Still Not Dead Enough , Book 2 of The Dead Among Us (32 page)

He certainly had gotten a taste of the punish-and-humiliate part.

~~~

“We can’t find any trace of him,” McGowan said. “I’ve searched quite thoroughly on the Mortal Plane.”

Clark Devoe slipped through the door into McGowan’s study where all but Paul had gathered. He immediately said, “Eric Reichart’s in the hospital. SFPD found him three days ago, his right hand nearly crushed, and suffering from severe hypothermia.”

“Hypothermia?” Colleen said. “That would be Paul’s doing. And three days ago, that would be when Paul disappeared.”

Devoe smiled, though there was nothing pleasant about the look on his face. “Guess where they found Reichart: lying in the middle of the street less than a hundred feet from Paul’s building. And there were nearby traces of Unseelie magic.”

McGowan said, “That little shit. He’s got some questions to answer. What hospital?”

“I’ve already been there,” Devoe said. “Had a little talk with my good buddy Eric. He stinks of Unseelie too, and it’s clear he had something to do with Paul’s disappearance. But the asshole won’t admit to anything, and I was . . . persuasive.”

Colleen said, “More like scary.”

Devoe looked at her, his expression flat and almost inhuman. “But he was more scared of somebody else, wouldn’t talk.” Devoe turned to McGowan. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

McGowan closed his eyes, nodded slowly, tiredly. “That son-of-a-bitch Karpov. Reichart doesn’t have the wherewithal to cut a deal with the Unseelie Court. It’s got to be Karpov. But unless we can prove it, I can’t take any action against him.”

“Now if I can confirm Ag is holding Paul against his will. If I can do that, that means he’s taken both my daughter and my apprentice, and I’ll have the support of every practitioner on the Mortal Plane. But first I need solid confirmation of the situation.”

Colleen sighed heavily. “Can you get it before they break Paul?”

~~~

It had been a long week, but it was Friday and they’d just closed that new account with one of Paul’s designs, so old man Strath had let him skip out a little early. He was looking forward to a glass of wine with Suzanna, sitting in the kitchen watching her make dinner. They might even have a chance to make love before Cloe got home from school.

He opened the door to their apartment, headed straight for the bedroom, pulling off his tie as he walked. But when he stepped into the bedroom he was confronted with the most pornographic view of a man screwing the hell out of some woman, his buttocks pumping up and down, his erect penis pumping in and out of her. Paul’s first thought was that somehow he’d walked into the wrong apartment, but then the woman groaned and cried out in Suzanna’s voice, “Oh god that’s good.”

Paul froze. “Suzanna?” he asked.

The man stopped pumping away at the woman, turned to look over his shoulder at Paul, his eyes wide with surprise. It was their next-door neighbor, a single guy named Healey. Suzanna’s head rose and also peered over the man’s shoulder. “Oh my god!” she cried, pushing the man off her. “Paul!”

Paul turned, headed for the door, heard Suzanna crying out behind him. “Paul, wait. No. Let me explain.”

~~~

Paul had a window in his small room that looked out over the fantastic Faerie countryside. He stood at it, staring out it but seeing nothing, tears running down his cheeks.

Sometimes that dream ended with Suzanna begging for forgiveness. Sometimes she scorned him, told him he was a rotten lover, that he should be glad she chose to take another lover to satisfy her physical needs instead of leaving him. So far he’d experienced it a dozen different ways, with a dozen different men as her lover, and a dozen different endings to each one, none the same. And the most difficult part of it all was that the dreams didn’t have a dreamlike quality, were instead vivid and real and painful. And while intellectually he knew they were just dreams, illusions cooked up by Simuth, each time he awoke his sense of betrayal was new and raw.

“Young Mage.”

Paul recognized Anogh’s voice, turned to face him. If there wasn’t that mage blocking his power he’d summon all he could, go for Anogh’s throat and damn the consequences. But without his power he couldn’t even touch the bastard. “What do you want?”

“I thought I’d come see how you’re doing.”

“How do you think I’m doing?” Paul demanded angrily as he turned away from Anogh, turned back to the window.

Anogh crossed the room, stopped close behind him and spoke softly, “I think Simuth must use three strong mages to dampen your power and control you, and seven to maintain this circle. I think Ag expected you to be broken by now, is frustrated you’re not, is growing increasingly unhappy with Simuth. I think Simuth is growing desperate. And I think you may be strong enough to withstand the fool.”

“What do you care?”

“I care a great deal, mortal. You just don’t understand how and why. Remember this, if Simuth stumbles, you can walk the halls of Sidhe all the way back to the Mortal Plane.”

It took a moment for Anogh’s words to sink in, and when they did Paul turned to confront him. But there was no one there. Paul stood alone in the room, wondering if it had been just another illusion, all part of the game they played on the landscape of his mind.

