A Glimmer of Hope (The Avalon Chronicles #1)(82)

He left the room to find Masako standing in the doorway. “Was that necessary?” she asked.

“Are you squeamish? You eat people.”

“Using up leverage just to make a point doesn’t make me squeamish. It’s just not a good idea to piss off someone you’re trying to get to behave. That kind of thing makes rebellious thoughts. You know the first chance she gets she’ll try to kill you.”

“Then we’ll kill more of the captives. Eventually her need to kill me will be overridden by the number of dead in the room with her.”

“Do you actually have a plan beyond torturing her?”

Elias grinned. “Of course.”

They entered the main room of the house, and Elias picked up a mobile phone from the large table in the middle of the room. “This is Chloe’s. We found it on her and it’s been ringing every hour on the hour. Tommy’s the one calling.”

“You’re making him wait?”

“Of course. The angrier he is, the better for me.”

The phone rang again.

“Right on cue,” Elias said with a chuckle, before answering it. “Hello, Tommy.”

“Elias,” Tommy said, his voice deep and full of anger.

“Ah, so good to hear your voice. Don’t bother trying to trace the call. You’d only be insulting my intelligence by thinking that I would be stupid enough not to counteract it.”

“What do you want, Elias?”

“Layla. That’s it. You give me Layla, and I give you Chloe. She’s mostly unharmed, although I don’t think she’ll stay that way forever if she keeps that mouth of hers going.”

“Not a chance. I’m not going to give you Layla.”

Elias put the phone on loudspeaker and sat down on a nearby chair, placing his feet up on the table. He removed his fedora and placed it on the table beside him. “You’re going to bring me Layla because you think you’ll have a chance to save her before she vanishes into the wilderness. If you don’t, Chloe will die. She’ll die hard, Tommy, and I know you don’t want that.”

“If you really think I’m just going to let you take anyone else, you’re even more deluded than I expected. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you.”

“Are you even going to ask Layla what she wants to do? Does she want me to murder her friend?”

“I’ll do it,” Layla shouted from somewhere in the same room, her voice slightly muffled as if someone were trying to get her away from the phone.

Elias smiled. He guessed Tommy would be considering the use of speaker phone on his end to be a mistake right about now.

“No,” Tommy snapped. “No.”

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Layla shouted again, sounding as if she was being hurried from the room. “I’ll come to you, Elias. You let Chloe go first, and I’m all yours.”

“Not how it works, I’m afraid, Tommy. You’re going to go with Layla to an address I give you. While you’re there, and once we’re free and clear, Chloe will be released. I don’t actually trust any of you not to screw me over, so we do it my way or I send pieces of Chloe to you over the next few days. What’s first, a finger or a foot? It’ll be a fun guessing game for the whole family.”

“Where do you want the meet to take place?” Tommy asked.

Elias smiled at the defeated tone in Tommy’s voice, and gave him the address to a building site where work had stopped some months previously. Elias knew the area, and knew that there were multiple routes in and out, but the mass of flat land meant that he could see if Tommy decided to play games and send people after him.

“I don’t want a were to bring Layla.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Diana said. “You’ll get who we send.”

“I don’t trust weres, and I certainly don’t trust any of you not to try to kill me. Do you have someone older, weaker?”

There was a pause of several seconds. “Grayson,” Tommy said. “He’s a doctor here. He’s not a were.”

“What is he?” Elias asked.

“Human,” Tommy said. “He’s a human doctor.”

“Dragging humans into this, tsk-tsk,” Elias said with a slight chuckle. He had to admit he was quite enjoying himself.

“You dragged him into it when you murdered Layla’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, and then blamed another human. Grayson is just a human doctor involved in something he wants no part of, but who also wants to make sure no one gets killed.”

“People still might if you screw with me on this. You have six hours, and if you’re not there . . . well, you probably don’t want to know what happens after that. I have your address, so I could always send you pieces of Chloe in the post.” He read the address of the mansion just in case Tommy didn’t believe him.

“How’d you get those details?”

“Hello, Thomas,” Masako said. “Remember me?”

“How could I forget?” Tommy almost snarled, his displeasure at hearing from Masako evident from his tone. “I always like to remember the monsters I meet, especially the ones who don’t look like monsters until it’s too late.”

“Let’s not have any more death today. I want this to be done with as little bloodshed as possible, but there are others here who do not share my restrained view. They would rather storm the castle, so to speak. Handing Layla over in return for Chloe is the only sensible decision you have left. Please don’t force our hand. I would hate to have to turn Chloe into my next meal.”