“The prisoners,” he said, dismissing the pathetic male from his mind.
Andreas led him outside and to a small grove of evergreens behind his home. The na**d creatures hanging from the branches of two separate trees keened in terror the instant they heard the rustle of angelic wings.
Holly . . . Sorrow had the same primitive reaction. She might mouth off to Dmitri, try to play power games that gave her an illusion of control, but put her in a room with an angel and she went close to catatonic. She refused to talk about what Uram had done to her, but Dmitri had seen the carnage in the warehouse, the torn limbs and blood-slick floors, the gaping mouths full of organs plump and wet, the staring, blind eyes.
“Do they still have their tongues?” he asked Andreas, noticing the fact that both men had been turned into eunuchs, their penises and testicles removed with what appeared to have been dull blades. They were vampires. The parts would grow back—which was when Andreas would order their removal once more. Without anesthetic.
“I was planning to have them cut out again tomorrow.”
Dmitri felt no disgust at the brutality of the ongoing punishment, not when he had an excellent idea of the horrors these males had inflicted on Honor for their sexual gratification. “Leave it for now. I might need to question them again.”
Andreas inclined his head. “Do you wish for privacy?”
“Yes.”
Waiting until the angel disappeared through the trees, he prowled to the vampire closest to him. “So,” he murmured, “you enjoy taking what is not yours by force?”
8
The male’s keening turned into wild panic as he recognized Dmitri’s voice. Since he was missing his eyes, his eye sockets huge black holes in his face, sound was the only thing left to him. “I don’t know anything! I would tell you if I did!”
Dmitri believed him—the vampire was weak, would have broken at the first sign of pain. But there was a chance he’d glimpsed something without knowing it. “Tell me everything,” he said, speaking to them both. “From the first instant you were approached. If it proves useful, perhaps I won’t take over your punishment.”
Terror turned them incoherent for several minutes. He simply waited it out. Cold of heart, Favashi had once called him. But since she was a bitch who had wanted only to use him, her words held no power. Still, the accusation was true—his conscience rarely troubled him, and never when it came to retribution for those who had brutalized women or children.
“Enough,” he snapped when they continued to sob and plead.
Silence, as they choked on their very breaths. Almost half a minute later, the one he’d first spoken to opened his mouth. “I was working as a private security guard when I got a call one day. Man on the other end said he’d seen me at a big party, liked the job I’d done, and did I want to earn some money on the side with an off-the-books gig.”
“Which party?”
“He never said, but we mostly worked the premier events—wealthy vamps.”
That didn’t give Dmitri anything new, but he’d put someone on rechecking the guest lists of the parties this male had worked. “And?”
Jerking out a leg when something big and black landed on his exposed flesh, the vampire twitched violently. “It was so much money, I said s-sure.” Swallowing. “Then I asked Reg if he’d like in since the client said he needed two people.”
Reg, a thin blond male, was still crying, but silently. “I wish to f**king hell I’d said no.”
Now he did, Dmitri thought. He’d had no problem with it when he’d torn into Honor’s flesh, when he’d touched her in a way no man had the right to touch a woman without consent. Walking across to the blond, Dmitri backhanded him hard enough that something fractured with an audible crack. “Do you really think I give a shit?” he asked in a quiet, contained voice. “Now answer the question I asked.”
Spitting out a tooth, the vampire blubbered out the next series of words. “Leon had the contact. I just did what he said.”
Leon began to speak before Dmitri could remind the vampire why it wasn’t a good idea to keep him waiting. “Always by phone.” Gasped out. “Never had any face-to-face contact. Money was deposited into my account and I gave Reg his cut.”
Dmitri didn’t say a word.
“The client,” Leon continued, stumbling over his own tongue, “said she was his girlfriend, that it was some stupid sex fantasy of hers to be snatched and . . .” Thudding heartbeat, twitching skin, as if he was chillingly conscious of what Dmitri would like to do to him. “He said it was her fantasy.”
Dmitri heard the quaver beneath the irritating whine. “What was your first clue that it wasn’t?”
Reg was the one who answered. “When she broke Leon’s nose! I told him something was wrong, but he was pissed so he punched her, knocked her out.”
Dmitri spread his hand, his fingers flexing. “You’re older, Reg. Why didn’t you stop him?” he asked in a tone as soft as fresh-fallen snow.
