Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(6)

Goddamn you, Ahlan, she thought. I told you that there was no such thing as easy money.

Yet she could not be angry at him. Not until she saved him and nursed him back to health.

“And as a show of good faith,” Chalen said with his jagged-toothed smile, “I will provide you with a weapon to ensure your safety and the success of your endeavors.”





3




THE CASTLE’S SUBTERRANEAN LEVEL was a maze of stone corridors, all damp and lit with torches, following the Igor decor scheme. There was no air underground as far as Ahmare could tell, not that she expected ventilation or comfort in a place that didn’t have electricity and was run by a madman who’d made it literally impossible for his subordinates to argue with him.

In front of her, Chalen traveled on a pallet that was held aloft by four guards, one on each corner, the quartet walking in perfect coordination like a team of carriage horses. From time to time, the conqueror coughed, as if the subtle sway—or perhaps the mold on the walls and the rat poop on the floor—irritated his airways.

Ahmare kept track of every left and each right, and all the straightaways in between, constructing a 3-D map in her mind of the compound.

“So you keep your guns and ammo in an armory,” she muttered. “Or is it more like a bunker.”

“I have many things I do not allow others to be privy to.”

“Lucky me.”

“You are most fortunate, it is true.”

The procession stopped, and a rock panel slid back to reveal another long hallway. This one was unlit, however, and there was a scent to it that was . . . not the same.

“Proceed,” Chalen ordered. “And take a torch.”

“You’re going to let me pick what I want?” she said dryly. “What if I take more than one gun?”

What if she took an entire arsenal, doubled back, and killed the motherfucker right here and now?

Amazing how completely unsqueamish she was at that thought.

“There is only one. You will take what has been given to you and you will be off on your endeavors, to return with what is mine so that you may leave with what is yours.”

“Yeah, I remember the deal.” She faced the conqueror. “But you haven’t told me where I’m going. Or how I’ll recognize the female.”

“It will all be obvious to you. And if it is not, well, that bodes badly for your brother.”

“This is bullshit.”

Chalen’s pockmarked face twisted into a nasty smile. “No, it is the consequence of your and your brother’s decisions. He chose to steal from me. You chose to intercede on his behalf. You are chafing under decisions made freely, and that is folly considering you could have stayed out of this.You opened these doors. If you do not like the rooms revealed, that is nothing I, nor any other, can help you with.”

She thought of her brother hanging like a dead body between those two guards.

“Where is my torch,” she demanded.

Chalen laughed softly. “Lo, how I wish I had met you at an earlier time in my life. You would have been a formidable lover.”

Never, she thought as a guard appeared beside her.

She accepted a flame-topped torch and stepped into the corridor.

“A word of advice,” Chalen said.

Ahmare glanced over her shoulder. “You can keep it. And go to hell.”

He flashed that broken-picket-fence smile again, and she knew she was going to see those ragged teeth in her nightmares. “My place in Dhunhd is quite well assured already, but I thank you for the kind regards. No, I would remind you that it is considered polite to return things you borrow. You must bring the weapon I lend you back to me in good working order. If you do not, you will find that we have another debt to settle.”

With that, the panel slid back into place on a resounding thunch and she was locked in.

The torch’s hiss was much louder now, and as she moved it from side to side to assess where she was, its heat warmed her face. More glistening walls. More rats on the floor—

Off in the distance, she heard falling water—like a river?

Walking forward, she was careful where she put her feet. The light from the flame did not carry far, the darkness consuming the illumination as a meal long denied. Shadows thrown from such an uneven, flickering source made it seem as though insects were crawling all over the corridor. Maybe they were.

As her neck prickled, she reached up and brushed at it. The sound of the falling water got louder, a rushing torrent.

The corner came without warning, a wall seeming to jump out at her, and she stopped short so she didn’t slam into the stone. Reorienting herself, she pivoted to the right and kept going.

The first of the iron bars came thirty feet farther on. The lengths were set into the ceiling and the floor, locked in with mortar and stone, and instinct made her stay more than an arm’s length back from them.

It was a cell. Like you would see in a zoo.

And something was in there.

Stopping, she swung the torch in a wide arc. What she wanted to see were racks of guns. Bins of bullets. Halters to strap weapons onto the body.

That was what she was looking for.

The rushing water was so loud, it drowned out—

Torches mounted on the walls exploded into flame, and she jumped with a shout. Wheeling toward the bars, she waved her own light source around, trying to see into the cell. Slivers of something shockingly white caught her eye down on the floor.