Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville) (8 page)

The man, the wolf, was still there, right outside the door, holding the slaughtered rabbit. So close, I could just take it. I resisted reaching through the opening to grab the meat from him. That would have made me far too vulnerable; it would have meant entering the territory that he controlled and leaving my own. Had to guard my own small space.

But I wanted to kill. I wanted that meat.

A wet thud slapped the stone as the dead rabbit fell outside the door. Just out of my reach. I could stretch my arm and brush the fluff of its fur but not take hold. They were teasing me. They could, because I was in the cage. Because I had no way out, and I was helpless.

No, let me out, not helpless at all, let me fight—

The bars of a cage inside my gut snapped, shattered to dust. Wolf was free now. She howls, and the piercing sound breaks from my own throat. Her claws slash at the inside of my skin.

I double over, hugging myself, groaning. No, please, not this, I can’t shift, I have to keep it together, stay in control. How can I stand up to them if I can’t keep myself together?

Finally, it’s over. I scream, and all the rage that’s been building rips out of me in a throat-splitting howl. Reflexively, I pull off my shirt and sweater, shoving my jeans off in a panicked, violent seizure. Have to get free. The howl just keeps going, a lungful’s worth that doesn’t stop until I tear out of my own body—

*   *   *

There is a tiny opening to her cage, and if she fights hard enough, she can break free. She snarls, spit flying. Digs her snout and paws through the opening. Almost fits her whole head through. Almost. Her body flops, back claws scrabbling against rock, trying to push herself out. A male stands outside—an enemy. She can almost see him.

Almost almost almost. She can’t do anything. The snarls turn to howls. The sound echoes against rock. The wood of the door bites into her skin, and she can smell the silver in the rock pressing toward her.

A voice from her gut speaks:
Calm down. Please be calm. This isn’t helping.

She’s furious, but the other half of her being pleads. The weaker, two-legged half. This territory is strange, the situation is strange. She doesn’t know what to do, so she listens to the calming voice. Backs away from the opening, shaking out splinters caught in her fur.

She lies on the ground, looking out to the dim light. The man is there, the other werewolf. Standing, watching. If she could see his eyes she would challenge him, but she can’t. If she could leap at him, she would tear out his throat. She pants, her tongue hanging from her mouth. Blood still stains the ground.

When the man moves, taking a step back, she perks her ears. Tries to guess what will happen next.

Calm.

He kicks the dead rabbit through the hole in the door, right in front of her. She jumps back, stares. Her mind tumbles. It has to be a trick. It doesn’t smell like a trick. A soft whine, in the back of her throat. Her other half is silent.

Blood wins out over all.

She eats the carcass, kneading it with jaws and teeth. The blood and flesh sings through her. She forgets about all but the blood and flesh.

Soon it’s gone, all of it but a few scraps of fur and bone. Her awareness has collapsed to the space of her own body. She paces, yawns. Wonders where the light is, there should be light, there should be a moon.

Her mate should be here. But no, not in the cage. He’s safe, and that’s good. But she longs for him, to feel him curled beside her, breathing into the ruff of her neck. The meat feels heavy in her gut. She doesn’t want to sleep, but she doesn’t have a choice. The walls hold silver. She cringes away from them, curls up in the middle of the floor, her muscles taut. It’s all so wrong.

She dreams of running.

*   *   *

I
’D BEEN
moved. The smells I woke to were different, slightly. While I still smelled the musty damp of underground, the dust and rock of the tunnels, the air had opened up. I wasn’t breathing my own waste anymore. A glow pressed against my closed eyelids.

Starting awake, I saw a rocky room with a half a dozen small, battery-run camp lanterns resting on the floor around the edges. I squeezed my eyes shut, rubbed them, opened them again and reveled in the feeling of being able to see something, anything, clearly. This wasn’t a cave so much as a junction, a place where two tunnels came together. I was still in the mine; the pale granite walls were even, blasted out by dynamite and hammers. The lamps didn’t give much light, and the arcing ceiling was dark, the jagged surface forming weird shadows.

I wanted to believe I was dreaming. But no, I wasn’t, because I was naked, and the cold grit of the cave floor bit into my skin. I checked myself for cuts, open wounds. Nothing that I could tell. I was alive, so the silver hadn’t gotten to me yet. But I could still sense it, in the itching on my spine.

