“Well, shit,” I muttered as a lightbulb went off in my head. They could see me. And I knew why. “That damned cuff.”
I’d left it on the table near Jada. When he’d tried to sell me on it, V’lane told me the cuff of Cruce afforded protection against Fae and “assorted nasties.” Apparently my wraiths fell into the latter category. It made sense, when I thought about it. Ryodan said my ghouls had once stalked the king. I could see Cruce not wanting any skulking, spying creatures near him, and working to perfect a spell to prevent them from being able to find him. That explained why once I’d become visible again, they hadn’t instantly become my second skin. Jada had given me the cuff while I was cloaked by the Sinsar Dubh.
Now they were back. Great.
And something was still trying to decide if it wanted to “fix me.” Bloody great. Good luck with that.
I started to move forward, hesitated a moment, feeling that odd finger of a chill at my spine again, and glanced back at BB&B.
I decided to wait for Barrons to get back. It made me uneasy how quickly they found me once I’d taken off the cuff. I remembered them flying over the city, searching. Although they’d never appeared to present any real threat to me, had even slept on the same bed with me in Chester’s without ever doing anything to me, who knew when the rules might change in this crazy-ass world?
Maybe the Sweeper had made up its mind, I thought darkly. I didn’t like that thought.
I spun briskly to head back for the safety of the bookstore.
That’s when they dropped from the sky like great, smelly, black, suffocating straitjackets and took me down.
35
“If I only had a heart…”
I regained consciousness to find myself staring straight up at the ceiling of a dimly lit industrial warehouse.
I could tell what it was by the vast metal beams and girders and pulleys used to move supplies. I guessed I was somewhere in the Dark Zone, flown up and out by the gaunt wraiths that were far more formidable than I’d ever imagined.
When they’d descended from above, their assault was instantaneous, almost as if they’d sifted, expanding their leathery cloaks, smothering me. I hadn’t even managed to lift a finger before my hands were immobilized.
My spear and guns, useless. I hadn’t been able to get to anything, not even my cellphone. Then again, from what I’d seen, Barrons’s tattoos hadn’t been finished and IYD wouldn’t have done me any good.
One moment they’d been in the sky, the next my arms were tightly straitjacketed to my sides, my legs bound. Their smelly, leathery cloaks had covered even my head and I wasn’t able to breathe. I thought I was dying. The horrible thing about being suffocated is you don’t know if you’re going to wake up or not.
I’d decided in my last, fleeting moment of consciousness that the way the Sweeper had decided to “fix” me was apparently to kill me; a sentiment I might not have entirely disagreed with at various points in my life.
But not now. Jada needed me. Oh, she didn’t know that and probably wouldn’t agree with it, but she did. The Sweeper could try to kill me later. Now was not a good time. I wasn’t staying here to get “fixed.”
I leapt up.
Er, rather, my brain gave the command for my body to leap up.
Nothing happened.
Manacles rattled. Slightly. My wrists and ankles burned. I groaned. I’d practically broken my neck trying to stand. I was strong. My restraints were stronger.
I tried to move my head. It didn’t work. There was a wide band across my forehead, strapping it tightly to the surface upon which I was stretched, flat on my back.
I was horrified to realize I was secured to some kind of cold metal gurney. For a moment I was afraid I’d been given a paralytic drug, but then found that I could move my head a few inches if I put effort into it. The rest of me was so tightly buckled down, I couldn’t move my arms or legs at all.
There was a sudden rustling in the distance, the sound of my stalkers, their dry chittering. I stank to high heaven, drenched in their disgusting yellow dust.
I went motionless and closed my eyes again.
In horror flicks, when the hero gets strapped to this kind of thing, in this kind of place, the villain always waits for them to regain consciousness before the truly gruesome acts of barbarism begin.
I could play dead a long time.
As the rustling wraiths drew nearer, I heard a whirring and grinding, the sound of badly greased cogs turning. I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on breathing deep and natural.
I recognized the sound.
The thing ambulated ponderously closer, panic and dread accompanying it, filling me with the same immobilizing fear I’d felt the night the walking trash heap passed through the alley behind BB&B. I couldn’t have moved then even if I’d been unrestrained.
If I had been able to move, I would have smacked myself in the forehead. As I ran like hell.