Possession-Blood Ties 2 (33 page)

“That’s what I was thinking, too. But what are we going to do? I mean, we can catch him, but how are we going to keep him?” I drummed the steering wheel with my fingertips. He snorted. “We could use the handcuffs I found in his bedroom. You perv.”

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“You snooped through our things, you deal with your disgust on your own time.” I was just glad Max wasn’t able to see my mortified blush as I thought of exactly what those handcuffs had been used for. The same kind of mortified blush I’d had the night Nathan had jokingly—but only by half—brought them home. A vampire who’d escaped police capture had been wearing them when he’d run into Nathan, who’d still been on Movement-training autopilot. After Nathan had staked the unfortunate jailbird, he’d retrieved the cuffs.

“Have some respect for the dead, Nathan.”

“Come on. I bet the dead, and the GRPD, would want to see these put to good use.”

And boy, did we ever put them to good use.

“Did I lose you?” Max’s voice startled me out of my steaming memories. I cleared my throat guiltily. “No, I’m here. It’s not a bad idea, catching him and locking him up. Just be careful. Don’t kill him. And don’t let what’s-her-name do it, either.”

“No way I’m gonna let that happen.” He sounded certain. That was enough for me. “Okay. Just—”

“Be careful?” He wasn’t mocking me. It was clear from his tone he knew exactly how much I depended on Nathan. “You know I will.”

“Thank you, Max.”

After we hung up and the sound of the road was the only thing to distract me from my situation, I relied on Max’s words as my life raft. It kept me from imagining Nathan’s death at the hands of the monster who’d created him.
19

Rescue

T o Max, it seemed the best way to find Nathan was to retrace their search of the neighborhood they’d been in last night. As fast as possible.

“Let’s go this way.” Without waiting for Bella’s answer, because he knew it would be a contradiction of what he’d just said, Max dove into the hedges.

“Not that way!”

He heard the gentle hum of an electric fence a moment before it bit into his ankles.

“Fuck!”

“It is your own fault,” she admonished, laughing as he stumbled backward and fell on his ass. “I could smell it.”

“You can smell electric fences?” He scowled at her. If this had happened to anyone else, even her, he would have found it funny. Especially if it had been her. She shrugged. “Not anymore. Now I smell ozone and burned skin. Let me see.”

He yanked his leg back as she knelt beside him. “It’s fine.”

“I am sure it is.” She grasped his ankle. “Let me see.”

“Fine.” He rolled up his pant leg, revealing the line of pink, puffy skin where the evil wire had attacked him.

“That does not look as bad as I thought it would.” She seemed impressed.

“I aim to please.” He didn’t realize the double meaning his words could take on until she glanced away, her olive skin tinged red.

He closed his eyes and grimaced, as though his harshly drawn breath could suck the words back in. “I didn’t mean…”

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Standing, she acted as if her jacket needed serious adjusting. “I have his scent, but it is old. Maybe it is from last night?”

Damn. Max thought things had gone well between them. After a good long romp on Nathan’s kitchen floor, they’d spent the day researching and trading not-so-subtle innuendos. Then he’d asked a simple question, and it had all fallen apart.

“Hey, can werewolves become vampires and vice versa?” he’d asked, looking up from A Warlock’s Demon Compendium. The book was about two miles over the Dungeons and Dragons nerd county line, and he’d needed a break.

Her face had gone pale, and she’d looked quickly down at the notebook Nathan used to keep track of local vampires. “I do not know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You’re a smart girl.” Max had stood and moved to join her in her nest of blankets on the floor, and she’d scooted away nervously. “Let’s pretend you bit me right now. Would I become a werewolf?”

“I would have to bite you with intent.” She’d cleared her throat noisily. “That is, I would have to really want you to become a werewolf. But I do not know if it is possible to be both.”

“Right. Okay. So, if I drained your blood and fed you mine, would you become a vampire?” A strand of hair had fallen into her eyes, and he’d reached to brush it back. She’d leaped about a foot into the air and slapped his hand away. “No! No, it is not possible. Do you have nothing better to do than pester me with foolish questions?”

