Hell's Teeth (Phoebe Harkness Book 1) (11 page)

“I did…” I said. “I did have it. I don’t anymore. Cabal has it now.”

His eyes bored into mine painfully. I tried to look away but his influence in my mind snapped my head back to face him as surely as if he had grabbed me by the chin and wrenched my head around.

“Where…” he growled, through gritted teeth, “… is … it?”

My mouth opened to answer, but before I could speak, a roaring din tore through the club. It was a noise which certainly saved my life, but for a moment I couldn’t even interpret what it was.

The noise clearly startled Gio as well, and his eyes flicked away from me, peering around the club in confusion. I felt his hold on my mind falter as he was distracted. It was like a heavy fog was lifted from my head. The music had stopped in the club, I noticed. The clanging siren which filled the air … was a fire alarm?

The second I realised this, that the deafening shrill bell which filled the air was a danger sign, we were suddenly all soaked. Sprinklers had come on all over the club, powerful fire-prevention rain, hidden high in the cathedral-like roof. The throngs of clubbers around us seemed to all realise at once what the noise and the water meant. There was a fire. Perhaps predictably, mass panic erupted.

It’s never a good idea to get two or three hundred people into a large underground space, fill them with alcohol and God knows what else, and then suggest to them that they may be imminently burned to death.

No one formed an orderly sensible line for the stairs. Herd mentality took over and within seconds, the club was filled with panicked screams. In the pandemonium, everyone rushed for the stairs at once.

Clearly, this didn’t have any useful result other than crushing a mass of bodies into a bottleneck. In the jostling crowds, as people quickly became soaked to the skin from the constant and powerful sprinkler rain, some fell and were trampled. Others, in their panic, fought to get to the fake windows. We were underground, for God’s sake. The only way out was back up through the pub above us.

Opposite me in the booth, my captor Gio was on his feet so fast I hadn’t seen him stand. He was glaring around the dance floor in fury, his blonde hair already plastered to his wet forehead. His pale suit was darkening in the constant downspray of the sprinklers.

The main lights had come on, filling the club with stark bright light and eradicating every moody shadow and artfully created cove. The pretence of gothic finery was destroyed in the unforgiving strip lighting. The club was revealed for what it was: a sham. The walls didn’t even look like real stone; the pillars, just stage dressing.

I blinked in the brightness, shaking my head as my hair, drenched, stuck to my back. I could move.

Across from me, the Helsing-whore Oscar was almost lying back against the booth, his head upturned to the down-pouring mist, a stupid empty grin across his face. He was clearly enjoying the turn of events, too far gone to even sense any possible danger.

“What is happening?” Gio roared into the screaming crowds.

Tables were overturned nearby, as revellers fell, ran and stumbled past, soaked to the skin and fuelled by panic.

“There is
no
fire
here!” he bellowed.

He shot a look at me, furious. I was still sitting in the booth stupidly, as I fought to regain control of my limbs.

“You did this! Somehow, this is you!”

“I didn’t do anything!” I answered, though if he even heard me over the deafening clang of the constant alarm, I have no idea.

Gio leaned down until his face was inches from mine.

“You…” he hissed. “… are going
nowhere
.”

He reached over and grabbed Oscar by the dog collar, dragging him to the edge of the booth.

“Stay with her!” he barked, all composure lost. “See that she doesn’t go missing. We’re not done here. The only way she’s leaving here is in chunks.”

The master vampire disappeared into the maelstrom of pushing, shoving panic. I watched as he stalked away, roughly batting people aside out of his path like an intrepid explorer hacking at overgrowth.

Seeing my one chance to make a move and get the hell away, I forced my body to stand. My legs still felt like jelly, as though I had been heavily drugged.
You
have
to
move
,
Phoebe
, I told myself sternly. You have to get the fuck out of here while you can, or that nasty son of a bitch is going to eat your face – and you will sit like a moron and let him do it.

I felt like I was going to throw up. I staggered as I stood, gripping the edge of the booth with both hands. I had to find Lucy, somewhere in this mess.

Someone grabbed my wrist. I looked up from my shaking feet. It was Oscar. Standing before me like a half-drowned, angelic junkie, he was pouting his cupid bow lips at me, his eyes still unfocused.

“We can’t go,” he said. “Gio said to wait.”

I could have punched him in that stupid mouth. I tried to wriggle free of his grip, but he was surprisingly determined.

“Get the hell off me, Oscar, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Gio said to
wait
!” Oscar insisted, his voice almost pleading. “He promised he’d come back. He won’t abandon us. He’ll be mad if I let you go.”

I had almost managed to shake him off, and he must have sensed me slipping out of his grip, as he pulled me over to him and wrapped me in a bear hug, pinning me to him, my arms pinioned at my sides.

“Don’t, please,” he begged. “He told me to keep you. You have to stay.”

“He’s going to
kill
me
, you stupid brat!” I hissed, trying to throw him off.

People rushed around us, jostling, shouting. In the chaos of the desperate crowd, we were just another struggling couple. No one even noticed us.

“He’s nearly killed you too!”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Oscar insisted, his breath hot in my ear, his voice slurred. “He’s going to make me one of them. He promised.”

“The only thing he’s making you is anaemic, you bloody arse!” I growled.

I pushed backwards, throwing us both against the table of the booth. Oscar slipped, clearly winded as I threw my weight against him, but he didn’t let go.

“No one will hurt me. My daddy’s an important man in this town, no one would dare!”

