Revealed in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights #9)(71)

…how would she learn?

He shook his head and continued on. He was not clever enough to figure this out, not with so little information.

A man sat in the last cell on the right, ribs clearly showing and wiry muscle lining his nude form. He sat hunched over propped-up knees, his head hanging low.

Another guard lay half in and half out of the doorway up ahead, the door standing open. Heavy wooden doors lined the other side of the hallway, closed off, darkened, single-person cells designed for confusing the mind. Food would come at random times, sleep would be interrupted, random water tossed in, and the prisoner would be kept in continual darkness unless he or she was being tortured. That treatment would break someone. Most of the time, anyway.

“Hey,” Cahal whispered, revealing himself to the man in the cell.

The man didn’t move, staring at nothing.

“Hey,” Cahal repeated, raising his voice.

Still the man didn’t look around. Spit dribbled out of the side of his mouth. His mind was gone. He wouldn’t have noticed the vampire, probably, and if he had, he likely didn’t have enough sense to coherently remember what she’d done here.

Cahal moved on, stepping over the guard and quickly checking behind him. There shouldn’t be a change-out for another hour, at least. Food had come not long ago. The torturers had already been here twice. He should have a big window here, but one could never be too sure.

Within the second part of the dungeon, he had to but smell his way to the cell he needed, following the scent of fresh blood in the stagnant air. Last door on the left, charred and leaning awkwardly, with a few chunks taken out at the bottom and a hole burrowed through the top. They didn’t look like escape attempts, but the result of a temper.

“Reagan,” Cahal whispered, no idea what he might find beyond that door. Not really wanting to find out, if he was being honest. He’d been tortured for a year, but never with such vigor. He didn’t know if he could stand seeing her like the man in the other cell. “Reagan?”

“Knock, knock…” came the reply.

He heaved a sigh of relief.

“Who’s there?” he answered, working at the lock with his tools. He didn’t want the elves to know what manner of creature had broken in. When he locked it back up after they left, there would be zero evidence of how she’d gotten out.

Except for the dead bodies with their necks torn out by a vampire.

He paused and looked down at the lock. Once he’d been good at this. He was clearly rusty. He was helping Ja frame vampires…if that was what she’d set out to do.

“Orange.” Her voice was weak and scratchy. He could barely hear her through the wood.

“Orange who?” The lock clicked over.

He dropped one of his tools on the ground. They’d now know it was a burglar, not a vampire. That would confuse them a little. Maybe upset Ja’s plans. She was too cunning for her own good. All vampires were, but she was worse than most. Her intelligence made him feel like an amateur.

“Orange’cha glad you’re not the one in here?” A wheeze of laugher floated out of the cell, followed by a wet, hacking cough. “Ow.”

He grimaced as he pulled open the door. A long, low groan issued from the wood.

“They keep trying to repair it.” Her voice hung heavily in the liquid darkness. He could barely see her form in the corner, like a body dumped there after it had been dismantled. “I kicked it in when they were bringing me in here. That confused them. Then I kicked it out after I killed two of their guards. They swarm the place like rats, though. Can’t get past the buggers. Too many.”

“How you doin’? You good?”

“Oh sure, yeah. Fucking amazing. How are you doing?”

He pushed the door open wider and brought in an unlit torch from the outside wall. “Can you light this so I can see what I’m working with?”

“Take a deep breath, bud. I am not the same girl you saw last time. Also, can’t you see in the dark?”

“To an extent. This is beyond—” He lost his words when the torch flared to life.

She sat on the cold stone nude, deep blue and purple bruises covering her body, broken by bloody slits and spots where they’d torn off chunks of skin. The bone on her lower right arm stuck out through the skin. Her left hung limp from what looked like a badly dislocated shoulder. Her right eye was swollen shut, and her right foot at an unnatural angle. On her right hand, not one finger was lined up correctly.

“How’s my hair?” she asked, her head resting back against the stone wall smeared with blood. “I didn’t get a chance to style it today. The elves have kept me busy. So sweet of them to visit so often. They don’t seem to like my jokes, though. Probably because I make them at the elves’ expense, huh? Sensitive fuckers.”

Cahal knelt beside her, at a loss. He hadn’t thought there would be this much damage. Not so soon. They were clearly trying to fast-track the process, a sure way to kill someone rather than break them.

“What are they after?” he asked, leaning closer to her chest to see if there was any rib damage that might indicate internal bleeding.

“Oh…you know. Nothing much. Just my life story. Very nosy, these elves. They seem to think I’ll tell them my history. What dopes, am I right? At least they didn’t cut anything off. Awfully hard to heal it if it isn’t there, know what I mean?”