Authors: Adrian Phoenix
“The pull’s getting stronger,” Heather said around a mouthful of cracker. “So south is definitely the right direction. My gut says he’s still in Louisiana. We just need to figure out where. If the bastards would stop drugging him, I could reach him.”
Caterina cut a quick glance at the FBI agent. Red light from the dashboard glimmered faintly against Heather’s face,
highlighting the tension in her jaw, her compressed lips, her shadow-hollowed eyes. She held one vivid orange cracker tightly between her fingers.
I could almost believe that she’s speaking the truth. She’s damned good. Maybe she missed her true calling in Hollywood.
Caterina’s fingers twitched against the steering wheel. She itched to reach inside her jacket for her SIG, yank it free of its holster, and fire a bullet point-blank into Heather’s temple.
But she had a better plan, one that didn’t involve extensive cleanup of the Nissan or torching it; a plan that had been inspired by Heather’s kidnapping fairy tale.
“Don’t worry,” Caterina said, giving her attention back to the white-lined road stretching endlessly beyond her windshield. “We’ll find him.”
“The sooner, the better,” Heather replied. “Can’t we go faster?”
Nice touch. Again, she was almost believable.
“Better not,” Caterina murmured. “We can’t chance getting pulled over. I don’t know if anyone’s realized you’re gone yet or my role in things. Which is why—”
“You dumped your cell after letting Von and De Noir know that you’d found me,” Heather finished. “In case you were being tracked. You’re right. We can’t risk it. Dammit.” She sighed. “How much farther to the rendezvous?”
“A few more miles,” Caterina replied. “De Noir will probably be able to help you follow that pull to Dante more accurately than I can with a car.”
“I hope so,” Heather said. Weariness blunted her words, robbed them of force. “We’re almost out of time,” she added softly, as if to herself.
Well, you are, at least.
But Caterina kept that thought to herself. Even though Heather had grabbed a gun from the agent she’d downed back in Little Rock, Caterina had no intention of giving her an opportunity to use it—not like she would have with an opponent she respected.
Spies and traitors only deserve a quick execution
.
How did she manage to fool all of us
?
(she didn’t)
Headlights from cars traveling the opposite way on the other side of the barrier throbbed behind Caterina’s eyes, whited out the edges of her vision like a late spring blizzard, ratcheted her headache into high gear. A sick feeling knotted her stomach.
Something’s wrong.
But she lost the thread of that thought when she caught a glimpse of the sign she was looking for:
REST AREA
2
MILES
. A white banner reading:
CLOSED
had been slapped across it diagonally.
“There it is,” Caterina said, nodding at the sign.
Popping the last cheese cracker into her mouth, Heather sat up straight. Relief washed across her face. “Good,” she breathed. “And it looks like we won’t need to worry about freaking out any civilians.”
“No, we’ll definitely be alone,” Caterina said as she arrowed the car toward the off-ramp. She offered Heather a tight smile. “No witnesses.”
H
EATHER SHUT THE CAR
door and looked up, hoping to hear the rush of wings. Bright, cold stars gemmed the otherwise empty night sky. “When is De Noir supposed to be here?” she asked, scanning the black-inked horizon.
“Anytime,” Caterina replied. “In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to check the building and make sure we’re actually alone.”
“Good idea.”
Heather lowered her gaze from the sky and studied the darkened building beyond the sidewalk. On one side, a sign read
WOMEN
, on the other side,
MEN
. And painted in huge white letters between the two sides:
CLOSED DUE TO BUDGET CUTS
.
Pulling her borrowed Glock free from the back of her jeans, she limped across the weed-choked parking lot toward the side marked
MEN
, pebbles gritting beneath her Skechers. Behind her, she heard Caterina following, the assassin’s tread soft, sure, and quick.
“I’ll take the other side,” Caterina said.
Heather stepped up onto the sidewalk. Dizziness spun her thoughts. For a split second, she thought she smelled Dante—frost and fire and fallen leaves—thought she felt his heated presence, thought she heard his husky voice.
“Dante?” she whispered, halting.
Again, she thought she heard his voice, but not in her mind through their bond. Instead his voice haunted the chilly air like an autumn ghost, like a faraway echo.
