Hit List - Laurell K. Hamilton [112]
I looked into his green wolf eyes and watched the fight. He growled, “They said all you offered was sex.”
“They lied,” I said, softly. I let it be implied that maybe they’d lied about other things, too.
He let go of me as if I’d burned him, stood up, and went for the door in a swirl of black cape. He stopped at the door, and spoke without turning around. “You have defeated me twice, Anita Blake. There is more magic to you than just being a succubus.”
“I never said otherwise.”
He opened the door, went out, and I heard a bolt shoot behind him. I was locked in, and still tied up, but I was sitting up, drug free, and alone. Alone wasn’t bad.
36
THE ROOM WAS about the size of an average bedroom, but the walls were all stone, and the floor was concrete that looked like it had been poured too thick and never smoothed, so it had dried in odd shapes. Water stains discolored the wall nearest to where I’d come to, and in one corner the water stains had become a shallow standing puddle. No wonder I’d woken up cold. Were we underground? There was only one dim, bare bulb in the center of the room. The only furniture in the room was a large wooden table that looked solid and heavy, which was probably why it was still in the room; too heavy to take out. I actually looked back at the door and realized that the table must have been put together inside the room; otherwise how had it fit? I stopped trying to do the math of furniture moving, and looked at the only other things in the room: a pile of wooden boxes against the far wall with a stained tarp thrown carelessly over them, as if someone had started to cover them, but never quite finished. There might be something else under the tarp, but I’d have to inchworm my way over there, and I had no way of knowing if it was worth it. Besides, they were watching me. I doubted they would let me get close to anything that could cut through the ropes. I still might try to get closer to the boxes. They were the only thing I could see in the room that had any promise to them. Everything else was useless for cutting through the ropes, as far as I could see. I realized that once I’d have thought the room was dark, but I’d spent the last year and change living in the underground at the Circus of the Damned. The rooms were actually part of the cave system that ran under St. Louis, so my idea of dim lighting had changed. My night vision had always been good, but I’d begun to wonder if all the animals I carried inside me had given me more than just superhuman strength and speed. My night vision was getting better.
I heard someone at the door. I hadn’t moved anything but my head and body to look around the room, so I just sat there and waited for the door to open. I actually didn’t have to scramble to hide anything, which was kind of disappointing.
It was another Harlequin in the black hooded cloak and white mask. He was taller than the werewolf, so someone new, or someone I’d seen briefly in the woods earlier with Edward. I wouldn’t let myself hope that he’d save me; I would save myself, but it made me feel better that he was out there. I knew he’d move heaven and earth to find me, because I’d have done the same for him.
“We will need you to drop your shields for the Mother of Us All to possess your body.” His voice was completely human, no growl for him, and he sounded very reasonable, if you didn’t listen to what he was saying.
“Then I don’t think I want to drop my shields,” I said, and I sounded reasonable, too.
“We thought you might say that.” He turned with a swirl of black cloak, so that it blocked my view of the doorway for a moment. They all had to practice with the cloaks for those effects. When he stepped out of the doorway, letting his cloak fall to one side, three more Harlequin were standing there, carrying a man between them. Two of them held his arms, where they were chained behind his back; the third held his chained legs. Long black hair fell forward in a thick mass to obscure his face. My first thought