Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) (37 page)

Jerry got behind the wheel, looked back at me with hard hazel eyes in a craggy face beneath receding brown hair. His gaze traveled to my chest and stopped there in a brazen leer, and I didn’t have to fake my slight recoil.

Sonny slid in beside me and made sure I was buckled, then nodded to Jerry, who gave me a nasty smirk before he turned to face front again. As soon as the car moved out, Sonny zip-tied my wrists together in front of me then tapped my wrist twice, face impassive. I dropped a quick glance down, relieved to see the notch he’d made in the plastic. If things went to shit I could snap it without too much injury to myself.

“Where are you taking me?” I remembered to ask in a quavering voice, carefully balancing how calm I felt with what I figured a normal kidnapped woman would feel in this situation.

“To a place you’re going to stay a while.” Pain and guilt flashed in his eyes for a sliver of an instant before he shuttered it. If I hadn’t been looking right at him—and known what it was—I’d have missed it. He hated this. Hated who he’d become.

A place I’m going to stay a while.
I twisted my face into an I-might-cry expression to mask the fury that swept through me. All of those girls, yanked out of their lives to be sold to the lords. I hadn’t thought it was possible to hate Rhyzkahl any more, but that hatred flared supernova hot now. And Farouche. I fully intended to make absolutely sure that motherfucker went down in flames.

I pygahed, since even Sonny’s talent couldn’t fully tamp down the spike of fury, and did my best to look scared and not like a fucking pissed off bitch. “I don’t understand. Who are you people?”

“My name’s Sonny and that’s Jerry,” he told me. “That’s pretty much all you need to know right now.” He reached to the front seat and retrieved a black cloth bag. “Time for you to wear this,” he said, holding it up. Not a bag. A hood. “You gotta trust me,” he added, with another touch of calm. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I’d been prepared for this, so I faked a tremble and allowed him to slip it over my head. Pygahing again, I extended all senses and listened as Paul murmured location updates in my ear, for which I was surprisingly grateful. Sure, Sonny was on our side now, and Mzatal would have detected any hesitation or duplicity on his part, but I was still going undercover into a snake’s den. Paul’s running commentary was a reminder that I had a significant safety net.

But more importantly, Paul’s periodic murmur of my name in my ear helped me maintain my Self against the role I played.
I’m Kara,
I repeated silently.
No one else but Kara.

After about an hour I heard gravel crunching beneath the tires. A few more turns, and the car slowed to a stop, then I heard the hum of the driver’s window going down.

“Any problems?” A man’s gruff voice from outside the car.

“Smooth as silk.” That was Jerry.

“That’s the best way. Unit twenty-three is prepped.”

The window went back up, and the car started forward again. My skin prickled and arcane flickers abruptly appeared in my othersight. We’d gone through a security gate, I realized as I peered at the wards, smiling within the hood that I could do so without
seeing.
The warding was good, but even the quick glance was enough to tell me they weren’t demonic lord good.

Sonny placed a hand on my wrist, interrupting my musings about warding. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Amaryllis,” he said. “Once we park. I’m going to get out. You’re going to stay right here in the car with Jerry. I’ll be back in a few minutes, then I’ll open your door and walk you to the place where you’ll be staying. You understand?” He delivered it all in a smooth recitation that told me he’d said this many times before.

I did the scared gulp-thing. “And th-then what?”

“I’ll get you settled in for the night. You’ll be staying here for a while.”

“A while” being less than an hour
, I thought grimly, but I made the sort of shocked-scared sound a different girl might make at the terrifying vagueness of his statement.

Jerry drove for a few more minutes before pulling to a stop. “Sit tight,” Sonny told me. “I’ll be back in a couple.” With that he opened the door and departed, taking the palpable sense of calm with him. Damn, that was a hell of a skill.

Jerry certainly didn’t exude calm of any sort. Out of curiosity, I let out a low whimper to see how the hard-faced man would respond.

I heard him shift in his seat. “You got it good, honey,” he said with a low snort of rude amusement.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

Fabric slid across leather and, judging from the sounds, I figured he’d turned and laid his arm across the back of the seat to look at me. “Because if you’d been my mark, I’d be having some fun pretty soon,” he said, ugly smile in his voice. “Can’t say the same for you though.”

Shrinking back, I took a few seconds to control the fury. Had he taunted Amber like this during the trip to Austin? “D-don’t you dare touch me!”

He let out a dry chuckle. “You get turned over to me, and I’ll touch you all right. You’ll be begging me to stop, but I won’t.”

Teeth clenched, I seethed but let out another whimper to stay in character. The rape of Amber had been part of his goddamn
job
. How many other women had he been allowed to use simply because they were available? Even one was too many, and I knew damn well the number was far higher.

