Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (39 page)

Two more vampires followed him, both carrying cross-bows. They had stakes in holsters at their hips, like gunslingers-in-training, and they acted bored with their work, a sure sign they were overconfident.

Bella noticed, too. Her despair turned at once to flinty resolve. She mouthed, "The one on the right first," kissed Max and wheeled herself out of the way. The one on the right. A nervous guy about an inch shorter than Max, with his linger already itching to pull the trigger and send a bolt into Max's heart. He would be a problem.
New guys
.

The first one who'd entered unlocked Max's shackles. "Get on your feet." He then marched him to the door, a little more roughly than necessary. Oh yeah, he was begging for death.

"I love you, baby," Max called over his shoulder. He got a last glimpse of Bella as they

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

shoved him out of the room.

One of them stayed behind. That threw Max off a little. He didn't want some vampire alone with Bella, where he couldn't protect her.

"What are you doing?" he heard her ask.

He didn't like the reply. "You've got to get ready. The Oracle wants you presentable for the entertainment."

Great. Max had planned on busting free right there in the hallway, backtracking and and grabbing Bella on his way out. This was going to make things more difficult. He scrapped the plan. No way was he leaving without Bella, and he certainly wasn't going to set off a chain reaction of increased security when he had no clue where she was or how to get to her.

They marched him down a series of hallways and up a couple sets of stairs. They'd been in a cellar—a huge old one, with arches and support columns you didn't find in your everyday suburban home. When they reached the surface the air was prickly with daylight No direct contact, but that morning smell was in the air, and the feeling of wearing tootight skin. They took him to a large room in the center of the second floor, if he'd guessed his location right. The marble floor was cold under his bare feet. They must have taken his shoes when they'd chained him up. The dark wood of the walls stretched to a vast, domed ceiling swimming in ugly, fat angels. He had a feeling the cherubs and seraphim eternally paused in their harp playing to smile down on him weren't the decor choice of the current owner.

If they were, he'd enjoy killing her even more.

The windows were covered over with matching wooden shutters. They were huge, so there was no chance they'd be throwing those open soon, not if they weren't fond of barbecue. The covered oculus in the center of the ceiling troubled him, however. Especially with the rope that dangled from the shutter.

Another rope hung from the ceiling, this one passing through a pulley and ending in leather gauntlets. Cocky and Twitchy tied Max's wrists into the leather cuffs and jerked the rope, hauling him up to his tiptoes.

"I didn't peg you guys for the type who'd be into this sort of thing," he quipped through clenched teeth as his shoulders dislocated. They had him at a real disadvantage now.

"What did you say to me?" Cocky demanded, grabbing the front of Max's T-shirt. His feet slipped from beneath him and he spun on the rope, squeezing his eyes tight against the disorienting twirling of the room. Cocky laughed. "Not so tough now, are you?" Twitchy laughed with him, but nervously. He had a right to be. Before Max left this place he was going to fuck them up.

"Get out of here."

The quiet command caught the attention of all three vampires, and Max craned his neck on his next turn to see who had issued it.

Anne ambled slowly through the arched double doors. She'd gotten rid of the feathery coat, but her hair looked the same, a thick fall of springy coils scraped back so tight her skin looked like it might pop off. Max stretched his legs, toes grasping at the slick marble. He managed to stop his spinning, but the effort was hell on his calves.

"Don't you look comfy?" Anne observed as she circled him, the buckles on her knee-high

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

combat boots rattling with each step. She regarded him for a moment with an unreadable look, then smiled the same girlish smile she'd always given him when he'd visited Movement headquarters. "Max."

"Care Bear." He tried to nod, but the effect was ruined by his arms stretching above his head. "So, what's the plan here? Truss me up and let these morons spin me until I vomit to death?"

She laughed, the unrestrained, mindless laughter of an eternal teenager. "You always were funny."

"Apparently not enough to save my ass." He pulled himself up, the muscles in his arms screaming. "Any chance of letting me down a little? I'm tall enough."

