Poison Promise

19

I wasn’t sure how long I was unconscious. Probably only a few seconds, since I woke up sprawled across the pavement, my arms trapped underneath my chest as though I’d tried to break the flying fall with my hands.

Every single bone in my body ached, and I could feel more blood trickling out of all my many cuts and scrapes, but I was still in one piece. I must have managed to grab hold of enough of my Stone magic to protect myself before I hit the asphalt and blacked out—

Squeak-squeak-squeak.

Squeak-squeak-squeak.

Footsteps sounded on the pavement. I blinked and found myself staring at a pair of white sneakers. He shifted to one side, and his pant leg rode up, revealing one of his socks, mint-green with a white argyle pattern. I craned my neck up, then wished that I hadn’t, as that small motion spread the aches in my bones out to all the other nerve endings in my body. I felt like an egg that someone had dropped on the sidewalk, cracked and oozing everywhere.

Beauregard Benson towered over me. The vamp’s blue eyes flicked over my body, his gaze cold but curious at the same time.

“Amazing that her brains aren’t leaking all over the street, along with the rest of her,” he said. “But that’s Stone magic for you. I’ll be interested to see her reaction in the lab.”

“The lab, sir? Don’t you want to finish her off here?”

I blinked again. That was Silvio’s bland tone. He might have wanted me to kill Benson, but no doubt, he’d be all too happy to hand his boss a gun so Benson could shoot me now.

“And waste this rare research opportunity? Absolutely not,” Benson purred. “I have something far more interesting in mind for her. Give her a sedative, and get her in the car.”

Silvio crouched down beside me, a syringe in his hand. He gave me an almost apologetic look, but he followed his boss’s orders and leaned forward. The needle pricked my arm.

Lights out again.

The world didn’t go completely black this time. But a fog enveloped my mind that made it hard for me to do more than just slowly blink, much less fight back. And every time I opened my eyes, something different was happening.

Blink.

Two of the vamps rolled me over onto my back, and Silvio patted me down, slipping off the spider rune ring on my right index finger. He also removed all of my knives, including the extra ones in my vest, then went over and retrieved the weapon I’d been holding when I was roadkilled by the SUV.

Blink.

The two vamps scooped me up off the pavement and shoved me into the back of an SUV. My arms and legs flopped every which way, as though they were made out of gelatin instead of flesh and bone. Silvio slid in next to me, carefully propping me up, straightening my legs, and folding my hands in my lap, making me comfortable. He even took the time to buckle my seat belt. I snickered at the irony of that, although the sound was barely louder than a croak.

Blink.

The SUV stopped in the circular driveway that fronted Benson’s mansion. The vamps undid my seat belt, grabbed hold of my arms, and dragged me out of the vehicle, up a set of stairs, and into the building. Benson strode along in front of us, his sneakers squeak-squeak-squeaking like they had the hiccups. My own boots skidded along the floor, the toes catching on the rugs and smearing blood, dirt, and bits of garbage all over the fine fabrics and glossy hardwood that peeped out between them. Silvio brought up the rear, moving as silently as a ghost.

Blink.

The vamps dragged me down a set of steps and into a large basement, one filled with people.

Most of them were probably in their late teens and early twenties, but their dull, glazed eyes, slack, wrinkled features, and thin, almost emaciated bodies made them seem much, much older, as though they’d already used up most of the life inside them and were waiting for the rest to be slowly extinguished.

These were the faces of addicts.

People sprawled across couches, curled up on futons, and lay facedown on pillows that had been strewn across the floor, their knobby knees and bony elbows making them look like toy sticks that a child had scattered everywhere in a tantrum. Their clothes ranged from typical street rags and tattered T-shirts layered one on top of another to khakis and cargo pants to high-end silk business suits. Plastic bags full of tin cans, expensive backpacks bulging with books, and silverstone briefcases stuffed with paperwork lay at the feet of their respective owners. Bums, college kids, office workers. All brought here by their need for something to drown out the voices in their heads, give them a thrilling high, or take away the dull monotony of their lives. All laid low by that need, circling the drain toward that final, utter oblivion.

Drugs were truly a terrible equalizer.

Incense burned in thick bunches in the corners, while fat sachet bags of potpourri dangled from the ceiling like mirror balls between several swirling ceiling fans. But the heavy perfumes, swirls of sweet smoke, and constant rush of air couldn’t hide the foul, bitter stench of the blood, vomit, and urine that had soaked into the couches, futons, and pillows. And absolutely nothing could drown out the sound of the cinder-block walls, as the stone alternately screamed, shrieked, and spewed out nonsensical dark dreams, darker demons, and other desperate, dangerous desires.

