Charmed (14 page)

H
e lifts me up and hefts me over his shoulder.

I scream.

I beat and pound on his back so hard that my already sore muscles flash with pain and my throbbing head feels like it’s going to explode. But I don’t stop.

“You’re going to regret that,” his accomplice says, striding behind us. I take a swipe at her, hoping to wipe the stupid grin off her face, but she recoils before I can make contact.

“Don’t worry, Candy,” Ace says. “I like a screamer.”

Candy chuckles, her cheeks ruddy with pleasure. I glower at her, but I don’t scream after that.

The church is too quiet. Around Candy’s ample girth I
can see the rebels all standing at the altar. They watch my capture in silence, their expression a mixture of acceptance and happiness. Pixie has her back turned to me, pointedly looking away. I decide I don’t like her after all.

We burst through the door into sunlight and birdsong. Ace carries me over a stretch of crunchy gravel before setting me down abruptly on my feet. I sway, trying to catch my balance as blood rushes from my head. All the while, Ace stands in front of me, close enough that I can feel his body heat radiating onto me and smell the cigarettes on his breath. I stagger backward, but I run into the warmed metal of a van.

He gives me a long up-and-down appraisal, then clucks his tongue. “Damn, girl. How Cruz let you get away is a mystery to me.”

I wouldn’t mind dropping this guy into a hole in the earth. I call my magic, and it answers instantly, bubbling hot as lava in my stomach.

“Save the Rico Suave stuff for later,” Candy says. The van rocks as she hops into the passenger side. “We gotta be back, pronto.”

Ace ignores his friend’s comment and takes one of my blond curls in his fingers. He pulls it down, stretching it straight, then lets it go so that it springs back up. A chill seeps into my bones even as my magic pumps hot in my stomach. I will do it. I will kill him if he touches me.

A horn honks.

Ace gives me a long smile. “Later,” he says. Like a promise
and
a threat.

He slides the back door open and spins me around. I gasp as he pulls my arms behind my back. Fabric binds so tightly around my wrists that my hands throb and I know that if I could see them they’d be a shade of purple. And then he shoves me into the van. The seats have been removed, and without my hands to brace my fall, my face slaps against gritty blue carpet. Pain bursts through my head. If I don’t have a concussion by now, then I don’t know what.

“Try anything stupid and I’ll make you regret it.” He slides the door closed. A moment later, the driver’s-side door opens and he hops inside.

“Rock ’n’ roll,” he says, starting the engine. Country music blares through the speakers at a deafening volume. We jolt into drive.

From my slumped position in the back, I can only see the blue sky through the windshield as we fly across bumpy roads at breakneck speed. Ace taps the steering wheel and mumbles the occasional offbeat lyric. I can’t believe the same thing is endearing when Bishop does it.

I remind myself that everything is going according to plan—that I shouldn’t be trying to escape—but if this vehicle stops anywhere but sorcerer headquarters, if I even so much as suspect Trucker Hat’s going to try something, it will take God himself to save him from the natural disaster I will strike on him.

The certainty is comforting.

After a while, I see flashes of tall buildings and burned billboards through the windshield. When I recognize the spherical shape of the Capitol Records building, hope flutters in my chest. We’re in Hollywood.

Sorcerer turf.

I roll backward on the industrial carpet as the van moves up through the hills, the tops of trees cresting the windows. After a while, we stop.

Ace kills the engine, and a moment later, he slides the side door open. I’d expected to find we’d reached a busy headquarters, but all I see are trees.

And we’re alone.

I try to scrabble away, but it’s next to impossible while lying awkwardly on my side with my hands bound behind me. Ace grins as he pulls me out roughly by my ankles. I scream, my back stinging with rug burn as my shirt rumples up around my stomach.

“Let me go!” I yell as he pulls me up to my feet.

“Not on your life,” he says.

I look around for Candy—she doesn’t seem like the sympathetic type, but there must be a feminist bone in there somewhere—but she’s disappeared. Panic swells inside me. But before Ace can hike me over his shoulder again, a door set into the side of a grassy outcrop swings open.

“Candy said you got another—”

The guy’s words stop dead in his mouth.

For a split second I don’t recognize him. His olive skin is scrubbed clean and closely shaved, and he’s wearing a clean white fitted T-shirt instead of the grubby canvas jacket he wore on our first meeting. But I do recognize the bulky muscles under his shirt, the dark eyebrows drawn together in a brooding expression.

Cruz.

Relief floods through me. I don’t for a second trust him, but I know that he has at least some feelings, based on the way he stiffened at my accusations of kidnapping. A person I can deal with. Ace, on the other hand, probably beheads bunnies for kicks.

“Help me!” I plead, before a hand slaps over my mouth.

“Shut up, or I’ll make you shut up,” Ace spits, pulling me against him. I bite his hand and he lets out a string of swears. His grip loosens momentarily, and I slide out from his grasp, stumbling back toward Cruz.

“What the hell is going on?” Cruz demands.

Ace cradles his wounded hand against his stomach. “Bitch!” he says through clenched teeth. He lunges at me, but Cruz steps between us.

“She’s mine!” Ace yells.

I move out of his line of sight, trembling under his hate-filled glare.

Footsteps sound beyond the darkened doorway behind us, and then two more men emerge.

“Would someone tell me what’s going on?” Cruz demands.

“I caught another human, that’s what,” Ace says.

“More like bought one,” I say.

If it weren’t for the witnesses, he’d kill me this instant. Of this I am sure.

“She’s mine!” he repeats.

