‘Finn we can explain,’ said a familiar, placid voice from behind me. ‘Just put Gabriel down before you kill him.’
I couldn’t understand why Nat suddenly fancied a piece of the action, but the way this night was going, nothing made sense anymore. ‘Where the
fuck
is Lilith, you bastards?’ Gabriel’s mouth kept moving, but the only sound he made was a frantic squeak.
‘This was Lilith’s idea – a last-minute change of plan,’ Nat said.
‘What d’you mean, ‘change of plan’? Either Plan A works here, or we’re all screwed.’
‘I know, I know, but Lilith – she got a note to Gabriel, last minute. Look, everything else is good so far,’ Nat soothed. ‘Henry reckons he got to everyone’s glass with my magic potion at some point, so these guys should all be crashing to earth any time now...’
They clearly weren’t listening, so I turned up the volume. ‘
What fucking change of plan?
’
Even Nat took a step away from me, as a precaution. ‘Two new guests. Turned up last minute apparently, and she said Gabriel had to… well, to buy you, no matter what. Two American guys? They seemed pretty determined to get their hands on you.’
‘Oh God.’ I swallowed hard against the memory, and finally released my grip on Gabriel’s windpipe. As much as I hated to admit it, Lilith had been right; there was no way I’d have made it through the night.
‘You utter head case!’ Gabriel gasped. ‘Thirty fucking grand to get strangled by a
lunatic
!’ There was no sign of the Cockney now, just a highly aggrieved public schoolboy. It appeared that I’d throttled the commoner clean out of him.
I ignored him. There was only one thing that truly mattered now. ‘So who the hell’s got Lilith?’
‘Um, some big fella with red hair. Got the room next to me, I think…’
‘Shit.
Shit
.’ Alasdair Dalziell had bought Lilith, and the night was truly beginning to unravel.
‘So where do we start with you, you uptight little slut?’
As far as chat-up lines went, I’d heard better but Alasdair Dalziell’s intentions were anything but romantic.
Blaine
had led me through the darkness and now I was handcuffed and blindfolded in the presence of a man who clearly had the constitution of an ox, and the intellectual capacity to match. I couldn’t detect the slightest slurring in his speech, when he should have been at least halfway to comatose.
Dalziell stood behind me with his hard-on grinding into the small of my back, and his fetid breath in my ear. I half-expected him to begin licking my cheek, and I concentrated on keeping my breathing steady as he decided what he wanted to do first.
He had clearly decided on mindless violence, and I was grabbed by my waist and thrown backwards. I felt myself falling, helpless, until I landed hard on a bed, and then Dalziell pounced. He straddled my hips and ripped my blindfold away, all the better to observe the terror in my face. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t meant to be fighting this, when instinct was screaming at me to do all that I could to make him stop.
He took a length of rope from a selection of toys beside the bed and threaded it through my handcuffs, then roughly tied me to the headboard. Once he was content that I was secure, he leaned over me to grab his wineglass. ‘Cheers, bitch.’ He took a long drink. ‘First of the night. No point in being too pissed to remember the highlights, eh?’ He sat back, putting his full weight onto my thighs. ‘Now, time to sample the goods, eh?’ He tore my ridiculous excuse for a dress from me in one move and threw it aside, before taking a pair of scissors from the table and cutting away my thong so I was entirely naked;
Blaine
had clearly provided all the tools for whatever job he had in mind. He refilled his glass.
*****
‘That’s a good girl,’ Dalziell said, and cupped my breasts with hi
s hands. He squeezed hard and
I could feel his ragged fingernails dig into my flesh. ‘You know you want it, don’t you, you little… little whore.’ He paused and frowned, then glanced at his glass. ‘Bloody good stuff, that.’ He was still poised above me, but I felt his focus begin to shift. At least it was beginning, but too slowly to be of any use to me. I was going to have to help the process along.
I got my one chance when Dalziell knelt up to fumble at his fly. ‘Shall we start by seeing if you’re as good at sucking cock as your paddy friend, eh? See if you fucking choke on it like… like he did.’
I pulled against my wrist restraints and kicked upwards with both legs, catching him under the chin full force with my heels. Months of running over the roughest ground I had ever encountered paid off, and he gave a grunt of shock and tumbled backwards off the end of the bed, out cold.
I lay back on the pillow and shut my eyes. Now all I had to do was figure out how the hell to pick a lock on a set of handcuffs and find some clothes, and I was good to go.
God was still firmly on
Blaine
’s side, because nothing was going right. Coyle was not only still upright, but on patrol and deliberately idling outside Dalziell’s door. I should have guessed; he was meant to be checking that all was well with
Blaine
’s precious guests, but he was far more likely to be looking for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of some action.
There was no doubt that he’d been helping himself to the drink; Nat’s magic potion was kicking in, and by the look of vague panic on his ugly mug, it didn’t look like it was going to be the best of trips for the big fella. Still, even a half-stoned Coyle was not a good thing to meet down a darkened corridor and until the very second that bastard was flat on his back and snoring, he was a real threat. I turned to Gabriel. ‘Kiss me,’ I ordered.
‘
What?
’
‘Just fuckin’ kiss me, will you?’
‘Fuck off, no way! I’m not…’
I grabbed him by his collar. ‘Look, you stupid twat – that fella right there is capable of rippin’ the lot of us a new arsehole without breaking a sweat if he thinks there’s something the least bit dodgy going on. So, you’ve just paid thirty grand for a bit of cock, and that’s what he needs to see going on. Now!’
To give the lad his due, he cracked on with it.
By the time Coyle clocked us,
Gabriel was snogging me like his life depended on it – which wasn’t too far from the truth – as Nat stood and watched us with as much interest as he could possibly muster. ‘They fancied somewhere a bit more public,’ he explained to a clearly disgusted Coyle.
