Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (30 page)

SEVENTY-NINE

The hatch opened directly
onto a tunnel. Sabrina followed it, not knowing where it led. Dim bulbs strung along the low-slung ceiling lit the way as she limped, deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

Ares is here, Calliope …

There was no doubt in her mind who he meant. Somehow, he’d managed to lure Michael here.

You’ll never be able to save them both …

She pushed the thought away. Concentrated on nothing more than moving forward. Looking down, she saw her shirt was slashed in several places, blood soaking the dark fabric. She had no idea how many times he’d gotten her with the scalpel, but it didn’t matter.

Keep walking.

She pushed herself along until the tunnel split off into two different directions.

You’ll have to choose. Your lover or your sister …

She closed her eyes for a moment, praying for guidance, for some sign to show her the way, but it didn’t matter which direction she chose—either way she’d lose.

Go right, darlin’ …

Why she listened, she couldn’t explain, but she did. Veering to the right, she followed the string of bulbs until they ended at a door.

A pair of heavy iron bolts bracketed a ring, and she threw them both open before pulling on it, the damp hinges announcing her arrival with a protesting shriek. The door opened onto a candlelit room, the smell of damp earth and woodsmoke even stronger, mingled with the more delicate scent of rosewater.

Flames crackled in the fireplace set in the corner of the room, the small space dominated by the large altar erected in its center. Sabrina rushed forward, the smell of rosewater growing stronger, rising from the stone basin beside the altar. Val lay stretched over it, naked, her olive skin pale against the black satin draped across it, eyes closed, chest still.

Her hands went everywhere all at once, poking and prodding against Val’s cool, dry skin. Searching for wounds. A pulse. Hope that she was still alive. “Please, please, please … ” The same word over and over, both prayer and plea.

She felt a sluggish drum against Val’s wrist a second before she caught the faintest of breaths, her chest rising slightly.

You’ll never be able to save them both …

“Watch me,” she muttered to herself as she moved. Michael’s knife was still tucked into her boot, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop him. She needed …

A gun.

She stood still for a moment, waiting for it to vanish into no more than wishful thinking, but it didn’t. It was real. Michael’s Kimber was on a long workbench cluttered with test tubes, beakers, and what looked like some sort of still.

What you waitin’ for darlin’, an engraved invitation? Take it.

She picked it up, ejecting the magazine. Fully loaded. She slapped it back home, refusing to dwell on what this meant. Michael never would’ve let David take the gun from him. Not unless …

She tucked the Kimber into the small of her back and limped back to the altar. Lifting Val off the table, the woman moaned, a pitiful sound that tapered off into a series of dry heaves as she did her damnedest to push Sabrina’s hands away. “It’s okay. It’s just me … It’s Sabrina. I’m here,” she said softly hugging her friend to her chest as she hooked her arm behind her knees. The scalpel wounds opened at the effort, a frigid sting against her chest and abdomen, weeping blood.

She took a few staggering steps toward the door, ready to go back the way she’d come, but that was as far as she got. Her leg wobbled and then was gone, like someone kicked it from underneath her. She went down hard, Val still clutched against her, head bobbing against her shoulder. No way would she be able to carry her out of there.

Drag her …

Reaching over, she pulled the long swath of black satin from the altar and spread it out on the ground as best she could while still holding Val. Once it was as straight as possible, she deposited her friend onto it, careful to keep as much pressure as possible off her bad leg. Gathering the corners of the fabric together at Val’s feet, she tied them together and pulled. The makeshift litter slid across the dirt floor and she turned again, headed for the door.

That ain’t the way, darlin’ …

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. There was another door, set into the wall a few feet from the fireplace. She knew for certain that the door she’d come through would lead her out. She also knew that wherever Michael was, she wasn’t going to find him back the way she’d come.

Val moaned again as her body suddenly seized, muscles and joints going stiff, back bowed against the pain.

Best hurry now, she ain’t got much longer …

Without stopping to think or reason, Sabrina turned toward the door by the fireplace. This one opened onto another tunnel and she stepped into it, pulling Val along behind her, no light to show her the way.

EIGHTY

Michael was pretty sure
he was dying.

He crawled along the path, forcing stiff, aching muscles and joints into compliance, fighting against the numbing tingle that inched its way through them, deeper and deeper, every time he moved.

His eyes were weeping, his vision blurred by the mucus that clogged their swollen membranes. Sound battered against what felt like cotton in his ears, muffled and distant. His heart tripped and stumbled, an uneven knocking against a chest that felt wet and heavy, like he was breathing underwater. He ignored the feeling as long as he could until he was finally forced to stop, racked by a series of hacking coughs, a traffic jam inside his lungs that cut off his airway, drowning him from the inside out.