Blink.

It was the wail of the stone walls that finally penetrated my own sedative-induced fog, and I focused on that desperate, mournful noise, letting it pull me up out of the tunnel vision I’d been trapped in. Slowly, my mind cleared. I tried to summon up the energy to wrench free of the men holding on to me, or at least get my arms and legs to move of their own accord. But no matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t get anything to work, not even my tongue, which was as thick and dry as a wad of cotton stuffed into the bottom of my mouth.

I also reached for my magic, for all that Ice and Stone power flowing through my veins. But just like my limbs, my magic lay numb and heavy inside me, as though it were a two-ton boulder I was trying to lift. Sweat beaded on my temples from heaving, straining, pushing, and clawing at my power, but whatever drug Silvio had given me kept me from getting a grip on my magic, much less creating an Ice knife with it.

The people stirred as Benson moved through the basement, lifting their heads up out of the cold cradles of their spindly arms, their gazes suddenly sharp, alert, and completely focused on him. One man stretched out a skeletal hand and clutched at the vampire kingpin’s pant leg as he passed, a helpless, pleading note in his incoherent cries. Benson stopped, pulled out his pen and pad, and made a few notes about the man’s condition. Then he patted the man on the head like a dog and walked on.

Benson snapped his fingers, and the vamps dragged me through the drug den, with Silvio still following along behind us. A mirror covered most of the back wall, giving me a glimpse of my own reflection—dirty, beaten, bloody.

But not broken. Never that.

Benson opened a door set into the wall next to the mirror, and the vamps dragged me through it. I was expecting another drug den, but where the basement had the thinnest veneer of opulence, this area had the clinical, sterile, in-your-face feel of a doctor’s office. A faint tang of alcohol hung in the air, mixed with some lemony cleaner. Everything was white, from the tile floor and ceiling to several industrial-size refrigerators along the back wall. Even the cinder blocks had been painted white, although dull stains marred the slick finish in spots. A long metal table hugged another wall, the top bristling with mortars, pestles, beakers, burners, and wooden racks full of small glass vials filled with brightly colored powders.

But my eyes locked onto the centerpiece of the room: a large white padded dentist’s chair outfitted with silverstone arm, leg, and neck shackles.

And I realized that this wasn’t anything like a doctor’s office.

It was a lab, and I was the rat.

“Strip her,” Benson ordered, going over to one of the sinks along the wall and washing his hands.

The two vamps grinned at me, showing off their fangs. One of them pulled out a switchblade, flicked it open, and cut off my clothes with it. My vest, my long-sleeved T-shirt, my jeans, my underwear. The bastard even sliced off my boots and socks.

I tried to move my arms and legs, so I could grab the knife and slice open the vamp’s throat with it before turning the blade on his buddy. But the sedative was still working its way through my system, and I couldn’t even muster so much as a snarl.

Silvio stood off to one side of the lab, calm and composed as ever. He stared at me, his face completely unreadable, then pulled out his phone and started texting on it. If I could have, I would have broken his thumbs, grabbed the device, and force-fed it to him through his fucking teeth.

Benson finished washing his hands, then stood by and watched the whole damn thing. He even pulled out his pen and pad and took notes, although I had no idea what he thought was so interesting about my pale, naked body.

When I’d been stripped, Silvio put his phone away, reached into one of the cabinets over the sinks, and drew out a white hospital gown. The two vamps held my hands out, sticking my arms through the holes, while Silvio wrapped the gown around my body and tied it together in the back. He also attached a series of electrodes to my head and chest, along with an oxygen monitor on my left index finger, then hooked everything up to a couple of machines standing next to the metal table and flipped them on.

“Put her in the chair,” Benson ordered.

The two vamps picked me up and plopped my ass in the chair.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

They snapped the silverstone restraints around my arms and legs, shackling me to the chair, before cinching the final one around my neck. I felt like a dog wearing one of those damn cone collars.

After he snapped the restraint around my neck, the vamp with the switchblade, the one who’d cut off my clothes, pinched my cheek with his fingers.

“How does that feel, honey?” he crooned. “Not so tough now, are you?”

Instead of verbally responding to his taunt, I snapped out with my teeth and caught the tender web of his hand in my mouth.

