Stolen

SAVANNAH

Bauer reached for the intercom button on the half-demon's cage. Something in my gut tightened, and I opened my mouth to stop her, then bit back the protest. Why did I care if Bauer talked to this woman? Maybe I just didn't like the idea of my fellow captives knowing they were being watched and discussed like zoo animals.

"Leah?" Bauer said, leaning into the speaker.

"Hey Sondra," Leah said, rising from bed. "Did my appointment get bumped up again?"

"No, I'm just passing by. Showing a new guest around. She's very interested in your powers. How about a demonstration?"

"Sure." Leah turned to the small table. After a second, a coffee mug rose from the surface and spun around. "How's that?"

"Perfect. Thank you, Leah."

The woman smiled and nodded. If she had any objection to being treated like a trained monkey, she gave no sign of it, just stood there awaiting further commands.

"I'll see you later, Leah," Bauer said.

"I'm not going anywhere. Say hi to Xavier for me. Tell him to stop by some time. Bring a deck of cards."

"I'll do that."

Bauer clicked off the intercom.

"Xavier is our other half-demon," she said to me. "You've met him."

"Houdini."

Bauer smiled. "Yes, I suppose so. No bonds will hold that one, as we soon discovered. Lucky for us he was happy to cooperate with our questions and experiments for the right financial incentive. Quite the mercenary, our Xavier. A valuable asset to the team, though."

"Like the sorcerer," I said.

Bauer shot me a studiously blank look.

"I heard you hired a sorcerer, too," I said.

Bauer hesitated, as if pondering whether to lie, then said, "Yes, we have a sorcerer. He helps us find our supernaturals. You're not likely to encounter Mr. Katzen though, if that puts your mind at ease."

"Should it?"

"Sorcerers have an… unsavory reputation among some supernatural races. Not entirely unwarranted."

Matasumi coughed discreetly, but Bauer ignored him and rapped her nails against the Vodoun priest's cell wall. He glanced up, maybe sensing someone there, and cast a baleful glare at the mirrored glass.

"Untrustworthy egomaniacs, most of them," Bauer went on. "Our Mr. Katzen, I'm afraid, is no exception. As I said, though, you don't need to worry about him. He doesn't associate with what he considers the 'lower' races. Now Xavier is much more sociable."

"He keeps Leah entertained, I see."

"Actually no. He's not likely to take her up on her offer. Sad, really. When Leah found out we had another half-demon here she was thrilled. I don't think she's ever met another of her kind. But Xavier won't have anything to do with her. He met her once and has since refused to go near her. We've even tried bribes. Keeping our guests happy is very important to us. Leah is a very gregarious young woman. She needs social stimulation. Fortunately we've found other ways to accommodate her. She's taken quite an interest in two of our other guests."

"Curtis and Savannah," Tess said.

Bauer nodded. "Who are also our two guests most in need of companionship, someone to cheer them up. I think Leah has a knack for that. An innate sense of altruism. Curtis and Savannah both enjoy her company immensely. Which only makes Xavier's animosity all the more unfathomable. He won't even talk to her. It's causing some concern for us. We'd like to bring Leah on the team, but we can't afford the tension it would cause."

"Have a lot of cap-guests joined 'the team'?"

Bauer's eyes sparked as if I'd asked the million-dollar question. "Not many, but it's certainly possible. Particularly for our more honored guests, like yourself. Once we're assured of a guest's cooperation, we're quite happy to make an offer. It's something to strive for."

In other words, if I was a very, very good girl, I too could kidnap and torture my fellow supernatural beings. Oh, joy.

"Any idea why Xavier doesn't like Leah?" I asked.

"Jealousy," Matasumi said. "Within the half-demon hierarchy Leah has higher standing."

"Are they aware of this hierarchy?" I asked. "I thought half-demons didn't have much contact with one another. They don't have any central or ruling group, right? So how do they know who has what status?"

Silence.

After a moment Matasumi said, "At some level, I'm sure they're aware of their status."

