Blood Creek Beast Read online

  She’d taken too much time, and grew weaker by the moment. It was everything she could do to fight the encroaching darkness and the overwhelming desire to take a nap. Just for a few moments...

  It was the pain that pulled her back into consciousness. Pain and heat, centered around her left shoulder. It hurt so much more than the gunshot had. Lethargy was all that kept her from screaming again. She felt her heart, distant and wheezing like her lungs, kick into overdrive. The heat and pain grew and filled her entire body. For a moment she wondered if the vials had contained some kind of acid, and she’d killed herself by filling her veins with it before the gunshot killed her.

  Boy, that would be a funny obituary.

  She heard blood rushing in her ears, a soundtrack to accompany the pain, but it gradually faded. The pain might have, too, but she couldn’t tell. Tears emerged through her clenched eyelids. If she was crying, did that mean she wasn’t dying?

  Men were in the room with her. They sounded as if they were speaking through cotton, but she understood them. “Clear. Nobody but that cat-girl in the building.”

  Another voice said, “Looks like she’s still breathing.”

  The first voice responded, “You heard the boss. No survivors. That includes the girl. Shoot her in the head and let’s get out of here.”

  Jessabelle forced her eyes open. A man hovered on her left, aiming the modern black rifle at her. He looked into her eyes and sighed. “Shit, Tim, she just opened her eyes.”

  The other man shook his head. “That doesn’t change anything. Finish her off.” He walked out of the room.

  The man standing over her sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Orders.” He leveled the muzzle at her face. She pushed it away with her left hand. The muzzle was hot and burned her fingers, even worse than the pain in her shoulder. But her left arm moved. If she survived the next few seconds, that was a good sign! She let the muzzle burn her hand as her right hand brushed the empty vial aside and sought purchase on something more useful.

  “Look, make it easy on yourself.” The man pulled the gun almost gently, but she held onto the muzzle, keeping it pushed aside. The man yanked harder, and the barrel slipped from her blood soaked fingers. Before he could bring the weapon back to bear against her, she raised her revolver and shot him in the face.

  It was a terrible, horrible thing that would haunt her forever. She escaped that moment into the panther, suppressing her horror inside the animal mind. Her instincts, terror, and rage served her as she attacked the second soldier returning to the room. She was on him before he could fire, and after the mauling she gave him, biting and clawing the arms he brought up to protect his vital areas, he was unlikely to shoot a gun again, unless he and his fellow soldier had potions of their own. Part of her, probably part of Jessabelle-the-girl, hoped they did. The rest of her didn’t care.

  Her limp slowed her run, but she was still faster than anything on two legs. The soldiers had opened the main gate, and she made a break for it before anyone realized what had happened. She was almost out of the glow of the lamplight before the first shots fired. She spotted the little explosion of turf and dirt where a round struck just ahead of her, but then she was part of the night.

  The queen hadn’t been kidding about the comfortable chair. It was an ancient leather-padded chair made of well-polished hardwoods. Even the manacles for his wrists and ankles were padded on the inside, yet offered no wiggle room, no matter how much Jack struggled.

  “Feel honored. This is for special guests,” the queen explained. “This sort of chair is normally reserved for those deemed too important to show visible marks from their ordeal. A perfect spectator seat.”

  The room was part of a stone dungeon somewhere beneath the castle, filled with strange tools and uncomfortable-looking furniture, aside from his chair. Heavy blankets covered the walls along the hallway and stairway leading to the room to muffle sounds. An adjoining hallway contained tiny cells. A gutter ran along the center of the room leading to a drain. Jack tried not to imagine its purpose, but that only made an image grow clearer in his mind.

  Queen Taliel flashed a smile at Jack’s discomfort. “The king once told me that this area hadn’t been used since his grandfather’s reign. I’m glad I didn’t let him convert it to a wine cellar.”

  Jack twisted one of his wrists until the pain grew too much to bear, and it was clear that his bindings weren’t loosening. He hissed through the pain and glared at Taliel. “So how long you been controlling the king?”

