Kelley Armstrong - Bitten 02 - Stolen

Armstrong, Kelley - Women of the Otherworld - Book 2 - Stolen - UC [.html].htm

ALSO BY KELLEY ARMSTRONG

Bitten

S t o le n

KELLEY ARMSTRONG

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 382

Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi-no 017, India Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne

Roads, Albany,

Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee

Avenue,

Rosebank,

Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First American edition

Published in 2003 by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

10 987654321

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

are

the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

events,

or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my mother, for buying me my first writing journal and expecting me to fill

it.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Armstrong, Kelley.

Stolen / Kelley Armstrong.

P. cm GARDEN CITY LIBRARY

ISBN 0-670-03137-2 (alk. paper)

i. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title. PS3551 ^678 Sj6 2003 813'.6—dc2i 2002016872

This book is printed on acid-free paper. ~

Printed in the United States of America Set in Aldus, with Eileen Caps

display

Designed by Carla Bolte

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission

of

both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

CONTENTS

Prologue • i Demonic . 9 Tea • 16

Hocus-Pocus . 22 Houdini . 32 Legion . 41 Introductions • 50 Agenda . 57

Burned

• 64 Dissection . 71 Guests • 79 Amusements . 86 Confrontation • 97 Prison .

103

Exhibition . 112 Savannah . 119 Trick • 126 Contact • 135 Party • 143 Ghosts

•

149 Rejection • 156 Rebirth . 165 Winsloe • 172 Game • 180 Failure .188

Nurse • 195 Crises . 204 Exit • 211 Changes • 222 Bloodhound • 233 Sacrifice

•

240 Exile • 247 Rampage • 256 Torture • 266 Alliance . 278 Break . 284

Cornered

• 292 Gone • 301 Getaway . 308 Recuperation -315 Loyalties • 324 Coronation

-331

Return -339 Infiltration • 348 Annihilation -359 Emancipation . 364

Demonstration • 372 Retaliation .380 Cleanup • 396

PROLOGUE

He hated the forest. Hated its eternal pockets of damp and darkness. Hated

its

endless tangle of trees and bushes. Hated its smell of decay— dead

vegetation,

dead animals, everything dying, even the living creatures incessantly

pursuing

their next meal, one failure away from the slow descent into death. Soon his

body would be one more stink fouling the air, maybe buried, maybe left for

the

carrion feeders, his death postponing theirs for another day. He would die.

He

knew that, not with the single-minded intent of the suicidal or the hopeless

despair of the doomed, but with the simple acceptance of a man who knows he

is

only hours from passing out of this world into the next. Here in this

stinking,

dark, damp hell of a place, he would die.

He didn't seek death. If he could, he'd avoid it. But he couldn't. He'd

tried,

planning his breakout for days, conserving his energy, forcing himself to

eat,

to sleep. Then he'd escaped, surprising himself really. He'd never truly

believed it would work. Of course, it hadn't actually worked, just appeared

to,

like a mirage shimmering in the desert, only the oasis hadn't turned to sand

and

sun, but damp and dark. He'd escaped the compound to find himself in the

forest.

Still hopeful, he'd run. And run. And gone nowhere. They were coming now.

Hunting him.

He could hear the hound baying, fast on his trail. There must be ways to

trick

it, but he had no idea how. Born and raised in the city, he knew how to avoid

detection there, how to become invisible in plain

sight, how to effect an appearance so mediocre that people could stare right

at

him and see no one. He knew how to greet neighbors in his apartment building,

eyes lowered, a brief nod, no words, so if anyone asked about the occupants

of

412, no one really knew who lived there: Was that the elderly couple? The

young

family? The blind girl? Never rude or friendly enough to attract attention,

disappearing in a sea of people too intent on their own lives to notice his.

There he was a master of invisibility. But here, in the forest? He hadn't set

foot in one since he was ten, when his parents finally despaired of ever

making

an out-doorsman out of him and let him stay with his grandmother while his

siblings went hiking and camping. He was lost here. Completely lost. The

hound

would find him and the hunters would kill him.

"You won't help me, will you?" he said, speaking the words in his mind.

For a long moment, Qiona didn't reply. He could sense her, the spirit who

guided

him, in the back corner of his mind, the farthest she ever went from him

since

she'd first made herself known when he was a child too young to speak.

"Do you want me to?" she asked finally.

"You won't. Even if I want it. This is what you want. For me to join you. You

won't stop that."

The hound started to sing, joy infusing its voice with melody as it closed in

on

its target. Someone shouted.

Qiona sighed, the sound fluttering like a breeze through his mind. "What do

you

want me to do?" "Which way is out?" he asked. More silence. More shouts.

"That

way," she said.

He knew which way she meant, though he couldn't see her. An ayami had

presence

and substance but no form, an idea impossible to explain to anyone who wasn't

a

shaman and as easy for a shaman to understand as the concept of water or sky.

