Chapter Twenty
Berkfield roused with a gasp. He could smell dirt within the cramped, pitch-black confines when he came to. Where had they taken him? Everything was cool and soft around him. The scent of earth was everywhere. He couldn't move his arms and legs, as he struggled against the satiny surfaces around him. Soon he became aware that he was shackled within a tight, oblong space.
Immediately he felt his throat, sliding his bound hands up his torso with terror. Although disoriented, snatches of images careened into his head. He began to remember the bodies, horror making him go still. Blood had been everywhere. Scientists slaughtered where they stood... hearts ripped out of chests while still beating. Glazed, dead eyes looking up from the lab floor, screams frozen on faces... and a beast that he couldn't have conceived in his wildest nightmares had turned, looked at him with red glowing eyes, blood running from his mouth, his fist clenching a dripping human heart, and had laughed.
Even though he was already in total darkness, Berkfield tightly shut his eyes. Where were his wife and children? Father God, help them all!
The moment the prayer entered his mind, he could smell smoke, and the soft substance beneath him began to smolder. A loud thud rocked the box he was in.
"Never in my coffin! Ever!" the strangely accented voice he'd never forget bellowed. "Not within my sacred resting chamber, human!"
Berkfield froze. He was in a casket? Just as suddenly as the voice had spoken, he felt a painful jolt of electricity course through him, creating a seizure that made him convulse so hard he bit his tongue. He could barely breathe. Knowing what he was trapped within was creating claustrophobia, and with that came hysteria that bred a futile struggle against the immoveable lid.
Sweating, panting, his thoughts turned to Carlos. He remembered what he'd been told... but why hadn't Rivera come?
"He can't help you in here," the floating voice said. "He cannot even hear you. Pity. He should have taken better care of you. But you can't trust his kind... the newly made. Sydney is wonderful, however."
Who the hell was Sydney? A laugh echoed out beyond his confining box. Berkfield strained to hear, as the voice got further away.
"Stop struggling and save your breath. There's only so much air in the coffin... then again, you might be lucky and suffocate before this is done. Your prayer may be answered after all, and you can die before the final ceremony."
With every sense keened, he noticed the subtle sway of the coffin. He was being transported. He scavenged every facet he could recall. His memory danced between the images in the lab and a dungeon. There had been a castle. Torches were everywhere, black hooded robes, deafening, indecipherable words chanted... pain, burning, searing, horrific pain that entered his bones and temporarily stole his sight. Delirium, heat, blood, strange symbols, military men and men of science, saying words from old black books, appearing dazed and insane as they spoke in unison. Then the black funnel cloud had scorched the air within his lungs. It had opened up the slate dungeon floor within the center of the pentagram these madmen and creatures had created from fresh human blood.
Berkfield sucked in a huge breath and tried to stifle a strangled cough as he dry heaved and almost vomited. The longer he lay there, the more he understood why Carlos had gone deep underground and into hiding. The man had vanished. But he'd also learned that Rivera had turned into a beast like the thing that had kidnapped him.
Every instinct he had told him that - if he lived through the ordeal - he had to remember it all so he could hunt this beast down and snuff it, before it got to his family.
Just as suddenly as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a deep, echoing snarl. Berkfield cringed as a thunderous bang rocked the coffin, sending a fiery current through the wall of it to crawl over his face, seal his mouth against a scream, blind his eyes, and shatter his eardrums.
He was glad that she'd relaxed enough to allow him to take her to the top of Westfield Centrepoint Tower to look out at the amazing view. He'd lied; he wasn't ashamed to admit that to himself. There was no real compelling reason to go there. But he just wanted to have a reason to hold her alone for a little while longer under the stars... while the night was his and the world was still under his dominion. Once he gave her back to Marlene that was it. His world would be gone.
"See," he murmured, swallowing hard. "That's where there's safety zones." He pointed for her, hating to let one of his arms break contact with her soft skin. "Over there, bad energy."
She just allowed her line of vision to follow where he pointed, but he could tell she wasn't paying attention as she leaned against him closer and swallowed hard. They had both lied to themselves.
The ruse had been plausible, served a dual purpose. Denial was a wonderful drug at the moment, numbed the pain like morphine. Yeah, she needed to see the entire layout of the city for her own safety, to know that Darling Harbor was to the west, beaches were to the east, and north of Sydney was the commercial district and Taronga Zoo - where creatures could be transformed by weres. She needed to see how the Sydney Harbor Bridge divided the city north by south, and to see the concentration of activity on the south side, Chinatown... all of that was good information if she had to cut and run.
But more than she needed that, he needed to feel her heartbeat against his chest while the early evening air whipped her dwindling fragrance about him, his nose nuzzling the soft crown of her head, his hands aching to stroke her belly and sense what he'd planted there. She needed him to hold her and never let her go... they both knew the deal.
He chanced a kiss on the top of her head, and felt her eyes close, could taste the salt tears run down her cheeks as soon as they hit the air.
"We better go," he murmured. "You've only got a couple of hours before you have to perform."
"Yeah," she said, her tone flat, disconnected. "And I don't even have a plan."
There was no denying that. All there was left to do was bring her in. Give her up. And try to fight the whole world to give her and his baby a chance to live.
Never in a million years would she have thought she'd be coming to her mother-seer like this, dragging her Isis behind her like she was dragging her tail, knocked up, no plan, a man caught up in a dangerous life, and scared as shit... and still so crazy that she didn't want to leave him. Insane in love.
She glanced up at the old general post office that had been converted into the five-star Westin Sydney. The thirty-one-story tower atrium seemed like a perfect place to hurl oneself off of
25
