He swallowed hard, nodded, and wandered up the stairs.
Only when she was alone did she let the tears she’d been swallowing flow.
Chapter Twenty-five
Riddick pounded on the door of the first floor apartment in Harper’s building.
Hunter opened the door and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“He’s taken her,” was all Riddick could bring himself to say, and even that much hurt to hear aloud.
Hunter crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes going cold. “How long?”
“Two hours.”
“Any clues?”
Riddick blew out a harsh breath. “Nothing. Do you know anything else about Phoenix that might be useful?”
Hunter nodded. “Phoenix’s real name. Damian Ashworth.” He shrugged. “That might be useful.”
Riddick had to force himself to stay calm and think, plan.
Planning and thinking had never been his strong suit. Smashing things, killing vamps, hunting…those were his strengths. Planning had been Mischa’s territory.
“Mischa,” he said aloud.
Hunter frowned. “What about her?”
“She knows computers. With Phoenix’s real name, maybe she can trace his family tree and find his family’s properties.”
Fortunately, he didn’t have to explain his theory to Hunter. Most vamps kept ties to their old lives, often in the form of family lands and homes. It was a strange but true phenomenon among the undead, but if they could find the Ashworth family estate, there was a chance they’d find Phoenix, and—God willing—Harper.
It was a long shot, but he’d take it at this point.
Hunter grabbed a shirt off his couch. “Let’s go.”
Riddick didn’t argue. With Harper’s life at stake, he was willing to take all the help he could get.
Riddick didn’t bother knocking on Mischa’s door. With one well placed kick, he let himself in. No time for pleasantries or social etiquette.
Mischa, who’d apparently dozed off while reading, was off her couch like a rocket. Wild-eyed, she whipped a gaudy, gold crucifix out of her sweatpants’ pocket and shoved it in his face.
Riddick slapped it away impatiently and gave her a palms-up, what-the-hell gesture.
Taking a deep breath, she laid her hand over her heart. “Sweet Christ, Riddick. I was reading some old Sentry notes about Phoenix when I fell asleep. I guess I woke up a little jumpy.”
“Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint you, but the crucifix won’t keep me out.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards Hunter, who was leaning negligently against her doorframe. “It might keep him out.”
“Maybe a couple of hundred years ago,” he intoned dryly, letting himself in and closing the door—what remained of it, anyway—behind him.
Mischa’s gaze landed on the shirt Hunter hadn’t bothered to button, and her cheeks flushed. She smoothed a hand over her wayward hair self-consciously. “Don’t you have to be invited in?” she grumbled.
He grinned at her. “Maybe a couple of hundred years ago.”
“Well, that’s just great. What the hell do you want, anyway? Where do you get off-”
“Phoenix has Harper,” Riddick interrupted.
Panic and shock flashed through her eyes, but true to form, Mischa pulled herself together quickly. Riddick wished he could do the same.
“What can I do?”
“Hunter found out that Phoenix’s real name is Damian Ashworth. If you can track his family tree and find out where his family’s ancestral estate is, we can at least start looking for Harper there.”
Mischa elbowed Hunter out of her way and snatched her laptop off the coffee table. She tucked one leg under her and sat on her couch. It took her only a moment to boot up and start typing.
While she worked, Riddick paced. When he got his hands on Phoenix, he was going to rip the bastard’s liver out and cram it down his throat. No, that would be way too easy. He’d crack his skull open like an egg and—
“Do you mind?” Mischa muttered through clenched teeth. “I can’t think with you looming over me like that.”
Riddick turned to find Hunter leaning over the back of the couch, so close to Mischa that the top of her head brushed his chest and the ends of his hair rested on her shoulders.
He smirked down at her, but didn’t move. “Sorry, love. Computers fascinate me.”
Any idiot could see that it wasn’t the computer that fascinated Hunter, but rather the feisty little Italian sitting in front of it. Harper would be very interested in the play between the unlikely pair.
But Harper wasn’t here, and Riddick didn’t give a shit.
Swallowing an impatient growl, he muttered, “Anything yet?”
“Wait…just…a…minute,” she said, still typing away. “I’ve traced the Ashworth family tree, and Damian is indeed the last descendant. Judging by the property records, I would say that…ah! Here it is. The Ashworth’s had a three acre farm twenty miles south of town. It’s been paid off for at least a hundred years, and belongs to a D. Ashworth. That has to be him!”
Riddick was halfway to the door when Hunter laid a hand on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t go alone. I’ll go with you.”
“The sun will be up soon,” Mischa reminded him.
Riddick patted the pockets of his coat, taking a mental inventory of the weapons he still had on him. A couple of stakes, a half-sword, and a bowie knife. It would have to be enough.
Mischa again shoved Hunter out of her way to get to her hall closet. After a moment of rummaging, she produced a crossbow.
“I’m coming with you,” she announced.
“Don’t be stupid,” Riddick said distractedly, focusing on the crossbow. That could come in handy.
Mischa sucked in a breath and glared at him. If glares could kill, Riddick would have sent her after Phoenix by herself.
