“Not call off.” I corrected. “Postpone. You are not off the hook.” I poked my perfectly manicured nail into the middle of his chest. I was going for playful, trying to cheer him out of the odd mood he suddenly seemed to have fallen prey to. Besides, I’m just a little bit superstitious. I didn’t want to even invite the possibility of the wedding being called off for good. “And I’ll be expecting a really spectacular wedding band for my patience.”
“Already taken care of.” He gave me a quick, sweet kiss. “I sent a picture of the engagement ring to Gerry Friedman and had him design our wedding bands. They’re gorgeous.”
“Ooh, let me see.” I started to pull back and turned toward the luggage. I hadn’t seen any jewelry boxes, but they had to be in there somewhere.
“Can’t. They’re in the hotel safe.”
“Rats!”
Tom laughed. Pulling me close again, he gave me a quick hug. “I love you, Katie. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the folks think you’re great. But I’m supposed to tell you to be more careful next time.”
I gave a wry chuckle. “I’ll do my best.” I tilted my head up to kiss him. A quick meeting of the lips, but just that simple touch made me shudder in reaction.
“We need to go to breakfast.”
“Right. Breakfast.”
We took the luggage downstairs with us. I waited at the door to the restaurant as Tom went to retrieve the rings from the safe. The two of us walked together into a dimly lit restaurant area filled with the wonderful aromas of a breakfast buffet and freshly brewed coffee.
Mary was sitting at a table for four in the corner next to the windows looking out over the outdoor pool. The harsh light wasn’t kind to her. She was looking more worn and tired than I’d ever seen her. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her clothes seemed to hang loosely on her rugged frame. Whether it was a reaction to the drugs she’d been given yesterday, or something else, I didn’t know, but it surprised me. She’d seemed well enough at the hospital. But if something was wrong, she didn’t seem inclined to confide it. Instead she led Tom and me through the buffet line, then settled down at the table.
While we ate she was all business, telling Tom that Dusty, Rob, and little Robert Thomas would be on the same flight with us, ordering him and asking me to “keep a close eye on them. I want them back home and safe.”
“I’m surprised they’re letting them fly. I mean the baby’s only a few days old.”
“The doctors cleared it. I even checked with Joe. He said it wasn’t optimal, but if Dusty and Robbie are both okay, it shouldn’t cause any problems. And I want them back in Denver. Sooner rather than later.”
“What are you and Ruby going to do?”
“We’ll drive back in Dusty’s car. She’s too far along, the airlines don’t want her to fly, and frankly, I want to spend some time alone with her. There are things we need to discuss.”
Poor Ruby. That didn’t sound promising at all to me.
“Have you got your weapons with you?” Mary asked.
“No. Why?”
She seemed poised to say something, but changed her mind at the last minute. “Nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing. Just keep an eye on them for me.”
“Mary—” Tom started to say something but she shook her head.
“Tom, if I knew for sure something was wrong, I wouldn’t send them. I just have this feeling. It’s probably nothing.” She gave me an inquiring look, as if to see if I’d seen anything. Unfortunately, my psychic gifts really aren’t that controlled. Most of my precognition has come either in dreams, or when I’ve done my meditation. I hadn’t done my meditation exercises for almost a week now, and I didn’t remember any dreams—good or bad. I gave a small shrug, and her shoulders sagged even more.
“We’ll be careful,” Tom promised.
“Thanks.” She smiled, her expression lightening fractionally. “When you get to Denver, tell Joe I miss him, and I’ll be back in a couple of days, not to trash the house.”
“I’ll do that.”
She rose. Pulling a large bill from her wallet, she dropped it onto the table to cover the tab. Her parting words were to me, and they made the heavy breakfast sit uneasily on my stomach.
“I wish you were armed.”
8
« ^ »
Some babies are just fine in airports and on planes. They eat, they sleep, the other passengers barely even know they’re on board. Robbie was not one of those babies. He started screaming the minute we walked through the glass doors of the terminal. The screams changed to a penetrating, headache-inducing whine shortly after we boarded the plane.
There was no assigned seating on the flight, so the four of us stuck together and took the back two rows. That put a wall at my back, and me on the aisle between Dusty, Robbie, and the world. Tom and Rob sat directly in front of us. It wasn’t perfect, but it was as good as we were going to get.