He screamed and tried to pull away, but I ground my teeth together as hard as I could. Coppery spurts of blood filled my mouth, and the vamp slapped at my head and face, but I ignored the blows. When he realized that I wasn’t going to let go without a fight, the second vamp stepped forward and punched me in the stomach. Despite my best intentions, I couldn’t help but cough as all of the air was driven out of my lungs. The first vamp finally wrenched his hand out of my mouth and stumbled away, clutching his wounded appendage to his chest.

For a moment, everything was quiet, except for the vamp’s and my own gasps for breath, along with the steady beep-beep-beep of the machines monitoring my heart rate.

Then I turned my head to the side as far as it would go and spat a wad of his blood out onto the floor, ruining the glossy shine of the white tile. I grinned, knowing that my teeth were as bloody as, well, a vampire’s after a quick sip of O-negative.

“Not as bad as that feels,” I drawled, answering his earlier question. “You should watch where you put your fucking fingers.”

Benson regarded me with an almost amused expression, as though my injuring his minion was somehow entertaining. Maybe it was to him.

The wounded vamp screamed again and lunged at me, but Silvio stepped in front of him, thwarting his attack.

“Enough,” Silvio said. “That’s enough. You know the boss doesn’t like it when you damage his . . . subjects.”

The injured vamp kept glaring at me, but he didn’t try to push past Silvio. He was too afraid of Benson to do that.

I puckered my mouth and made a kissy noise at him.

The vamp’s face turned as red as the blood dribbling down his wounded hand, but the second man grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and marched him out of the lab, closing the door behind them.

That left me alone with Benson and Silvio.

“Well, then, let’s get started,” Benson said, a high, excited note in his nasal voice.

Silvio went over to a wooden stand in the corner and plucked a long white coat off it. Benson held out his arms, and Silvio helped his boss into the jacket, just like he had the night Benson murdered Troy. Silvio even grabbed a stethoscope from the table and hung it around the vamp’s neck, like Benson was a real doctor, instead of just a sadistic bastard.

When the vamp was properly attired, he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pen and his pad, and started circling around me.

Squeak-squeak-squeak. Scribble-scribble-scribble.

Squeak-squeak-squeak. Scribble-scribble-scribble.

He moved behind me, so I couldn’t see him, but the squealing of his sneakers on the floor mingled with the scratching of his pen on the paper.

“You know, most people would be crying and pleading for their lives at this point,” Benson said.

I didn’t respond.

Suddenly, Benson leaned forward. He must have drunk some blood recently to amp up his speed, because I never even saw him move. One second, he was behind me. The next, his face was so close to mine that he could have reached out and kissed my cheek if he wanted to. Instead, he buried his nose in my grimy hair and sucked in a deep, audible breath.

“Mmm . . . rage,” he murmured. “One of my favorite snacks.”

Benson’s own scent filled my nostrils, the same alcohol-and-lemon stench that permeated the lab. I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. That was all I could do, given the cuffs and the fact that I still couldn’t quite grab on to my magic. Even if I could have reached it, my Ice and Stone powers were useless in this situation. Sure, I could harden my skin, but I’d still be stuck in the chair, and since my hands were tied down, I had no hope of using a pair of Ice picks to open the locks on the restraints.

Right now, Benson could do anything he wanted to me—torture me any way he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to—and I was powerless to stop him.

Completely, utterly, absolutely powerless.

For once in my life, I couldn’t fight back, and that hurt me more than anything else.

Benson bent down in front of me so that his face was level with mine. I met his gaze with a flat one of my own, even though I was mentally counting down the seconds to my own death. Because it would be all too easy for him to reach out, touch my cheek, and use his vampiric Air magic to drain my cold rage—and the rest of my emotions—from my body.

I wasn’t particularly scared of dying. I’d been too close to the end too many times to worry about it much anymore. When it happened, it happened. But I’d always hoped that I’d at least go down fighting. Not like this. Not so trapped.

Not so damn helpless.

But instead of finishing me off, Benson gave me a pleased smile. “You know, Gin, I was rather disappointed when you showed up on the bridge and even more so when I realized that you’d managed to get your sister and her witness to safety after all.”

I kept my face blank, even as my heart lifted at his words. His men hadn’t found Bria and Catalina. With any luck, they’d made it to Xavier, and the giant had driven them far, far away.

“But then I realized that this small setback didn’t matter,” Benson continued. “Not really. After all, I can always find and kill them later. They won’t be able to hide for long. Not in Ashland, not from me.”

That was all too true, and it was one of the many reasons that I needed to figure some way to get out of this chair. Or at least make sure that Benson was bleeding out before I took my last breath. Too bad I had no idea how to make either one of those things happen.

“But then, when my men captured you, I realized what a unique opportunity I had been presented with,” he continued.

