that might come in handy at the moment. But her mind was drawing a blank when she most needed it. “We’re leaving town. We would have been gone in another half hour.”
“Well,” Martha said, moving to the bed and dragging the floral bedspread off, “isn’t it lucky we showed up when we did, then? Tony? Hank? You keep a good hold on her now, while I wrap this blanket over her.”
“She’s hard to hold, Martha,” one of the men said. “We could use the cuffs.”
“Of course. Don’t know what I was thinking.” Martha turned and looked at a young man. “Michael, go fetch the cuffs from the car.” Then she turned back to wrapping the blanket around Shea’s body. “For pity’s sake, a woman tattooed. And on your breast, too! You would feed your babies with that awful ink covering what God gave you? You witches just have no shame at all, do you?”
It was clearly a rhetorical question. Shea tried to pull away from the woman. There was a fanatical light in those pale blue eyes that was damn unsettling. She was caught, she thought, shooting a quick look at Torin as he lay immobile on the floor. The blanket with white gold threads covered his body from the chest down and when he looked at her, she read helpless fury in his eyes.
“Her man there’s got a matching tattoo, Martha,” one of Shea’s captors said.
“So he does.” Martha turned around to look at him, flat on the floor. “Heaven only knows what that might mean. But, doesn’t matter much to us, now, does it? It’s not him we’re here for, anyway.”
“I don’t like the look in his eye, Martha,” one of the men offered. “Think we should just shoot him now and be done with it.”
Panic reached up and clutched at the base of Shea’s throat. Torin was immortal, yes, but what if they shot him in the head? What would that do to him? Besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of these maniacs shooting Torin at all.
Whatever she was going to do, she would have to do on her own. And fast. They had to get out of here. She couldn’t be taken by the Seekers. God knew where she’d end up. And even though Torin was immortal, she knew all too well that he could be wounded badly enough to put him out of commission.
“You might have a point, Tony,” Martha mused, as if trying to decide whether to have potatoes or rice with dinner.
“What are you going to do with me?” Shea spoke up into the charged silence, hoping that if she kept them talking, she could take their attention away from Torin and stall them somehow. Give herself time to come up with something.
“We’ll be taking you to Dr. Fender, dear,” Martha said, her tone as soothing as her eyes were mad. “He’s moved his laboratory to upstate New York, so we have quite a long trip ahead of us.”
Shaken, Shea drew a deep breath and swallowed hard. “You know who Fender is. Then you must know he’s a monster. He tortures women. Kills them.”
Martha slapped her. “Nonsense. He’s never harmed a human woman. It’s only witches he’s interested in! Now, no more of your witch talk. Fender is a great man. He’s at the vanguard of our movement. The light of knowledge in the darkness. Through him, we will be purged of your evil and take your powers unto ourselves for the glory of God.”
Shea’s gaze slid to Torin and she felt a surge of something hot and frantic pumping through her. She had to get them out. But how? These were not the kind of people she could reason with. And if she were to admit the truth, she didn’t much want to reason with them anyway. What she really wanted to do was howl and scream and throw punches and spells.
Martha was in her face again, turning her chin until their gazes met. “Don’t you get any ideas now, missy. Those cuffs we’ve got for you are white gold. You’ll be quiet enough for our little trip, I’m thinking. Give you plenty of time to say your prayers to whoever it is your kind prays to.” She paused and frowned. “What’s taking Michael so long? Shauna, you go check on him now.”
A woman standing at the back, her hungry gaze fixed on Torin, jolted into action and ran for the door. Apparently they all took their orders from Martha. Shea continued