Chapter Six

Catherine was tied to a chair, her hands wrenched tightly behind her back. Her captors were interrogating her. "Tell us where you put the black book!" they said relentlessly.

"We need that book back immediately!" one of the muscular men insisted, as her captors stared at her with hateful eyes. "Tell us where it is!"

Catherine shook her head as more tears fell. She refused to budge. No matter how much they screamed at her, she refused to speak. She would not speak a single word.

"Alright, you leave us no other choice," said one of the men. "We'll have to call in a doctor now. And he will FORCE you to talk."

Catherine knew that either way, she was as good as dead. It was just a matter of time before the men disposed of her as a witness. The only reason she was alive at that very moment was because they thought she had what it was that they sought - the black book.

~*~o~*~

Vincent paced the floor of his chamber nervously as he argued with Father. "I have to find her. I have no other choice," Vincent cried out.

"But how will you search for her?" Father asked. "You and Catherine no longer have your special connection. You have to have patience... and faith."

Vincent gave a huge sigh as he stopped in his tracks. He was staring down at the framed photograph of Catherine and her father where he had placed it upon his table. His heart was aching as all he wanted to do was find his beloved.

"You do not understand," Vincent said with sadness. "I should not have bothered you."

"Vincent, you're not-."

"Please," Vincent said brokenheartedly. "Just go."

Father had no other choice but to leave his son alone to endure his suffering.

~*~o~*~

A terrible sadness hung over Vincent like a dark cloud. After all the others Below had gone off to bed, Vincent left his chambers. He wandered the tunnels aimlessly. Eventually, he left and went Above.

He searched the streets in the darkness, his longing for Catherine growing with every single step he took. He was looking for something he just could not find. The precious one he desired most was lost to him.

Quietly he said to himself, "I can no longer feel your warmth, reaching out me. I feel only cold and emptiness. But I know you're alive. And I WILL find you. I will never stop searching. Never."

As tears fell down his face, he sunk to his knees in a pitch-black alley, next to a row of beat-up, metal garbage cans. New York City was ever so large. Catherine could be anywhere - ANYWHERE. Ohhhh how could he have lost the woman he loved?! HOW?!

~*~o~*~

Joe was arguing with Moreno about the Catherine Chandler case. "She's not going to be found... At least not alive. You should just let it go," Moreno insisted.

Joe had no idea that Moreno was crooked and that his boss had given Catherine over to THE Boss. "There's no way I will ever give up on finding Cathy Chandler. I will search for her forever... even if it costs me my life," Joe said firmly.

Moreno stared at Joe, tight-lipped. *And it just might,* he whispered to Joe in his mind.

"I give you two weeks. TWO weeks. Then Catherine Chandler case is closed," Moreno stated. He then turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

~*~o~*~

A man with a scarred face was seated at an art sale, hoping to bid on an exquisite painting. "I want it for 1 million dollars,' the man said in his deep, gravelly voice. The beautiful piece of art would comfort him like a healing salve. There was so little beauty in the world, but this painting was something true and tangible - unlike people. He was abandoned as child after having been abused. He was unwanted because he had been different and scarred. Then they came - his parents and he had been adopted. They made him into the man he was today - ruthless and ambitious.

He always got what he wanted - always. And so it was, the painting was now his to enjoy. He would display it in his home; his empty home devoid of life and of people. He hated them all and wanted them to die... each and every one of them. He would kill them all if he could. But if he did, they would discover his crimes. He had many goals to accomplish before his death. As he was leaving the art sale, he got the call. It was the doctor - that bald, ugly, little worm.

~*~o~*~

For days they attempted to interrogate her and injected her with drugs. When she got sick, they called in a doctor. He stared at her with pitying eyes. She looked back at him, groggy from all the injections. When she still refused to speak, the doctor called The Boss. "She knows five connections, but still refuses to tell us where she hid the book."

Gabriel sighed. "Give her more of the truth serum. MAKE her talk," he demanded.

"Boss, anymore injections... it may be harmful. To the fetus," said the doctor. "She's pregnant."

"Continue," Gabriel said coldly.

With a grim look, the doctor gave Catherine another injection. She gasped in pain, but still refused to give the location of the book, even though the doctor said, "You know how to end this. You better talk. Tell us where to find the book."

Catherine didn't say a word. She just shook her head.

Later, after her captors were away from the room, Catherine threw up in the corner. In her drugged state, she should see a vision of Vincent, holding his arms out to her. She tried to run toward to him, but she couldn't move. She was far too weak. "Vincent!" she called out, but then she realized it wasn't real. It was just an illusion.

As she knelt upon the floor, she wished that Vincent was there to save her. It was then that she noticed a series of metal pipes along the wall. PIPES!

She reached for her high-heeled shoe which was lying on the floor. She began to click the pipes with the heel of her shoe in attempt to send out a message to Vincent which could be heard far Below.

Meanwhile, Gabriel and his goons were wondering who Vincent might be and just who he was to Catherine. They had found some books in her apartment with his name written in them. "Whoever this man is... Vincent; I think he can lead us to the book," Gabriel said to Jonathon, his right-hand man.

"Do whatever you have to do to find this Vincent at once," Gabriel ordered his henchman.

~*~o~*~

When the urgent message came in on the pipes down Below, a messenger rushed to Vincent's side. "It's Catherine! She's trying to reach you!" the messenger exclaimed.

The messenger gave Vincent the location of the warehouse were Catherine was being held. It was a matter of minutes before Vincent made it to the warehouse. In a furious rage, he tore down the steel doors as he was being recorded by dozens of security cameras from several angles. As Vincent was breaking into the warehouse, Gabriel's goons were taking Catherine away in a car. She was so heavily drugged, she barely knew what was happening around her, but from somewhere, she thought heard Vincent's fierce roar. Had he come for her? Was she about to be rescued?!

Vincent was standing on the second story, staring out of the window when he saw Catherine being whisked away in a black car. He burst through the glass, shattering it into thousands of razor-sharp pieces. He landed on the car as it began to speed away. He was thrown off the vehicle as it drove away, but not before he had slashed into the throat of one of Catherine's captors with his deadly claws as he reached in through the open window. As he lay on the ground, watching the car disappear down the street, he called out his beloved's name in agony. "Catherine!" he screamed.