Chapter 113

The freight elevator ride was slow, but even so Kahlan thought that they were going down a few stories at least. She mentally huffed. That's why Cam's sat didn't pick up on it. Knowing they could be headed to anything, she silently unsnapped the strap on her pistol. Chuck's look told her he was also ready.

When the thing finally stopped, Brian raised the gate and stepped out. Before Kahlan and Chuck could move, he held up a hand. "Just wait. I have to lower the barriers."

Not knowing what he meant, they stood still, and Kahlan watched him closely. He was doing something to the side wall with his hands, and she wasn't sure if he was summoning a demon or solving an algebraic equation, but it looked complicated in an occultish way.

After a few more minutes, he smiled and then waved them out into the little room.

"It wouldn't have been safe for us to come down here without you?" Kahlan asked as she stepped out.

"You, yeah, you would have been fine, but that thing he's carrying would have burst into flames, and then we both would have been out our money."

Chuck stood where he was. "So, it's safe now? Any supernatural beings can cross?" With the man's strange look, he tried to alleviate his suspicions. "I don't want any burns because of this shit head."

The man laughed. "Yes, it's safe."

XXXXX

Out in the van, both vampires stood up. "And that's our cue," Sebastian said as he smiled.

Rossi nodded. "Yep, let's go, but we do it slowly."

"Yeah, cause if we show up before Kay actually gives the signal, she's going to be pissed," Cam told them and they all started walking towards the little building on the other side of the trees.

XXXXX

Kahlan and Chuck looked around. There were two doors, one was a normal looking interior door, but the other looked like a door to an actual cooler. Chuck laughed. "I thought the 'cooler' was just what you called it."

The man shrugged. "The cooler slows them down and makes that dead man's blood last longer on 'em," he explained as he opened the heavy metal door.

Kahlan looked in it and had mixed emotions. She was happy it was empty, but she couldn't deny secretly hoping that her husband was going to be in it. She looked at the harvester. "How are you going to auction him off, some secret server on the dark web or something?"

He huffed. "No, that shit can be traced." He smiled. "I go old school and use the auction block, and I invite my customers in with a well disguised invitation." He nodded as his eyes danced around. "Course, I'll have to give them time to get here, so he'll be here for a few weeks at least. Those chains as powerful as that blood you used on him?"

Chuck nodded. "Oh yeah."

"You get many vampires?" Kahlan asked him.

He shook his head. "Not too many, and most of them aren't worth trying to sell." He gestured to the floor within the cooler. "Go ahead, throw him down."

Chuck did, and then turned back to him. "When was the last time you got one that was decent?"

The man huffed and started shaking his head. "Don't even think that I'm going to pay you more because you think yours is special or something!"

Chuck held up his hand. "I'm not trying that. I've just haven't run into a lot of them, and I was wondering how common they are around here."

Kahlan gave him a charming smile. "Maybe we can go bag you another."

Brian relaxed with that. "Oh well, lets see, I've had a few this last month or so. Harvested one, sold the female, and then that dark haired son bitch! Now he. . ." He shook his head as his hands balled into angry fists. "He was. . . well, like that hellhound you mentioned!"

As soon as the words 'dark haired' rolled off his tongue, Kahlan had to will herself not to get excited. "Really?"

He huffed. "I mean, I've never really harvested a hellhound cause, you know, they're pretty fucking dangerous and have to be killed, but that's what I'd compare him to."

Chuck laughed. "What made him so hard to deal with?" he asked as he shot a look to Kahlan.

"He was smart, powerful. . ." he explained and Kahlan's hand inched closer to her knife. "No matter what I did, it was like it didn't work on him." He shook his head. "Kept telling me that his friends would find me and then I'd regret it, that I should let him go. Can you believe it? Some blood sucking asshole in chains trying to tell me what to do!"

Chuck noticed Kahlan's knife in her hand and her fingers were twitching. He took a deep breath. "And what did you do to him?"

The man laughed. "I fixed his ass!"

"How so?" Kahlan asked as she moved closer.

"Did you kill him?" Chuck asked as he moved a little away. He definitely didn't want to get in between Kahlan and the target of her anger.

"What?!" Brian hollered and looked at Chuck as if he was stupid. "Of course, I didn't kill him. One like that, now he's worth a lot to the right person."

"Right person?" Kahlan asked as she moved even closer.

"Yeah, you know like a collector or one of those damn rich pseudo hunters."

"Pseudo hunters?" Chuck asked as he tensed.

"Yeah, those rich fuckers that want to feel like a real man and kill a monster. They pay a lot just to be able to stake a fucker like that." He laughed. "Course, he's nice and safe cause the monster is chained and immobile, but still mean as a rabid bear."

"What's a collector?" Chuck asked to keep the man's attention off Kahlan. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that Chuck was worried she was going to break her own teeth before killing the asshole standing in front of her.

"Oh, they are those weird fuckers that like having things in cages, you know, like a zoo, for them to look at. Some of 'em have a very extensive private collection. That's actually where I get a lot of my more rare items," he added with a smile.

"So who did you sell that vampire to?" Chuck asked.

