Chapter Twenty-two

Divine brought the SUV to a halt and shifted it into park, but didn't get out. Instead, she simply sat and stared at the building the GPS had brought her to. It looked like an old abandoned warehouse, though why anyone would store anything way the heck out here in the middle of nowhere, she didn't know. The only thing she could think was that the land was probably cheap as spit. Although, from the looks of it, even that hadn't been enough to make it worthwhile once the gas prices had started to skyrocket. By her guess, no one had used the building in at least thirty years . . . until now.

Another palace for her son, Divine thought grimly. In the past, she would have blamed her uncle for Damian's having to live like this. Now she wondered if Damian didn't actually choose places like this because of the lack of neighbors. There would be no one to hear the screams if he really had followed in his father's footsteps and was torturing women in that building.

Mouth tightening, Divine finally got out of the SUV and headed for the building. There were several doors to choose from, half a dozen bay doors that trucks would have backed up to, and one door customers and employees would have used to enter on foot. She chose the latter.

Divine didn't bother knocking, but simply reached out and turned the knob, not surprised when it opened unimpeded. Damian had never been overly concerned about security . . . something that had always frustrated her since she'd thought perhaps her grandsons' murders might have been prevented had he troubled himself with even a modicum of security.

Pushing that thought aside, Divine stepped inside. This was obviously where customers would have been received when it had still been in use. It was a large reception area with a long counter running from one end, almost to the other. Beyond it was an old desk, some filing cabinets, and the door to another room. Despite the fact that it was bright daylight and the front of the offices were faced with large windows, this room was dim. A good cleaning of the grime that coated the windows would have fixed that, but Divine wasn't here to perform housekeeping for her son. Besides, avoiding sunlight was always a good thing. The damage from sunlight meant more blood was needed and more frequent feeding was necessary.

Divine moved around the counter, her eyes shifting over everything as she crossed to the second door. There wasn't much more to see, a few bits of old yellowed paper on the floor along with years of built-up dust and grime. Through the door though, she found a room that was nearly pitch-black.

"You made good time."

Divine narrowed her eyes at the sound of Abaddon's voice and waited for her night vision to kick in. Once it had, she saw that she was in a large room with a long table and several chairs. There was also a kitchenette of sorts at one end with a tired old white fridge and kitchen cupboards, half of them missing their doors. As for Abaddon, he was seated at a chair at the table, as comfortable as you please. His eyes glowed gold in the darkness.

Reaching to the side, Divine searched the wall for a switch, found it, and turned it on, but nothing happened.

"No electricity," Abaddon said helpfully.

A rustling drew her attention back to him as he lifted what appeared to be a lantern onto the table. He turned a knob and the lantern gave off a weak glow that barely lit up a small circle around where he sat.

"Solar," Abaddon explained. "Much cheaper than gas or oil lanterns and the like. Leave these outside during the day while we sleep and they can light up the night for us. I'm a great proponent of solar power," he said with a smile, and the shadows cast by the light made him look like the devil himself.

The devil in a powder blue jogging suit, Divine thought, eyeing the man with disgust. Where she and Leo were fair-haired, Abaddon had dark hair, brown eyes with gold flecks in them, and a clean-shaven face. All in all he looked unremarkable; average build, average looks, totally nonthreatening. Most people would have mistaken him for a businessman on his way to working out after a busy day . . . until it was too late.

"Where's Damian?" she asked shortly.

"On his way. You beat him here. But then, as I said, you made very good time."

"I was in Vegas," Divine said coldly. "But then you knew that." 

"Did I?" he asked mildly.

"If you didn't then your spies are slipping."

"Oh," Abaddon said softly. "So you know."

"That you've been jerking me around for two millennia?" Divine asked grimly.

"Two millennia plus seven hundred and forty-seven years," Abaddon corrected. "I'm rather proud of that so you should give me every day I'm due."

Divine stared at him. There was no shame or dismay at being caught, not that she'd expected any, but she'd expected something, and there was no apparent reaction in his face at all. She eyed him with loathing for a minute and then said, "If Damian is really coming, I'll just wait to speak to him."

