Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3) (16 page)

Frantic, I searched, and found him again, pinned him in the light. He raised his forearm to shield his eyes and kept coming, walking straight for me.

The rest of the world faded to irrelevance.

Breathing was put on hold. My ribs ached, my lungs were empty.

I had a desperate, primitive need not to be noticed and breathing did that.

Then I gasped, forced to inhale or faint.

Though blood and sweat rolled into my eyes, I registered the whine of machinery. A few yards away, the tiniest of blinking red lights showed me where a drone hovered, filming whatever might happen next.

Wolfe lunged and batted away the knife, only to impale his hand on the steel.

Light flared from beyond his shoulder – the drone had switched on some tiny headlight. He casually extracted the blade from his flesh and tossed it aside. Blood spilled down his hand. It dripped from his fingers to the floor, then splashed my thighs as he leaned over me. His fetid breath stirred my hair, filled my nostrils.

I had nothing and the wall behind me refused to let me sink into it no matter how I pushed against the floor with my good foot. So I stuck the flashlight in his mouth.

He bit me, crunching my fingers into the hard plastic. My screeches lasted all of two seconds for he spat out the tube and grabbed me by the neck, fastening me to the wall.

As he stuck one knee between my legs, forcing them apart, sounds of crashing came from elsewhere in the facility. Were there more of him?

One was enough.

He only growled and shifted his grip upward to my jaw, shoving my head back, painfully far. His teeth arrived either side of my throat and began to crunch inward. I quivered and shut my eyes, still trying to push away with my bleeding feet scrabbling at the floor, though really, truly I was only waiting for the inevitable.

I was running nowhere with my throat about to be torn out.

The Girl

The one who made me call him master was gone, taking with him the woman who’d told me things to do. I waited, kneeling as he’d said, my palms on my thighs. I waited also as she’d told me to.

So many instructions but hers were written in gold.

She’d said to only turn off the IV infusion first, so I slipped to my feet and turned the little dial until the drop stopped dripping.

Then I heard him returning, so I kneeled on my spot and waited some more. He gathered beer from the fridge and cursed the man on the table, told me to be good and stay, then he left.

After I’d counted to two hundred, I again slipped to my feet and padded over to the snoring man. First I pulled out the needle. It needed a good tug and it clinked when I laid it on the tray.

All the straps on his body hurt my fingers as I undid them but I persisted, I had to, it was in my head that I had to and besides...I’d be scared not to obey.

I undid them all, even the ties around his arms and the straps across the back of his jacket. He would have to do the rest, when he awoke.

There were no instructions for after that. The night grew colder. The generator chugged on. No one came for a long time, but by then the big man was sitting up and he’d succeeded in removing the jacket.

The new man coming in the door had a gun and he was in my mind. They both were.

*****

Mavros

The amount of money I’d had to spend to get this far was astounding. Months of chasing Zorie. The arrangements in India, to get here, the payment to get the phone unencrypted, and most recently and most expensive – to get Kim Phuang to come over to my side. Finding him through the phone data had been a godsend. He’d back-flipped at the last second and agreed to turn off the power to this place – this secret place no one else knew about. Or at least, they never knew what it once was. A missile silo? Jesus. The Cold War had a lot to answer for.

Then he’d given me men to drive me here. What a nerve-wracking choice that’d been. This man was a drug smuggler, people smuggler, sex trafficker, and god knew what else from the evidence on the phone and what little research I could do.

The choice had been a good one. I was alive. He’d kept his promise, and I had no doubt it was because this Johann had made him lose face. He’d said his friend was dead and his patience had run out with a man who never kept
his
promises. I reinforced his decision with far too much money – paid as well as promised. Half now, half later. Millions.

Turning off the power hadn’t achieved much. I clicked off the small flashlight and tucked it into my pocket.

Here was Grimm, blinking at me, standing up and staring. There was anger on his face, like the last time. That I was still glad to see him bothered me. Everything about this man bothered me.

Yet I liked him.

I knew how much he loved Zorie and that was what both annoyed me and made me like him.

“Hello, you asshole.” I waved the pistol Kim had provided, kindly man that he was. Millions had bought me a gun, a location, and someone to drive me. And a bit more, if I survived. “If you’re not going to hit me, tell me where she is.”

The locator in her tooth had brought me in this direction from the entrance gate, as had the generator and the lights. I’d checked outside and no one seemed to be skulking.

“I not know.” He shook his head. “She might.” He nodded toward the naked girl.

His words were those of a two-year-old. Where was the mesmer bug taking Grimm? From the phone data, there’d been another like him, one who was still here, kept in the facility adjacent to the missile silo pit. It’d astounded me. Eight years plus in a hole in the ground, insane and dangerous. A local legend of a monster down there kept away people who might be nosy.

Inhumane treatment. This Johann had grandiose ideas as to what that man in the pit might be capable of.

And Grimm might be the same.

What is love?
I’d asked that of a boy who’d come up and begged at the restaurant in Bangkok. When the owner tried to shoo him away, I’d asked he be allowed to stay since I had a question for him.

He’d given me the best answer yet.

As I walked to the girl, I vowed to get Grimm whatever treatment I could, no matter the cost, no matter if it finally revealed us to the world. Something had to stop the progress of this thing in his mind.

I would never forgive myself if I failed.

I swallowed, summoning serenity. Not the time to get emotional.

“Tell me,” I asked the girl. “Where is the lady?”

“The one who speaks in my head like you do?

This one had pretty green eyes and despite her extreme thinness, a body most men would love to get their hands on.

I nodded. “Yes. Her.”

