Chapter 12
Elizabeth woke slowly. At first she was aware only of the pain in her head, but the aches in the rest of her body soon made themselves known. She lay face down with her cheek pressed into a hard gritty surface. She could tell that when she raised her head she would have sand stuck in her face, which she wouldn't be able to brush off because her hands were tied behind her back. Before she had time to get completely annoyed by that, she woke up the rest of the way and began to be afraid. Her feet were tied too.
She opened her eyes and found Thomas's elbow a foot from her face. The thought of company was not terribly cheering. His sweater was torn out at the elbow, but the tear had not yet begun to unravel. He must have fought with their captors. His breathing was deep and regular. Either he had been knocked unconscious or he was catching up on his sleep. She rolled slowly over onto her back and looked around. They were in a long, low room with a pressed tin ceiling. Probably a storeroom, it smelled of mildew and held an assortment of broken pieces of furniture, mostly hard chairs and a desk, missing one leg, which leaned drunkenly forward. Heavy drapes covered the windows at one end of the room, leaving the room dark except for a slash of light where one of the drapes had been pulled half down.
As she looked around the room, the movement of her head had an alarming effect on her brain, which was apparently loose from its moorings and sloshing around. Despite the nausea, she tried to sit up as if that would render her less powerless. The complexity of sitting up without either the use of her hands or undue movement of her head made the operation more time consuming than she thought possible. Once upright, she investigated the nature of her bonds as well as she could. Her feet were tied together with what looked like clothesline. The bonds around her hands were tight and unforgiving.
Her crab-like scrabbling around on the floor woke Thomas. He was bound similarly to herself and did not waste quite as much time struggling to sit up.
"Are you terribly hurt?" he asked. His eyes were looking less red and his color was a little better. She revised her estimate of how long she'd been unconscious upwards because it looked like Thomas had caught up on more sleep than the five minutes she had been guessing. One of his eyes was swollen. He must have taken quite a hit. The bruising along his jaw likely mirrored her own.
"I don't think so," she said carefully. "What happened?"
"Some people smashed their way into the store," he said. Well, she knew that. "But you determined that already. I don't think they have taken us very far. We may be next door. I woke shortly after they carried us up here. When they were tying us up, I heard shrieking sounds from the street outside, then voices and footsteps through the wall."
"The police," said Elizabeth. "I dialed 911 before they started hitting me. That's an emergency code you can put into a telephone and they will send help," she added. "We must be upstairs from the shoe store. How long have we been here?"
"I can't be sure. Perhaps two hours? The light has faded considerably."
Elizabeth sighed. "Jennifer must have told them to do this. She'll trade us for her brother unless Alice finds us first. The bookstore is on the other side of this wall." She wiggled around and tried to spot the blocked up doorway. If she could position herself at the thin place in the wall, and if Alice turned up, then she could try to get her sister's attention somehow, by shouting or kicking at the doorway, but without attracting the notice of Becky and her cohort downstairs. A psychic twin connection would come in really handy right about now. She asked Thomas, "Do you think you could untie these knots, or break the clothesline?"
"I've already tried. This substance is incredibly strong. It won't fray and I can't break it."
"I still have my knife. I put it in my pocket. It's in my right front pocket. Get the knife out and we can cut ourselves free."
Thomas was appalled. "You want me to reach into your pocket?"
"Yes. Lie down and roll over. I'll scootch up behind you and you can reach in."
There proceeded a very uncomfortable interval. She and Thomas spooned up together and he delicately attempted to get his fingers into the front pocket of her jeans without actually touching her, which she would have found amusing under less difficult circumstances.
There was nothing delicate about how she had to shove her hips up against his hands. He groped around delicately and she tried to give him directions. "Up a little, no, more towards my … "
His fingers traced along the inside of her hipbone as he searched for the opening of her pocket. She dissolved into giggles and pressed her face between his shoulder blades.
"What?"
"I'm really ticklish," she gasped. When she got her breathing under control he tried again. This time he managed to get a finger caught in a belt loop. "Stop pulling. It's lower than—"
"I hate to suggest this, but could you get closer?"
