Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) (18 page)

Her mind froze as the cloth dampened. It started with the slow flow of water trickling into her nostrils. She held her breath, still rubbing at the robe with the knife, trying to rip through the fibers. She held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, one agonizing second after another, and pain exploded through her lungs. When she couldn’t hold it anymore, her body forced a breath out.

She knew not to breathe in, but her lungs burst with agony, and she couldn’t control it anymore. Involuntarily, she breathed in, sucking the wet cloth against her face.
No air.
Panic burst through her mind.
There is no air. I’m going to die.
Her body shook, rebelling against the suffocation. Her vision burst with images of Malphas, his body convulsing as she poured the water on to the towel, the stake still protruding from his chest.

I’m going to die.
All rational thought flew from her mind. She’d beg Josiah for mercy, do whatever he wanted to get out of this.

I poured the water. I’m the monster.
Sheer terror and agony warped her mind.

After ten lifetimes, she felt the chair tilt up again.
Please.

Josiah pulled the towels off her face before yanking off the hood. She gasped for breath, sucking in air. Her wet hair plastered to her face. Icy water soaked her shoulders.

Josiah looked into her eyes. “This is the part where I ask you questions.”

What had her plan been?
The knife—gods help me.
She’d dropped the knife.

S
he glanced at Caine
, but he wasn’t moving. He just stared at her, his eyes empty.

“He can’t save you, Rosalind.”

Josiah touched her cheek, and she flinched.
He’s going to drown me again. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die at the hands of a sadist.

She clamped her eyes shut, trying to get a grip. She needed to master her fear, to keep her wits intact so she could figure out how to get the hell out of here.

“Tell me about the Vampire Lord,” Josiah said.

Shit.
She’d already divulged too much. “The Vampire Lord?” she repeated, stalling. Frigid water dripped down her chest. Her teeth chattered; her body shook.

Josiah gripped her sodden hair, yanking her head backward. “Start with his name.”

“I don’t know,” she stammered. She wasn’t telling this asshole anything until her mind broke completely. “I just heard everyone call him the Vampire Lord.”

“Where does he live?”

She gasped for breath, and her throat burned. “No one told me.”

Josiah slammed his fist into her face. Pain burst through her cheek, searing her skull.

She glanced at Caine, who watched her impassively. In fact, he seemed completely unperturbed by this whole thing.
What the fuck, Caine?

The incubus obviously had no plan to help, and couldn’t get out of the chains, anyway.

Use what’s around you, Rosalind,
her mind screamed. But she couldn’t get her hands on a single weapon. The only thing she could manipulate in the room, was—

Josiah.

Whatever it was he wanted, she could use it against him.

He yanked her hair tighter, nearly ripping it out by the roots. “Does the Vampire Lord have an army?”

“He didn’t tell me,” she said, staring in to his blazing eyes. She wasn’t about to tell him that the General of Ambrose’s army sat just a few feet away, staring at the two of them.

Josiah’s breath was hot on her cheeks. “I know he has an army. And I want to know everything about it. How many are there? What are their plans? You will tell me every single thing you know,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’s hard to think when you’re hurting me,” she said—stalling, again.

He tightened his other hand around her waist. “I want you to know that I will never let you out of my sight again. You’re mine, Rosalind.”

Fuck this guy.
What he wanted was glaringly obvious: he wanted complete control over her, and he wanted to hurt her in the most brutal ways possible.

But what else did she know about him? He had an intense curiosity for all things demonic. He tended to underestimate her strength and her ability to look after herself. On top of that, he had a serious rage problem. These were all things she could use against him.

“I don’t know. Josiah, please,” she let out a sob. “None of this is my fault. I don’t want this spirit in me. When the ring comes off, I burn with excruciating pain. It’s like my whole body is on fire.”

“You’ve told me this already.” He slipped a large hand up her body, tightening it around her throat. “Tell me about the Vampire Lord, or I’ll put the hood on you again for more water.”

“It’s a curse, Josiah,” she said. “I don’t want that magic. I never want to feel that pain again. You can’t imagine the agony.”

He looked into her eyes, licking his lips. “Oh really?”

She’d laid the bait. It was working.

“I never wanted this curse, Josiah. It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

He yanked a knife from his weapons belt, and slipped behind her back, cutting through the knot that bound her hands. He gripped her wrists hard, pulling her hand in front of her face so she could stare at the iron ring. “You still wear Blodrial’s ring. He is your saving grace, and you betray him.”

If she acted as fragile as possible, he’d let down his guard even further. “Josiah. You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.

