“Somebody stuck a needle in my arm. The next time I woke up my skin felt like it was on fire. I was wrapped like a mummy with the ropes and silver chains. My head hurt.” He touched his forehead, as if remembering the pain. “Everyone was gone. I still smelled the vampire, so I tried to talk to him. He never answered. Another wolf came, or maybe the same one, I don’t know. Jabbed me with a needle again.” Gordon stopped. “That’s all I remember clearly. After that…just little bits.” His voice faltered. Gordon’s left hand trembled, and he hid it under the table.
“What kind of bits? Did you learn what they wanted?”
“Nothing made sense. Voices. Needle pricks. Funky smells. Everything was hazy. Inside my head, I mean. Couldn’t get it clear.” Gordon frowned. “Questions. Over and over. I finally started trying to give the answer I thought they wanted. Sometimes I wasn’t sure the voices I heard were real. Maybe just inside my head. Music. Smells, like flowers and cologne. And cooked cabbage. Smelled rotten.” He wrinkled his nose. “Someone told me I liked cabbage. I gagged and got hit with the club.”
“Are those the same questions the first wolf asked?” Ari probed.
Gordon looked surprised. “Maybe. Yeah, now I think about it. Only now they’d hit me if I didn’t answer right. I think.” His face pinched in confusion.
“Tell them about the second packet of blood,” Andreas said.
“I hadn’t fed since I came. Had the belly cramps. The she-wolf came that last night. Held a packet to my nose, put a drop on my lips. Then she left.”
“I’m sorry.” Ari didn’t know what else to say. She imagined how bad that had been for a starving vampire. “Anything else you remember?”
Gordon frowned, concentrating. “Laughing, joking about me.” Gordon showed the first sign of anger over his captivity. “Something about rats. Some dude named Pavlov. Remembered his name so I could tell someone. If…well, so you could find him.” Gordon heaved a big sigh. “Can I go now?”
“Enough?” Andreas asked, looking at Ari and Ryan. “I don’t think further questioning will be helpful.”
Ari nodded. Gordon had given them plenty to talk about.
Andreas rose, placing a hand on Gordon’s shoulder again. “Friends are waiting to take him home. As soon as they’re on the way, we can discuss this.” He glanced at Ryan but didn’t wait for a response before ushering Gordon out the door.
Ryan had maintained an ominous silence throughout the interview. As soon as the vampires were gone, he leaned back and crossed his arms. “What do you make of his story? Presuming it’s true.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sounds pretty bogus. Polls, music, cabbage, for God’s sake. I wonder if he was deliberately vague. Maybe the vampires have a reason for not wanting us to know what happened.”
“What reason? You walked in here mad at the world, and now this. These conspiracy theories are starting to sound crazy. You think they’re making it up? Sure didn’t look that way to me.” Ari shoved her chair back and stalked around the table. She leaned across it to fire another comment when she felt Andreas walk in behind her.
“Am I interrupting?” he said, looking from one angry face to the other.
“No,” Ari said.
“Yes,” Ryan said.
Andreas’s lips tightened for an instant. He pulled up a chair and sat. “So,” he drawled. “What next, partners?”
Andreas emphasized the final word, and Ari thought Ryan would jump across the table. She choked down a startled laugh at the vampire’s audacity. She wanted to treat it as nothing, diffuse the situation, but knew it was too late for that. Still, she had to try.
“We were talking about what the wolves did to Gordon,” Ari said, returning to her seat.
“Pardon me for contradicting you, Arianna, but I don’t think so.” Andreas’s eyes locked on Ryan. “That was not your last discussion.”
“Andreas, don’t go there,” Ari began, but Ryan interrupted.
“No, he’s right. Let’s get this out on the table.”
“Fine,” she snapped, fed up with both of them. “We don’t have time to squabble among ourselves, but by all means, get it over with.” Ari sat back and put her elbows on the arms of her chair. The testosterone levels in the room were too damn high. If they wanted to fight, she wasn’t getting in the middle.
“Since I’m the one with the problem, I’ll start,” Ryan said. “This story of Gordon’s has holes big enough to drive a tank through. It smells phony. As