Avow taoa-3 Read online

  The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the silver-eyed girl who’d once been his best friend, smirking at his weakness as she shot at him again.

  ***************

  Heather had stopped crying an hour ago, but her body was still shaking.

  Raven had bound both her wrists and ankles with coarse rope before tying her body against a concrete pillar in an old warehouse. Her arms were strung above her head, her wrist ties hanging from a hook in the pillar, and her legs were pinned to the pillar, ropes winding up her calves, thighs and torso.

  Squirming against her bindings, she let out a whimper. The skin on her wrists and ankles was already burned raw from her attempts at freeing herself and all the shaking her body was doing only made things worse.

  The warehouse was empty save for a pillar across from her and a small table behind that. On the table were several tubes, a collection of plastic baggies, a small plastic bin, and something silver and shiny Heather couldn’t quite make out.

  Probably some sort of evil witch torture device.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die—

  No.

  Heather took a deep breath and tried to think about something else. Anything else.

  Like ponies.

  Ponies were a happy thought. They were nice and gentle and they never kidnapped people or strapped them to cold warehouse pillars.

  Ponies, ponies, ponies—

  “Tie him up by the girl and for God’s sake don’t kill him!” Clare’s—er, Raven’s—voice was like nails on a chalkboard as it floated into Heather’s ears.

  Any attempts to think of ponies came to an abrupt halt.

  A thud. Some shuffling. And soon three Ashmen emerged from the warehouse shadows with a large, unconscious Gabriel in their hands.

  Dragging him to the pillar across from her, they tied Gabriel up in the same fashion as Heather and stiffly exited, leaving them alone.

  Heather perked up and hope soared in her chest.

  Gabriel is immortal! He can totally bust out of his ropes and find a way to get us out of this hell-hole-warehouse-dungeon place before the wicked witch comes back—

  Drool dribbled from his mouth and ran down his chin.

  Heather slumped back against the pillar.

  Or maybe not.

  Sighing in despair, she shook at her impossible ties again. Was this Raven chick an ex-sailor or something? These were like ninja knots.

  Giving up on the ropes, she stared at Gabriel’s body and whispered as violently as she could, “Gabriel!”

  He made an mmph noise.

  “Gabriel!” she whispered again.

  He slurped up the drool, but didn’t respond.

  Heather turned her voice up full volume. “Gabriel Michael Archer, wake up this minute!”

  With his eyes still closed, he grumbled, “My middle name isn’t Michael.”

  “I don’t care. Wake up!” she snapped. “We need to get out of here before crazy Raven and her dead minions of ash come back.”

  He opened his eyes and blinked in confusion. “What the hell?” He looked up and tugged at the bindings on his hands. “Where are we?”

  “Raven’s den of horrors,” Heather said. “Turns out my boss—you remember sweet ol’ Clare from the carnival?—yeah, she’s Raven and she’s addicted to fountain water and she’s cra-zy.” She sang this last word. “She kidnapped us and now we’re her captives. Which is not sexy, despite the very spy-like feeling this whole situation has to it.”

  “Raven is addicted to fountain water?”

  “Really?” She glared at him. “That’s what you took away from everything I just told you? Focus, Gabriel. We need to get out of here!” She shook her ties again, biting back another whimper at her burning skin.

  Gabriel kicked at the ropes around his feet and growled in frustration when they wouldn’t loosen. He turned his attention to his wrists, hung from a hook above his head like Heather, and started twisting against the crappy rope that bound them, grunting and yanking.

  Heather gave up on her ties, her skin too raw to withstand any more friction, and watched Gabriel try to bend his body out of the knots for several minutes. Without success.

  With a curse, he stopped wrestling with the ropes and fell back against the pillar.

  Heather looked him over, taking in his appearance. “Why is your shirt all bloody?”

  He exhaled. “Because while you were at the carnival passing out coffee and smiling at clowns, I was getting jumped by a crew of Ashmen with Bluestone weapons.”

