Authors: Judy Teel
As we approached, the wind swept down from the cliff and rushed over us, sending a chill of apprehension across my skin. At least twelve times the height of the tallest building I'd ever seen in the city, the Bone Clan stronghold was beautiful, inspiring and terrifying all at the same time.
I dragged my attention away from the mountain and my gaze trailed over the faces of the few people cluttering up the sprawling grounds, noting how quickly they hurried away as we passed. Sweat prickled across my palms as I noted the fear on each face. What was so bad that it could make a community of what must have been hundreds of Weres deathly afraid?
We passed the barn and then a round area of dirt ringed with flat stones about a foot high that looked like a training area, and then the cold shadows of the first row of arches fell over us. Rosalind ordered Knox to open one of the huge carved doors, which I saw were made of some kind of thick metal alloy, and we continued into down a long corridor and into the mountain itself. At regular intervals, electric torches sat in iron wall sconces wedged into holders carved into the rock. They cast harsh, colorless light across the rippled surface of the stone around us, more a reminder that we might never see the sun again than a comfort.
The air was drier than I expected, cool with an earthy scent that reminded me of the tunnels Falcon and I had built under Charlotte during the paranormal terrorist war. There'd been times when we'd lived down there for days along with the kids we'd watched out for. Underground temperatures were fairly constant, hanging in the mid-fifties, which was a lot colder than it sounded unless you were moving around.
"Who built this place?" I asked as we turned down another cold corridor.
"No one knows," Knox said.
"Everyone knows," Cooper countered.
"Fairy myths don't count."
"Depends on who you are." Cooper paused to brace the hand of his uninjured arm on the wall. After a few deep breaths, he straightened up and continued walking. "They say the original owners were a species of advanced humanoids."
"What, like trolls?" I asked, hoping to distract him from the pain of his injuries and wishing I could pound on Rosalind until she took the damn collar off.
"Interdimensional gods." I was glad Cooper had the discipline not to look at me when he said that.
We continued on in silence, tramping through one tunnel after another and down endless flights of stairs, going deeper and deeper into the mountain and farther away from where we really wanted to be — free.
So much for finding safe haven with Cooper's Clan.
*
*
*
At the bottom of another flight of stairs after more twists and turns than I could count, our escorts stopped in front of a door that looked strong enough to hold back a herd of elephants. Rosalind took a key as big as my hand from a leather pouch at her waist and inserted it into the ancient lock.
I fought down the rising panic bulldozing across every nerve in my body as the main cell door swung open and our guards led us into the large chamber beyond. Four cells on each side had been built into the rock. Bars divided them with even thicker bars along the front, plus a built-in hinged door with a heavy key lock for each cell. The metal looked like thick iron, but I knew there was more to the set up than that.
With enough effort and time, iron wouldn't hold a Were or a vampire, or even some practitioners. It took a special alloy that included several types of rocks in powdered form to hold them. Tyron Bird, the paranormal precinct in Charlotte, used the same thing.
I struggled to breathe as a sense of hopelessness squeezed my chest, my steps slowing. I'd always thought I'd go down fighting, not left to starve in a dungeon hundreds of feet below ground. I should have stayed in Charlotte and taken my chances with Jacob Laswell. Even dealing with the arrogant Lord Bellmonte was better than this.
Cooper stopped inside the cellblock and turned to face Rosalind. "Where's the practitioner you took?" he growled.
The creak of springs and a slow drag of footsteps came from the cell a couple units down on our left. A moment later Miller appeared at the bars. "They jumped me next to the creek. I was getting water for soup," he said. He pressed his stocky body against the bars trying to get a better look at us, and a splash of light from one of the torches along the back wall revealed a cut across his cheek and two black eyes. As he shifted his weight to favor his left leg, I saw a blood-soaked bandage wrapped tightly around his thigh.
