In answer, Regan leaned forward, her expression ruthless. She’d pressed her luck far enough. It was time to get the information she’d come for.
“This is my last question. And believe me when I tell you, your life depends on your answer.” The tip of the blade rested against his throbbing heart. “Where’s Jagr?”
“What? Who?”
“The vampire who…who Darcy sent to Hannibal.” She struggled to hide her aching dread. Culligan would only try to use it to his advantage. “Gaynor took him through a portal. Where would he go?”
Culligan glared, although he was smart enough not to struggle. “How the hell would I know? In case you missed the memo, I’ve been a little tied up since coming to Hannibal.”
Without warning, Regan yanked the knife from the imp’s chest and pressed it to his most precious jewels.
“Gaynor’s been your friend for centuries. You have to know something.”
Panic flashed through the green eyes. As expected, the idiot was far more afraid of being castrated than killed.
“Are you a complete psycho?”
“That’s what thirty years of torture will do to a perfectly nice girl.” Her voice could have rivaled Jagr’s for ice. “Now start talking, or lose it.”
Sweat poured down his body as he struggled to find his voice. “All I can tell you is that in the past, Gaynor always had an underground lair with a cell he could use to trap lesser demons.”
She frowned. “Why would he trap demons?”
“You can make a fortune in ransom if you find demons with clans or families who are willing to pay to get them back.”
“Christ.” She shook her head in disgust. There should be an open season on imps. “Would this cell be strong enough to hold a vampire?”
Culligan shrugged. “If he has it properly hexed.”
“Where would it be?”
A cunning expression slid over the lean features. The jackass intended to try and con her. Or at least he intended to until she dug the knife into one of his danglies.
“Arrg.”
His eyes crossed, and Regan waited to see if he would pass out. When he didn’t, she leaned close enough to touch nose to nose.
“Where would it be?”
“It would be close to his business…” The words came out in small, pained gasps. “That tea shop he’s running.”
Regan froze, a sick sensation clutching her stomach. “How can you be certain?”
“Gaynor might be able to conjure a portal, but he barely has any more strength than I do. He can’t travel over a few hundred feet if he has a passenger. If he took your vampire, he couldn’t have gone far.”
“If he was there, why wouldn’t I sense him?”
“The hexes would block any scent.”
“Damn.”
Regan straightened abruptly, stepping away from Culligan as she cursed her stupidity. What an idiot she was. If she hadn’t been in such a panic to find Jagr, then maybe she wouldn’t have overlooked the most obvious.
God, he might have been right beneath her feet while she was creeping around the tea shop…
She gave a sharp shake of her head.
Dammit, she’d wasted enough time.
She had to get to Jagr.
Whirling on her heel, she headed for the door, intent on returning to the tea shop. Even if she couldn’t move Jagr until night fell, she needed to find him.
To be near him.
How frightening was that?
Regan was stepping from the shed when a voice behind her abruptly reminded her that Culligan was still chained to the wall.
“Hey, wait, where are you going? You can’t leave me here.”
Turning, she regarded him with a hint of surprise. In her hurry to reach Jagr, she’d simply forgotten him.
The imp who’d made her life a misery for thirty years.
The imp who she’d pledged to torture and kill.
It no doubt revealed some deep, earth-shattering change in her psyche, but she didn’t have time to care.
“Actually, I can,” she retorted, consoling whatever thirst for revenge that might linger with the knowledge the curs seemed to be doing a bang-up job of making Culligan miserable.
As if reading her mind, Culligan struggled frantically against the shackles that held him.
“They’ll kill me. Do you want that on your conscience?”
She slowly lifted her brows. “Frankly, Culligan, I don’t give a damn.”
As exit lines went, it was pretty damned excellent, and Regan couldn’t halt a smug smile as she stepped out of the shed and slammed the door behind her.
Later she might regret not slicing him open and using his entrails as fish bait, but for now she was content to leave his torture in the hands of the curs.
The smile and contentment lasted all of two seconds.
Just long enough for the familiar male cur to step from the trees.
Duncan.
For an odd, timeless moment they simply stared at one another in shock. Then without warning, he lifted his arm to throw something directly at her face.
Regan instinctively ducked, expecting a knife or sword to lodge itself in the door behind her.
Instead, there was a brilliant explosion, and she had only a second to acknowledge that she’d failed Jagr when the world went black.
The sun was painting the horizon with its last fading rays when Regan struggled to shake the painful cobwebs out of her head.
Freaking hell. She felt as if she’d been hit by a cement truck.
At last, ignoring the bursts of agony in the back of her head, she forced open her reluctant eyes. Well…shit. She should have kept them closed.
Not that pretending this was all a horrible nightmare would change the fact that she was currently tied to a tree with chains that held enough silver to sap her strength and leave raw burns on her skin. Or that she’d been moved from the cabin to one of the small islands covered in trees and underbrush that dotted the middle of the river.
Still fuzzy, Regan watched as Duncan stepped out of the canvas tent stuck in the center of the small clearing.
She swallowed her instinctive growl.
Damn the bastard. It was bad enough he’d given her a headache from hell and tied her to a tree like some sort of animal, but she’d been in la-la land the entire afternoon.
She was never going to get to Jagr at this rate.
The handsome cur came to a halt directly before her, looking considerably worse for the wear with his long hair hanging in tangles around his lean face and his black pants marred with dirt. His shirt was missing altogether.
She scowled in frustration, ridiculously pleased when he took a wary step backward.
“What did you do to me?” she rasped.
With an effort, the cur managed a brittle hint of his former arrogance.
“Just a little spell bomb I borrowed from Sadie’s pet witch before I ripped out her throat.”
Regan blinked, strangely shocked by the blunt confession. “You killed the witch?”
“The amulets hold a spell to mask the scent of anyone wearing it.” Duncan grimaced. “Unfortunately, it also holds an added spell, so the witch can track it from anywhere in the world. Sadie’s nasty way of keeping control of her pack. No witch, no GPS.”
“Christ, you couldn’t just take it off?”
“And announce my scent to every Were and vampire who has flocked to Hannibal? Not bloody likely. Without the witch, I have all the benefits of the amulet, without any of the unpleasant side effects.”
Her lips twisted. “Who says there’s no honor among thieves?”
“You should be thanking me, luv.” His gaze deliberately dropped to the pocket where she had hidden the amulet she’d stolen from Culligan. Obviously he’d searched her before tying her up. “Besides, I lost any claim to honor when I threw my lot in with Caine thirty years ago. I should have known better, but the man does have a way with words. He’s kissed the blarney stone, as my mum would say, and he convinced me that his crazy ideas were actually possible.”
“Caine.” Her eyes narrowed in fury as she futilely struggled against the burning chains. “You were with the cur who stole us. You bastard. How did he get his hands on four pureblooded children?”
Shock rippled over his face. “How did you…” He cut off his words as he shoved his hands through his tangled hair. “Never mind. Caine has never been willing to admit how he got a hold of you and your sisters. All I know is that he showed up at the Illinois hunting grounds with the four of you, claiming that he’d been given a prophecy that the blood of the Weres would make us whole.”
Ah, yes, the cornerstone of every great cult. Some mysterious prophecy…the promise of greatness…yadda yadda.
“A prophecy from whom?” she demanded.
Duncan shrugged. “That’s one of those questions no one had the balls to ask. Or maybe we just didn’t want to ask. He promised power, immortality. The opportunity to go from the bottom of the dung heap to the top.” The cur snorted in self-disgust. “Blimey, I should have known he was full of shit when he took us to Chicago and nearly got us arrested.”