Deadly Lover (19 page)

Lily had been in the killer’s sights from the beginning. Or at least from the time of Lanyak’s attack. That thought created a coil of fear deep in Jolaj’s gut.

Had he played into a killer’s hand by dragging her deeper into this horror?

The glide-rail pulled to a stop at the platform and together they stepped into the train. The small car overflowed with people. They’d hit midday rush. Standing room only. Charged by his instinct to protect her, his fear became an electromagnet drawing him closer to her side. The crowd gave him a good excuse to press his body to hers as she held on to a center pole. Their hands rested inches apart on the cool metal. An unnatural silence cocooned them amidst the mass of people until Lily startled and opened her link to answer the call coming in on the com-link over her ear. She engaged privacy mode but he had no trouble hearing and from the look she gave him she’d expected that.

“We just got a report of an Ormney attack in progress.” Detective O’Leary’s voice sounded breathless and rushed. “I’m on my way there now. Sending you the locate data, if you want to swing by. Closing com.”

Lily over her shoulder to him. “It’s at the South Regional med center, fifteenth floor, research and development unit. This line will get us there in fifteen to twenty.”

He shook his head. “Too long. In progress. He said in progress. I might be able to stop it.”

He didn’t want to leave her alone. Not after what they’d just learned. He couldn’t let any more of his people die either.

He wrapped his palm carefully around her jaw and lifted her chin. “I have to go.”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said.

“
He
could be there,” he warned. “He could be watching. To see what he’s set in motion.” He waited as she took his meaning and accepted his assessment. “When you come into the building be on guard. Be ready for anything.”

“I’ll be careful.” She clutched a fistful of his tunic. “You too.”

He nodded, lowering his hand. He saw the worry in her eyes as he began to
slip
. She would know
slipping
from a moving glide-rail to the fifteenth floor of a building, blocks away, could be deadly. She rarely showed her emotions around others, but just then they were as luminous as clouds lit by a crack of lightning in a night sky.

They lingered, clear as purpose, even as the world around him slid out of focus. There was a moment of feeling torn apart before he
slipped
toward
out-of-sync
and his surroundings fell away completely. Then he could no longer feel his body. There was nothing, no light, no warmth, no air. Only the familiar tug of Earth’s gravity, could reach him in the space between. It comforted and steadied him as he concentrated on the time, the pattern, the destination. No longer did he have to face the terror of pushing past the tug of safety, slipping endlessly through the deep dark in search of something, anything.

Time ticked through his thoughts and slowly, carefully he
slipped
toward Earth’s pull. Adjusted. Studied the eddies and currents created by the denser matter of roadways and buildings. As he neared
sync
the tearing collision of walls and floors battered against him until he snapped to a halt,
slipping
to
in-sync
in the med center hallway. A crowd of metro and security formed a solid wall of men a short distance away.

He pushed into a run,
slipping
, as a startled security officer turned to face him. The brief
slip
carried him past the men and planted him directly in front of a wide-eyed Kabel. He knew the man. Knew him as a man of quiet strength and reason.

“No one is dying today, friend.”

Kabel roared and charged toward him. He took Kabel’s weight center mass, latched on, and took him into a roll.

Lily watched Jolaj
slip
. There one minute. Gone the next. She keyed in her com with a priority link to Sean.

“O’Leary.” The short, sharp bark probably meant he hadn’t taken the time to see who was on the line.

“Law Keeper Jolaj is en route to the scene.”

“Lily?”

“Yeah. Let your men know, Sean. We don’t want him dropped accidentally.” He wouldn’t hear her fear in her voice. She had it under control.

“Right,” he said. “More?”

“No. Be safe.”

“Close link.”

The line went silent, leaving Lily out of touch. Out of the action. Alone. It didn’t sit well.

Outside, the superscrapers of midtown gleamed in the afternoon sun as the glide-train rocketed past. There were three stations between her and the med center. No freaking way did she intend to twiddle her thumbs and wait for the train to load and unload for each of those stops.