Cooper's and Miller's expressions hardened in almost identical ways as they catalogued each other's injuries and then aimed their anger at Rosalind. When Cooper was with the FBI, he and Miller had worked a lot of cases and they'd saved each other's lives more than once. You don't forget a thing like that.
Ignoring both of them, Rosalind pointed to the right-hand cell by the door. "Move him to the second one. I want some space between those that might be infected."
"But I was just getting comfortable," a sarcastic voice said from the shadows, and a chill shot down my spine like a cold bolt of lightning.
I dug in as the kid, Noah, tried to move me along down the row. "What the hell is he doing here?" I snarled.
Danny sauntered to the front of his cell and impassively watched the stocky male from the ambush unlock the door. "You certainly took your time getting here," he said to me.
I stopped, ignoring the kid when he bumped into me and stumbled back. "Every time I see you, you're wearing the same accessory," I sneered, nodding to the PRC around his neck.
"Why change when a look works so well for you?" His cold eyes gleamed as they tracked over my body.
"Bellmonte sent you," I stated, my tone hard.
How had he known?
"Keep moving." Rosalind grabbed my arm, pulling me down the line.
"I certainly didn't come here for my health." Draping his forearms through the bars, Danny propped one foot on the brace at the bottom and rode the door out as the male Were swung it open. "Haven't had a decent bite to eat in ten days." He hopped off and took a step back, touching the PRC around his own neck as Cooper passed him. "Hurts like hell, doesn't it?"
Rosalind locked me in the third cell and then went back to Sharon, guiding the shell-shocked Were into the cell across from Cooper.
"I'd prefer something that doesn't stink of vampire," Cooper commented as he turned to face the front bars.
"You'll get used to it," the male Were said. "I have." He shut and locked the cell door behind Danny.
"Tell Ryker that I'm here. He'll want to speak with me." Cooper gave Rosalind a hard stare as Knox went into the last cell on our row and waited patiently for the brawny male Were to lock him in.
"You'll be quarantined for the required three days," Rosalind said as she waited for her team to leave the cellblock ahead of her.
Danny braced his shoulder against the bars separating himself and Cooper. "Not the welcome you were hoping for, is it?"
Rosalind closed the heavy cellblock door and the sound of the locks re-engaging echoed around the stone walls with a terrifying finality. We were locked up at least a mile underground by the people who we thought would give us sanctuary. I felt alone and vulnerable and a rush of panic rose up inside me, clogging my chest. My breath came faster and faster and my head started to spin. I stumbled back and fell onto my cot as the walls closed in on me.
"Addison," Cooper said from the front of the row. "What's wrong?"
"Is she having a panic attack?" Danny asked, coming to the bars that separated our cells.
"Shut up. Addison...look at me."
"I..." I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. I had to get out of here. I had to get somewhere safe.
"Look. At. Me," Cooper commanded.
My gaze flew to his and I held on to the strength and love still clear in his strange hazel-green eyes. He was still Cooper. He was still here for me. I wasn't twelve anymore. I wasn't abandoned in a city full of monsters that wanted my blood. I didn't need to be afraid. Slowly, my panic faded. I drew in a long, slow breath.
"Better?" Cooper asked, and I nodded, comforted by the quick smile he gave me.
"You're some kind of a prince or something," Danny said to Cooper, though he still watched me through our adjoining bars. "Can't you make a decree or boss someone around to get us out of here?"
"Us?" Cooper quirked a brow before turning his back on the vampire and crossing to his cot.
"We're here because there's a plague of some kind," Miller said from his cell. "Or so they believe."
"And you don't?" I asked, glad to find something concrete to focus on instead of the fear simmering below the surface of my thoughts.
"The pattern of infection is unusual. Not like anything I've ever heard of," the practitioner replied.
I looked at Danny. "What do you know about this?" I demanded.
The jerk who'd tried to kill me twice grinned. "What he said."
"It's not contagious until an infected person dies," Knox commented from the other side of me. "Anyone near the dying person is at risk."
