Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set (67 page)

Yet the average partygoer didn’t seem to know the difference between the scientific disciplines. For example, she knew a group of historians were inside the prison critiquing the medieval torture chambers that had been set up by the wax museum. Some chemists were poking around the other side of the island at the fireworks setup trying to figure out the payload of the explosives used to launch the displays.

All very interesting, but none of it bringing them closer to Lionel.

Searching the crowd, Sal spotted two men dressed as knights, hacking their way through feigned combat. A grin formed at their folly. She’d seen enough real fighting to know that if the taller warrior left his side open like that in battle, the beast would have opened his abdomen with a single swipe across the midsection.

The man glanced her way. He must have misinterpreted her smile, because he started really hamming it up, drawing their fake clash toward her.

“
Forsake your cause!” he yelled. “Or I shall take this damsel hostage.”

Sal watched in horror as the knight aimed toward her. She wanted to slow time and shout for him to stop, but it all happened too quickly.

The second that his sword became even a fake threat, Tyr grabbed the man by his hair, yanked his head back and exposed his neck. Holding his very sharp knife to the knight’s pulsing jugular, Tyr’s bicep flexed.

Finally, she found her voice.

“
Don’t!” she screamed, clutching his arm and trying to pull the blade away. “He didn’t mean it. He was just acting.” Tyr glared at her, but she nodded vigorously. “He meant no harm.”

Sal could tell that Tyr believed her, yet he didn’t release the man.

Instead, he leaned over and hissed into his ear, “Upon threat of death, aim no blade at a lady. Unless you wish to enjoy a slow, painful letting of your blood ’til the last, never bear one at her. Are my words stark enough?”

The man nodded, careful to avoid cutting his own neck against the knife. Tyr didn’t really release him as much as shove him to his knees. The man choked and sputtered.

“
Sorry, man. My bad. I didn’t see the rock on her finger.”

They both looked at Richard’s engagement ring.

Tyr’s face clouded over, and he turned on his heel, plowing into the crowd, scattering revelers in his path.

“
I’m so sorry,” Sal muttered to the performer.

“
No problem. Matter of fact,” the man yelled as she followed Tyr, “do you think he’d be interested in working our next gig?”

* * * * *

CHAPTER 77

Picking up her skirt, Sal broke into a trot as she caught up with the long-strided Tyr. He could put on some distance if he wanted to. Finally, a gaggle of belly dancers blocked his path.

She touched his arm, but Tyr growled, “Do not.”

Her hand fell away as the diamond of another man’s engagement ring glittered in the torchlight. “Tyr …”

His jaw muscles worked overtime. Were they really going to have this conversation? Here? Now?

“
I must get away from …” He shook his head. “From this gaiety. Cast a sooth. Find the beast. Face him as a man, not as a lady’s consort.”

“
Tyr,” she sighed. How could so much unspoken fill the air with such noise? Sal opened her mouth to elaborate when a cluster of young men captured her attention.

They looked like characters straight out of The
Lord of the Rings
. Well, if anyone from Middle Earth had ever been a geek. Groping behind her, she grabbed Tyr’s hand as she headed toward the LOTR-fest.

“
Did I not—?”

Sal ignored his protest as she made a beeline for the Elvish group. “Are you guys physicists?”

They were all clearly startled that a female of any sort was talking to them, let alone one of childbearing age.

“
Um, some of us, yeah,” the one with the blond Legolas wig stammered.

“
Advanced mathematical theory, specializing in discrete mathematical modeling,” the Gimli lookalike added.

The one that was supposed to be Aragorn couldn’t even find his voice.

“
SFSU?”

The elf looked defeated. “Naw, Stanford.”

Gimli must have seen the disappointment on her face. “But hey, if you want some question about the origin of the universe answered, we’re your guys.”

“
Sorry, but I kind of had my heart set on Lionel.”

“
Hing?” Aragorn finally figured out how to speak.

Sal focused on him. “Yes.”

Not to be outdone, Legolas thumbed at the towering prison. “He and some guy from UC Berkeley got into an argument about a sliding door that an inmate supposedly opened with his mind. But the Oski said the prisoner must have used some low volatile liquid that he made out of soap to pop the lock.”

That sounded like something right up Lionel’s alley.

“
So Hing’s inside?”

Gimli nudged the elf out of the way. “I can show you.”

She gave the best kind, but dismissive, smile that she could. “No, thanks.”

Sal swung around to find Tyr already heading toward the prison’s entrance. Damn it, she was going to have to run after him again. Then Tyr paused. His tall frame turned back, waiting.

Waiting for
her
.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 78

Sal had toured Alcatraz more times than she cared to count. You couldn’t avoid it if you lived in the City. It wasn’t like she wanted to make the trip across the bay that often, but anytime a friend came in from out of town, it was the first place that he or she wanted to visit.

As her heels clicked against the cement floor, Sal could see why. The federal prison could both repulse and compel. Who
didn’t
want to see Al Capone’s bunk? Or tour the cell that inspired the film
Escape from
Alcatraz
?

There weren’t many places left where people could literally walk through history. Have it above, on each side, and beneath one’s feet.

Even under daylight conditions, the prison gave off a creepy energy. To think of the brutality suffered within these walls! But tonight? Tonight, the walls oozed with downright malice.