‘Fuckin’ pervs,’ he muttered, but didn’t stop in his shambling trajectory away from the door. He looked like he was about to topple at any second, but I waited until he was well out of sight before I shoved Gabriel away. He staggered backwards and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
‘Dear God. Well,
that
was a first.’
He looked so shell-shocked that I nearly smiled at him. ‘Ach, not bad for a beginner.’ Then I pushed the fire in my knee to one side and ran the rest of the way to Dalziell’s room. With each step I prayed that he hadn’t hurt her, but I knew all too well what the man was capable of.
I was the first inside with Gabriel and Nat just a stride behind me, and my immediate thought was that I was too late because Lilith was already naked and handcuffed to the bed. Then I saw Dalziell, spark out on the floor.
‘Oh thank
fuck
.’ I lurched to Lilith’s side and grabbed the key on the bedside table. As soon as the cuffs clicked open she flung herself into my arms. ‘You stupid cow! He could have killed you! I’m not letting you out of my bloody sight again until we’re off this fucking island, you hear me?’ I pulled a sheet around her shoulders and held her close and I could feel her trembling against me. ‘What the hell were you thinking, Lili?’
‘They
would
have kil
led you, Finn. For definite,’
she said. ‘And I just need you to not say anything else and hold me very close right now, if that’s all right with you.’
Gabriel gave a polite cough. ‘Um, is it okay to turn around yet?’
Both he and Nat had been standing
with their backs to Lilith since we came into the room, and there was something unexpectedly touching about their courtesy. ‘Yeah, she’s decent now. Thank you.’ I looked down at Dalziell, sprawled across the floorboards. ‘The stuff worked, then?’
Lilith shook her head. ‘He didn’t want to play. He only started drinking ten minutes ago, so he was just starting to get groggy.’
‘So how come he’s down there?’
‘I had to improvise.’ She wrapped the sheet around herself and fashioned a makeshift toga.
‘What,
you
did this?’ I pointed at the prone form at the foot of the bed .
‘Got my feet free. But I think he’s stunned rather than finished, if you get my drift.’
As she said the words, Dalziell dragged himself to his feet. ‘You fucking little slag,’ he hissed, and lumbered towards us. ‘I’ll…’
He never finished the sentence. Gabriel threw himself in his path to land a perfect right into Dalziell’s jaw and the ugly ginger twat hit the floor again.
‘Jesus
Christ
!’ Gabriel cradled his fist. ‘If I’ve broken a finger, I’m killing him.’
I looked down at Dalziell. He didn’t look like a man who was planning on waking up anytime soon. ‘Nicely done, posh lad.’
‘Hey, any time, yeah?’ Gabriel said, shell-shocked all to hell as he inspected his hand for damage. I guessed this was the first time he’d hit anything except a school gym punchbag.
‘Right, gentlemen. Shall we return to the party?’ Lilith stood and smoothed down her makeshift dress, then linked her arm through mine. I took a step with her and my knee went from under me. Just for a second I thought I was going to throw up right there on my shoes.
‘What happened, Finn?’ Lilith asked, and gave me one of those looks that suggested she already knew anything, so there was no need for me to even open my gob.
I was about to try a ‘Nothing,’ but Nat got there first. ‘Coyle went all postal on his ass,’ he said. ‘Booted him in the knee, the nutter. I think it’s cartilage.’
‘Grass,’ I muttered. ‘It’s fine, Lili. Well, not
fine
exactly, but I’ll survive. I promise, you can poke it around as much as you want, once we’ve got this sorted.’
I’d expected a bit of an argument, but to my surprise she just took held my arm a little more firmly, and nodded. ‘Okay. Just take it easy on the stairs. And you’re not allowed to break anything else for at least a year, do you hear me?’
Henry met us at the door of the Great Hall, and I’d never seen him look so happy. ‘Oh thank
goodness
, you’re all safe! I was so worried, especially when those two monsters started to bid for Finn, and then Alasdair got Lilith, and… oh, for heaven’s sake, now I’m rambling. Come in, come in – I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s like a scene from Sleeping Beauty in here!’ He beckoned us inside.
‘Sleepin’ Ugly, more like,’ Finn said as we stepped over the threshold.
The place looked like a scene from a bloodless massacre. Only five guests remained:
Blaine
was at the head of the table, dead to the world with her head resting on her folded arms, and Maxwell was next to her with his head tipped backwards over the back of his chair and his gentle snores punctuating the eerie hush. Ellis and
Chester
had made it all the way to the sofa, where they now slumped against each other in oblivion.
‘It was amazing – a couple of them staggered off to their rooms, and then the rest just started to doze off one by one, whilst I stood here and watched. Not a murmur from anyone! What on earth did you give them?’ Henry asked.
‘Custom-made just for tonight, mate,’ Nat replied. ‘I never got round to giving it a name, but basically it’s got a pretty heavy anti-psychotic foundation, combined with a muscle relaxant, and my esteemed client here,’ he nodded at me, ‘stipulated that any dreams should be bad ones, so I whacked in a hallucinogen on top.’
‘Good grief.’ Henry looked nervously at where Laura Fenworth had curled up on the rug. ‘They
will
be all right though, won’t they?’
‘Hell, yeah,’ Nat said. ‘I tried it on myself before I left – twelve hours, out for the count. It wasn’t what I’d call the best night’s sleep ever, but there was no lasting damage. The last thing I’d want to do is kill someone by accident.’
I glanced at
Blaine
. Even when unconscious she was beautiful, but to my satisfaction a thin trail of saliva dribbled from the corner of her mouth onto the linen tablecloth. ‘I wouldn’t be too worried. We could probably cover it up without too much difficulty; I should imagine the lake’s deep enough.’
Nat stared at me.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’