“Tell him that there were eight to begin with, now there are only five. Oh, and the manager, Tommy somebody, was in on the entire thing. He was letting the leader into the vault when he was murdered. He owed some money to the robbers. Tommy is dead now because they no longer had any use for him,” Tess told her.
“He was an idiot. Not that I’d wish him dead. But you play with these guys, you have to accept a shorter life expectancy.”
“Well, he got it. But I would keep his death to yourself with the cops. They’ll know you weren’t there when he was killed and wonder how you know anything about it.”
Tansy nodded in understanding. “What about you sitting tight? What would you like for me to tell him about that?”
Tess looked at Tansy and grinned. “Tell him to fuck off. Please.”
Tess made sure that the others were all right; the other robber had left them alone by leaving the area. Good, Tess thought. As she went back into the main part of the bank, Tess saw the two men posted at the front door. They were both well armed and were staying back far enough from the windows so as not to become a target from the police. The police must have arrived sometime while Tess was in the back with Tansy. Tess decided to let the two of them go for the moment.
There were no hostages with them and they were keeping the police out of her way for the moment. She headed back to the vault.
Brian and the other man were loading bank bags with the money. They had also opened a
few of the safety deposit boxes along the walls and had emptied the contents as well. Tommy lay in his own blood and since Tess could not help him, she ignored him.
Waiting for the right moment, she watched the two of them. They seemed to know just
which boxes to open. This made some sense, if she thought about it. With Tommy’s help they would know which ones held nothing of value. They would only need to open the ones that had something of worth in them. But that did not seem to be the case. The other man was touching each box and marking it. From where she stood Tess could not see how he was doing it, so she moved closer to him. She felt when he knew she was there the second before he turned.
He was clairvoyant. Tess grabbed his arm and jerked it up and behind him. He was still human, but his brainwaves where incredible. It mattered little to her at the moment and she wrapped her hand over his brain and pushed herself into him mentally, absorbing all that he knew. His scream echoed throughout the little room.
Even though Brian could not see her, nor feel where she was, he did know that something was happening to his partner. So when Brian pulled the gun out again and started firing she simply turned and let him shoot his man. The bullets ripped into the clairvoyant’s heart, killing him instantly.
Tess dropped her shield and grabbed the gun as it went off again. Pain moved through her in an instant, but she could not let him get the upper hand or she would be dead. Brian had been practicing the dark arts and his magic was strong, but not as strong as Tess.
Opening her palm and her physical form to Brian, she pressed her hand to his face and
pushed all that she had taken from the other man into Brian—the man’s memories, his thoughts, but mostly his abilities. Power surged into him and the room swelled with it.
She watched as he grinned, thinking she had boosted him with her touch. She had really, but there was no reason to share with him that it was only a temporary feeling. Brian had neither the ability to use the mind ability, nor the knowledge to use it.
When he reached out to touch her, Tess backed up. She saw the pain register on his face, just a small twitch of it at first. Then the vein in his forehead began to expand and pulse. He dropped the gun and pressed his hands to his head and groaned.
“It’ll only get worse from here. Next your eyes will start to bleed, then your nose. As your ears begin to fill with blood you’ll become deaf from the pressure. But that will be all right.
When you start screaming, you won’t be able to hear yourself.”
“Hurts! My God, it hurts. What have you done?” Brian moaned.
“I overloaded your brain. It won’t kill you, at least not very fast, but you’ll wish it would.
You won’t be able to see soon. The vessels in your eyes will swell and then your eyes will explode. I’ve seen a person after that happens; the sockets are just empty holes in their heads.
Kind of an ugly sight—no pun intended. Anyway, that won’t be so bad. After a few days you’re going to start to hallucinate about feeling things on your body. That will drive you to the point of no return, but by then you’ll be locked up and there won’t be any way for them to help you. This could go on for years.”
Tess watched as he absorbed her tale. The only part that was true was that she had
overloaded his brain for a few seconds. The rest she had implanted in his brain to make him think he was in pain. She turned to walk away to leave the man to his misery. She needed to take care of the front door now that the others were taken care of. A gunshot sounded behind her as she walked into the main lobby.