“Oh, really?” I drawled. “And what would that be?”

“To further my studies.”

A chill slithered up my spine. “Studies? What studies?”

Benson straightened back up and swept his hand out to the side. “My observations on human nature, life, and especially death.”

For the first time, I realized that my chair was facing the wall in the front of the room—a wall made out of one-way glass.

People sprawled on couches and pillows. Smoke spiraling up into the air. The ceiling fans spinning around and around. I could see into the drug den next door as clearly as if I were in the other room, although I couldn’t hear any noise coming from that area. This room, maybe both of them, must be soundproof.

“Is that why you have all these people down here in your dungeon?” I asked. “So you can drug them up and experiment on them?”

“Of course.” Benson beamed. “Like any good businessman, I have to keep on top of current market trends to meet customer demand. Have to keep growing, changing, and . . . innovating. I wouldn’t want my products to get stale. That’s when sales start to dip, and well, we just can’t have that. Not these days, when there’s such a nasty power struggle going on in Ashland.”

I gave him another disgusted look. “You mean you have to keep coming up with new poisons to push on people to keep the cash rolling in.”

He chuckled. “Ah, Gin. That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t push anything on anyone. The first hit is always free.”

“Yeah,” I snarked. “It’s all the others they pay the price for.”

He shrugged. It didn’t matter to him what his drugs did to people—only that he profited as much as he could from their pain and suffering.

“Tell me, how many of those folks are on your newest recreational hit? What’s it called? Oh, yeah. Burn.”

“Quite a few,” he said in a cheerful tone. “It’s been quite popular, more popular than I thought it would be, actually. I’ve made a tidy little sum on it, although not as much as I would have liked, since I’ve had to import it from out of town.”

He gestured at the metal table. The glass vials with their cheery red, orange, and yellow powders reminded me of sugar sticks that kids might eat.

“But I’m reverse-engineering the formula, and I’ve almost got it, except for one small component. It’s always more profitable to make products in-house, rather than contracting them out.”

Benson kept staring at me, and I focused on him again. Maybe he thought that he could intimidate me with his steady gaze and faint smile. Please. If I got upset every time someone looked at me that way, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.

“You are amazingly calm,” he said. “Your heartbeat has barely spiked this whole time, not even while you were attacking my man. It’s fascinating, really, considering the situation you’re in.”

“And what situation would that be?”

He grinned, showing me his fangs. “In my mansion. In my lab. At my mercy.”

I matched his toothy smile with one of my own. “I imagine that you’re rather like me in that mercy isn’t exactly a popular word in your vocabulary.”

His grin widened, and we fell into our silent staring contest again. Silvio stood off to my right, his hands clasped in front of his body, watching Benson and me watch each other, patiently waiting for his boss’s next order.

“I find it interesting that you can be so very calm,” Benson said. “But your disposition is exactly what I’ve been looking for to conduct my latest experiment. It involves Burn. You’re going to help me test out a theory I have about it.”

My stomach twisted at the casual way he said experiment, but I forced my gaze to stay on his. “Really? What’s that?”

Excitement flared in Benson’s eyes, making them gleam an electric blue behind his glasses. “Burn is one of the most potent drugs I’ve ever come across. It gives everyone an incredible high—humans, vampires, giants, dwarves. But it seems to affect elementals the most, and the stronger they are, the harder and faster Burn works on them.”

That was more or less what Bria and Xavier had told me the night Troy was murdered.

“Because elementals have such an unusual reaction to Burn, it’s easier to hook them on it, and they crave it more than any drug I’ve ever seen before,” Benson said. “I’ve made more money selling Burn than I have with any other product I’ve ever produced, including oxy and meth. We’re talking millions, Gin. And that’s just in the few months that it’s been available.”

“So that’s why you want to reverse-engineer it,” I said. “You want to cut out your supplier and make it yourself so you don’t have to share any of the profits.”

“That’s part of it,” he admitted. “But this drug? It’s going to help me finally take my rightful place in this town.”

“And what would that be?”

He scoffed. “Pushing pills to bums, hookers, and gangbangers in Southtown is one thing. But I want to move up to a higher level of clientele. Northtown is where the real money is. Why, just think how much cash I can make getting all those rich Northtown elementals hooked on Burn. I’ll make more money in six months than I would in ten years with my normal products in Southtown. Mab kept me locked away down here for years. Well, now that she’s gone, I plan to take what I’ve wanted all along.”

“Her spot as the head of the Ashland underworld.” I didn’t have any problem sketching in the outlines of his dream.

