This Wicked Game

TWENTY-EIGHT

There were flashes of consciousness through the darkness.

Pain in her head as she was shoved into a car.

The smell of leather.

A voice talking to someone a few feet away.

Then nothing. Again.

And finally, all at once, she was aware.

She tried to open her eyes. At first, her brain wouldn’t listen. She struggled against the sensation that her eyelids were actually glued shut, the panic that she would never be able to open them again.

Finally, she opened them a crack, then a little more.

The room around her was familiar. Not home. Not Xander’s or Sasha’s. But a place she’d been before. She figured it out as soon as her eyes came to a stop on the pictures tacked to the wall.

Allegra was there. And Laura and Daniel and the Valcour twins and Xander and Sasha.

All of them with Xs through their image.

She was in the house on Dauphine.

Her mind shrieked escape, but when she tried to sit up, an ice pick seemed to pierce her brain and she laid her head back, whimpering.

When the pain subsided, she realized that her hands were tied to the bedposts.

Panic bubbled up in her throat. She had no idea if anyone had seen her being taken or if they even knew she was missing. Did the man who knocked her out with the powder take her bike? Or did he leave it on the sidewalk where Xander would see it and know something was wrong?

If they had taken her bike, how long would it take Xander and Sasha to know she’d been kidnapped—that she hadn’t just misunderstood their plan and started for home?

The questions came to an abrupt stop when she became aware of voices somewhere in the house. They were a vibration more than a sound, though she was dimly aware that one of them was higher in pitch than the others.

Breathe, Claire commanded her body, forcing her mind to stop running in circles.

And then: Think. There has to be a way out of this.

There has to be.

She took a few more deep breaths and looked around the room again, this time trying to locate any means of escape. She started with the bedside tables. If there was something sharp enough, maybe she could use her legs to get it to the bed, find a way to free herself from the rope that bound her wrists.

But they were bare. Not even a lamp stood on their surface.

She scanned the space beyond the bed. If she couldn’t free herself, maybe she could find a way to escape once they tried to move her. They probably wouldn’t keep her on the bed forever, and if they’d wanted to kill her outright, they would have done it already.

There was Eugenia’s luggage, still against the wall. The bureau, an assortment of cosmetics and perfume bottles barely visible from Claire’s position on the bed. A big mirror in the corner almost identical to one her mother had.

Could she break it? Use the pieces to fight her way out?

Maybe, but it would be messy and noisy. A last resort.

She came to the writing table and had to force her gaze away from the pictures on the wall. They brought forth a fresh batch of panic that served no purpose except to shut down her brain, make her unable to think straight.

She turned her attention back to the writing table, this time to its surface. A computer cord wound its way up from the floor, but the laptop it belonged to wasn’t there. There was a stack of paper, and on top of it, an assortment of oddly shaped objects she couldn’t quite decipher.

She lifted her head as much as she could with her hands tied to the bedpost, commanding her eyes to focus.

When everything finally came into view, she knew exactly what she was seeing. It was what they had expected. What the Cold Blood spell called for.

The forms were crude, but then appearance wasn’t the point. Claire could make out the base of the shape, a T formed by two sticks with Spanish moss wound around them for shape. Claire was willing to bet each one had hair from the Guild’s firstborns wound together with the moss.

Each doll was covered in different scraps of cloth—probably articles of clothing taken with the hair during the break-ins. The faces were nondescript, with black buttons for eyes and thread sewn in tiny x’s where the mouths should be. The effect was twisted, a warped version of a child’s toy.

The sight of them, on the desk and under the wall of photos, paralyzed her. For a minute, she couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t think about fighting or escape or anything at all.

All she could see was the dolls, their faces terrifying in their childish simplicity.

The murmuring in the hall was louder now and coming toward her. A second later, the door flung open and Eugenia marched into the room without so much as a glance at Claire.

As with the other times Claire had seen her, Eugenia was impeccably dressed, this time in a black cotton dress and simple sandals. Her hair was pulled back from her face, accentuating the harsh angles of her bone structure, the slight upturn of her eyes.

The man who’d doused Claire with the sedative powder entered the room on Eugenia’s heels, glancing at Claire.

She tugged on the restraints.

“There’s no point trying to get away,” Eugenia said, her words harsh and clipped. She bent to check the ropes around Claire’s wrists. “You won’t be here long anyway.”

What did she mean? Were they going to kill her?

“They’re going to stop you,” Claire said, desperate to delay whatever was coming, if only to give Xander and the others more time to find her. “They have everything they need now.”

Eugenia advanced on the bed. Her eyes were cold and empty, devoid of emotion. She leaned closer, her perfume turning Claire’s stomach.

“You understand very little. I almost feel sorry for you.” She straightened, turning her eyes to the man. “Put her to sleep, Jean-Philip. Then gather everything together and bring it to the front hall.”

Claire’s mind grasped at Eugenia’s words. They were going to move her. And once they left the house, Xander wouldn’t have any idea where to start looking for her.

“Where are we going?” Claire asked, instinctively tugging on the ropes that bound her wrists. “Where are you taking me?”

“Quiet,” Eugenia snapped. She turned to Jean-Philip. “Do it.”

She left the room without a backward glance.

Claire turned her eyes on Jean-Philip as he moved across the room, lifting something from the top of the bureau.

“You don’t have to do this. Please don’t do this,” she begged.

He came toward her, his hands cupped around something Claire couldn’t see.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

Then he opened his palm and blew, the gray powder dusting her face like snow.

She tried not to breathe it in, but it was a futile struggle. A second later she inhaled deeply, and the powder’s fine particles made their way into her body.

She welcomed the darkness again.