Under Wraps

Chapter Twenty-One

I woke up to a soft voice calling my name.

“Sophie? Sophie?” I heard.

I stirred, and realization hit me. “Mr. Sampson? Mr. Sampson, is that you? I can hear you in my head.” I had to work to move my dry, heavy lips.

There was a soft hand on my shoulder, and then I heard the jingle of metal, the clank as it brushed against concrete. “Sophie,” Mr. Sampson said, “I’m not talking to you inside your head. Can you open your eyes for me?”

I tried, wincing at the star of pain that blossomed above my right eye, that stung my swollen, dried, blood-caked lips. Mr. Sampson came into focus looking disheveled and broken, his face marred by fresh pink scratch marks. He smiled softly at me, and I noticed that his usually perfect teeth were replaced by a mouthful of heavily pointed incisors, that a thick shock of brown fur was circling out of the tears in his shirt.

“Oh my gosh.” I lifted both my wrists, grimacing at the thick chains encircling them. “Oh my gosh.” I gaped at Mr. Sampson. “What the hell is going on here? What is this?” I rattled the chains. “I’ve got a whole Jacob Marley thing going on. And you!” I gingerly touched the heavy cuff around his neck, and he pulled away, ashamed.

“Sophie, do you have any idea where we are?”

I scanned our concrete enclosure, frowned at the pentagram etched out in chalk dust on the floor. “Hell?” I asked weakly. “Although I think if that were the case, the pentagram would be a little cliché.”

Mr. Sampson tried to smile, and I felt the tiniest bit of relief at being alive. “I’m not dead, right?” I confirmed.

Mr. Sampson shifted his weight, the clank from his chains reverberating in the silent, cement room. “No, you’re not.”

“I was attacked by a fake vampire, and now I’m here.” I looked around, incredulous. “This doesn’t happen,” I continued softly. “This shouldn’t happen. This is real life.” The words were out of my mouth before I had time to stop and consider that I was crying to a man halfway through a werewolf transformation, chained to a metal wall in what looked like a giant kennel.

“What the hell is going on here?” I shouted.

Mr. Sampson clapped a hand over my mouth. “Shhh,” he hissed. “Let him think you’re still out. It might buy us some time.”

I slumped against the wall, my chains rattling. “Time for what?”

Mr. Sampson crawled over to me. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

I frowned. “I don’t even know where here is. And even if I did, ‘going out, getting chained to wall’”—I rattled my chains, for emphasis—“wouldn’t be high on my list of usual activities.”

Mr. Sampson looked at me with those warm, chocolaty eyes, and I sighed. “Sorry. It’s just been a really rotten day.”

“I’m fairly sure we’re still in the city limits. I was hoping maybe Nina could pick up your scent if we’re not too far.”

My eyes widened. “Oh, wait! I can contact her! I can do it, I know I can.”

Mr. Sampson looked puzzled. “Can you reach your cell phone?”

“No,” I said, perching on my knees. “I can call her with my mind. I did it with you, remember? I finally got my powers.” I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Sophie—”

“No, just wait. It’s pretty new to me so I still haven’t perfected it.” I bit my lip. “I just wish I had something of hers to hold on to. I bet that would help. I mean, I think it would. Although I didn’t need it with you.”

“Sophie, I—”

I held up my palms. “I know, I’m babbling. Okay, I’m getting an image of her. I’m going to try to get her attention.” I pursed my lips, hearing my voice echo through my mind as I imagined Nina, sitting on our couch at home watching The View. “I was able to talk to you. You asked me to help. Don’t you remember? I found you with my mind.” I frowned. “Nina doesn’t seem to be listening.”

“Sophie, I called you.”

I opened one eye. “Excuse me?”

“Sophie.” Sampson reached out for me, his fingertips brushing my thigh before the chain pulled him back. “Werewolves can mind meld. From a distance if it’s someone they care about. It’s … it’s just one of our powers.”

A shiver of delight went up my spine. Mr. Sampson cares about me! Which would have been the most romantic thing in the world if we weren’t chained together in a giant kennel, balancing on the precipice of death.

If we ever got out of here, I was going to need so much therapy.

“I called you,” Mr. Sampson was saying. “I came into your mind and called for you. I was hoping you would be able to help me.”

I forced a smile, sitting back on the hard concrete floor. “Mission … accomplished?”

“Where were you when the chief came after you?”

“I was at your house when he nabbed me. I was with Lucy—the fake vampire—trying to save you from Parker. Or whoever he is.”

Mr. Sampson sat back on his haunches. “Sophie, Parker is a good guy.”

I tried to bite back the hysteria in my voice. “He’s not a good guy.” I looked around wildly. “I’m not even sure there are good guys anymore. But Parker Hayes—he’s not even who he says he is! His name is not even Parker Hayes. I think he might even be working with the chief.”

“No, he’s not. And I know that he’s not Parker Hayes.” Mr. Sampson’s calmness sent my near-hysteria into a full-on tizzy.

“You knew that?” I used both my hands to push my hair out of my face. “When did you know that? Why didn’t anyone bother to tell me?”

