He kept trying to muster his glamour, but his mind refused to focus. It took all his mental resources just to keep Jez out of his head; the last thing he wanted was for her to come running to his rescue and get herself killed. And he certainly didn’t want her sharing this pain!
It felt like hours that he lay there on the floor, incapable of movement, wondering how it could be possible he was still breathing when the pain was so overwhelming. Eventually, Bartolomeo di Cesare arrived. Gabriel heard him and Camille congratulating each other on a job well done, but then he tuned them out, closing his eyes.
A brutal kick to the injection site on his shoulder startled his eyes open. Di Cesare knelt beside him, eyes gleaming in malicious glee.
“Don’t you want to hear what we have planned for you?” he asked.
“Fuck … you,” Gabriel managed to gasp out.
Di Cesare laughed. “Is that the best you can do?” He laughed some more. “Maybe I can inspire you to be more creative.”
Gabriel would have spat in his face, but his mouth was too dry. How he wished he’d killed the beast long ago. But when he’d seen what was left of the child di Cesare had kidnapped, a quick death had seemed far too good for him.
Perhaps if it hadn’t been for his own sense of pity, he would have finished di Cesare off before his master came to the rescue. But the girl had been in such dreadful pain, her cries so piteous that Gabriel had to help her. He couldn’t bring himself to kill her, even though his psychic senses were already refined enough to see from her aura that she wouldn’t survive. But he’d spent a good half hour or so using his glamour to cloud her mind and kill the pain. At a hundred years old, he hadn’t been powerful enough to keep di Cesare captive, ease the girl’s pain, and carry out his punishment all at the same time.
Di Cesare slapped his face, lightly, just trying to bring his attention back.
“I’m very grateful to you for not killing me quickly when you had the chance,” di Cesare said with a savage grin. “So grateful, in fact, that I’m going to do you the same favor. Let’s see if you’ll thank me for it some day.” He gestured toward his henchmen. “Come hold him down,” he said. “He won’t have much fight in him, but I don’t want him squirming around too much.”
The henchmen did as ordered, one sitting on his legs, one holding his left arm down, one holding his right. Di Cesare drew a wicked-looking knife from a bag he’d laid on the floor beside him. He brandished the blade for a while, letting the light play along its edge.
“I had this specially made,” he said, touching the blade with an almost loving caress. “It’s steel, but with a very low iron content. It won’t prevent you from regenerating.” He sighed happily. “Just imagine how much fun we’re going to have!”
Di Cesare put his hand over Gabriel’s, tucking Gabriel’s fingers into a fist. All except the index finger. He held the blade to the light again, making damn sure Gabriel knew what he was about to do.
Gabriel doubted the pain of losing the finger was going to be much worse than the pain that wracked him now. Even so, he shored up his mental defenses, making sure whatever he felt wouldn’t leak over into Jez. Di Cesare set the blade against his finger, pressing down just hard enough to draw blood.
“Enjoying this so far?” he asked. His eyes gleamed with pleasure, and his cheeks were flushed with it. He pressed down a little harder, the blade slicing easily through skin and tissue until it hit bone.
Gabriel gritted his teeth, but though he felt the pain of that cut, it was nothing compared to whatever poison was coursing through his system. Di Cesare applied more and more pressure, the pain building steadily. Gabriel had to bite down on his tongue to keep from crying out.
As di Cesare must have intended, the anticipation made the pain that much worse. When would the pressure become too much? When would the knife slice through bone? Just how long was he going to make Gabriel wait?
Not much longer. Gabriel tasted blood in his mouth, having bitten his tongue in his effort not to give di Cesare the satisfaction of crying out. But when bone gave way to steel, and the knife clinked against the cement floor, a scream tore from his throat despite his best efforts.
THEY GAVE GABRIEL ANOTHER shot of the “tranquilizer,” just to be safe, and chained him to a pair of whipping posts with cuffs and chains of iron, strong enough to burn even Gabriel’s age-toughened skin. The air stank of burning flesh and hair.
