Dark Craving: A Watchers Novella (10 page)

He hisses in a breath, and it feels like triumph.

I put the lighter down. “Put your hands behind your back.” I slide the urumi from around my waist, and his eyes light with recognition.

“Charlotte’s weapon.” His smile is overly familiar.

“Don’t say her name,” I snap.

He watches, utterly still, as I wrap the coiled blade around his chest. It doesn’t exactly tie him to the chair, but if he tried to move, he’d certainly sever something vital. “Are you going to torture me, boy?” His voice is bland, matter-of-fact.

“Nah.” I stroll around him. “You’d probably enjoy that, you old freak.”

“It stands to reason, I suppose.” He shrugs, as if we’re debating music theory instead of sadism. “Hugo would be here himself if that were the intention. He’s not one to miss such spectacle.”

“I could make this painless, Alrik. You just need to answer one question.” When I reach the front of the chair again, I lean down, staring him in the face. This close, his skin is an intricate map of creases and hollows. He is ancient…and soon he’ll be dead. “Who is this family of mine, and where do they live?”

“Ahhhh.” He emits a slow sigh, his face parting into a lizard’s smile. “I see what this is all about.”

“No tricks. No chatting. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” I extend my arms, revealing the homemade stakes concealed under the sleeves of my sweater. I remove one and touch it just over his heart. “I brought more than just a lighter.”

“An old-fashioned stake. How quaint. You made that?” He peers up and meets my blank expression. “Clever boy. I warn you, though. You must be exact. Even with your powers, such a stake will do no good unless it’s placed with absolute precision. Can you do that? Can you find my heart with absolute precision?”

“We could find out right now,” I say, pressing harder. “Or you can play nice and tell me where my family is.”

“You modern children, you think you can have what you want the moment you want it.”

I press the stake deeper, until I feel the bone beneath his skin. “So you
do
know how to find them.”

“I know where one family member is.” The sly, leering quirk to his mouth tells me he speaks the truth. “You can read it on your family’s scroll.” He purses his lips as if he’s trying to hide a smirk. “Didn’t you know? You have a family scroll. I hope you didn’t burn it. What delicious irony that would be.”

“Shut up.” I glance back and scan the table, but the rolls and rolls of paper all look the same. “Which one is it?”

“Aren’t they lovely?” he says in a marveling sort of voice. “The oldest ones are papyrus. Made from reeds grown in the Nile Delta. Now that was a fascinating era—would that I could’ve seen it firsthand.”

I go to the table and run my hand along them. “Which one?” I repeat in a snarl. I’m running out of time.

“Remove your hand, if you please,” he snaps. “The oils of human skin are very damaging.”

My fist curls around the nearest scroll. It bears drawings of fruits and birds that don’t seem relevant to me, and so I squeeze and toss the crumpled ball into the trash bin. “That’s what I think of your papers. Now tell me where you keep the information about my family.”

“Savage,” he mutters. With a nod to his bookshelf, he says, “As you wish. My most prized scrolls are in the safe.”

I’m a prized scroll? The secret of my lineage just got bigger. I go to the bookshelf and run my hands along the sides of the wood, seeking a hidden button or lever. I’d watched him open the secret panel from afar, when I staked out his office. “How does this work?”

“Shall I show you?” The words hiss in my ear. Dagursson. Somehow he’s gotten free, though it wasn’t without cost—the metallic scent of his own blood clings to him.

“Cut yourself, did you?” I try to spin, but he’s at my back, his talon fingers curling into my shoulder.

I hear the
shick
of metal—my urumi unfurling. He flicks his arm out, cracking it like a whip. The steel makes a dreadful singing hum that reverberates through his office. “What a treat,” he says with delight. “They say the urumi is difficult to use, but I’m not finding this so hard at all.” He shakes the blade out at his side and steel nicks the tops of my shoes, slicing the leather where it touches. I must’ve stiffened under his grip because he says, “Shall we play together, you and I?”

“Back off,” I say, reaching once more for my power. And for a moment, I do feel it, in my blood, buzzing where his hand touches my body.

