Chapter 42
Free of her bonds, Katelina pulled away from Troy and spit at him. He growled and wiped his face. "Fucking bitch," he murmured. He stepped out of the cage and slammed the door with a resounding clang. She heard a padlock slide into it and tried to roll over, but her body refused to move. Her limbs had been immobilized too long and she could barely wipe the blood from her nose.
Tears of fear slid from her eyes and she bunched herself into a ball in the corner of the cage. She forced her arms and knees to bend enough to cover herself and gazed out between the rusty bars.
Claudius demanded someone bring him some refreshment. They obeyed quickly and brought back a limp drugged boy who might have been twelve or thirteen. Claudius wrinkled his nose as he took the child on his lap, but after sniffing him he smiled. Katelina winced and closed her eyes as Claudius' fanged mouth closed around the child's throat. A single scream echoed through the air and then there was only the sickening slurping noise of the boy's blood.
When the sounds ceased she dared to open her eyes again, retching but unheeded. Claudius dumped the bleeding body on the floor, the throat mangled and destroyed. Blood coated his face and shirt and he licked his lips. He signaled for the others to take the body away and clean the mess. As the boy's remains were removed, a vampiress in a dark blue dress handed Claudius a cloth with which he cleaned his face. When he'd finished, another woman unbuttoned his soiled shirt and a third, the one who had stood at the door when Katelina first arrived, slipped a new one around his naked torso and fastened it.
He waved the three women away and they bowed their heads before they disappeared from Katelina's view. They were quickly replaced by four males, Troy among them.
Claudius straightened his shirt and glanced towards Katelina's cage and then back to Troy. "Was Oren there?"
"No," the bald vampire said quickly. "Only Jorick. There's no proof he has any accomplices."
"You think Michael lied?" Claudius demanded. "To me? No, he told the truth. This is all Oren's work, his attack, so to speak. No doubt he believed that I would be as crippled without Arowenia as he is without Jesslynn."
"I heard the Executioners killed her," one of the others said.
"So I hear," Claudius murmured disinterestedly. He tapped impatient fingers on the arm of his chair. "If the idiots had gotten there sooner they could have retrieved Arowenia alive! I have half a mind to send her corpse to them! Of all the bumbling, inept, stupid-" he trailed off into dark mutters.
The vampire who'd spoken a moment ago asked, "How do you know she was ever at his den? Surely Oren is smart enough to keep her in a less incriminating place?"
"Now you're suggesting Michael lied?" Claudius asked lightly. "Or do you suggest his brother lied to him? Do you think he made up a false location, intending to go and retrieve her himself and return her for his freedom? Are you implying he intended to let his brother die for his sins?"
The vampire looked exasperated. "I don't know what I'm implying. I wasn't here when you interrogated Michael."
"You'd be sorry you missed it," Troy commented, snickering. "He screamed and begged- "
"Enough." Claudius motioned him to silence. "Michael informed me that the plan was Oren's from the beginning, as part of our little war. He and Patrick were brought into it, so to speak."
Katelina tensed at the mention of Patrick's name, but she tried hard not to make her interest obvious. Did this have something to do with what Kateesha had said?
"Rather they brought Oren into it," Troy said. "Michael said they were looking for a way out and bumped into Jorick and - "
"That will suffice," Claudius snapped impatiently. "The more direct version is that Patrick came to his senses and wished to return Arowenia to me, however, Michael refused." He snorted. "Amusing since he presented himself to me as a humbled, repentant thrall. Regardless, he caught his brother in the act of leaving to carry out his plan of redemption. Whether by accident or force, Patrick named Oren's manor house as Arowenia's prison. But, when Patrick refused to abandon his quest, Michael killed him." He paused. "Or perhaps Jorick did. I hardly care. He was a toy I used to torture Michael with, nothing more."
Something strange moved across Troy's face for a millisecond, then disappeared. Katelina cringed back into the corner as all of the implications crashed on her. Troy and Patrick was too much to think about, let alone Claudius' suggestion that Jorick had- No, Michael had admitted to killing his brother when she saw him in the basement. Hadn't he?
"And you've contacted The Guild?" the questioning vampire demanded. "You risked suffering your own consequences?"
Claudius looked bored. "Hardly. It was all above board. The human, Patrick, was plainly marked. I have done nothing illegal. I'm allowed to take anyone I deem worthy into my coven and as my slave, so long as all the details are followed, and they were. Even Michael was a legitimate fledgling."
