Authors: Jenna Castille
The girl paused for a moment and screwed her eyes closed, searching for details. “She wore a bright red suit—skirt and jacket. Made her stand out more than anything else. The guy was just average. ‘Bout Mike’s height. Short brown hair, wearing corporate casual. I thought it might be some kinda business meeting going on when I first saw them. But they didn’t talk much, just ate. Maybe that’s what caught my attention. Usually there’s some small talk.”
Julian nodded, stepping forward and breaking Tim’s contact with Sarah. “May we see her office?”
“I don’t know,” the manager answered, looking even more uncomfortable by the second. “Maybe we should wait for the cops. You could mess up evidence or something. If Lisa’s in trouble we should keep everything untouched, right?”
Julian reached into his wallet, fishing out a card. “Call this number and ask for Detective Ramirez. We’ve worked with him before. You can give your report to him and clear us to go in.”
Mike nodded, clutching the card like a security blanket. “You really think she’s in trouble, don’t you?”
“I think every moment we waste might be one of her last,” Julian replied, as blunt as possible to make his point. He didn’t have time to hold the kid’s hand. Lisa needed him. “The first few hours are the deciding factors for whether or not a missing person comes back alive. We’re running on borrowed time. I think we all want to make certain Ms. Harrington doesn’t become a statistic.”
Mike didn’t say anything but practically ran to the phone. Two minutes later he led Julian and Tim into the employee areas, flipping through keys. The frantic, jarring clang raked both Tim and Julian’s nerves.
He opened the door. The lights blazed. Nothing seemed disturbed, nothing was obviously out of place. Lisa’s coat hung on the back of her chair. Papers were stacked neatly on her desk, pencils lined up beside them. Her computer was shut down. At first glance nothing screamed kidnapping. It looked like she’d taken a break. Numbers got too much for her and she needed to clear her head.
Even though Julian warned himself not to get his hopes up, he’d rather that be the case. She’d taken a walk and lost track of time. But he looked down at the area under her desk for signs of struggle.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“What?” Tim asked as he and the manager came around the desk.
Julian reached under and pulled out a pair of black pumps. “Know anywhere she’d go without her shoes?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“The human bitch is waking up,” a sinister, scratchy male voice growled in Lisa’s ear.
“Finally,” a familiar female voice replied, the cold tone sending chills down her spine.
Lisa’s stomach pitched, sending her rolling to her knees in a round of dry heaves. Colored lights danced behind her closed lids as agony exploded through her head. The pain made every migraine she’d had in her life feel like a minor inconvenience.
The woman laughed, a dark, chilling melody.
“Oh, this one is so responsive,” the man said as Lisa struggled to open her eyes. Rough fingers slid down her smooth cheek, turning her face this way and that for examination. “She’s going to be so much fun. A little dose of drugs and she pukes. Can you imagine what she’ll be like when we really get going? She’ll keep the master entertained for weeks.”
“Imagining is all you get to do,” the woman snapped, slapping his hand. “His lordship wants her saved for him. We keep her immaculate until he comes.”
“Not even a little fun?” he whined in petulance, dropping Lisa’s face and stepping back. “I won’t kill her. I just want to hear her scream a little.”
“She’s a member of the Three. We can’t afford the risk of killing her. She dies and Lord Mograith will use our skins to make the whips he’ll beat us with.”
Lisa curled up in a ball but managed to right herself, the harsh concrete scraping her hands and palms as she clawed her way to a sitting position. She looked up at her kidnappers, blinking to clear blurry eyes and see in the dim light. She sat in a cavernous barren room, a few small windows lining the walls at the edge of the ceiling. Large beams supporting the ceiling broke the space with a single table sitting by the door the only thing on the floor. Nothing else to be seen but a few bare pipes and the two maniacs arguing over her fate.
Lisa half expected her kidnapper to be the businessman from before. Maybe wearing an eye patch, bandages or something. Instead the nosy neighbor and another man stood sneering down at her.
“You just couldn’t stay away from them could you, human?” the woman asked, lashing out with one foot and kicking her in the side. Bright multicolored pain shot through her ribs. Lisa almost missed her next comment as she battled the wave of nausea the action caused. “If you’d stayed away you would’ve had a few more days of peace. Maybe even gotten out of the city before we struck. Instead you let your lust get the best of you and shortened your existence in the mortal realm.”
The man leered, reaching down to adjust himself as his cock tented his pants. He let his hand linger while he sneered. “Lust is one of my favorites. Maybe if we do a good job Lord Mograith will reward us. Maybe even let me have a go at her.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” the woman snorted, walking over to the small foldout table covered with white cloth. She flipped the cover back and fiddled with objects Lisa couldn’t quite make out. “He wants this one for himself. He looks forward to amusing himself with a Catalyst. She might even be able to withstand more damage than an average mortal. You don’t want to get in his way.”
The woman sighed and shrugged, pulling out a length of white nylon cord. “Wish we could find out. But not enough to risk Lord Mograith’s ire. We keep her here, alive and in perfect condition. When the rip is complete and the portal opens wide enough for our lord we give her over. There are plenty of other mortals to torment. Maybe even her friend, the bitch that ruined my plans.”
Lisa spat on the floor, trying to clear the taste of bile that filled her mouth. What the hell were these nutcases talking about?