Yeah … he was dying, alright.

If asked, he’d say he’d been crawling and puking for hours, but he knew better. It’d been ten minutes at the most since he’d heard Sabrina, her frustrated screaming being chased by a flurry of banging and yelling. She was still alive, and whatever she’d done, it’d pissed that fucker off. Michael laughed, the sound triggering another round of violent coughs, blood-streaked sputum flying from his mouth, splattering against the dirt. He forced himself to breathe, finding a pocket of air somewhere in his spongy lungs and gulping at it like a man dying of thirst. The much-needed oxygen cleared his vision just a bit, enough to show him a building—a lot of windows set in a white metal frame—surrounded by those dense green hedges.

He kept crawling. Hands and knees moving through the dirt in a discombobulated shamble. After what felt like another lifetime, he sensed, rather than heard, movement on the path behind him. He coughed again, this one forced out to buy him a few seconds while his hands groped in the dirt he was sprawled in, searching for … his hand closed over a rock, no bigger than a tennis ball. As far as weapons went, it was pitiful, but he’d done a lot of damage with a lot less.

His legs were dead weight, but he forced them underneath him, drawing himself up onto his knees, knuckles driven into the dirt, rock concealed in his fist.

“You’re dying, Ares.” The voice behind him sounded labored, its words chased on a hissing breath, racked with pain.

Michael kept moving, eyes fixed on the building in front of him. “No shit … asshole.” He took another wet breath, fighting against the hacking cough that threatened to consume him.

Movement again. This time to his left, pacing him. “Where are you going, brother? Are you hoping to save her? Rescue her?” Laughter, genuine amusement twisted around a rotten core. “Calliope made her choice, and she chose to let you die.”

Keep moving. Keep him talking. Give Sabrina time to get Valerie away from here.

It was all he wanted. More than he had a right to hope for. “Maybe … but she … loves me,” he said, pushing the words out between wheezing breaths with enough effort to cause black spots to flicker across his blurry field of vision. “
Me
… not you.
Brother
.”

Exactly as he’d hoped, a foot was planted into the small of his back, shoving him to the dirt on a howl of rage. The foot hooked under his armpit, to flip him over. He clamped his arm down on the foot, using the momentum of being turned to drag his opponent to the ground. But the thing suddenly beneath him didn’t look like a man. It looked like a monster, slick with blood, covered in thorns and bits of broken stems. It slashed at him with something thin and silver, the glint of it catching the light. It slid against his cheek. Again at his ear, trying to blind him.

Michael blocked another pass, taking the wound in his shoulder. Finding the creature’s throat, he used the last of his strength to pin it down while he swung a rock-filled fist into its shrieking face. Once. Twice. Over and over until he heard the crunch of bone and shrieks replaced by a gurgling wheeze.

He fell to the side, onto his back, sightless eyes blinking rapidly against the last of the dying sun. No time. Keep moving.

He rolled over, pushing the thing away from him, the thorns and stems protruding from its skin gouging and tearing at Michael’s hands. He found his knees and got them beneath him. Keep moving.

Keep moving. Find Sabrina. Make sure she’s safe.
He was dying and that was okay. That was fine …

But not yet. Not until he kept his promise.

EIGHTY-ONE

Time was running out.

She had no idea where she was, no clue as to how far she’d gone or in what direction she was walking. Not far. Even though it felt as if she’d walked for miles, every step causing the shrapnel in her thigh to bite and scream against muscle and bone, she’d gone less than a hundred yards.

Behind her, Val started to cough again, a violent hacking that turned into a gut-twisting retch. She stopped, crouching in the dark, using her hands to find her friend. “Shh, it’s okay,” she said, stroking hair away from a face that was dry and hot. “We’re almost there. Almost home.” Lies—but lies she felt no guilt in telling. If Val was going to die, it wouldn’t be without hope, alone and trapped in the dark with nothing but the sound of her own breathing and the stench of her own biology to keep her company.

Not like you, right, darlin’?

That’s right. Not like me.

She stood. Kept walking. Kept searching for the light, pulling Val behind her.

Look there, darlin’. Light—you see it?

She ignored the voice. Focused on putting one foot in front of the other, face tipped toward the ground, staring at feet she couldn’t see.

Look at me, Melissa.

Her neck craned itself up, lifting her head and eyes until she was staring straight ahead. A halo of light, thin and waning, carved into the dirt above her head—no more than fifteen yards away.

EIGHTY-TWO

The hard packed dirt
of the garden maze gave way to loose gravel. Smooth stones, cool and gray. Michael collapsed into them, pressing his face and hands against them with a near sigh of relief. He was burning up. Each breath he took warned him it might be his last.