“Tansy, it’s Tess Knight. I’m going to open the front doors now. The two up here are all that’s left of the would-be robbers. Once the police come in they’ll want to know about Tommy.
You don’t need to tell them anything. There is going to be an audit soon, that’ll tell them what they need.”
“Yes, I knew about that. You’re sure he was involved? No, don’t answer that, I know you are. What should I tell my alpha? He’ll want to talk to you, I’m sure.”
Tess looked down at the wound in her belly and cringed. It was bad, and there would be very little anyone could do about it at this point. She had lost too much blood. Pressing her hand back over it, she nearly passed out from the pain. Yes, she thought, not much longer now.
“Tell him . . . tell him that I said thank you and that I couldn’t have done it without you. You saved that woman back there, and because of your help no one that didn’t deserve it was killed.
Thanks.”
“Tess, if you come back in after this is over I’ll make sure you get the money you need to buy that car. You saved us all.”
“I’ll do that. I have to get rid of these two. It won’t be much longer now.”
Tess closed off the connection and pulled the shadows around her. There was not much time to mess with these two. She was getting weaker by the moment. Tess moved between them and she pulled the first man’s hand with the gun in it toward the other man and fired, shooting him three times in the chest point blank. The man who held the gun reached for Tess with his other hand just as she put his gun under his chin and fired.
She dropped to the floor with them. Her body was spent. As she crawled away from the dead men she heard the first cop enter from the back; he and his men came in hard, hot, and armed.
Grinning, she thought of the mess he was going to find back there and sobered.
Poor stupid, misguided Tommy had been killed because he had been greedy. It was simply bad choices that Brian had been the one who had “rescued” him.
The front door exploded open as she rounded the corner into the little office she had spotted earlier. That was as far as she could go and collapsed. Her last thought was she should have put her money in the bank across town.
~Chapter 2~
“There are nine dead men and one critically injured woman who I’m not entirely sure is human. Eight of the men are the would-be robbers; the ninth is the bank manager, Thomas Bentley. The woman, Tess Knight, was a customer, the woman Tansy told us about. Ms. Knight will be lucky if she makes it out of the bank alive. She was shot in the lower abdomen and has lost a lot of blood, too much according to the EMT.”
Bradley nodded at his brother David. Tansy had told him that the woman had saved their lives and had it not been for her one of the women, one of his pack members, would have been raped as well. He hoped Aaron made it in time to save Tess. His blood was the strongest Bradley knew of.
Aaron MacManus was his friend and a Master Vampire. With his age and magical powers
Aaron could stand the sun more than a normal vamp could.
“I don’t believe she is either, human I mean. Tansy said that she could move in shadows like a vamp. David, make sure she is transported to the clinic and that just pack is with her. We are going to try and hold her here for Aaron, but it’s still too early for him to rise. Sara is driving here, but it will take too long for her to get here too. Christ, this is a cluster fuck. Do we know what happened in there?”
“No. Tansy said that Tess told her before it happened what was going down. She said that Tess knew that six men were going to join the two that were already here. She also told Tansy to not say anything about Tommy being in on it to the police, that the audit next week would be telling enough. You don’t think this Tess may have been in on it from the beginning, do you?”
“No, but I don’t want to take any chances. Restrain her, but nothing else. We don’t want anyone else hurt because we didn’t know. What else? What aren’t you telling me?”
Bradley may have been David’s brother, but David was also a cop and a damn good one. He would have more information than he might be able to legally give Bradley, but as David’s alpha he would give him information he would not be able to share with any of the men and women he worked with.
“She has a mark, a tat on her arm. It’s a crest of some sort; I think it’s called a sigil. I’ve never seen it before. Can you take a look when she comes out? I’ve not made a big deal of it; most of the men think it’s just at tattoo. It has a set of crossed daggers on it, but doesn’t really look like Sara’s.”