"He isn't coming," Abaddon said at once. "In fact he doesn't know about this place, or this meeting even. I told him I had some personal business to attend to, and suggested he just relax today and play. He took my advice," Abaddon added with pleasure, and smiled when she cursed. "I gather you're disappointed?"

"Only that he takes your advice on anything," she snapped.

"He always takes my advice, Basha. He sees me as more of a parent than you could ever be," Abaddon said, his voice dripping with feigned pity. "Because while he had to hide his true nature from you, he could always be himself with me. I know and accept him for what he is rather than try to turn him into what I want him to be."

"Oh, stuff it, Abaddon," she snarled, furious. "You were never a parent to him. He likes you because you always let him have his way. I was the parent, telling him no, punishing him when he was bad, and teaching him right from wrong."

"Hmmm." Abaddon nodded. "That must be why he confessed to me when he started torturing and killing small animals and children as a boy."

Divine stiffened and felt herself pale at this news. Her son had tortured and killed animals and small children? Animals were bad enough, but small children? How could she not have known—?

"Because when he wept and fretted that you would be angry if you found out, I helped him hide it," Abaddon said as if she had spoken her thoughts aloud. Smiling, he added, "Leo was worried for a while that it was naughty and there was something wrong with him, but I explained it was simply in his nature. Like a bee stings and a lion stalks, he was born to be like that. His father was like that before him and he was just as he was meant to be. That's when I started calling him Leonius . . . and he liked it."

"Bastard," she growled, launching herself at him. Divine wanted to scratch his eyes out, choke him, and twist his head off in that moment, but she didn't even get to touch him. Divine had barely taken two steps when she was grabbed from behind.

Cursing, she twisted her head from side to side to see that she'd been grabbed by two of her grandsons. No doubt the ones who had been sent to spy on her, Divine realized, and wondered how she could have forgotten about them.

"Sit her in the chair and chain her up," Abaddon ordered, standing, and Divine found herself strong-armed across the room and set in the chair he'd just vacated. One of her grandsons—one of Damian's sons, she corrected herself—then moved to the refrigerator, opened it, and retrieved some chain and several padlocks from a stack of them inside. It appeared they'd come prepared. Divine only wished she had. She'd been so determined to talk to her son, she hadn't considered a scenario like this.

She remained silent as the two young no-fangers worked. Abaddon watched them, checked the chains afterward, and nodded his satisfaction. He then murmured something to one of the men. Despite her immortal hearing, all Divine caught were the words "I want you to go wait for—" as Abaddon walked the man out of the room. He returned alone a moment later, but didn't even cast a glance toward Divine before beginning to pace, head down, expression thoughtful.

Divine frowned, her gaze sliding to the young no-fanger still behind her. He'd moved to lean against the wall, a bored expression on his face. Her gaze slid back to Abaddon, still pacing. "What are we waiting for?"

"Your life mate," Abaddon answered absently, continuing to pace.

"Well then you're wasting your time," she said at once. "Marcus won't come here. He doesn't know where I am."

"Yes he does. I left a message for him at the hotel with this address," Abaddon murmured, taking out his phone when it made the sound of a foghorn. It was obviously a text message, and one that annoyed him, because he began tapping out a message in response, his mouth twisted with displeasure. He finished his message, started to slip the phone back in his pocket, only to pause and draw it back out when it made that foghorn sound again. He muttered with exasperation at whatever the latest incoming message said, and quickly typed another response. This time as he returned the phone he glanced to Divine and announced with irritation, "Your son is bored."

"Not my son," Divine said coldly. "You're the one who encouraged him to be the way he is."

"Well, yes, because that's what a parent does, Basha," he said with exasperation. "A parent is supposed to encourage the child."

"He wasn't your son to encourage," she growled.

"No, but then neither was his father, and I encouraged him and helped him find his full potential too," Abaddon said with a shrug.

"You helped Leonius Livius find his true potential?" she echoed dubiously.

"Of course. Do you really think he came up with the idea of creating an army of his own sons all by himself?" he asked dryly. "The man didn't think past his next pleasure, let alone the next day. He wasn't concerned about the other Atlantean refugees getting wind of what he was doing and rising up against him."

