Everlasting (Descendants of Ra: Book 2)
Page 23
A scream echoed in the night.
Alexis! While he allowed The Vanquished their pleasure, she was hurt.
What had he done?
***
The damn train yard was a maze. Alexis could hear the sirens and see the strobe lights, but couldn’t get to the police. She had to save Reign and the victims. One hundred feet would accomplish one of those goals, but damn it! She was lost. The train yard didn’t seem so complicated when they entered.
Alexis doubled back and skidded on the gravel. Daniel blocked her way.
“Halt! You’re under arrest. Put your hands above your head and get on the ground.” She aimed her weapon at the center of his chest. One move and his heart would add a fifth chamber. She couldn’t believe it. She’d caught the Village Strangler and redeemed her career.
Sweat trickled into her eyes. She blinked the sting away. The wind kicked up, bringing that awful odor. Quimaera. Somewhere near. They had to get out of here.
“Turn around.” She’d walk him to the police.
A snap echoed, but neither of them had moved. Daniel groaned and in the dim light, his body leaned awkwardly to the right. He jerked, twitched and before her startled eyes, his body changed. Bones snapped and elongated. Muscles ripped and grew, bulged, ripped again, and bulged more. Fingers turned into claws, a tail sprouted from his lower back. His neck thickened. His shoulders widened. A broad snout morphed from his nose and mouth, and pushed his eyes to the side of his head. Those protruding orbs rotated and locked on her.
A tremble started in her gut and spread to each limb. I don’t want to die. Not now. Not like this.
She dove beneath the nearest train car. Pebbles dug into her skin, cutting her hands and scratching her face. She shimmied to the center. The beast bellowed and slammed into the car. Metal screeched. The train rocked and then settled back on its wheels.
Alexis didn’t move, didn’t breath. Above her, wood creaked and cracked. Pieces were torn free and littered the ground. She screamed, couldn’t stop if she wanted to. Terror had stripped her mind of reason. Alexis prayed, hard and fast. Eyes squeezed closed, she babbled to God, promised him everything if he would just—Silence. The sudden quiet confused and hurt her ears.
A puff of air ruffled her hair. Dear God. She angled her head to the right.
Crouched on all fours, it peered beneath the car. Razor sharp teeth showed through a hungry smile. Its pinpoint eyes ran from her face down her body. She reached for her weapon. She may not be able to kill Daniel, but a bullet to this creature’s eye would give him something to consider. Her hand slipped into an empty holster. The gun was gone.
Claws stretched beneath the car and raked down her side. Fire laced up her flank. She screamed again. The beast gripped the undercarriage and lifted.
Metal wheels left the track. The train tilted. Then crashed on its side. Alexis tried to scurry away. But the beast loomed. And she bled. Its huge body blocked the dim light cast from the street. It dropped to all fours again and covered her, pinned her to the ground. Sharp pebbles pierced her back. Inches from her face, rows of bloody teeth gleamed, comically white. Noxious breath and drool fanned and coated her skin.
Jaws unhinged and opened wide.
Alexis closed her eyes.
***
Reign scattered his atoms and sent them across the distance separating him from Alexis. He found her lying across the tracks, her fingers splayed to her abdomen, blood seeping between them. Equal parts of terror and defiance plastered her face. Alamut hovered over her, ready to cleave her head from her shoulders.
Reason vanished, leaving undiluted violence. One swipe cleaved Alamut’s head from his body. He thrust his blade into his enemy’s torso. The sword illuminated the beast from within and turned the pasty skin robin’s egg blue. Before he could wrench the blade upward and separated the body into equal halves, Alamut vanished. Only a fine mist remained, which dissipated in the shifting breeze. A hollow chuckle echoed and drifted away.
“Over here!” Someone shouted.
Reign dropped to Alexis’s side.
“You have to go. The police are here.” Her words hitched on a ragged breath.
Blood had drained from her face, leaving her skin gray and her lips tinged blue. Gently, he moved her hand from the wound.
“No, please leave. They’re going to arrest you.” She winced with each word.
“Shhh.” He pressed his hand over the wound and leaned close.
She bit her bottom lip, but a whimper slipped through. Tears glistened in her wide, glassy eyes.
“I will never leave you,” he said.
Her trembling hand reached for him. He grabbed it with his free hand and pressed kisses to her bloody knuckles while he concentrated on healing her torn flesh. Without her to balance him, the Vanquished would win and he would cease to exist. Even if he could survive without Alexis, he didn’t want to.
He glanced down. Light emanated from between his fingers and streamed into her side. A cry slid from between her compressed lips. “Forgive my clumsiness.”
Alexis shook her head, but she wasn’t looking at him. She stared over his shoulder.
“Police! Get away from her!” Someone shouted behind him.
“No, stop.” Alexis struggled to push him away, but Reign pinned her shoulder to the ground. He forced more power into her wound. She grabbed his wrist. A backwash of fear flooded his senses. But she didn’t fear him. She was afraid for him.
Thunder rolled as guns fired.
