Blood Games (Chicagoland Vampires 10)

The ropes that bound me were old-fashioned hemp, which chafed against my wrists. They were tied together, and to the chair, but the chair wasn’t fastened to the floor.

“Then that’s the first to go,” I said, shifting my weight to rock gently back, then forth, then back, then forth again, until I leaned forward enough to get my feet solidly on the ground, and the back of the chair in the air.

That put me half standing, bent over, with a chair tied to my back. I shuffled to the wall, stood perpendicular to it, and prepared to smash.

“I really hope this isn’t aspen,” I murmured, closed my eyes, rotated from my hips, and slammed the chair into the wall.

Wood shattered and splintered, and my elbow—which also made contact—sang with pain that radiated up my arm. But the chair had cracked, and I’d take the victory.

I cursed like a sailor against the pain but turned my face away and smashed one more time. I felt my bonds loosen as the chair broke into pieces. One end of the rope hung down, and I stepped on it, kept stepping on rope until I’d pulled the rest of the tangled mess to the floor.

My arms were chafed and my shoulders ached, but I’d survive. I rolled them out, tried to reach Ethan again.

Sentinel? Thank God. Where are you?

My racing heart slowed, just a little. He must have arrived at the building—and within telepathy range. In a room. I was tied to a chair but got free. The door’s bolted.

I’ve got you beat, he said, and even his psychic voice sounded stressed. I was tied to a table—Lakshmi didn’t take my dagger, thankfully—and now I’m staring down a very burly River troll.

The building shook, and I had to hope that wasn’t the result of Ethan being thrown about by his nemesis. River trolls were burly men and women who made their homes beneath the bascule bridges that crossed the Chicago River, and helped the nymphs enforce their rulings.

And in case you didn’t know, he grunted, Lakshmi torched the building.

Oh, I know. She lit the damn match in here. I’m going to punch her in that pretty little face if I survive this.

We will survive it, and we’ll both punch her in her pretty little face.

I’d gotten out of the chair, linked to Ethan. The door was my next task. I tried the obvious first—wiggling the latch, bumping a shoulder against it to test its nudge-ability, trying to pry the bar out of the hinges with a piece of the splintered chair.

That was five minutes wasted, because I was not getting through the door.

I closed my eyes, forced myself to think.

I didn’t have a better thought, but I did feel a breeze behind me. I looked back, spied a small and narrow window. I ran to it, looked outside. It was a long way down, which I could handle, but I was afraid that if I got out, I wouldn’t be able to get back in. And that put Ethan even more at risk.

I was preparing to make another run at the door when a wave of hot air flew up from the cracks in the floor.

The cracks in the floor. Could that have been more obvious? If I couldn’t get through the door, I’d go through the floor.

I grabbed the biggest remaining chunk of the chair, a hefty piece of the seat, and walked carefully around the room, looking for the bounciest boards. That award went to a spot near the middle of the room, where it looked like water had pooled and rotted the boards from the top down.

I lifted the wedge over my head, slammed it down with a giant crack that sent dust and particles of wood into the air.

One more crack, then two, and the seat burst through the boards, leaving a hole just wide enough to fit the edge of the seat. I wedged it into the hole, stood up, and pulled until boards cracked and split, then pulled up large splinters of wood until the hole was large enough for me to fit through.

I looked back, grabbed the rope, wound it around my arm just in case, then put my fingers on the edge of the hole, leaned forward until my torso was out. The room below was the same size and materials as mine, but the door was open.

Done, I thought, then levered the rest of my torso through the hole, flipping forward so I hung by my arms, and dropped to the floor.

I ran through the door, which led to an enormous room marked by white columns and stacks of dilapidated office furniture.

Ethan emerged from a room on the other end of the space, dirty and showing off an impressive shiner. He was also grinning like a maniac.

We jogged toward each other, met in the middle, embraced. He kissed me good and hard.

“It really wouldn’t have been fair for you to sit this one out,” he said, with sparkling eyes. He was in surprisingly good spirits. Maybe this really did appeal to his alpha-male mentality.

“Sure it would have, because I don’t want to be in the GP. What do you think is next?”

I needn’t have bothered to ask. Wood cracked on the other side of the room, and a giant timber split and dropped through the ceiling, crashing to the floor ten feet in front of us—and then crashing with enough force to rip through the floor. Smoke and sparks poured through the fissures above and below us.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ethan said, grabbing my hand and moving toward a large bank of windows on the other side of the room.

But a shadow stepped into our path. He was large, six feet tall, with broad shoulders and an upturned nose. River troll number two.

I actually knew one troll, a man named George whom I’d met at one of the open houses my grandfather had held for the city’s supernatural communities. Unfortunately, this wasn’t George.

He walked toward us with heavy footsteps.

“Thoughts? Recommendations?” I asked, the question mooted when the troll struck out, tossing a hand that sent Ethan skittering across the ground.

My heart stopped until Ethan blinked, climbed to his feet, shook his head.

I looked back at the troll. “That was rude.” I spun and executed a flying scissor kick that would have sent a vampire flying but landed dully on the River troll’s abdomen. As I landed, he took a stiff step backward, regained his footing, then moved forward again.

This time the slap was for me. I turned my body to the side to reduce the impact, but pain still lit up my arm when he made contact, knocking me to the ground.

But he turned back toward Ethan, his apparent target.

The troll lurched forward, and this time Ethan dodged him, spinning to kick the troll in the butt and send him forward. Trolls were strong, but they weren’t especially nimble. Ethan was both, and he used it to his advantage. The troll stumbled, hit the ground, whacked his head on the corner of an old desk, but after a moment, rose to his feet again.