Gavrail tied her hands behind her back using an extension cord that he pulled out of a computer in the now deserted foyer. He manhandled her into a car and made a big show about plugging in her seatbelt for her.

"Don't want you getting hurt now, do we?" he said.

She wanted to spit at him but she wasn't sure what good that would do. If she could keep herself safe until noon then James would call the police. But then what? They wouldn't consider her missing so early on and she wasn't at the hotel anymore. She needed to take action.

No opportunity presented itself to escape throughout the car journey, nor could she adequately attract attention on the fairly empty road with her hands tied behind her back. As it was she had to listen to Gavrail hum along to the radio.

She was getting really sick of his happy act. She was certain that he was only doing it because he thought it was intimidating but it wasn't working. She was scared. But by the sheer strength and speed that he had shown and not his piss-poor attempt at a personality.

She could still feel the ghost of his hand on her throat. Every time she swallowed she could feel the bruises that were starting to form tighten on the rest of her skin, making it feel like he was still squeezing. Even so, she couldn't help but swallow again and again as she tried to keep track of the route they took around the outskirts of the city that she barely knew.

She guessed the time they were driving for by counting the songs paid on the radio. It must have been a twenty minute drive out away from the city at a conservative estimate but it felt much quicker. The adrenaline from her fear felt odd running through her unnaturally relaxed muscles, but her mind was racing and time was acting weird.

They pulled up at an industrial site and Gavrail pulled her to her feet out of the car and inside through a half-open truck door. Inside was a mass of old light fixtures from the Blackpool Illuminations. Most of the bulbs that dotted the structures were smashed or missing, leaving faded statues that looked gaudy without the neon surrounding them.

Naomi couldn't see anything that she recognised from the previous year's display. Nor any from the years preceding. This must be a very old storage facility.

There were other people, presumably vampires, lounging around a desk area in the corner of the massive room near some dark, temporary looking offices.

"Hey Dale!" Gavrail called to the group, attracting the attention of the shortest man. "Something that might interest you: I totally lucked out at our demonstration and found myself a Redfern."

He pushed Naomi toward the group and she teetered slightly, still not completely steady on her slightly numb legs. She was determined not to fall over and put herself in an even more vulnerable situation. She planted her feet wide apart and tried to take as much stock of the situation as she could. There were four men in front of her and Gavrail behind. If they were all as strong as him she didn't stand a chance at the moment. It would be best to bide her time.

"Well obviously not actually a Redfern," Gavrail continued. "But she's the youngest's girlfriend."

"Ex," said Naomi. "I left him two weeks ago."

"You know Naomi, you just keep disappointing me. You don't have any Redfern blood in your system so I can't use that. You've left Arran so that might limit your usefulness to me to manipulate him in any way. I'm beginning to feel like you don't want to help me."

"Gav, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" said the man he had called Dale. "I don't want to piss that coven off again. That bitch shot Brice. She landed me in jail!"

"I got you out, didn't I? Besides she only got away with it because she got you to the council before I got there, not because she actually has any power this far out. Trust me, Celyn Redfern's a bitch, but her leash isn't normally let out this long. It'll be shortened again in good time."

"I dunno man, she seemed pretty powerful-"

"She's not an issue. Trust me. Why do you think we're operating here?"

Naomi's breath caught in her throat as they bickered; she knew Celyn. Somehow this legitimised the whole ordeal. This wasn't some stupid, deranged game, this really was a whole world. All this time she had been swimming in an ocean with no idea how deep it was.

"So what exactly do you plan on doing with the girl?" asked one of the others, an older looking man with a grey mustache.

"I dunno yet," replied Gavrail. "She drank the potion but she's been bending the truth and tying to resist capture and all sorts of fun things that you told me shouldn't be possible."

The older man stood and moved toward Naomi. She stood her ground, trying not to look intimidated even when he was face to face with her. He considered her for a moment, then shrugged.

"She probably didn't drink much of it, give her a full dose and it will knock her out. It's the same recipe that I've been using for years and I've rarely seen it not work even on vampires and witches."

Gavrail sighed and nodded and the man went to retrieve something from a satchel on the ground. He came back with a small metal capsule that smelled like lemon floor cleaner when he opened it. Gavrail grabbed the back of her hair and pulled down so that she had to tilt her face upward. She could feel it but the pain seemed distant.

"Now be good Naomi and drink up," he said directly into her ear. "I'm still not sure what to do with you, so I wouldn't go putting ideas about how easier it would be to just kill you in my head."

She didn't have a choice. She opened her mouth and swallowed as quickly as she could, some of the viscous liquid spilling out of her mouth and sticking to her lips. The taste was in concentrate was awful, like sour milk and acid.

A vague plan was forming in her mind; on the off-chance that this new guy was wrong and that she had drunk enough of the potion but it still hadn't been as effective then she should pretend to be effected now. It might lull them into a false sense of security and then she might have more of a chance to escape.

The potion started working pretty quickly, it was like she could feel it turning to sludge and moving through her with each of her rapid heart beats. She tried to lean into it, to let the numbing sensation take over her body. Most likely she would have to let herself fall to the ground, she had to make it convincing.