The woman squatted down next to her, lacing her fingers in Lisa’s hair. She jerked her head back, forcing Lisa’s teary eyes to meet her gaze. “You, bitch, are trouble. Once Lord Mograith has you you’ll wish we’d taken you and ended your misery now. An eternity in our care will cure you of any ideas of grandeur.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa whispered, eyes overflowing at the sharp bite of pain. But at least her stomach didn’t revolt this time.
“Right, Catalyst. You don’t know.” The woman shoved Lisa to the ground.
“Careful, don’t want to damage her, remember?” the man taunted.
“She’s not worth it,” the woman replied before wrapping the cord around Lisa’s ankle, tying her to a nearby pipe. “She won’t give Mograith much pleasure. She doesn’t even understand her own role in the scheme of things. She might have fucked the other two but she doesn’t know the power wielded by the Three.”
“For which you should be thankful. Had she known we’d have never taken her. Lord Mograith doesn’t deal well with disappointment.” For a moment the man showed fear, something Lisa didn’t know how to react to. “I don’t want to end up like the last poor bastard who failed him.”
The woman looked down on Lisa, disdain filling her red-glowing eyes. “Stuck here for two days with her. Least it’ll be quick.”
Lisa couldn’t pull her gaze away from the woman’s eyes. Red glowing eyes. How did she do that? Special effects? Contacts? And why couldn’t Lisa look away, break the woman’s gaze?
Was she in deeper shit than she’d ever considered?
* * * * *
Julian sat in front of his crystal ball, Tim curled at his feet. He shouldn’t be able to find her this way. It shouldn’t work. She was a part of his life. He didn’t have enough control. But he’d joined with the Catalyst already, if not in the actual ritual. And he had a path to follow, an anchor locked in on Lisa. Tim could feel her now. Her pain and terror.
The gods willing that would be enough to help Julian link with her as well.
He stared deep into the ball, willing his mind blank. An almost insurmountable task with his thoughts and emotions in turmoil. But Lisa needed him. Lisa’s life depended on him. All their lives depended on him. He couldn’t let it end this way. Not again.
As his mind flew into the infinite possibilities he reached out to Tim’s presence nearby, using him as a focus for Lisa. He could almost see the ribbon of emotional light connecting them. He followed the path Tim blazed.
Lisa’s life strand shined bright, pulsing in time with his own. Tim’s life strand crossed it, slid against it, twisted around it, but couldn’t connect, not completely. A darkness stood between them and threatened to snuff out her light. It pushed against Tim, trying to shove him away. Julian felt the pressure against the back of his eyes as he tried to grab on to Lisa, look past the strand into the present.
The darkness thrust him back, sending his consciousness spiraling out of control. But Tim’s presence held him steady, braced him for the next attack.
He slipped past the darkness for a split second, saw a building, a warehouse not far from Lisa’s restaurant.
A flash of pain blasted through his mind, stark and jagged. A dark frozen voice lashed through him, shaking his bones. “Stay out, Visionary! You are not welcome here. Leave your city before the rip is complete or I shall feast on your flesh and that of your lover for the rest of eternity.”
Julian tumbled out of his chair with a yelp, hands up to protect his face. Tim curled around him and murmured nonsense words against his temple, cradling his larger body in his arms.
When he recovered enough to think straight Julian turned to Tim. “We’re almost out of time. I know where she is but if we fail we do more than lose her.”
“What happened?” Tim asked, keeping a firm hold around the first love of his life, a man quivering and pale in his embrace.
“Demons wait,” he gasped, gripping Tim like his only lifeline. “They know us now. They will drag us, all three, to their hell dimension. We will pray for true death.”
Tim’s carefree face took on a dark, solemn cast. “Then we’d better not fail.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Time lost all meaning. In the locked windowless room minutes, hours or days may have passed. Lisa had no idea how long she’d been unconscious, much less how long she’d sat huddled against rough concrete in a corner, trying to disappear. She prayed for the first time in years, the only avenue of hope left to her as the bitter smell of stale air and rodent droppings filled her lungs. The scent of abandonment.
More than anything she tried to ignore the growls and grunts coming from the two psychos going at it in the middle of the room.
“More, damn you,” the woman screamed, tearing her nails down the man’s naked flexing back as she jabbed her stiletto heels into his clenching ass. “I want to feel you ripping inside this body. Give me the pain. I need to feel the pain. Fuck me harder.”
The man growled, his mouth slamming down on her shoulder at the moment his pace increased. Flesh slapped against flesh in a sharp staccato. Candlelit shadows contorted on the walls. The woman convulsed, whimpering and groaning in the same breath.
The crude chalk circle the woman had drawn beside them before the two tore into each other began to pulsate, glowing a sickly green. Droplets of blood that had been spilled from both kidnappers pooled toward the outline.
Lisa screwed her eyes shut, curled even tighter and began rocking in her corner.
Not seeing this
.
Not real
.
Not real
.
God
,
don
’
t let this be real
.
The ground shook beneath her. Her eyes flew open and she let out a squeak, gripping her calves and struggling to become a ball, head tucked against knees. None of this was happening. They’d drugged her and the drug was still running through her system. That’s all. The ground wasn’t groaning and separating, a huge, jagged crack forming in the ancient concrete. Unholy howls weren’t filling the room with the sound of anguish. She didn’t really smell of burning flesh or rancid smoke, at least not any that didn’t come from the incense the two nutjobs were burning.
And she most certainly did not see a big scale-covered blue arm clawing its way out of the nonexistent crack in the ground.