A mark could mean a lot or nothing at all, Bradley knew. But lately he knew that it would mean a hell of a lot, especially if there was magic involved. Deep down, he knew that something was about to hit the fan. Again. He smiled. There was never a dull moment in their little part of Ohio.
He started making a mental note of things he would need to do. First, he would need to contact the queen. Mel would need to be notified about the mark as soon as possible. She was the Queen of Magic and the overseer of all magic used. Sara, Aaron’s mate and the cousin to the queen, had a mark, or sigil, that marked her as a Brianal. It was the Tree of Seasons, but with one difference. Sara’s had a pair of crossed claymores under it, marking her as a member of the Brianal Guard as well. Pete, another woman in Aaron’s Kiss, had a mark too, but hers was a mark of her heritage as a Brianal and a wood nymph. He could only wonder what magic this woman would bring to the Kiss.
Rubbing his hand over his face Bradley knew it was a moot point if the girl did not live. And he looked at his watch again. Damn it, still at least another twenty minutes before anyone would be here to save her.
Bradley felt the vampire before he saw him. He had been around enough of them lately to know that the pinched feeling he got in the back of his neck signaled one was near, and from the amount of pain he knew the vamp was a strong one. He looked around and spotted him leaning against one of the cruisers. Reaching out to David, he had him go toward the man too.
When they were close enough, the man stood and pulled his hands out of his pockets. He raised his hand slightly to show that he had no weapon, but not high enough to draw attention to them.
“Alpha. Captain. Nice night, wouldn’t you say? I’m going to reach into my pocket and pull out my badge and ID, all right?”
As the man reached in, Bradley did the same and handed it to him. David had his badge out already, but did take his hand off his gun and relax. The vamp handed his things to David. When he was finished David handed them to Bradley.
“Nathaniel Tremont. It says you’re with the FBI; want to tell me what you are doing on my streets at my crime scene, Agent Tremont?” David asked him as he looked around the scene. He wondered if David was looking for other vampires.
“Nothing. I saw the lights and came to see if I could be of any help. But it looks like you guys have it under control. I would like to ask if one of the men was Brian Manchester. He’s wanted in several bank robberies in eight states. I’ve been hunting him for several weeks now.”
“Yeah, but he’s dead. Looks like a self inflicted gunshot to the left temple. You can be of help, if you will. The woman who helped us out, actually did our work for us, is gravely injured and will more than likely not make it. Could you help us out?”
“No, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m just a visitor passing through. It’s dangerous to attach ourselves to people we don’t know. I’m sure you understand.” And Bradley stood as well, thinking he would stop him and try to talk him into please helping. Suddenly Nathaniel stiffened and looked over Bradley’s shoulder.
“I would like for you to rethink that request. It could be very…beneficial to you to be smart right now. You don’t strike me as a stupid man. I can usually tell when a vampire is being malicious, but you aren’t. Are you? I mean, only a stupid vampire or a dead one would enter my territory without proper notifications.” Bradley turned as Aaron spoke.
“No, sire, I’m not stupid or malicious. Nor do I wish to die. I was just passing through on a lead. I was nearly there when this happened.”
“You’ve been here, what? Five—six days? Long enough to make a phone call or an
appointment, I would think. You are aware of the rules, are you not? Do you know the penalty for trespassing into another Master realm without due process?”
Bradley looked at each man. Aaron seldom got upset, especially when it came to the laws governing his realm, but he was strict when the time warranted it. And it seemed Aaron felt this was one of those times.
The agent looked toward the bank and then back at Aaron. “She mean that much to you,
sire? This woman, she means that much to you?”
“I don’t know the woman. But according to my resources she saved the life of every being in that bank, including several members of this man’s pack. Him I know and trust. And if he wants her saved, then I can do no less for him if that is what he wants. I’m sure you understand.”
The sun was still pretty high in the sky yet and Bradley had not expected Aaron for at least another twenty minutes or so. It was then that Bradley realized the other vamp was out too. He turned back to him and stared, and before he could ask the agent, he answered for him.