by Michelle Fox
She sighed. "I don't know why, but I do. That's not a good sign, by the way. I have terrible taste in men."
"We'll discuss that later. Right now, it's time to be quiet and move." I didn't allow her to resist me anymore and dragged her after me. "Stay close. Keep your eyes open and get low."
"So the bullets go over my head, I assume."
"Yes. Exactly."
We'd reached the door now, and I tested the knob. It didn't move. I gave it a series of hard pulls, increasing my strength each time, and finally, ripped it out of the door. Without the lock, the door swung open to reveal the guard in the hallway on the other side.
He stepped back, eyes wide at our sudden appearance. "Hey!"
Behind him, several more guards tensed. At least five guns pointed my way. I'd caught them just before they knocked.
"Ah. It appears Mr. Sanglante is in a hurry to leave us," Zion said, pushing his way to the front. "I wonder why."
"Tired of being locked up," I said with a friendly smile. Adele pressed herself into my back. "What are you doing here?"
"You know, I got an interesting phone call followed by an email with a huge file attachment. You're not who you say you are." Zion arched an eyebrow, his gaze piercing.
I remained calm. "My associate and I have enemies who would discredit us to their advantage."
"We'll see about that. Word is the Vampire Council is coming here to take me out personally." Zion waved at his men. "Take them down to the pen."
I sidestepped the men who reached for me."This is a mistake, Zion. If you believe this, you're losing out on the biggest deal you've ever had."
"Well, I have an eternity to find another one, don't I? That's one of the perks of being dead. All I've got is time." He snapped his fingers. "The pen. Now. Shoot him if you have to. Or her. Whatever works."
"Davian?" Adele's voice trembled in my ears.
"It'll be okay. Just follow my lead."
The guards reached to grab her and she shrank away. "Don't touch me." She smacked at their hands and sidled to the side, her gaze flickering to the end of the hallway.
"Adele, don't—"
It was too late. She was already trying to run.
Zion caught up to her, yanking her back by the hair. She screamed. I moved to go to her only to be stopped short by two guards who each took an elbow. I'd been so focused on Adele, I hadn't paid attention to them. The lapse cost me my freedom.
"You can't run. You can't hide. You're mine, and you'll do what you're told," Zion said. He slammed her against the wall face first and pulled his knife.
"I didn't sign up for this." Adele spun around to face him. A gash on her forehead dripped blood into her eyes and she wiped it away. "I want out."
"There's no out."
She sprang at Zion, but he was ready. His knife sank into her gut.
"Stop!" I yelled at him. I almost shook off the guards, but more came and latched on to me, holding me in place.
Zion didn't even look at me. His focus was on Adele, who'd dropped to the floor, clutching her stomach with both hands. "Sometimes lessons have to be taught with blood and pain." He squatted down in front of Adele and stroked his knife along her arm, forcing her to let go of her stomach and push him away.
"I hope your fangs rot and fall out," Adele gasped at him.
Zion buried his knife in her forearm. She arched up and screamed. He pulled the knife out and placed the point right over her heart.
"I am the eternal, the constant, the unchanging. I don't get hurt, you do."
He pressed and the knife cut through her shirt, through the skin underneath, down to rib bone. Her breathing staggered, uneven and gasping. Her eyes widened at the blood casting a red shadow on her shirt. Zion pressed the blade harder, deeper.
The only sound in the hallway was Adele's soft whine as the knife ground into the cage of bone covering her heart.
He smiled at the sound. "I wonder when you'll scream?"
"Zion," I said. "What if you're wrong? What if you have bad information? You'd be killing not just her, but the entire deal."
He stood up and licked the knife clean before tucking it away. Turning his attention to me, he said, "There's no deal."
Adele moved, trying to crawl away. Zion darted to her and kicked her in the stomach, the force of it lifting her up and into the wall. She dropped to the floor and didn't move.
Zion snapped his fingers. "Come on. Let's get this done. I have other things to do."