Camille placed her son’s severed finger in a cotton-lined gift box, then closed the lid and handed the box to one of Bartolomeo’s mortals. Delivering it to Eli was something of a challenge, as he would sense any vampire who came near his house, and any mortal they sent wouldn’t be able to see the house in the first place. So she’d come up with the idea of planting the box and having Eli send someone to pick it up. The mortal was to drop the box in a trash can at Fifth and Chestnut.
The mortal had just left the building when Brigitte arrived, her faithful fledgling in tow. For the most part, Camille and Bartolomeo had left her out of the planning, and she’d seemed generally uninterested. Most of the time, they didn’t even know where Brigitte and Henri were. Camille would have preferred it stayed that way.
Bartolomeo, predictably, started sweating.
Without a word, Brigitte came to stand in front of Gabriel, looking him up and down with apparent admiration. She touched a delicate finger to Gabriel’s sweating chest, drawing a line down his sternum and along the line of hair that disappeared into his pants. Gabriel tried to twist away, but of course, he couldn’t.
Brigitte giggled, then touched her tongue to that finger, seemingly savoring the taste of his sweat. Camille wrinkled her nose and wished the little bitch would just go away. Brigitte circled the whipping posts, taking a slow survey. When she’d completed the circle, she frowned.
“Here you’ve got him all nicely trussed up, stretched between the whipping posts, and yet he doesn’t seem to have tasted the lash yet,” she said.
Bartolomeo gestured to Gabriel’s hand, where the finger was already starting to regrow. “I had other things in mind.”
Brigitte nodded approvingly. “So I see.” She blinked coquettishly. “But you do have a whip, don’t you?”
Bartolomeo nodded toward the wooden chest that sat within easy reach of the posts. His mortals had been very busy indeed, combing the city and buying every instrument of torture they could find.
With the delighted squeal of a child at Christmas, Brigitte hurried to the box, flinging open the lid and rooting through the contents. Camille wished she understood what Brigitte was up to. After all, she’d suggested that she was coming to the U.S. to meet up with her fellow born vampire, her “kindred spirit.” And yet, she seemed quite eager to join in Bartolomeo’s fun.
When she found the whip, Brigitte touched her tongue to her upper lip, her cheeks slightly flushed. She rose and uncoiled the whip, letting it trail on the floor behind her as she walked up to Gabriel and smiled into his pain-filled eyes.
“You were rude to me and to Henri when we came to visit you,” she said.
Camille couldn’t restrain her start of surprise. Brigitte had visited Gabriel? When? And, more importantly, why? Bartolomeo gave every impression that he was about to ask these questions out loud, but Brigitte stopped him with no more than a casual glance.
“Shall I make you pay for it?” Brigitte asked, once again looking up at Gabriel, her fingers caressing the fall of the whip. He just glared at her, an expression that managed to chill Camille to the bone, even though it wasn’t directed at her, even though the ferocity was overlaid with pain.
Brigitte reached up and patted his cheek. “But no,” she said, tossing the whip aside. “I wouldn’t want to put a damper on our friendship.” She winked at him, then gave one of his nipples a quick, hard tweak. He hissed at her, but she just laughed. Beckoning Henri to follow, she headed back out into the night.
Camille kept a psychic eye on them until they disappeared into the distance. “Perhaps we sh
ould use the same trap with her that we used on my son,” she suggested to Bartolomeo.
But he shook his head. “Much as the idea pleases me, I don’t want to give La Vieille any cause to be unhappy with me.”
Camille wondered if she could arrange Brigitte’s death herself, and then blame Bartolomeo for it. It was worth thinking about. But for now, she had a phone call to make.
Smiling in anticipation, she dialed Eli’s number.
FROM SOMEWHERE DOWNSTAIRS CAME the sound of a ringing phone. Jez ignored it, sitting on the reading chair in Eli’s spare bedroom, her feet gathered up under her as she continued to sniffle.
