Darkest Dreams (37 page)

Cassie shuddered. “Andrie, you scare me. That is not a very reassuring prediction. I may just suggest to Sean that we take those whom we know we can trust and disappear to America.”

Before I could ask just exactly who we could trust, I saw a sudden flash of fire in the darkness outside my window. My heart thudded, remembering the fire at the Kennedy Mansion. Though this light came from the gardens, it still frightened me.

“There's a fire in the gardens.”

Cassie gasped, pressing closer to the windowpane. “Oh, no!” She ran over and doused the lamplight, drenching us in darkness.

The flash of fire erupted into five different lights that outlined about a dozen people standing together. Then a huge blaze caught, and the image of a woman hanging on a rope from a tall pole came into focus as she was set on fire.

I screamed.

“It's an effigy, Andrie,” Cassie said, grabbing my arm. “It's not a real woman.”

Half a dozen lantern lights appeared from the direction of the stables, and the distinct pop of a pistol sounded.

The torch carriers began to separate.

Cassie gasped. “I hope that's the groomsmen sending a warning. I'm going to get Sean.” She ran to the door, then turned back. I couldn't seem to do anything but stare at the burning figure, feeling the hot flames sear my soul. “Andrie, see if Prudence and Rebecca are in their quarters. I left them in the drawing room, but that was some time ago. Tell them what's happening and get Gemini. All of you meet me in the drawing room.”

She left, and I stuck my feet in my slippers and slid my robe on as I ran across the corridor and knocked on Prudence's door. Receiving no answer after my second knock, I opened the door and saw the flickering light of a lamp from under the door of the adjoining room and thought Prudence and Rebecca might have fallen asleep.

“Prudence,” I called, dashing across the darkened sitting room. Getting no response, I opened the door and gasped in shock. Prudence and Rebecca lay bound and gagged on the bed. I took one step, and something heavy slammed into the back of my head. Searing pain blinded me. Though I couldn't see, I knew I was falling. Then everything went black.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I awoke to a suffocating blackness, gagged, and from the pain at my wrists and ankles, I knew I was tightly bound. My head throbbed so badly that I feared I would be sick. A man carried me over his shoulder, a man who struggled with every step, a man whose pent-up rage screamed through my mind like a gale-force wind. It made it very difficult to see the images flashing through him, like trying to see in a blinding rain in a horrific storm.

I didn't struggle.
 
Instead I focused on looking into his mind.

The more I saw, the more confused I became. I thought that rage would be directed at me, but it wasn't. At the center of this man's anger was the earl. I didn't see more than that before he dumped me on cold, hard stone. His slow steps and labored breathing disappeared, and I lay in confused darkness, wrapped in a blanket.

I listened for a while longer until I was sure I was alone, then I struggled to sit up, but was too tightly bound. After several frustrating attempts, I decided to roll. My efforts had me falling through the air and landing painfully hard, face down. I cried out and had to fight the nausea trying to consume me. Once I could think again, I felt the blanket was looser so I fearfully rolled again. This time I didn't fall, and I eventually freed myself from the rough material, but still didn't know where I was. Total blackness surrounded me, one that smelled dank and musty and gnawed at the edges of my memory.

Before I could feel around, the sounds of footsteps returned, and light filled the room. I blinked with sickening dread at the medieval torture devices in front of me. I was in Alex's dungeon. Whipping my head around, I found Sir Warwick entering the dungeon from a stone door in a far corner nowhere near the stairs leading up to the main castle.

“You harlot. What are you doing?” Scowling angrily at me, he set down the lamp and marched toward me. I flung myself back against the stone floor, lifted my bound legs and kicked him in the knees. He cried out and fell to the side.

“What in the hell is going on in there?” a man roared. Just as I was trying to place the voice, Constable Poole ran into the dungeon from the same direction as Sir Warwick. Relief flooded me until the constable smiled. “You ready for your punishment, whore? You've dishonored all of mankind and must die.” He walked over to the shelves and picked up a deadly looking contraption. “We'll use a number of these tonight, but I think I'm going to enjoy this one the most. It's called a pear, did you know that?” He held up a long bulbous thing with needle sharp points on the end. He pressed a lever, and the bulb snapped outward into four deadly spikes. “And when I'm done, I'm going to rip you open to see just how well your cleansing went. Blood washes away sins, and your sins are great.”