Turning left, he ran. Branches whipped his face and bare chest and arms,

raising

welts like the marks of a flagellant. And equally self-inflicted, he thought.

Part of him wanted to stop. Give up. Accept. But he couldn't. He wasn't ready

to

surrender his life yet. Simple human

pleasures still held too much allure: English muffins with butter and

strawberry

jam at the Talbot Cafe, the second-story balcony, farthest table on the left,

the sun on his forearms, tattered mystery novel in one hand, coffee mug in

the

other, people yelling, laughing on the busy street below. Silly things, Qiona

would sniff. She was jealous, of course, as she was of anything she couldn't

share, anything that kept him bound to his body. He did want to join her, but

not yet. Not just yet. So he ran.

"Stop running," Qiona said.

He ignored her.

"Slow down," she said. "Pace yourself."

He ignored her.

She withdrew, her anger a flash fire in his brain, bright and hot, then

smoldering, waiting to flare again. He'd stopped hearing the hound, but only

because his blood pounded too loudly. His lungs blazed. Each breath scorched

through him, like swallowing fire. He ignored it. That was easy. He ignored

most

of his body's commands, from hunger to sex to pain. His body was only a

vehicle,

a medium for transmitting things like strawberry jam, laughter, and sunlight

to

his soul. Now after a lifetime of ignoring his body, he asked it to save him

and

it didn't know how. From behind him came the bay of the hound. Was it louder

now? Closer?

"Climb a tree," Qiona said.

"It's not the dog I'm afraid of. It's the men."

"Slow down then. Turn. Confuse them. You're making a straight trail. Slow

down."

He couldn't. The end of the forest was near. It had to be. His only chance

was

to get there before the dog did. Ignoring the pain, he summoned every

remaining

vestige of strength and shot forward.

"Slow down!" Qiona shouted. "Watch—"

His left foot hit a small rise, but he adjusted, throwing his right foot out

for

balance. Yet his right foot came down on empty air. As he pitched forward, he

saw the streambed below, at the bottom of a small gully eroded by decades of

water flow. He flipped over the edge of it, convulsed in midair, trying to

think

of how to land without injury, but again he didn't know how. As he hit the

gravel below, he heard the

hound. Heard its song of triumph so loud his eardrums threatened to split.

Twisting to get up, he saw three canine heads come over the gully edge, one

hound, two massive guard dogs. The hound lifted its head and bayed. The other

two paused only a second, then leaped.

"Get out!" Qiona screamed. "Get out now!"

No! He wasn't ready to leave. He resisted the urge to throw his soul free of

his

body, clenching himself into a ball as if that would keep it in. He saw the

undersides of the dogs as they flew off the cliff. One landed atop him,

knocking

out his last bit of breath. Teeth dug into his forearm. He felt a tremendous

wrenching. Then he soared upward. Qiona was dragging him from his body, away

from the pain of dying.

"Don't look back," she said.

Of course, he did. He had to know. As he looked down, he saw the dogs. The

hound

was still at the top of the gully, howling and waiting for the men. The two

other dogs didn't wait. They tore his body apart in a shower of blood and

flesh.

"No," he moaned. "No."

Qiona comforted him with whispers and kisses, pleaded with him to look away.

She'd tried to save him from the pain, but she couldn't. He felt it as he

looked

down at the dogs destroying his body, felt not the pain of their teeth, but

the

agony of unbelievable loss and grief. It was over. All over.

"If I hadn't tripped," he said. "If I'd run faster . . ."

Qiona turned him then, so he could look out across the forest. The expanse of

trees went on and on, ending in a road so far away the cars looked like bugs

crawling across the earth. He glanced back at his body, a mangled mess of

blood

and bone. The men stepped from the forest. He ignored them. They didn't

matter

anymore. Nothing did. He turned to Qiona and let her take him away.

"Dead," Tucker said to Matasumi as he walked into the cell-block guard

station.

He scraped the mud of the forest off his boots. "Dogs got him before we did."

"I told you I wanted him alive."

"And I told you we need more hounds. Rottweilers are for guarding,

not hunting. A hound will wait for the hunter. A rottie kills. Doesn't know

how

to do anything else." Tucker removed his boots and laid them on the mat,

perfectly aligned with the wall, laces tucked in. Then he took an identical

but

clean pair and pulled them on. "Can't see how it matters much. Guy was

half-dead

anyway. Weak. Useless."

"He was a shaman," Matasumi said. "Shamans don't need to be Olympic athletes.

All their power is in their mind."

Tucker snorted. "And it did him a whole lotta good against those dogs, let me

tell you. They didn't leave a piece of him bigger than my fist."

As Matasumi turned, someone swung open the door and clipped him in the chin.

