Be Still My Heart (9 page)

Oblivious was wrong. It wasn’t a week. It just seemed like one. Or more. Stuart had been in this concrete-sided, iron bar-topped hole for four days, and as many nights. Long enough to know every dark corner and how to reach it without one bit of sun touching him.

“That was a lousy shot. You should practice more.”

The rod came down again, missing him by an inch. Stuart snickered and moved for the next poke.

“You will not be so smug tomorrow.”

“Oh really? What happens tomorrow?”

“Your death.”

“Thank goodness! At least that would be a diversion!”

“You wish a diversion, fool?”

The rod came in again, and this time Stuart reached out and flicked it with a bare foot. A satisfying crunch broke the rod, dropping both pieces and he scrambled for them. He barely registered the gasp above him.

“That was galvanized steel!”

Damn it!
He was trying to look weak and stupid. Not primed and prepared. Good thing it was Oblivious in charge.

“You got taken for your coin, Bud. This is fiber-glass. Just look.” Stuart flicked at the metal filings of the broken end, trying to make it look like cardboard.

The boom sound of a bolt being lifted stopped him, and he peered up as the door opened and several gentlemen entered, including one dressed in a sheet. Oblivious bowed to that one, going nearly to his knees. It was difficult to tell from a position in the floor beneath them, but it looked about that low.

“Oh, thank goodness! A leader. Finally!” Stuart bellowed it, secreting the two pieces of the broken rod behind him at the same time.

“Your Excellency,” Oblivious greeted Bed-Sheet.

“Are you being a nuisance to Doctor Findlay?”

The guy in the sheet had a high voice and spoke English with a heavy accent, probably for Stuart’s benefit. Because until now, he didn’t think they even knew who he was.

“He is a camel’s backside. I have never had a worse prisoner. Never.”

Good. It was working then.

“Truly?”

Bed-sheet turned to contemplate where Stuart crouched, just inside the shadow. He wasn’t easily seen, if the way the man squinted was an indication.

“Is this true, Doctor Findlay?”

“Give me something to occupy myself. I’ll be a model prisoner.”

“What would you like?”

“A copy of PHILOSPHY FOR THE AGES would be nice. Hard back. Last printed in 1972. Available from any lending library.”

The man knelt, his sheet billowed around him, and Stuart had a hard time not chuckling at the sight.

“Do you know who I am, Doctor Findlay?”

“Not a clue. But I’d like to take a stab at it. How about Valentino, from his most famous movie role.”

The guy didn’t even smile. He simply looked at him as if examining an insect from a very superior height. Stuart decided it then. Without the vampire assassin chick in this alternate reality, it was crap. Even with the super powers. Complete crap.

“I am His Excellency, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Barlick…Ada Majin.”

Big uh-oh
. Stuart felt his heart sink right to the pit of his belly. He wished the vampire stuff had been real, because then he wouldn’t have to deal with fear chasing after the blood in his veins. He was being held captive by Prince Ada Majin’s father. It couldn’t get much worse, could it?

“Ah. I see you have heard of me.”

He couldn’t even hide fear? What good was being a vampire if you had to live like the same big, clumsy, awkward nerd you’d been previously? Stuart gulped around the obstruction in his throat.

“It sounds a bit familiar,” Stuart told him.

“It was you who killed my son.”

“Okay. Maybe it’s a lot familiar. But I didn’t kill anyone. Never have.”

“You paid for the kill. No. Do not bother denying it. I have proof.”

Confucius had been more than right about vengeance. Stuart had definitely dug this grave. This was the penance he’d been expecting all along. It was going to be hell, and he knew for certain, because that damned vampire assassin chick had shown him heaven first. He only hoped there was real death in here somewhere and he wouldn’t get an eternity of this.

Call his bluff, Stuart
. The bank account was drained the moment the funds hit it. There’s no proof. The guy’s bluffing.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what we’re talking about, Mister uh…Sheik.” What on earth do you call one of these guys, anyway?

The man got to his feet, looking like he’d spent too much time shoveling down too many fatty foods, and then he waved toward the door.

“Miss Ellenby? Eve? If you please?”

“Hello Stuart.”

Stuart knew who it was from the first shuffle of heelless slippers. He should’ve guessed from the moment his conscience sent him into this insanity. His vampire assassin mate was still the most stunning woman he’d ever seen, even with her hair pulled back, wearing yards of gossamer fabric, and kohl surrounding each eye. Her betrayal hit him with the force of a sledge hammer. Right to the gut. Stuart hunched forward to temper and absorb the agony, and then found he couldn’t. He gave a sob sound, watched them all note it, before shoving backward to the wall, rattling chain as he went. He’d been wrong about his punishment all along. It wasn’t just excruciating. It was a thousand times worse and it ripped right through him, taking his heart with it. He wasn’t even supposed to have one.

“I see you’ve met Miss Ellenby.”

He’d rip her bloody heart out. Just as soon as he finished with the sheik and these other assholes. And all that had to wait until he had this excruciating pain handled. Fire-like agony raced each vein, taking his strength and leaving him nothing but cold. Tremor-inducing, blue-tinged cold. He swore he could see the frost from each exhaled breath.

“You do understand, don’t you, Doctor Findlay? Yes?”

Keep talking, Asshole
. Just keep saying words.

“That is good. We must go now. Miss Ellenby is here as my guest. We’ll be having a nice supper while I think about everything but you. I will be here again on the morrow, though. To continue our talk.”