"An Agito demon ranks over an Evanidus, Xavier's sire," Bauer said. "And an Exustio ranks over both. That's Adam Vasic's sire, right? An Exustio?"

"Never came up in conversation, surprisingly."

Disappointment flashed across her face, then vanished in another false-hearty smile. "We'll have Doctor Carmichael check those burns. I'm assuming Adam gave them to you."

She paused. I said nothing.

"An Exustio half-demon is very powerful," she continued. "Right at the top. He'd be a first-rate catch. Maybe you could help with that. I'm sure those burns don't tickle."

"They're healing," I said.

"Still, we'd be very grateful-"

Matasumi interrupted. "We don't even know if Adam Vasic's sire is an Exustio, Sondra. We only have one person's secondhand account on that."

"But it's a very good account." Bauer turned to me. "One of our early captives was a shaman who served on Ruth Winterbourne's council back when Adam's stepfather started bringing him to the meetings. He's a Tempestras half-demon. The stepfather, that is. He's also supposedly an expert on demonology, and he was convinced Adam's sire was an Exustio."

"Though he's never given any indication of having such an advanced degree of power," Matasumi said. "Skin burns are more likely the sign of an Igneus. An Exustio would have incinerated Ms. Michaels."

"Still, even an Igneus half-demon would be quite a coup. And I'd love to get his stepfather. There's very little data on Tempestras demons."

"I'd like to meet the mother," Tess said. "What's the chance that a woman is going to be chosen to bear a demon's offspring and end up marrying a half-demon? There must be something in her that attracts them. It could be very useful research. And interesting."

This was creeping me out. How much did these people know about us? It was bad enough that they knew what we were, but to have delved into our personal lives like this was downright disturbing. Did they do this a lot, stand around discussing us like we were characters in some modern Dark Shadows soap opera?

"Why didn't you grab Adam instead of me?" I asked.

"Don't underestimate your own importance to us, Elena," Bauer said. "We're thrilled to have you with us."

"And we couldn't find Adam," Tess added.

Gee, thanks.

Bauer continued, "And, beside Leah, our last, but certainly not least guest."

I turned. In the cell behind me was a girl. No, I don't mean a young woman. I mean a child, no more than twelve or thirteen. I assumed her youthful appearance was the manifestation of some unknown supernatural race.

"What is she?" I asked.

"A witch," Bauer said.

"Does a spell do that? Make her look young? Handy trick, but if it were me, I sure wouldn't want to return to that age. Either long before or long after puberty for me, thank you very much."

Bauer laughed. "No, it's not a spell. Savannah's twelve."

I stopped. If I'd been shivering before, I was frozen now, a block of ice lodged in my gut.

"Twelve?" I repeated, hoping I'd heard wrong. "You captured a twelve-year-old witch?"

"The absolute best age," Matasumi said. "Witches come into their full powers with the onset of their first menses. Being on the brink of puberty, Savannah presents us with the perfect opportunity to study mental and physiological changes that might explain a witch's ability to cast spells. We had a remarkable stroke of luck finding her. An accident really. Savannah is the daughter of a former Coven witch we targeted several weeks ago. When our men picked up the mother, the daughter was unexpectedly home from school, so they were forced to bring her as well."

I scanned the cell. "You don't keep her with her mother?"

"We had some trouble with her mother," Bauer said. "Her powers were stronger than our sorcerer led us to believe. Dark magic, you might call it, which would likely explain her split with the Coven. Eve was… well, we had to-"

"We removed her from the program," Matasumi cut in. "The best thing, really. She proved much too difficult to be a useful subject, and her presence distracted the child."

The ice expanded to fill my stomach. These people were holding a child in an underground cell, congratulating themselves on having found her, and extolling the advantages of killing her mother? I watched the girl. She was tall for her age, whip-thin, with a face that was all planes and sharp angles. Waist-length jet-black hair fell so straight it seemed weighted down. Huge dark blue eyes overpowered her thin face. An odd-looking child with the promise of great beauty. She stared intently at a crossword puzzle book, pencil poised above the page. After a moment she nodded and scribbled something. She held the book at arm's length, studied the completed puzzle, then tossed it aside, got up from the table, paced a few times, and finally settled for surveying the contents of a bookshelf behind the television set.

