A Spell of Time (A Shade of Vampire #10)(13)

Footsteps sounded overhead and two men entered the chamber. They circled the cage, attaching metal chains to the bars. A side door opened. Several more men came down the steps and entered the room. They all gripped the chains now attached to the bars of our cage and slid us roughly down a ramp. We hit the ground. We had to grip onto the bars to prevent ourselves from falling on top of each other. Frieda was too weak. She slid across the floor and her head smashed against the bars.

As they dragged us away from the aircraft, I stalked around the edges of the cage. We’d landed on a cliff. The sea glistened beneath the waning moon in the distance, and there was a steep drop a few hundred meters away. I looked around at our captors. Now ten of them had debarked from the helicopter and were staring at each of us through the bars.

The blue-eyed man pulled off his mask. His jaw was square and covered with a bristling black beard. His skin was tan, his nose long and pointed. The other men followed his lead, revealing their own faces for the first time. All of them were men except for one. The female hunter looked as tough as the men. Hardened features, marred with scars. They were built like military veterans.

They gathered together in a huddle and started talking in hushed tones. Though of course I could hear every word they spoke.

“Anthony, what first?” the woman asked, looking at the blue-eyed man.

Anthony cast another look at us.

“Bring our families.”

“Already?”

“Yes. They’ll want to be here to watch every moment of this.”

The woman nodded, her face stony and resolute, and hurried back toward a small helicopter parked fifty feet away from the black helicopter we’d arrived in. She climbed aboard with three other men and launched into the sky.

I turned my attention back to Anthony.

“You asked what we’re going to do with you. You won’t have to wait long now to find out. Don’t worry.”

If these hunters were as powerful as the hunters who used to roam the human realm decades ago, our chances of survival were practically non-existent. As I looked around at my comrades’ ashen faces, I was sure that they knew this too.

Man to man, they stood no chance against us. But the technology they possessed was enough to overpower us. One shot of one of their bullets into our flesh and we’d burn alive from the inside.

“Declan, Crispian,” Anthony called. “We may as well start preparing for the show.”

Two men ran up the ramp into the helicopter and returned minutes later, each carrying metal chests.

“Since the police are useless, I’m sure you can understand why we had to take this matter into our own hands. I’m so sorry,” Anthony said, looking at me with mock sympathy. “You’re the leader of this lot?”

I didn’t respond, though he didn’t seem to require my answer. He’d already seen me leading the way to the submarines when we were still on the sand.

I glanced at the horizon. The sun was close to rising. I looked up at the ceiling of the cage we were trapped in. It was solid, no holes. But the sun would shine right through the bars that lined the sides of the cage. There would be no escaping it. Perhaps this was their plan.

The men unlocked the chests and started withdrawing an array of weapons, many of which I’d never seen before in my life and couldn’t put a name to. But all were clearly torture devices. Sharp hooks, butchers’ knives, chains and handcuffs. Wooden stakes. And guns. Lots of guns. Their intentions were clear from one brief glance at the display they were laying out on the grass before us. Torture equipment and then guns to finish off the job.

“You see,” Anthony said as they unpacked the chests, “we couldn’t risk turning you into the police. They’d likely lose you. We had to take matters into our own hands. I’m sure you can understand.”

Anthony stooped down and picked up a stake in one hand, a dagger in the other. He crouched down on the floor, the wood leaning against his knee as he began to sharpen it.

Still I refused to discourse with him. I kept my face expressionless. If this was going to be my last hour, I wasn’t going to give them any more satisfaction than they already derived from seeing us caged here like animals.

I turned my back on the sight of him sharpening the stake and faced my companions. I looked at each of their dejected faces. Despite the many years I’d known them, I’d never gotten close to any of them. Our relationship was merely functional. I doubted that they had relationships amongst each other either. Everyone on our island just did what they had to do to get by and avoid trouble. I might as well be dying in the company of strangers.

I walked over to the other side of the cage and stared out again at the brightening sky. A cold breeze caught my hair, bringing along with it the scent of freshly blooming flowers.

I tried to calm my mind, stop thinking about what these hunters were about to put us through.

Soon enough, the sound of the small chopper returning roared over the mountaintop. A crowd of humans bundled out of the helicopter. More than a dozen of them. Men and women, young and old. They approached the men sharpening their tools and stared into the cage at us. Hatred burned in their eyes.

Anthony stepped forward with a young woman and an elderly man. “Meet Stacy, my wife, and Raymond, my father-in-law. Do you remember kidnapping Tobias? My brother-in-law? No, I didn’t think so.”

Another hunter stepped forward, his lip trembling as he held the hand of a teenage boy. “What about Justin, my son? Why don’t you explain to Sean where his brother is?”