One of his men stepped forward and grabbed Adele by the feet. They marched me down the hall and the guard with Adele followed, dragging her with him. I kept looking over my shoulder, hoping to see some sign of life from her, but she remained limp and motionless.
The odds lined up in my head, but refused to add up to anything but death for Adele. I could take on multiple opponents, but not six armed guards. Not without risking Adele. She'd be caught in the cross fire.
I wasn't cold enough to let her die. That had always been my weakness as a vampire. I had too much respect for the living.
I would have to wait. Let them lock us up and think we were contained. They would be off preparing for the threat from the council and no one would notice our escape. That could work, but only if they didn't tie us up or immediately stake me through the heart. I had to take the risk. I didn't see any other way.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a large room at the far end of the basement. Despite the lights, the room remained dim. There wasn't much to see anyway. Polished concrete floors, rough brick walls with cracked mortar and nothing else. The scent of mildew mixed with the stale sweat of whoever had been there before.
The guards shoved me through the door and dumped Adele in after me. They backed out of the room, their guns trained on us, red laser dots dancing over our chests and heads.
Zion turned his back on us. "Go get the others. Bring them all here." Glancing over his shoulder at me, he said, "You two. Stay put."
And then he was gone, the door shutting with a loud click.
I knelt by Adele and shook her by the shoulders. "Adele. Wake up."
She didn't move, but her breathing was even and regular. None of the wounds appeared to be anything a shifter couldn't heal on their own. She would be okay. If we got out of here.
I searched the room looking for options, forcing my movements to be methodical and slow. Panic never helped in these situations. They required cold calculation and rapid decisions with very little data. How many guards were outside the door? I had no idea. Could be none, could be fifteen. Based on the size of Zion's crew, I doubted it would be more than a handful, and that put the odds in my favor. I'd been killing vampires for the last century. I was good at it.
I could bust open the door—at least I assumed I could. It appeared to be a standard steel door with a substandard lock—the door would hold, but not the lock—and attack whoever was out there, but Adele was literal dead weight. Protecting her and dispatching the guards would be near impossible. I needed my hands free to deal with Zion and his crowd. Carrying her along with me was out.
The room didn't yield any solutions either. No secret passages, no other doors and no furniture or items that could be made into a weapon. With a sigh, I tilted my head back and rubbed my neck, and that's when I saw it. A possibility. A slim one, but better than nothing.
It was, of all things, an air duct with a big metal vent cover.
Vampires liked the cold and installed heavy duty air conditioning anywhere they planned to spend a lot of time. I'd stashed things in vents before, but this would be the first time I hid a person in one. I'd tried to escape through a vent once, but had ended up trapped in an endless warren of metal for several hours. I wouldn't do that again unless I had no other option.
I fished a dime out of my pocket and used it to unscrew the vent cover, thankful for the low ceiling. The opening looked just big enough for Adele.
I pocketed the screws along with the dime and caught the metal vent in my other hand
. Setting it down, I went to Adele, intent on picking her up and carrying her over to the vent. Before I could lift her, the door burst open. I lunged backward, grabbing the vent cover and hiding it behind me. Then I hustled across the room, away from the vent. With luck, their eyes would track my movements and not notice the missing vent.
If they looked up, though...
A stream of people flowed into the room, a mix of guards and the other shifters Zion had captured. The shifters looked dazed and shuffled more than walked.
"Get in there," barked one of the armed men. He jabbed his gun into a shifter's shoulder, sending him stumbling into the room. The others stepped over him, no one stopping to help him up. A guard came forward, and grabbing the fallen shifter by the feet, dragged him off to the side.
After the initial burst of shifters, the guards fanned across the room, their guns pointed at us. Zion stepped in a moment later, his suit sharp as ever and a matching smirk on his face.
"You all stay here."
The power of his compulsion swept over my skin. He'd turned his words into an order no one he'd bitten could refuse.
