a thousand splinters and Transomnia flew all the way across the dance floor and to the opposite raised bar, shattering the back glass and slumping behind the counter. Jinx smiled, tilting her head, feeling for me.
“Dakota?” she said, twisting her cane until it brightened like a sun again.
“Beh—behind you,” I croaked.
The dark hooded figure I had seen in Purgatory stepped up behind her and stretched forth his hand, and simply said: “See.”
Jinx screamed and held her hand in front of her eyes, tossing her cane away as if blinded by its light. She whirled, and the hooded figure stretched out his arm and clotheslined her, and she fell back to the ground in a little heap.
I tried to get to my feet, as the hooded figure stepped to the rail.
“Let’s simplify this problem,” he said, stretching forth his hand. “Sleep.”
40. SACRIFICIAL LAMB
Icy cold water splashed over me, and I screamed, bucking. I was awake, cold, and in pain, hunched over in a kneeling position, my head pressed to a stone surface before me. I tried to sit up, and found my hands bound together with wire, fixed tight to a steel ring set into the stone . My legs pulled apart by something similarly tight and sharp. And as the water ran down over me, I realized in utter terror that but for my steel collar, I was completely naked.
“Oh, God,” I said, looking up to see a box covered in tattooed skin.
I was on the main stage of Hell, tied to a flat stone disk. I’d never seen it at the Masquerade before; it was new. Before me, the dark hooded figure stood, vigilant, one hand resting on the box, that horrible box covered with tattoos ripped from their owners. His other hand held a silver knife. Beside him Transomnia stood, glowering, a little worse for wear but angry and alert, holding the pruners.
“Oh, God,” I said. I cringed, and my terror intensified as I realized they could rape me in this hunched-over position. Then I looked again at the box, and I realized the real reason I was tied like this was probably to harvest the Dragon from my back. “Oh, God—”
“Shut up,” the hooded figure said.
“Let her whine,” Transomnia said. “I figure her friends ain’t done—”
“Good,” the hooded one said. “I’m counting on it.”
Transomnia’s eyes narrowed. “Are you now?”
“Yes,” the figure boomed. “Though, you’d think they’d’ve come all at once.”
My eyes caught a bit of movement, and—Oh, Lord—over to my right I could see Jinx and Cinnamon, hanging in the air, back to back, bodies making a cruel butterfly as they slumped away from the bloody nest of barbed wire that bound their arms and feet behind them. As they turned midair I saw they hung from a meathook dug into the wire. Saw blood dripping out of the barbs. Saw the drops fall onto Alex Nicholson, similarly trussed on the floor at their feet.
Oh, Lord. What had I gotten them all into? When I’d messaged Jinx, telling her what I was doing and to come get me if I didn’t call back in an hour, I’d assumed she would call the cavalry—not come herself and get killed.
“Or that at least one of them would have called the police,” Transomnia said thoughtfully. His eyes fell on me, and I cringed against the plate. “I was surprised you didn’t call the police, Dakota. You were a good girl—”
I was going to kill him. Somehow, somehow, I was going to kill him—
“It wouldn’t matter if she had,” the dark figure laughed. “I told you, I took care of that. I’d know—but more importantly, I can stop it. Even then, I think my pup’s raised enough havoc elsewhere to keep the police busy all night.”
“Fair enough,” Transomnia said. Suddenly he grinned down at me, and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket—my cell phone—and began thumbing through the contacts. “Not one call after I called you, Dakota, a very good girl. Is he about back?”
“Almost,” the dark figure said, and my stomach lurched. I had a very, very good idea of who he meant, and it was tearing me to pieces. “What do you have in mind?”
“To speed things up,” Transomnia said, reaching down and jerking my face up so I faced my phone. “Smile for the camera, Dakota,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I replied.
“I’ll pass, thanks,” he said, looking back at the dark figure. “I’d be second in line, after all, and I prefer unspoiled meat.”