Reign jerked. Pinpoints of fire bloomed on his back. But he wouldn’t let go of her wound. He couldn’t stop. With her life in the balance, stopping meant losing them both. Somehow, the tether hadn’t just tied his body to her, but also his heart and soul.
A shimmering light enveloped her. Alexis gasped and her breathing eased. Color returned to her face and pain faded from her features. As the light soaked into her, she relaxed and sighed.
Someone tackled him from behind. He tucked and rolled, stopping only when he was on top. His arm cocked, fist clenched to deliver a bone-crunching blow to the man’s face. Alexis’s shout whipped his head about.
She’d wobbled to her feet and took a careful step toward him. A policeman pushed her back to the ground. She fell hard across the metal tracks, clutching her still tender side. She looked at the officer standing over her, gun pointed at her head.
“I’m a cop,” she yelled, her hands raised about her head. That didn’t stop the officer from shoving her onto her belly with his boot.
Crazed, Reign leaped to her side and knocked the officer off his feet. Shouted commands came at him. Meaningless words drowned out by the Vanquished screeching for carnage. His palm welcomed the heavy weight of his sword. Its glowing blade a beacon that parted the darkness and called for their deaths.
He crouched. Muscles tight, power humming, Reign braced for attack.
A soft hand touched his bicep and jarred him from his deadly path. His gaze shifted to Alexis. She was on her feet. He shifted to protect her, but she countered his move. She faced him, her unguarded back to the crowd of armed men.
“Please don’t kill them. We both know you can.” I’m begging you not to.
The last five words filled his head. Through their connection, she’d pushed her thoughts into his mind and silenced his ghost. The acrid taste of her fear choked him. She worried more for his safety than those of her fellow officers. Reign swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and glared over her head at the waiting officers.
“They're only doing their jobs. They don't know what really happened here.” But we do.
He gazed into her eyes. Her intense confidence speared his soul. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had given him their trust. He gave a single nod. Her hand slid from his arm down to thread her fingers between his. Mrs. Kelly sifting through him flashed into his mind. He submerged his longings, buried them deep because he shouldn’t want what he would never have. And her knowing would serve no purpose.
The Vanquished were strangely quiet. Their anger banked as never before. Docile, as if waiting for further instruction. For the first time since arriving here, he could think clearly without their intrusion.
He ignored the questions fielded at him and focused on Alexis who was surrounded by three uniformed men. They shouted and pointed fingers at her, and at the bloody scene left by the quimaera. She shouted back, but he couldn’t hear her words.
Then they pointed at him.
Her head swung in his direction.
Dragged to his knees and handcuffed, Reign studied her drawn eyebrows and the grim line of her lips. Wisps of hair haloed her face and for a moment, she seemed lost to him. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to her accusers. She gave a single nod and stretched out her hands. One removed a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and snapped the metal around her wrists.
No! They could have him. Not her. Reign lunged to his feet and dragged a few men along.
Alexis whipped around. She shook her head and mouthed “No” before they led her away. Her plea not to harm these men corralled his instinct to kill. By her grace, they live and they had arrested her. They should know she had saved their worthless lives.
Reign gritted his teeth. His body strained to follow. Then he stopped. He didn’t need to fight these men. A silent count started in his head. One, two, three…One hundred feet is all he needed.
He allowed the officers to shove him into a patrol car. They thought they had caged and conquered him, won the battle. Thirty seconds later, the tug on his atoms began. He welcomed the hard yank, thankful fate had shacked him to a fiery redhead that had captured his heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Once more, Alexis shifted her butt, this time a little to the right. Blood returned to the numb cheek with a stabbing awareness, which would’ve made her wince if it wasn’t for the two detectives sitting across the table staring at her. She’d never been to this precinct and didn’t know these men. Standing and stretching was out of the question. They would see it as a weakness to exploit. They’d offered her something to eat, drink, another bathroom break, anything to get her to talk.
She almost laughed at their frustration. Then she’d looked down at her orange, correctional institute jumpsuit and realized she had nothing to laugh about. Twelve hours by the clock on the wall, that’s how long she’d been in this gray room with a mirror on one wall, a barred window on the other, and steel door guarding her from escape. They didn’t realize she’d let them shove her into a police car and haul her to the precinct in order to save their lives. One hundred feet and she felt Reign’s presence in the enclosed rear of the police car. She wasn’t concerned for herself.
A knock sounded at the door and McCabe entered. He nodded to the two detectives who gathered their notepads and shuffled from the room. McCabe shrugged out of his jacket and draped it on the back of the chair. She noticed his empty holster dangling under his armpit. He unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up his beefy forearms.
Alexis glanced at the mirror, certain his performance was for the audience gathered behind the two-way. They must’ve invited him to grill her when their men failed to deliver a confession. She estimated the two detectives, a prosecutor, and the captain of the precinct watched. Everyone wanted to watch the show when a cop was in the crosshairs.
McCabe slammed his palms on the table. She didn’t flinch.
“Glad to have your attention, Detective Lever.”
He used her title not as a show of respect, but to remind her of what she’d lost. Maybe what she never was.
“Let’s start at the beginning.” He braced his elbows on the table and leaned forward. His big, round, florid face hung in front of her.