While propping myself on an elbow, I stayed low, curling up, sheltering myself as best I could. I didn’t know where my clothes were. I didn’t know where I was in relation to the cave I’d been in before. I looked around for an exit, for a hint of sunlight. Didn’t see anything. Two tunnels leading out, that was it.

Four people stood on the far side of the space, maybe twenty feet away. Two women, two men, one of whom was old, decrepit. My nose flared, taking in their scents. I sneezed. Too much to process all at once.

While I’d slept off my Wolf, they’d brought me here so they could have a look at me. No—I realized what had really happened. The rabbit, and being out of that cage, were a reward. Finally, I knew what they wanted from me. They wanted my Wolf.

Chapter 8

I
HARDLY DARED
move, not knowing what would happen when I did. Not really wanting to know. I stayed calm, kept my breathing steady. I wasn’t in a strong position here; I couldn’t rip out all their throats at once, however much I wanted to. I stayed low to the floor, crouched protectively, and stared. Finally, I had a good look at my captors.

They were not what I expected, especially in the Gothic atmosphere of the cavern. They were startlingly … normal. Standing to my left against the far wall was the woman, the were-lion who’d brought me the water and sandwich. She was muscular and beautiful, with silky black hair knotted into a braid, sharp features, and bronzed skin. Middle Eastern, maybe. She made me think of deserts. Her clothing was simple, casual—a knit tank top and peasant skirt that had seen a lot of washing. She went barefoot. Her expression was neutral—not giving any sort of reply to my challenge.

Next to her stood a powerfully built man—the wolf, the one who’d taunted me and driven me to shift. He wore jeans, boots, and went shirtless, showing off an impressively sculpted chest. He worked out. I thought he might have been Indian, deep brown skin, a round face. A frown to bring down mountains. His dark gaze matched my own. He’d accept any challenge I gave him. Wolf didn’t like him.

To my right stood the other woman, and she was human, but her scent was so mixed up with the others she came across as something in between, neither one nor the other. Average height and build, hollow cheeks and tired eyes. Not getting enough sleep or food. Pale, with dirty blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a tunic-type shirt over jeans, and three or four pendants on leather cords around her neck. Not pendants—amulets, cast in metal or made of twisted wire. A pentacle, a Thor’s hammer, a couple of others I didn’t recognize but were clearly symbolic of something. She was probably some kind of magician. Her hands were clenched at her sides, and her breathing was fast—she was scared. She wouldn’t meet my gaze.

Then came the fourth one, the ancient one, standing effectively in the middle. My nose flared at his smell, which was cold, corpselike, preserved. He was the vampire, but unlike any vampire I’d ever met. He wasn’t pretty, well dressed, or haughty. Calculating, yes, with his stony gaze and iron demeanor. Powerful, I didn’t doubt. But his skin was gray, wrinkled, like paper left out in the weather. Bald, he wore a shapeless shirt and drawstring pants that made me think of hospital scrubs. He might have been ancient, or he might have simply been through hell and lived—sort of—to tell the tale. He also wore some kind of amulet around his neck, but it was too small for me to make out. If the vampire was up and about, night must have fallen. Which night, I still didn’t know.

Here they were, the international werewolf kidnapping squad. What an eclectic, unlikely group of people. My curiosity about them and how they’d come to be working together almost won out over my extreme annoyance and my deeply buried fear. I wanted to make some jab, some clever and pointed remark. Something that would give me a tiny bit of dominance, however small. But my voice was stuck, my tongue dry and thick. Wolf still stared out of my eyes; I wasn’t fully human yet, and the words wouldn’t come. My arguments were building in my throat and would come out as a howl if I couldn’t get them out as words. My lips opened, baring my teeth. All I had was Wolf’s body language.

I was naked, exposed, weak, and I hated it. If I just ran, I wondered how far I would get.

The vampire took a step forward and drew a breath to speak. I held my ground—what little ground I had. Stared at him, without meeting his gaze. I had to stay out of his power. I wondered if he’d enslaved the others somehow, or if they were here voluntarily. This was the first time I’d really thought of a vampire as
ancient.
My usual, traditional first question for vampires—how old are you, really?—died. It seemed pointless here. Irrelevant. Knowing the answer wouldn’t get me out of here.