She did fall, but Gavrail caught her easily before she hit the floor. He picked her up as if she were nothing and her head lolled back uncomfortably.

It was like being on the very edge of a deep sleep. She could just about keep track of the noises in the room but it felt so tempting to stop fighting.

"She had so much promise," said Gavrail as he moved her, depositing her awkwardly in an empty desk chair. "But so disappointing. Do me a favour and check the database for Redfern insurance policies? That might be tricky to circumnavigate if she's protected. And stash her somewhere secure, I should go check on everything back at the demo."

Naomi felt someone jostle her and untie the cord from her wrists, only to replace it with something thinner and stronger feeling. Her insides turned to ice as she felt a hand journey lower down her back from her wrists but thankfully all it was looking for was the phone in her back pocket.

She was lifted again, this time with more difficulty. This was good to know, whoever she had been left with was weaker than Gavrail. He didn't feel particularly strong at all, though probably still stronger than her even when she hadn't been magically roofied.

He dumped her uncomfortably on the ground a little way from where they'd started. They'd definitely passed through a door as Naomi had heard him struggle to open it and then slam it behind him.

She opened her eyes once she was certain that the man had left the room. It took an immense amount of effort. It was as if her lids had been glued together but she unstuck them eventually and looked around the blurry room.

It looked like an old office room, maybe four square meters in total. There was a desk against the far wall and beyond that a window. Naomi pushed herself awkwardly onto her knees and tried to focus on the window, discovering that it was one of those industrial ones with a metal grid inlaid so that it couldn't be smashed. So much for that plan.

She turned her attention to getting free of whatever held her wrists together. Slowly, clumsily, she managed to slide her arms under her legs so that her wrists were now in front of her. They had been secured with zipties pulled uncomfortably tight against her skin.

There was a way to get out of this, she knew it. She was fairly certain that you had to stretch them as tightly as possible and then jerk them off suddenly.

Putting the plastic between her teeth she tugged the ties even further, until the pain was severe. Then she angled her elbows away from her body and tried to bring her hands toward her as quickly as she could.

She wasn't quick enough. Her slowly responding limbs couldn't build up momentum well enough to break the plastic. Now she was still stuck and in more pain than she had been. She doubled over and tried not to sob. She didn't want to bring any attention to herself.

Maybe in an hour or so James would tell Arran where she was. But what good would that do? What did she really know for certain about him? Even if he was the same person that she had thought he was, she wasn't at the hotel anymore and she didn't have her phone.

She was alone.

And she wasn't going to let that defeat her.

She tried to snap the ties again. And again. And again. Each time hurt more but each time the pain helped her focus through the fog of the potion. On the fifth attempt the first ziptie broke. After the seventh she was free.

Naomi celebrated silently, rubbing the indents on her wrists left by the tight plastic. She stood up and had to wait a few minutes for the pins and needles to abate in her legs. She would have to move fast before Gavrail came back, but there was no use in rushing and ruining her chances.

She listened at the door. In the distance she could hear a radio playing but no talking. With any luck there would only be one other person left in the warehouse, but even then that was one too many. She certainly couldn't just walk out through the office door.

Her only options were to either find another way out or maybe set up an ambush from within her makeshift cell. The latter didn't seem like a good option.

She couldn't go through the shatter proof window without making a lot of noise and drawing attention to herself but the walls of the office looked temporary and thin. She crouched down and tested a corner of the wall paneling that had been chipped. She thought that with enough force she should be able to pry it loose and get into the next office. Where she would go from there she didn't know, but maybe there would be something more useful in that one. A broken window or some other miracle.

With great care she dug her fingers into the crack and slowly started building pressure. The plasterboard started to bend but then suddenly broke with a loud bang. She froze. Had she been heard?

A minute passed. And then another. Her legs started to cramp from standing so still but she didn't dare move and make another sound. Yet another minute passed.

No one was coming.

Now that a large piece of the board had broken off she could see the back of another panel. She slid her hand in between the two and tried to push the whole section off, without snapping it and making a sound again. It worked.

She climbed through into a near identical room, this one still with a broken chair. A quick rummage through the desk yielded nothing of use, though she did grab a discarded pencil. Could you really kill a vampire with a wooden stake? Naomi did not know.

She repeated the process again and was treated to yet another bland, derelict office. This was the end of the line with no more temporary walls to break through. Instead she had reached the outer wall, made out a thin metal. There was a small gap between the floor and the wall in one place but as she desperately tried to make any kind of indentation on it it became clear that she had no chance.

Something on the other side of the wall touched her fingers.

She jumped back. She could see someone else's hands start to pry at the gap but with much more success. Whoever was on the other side of the wall was a lot stronger than Naomi.

The metal gave a low, shuddering groan as it started to bend upward. Surely she hadn't gone far enough that this noise would go unnoticed by her jailer.

She clutched the pencil tightly, the only weapon available, and stood still for a terrifying moment as she was blinded by the outside light. She could hear shouting from within the building as her vision started to clear.

"Come with me, quickly," said the slowly emerging form of Arran Redfern.