Relentless (33 page)

“Where to?” I asked Remy, relying on his unfailing senses to lead us to his cousins.

“There.” He pointed down the hallway. “That way.”

The house was as quiet as a tomb as we moved swiftly down the hall and the silence scared me more than anything else. As heavily guarded as this place was, there should be some noise, some sign of the inhabitants. Where was everyone? Where were Nikolas and Chris?

We reached the first closed door and pushed it open to find an empty library. The next door opened to reveal a game room with a massive pool table.
Third time’s the charm,
I thought as I cracked open the third door. A cool breeze touched my face. The cellar.

“Down there,” Remy whispered behind me. It was all the confirmation I needed and I started down the stairs with him close behind me. At the bottom, we found ourselves in a rectangular room with stone walls and floor and an arched doorway on either end. I listened for guards but more silence greeted us.
This is too easy,
I thought nervously. If Remy’s cousins were down here, this cellar should be crawling with security.

I turned to the doorway on my right but stopped when I heard clicking sounds from the other direction. I shot Remy a fearful look as the clicking grew louder and faster, mixed with strange snuffling noises. The first thought that came to my mind was crocotta and I froze at the terror those images created.

Remy yanked me toward him as two massive black bodies burst snarling into the room. My troll friend bared his own teeth and let out a growl that brought the beasts skidding to a stop. I had never seen dogs like this. Their bodies were muscled and stocky and I might have thought they were Rottweilers if they weren’t the size of small horses with frightening red eyes. Their snouts were longer and wider than a normal dog’s and I could see long top and bottom fangs protruding from their snapping jaws. Their coats were coarse and black and I couldn’t help but think they were beautiful in a monstrous kind of way. I would have appreciated them more if they weren’t looking at me like I was on the menu.

“What are they?” I whispered to Remy as the huge dogs paced back and forth looking for an opening to get past the equally menacing creature in their way.

“Fell beasts,” he replied calmly, his eyes never leaving them. One of the dogs tilted its head eerily as if it understood Remy’s words.

“What?” I croaked. “You mean hellhounds!” Vampires and now hellhounds? Who on earth were we dealing with here?

I looked at the bloody knife in my hands and wondered if silver even worked on hellhounds.
I took a deep breath. I had never harmed an animal in my life but the pair of hellhounds looked ready to rip us to shreds. They stood between us and the trolls and I’d fight them if I had to.

“No,” Remy said softly, laying his hand over mine that held the knife as if he’d read my mind. “You talk to them.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked out of one side of my mouth, afraid to take my eyes off the beasts. “These are hellhounds Remy. You know – beasts from
hell
.”

A small shrug was his only reply.

Great. I was in the bowels of a mansion crawling with vampires and God only knows what else. I had no idea if my friends were okay and I was facing down two of hell’s own. And all Remy could say was “talk to them”?

“Okay, but if we get eaten, don’t blame me.”

I eased down to a cross-legged position on the cold floor with my back against the wall and my knife on the floor beside me. The hounds watched me intently but neither of them made a move for me. I was pretty sure that had more to do with their uncertainly about Remy than anything else.

“I guess you guys are wondering what I’m doing huh?” I said in my calmest tone, not looking either of them directly in the eye. Words don’t mean anything to animals; it’s your voice and your movements they respond to. I really hoped that applied to hellhounds.

The closest hound lowered his head and let out a long low growl.

“Alright, so you’re a little pissed that we invaded your turf. I get that. But is all this snarling and foaming at the mouth really necessary?”

Both dogs bared their glistening fangs. This was going about as well as I’d expected.

Reaching inside, I unlocked my power, letting its golden warmth flow through me. I opened my wall and let a stream of energy seep into the air around me.

One of the hounds stopped growling to sniff the air then took a step back, his hackles up. I let more power escape. The second hound made a small whining sound then resumed growling.

“I’ve never met a hellhound before,” I continued softly as a gentle flow of power moved outward from me in waves. “I gotta say you’ve got the scary image down but I don’t think you’re as bad as everyone says. And if you gave me a chance you’d see that I’m actually a nice person.”
And I don’t taste good at all.

The growling petered out as one dog then the other lay on the floor, whining and still watching me warily.

“I always wanted a dog, a big one like a Great Dane or German Shepherd. I never imagined one as big as you though.” I let myself imagine one of these beasts living in our apartment and laughed softly. “I’d like to see Nate’s face if I brought home something like you.”

One of the great black bodies shuffled forward a few inches. I looked down at my lap, pretending to ignore them. I focused my power and it filled my voice. “I wish you understood that we only want to find our little friends and take them home. I know you’re just doing what you were taught to do but you don’t have to hurt anyone anymore.”

Nails scraped on stone as the closest hound moved. I held my breath as a heavy black head laid itself in my lap. Biting my lip, I raised a tentative hand and touched the creature’s wide forehead. The hair was thick but softer than I’d imagined and I pushed my fingers through it, amazed by the texture. “What a beautiful beast you are,” I said as my fear gave way to wonder.

The hound let out a shuddering sigh as my hands rubbed its powerful jaw and thick neck. Whimpering nearby made me look up at the second dog that had ventured closer but hadn’t decided whether or not to trust me yet.

“It’s okay,” I crooned to him. “I know exactly how you feel. I have trouble trusting people too.”

The second hound inched forward until his nose rested on my ankle. I continued to pet the huge head on my lap while directing more calming power at his brother.

“A most interesting picture,” said a heavily accented voice I’d hoped to never hear again. “A tamer of trolls and the devil’s beasts. So many gifts you have, young one. Such a curiosity. It is no wonder so many seek to possess you.”