"You're going to be as tall as a pile of ashes when I'm done. The Oracle's gonna let me kill you." Her tone implied he should be greatly impressed, or happy for her.

"Well, why don't you pull that rope and get it over with?" It was a risk, but he was ninetynine percent sure she wouldn't do it. Not yet. "I'm not one for pointless small talk."

"Cha, right. Like that's going to work on me." She gave a long-suffering sigh. "Not that I'm not used to people underestimating me."

Cry me a river, bitch
. "Well, that's kind of why you were such a good assassin. No one saw it coming. Shit, I didn't think you'd lie to my face and stab me in the back."

"I know, right?" Her face lit up in appreciation of his recognition. "People never got it!

They think just because I
look
young, I don't have the experience or the smarts to pull stuff like this off. Not that sucking up to me is going to get you off the hook or anything, but thanks for, like, getting it."

"It appears I live to get things. Like shafted by my supposed friends." He tugged on the rope. Synthetic. It stretched a little. He could get the balls of his feet down now. And she was so wrapped up in her own drama, she didn't notice.

"The Oracle gets it, too." Anne turned away and walked to a long table at the side of the room. "She says it's one of my strengths."

With a flourish, Anne pulled back the canvas draping the table to reveal an assortment of weapons, branding irons, power tools and surgical implements.
Keep her talking, Harrison. Keep her talking or your worst trip to the dentist is about to
be grossly outdone.
He twisted his wrists in the cuffs, but they held. Damn bondage weirdos and their escape-proof fetish gear. "So, what's her game, anyway? I mean, is she working with the Soul Eater or what?"

"Oh, please!" Anne snorted when she laughed. "Do you think I've never seen a James Bond movie before? Right, I'm going to spill all my secrets to you."

"The only reason Bond villains were stupid to spill their secrets was because Bond always got away." Max tugged the rope for effect. "Not like I'm going anywhere." She cocked her head, considering. "Yeah, okay."

Suppressing a sigh of relief when she dropped a cordless drill, Max gave the rope another discreet pull. All he needed was a little more slack…

But he also needed to hear what she'd tell him.

"What do you already know?" She eyed him warily.

This was where playing it cool would come in handy. He had to act as if he was casually interested in the stuff he really wanted to know, but not so casual that she'd decide to quit wasting her time and get on with the torture. "Not much. Why don't you give me the

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

rundown. It'll kill some time."

"Right, like you don't just want to keep me from carving into you." She rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Did you know that the Soul Eater was, like, trying to become a god?"

"Yeah, that was the message your boss gave us. Right before she broke your back?

Remember that?" He gave her a sarcastic look.

Anne clearly didn't appreciate it. "Yeah, I remember. Now, do you want to hear the rest of the story or what?"

He inclined his head. "Continue."

"Okay." After a dramatic pause, she did. "Well, you know how she, like, blew up the Movement? She was talking to me for the whole month that I was healing from when she broke my back. I could hear her voice in my head. So she freed me, I helped her pick off a few Movement staffers, and now I get to be, like, her right hand."

"That's great, but I wasn't really curious about your life story here. I figured most of that out myself."

She rolled her eyes again. "I'm getting there. Anyway, this whole time I'm in a coma, I hear about how the Soul Eater is trying to become a god, and she's gonna string him along and make him think she's helping him when she's, like, furthering her own agenda."
Surprise, surprise
. "And that agenda includes?"

"Chaos." Anne laughed. "Oh my God, did I ever tell you what I thought about the Movement?"

"Apparently, you didn't think too highly of them," He wriggled his hands again. When her sharp gaze snapped toward his wrists, he shook his head. "I'm just trying to get comfortable. So, the Movement pissed you off enough you'd want the Oracle to have free reign on planet Earth?"

"Okay, I went from being the highest paid assassin on their roster to being a receptionist. A receptionist? I could have stayed human and done something dumb like that." She paused. "You know, if I'd been born, like, ten centuries later. But the point is, I was told they had a contingency for when assassins couldn't work anymore. I didn't know it meant getting busted down to secretary."