Catin
, look out. Run!
The skin prickled on the back of Heather’s neck, triggering her inner alarms. Adrenaline surging through her veins, she ducked and swiveled smoothly to her left, while swinging the Glock up in both hands.
A muted
thwip
burned through the air where her head had just been.
Heather felt a cold shock to find herself practically nose to nose with Caterina instead of the unknown SB or FBI assailant she’d expected. Her finger flexed against the Glock’s trigger.
Time slowed, stretched out like a loaded slingshot—then snapped back. Three things happened simultaneously and with breath-stealing swiftness.
A gun barrel was jammed against Heather’s left temple in a heated, cordite-scented kiss.
She fired the Glock as her hands were knocked aside, the gunshot cracking like winter ice through the night.
Electric pain jolted from Heather’s wrist to her shoulder as Caterina seized the Glock and twisted it. The gun dropped from Heather’s pain-numbed fingers to clatter against the sidewalk.
Caterina kicked away the gun. She regarded Heather with hazel eyes devoid of emotion. Perspiration glistened on her forehead. Strain etched stark lines around her mouth. “How did you fool us?” she demanded. “All of us—Dante, the
llygad
, me. It’s important I know how you did it.”
Heather’s muscles ratcheted another turn tighter.
This isn’t just betrayal. Something’s wrong with her.
Very
wrong. But whatever it is, I’m not going to stand here and let her kill me. I’m not going to die in a rest area parking lot surrounded by weeds and silence and the stink of piss.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Heather replied,
inching her hand toward the hem of her sweater and the Taser hidden underneath it. “And I could ask the same thing of you. You gave your word to Dante. I watched you put your gun at his feet and promise to guard and defend him.”
The gun barrel jammed harder into Heather’s temple. Leather creaked as Caterina’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Caterina said, her voice cold enough to hang icicles from the eaves of the restrooms.
As Caterina squeezed the trigger a second time, Heather dropped to her knees. She felt something blaze past the top of her head, almost skimming her scalp. A split second later the SIG’s muted
thwip
reached her ears.
Heather yanked the Taser out from beneath her sweater and fired. The prongs hit the assassin in the throat. Caterina stiffened, muscles rigid. She toppled over, hitting the pavement hard, and knocking the gun from her grip.
Heather jumped to her feet and delivered a solid kick to the assassin’s temple. She didn’t stop the current running through Caterina’s body until after she’d scooped up the SIG and aimed it.
But once Heather stopped the current, Caterina’s eyes closed and her body went limp. She was out cold.
Or pretending to be
.
Panting, pulse pounding through her veins, Heather crouched and shoved the gun’s muzzle against Caterina’s chest, right above her heart. Several long minutes slipped past. Nothing. Not a twitch or flutter. Not faking, then. Keeping the gun muzzle firmly in place, she searched Caterina. She found the car keys in a blazer pocket, along with a smartphone.
Well, well, well. What do you know?
Heather pulled the phone free, relief flooding through her.
Guess the meeting with De Noir wasn’t the only thing she lied about.
One quick call, then she’d hit the road.
Heather punched in Annie’s number.
B
ATON
R
OUGE
D
OUCET
-B
AINBRIDGE
S
ANITARIUM
B
ROWS ANGLED DOWN INTO
a deep, frowning V, SB agent Bryan Graham glanced at his partner, then back at the vamp strapped to the table. “What’d he just say?”
“Dunno and don’t care.” Morgan hefted his blood-spattered drill in one beefy hand. “At least the seizure’s over. About fucking time too. I was getting worried that we’d have to quit before we even got really started.”
S blinked, dazed, his attention focused on the ceiling. Tendrils of black hair clung to his sweat-slicked face. Blood smeared his lips, trickled from one nostril, oozed a deep red snail’s path from his ears down along his pale neck to disappear beneath the collar of his straitjacket.
Graham nodded. “Yeah, no point in beating the crap out of a guy when he can’t appreciate the effort you’re putting into it.” He’d only managed to wallop the bloodsucker a couple of times—good, solid bone-breaking blows (well, or would’ve been if the wallopee had been human)—before the seizure had struck, bringing the fun to a screeching halt.
