Chapter 11
“Who was the Dark One that first approached you?”
“My name is Scott Chaney. My rank is, well, I don’t have one. So, just refer to me as Captain Awesome.”
Ree rolled her eyes at his lame attempt at humor. They hadn’t gotten very far in the last thirty minutes and Ree was pretty sure that was because she had stayed. Sophie was starting to lose patience, and Ree figured it was only a matter of time before she broke down and started trying to force him to talk. While Ree didn’t blame her for being frustrated, it still seemed wrong to torture someone. Knowing they had to get some information soon, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“Scott, was the Dark One a blonde?”
“If I remember correctly, he was purple with rainbow hair.” Scott smirked at Ree, amused with his own joke.
Taking a deep breath, Ree used the power and flung the blinds on the back windows open. The darkling made a high-pitched squeal of pain. The veins in his neck darkened and black crept in along the edges of his eyes. Smoke curled up from the exposed skin the light touched. The sound and smell combined to cause the acid in Ree’s stomach to churn.
“Name,” Sophie demanded clearly.
“I don’t know his name. They told me not to ask.” Fingers clenched tightly, the knuckles on each hand turned white.
“What did he look like?” Ree asked.
Instead of answering, the darkling clenched his mouth shut and squirmed on the floor, unable to get out of the light. Sophie went to the wall and carefully moved furniture away from some of the windows so nothing was damaged. She threw those blinds open, too, allowing more light to filter into the room. Scott’s screams became louder; the smell of his burning skin made it hard to breathe.
“Tell us, Scott. Tell us and I’ll close the windows.” Ree kneeled next to him and looked him in the eyes. The black didn’t reach the brown of his irises; instead it swirled just along the edges, making it hard to look at.
“Blond. He was tall and blond.”
“More. Tell us more.” Sophie moved closer to where the darkling lay on the floor.
“He looked like her! Like the Alastriana! Blue eyes, blue. Without the weird silver crap. Okay? Okay? Close the windows. Close the damn windows!” The lengths of his forearms were raw and bleeding; a fine black ash littered the floor.
Ree ran to the windows and yanked the strings of the blinds so they would fall back into place. Sophie had let Scott move back into the shadows and threw him a water bottle. Quickly unscrewing the lid, he poured it along his arms before gulping down the rest.
“We have to have more information, Scott. We can keep doing it the hard way, or we can keep it simple.” Sophie sat down in her desk chair and looked at the man cowering behind an old armoire. Slipping one leg over the other, the Guardian leaned back into the chair, for all the world looking as if she was asking about his day at work. “Who were the Dark Ones interested in and how did you know them?”
“Random people. I don’t know. They weren’t the people I expected they would want to talk to. There was a bar maid the first night. Then repeat customers, but nobody that I really knew.”
“What was your employee’s name? Did they hurt her?” Voice rising, Ree stepped closer to Scott.
“God, I don’t know. Emily? Emma?” Scott looked at Sophie and asked, “Can I have more water?”
“No.” Sophie’s eyes tightened.
“What happened to her?” Ree demanded again.
“I don’t know, okay? I sent for her to come up to the V.I.P. lounge, but she never showed. I never saw her again, actually. They weren’t happy, but there were patrons they wanted to see as well.” Unrolling his filthy sleeves, he pulled them down so they covered his wrists.
“What did they want with the patrons?” Ree had an idea, but needed to hear it spoken out loud.
“They had tea and crumpets.” Scott’s face contorted into a sneer, black creeping into the corners of his eyes.
Without thought, Ree let the power wash out of her, much as she had in the bathroom of the school. Scott pressed himself against the wall and threw his hands in front of his face. Ree moved closer to him, barely registering she was floating, not walking.
“Tell me what they did to those people, darkling. What did you trade so that they would offer you immortality?”
“They killed them. The blond one drank from certain ones and let his friends have the rest. He was very particular, but I don’t know why or what made him choose those people.”
“You traded those people’s lives for what? To be some monster’s slave?” Books along shelves rattled with Ree’s anger. Suddenly she felt as if she had been too kind when looking for her answers.
A hand touched her shoulder and Ree whirled to find herself eye-to-eye with the tall Greek woman. Understanding filled Sophie’s eyes. Slowly the anger fled Ree and her feet drifted down to touch the old wooden floors. Taking a deep breath, she turned to look at the darkling cowering in the corner.
“Tell us anything you can remember. If I think you’re holding anything back, I won’t be as nice this time. Understand?”
“Let me finish up, Ree. Why don’t you go wait outside?” Sophie looked at her with compassionate eyes. “I will get the information we need.”
“No, I’ll tell her.” Scott scuttled forward so that he could see them clearly. “They said something about those people being untapped. I think their blood gave them more power or something. I can tell you more, but I want to make a deal. I tell you what I know and you let me go. I leave Savannah and you go back to doing whatever it is you do.”
Sophie and Ree stood silently, looking at the filthy man on the floor. The sleeves of his pink shirt were sticking to the sores on his arms and mixing with the grime he had collected while scuttling through alleyways. Narrowing her eyes, Sophie silently measured the darkling.
“How can we know you’ll actually leave?” Ree asked.
“If you want to make this deal, Ree, I can make sure he is escorted out of town.” Sophie let her gaze linger on Ree’s for a moment. “I think we are going to have to call in reinforcements, anyway.”