After that, she’d become worse than the coldhearted bitch who’d threatened to kill him a few nights previously. She’d become completely indifferent to him. She headed off down the sidewalk now, her arms hugged tight around her middle. He didn’t follow. She didn’t get far before she realized she was alone.

“Are you coming, vampire?”

Vampire. A big difference from the way she’d said his name over and over the night before, when he’d had his head buried between her legs. His scalp was still sore from where she’d practically yanked his hair out.

“So, it’s back to vampire now, is it?” he asked when she finally turned around. Stalking toward him once more, her posture rigid, she narrowed her golden eyes. “What should it be?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Well, considering the fact I spent a great deal of last night doing things to you that are illegal in most states, I thought we were on a first-name basis.”

Guiltily, she eased her stance. “Max, last night meant a lot more to you than it did to me.”

“What?” His voice cracked. Smooth to the end, Harrison. Bella made a face and took a step back. “I am very good at reading people. You cannot disguise your feelings.”

“What?” He sputtered this time. “I don’t have any feelings!”

“You talk in your sleep.”

If he’d been warm-blooded, Max’s blood would have run cold. Her palm burned where it cupped his jaw, and he stepped away. “Don’t!”

“I do not want to hurt you, Max.” She lifted her hands helplessly. “And I do not mean to embarrass you by saying these things. I thought you should know—”

He turned away. “Whatever.”

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“Max, please!” She grabbed his arm. “I thought it was just a fling. I would never have suggested it if I had known you had feelings for me.”

“I told you, I don’t have any feelings!” As far as he knew, it was true. Sure, he’d had the passing odd thought, but he hadn’t dwelled on them, for Christ’s sake, and he certainly hadn’t consciously called them up. He wasn’t interested in her or in any other woman that way.

“I do not believe that,” she insisted. “Whatever it is you feel for me, your subconscious wanted me to know. And I do not want to hurt you when you realize you are not part of my life plan.”

“Part of your life plan?” He rubbed his temples. What had he said? What sappy things did his big mouth blab that she’d misinterpreted to be about her? “This can’t be happening. You’re on the wrong side of this conversation!”

“Max,” she began, her eyes growing wide.

“No, forget this. I’m out of here.” He turned to leave, only to collide with a solid wall of flesh and muscle.

“Max, watch out!”

It was too late. He tumbled to the ground with his attacker and rolled into the street. The smell of ruined blood jolted his body like the electric current of the fence. They’d been out to find Nathan, and instead, he’d found them.

“The tranquilizer!” Max shouted, kicking his friend backward. They’d decided that drugging Nathan would be the easiest way to capture him. Max had just thought Bella would be faster with her Movement-issue tranq gun.

“The tranquilizer,” he repeated, then cursed as Nathan broke free and plunged through the hedge.

This time, Max made sure not to get tangled in the electric fence. By the time he fought his way clear of the branches, Nathan had already vaulted over the back wall of the yard they’d stumbled into. “Bella, hurry your ass up!”

She charged past him with speed he had no chance of matching, so he didn’t bother to try. For a moment, he considered waiting for her to bring their quarry back. She’d certainly get to him first. Then Max remembered what she’d looked like after her last tangle with Nathan, and fierce protectiveness forced him into motion. I am not worried about her because of the things she said. I am just looking out for a friend who might be in trouble. Two friends who might be in trouble. I’m doing a good thing. And I have no feelings.

He scrambled up the wall, thanking God or the devil or whoever was responsible, for his unusual ability to scale vertical obstacles. The first thing he saw on the other side was the gun, lying uselessly in the grass. He lifted his gaze and saw Bella and, looming over her, pinning her to the damp ground, Nathan.

“Shoot him!” she shouted. Battle-calm though she might be, her eyes were wide. She was terrified. “Shoot him!”

The creature masquerading as his best friend snarled, a fierce sound that raised the hair on the back of Max’s neck. Nathan’s face twisted for a moment into feeding mode, then back to his more recognizable features. But it wasn’t the monster Max saw there. Nathan’s eyes were watery and rimmed in red, his forehead creased in inhuman concentration. He opened his mouth to issue a desperate scream. “Shoot me!”