  “Since the beginning. I think he realized who I was and what I was doing at times. That’s why he sent you on that suicide mission as soon as he learned where you’d come from, before I could rein him in. He hoped your information would die with you, but you surprised us all by surviving. Not that it mattered that much. I was waiting for word that the gateway was open. You were it. Now it is a matter of narrowing down its location. Your cooperation will expedite matters by several days.”

  The door to the chamber opened, and Zainus came in. “We brought the other prisoners down here,” he said. “We might as well let them listen to the show.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you,” she said.

  “Oh, and a special gift, just for Jack, here,” Zainus said. He pulled Delcina’s knife out and set it on a table built with thick leather straps mounted on chains. “That’s the same knife Jack used to kill the giant. And the one I used to off that fool, Aidan. I figured it ought to work well on Delcina when a blunt instrument won’t suffice.”

  “I am certain Castor will appreciate it. As will Jack, no doubt. While I’d love to stay and watch him work, I have a council meeting to attend to. I have to inform them that Jack and Delcina, realizing their guilt, both hanged themselves in their cells rather than face the judgment of the council. They will have to satisfy themselves with Bachan.”

  “I cannot linger too long either, your Majesty,” the little man answered and grinned at Jack. “I’ve got to go out and find that gateway of yours. I have a pretty good idea of where to start. I will find it. We really don’t need this animal.” He grabbed an iron chair with leather straps and chains that looked far less comfortable than Jack’s and dragged it over the gutter directly in front of Jack. The chair must have weighed hundreds of pounds, and even with Zainus’s superhuman strength, he struggled.

  The queen nodded at the malformed creature. “I have no doubt you will find it swiftly, but gateways are notoriously difficult to locate, even with spells and your people’s sensitivity to magic. I will send word if Jack spares his friends a great deal of suffering and provides us with information to narrow your search. Farewell.” The queen left the room.

  Zainus turned to face Jack. “I guess I’ll watch over you while we wait for Castor and his assistant to bring in the lovely princess. Get a good look at her, Jack. She won’t ever be that pretty again.”

  Jack stared at him and started shaking. If his arms hadn’t been bound by the manacles on the chair, he would have grabbed Zainus around the throat and choked him to death out of sheer fury. Zainus laughed. “Oh, Jack. I hope I’m back before they are done with you. I can’t wait to personally tear your guts out and show them to you before you die. I’m making that my personal goal this week. A man should have goals, shouldn’t he?”

  Jack spoke through clenched teeth. “When I get out of this chair, I will kill you.”

  Zainus laughed again. “Oh, it would be fun to see you try without your little charms to protect you. It doesn’t matter if you are immune to fairy magic. I don’t need that to destroy you. Neither does the queen, even when she’s borrowing a human body.”

  “Borrowing?”

  Zainus made an exaggerated open-mouthed expression and covered his face with his hand. “Oh, did I let out a secret I wasn’t supposed to tell you? Uh-oh. I guess the queen can’t possibly let you go free now, can she? You know too much. Drat. Yes, the queen is the daughter of Hothlurian the Undying, and a witch of your world. She abandoned her imm
ortal body to inhabit her current form, a trick I personally assisted with. It’s a poor substitute, but she’s managed to make the most of it. In a hundred years she’ll hardly have aged a year. Of course, in a hundred years, she and her father will be ruling this world and yours. She’ll have taken her old body back, and you will be ninety-nine years dead, with your skull adorning this chamber as a wall decoration.”

  The door opened again, and two huge, well-muscled men came in with Delcina in chains. Unlike Jack, she looked almost regal in a variant of her riding outfit. She had taken care of herself in captivity. Her eyes smoldered, and Jack half expected her to burn her captors to a crisp with the ferocity of her gaze. She fought against them as they bound her to the iron chair.