“Will you hurt me?”

I squatted before her and considered my answer. I could force her to answer. Or not. “No. I will free you. Just tell me the truth.”

“She went with the one I have to call master. I know where.” She pointed. “Go through the trees, walk, follow the little path. He often has lights on at night. I think he took her to the pit to give her to Wolfe.”

“Fuck.” I swallowed. That had been the truth. I could feel it. “Thank you. Only him?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Hours? I don’t know. My mind’s messed up since coming here.” Tears spilled down her cheeks and her lips quivered. “I’m sorry.”

I reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder, reinforcing my touch with calmness and reassurance. “It’s okay. Stay here. Get yourself some clothes. When we come back...”
With Zorie
, I prayed. “I’ll make sure you get back to town safely.”

I had no taste for other women, it seemed, and I’d never had any for girls this terrified. There was no need for terror when you were a mesmer.

Then I lurched to my feet and yelled to Grimm. “Zorie is in trouble. Can you run?”

“Yes!”

“Then let’s go.”

I explained as we ran, how Johann was the man he’d met. How he was a sadistic mouní who needed killing, and how he was likely trying to feed Zorie to a man who’d turned into a monster. I wasn’t sure how much Grimm understood, but I was sure he was angry. We saw the floodlights shining through the trees and Grimm outstripped me. I could only pound along behind, cursing my shoes and praying Grimm wouldn’t get shot before I was there to help him.

When skidded to a halt, I’d reached the lip of a huge circular rim. I found Grimm standing on the concrete holding a man aloft. The man’s arms were flailing and he was screaming and trying to get a rifle to bear on Grimm. Bullets began spanging off everything around them in a circle of mayhem.

I half-ducked and the next second, Johann was flying through the air.

He plummeted from view into the maw of the missile silo, his scream dwindling until it stopped.

Silence, except for my panting.

Well, solved that one.

I jogged up to find Grimm staring at a monitor screen. All in a green tone, the picture moved, drifted, and showed Zorie being menaced by a huge man. The fear on her face blew away my calm.

Wolfe.

“Oh
fuck
. Where is this? We have to get down there!”

Grimm was already moving and I followed him to the edge. To the right and a few feet out from the edge, a cage swung from a crane, still swaying, and the motor on the crane was running.

“Two ropes lead down. I can do this.” He nodded to me, pointing at the cage. “You follow in that.”

He was speaking better, but how was he getting down? Not the thin ropes that ran past our feet to a tree behind us? According to Kim this was ten stories deep. The spotlight was weakly illuminating the bottom and casting stark shadows, and all I could see of Johann was a tiny black figure.

“How? How are you getting down there?”

“This.” He wrapped a piece of cloth around and around his hand, knotting it with his teeth, then he bent and gathered the two ropes in his fist, turning to face the forest and pulling the ropes between his legs, then over his shoulder and behind him, where he trapped the ropes in one hand. “Dulfersitz...Dulfersitz,” he whispered, as if it were a word he once knew. “I. Did. I did...” His mouth worked and he frowned. “Climbing, once.”

Dulfer what? “Okay, but –”

He flung himself over the side, doing jumps. Not good. The friction would rip his hand apart. That couldn’t be right. But open-mouthed, I was left to simply stare as he disappeared over the edge.

So, the crane?

I was not the hero type.

This had to be done. I had the only gun, unless the assault rifle survived the fall. And I wasn’t taking on Wolfe with my bare hands.

I ran to the crane, figured out how to get it to bring the cage across to me, then realized I had no way to control it once I got in. Sweat popped out on my forehead. I’d have to punch the control to lower it, then get in before it dropped away. And worst of all, how would we get back?

This cage was a one-way ticket.

There wasn’t time for philosophy. There must be another way out.

God, I sure hoped so.

I managed to drag the cage over and hung onto the opened door, having to use all my strength to stop it slipping off the concrete while I reached over to the controls. If I let go, the cage would swing out over open space.

I hit the button and leaped, barely managing to scramble in before the cage scraped down the concrete and fell a few feet, jolting to a stop.

The cage door creaked outward as the cage spun and dropped. Clinging to the bars for comfort, I waited, with my heart thumping and arm muscles straining. My feet slipped on the thin metal floor and I prayed the thing would stop spinning.

Finally, when about twenty feet down into the silo, the cage stabilized and I could cram myself into a corner and wait. The door was to my right and I kept the toe of my shoe sticking out so it wouldn’t close. If it did, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t lock.

That would be disastrous.

Caged at the bottom of this fucking huge hole, forever.

I shuddered and wiped my mouth.

When I hit the bottom, the chain unwound, piling up on top of the cage, until something above made it brake. I kicked open the door.

Johann was only feet from me – his head split open and blood and brains splashed all around. The assault rifle was bent and useless, but at his waist, on top of his body, was a holster with a big pistol. I looked at the teeny thing Kim had given me, then at this new one.

Big seemed good. Especially where Wolfe was concerned.

Now to find them. Grimm had made it down intact, it seemed, for the ropes dangled nearby. Then he must’ve run off, brave if foolish.

Turning in a circle, I flinched as someone screamed, then screamed again. A woman. That had to be Zorie.

I heaved in a breath, shoved the cannon into my belt. Time to be a hero after all.

I had the flashlight I’d brought from the car. I flicked it on and prayed the monsters down here didn’t like chasing lights. Then I ran into the dark with the circle of yellowish light jumping and bathing the floors and the walls.

Run, run, as fast as you can.

I had a dire need for a golf cart, or a tank. Maybe Grimm would be enough.