"So, you're going to help her destroy the world because you're unhappy with your retirement benefits? Max laughed. Yeah, no, you're way more mature than you look."

"Oh, shut up. You're so righteous and everything because
you're
not filing papers all day for room and blood." She crossed her arms and pouted. "Like it matters, anyway. I'm not stupid. I know that once she gets some power, a lot of us will be stupid enough to stick by her. The smart ones, like me, are going to lay low."

"And you don't think she'll find you?" Here it was. The desperate bid for freedom. He hoped she didn't peg it as such. "Listen, you can stop all this now. There are Movement people working against you guys, and you're gonna lose. But if you get me out of here, if you get Bella out of here—"

"Oh, that's sweet." Anne snorted. "You want to save your doggy girlfriend from certain death and you think you can scare me into doing it. Yeah. That's not going to work. I have a vaultful of money waiting for me, and part of that payment is contingent upon my new boss getting her hands on your illegitimate baby."

Max swallowed his anger. It wouldn't help him burst out of the cuffs, and she would probably end their little dialogue and start cutting him up like a jack-o-lantern. "Yeah,

Create PDF
files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (
http://www.novapdf.com
)

that's the part of all this I can't figure out. Was she just waiting for someone to achieve the impossible? I mean, I don't like to brag, but vampires don't get chicks knocked up every day."

"Don't give yourself too much credit there." Anne made a disgusted face. "For one thing, it was supposed to be your little blond friend, the lady with the ugly shoes you brought in to see the Oracle a couple of months ago. And when that didn't work, that witch thought she'd try it out with you. And then it was back to the drawing board, because we didn't think it would ever happen. 'We' being the Oracle and the Soul Eater. They've been working together for a while now, and the Movement never knew! Anyway, she only needed a natural-born vampire to fulfill her prophecy. But a natural-born lupin? I mean, wow! Could you ask for a happier accident than that?"

Max closed his eyes. Of course. The night with Dahlia. He could almost taste that potion again, all sugary and hot in his mouth. "Yeah. Lucky you."

"Well, once the Oracle gets the baby, she's gonna try and lure the Soul Eater up here to drain it and eat its soul. When he gets here, boom. No more Soul Eater." Anne dusted her palms together as if the old vampire's ashes already dirtied them.

"And the baby?" Max didn't bother covering his intent as he pulled on the rope. A hard jerk, and the cuffs miraculously slipped a fraction of an inch. "What are you going to do with the baby?"

Anne noted his struggle with a wry smile. "Oh, don't worry. She's not going to hurt her. She's going to raise her, like a daughter. And stop wriggling, you'll never get free." She turned, apparently tired of the game. "I was going to wait until they brought your girlfriend in to watch, but I'm not that mean. You used to be on my side. I'll just rough you up a little so it leaves marks."

"Gee, thanks." He pulled again on his restraints, more motivated than before when he saw her pick up a pair of wire cutters from the table.

Anne returned, eyeing his twisting hands. She held up the implement. "Shall we?"

The Soul Eater's mansion—I'd stopped thinking of it as Cyrus's—was as frightening as I remembered it Of course, it was frightening for more sensible reasons now. Before, when I'd come to steal Dahlia's blood, I'd been afraid of my past. My current fear was deeply rooted in the present and near future.

We crouched beside the back wall. I'd never seen the grounds and mansion from this angle, I doubted many people had, including those who owned the huge lot we'd encroached upon to get to our location. We'd sneaked past a night watchman, across a dark lawn, past tennis courts and a swimming pool, and found the crumbling brick wall that separated a normal looking garden shed from the Soul Eater's guardhouse. I understood now how the mansion had been so isolated. Though the house was visible, distinct figures were not. We spotted shapes moving in the windows, but couldn't tell what they were doing. Sounds didn't carry this far, either. Dense hedges surrounding the place absorbed the noise before it could reach us—high hedges forming a maze.

"We'll all go through the maze," Cyrus said at my elbow. "I know the way to the other side, and Nolen and I can easily hide there until you come back."