The Hale witch stood in the doorway to the room we were headed for before the hounds arrived. The white around his dark pupils stood out in sharp contrast to his dark skin and his white tattoos seemed to shift in the dimly lit cellar. He looked well recovered from our last encounter, but he did not instill the same fear in me this time.

“Are you as curious as you were a few hours ago?” I challenged and I saw in his eyes the remembered pain of our earlier show down. The head in my lap lifted at the edge in my voice and I scratched it soothingly. Remy stood silently beside me.

The witch’s lips twisted in a small smile. “Curious, yes. Foolhardy, no. I see now that there is much more to you than I was given to understand.”

“Pretty words, but forgive me if I don’t believe you,” I scoffed. I was suddenly grateful for the two hulking beasts between me and him.

He stepped into the room and the hound at my feet growled. “See? Who am I to provoke one who commands the devil’s own?”

“I don’t command anything.” I ran a hand through the thick fur of the dog’s neck and he gave a rumbling sigh. “They’ve never known kindness before. I just showed them how it feels.” I realized I had stopped using my power the moment the witch arrived. The hellhounds were under no one’s influence but their own.

The Hale witch stared at me with open fascination. “Compassion and kindness are powers unto themselves if wielded correctly. Look at these beasts – they will serve no other master now. Yusri al-Hawwash will not be happy to lose two valuable servants along with his cargo.”

Remy made a threatening sound at hearing his little cousins referred to as cargo. I reached over to pat his leg and Remy laid a hand on my shoulder.

Our interaction didn’t go unnoticed by the witch. “And did you show the troll kindness as well to gain its allegiance?”

“No.
His
kindness gained mine.”

Muffled thuds upstairs and faraway sounds of shouting made us all look at the ceiling. It was the first sounds of other people since Remy and I had entered the house and it reminded me that we had no time to dawdle down here. I had no idea if it was the Mohiri or my werewolf friends fighting up there or what could come down those stairs at any moment.

I gently pushed the heavy head off my lap and got to my feet with my knife in hand. The hounds stayed on the floor looking up at me expectantly.

“We know the trolls are down here and we’re going to get them now,” I said.

The witch put up his tattooed hands. "I will not stop you. I came here to fulfill a debt and it has been repaid. My part in this is done.”

“I heard that your people never work with vampires, that you hate demons. Why are you helping them?”

He scowled. “I do not work with demons. I had to honor my debt. But as I said, my debt has been paid.”

“So you won’t try to stop us?”

“Were you alone, I might try,” he answered honestly. “You are a mystery to me. Your power runs deep and mostly untouched, and yet you have no desire to explore it. I would like to see how deep it really is but I think that will have to wait for another day.”

To prove it, he stepped aside and waved us toward the room behind him. I took Remy’s hand and we backed along the wall to the doorway. The dogs watched us and I put out my hand and said “Stay.” I had no idea if they could understand the command but they did not move.

At the doorway, I said, “You said others want to possess me. What did you mean by that?”

He laughed and the sound echoed chillingly off the cellar walls. “That I cannot say. I am still bound by an oath of silence. But I will tell you what I know that they do not, what my far sight shows me. Those who hunt you will ultimately give you the power to become the thing they fear the most.”

I scowled at his cryptic words. “That tells me nothing.”

“Then I have not broken my oath.”

“Well
,
maybe you can answer another question for me.” He raised his eyebrows and I asked a question that had been niggling at me for a few days. “You set those rats on us at the marina so you had to know where we were. Why didn’t you tell your friends we were under the dock?”

His white teeth showed when he smiled. “You intrigued me when you pushed me out of the rodent’s mind. I had never met someone who could best me and I wanted to take you on myself, to see if you were as worthy an opponent as you seemed to be. It felt… disrespectful to let you be taken by brute force after such a display.”

His answer surprised me but this was neither the time nor the place to ponder it. Maybe when all of this was over, I would speculate about why I was able to challenge the witch’s power when Nikolas said that even a seasoned Mohiri warrior was no match for a Hale witch. Right now though, my little troll friends needed me.

Remy went under the arch and I followed him, colliding with his back when he stopped abruptly. I peered around him and gasped.

We were in a wine cellar with empty wooden racks covering the walls and a small shaded light in the center of the ceiling. In the middle of the room on a raised glass platform sat a glass cage that measured about three feet by four feet. The glass bars appeared to ripple as currents of red light moved through them like electricity. The hairs rose up on my arms as if the air in the room was charged and I felt the power in the cage from where I stood.

Inside the cage, three tiny bodies huddled together as far from the sides of the cage as possible and their frightened whimpers tore at my heart.

“Minka?” I called and the little trolls lifted their heads to stare at us. One of them moved too far and I heard a painful screech as red sparks flew from one side of the cage. Fresh sobbing filled the room.

Outrage swelled in me. What kind of monster did this to children? I rushed forward until the blazing power running through the cage would let me go no farther. “We’re here,” I called, backing away from the cage. “We’ll get you out of there.”

I turned to Remy to see him staring at the cage in fear. “Remy, come on. We have to get them out.”

“Yusri al-Hawwash spared no expense on this endeavor,” said the Hale witch and I spun to face him. “Trolls do not have many weaknesses and the sheik knew he would need a way to control his bounty.” He swept a hand toward the cage. “Demon fire. A legion of trolls could descend upon this place and not one of them could touch this cage. Only a demon can touch it.”

It hit me then why the house had been so quiet, the cellar unguarded except for the hell hounds and the witch. The people behind this knew the cage was all the security they needed. It also explained why they were working with vampires. Protected by their demon side, vampires could freely handle the cage and move it when it was time for transport. It was brilliant really, sick but brilliant.