The vampire went deathly still. He raised his hands. "I don't know anything. Why would I know anything? Do I look connected? I don't even have a phone."

Bella's eyes darted around the room. They widened and she nodded toward the minifridge. "But you do have a duct tape."

She didn't have to say it twice. Max grabbed the dusty roll of tape from the top of the refrigerator, stepped forward and started immobilizing their friend.

"Leave one of his arms free. Tape that hand to the table, palm down." She jerked the bolt from his shoulder, and blood gushed out, first a strong pulse, then a trickle.

"You're not going to let him bleed to death, are you?" Max pulled a strip of the tape free and morphed his face, using his fangs to bite through the heavy material.

Bella laughed at him. "No, but he will wish for death when we are finished."

"I told you, I don't know anything." The vampire let them lay his arm across the table, too distracted by their threats to put up any resistance.

Max had seen this too many times. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and he paused in his bondage duties to absorb the blow. He'd gone soft somewhere between his last job and this. He didn't want to cause pain and death anymore. He didn't want any part of this.

Most of all, he didn't want to see Bella do these things. He wanted to pull her from this cabin and drag her to the car, start driving somewhere else and never look back.

"Max?" Bella frowned at him. How long shed been doing so he had no clue. When his gaze met hers, her eyes flared, then narrowed in silent understanding. She pursed her lips and nodded toward the tape in his hand. "Keep going."

If asked to describe Bella's methods of torture, the words cruel efficiency would have been the only appropriate answer. She didn't bother with a lot of talk once her victim was secured.

"What is your name?" she asked him.

When he answered, "Arthur Dent," she stabbed the arrow that had previously been lodged in his shoulder straight through his hand.

"I take it that's another fake one, huh?" Max asked, raising his voice to be heard over the vampire's screams.

She wrenched the bolt free and repeated her question. "What is your name?"

"Patrick! It's Patrick!" he howled, straining against his bonds.

To Max's surprise, they didn't break. All that stuff they said about duct tape was true.

"Patrick, do you work for the Oracle?" She twirled the arrow through her fingers and held it poised above his already healing hand. The speed with which the injury closed was an indication of Patrick's age. And power.