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled. “I’ll have some fun with you when they’re done playing around.”

“Kara,” Paul murmured in my ear. “Please wait until
after
you do your thing in the server room to feed this asshole his balls.”

I smothered a laugh and had to quickly turn it into something that sounded like a frightened sob.
But if Sonny doesn’t return soon I probably
will
blow my cover and commit violence against this worthless piece of shit.

As if my thoughts summoned him, the door beside me opened. “Come on out,” Sonny said. I did so, weirdly relieved as the calm descended again and hideously glad to get away from Jerry. Sonny took my arm, then paused. “Goddammit, Jerry,” he said, voice tight with anger. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Interesting,
I thought as he led me away. He’d sensed that Jerry had fucked with me. Jaw tight, I moved where Sonny guided me: gravel and then a sidewalk beneath my feet. I actively sank into the ease he projected, using it to center myself.

He paused long enough to open a door, then led me inside, closed it behind us, then pulled my hood off. “No surveillance in here unless I turn it on,” he told me, fatigue and stress coloring his voice. He took a folding knife from his pocket and sliced the zip tie on my wrists.

“Jerry’s a real prince,” I said. “I intend to castrate him with a dull knife, first chance I have.”

A muscle in his jaw leaped, and he nodded. “We need to wait about fifteen minutes before going to the house,” he told me. “It’ll be quieter then.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “I trust your judgment.” I looked around. We were in an open-plan room with kitchen area, table with two chairs, sofa, bookshelves, TV, bed, and a door to a bathroom. All nicely appointed, like one would find in a decent hotel. “How long do the women you bring in for Rhyzkahl usually stay here?”

“Anywhere from a few days to seven or eight weeks,” he said. “And not only women. Three men so far. Ones the boss said deserved harsh punishment.”

I was pretty sure that if the men were sent for punishment, they were going to Kadir. The men were dead or worse by now, but the women were far more likely to still be alive. “Are there any others being held here now for Rhyzkahl?”

He shook his head. “Amaryllis was to be the first of two,” he told me, then looked away. “The ones for him weren’t the only ones—not the only grabs I’ve done.”

The heart-wrenching despondency in his words took me aback. I’d focused exclusively on the handful of recent abductions related to Rhyzkahl. Yet Sonny had been at this for a dozen years. How many more had he taken for reasons other than to be given to the qaztahl? Men and women wanted by Farouche for any number of nefarious purposes. “Sonny. I’m so sorry. No more.”

He looked back to me, face and eyes haunted. “I couldn’t even kill myself to make it stop,” he said, voice thick. “I tried. I
tried
, but Mr. Farouche . . .” He shook his head.

Though I hadn’t thought it possible, my loathing of Farouche ratcheted up another notch. Sonny paid for his crimes with his soul every waking moment, and I was willing to bet his dreams weren’t full of rainbows and unicorns.
Let’s hope suicide isn’t still on Sonny’s agenda
, I thought grimly.

Sonny returned his focus to me. “What happened to the ones who went with Mega-Fabio?”

“Most likely used for sex,” I told him frankly, doing my best to keep my voice level even though the topic induced white-hot rage in me. I forced calm and sifted back through my memory of snippets of information and conversations that made more sense now. “They’d be traded to other lords for favors, I’d imagine.” I angled a look at him. “If it helps, I believe that most of the lords would treat a woman well.” I grimaced sourly. “Even Rhyzkahl would take good care of a woman he desired.” I highly doubted Amkir would, and I didn’t think Jesral would be the picture of loving kindness either. And Kadir seemed pretty damn asexual.
He got those men,
I thought.
And not for sex.

Sonny looked relieved. “I pretty much knew sex would be the purpose. Rhyzkahl seemed to like Janice a lot. He said he’d chosen her to live with him. It’s good to hear they’ll be okay.”

I clamped down hard on the
No, they won’t be okay!
response that leapt to my lips. This was human trafficking, plain and simple. But saying that wouldn’t accomplish anything and would only distress Sonny more. He knew what he’d done, and right now he scrambled for any shred of comfort he could find. Now wasn’t the time to yank that away from him.

“What’s your usual routine with a new acquisition?” I asked in a sharp change of subject. “I don’t want anyone wondering what’s going on if you’re supposed to be somewhere else.”

He shook his head. “With the women, I usually spend some time to get them comfortable, anything up to an hour or so, depending on what they need.” Guilt clawed across his face again.

“You did your best for them,” I said gently. “You weren’t simply taking care of the merchandise. You did everything you could to make a horrible situation a little less horrible. And the very fact that you came
back
here to help us proves you’re a decent person and a fucking brave one at that.”

