Night Hungers (6 page)

Ten minutes later, Duncan and the children pulled up beside them and a few minutes after that a battered pick-up with “March Towing and Service” written on the side. When the woman got out and slammed the door, Bailey was surprised and when she stepped toward them, Bailey moved toward her.

The two women stared at one another, both recognizing what the other was. They didn’t know one another, but they did know that they were one in the same. Both were creations rather than human. When the woman reached out and touched Bailey’s mind, she knew it for a certainty.

“I’m not going to harm them. I work for Danny March. I don’t want any trouble. I
just want to do my job and go.”

Bailey glanced over at Sara and knew that she had detected something.
“Who are
you? And are you a part of the lab at Co-Tech Industries? That’s where I came from, but
it’s been gone for over twenty years now.”

“No. I don’t know anything about Co-Tech Industries. I was made in some place that
I’m not sure had a name. It was a lab, but only on the inside. It’s gone now too. So are
the monsters that worked there.”

Bailey knew without a doubt that the “monsters” had been killed by this woman.

When she was about to ask her name again Sara walked up to them. One look over her shoulder showed Duncan and the children going toward the entrance to the mall.

“Bailey? What’s going on?” Sara turned to the woman and reached out her hand.

“I’m Sara MacManus. I believe you know my mate, Aaron. I can smell him on you. Then there is the slight connection from our conversation last night as well. You saved his life.

I’m indebted to you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to fix your car and nothing more. I want nothing to do with either of you. And I’d very much like it if you would both forget whatever notions you have in your heads too. I’m a mechanic, nothing more. Mrs.

MacManus, can you tell me what’s going on with your vehicle? I’ll see if I can get it running for you.”

“All right. For now at least. It won’t start. It makes a clicking noise when I turn the key, but doesn’t engage it seems. I’m okay now to get home if you want to work on it.

Bailey and I will ride home with Duncan.”

The engine turned over and idled. No one was in the car and no one had turned the key. Bailey didn’t say a word. She wasn’t sure what she would have said either if Duncan and the children hadn’t chosen that moment to return.

“If you wouldn’t mind driving it to the garage, I’ll follow you. It shouldn’t give you any more problems as long as you don’t turn it off between here and there. And then Mr.

Duncan can give you a lift home. Is that all right with you?”

Bailey could tell that Sara was ready to burst with questions, but said nothing. It wasn’t until they were seated in the now running car that Sara exploded with them. It might have been funny if Bailey didn’t have questions of her own.

“I take it you two know one another? She’s a lot stronger than Aaron or I felt last night, though I can still feel a bit of weakness to her. What can you tell me about her and where do you know her from?”

“I don’t know her. Today was the first...you do realize that she’s like me, right?”

Bailey looked in the rearview mirror at the woman following them a good two car lengths back. “You said she saved Aaron last night? Then it’s safe to assume that she is the one who saved Samuel too. I wonder who she works for. I’m going to contact Griff and see what he can find out about her.”

“Aaron said she called herself a bounty hunter. That’s basically the same thing you do, isn’t it? You work for contracts, she collects bounties.”

Bailey looked again. Something wasn’t...she was missing something and she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Bailey are you listening to me?”

Bailey hadn’t been. She’d been off in her own world. Then she it hit her. “She said she didn’t come from Co-Tech Industries. She said that she didn’t know anything about it. Sara, do you think there was more than one lab and that we missed it? I need to contact Griff and have him...have him look into it. Christ.” Bailey sat back on the seat. Closing her eyes, she reached for her best friend and partner Griff. His answering with laughter made her smile.

“Hello, my dear. Has shopping gotten to you yet? I know how much you love that
job. But think, it’s for the little missus birthday and you do love her.”

“Yes, I do love her. I miss you. You haven’t been for a visit in weeks. Tristan was just
saying you should come out and stay a few days.”

Griff was her protector and her best friend. He was also a Celtic being called a Cynogriffon. They, her brother Tyler also, had escaped from Co-Tech Labs just before the three of them had been set to be terminated. Their DNA had failed to give the lab the results they’d been looking for so they were no longer useful. Setting fires and explosions throughout the building, Bailey and a bunch of others had escaped as the building blew.

She and Griff had worked together since. He was the one who set up any jobs that she did. She used to work with her brother Tyler until his death nearly eleven years ago when Salvatore Madison had killed him in cold blood.

“Maybe. But you have called to me for information. I know what you seek. She is
called the Mechanic. The file I got said her name was unknown, but she goes by Zane.

You will need to speak to the being for any more than that. She is very...private. Do not
take this one on, mistress. She is a danger even to herself
.” Bailey would wonder about the pause there later. But his words made her nervous.

“What do you mean ‘a danger to even herself?’”
That can’t be good, Bailey thought.

“How do you know her and how long has she worked with you? She saved the master last
night. Should everyone be on their best guard with her now in the picture?”

“No. She will not harm those she is not hunting. Nor will she harm herself, though it
is thought that she may someday. The queen came to me just after you met your mate and
got Miss Emma.”
Bailey realized that it had been about four years now
. “She told me that
this girl needed work. That she needed to be useful. The queen sends me what she needs
taken care of and I send her out. The queen asked that I tell no one of her and her
relationship with the queen. I told her that when you asked, I would tell you, but would
keep the secret until such time. Zane’s strength and powers are not like yours; hers are
more, much more magically enhanced. I have my suspicions as to where the magic came
from, but that is all.”