~~~

Ag demanded angrily, “When will it be done?”

“Any day now,” Simuth answered, on his knees before Ag’s throne and trembling visibly. Clearly Ag’s patience had reached its limits.

Ag stared at him for a long moment, and when he spoke his words were soft, sibilant, almost like the hiss of a snake. “Any day now, my dear Simuth. You’ve said that for several days now. And the Old Wizard is using the time to muster his support.”

The temperature in the room dropped suddenly and frost formed in Anogh’s hair. Ag stood, took each step down the dais slowly, one at a time, stopped at the bottom next to the kneeling Simuth. He leaned down and put his lips close to Simuth’s ear, and while he spoke in a faint whisper, all there heard his words clearly. “If he is not broken and bound soon, then I will have to release him, and the woman. Do you understand what such a failure will mean for you?”

Simuth’s trembling increased. He whispered. “I do, Your Majesty.”

Ag smiled. “Then see to it that it is finished tonight.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Tonight. It will be so.”

Chapter 25: A Choice of Desires

Paul walked Katherine up the steps at the front of her house. They’d had a wonderful evening: dinner, then an opening at an art studio run by a friend of Katherine’s. At the art studio they’d laughed quietly at the art; they both agreed it was atrocious crap.

Their relationship had turned a little serious, though no sex yet, just a few kisses at odd little moments here and there. Nice kisses!

At the top of the steps she turned and faced him, leaned into him, let him wrap his arms around her. “You seem a little preoccupied tonight,” she said, an odd look passing over her face.

He shrugged. “Had a bad dream last night. Really strange, some parts bad, some parts good. You were in it, and your father. I was a wizard, of all things, and you were a witch, and we were involved with fairies and leprechauns and demons and all sorts of weird stuff. Can’t tell you how glad I was to wake up this morning and find out it was just a nightmare.”

She gave him a little evil grin. “Well one part of it was real. Trust me, Paul, I can be a real witch, when the mood strikes me.”

He laughed. “I don’t doubt that.”

She pulled out of his arms. “Come on in, have a cup of coffee. It’s been too nice of an evening to end it now.” She turned to the door, dug her keys out of her purse and opened it. He followed her into her living room, through the living room and into the kitchen where she threw her purse on the counter, then turned and faced him squarely. She looked into his eyes; he kissed her, and she responded warmly, her body tight against his. He could tell she was as reluctant as him to end the kiss.

Her house was a lot nicer than his dump. He helped her out of her coat. She wore slacks that emphasized her long legs and nice butt, a pale, blue blouse with a ruffled collar, open at the neck and cut just a bit low, exposing a hint of some sort of red lacy thing. She caught him checking out her ass as she stepped out of the coat, grinned impishly. “Here,” she said, took the coat from him and hung it in a closet near the front door.

She took his hand, led him into the living room, laughing and commenting about the ridiculous art they’d seen earlier. In the living room she stopped, turned and pulled him against her. They kissed again, their tongues dancing back and forth. When the kiss ended, he couldn’t think of anything better to say than, “I like my coffee black.”

She didn’t pull out of his arms to go make the coffee, looked into his eyes and said, “I think the coffee can wait a bit.”

They kissed again, and he became conscious of her body molded tightly against his, her breasts pressing against his chest, but he wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go. When they came up for air she had a twinkle in her eye as she hesitantly said, “I’m having trouble developing any interest whatsoever in coffee.”

A wave of intense, passionate desire washed through him as he stumbled over the words, “Ya. To hell with . . . the coffee.”

