Nightbred(75)

Werren picked up her glass, and then wrinkled her nose and set it down again. “I think this lovely wine is actually giving me a headache. Would you mind terribly if I cut this short?”

“No problem.” Sam dug some bills out of her wallet and tucked them under her half-empty glass for the bartender. “I’ll walk with you. Car or hotel?”

“I’ve a lovely little cottage by the water, about a mile down the road,” Werren said as they left the bar. “But you needn’t walk me there. I won’t get lost.”

“This time of night? You’ll get mugged,” Sam advised her. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

Traffic was again flowing through the intersection where the collision had occurred, and as Sam reached her car, she looked for the wrecked vehicles, which were gone. The city’s accident-response department must have already towed them away. Even as she thought that, something else about the scene seemed wrong.

“It’s strange,” she said to Werren as she merged into the southbound lane. “That accident caused such a mess, but now it looks like it never even happened.”

“I wish it hadn’t.” Werren sounded distant, as if her thoughts were elsewhere.

Sam saw the way she was rubbing her fingers against her right temple. “Headache getting worse?”

“It’s only just beginning, I’m afraid.” She nodded at the street corner they were approaching. “It’s right there, at the end of that walkway.”

Sam found an empty space at the curb, and looked up at the dark windows of an exceptionally pretty little beach house. “Now this is really strange. I’ve driven past this corner a couple thousand times and I’ve never once noticed this property.” She saw the way the other woman was frowning. “This is the place, right?”

“It is, but I always leave the light on in the front room and now it’s off.” She turned to Sam. “Would it be completely wretched of me to ask you to walk up and have a look?”

“Wretched, no. Smart, yes.”

Sam got out and scanned the surrounding area as she approached the front wraparound porch. The wind played with hanging chimes of pipes, shells, and sea glass, and the sound of the tide retreating added a soft background rush. The front door and windows bore no marks of being forced open, and when Sam climbed up the steps, she couldn’t smell or feel any sign of a mortal who might have done the same.

“I think you’re okay,” Sam said as Werren joined her. “Just keep your doors and windows locked, and if you want to go somewhere at night, you should . . . call . . . a cab.” There had been no glass on the road at the accident scene, Sam suddenly recalled. Not a single shard. While county usually did a decent job cleaning up after a collision, they weren’t that meticulous.

“I had no choice, my lady,” the other woman murmured.

She stared at Werren, whose face had lost all expression. “What did you call me?”

“If you fight them, you will be made to suffer.” The cool eyes closed.

The beach house melted into dark water, and the porch began rocking under Sam’s feet. On either side of her the bright lights from the hotels and clubs on the beach receded to the east, while the wooden deck built atop itself an empty cabin with blacked-out windows.

Sam didn’t bother to watch the changes around her anymore; she lunged at Werren. A thin cable wrapped around her neck and burned into her flesh with the hot-acid bite of copper. It shocked her so much she froze.

“Take her weapon,” a rough voice ordered beside her ear.

Werren approached, darting back as Sam lashed out with a vicious kick. “Please. They will hurt you if you resist.”

Sam brought her boot down as hard as she could on the man’s instep, making him howl and shove her away. She dragged the copper garrote from around her neck as she reached for her pistol with her other hand, only to find herself shoved back into the confines of a body-size cage, the door to which was slammed in her face.

“Another illusion? This time I know it’s not real.” She tried to wrench the bars apart. “Goddamn it, let me out of here.”

Werren walked up to the cage, and reached in to take her weapon. When Sam tried to stop her, she found herself manacled by huge metal cuffs attached to the bars of the cage.

“Everything is real, my lady.” She sounded sad as her hair snarled into wads of dirty knots and her pretty outfit sagged into a rotting potato sack. “I am the only illusion.”

* * *

So now he knows.

Chris wouldn’t let herself look at anything but the scenery as Jamys drove them back to the marina. Since they’d left Stryker’s orgy, he’d been very quiet, and all she could think of to say were a bunch of pathetic excuses and inadequate apologies. She’d just shown him what Stryker had made of her, and forced him to have sex in front of a houseful of perverts; even the most sincere “I’m sorry” wouldn’t redeem her behavior.