"If that thing goes off," he pointed to the fire alarm mounted on the side wall, "everyone has to die. Everyone. Understood?"
No one moved.
"Understood?" He raised his voice. "Nod yes."
The compulsion in his words quivered over my skin again. The shifters nodded in unison.
"And that includes these two." He pointed at me and then Adele. "They die first, okay?"
The shifters nodded again. Satisfied, Zion headed for the door, his men filing in after him. The door closed with a loud thud.
"I-I-I don't want to kill anyone," said a female shifter with dyed black hair. She dropped to her knees with a sob.
More shifter females started to cry, and they all clustered together in a knot. The men milled about, restless and unfocused. No one seemed to know what to do. I considered biting them. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of addict thralls, but if I overrode Zion's claim, that might give me an advantage. Then again, I didn't know if I could make a stronger claim than him—I was not the strongest of vampires. And who knew what drugs ran in their veins? I would be taking in a decent dose of whatever Zion was giving them. A little bit of drugs wouldn't do much, but there was a threshold where it would impact my judgment and reflexes.
Then the situation changed. For the worse.
First, the lights went out.
Then the fire alarm went off.
Abrupt and loud, it blared into the room. The painfully bright emergency lights blinked on and off, and shifters circled around me. It was kill time.
They closed in, growling and baring their teeth. Thankfully, they ignored Adele, though. Probably because she wasn't moving.
Under normal conditions, the odds favored the shifters, but they were starving and depleted. Their movements were sluggish. Zion had told them what to do, but they didn't have any enthusiasm for murder. Compulsion worked best when everyone agreed on what should happen. Not even doped-up shifters thought a murder-suicide pact was a good idea. I leapt to the side and watched their response to my movement.
They staggered on uneven feet, their movements uncontrolled. One swiped at me with a claw tipped hand but misjudged the distance by several feet.
Good. Their reflexes were slow.
I surged forward, knocking the shifters in my way to the floor with two punches. Sprinting, I headed for the alarm. Jumping up, I ripped it out of the wall and threw it to the floor. The alarm died, plunging us all into absolute darkness. I could still hear the alarms going off in other places in the building, but at least I'd removed the light, which was the key part of my plan.
Shifters could see in the dark, but they didn't do well in total darkness. They relied on the moon too much. I, however, could still see dim outlines and motion. The sound of shuffling and angry snarls filled the room as they tried to find me, but they couldn't keep up with my speed, and in addition to their drug-dulled brains, they kept bumping into each other, which sparked fighting.
With the shifters occupied, I went and grabbed Adele, lifting her into my arms. She whimpered and fresh blood welled, wetting my shirt. Her wounds hadn't sealed yet.
Putting my lips next to her ear, I said, "Shh. It's me. I'm going to put you someplace safe. Once you're there, crawl as far away from this as you can, okay?"
She gave a groggy nod.
Pushing myself to move faster than I ever had, I darted over to the air duct. "I'm going to jump up. You grab the edge and pull yourself inside."
"What?" she asked, becoming more aware by the second.
I pushed off a shifter who'd run into my back and side stepped, ensuring I wouldn't be where they thought I was when they came back with a punch. Blood scented the air. Punches came faster, landing with soft thuds like someone punching a pillow. The growling had turned into loud snarls that thundered every few seconds.
"You have to hide right now. I'll come back for you. Okay?"
"Promise?" Her hand gripped mine and squeezed tight.
"I promise." I flexed my thighs. "Ready? I'm going to lift you up. Put up your hands and catch the edge." I rearranged her in my arms so that I held her by the waist. She raised her hands overhead, and I thrust her up toward the duct. She caught it and I gave her a push from behind to help her up and in.
Once she was tucked away, I found the vent cover and quickly screwed it back in. Just in case any of Zion's shifters got creative about his compulsion to kill everyone. Shifters ran into me, their claws swiping at my back, but they kept moving, more interested in chasing each other. Zion had turned them into a blunt force weapon with no finesse. They couldn't coordinate well enough to focus on finding me.
