
She was drawn to him, something she didn’t want to be feeling at all given that he was what she despised most: a vampire.
Now she sensed the time sequence. Two hours ago. He’d been tortured only two hours ago.
The vision continued as the guards threatened to use the Tasers unless Adrien did as he was told. He obeyed, backing up to the wall. The guards slipped the loose chains from each manacled wrist over hooks on the wall.
When the whipping began, Lily closed her eyes, but the vision didn’t care and showed her everything anyway, straight into her head, each strike on Adrien’s flesh, each cry from his lips, blood flowing from wound after wound until his flesh peeled away from his body in a hundred different places.
The women took turns flaying him, eyes glittering, nostrils flaring, sweat flowing from the work it took to wield the whip and make the cuts as deep as possible.
Not until Adrien passed out did the vision begin to fade.
“Hey, human, you in some kinda trance?”
Lily blinked and her eyesight returned; her sense of smell as well. Somehow in watching the vision, she’d taken the washcloth from her nose. She returned it now and only with tremendous effort kept from vomiting.
“Take me to Adrien,” she mumbled behind the terry cloth.
“You’re in luck. He’s still hanging from the obedience hooks.” The woman laughed once more. “These prisoners never learn.”
Lily wasn’t far from Adrien now. She could feel him, as though she already knew him, but the sensation rankled. Adrien, and all his kind, deserved to disappear from the face of the earth, so why should she care about his pain? He was a vampire, like the ones who had destroyed her family and her neighbors.
As she turned the corner of one of the high walls made of flat stones stacked neatly on top of one another, there Adrien was, just like in the vision, cut up and beaten. But because two hours had passed, he was well on his way to healing. Like the rest of his kind, he had a powerful ability to recover from the most severe wounds within hours.
He rested his head on the chains, but with his eyes closed, he held himself upright, feet planted over a foot apart.
She set the lantern on the floor. “Where does he go after a whipping?”
“Back to his stall, not much different from this. Smaller.”
With the damp cloth still pressed to her face, Lily glanced at the stone floor at his feet. He stood in a pool of dark blood, his blood, and what she assumed were layers of dried blood beneath.
She tore her gaze away and lifted her chin. The chain-based visions wanted to return, sweeping over her, but she pressed them back. She had seen enough for now.
“Leave this cave,” she said to the woman.
“What?”
“You heard me. I want to be alone with the prisoner.”
The woman opened and closed her mouth, then shrugged. She slapped her whip against her hand and muttered something about human bitches that needed to be drained dry.
When she was gone, Lily drew close to Adrien, standing only four feet away. She continued to breathe through her mouth and held the washcloth close. Even with half-healed cuts all over his body, he was magnificent, like something sculpted from marble. His brows, however, were pulled into a tight knot.
But as she stared up at him the chains hummed, and she knew a deeper truth about the vampire: He was trying to figure out not how to escape, but how to murder someone. She felt his determination as though it released in his sweat.