Reg began to retch.
Dmitri said nothing until the spasms passed. Then he walked over to stroke his hand over the vampire’s face. “Answer my question.”
Sweat trickling down his temples, the blond swallowed. “The money. I wanted the money.”
“Good.” He patted the vampire’s cheek, left him quivering as he walked over to Leon.
Who was trying to break his wrists away from the rope in a futile effort to escape, a broken marionette. Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, Dmitri removed a filleting knife, pressed the cold metal to the new pink skin in front of him. “Tell me the rest.” He cut a deep line down the center of Leon’s chest.
Blood, dark and red, seeped out of the cut as the vampire whimpered. “We weren’t supposed to damage her and I gave her a black eye. So we tied her up and left her where the directions said and got the hell out.”
“You didn’t stay out.” Another cut, this one horizontal, and deep enough that it brushed Leon’s internal organs.
But the other vampire kept talking, because he knew Dmitri could do far worse. “Seven weeks later, client calls me again, gives me an address, says maybe we’d like to join in the festivities.”
Twisting the blade, Dmitri pulled up, collapsing a lung. “Keep talking.” Vampires of Leon’s age didn’t need to breathe . . . much.
“We got there”—harsh, gasping attempts to take in air—“the place was empty except for the hunter, but it was clear more than one vampire had fed from her. Client left us a note to enjoy ourselves. Note’s gone. I threw it away.”
Dmitri removed the knife. “And did you? Enjoy yourself?” They were rhetorical questions—these two had been found with Honor over a week later, their mouths smeared with her blood. “You invited your friends, too, didn’t you?” The two vampires killed during the rescue had worked for the same security company. “Who else?”
“No one,” Leon answered. “I swear. Just the four of us.”
They were too terrified to lie, so Dmitri accepted that. “Good.”
The screaming stopped when he removed their voice boxes. But he left them alive. Raphael had told him something once, a long time ago. Something his mother, Caliane, had said.
“Three days in the span of a mortal lifetime can feel like three decades.”
Raphael’s mother might yet turn out to be an insane Ancient, but on this point, Dmitri agreed with her completely. So he would make sure Andreas knew not to let Reg and Leon die. As for the others . . . they would wish for death every single night for the next two centuries once he found them.
Two months, after all, was a lot longer than three days.
Nine at night, and Honor didn’t know what she was doing here. “Sorry about canceling our other appointments. Thanks for coming in so late.”
Anastasia Reuben smiled, her steely gray hair pulled back in a neat bun. “I’ve worked with hunters for two decades, Honor. I know going to see a therapist is worse than getting your teeth pulled.”
She laughed, or tried to, the sound an awkward rasp. “So, how does this work?”
“There’s no pressure, no rules here,” Dr. Reuben said, eyes gentle. “If all you want to do is talk about the latest episode of Hunter’s Prey, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Honor had the feeling that wasn’t a hypothetical example. “I came because . . .” Shaking her head, she jerked to her feet, adrenaline racing through every cell in her body. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
Dr. Reuben rose, too. “I’m glad you came.” Reaching into a cupboard, she pulled out a small book covered in gold and white swirls. “Some hunters never talk, but I’ve found that putting words down on paper can help.”
Honor took the notebook, having no intention of using it. “Thanks.”
“It’s for your eyes alone. Burn it afterward if you want.”
Giving a nod, Honor strode out of the small, discreet office two blocks from Guild HQ.
It wasn’t until she was back in her apartment, laptop open to the tattoo file, that she allowed herself to think about why she’d gone. Perhaps it had been the slowly awakening anger inside of her, a cold, bright thing that was all teeth and gleaming edges. Then again, perhaps it had been the knowledge that, stupid or not, she wanted to taste the dark sin of Dmitri’s lips. Or perhaps it had been the nightmares.
All her life, she’d felt alone, rootless. Even now, when she had friends, loyal and strong, there was a huge hole deep within—as if she’d lost something terrible and precious. As a child, she’d thought she must be a twin, that her mother had kept one and given away the other. However, as an adult, she recognized the sense of loss as something other, outside of herself. That strange, piercing loneliness was never more prevalent than after a nightmare—whether waking or sleeping.
“Enough,” she muttered. “Time to work.”