"Now, crawl," I called up to her.
Hoping she would be safe enough until I could find a way out for both of us, I went to the door. Whipping off my belt, I took the prong and jimmied the lock. In the old days, I used to carry lock pick tools, and while I'd left the tools behind long ago, I'd kept the skills.
Early in my undead life, I'd learned the secret ways of the Roma in Europe. I'd saved one of their children from a collision with a carriage and they'd made me a 'friend of the people.' I had occupied myself for a time learning their ways. The education had served me well.
The buckle prong was too short to make it easy or simple, though. It took longer than I liked, but I prevailed in the end and the lock gave way.
Under different circumstances, I might have torn the door off its hinges, but I didn't want a pack of addict shifters at my back while I tried to figure my way out of this. Besides, I couldn't tell if Zion had made a mistake or a calculated move leaving me in a room he had to know I could break out of. The quieter I was, the less likely he would notice me.
I opened the door, slipped out and slammed it shut after me. A heavy thud from the other side told me I had barely made it. Someone had spotted me. The door knob rattled, but the lock had slid back in place and it held.
Once I figured out what was going on, I would come back and let anyone who survived out. Although I doubted they could be saved. The way they acted struck me as more thrall than not. No matter what Zion had said before, their behavior suggested he had fed on them more than once.
I headed for the door that led up to the main floor of the strip club. I ran down the hallway, scanning it from side-to-side, trying to spot trouble before it saw me. The basement was empty. No guards. No Zion. Just the steady blare of the fire alarm and the frantic strobe of emergency lights.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Zion had left us all to die. That struck me as odd. His shifters were worth millions. To give that payday up didn't make any sense.
Making my way upstairs, I found the strip club vacant as well. Out in the gravel parking lot, I found nothing but dust dancing in the wind.
Which meant...I wouldn't be killing Zion and breaking his compulsion over the shifters he'd trapped in the basement.
"A
dele." I closed my eyes and told myself she was safe. She just had to stay out of sight until I got there. Breaking into a run, I headed for the club entrance, intent on getting to Adele, but something struck me in the shoulder, sharp enough to penetrate my clothes and down past my skin. Stumbling, I reached over and pulled it out. Bringing it up to my eyes, which struggled to focus, I found I'd been shot with a dart.
Peach fuzz proliferated in my brain, making my thoughts thick and hard to connect, but just before I fell, I realized someone had drugged me.
"Why?" I asked, trying to spin around to see who had shot me.
But the world went black, and I disappeared into a void filled with fuzz.
Chapter Six
Davian
I came to in the trunk of a car. Little bounces and the rushing sound of tires told me we were moving. To my surprise, I wasn't tied up, so I poked out the trunk's lock with a hard jab and looked to see where I was. The taillight would have been better, but also more obvious. Putting my eye to the small hole, I studied the world outside. It was night. I just couldn't tell if it was the same night or a different one.
From the evergreen scent in the air, I knew we were still in the Huntsville area. But why? And who? I thrust a fist into the trunk lid above me, wanting to pop it open, but nothing happened. My arms were heavy and not as strong as they should be. I then tried to punch my way through the back seat, but my arms had grown even weaker. I blinked. Things went blurry again, and I passed out.
The second time I woke, the car had stopped and I heard Zion's voice.
"Wire the whole club. I don't want a single brick left when we're done. It all has to go boom."
My stomach dropped at the thought of Adele. Worry lent me some extra strength, and this time, when I punched the trunk, it opened. The night air stuffed my sinuses with astringent pine from the surrounding forest. Overhead, the quarter moon shone, unceasing and unblinking.
The guards from the club were there and reacted to my appearance by pulling their guns and backing up. Zion stood behind them, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. He didn't register surprise or alarm, just watched as I climbed out of the trunk.