"Whoops," Winsloe said with a grin. "Sorry, old man. Damn things need

windows."

Bauer brushed past him. "Where's the shaman?"

"He didn't. . . survive," Matasumi said.

"Dogs," Tucker added.

Bauer shook her head and kept walking. A guard grabbed the interior door,

holding it open as she walked through. Winsloe and the guard trailed after

her.

Matasumi brought up the rear. Tucker stayed at the guard station, presumably

to

discipline whoever had let the shaman escape, though the others didn't bother

to

ask. Such details were beneath them. That's why they'd hired Tucker.

The next door was thick steel with an elongated handle. Bauer paused in front

of

a small camera. A beam scanned her retina. One of the two lights above the

door

flashed green. The other stayed red until she grasped the door handle and the

sensor checked her handprint. When the second light turned green, she opened

the

door and strode through. The guard followed. As Winsloe stepped forward,

Matasumi reached for his arm, but missed. Alarms shrieked. Lights flashed.

The

sound of a half-dozen steel-toed boots clomped in synchronized quickstep down

a

distant corridor. Matasumi snatched the two-way radio from the table.

"Please call them back," Matasumi said. "It was only Mr. Winsloe. Again."

"Yes, sir," Tucker's voice crackled through the radio. "Would you re-

mind Mr. Winsloe that each retinal and hand scan combination will authorize

the

passage of only one staff member and a second party."

They both knew Winsloe didn't need to be reminded of any such thing, since

he'd

designed the system. Matasumi stabbed the radio's disconnect button. Winsloe

only grinned.

"Sorry, old man," Winsloe said. "Just testing the sensors."

He stepped back to the retina scanner. After the computer recognized him, the

first light turned green. He grabbed the door handle, the second light

flashed

green, and the door opened. Matasumi could have followed without the scans,

as

the guard had, but he let the door close and followed the proper procedure.

The

admittance of a second party was intended to allow the passage of captives

from

one section of the compound to another, at a rate of only one captive per

staff

member. It was not supposed to allow two staff to pass together. Matasumi

would

remind Tucker to speak to his guards about this. They were all authorized to

pass through these doors and should be doing so correctly, not taking

shortcuts.

Past the security door, the interior hall looked like a hotel corridor, each

side flanked by rooms furnished with a double bed, a small table, two chairs,

and a door leading to a bathroom. Not luxury accommodations by any means, but

simple and clean, like the upper end of the spectrum for the budget-conscious

traveler, though the occupants of these rooms wouldn't be doing much

traveling.

These doors only opened from the outside.

The wall between the rooms and the corridor was a specially designed glass

more

durable than steel bars—and much nicer to look at. From the hallway, an

observer

could study the occupants like lab rats, which was the idea. The door to each

room was also glass so the watcher's view wasn't obstructed. Even the facing

wall of each bathroom was clear Plexiglas. The transparent bathroom walls were

a

recent renovation, not because the observers had decided they wanted to study

their subjects' elimination practices, but because they'd found that when all

four walls of the bathrooms were opaque, some of the subjects spent entire

days

in there to escape the constant scrutiny.

The exterior glass wall was actually one-way glass. They'd debated that,

one-way

versus two-way. Bauer had allowed Matasumi to make

the final decision, and he'd sent his research assistants scurrying after

every

psychology treatise on the effects of continual observation. After weighing

the

evidence, he'd decided one-way glass would be less intrusive. By hiding the

observers from sight, they were less likely to agitate the subjects. He'd

been

wrong. At least with two-way glass the subjects knew when they were being

watched. With one-way, they knew they were being watched—none were naive

enough

to mistake the full-wall mirror for decoration—but they didn't know when, so

they were on perpetual alert, which had a regrettably damning effect on their

mental and physical health.

The group passed the four occupied cells. One subject had his chair turned

toward the rear wall and sat motionless, ignoring the magazines, the books,

the

television, the radio, everything that had been provided for his diversion.

He

sat with his back to the one-way glass and did nothing. That one had been at

the

compound nearly a month. Another occupant had arrived only this morning. She

also sat in her chair, but facing the one-way glass, glaring at it.

Defiant...

for now. It wouldn't last.

Tess, the one research assistant Matasumi had brought to the project, stood

by

the defiant occupant's cell, making notations on her clipboard. She looked up

and nodded as they passed.

"Anything?" Bauer asked.

Tess glanced at Matasumi, shunting her reply to him. "Not yet."

"Because she can't or won't?" Bauer asked.

Another glance at Matasumi. "It appears ... I would say . . ."

"Well?"

Tess inhaled. "Her attitude suggests that if she could do more, she would."

"Can't, then," Winsloe said. "We need a Coven witch. Why we bothered with

this

one—"

Bauer interrupted. "We bothered because she's supposed to be extremely

powerful."