“It has to stop. Not only for me. For everyone.”

“We’ll stop it,” I promised, then bared my teeth in a hard smile. “It will rain fire, and we’ll kick all the ass.”

He let out a dry laugh, then glanced at his watch. “Let’s do this. Carter will be on the desk. I’ll walk you in as if I’m taking you to see the boss. I’ll get you inside, then I’ll get him away to give you time to get into the server room.”

“Got it.” I went to the mirror, adjusted the wig to make certain no stray brown hairs poked out, and dabbed away a bit of smeared makeup under my eyes. Amaryllis had pretty eyes. My reflection gave a shy smile—

I jerked my eyes from the mirror. “Paul,” I muttered.

Somehow he
knew
. “Kara,” he replied, firm and certain. “You’re Kara.”

Kara. I’m Kara
. I moved to the kitchen area and filled a tumbler with water, gulped half of it down through a mouth dry as sand. Kara.

“Kara,” Paul echoed.

I focused on deep and regular breaths until I felt like myself again. “Thanks, Paul,” I said quietly. “Y’all ready?”

“Ready,” Paul replied.

I turned and gave Sonny a nod. “Let’s go.”

He took my elbow. “Last time I’ll ever lead a woman into that house.”

“Last time
anyone
will.”

Sonny didn’t put the hood back on me, probably because once a “permanent” abductee was here, it didn’t matter what they saw. He kept hold of my arm and walked me along a curving brick sidewalk toward the lovely three-story Farouche Plantation house.

Farouche
. A self-serving southern gentleman crime boss allied with demonic lords while masquerading as a philanthropic businessman. Too weird.

Numerous graceful wrought iron lamps cast soft, warm light on the grounds and brought out the color in gorgeous well-tended flower beds. To my left a small lake glimmered, and I picked out a dock with a flatboat moored to it. Off to my right stood several larger buildings, all either converted from original plantation structures or built in the same style. I remembered them from the satellite photo as the gym, pool, and shooting range.

I noted the barest shift in the shadowy leaves of an oak by the lake; Eilahn, letting me know she was in place. Paul continued to say my name into my ear about once every minute. Props to him for remembering my implanted
rakkuhr
virus on top of everything else he was tracking.

As we continued on, I marveled at the lovely gazebo that stood between the lake and the main house. Tiny white fairy lights wrapped pale marble columns and created the illusion of a star field on the underside of its domed slate roof. A ripple like a mirage distorted the lights for a fraction of a second.

I blinked. Had I actually seen it ripple? Then I felt it, an arcane touch like the whisper of silk against my skin. I tugged Sonny toward the gazebo, but he tugged right back.

“Can’t go there,” he told me, voice low. “It would draw instant attention.”

I pursed my lips. “Surely no rule about fixing my shoe.” I bent and pretended to adjust a strap while I snuck a better look at the gazebo with othersight. Blues and greens coiled sluggishly in the center of the marble platform, arcane vapor rising and falling above it like the breath of a giant. No mistaking that.

“Paul, the node is at the gazebo,” I muttered. The latitude and longitude from Tracy Gordon’s journal had only narrowed the location of the node to the back lawn of the plantation. “And it’s, uh, breathing.”

“Okay. Got it, Kara,” Paul replied. “I’ll let Mzatal know.”

I counted columns, then quickly counted again. Shit. “Tell him it has
eleven
columns. He’ll understand.”

“We need to move,” Sonny said with an edge of anxiety in his voice.

I stood and made a show of testing the shoe, then continued toward the house. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “I had to check that out. We didn’t know exactly where it was.”

The more I saw of the house and grounds, the more the place felt like a pleasant resort. Yet I knew that not far from my room, a building designed for torture and murder hunkered beyond a screen of shrubbery and a security fence. Some resort.

A whisper of droplets pattered briefly across the walkway. Far off to the west, lightning lit clouds in a soundless dance. We’d have rain before the night was over. I intended for us to be long gone by then.

“When we get inside we’re going to pass a man at a desk,” Sonny murmured. “Behind that desk is the door to the server room you’re looking for. I’ll take you down the hall and around a corner, supposedly to have you wait in the holding room until Mr. Farouche or one of his cronies sends for you. No one will question it.”

I nodded. No one ever did anything against Farouche’s orders, which meant no one would suspect that Sonny was stabbing him in the back. This was where Farouche’s controlled loyalty would bite him in the ass.

The house rose above us in stately splendor, a true antebellum gem. Left and right, a pair of broad curving staircases led up to the second story, and lights winked beyond sheer curtains in many of the tall windows.

