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Wake up, Nora!
“Nora, wake up.” The voice was urgent, laced with a distinct accent.
I could see dim yellow light through the haze of my eyelashes. That was as far as I seemed able to open them and for several disorienting moments, I tried to make sense of the world. There was a presence at my right, a low, rumbling voice that was speaking to me in hushed tones, but it was not a voice I recognized. The runestone itched and I wanted to rub at it, but my body was leaden weight, and I couldn’t command my arms to move.
This last spurred something in me, the remnants of the dream coming fierce and sudden, and I opened my eyes.
Lord Malcolm King was kneeling beside me, one hand cradling my head while he scanned the room around us, every inch of his body tense. For a muddled moment I thought I could sense the terror in him, but that might have been an echo of my own fear. There was the smell of heavy oil and grease, and copper walls gleamed in the yellow light only to be obscured in shadow the next instant.
“Thank the Maker,” Malcolm said, his gaze fixed on me. “Can you move at all?”
The words were incongruous with what I knew of the man and for several seconds I stared at him. Derrick’s warning rang clear through the confusion, and I meant to answer in as acerbic a manner I could muster, but my tongue was thick and uncooperative, and I only managed a wheezy moan. Malcolm’s heavy brow furrowed, and he scanned the room again.
“That would be a no,” he said, and heaving a sigh, bent to lift me.
There was no pain in the movement, just a strange void where all my nerves and muscles should be. It was as if I had been cut off from all the normal functions of my body in the same way the runestone cut me off from magic. A renewed sense of terror washed through me.
What had Delilah given me?
My eyes grew heavy, and I felt oblivion reaching for me.
When I woke next, I was crammed into a tight space with two voices close by. There was a strong smell of lemony cleaner and the shape of what I thought might be a broom handle near my cheek. My body was still heavy, my muscles weak as though I’d suffered a fever, but my hand moved when I wanted it to so the drugs must have been wearing off. Something was prodding my armpit, pushing me tight into a corner.
“Where’s the girl?”
I froze and held my breath. That was Henry’s voice. After hours of travel, I was quite familiar with its cadence, and something about it now spoke of danger. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but Delilah’s drug may have had more to do with warlock trafficking than with the so-called privacy she desired, and I struggled to make sense of things.
Could this all be Delilah’s doing? Was she the head of the trafficking ring and that business venture she meant to talk to Brock about was her trying to rope him into the enterprise?
I didn’t think Brock capable of criminal activity, and his shock in those scant seconds before I lost consciousness appeared real. But then again, maybe he was a good actor.
What was certain, however, was Henry worked for Delilah. And Delilah had drugged me.
“Girl?” Malcolm asked. “I’ve seen a lot of girls since arriving. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“I don’t know how you found this place, old man, but don’t insult my intelligence. I know you took her. Where is she?”
A shiver sped through me, dots connecting to conclusions I didn’t like. This had to be what Derrick and Cade were searching for, the place where warlocks were brought for dismemberment and murder. They’d been searching for months, how had Malcolm found it?
“Speaking of this place,” Malcolm said, his voice going hard, “it’s curious it hasn’t been torn down. There hasn’t been a paper mill in these parts for decades. Not a working one, anyway. One would think you were up to no good way out here.”
“I won’t ask again, Malcolm.”
“That’s Lord Malcolm King to you.”
There was a scuffle, the meaty sound of fists hitting their target, and someone grunted. They crashed into something, and a crack of light slanted into my little broom closet. For a blinking second, I was blinded, and then I could see that it was, in fact, a broom closet, complete with a large, yellow mop bucket that I was half standing in. The thing prodding my armpit was the mop itself, levered in such a way to keep me upright.
Through the crack I spotted a fist as it flew and heard it connect with a crunch. Something large and solid thumped to the ground outside and I held my breath, praying it wasn’t Malcolm on the floor. He might be a bastard who made Derrick’s life hell, but he wasn’t trying to kill me.
For a tense moment I held still and tried to coach my breathing into something steady. And then I heard the clear, urbane tones of Lord Malcolm as he said, “It was a boring conversation anyway.”
The closet door opened and Malcolm, seeing me awake, gave a faint smile. “You’ve a knack for finding trouble, Miss Grayson. Can you move yet?”
I nodded, but my head felt like a bobble on a string, and I struggled to lift my foot from the mop bucket. He watched me critically and shook his head.
“No, I’m afraid there is no time for dillydally,” he said and reached in to grasp me about the waist.
In one move he had me out of the closet and tossed over his shoulder. The world swam in my vision and my breath squeezed out as his shoulder pressed into my solar plexus. Disgruntled, dizzy, and quite breathless, I had to wonder why he bothered asking if this was always his plan.
