A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(26)

But there was nothing safe about this dark. Nothing comforting. Because this dark was home to the real monsters.

If only she had a guide. Alice had had the white rabbit. Lucy, Mr. Tumnus. Dorothy hit the jackpot with the scarecrow, tin man, and cowardly lion. Quinn wasn't picky. Even a talking pigeon would do. Anything that could tell her where to go to find her brother.

There was never a fairy godmother around when you needed one. And she needed one, badly.

Reaching Eighteenth Street, she looked both ways, then started across. She was nearly in the middle of the dirt street when she heard the hoofbeats again, stronger. Closer. Hell.

She'd barely run three steps when she saw the horses enter the intersection out of the corner of her eye. The sudden shout told her they'd seen her, too. Dammit. Her gaze darted, hunting for a way through the wall of row houses that lined the street, but she saw nothing. Did she dare run inside one? It might collapse on top of her. Then again, was that fate so much worse than being caught again?

No, it wasn't.

She ran for the closest door and turned the knob with shaking fingers, but the door was locked tight. And fully on its hinges. Shit. Veering away from the riders, she ran for the next doorway, but the horses were too quick. One of her pursuers kicked up a choking cloud of dirt as he passed her, then pulled up, bringing his horse around to face her, blocking her path. The second rider came to a stop behind her, effectively cutting off any means of escape. If she'd ever had one.

"And what have we here?" the one in front asked in an annoyingly nasal, high-pitched voice. As the dust settled, she got a halfway-decent look at him in the low light and had to fight not to gasp. He clearly was not human. His ears were a little too large, his head a little too big for his body. But it was his eyes, glowing bright orange, that gave him away. Oddly, he was dressed in modern clothes, his khakis stained, his polo shirt sporting a good-sized hole in the front. Angling herself so that she could see both of them, she glanced at the second, noting that he looked much like the first, his eyes also glowing orange.

Quinn crossed her arms over her chest, gripping her stake. "Who are you? And what are you doing here?" A good offense was often the best defense.

"We're Traders." The first male cocked his head at an odd angle. "Looking for runaways. Who did you run from, girlie?"

"Who says I'm a runaway?"

"Yer human, aren't ye? Free humans in V.C. are always either runaways, or they've come in through a sunbeam. Is that what ye did then?"

"What about the slayers?"

"Slayers?"

"You said humans are either runaways or accidental visitors. What about the vampire slayers?"

The other one hooted. "Vampire slayers?" A deep-belly chuckle rolled out of his mouth. "Ain't no humans who stand a flea's chance against a vampire, girlie. None."

That stank. "What are you two? You're not vampires."

"Traders," the first one repeated, as if that was supposed to mean something to her. "Come, now. You had a nice little run, I reckon, but you're ours, now."

Like hell. Quinn carefully unfolded her arms. "Do Traders die from a stake through the heart?" she asked quietly, giving each of them her best touch-me-and-I'm-going-to-rip-out-your-eyeballs look.

Grins twisted their faces into masks that looked increasingly inhuman. "Looks like we got us a fun one, Bart," the first Trader crowed.

Damn them both. Cold fear shot down her spine as she got a vision of them having fun with her, throwing her to the ground and tearing off her clothes. Well, they were going to have to catch her first.

Pivoting, she took off the way she'd come, her boots eating up the dirt. Behind her, the Traders shouted, horses leaped. She'd always been a runner and was damn good at distance. If she could just get back to the alley she'd just come out of, she might be able to dodge . . .

One of them grabbed her, hauling her face-first across his lap with startling strength.

"Troublesome bitch." A second later, something crashed against the back of her skull.

The lights went out.

Chapter Six

Quinn woke to the sound of chaos.

Screams rent the air, crying, yelling. Someone fell on top of her, twisting Quinn's right leg at a painful, awkward angle. As she opened her eyes to the firelit night, she caught an elbow on the cheekbone.

Eyes stinging with pain, she struggled to sit up, to free herself from the tangle of limp bodies and flailing limbs, trying to make sense of her surroundings, trying to remember . . .

The Traders.

Her heart fell to her stomach. She'd gotten herself caught. Again. Dammit.

She looked around and saw what appeared to be a roped-off corner of some kind of open building, the once whitewashed walls dirty and liberally stained with . . . blood? Lamplight flickered on the walls as men and women dressed in a weird mix of nineteenth- and twenty-first-century garb stood in a wide circle around them, their heads tipped back, their eyes half-closed as if in a rapture of prayer, or the throes of orgasm.

She knew that look. She'd seen it on Arturo's face often enough. They were feeding on the fear of their captives.

An elbow caught Quinn in the back as the others struggled to sit up around her, their faces reflecting a terror Quinn understood all too well. Unlike them, she knew where she was this time.

Something pulled at her ankle, yanking her foot hard and fast, making her fall into the person beside her. The loud clank of chains clued her to the problem a moment before she caught sight of the shackle around her ankle, a shackle chained, apparently, to someone else. Two someone elses. No wonder they were so badly tangled.