Dusty tried feeding, burping, changing, rocking, cooing at him, anything and everything she could think of without much success. He was making so much noise when the plane took off that I honestly couldn’t hear either the engines or the stewardess’s emergency lecture. Of course, since I knew the lecture by heart, it wasn’t a problem. Finally, in desperation, Dusty passed the baby over to me.
Robbie nuzzled his little head against my neck, pulled fistfuls of hair out of my braid, and quieted. I held him close, singing one of the old Irish lullabies my mom had used on my brothers and me as children. He was so tiny, and yet that little body practically vibrated with strength. I held him, singing softly, with tears in my eyes and wished fiercely for something I’d never have. Meeting Tom’s eyes over the back of the seat in front of me, there was no hiding how I felt. He unfastened his seat belt and reached over the seat. I’d expected him to caress the baby, and he did, but not until after he’d cupped my cheek in his hand.
“I love you anyway.”
The words helped. I felt the tightness in my chest ease just a little. I might never have a baby of my own, but I had Tom, and I had friends and family, most of whom, now I thought about it, would probably be more than happy to have an on-call babysitter. Smiling, I took a deep whiff of that soft “clean baby” smell. The smile turned to a wince as the little one gave a good solid yank, taking several of my hairs out at the roots. I didn’t yelp. Yelping would’ve woken him and brought down the justifiable fury of all my fellow passengers. But OW! I mean jeez. That hurt.
I spent the rest of the flight sitting as still as I could so as not to wake the little guy. Dusty and Rob took advantage of the break to sleep the sleep of the utterly exhausted. Tom spent his time browsing through the airline catalog, describing various cool things that we could spend a small (or not so small) fortune on to refurnish our house. Before I knew it, the stewardess was moving through the cabin, gathering up the trash and empty drinking cups, and the announcement came on with the light, telling us to fasten our seat belts, move our seats into the full upright position, and make sure our tray tables were up and locked.
Laying a gentle kiss on the baby’s head, I turned to look out the window. There, in the western distance, lay the mountains, their tops shrouded in clouds. Below, the sprawl of a white-covered Denver and the suburbs. We were home.
The descent was smooth. I passed Robbie back to his mother’s waiting arms so she could tuck him snugly into one of those baby carriers with the plastic handles that Rob had stowed in an overhead bin. Since I’d checked all my luggage, I was given responsibility for the diaper bag. The thing was thick, bulky, and surprisingly heavy. It made me wonder what the devil she’d packed for the little guy. I mean, disposable diapers and bottles couldn’t possibly weigh that much, could they?
What with all the baby kerfuffle, we were the last ones to disembark, with only the flight crew to walk behind us through the tunnel from the plane to Concourse C.
By the time we reached the staging area for the train to the terminal I was tired. My arm hurt. I hadn’t taken anything for pain because I wanted to stay alert. Mary’s warning had made me nervous. I’m supposed to be the psychic one. I hadn’t felt anything wrong, hadn’t had any visions, no psychic stuff at all for days. I stopped abruptly enough that Tom ran into me. I hadn’t had any psychic stuff for days. That had never happened before. Not even before I was attacked by the Thrall for the first time. All my life I’ve just known things—little stuff mostly: who was calling on the phone or at the door. Ordinary enough for the most part. After Larry attacked me, and even more after Monica laid the eggs in my arm and the hatchling tried to infest me, it’s been constant. Until the past few days. Oh, shit.
“Katie, what’s wrong?” Tom asked. “You’ve gone white as a sheet.”
I ignored the question, fighting to control the panic clawing at my innards. “Dusty,” I tried to make the question casual, and failed miserably. “Have you had any psychic premonitions or anything in the past couple of days?”
She set the baby carrier to rest on the floor for a second, tilted her head to the side, and thought about it. “No.”
“Is that usual?”
She looked startled, and was getting more than a little nervous. Was my fear contagious? Probably. I know Tom sensed it. Both he and Rob were looking carefully around, watching the people surrounding us with cautious eyes.
“No.”
The announcement for the arriving train came over the speaker, the pleasant feminine voice telling us to stay behind the warning line for our own safety and letting us know that this particular stop would put us on a train to Concourse B, Concourse A, and the main terminal.
