He was also holding a Japanese katana.
The man raced at Lachlan and Blair with a roar.
Even from a distance, Luke could see that the man’s eyes were red and bloodshot. He looked like he was hyped up on drugs.
As the sword sliced through the air, Lachlan dodged to the side. Blair ducked.
Team 52 opened fire. As the bullets hit the man, his body jerked.
But they didn’t slow him down. He swung the sword again.
“No effect,” Blair said calmly.
The attacker spun and rushed at her.
Luke’s heart thudded. He aimed his Glock, firing. But it was like tossing spitballs at a charging rhino.
Blair moved backward and whipped her CXM up like a sword. The katana hit her weapon with a clang. She and the man danced across the room, trading blows.
But her face was showing the strain. She blocked another hit, her arms shaking.
“Blair?” Lachlan said.
“He has increased…strength.” The words were pushed out between gritted teeth.
“Acknowledged,” Lachlan said. “It has to be the sword.”
“Think so,” she said.
Luke frowned. He knew in vague, general terms what Team 52 did, but as he stared at the silver sword and the perp, who should have been laid out by the number of bullets sent his way, Luke’s brain was having difficulty understanding just what he was seeing.
Suddenly, Seth and Axel stepped forward, the men going down on their knees. They rolled several small devices across the tiled floor.
The small metal balls bumped over the tiles, then exploded. An amber fluid pooled on the floor.
Blair saw it and angled in that direction. As she neared, she leaped over the goo.
The attacker stepped right in it.
And couldn’t lift his feet.
He growled, slashing out with the katana and trying to lift his shoes. With a roar, he jerked one leg up, his face going red from the strain.
He turned, just as Blair swung her rifle like a bat. It collided with the man’s head. He let out another enraged roar, shaking his head. He tore his other foot free and charged at Blair, face twisted like a demon.
Hell. Luke moved closer, but he knew his damn handgun was useless. He hated feeling helpless.
As the deadly sword arced through the air, he watched Blair bend backward. The blade passed over her. With the next swing, she jumped back.
But the very tip of the sword touched her bicep, leaving a line of blood on her skin.
She lifted her chin. “You’ve made me really mad now, asshole.” As the sword whirled again, she dodged and dropped to her knees. She rammed a punch into the attacker’s gut.
The man doubled over, air rushing out of him.
Blair leaped to her feet. “Time to end this, motherfucker.” She kneed him in the face, then struck his arm with a brutal, powerful kick. She moved with complete control of her body.
Luke sucked in a breath. She was a sight to watch.
The man cried out and dropped the sword. The katana clattered on the tiles.
She kicked his other arm, the sound of snapping bone clear. She lifted her fists, dropping into a fighting stance, and smiled. The man snarled.
He rushed at her, and she kicked and punched him. The man tried to fight back, but she ducked his sloppy swings. He was getting slower and slower.
Blair was relentless. Power and strength. Luke couldn’t drag his gaze off her.
“Come on!” she said. “You will not be hurting anyone else. Ever.”
With a vicious front kick, she sent the man flying into a display. Glass shattered.
He didn’t get up.
Luke strode forward. The man was sprawled on his back and not moving.
“Seth, restraints,” Lachlan said. “Callie, check him.”
The pair moved closer to the man, and Callie leaned down to assess his wounds. Seth was already restraining the man’s hands.
Luke was staring at Blair.
She was breathing heavily, still in a fighting stance. She rose and tossed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.
Their gazes locked, and Luke felt like he’d been hit by a live wire. Pure, electric heat.
He suddenly realized he was as hard as a rock.
Dammit. Blair Mason wasn’t how he liked his women. She wasn’t soft or easy or pleasant. She was tough, violent, and abrasive.
But right now, watching her fight, seeing her strength. It rocked him to the core. He wanted her. Under him, over him, spread for him.
He shook his head, hard. Now was not the time to be thinking with his dick.
“Fuck me.” The quiet murmur was Baxter’s voice.
Luke looked over and saw his detectives looking up from where they were clustered around the injured SWAT team member. They were all staring at Blair with awe.
Rivera wiped a fist across his mouth. “That woman is…”
“Badass,” Luke answered.
“I’d consider leaving my husband for her,” Clements murmured.
Luke shook his head again, and forced himself to look at the downed attacker.
Callie lifted her head and gave one shake. “He’s dead.”
“Shit,” Blair said.
“You didn’t kill him,” Callie said. “The bullets did. They clearly had no effect at first, but once he dropped the sword, he had no hope. His insides were shredded.”
“What the hell is going on?” Baxter demanded. “How can a man function while he’s filled with bullets?”
Lachlan looked at Luke and raised a brow.
Luke turned to his detectives. “Baxter, you, Clements, and Rivera work with casino security and the paramedics. Organize for the bodies to be bagged.”
His people hesitated. Baxter looked belligerent, and Clements looked like she wanted to argue. But they finally nodded and left.
“What are we dealing with?” Luke asked.
Lachlan shook his head. “No idea, but whatever it is, it isn’t good.”
Blair shifted, her gaze scanning around the room. “Especially since there are two swords missing.”