He heard them leave even with his hands slapped to each ear to shut it out. And even through the silent sobs rippling over him, the effort he was using to control all of it, and the fact that nothing was working. Why was everything and everyone so stinking wrong? He’d read and studied and even lectured about physiological reactions to emotion. How, when pain got too severe, a body could concentrate and turn it into a hatred-type feeling in order to absorb and then conquer it. He was concentrating and he was hating. And nothing worked. Where was that rage, huh?

It wasn’t the first time he cried himself to sleep, silently cursing anyone who would listen, but it had to be the worst.

“Stuart? You there?”

Oh no. Again no. And for emphasis, a third no
. Stuart wrapped into a tighter ball, clamped his hands tighter to his ears, and trembled at the slight whisper.

“Stuart!”

“Go to hell.”

He mumbled it and shuffled closer to the wall. Manifestations were one thing he was determined to avoid, especially if they were a charcoal-haired vixen with long legs.

“Come on, Stuart, we haven’t much time!”

She wasn’t disappearing, and she wasn’t silencing. He might as well just face her and be done with it. Stuart moved into a bent sitting position and shoved open his arms, rattling chains with the motion.

“I’ve got eternity, lady. Just look around.”

“We don’t have time to argue. Move!”

“And just how do you suggest I do that? I’ve got iron cuffs on my wrists and ankles. And I’m attached to the walls with logging chain.”

“It’s just iron. Pull on it!”

Stuart snorted. This was a great delusion. One of his better ones, actually. He lifted his hands at her, and then bent back into a “v” shape to pull on his ankle chains.

“There. I pulled.”

“We don’t have time for this, and if you make me climb down there and do it for you, it’s going to take more time! We’ll get caught. Is that what you want?”

“Hell no. I want you to leave. That’s what I want.”

She did that Russian curse word she always used, said it fairly vehemently, and it was recognizable even through set teeth and using a gargling sound. He smiled and started talking.

“You know, I didn’t want to love you. Not because you’re not lovable, but because love can hurt so damn much. I suppose that’s what you wanted me to find out, isn’t it?”

“You…love me?”

“Of course. Probably did from the moment you walked into my office. Is that what you need to hear before you’ll leave me alone?”

“Oh…Stuart.”

“All right! I was wrong. This is tons worse. And you need to leave. Now.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“What a joke. You’re the reason I’m still down here. They didn’t even know who I was until you showed up. They were after you. And you know why?”

“Not especially. Are you going to free yourself or am I going to have to come down there?”

“All of my guards here? They used to shadow the prince. Now, they just torment me. One of them took supreme pleasure in telling me about how you took down one of them and drank his blood while the prince lay dying.”

“That would have been Mr. Six on the BMI Scale. He got a rib-crunching right fist to the bread box, too. He tell you of that?”

“Wasn’t on his list, I guess.”

“Stuart. You’ve got to the count of three and then I’m yanking this cage apart. You hear?”

“Why did you betray me?” And why did the words have to be sobbed?

“Please don’t do this now.”

“Why? What’s wrong with now? You have other plans? Perhaps some entertainment after the supper with His Excellency?”

“It wasn’t betrayal, Stuart. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get into this compound? Huh? Well, I’m going to tell you. I had to give them enough truth to make it worth their while, and then do the best acting of my life.”

“You call that acting?” He hooted fake laughter. It sounded every bit of it.

“Keep your voice down!”

“No. I’ve been using it at all octaves for a week now and nobody cared. Why would they care now?”

“Because you’re escaping! You weren’t doing that before, were you?”

“You have me there. Good point.”

“Can you just forget listing items and ticking off points as they’re made? We can argue later!”

She reached down and grabbed at his barred ceiling, but before she could move, her eyes got huge and a choked sound came from her. And then she was yanked up from him with a garrote about her neck that had a huge crucifix attached to it. A crucifix Stuart recognized.

“Got her!”

Stuart grabbed for the broken ends of Oblivious’ spear, his eyes flicking to the scene unfolding right above him. It was Lean. He had Mean with him, holding the banner sheet they’d used to subdue Stuart at the casino. No way was anyone touching
his
mate. Ever. And that’s when Stuart completely lost it.

A deep-throated roar accompanied his leap right through the iron bars, his ankles and wrists still encased in cuffs that had chunks of masonry attached. They turned into projectiles, accompanying every flash of movement to send one jagged edged spear right through Mean’s gut, at the same moment Lean got the other one. And it felt like nothing to lift them, using the spear ends as handles, in order to toss their groaning carcasses into his hole, where they moaned and shuddered and then stilled.

A momentary pain laced his palms as he tore the banner and crucifix off her, and then he had her over his shoulder and was running, taking entire rooms with one stride; and when a door failed to open, smashing right through it.

He lost an ankle cuff. Barely felt the loss. Someone blocked him, trying some martial-art move. Mister Six-pack. He got a swinging length of iron chain with a block of cement attached, right to his neck, where it wound until it cut clean through. Stuart leapt the now headless torso and could sense freedom. But between it were incense-filled rooms that had too much diaphanous drapery and absolutely nothing substantial to stop him.

It was the sheik; reclining atop a sofa, looking fat and contented, and supremely relaxed. That changed the moment he saw Stuart.

The man’s mouth was an open scream and his expression ludicrous as Stuart jerked on one of his iron cuffs, grabbed for the chunk of cement as it flew at him, and then slammed it right through the man’s chest.

There. Now, he’d killed an Ada Majin.

His last ankle cuff got tangled and broke off in barbed wire as he ran toward the cinder block wall encircling their compound. It didn’t even slow him down. They tried to stop him again, one man using a rifle, and then another joined in. He knew they were firing from the puffs of dust lifting off the cinder as he reached it and then leapt it, but he didn’t feel anything. That answered that question. Bullets were about as useful as an insect bite would be in stopping a vampire.