“Don’t forget to look scared,” Sonny reminded me as we approached.

Good thing he did since I was in full observe-and-assess mode. I quickly schooled my features into “shocked, freaked, and terrified.” Sonny gave a short nod of approval, so apparently I wasn’t overdoing it—which immediately pissed me off.
No woman should have to feel that vulnerable and scared
, I silently raged, then made myself focus on the calm Sonny projected to keep from appearing as angry as I was.

He escorted me to a ground level door situated between the two staircases. Probably a servant’s entrance at one time, I decided. He kept hold of my arm as he led me inside to a cramped foyer and hallway beyond with plain décor and low ceiling, compared to what I’d glimpsed of the rest of the house through the broad windows.

About ten feet inside, a middle-aged black man with close-cropped hair and keen eyes sat behind a desk. As the entrance door closed, his focus shifted from his computer screen to us. A huge map of the compound, and a dozen flatscreens displaying various surveillance camera views, flanked the door directly behind him. That was my target. Plain and uninteresting to ordinary eyes, the door rippled with wards in my othersight.

The eyes of the man at the desk tracked over me, assessing, noting my appearance, and no doubt my demeanor. Unlike Jerry, though, his gaze was purely to catalog. All business, this one.

“Carter,” Sonny said with a short nod without breaking stride.

“Sonny,” the man replied with a similar gesture as we passed, then he returned his attention to his computer screen.

We continued down the hall and around the corner, my heels clicking on the tiled floor. I could only imagine how the sound must have felt for the other women—like seconds of life ticking off. Sonny looked up and down the hall before opening a door.

“Here you go, Amaryllis,” he said in a voice pitched normally for Carter’s benefit. “Just relax in here for a bit, all right? Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Kara,” Paul stated right after the “Amaryllis.”

I quickly slipped my heels off and set them inside the door of the small room. Sonny pulled a pair of flat slippers from his jacket pocket and handed them over, then closed the door with us both still in the hall. He took a deep breath, readying himself. I touched his arm, gave him an encouraging smile.

“You got this,” I whispered as I tugged on the slippers. Too bad I couldn’t give him the same calm he gave to others. And also too bad the adorable lace top was about a size too tight. Another hour of wearing it, and I wouldn’t be able to feel my fingers.

Sonny exhaled, met my eyes and nodded, then headed back toward the entrance. I followed to the corner and waited, listening.

“Any problems?” I heard Carter ask.

“Not with the mark,” Sonny replied.

“With who then?”

“Jerry.” In the name was a wealth of animosity and contempt. “He fucked with my mark when I checked in.”

A low curse from Carter. Either his opinion of Jerry was similar, or he didn’t like the fact that Jerry was messing with Farouche’s “merchandise.”
Or both
, I reminded myself, remembering Bryce’s words about the people who worked for Farouche. Of those who did the dirty work, all were influenced, but there was evidently a wide spectrum of how much people enjoyed the job.

“You know as well as I do this isn’t the first time he’s done this,” Sonny continued with unmasked vehemence, “but I’ll deal with him later.”

“Did he touch her?”

“Not this time. Scared the shit out of her though,” Sonny told him. I had no problem imagining how terrifying Jerry’s talk would be to a recently kidnapped woman.

Carter muttered a curse. “Fucking moron. Someday he’s going to mess with the wrong chick, and Mr. Farouche will fry him.”

“He sure as hell wasn’t hired for his brains,” Sonny replied. “Anyway, I spotted an issue with the surveillance camera array by the Ops building when I walked her in. Can you come out for a minute so I can show you?”

“Sure. Let me log off here,” Carter replied, obviously never imagining for an instant that Sonny would be up to no good. I heard a few clicks of a mouse, and then the footfalls of both men heading away followed by the opening and closing of the door.

I did a cautious peek around the corner, verified that the foyer was indeed empty, then flew on my slippered feet toward the warded door. A quick assessment revealed decently constructed wards that lacked the quality of demon-laid ones. Perhaps Tsuneo’s work?

And
he
hasn’t been training in the demon realm,
I thought smugly as I unwound the protections. At least I didn’t think he had, especially since it took me only about a minute to disarm his work. Either way, my seventh ring shikvihr trumped his sorry ass. After a final check, I slipped through the door and quietly closed it behind me.

“I’m in,” I said softly, though I wasn’t sure Paul would hear me over the whir and hum of the machines. A desk, chair, and computer workstation sat not far from the door. Two long rows of computer stuff, that I assumed were servers, occupied the rest of the floor space, with neatly bundled blue wires
everywhere.

