“But he won’t go in,” Adam continued, as if he could direct Custo by will alone. “Our escape will have rotated the entry codes. He’ll know something is wrong. If he’s smart, he’ll walk away.”
Talia saw the many Custos’ expressions change as, indeed, his initial code was rejected. One Custo swore. Another raked his hands through his hair. Another stepped back onto the sidewalk to peer up the height of the building, then approached the keypad again.
All of the Custos entered the building.
Talia’s eyes teared, her breath coming faster. She had always liked Custo. He’d always seemed solid, direct, and real.
Adam groaned in frustration. “Damn it. No.”
“He’s a good friend,” Abigail said.
“He’s an idiot,” Adam roared back. The pain in his voice reverberated through Talia.
Every Custo drew his gun. All but one took the stairs; the other went with the elevator. Firearm raised, Custo entered the loft apartment.
A blur of movement obscured what happened next, but Talia caught the moment when Custo’s head jerked back, as if struck. She witnessed the sudden curl of his body around a belly-planted kick. She shuddered as he fell, spitting blood.
“What?” Adam asked. “What? What’s happening?”
Talia shoved away the shadows and retched, trying to get them out from inside her body, her mind. The coating of Otherworldly ick grasped at her throat as she heaved for air. The effort knocked her off balance and burned her from her core out, but Adam steadied her, drawing her against him.
A tremor of relief washed through her body—she’d wanted, needed, to be in Adam’s arms for a while. She just had no idea how to get there.
“Are you all right?” Adam spoke low, words short with tension.
Talia’s lungs were screaming, but she nodded a mute, yes, against his ribs. A faint tinge of sewer still clung to him, but underneath the smell was all Adam.
“Will you be okay here for a while?” He backed them both to the door of the room.
She shook her head. No. She knew what he was thinking. No way on earth was he going without her.
“Talia, these people seem fine. If they meant us any harm, they would have done something by now. And I’ll be back as soon as I can. I can’t stay. You have to understand, I can’t just stay and let Custo die.”
Talia did understand. He was being condescending again. Taking over. She wasn’t asking him to babysit her. If he could just get over his macho I-have-to-save-the-world routine, then he would know she understood. Her “no” had nothing to do with staying with these people.
He was going after Custo. She was going with him. She cocked her head to tell him so.
“Don’t look at me that way, Talia. You just said that the doctor wants you to take it easy,” he argued. “You need to heal. Besides, I’ll probably be walking into an ambush. I won’t be able protect you.”
She pointed to herself, and then pointed to him. I’ll protect you. Duh.
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t scream. How can you protect me?”
Talia laid a hand on his chest, just under the U between his collarbones where she could feel the soft echo of his heartbeat, and pulled the shadows around them.
Adam knocked her hand away and the shadows snapped back. “No. The risk is too great.”
He may as well have slapped her. She gritted her teeth and glared at him from her darkness. Idiot man. She was going, whether he liked it or not.
Abigail laughed. “Poor Adam. Probably thought he’d found a woman who would follow his lead, do everything he said. Got a banshee instead. I need one of them big windows for you two to work it out against. Zoe, do we have a big window somewhere? Adam’s particularly good with windows. Maybe he could convince her that way.”
Talia’s face heated, but she ignored Abigail, stubbornly crossing her arms and blocking the door.
Adam looked back at Abigail. “Can you quit mocking me for a minute and help me convince her to stay?”
Abigail shrugged. “Why would I waste my time doing that when I know very well that she goes with you?”
Talia controlled a smug smile.
“She—? What—?” Adam stammered. Then he turned to Talia. “Oh, hell. Come on.”
Zoe followed them down the stairs, shouting over the rising whine of a mournful melody as they neared the main floor of the building. “You can take my car if you want.”
“Good,” Adam said as he looked over his shoulder, beyond Talia. He didn’t want to attempt a reverse trek through the sewer, nor did he feel comfortable with an open stroll up the five blocks from his current location to the loft’s building, especially with Talia’s distinctive looks.
