Page 21 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Sixteen

The Bloody Ruin

The first woman ends up sliding down the stairs. I can’t see if she’s fallen or was pushed, but the attendants mutter as they pick her up and march her down the hall to the right. The quiet woman and the Gray Dress lag behind. Neither seems eager to follow the group of three ahead.

A distinctive stench has me looking over the railing.

A rat scurries beneath the stairs, a cockroach in its mouth.

My uneasiness grows as I reach the bottom of the steps.

The walls and floor are again a dingy white.

It feels makeshift down here, as though this area was an afterthought.

No one is in the hall and the doors on either side are closed.

Someone screams behind the door beside me and I jump out of my skin. It cuts off with a gurgle, which is somehow even more upsetting. Coughing comes from behind another door, quiet sobbing from the next.

At the end of the hall, there’s an open area blocked by a battered wooden table.

At the table sits a Gray Dress with papers she’s filling out.

Behind her are doors to other rooms. One, the tub room, has a partially open door where the woman who’s been dragged downstairs is now being forced into the water that, based on her shrieking, is freezing cold.

The Gray Dress at the table pushes up on a heavy sigh, goes to the tub room door and pulls it shut, cutting off much of the noise.

Behind me, an older patient is escorted to the rickety wooden table. The attendants confer, notes are added to the papers at the desk, and then the old woman is taken to a room on the left with a metal exam table. The door is thankfully closed before I have to witness what happens to her.

What draws my attention instead is a short, dark hall off to the right side.

It doesn’t appear as though anyone uses it and yet I’m picking up a familiar scent.

I walk around the table and go down the hall, hearing a faint growl from behind a heavy door.

I can’t open it and no one’s here to do it for me, so I put my ear to it and listen closely.

I might be completely off base, but it sounds like the click of claws on metal, of an animal pacing.

Straining to hear voices, I catch an unmistakable growl.

I scented wolf. It’s what sent me to this door in the first place, but why would an asylum have a wolf in their basement?

If they’re holding a werewolf in there, why hasn’t she broken out?

How is there not a huge scandal about the existence of werewolves?

Something slams into the door I’m leaning against and I rear back.

In bed. In the dark. Beside Clive.

It took a few moments to reorient myself.

I was in the now, not the then. I checked the nightstand.

Clive had once again plugged in my phone.

All the quiet ways he strove to care for me squeezed my heart at the oddest moments.

Perhaps it was watching women experience remarkable cruelty and then waking up safe in bed with my loving mate that had me off balance.

I needed to explore the basement, to see if I could find anything left in that room that would tell me if they’d been holding a werewolf prisoner.

First, though, I wanted food. I showered, dressed in jeans, a tee, an axe, a jacket, and running shoes.

The ring was on my nightstand beside my phone.

I grabbed both, gave Clive a kiss, and set out for the town and a meal.

I found another fabulous restaurant and gorged myself before heading back.

I had sleuthing to do. I passed a bookshop on the Pest side of the river and stopped.

There was a book in the window—well, two versions of the same book.

One was in Hungarian, I assumed, and the other was in English.

The one I could read was entitled Mysterious Budapest.

I turned around, went into the bookstore, and bought the book.

Next door was a chocolatier. What kind of a psycho passes a chocolate shop without stopping?

Not a Sam kind, that’s for sure. The woman behind the display case spoke very little English, but she understood I wanted her to choose an assortment for me.

As I couldn’t read the little cards and many of the truffles and cakes looked completely new to me, I waited to see what I would get.

She gave me one to try and it was incredible, a rich dark chocolate covering a currant, maybe, with a hazelnut liqueur.

Seeing my smile and nod, she relaxed and continued to fill a large pastry box for me.

Honestly, this was probably the most excited I’d been in Budapest so far.

I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but it probably wasn’t flattering.

After paying a large amount of money, I left with a veritable treasure trove of desserts and looked for someplace to sit, snack, and read that would be less distracting than a haunted vampire hotel. I remembered The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom and headed back across the bridge and up the hill.

The Bloody Ruin was quiet at this time of day, with maybe fifteen or twenty patrons, most of whom were sitting at the mismatched café tables outside, in the shade of oversized umbrellas. I went in and stopped at the bar to order a soda, but the bartender recommended a froccs.

I figured when in Budapest and all. Froccs was apparently a blend of wine and soda water.

One of the variations also had raspberry syrup, so I went with that one.

And a water, of course, in case froccs were not for me.

I then took my book, box of chocolates, and two drinks into the dim back of the bar, away from the hubbub, to sit alone and do a little reading.

I skipped over the story of a faithful maiden waiting on her balcony for her love to return from war, a princess who dreamed of a special bird and then gave birth to a leader of the Hungarian people, and a different version of the Danube Mermaid story to skip to the werewolf chapter.