“Good.” He tightened his grip on her wrists. “Tell me what you know about the Vampire Lord, or I’ll take the ring off and let you burn until you beg for mercy.”

Manipulating Josiah was easier than she’d thought. In fact, a kernel of an idea began to bloom in her mind—a way to free every captive in the building—if she could manage to get out of there alive.

She lifted her eyes to his, letting them glisten. “I don’t know anything about an army. But please, Josiah—”

With a tight smile, he stared at her ring. “I’ve wanted to see what would happen when the spirit takes over you.” He dropped her other hand to slip off the ring, but he didn’t get that far. As soon as he let her hand out of his grip, her hand flew to his throat. Within moments, she had both hands around his neck. She dug her thumbs into his Adam’s apple. His eyes bulged, but she wouldn’t be strong enough to choke him out like this. She just needed more of his rage to break her out of this chair.

“The truth is, Josiah, you could never satisfy me like an incubus could.”

His face contorted with rage, and his fingers dug into her wrists before he ripped her hands from his throat. Snarling, he kicked her hard in the chest with one of his boots. The chair flew, slamming against the wall. The blow knocked the wind out of her, but it also had the desired effect. The crash splintered the chair into dozens of pieces.

She was free.

With an exultant smile, she grabbed a fragmented chair leg. When Josiah rushed for her, she jammed the splintered end into his thigh. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but he wouldn’t put up much of a fight after that.

Stunned, Josiah stared at her and staggered back—right into Caine, whose muscular arm tightened around Josiah’s neck.

Where the hell did Caine come from?

“Caine?” she shouted. Wood splinters pierced her back, and at this point, she was sure half her ribs were broken. “How did you get out of the chains?”

His black eyes were fixed on Josiah. Instead of answering, he tightened his grip.
Shit.
She was quickly formulating a plan, but it was one that required Josiah to be alive.

“Caine!” She shouted. “We need him to live.”

Caine’s midnight eyes, as dark and empty as the opening of a cave, met hers. She wasn’t getting through to him.

“Caine!” Panicking, she rushed forward and slapped him across the face.

He dropped Josiah, whose body landed on the ground with a thud. Rosalind knelt next to the Hunter and felt for a pulse. Blood still pumped through his veins. He was alive, but unconscious. Assuming someone found him before he bled out from the stab wound, he’d pull through.

Caine looked down at her. “You’d better have a very good reason for asking me to leave him alive. If this is sentimentality again, I’m going to kill him.”

Pain wracked her body as she rose. “I know how we can use him to save the others, but we need to get out of here first. We won’t be able to free them from their cells until I can get to a computer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I need you to trust me.”

“Fine. Josiah was an idiot to underestimate you, and I won’t make the same mistake.” He eyed her torn shirt. “Hang on.”

He stripped off his blood-stained shirt, tossing it to her. She tried not to stare at his muscular chest.
Focus, Rosalind.
They needed to get the hell out of there.

A voice crackled over Josiah’s walkie-talkie. “
Agent Endicott. Please tell us the captives’ status.”

Rosalind slipped into Caine’s shirt, and it nearly hung to her knees. “Thanks.”

“What’s the best way out of here?” Caine asked.

She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the building. “Right now, we’re underground. There are no secret tunnels, and there’s no way to get out discretely. We’re going to have to blend in. We’ll need better outfits.”

“Since you didn’t let me kill Josiah, I’m feeling a bit unsatisfied. I’ll be happy to divest some guards of their clothing.”

Josiah moaned, and Caine kicked him in the head.

The walkie-talkie crackled. “
Agent Endicott. Please report immediately.”

“Let’s go,” Caine said.

Rosalind eyed him. “I still don’t understand. How did you get out of the iron chains? I didn’t even hear you escaping. The iron should have sapped your power.”

“No. That’s succubi. We’re different creatures. Like I said, the Brotherhood gave you a lot of misinformation. We don’t have time to get into that now. Let’s go assault some guards.”

Her pulse raced. “The chains didn’t weaken your strength?”

“No. They did nothing, really. Not that I want the Brotherhood to know that. The less they know, the better.”

Her pulse raced. “So—that whole time I was being tortured, you could have stopped it?”

His eyes remained black as pitch, cold and bestial. “Yes, but it would have been a tactical error.”

Whatever he meant by that, one fact burned through her mind: Caine had sat there and watched Josiah beat the shit out of her. He’d let her think she was about to die. He could have stopped it, but he’d sat there impassively, watching it like a spectator. The betrayal burned. She rushed at Caine, shoving him hard in the chest.