Sure, she’d been here on sunny days, foggy days, and during a rainstorm, but never under torchlight. The dull, barren prison environment had been transformed into a medieval dungeon. The torch’s flickering reds and oranges cast shadows down the long central passageway. Looking up, Sal glanced at the two stories looming above them. The multitude of cells pressed down upon her. She imagined being a guard walking the main hall, having every prisoner in the place able to glare down at her. It sent gooseflesh up her arms.

But now? With the torchlight and the third floor mired in shadows?

What had once been a sterile passage had become a foreboding gauntlet.

For on each side, the ground-floor cells had been converted into hideous torture chambers. Wax figures on loan from Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum played the victim to every type of agony known to man. Some were hung upside down, others had the screws put to them, and the rack … Sal couldn’t even look in that cell.

She wasn’t naïve about suffering. She’d grown up in the Mission District and worked at an inner-city ER. Tonight, it felt different. With the beast on the prowl, these cells weren’t just a historical account of torture, but a prediction of the night’s pain and anguish.

No matter her misgivings, everyone else seemed to be enjoying the show. Bejeweled duchesses and armored dukes toured the horrors. As she and Tyr passed by the cluster of historians arguing over the veracity of the displays, one of them flagged him down.

“
You there. You look …” the woman said offhandedly, then surveyed Tyr’s bulging biceps, suddenly becoming self-conscious. “Look … um, surprisingly era-appropriate.”

Tyr appeared to be extremely used to women getting tongue-tied around him, because he just shrugged off her compliment.

A very nerdy serf pushed his glasses up. “We’re arguing over the name of this item.”

The serf pointed to a wax figure whose hands were bound to a chair with a metal device that acted like a wicked neck brace. The tips that held up the chin and pushed against the breastbone were spiked. Fake blood dribbled down from the points of contact.

“ ’
Tis a poorly constructed heretic’s fork.”

“
Duh!” the serf exclaimed as he hit his forehead.

Tyr reached out, tested the metal against his thumb, and nicked the flesh.

Although the historians gasped, he casually rubbed the blood between his fingers. “And not a very sharp one at that.”

Sal turned to leave, but something caught Tyr’s eye. He reached out and took a bullwhip down from the wall. With expert skill, he lashed the whip out, then snapped the leather tip.

Crack
!

The sound reverberated off the high ceiling. As everyone else jumped back, Sal watched as that secret smile only she noticed tugged at Tyr’s lips. Satisfied, he coiled the whip, and strode away.

“
Um,” the serf mumbled, “I don’t think you’re supposed to take the props.”

“
You wanna try to stop him?”

Let them debate that
, Sal thought as she trotted to catch up.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 79

Tyr slowed as they mounted the stairs to the second floor of the prison. She didn’t bother to ask why their pace had waned. From his clamped jaw and worried eyes, Sal knew he sensed something. The threat didn’t seem to be the beast, or his knife would be drawn. Still, his tense posture set her on edge.

The deeper into the prison they had delved, the more the crowd had thinned. Even the macabre wax figures had diminished, until there were only empty cells lining the hall around them.

Their isolation gave Sal no comfort, though. She knew having people around didn’t make them any safer; if anything it just put more lives in danger, but their lone footsteps echoing off the cement walls weren’t helping her nerves.

Above them rose another story of cells, shrouded in darkness. Just as the crowds had thinned, so had the torchlight. The third floor was nothing more than a vague outline. The beast could be crouched right above them, and they would never know it.

Tyr frowned. “There is discord ahead.”

Sal’s stomach lurched. Not just metaphysically, but literally. Her hand found her midriff. Even that soft a touch hurt her knotted intestines. She just wasn’t cut out for battling the supernatural.

As they crept down the long line of locked cells, Tyr’s knife in one hand and the whip in the other, an explosion sounded from outside. They both swung around.

Outside the cell windows, fireworks bloomed to life. Blues, greens, and brilliant whites shone momentarily, and then faded to a wisp of smoke. While Sal felt relieved, Tyr’s knuckles had blanched around his hilt.

“
It’s just fireworks,” she said, but he didn’t seem soothed. “They are displays of light for entertainment. There’s nothing magical about it.”

As another cluster of explosions lit the sky a deep red, Tyr didn’t seem convinced.

“
The display signals the crowd that the main event will start shortly. Then, when the party is all over, there will be a grand finale to alert everyone that the festivities are over and to head to the dock.” Sal lowered her tone. “I swear. I’ve seen it before. It’s no threat.”

When his lips didn’t lift from their frown, Sal figured that she hadn’t convinced him that the fireworks weren’t dangerous. But then, she noticed that his head was tilted to one side, listening for something. Sal stopped and listened intently between the
boom
of the fireworks.

Were there groans? As Tyr inched them forward, Sal began to suspect they didn’t arise from suffering.

“
Tyr,” she said as she tried to slow him down.

A huge explosion of oranges and greens filled the sky. Sal suspected that those weren’t the only fireworks going on right now.

A gasp.

No restraint could keep Tyr from bolting forward.

“
No!” Sal exclaimed. “I think they’re just—”

She ran into Tyr’s back as he pulled to a halt at the cell’s threshold. On the thin cot bolted to the wall, it looked like someone was trying to re-create a scene from the movie
Excalibur
. The big, burly guy on top played Uther Pendragon, and this being San Francisco, the Duchess Igrayne had a mustache.

“
I’m so sorry,” Sal said as she urged Tyr away from the illicit scene.