Note d'Auteur: This chapter is rather sort, but it needs to be, I promise to update soon though. As always please enjoy this chapter. Oh and please feel free to drop me a review.

Chapter 27

I should have looked before I leaped.

Turns out that expression is something that people should actually pay attention to; instead of doing what everyone does and say it at corny times when it means nothing.

Had I been thinking and looked down into the alley, I would have seen a swirling black orb of energy before I fell into it. When I did see it, it was too late for me to do anything but fall head long into the void.

For a moment I was scared, and then the simple fear was replaced by pure unadulterated terror. I entered the vortex feet first, I landed flat on my face pinned to the floor by some unseen force. Whoever I chased stood over me in a billowing black robe, his face obscured by a matching dark hood. All I could make you from underneath his hood were two grey eyes, and a pallid face.

"If it isn't the supposedly great Aaron Marsdon, it's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintanceship." He spoke in a snide tone that hinted at a German accent.

"I never thought of myself as great, God like maybe, but never great." I said struggling to get up, and failing miserably.

"It seems that Dresden taught you his level of arrogance and contempt of those more powerful." He chided pacing around to my broken hand and the staff taped to it. "Seems like that leech whore of yours is good for something after all." He stomped down on my broken arm.

A mixture of pain and fury made their way into my throat as I screamed out. The bastard picked his foot off my broken arm, laughing. "I bet there is a lot you want to ask me. Tell you what, I'll let you ask any question you want, and I swear I'll answer it truthfully. How's that?" His voice trailed off.

I was silent for a moment trying to focus on anything but the pain in my arm. "I'll ask you again, what is it you want to ask me?" He shouted kicking me sharply in my cracked ribs. Another rage filled scream escaped from my body shaking it down to my core.

"What did you do to the vampire?" I shouted in protest, panting hard; the pain in my chest keeping me from being able to really breathe.

"I give you free rein to ask any question you want: about whom I am and whom I work for and you ask about the leech's former mate. How touching." His voice was cold and still snide. If I wasn't going to kill him for what he'd done to me already, than I was surely going to kill him for talking about Alice that way.

"Very well, if you insist. It wasn't very hard to twist his mind, it was mostly there any way; he never was truly able to curb his lust for blood like the others. The only thing that kept him alive was his love for that bloodsucking slut." My anger was coming to a head, he can insult me, he can torture me, hell he can kill me for all I care; but he will not insult My Alice.

"I started slowly; I found him one night and told him the woman he loved was in danger, just to wet his appetite. Slowly, over the course of many months I found him hunting all by himself. He thought I was a ghost. I told him that what was happening with the human girl and his supposed brother would eventually get him killed. He didn't care about himself; his only concern was of the girl."

"I convinced him that his 'wife' was going to die first, and soon if he didn't stop it. It took almost twice as long to nudge him into stopping it. He was reluctant at first, talking about how he would die; until I told him that it was either him or the girl. He was compliant after that." He finished just as cold and evenly as he began.

"Bull. Shit." I spat out, earning another kick in the ribs for my trouble. "You don't have the patience to do it; you enthralled him and commanded him to kill anyone or anything that got in his way. That's why he attacked me instead of running around me."

"I told you what your whore would want to hear, but yes that's how it really happened." He said setting his voice to charm. "And because you wasted your one question and since you won't be leaving this meeting her alive. I'll give you the answer to the question you didn't ask. Why did Mab take such an interest in Katherine?" It was bad enough that he dragged Alice into this, but Katherine too. As soon as I got free I was going to hang him upside down, by his toenails and skin him alive with a rusty spoon.

"If you think that The Queen of Air and Darkness takes an interest in every Winter changeling you are sadly mistaken. In fact we didn't tell her at all." Who was this 'we' he was referring to? "We told her daughter Maeve that there was a particularly powerful changeling in Missouri, we gave her Katherine's name, and the Winter Lady did the rest."

"So yes, we made you kill her." His face slowly cracked to show an evil smile, complete with a set of crooked yellow teeth. "Now if you excuse me, I have better things to do."

He turned and began to walk towards the edge of the maelstrom of energy. Stopping suddenly he said, "Oh I almost forgot to introduce you to Blanka." With a snap of his fingers a portal to Faerie opened and a woman walked through.

I shouldn't call her a woman; she was a vampire, Red Court, there was no doubt. Blanka towered over Black Cloak, with a flowing mane of strawberry blonde hair that trickled down her back; her skin mask, hiding the slimy bat that was her real form, was simply gorgeous.

She stalked up to me with the grace of a runway model, almost as graceful as Alice. A cruel smile crossed her lips exposing her glistening white fangs and the world's worst narcotic. My mouth went dry.

"I'll leave you two to play." Black Cloak said stepping through the portal, closing it behind him. As he closed the portal, the swirling vortex or dark energy dissipated leaving us painfully alone.

"Why don't you stand up?" Blanka cooed.

I didn't stand, staying glued to the ground.

"That wasn't a request." She said yanking me up by the hair. "You have to admit that this is much, much better." Blanka pulled me in front of her shapely fake form. She calmly moved her hand from my hair, clamping it down harshly over my mouth. "You don't need to this do you?" Her fingernails cut the tape like a knife, letting my staff clatter to the floor.

"Now the real dilemma: what do I do with you?" She purred into my ear, "Should I kill you, turn you, or take you prisoner. Anything I choose I still get a huge reward." Her breath sent chills down spine.

"mmph hmm!" I tried to protest. I reached for my sword with my good hand.

"We can have none of that." She scolded, like she was talking to a small child. Cruelly she twisted my right hand behind me, pushing it just to the point where it was just about to break.

Blanka gently forced my head back, exposing my neck, and all the blood flowing just under the surface. Running nose along the base of my throat, "Mmmm, you do smell delicious." She purred into my ear. "Except for that stench of the Rose Court bitch on you."

"Oh yes," she said responding to something I didn't say, "We created the Rose Court to cure all of our weaknesses, but the creatures were defective! The idiots were too violent; they couldn't live in the world, so we exterminated all of them, or at least we should have. A handful managed to escape, and repopulate the species." She gently traced her inhuman lips across my throat ever so careful to not let a drop of venom touch my throat.

"What would you like?" She said loosening her grip slightly from my mouth. "Keep in mind that I get to make the real decision, but I always like help."

"Go. To. Hell. Bitch." I all but screamed through the loose screen of fingers around my mouth.

"It's unfortunate that you have to be like this; life's more fun with audience participation." She squeezed my mouth shut again, quietly shushing my protests. "This won't take very long. It will all be over soon."

I shut my eyes preparing for the worst, as she slowly opened her mouth, exposing the four inch fangs and the toxic venom that went along with it. I evened out my breathing preparing for the dull pain, the loss of blood, and the end. She leaned down gently placing her mouth on my neck, before I realized what was going on there was a sharp pain in my back that began sliding all the way across to the other side.

And then nothing, save for darkness and the absence of feeling.