XXXXX

Rossi and Cam looked at the open elevator shaft. "Well, unless someone sends it back up, we're not getting down there," Rossi whispered.

"You two might not be able to, but we can," Sebastian said with a grin.

"But Kahlan hasn't given us the signal yet," Cam told him.

"And by the sounds of it, she's not going to. She's going to kill that bloody asshole if we don't get down there and stop her," Christian insisted.

Rossi shook his head. "No, she won't. She'll get what she needs out of him."

Sebastian looked at the older profiler. "Are you sure about that, David? If he tells her that he's sold Aaron to one of those people, will she be able to control herself?"

"And if he has, then he deserves everything that Kay can do to him!" Cam argued.

"Yes, but if he doesn't mention Aaron's name, can we even be sure he's talking about him? He might have sold some other vampire, but the information we could get from him may lead us to Aaron," Sebastian offered.

Rossi ran his hand over his goatee as he considered it and then nodded. "Alright, go down there, but do not intervene unless it's absolutely necessary."

Sebastian nodded as he squeezed Rossi's shoulder and moved to the edge of the shaft with Christian right beside him.

"And send the damn elevator up!" Rossi demanded softly and then they jumped.

XXXXX

"I didn't sell him, yet. Had to give him a cooling off period," Brian said with a chuckle.

"Cooling off?" Kahlan asked with furrowed brows.

The man nodded as he grinned. "Yep. Stuck his ass in the freezer. That'll show him that he's not in charge of me," he told them proudly and then laughed so hard that his face got red. "He's a regular vampcicle!"

Kahlan was on him in a second with her knife to his throat. "You stuck him in a freezer?!"

XXXXX

Hotch flinched, and when he realized he had fallen asleep, he mentally cussed himself as he looked around with frantic eyes wondering what had woken him. He could hear a soft rumbling, but he wasn't sure where it was coming from.

After scraping dried blood out of his eye lashes, he could see a little better, but that still didn't help much with as dark as it was. When he put his hands on the ground to get up, he could feel the vibrations and they were starting to get stronger. Son of a bitch!

He wasn't sure if it was the triterrortops or some other monster, but he knew he didn't want to meet any monster in the small room. He looked back up the chute, but he still couldn't see anything. He took a deep breath. Should I try climbing it?

When the vibrations got strong enough that he could feel them in his legs, he stuck his hand on the wall. No! It wasn't a monster coming, the walls were going to move again.

His eyes snapped to the tripwire and its trap. Shit! If that thing falls. . . He tried to judge where the safest place to stand would be and moved as the walls started to shake in earnest. He chose the corner of the same wall where the trap was and hoped he judged it correctly.

As he stood there trying to keep an eye on all four walls at the same time, his mind raced. Do I try and get out the first opening that appears, or do I wait and see what's on the other side?

When the shaking got stronger, his eyes searched, but he couldn't see anything actually moving. He wondered if it was just too dark, or if he was wrong about the walls moving.

His head snapped around when he heard a thunk mixed in with the rumbling, and when he figured out what it was, he wilted. Son of a bitch! A good-sized rock had fallen from the chute, and he knew that is what was moving, not the walls.

Is it getting bigger to let that damn dinosaur through or is it closing up? He bit his lip as he crept towards it. More rocks and dirt started falling out of it, but he still ducked his head to see if he could determine what was happening.

A roar and two bright blue eyes told him everything he needed to know, and he started backpedaling. He tripped over the large rock, but he was able to get himself up and he started for the far wall. He wasn't sure why because the room was so small that the wicked creature would be able to get him no matter where he tried to position himself.

A jolt to the ground told him the triterrortops had landed, but he still scrambled to get as far away from it as he could. After a thundering roar and a snort, it charged, and its big horn impaled Hotch's lower back causing him to scream. Then it flicked its head which tossed Hotch into the ceiling and bouncing into the wall which he slid down. Son of a bitch!

As he tried to catch his breath and push himself up before the beast trampled him, his hand brushed the tripwire. He flinched back from it, but a roar from the deadly monster made him look to see where it was. He sank to the ground as if too weak to get up and waited.

As soon as the beast came charging again, he hit the wire and covered up his head as he slammed his eyes shut. The beasts roar was cut short as the giant log slammed into it and the percussion even jolted Hotch which made him try to get as small as possible. The beast bellowed in agony as it was slammed into the far wall, and the sounds that escaped it afterwards made Hotch cringe.

After a few seconds, he finally uncovered his head and looked up. The beast was suspended in the air as the log's spikes had pinned it to the wall, and its legs were still twitching as blood and gore dripped from it. Hotch slammed his eyes shut and turned away. Yes, he was sure the beast would have killed him if it had had the chance and what he'd done was done in self-defense, but he still didn't like it.

He panted as he flopped over onto his side, and then cringed as the gaping wound the dinosaur's horn had left him with protested any movement. He swallowed. I think telling Copper that I don't get thirsty was a lie because I'd give anything for some water right now. As he thought about it, he cringed some more. Well, not from that basin, but almost anywhere else.