"Fine." She wriggled up till her body was curved around his. Her breasts pressed against his back and on her thighs she could feel the heat of his body through their clothes. She was glad one of them was warm. A cold draft curled down her back and wrapped around her ankles. He groped around her nether regions and found the zipper of her jeans.
"Not that," she said.
"Blast!" Sarcastically, he added, "I'm so glad I'm not armed. After all, I might have got into trouble."
"Oh, shut up. Can you get the knife out or not?"
"I think—" This time his fingers slipped into her pocket.
"That's it!"
"I've almost got it."
She started giggling again.
"Don't wriggle around so."
"I can't help—"
Below, a door opened. Boots sounded on the stairs and high heels tapped out a counterpoint. Becky's voice said, "They're up here."
"Damn." Elizabeth rolled away from Thomas and squirmed to a sitting position.
Becky and Titania appeared at the top of the stairs. An unpleasant smile curved Titania's carefully painted lips. "My dear, dear Mr. Penrose. So you survived the breaking of the curse, what an unexpected—I can't call it pleasure—development, perhaps?"
"Lady Shevrell?" Thomas raised his head. "What an unexpected … development indeed. You're looking not quite three centuries old."
"Nor are you." Titania walked closer so that Thomas had to lay back in a completely prone position in order to keep an eye on her. "You look almost exactly as you did the day we ensorcelled you, except that you've let your friends scrub off some of that seventeenth century miasma and give you a not quite of the moment haircut." She tossed her own superbly styled hair back over her shoulders.
"My friends, yes," Thomas breathed.
She doesn't know he's lost his memory. Elizabeth bit her lip.
"You do keep turning up," Titania continued. "It seems like I'm always having to dispose of you. This time I shall try something a little more permanent, and for an even better return."
"Better than what?" Thomas sat up and looked at her with a little flare of hope in his eyes.
Titania smiled acidly and said, "I'll trade you for more than a fortune this time."
Becky walked over to the windows and pulled back the drapes. The windows faced north and the fading light fell into the room like a mist. Silhouetted against the windows, Becky stood hip shot, one booted foot forward. Her dreadlocks rayed out from her head like disturbed snakes. Tattered layers of rusty black skirts fell back from her stocky leg. "Do you want them or not? I can have the guys throw them in your truck now. We'd better do it before her sister comes back to the bookstore, even that flake could hear them through the walls."
"Alice isn't a—" Elizabeth started.
"Gag them. It's not convenient right now." Titania left off tormenting Thomas and wandered nonchalantly towards the windows. Elizabeth tried to trip her, but her legs weren't long enough.
"Deal with it," said Becky. "I need to close the store and make preparations. I don't want them getting found here. You have a better capacity for keeping them hidden than I do."
Elizabeth blinked and wondered how the power dynamic had shifted over the past month. Becky had been securely in the peon position. Now she was, if not giving orders, at least making pointed suggestions. She looked at Titania more carefully. Titania returned her attention to Thomas and walked in a slow circle around him. She wore a green silk dress beneath a thick, beautifully draped camel coat. Gossamer stockings encased her slender legs, where Elizabeth found the one flaw she'd ever seen in Titania's appearance. A tiny run at one heel. Probably it meant nothing, those kind of stockings would run if you look at them. She looked closer and though the run didn't get any worse, she noticed a little smudging of the eye makeup. At most this indicated that Titania was distracted and who wouldn't be, what with a human sacrifice to plan and victims to round up.
"Very well," said Titania. "My truck's already around back. Have them brought out. Three for my sister should be an even enough trade." She turned away and tapped downstairs.
Becky cracked her gum as the door closed on Titania. "Three, huh? Jennifer will be pissed." Apparently undisturbed by that thought, she shrugged and followed Titania downstairs.
A moment later, their two assailants from earlier shambled up the stairs and hauled them out to Titania's Escalade. They looked rather the worse for wear. Elizabeth catalogued the visible bruises about their heads and the split lips. Thomas smiled. Elizabeth was thrown over one man's shoulder and waves of nausea rippled through her abused stomach as it was sorely pinched against her own spine. With an effort, she managed not to vomit on him, more because she didn't want to vomit than out of consideration for him. The other hoisted Thomas up in a fireman's carry. They were dumped into the cargo area behind the back seats of Titania's truck and the hatch was slammed shut upon them.
