Chapter 9

I ducked my head through. Don't ask why I didn't just step through. Maybe it was because of the two guards. I don't know. But a quick look ... ahead of us was a stone wall with torches in the sconces. I'd heard moaning.

"No lights?" Blair asked.

I shook my head. "Just the torches."

"Sounds like an adventure I was part of last year. We had to penetrate this castle, and the only way was through the storerooms down below the moat. Stone walls, torches, the whole thing."

"I heard somebody moaning. Think it could be a dungeon?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah."

"Just how do we do this?"

"Well, conceivably we could call for help."

"Yeah, or we could look a little farther." I keyed up the message we'd agreed would bring help, but didn't hit the <enter> key. Then, with a smile on my face, I stepped through the door, with Blair right behind me.

Both of us were in shifts. My e-tablet vanished into a leather pouch. Blair still had her various implements on her waist. The hall turned to the right, and there was a man there, heavyset, with a bald head and wearing leather pants and a leather vest.

"Welcome," he said, looking at Blair. "Haven't seen you in here before."

"I, uh, brought..."

He ran his eyes up and down me. "And she wants to?"

Want to ... what? But it sounded as if he was expecting some kind of assent. "Yes."

He rubbed his hands together. "Good, good. Room 6, just down the hall and to your right. Follow me."

We passed several rooms with closed doors. I heard moaning coming from at least two of them. We paused outside a third while a body, a body was carried out on a covered stretcher. There was a hand visible, and a line of red on it. One of the fingers was bent back at an unnatural angle, and there were red smears where there should have been fingernails.

I swallowed, and pressed the <enter>key.

Room 6 had a table with shackles in the middle, straw on the floor, torches on the wall, and various pincers, pokers and so on. My first thought was medieval torture chamber.

"So pretty," the man said, running his hand over my body. "Such a pity." He grabbed my wrist and snapped it into the shackles. Then his eyes rolled up in his head as Blair whacked him behind the ear. I practically broke a nail getting out of the cuff.

"Give me a hand here," Blair said. She snapped cuffs around his ankles, and lifted him onto the table so we could secure one wrist (we couldn't get the other over far enough).

"Now what?"

"Now we explore," I said. "I called the cavalry. I hope they're on their way."

"Let's make sure." We walked back to the door, she keyed in the same message, stuck her e-tablet through and hit <enter>. Then we went exploring.

It most definitely was a torture chamber. We saw at least three women on blood-covered tables. I started shaking. This was a very bad place to be, and I wanted out of here. There was an alcove next to the door, and we huddled there, out of sight. I'd thought the rescue party would be only minutes away. But it seemed to be taking them forever.

A man, large, burly, with hair on his back, came by carrying a woman over his shoulder. Blair and I looked at each other, and then we followed. We found them in another room. He had taken off her clothes and was chaining her to a table. Just before he snapped the shackles on her wrist, she leaned up and kissed him.

"It's going to hurt."

"I want it to hurt."

"You know what's going to happen."

"But you'll be the one doing it."

He closed the cuff on her wrist. She lay back, her eyes shining. He picked up a pair of pliers and clamped them around her nipple. I flinched. She smiled.

"She's sick," Blair whispered.

I nodded, and we got out of there. We explored the rest of the dungeon. I saw Suzanne's trace at a closed door. I was tempted to open it, but if there were men inside, we wouldn't have surprise on our side or anything. Instead we retreated to the alcove.

And ran right into an ambush.

Well, not so much an ambush, but another group of people. There were two men and a woman, and she hung limply from their hands. We turned the corner, and there they were. Before we could react, one of the men seized me. Blair did her vanishing trick and got away.

"Stupid witness," the man holding me said. "Which room?"

"Number 2."

They dragged both of us into the room and locked the door behind them. The girl was thrown in the corner. I was put on the table and felt the cold cuffs snap around my ankles. I fought, but one of them hit me hard enough I got woozy. When I could focus, my wrists were over my head and I couldn't do much moving.

"We should just do her," the one who'd grabbed me said.

"We have all day. Let's have a little fun."

They ripped away the shift I was wearing. One man picked up a knife, grinning at me as he held it where I could see it. "This is going to hurt," he said, "but nobody's going to hear you scream."

It did. And he was right, I screamed. But then so did he. The door blew open with a soft bang, and powerful hands went around his neck. I didn't see the rest, but when my arms and legs were free, I practically folded in on myself, trying to cover everything. Fortunately Blair was there with something to wear.

"The cavalry came," she said as I scrambled into the dress.

The 'cavalry' was half-a-dozen men in black ninja suits with all sorts of nastiness draped around them. One of them without the ninja mask was our Security Chief. He gave me a restorative drink.

"You don't have to be brave any longer," he said.

"I—I'm not brave," I said. "Just scared spitless."

"Somebody knocked loose one of the things we'd left to hold open the doors," Blair said. The men had headed off down the hall, and I heard the sounds of doors being blown open. "I went back to find out where they were. That Victorian street, remember that? Somebody had picked up the boot I'd left. They showed up moments after I got there."