Deathtrap (Crossbreed #3)(78)
“Give it back!” he shouted, realizing I’d stolen his immortality. “Give it back!”
His filthy light coursed through my body like a plague, and I instantly wanted to vomit. Instead, I stood up and wiped the blood off my hand.
“It’s not so funny when someone takes something from you, is it?”
With Cristo now a human and easier to subdue, Viktor led everyone out. Shepherd, however, stayed behind with the ex-Mage. When Viktor closed the door, he stood with his back to it, arms folded as a scream erupted from inside the room.
Not the scream of certain death. The scream of horrors untold.
Chapter 22
I followed Blue and Christian down a narrow hall. Niko remained with Viktor to gather evidence while we searched for the baby.
Christian stopped beneath a metal ladder that went through a round hole in the ceiling. Blue went first. I followed close behind and, once I reached the top, looked around at a kitchen with stainless-steel appliances.
“Who pays the electric bill?” I wondered aloud, not even certain how they managed to get electricity down here.
Christian emerged and stepped off the ladder. “Lucifer. Now let’s get to work. There are only three rooms up here. A bedroom, kitchen, and a study. I can’t hear anything, so I’ll check in here while you two figure out the rest.” He turned on his heel and began pulling at cabinets.
Blue gave me a curt nod. “Let’s go.” She cruised through the study and went straight into the bedroom. The doorways all faced each other, so you could walk straight through each room.
I entered the study, which had books filling the built-in shelves, and headed toward the wall on the right. I didn’t know what a hidden safe looked like, but I remembered the one at Darius’s home and what had triggered it to open. Books flew off the shelves as I littered the floor with the classics. None of the shelves or lower cabinets activated a secret door when I pushed and pulled on them, though I still wasn’t certain if the safe was a room or an actual safe. I ripped the TV out of its cubby and smashed it on the floor.
“In here!” Blue shouted. “Hurry!”
I raced into the room and gripped a wooden post on Cristo’s four-poster bed. He had some nerve tucking himself away in a room surrounded by wood paneling, gaudy paintings, satin sheets, and a liquor cabinet. Meanwhile, children were ripped away from their mothers and sold as slaves—all so this man could have a flat-screen TV. Where had all the money gone from his crimes? Had he blown it on vacations and prostitutes? Truth be told, I didn’t care. I’d tracked down criminals for years, and most of them either hoarded their money or wasted it on expensive restaurants and extravagant cars.
Blue yanked on a brass picture frame to the left of the bed. “Nobody bolts an ugly painting of a bridge to a wall. He doesn’t have any other paintings in the house but in here. Can you help me?”
When she dragged the nightstand away, the table lamp fell to the floor.
“Try pushing on it,” I said. “It’s probably a simple trick.”
Christian walked into the room, his stride purposeful. “Let me have a look.” He gripped the frame and effortlessly flung it across the room.
“Show-off,” I muttered.
We stared at a keypad on the wall, a handle to the right of it.
Blue swept her hair back and leaned in. “Six one six, nine five nine.”
Christian took his time pressing each number carefully. When finished, three beeps sounded, and a mechanism clicked behind the wall.
“That was too easy,” he muttered.
When the door opened, we slowly walked inside. A battery-operated lantern hung from a hook by the entrance, casting light on the mint-green walls and mahogany floor. To the left, a single-size bed and white blanket. Across from the door, a toy box overflowing with dollies, blankets, and stuffed animals. Crayons and drawings were scattered on the child-size table in the corner—the ghostly remnants of children.
Blue hurried to the crib on the right and peered in. I watched with bated breath as she bent over and reached inside. A foul stench burned my nose from the open trash can to the right, dirty diapers wide open inside. No wonder he’d hired someone to watch the children. He was completely incapable of caring for another individual. Just knowing he’d shut up some kids in here—no toilet or fresh air to breathe—made me want to haul ass back to that room and drive a dagger through his mortal heart.
Blue turned around, angry tears glittering in her sapphire eyes. She cradled the baby in her arms and gently rocked him as he stared listlessly. His dark golden skin lacked a healthy glow, and the only thing he had on was a baggy diaper.
“The mattress is soaking wet,” she said, her jaw clenched. “I bet he’s been crying for hours in here… all alone.”
The little guy made a dramatic grimace and began to wail. It broke my heart because I knew he was crying for his mother. Blue set him down on the bed and found a clean diaper.
The safe room was essentially a prison cell. Cristo must have used this room as a temporary holding tank until his female friend took the children off his hands.
Christian tapped his finger against the wall. “He soundproofed the walls.”
My eyes fell to the handle on the door. “Christian, why is there a keypad on the inside?”
“Perhaps he was afraid one of the children would shut him in.”