Zoe passed off the keys and directed them up the alley. Adam regarded Talia as they sprinted toward it. “You’ll do what I say, when I say it, or I’m not going anywhere. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she croaked.
This was a bad idea, taking her back to a building infested with either wraiths or SPCI operatives, or both. She was supposed to heal so that she could call her father and end the war. It was beyond irresponsible of him to allow her to come on a fool’s errand.
As a realist, he knew he might lose Custo, his surrogate brother. He couldn’t lose Talia as well. Yet, he couldn’t very well risk her following after he’d left.
Zoe’s car was a beat-up blue hatchback Accord circa the midnineties. Adam ran around to the driver’s side and crouched to get into the car, his knees hitting the steering wheel. Talia was seated and belted before he managed to fold himself into a position in which he could drive.
The car smelled like burned plastic in spite of the scented cartoon character dangly thing hanging from the rearview mirror. Random papers and debris littered the backseat. At least the car had a manual transmission.
Fiercely missing his Diablo, Adam slammed the Accord into first gear and accelerated down the alley at a crap seven mph. The car brayed when he floored the gas, but got him up to twenty by the mouth of the alley. He’d buy Zoe another car if he killed this one. Hell, he’d buy her another car if he survived the day.
Traffic was thickening with the start of the morning rush. A fleet of taxis jockeyed for position, blocking the intersection. Adam took the car onto the sidewalk with an ear-bracing scrape of the undercarriage, maneuvered around the cars to the angry shouts of their drivers, and ran the light to turn onto his building’s street.
“There,” Talia said, startling him. He hit the brakes.
“What?” The street had no pedestrians, only a line of parked cars.
“The red sedan. It’s what Custo was driving.” The red sedan was illegally parked directly across the street from Adam’s building. Adam pulled up alongside, stopping the Accord in the middle of the street, and hopped out.
“Get out,” Adam barked. He met her at the tail end of the car, grabbed her hand, and pulled her across the street. With his right hand, he drew his gun.
“We have to assume that whoever attacked the loft knows we’re here. They’d be watching the street. They’ll be waiting.”
Talia nodded. Her face was ash white. Scared, but not shaking. Not retreating into her shadows. She’d come a long way from that alley in Arizona.
“This is your last chance, Talia. You could make it back to that club. They’ll hide you. You could be safe there.” Why had he trusted Abigail’s word anyway? Just because she seemed to know everything didn’t mean she actually did.
Talia shook her head once, sharply. No.
He raised his hand to the keypad, but a suffocating pressure built in his chest. He turned to her, grabbing her shoulders and abandoning all dignity to plead, “Please, go back. I can’t let you in there. Not even for Custo. I just can’t. I won’t deliver you into their hands. Will you go back to the club? Will you go back for me?”
“I’m going inside that building for you,” she said in a jagged whisper, but whether it was because of emotion or her injury, he couldn’t tell.
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“Damn it, Talia. I should never have had sex with you. I told you that we couldn’t have a ‘you and me’ right now.” He released her abruptly, shoving her away from the door. “Don’t lose the war because of some sentimental attachment you have formed in a stressful situation.”
Talia stepped forward again. Her black eyes glinted dangerously. “I choose my own battles, not you. Don’t make me try to find a way inside on my own. It will only cost Custo time.”
She waved him back to the keypad.
Damn it. Abigail was right: Talia was determined to follow. He should’ve tied her down somewhere. Too late now. Too late for everything now.
He coded inside. The small lobby was empty. “Stairs or elevator?”
“Elevator’s faster,” Talia answered.
Fine. He sheltered her body as he punched the pad at the elevator. The metal door slid open.
Empty.
Talia stepped around him and entered. “I think we should do this Dark.” She lifted an eyebrow waiting for his response.
He stepped inside beside her, lacing his fingers through hers, and pulled her against the side wall. “Dark sounds good.”