One of his arms had come up and was around my neck; he had me in a chokehold. I was pinned against Gio’s little treat and despite the chaos and the confusion all around us, I suddenly realised to my disgust that he was extremely pleased about the fact. He was practically grinding against my back. The junkie was twisted worse than I’d imagined.

“Oscar…” I gasped, my voice quiet, “listen … it’s important…”

I felt him lean in close, his head right behind mine. Sprinkler rain washed down over both of us, dripping off my chin.

“What?” he shouted over the din of the constant alarm.

I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his stupid grin. In answer, I flung my head back as hard as I could. There was a crack as the back of my head connected with the boy’s face. It hurt me like hell, but I was pretty sure I’d broken the kid’s nose.

Throwing him off as he released me with a howl, his hands going up to his busted face, I took a step into the crowd and instantly slipped on the drenched floor. People stepped around and over me, a confusion of legs and feet. I knew I had to get up, and quickly, before someone stomped me to death by accident, or before Gio returned.

Grabbing the nearest body, without bothering to look at them, I hauled myself up. Before I could stand fully, Oscar was behind me again, his hands grabbing my shoulders. He looked furious, his eyes wild, his mouth and chin running with blood as it washed with down-pouring water.

“You stupid bitch…” he began.

He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, however, as someone came up behind him, lifted him off his feet with a hand around the neck, and threw him to one side as lightly as though he was a rag doll. My captor disappeared into the crowd, taking several other bystanders down with him in a heap, like human skittles.

It was Allesandro. He reached down and offered me a hand.

“Come on,” he said.

His hair was plastered to his face, the sprinklers bouncing droplets off his leather biker jacket noisily. His eyes were casting around wildly.

“We have to be quick!” he yelled.

I took his hand and he hauled me to my feet. I went to make for the stairs, following the crowds, but he tugged me away.

“No, not that way, you’ll never get out. Follow me,” he shouted over the sirens.

I followed, half stumbling, half dragged, going against the flow of bodies, towards the back of the room where Allesandro led me behind the long bar. There was a narrow doorway here. The vampire pulled me through, and along a dark corridor which led to a stock room, piled high on all sides with crates of beers and spirits.

The sprinklers were on in this large room as well, though the fire alarm was less deafening. I noted we were wading through a good three inches of water here. Part of my mind wondered exactly how good the drainage at an underground club was likely to be. Those clubbers who didn’t burn to death or get trampled by their fellow revellers may well end up drowning.

“Your boss wants to kill me,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me. Allesandro had let go of my hand and was hauling aside crates at the back of the room.

“What are you doing?” I shouted over the alarm, glancing back the way we had come.

I was convinced that at any second, Gio was going to appear and claim me again. He wasn’t going to let me get out of here.

“There’s another way out,” Allesandro shouted. “This city is so old. All the cellars. You could walk from one side of New Oxford to the other, breaking through walls, without having to come up above ground.”

The wall behind the crates was bare plaster. Apparently the decadent gothic finery was all upfront at the club, not in the rather more grubby backstage areas.

“Well yeah … if you happen to have a sledgehammer,” I said, still feeling woozy from Gio’s stare.

Allesandro punched the wall. Hard.

His movements were fast. It was still unfamiliar to me to see how the GOs moved. They looked human most of the time but when they moved like this, it certainly reminded you that you were in the room with another species entirely.

He hit the wall again, and again, and again, in quick succession. Plaster rained down. On the fourth or fifth punch, the wall gave way with a crunch, and his arm went right through. A hole roughly the size of a car window fell away around him in a rumble of brick and plaster.

“… Or a vampire,” I corrected myself.

He had reached into the hole and was busying himself tearing away bricks, widening the gap. He pulled at the plasterwork and masonry, as though it were nothing more than wet sand. When the hole was large enough he turned back to me, a hand outstretched.

“Quickly,” he said.

I hesitated. Why the hell was he helping me escape his own clan? His expression was earnest, serious. His wavy hair plastered to his face. His clothing soaked and covered in already wet and grubby plasterwork. Why would I trust a vampire who could well be just about to bury me alive? He could just be buying his way back into his boss’ good books by making sure I was kept in a safe hidey hole until things calmed down.

“Your boss was planning to kill me tonight. Why are you helping me?” I asked.

He stared at me as though I were stupid.

“This
really
isn’t the time.”

“I don’t even know you,” I said. “I’m only here in the first place because of you, and now look how things are going. That scary son of a bitch is your master. Why would you help me escape?”

He shrugged, his earnest expression subsumed by what I was already coming to think of as his gigolo mask.

“Let us just say that I’m ambitious. Consider yourself an investment,” he said. “Now will you
please
come the hell on?”

“He’ll know,” I said, wading towards him. “Your freakshow boss, he’ll know you helped me out of here.”

Allesandro shook his head, helping me up and practically manhandling me through the hole he had created.

“Leave him to me,” he said simply. “I’ll think of something. Just
get
out
of
here
, will you?”

I dropped down on the other side of the wall. I found myself in what looked like a very dark and unused cellar. Packing crates surrounded me on all sides. Confused, I looked back through the hole into the storeroom.

“You’re not coming with me?”

He shook his head.

“You shouldn’t have come here, I should have come to you. You can’t go home, it won’t be safe.”

“Where the hell should I go then?” I asked. Then a horrible realisation hit me. “My friend Lucy, she’s still in there, in the fire! I can’t leave without her.”

He stared at me, his beautiful face utterly astonished.