Bailey thought about the car starting. She didn’t know a lot about cars, but she thought that someone should have at least had to have turned the key. Glancing over to the ring of keys in the steering column, she noted yet again that the thing was in the off position. She was pretty sure it couldn’t run like that.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Sara’s comment startled Bailey. “You’re thinking she started the car to get us away from her. She didn’t want us asking questions—

especially you. Why do you think?”

“Trust? Afraid? I don’t know. If I were her, I’d not trust another one like me. But for some reason I do. Trust her, I mean. Griff said she works for the queen and that she goes by Zane. Her code name is Mechanic.” Bailey watched as Sara pulled the car into the garage lot and took off her seatbelt. “Sara, she can’t know that we know. Griff said she is stronger than me magically. And that she is powerful.”

Sara nodded. There wasn’t much else they could do for now. Zane wasn’t a threat to them and she had saved the master and another of his kind. Until she did something to do away with his trust, Aaron would protect her as though she was one of his Kiss.

~CHAPTER 7~

Aiden woke to a strange room. It took him several seconds to remember that he’d stayed at the MacManus mansion to sleep through the day. They had all been talking until very late and though Aiden could simply take himself home, he’d decided to stay and talk with Aaron when he rose.

Turning on the shower, he looked at himself in the mirror. The marks from the woman’s fangs were all but gone. The area where she had hit him to knock him down was tender; his chest muscles burned slightly when he moved. But he was otherwise fine.

Maybe a little embarrassed that he’d been downed so easily, but being told that he was considered the most dangerous of the group of them standing there made that not sting quite so much.

Stepping under the hot spray he thought about her again. Not as a cat this time, but as the beautiful woman. Her inky hair and eyes were as dark as a stormy summer night. Her body, while tight and muscled, was still very feminine and soft. When she had shifted into the animal and then back again he could see her shape and found her to be very... He needed to stop this train of thought before he got himself into trouble. He was here to talk to Aaron about setting up a base, a home away from his parents where he could search far and wide for his mate.

Scrubbing his body slightly harder than necessary, he got out of the shower a little sorer than when he’d gone in and a lot angrier with the woman. He wasn’t sure why he was mad at her, but he was all the same.

Getting dressed, Aiden moved to the upper levels of the house and nearly turned around and hid in the lair he’d just left. The voices, heated in anger, were coming from the kitchen and Sara and Aaron were not sounding too pleased with someone else in the room. Entering with caution, Aiden stood back and waited.

“She said that she won’t tell us, not that she didn’t know. Damn it, Sara, I demand that you bring her here right this minute and make her tell me. This is important and I have a right to know.”

“Now Aaron, you know Mel when she gets a—”

“I swear to Christ, James, if you give me that story about her temper once more, I may brain you. Mel and her temper be damned. I have a hunter in my realm, one who is hunting without my permission. I want to know why and who sanctioned this.”

Aiden hadn’t been in the States long, and he’d not spent a great deal of time with the master, but he was pretty sure the man seldom lost his temper. He wondered how much better this was going to get when Aaron suddenly turned on him.

It was all he could do not to burst out laughing. Aiden wondered if Aaron knew he had a pink necklace around his neck. A quick glance around the room showed that there were several more in varying bright colors all over the table.

“You! You go and get this woman and bring her to me. I want her here yesterday.

I’m going to get answers even if I have to get them from her myself.”

Aiden looked over at Sara. He didn’t have any clue who he was to go and get and where he was suppose to find her when he did. Sara looked ready to say something when the phone on the wall rang. Duncan seemed to materialize in the room and answered it.

“It is for you, my lady. It seems that the SBV is finished and we may pick it up at our earliest convenience. Master Danny said that it was a bad solenoid. I’m not sure what that is, but he said that it is running smoothly now. Shall I make arrangements to pick it up tonight?”

“
No!
Aiden will go. He’ll bring her back too. I mean it. If she doesn’t come back with you, I want you to bash her over the head with a heavy object and bring her back anyway. I’m in no mood to put up with this.”

“Aaron, be reasonable. Aiden can’t hit her. Besides, she’d probably hit him back. I’ll go and if she doesn’t come back with me, we’ll try your plan next. We’ll call it Plan B, all right?”

“Sara, I don’t appreciate you making fun of me. I’ve had a rough two days and I’m not in the...shit!” When Aaron backed to the counter, Aiden felt the first tickle of magic enter the room.

The woman powered in the room so quickly that it was like a blink of an eye. When she threw Sara to the ground, tugging Duncan down with her and covering her with her body, Aiden did the same to Aaron. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but knew without a doubt that it was danger.

A spray of bullets filled the kitchen walls with holes almost immediately. Broken glass and pottery flew in every direction. Several heavier items hit Aiden in the back, but he never moved off Aaron. He could see that the woman didn’t move either. What only took a few seconds seemed to go on for hours.

When the room was quiet with nothing more than a few pieces of glass falling to the floor the woman moved slightly. Aiden started to move off of Aaron when he felt a tear in his ribs; pain radiated from the area. Looking down, he could see that he’d been shot and if the weakening of his body was any indication, he’d been hit with silver.

Silver was poison to most supernaturals. It would kill them quickly if in a major organ or slowly if left in the body. Before Aiden could voice that he’d been hit he was lying on his back on the floor and the woman was pressing her hand to his ribs.