The monster was still alive. He could hear it dragging itself along the path behind him, blood gurgling and bubbling from its ruined mouth, ragged breath whistling through its broken nose. As hard as he’d hit it, as much as he’d tried, he hadn’t killed it.

A shadow loomed over him, high and wide. The building. He’d made it. Lifting his face, he opened his eyes, tried to blink away the thick film that coated them. Bright yellow blurs danced in front of his face, swaying alongside tall, hazy stalks. Flowers. Some type of garden …

“Ares,” the thing behind him hissed, closer than it had a right to be. Turning over, he lifted his boot, striking out at it, unwilling to go easy. It’d found its feet, standing over him, casting a deeper shadow across his face. The thin, silver blade in its hand held high. Michael heard another scream, this one carried on a name:
David.

The monster twisted toward the sound, its face split in a gruesome, bloody grin. “Calliope—”

Before the thing could say another word, it jerked and convulsed, some unseeable force slamming into it over and over. It swayed for a second before the blade fell from its hand to clatter into the rocks at its feet.

It was her. Had to be …

Michael twisted around, craning his head to see her. There was Sabrina, standing a few yards away, feet braced apart, hip dropped back to absorb the recoil of the gun she held in a two-fisted grip. Her dark auburn hair set on fire by the setting sun, eyes blazing … she dropped her arms, the gun falling to her side.

And then she was gone.

EIGHTY-THREE

Another hatch. This one
opened into the maze. The last of the late evening sun had pinched at Sabrina’s eyes as she threw the hatch open, and she had to look away for a moment to let her eyes acclimate to the light. Surrounded on three sides by sky-high hedges, there was only one way out.

Valerie lay below her at the foot of the stairs—really no more than a ladder propped up under the hatch. She’d hoped to find Strickland, SWAT team in tow, crawling the grounds by now, but she was alone as far as she could tell. Another quick look at Val had her pulling Michael’s Kimber from the small of her back. Climbing the stairs, she lead with the barrel of her borrowed gun to do a quick sweep. No Strickland. No David.

No Michael.

Back down the stairs to loop the black satin cloth under Val’s armpits. “This is going to hurt,” she said, stroking a soft hand over her friend’s short cap of dusty black hair. “I’m sorry, but there’s no other way … ” Before she could think about it, she picked up the length of cloth and began to haul Val up the stairs. Val cried out against the pressure on her bones, coughing and gasping. “Almost there … almost there … ” She kept saying it over and over, forcing herself to pull and yank with everything she had until Val was topside, laid out in the dirt beside her, shaking and heaving against the pain.

Struggling with the cloth, she unlooped it from under Val’s arms.

If you’d rehabbed your leg like you were supposed to, this wouldn’t be so hard …

“Said the guy who shot me in the first place.” It took her a moment to realize she’d answered him out loud, and it had her pulling on the knot so hard she nearly ripped the satin into useless shreds.

Just statin’ facts, darlin’.

She re-fashioned the satin back into a litter and worked Val onto it again, using the knotted loop as a handle. “I’m getting you out of here, Val. I promise,” she said as she stood, fitting the gun into her hand before she started to limp toward the only opening in the box of green she was surrounded by.

There you go again, making promises you can’t keep …

Ignore him. Keep walking.

She passed beneath an archway, letting instinct lead her straight ahead despite the option to go right. What looked like a dead end suddenly cut to the right, and she rounded the corner to see the backside of the greenhouse. This time she went left, dragging Val, who’d gone still and quiet, behind her.

Hold on just a bit longer …

Sabrina rounded the corner of the building, the sight in front of her catching her breath and stalling her heart all at once, creating a perfect storm of immobile silence.

Michael … or at least she thought it was Michael. Sprawled out in the rocks, half covered by the looming shadows of the greenhouse, was a man. She almost cried out. Almost ran to him …

David dragged himself from the mouth of the maze. He looked like some sort of demon, covered in scaly leaves and thorny spikes, blood running from his battered face, clumps of dirt coating patches of his exposed skin. He managed to pull himself up on two legs, swaying above Michael, hissing something she couldn’t understand through a mouth that didn’t work right. Michael rolled over, kicked out even as David lifted his scalpel.

“
David
.” She screamed the name, watching him turn, his trunk twisting toward the sound even as she pulled the trigger. The bullets hit him center mass, a tight cluster in the middle of his chest. He staggered back, the scalpel clattering into the rocks at his feet.

You’ll never be able to save them both.

Val first, then Michael. Get them into the car and drive—

Tires crunching on gravel. A lot of them. The faint
whoomp, whoomp
of helicopter blades … She dug out the flattish disc she’d stuck in her pocket. The light, no longer flashing red, was a solid green.

Help had arrived.