“If you attack the tunnels, expect resistance,” Darak said grimly. “Chances are, Belenos will see you coming.”
Lore’s phone chose that moment to ring. He flipped it open. “Hello?”
“It’s Baines.”
The phone line crackled as if the connection was breaking up.
“Detective.” Lore’s heart leaped. “Thanks for returning my messages. Is Talia with you?”
“She’s gone. I need your help. I’m willing to bet she does, too.”
“What happened?”
“The only clue I’ve got is a pair of fang marks in my neck.”
There was static on the line.
“What did you say?” Lore demanded. There was another burst of static that made Lore growl at the phone.
Finally, a clear sentence came through. “I can’t get through to the station. I’m underground. I don’t have a clue where I am. It’s freezing cold. Someone bit me and then dumped me down here.”
The call went dead.
Chapter 28
Friday, December 31, 10:00 p.m.
Spookytown
They were going into the tunnels.
They’d gathered in the alley outside the Castle door. It was cold and it was snowing again, a steady drift of fat, white flakes that made the crowd around the open manhole cover look like a scene from a demented Christmas card.
For the last ten minutes, Lore had been giving everyone their instructions, the logical part of his brain still working even if the rest was MIA. At the moment, Lore didn’t care about evil bubbling up through the storm drains—he wanted Talia in his bed, and the rest of the world could line dance its way to hell. But she was missing and probably underground with Belenos, so down the manhole Lore and his makeshift army would go.
There were wolves and hounds, both in beast and man form. Joe had spread the word to some of the local vampires, too. They stood at the back, lounging against the brick wall and smoking, flashing fang as they laughed at their own jokes.
Darak had left to meet the other members of Clan Thanatos. Besides the two that Lore had met, a handful of others had just arrived from down the coast by private boat. They would carry out their part of the plan separately. Clan Thanatos would cover the operations aboveground, Lore and his friends below. As they’d expected, Belenos had given his assassins the word to set Omara’s doom in motion. Lore hoped Darak was as good as he claimed, because at a rough estimate Belenos’s welcome party for the queen, not counting the Hunters, outnumbered Clan Thanatos ten to one.
Mavritte stood across from Lore, on the other side of the sewer entrance. She’d planted her feet as if she were braced for another attack, her hands fisted on her hips. The strappy leather outfit she wore showed the deep scars in her skin, reminding him of the sacrifices she had made fighting for her people. It was good to have her on his side. It meant something that, despite their differences, she’d brought the Redbones when he asked.
Time was their enemy. Hurrying through his instructions, Lore forced himself to look calm and in charge. “Any questions?” he concluded, scanning the crowd.
“Go over the bit again about how we’re not going to be made into throw rugs by the Hunters,” said Joe, who had left his bar to support Lore in the fight. “Just for me.”
Joe was carrying a weapon called a bardiche, which looked like a thin, curved ax on a long pole. The blade was almost as long as his arm, but Joe handled it with the ease of long familiarity. No villain in his right mind was coming near that thing.
A camera flashed. Errata was there, documenting everything. Lore wanted to snap at her. Sure this was news and she was a journalist, but the constant retinal assault was getting old.
Perry wasn’t there, and that left a hole. Since coming to Fairview, they’d been friends, always together in a fight—against the demon Geneva; against their foes in the Castle; and in a dozen bars in Fairview and surrounds. Perry’s absence was the marker of just how serious this was. He was the first casualty. There could be more.
Talia might be tied up and at the mercy of her sire. A sick lurch jolted Lore’s stomach.
And where the hell was Detective Baines?
With his heart in his throat, he gave the order to move. He’d prepared his people as best he could but, ultimately, they didn’t know what they’d find down below. The nonnegotiable was that Lore never, ever left his people behind. One way or another, he would get everyone home.
Once they were into the tunnels, the company split up. Errata had insisted on being embedded with the troops, whatever that meant. The company split into four groups, each taking a quadrant of the tunnels. Lore had deliberately kept the units small. There wasn’t much room to maneuver underground, and he didn’t want his people getting in each other’s way. An efficient strike force, experienced with close quarters, was the best choice he could make with the information at hand.
Lore took his group of hounds to the southwest quadrant, close to the Castle entrance. A few of these tunnels were newer, lined with cement and lit with a string of lightbulbs along the ceiling. His plan was to sweep through this area first, because it included the basement of the old hotel where Darak had met Belenos. With luck, the king would still be there. Lore prayed that Talia and Baines would be, too.
Talia sat on a straight-backed chair in the middle of the old, dusty room, bound with silver chains and gagged with a strip torn from her own blouse. Her skin felt grimy with dust, every tickle of her hair a reminder of the rats she was sure lurked just outside of visual range.
She was somewhere in the tunnels. Wine barrels were stacked against the walls, coated with decades of dust so thick it looked like cotton batting.
Now would be a good time for Lore to burst in and save her—heck, she’d welcome Mavritte—but she knew it was a selfish thought. It was better if she could escape on her own, because this was Belenos. The last thing Talia wanted to do was to bring his special brand of crazy down on the man she loved.
So far Belenos hadn’t done anything more dramatic than tying her to a chair, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled an iron maiden out of a utility closet. Belenos was good at pain. Some said it was his only real hobby anymore. Talia knew better. His hobby was fear.
Which was why she kept her face as blank as possible when he unlocked the squeaky old door and stepped inside.
“Hello, my duck,” he said, his voice silky. “How are you?” He shoved his hands into his pockets, drifting into the room.
She tracked him like a downed bird watching a slinking cat. A bird with attitude, though. She made a growling noise around the gag.
“Sorry. Didn’t quite catch that.” He bent and untied the strip of cloth.
He peeled it away from her face. Automatically, Talia hauled in a deep breath, winding up to scream. Instead, she started coughing, a reaction to the stale, dusty air.
“Poor Talia,” said Belenos, walking in a circle around her chair. She could feel his presence like a cold, slippery finger along the back of her neck. “So sorry this isn’t much of a room, but privacy is hard to get when you’re on the move. Or, in your case, on the run.”
He put his mouth close to her ear, his fox-red hair swishing against her cheek. “But you know all about that, don’t you? You can run, but you can’t hide. You know your daddy’s here, don’t you?”
Talia couldn’t help a twitch, but said nothing.
“Oh, yes, he’s my new best friend. We’re working together. Isn’t that nice?”
What? Shock made her jerk, which seemed to amuse him. Then she understood. Big Red was a nickname for vampires, but a lot of people used it specifically for the red-haired king. Max had posted to the bulletin board that he was following Big Red. Following, not hunting. I can’t—I won’t—believe this!