Luke felt a gnawing in his gut. He knew the feeling. He’d first felt it when he’d discovered the body of his murdered mother as a teen. It was the one telling him that things were going to get a lot worse before they got any better.
Chapter Two
Blair leaned against the wall, studying the body of the dead guy as they loaded him onto a gurney.
MacKade’s detectives had identified him. Turned out the guy was a financial auditor. She took in his slim build and lack of musculature. He certainly didn’t look capable of taking down an entire well-trained SWAT team.
Something about the sword had given him strength, and triggered him to do this.
They were back in the first exhibit room. Lachlan and Seth were circling the space, still searching for the missing swords. Smith and Axel were standing guard at the doors, and Callie was packing up her medical kit.
MacKade stepped in front of Blair. “You’re going to bleed to death.” He pressed a cloth to her arm.
“It’s just a nick.”
“Pretty sure you could have an arm amputated and you’d say it was just a nick.”
“I’m not an idiot, MacKade.”
He grunted and waved a paramedic over.
Blair gritted her teeth. Don’t argue with him. Don’t argue with him. An older woman in a paramedic uniform appeared and pulled the cloth away. “Needs stitches.”
Well, fuck. Blair wrinkled her nose.
“Sit,” the woman ordered.
Bad temperedly, Blair moved over and sat down on a small bench. She guessed the exhibit organizers had sprinkled the room with these benches so the guests could sit and marvel at the beauty of the samurai artifacts.
No one would be marveling in here after tonight.
The paramedic knelt beside her and started work. She jabbed a syringe into Blair’s arm and Blair winced. Then, when she saw the w
oman lift a needle, her stomach did a queasy roll.
Injections, she didn’t mind. Stitches…hell, no.
MacKade was still standing in front of her. God, she was eye level with his crotch. The man certainly filled out his jeans. She felt a shot of desire flash through her system.
Shit. Maybe she’d lost more blood than she thought. There was no way in hell she should be thinking about Luke MacKade’s package.
The paramedic started stitching and bile rose in Blair’s throat.
MacKade crouched. “You just took down a homicidal maniac, but stitches make your face turn white?”
“Don’t say stitches.” She waved a finger at him.
She expected to see amusement on his rugged face, but his warm, brown eyes just studied her.
“So, two swords are missing,” he said.
Blair latched onto the distraction. “Yeah, which is not good. And those last two words are in uppercase letters and underlined.”
“Any chance the other swords aren’t like the one this guy used?”
They looked over to where Lachlan was holding the sword in question. He had it wrapped in a thick cloth, and she knew its next stop would be a containment box, before they flew it back to Area 52.
“Probably not.”
MacKade ran a hand through his hair. “Shit. Figured as much.”
“We have to find them, MacKade. Soon.”
He nodded.
“We’ll send the one we have back to—” Blair eyed the paramedic working on her arm “—base. Ty can hopefully shed some light on exactly what we’re dealing with.” Dr. Ty Sampson was a former DARPA scientist and genius inventor. If anyone could work it out, it was him.
MacKade ran his hand through his hair again. “I’ve already got my people checking with local dealers who trade antiquities and antique weapons.”
“Whoever took them isn’t going to sell them.” Blair looked down at her arm and watched the needle move into her skin.
Bile rose in her throat. Ugh.
MacKade’s hand gripped her knee. “Blair?”
“What?” she snapped. She hated that he saw her weakness.
“Focus on me.”
“Generally focusing on you pisses me off.”
His lips quirked. “Better that than you vomiting or passing out.”
She hissed. “That is never going to happen.”
“Sure thing, cupcake.”
Her eyes bugged open. “Cupcake?”
“Heard you have a weakness for cupcakes.”
Now her eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know that?”
He leaned closer, his voice dropping. She got a whiff of his cologne—something woody and citrusy. And too damn delicious.
“I’m a detective, remember?”
A man rushed through the doors. He was older, well-dressed, with a set of round glasses perched on his nose, his near-white hair cut stylishly.
“Oh, my God.” He stumbled to a halt, looking at the blood smeared on the floor. He pressed a fist to his mouth.
“Exhibition curator,” MacKade murmured. “Quillan.”
The curator’s gaze landed on the sword rack at the end of the room.
“Oh no.” He took a few stumbling steps. “No. No. No.”
“All finished.” The paramedic patted Blair’s arm. “Only needed three stitches. You were a very good girl.”
Blair scowled at the woman. “If you expect me to thank you…”
The paramedic smiled and closed her bag.
“Let’s find out what this guy knows about the swords,” MacKade said.
Blair nodded.
“Mr. Quillan, I’m Detective MacKade, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. I’d like to ask you some questions.”
The man visibly pulled himself together. “Yes, of course. This is terrible.”
“Where are the swords from?” MacKade asked.
“Japan, obviously. They were found in a private collection, a deceased estate. They were previously thought lost.” Quillan pushed his glasses up. “They were crafted by one of Japan’s most infamous swordsmiths, Muramasa. He founded the Muramasa school during the Muromachi period. That was during the 15th century, in Kuwana, Japan.”