Graham had never witnessed an actual, honest-to-God seizure before and, even though he felt pretty damned certain
that human seizures lacked the speed and violence of vamp fits, he’d pass on witnessing another—human or vamp—thank you very much.
S’s body throws itself with mouth-drying speed against the restraining bars in violent, muscle-twisting convulsions. His head is a thrashing black-and-white blur, flinging warm droplets of blood from his bitten lower lip into the air.
“Break time’s over, you murdering bastard,” Morgan informed S cheerfully. His drill whined back to life. “Hope you enjoyed it.”
S coughed, then turned his head and spat blood onto the floor. “I’m a little disappointed by the lack of an in-flight snack,” he said hoarsely, “but you’ll do. Hell, you’re a big boy. More of a seven-course banquet than a snack, yeah?”
The cheerfulness vanished from Morgan’s hazel eyes as his expression darkened. “Asshole,” he gritted, bringing the drill down, its whirling bit aimed for the bloodsucker’s canvas-covered belly.
Graham narrowed his eyes. Was that
light
shimmering on the table from underneath S? Maybe a reflected glare from the overheads? “Wait,” he called. “What the hell’s that?”
His partner paused, the drill poised a breath above S’s straitjacket and the taut flesh beneath it. He regarded Graham from beneath his blond brows, snapped, “What’s what?”
“
That
,” Graham said, nodding at S’s prone form. Faint bluish light rippled along the straitjacket’s arms, spreading into its midsection. “See it?”
A frown furrowed Morgan’s forehead as his gaze shifted back to his drill and S. His frown deepened. “Dunno,” he said, taking a wary step back. “Never seen anything like that before. You?”
“No. Maybe it’s a born vamp thing.”
“Maybe.” Uncertainty shadowed Morgan’s eyes.
S turned his blood-smeared face toward Graham and studied him from beneath coal black lashes with eyes gone golden.
Pulse picking up speed, Graham tightened his grip on the bat’s blood-slick aluminum handle. Freaky gold eyes. Mysterious blue glow. WTF? Purcell hadn’t mentioned anything unusual about S. Only the obvious—make sure the prick doesn’t get loose.
“I hear your heart,” S said, his straitjacket awash in blue light, his voice soft and low and hungry. “I’m gonna drink it dry. Savor every drop.”
Graham managed a derisive chuckle despite the chill touching the base of his spine. He stepped closer and swung his bat up—
c’mon, batter-batter-batter
—winding up for a blow that would knock the bloodsucker’s ass into the future faster than a 1.21-gigawatt-fueled DeLorean. “How about you drink
this
instead?”
At the apex of Graham’s swing, S’s straitjacket dissolved into hundreds of small, blue-scaled fish and spilled away. Graham froze, heart vaulting into his throat, his mind unable to process what he was seeing. In fact, his mind was pretty damned busy screaming:
What! The! Fuck!
Which was soon followed by (but not quickly enough):
Run!
The tiny sapphire fish tumbled to the floor, slapping moistly against the concrete before swimming into the air with strokes of jeweled fins.
“Dear God,” Morgan breathed.
A heavy metallic
thunk
behind him told Graham that his partner had just lost his grip on his drill. Graham felt that he was about to lose his grip on a whole lot more.
Sweat beading his forehead, S rested his palms against the table. Thin blue flames licked across its gleaming,
wavering
surface. Table and restraints splashed to the floor, a sudden blue waterfall, delighting the fish who hadn’t yet taken to the air.
And S . . .
S stood barefoot in a puddle of burning water, a dark, tilted smile on his bloodied lips, blue flames flickering unsteadily around his pale hands. Blood and bruises streaked his white
torso from bondage collar to the top of his leather pants. Semi-healed bullet wounds. Drill insults. Bat injuries.
Not possible. Not possible. Not possible,
Graham’s mind insisted. But Graham was unable to move his gaze from those burning hands.
S flexed his shoulders. Graham heard the soft whisper of velvet against skin, then smooth, black wings unfolded behind S, arching above his head and snapping the smoky scent of burning leaves into the air.