Gabriel was still alive. That, she knew, because she could still feel the psychic line that connected them. But he’d been in such terrible pain when she’d last touched him, and she’d seen Camille gloating. Somehow, they’d found a way to disable him. And the fact that he wasn’t dead yet meant … bad things.
She should tell Eli what she knew, but right this moment she wasn’t sure she could bear to look at him. If he weren’t being so blind and pig-headed where Gabriel was concerned, maybe—
The air turned arctic all of a sudden. Jezebel gasped, and she saw her own breath. Her teeth chattered, and she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.
She knew what that cold meant, knew Eli was seriously pissed about something. And she guessed it had something to do with the phone call he’d just gotten. Common sense told her to stay as far away from him as possible. He was angry and dangerous, and she was angry and incautious. Not a good mix.
Despite her conviction that it was a dumb move, she found herself heading downstairs. It wasn’t warming up any. In fact, it might still be getting colder. She should have grabbed a blanket off the bed on her way down!
Eli was in the library. The chill deepened with every step she took in that direction, but her feet kept moving.
When she crossed the threshold, she saw Eli sitting in the chair by the phone, his posture rigidly straight, his eyes closed. The air felt heavy, hard to breathe, and it was more than just the penetrating cold.
“Eli?” she asked, her voice smaller and weaker than she’d have liked.
He opened his eyes, and it took all her courage not to back out of the room and run for her life. When she met his gaze, it felt like an icepick had stabbed through her eye all the way to the back of her head. Gone was the kindly old man, and even the angry, conflicted father. In his place sat a predator, a Killer, of terrifying power.
“Where is he?” Eli asked, and even his voice didn’t sound like his own, the words vibrating through her bones. There could be no doubt who he meant.
“I don’t know,” she said, her answer forced out through a tight throat.
Eli rose slowly from his chair, and this time, Jez did take a step back. His glamour seized her by the throat, and she couldn’t even struggle against it as he came to stand only inches away.
“Where is he?” he repeated, still in that awful, sepulchral voice.
Jez trembled under the weight of his gaze, her voice nothing but a frightened whisper. “I swear, I don’t know. Something hurt him and seemed to disable him. Camille was there. But he’s blocking me out. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what’s happening.” Tears filled her eyes again.
Eli pulled his lips away from his teeth, displaying his fangs. She’d never once seem him lower those fangs before. The sight made her knees knock.
“Please, Eli,” she whispered. “I’m scared.” She wasn’t even sure whether she meant of him, or just for Gabriel. All she knew was that fear saturated her every pore.
He blinked, still flashing fang. “Camille claims to have left me a ‘present,’ as she called it, in a trash can at Fifth and Chestnut. I’ve asked Drake to retrieve it for me.”
“What is it?” she asked. Her stomach lurched.
“She said it would be a surprise.” Eli growled, a low, animalistic sound. Maybe it was her imagination, but she could swear his fangs grew longer as she watched.
Jez licked her lips, but there was no moisture anywhere in her mouth. “If you could stop being so terrifying for a moment, I can try again to reach him.” Her chattering teeth made the words indistinct. The room still hadn’t warmed, and between the fear and the cold, she was surprised she managed to talk at all.
Eli closed his eyes and sucked in a slow, deep breath. He let it out again just as slowly.
It took three more of those deep breaths for his fangs to start to recede. Perhaps a half dozen more before the room stopped feeling like a walk-in freezer.
He opened his eyes again, but meeting his gaze still made her head hurt, so she looked away.
“Sit,” he told her, putting a hand on her arm and guiding her to the nearest chair. His voice no longer made her want to pee her pants, but it wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy either. “Try to reach him.”
She did as he commanded, concentrating as hard as she could. Gabriel’s barriers were still locked and barred against her, and, under her breath, she called him every foul name she could think of.
“Is he alive?” Eli asked. “Can you tell that at least?”
She nodded. “He’s alive.”
The air turned colder once more. Danger or no danger, her gaze snapped to Eli’s.
“You’re angry that he’s alive?” she said indignantly, not that she should be surprised. “How could—” Her voice died in her throat, killed by Eli’s glamour.