As they kissed again, she pressed herself against him. He pressed back and kissed her on the neck, and she let out a low pleasurable growl.

At that point they both lost control, idiotically tried to maintain the kiss and as much body contact as possible while struggling toward her bedroom and attempting to pull Paul’s jacket and tie off at the same time. She stumbled backwards and he stumbled with her, ended up pressing her against the wall, his arms tangled behind him in his coat. He kissed her on the throat trying to fumble with his jacket, kissed the swell of her breasts exposed just above the red, lacy thing.

She pushed him away. He stumbled backward thinking he’d gone too far, but when the back of his legs hit the edge of her bed, he fell back onto it, his hands still pinned behind his back in the tangle of his coat, the bulge in his pants embarrassingly obvious. She made a point of looking at it, grinned evilly, laid down on top of him with his hands still tangled behind him.

“I’ve got you trapped right where I want you,” she said, then she kissed him on the chin, ran her lips lightly down the side of his neck, leaned back for a moment, pulled off his tie and tossed it aside, then planted several kisses on his chest. He’d never felt such intense desire, and sensed that they both felt the same desperate need for each other. Their kisses grew more heated, and he finally got his hands free, cupped one of her breasts, pinched the nipple lightly through her blouse. She groaned with pleasure, whispered, “It’s almost unnatural the way I want you at this moment.”

Their kissing grew desperate, frantic. He tried to unbutton her blouse, accidentally tore the red lacy thing, exposed her breasts and began kissing them, bit one ever so gently. She groaned, cried out, kissed him on the ear, bit him on his neck. “I can’t . . .” she said breathlessly. “I’ve never . . . felt such . . . overwhelming need. God I need you.”

She tore at his belt, got his pants open, put her hand inside them and stroked him desperately. It drove him insane, and he bit her breast almost viciously, tasted a trickle of blood, was amazed he would do such a thing, because he just wasn’t like that, not rough and harsh and cruel. But she groaned with pleasure at the bite, and that wasn’t like her either. Then he got his hand in her pants, caressed her between her legs, and her cry of pleasure was almost a full-throated scream. “There’s something wrong here,” she cried, “but I don’t care. I don’t care.”

They pulled desperately at each other’s pants, both stupidly trying to undress the other one-handed, refusing to remove the other hand from the pleasure they so urgently needed. She arched her back growled like an animal as waves of pleasure washed through her. “There’s something wrong here,” she screamed, thrusting her hips against his. He’d gotten her pants open, but only that, didn’t recall tearing them badly in the process. His were open, and like hers still up around his waist. For an instant they abandoned the desperate struggle to undress, pressed frantically against each other, his shorts and her bikinis and their half-open pants the only things that separated them. “I know it,” she screamed, “I know it, I know it. It’s a glamour, a beguilement.”

Then she completely lost control, rolled them both over so he was on top of her, ground against him, her bikinis and his shorts still in the way. And while he had no less control, there was a piece of him that heard her. As they continued their mad, frantic struggles, she tearing at his pants, he tugging at hers, that piece of him that she’d awakened to the absurdity of their struggles managed to pull power, to feed it into his personal wards. Their passion had them both desperately trapped, unable to control anything they did, but the walls of Katherine’s bedroom shimmered and wavered as if they were just barriers of smoke slowly dissipating on a gentle breeze.

They rolled over again and now she was on top. He bit at her breasts, licked them, and a piece of him realized they were writhing on the floor in the middle of a large banquet hall, the main entertainment for the Unseelie Court’s dining pleasure, trapped in a magic circle of protection powered by Sidhe mages, performing for the entertainment of all, especially Simuth, who grinned at him knowingly and nodded.

“Spell,” she said breathlessly as they writhed together on the floor. “Amplify . . . our own . . . desires . . . thousand fold.”

Paul tried to draw power. Understanding was one thing, resisting another. As she tugged at his pants all he could do was fumble clumsily at her hands, delaying the inevitable spectacle. His own power only fed the spell more, and he realized he couldn’t fight it, that there must be several Sidhe mages feeding their power into it, fighting against him. If he couldn’t fight it, he and Katherine would tear their clothes apart and screw their brains out on the floor of the banquet hall, an ugly pornographic show for the Unseelie Court.