When she came to, she lay on the ground by the fire. It felt like warm and real earth to her, not the hardwood floor of the back room. The rational part of her brain unaffected by the drug knew she'd been transported somewhere after fainting. She wasn't in the back room. That had been misdirection. She'd passed out-probably the drug's doing-and she'd been driven into the woods where the scene would continue in the open. She saw the twinkling of stars overhead. A ring of trees, large and ancient. Oaks, perhaps? And she smelled wild grass, rich dark dirt, fresh air.
But that made no sense either. She was warm, almost hot. Earlier, she'd had to wear a coat to the exhibit because of the chilly winter weather.
The coven of cloaked women stirred silently when Mona opened her eyes. They looked at each and nodded. Mona counted six of them, all of indeterminate age behind their sooty masks and hoods. They seemed to be playing the role of ancient Greek priestesses in this pantomime, and they certainly looked the part with their olive-toned complexions and black braids draped over their shoulders. At once, all six of them reached for her on the ground and lifted her bodily into the air, turning her to stand on her feet. They took the pins from her hair and let it fall in red waves around her shoulders. Fingers sought and found the buttons to Mona's black blouse, the zipper to her red skirt, the hooks to the stockings she'd worn to the Degas exhibit in case she changed her mind about going to bed with Sebastian. It seemed they managed to strip her naked without touching her skin. Mona had anticipated being naked tonight, so she didn't struggle. When they were done, Mona stood amid the women, her eyes to the ground. It felt so real, looked and smelled so real. She pawed at the dirt with her toe and it moved like soft earth, not dirt sprinkled across a finished floor. They'd taken her somewhere-they'd had to have. Hadn't they? She heard an owl in the distance. A sound effect, a hallucination … or something else?
One woman seemed to be the leader, the eldest. By the firelight Mona could see her hands were those of an elderly woman. The high priestess? Whoever she was, she was holding a stone knife. Mona flinched from the sight of it flickering red in the firelight. She pulled back and away from it, but the cloaked women behind her grabbed her and held her in place, trapping her arms behind her back. The woman raised her hands. Her left was empty, but in her right she held aloft the stone knife. Without warning, she pricked at the center of her own left palm with the knife. Blood bubbled up from the wound. The knife disappeared into the folds of the cloak and the high priestess stepped toward Mona. She touched the blood in her palm delicately, brought her red fingers to Mona's face and dabbed the blood across her eyelids and temples, giving Mona the same markings as the women, only in red, not black.
Mona fainted again-from the shock of the blood or from the drug, she didn't know. When she woke again from the brief faint, the women were dragging her toward the boulder. One side of the stone was curved and smooth, as if a thousand years of water had worn off its rough edges. Iron spikes had been driven deep into the sides of the boulder, and from them hung iron chains. The women lifted Mona off her feet. They pressed her back into the stone and held her down by her arms and legs. The high priestess bound her wrists to the boulder with the iron chains and drew another chain across her stomach, leaving only her legs free. The cloaked women released her all at once and formed a straight line facing her. Even without their hands, Mona stayed in place, the chains holding her fast to the boulder. Struggling proved useless and did nothing but abrade her back against the stone. Due to the irregular shape of the boulder, Mona's body curved in an obscene arch, her breasts lifted high and her hips tilted forward.
All at once the women moved. The six of them parted down the center, revealing the red-cloaked figure behind them, the figure she'd seen in the maze.
It towered over the women, dwarfing them by several feet. Mona could not see its face hidden within the folds of the cloak, but she knew it stared at her. She wanted to scream but her voice was gone. She would faint again any moment. This time, she hoped she wouldn't come to until morning.
But she didn't faint. The figure stepped forward and she could hear its animal breathing now. Not a wolf or a bear or a dog, but certainly something large and lethal. She feared it. No amount of telling herself her senses were distorted by a drug in her drink could convince her not to fear this beast, the Minotaur.
The chanting of the women began again. Not Latin. Greek, perhaps? Some far more ancient language?
The Minotaur stepped closer. This couldn't be Malcolm, could it? Malcolm was tall, but not nearly this gargantuan. No human man was this tall, this broad, this massive.