Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,1

closer. “Jesus,” he panted. “It’s been a while since I smelled that.”

Smelled what?

His eyes opened, and I noticed they were a piercing blue, even more striking under his mahogany hair.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I barked.

I didn’t recognize this guy.

He slithered closer, almost animalistic in his movements with a predatory look on his face now that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

He looked suddenly alert. Fuck.

I searched for some kind of weapon around me.

“The locations change,” he said, and I backed up a step for every step toward me he took. “But the name stays the same. Blackchurch.”

“What is that?” I asked. “Where are we? Am I still in San Francisco?”

He shrugged. “I can’t answer that. We could be in Siberia or ten miles from Disneyland,” he replied. “We’re the last ones to know. All we know is that it’s remote.”

“We?”

Who else was here? Where were they?

And where the hell was I, for that matter? What was Blackchurch? It sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think right now.

How could he not know where he was? What city or state? Or country, even?

My God. Country. I was in America, right? I had to be.

I felt sick.

But water. I’d heard water when I woke, and I perked my ears, hearing the dull, steady pounding of it around us. Were we near a waterfall?

“There’s no one here with you?” he asked, as if he couldn’t believe that I was really standing here. “You shouldn’t be so close to us. They never let the females close to us.”

“What females?”

“The nurses, cleaners, staff…” he said. “They come once a month to resupply, but we’re confined to our rooms until they leave. Did you get left behind?”

I bared my teeth, losing my patience. Enough with the questions. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and my heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. They never let the females close to us. My God, why? I retreated toward the staircase, moving backward, so I didn’t take my eyes off him and started to descend as he advanced on me.

“I want to use the phone,” I told him. “Where is it?”

He just shook his head, and my heart sank.

“No computers, either,” he told me.

I stumbled on the step and had to grab the wall to steady myself. When I looked up, he was there, gazing down at me, his lips twitching with a grin.

“No, no…” I slid down a few more steps.

“Don’t worry,” he offered. “I just wanted a little sniff. He’ll want the first taste.”

He? I looked down the stairs, seeing a canister of umbrellas. Nice and pointy. That’ll do.

“We don’t get women here.” He got closer and closer. “Ones we can touch anyway.”

I backed up farther. If I bolted for a weapon, would he be able to grab me? Would he grab me?

“No women, no communication with the world,” he went on. “No drugs, liquor, or smokes, either.”

“What is Blackchurch?” I asked.

“A prison.”

I looked around, noticing the expensive marble floors, the fixtures and carpets, and the fancy, gold accents and statues.

“Nice prison,” I mumbled.

Whatever it was now, it clearly used to be someone’s home. A mansion or…a castle or something.

“It’s off the grid,” he sighed. “Where do you think CEOs and senators send their problem children when they need to get rid of them?”

“Senators…” I trailed off, something sparking in my memory.

“Some important people can’t have their sons—their heirs—making news by going to jail or rehab or being caught doing their dirty deeds,” he explained. “When we become liabilities, we’re sent here to cool off. Sometimes for months.” And then he sighed. “And some of us for years.”

Sons. Heirs.

And then it hit me.

Blackchurch.

No.

No, he had to be lying. I remembered hearing about this place. But it was just an urban legend that wealthy men threatened their kids with to keep them in line. A secluded residence somewhere where sons were sent as punishment, but given free rein to be at each other’s mercy. It was like Lord of the Flies but with dinner jackets.

But it didn’t exist. Not really. Did it?

“There are more?” I asked. “More of you here?”

A wicked smile spread across his lips, curdling my stomach.

“Oh, several,” he crooned. “Grayson will be back with the hunting party tonight.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, lightheaded.

No, no, no…

Senators, he’d said.

Grayson.

Shit.

“Grayson?” I muttered, more to myself. “Will Grayson?”

He was here?

But Taylor Dinescu, son of the owner of Dinescu Petroleum Corporation I now gathered, ignored my question. “We have everything we