When Greg left, he looked relieved and promised to be back first thing in the morning. I turned the light off over the sink and turned off the television. Dressed in black jeans and shirt, I headed out to get a closer look at the cabin. It was less than an hour walk to the edge of the woods Adam had mentioned. It wasn’t a large strip of land, but enough to hide a small cabin. The smell of human blood and waste blew across my path from the river, and I knew I was close.
As I got closer, I heard voices. The path I took rounded the cabin from shoreline to shoreline in a horseshoe shape. There were nine guards stationed outside, six shifters, and three demons. Narran and his sons weren’t here, and I saw one truck parked at the front. I couldn’t get close enough to hear anyone calling for help and was sure that anyone inside was already dead.
There were two footpaths between the cabin and the river with footprints at the water’s edge. It looked like there were drag marks from a body going down to the water. Nothing at the river’s edge would let a boat larger than a rowboat tie up to one of the rocks. I couldn’t tell how deep the water was at that point, but was sure the ground sloped under the water and any large vessel would need to anchor at least twenty yards out. A sound came from the water just past where I could see. I left my clothes on the bank and shifted to dragon. My scales were hard and prevented anything in the water from getting a hold of me.
If one of the victims was dumped in the water, they might still be alive. I slid into the river and swam toward the sound. A woman stared at me with an almost dead, completely terrified look. I forgot she might be afraid of a dragon’s head coming at her. I shifted back to human, and she opened her mouth to scream. My hand covered her mouth before she made a sound.
“I’m going to save you. Do you understand?”
She nodded at me, and her eyes never left mine. Her hand shook as I pulled her to the shore. One of the guards walked behind the cabin heading toward us. She struggled to get free as I pushed her against the shore hoping the grass at the edge would hide her. He stopped and scanned the river.
I wondered if he knew they dumped someone who was still alive. He walked straight to us, and I dropped below the water. Under the woman, I couldn’t be seen but she was vulnerable. I took her hand and squeezed it hoping she would remain quiet and still.
He stopped right over her and lit a cigarette. The match he dropped fizzled as it landed beside her. Right before I had to surface to breathe, he moved on. I came out of the water above her and kept a tight hold on her hand as I swam to the warehouse. A naked man carrying an injured woman would attract attention.
“What’s your name?”
“Sally, Sally Norton. Are you taking me to your lair to rape me?”
“Sally, you watch too much television.” I had to laugh.
Frightened as she was the images from tonight would never leave her memory. “You’re a lizard?”
“Something like that. It’s a long story.”
“It’s okay sir. I’ve seen shows about freaks on television. I won’t tell anyone about you.”
My ego was wounded, but as long as she felt sorry for my ‘condition,’ it meant I could count on her keeping this secret.
The ladder from the water to the dock was six rungs, and I didn’t know how bad she was hurt.
“Can you climb the stairs or should I carry you?”
“You will have to carry me. I can’t feel my legs. They stopped hurting before they threw me in the water.”
I pulled us up and laid her on the ground outside of my door. “I’ll be right back.”
Inside, I called Angie’s cell phone and told her who I’d found and that she may be paraplegic. She hung up after telling me she was on her way. Her curse words reached my ears as she hung up.
My clothes were at the cabin so I put on a pair of sweatpants and grabbed a robe for Sally. When I walked outside, she was seated and crying.
“I thought I couldn’t feel my legs because the water was cold.”
“You still can’t feel them?”
“I’m paralyzed now?”
“It’s a possibility. I’ve called a friend who’s a doctor, and she’ll help you.” I handed her the robe.
“Do you have food? I haven’t eaten in three days.”
She gobbled up the steak I cooked and was on her third soda when Angie arrived.
“I’m Angie, my friend here called me to help you.”
“My family has to be called. They will be worried.”
“You can call them from the hospital. We need to get you there fast to find out why you can’t feel your legs.”
“Will I walk again?” Tears streamed down her face.
“I don’t know, sweetie. However, if it’s possible you will.”