Divine merely stared at him. She'd always thought that Abaddon was just another follower of the man. That he'd shown up on the scene after Leonius Livius was well into the plan. Now he was suggesting he'd been there at the start of it.

"Most no-fangers are mad, but not really naturally cruel," he lectured, apparently determined to convince her and lay claim to the dubious honor of being the puppet master behind the monster. "Mostly they just seem to be lacking a conscience and don't care who or how they hurt others to get what they want. The cruelty Leo has and his father had before him, though? That had to be nurtured and helped to grow in them and I did that for both of them, Leonius Livius I and the son you raised."

Divine stared at him with horror. "You ruined Damian."

He snorted at the claim. "Nonsense! I didn't put the knife in his hand the first time he chopped up a child. I just helped him develop to his full potential once he revealed it."

She was shaking her head in denial before he even finished speaking. "He had a conscience, you said yourself he was weeping and fretting over what he'd done. He knew it was wrong. If I had known and—"

"He was weeping and fretting at the possibility of getting caught and the consequences of it," Abaddon corrected sharply. "He was afraid his mommy would be angry and not love him anymore." Lips pursing with disgust, he added, "The boy has some serious mommy issues, Basha. Despite everything I've done for him, he will listen to you over me when he feels he has to, to appease you . . . and he doesn't want you hurt or angered either." He scowled and added, "Mind you, he might worry less about that if he knew his precious mommy was thinking of turning him in to her uncle Lucian. What kind of mother does that make you?"

"He's torturing and raping innocent mortals," she barked defensively, stung at the accusation that wanting to stop Damian made her a bad mother.

"And killing. Don't forget that," Abaddon added with a grin. "But innocent, bah!" he sneered, and then said with disgust, "Most of them are runaways, whores, and junkies who had a short life expectancy anyway."

"Made even shorter by my son's arrival in their life," Divine growled. "And you said most of them are, what about the others? How many lives has he brought to an early end? How many women has he tortured before killing?"

"Women and men," he corrected. "Unlike his father, Leo has a liking for family picnics. Something you instilled in him, by the way."

"Family picnics?" she asked with bewilderment.

"Yes, you know, finding a nice wholesome family out on a farm and taking them all out to the barn for a meal. Although I believe you used to take them one at a time, and generally on the back porch or behind the barn. Of course, you never let him hurt or kill them, making him take just enough blood to get by before putting them back in their beds. Still, those are fond memories for him and he likes to relive them."

"Relive them?" she echoed uncertainly.

"Yes. Mind you, Leo likes to do things on a much grander scale."

"Grander how?" she asked, sure she wouldn't like the answer.

Abaddon considered her briefly, but apparently couldn't resist and rushed over to claim the chair across from her. Leaning on the table, he smiled enthusiastically and explained, "See, he gets half a dozen or so of the boys together, and they find an isolated farmhouse with a nice big family. But that's where his feedings differ from the ones you took him on. Instead of taking one member at a time, he and the boys roust everyone from their beds and take the whole family down to the barn together. Now, they're still in their pajamas, mind, and Mommy and the kids are huddled together with a couple of boys keeping them from running or looking away, and they get to watch while Daddy is strung up by his feet like a pig for slaughter, and then . . ." He shrugged. "Well, they slaughter him."

Divine closed her eyes against the images he was painting, but they continued to play across her mind as he added, "It's really something to see, the boys all working together with their dad as they slice and dice their prey. They do it slowly, of course, to draw out the pleasure."

"Shut up," Divine whispered.

"Sometimes they get thirsty and stop to chug blood from the pails they set out beneath him to catch the precious liquid, but other times—although this is only toward the end," he assured her, "one of them will hit a major artery like a carotid, or—and this is cool—the ulnar or radial in one of the arms hanging down, and then they just stand there and let it squirt and flow into their mouth from his arm like it's the spout of a teapot."

"Shut up," Divine repeated, her voice stronger but raspy. It felt like her throat was closing up.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I making you thirsty?" he asked solicitously.