“You watched me get tortured when you could have stopped it?” she shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you not see him drowning me? I thought I was going to die.”

Caine’s voice was low and controlled, and he grabbed her wrists. “Stop shouting, if you want to get out of here alive. You’re supposed to be a soldier. That’s what you signed up for when you joined the Brotherhood, even if you joined the wrong side.”

Seething, she ripped her wrists from his grasp, just barely restraining herself from snatching another wooden fragment from the ground and ramming it into Caine’s neck. “Half my ribs are broken. Josiah ripped my shirt off like a sex offender. He punched me in the face, kicked me into a wall, prodded my bullet wound, and practically drowned me. You’re just lucky I didn’t give up any real information to him.”

“I was planning on killing him, so that wouldn’t have mattered.”

“I see. But apparently the state of my broken bones wasn’t enough to move you off your ass. How much would you have let me endure?”

“Did no one ever tell you that war could be a bit uncomfortable? General Loring seemed to think you were familiar with the interrogation room, so I can’t imagine that its unpleasantness is news to you.”

“
Agent Endicott. I’m ordering you to report your status immediately. Your video monitor has been disabled.”

His words stung, and tears pricked her eyes. He’d
wanted
her to get hurt. “I get it. So that was revenge.”

The black in Caine’s eyes faded. “No, that’s not it at all. The point was—”

An alarm sounded, and Caine’s eyes flicked to the door. “We need to go.”

She pointed to the circular scanner. “We can’t get out without a retina scan.”

“What about Josiah’s eyes?” Caine asked. “I’d be perfectly happy to cut one out and aim it at the thing.”

She shook her head, grabbing two shards of wood from the ground. “The scanners sense small movements. They won’t work for an unconscious eye. We need to wait until the guards come in here. We’ll kick the shit out of them and steal their clothes.”

“Fine.” Caine walked over the spotlight hanging from the ceiling. He reached up, crushing the light with his hand, and darkness fell on the room. “They’re coming,” he whispered. “Stand against the wall.”

A buzzer sounded at the door, and a guard kicked it open. Four guards rushed in, guns ready. Rosalind threw one of the stakes for the door, jamming it open slightly. Pain screamed through her chest. She was in no condition to fight.

“Agent Endico—” A guard’s words were cut off by the crunch of bone and the sound of a gun hitting the floor. Only a faint stream of light illuminated the room, and she struggled to see in the dark. Bodies whirled around her, and the room filled with the sound of fists slamming against flesh. Someone unleashed a hail of bullets, but a cracking sound cut the assault short. The sound of a bone snapping, maybe. After a few moments, silence descended.

“Rosalind?” Caine said. “I’ve disabled them.” He handed her a bundle of fabric. “Put these on.”

Her breathing came sharp and fast as she pulled off her boots to change her clothes. It was a small mercy she could get out of her piss-soaked pants. “Did you kill them?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

She slipped out of her clothes. She was now an accessory to the murder of four humans—people who had once been her colleagues. “You couldn’t have just knocked them unconscious?”

“They signed their death warrants when they volunteered to work in torture chambers,” he said.

She’d worked in one of these rooms by Josiah’s side, an instrument of misery.

The walkie-talkie crackled again.
“Agent Endicott, we sent reinforcements. Please let us know your status.”

She buttoned the new uniform as Caine began speaking into the walkie-talkie. “This is Agent Endicott.” It was an exact replication of Josiah’s voice. “The reinforcements have arrived, but you didn’t need to send them. I have everything under control. The interrogation continues.
Lux in tenebris lucet
.” He dropped the walkie-talkie.

“Please report to the head offices, Agent Endicott.”

“Are you ready, Rosalind?” Caine asked.

She pulled on the guard’s hat before crouching down, groping around for a discarded gun. “I’m ready. Just keep your eyes down.” A fragment of wood still propped the door open, and she pushed it.

The alarm continued to blare, and red lights flashed from the ceiling, pulsing over iron walls that stretched far into the distance. This corridor covered nearly half a mile beneath Cambridge’s streets—a dizzyingly long line of cells, each filled with a monster—or, so she’d once thought. Now, she knew ordinary people like Tammi were locked in here, too.

“You’re walking like you’re injured,” whispered Caine.

“I am injured, no thanks to you.”

She had to mask her pain, or the guards would see it in her limping walk and rasping breath. Josiah had promised to break her body, and he wasn’t far off. She felt as if she was breathing through a tiny straw, and pain ripped through her limbs.