I’d read the others later. Right now, I was hoping for a little insight into our local pack.

The chapter started with conflicting theories about werewolves originating in Ancient Greece, while another story said we began in Slavic countries.

What I’d read in a special archive in San Francisco was that the Quinns, the original line of werewolves, came from Europe.

I supposed many wanted to believe their country birthed the first supernatural beings—or monsters, depending on whichever tale you read.

In one story, werewolves only changed three nights a year.

In another, it was believed a bite was not needed to pass on lycanthropy, but it was rather child abuse that created werewolves.

I kind of loved that story. I wanted those children to gain the teeth and claws necessary to fight off the adults preying on them.

One story said werewolves went to Hell to fight wicches and demons in order to win back the grain that had been stolen from their people. While I didn’t believe they visited Hell, protecting the people of Budapest against other supernaturals seemed in line with the tenets of the local pack.

Speaking of werewolves, I scented one approaching. I looked up and watched Viktoria walk down the center of the bar, into the shadowy corner to find me.

“You’re still here,” she said, sounding displeased.

“Well spotted,” I replied, channeling my husband. Opening the top of my pastry box, I added, “Would you like one?”

She reached in and picked one with a glossy fruit shell that sandwiched something inside. “These are the best,” she said.

I looked in, found another just like it, and popped it in my mouth. “Apricot and…?”

Viktoria swallowed and said, “Roasted pistachios. Delicious.”

She was right. It was. “So,” I said, “are you just checking on me or do you have a message?”

She started to reach into the box again and then paused, checking to see if it was all right. I nodded and she chose a dark chocolate diamond-shaped one with a cursive G on the top. I took one too. This one had a praline filling.

“I thought you’d want to know about the leeches’ latest victims,” she said.

Glancing around, I didn’t see anyone near enough to hear her, but still. “Maybe lower your voice,” I said, whispering, “and yes, I want to know. Did everyone get help? Did you find the child’s family?”

She shook her head. “Still protecting them.” She grabbed a milk chocolate in the shape of a heart.

This time I didn’t follow suit. The topic of last night’s victims gave me a stomachache. “I protect all supernaturals from discovery.”

When I put the book aside, she looked at the cover and laughed. “Not enough monsters in your life?”

My stomach twisted again. I’d tried for years to hide what I was, not realizing the magical community of San Francisco was well aware of what I shifted into and where I went to run. I was getting more comfortable in my own skin, claiming my own power, but Viktoria was getting to me.

I tapped the book cover. “I was just reading about werewolves.”

She scoffed at that, taking another chocolate.

“I hoped there’d be local lore in it, but so far it’s all conflicting general myths.”

“Local?” she said, eyebrows raised.

“It was just a shot in the dark,” I said. “I remember reading somewhere about a young wolf—a female—being found by humans. She was imprisoned and studied.”

“What? Who told you that?” she asked, clearly agitated. “What are you talking about?”

I leaned back, wondering about her intensity. Did she know something about the wolf who may or may not have been held at the asylum? “I don’t know. I read a lot of random stuff on the internet about Budapest before we came. I remembered because that would be huge if it was true. Is it?”

“Of course not. You don’t think we would have found and freed one of our own?” She acted as though she thought the suggestion stupid, but the tension in her shoulders didn’t lie.

“Okay. Just a random urban legend.” I took a sip of water. “You haven’t said yet,” I told her. “How are the people from last night?”

“Anemic. Maybe half had to stay in the hospital overnight. The mother of the little girl was out of her mind with worry. They had to tranquilize her. Hopefully she now knows her daughter is back. The little girl is still jumping at shadows.”

I stared at my empty glass, wishing there was something more I could have done. I didn’t want her to hide for years, as I had. “I’m sorry.” I knew it wasn’t enough, but I also didn’t know what more I could have done.

“How did you get them out?” she asked me. “Did the bloodsuckers see you?”

I nodded. “I yelled at the vamps and pulled the people away from them.”

Viktoria made a strange choking sound. I looked between her and the box of treats, wondering if she got a nut stuck in her throat.

“You took a bloodsucker’s meal away from it?” she asked.

“Not it. They’re people. And yes. They weren’t happy with me, but I think most were more shocked about something my mate had done to stop them.

” The wolves didn’t need to know I had any power over vampires.

“My mate is very scary when he wants to be and there are two fewer vamps in your town today. He and a couple of other vampires helped me get all the people out and deliver them to the pack.”

She stared at me a moment. “They punished their own for what was done to humans?” Her look said she didn’t believe me. “Won’t they kill you in retaliation?”

Probably. “I hope not. They respect power and threat. It was lucky that I had three of the most powerful vamps in the world backing me up.”

Viktoria sat back in her chair. “Really? We have that kind of fang power in town right now?”

Shitshitshit. “You really don’t want to mess with vampires,” I said.

“Not true. We really do,” she countered.