Omega
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Susannah Sandlin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612183596
ISBN-10: 161218359X
Dedication
To Dianne, who saved Penton from the CIA, and so much more.
D
avid Jackson’s back slammed into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster, sending a cloud of dust, splintered lathing, and blood-covered plaster chips pluming outward.
“A whole town can’t just disappear. Tell me where they went.” Matthias Ludlam hefted one of the ugly primitive paintings he’d pulled off the wall of his new headquarters in the Penton Clinic office and cracked it over the back of an upholstered chair with a crash of splintered wood frame and torn canvas.
He wielded a jagged spear of framing and punched it into Jackson’s chest, just hard enough to use
its
point to make
his
point.
“You will talk to me, Mr. Jackson. You obviously left the Penton scathe and your memories were scrubbed, but guess what? Memories can be retrieved.” He lowered the makeshift stake and poised it over the man’s groin. “Here’s my next target.”
“Please. I don’t remember anything, I swear.” Jackson, a short and slender black-haired vampire, looked like a teenager
and couldn’t have been turned more than a decade. Matthias recognized the vacant expression and the man’s dilated pupils and knew his memory had been scrubbed thoroughly. But even altered memories could be retrieved sometimes if the pressure were great enough.
Matthias knew how to exert pressure.
After months of targeting them in different ways, he finally had trapped the Penton rebels exactly as he’d planned—Aidan Murphy, the Slayer Mirren Kincaid, and their whole band of humans and vampires, including his ingrate of a son, William. Three days ago, he’d received backing from the Vampire Tribunal to shut down the entire town. Better still, permission to kill Murphy for illegally turning a human doctor into a vampire—a crime in these days when vampires were on the brink of starvation and civil war. And permission to kill Mirren Kincaid for murdering that pain-in-the-ass Tribunal member Lorenzo Caias.
Then that goddamned squaw Kincaid had taken as a mate used her telekinetic powers to throw the whole town into chaos and they’d escaped. All those people—he’d estimated a hundred vampires and humans combined—had just vanished from a little town in the middle of nowhere. It was impossible.
He shifted the stake a few inches to the left and jammed it into Jackson’s thigh, proving the stupid fool could still cry like a human. Murphy had bonded a bunch of weaklings who’d rather cower in the protective cover of a herd, hiding behind Murphy and Kincaid, than stand on their own. “Where did they go?”
Jackson’s legs collapsed, forcing Matthias to back out of the way or get blood on his tailored suit.
“Omega.” Tears, mucus, and blood mixed on Jackson’s face. “They’re in Omega.”
Another half hour of persuasion yielded nothing more, and Matthias finally turned the man over to Shelton Porterfield. Former manager of Matthias’s Virginia estate, Shelton was now his second-in-command in what he’d come to think of as Project Penton.
The Vampire Tribunal wanted Penton shut down, but Matthias needed Aidan Murphy, Mirren Kincaid, and their mates dead. They knew enough to ruin him if they could ever get enough ears on the Tribunal to listen. Luckily for him, the Tribunal was threatened by Murphy’s power and not prone to giving him a sympathetic audience. They also didn’t like getting their hands dirty, which meant they’d leave Matthias alone to handle things however he wanted.
He looked down at Jackson. “Might as well kill him. He can’t remember more, or he’d have coughed it up by now. And he’s too pathetic to be of any use to us as a fighter, even if I enthrall him.”
Shelton flicked a glance over the prostrate man and ran the tip of his spongy tongue across his lips. His thinning white-blond hair made his blue eyes look almost electric. “Pretty, though. Care if I have a little fun with him first?”
Jackson whimpered, already healing enough to understand Shelton’s intentions, and Matthias looked at Shelton in disgust, brushing the remaining dots of plaster dust off his jacket and smoothing down his hair. “Do whatever you want—just get him out of here.”
He watched Shelton hustle the man out the door. His lieutenant liked to play with his prey, especially the ones who barely looked old enough to be legal, and Matthias almost felt sorry for the hapless David Jackson. Almost.
Omega.
What the hell did that mean? Obviously, it had to be some kind of last-ditch escape plan for everyone to have disappeared
so quickly. And only a master vampire could alter the memories of another vampire—even a weak one like Jackson—which meant Murphy or Kincaid had wiped the memories of everyone not going with them into Omega. If they went
into
Omega, it sounded more like a physical place than a plan.
Before Murphy had done his Houdini act with most of the bonded humans and his key lieutenants, including William, Matthias had laid waste to the town with a few dozen mercenaries lured by money and the hope of unlimited feeding. The more time that passed after the vaccine to prevent a human pandemic had turned the blood of vaccinated humans poisonous to vampires, the more desperate his kind became. There was no shortage of bodies willing to help break up Murphy’s town of vampires and bonded, unvaccinated humans.
As soon as Murphy and Kincaid were dead, the whole structure of Penton would crumble. Matthias would be a hero for doing the Vampire Tribunal’s dirty work. And his foolish son William would be back under his control.
Omega.
One little word, but it might be enough to fire up Matthias’s secret weapon. He’d been keeping this treasure to himself until he figured out what to do with it.
He stuck his head outside the clinic office, making sure Shelton and his evening’s entertainment had left the building. Then he crossed the office to the back corner and shoved aside an area rug. At first glance, it looked like the same oak parquet pattern as the rest of the floor. Not on second glance, however.
His people had set off one of their explosives on the west side of the clinic. The east wing, where the office lay, was still usable but had been jolted enough to show off the cracks in the floor where an intricate wooden lock lay hidden. Matthias
recognized William’s work, and an uncomfortable mixture of pride and anger filled his chest. His son was smart in his own way—and stupid in others. The boy had learned to make these kinds of puzzles at one of a million summer school sessions he’d taken to make up for failing his studies during the school year.