“If he’s still alive,” Eli said, “it means they plan to kill him slowly. Do you have any idea what kind of damage a vampire can withstand without dying?” His voice choked off for a moment. He moved back to his chair, eyes now glazed over with grief. “I could barely stand the thought of killing him, even though I knew it was the right thing to do. But the thought of him suffering like that …”
Jez suppressed a miserable moan, not wanting to even think about what might be happening to him right now. “You love him, don’t you?” she asked.
Eli nodded, not looking at her. “Of course I love him. He’s my son.”
“He’s Camille’s son, too,” she ventured. “She doesn’t seem to have the same feeling.”
Eli didn’t get to answer because the buzzer at the front gate sounded. Both of them tensed.
“Is it … ?” Jez asked, unable to finish the question.
“Yes, it’s Drake,” Eli responded, buzzing him in.
They stood side by side, waiting for Drake to display Camille’s “gift.” It seemed to take him an uncommonly long time to make it from the front gate to the front door, and then even longer to make it from there to the library. When he came into view, every line of his body radiated tension. In his hand, he held a gift box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
“Have you looked inside?” Eli asked.
Drake’s chin dipped in the faintest of nods. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, looking back and forth between Eli and Jez.
“Show me!” Eli demanded.
Drake’s gaze flicked toward Jez. She so didn’t want to see. And yet, just like Eli, she had to. “Open it,” she whispered through the dread.
With a grimace, Drake lifted the lid off the box. Inside was a finger, displayed on a bed of bloodied cotton.
A sob escaped Jez’s throat, and her hand flew to her mouth. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known what to expect, but that didn’t make the certain knowledge any easier. Drake hastily closed the box.
Once more, the temperature in the room dropped. Eli moved carefully, as if too jarring a movement might break him, as he walked to his chair and gingerly sat down. His control was hanging by a thread; anyone could see that.
“What are you going to do?” Drake asked softly.
“Camille has promised to call again to arrange a rendezvous. She says she and her friends would like to have it out with me, a war for the ownership of Philadelphia. But she won’t tell me where to meet her until di Cesare has had sufficient time to entertain himself.”
&nb
sp; Jez’s stomach threatened rebellion, but since she hadn’t fed lately she doubted she would actually puke.
“What are you going to do?” Drake asked again.
Eli raised his head and smiled. His fangs had descended again, and the expression was more terrifying than anything Jez had ever seen before. “Why, I’m going to meet her, of course. And she, and every one of her accomplices, is going to die.”
22
GABRIEL KEPT HIS EYES firmly closed, trying to wall himself off from everything around him. From the unrelenting pain. From the gloating of Bartolomeo and Camille. From the helpless cries of the little girl he’d come hoping to rescue. Bartolomeo’s henchmen, both mortal and vampire, were as sickening as Bartolomeo himself.
Through it all, he felt over and over the pounding on his mental barriers that meant Jez was trying to reach him. Stubborn wench! She’d quit for a few minutes now and again, but every time he thought it was safe to relax his guard, she was there again.
Much though he worried about her, hard though it was to protect her from what was happening to him, he couldn’t help feeling warmed by her loyalty. He wished he could spare her from the grief, and yet he was paradoxically glad that someone would mourn him.
Bartolomeo, Camille, and the rest of the vampires left the building well before dawn, but the mortal henchmen stood guard in shifts, regularly dosing him with that horrible drug. When the sun rose, Jez was finally forced by sleep to discontinue her siege. Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. For the daylight hours, at least, he didn’t have to worry that she would break through the barriers and experience his pain.
The day passed in a welter of agony. One of the mortals wanted to play with the whip and had a jolly old time ripping Gabriel’s back to shreds. Gabriel didn’t give him the satisfaction of crying out. The disgruntled mortal then turned his attentions to the child. This time, Gabriel did cry out in helpless rage.
He thought he might have passed out for a few hours somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. When he came back to himself, the child was gone. He had no doubt that she was dead. He swallowed another howl of rage. But at least she was now out of reach of her tormentors.