  The older of the two men, with graying hair bound up in a ponytail, nodded to Zainus. Zainus nodded in return, and with a sideways glance at Jack, said, “By the way, Castor, our guest here is going to try to reveal shocking news to you. He thinks the queen is Hothlurian’s daughter.”

  Castor glanced up with lidded eyes toward Jack. “I surely hope so. Her promises are no good if she isn’t.”

  Zainus laughed. “I left a gift for you on the table. I wish I could stay and watch you work, but I must be off on the queen’s errand. The sooner I’m back, the sooner we can dispose of these two and their friends.”

  Castor shrugged. “Don’t hurry on my account. I haven’t had a chance to practice my trade in years, and I’ll be taking my time. They might be hard to recognize, but they’ll still be here a few days from now.”

  Zainus offered a jaunty wave, and then left the chamber, closing the door softly behind him. Castor reached over to the table and examined Delcina’s knife. “Nice! Looks really sharp. Is this yours, your highness?”

  Delcina didn’t honor him with a response. She held her back straight and her head erect.

  Jack spoke. “Delcina, the queen said she’d let us go if I told her where the crossroads were. But I have friends there.”

  She turned to look at him. Fury still burned in her eyes, but it wasn’t directed at him. “Don’t you dare, Jack. Don’t you dare say a word.”

  “They’ll stop if I tell them.”

  “You must not! Especially if she’s truly Hothlurian’s daughter. Don’t you dare!”

  Castor and his assistant wedged a thin block of wood under Delcina’s hand. She struggled against them, but there was little she could do. The other man held her hand down while Castor drew the blade. “Yep, this looks pretty sharp!” he said.

  “No!” Jack shouted. “No, stop!” He yanked and pulled at the chair, but it barely moved with the tiniest of scrapes on the floor.

  Castor shrugged. “Already? I really want to try this out.”

  “Jack, no!” Delcina screamed. “Don’t you do it, or I’ll kill you myself, I swear!”

  Castor grinned at Jack and shrugged, then turned back to Delcina. Jack couldn’t see what the big man was doing, but after a few seconds he heard the thunk of metal against wood. Delcina screamed. While she caught her breath, Castor said, “Tie off that finger, Bo. Don’t want her to bleed out so soon.”

  Jack screamed, his own howls overwhelming Delcina’s breathless sobs. He was going to tell, he realized. Some part of his mind knew they’d be killed once he spilled out his information and was no longer useful to them. But he couldn’t sit there and let them murder Delcina a piece at a time.

  Over his cries, he felt as much as heard a muffled crash. Someone else struggling against their bonds? It didn’t fully register. All of his senses were directed toward the two men and the woman in the chair. Jack cried out, “Stop! Quit hurting her, please!”

  Castor turned, his fingers and apron now bloodstained. “Yes?” he asked.

  Delcina turned to him again, tears streaming down her face. “No, Jack,” she begged. “Don’t tell them anything! Don’t you dare!” She choked back a sob and repeated, “Don’t you dare.”

  Jack hesitated. It would be so much easier to be brave for himself. But the princess was being brave for the both of them.

  Castor chuckled softly. “This will be an interesting night.” He turned around again. “Good job, Bo. That was a fun experiment, but we need something slower and more painful. Time for the basics.”

  Whatever the basics were, he never said. The door beside Jack exploded inward, and Rumela ducked into the room, broken chains attached to her bloody wrists and ankles. “Jack said stop!” she bellowed and charged the two men. While they stared in astonishment, Rumela picked them both up and threw them against the wall. Their bodies made terrible crunching noises on impact before they slumped to the floor.

  Rumela turned to Jack, tears in her eyes. “I be sorry, Jack. I was slow. They telled me they was gonna kill you if I moved.”

  “It’s okay, Rumela,” Jack said through his tears. “It’s okay. You did good. We need you to get the keys and unlock Delcina and me.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “I... search them. They locked us up.”

  “I gonna get Bachan. He will know what to do.”

  “He’s back there too?”

  “Yes, back in cages. Zeke too.”