"According to Katzen," Winsloe said. "If you believe him. I don't. Sorcerer

or

not, the guy's full of shit. He's supposed to be helping us catch these

freaks.

Instead, all he does is tell us where to look, then sits back while our guys

take all the risks. For what? This?" He jabbed a fin-

ger at the captive. "Our second useless witch. If we keep listening to

Katzen,

we're going to miss out on some real finds."

"Such as vampires and werewolves?" Bauer's lips curved in a small smile.

"You're

still miffed because Katzen says they don't exist."

"Vampires and werewolves," Matasumi muttered. "We are in the middle of

unlocking

unimaginable mental power, true magic. We have potential access to sorcerers,

necromancers, shamans, witches, every conceivable vessel of magic . . . and

he

wants creatures that suck blood and howl at the moon. We are conducting

serious

scientific research here, not chasing bogeymen."

Winsloe stepped in front of Matasumi, towering six inches over him. "No, old

man, you're conducting serious scientific research here. Sondra is looking

for

her holy grail. And me, I'm in it for fun. But I'm also bankrolling this

little

project, so if I say I want to hunt a werewolf, you'd better find me one to

hunt."

"If you want to hunt a werewolf, then I'd suggest you put one in those video

games of yours, because we can't provide what doesn't exist."

"Oh, we'll find something for Ty to hunt," Bauer said. "If we can't find one

of

his monsters, we'll have Katzen summon something suitably demonic."

"A demon?" Winsloe said. "Now that'd be cool."

"I'm sure it would," Bauer murmured and pushed open the door into the

shaman's

former cell.

DEMONIC

"Please tell me you don't believe in that stuff," said a voice beside my

shoulder.

I looked at my seat-mate. Mid-forties, business suit, laptop, pale strip

around

his ring finger where he'd removed his wedding band. Nice touch. Very

inconspicuous.

"You shouldn't read crap like that," he said, flashing a mouthful of coffee

stains. "It'll rot your brain."

I nodded, smiled politely, and hoped he'd go away, at least as far away as he

could on an airplane flying at an altitude of several thousand feet. Then I

went

back to reading the pages I'd printed from the believe.com Web site.

"Does that really say werewolves?" my seat-mate said. "Like fangs and fur?

Michael Landon? I Was a Teenage Werewolf?"

"Michael. . . ?"

"Uh, an old movie. Before my time. Video, you know."

Another polite nod. Another not-so-polite attempt to return to my work.

"Is that for real?" my seat-mate asked. "Someone's selling information on

werewolves ? Werewolves ? What kind of people would buy crap like that?"

"I would."

He stopped, finger poised above my papers, struggling to convince

himself that someone could believe in werewolves and not be a complete

nutcase,

at least not if that someone was young, female, and stuck in the adjoining

seat

for another hour. I decided to help.

"For sure," I said, affecting my best breathless blond accent. "Werewolves

are

in. Vampires are so five minutes ago. Gothic, ugh. Me and my friends, we

tried

it once, but when I dyed my hair black, it went green."

"That's, uh—"

"Green! Can you believe it? And the clothes they wanted us to wear? Totally

gross. So then, like, Chase, he said, what about werewolves? He heard about

this

group in Miami, so we talked to them and they said vampires were out.

Werewolves

were the new thing. Chase and I, we went to see them, and they had these

costumes, fur and teeth and stuff, and we put them on and popped these pills

and

presto, we were werewolves."

"Uh, really?" he said, eyes darting about for an escape route. "Well,

I'm sure—"

"We could run and jump around and howl, and we went out hunting, and one of

the

guys caught this rabbit, and, like, I know it sounds gross, but we were so

hungry and the smell of the blood—"

"Could you excuse me," the man interrupted. "I need to use the washroom."

"Sure. You look a little green. Probably airsickness. My friend Tabby has

that

real bad. I hope you're feeling better, 'cause I was going to ask if you

wanted

to come with me tonight. There's this werewolf group in Pittsburgh. They're

having a Grand Howl tonight. I'm meeting Chase there. He's kinda my

boyfriend,

but he switch-hits, you know, and he's really cute. I think you'd like him."

The man mumbled something and sprinted into the aisle faster than one would

think possible for a guy who looked like he hadn't exceeded strolling speed

since high school.

"Wait 'til I tell you about the Grand Howl," I called after him. "They're so

cool."

Ten minutes later, he still hadn't returned. Damn shame. That airsickness can

be

a real son of a bitch.

I returned to my reading, believe.com was a Web site that sold infor-

mation on the paranormal, a supernatural eBay. Scary that such things

existed.

Even scarier was that they could turn a profit, believe.com had an entire

category devoted to auctioning off pieces of spaceship wrecks that, at last

Kelley Armstrong - Bitten 02 - Stolen

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