He shrugged again. “It’s just good business. I’m tired of being everyone’s middleman, the dirty little secret they don’t want anyone to know about. I learned a long time ago that you’re either on top or you’re nothing.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that, since I was currently shackled to a chair.

“Although it’s not just power that I’m after,” Benson continued. “It’s the elementals’ reaction to Burn that truly fascinates me. Like I said, there’s one small component that I’m missing from the formula, and I think it’s the key to how the drug affects elementals.”

“So how I am going to help you with your little theory?” I sniped.

“I’ve tested it on all sorts of elementals. Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone. But I haven’t had the opportunity to test it on someone who is gifted in more than one element, like you’re rumored to be, Gin.”

Benson kept his gaze locked on my face, gauging my reaction to his words and the fact that he wanted to make me his own human guinea pig. A cold tendril of fear curled up in the bottom of my stomach. My face stayed frozen, but my heart gave me away.

Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.

The machine monitoring my pulse picked up speed as my heart thumped in time to my growing worry.

Benson cocked his head to the side. His eyes were still on my face, but once again, I got the sense that he wasn’t looking at me so much as he was peering inside me. The faintest sensation swept over my body, one of invisible sandpaper sliding across my skin. I knew what it really was: the phantom teeth of Benson’s Air magic, ready to tear into my body and rip out my emotions for him to feast on one terrified breath at a time.

It disgusted me.

Not too long ago, a vampire named Randall Dekes had bitten me, sinking his fangs into my body over and over again. That had been a brutal, vicious attack, but at least it had been head-on. Benson’s magic was far more sinister than that. The sort of sneak attack you wouldn’t even realize had started until he’d sucked away half your soul and was licking his chops in anticipation of dining on the rest.

Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep.

My heart continued to pick up speed, but instead of giving into my fear, anger, and disgust, I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths and remain calm. No way was I giving Benson any more ammunition in his deranged game of doctor. I wondered how many other people he’d done this to. How many people he’d shackled to this chair. How many of their emotions he’d snacked on while conducting his twisted experiments. I made a silent promise to myself that I was going to be the last one, that I was going to find some way to end him—even if it killed me.

Benson’s lips puckered, his eyes focused, and the horrid feeling of that invisible sandpaper sliding across my skin vanished. Apparently, I’d annoyed him by not giving into my fear. Well, too damn bad.

“Silvio,” he said. “Please retrieve the latest sample for me.”

Silvio walked out of my line of sight. The door on one of the refrigerators snicked open, and I heard him rustling around inside. A few seconds later, he came back over to his boss and held out a plastic bag.

A single pill lay inside.

Benson took the bag from him, opened it, and carefully drew out the drug. “I just got this in this morning. It’s a new and improved formula that my supplier came up with. One that is supposedly ten times more potent than what my men have been distributing.”

He held it up between his fingers so that I could look at it.

Unlike the red ones that I’d seen before, this pill was a vivid green, although it still featured the same crown-and-flame rune as the others. It looked so innocent, almost like a breath mint he was about to pop into his mouth, though it was anything but. I’d seen Benson’s drug den, and I had no doubt that taking even just that one small pill would fuck me up in the worst way possible.

“Drugs have always fascinated me,” Benson said, staring at the pill, a dreamy expression on his pasty face. “No, that’s not quite right. People’s reactions to drugs have always fascinated me. You can give a dozen people the same drug, the exact same chemical formula in the exact same dosage, and you will most likely get a dozen different reactions. Oh, the majority of them will be more or less the same, but there are always one or two that surprise you.”

He waited, as if he expected me to chime in. When I didn’t, he continued with his musings.

“Some people have violent allergic reactions, of course, which cut short any sort of pleasure they might experience from the drug,” he went on. “But what’s most interesting to me are the people who are so controlled, so buttoned-up, so tightly wound. The ones who have such a clamp on their emotions and never seem to show what they are really thinking or feeling. Drugs always seem to impact them the most—and in the most interesting ways.”

He tilted his head to the side again. “I’m most curious to know what losing control would do to you, Gin.”

I still didn’t respond, but apparently, Benson was tired of chatting. Before I could try to move, before I could bite his hand, before I could do anything, he leaned forward, pried open my mouth, and shoved the pill inside.

I tried to spit it out, but he clamped his hand over my nose and mouth, cutting off my air. I could see the silent promise in his eyes. Take the pill, or he’d suffocate me right here, right now, in this chair, his experiment be damned.

Die now, or hope that I could survive what trip Burn might take me on.

No choice, really.

I swallowed the drug.