"Against his will," the other vampire muttered.
Claudius dismissed the comment with a roll of his eyes. "That's what happens to those who try to blackmail me." A satisfied smile flitted over his lips. "It was his own fault. If he'd simply taken care of the lawn as I hired him to do - "
"Instead of nosing around, eh?" Troy asked, grinning. "But you're right, it was when he demanded you pay him to be quiet - "
"Yes, quite," Claudius said impatiently. "He got everything he deserved, and so will those who aided him." He glanced towards the cage. "The question now, is what to do with Jorick's human." He smiled. "Or perhaps I should call her Patrick's? It is a curious situation. I wonder if they shared her?"
Troy and a couple of the others gave an obligatory chuckle, but offered no suggestions.
"Kill her? Turn her? Keep her as a pet? She's not beautiful by any means, but she is amusing." He glanced towards her again. "She's very determined to keep her secrets to herself. That has to be worth some enjoyment?"
"I say kill her," Troy declared. "She's too big of a pain in the ass to be any fun." He grinned at a sudden idea. "Though killing her might be fun."
"You're blood thirsty," the other vampire commented. "If I didn't know, I'd say you were in a hurry to see her dead. Why is that?"
Troy balked and Katelina felt a moment of hopeful satisfaction. Maybe they'd kill him!
"It's his way," Claudius said dismissively. "He enjoys the kill. As for her, I believe I'll wait until I've spoken to that idiot from The Guild to make a decision."
They all nodded and then their voices dropped as the five began making plans for something that Claudius deemed "important."
Katelina listened intently at first, but their voices were quiet and hard to distinguish from one another, not to mention that they talked over each other frequently. What she could discern still meant nothing because it was full of unfamiliar names.
She tried to digest what she'd been able to overhear, but her mind was too jittery to concentrate. All of her nerves jangled inside as though ready to leap through her skin and run away. If only it was that easy!
Silence fell and she opened her eyes in time to see Claudius leaving through a low door on the side wall, followed closely by the others. She looked around wildly, but there was no one else that she could see. The large chandelier went out, and the room fell into darkness.
She shivered from fear and cold. Her body ached and her face was bruised and painful. She gingerly ran her hands over its swollen surface to ascertain the extent of the damage. She had at least one black eye and a large lump on her the right side of her head. Her lips felt swollen and her nose was twice its size.
She stretched her arms and legs slowly, biting into her lips to keep from exclaiming. When the pain began to subside she slowly stood. Once she had her balance, she threw one arm over her exposed breasts and held tightly to the bars with the other. She made a circuit of her confinement, rattling the bars quietly as she tried to find some weak point to exploit, but nothing presented itself. She sunk to the floor, defeated and blinking back tears. Her hand wiped cruelly at her eyes while she berated herself for her weakness and stupidity. Her angry internal tone couldn't stop the sobs that wracked her body. All of the pain, anger, and humiliation of the last hours poured from her in a liquid shower of tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and a vision of the twelve year old boy swam behind them. His eyes fluttered open and closed as he fought for consciousness against whatever they'd done to him.
When the tears began to subside, she slumped into the farthest corner again, physically and emotionally exhausted. She curled into a tight ball and leaned her head against the bars. Waves of sleep washed over her but she fought them off and told herself that she needed to be alert and awake if she had any hope of living.
Her thoughts ran in circles and she came to the sickening conclusion that Jorick was not going to save her this time. She'd told herself this before, but hadn't really believed it. All night she'd waited, half expecting the door to burst open and reveal him like a shining knight, but now she knew it wasn't going to happen. Cold disappointment slid through her stomach, greasy and bitter.
Jorick. He'd gone to get her food and go to some mysterious meeting. The last he knew she was waiting for him to return. Would he even know what had happened to her? Why hadn't she done what he'd told her? Why hadn't she stayed in the room? How could she have been so stupid as to fall for Kateesha's self-confessed trick?
Katelina still didn't understand exactly what had happened. She decided that Kateesha had obviously implanted ideas, or thoughts, into her head, but she didn't know how she'd done it. Jorick had said not to look into their eyes or else they could trick her - and she hadn't. She hadn't even seen Kateesha until the fog had begun to lift. How had she been able to do that to her?
Her stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. She pressed her eyes closed and fought both fatigue and another round of tears. How she wished that she'd never gone to that small dilapidated house, never gotten that phone call, and never met Patrick. Tears broke loose and she surrendered, letting sobs take her again.