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Max didn’t hesitate, and pulled the trigger. He wasn’t sure he would have wasted time if Bella had insisted he stake Nathan. Seeing her that way, trembling and helpless, Max had a horrible realization shoot through him: that he would have killed Nathan if it was the only way to stop him from hurting her.

The shot struck Nathan in the chest, and for a moment, Max worried that killing him was exactly what he’d done. He raced toward his fallen friend. When their eyes met, Nathan seemed to understand his concern. “It’s not in the heart. It’s not in the heart.” Then he closed his eyes.

Max collapsed on the grass beside him, but was back on his feet a second later. Bella. She lay sprawled on the ground, taking fast and shallow breaths. When she turned her head and caught sight of him, she smiled weakly. “I am sorry, I thought I had him.”

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Max dropped to his knees beside her. “You shouldn’t move, you know, in case anything is broken.”

“I should stay here until the owners of that palace call the authorities and have me hauled away for trespassing?” She stood slowly, brushing off her clothing and shooing away his hands. “I will be all right. Besides, we have to get him back to his apartment before the drugs wear off.”

“How long do we have?” Max looked reluctantly away from her, to where Nathan lay in the grass, his chest barely moving.

“Ninety minutes at the most. Only enough so I can make a clean getaway.” She shrugged one shoulder as if trying to work it back into the socket. “I have never had to transport anyone before.”

Max eyed his friend’s body, then the woman at his side. “I think he’ll be too heavy on my own, but I don’t want you to help me if you’re not up to it.”

“I am fine. Treating me like porcelain is not going to change anything,” she said firmly. He didn’t argue. There was no point, as long as she believed he was completely infatuated with her.

That’s the problem, he decided. Her wishful thinking. Knowing that made it much easier for him to endure the ride back to the apartment.

By the time they got Nathan up the stairs, the tranquilizer had nearly worn off. He dangled between them—Bella at his feet, Max lifting his shoulders—like a very drunk, very heavy piece of supertenderized meat.

“Take him to the bedroom,” Max ordered, nodding in the direction of Nathan’s room.

“He’s got a brass headboard. We’ll be able to cuff him to that.”

“You came up with that pretty easy,” Nathan mumbled with a tired-sounding laugh. “Been fantasizing about me?”

“If he is lucid, perhaps it is unnecessary to restrain him,” Bella suggested, her gold eyes locking with Max’s for an uncomfortable moment.

He looked away. He didn’t want to be accused of staring googley-eyed at her or anything.

“No!” Nathan stiffened, and Max struggled to keep hold of him. Grunting with the strain of supporting his friend’s body, Max motioned toward the bedroom with another quick jerk of his head. “I saw what he was going to do to you. No offense to either of you, but until we get this mess sorted out, we’re keeping him locked up.”

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Bella looked as though she would argue, but closed her mouth in a tight line. “It is a good sign he is talking,” she said, clearly trying to sound cheerful for Max’s benefit.

“Is it?” he asked through clenched teeth. He didn’t need her pity optimism. She dropped the act at once. “I do not know. Maybe?”

“It means he’s not possessed. At least, not by a demon.” If he were, he’d be completely out to lunch, with no occasional popping into the office as he’d been doing. Max wasn’t an exorcist or anything, but he’d seen a few cases of demonic possession in his time. Whatever had hold of Nathan wasn’t controlling him full-time. They shuffled down the hall to the bedroom. Max considered making a snide comment about this being the place where they’d first met, but he didn’t want to chance giving Belle even more of a wrong impression. “Get him up here.”

Nathan groaned as they lifted him onto the bed. For the first time, Max noted the dark bruises marring nearly every inch of his body. Before, when they’d first captured him, it had been dark, and they’d been more concerned with the weird symbols carved into his skin to notice the state of the rest of him.

“Jesus Christ,” Max exclaimed on an exhale. It was all he could think of to say. Bella covered her mouth, her gold eyes wide in shock. “What happened to him?”