Fangtasia's red neon sign is dark. That looks very wrong and I don't like it. The club's parking lot is empty, except for one black van waiting right outside the entrance.
"You hear that?" the King asks softly, indicating the club. We're standing by the limo, him, Eric, me, and the queen, who's been pouting like a child all night – which, truthfully, I can't blame her for. The limo is parked in the center of the lot with no regard for the painted lines. The driver isn't getting out, I suppose. I wonder who he is, how he ended up with this job . . . which is probably my brain trying to distract itself.
Pam is in there. And so is the magister.
"I do," Eric replies. "The magister's henchmen . . . Three?"
"I believe so." The King pops his jacket's collar. "You told me he had your progeny in the basement?"
Eric nods once.
"Why don't you run ahead? I'll handle the guards." He smiles at the queen, who is leaning against the limo, her arms crossed and her lips pursed. She's wearing three strands of pearls and a shiny, cream-colored dress fit for a ball. Her red hair is curled, and pinned back just so from her lovely face — she's every bit the woman I saw in my vision. "We can do it together, my beloved," says the King. "Our very first couples' activity."
She huffs out a lungful of air, eyes rolling to the sky, but I don't find out what, if anything, she says back to the King, because the ground vanishes from beneath me and I'm thrust through a tornado of blues and blacks and there's a BANG that jars through me and then I'm back on my feet, only there are walls around me now, and I almost fall down.
A tiny, whimpering sound slips from my mouth. I cross my arms over my chest, swallowing, blood pulsing through me like it's angry at something.
"I'm sorry." Eric takes my shoulder. There's a second bang, smaller and farther away, and I jump and look towards it. It was the employee entrance, the heavy door at the end of the hallway, closing behind us, I suppose. "I'm sorry, Annie, that was too sudden, I should have warned you. But you need to listen to me now." He's bent to my level. Over his shoulder is another door, also heavy, but scarier than the employee entrance, at least now. It's the door to the basement. "I have to take you in there with me. I cannot be certain of what is about to happen, and I want you where I can grab you if I need to. Follow me in. Stay at the top of the stairs, no matter what you see. Do you understand?"
Fear rolls through me then, and I don't think it's entirely my own – no, I know some of it is Pam's, we're so close to her now . . . but some of it is definitely mine, too, I don't want to go in there, I don't want to know what –
"Annika!"
"Yes, I understand."
And the next second I am alone in the hallway, the door to the basement swinging on its hinges, and I hear Eric's muffled shout. I stumble forward and catch the door before it closes, and for a moment – only a tiny moment, only long enough to draw in a crooked breath – I rest my head against the cool metal. Then I shove myself forward and step down into darkness.
"Mr. Northman."
The words float up the stairs like a cold mist, and I have to keep walking into it, two steps down, then three . . .
"Enough," I hear Eric spit out.
And four. From here, I can see everything. Too much.
Pam is laid out on a table, silver chains draped across her, like horrible weeds growing around a statue. She's only in pants and a bra, so her stomach and arms and shoulders are in direct contact with the silver. Even from here, even in the dim light, I can see the welts beneath them. I wrap my hands around the railing in front of me. Maybe to anchor myself. I don't know, I don't know when I decided to do it, let alone why.
YOU ARE READING
Annika Northman: Part Two
Fanfiction"Eric's voice echoes through my mind, like it does a lot: 'I will tell you that which you need to know. I will protect you from that which you do not. And you must trust my judgment as to which is which.' I told him I trust him, and of course I do...