  “Okay, yes. Get them if you can. Hurry.”

  Rumela said, “I hurry, get help. I not gonna let nobody hurt Jack or pretty girl again!”

  After some crashing noises muffled by the heavy blankets, Bachan, Zeke, and Rumela returned to the torture room. Bachan found the keys on the torturers’ bodies and set first Delcina, and then Jack, free.

  “Your finger, your highness!” Bachan exclaimed. “I am so sorry. I have failed you.”

  The princess held up her left hand. The stump of her pinky finger was wrapped in bloodstained cloth. She sniffed and said, “If we live through this day and I only lose this finger, I will call myself fortunate. Jack, are you okay?”

  “Me? They didn’t touch me.”

  Bachan said, “We don’t have much time. The queen has many of the council loyal to her, and I believe much of the army. However, many will join our side once they learn she killed the king. I think I can convince them.”

  “There’s more to the truth than that,” Delcina said. “Zainus admitted the queen is the Abomination, Hothlurian’s daughter. The torturers knew it, too.”

  “Surely he must have been lying!”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Jack said. “I have seen her papa. Hoth-whatever you call him. It’s her, when she drops her act. I think she was trying to bewitch me into telling her about the crossroads, but I guess it doesn’t work on me. I’m resistant to magic, especially when it’s cast by her or Zainus.”

  Bachan said, “If true, it will be difficult to convince people of it. However, if we can gain the upper hand, rumors that she is a sorceress could be worked to our advantage. People may switch to our side by claiming she bewitched them.”

  “How will you tell if they are lying?”

  Bachan shook his head. “We can’t. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, the five of us, and all the Royal Guard, are outlaws. I will rescue the rest of the Royal Guard and try to mount a resistance here. The rest of you need to get to safety. I’m sure Zeke has some ideas. The safety of Princess Delcina is paramount.”

  Jack nodded in agreement, but Delcina stated, “No, it isn’t. Not anymore.”

  Bachan turned to her. “Your highness, you are the rightful heir. This is your kingdom now. We must fight for what is yours. I shudder to think what she will do with it. My duty is clear.”

  Delcina’s eyes blazed. “As is mine. If she truly is the Abomination, then you know the stories. She cannot be allowed to reunite with her father. If she heals him, then it is not just our kingdom that will be lost.”

  Zeke spoke up. “Captain, Your Highness, I agree that this is a most important matter to discuss. But could we discuss it somewhere besides the torture chambers? If we do not escape soon, the sun will be up, and our efforts made considerably more difficult, no matter what we do.”

 
; They agreed. Before they left, Delcina cleaned off the knife, sheathed it, and handed it to Jack. “You should be armed.”

  Jack didn’t accept the knife immediately. “I don’t like that knife all that much anymore, Delcina. It’s done nothing but terrible things.”

  “It has done what its master intended. It is a good tool.” She pressed the handle into Jack’s hand.

  Jack tied the sheath to his belt as he stood at the foot of the stairs behind Zeke, awaiting word from Bachan. Rumela came up the rear. The giant whispered to Delcina, “I’s real sorry ‘bout your father. Oh, and about your finger, too.”

  Delcina looked back and offered a strained smile, the grief never leaving her eyes. “Thank you, Rumela. I’m trying not to think of the pain from either right now. I just hope to get one foot in front of the other without falling.”

  “If’n you fall, I be picking you up.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  Bachan came down the steps, with a sword belted to his waist and three more under his arm. “We are clear to the exit, but there are several guards there. I’d rather do this without killing, but there may be no choice.” He distributed the weapons to the three humans.

  Jack asked, “How about the garden? It ain’t much farther than the front door.”

  “It is surrounded by a wall, and we have no...” He stopped, and stared at Rumela.

  Rumela grinned at him. “Not that high.”

  Bachan nodded. “Garden it is. Darnel, my predecessor, frequently complained that it was a weakness in our security. I’m glad to both prove him right and to use it to our advantage.”