“Relax,” Cruz says. “She’s the Chief’s.” He nods at the two men who joined us. “Take her to the holding tank. And good job, Ace.” He squeezes Ace’s shoulder. The guards each grab one of my bound arms.

I can’t breathe.

“Cruz!” I cry. But he doesn’t so much as look at me as I’m ducked through the doorway. The small shred of hope I’d dared to have at the sight of him is snuffed out completely. The world sways under my feet.

The guards don’t loosen their grip as they lead me through some sort of dank tunnel set inside the mountain, which is stupid since I can’t exactly get far with my hands bound behind my back.

Low lights set at intervals into the curved walls paint strips of shadow onto the rock so that it looks like we’re walking through the bowels of a petrified snake. Our footsteps echo against the stone ceiling. Otherwise, it’s completely silent. The air is close and smells like dust.

The tunnel twists and turns through the mountain. I try to make a mental map of where they’re taking me so that I can remember how to get out later, but after the first dozen turns, I give up.

The good news? We haven’t passed another person the entire time we’ve been walking. If I don’t find Paige in this place, it’s nice to know I can search for an escape without worrying about getting past dozens of guards.

We stop suddenly in front of an unmarked metal door with thick metal straps bolted across it. One of the guards, a nondescript blond with a stony expression, lets go of my arm to press a fat key into the lock. The door creaks as he pulls it open.

It’s dark inside the room, but a sconce in the hallway shines a pale beam of light inside. The walls, ceiling, and floor are made of dirt, with thick roots poking out at intervals.

“This is the holding tank?” I ask.

The guard doesn’t answer, just grabs me by the wrist and tosses me inside. I stumble to my knees in the cold dirt. A beetle scuttles across the floor. I shriek, just as the door closes and I’m left in darkness. Boots clomp outside, and then the only sound is my heartbeat and my ragged breathing. I think of the beetle and struggle up. I know that I have much bigger things to worry about than bugs, but still—bugs.

I wonder how long they’re going to leave me here. I tug at my wrists, trying to get free of the ropes, but they’re bound so tight that all it does is make my hands go numb.

The walls of the minuscule room press in on me. It reminds me of the attic of the Black Cat, of the oppressive feeling of its close walls and secret places in the dark. I
remember the last time I was up there, to look for
The Witch Hunter’s Bible
for Mom while she remained downstairs with the nosy cop.

My heart gives a painful thump at the unexpected memory. I’ve been trying not to think of her, because every time I do, I end up a heap of tears and snot. It’s normal for a grieving daughter to cry, but I haven’t had the luxury of grieving properly. I’ve needed to search for Paige, and how was I going to do that if I was in bed crying?

But I think of her now.

I think of her radiant smile when I entered the Black Cat after school. Of her shining gray eyes and wild hair that matched my own. I think of the way she rocked into parent-teacher conferences wearing a half ton of silver jewelry and striped leggings, completely unashamed to be who she was even if it embarrassed the crap out of me. I think of her in the bleachers, cheering me on while I cheered on our football team. Of her ribbing me about my boyfriend choices, of her complaining about Aunt Penny’s partying even while she made pancakes with ginger for her hungover sister. I wish I’d known how great I had it, that I’d told her I loved her every chance I got.

I’m so caught up in my memories that I don’t hear the footsteps until they’re outside my door.

The lock clanks, and then the door creaks open. The figure looking in at me is backlit by the pale light from the
hallway, so I can’t see his face, but I recognize the shape of his hat instantly.

Ace.

I open my mouth to scream, but with one movement of his hand, my voice dies in my throat. Terror rips through me. I try to run past him, out the door, but he gives me a hard shove in the center of my chest, knocking the wind out of me. He jumps into the room, swinging the door quickly closed behind him.

He’s inside the room with me, in complete darkness. A bone-crushing fear that something Very Bad is about to happen overwhelms my senses.

I call my magic. I think of the earth swallowing Ace up. I think of a violent wind knocking him back. Desperately, I think of as many bad things happening to him as I can. But nothing happens. Not only is the spell over, but I can’t even summon the usual heat of my magic.

The price
, I realize with a start. Bishop said all black magic comes with a price, and you never know when you’ll have to pay it.

I’m suddenly not so happy about the empty tunnels. I suddenly wish they were crawling with people. Anyone with the potential to stop Ace.

I can’t see him, but I can feel his presence. I keep still, trying to hear better so I can anticipate his moves.

A hand brushes my shoulder blade. I spin around and kick
out, but my foot only sweeps through the air. In the moment it takes me to get stabilized on my feet again, he’s behind me. His hands are low on my hips, his cigarette breath hot on my ear. I try to move, but he pulls my hips back hard, against him, then moves one arm around my shoulder to pin me to him.

He spins me quickly, and then his mouth is on mine. I bite down on his lip so hard my teeth smash together and I taste his blood. He roars as I spit his blood into his face, then tackles me against the wall. The air is punched out of me, but that doesn’t stop me from delivering a swift knee to his groin.

The door swings open. Ace turns.

“What the—”

I have time only to register that the voice is Cruz’s before he tackles Ace. Their bodies land with a
thump
that rattles the earth, and then the air is filled with the brutal sound of knuckles punching skin, vicious grunts, and ribs snapping. The space is so small I have to scuttle up against the wall, or get in the way of Cruz’s flying fists. I watch in shock as he pummels Ace like he wants to kill him—which he’s going to do if he doesn’t stop. He just keeps hitting, even when Ace’s body is covered in blood and immobile beneath him. I suspect he’d go on forever if he didn’t run out of breath first. He stops, bent over Ace and heaving for air. Sweat glistens on his forehead and dampens the front of his shirt.