“Oh,” he chirps. The bastard is toying with me. “Your talents are impressive indeed, Ronan. But I fear you’ve miscalculated. Sadly, you’re just not powerful enough.” A burst of cold emanates from his grip as he slams my chest into the shelf. Books topple around us, and the smell of mildew fills my sinuses. “Or maybe it’s just your intellect that’s lacking. It was very stupid, your coming in here. I believe I’ve been right all along to think that Charlotte got all the brains in your family.”

“I told you not to say her name.” I summon another burst of power. Enough to twist my body and propel myself away from the bookshelf, slamming a heel into his knee.

He loses his grip on me for a satisfying instant but is back on me immediately, angrier than ever. He spins me around, slamming my face into his books. “Temper,” he growls. His hand is bitter cold on my neck. I feel the bones of his thin fingers, his razor-sharp nails, seeking, probing. He slides his thumb down along my shoulder, finds a spot, and presses hard. So hard it feels his nail might cut through my clothes, through my skin.

I try to flinch away. I want to open my mouth, but I can’t make a sound. I’m paralyzed.

“That’s right,” he says, oozing a satisfied sigh. “They call this the baroreceptor reflex. Fascinating thing.” He presses harder, and my vision dims. “If I were to hold this pose longer, you would eventually black out and die. But that’s no fun.”

I find myself swept into the chair where I’d just had him minutes before. He sat me down with my chest facing the chair back. He sweeps the urumi around my waist, binding me to the wood. “This is such an elegant little weapon,” he says. And then he tears off my sweater, my shirt.

Blood is slowly pumping back into my brain. The chair back is padded, and its red velvet plushness against my chest is so out of place, it jars my senses fully alert. My eyes skitter across the room, looking for ideas, for a way out. Damn me for getting caught like this.

“You acted averse to torture,” he says, “but perhaps you simply haven’t experienced the finest hand.” He rakes his fingers through my hair and wrenches my head up to face him. “You see, I can’t let you die before I get some of my own questions answered.”

He slaps me then, hard. Hard enough to make my eyes water.

I suck the blood from my teeth and spit onto his rug. “You going to slap me to death? Because if that’s the case, I’ll make myself more comfortable.”

“Mind the carpet.” He slams my face into the chair. “Now tell me who sent you.”

“I’m here of my own choice. I’ve longed to take you down.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but if I’m going to die, I’ll die speaking my mind. For once, I’ll show them who I really am. I’ve suppressed the fight inside me. Relied on Annelise’s grit to satisfy my longing to strike. But now it’s my turn.

“I don’t believe you’re that complicated, Ronan. Who is behind this? If not Hugo, who?”

I can’t let him discover Freya’s part. My personal feelings for the female vampire aside, she’s fighting for something I believe in. I won’t betray the cause. “Trust me when I say I walk alone.” It’s the most honest thing I’ve said all night.

“Then you’re a fool.” He shakes his head, marveling. “Why would you dare such a transgression?”

If he thinks I’m just a fool, all the better to act the part. Anything to keep Ann out of this. I take a deep breath and flex—this is going to hurt. “I guess I’ve just never quite liked you, Alrik. I can call you Alrik, right? I mean, you’re beating the shite out of me. Why rest on formality when you’re beating the shite out of me?”

He slams the back of my head. “I do not”—slams again—“appreciate”—slam—“foul mouths.”

It takes a moment to shake the clarity back into my head. “I can’t help but notice you keep attacking from behind, Alrik. I thought you Vikings had more moves than that.” I run my tongue along the inside of my mouth and spit out a piece of broken tooth. “Or are you just afraid to face me?”

“You’ll see my moves,” he says with a depraved little laugh.

I crane my neck, but he’s disappeared behind me, and so I can only listen as he walks to his desk and rifles through drawers. At the sound of metal clanging, I bristle.

“I can smell your anxiety, young Tracer. Do you regret your actions? Perhaps if you’d known how to keep your attitude in check, this wouldn’t have to be so very arduous for the both of us.”