  Heather lifted a brow. “I’d feel sorry for you except I spent most of the night tied to a tree in a graveyard while my boss shot and killed Laura and then proceeded to beat the crap out of my best friend. So yeah. I’m fresh out of sympathy.”

  His eyes shot to hers. “Is Scarlet okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Heather swallowed. “I hope so.”

  She tried not to think about Scarlet unconscious in the cemetery. Scarlet was tough. She was fine, right?

  Right?

  Heather’s body started to shake again. She tried to calm down, focusing on a new splotch of blood seeping through Gabriel’s shirt.

  “You—you haven’t started healing yet,” she noted.

  “Nope,” he said bitterly. “I will soon, though. Hopefully.” He grit his teeth as he shifted against the pillar and they hung in silence for a few minutes.

  Heather’s body stopped shaking.

  Gabriel kept scouring the warehouse like some magical escape plan was written on the walls.

  Looking down at her bare feet, Heather frowned. The expensive pink heels she’d had on earlier had been casualties of all the ashy kidnapping and mayhem.

  So sad.

  She pressed her lips together as she watched Gabriel’s eyes dart around the room. “Any awesome escape plans yet?”

  “The only plan I had was the wrestling out of the ropes thing. So no.”

  Drat.

  More silence.

  Heather licked her lips. “You know what would be really nice right now? Coffee. I could really go for some coffee.”

  Just the idea made her salivate.

  He scowled. “How can you even think about coffee right now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe caffeine is how I cope.” She thought for a moment. “Although usually I’m a crier. Are you a crier?”

  “No.”

  “Not even at sad movies or weddings?“

  “No.”

  “What about commercials with little puppies that need a home?”

  He blinked. “Please stop talking.”

  “Hmm,” she said slowly. “Maybe talking is how I cope.” Her hands started falling asleep. “You know what else would be really nice right now?”

  “An off button?”

  “Super powers,” she said. “It would be really helpful if your immortalness came with super powers. Like maybe super strength or the ability to burn rope with your eyeballs.”

  “Yes, well, I’ll be sure to ask for the upgraded package next time.” He stretched his neck and Heather noticed a red mark next to his Adam’s apple.

  “What happened to your throat?”

  “Raven shot me with some kind of dart.”

  “They were tranq darts.” Raven’s high heels echoed through the large room as she entered and came to a stop between the two pillars. She looked at Gabriel. “I had to use a few of them, actually, because you heal so quickly. Very inconvenient.” She sighed. “But it worked and you looked so peaceful, all passed out and vulnerable on the way here. It made me miss the old days. Watching you sleep beside me.”

  Heather wrinkled her nose.

  Gag me.

  Wait no. I’ve already been gagged tonight and it’s not pleasant.

  Sometimes Gabriel’s eyebrows were happy. Other times, they were concerned or annoyed. But right now, poised above his brown eyes like batwings, Gabriel’s eyebrows were mad. Mad eyebrows.

  “W
hat do you want, Raven?” His voice was lower than usual. Meaner.

  “You haven’t seen me for half a millennium and that’s your opening question?” Raven put a hand on her hip. “Aren’t you curious as to what I’ve been up to? Don’t you want to know where I’ve lived and all I’ve seen?”

  “I want to know how you’re alive. Especially since I killed you.”

  Heather blinked.

  Gabriel had killed Raven?

  Well, that certainly had never come up at the lunch table before.

  A little heads up would have been nice.

  Hey Heather, since we’re history partners and all I figured I should tell you I’m a murderer. But I’m hot, so it’s okay.

  From now on, Heather was going to do background checks on all her buddies.

  “You tried to kill me,” Raven corrected. “But since I had fountain water in my veins when you broke my neck—real classy, by the way—I managed to survive.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Where did you get fountain water?”

  She gave him a secretive smile. “In the wall of my family’s house.”

  “You stole the vial?”

  “Is it really stealing if the vial belonged to my family? I think not.”

  Gabriel stared at her. “How have you survived this long on a single vial of fountain water?”