She drew herself up to her full height—which still only put the top of her head at his breastbone—and hefted the crossbow onto her shoulder. “I’m going with you,” she repeated. “Harper’s my best friend.”
Touching, but he didn’t have time for this, Riddick thought. With two steps and a little misdirection, he neatly snatched the crossbow from Mischa. She charged him in an effort to take it back, but he held her at arms-length with a palm to the center of her forehead.
After a few minutes of struggling and wind-milling while Hunter chuckled under his breath, Mischa took a step back and put her hands on her hips.
Visibly gathering her dignity, Mischa leveled him with a steely-eyed glare that would have impressed him if he had more time.
“Riddick, Harper is my best friend.” She swallowed hard. “My only friend. I.Am.Going.With.You.”
He’d seen this same mutinous look on Harper’s face at least a dozen times. He knew Harper well enough to know that the threat of being locked in a small space was her weakness, the only thing that could knock that look off her face. Before today, he would have guessed Mischa had no such weakness. Now he knew better.
He threw a quick glance in Hunter’s direction. “You want to help me? Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t leave this apartment.”
Hunter looked startled, but after a moment, shot Mischa a grin. “It would be my pleasure.”
Mischa’s jaw dropped. Her gaze shifted between the two men towering over her, finally landing on Riddick. “You can’t leave me with him,” she breathed.
Rather than the terror he’d seen in Harper’s eyes when he’d mentioned throwing her in her trunk, Mischa’s eyes reflected only anger, maybe a little apprehension. Not enough to make him change his mind.
“Yep,” he answered. “I sure can. You’ll be safe.” If not happy, he added silently as Mischa’s face turned red, then purple.
As he turned to go, Hunter laid a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck, my friend.”
Riddick only nodded. He appreciated the sentiment, but they both knew that if he got Harper back, luck wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
/>
He spared one glance over his shoulder as he moved to leave and saw Hunter throw an arm around Mischa’s shoulders.
“Have any other hidden weapons I should know about, love?” he asked with a grin. "Mind if I frisk you?"
As he pulled the door shut behind him, Mischa shouted, “I hate you, Noah Riddick!”
Chapter Twenty-six
Lord, if you help me out of this, I do solemnly swear that I will be more careful, and if Riddick tells me to get out of town, by…well, you, I will.
Harper had tried at least a dozen variations of the same prayer and still she remained chained up in a maniac’s basement.
But she refused to pray for Riddick to rescue her. For as much trouble as she usually got into, she’d always been able to save herself. It was only recently that she’d found herself playing the damsel in distress to Riddick’s hero. She wasn’t about to make a habit of it.
Harper groaned. Oh, who the hell was she kidding? She’d give anything to have Riddick ride in on his white horse, colors flying, and save her from the dragon. She was a disgrace to feminists everywhere.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs had her stomach and heart fighting for a place in her throat. Then Benny’s face appeared above her.
“What the hell do you want?” she grumbled.
He knelt beside her. “Harper, I swear, I didn’t know he planned to hurt you. I thought he’d just…you know…keep you here until Riddick came for you. If I thought he was gonna hurt you, I wouldn’t have helped him.”
He actually had the nerve to look like he wanted her forgiveness. “Benny, I might actually believe you didn’t want anything bad to happen to me if I wasn’t chained to the fucking floor!” She gave her chains a tug for emphasis.
He ran a hand through his grimy hair. “I swear to God—”
“Don’t swear to God, Benny,” she interrupted in a low voice. “Swear to Riddick. It’s his forgiveness you’re going to need, not God’s.”
Fear flashed through his dark eyes, and Harper could tell he was remembering what it felt like to be burned alive just because he’d annoyed Riddick. Hope flared to life inside her. Benny’s fear just might be her ticket out of here.
Harper lifted her head so that she could look Benny in the eye. “I know you’re not stupid, Benny. You know what Riddick will do to you if anything happens to me.”
His left eye twitched. “I know what Phoenix will do to me if I let you go. Believe me, that’s no pretty picture, either.” He shook his head. “Christ, I’m fucked if I do and fucked if I don’t.”
Her heart pounded. “That’s right. So why not do the right thing for once in your life?”
“What do you mean?”
In her head, Harper heard a choir of angels singing the Hallelujah Chorus. He was weakening. “If you get me out of here, I’ll tell Riddick how you saved my life. We’ll protect you until Phoenix has been tried, convicted, and locked up for life. For once you’d be the hero of the story instead of the villain.”
His eyes narrowed, but not before they’d lit up at the idea of being a hero. “Do you really think you could get Riddick to protect me? He hates me.”
Understatement of the year. “True. But he’ll do it if I ask. And,” she added pointedly, “If he thinks you saved my life.”
He wavered for what felt like an eternity to Harper, but God bless his crooked little soul, he reached into his shirt pocket and produced a small key.
She couldn’t help but grin at him. “Benny, if that’s a key to these handcuffs, I’m going to kiss you on the mouth. Maybe even with tongue.”
Benny blushed and grinned back at her as he slid the key into the lock. “Then pucker up, baby.”