“Good deal, Kara,” Paul said, then quickly gave me easy-to-follow instructions on which cables to disconnect, which ones to switch, and where to plug in his dongle—which looked like an ordinary USB drive to me, but what the hell did I know?

“That’s it?” I asked as it slid into place.

“Hang on.” A pause. “Aw, hell yeah! I’m in, babeee!” I grinned at the triumph in his voice. A second later the lights dimmed, then came back on.

“Please tell me that was you,” I said.

“Sure was,” he replied cheerfully. “I’m driving the bus now, and just uploaded my first little present for Big Mack. Not so clever
now,
asswipe!”

I had to press the heel of my hand to my mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. He’d told me earlier that his first “present” was a virus that by morning would send copies of Farouche’s confidential files and emails to the feds—after wiping all electronic references to himself, Bryce, Sonny, and a few others who Bryce said were also coerced.

“All right, Baby Bear,” I said with a grin, “are you and Papa Bear in position?”

“Yep. We’re outside the fence waiting to hear from Sonny,” he told me. “I’m setting up everything I need to wreak havoc, and once we know Sonny has Idris’s mom, Papa Bear will take down the wards. I’ll let you know the instant it’s a go.”

While I waited, I divested myself of the the wig, padding beneath the dress along with, to my regret, the increasingly uncomfortable lace top. It was lovely, but I needed to be able to
move
, and it was no longer vital that I hide the sigil scars
.

A few minutes later Paul spoke again. “We’re solid, Kara,” he announced. “Sonny’s heading out with Idris’s mom. Mzatal’s through the wards and is burning a hole in the fence right now, and then Bryce will rendezvous with Sonny outside the fence to get Mom safely across the bayou.”

I felt Mzatal clearly now, like a sun on the edge of my peripheral vision. Raised voices and running footsteps passed by the door. “I think they know you’re here,” I said as I cautiously peeked out.

“I’m sowing chaos,” Paul replied with glee. “Their surveillance and comms are completely down. Plus, I terminated all of Big Mack’s cell phone accounts. Failure to pay! Ha! They’re running deaf and blind.”

“I love it.” I retrieved my gun from the thigh holster. “I’m on my way out to join up with y’all.”

“Sounds good, Kara. See you soon. We’re through the fence now.”

After another careful look and listen, I eased out, then ran to the door and outside, keeping a sharp eye out for potential trouble. I slunk out past the big staircases, but made it only a few steps down the sidewalk before flood lights abruptly snapped on to turn night into day. I bit back a curse and dove for cover in a nearby cluster of azaleas. The sound of quick bootsteps came from the direction of the Ops building, and I flattened myself onto cypress mulch while I prayed the black dress would conceal me enough.

“Report any sign of the intruders directly and in person to Ops,” I heard someone shout, then the boot-wearers were past, and I could cautiously peek up again.

Though he was still distant, I sensed Mzatal off to my right. I’d no sooner maneuvered my way to the back side of the azaleas when two figures abruptly burst out of the door I’d just exited. Heart pounding, I ducked into the deep shadow between the nearest staircase and a huge gardenia bush, and nearly went sprawling as I tripped on a wiggling bundle. I peered into the gloom, then realized it was Carter, gagged and trussed in what looked like a
very
secure hogtie.

I gave him a sweet smile and a shrug of apology, then shifted my attention to the two men as they took off at a jog toward the gazebo—and the node, I realized. One of the men, mid-thirties and average height with pony-tailed shoulder length wavy brown hair, repeatedly looked at his cell phone as though it would miraculously start working.
Mystery Man Twenty-two,
I thought.
A.K.A. Aaron Asher.
The other, tall, athletic, with a mop of unruly blond curls, followed with his face set in determination.

“I see Idris,” I murmured, keeping my voice low and controlled with effort. “Asher’s with him.” Cautiously, I eased out from behind the stairs as the two went up onto the broad platform of the gazebo and crouched in the center. “They’re doing something arcane with the node,” I said. “Can’t tell what though.”

Idris straightened after a moment, and I got a good look at his face for the first time. He looked older, tired. He’d lost the boyish innocence, and even from this distance I could see the lines of stress in his face.

Not just stress, I realized. Fear. Grief. And anger.

His gaze swept around the area, passed over me, then returned. He gave me a slight nod then tensed, a flicker of indecision in his eyes. I recognized the look. He struggled to resist the Farouche-induced compulsion to tell Asher he’d seen me. My pulse thudded unevenly as I waited for the outcome, then I exhaled in relief as he gave me another little nod. That confirmed my suspicion that Farouche’s influence on him was light. Perhaps Rhyzkahl had let Farouche know he’d rip the man’s head off if he ruined Idris with his fear-whammy.