She used her com link to order up a premium, piloted jet-hop to meet her at the next station. When the train glided to a stop, she pushed her way through the crowds. She ignored the long bank of elevators directly across the platform and jogged over to a side door that led to a wide glassed-in staircase and an access to the exterior emergency glide-poles.

She could see her jet-hop waiting at the taxi stand one level down. She took the stairs at a fast clip and picked up speed as she ran the length of the stand. The driver stood next to the open door of the vehicle. She motioned him to get in and dove for the opening as he fired the engine.

He’d already punched vertical when he spoke without turning his attention away from the readouts and controls.

“We’re in a hurry, Madame?”

“A big one. I need fifteenth floor of the South Regional Med Facility, five minutes ago.”

The hopper was tip-top. She barely felt the change when he leveled off and shot them in the right direction. “Taxi stands are at ground level, fifth floor, and top of the building, Madame. I believe the roof puts you—”

“I said fifteenth.”

“But—”

“Just find me an emergency access, I’ll manage.”

“That is against safety—” He cut his standard safety warning short when he caught sight of her. She’d donned her best bad-ass agent face. “Yes, Madame.”

 He got her there in under three minutes and managed to sidle up to a likely emergency access. He went eggshell white when she threw open her door, wrapped her hand around the exterior emergency grip and leaned out to the access panel. Fourteen stories of empty space loomed between her and the street below. She suspected he was thanking God that he’d gotten her account details in advance.

“Hold her steady.” She had to shout over the noise of the hop’s engine.

It took a stretch, but she managed to touch the panel’s exterior override. The panel slid open providing a narrow entrance, but plenty of vertical space. She turned to the driver. “Tag my account for double. You did good.”

He gave her a shaky smile, but kept his eyes on the controls.

She positioned herself in the hopper’s hatch, then pushed off, jumping for the entry. When her boot heels connected with solid flooring, she pushed into a run. She could hear the commotion so she followed her ears.

A crowd of uniforms—Metro, security, and medical—ringed a square of space at the juncture of two corridors. Most of the medics pressed against the walls or hunched over the injured. Security looked on, ready, alert, and clearly irritated that the Metro cops had pushed ahead of them.

Sean was there and his men formed a protective ring to keep the others out. A tumble of chairs and tables littered what had probably been a waiting area, now devastated by the two Ormney males rolling on the floor, locked in combat.

There was blood. Her gut twisted at the sight of it smeared on the floor. Jolaj pinned the man tight, arms keeping the man’s back pressed to Jolaj’s chest. The position kept him mostly clear from the wild man’s claws and teeth. But it couldn’t have been that way from the beginning. The blood made that much clear.

Jolaj held his opponent steady as the man. Probably trying to tire him out as the man tried to shake Jolaj off. The drugged Ormney flailed as he made a sound, half growl, half keening wail.

The pinned man jerked and spasmed then threw his weight to the side. The two men crashed into a chair. The back of Jolaj’s tunic had soaked through with blood. A human would have been stripped of flesh, but the Ormney had thicker skin to go with their lethal claws. Still the sight kicked her breathing up above where it should have been.

She had to help him. But how?

Jolaj forced them into another roll, ending back as they’d been before, with Jolaj on his back and the other man squirming like an overturned bug. She had to help them before one of the men ended up dead.

Lily pushed her way around to the first tech she could find and fisted her hands in his scrubs. “We need something to knock him out.”

The startled man squealed. “Hey!”

Lily pulled him off the wall and shoved him toward the nurses’ station. “Now.”

He started jogging down the hall and Lily followed.

The man stopped at the locked pharmacy cart. His hands shook as he punched in a code. “We can’t do this. We don’t know what he’s already on.” His voice turned pleading. “We could kill him.”

Damn! He was right, but a part of her didn’t care. The part that needed Jolaj to be safe. “Restraints, then.”

The tech gulped air and held his hands out in a surrender gesture. “Okay, but nobody can get close enough and—”

“Just do it!” Lily shoved him toward the nurses’ desk. They had to have an emergency stash of that sort of thing. She’d worry about how to get close when she got there.

