Page 72 of King Among the Dead

“Me neither, darling.” He pushed upright, sliding free of her – they both winced. And took both her hands in his, pulling her up, too. “Let’s go to bed.”

He kissed again, lingering and sweet this time, a silent trading ofI love yousbetween them.

~*~

Theirs was a quiet household. All of them soft-footed; TV was a rarity, and enjoyed mostly by Kay. No one threw fits, no one slammed doors. The house was old, and it creaked and groaned, especially beneath the tread of even the quietest walker…but it was not a loud house. Sudden bursts of violent noise were an anomaly.

That was why Rose had been startled the night Beck came banging in the back door, bleeding and half-dead. It was why she – and Beck – woke the night the front and back doors were kicked in. The night of her first kill.

She would have heard the men coming for them, that night, if they’d been loud. But they’d learned. They were better-trained than the others. Professionals.

The death squad.

Rose woke when a hand clapped over her mouth.

Her eyes snapped open. Lungs full of the scent of cordite; palm rough against her lips.

A face hovered above her own: not Beck’s. “Shut up, bitch,” she was told.

She reached out, weaponless, dressed only in pajamas, but ready to draw blood…

Only for something sharp to prick her neck.Injection, she thought, and then was lost to unconsciousness.

~*~

“…Rose. Rosie.” A low whisper, carried on a tide of blood. Beck’s voice, familiar and beloved, all scraped-raw and full of faults.

Rosie.

She tipped her head back, and there was the Rift, jagged and bright amidst the stars, pushing back the clouds, chasing away the dark, until the slowly-lapping tide around her was bathed with its glow. As she watched, the stars swelled, too bright to look at, and then fell, streaking to earth, long comet tails flaring. She couldn’t see them hit the blood waves, but felt it; low, deep rumbles through the hot tides that surged around her, blood lapping at her throat, her chin, filling her mouth…

She woke on a gasp.

She was staring at her own lap. She was wearing her pajama shorts, and grimy fingerprints streaked her thighs. Bruises were coming up on her shins.

She remembered the hand over her mouth. The needle.

It took an age to lift her head. Her pulse thumped, quick and erratic, in her ears, and the world spun crazily; her vision blurred. She swallowed back a wave of nausea, and blinked, forcing her vision clear.

She sat on the floor, legs splayed out before her, bruised and sore from being lugged out of the house and into whatever vehicle had transported her. A cold, hard pressure along her spine, a post or pole of some sort; she tried to lift her hands, and found they were bound together with coarse rope.

“Rosie.”

There was Beck beside her, too far away to touch, even with her toes. He sat like she did, on the floor, legs before him, hands tied behind a tall, intricately carved column. She looked at his face – bloodied, bruising, cut; he’d fought their attackers while she was succumbing to the drug – and let her gaze travel up, up, up the column, to the soaring, painted ceiling above. A vision of fat, winged cherubs…fighting demons with scaled tails and leathery wings.

“Sir, they’re waking up,” someone said.

“Excellent.”

She knew that voice; had heard it only hours ago. Tony Castor.

She whipped her head around, and the room tilted, and blurred. She had to close her eyes, and listened to Castor chuckle. When she dared look, and slowly, by degrees, the room slid into focus.

It was circular, and colonnaded; an indoor pavilion of sorts, with its soaring, painted ceilings, and, beyond the columned arches, a hallway paneled in sleek marble, and set with portraits. Guards stood between the tall paintings, guns strapped to their chests. And in the center of the room: Castor and his conduit, Daniel. The floor was dark stone, and it was marked…

Marked with chalk, she saw, the nearest symbols hastily scrawled near her right foot. A circular sequence of symbols that made no sense to her; words scrawled hastily in Latin.

A pentagram at the center.

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