“We gather from the far corners of the world on a dire quest. Finally, we can strike the blow that I have been preparing against the enemy for centuries…”

If I expected an explanation or an apology—something straightforward and rational, in other words—I was disappointed. The answer to who would want to kidnap me: crazy cult. I still didn’t have any idea what
kind
of crazy cult it was. And I still had no idea what they intended to do with me, or what I’d have to do to get out.

The vampire continued intoning his story, chanting a practiced speech. He had an accent, but it was light, clipped, hard to place. He spread his arms to me, a patriarch welcoming a child into the fold.

“You—you are the heir to a great spirit, to the mother wolf who nurtured an empire, whose statue stood in the Forum for centuries, a symbol of such untold strength and loyalty—”

“What?” I croaked, finally able to make my throat work. I didn’t know whether to lurch to my feet or fall over entirely, so I just sat there. “You mean like the
Capitoline Wolf
?”

I might have handed him a birthday cake, the way his face lit up. He smiled, a hideous expression on his cracked face and thin lips. “You understand. The fates are with us.” He tipped his head back, as if beseeching the heavens in prayer. “You are our Regina Luporum. You truly are ready to join us.”

Huh?

My laugh came out as a hiccup. Then the dam burst, and I doubled over, pressing my face to my arm, trying to stop the hysterics. Really, it was too much. I was laughing so hard, I thought I was going to throw up. That would have been cute.

The vampire blinked at me, nonplussed. The others were looking back and forth among themselves, obviously confused. But what had they expected?

“I’m sorry,” I managed to gasp. “That probably wasn’t the reaction you were looking for. But actually I’m not sorry.” Now it was the gobsmacked looks on their faces making me laugh. On the one hand this was all spooky and terrifying, with dim lamps and dark caves and monsters and blood. On the other hand … Yeah, what else could I do but laugh?

“You are Regina Luporum,” the vampire declared.

I hiccupped again. My stomach hurt. “You’re not serious,” I managed to gasp. That was a joke, it had always been just a joke.

“We’ve brought you here to fulfill your role. Your fate,” he said.

“Who the hell are you people?” I asked.

“Your destiny,” said the vampire, in a tone that suggested he thought this was obvious.

I stared. Sudden gooseflesh covered my skin, even though the temperature wasn’t that cold. The cave was insulating. But I was naked and vulnerable. I did have a clearer idea of who my enemy was, though: fanatics, of unknown origin and purpose. Small comfort that they seemed to need me for something
not
involving blood sacrifice and death. I couldn’t shove my mind past the
crazy
part.

“I don’t understand,” I said, fiercely as I could manage. Wolf was present, glaring out in challenge. My teeth were bared. That didn’t seem to make a difference. They were all very good at maintaining neutral expressions. They had a plan, and so far I hadn’t done anything to disrupt it.

“You will,” the vampire said, turning a cracked and ominous smile.

“Like hell,” I muttered. If they wanted to keep me here, they’d have to work for it.

Likely, one of the openings in the cave led out, and one didn’t. Fifty-fifty chance. I looked at them both, trying not to give away that I was looking, and made a plan. Neither exit had an obvious slope, up or down. The whole place was flat, so that didn’t help. The two lycanthropes stood near the left-hand tunnel, which meant my chances of reaching it before they stopped me were slim. I might be able to fight them both off, but I didn’t want to bet my freedom on it. On my right, the human magician stood. Her, I could flat outrun. Of course, the vampire would probably be able to stop me no matter what. Unless, just maybe, his ancient, wizened appearance meant that his strength and reflexes had also decayed. I could hope.

I couldn’t prepare, I could only
go.

I launched, running as I stood, stumbling forward and letting gravity do the work. Still cramped and woozy after shifting just a few hours ago, I hadn’t had a chance to stretch and unkink my muscles. Couldn’t think about it. Just aimed myself at the tunnel and ran. Didn’t look behind me, only saw my captors’ reactions out of the corner of my eye. Appearing startled and determined, they came after me. I had to be faster.