"Thirsty?" she echoed with disbelief. "You're making me sick."

"Oh," Abaddon said with feigned surprise and then tsked and shook his head. "You always did have a weak stomach, didn't you? Ah well." He shrugged and then said, "Anyway, that usually finishes off the dad and then they string up Mom next to him, also upside down, which is handy for getting her nightgown out of the way if she's wearing one, and then they do it all over again. Of course, she's followed by the eldest child and so on."

Unable to kill him chained to the chair as she was, Divine just bowed her head, trying to shut him out as he finished, "So there's the bonfire, the blood, the screaming, and fun is had by all. The boys love it. They get all excited when Leo says they're going on a family picnic."

"Dear God," Divine breathed.

"Oh, don't be like that," Abaddon chided. "You should be proud of your son. He's at least equaled, if not surpassed, his father when it comes to acts of depravity. And that was despite having you for a mother, which was certainly a handicap, what with your goody-two-shoes ways."

"He's not my child," she said coldly, raising her head and staring through the man.

"No," Abaddon said sympathetically. "Your child was a girl with big silver-blue eyes and ice blond hair like yours is under that nasty dye. She—" He paused as his phone made another sound, this time a twitter. Pulling it out, he peered at the message and smiled. "Well, Marcus made good time too. He's just pulling in."

Divine felt her heart sink at this news. Despite his saying they were waiting for Marcus, she'd hoped he was just lying to her or that Marcus would have the sense to not come in the end. She would even have been happy did he hate her now that he knew she was the woman who had unknowingly rescued a monster when she'd swept her son up and carried him away that day in the hotel. She hated herself for it now that she'd heard what he'd been up to all these years.

Divine couldn't imagine the blood the man she'd thought of as her son, Damian, had on his hands. But she knew every drop of it was on her hands too. She'd failed him as a parent. She should have escaped Abaddon the moment they were out of the camp. She should have . . . Well, truly, she didn't know what else she could have done to prevent this, but she was sure there was something.

Marcus stopped the rented sedan next to the SUV Divine had taken and surveyed the building ahead, wondering how many people there were inside. He was walking into the lion's den, and doing so willingly. Why? Because the message left for him at the hotel had said that if he came and forfeited his life, Basha's would be spared.

As far as Marcus was concerned, that had left him little choice. She was his life mate. It was that simple. He'd rather cut off his own head than see her hurt in any way. He just didn't know if giving up his life would save hers in the end. He wasn't foolish enough to trust that this Abaddon who had left the message would really let Divine walk away. 

Marcus also didn't know how long they had before Lucian and the others would track them down. They'd been expected back at the carnival last night. He'd called while in the taxi on the way to buy clothes last night to tell Vincent that they were going to be a little later than expected, that Divine had agreed to tell him everything, but it would take time. However, it was now noon of the following day and he hadn't called again, nor had he answered any of the many calls from them this morning. First he'd been tied up and talking with Divine in the bedroom while his phone had been in the pocket of his jeans in the bathroom and he hadn't heard the first of the calls, and then he'd been desperate to get to her so ignored the rest. Besides, he hadn't known what to say, whether to call them in to help or not. Marcus wasn't sure Divine was any safer in their hands than she was with the man she'd raised as her son.

The sound of a car drew his gaze to the rearview mirror. Marcus wasn't terribly surprised to see the car that came to a halt behind his rental. It had followed him all the way from the hotel in Vegas. But now that it was no longer keeping a safe distance between them, he could see the two men inside. They could have been twins despite the fact that one had a shaved head and the other had long, stringy unkempt hair. They were definitely sons of Leonius Livius II. All his sons seemed to take after him in looks.

The men got out of their vehicle, but simply leaned against it, patiently waiting, both dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Neither looked too bothered by the fact that they were standing out under the noonday sun and would have to feed more because of it later. Marcus was though, because he knew they would feed on some poor mortal they snatched from her bed or off the street.

Mouth tightening, he got out of the car and headed for the main door of the building, not even bothering to glance around to see if the men were following. Marcus knew they were. He would have known even if he couldn't hear the crunch of the sand and stone under their Doc Marten