God no. She sent a silent plea to the heavenly father, which he ignored. McCabe started where he thought the beginning was, at the arrest of Reign Nicolis by the New City PD. He proceeded to lay out a similar scenario the previous detectives pursued. She and her fugitive lover went on a rampage under High Bridge, killing eight homeless victims. He didn’t mention the bloody crime scene or the scraps of human remains as if she and Reign had stopped for a take-out snack of homeless tartare. She blinked hard, but images of the quimaera feeding frenzy would never leave her mind.
And Daniel. His transformation into that huge beast left her trembling. Never in her wildest imagination could she have envisioned something so—
“Where is he, Lever? Where’s your partner?” McCabe’s hard stare bore into her.
The image of Daniel’s morphing body clung to her, refusing to be pushed away. “I don’t have a partner.”
“The man you were with. Reign, no last name. The same guy New City PD is searching for. The guy who was with you at the train yard. That partner.”
A cool breeze fluttered her hair and lifted her heart. He’s closer than you think. “Am I under arrest, McCabe?”
“That’s all you have to say after your lover left you holding the bag for murdering people? I never thought you’d be one of those women who throw away everything for a stiff one.”
That stuck in her craw. “It never occurred to you to give me the benefit of the doubt? It never crossed your mind I could be innocent?”
His hollow smile gutted her. “You’re not innocent, Lever. You’re standing by a killer instead of your oath to serve and protect.”
The door opened and a detective entered. He waved for McCabe to follow him. McCabe stood and slipped back into his jacket. “You’re chin deep in shit and soon to go under. And I’m gonna be the one to give you that final push.” He exited.
Alexis sucked in a sigh that flipped into a sob that burned its way up the back of her throat. She tried to swallow it back down and ended up choking when the other sobs crawled up. McCabe’s words planted the image of her drowning in a sewage tank. She’d worked so damn hard at her job only to lose it all in a few days.
Maybe all isn’t lost?
Yeah, because there was a great record of cops returning to work after being implicated in a mass murder. The department would never stop investigating her. Everyone ever associated with her would be scrutinized. No one would ever want to work with her again.
And her father! God, how could she explain this? She couldn’t, not without a massive amount of lying because the truth would get her committed.
‘There’s a hybrid army of Egyptian beasts devouring innocent people in New York. Oh, and the serial killer your trolling New York for, he’s one of them.’ The second the words left her mouth, she’d be in a straitjacket.
Alexis jumped to her feet and paced the small room. She ignored the two-way mirror and the steady red light on the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling. Too many questions circled in her head, spinning like a haywire top. Her side throbbed at the site where the beast clawed her flesh. She remembered Reign, pouring his power into her wound, connecting them. Through this bond, she shared his anguish when the first bullet ripped into his shoulder. More bullets riddled his body. For precious seconds she couldn’t think as their joint suffering magnified and reverberated. Then all her anguish ceased. She floated in a tranquil sea. Reign. His presence surrounded her, healed her.
How many times had he saved her? The house. The shooting at the bodega. The train yard. He’d taken bullets for her. No one had ever put their life on the line for her. Done so much to protect her without asking for anything in return.
The door opened and yanked her back to the present. McCabe barreled through. “Your apartment and grandmother’s house checked out clean. We’ve got nothing else to hold you. You’re free to go.” He stomped from the room.
; They kept her clothes for DNA processing and her gun but returned her badge, keys, phone, and wallet. Alexis stepped out of the precinct in an oversized zippered cardigan and baggy jeans donated from the Salvation Army. She inhaled a comforting breath of stale, exhaust-filled New York City air and smiled. Freedom smelled like sweaty gym shorts left in a locker over the summer, but nothing had ever smelled so sweet.
As she walked, the night replayed in her mind. She remembered lying on the hard gravel with the wreckage of a train nearby and the police closing in. Reign pressed his hand against her wounds and light filled her. His radiance bathed her soul and then the link had been severed.
He had climbed to his feet and faced at least twenty armed officers, his features feral with flared nostrils and bared teeth. His blue eyes glowed. She had no doubt he’d killed all the quimaera he’d led into the stock car. And if he had to, he’d kill all the officers there. She wouldn’t allow that. She’d do whatever was necessary to stop him from taking innocent lives.
Alexis had grabbed his arm. Ripples of awareness leaped from her palm and tore into Reign. She swept past his defenses, seeking his radiance. Memories slammed into her. The wars, the battles, death, destruction, and loss. His deal with Daniel to stay here, and…Nephythys. Profound loneliness had encased his heart. His gaze had lurched to her. Fury and confusion had swirled wildly in the depths of his eyes. A foul churning darkness had replaced the light that filled his soul moments ago. His tense body had braced for an attack from her and from the officers waiting outside of their private circle.
She couldn’t believe he listened to her plea for mercy and didn’t kill every officer there.
A block away from the precinct, coffee scented the air and propelled her to a sidewalk vendor for a mocha latte and muffin. She thought she’d blended in with the lunch crowd until a subtle movement on her peripheral caught her attention.