  She shrugged. “Magic.” She pulled a syringe of something blue from her bosom—apparently her bra also doubled as a purse—and held it up. “I thinned out the fountain water and multiplied it with spells. And now I’m down to my last dose.” She looked at the syringe with hunger in her eyes.

  Like it was heroin, Raven set the needle tip to the inside of her elbow and injected herself with the blue water. Her eyes rolled back into her head for a moment before she blinked her way out of the bliss and tossed the empty syringe on the table.

  She turned back to Gabriel. “It must be so depressing to see me alive after all these years. You were so angry the night you broke my neck.”

  He had his evil eyebrows back on. “Yes. Because you killed my father.”

  “Well, he was awful.”

  “And you shot Tristan.”

  “Complete accident.”

  “And then you cursed me and killed Scarlet.”

  She shrugged. “Those last two may have been a bit rash of me.”

  “Rash? Rash? I haven’t been able to fall in love for five hundred years.”

  “You could have loved me.” She spread her palm against his bloody shirt and five purple-painted nails crawled their way up his chest to his face.

  He thrust his face away and smacked his head into the pillar.

  Raven pouted her lips. “Poor thing. You’re not nearly as magnificent when you’re all tied up.” She winked. “Not like this anyway.”

  Nasty, nasty, nasty.

  Heather was judging Gabriel on so many levels tonight.

  Pulling her hand back from Gabriel’s chest, Raven made a face at the blood that now stained her fingertips. She wiped her hand on his jeans until the blood was all gone.

  Gabriel watched her with narrowed eyes and slowly said, “You look old.”

  Heather’s mouth fell open.

  Good God. Don’t anger the crazy lady.

  Raven slapped him, hard. “That’s what happens when your supply of fountain water starts to run out and you have to dilute it. You age. Magic can only do so much.”

  “Sucks to be you,” Gabriel said.

  Clearly, he did not value his life.

  Raven looked Gabriel up and down for a moment, then walked to the table behind his pillar and retrieved the shiny, silver object Heather had spied earlier.

  Scissors. Not a torture device.

  Not yet anyway. Gabriel was doing a pretty good job of provoking the witch, so there was a good chance she was about to cut him into bite-sized pieces of immortal deliciousness and feed him to the myriad of black cats she no doubt had stashed in the back alongside her broomstick and bubbling caldron.

  Raven walked back up to Gabriel and started cutting off his shirt.

  WTF?

  If things got kinky, Heather was totally going to vomit.

  Gabriel’s eyes followed Raven’s hands as she peeled the shirt off his bloodied body. Some of the matted fabric caught in his chest wound and Raven ripped it out.

  He winced. “What are you doing?”

  She tossed the stained shirt to the floor. “I need to make sure your cuts aren’t deep enough to kill you.”

  “How very thoughtful of you,” Gabriel said between his teeth as she prodded the cut on his shoulder.

  With a satisfied nod, she went back to the table and grabbed a needle, some tubing, and a baggie before heading back to Gabriel.

  Was she going to play doctor now?

  Sweet mercy.

  Worst hostage situation ever.

  Raven shoved Gabriel’s head to the side and sank the needle into his jugular, hitching the tubing to it so blood could pump from his body to the plastic baggie at the end of the tube.

  Okay weird.

  Gabriel stared out the corner of his eye at where blood flowed from his neck, wisely keeping his mouth shut as the crazy witch took his blood. When Raven decided she had enough, she withdrew the needle and unhooked the tubes.

  Sealing Gabriel’s blood into the bag, she placed it in the bin on table and turned to leave.

  “Oh. One last thing.” Raven stopped in her tracks and walked back to Gabriel. Reaching for his head, she broke his neck in one swift twist.

  Heather blinked in shock as Gabriel’s body went limp against the pillar and his head lopped to the side in an unnatural way. A small trickle of blood oozed from his neck where the needle had just been as Raven’s heels tapped their way out of the room.

  Heather knew a broken neck wouldn’t kill an immortal, but she couldn’t seem to keep her body from shaking as she stared at his lifeless form. If Raven had no problem hurting Gabriel, how much more callous would she be with Heather?