“He’s a field agent with the FBI. He needed to pose as a police detective to gain the chief’s confidence.”

I was still agog. “And you knew this? The whole time?”

“We couldn’t risk telling you. Any suspicion about Agent Grace’s identity could have undermined the whole operation—and nearly a year’s worth of prep and tracking work would have gone down the drain.”

I rattled my chains. “Brilliant plan. Executed flawlessly. Like we will be.”

Mr. Sampson smiled apologetically. “Well, apparently we all missed one thing the chief was after.”

I tried to cross my arms in front of my chest, but the chains yanked me back. “And that was?”

“Me.”

I slumped. “With all due respect, sir, then what the hell am I doing here? I’m just the secretary.”

Mr. Sampson smiled thinly. “Administrative assistant.”

“Look who’s awake!”

My head snapped toward the booming voice in the doorway, at the chief waddling down the stairs toward us. I wanted to be afraid, especially when I saw the long, thin sword he carried in his hand, but I couldn’t.

The man was wearing a Snuggie.

You know the blanket with sleeves as seen on TV? I frowned.

“Are you wearing a Snuggie?”

The chief faced me now, his eyes narrow, angry slits in his pink cheeks, the hem of his burgundy Snuggie brushing the concrete floor.

Mr. Sampson leaned into me and whispered, “It’s a ceremonial robe.”

“Silence!”

I was slightly more frightened, especially when I saw the glow from the naked lightbulb above my head reflecting off the blade that Chief Oliver held in front of my nose. I recognized the quartz crystal and the jeweled handle immediately.

“That’s the Sword of Bethesda.”

The chief grinned down at me. “Well, Sophie Lawson. Aren’t you the smart one? Glad you’re awake and welcome to the party.”

Chief Oliver raised his arms and a glimmer of hope sliced through me—maybe this has all been for a wild surprise party? Maybe?

Nothing happened, and I felt a cold bead of sweat run between my breasts. “Can’t you do something?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth to Sampson.

Chief Oliver grinned. “No,” he said, answering me, “he can’t do anything. He won’t be able to do much of anything ever again.” The chief’s eyes slid to the tiny sliver of window close to the ceiling of our little dungeon. “Two more sunsets and good ol’ Sampson here will be nothing more than what he’s always been—a common dog. That is”—the chief twisted the sword in his hand, so the light glinted off the narrow blade—“if he makes it through this.”

“You’re crazy, Oliver,” Sampson said through gritted teeth, the chain coiled around his neck pulled taut.

Chief Oliver swung his head from side to side, his dark eyes glittering and set on Sampson’s. “A common dog.”

Sampson gritted his teeth. “To think I used to envy you, Oliver.”

Chief Oliver’s eyebrows rose, and I swung my head to Mr. Sampson. “Envy him?”

“Trying to butter me up won’t work at this point, Sampson, but okay, whatever. I’ll bite. Why did you envy me?”

Mr. Sampson swallowed hard; I watched his Adam’s apple bobbing through the thick tuft of werewolf fur curling out from his collar. “Back when we were in college. I hadn’t been changed yet. We’d spend our nights at the Grog, trolling for coeds, heading home at dawn. We’d make it to a couple of classes, and then when the sun set we’d do it all over again.”

I thought I saw a hint of a nostalgic smile cross the chief’s puckered face. “Those were pretty good days.”

“One night you took off with that engineering student from Berkeley—remember her? I left, took the long way around Lone Mountain to give you guys some privacy.”

My stomach churned as I heard the chief chuckle. “Doreen. She was a pretty little thing.”

“Out there behind Lone Mountain was when I was bitten. The wolf came out of the woods. For some reason, I wasn’t frightened. It was like I knew it was supposed to happen to me. I was bitten, my blood intermingled with the werewolf’s saliva, and from that night on I knew nothing would ever be the same for me. Nothing would ever be normal for me again.”

“Oh, Sampson, that’s so sad,” I mumbled.

“Yeah,” Chief Oliver said disgustedly, “I really feel for you.”

“I envied you because you still had your entire normal life ahead of you. You could do anything, go anywhere at any time. You could graduate, get married, have kids. And here I was, trapped. Chained”—Sampson raised his arms, the heavy chains rattling—“to an alter ego that I couldn’t control.”

“Chained to a power that was all consuming,” the chief spat. “Didn’t you know that I could see what was happening to you? I saw the changes, saw the hungry way you looked at people—because you were no longer like them. You wanted them. Wanted their flesh.”

“I wanted to be like them again. That was it.”

The chief gritted his teeth. “And when I asked you to change me, you wouldn’t.”

Mr. Sampson bit out his words. “You were my best friend. I wasn’t going to do that to you. This is not a life I would have chosen for myself; I wouldn’t choose this life for anyone.”

“What? Immortality? Superhuman strength?” The chief’s eyes were hard.

“Loneliness. A body and spirit that betrays you with the changes of the moon.”

