When the girl did, Gaby said, “I told you it’s going to be okay, remember? He’s not going to hurt her. He’s not going to hurt anyone.”
Fabian found her faith hilarious. Whit and Mud laughed with him.
“I had located the girls a few days back, and had planned this one as a meal.”
Even Whit and Mud seemed repulsed by that—but were still unwilling to alter the outcome.
“Then I saw you with them, saw you sheltering them and looking so . . . well, so much more human than usual. That’s when I detected the similarities. You look a lot like your worthless mother, you know. But you lack her pathetic, spineless conduct. You took your character from me.”
Gaby snorted. “I claim nothing of you. Ever.”
His hand tightened in Mali’s hair. “When I saw you leaving the area with the girls, I had one of the other street youths follow you. Not close, you understand. You would have detected that. He stayed back, and then found out the rest by asking around.” Fabian laughed. “It’s amazing what a few dollars will buy you from those who are hungry and alone. You see, Gaby, you were betrayed by the same foul parasites that you seek to protect.”
“I don’t blame those in need.” She regulated her breathing, loosened her muscles. “I know who is evil, and who isn’t.”
Fabian waved a hand. “Enough of that nonsense. Come. There is much to do yet this night.” Shoving Mali back to Mud, Fabian went into that small back room. Gaby and Luther followed, with Mud and Whit forcing the others in behind them.
Inside that small room, Gaby discovered a shocking, bloody tableau of Fabian’s intent.
Two young men and one woman stood around, anxiously waiting for instruction. So these were Fabian’s underlings? The mindless cattle he directed in his twisted pursuit of perverse pleasure? She looked into their eyes, saw they were already high and mostly ineffectual.
What had Fabian given them? And then she knew: they’d needed coercing to attack a child. Huh. Even they had some scruples. Not that it’d matter in the long run.
Gaby nodded to the naked body hanging over a stainless steel tub splashed with blood. “Who is she?”
Limp hands shackled together and attached to a chain bolted in the ceiling, the cadaver hung there, ghostly white and quite dead. Bite marks marred the body, and deep slashes had been cut into her inner forearms from her wrists almost to her elbows. There was no doubt she had been bled to death.
“Shari was once a devoted follower, but she erred by letting our last sacrifice escape.”
“I saw your sacrifice in the hospital, you sick fuck.” Luther stepped to the side of Gaby, deliberately widening the space between them—giving her room to perform when she needed to. “You tortured her.”
“She nourished us. There’s a difference. It was her great privilege, a noble sacrifice, not that I expect you to understand. I had planned to keep her alive awhile, but it’s just as well that she died.”
“Not before she told us about the house.”
Fabian smiled. “We burned it to the ground. You found no evidence there.”
“Wrong.”
As Luther spoke, Gaby noticed the newest members to the party looking very ill at ease. Between the drugs and the thick ambiance of danger, they were already edgy. Now Luther worried them with feigned details; a perfect ploy.
“Vials were recovered—with fingerprints,” Gaby lied. She really had no idea if there were clear fingerprints or not.
Unease shifted in the air.
“Nonsense.” Fabian dismissed their concerns with a laugh. “Now, Shari here loved to please men. She lived for it.” He stroked a hand along her side. “She offered her blood to me, and now she pleases me greatly by providing the blood you’ll drink and bathe in.”
Gaby eyed the small, squat tub, the awkward way Shari’s dead weight dragged on that ceiling bolt. It was a chilling setting, and she hated that the girls were witness to it.
“No thanks.”
“Difficult to the bitter end, huh?” Like a little boy on Christmas morning, Fabian shook with his excitement. “Let me see if I can change your mind.”
Gaby watched as he tugged on a tooth, removed a cap, and then another and another, until his smile showed a frighteningly sharpened, jagged bite.
He sighed, shook back his hair, and closed his eyes. As if in ecstasy, he ran his tongue along the edge of those serrated teeth.
When he recovered, he said to Mud, “Bring the little one to me.”
“I’ll kill you,” Gaby whispered.
Mud hesitated. Whit shot his beady gaze from Gaby to Fabian and back again.
Mobilized, Mud handed the gun to Whit and grabbed Mali’s squirming, sobbing body. He started forward with her, closer and closer to Gaby.
When he was within reach, Gaby moved with phenomenal speed, swinging her arm up, burying her knife blade deep in Mud’s face through his left eye. Without a single second of hesitation, she twisted, then pulled her knife free.
Blood, gore, and brain matter dripped from her lethal blade to the floor.
Mud collapsed without a struggle. Mali raced back to Bliss and Dacia, all three of them shrieking through their gags, hysterical as only females could be. Mort cowered over them, trying to shield them with his body.
Gaby tuned them out and looked at Whit with a smile.
Near to hyperventilating, he panted, raised the gun . . . and Fabian screamed, “No,” even as Whit fired.
The gun jammed.
She was on Whit before he could think to pull that trigger again. In three rapid punches, she stabbed him in the chest, yanked the knife free, and kicked him to the ground.
He collapsed in a useless heap.
Chaos ensued. Fabian shouted; Mort tried to corral the girls out of harm’s way; Luther kept the other two men from escaping out the back door. He held his own against them and even managed a quick punch to the woman’s jaw, knocking her out.
Fabian, having snatched up Whit’s gun, fired into the ceiling.
Ah, Gaby thought, just the summons Ann needed. She told the girls, “Stay still,” and slowly turned to face Fabian.
Gaze locked with his, she swiped her blade over her denim-covered thigh to clean it.
“Don’t.” He didn’t aim the gun at her; he aimed at Luther’s head. “I just proved the gun will not fail again, and as in most things, I’m a superior shot.”
“You’re a superior ass, I’ll give you that.”
“One more word,” Fabian growled low, “and I will shoot him in the leg. And then in the gut. And then—”
“Yeah, I got it. You’ll keep shooting him.” Gaby started toward Fabian.
“Ah, ah, ah. Not another step, daughter dear, or your boyfriend will be wearing some new holes.”
Gaby stopped.
“Get rid of the knife.”
Shrugging, Gaby slid it into the sheath at her back—not even close to gone, but out of sight at least.
Fabian let it go.
“Into the tub.” He gestured with the gun. “I want to see you drink. I want to witness your understanding when you feel all that beautiful, slippery blood on your skin, soaking in, redefining you, elevating your strengths.” He breathed hard, and then as if he’d just snapped, he yelled,
“All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Gaby went over and looked into the tub. Blood still dripped from the woman’s body, sending ripples across the surface of the bath. She could smell the fresh blood, tangy, thick, and dark. And she smelled the woman’s death, her fear. The scents commingled in a nauseating emanation, a tumultuous assault on her senses.
“Don’t do it.”
