Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [137]
Jason went for the suitcases. “Let them in, I’ll change in the bathroom.”
I stepped back to let Rowe and the rest into the room. “Where’s Shadwell?”
“He’s on a break.” The two hotel guards stayed in the open doorway. I looked at them. They looked human. They had fed on someone to give color to the pale cheeks, but one look and I knew what they were. I started to raise my gun and yell, “Vampires!” Then one of them threw something into the room. Threw it so fast that the movement was seen, but not registered in my head, before the flash-bang grenade went off and the world went away. Oh, I was conscious, but I was also blind, and so disoriented that the next thing I felt was pain. I reached for what hurt and found a dart. A tranquilizer dart from the feel of it. I tried to bring my gun up to where they’d been. I tried to see them, but with the combination of the grenade and the drug, the world was full of swirls of color, and shapes that didn’t hold still. I heard Rowe yelling. I fell to my knees. Someone took my gun and I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t make my body move. I fell to the carpet and the mess of clothes and drying body fluids, and then the world went away, as if someone had turned off the lights. One moment I knew I was on the carpet in our room; the next, nothing.
53
THERE WAS A voice in the darkness. I thought at first I was hearing the bad guys, and then I understood the voice, and knew that it was much worse than bad guys. “Necromancer,” the voice whispered.
Fear stabbed through me in the dark, fear like fine champagne. I had a moment of being able to feel my body. A flash of knowing I was lying on a floor, and then I was back in the dark.
“Necromancer.”
Fear, and I was thrown into my body again. A moment of lights, and sensation, then darkness.
“Necromancer.”
I think I opened my eyes, but it could have been a dream. The darkness kept eating the world.
“Necromancer, if you stay in the dark, you will die.”
The room was white, and I knew my hands were tied behind my back. Then the drugs sucked me into the dark again.
“Necromancer!” She reached for me. It was a woman’s hand, small, delicate, and it was the paw of some great beast with claws, and fur, and…The claws struck; pain ripped through the darkness and made it run with blood. I woke, gasping for air, pulse, heart, everything racing.
My chest hurt. I looked down and found the front of my T-shirt cut. Blood drops spattered the white tiles I was lying on. I worked to get a better look at the front of me, and finally realized the front of my shirt had been shredded by huge claws.
I remembered her reaching for me in the dark, and I knew she had done this. Somehow Marmee Noir had done this. Mother of God. The last of the drugs washed away on a flood of pure terror.
I fought not to panic. The fear had helped me wake up, helped get the drugs out of my head and body; now I had to make sure the fear itself didn’t cripple me.
Other than the claw marks, was I hurt? I had a headache, but that could have been the flash-bang as well as the drugs. What kind of vampires used modern grenades and drugs on their victims? The adrenaline was doing its job. I seemed to be thinking faster, everything crystal edged. Had Marmee Noir scared me on purpose to wake me up and get me going? I pushed the thought away for later. Stay alive, and worry about the rest later.
I was lying on cool, white tile. Not horrible. But my hands were tied behind my back, which was horrible. Nothing good ever happens when the bad guys tie you up. I might have panicked about it, but one, it does no good to panic, and two, Marmee Noir wasn’t in this white room. It was good. Where was I?
The tiles I was on were a nondescript color somewhere between off-white and beige. I tried to see things without moving much. I had no way of knowing if they had a way to see me. I did not want them to realize I was awake, not yet. The more time I had to think before they came back, the better. People do not tie you up and leave you on cold floors if they plan on doing nice things