  Ponies, ponies, ponies.

  CHAPTER 3

  Gabriel was not at the Millhouse. Or the fair. Or anywhere else that made sense, and Tristan’s fear was mounting by the minute. Walking along the perimeter of the coffee shop, he followed the sidewalk and tried to retrace his brother’s steps.

  A small patch of ash caught his eye and he followed it around a corner to find an alley dotted with more piles of ash.

  But no sign of Gabriel.

  Nate came up behind him with Scarlet. “Where do you think he went?”

  Scarlet said, “Maybe he went to find us.”

  Tristan spied Gabriel’s knife discarded on the ground and his gut churned as he picked it up. “He wouldn’t have left unarmed.”

  Nate caught sight of something else on the ground and bent to retrieve the small object.

  “What’s that?” Scarlet stepped closer.

  “I think it’s a tranquilizer dart.” Nate turned it over in his hand.

  More churning.

  “Do you think someone drugged Gabriel?”

  “Maybe Raven wanted to take him hostage,” Nate said slowly. “Like Heather. The tranq dart is a good sign, though. It means she doesn’t want to kill him.”

  Tristan fisted his hands and Nate eyed his white knuckles. “Don’t stress, man. We’ll find him.”

  “How?” Tristan snapped, his chest hot with fear. “How are we going to find him, Nate? With our Gabriel tracking device?”

  “Ooh! A tracking device would have been a good idea.” Nate nodded. “Next time.”

  Tristan started pacing. Why would Raven take Gabriel? Where would she take him? And why the hell wasn’t she dead?

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Scarlet run a shaky hand through her hair. He stopped pacing and tried to feel her, forgetting the curse had shifted and he was no longer privy to her feelings.

  Funny how he used to think of his connection to her as punishment, taunting him with what he could never have. But now, without
her emotions running through him, he felt empty and lost.

  Her eyes moved to his and their gazes locked for a brief moment. A flicker of unease crossed her face and she turned away.

  Tristan’s chest tightened.

  She was hiding something. Something big.

  “Raven probably has Heather and Gabriel in the same place,” Nate said, “so we just need to narrow down possible hiding spots. I say we do a background check on ‘Clare’ and see if she owns any dungeons or other bad guy haunts. Avalon’s not that big. We’ll find Gabriel and Heather in two, three days tops.”

  Tristan pulled his eyes away from Scarlet and stared at Nate. “Two or three days in captivity with a psychotic witch might kill them. We need to find them now.” He exited the alley and headed for his car.

  “And your plan is what?” Nate said as he and Scarlet followed after him. “You’re just going to drive around until you see a sign that says Raven’s Secret Hostage Lair?”

  Tristan wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but hanging out in an alley all night certainly wasn’t going to bring Gabriel back any faster. “What’s the alternative? Go back home, eat some Lucky Charms, and get some sleep? I don’t think so.”

  “Why are you hating on my cereal?”

  “I think Nate’s right,” Scarlet said as they reached the car. “We can’t just drive around aimlessly. We need a plan. At least we know from the tranq dart that Raven doesn’t want to kill them, so that buys us some time to find them.”

  “Yes.” Nate nodded. “Let’s go back to the cabin and plan.”

  Tristan didn’t like this idea. Not at all.

  But he also didn’t know where to look for Gabriel, so any argument he hoped to have on behalf of his driving around aimlessly plan fell dead.

  “Fine,” he muttered, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  Nate jumped into the backseat while Scarlet slid into the passenger’s seat and tried to buckle her seatbelt. It wouldn’t latch. The passenger’s seatbelt had taken a beating when Tristan had remodeled the shack and now the latch only worked if you jiggled it the right way.

  Scarlet wasn’t jiggling it the right way.

  Tristan reached over to help her and she swatted at his hand. “I can put on my own seatbelt.”

  He pulled his hand back and rested an arm on the steering wheel as he watched her struggle with the clasp.