I deliberately took a few steps away from Tom and let the shields I keep around my mind drop, willing myself to sense what was out there—expecting to hear the buzz of the Thrall collective. A few feet away, Dusty was doing the same thing.
There was nothing. Utter silence. A solid blank wall of will that was terrifying in its perfection. My mouth went dry, my heartbeat sped up dramatically. Ironic, most of the time I wished the psychic abilities
“gone,” particularly with regard to the Thrall. Now that they were, I was terrified. Because the only times I’d ever felt them shield me out was when they had plans, bad plans, generally involving me.
“I can’t feel anything.”
I barely heard her whisper over the sound of the train, and the milling of people moving toward the doors. It was at that precise moment, when my shields were down, my mind completely vulnerable, that the Thrall struck. Pain, white hot, and blindingly intense. It drove me, screaming, to my hands and knees on the cold concrete floor. My vision blurred with tears, so that I could barely focus. Still, I saw Dusty collapse, falling unconscious to the floor as four of the people surrounding us pulled weapons from their bags. Tom and Rob changed form in a wash of magic, only to be felled by darts like the one that had taken Mary in the airport at Las Vegas. A man appeared as if from thin air. He wore an expensively cut, pin-striped navy business suit and leather shoes polished to a high gloss. He stepped forward, calmly taking the baby carrier by the handle. I blinked stupidly and tried to scream, but no sound would come out. I tried to force my body to move, and couldn’t. It was all I could do to look up. I stared, stunned and helpless, as Dylan Shea boarded the train with Rob and Dusty’s baby. It couldn’t be Dylan. Dylan was dead and buried. But while the hair had been cropped close to his head, and his nose was broken and scarred, it looked like Dylan. But that made no sense. The announcement came on. The doors whooshed closed on the crowd of passengers staring blankly, their minds completely enthralled by vampire powers.
I fell forward, and my outflung arm touched Tom’s. Just that small contact was enough for me to pull from his magic, mute the pain enough to think. Keeping that hand on his, I used my other hand to rummage in my pocket for my cell phone. With desperate haste I dialed 9-1-1 and told the operator we had an abduction of a newborn at DIA, that we needed to shut the place down, followed by a request for medical assistance for Dusty and the boys. At the same time I used my contact with Tom to pull strength from the pack—just as I’d done in my fight against Samantha Greeley. It wasn’t easy. But I fought my way to my feet. Leaving Tom and the others to the care of strangers who’d stumbled upon us on the way to the train, I staggered toward the stairs. Determination was fueled by panic and rage—
the powerful emotions of an entire pack in fear for the child they’d all hoped and prayed for. The emotions had power, power they poured into my mind and body so that I was able to brush the last of the vampire’s attack from my mind and run after the train and save the baby.
I ran, ran as if the hounds of hell were at my heels, dodging travelers and their unwieldy luggage, ignoring the calls of security guards. I’m not a lycanthrope. I can’t change form. I don’t have their supernatural speed and agility. But I work out, hard, and I run several miles nearly every day. I gave it everything I had, letting the wolves’ panic fuel my own adrenaline to augment my natural abilities.
I didn’t know how fast the train traveled. It didn’t matter. My knee was grinding, objecting to the strain as I twisted and dodged my way through Concourse B. Passengers stared, open-mouthed with shock as I moved past them in a blur. I was at the top of the escalator leading down to the train when I heard the announcement and the doors whooshing closed. Shit! I’d come so close. I was gaining on it. I had to push harder: had to. Just a little more. I felt a stitch starting to form in my side as I dodged around a pair of women staring at one of the glass-encased art displays. Ignoring the pain, I pushed on.
I had reached the escalator and stairs down to the train level between Concourses A and B. I was close, I could feel it. A man’s voice behind and to my left called for me to halt. I ignored him, lunging forward for the stairs. A shot rang out. I felt a stab of pain, and the sensation of falling forward into empty air as my legs missed the stairs and collapsed from under me. Then … nothing.
9
« ^ »
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even lift my eyelids. It made me panic, but even the rush of adrenaline provided by my terror couldn’t overcome whatever they’d shot me with. I felt my pulse speed, but the muscles simply wouldn’t respond. I struggled against the effects of the drug until I was exhausted. But it wasn’t useless. Because when I stopped struggling, and was too weary to maintain my shields, they fell. My mind slid free from my body, my psychic senses seeking outward.