Circus of the Damned

We took the left-hand side of the wall. I touched it to keep my balance and jerked away. The walls were slimy with water and melting minerals.

Smiley laughed at me. I guess laughing was allowed.

I glanced back at him, frowning, then put my hand back on the wall. It wasn’t that icky. It had just surprised me. I’d touched worse.

The sound of water thundering from a great height filled the darkness. There was a waterfall up ahead; I didn’t need my eyes to tell me that.

“How tall do you think the waterfall is?” Blondie asked.

The thundering filled the darkness. Surrounded us. I shrugged. “Ten, twenty feet, maybe more.”

He shone his light on a trickle of water that fell about five inches. The tiny waterfall was what fed the thin stream. “The cave magnifies the sound and makes it sound like thunder,” he said.

“Neat trick,” I said.

A wide shelf of rock led in a series of tiny waterfalls up to a wide base of stone. The lamia sat on the edge of the shelf, high-heeled feet dangling over the edge. Maybe a rise of eight feet, but the ceiling soared overhead into blackness. That was what made the water echo.

Ronald stood at her back, like a good bodyguard, hands clasped in front of him. There was a wide opening near them that led farther into the cave towards the source of the little stream.

Blondie climbed up and offered me a hand.

“Where’s Oliver?”

“Just ahead,” the lamia said. There was an edge of laughter to her voice, as if there was some joke I wasn’t getting. It was probably going to be at my expense.

I ignored Blondie’s hand and made it up to the shelf by myself. My hands were covered with a thin coat of pale brown mud and water, a perfect recipe for slime. I fought the urge to wipe them on my jeans and knelt by the small pool of water that fed the waterfalls. The water was ice-cold, but I washed my hands in it and felt better. I dried them on my jeans.

The lamia sat with her men grouped around her as if they were posing for a family photo. They were waiting on someone. Oliver. Where was he?

“Where’s Oliver?”

“I’m afraid he won’t be coming.” The voice came from ahead of me farther into the cave. I stepped back but couldn’t go far without stepping off the edge.

The two flashlights turned on the opening like tiny spotlights. Alejandro stepped into the thin beam of lights. “You won’t be meeting Oliver tonight, Ms. Blake.”

I went for my gun before anything else could happen. The lights went out, and I was left in the absolute dark with a master vampire, a lamia, and three hostile men. Not one of my better days.

Chapter 40

I dropped to my knees, gun ready, close to my body. The darkness was thick as velvet. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on hearing. There; the scrape of shoes on stone. The movement of air as someone moved closer to me. I had thirteen silver bullets. We were about to find out if silver would hurt a lamia. Alejandro had already taken a silver bullet in the chest and didn’t look much the worse for it.

I was in very deep shit.

The footsteps were almost on top of me. I could feel the body close to me. I opened my eyes. It was like looking inside a ball of ebonite, utterly black. But I could feel someone standing over me. I raised the gun to gut or lower chest level and fired still on my knees.

The flashes were like lightning in the darkness, blue-flame lightning. Smiley fell backwards in the flash of light. I heard him fall over the edge, then nothing. Nothing but darkness.

Hands grabbed my forearms, and I hadn’t heard a thing. It was Alejandro. I screamed as he dragged me to my feet.

“Your little gun ca

“I have offered Melanie her freedom once Oliver and the city’s Master are dead. I offer you eternal life, eternal youth, and you may live.”

“You did give me the first mark.”

“Tonight I will give you the second,” he said. His voice was soft and ordinary compared to Jean-Claude’s, but the intimacy of the dark and his hands on me made the words more than they should have been.

“And if I don’t want to be your human servant?”

“Then I will take you anyway, Anita. Your loss will damage the Master. It will lose him followers, confidence. Oh, yes, Anita, I will have you. Join with me willingly, and it will be pleasure. Fight me, and it will be agony.”

I used his voice to aim the gun at his throat. If I could sever his spine, a thousand years and more old or not, he might die. Might. Please, God.

I fired. The bullet took him in the throat. He jerked backwards but didn’t let go of my arms. Two more bullets into his throat, one into his jaw, and he threw me away from him, shrieking.

I ended on my back in the ice-cold water.

A flashlight cut through the dark. Blondie stood there, a perfect target. I fired at it and the light went out, but there was no scream. I’d rushed the shot and missed. Damn.

I couldn’t climb down the rock in the dark. I’d fall and break a leg. So the only way left was deeper into the cave, if I could get there.

Alejandro was still screaming, wordless, rage-filled. The screams echoed and bounced on the rock walls until I was deaf as well as blind.

I scrambled through the water, putting a wall at my back. If I couldn’t hear them, maybe they couldn’t hear me.

“Get that gun away from her,” the lamia said. She had moved and seemed to be beside the wounded vampire.

I waited in the dark for some clue that they were coming for me. There was a rush of cool air against my face. It wasn’t them moving. Was I that close to the opening that led deeper into the cave? Could I just slip away? In the dark, not knowing if there were pits, or water deep enough to drown in? Didn’t sound like a good idea. Maybe I could just kill them all here. Fat chance.

Through the echoes of Alejandro’s shrieks was another sound, a highpitched hissing, like that of a giant snake. The lamia was shapechanging. I had to get away before she finished. Water splashed almost on top of me. I looked up, and there was nothing to see, just the solid blackness.

I couldn’t feel anything, but the water splashed again. I pointed up and fired. The flash of light revealed Ronald’s face. The dark glasses were gone. His eyes were yellow with slitted pupils. I saw all that in the lightning flash of the gun. I fired twice more into that slit-eyed face. He screamed, and fangs showed below his teeth. God. What was he?

Whatever Ronald was, he fell backwards. I heard him hit the water in a splash that was much too loud for the shallow pool. I didn’t hear him move after he fell. Was he dead?

Alejandro’s screams had stopped. Was he dead, too? Was he creeping closer? Was he even now almost on top of me? I held the gun out in front of me and tried to feel something, anything, in the darkness.

Something heavy dragged across the rock. My stomach clenched tight. The lamia. Shit.

That was it. I eased my shoulder around the corner into the opening. I crept along on knees and one hand. I didn’t want to run if I didn’t have to. I’d brain myself on a stalactite or drop into some bottomless pit. Alright, maybe not bottomless, but if I fell thirty feet or so, it wouldn’t have to be bottomless. Dead is dead.

Icy water soaked through my jeans and shoes. The rock was slick under my hand. I crawled as fast as I could, hand searching for some drop-off, some danger that my eyes couldn’t see.

The heavy, sliding sound filled the blackness. It was the lamia. She’d already changed. Would her scales be quicker over the slick rocks, or would I be quicker? I wanted to get up and run. Run as far and as fast as I could. My shoulders tightened with the need to get away.