While they waited for Titania to show up, they held a whispered conference.
"Where is she taking us?" asked Thomas.
"I can't be sure, but I bet she'll haul us around till she goes to Trip's place which is right next door to our house. We may have another chance to escape."
"If we can get that knife."
"Yes."
Before they could assume their earlier positions and have another go at getting the knife out of the pocket, Titania glided into the driver's seat and drove them off without a word.
"Where are we going?" Elizabeth asked her and got no response.
Titania drove through the city. Eastward, by the light. She kept to surface streets, Cary most of the way, and drove through the Fan, past the university, and then into downtown.
Silently, Elizabeth and Thomas spooned up again, and he made another attempt at her pocket. This time she stifled her giggles and stayed as still as she could. What with the practice, Thomas managed to get his fingers into her pocket and with the tips of his fingers slowly drew the knife out. The back seats hid them from Titania's view and the lite jazz station she had pumping through the speakers muffled any noise they made in the process.
The Escalade stopped suddenly and they were thrown against the back seats. Thomas dropped the knife and cursed under his breath. Titania changed directions a few times, hurling them back and forth, as she maneuvered into a parking space. Without a word to her captives, Titania hopped out of her truck and slammed the door behind her. She set the remote alarm as she walked away, the doors locked and suddenly all the sounds of the city, traffic and human sounds alike (and, oh bliss, the lite jazz), faded away to be replaced by a familiar hum and a soft red glow in the ethereal plane.
"Move." Thomas nudged her and rolled onto his back to scrabble around for the knife. "Got it. You might try yelling for help."
"No point. She's put a soundproof bubble around us, no one will hear. And the windows are tinted so no one can see in."
"Oh? So how can we see out then." Thomas got his hands on the knife and carefully opened it.
"Through the magic of polarization."
"What's that?"
"Augh! I don't know, okay, I don't know everything about every damn bit of technology that we use every damn day here! Hold the knife steady." Elizabeth rolled over and tried to bring the cords that bound her wrists into contact with the blade. She found the blade first when she impaled the flesh at the base of her thumb on it. "Ow!"
"Are you hurt?"
"Only a flesh wound." She sawed her bonds against the knife. Thomas's only response was muffled approval and she sighed inwardly at the prospect of explaining pop culture references. Though, she thought philosophically, he might be making seventeenth century in-jokes constantly with no one the wiser. Eventually, after a few minor stabbings, her bonds parted and she cut Thomas's hands free. They quickly cut through the cords binding their feet and Elizabeth pulled on the door handle. It was locked.
She crawled over the back seats and tried the side doors, also locked and she couldn't unlock them. Assuming that the child safety must be on, she crawled into the driver's seat, noting with pleasure that she was bleeding all over the leather upholstery, and tried the door locks up there. Still no luck.
"Break a window." Thomas crawled up beside her. He tried to put his foot through the passenger side window and his knee nearly bashed in his head on the rebound.
"Nice try, but I think she put some magic on the car to keep us from getting out."
Thomas looked out through the windshield at the office workers nipping past, blown by the December breezes towards the parking decks. The sun was already going down and people were cutting out early. "What if we shake the … car? Wouldn't someone notice?"
"Oh, they'd notice all right, but they wouldn't come a-knocking. When Jennifer pulled this kind of thing in the bookstore, I used Alice—Am I still cursed?" She held her arms out before her and examined herself in the ether. If the reanimation of the mummy hadn't knocked the curse out of her, then maybe she could break Titania's spell that way. But her aura was a uniform blue, without even the sparkly bits at her fingers. She looked all down her body and was delighted, at first, to find the curse looped around her ankles. She called it upwards and let it coil up around her legs and then her middle. Slowly, she drew it into her fingers and—order into chaos—thrust her hands against the red glow of Titania's enchantment.