Shadows caressed him, feathering lightly across his body like an extension of Talia. His perspective altered, senses sharpening as the physical world deepened and became more distinct, hyperaware of the environment. Of Talia’s slender, warm hand in his.
The steel box had them to the top of the building in five seconds.
Adam gripped her hand. “Here we go.”
The elevator door slid open and Talia sent a churning wave of darkness tumbling into the room. The flood of shadow poured out from her and filled the great room of the loft, skating across the floors and climbing the walls until the space was thick with the watery veils that separated the mundane world from the Otherworld in a wash of obscurity.
Armored men knelt in assault position, aiming toward the elevator as shadow-blindness overcame them. They were clothed in bulky black, as if that color could hide anything from her, and they wore gas masks. Behind the men were two wraiths moving around the perimeter of the room with the slow, predatory fluidity of a mudslide.
Talia sniffed the air. A faint trace of the sickly chemical tang still lingered. There was too much at stake for her to succumb to that again.
The loft needed air.
Talia reached for the window with the fingers of her shadows, tracing the splintered cracks in the glass from the earlier impacts. She insinuated darkness into the thick panes with a gentle, but building, insistent pressure. With a hiss, a crack darted, gashing through the window. The heavy glass buckled and slid to crash partly on the loft’s floors and partly on the sidewalk many stories below. But Talia let no sunlight penetrate the loft as fresh air replaced poisoned.
“Whoa,” Adam murmured, gaze slanting down at her. Was that respect in his eyes?
He tugged her hand, pulled her toward the kitchen, and brought them both to their knees behind the kitchen counter. He silently slid open a drawer and selected a knife, which he tucked into his belt. He pulled out a second, a short utility knife, and held it out to her.
No. She shook her head. She could protect him, but she wouldn’t kill anyone.
He pressed the blade into her hand. “You asked to come,” he reminded her. “Now take the damn knife and use it, if necessary.”
Her fingers closed around the wooden grip. She had no handy place to stow it—the elastic waistband of Adam’s sweatpants was too loose on her waist.
Adam ducked his head to hers and murmured, “Can you see Custo?”
She shook her head. No. But she could see a spray of blood on the wall in keeping with Adam’s stark, abstract paintings. An aggressive red splatter on white evoking Jackson Pollock.
Custo was here, and he had met with violence.
“The bedroom, most likely,” he said through gritted teeth.
But he didn’t move. Resolute anguish swept across the connection of their hands.
Talia understood why. If they both crept to the bedroom, the shadows would lift in the great room, allowing the men and wraiths to corner them. But Adam wouldn’t leave her alone to keep the place cloaked in shadow either, not in a room of guns and wraiths. His first priority was the war, so he had to protect her before saving his friend.
“You just have to trust me,” Talia whispered. She wasn’t afraid. Hiding is what she did best.
He shot her a tormented look.
Talia squeezed his hand, wishing he could feel her emotions for once. She resorted to words. “I hid in shadow for months without detection, I can handle a few minutes while you get Custo.”
“But—”
“No time for ‘buts.’ I’ll hold these men here, in the dark. I’m not afraid—this is my territory. I’ll be safe. Trust me to handle myself.”
Adam hesitated, indecision mixing with his worry.
“Go on.” She released her hold on his hand and waited for him to do the same.
Urgent focus surged within him. He pulled her close to stroke her face, a soft caress across the plane of her cheek, and murmured, “I’ll be right back.”
Adam touched the right angles of the refrigerator and moved around the side to the alcove where his work station was located. The foot of the desk indicated that he’d reached the turn to the hallway, but the chair was missing. He crawled through the space until the shadows weakened and he could see the outline of his hand on the floor.
He stood, gun in hand, and approached the diluted line of vertical light at the bedroom door.
The door swung open, a female wraith bolting from the room in an eerie glide.