Above the thundering of my heart, I already felt an excruciating pain wrench me deeply inside. I'd never encountered such evil. The man was completely insane, and Sir Warwick just stared at the constable and his Inquisitional toy with a look of utter fascination on his face.

The constable glanced at Sir Warwick. “You were supposed to have her ready for me.”

“I was delayed. By trying to frame Blackmoor, you've put their guard up against even me. So while I had the opportunity, I had to take the time to assure the earl will wallow in pain for the rest of his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“His whore and his brat will disappear tonight. They're in the caves.”

“You imbecile! Now I've even less time. Your vendetta against the earl is ruining everything. Putting that brat on the roof only made them question more. Things haven't been the same since.”

“You told me to shut the brat up,” Warwick said.

“We'll discuss this later.”

The constable grabbed my bound wrists and hauled me to me feet. I screamed and gagged from the horror of his thoughts as they whirled through my mind. Images of women screaming for mercy as he tortured their bodies. He painfully jerked the gag down, cutting my lip against my teeth. Bitter blood filled my mouth.

“Scream for me,” he rasped, excited. “I want to hear you scream.” He grabbed my thumb and wrenched it back. I cried out at the pain stabbing up my arm and fell to my knees.

An almost orgasmic euphoria filled the constable's mind. It was short-lived. Images of a small boy huddled in a corner watching man after man use a naked, broken woman every way imaginable on a dirty pallet and tossing a coin on the floor when they'd finished flashed through his mind. Those images were followed by ones of the boy stabbing that woman over and over again.

“You killed your mother,” I said, gasping to hold back my need to scream again with pain. No matter what, I had to keep him from feeding off my pain, even if he killed me in the process. Provoking his rage would be less painful than satisfying his desire.

He let go of me and stepped back.

“Your mother was a helpless prostitute, and you stabbed her to death.”

“You liar!” he screamed at me.

“I can read your thoughts, you bastard. You're unworthy to judge or punish anyone.” Though I didn't believe one's birth determined one's worth, he did, and I used it.

“What does she mean? Read your thoughts?” Sir Warwick asked the constable, moving closer.

“She's lying,” yelled the constable. Grabbing my hair, he pulled me up and dragged me to the stone table, where chains were anchored to hold victims in place for torture. Tears spilled from my eyes, and my scalp felt as if it were on fire. Shoving me down upon the slab, he grabbed my wrists, wrapped a chain around them and wrenched them over my head. I focused on seeing into his mind. It was a roaring hell unimaginable anywhere but in the depth of the most evil, damned souls.

Through the slew of murders marching like grotesque soldiers through his mind I saw Mary's image and his thoughts about her. “Mary was an innocent virgin, and you raped her,” I cried.

“What?” Sir Warwick asked, his face twisting in surprise.

“She's lying.” He squeezed my breast hard.

I wrenched away, screaming at him. His thoughts flooded my mind. “That's why you didn't torture her as you did the others. And Lady Helen too! She came to you for help because Sir Warwick had stolen the jewels the earl had given her. You beat and raped her and put her in the maze from the tunnels. The symbol means they were virgin sacrifices.”

“She knows. She's a witch,” said Sir Warwick, shaken.

“See this ring of a serpent on my finger?” I said, directing them to Aphrodite's ring. “It protects me. I can see the future too, and you're both hanging with the birds feeding on your carcasses. Alex and Sean are almost here.”

The constable took a step back. “She wears the mark of the serpent. She must be burned at the stake. It will be the only way to purge her from Satan's hand. Unchain her,” he ordered Sir Warwick.

“Touch me, and I'll tell your darkest secrets to the world,” I told them, glaring at them as I forced myself not to struggle or show any weakness.

“You do it, you unclean, lying bastard,” Sir Warwick sneered to the constable. “The son of a cheap whore.”

The constable swung around and slammed his fist into Sir Warwick's face. “Your mother was a whore too. Just a rich one kept by Dartraven's father. And your wife, as well. Isn't that why you poisoned her? All women eventually become whores.”

