Laurell Hamilton - 16 Blood Noir

Jason went for the suitcases. Let them in, Ill change in the bathroom.

I stepped back to let Rowe and the rest into the room. Wheres Shadwell?

Hes on a break. The two hotel guards stayed in the open doorway. I looked at them. They looked human. They had fed on someone to give color to the pale cheeks, but one look and I knew what they were. I started to raise my gun and yell, Vampires! Then one of them threw something into the room. Threw it so fast that the movement was seen, but not registered in my head, before the flash-bang grenade went off and the world went away. Oh, I was conscious, but I was also blind, and so disoriented that the next thing I felt was pain. I reached for what hurt and found a dart. A tranquilizer dart from the feel of it. I tried to bring my gun up to where theyd been. I tried to see them, but with the combination of the grenade and the drug, the world was full of swirls of color, and shapes that didnt hold still. I heard Rowe yelling. I fell to my knees. Someone took my gun and I couldnt stop them. I couldnt make my body move. I fell to the carpet and the mess of clothes and drying body fluids, and then the world went away, as if someone had turned off the lights. One moment I knew I was on the carpet in our room; the next, nothing.

T HERE WAS A voice in the darkness. I thought at first I was hearing the bad guys, and then I understood the voice, and knew that it was much worse than bad guys. Necromancer, the voice whispered.

Fear stabbed through me in the dark, fear like fine champagne. I had a moment of being able to feel my body. A flash of knowing I was lying on a floor, and then I was back in the dark.

Necromancer.

Fear, and I was thrown into my body again. A moment of lights, and sensation, then darkness.

Necromancer.

I think I opened my eyes, but it could have been a dream. The darkness kept eating the world.

Necromancer, if you stay in the dark, you will die.

The room was white, and I knew my hands were tied behind my back. Then the drugs sucked me into the dark again.

Necromancer! She reached for me. It was a womans hand, small, delicate, and it was the paw of some great beast with claws, and fur, andThe claws struck; pain ripped through the darkness and made it run with blood. I woke, gasping for air, pulse, heart, everything racing.

My chest hurt. I looked down and found the front of my T-shirt cut. Blood drops spattered the white tiles I was lying on. I worked to get a better look at the front of me, and finally realized the front of my shirt had been shredded by huge claws.

I remembered her reaching for me in the dark, and I knew she had done this. Somehow Marmee Noir had done this. Mother of God. The last of the drugs washed away on a flood of pure terror.

I fought not to panic. The fear had helped me wake up, helped get the drugs out of my head and body; now I had to make sure the fear itself didnt cripple me.

Other than the claw marks, was I hurt? I had a headache, but that could have been the flash-bang as well as the drugs. What kind of vampires used modern grenades and drugs on their victims? The adrenaline was doing its job. I seemed to be thinking faster, everything crystal edged. Had Marmee Noir scared me on purpose to wake me up and get me going? I pushed the thought away for later. Stay alive, and worry about the rest later.

I was lying on cool, white tile. Not horrible. But my hands were tied behind my back, which was horrible. Nothing good ever happens when the bad guys tie you up. I might have panicked about it, but one, it does no good to panic, and two, Marmee Noir wasnt in this white room. It was good. Where was I?

The tiles I was on were a nondescript color somewhere between off-white and beige. I tried to see things without moving much. I had no way of knowing if they had a way to see me. I did not want them to realize I was awake, not yet. The more time I had to think before they came back, the better. People do not tie you up and leave you on cold floors if they plan on doing nice things to you. No, bad things were coming. Which made me wonder, where was Jason?

The urge to roll over and see if he was in another part of this room was so strong that I tensed up, and now my pulse was higher. Shit. My hands clenched before I could stop them. So much for pretending to be asleep.

Then, distant, like there were doors and rooms between us, I heard a mans voice, yelling, Wheres Lorna? I didnt know the voice. Then came a voice I did know. Jason was yelling, screaming actually, I dont know! Then he was just screaming.

That did it. Fuck caution. I sat up and discovered that my body still ached some from the abuse Id given it in the hotel room. But it didnt hurt that much; I was healing, and if I didnt get us out of here, things would hurt a hell of a lot more.

I was in a small bathroom with a stool and tub/shower combo behind me. There was a sink with cabinet and mirror to one side. I looked up near the ceiling for cameras. If they had cameras on me, I was sunk. I was no expert on surveillance, but I couldnt see anything that looked like a camera. Most people didnt put shit like that in bathrooms. If you were a good guy, it was illegal and an invasion of privacy. You could go to jail for it in a lot of states. Of course, these guys were already looking at kidnapping and assault. I wasnt sure theyd sweat a little sexual perversion charge.

Jason screamed again. I crawled on my knees to the cabinet. It had to be a private residence; they wouldnt have let Jason scream like that in a hotel. Which meant that underneath the sink should be some very dangerous and potentially useful things. Please, dont let them be the kind of people who put everything under the kitchen sink. Or worse yet, dont let them have thought to remove all the fun stuff.

I prayed as I turned around and opened the doors with my bound hands. When I had the one door opened, I turned around to see what I had to work with.

There were two bottles that were caustic and had warnings about not getting them in your eyes, and poison if swallowed. The poison part wasnt helpful with vampires, but the eye damage was. It wouldnt damage them the way it would damage a human, but it would hurt, and maybe give me a few seconds to do something more permanent to them. Id had success with throwing shit in a vampires eyes before. If I could get my hands undone, that was. If I couldnt manage that, then it didnt matter how many goodies were under the sink; I was screwed.

Jason screamed again, just one long ragged sound. It pushed my pulse into my throat and made my body jerk. The jerk made me think about what held my wrists. It was a flex-cuff. Thats basically a great big twist tie, sort of. There was a drawer to the side of the sink.

I stood and turned my back to the drawer so I could open it. Please, let there be a nail file or something in here. Please.

When I turned and looked, it was even better. There was a pair of small manicuring scissors. Someone up there liked me. Its harder than it sounds to use tiny scissors behind your own back to cut through a pair of flex-cuffs. Its doable, and it beats the hell out of trying to saw through them with a metal file, but its still a lesson in frustration. Of course, the frustration could have been because Jason kept screaming. Hed scream, Id jump, and Id have to readjust the scissors. I finally had to close my eyes, so that I could concentrate on just the scissors on the plastic, and I forced myself to stop jumping every time Jason made a bad noise. What the hell were they doing to him? I forced myself to not follow that line of thought. My imagination was way too vivid to be helpful. Id get my hands free, and then wed save Jason. Simple, easy, sure.

The scissors bit through the last piece of the cuffs, and my hands were free. Id been concentrating so hard on it that for a second I didnt move. I let out the breath Id been holding and opened my eyes. Then I very carefully let my hands come forward. Sometimes when youre cutting through things behind your back, when you free yourself, you lose concentration for a moment and cut yourself after youre free. Yeah, they were just little scissors, but Id done it before with knives.