"She must get bored," I said.

"Oh, no," Bauer said. "This isn't easy for Savannah. We know that. But we do our best to accommodate her. Anything she wants. Chocolate bars, magazines… we even picked up some video games last week. She's quite…" Bauer paused, seeming to roll a word on her tongue, then discarded it and said quietly, "She's comfortable."

So she knew how bad it sounded. "Sorry we executed your mom, kid, but here's some [47] Tiger Beats and a Game Boy to make up for it." Bauer tapped her manicured nails against the wall, then forced a smile.

"Well, that's it," she said. "You're probably wondering what all this is for."

"Perhaps later," Matasumi murmured. "Doctor Carmichael is waiting and this isn't really the place…"

"We've shown Elena around. Now I think it's only fair we offer some explanation."

Matasumi's lips tightened. So this wasn't usually part of the tour? Why now? A sudden need to justify herself after showing me Savannah? Why did Bauer care what I thought? Or was she defending it to herself?

Before Bauer continued, she led me out of the cell block. I studied the security procedures. Once through, we passed two armed guards stationed in a cubbyhole beyond the secured door. Their eyes passed over me as if I was the cleaning lady. One of the advantages to hiring guards with some form of military background: Curiosity had been drilled out of them. Follow orders and don't ask questions.

"Some sort of military connection?" I asked. As long as Bauer was in a mood to answer questions, I should ask them.

"Military?" She followed my gaze to the guards. "Using supernatural beings to build the perfect weapon? Intriguing idea."

"Not really," I said. "They did it on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A sub-par season. I slept through half the episodes."

Bauer laughed, though I could tell she had no idea what I was talking about. I couldn't picture her lounging in front of a TV set, and even if she did, I was sure the only thing she watched was CNN.

"Don't worry," she said. "This is a completely private enterprise. Our choice of guards was merely practical. No governmental overtones intended."

We walked through another set of doors into a long corridor.

"In our post-industrial society, science is constantly pushing the boundaries of technology," Bauer said, still walking. I glanced overhead for speakers, half-certain I was hearing Bauer's voice on some prerecorded tour tape. "The human race has taken great strides in the field of technology. Massive strides. Our lives get easier with each passing day. Yet are we happy?"

She paused, but didn't look back at me, as if not expecting an answer. Rhetorical question, dramatic pause. Bauer knew her public-speaking tricks.

"We aren't," she said. "Everyone I know has a therapist and a shelf of self-help books. They go on spiritual retreats. They hire yogis and practice meditation. Does it do any good? No. They're miserable. And why?"

Another pause. I bit my lip to keep from answering. It wouldn't have been the sort of reply she wanted.

Bauer continued, "Because they feel powerless. Science does all the work. People are reduced to technological slaves, dutifully pumping data into computers and waiting for the great god of technology to honor them with results. When the computer age first arrived, people were thrilled. They dreamed of shorter work weeks, more time for self-improvement. It didn't happen. People today work as hard, if not harder, than they did thirty years ago. The only difference is the quality of the work they perform. They no longer accomplish anything of value. They only service the machines."

Pause number three.

"What we propose to do here is return a sense of power to humanity. A new wave of improvement. Not technological improvement. Improvement from within. Improvement of the mind and the body. Through studying the supernatural, we can affect those changes. Shamans, necromancers, witches, sorcerers-they can help us increase our mental capabilities. Other races can teach us how to make immense improvements in our physical lives. Strength and sensory acuteness from werewolves. Regeneration and longevity from vampires. Countless other advances from half-demons. A brave new world for humanity."

I waited for the music to swell. When it didn't, I managed to say with a straight face, "It sounds very… noble."

"It is," Matasumi said.

Bauer pressed a button and elevator doors opened. We stepped on.