Adam shot her in the head and kicked her body back inside, where the shadows were thinner yet, Talia’s reach weakening. The wraith hit the edge at the end of the bed awkwardly and thunked to the floor to regenerate while stinking up the place.
“Hello, Adam.”
Spencer stood in the center of the room, outfitted in black gear like his team and aiming a gun his way. His stance blocked Adam’s view of a person bound to a chair behind him.
Alive. Please be alive.
Adam braced and kept a throttle hold on his thumping heart, sweat burning through his skin with the effort, as he shifted to the side to get a better look.
Custo sat in the office chair, hands bound to the armrests, feet bound to the legs of the chair, one ankle cruelly skewed. His head lolled forward, blood staining his shirt and the lap of his pants. The faint acrid smell of urine made Adam grit his teeth.
Hold on, Custo. Stay alive.
He sighted down the barrel at Spencer’s head, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation of the sweet satisfaction of pulling the trigger. Spencer was going to die, had to die. Right now. “Why? You son of a bitch. Why?”
Spencer kept his gun steady. “I was sure he knew where you were, he always does. But this is much easier. Him bringing you and the girl to me. Really very convenient.”
“How could you do this?”
Shrugging, Spencer answered, “I had to get your location somehow. Got to hand it to Custo; he didn’t give. But there’s no fighting The Collective.”
“I’ve found a way,” Adam said. She’s just outside the door.
“It’s too late. The world has changed. The wraith population tops ten thousand, headed by an immortal demon. Cooperation is in our best interests. The wraith revolution is over. The Collective won.”
The hell it did. Adam’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“But I’ll, uh, throw you a bone if you let me out of here,” Spencer said with a flash of his teeth.
“You’re not leaving this room alive.” Hold on, Custo.
“Really?” Spencer asked. “I can show you how to end a wraith without a scream. It’s actually very simple. Your perspective at Segue has been so myopic that you couldn’t see it for yourself.”
Adam thought of Talia. Her small, fragile frame struggling for air. He couldn’t imagine her fighting a demon
. Couldn’t imagine her slack body if she died trying.
“What is it?”
“Wraiths can’t tolerate death.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Can’t tolerate death.
Spencer glanced meaningfully at Custo, slumped in his chair. His rounded shoulders were too still.
No! It couldn’t be. Not Custo.
A life for a death. Philip’s druid rite, his theory of symmetry in which a person gives up their life to teach a monster to die. That wraith wasn’t worth Custo. His only friend. His brother in every way that mattered.
“Out,” Adam said. He had to get to Custo. Save Custo.
Spencer’s eyes glittered in satisfaction. Adam kept his gun trained on him as Spencer eased out the door.
“I’ll be just outside when you’re done,” Spencer said. Him, his SPCI team, and a couple wraiths. All that, and still Spencer would die when Adam was finished here. His banshee easily trumped Spencer’s backup.
Adam rushed to Custo and gently felt his blood-slick neck for a pulse as his own clamored wildly. He couldn’t find it.
No, wait. The vein at Custo’s neck trembled. The pulse was there, just thready. Weak.
Hang on. Hang on.
Adam knelt on the floor beside the chair, forced his trembling hands to gentleness to raise Custo’s chin. His face was a nightmare of brutality, even softened by Talia’s shadows. His eyes were red-ringed, his nose askew, his jaw oddly hanging. “Oh, God. Custo, I’m sorry.”
Not that Custo could hear him. He was well beyond that.
Adam swallowed bile as a rage of helplessness filled him, vision blurring with water. Custo couldn’t die like this, tied to a chair. Adam took the knife out of his belt and severed the cords that bound his friend, so very careful not to nick Custo’s skin.
Custo’s body sagged forward when Adam freed his arms.
“Easy now,” Adam said, shouldering the weight. Warm wetness seeped through his shirt, Custo’s blood flowing freely. Adam brought him to the bed. There was nowhere else to take him. No help he could get to save him.
Dark and Dangerous: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances Page 80