My mind reeled, but I didn't have a chance to filter through the implications of his words.

“Get her loose now.” The constable pulled out a long knife and brandished it at Sir Warwick.

Warwick pulled out a pistol and smiled.

“You don't want to kill me just yet,” the constable said. “You've got Dartraven's woman. You've watched her long enough that you want her before you eliminate her, don't you? Just think how much you can torment your half brother if you send photographs of her being used, of her being punished.”

Sir Warwick gazed at the constable, admiration rekindling in his eyes.

“Drop the knife,” Alex demanded in a low and deadly voice as he entered the room, pistol pointed. Sean stood right beside him and was armed as well.

Constable Poole laughed and lifted the knife higher. Straining against the chains, I kicked the constable in the back just as Alex fired. Alex and Sean ducked, and Sean fired too. One bullet hit the constable's face, decimating his left cheek. The other dug a furrow along his temple. He fell against the shelves of torture devices, knocking a number of them down on his head. One sharp metal spike pierced his groin, and he screamed in pain and passed out. I wanted to chain him in place and leave him just like that until his flesh turned as rotten as his soul.

Turning away, I tried to shove that thought aside. I couldn't let what he was make me like him. I saw Sir Warwick move.

“Watch out!” I yelled as Sir Warwick pointed his pistol at Sean's head. Warwick fired. Twisting, Alex knocked Sean aside, and the bullet that would have killed him hit Alex.

“Alex!” I screamed.

Sean shot from his position on the floor, and Sir Warwick dropped his pistol, grabbing his stomach.

Alex staggered over to me, unleashing the chain wrapping my bound wrists. His face was grim, twisted with pain, blood spread wildly down the front of his shirt. Before he freed me, he keeled over, passing out on top of me.
 
His only discernable thought was that he had to marry me now.

“Sean,” I cried. “Alex is hurt badly. Help me!”

Sean rushed over. He cut the rope binding my wrists, and the chain fell free. My arms and hands stung horribly, and I cried out as I tried to touch Alex.

“Help is coming,” Sean said as he cut through the rope at my ankles, then lifted Alex into his arms. “Can you walk?” Sean planned to carry Alex upstairs. Sir Warwick groaned from where he twisted with pain in the corner.

I scrambled up, my body shuddering from the effort. I knew that Alex's wound was bleeding too much. “Lay Alex down, Sean. Bring the doctor here. Alex won't make it if you move him.”

Sean stared hard at me a second. Then he set Alex on the stone table. I quickly gathered the hem of my robe and pressed hard against Alex's wound, digging deep into the soft tissue where his arm and shoulder met. But my arms were shaking so badly that I feared I wasn't doing him any good. “Get the doctor quickly,” I cried.

“I can't leave you. Stuart will be here with the doctor soon. Let me do that,” said Sean. Pushing my hands aside, he applied deep steady pressure to Alex's wound. “You aren't going to die! You had bloody well hear me, Alex! I'll find a way to follow you to the grave and bring you back.” Sean cried quietly then, and I shut my eyes and prayed that there wouldn't be any more graves dug in Dartmoor's End for a very long time, except for Constable Poole's and Sir Warwick's. But even that seemed too humane for the monsters they were.

The five minutes before the doctor and Stuart appeared seemed like a lifetime. They were accompanied by the earl, Lord Ashton and Mr. Drayson. I didn't pay any attention to what was happening to Sir Warwick or Constable Poole.
 
My mind was focused on Alex.

The minute Sean released pressure for Dr. Luden to see the wound, blood surged in a flood.

“An artery has been hit,” said the doctor urgently. “Press here so hard you think you're going to break his ribs.” He shoved Sean's hands to a certain place on Alex's chest. “Stuart, hold Alex down; don't let him move or he'll likely lose his arm.” Dr. Luden looked at me. “I'm going to need your help.
 
Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

The next thirty minutes passed excruciatingly slow. The doctor liberally poured eye-burning antiseptic over everything. He soaked Alex's bared chest and gaping wound. Then he poured it down his arms and hands, my arms and hands, and into the metal case that contained small surgical instruments. Then he opened the wound wider with a knife, and as I handed him different instruments, he removed the bullet and stitched Alex's wound closed.