"And only one will get sick," Danny added as he sauntered back to his cot and sat down. "Or so I've heard."
"That doesn't make any sense." Cooper paced the length of his cell. "Viruses usually infect multiple people at the same time."
I tried to remember everything that had happened in the moments that Travis died, hunting for patterns. In the front cell of the other row, Sharon slumped back against the stone wall. "I was the closest," she said, her flat tone heavy with sorrow.
"No, I was," Knox said.
"You were in wolf form." She slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Burying her face in her hands, she rocked back and forth.
"Does that make a difference?" I asked Knox.
"Sometimes."
"Making it meaningless evidence." Cooper stopped at the front of his cell. "This disease, when did it start?"
"Early September." Knox leaned against the stone wall on the far side of his cell and sank to the floor like Sharon had done. Resting his arms on his knees, he stared at the ceiling. "Some of the Blood Clan hunters were tracking a deer near the haunted ruins that day. We think it started there."
"Had Travis hunted there recently?" Cooper asked.
"Two days ago," Sharon said. "With Knox."
"Winter's coming and the deer are plentiful there," Knox said. "The ban on that area won't fill people's stomachs."
I looked at him through the bars. He seemed healthy enough. "Why didn't you get it?"
"For the same reason not all humans get the flu," Danny said as he pressed his hands along the thin mattress of his cot. Seemingly satisfied with the results, he lay down and clasped his hands behind his head as if he didn't have a care in the world.
We all looked up at the sound of keys in the locks of the cellblock door. The thick door swung open and a moment later tattooed Bald Guy from the gate came in with two burlap bags slung over his shoulders. He put one bag on the scarred wooden table at the other end of the room and then stomped up the row across from us and down ours, shoving packets of food from the bag through the bars. When he got back to the table, he repeated the routine with the other bag, doling out two bottles of water for each prisoner.
"Nothing thicker and redder in there, darling?" Danny asked as his two bottles of water rolled across the floor toward him. Bald Guy gathered up his empty bags and left without even glancing at him. Friendly and smart. Bet he was a blast at parties.
I gathered up my food and water and brought them back to the cot. Popping off the plastic top of the square container, I found dried meat, bread, and a wedge of hard cheese. Medieval, but it would do.
Danny nibbled at his cheese and watched Cooper devour his dried meat in two bites. "They're dying, you know. In another two weeks, there won't be any Weres left."
"A pleasant thought, you slowly starving to death in here." Cooper tore off a chunk of bread and ate it while he stared at the ceiling.
"Dehydration will get him first," I pointed out, enjoying the sour look Danny threw at me. "Hallucinating as his brain dries up and his dead heart struggles to beat."
"The vamp's right, though," Knox said. "Each Clan has lost nearly twenty-five percent of their people."
"Don't encourage him." I packed up the remaining half of my food and camouflaged it under the blanket at the foot of my cot. What if the Weres did decide to starve us next?
"In two to three days the virus drives the victim mad," Knox continued, a trickle of fear in his voice. "But Travis hadn't shown any of the signs yet. I don't understand why he died."
"But apparently he did and now you're all at risk," Danny said, a little smugly I thought, the bastard. "At least, those of you who are shifters." He took a sip of water and made a face like a kid being forced to eat Brussels sprouts and I felt slightly mollified.
"Those who aren't will probably be released once the higher ups have had a nice long gab about how to handle the situation," he continued. "Lots to think about, what with the Alpha's second collared and incarcerated and all." He made a
tsking
sound and leveled a long, speculative stare at me before going back to his water. "Hospitality ain't what it used to be."
I wondered if Bellmonte had told him that he knew I was part Were. Not that I'd ever told Bellmonte anything. Didn't need to. He'd figured it out even before he witnessed me coming out of a shift after he'd maneuvered me into helping him defeat the previous vampire Archon. I was still pissed off that he'd put Cooper's life in danger to accomplish it.