When the cuffs snapped open and fell to the concrete, Harper didn’t slip Benny the tongue, but she did throw herself at him and hug him as tightly as her broken ribs would allow. “You’re my new best friend in the whole world,” she said, pressing a smacking kiss on his cheek.
He slid his arm around her waist and eased her off the ground. “I ain’t never had a friend before.”
“All of my friends are your friends now.”
“Even Riddick?”
Now that one was a poser. She wasn’t even sure she could say Riddick was her friend. “Weeeelll…”
“Hey, it’s OK. You don’t have to make Riddick like me. If you can keep him from burning me alive at any point in the future, that’s good enough for me.”
“Deal.”
But as quickly as Harper’s hopes had risen, they plummeted.
Benny and Harper had no sooner made it to the steps then Phoenix appeared at the top.
Well shit.
Chapter Twenty-seven
1992, Sentry Headquarters
Mischa dropped her notebook on her desk and slid her glasses off to rub her weary eyes. Damn, what a day.
Two more vampire targets eliminated, one escaped.
Her only failure. And he’d been escaping her since her first day on the job.
Wolf Hunter, for God’s sake. Hell, he was so old he didn’t even have a real name. Back when he was born, the Lakota tribes named young ones according to what they were good at, or their best attributes. Apparently, the five-hundred-year-old vampire who was at the top of Sentry’s most wanted list had been good at hunting wolves.
And slayers, she thought wryly.
He’d killed every slayer she’d sent after him. Nine total.
As far as she knew, no other vampire had ever eluded capture so efficiently. And without bothering to hide. He was always easy to track. Almost as if he had nothing to hide.
She had just slipped her glasses back on and stood to grab her journal when her door burst off its hinges and the object of her musings appeared in front of her, blocking her access to the outside world.
He filled her doorway, standing at six-foot-one or a little more, easily two-hundred leanly muscled pounds. If none of her slayers stood a chance against him, she surely couldn’t last a minute.
She swallowed her fear and held her head high. She’d be damned if she was going to die sniveling.
The look of pure fury in his eyes dimmed a bit as his gaze moved over her. “You can’t be…”
She raised one eyebrow. “I’m Mischa Bartone. I’m quite sure I’m the one you’re looking for.”
The disbelief in his eyes was beyond insulting. “But you’re…”
“A woman?” she supplied, thinking she just might be able to hold her own with him in a fight if he called her a girl. She’d have rage on her side, after all.
“You’re a child.”
She frowned. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. She was sure of it. He’d censored himself for some reason. A most unusual trait in a vampire. Most of the time they had no filter between what they thought and what they said. After all, once you died, what did you really have to fear? Certainly not retribution for saying something that might hurt someone’s feelings.
“How did you find me?” she asked when he remained silent.
He pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket. It was her letterhead. Orders, most likely, written by her to one of her slayers.
She’d rather not think about how he’d gotten his hands on it.
“I tracked your scent off this.”
Her scent? She had a smell that allowed him to track her from God knows how far away? Christ, maybe she needed a new soap or something.
He continued to stare at her in an appraising manner that set her teeth on edge. “If you’re waiting for an invitation, you won’t be getting one.”
“What makes you think I need one?”
His voice was low-pitched and smooth. It would have been sexy if he hadn’t come to kill her. “Vampires 101. You can’t come in uninvited.”
“You’ve received misinformation, I’m afraid, Miss Bartone. Quite a bit of it.”
And yet he didn’t come in, she noticed. “Really? What misinformation might that be?”
“You and your superiors
seem to think I’m in the habit of killing humans. That hasn’t been a hobby of mine for over a century.”
Hobby. She barely repressed the urge to snarl at him. “I have nine dead slayers that might argue that point.”
He tossed her something cool and metal. She caught it instinctively, but didn’t take her eyes off him.
“You have ten dead slayers, Miss Bartone. And I wouldn’t have killed any of them if given any other choice.”
She gulped, realizing what she held in her hand. Dog tags. She didn’t have to look to know that they belonged to Kevin Daniels, the slayer she’d most recently sent after Wolf Hunter. He’d been good at his job, and yet it would appear that he hadn’t managed to leave a mark on the vampire.
“Congratulations, Wolf Hunter,” she said around a lump in her throat. “Ten slayers. That must be some kind of record.”
He growled at her, and she sank into her chair before her knees could give out and betray her cool façade.
“It’s just Hunter, and I’m not here to brag,” he snapped. “I’m here to tell you to stop sending slayers after me.”
“I’m only doing my job.”
“And I’m only doing mine.”
She stared at him for a moment, then asked quietly, “Can I ask you a question?”
He pulled back a little, obviously thrown off guard. “I suppose so,” he said, his skepticism clear.
“Was it…did any of them even present a challenge to you?”
“You mean did any of them even come close to being able to kill me?”
She nodded.
“Miss Bartone, I’ve been around a very long time. I’ve fought in so many wars I probably can’t even remember all of them. I have more training and experience than all of your slayers put together.” He sounded unbelievably weary as he added, “So, to answer your question, no, none of them were even able to hurt me. And to answer what you really want to know, yes, I’ll keep killing the men you send after me, one by one. My existence isn’t ideal, but I intend to protect it nonetheless.”
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