With an audible pop and a flash of white light, the enchantment was breached.
They both closed their eyes against the light. The glass in the windows shivered into bright shiny pellets and a sudden of rush air and noise whooshed into the Escalade. The door locks all flipped.
"Yes!" Elizabeth pushed a door open and jumped out, dragging Thomas after her.
"What did you do?"
"Hurry. Like a matter-antimatter annihilation thing. I'll explain later. We've got to get as far away as possible before Titania comes back." She kept hold of his arm and hurried him down the street. They were downtown in the financial district only, oh, twenty blocks from home. They crossed Cary and made for the James Center, surrounded at this time of year with white grapevine reindeer covered in tiny white lights. The wind blasted in from the river across the parking lots and Elizabeth was seriously regretting her coat, which was hanging on a hook all the way back in the bookstore. Thomas seemed to be impervious to cold, or he was just too enthralled with the mirror glass office towers to notice.
A wordless cry of outrage split the air behind them. A blast of white ether plunged into Elizabeth's head and it was migraine time again.
They darted into a small clot of startled pedestrians who provided cover all the way to the enchanted reindeer forest. When the group headed for the Christmas tree, Elizabeth split off from them and pulled Thomas under the little carillon on the corner. She leaned against the wall and caught her breath. A stitch was forming in her side and she inspected the cuts on her hands. Not too bad, though she'd managed to reopen the healing cut she'd gotten from the wine glass at the Egyptian Building party. The bleeding was mostly stopped.
Thomas leaned out around the corner and stared back the way they had come. "I can't see her coming after us."
Elizabeth rubbed her temple. "She doesn't have to. She knows where we live."
"Is that where we're going?"
"We can't stay out here. If we can get home, Bob will be there and it won't be outdoors. We need to call Alice and find Miss Price." Her teeth began chattering.
"And you're supposed to rescue this Trip individual too," he said.
"I guess we can do that. We'll be right there so it won't be out of our way," Elizabeth said glumly.
Thomas waved at the dense herd of wire frame reindeer glowing with tiny white lights. "What is—"
"Christmas decorations."
From up Cary, she heard an engine roar and alarmed shouts from people on the street. She looked back and saw the Escalade, with Titania behind the wheel, bearing down on the plaza. The wind blasted through the empty place where her windshield used to be and blew her hair into a bride of Frankenstein do. Above them, the carillon whirred into life and began to clang out the "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy" in flat, menacing notes. She grabbed Thomas again and pulled him through the reindeer. She made for the entrance to the James Center, figuring that even Titania wouldn't drive through a plate glass wall, although, judging by the shouting behind them, she didn't have any compunctions about running down the reindeer.
Inside the atrium were more reindeer. They ran past the shops and restaurants. Elizabeth didn't mind being indoors, it was warm here and her headache began to fade, but she made for an exit anyway. They went through the lobby of the attached hotel and out into the driveway. When she heard no sounds of pursuit, she led him over to Canal, down the hill towards Shockoe Bottom.
She hustled him back along a side street, down past the backs of buildings from which subterranean parking debouched onto the street. Several times she had to grab his arm and pull him back when he stepped into the path of a vehicle pulling out of a driveway. He was looking around wildly. Some things must look familiar, she thought. The street was paved with spallstones, but patched with asphalt; the buildings were old brick, but refurbished with modern windows. Ivy draped over a concrete wall and a steady stream of evening traffic jolted past.
She tried to take a winding course towards Church Hill, but the grid pattern of the streets worked against her. She settled for getting north of Main and taking Franklin where they were at least out of the wind and Titania would be less likely to drive due to the way the streets switched between one-way and two-way traffic from block to block.
Thomas kept his eyes on the ground in an effort to minimize the distracting inputs. He was paying enough attention to what was going on that she didn't have to haul him out of oncoming traffic, but he still looked like he was hanging by a thread. Exhaustion lined his face and every muscle in his body was drawn to the breaking point. In an effort to distract him (or maybe not), she asked him, "What can you tell me about to Titania Shevrell? You recognized her."