“At least I’m alive. My friends are still missing. They took four of us there together. Three brothers we met partying told us they would get us back home.”
“We can check to see what happened to your friends.”
Her face became pale as she remembered what happened. “Oh god, they’re dead. I remember hearing them scream. Those boys tied us up and kept cutting us with knives. We thought they were going to rape us. They didn’t even try. That’s weird, right? I mean, when boys in their twenties kidnap women and take them to a cabin they rape them, right?”
Her hope that a sexual assault would be better than what they received said a lot about the trauma she underwent.
She was babbling, and Angie kept nodding as she examined her. There were no open wounds, but a knot on her lower back may be the cause of her inability to move.
“If this knot back here caused your spinal cord to swell up you should be able to walk again when the swelling goes down. Do you remember what happened?” Angie explained.
Sally started talking as Mike showed up. Angie must have called him.
“We met them at a bar on Bourbon Street three days ago.” Sally rushed through her words.
“How do you know it was three days?” The chief asked.
“Excuse me, who are you?” Sally replied.
He looked down and realized he didn’t have his uniform on.
“Sorry, ma’am, I’m the police chief here in New Orleans. You can call me Mike.”
“Mike, I counted sunrise and sunset. The boys picked us up and told us they had a cabin right on the Mississippi River, and we could watch the sunrise. They promised us beer and music saying there was a group of people partying there. We went with them and knew we were in trouble when we got out of the back of the truck. No one was around except some creepy guys with guns who smelled like rotten eggs.”
Angie looked at me and smiled. She would store that line to use against Wretch later.
Sally continued. “They took us inside and gave us alcohol. It wasn’t the normal stuff. It burned my stomach.”
“Moonshine,” Mike said.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but it was powerful. I passed out after the first two glasses and woke up tied to a table. Jenny was on the table next to me. We could hear the other two in the next room. That’s when they started cutting us with knives until we screamed. One time, I was so mad, I stopped screaming out loud, and one guy got furious picking me up and slamming me into the table.”
I caught Angie’s look. That’s how her back got hurt. If that was the cause, she could be walking again before summer.
Her body shook as she recalled her ordeal. She needed to get the words out. “Jenny screamed every time they touched her. Her cuts weren’t deep but they were everywhere. She begged them to kill her.” She gagged. “Later that night she stopped crying. One of the guards from outside, one who didn’t smell like bad eggs, stood over her. I think he killed her.”
She sobbed grabbing Angie. Mike pulled her away from Angie picking her up. We knew the rest of her memory would come back over the next few days. Mike would make sure one of his men stood outside her door at the hospital.
“I’ll get her to the ER. Ange, will you call ahead?” He headed for his car.
She gathered up her kit. “Sure. Make sure they do a CT scan to check for spinal cord swelling along her lumbar region. I’ll tell them when I call, but I want you to insist they do that tonight.”
“Got it.” He carried Sally around the corner. She sobbed. I heard him talking to her about how lucky she was to be alive.
“He’s a lizard!”
Mike’s laughter was the last thing I heard as they walked away.
“A lizard?” Angie tried to keep a straight face.
“How would you describe a dragon after what she’d been through?”
“I would go for crocodile man first.” She teased.
We walked inside, and I closed the door. “That’s three more dead we didn’t know about or do you have her friends?”
“I have them. They floated into shore earlier tonight. All dead. Jenny’s throat had been cut by someone who knew what they were doing.”
“Maybe someone out there has a conscience.”
“He could’ve saved her,” Angie said.
“There are six shifters guarding that cabin with three demons. I don’t know what they’re doing there if the victims are all dead.”
“The harvested body parts,” Angie replied.
“Even I’m nauseous after tonight. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I need to get going. Wretch?”
“In London. I’ll call him and tell him what happened.”
She left and I sat in front of the television with a beer. Mindless entertainment helped if I would turn off the news. The reports from London continued with no new bodies discovered since the last time I talked to Wretch. Either Nitha was contained or she decided to take a break and hide for a while. My confidence in the European demons ability to keep her contained was low.