“Don’t let me be a trouble to you,” I say, dreading what’s in store.

“Trouble indeed.” He’s back. When I try to see what he’s brought from his desk that’s making such an awful clatter, he merely shoves my face into the chair again. “I’m afraid we’re in for a long afternoon. Unless you wish to inform?” There’s more unnerving clattering behind me. “No? No matter. I have ways of changing your mind.”

I hear the sound of a clasp springing open, like something on a small case. “You have a special kit for this?” I ask. My scoffing will only mean more pain for me later, but I need it now—anything to keep my wits. I think of Annelise again, this time with new insight, finally understanding why she’s always so quick with a sarcastic barb. I let my own barbs rip now…for her. “Or was that just the sound of a wee chess set popping open? Though, actually, you seem more like a backgammon man. You going to challenge me to a match?”

“Your goading does you no credit, young Tracer. Alcántara has clearly lost control of you. It seems it’s up to me to teach you a lesson.” He runs a fingernail down my naked back, along my spine. “Have you heard of the Blood Eagle? It’s a method of torture much favored in the Icelandic sagas.”

He’s at his case again, rifling about. He’s selected something. I hear the whisper of metal sliding against leather—a dagger pulled from a sheath?

“Such a glorious thing,” he says, once more at my back. “Modern historians believe the Blood Eagle is merely the stuff of fiction. The skaldic poems could be particularly, shall we say, fierce. But I was there, you’ll recall. It was a time when fiction wasn’t much more brutal than fact. Indeed, I’ve seen the Eagle performed with my own eyes. I’ve always wanted to try it.”

A metal tip touches my skin. “The Norse ways were so much more than just crude sadism. We appreciated subtleties of metaphor, ones that transcend simple pain. Because true anguish goes beyond the mere physical, yes? It’s a psychological state, something profound and moving.”

With the lightest tickling touch, he traces his blade lightly down my spine.
Bump, bump
, over every rise and fall of each rib. “To perform the ritual properly, one must cut each rib by the spine. And then you splay them out into great wings. The lungs are revealed, of course, delicately flapping like an eagle’s feathers. The effect is quite magnificent.”

He sinks the tip of his blade into my skin and holds it there. “Shall we try it?” He twists the metal deeper. “Unless you wish to tell me who sent you? Who do you work for? Who do you protect?”

I pull in a deep breath—
Annelise…I would’ve liked to see you one more time
—and let it out with a great exhale. I’ve released more than just air from my body.

I am ready.

“I’d thought listening to you talk was the torture,” I say blithely, while inside I brace for my own death.

Without pause, Dagursson slams down his hand. But as his knife hits my rib, it’s deflected, dashed to the side, slicing under my skin instead, filleting me like a fish. I gasp, then bite down on my lips. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

“Hurt?” He removes the blade from beneath my skin and taps the exposed bone.

“Oh, have we started?” I ask, managing to keep my voice calm. Annelise would’ve appreciated the line, I think.

I imagine her grief at my death. Carden will comfort her. He’ll take care of her, and for that I’m grateful. The thought stabs more deeply than any blade. But I
am
grateful.

Instantly, he tries again, and this time he hits his mark. But still the bone doesn’t snap. His knife has gone deep, though, and a warm wash of blood courses down my back.

I smell it, taste it, it’s all around me. Rushing, pooling. I realize it’s in my mouth, on my tongue, bitten from keeping quiet. I experience a jumble of sensations—the warmth of all that blood, but there’s cool, too, in my head, tingling from its loss.

“You’re right,” he says. “We haven’t really begun, Tracer. We will go all day. Unless you have something to say to me?”

“No,” I say, but the word doesn’t come out right. I clear my throat and begin again. “No,” I repeat clearly, “not that I can think of.”

“Shame.” He has at me again, chiseling as if I’m a mound of stone. “Bone is so hard to crack. This will take several”—he strikes again—“more”—and again—“attempts.”

I realize the pain is beginning to suck me in.
Focus.
I’ve trained for this. I mustn’t lose control.