Part 10 (1/2)
Beneath the blood, her scratches disappeared.
”f.u.c.k.” She paused long enough to put on her leather gloves before she wrenched at the brick around the edges of the hole, pus.h.i.+ng it away and widening the s.p.a.ce. A strange urgency hammered inside her head, as if an invisible alarm clock had gone off on the other side of the wall. I have to get him the h.e.l.l out of here before they come for both of us.
The hole was finally large enough for Nick to squeeze through. ”Here we go.” She poked her head and then her shoulders inside.
The evergreen scent on the other side of the wall didn't cover the other, awful smell-as if someone had emptied a couple of trash cans in the hidden room-but she'd smelled worse. She climbed in, groping for a handhold, but her fingers found nothing but floor. More brick collapsed under her weight, and she fell on her face. Something long and hard bruised her thigh.
Flashlight. She pulled it out and switched it on.
The tiny room still held the empty racks where some long-dead aristocrat had kept his best bottles of wine and brandy. From all the tangled, dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, it appeared as if no one had entered the s.p.a.ce for years. Nick stood up and swept the flashlight slowly around her. A rickety-looking table and two scarred old chairs waited empty in front of a dead fireplace overflowing with ancient ash.
No sign of life, however. ”Where are you?”
Chains rattled behind her.
She turned around and pointed the flashlight toward the sound, and saw him. The light wavered before she controlled her hand.
”b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”
They'd crucified this one.
Nick saw she was partially wrong-chains had been wrapped around his neck, arms, waist, and legs-but two huge copper bolts had been hammered through his wrists.
He'd worked at one, apparently, and could move it enough to rattle the chains around that arm. A black rag had been tied over his eyes, and a wide band of welded copper covered the lower half of his face. Dark green tattoos mottled his naked body, along with dried blood, open wounds, and filth.
Despite his sad condition, he still looked beautiful, the way they all did. This one resembled a green G.o.d, carved from dark jade.
Nailed to a cross.
The holy freaks had done this to him. Nick had never seen one this bad, but the deliberate, mocking crucifixion had the same feel as the others she had found. The question was, why? If they wanted them dead, why not just kill them? Why the torture and humiliation?
The prisoner turned his head slightly and moved his hand, disturbing the chains again.
Nick lowered the flashlight as she walked to him. ”Sorry.” She didn't know why she was apologizing. None of this was her doing, and if she had an ounce of brains left she'd run out of here before the old man found her s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with this thing. Lucky for this one she was an idiot. ”How do I get you off this without tearing you to shreds?”
The chains rattled a third time as he gestured toward the wall beside him.
Nick reached out through the hole and groped until she grabbed her bag and pulled it inside. Once she had retrieved her bolt cutters, she looked around the crude wooden cross. The chains had been threaded through rusted iron rings driven into the wall around him. She started there, cutting the rings open and tugging the loops of chain away. The weighty copper links felt icy and sticky, and wherever they had touched him, they left dark impressions of their links on his skin.
This close Nick could smell nothing else but the evergreen scent he radiated. How long had he been sealed in this room?
Weeks? Months? His matted brown hair s.h.i.+fted and his head moved back, as if he were trying to see under the edge of his blindfold.
”Want to have a look at me?” She stopped cutting long enough to remove the black rag from his eyes. His closed eyelids didn't open, and he sagged a little. ”I'm Nick,” she told him as she went back to work on the chains. ”And you're a mess.”
She freed his neck and arms, and examined the copper band gagging him. It had been welded together at the ends, but it was thin, and her tin snips cut through it nicely. The raw skin under it began to heal at once, and she flung the copper to the floor in disgust.
”I've got to pry these bolts out.” His mouth matched the perfection of his body; she saw that right away. Were any of these things ever ugly, or even a little plain? ”It's going to hurt, maybe as much as when they went in.”
Nick heard a jerking, tearing sound.
”Ce n'est pas necessaire.” The voice sounded as dry and shredded as the feel of the trembling hand that pushed her back. ”I can do the rest. Leave me, girl.”
Like an animal in a trap, he'd ripped his wrists free of the bolts. Maybe that was all they were: gorgeous two-legged animals.
Not very grateful ones, either. ”You want me to leave now! Before you thank me, and say good-bye, and tell me to have a wonderful life? Tell me, is that what Jesus would do?”
He leaned forward, his eyes still closed. ”If you remain, and if I look upon you,” he murmured, ”I will kill us both.”
He sounded like the genie that'd been kept too long in the bottle: enraged and wanting some payback. Of course, he needed blood, and she was the only source present. In his state he'd lose control and try to drain her dry.
”I'm not leaving until I cut through enough of these so that you can get out on your own.” She went back to work on the chains.
Bugs found their way into the room and began flying at her head. Absently she swatted at them until she remembered all the bugs were upstairs in the chapel.
She hadn't left the cellar door open. How had they gotten down- Father Claudio was right there, his walking stick raised high, and then he clubbed her across the head with it. Nick couldn't avoid the blow, and in the explosion of pain that followed felt her scalp split and the heat of her own blood. She went down like a sack of stones.
The last things she heard and saw before the night took her were chains falling on the floor, and two bare, dirty, beautiful feet walking across the stone.
The last time Alexandra had walked into a private laboratory as expensively outfitted as the one Richard had installed in his dungeon, she had ended up operating on Michael Cyprien. Later, she had also been served up by eliane as Michael's his first postop meal.
Being reminded of what had taken her human life from her and changed her into a blood-dependent mutant made her want to do something slightly more intelligent this time around. Like set fire to the place.
But if she were going to get back home, she had to at least go through the motions.
”I'll need a bigger autoclave,” Alex said as she walked down the row of new equipment. ”Another clot timer for multiple specimens, and a coagulyzer.”
Michael Cyprien. She needed Michael. Now.
She paused for a moment to cover her agitation by tapping some keys on an efficient-looking PC before moving on to the microscope. ”Nice computer. Scope's okay for now, but we may have to upgrade to something more powerful.”
Michael was powerful. Michael was what she needed.
Alex stopped and glared at a cheap import model of something she really needed. ”Who picked out this centrifuge?”
”I did,” eliane said, ”It resembled the one you requested while you were in New Orleans.”
”That was a great piece of equipment, top of the line. This? This is a piece of junk.” She went over and opened up the supply cabinet to inspect the instruments, beakers, and vials inside. ”I'm not seeing any syringes, scissors, pipettes, or biopsy needles here.”
Or Michael.
The scent of cherry tobacco stung the air. ”My tresora does not yet trust you with sharp objects.” Richard's distinctive footsteps came up behind her. ”Nor do I.”
”How am I supposed to take blood and tissue samples from you? With my teeth? Don't answer that.” Alex closed the cabinet and moved on to the portable X-ray machine, culture racks, and what she thought might be a genetic a.n.a.lyzer of some sort.
”This is going to take longer than I thought.”
”Why?””I'm an American, used to working on American equipment. This stuff is all European. I'll need more operating manuals, especially on the electronics.” She pointed to the a.n.a.lyzer console. ”I'm not even sure how to turn that on.” She also couldn't stop thinking about Cyprien, or the way her dermis seemed to want to divorce her muscle tissue.
Get it together, Alexandra.