The moment he pulled out the bundle of safety restraints, Lily sprinted back to the waiting area. She shoved past Security then Metro to work her way around behind the two men on the floor. The wild one had worked a leg free and was thrashing again.

She unwrapped the restraints. Soft and wide, but sturdy. Still unsure exactly what she was going to do, she edged closer.

Jolaj growled. Not for his opponent. For her. His way of telling her to back off.

Like hell. He had the man’s arms pinned, but that meant he couldn’t get an arm around his neck. Lily held a length of the restraint out where he could see it. “If we’re careful we can restrict his airway without killing him.” She hoped she sounded confident.

Jolaj nodded then spoke soft and calm into the man’s ear. “Steady now. Control. You’re stronger than the drug. I’ve got you. We’re going to sit now. Stay calm.” A constant litany of reassurance.

Jolaj worked the man into a seated position but he would have to pull his upper torso away at least enough for her to get the restraint over the man’s head. Jolaj would have to trust her to get it done right. And fast.

She worked her way closer, watching the wild man’s claws. She had to take a couple of deep breaths to chase away the blackness that hovered just out of her vision. When she looked up to Jolaj, he was watching her, waiting calmly as if he had all day. Wildman, as she was coming to think of him, let out a mighty roar and jerked all three of them to the side. Jolaj moved him back into position then nodded and she moved around behind them. Jolaj leaned his head away as she slipped the wide bandage like material around the man’s neck. She checked the placement then slid to the ground, letting her ass hit the floor and her boots find purchase against the struggling males. She reared back with all her strength and held the pressure steady.

A woman screamed. Lily craned her neck to see a woman wearing the silver of the technology exchange program being held back by med center security. Horror and fear played across her face in turns. She matched the security techs for height, tall for a woman. Leanly, athletic build. Cinnamon brown hair neatly tucked into a bun.

Lily hoped security would hold the woman clear. She hoped her strength would hold. Time dragged. Her muscles burned.

With dozens of eyes on her, the sensation of being watched was skin crawling.
He would be there
. That’s what Jolaj had said. She scanned the crowd. Bradley stood directly across the space from Lily. She didn’t see anyone else acting out of step for the situation. Among the faces, she recognized Timothy Perry and one of the nurses she’d met during her brief visit to the center. Both tending to the injured.

If the killer was there he wasn’t letting his interest show.

It took twice as long as it would for a human, but eventually the Ormney’s limbs went limp and his body turned to dead weight.

She released the restraint and crab-walked away from him. “Medic! We need a medic here.”

Everyone seemed frozen. Hushed.

“I said medic. Now!”

The circle of blue, white, and silver surged forward, lapping over Metro and Security like a wave spilling over a sea wall.

Lily put her feet under her and managed a crouch as she helped Jolaj get the man off of him. She found Sean at her shoulder. Caught and held his gaze. “He’s a victim.”

Sean nodded without hesitation. “We’ve got civilians down here though. We need him restrained before he comes to.”

She let hands pull him away from her, freeing her to move to Jolaj. She clutched her fists in his tunic and pulled his face toward her. “You were supposed to be careful.”

He was moving too damn slow for her liking. “The woman,” he ground out.

Lily twisted to locate the woman in silver. She hunched over the Ormney male, checking his wounds. Lily reached out for Sean’s arm. His attention snapped back to her. “That woman in silver, she needs to stay with the Ormney. They worked together.” It was a guess She hoped it wouldn’t bite her later. “She might be able to help keep him calm if he comes around. She needs to stay close and you need to put a protection team in place.”

Sean’s eyes flashed. “Telling me how to do my job?”

She was just happy everyone was alive this time around. She couldn’t hold back a grin. “Only a suggestion...Detective, Sir.” She gave him a mock salute then turned back to Jolaj. Behind her, she heard Sean assign several of his men to protection and ask the woman to stay close.

She helped Jolaj stand then stepped around behind him and tugged at his tunic. “Damn. Medic. I need a medic here!”