“No. You wanted the power for yourself, Sampson. That was obvious. You couldn’t take anyone challenging you, challenging your power or your precious Underworld.”

“That wasn’t it. I was trying to protect you. I only wanted to protect you.”

“Well, aren’t you the saint, Pete?”

I sucked in a breath. “So the paw prints, the scratches that the police found around the first body. Was it—were they—?” I looked at Sampson, at his chained hands.

“You thought it was me.”

“No, I—” I spun around, looking at the chief. “You framed him. You wanted me to think it was Mr. Sampson so I wouldn’t trust him.”

The chief angled himself to look around me. “To your credit, Pete, she really stuck by you. Nice woman you’ve got there. Too bad you both have to die. We could have played golf or something.”

Sampson narrowed his eyes at the chief. Chief Oliver grinned and stepped on the chain that snaked around Sampson’s neck; Mr. Sampson jerked back violently, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead and upper lip.

“Mr. Sampson!” I tried to reach for him, but my chains pulled me back. “Why are you doing this?” I yelled at the chief. “Just because he wouldn’t make you into a wolf? I bet he’d bite you now. Right, Mr. Sampson?”

Mr. Sampson was breathing hard. He didn’t answer.

“Why, why, why,” the chief moaned. “Why do anything?” Then that grin crept across his mouth again. “Because I can. Because I have the eyes of a Seer. The heart of a priestess.” His eyes slid over Sampson. “The hide of a changeling and”—Chief Oliver pointed the edge of the blade at me, letting it settle against my cheek—“the blood of a half-breed. Pete Sampson will no longer be more powerful than me. No one will be more powerful than I am.”

I angled my head back, trying to put as much space as possible between my cheek and the glittering edge of the Sword of Bethesda. “But what about Alfred Sherman?” I wanted to know. “You killed him and took his blood. Why do you need mine?”

Chief Oliver’s nostrils flared, his lips pursing into a disgusted line. “Easy mistake.” He shrugged. “Who knew that the half-breed wouldn’t be the sour old ambulance chaser who dropped his business card all over the Underworld, but the granddaughter of one of his demon clients?”

My muscles tightened. “My grandmother was not a demon.”

This seemed to delight the chief, and he chuckled, the blade of the knife shaking in front of my face.

“And Mr. Howard? Did you—was that you, too?” I asked, thinking that if I kept him talking, it might keep him from stabbing—for now.

The chief frowned. “Howard?”

“The old man in my building. He was completely innocent. He didn’t know anything about the Underworld. He couldn’t have been in your way.”

Chief Oliver just shrugged. “It’s the blood of the innocent that waters the fields of the new world.”

“What does that even mean?” I wailed.

The chief glared at me. “I made a mistake, okay? The old bastard was faster than he looked. But you,” the chief said, changing the subject and swinging his gaze—and the sword—toward Mr. Sampson, “you are just poetic justice, Pete. The ruler of the Underworld. My old college roommate. The hide that will make me the most powerful thing on the planet—man, demon, or god—just happens to come from law-abiding, demon-regulating, good ol’ Pete Sampson. Really, it is absolute poetry. I couldn’t have written it better myself.”

The chief snatched the blade away and clapped his hands, looking expectantly from me to Mr. Sampson. “What’s say we get started? I don’t know about you two, but I’m just giddy.”

“Wait!” I said, holding up a hand that made my chain waggle. “What about Officer Franks? Did you know he was found dead? At Dirt?”

Chief Oliver feigned sadness. “Yeah. That poor kid.” He tapped his fingers against his cheek. “Surprisingly, not as dumb as he looked. He was almost on to me. Almost. I could have forgiven him that—it wouldn’t have mattered after tonight anyway—but really, it was simply a case of wrong place, wrong time.”

My satisfaction at being right—wrong place, wrong time—was fleeting as one of my cuffs was chafing my right wrist. I winced, shaking my arm.

“Sorry about those. Rather uncomfortable, aren’t they?” Chief Oliver gestured toward my cuffs. “You won’t be in them for much longer.” Again Chief Oliver’s eyes slid toward the little window. “I’d really like to get you drained before sunrise.”

“Actually,” I said, my voice high, “I’m very comfortable right now.” I held up my hands and wiggled them. “These are actually quite nice. There’s no need to rush.”

The chief seemed amused by me, his Snuggie bouncing as his belly jiggled with laughter. I laughed too, with hysteria and sheer terror, until in one fell swoop the chief was silent, the blade was exposed, and he’d sliced through the front of my sweatshirt.

I stared down incredulously at my exposed belly, at my sweat-soaked white bra. I hunched over and tried to cover myself as best I could when I heard the chief laughing again. When I looked up his eyes had gone to a hazy, smoky gray and he was licking his lips, a distorted, grotesque smile on his moist face.

“Juicy,” he finally said. And then, his eyes raking me up and down, the chief said, “I think I’m going to need a bigger drip tray.” The chief looked at me as though I were a child denied the circus. “I know you’re excited to get started, but this will just take a moment. Talk amongst yourselves,” he said as he turned on his heel and headed up the stairs.