"I think so," Thomas said. "She looks like the same woman, but something about her is not quite the same. But then it's been three centuries … "
"Why did she curse you?"
"She said she traded me for a fortune. I certainly didn't have one, but Sophie did. With me gone … This woman had sons, one was a painter and the other a dreadful bore, whom she kept putting forward for Sophie. Sophie is the sole heir to her family's property. They have lands in the north in addition to the estate in Kent. Eliminating me wouldn't drop Sophie's property into their hands immediately, however. Her parents are terrifyingly healthy. But Lady Shevrell wouldn't have had a whit of influence over Sophie. What I want to know is what she's doing here."
"She's a queen in Faery, but here she seems to be a caterer. It's just our luck to have one local," Elizabeth said. "She has to pay a tithe to Hell, in the form of a person, every seven years or every year, I don't know which. But last Halloween, her half-sister got tithed by accident. And now to get her sister back, she'll try to tithe us and our neighbor, and anyone else she can get hold of. Whatever she does will be tonight, it's the winter solstice. If we have any luck all, we'll mess up her plans. Then, I don't know, she'll have to wait till the vernal equinox and try again."
"Are we living in a ballad?"
"Exactly. Her sister tried to tithe you last Halloween, but I stopped her."
At last they reached the foot of the hill and climbed up Franklin towards the park. While they walked, she had been keeping her eye out for a white SUV driven by a madwoman, but so far nothing had turned up. Titania was likely busy explaining her vehicular rampage through the enchanted reindeer forest to the police. Elizabeth thought she had spotted Trip running down the street after the Escalade. If he had any will at all, he would dump Titania on the spot, which would save them having to rescue him later.
It was fully dark now. The gaslights along the street shed a soft buttery light which barely cut the darkness. The occasional sodium vapor streetlight shone a little brighter, but not enough to chase the darkest shadows away. This was where the muggings took place, although if anyone tried to hold them up, they wouldn't get much. Elizabeth and Thomas walked past the last house before Libby Hill Park and into a wind which bit through their clothes. Even Thomas shivered and picked up his pace as they hurried the last block to the house, where Elizabeth pushed open the iron gate and ran up the stairs.
When she raised her hand to knock on the door, it swung inward and Bob pulled her into his arms for a relieved moment, then held her out at arms' length. "What happened? Alice just called from the bookstore. She said you were missing. I was on my way out to— You're freezing and all over glass. And bleeding."
Elizabeth held up her hands. "The bleeding's stopped. We sort of got kidnapped."
Thomas was still dithering on the porch and looking out over the park. Bob let go of her long enough to pull him into the house. Thomas grimaced. "Being dragged everywhere is becoming tiresome."
"What were you looking for?"
"That madwoman. You said she'd be coming here."
Elizabeth said, "Eventually, but she'll probably go to our neighbor's first. Unless he's come to his senses and won't have anything to do with her."
Bob snorted. "What are the odds?"
"Slim to none, but we can hope. Of course, if he dumps her, then she'll probably come here or grab some other bystander. We'll have to keep an eye out."
"What happened?" Bob asked again.
Elizabeth described the kidnapping and their escape, then picked up the hall phone and called the bookstore.
Alice sighed with palpable relief at the sound of her sister's voice. "First Miss Price, then you. I've been filing police reports all day. I should put Joe on retainer." Elizabeth heard a horrified sound in the background. "Oh, hush, you love it. So anyway, the bookstore is a mess, what did you all do?"
"There was a fight. I got knocked out. I missed most of it."
"Well, the damage seems to be limited to the door and the trashy fiction. Where did you hide Miss Price's papers, that scroll and stuff?"
"I didn't. It's gone?"
"Totally. Nothing else in the office has been touched. Your keys are still on the desk." A hurried conference followed and it seemed another police report was in the offing.
"Becky wouldn't have wanted the scroll. It has to be Alastair Price." Elizabeth sank to the futon. "He must have come by after we were kidnapped and taken the scroll. Alice, I have his address. We can go there and—and—"
"And what?" asked Bob, a look of dread in his eyes.
"Rescue Miss Price."
Alice said, "Don't leave without me."