“So they’d been locked away all this time, until whoever owned them died,” Blair murmured.
Quillan nodded. “It was a coup to have them here.” He pressed a hand to his stomach. “This is so terrible. Those swords are priceless and now they’re missing. My employers are going to be very, very unhappy.”
The man was more worried about the swords than the dead people. Blair glared at him and he eyed her, straightening as though he thought she might hit him.
“Mr. Quillan, people died here tonight,” MacKade bit out.
“Right.” The curator’s face went pale and he swallowed. “Right. I know. I’m sorry.”
“The swords,” Blair said. “What else do you know about them?”
“Like I said, made by Muramasa. He was one of the sword-making legends of Japan.” Quillan waved a hand at the rack. “The swords he made were said to be cursed.”
Blair felt a trickle of unease. MacKade looked at her and raised a brow.
“Cursed?” she prompted.
“Yes. Swords imbued with demonic powers.” The curator gave a forced laugh. “Of course, that’s just a myth. Those sorts of things aren’t true.”
Blair bit her lip. There were lots of ancient artifacts that were said to be cursed. Most were nothing more than a combination of vivid imagination and fantasy. But a few were legitimate pieces of ancient technology.
“The Muramasa swords are priceless,” Quillan continued.
MacKade nodded. “We’ll find them. That’ll be all for now, Mr. Quillan. I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, Detective. I hope you find what sparked this terrible event and find the stolen swords.”
Lachlan strode over. His gaze caught Blair’s and she lifted her chin.
“I’m taking the sword in,” Lachlan announced.
Blair noticed the now-familiar muscle tick in MacKade’s jaw again. She was starting to find it pretty fascinating.
“What?” Quillan spluttered. “You can’t—”
When Lachlan’s cool, gold eyes flicked the curator’s way, the man’s words dried up.
“That’ll be all, Mr. Quillan,” MacKade said again.
With an unhappy nod, the man walked away.
MacKade turned. “I’d prefer to have the damn sword locked up at the station.”
“It’ll be safer if we take it,” Lachlan said. “My team will examine it. We could find information that could help us.”
“So could my forensics team.”
Blair smiled. “You can’t stop us.”
MacKade’s brown eyes settled on her, anger sparking in them. Okay, she was baiting him, but it felt so damn good.
Lachlan shook his head. “Blair, we’re all on the same team.”
MacKade blew out a frustrated breath. “Fine. And she’s right, I can’t stop you. But we will damn well work together to find the other swords. This is my city and we have a team of dead cops. I will bring those swords in, and the bastard who stole them to justice.”
Lachlan was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Deal. I’m assigning Blair to you.”
Blair jerked and spun to face Lachlan. “What?”
Her boss and best friend—former best friend—just gave her a look.
Dammit. Lachlan knew MacKade drove her crazy.
“Work together,” Lachlan said. “We need to stop another massacre and get the swords back.”
Blair huffed out a breath. “Acknowledged.”
MacKade shot her a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you, Mason. I’m a good boss.”
“Working together, MacKade. I’m not working for you.”
“Semantics. I’m in charge of this investigation.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I am not taking orders from you.”
“We�
�ll see.”
She wrinkled her nose. Asshole. She stayed silent, but she was pretty sure he read her thought, because his smile widened.
* * *
Luke changed lanes, driving his black Ford Explorer toward police headquarters. Adrenaline from the night’s events had worn off, leaving him in dire need of coffee.
He was pissed. It was easier to be angry than feel guilt and sadness over the terrible loss of lives. It didn’t matter how long he’d been a police officer, every death hurt. Every person he couldn’t save ate at him. And it was worse when his fellow cops were taken down doing their duty.
God, so many of them. The SWAT team’s loss was a huge blow. There were families who’d been destroyed. Kids who’d lost a parent.
Luke knew in horrible detail the horror of losing a parent and having your family torn apart.
His hands flexed on the wheel. He wanted action. He wanted to know who the hell was responsible for this. And he hated handing over the one piece of evidence he had, even if he did know it was for the best.
Blair fidgeted in the seat beside him. “You got anything to eat?”
He frowned. “It’s four in the morning, and you’re hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I don’t have anything to eat.”
She grunted, then reached forward and fiddled with the tuner on his radio. The country and western station changed to rock music.
Luke leaned over and changed it back.
“I sense you’re pissed, MacKade,” Blair said. “I can feel your anger filling the car. So, spit it out.”
“People are dead. Cops are dead.”
She sighed. “Yeah, that sucks.”
He gripped the wheel hard. “I want my people to examine the sword.”
She leaned back in her seat. “Your people aren’t equipped and you know it.” She pulled a small package out of the pocket of her jeans and popped a piece of gum in her mouth. “It’s why you brought us in in the first place.”
“I know. But I don’t have to like it.”
“I get it,” she said. “You’re a control freak.”
Luke gritted his teeth. “I do my job. This is my city, and it’s my job to ensure its people are protected.”
Blair blew a bubble and then popped it. “We’ll take care of the sword, MacKade. It won’t hurt anybody else.”
Mission: Her Defense: Team 52 #4 Page 2