Closing the gap between them, Lore followed the shooter into the subterranean warren of language labs, lockers, and bare concrete. Lore got a few more details—the guy was wearing a watch cap and black clothes. Caucasian. Human? Graffiti snaked along the walls as they streaked past. The runner turned, crashing through the fire doors that passed into a tunnel that ran between this building and the computer lab.
This is what Lore had been hoping for: an easy shot in an area where there was nowhere to hide. The runner had gone straight into a perfect kill zone.
“Freeze!” he bellowed, the walls ringing with the word.
Without stopping, the shooter turned to his right and opened a door in the side of the tunnel.
What the fuck? Lore charged toward him. He’d been in this underground passageway before. There was no door.
But the shooter passed through it.
Lore slowed, fighting momentum, ready to grab this unexpected doorknob.
But there wasn’t one. No knob. No door. No seam where the door might have been. There was only grubby concrete wall, and a tingling sensation when he touched his hand to the concrete blocks. Magic. Magic not even a hellhound’s power over doorways could break.
Fury shocked him, leaving his skin tingling and raw. It took him beyond swearing. He simply backed away, turned, and walked quickly to the end of the tunnel to the Cambridge underground entrance. His jaw clenched, and eerie, cold anger gripped him like an invisible beast.
Sorcery. Hate. Prey. Escape. Tear. Bite.
As he stalked into the basement computer lab, he could smell damp concrete. A mop and bucket in one corner reminded him there’d been a burst pipe. He walked up the wheelchair ramp to the main floor, wondering where Perry was. Lore pulled out his cell and pushed the speed dial to Perry’s number, but it went to voice mail.
The ramp ended near the door. Lore looked around, noticing a red smear on the wall. Blood? Automatically, he looked down. There was more spatter on the floor.
No! Perry had been hit. A trail led away from the door, the teardrop shape of the drips pointing down the hall.
Lore ran in that direction, pulling out his cell phone again. He hit redial, listening for Perry’s phone. He heard the tinny strains of “Blue Moon” coming from a cluster of couches up ahead. Lore sprinted toward the sound, a sick feeling in his gut.
Perry was lying on one of the couches, shivering and drenched in blood.
Chapter 19
Thursday, December 30, 7:30 p.m.
Fairview General Hospital
“Silver bullets?” Talia breathed into the phone.
She could hear the tension in Lore’s voice. “The bullet was a safety slug filled with silver pellets. The penetration wasn’t deep, but a lot of metal got into his bloodstream.”
Talia knew very well what that meant, because she’d used those rounds herself. Organ damage, and then death. Oh, God, Perry. It was a bad way to go, but at least it would be relatively fast. “Meet me at the front door of the hospital in half an hour.”
She hung up the phone before Lore could argue. Talia had been mostly okay with staying at the condo while Lore went to the university, but now she couldn’t sit around any longer. No one used those slugs but professional monster-killers. They were hard to get, expensive, custom-made, and this was her area of expertise.
Among the Hunters, she had been one of the very best shots. She knew where to get specialized ammunition, who made it in which back room, and what their maker’s marks looked like. Safety slugs mushroomed on impact, so conventional ballistics was tricky, but there might be other clues as to where it came from. With a stroke of luck, she might even figure out who pulled the trigger. Perry had found the images that proved she had come home too late to kill Michelle. She owed him whatever she could offer.
A sixth sense told her to hurry. Fortunately, she’d already solved the problem of weapons. A search earlier that evening had revealed the locker where Lore kept his toys. There was a lock box protected by one of those zappy spells, but she found a knife in a sheath she could strap to her calf. It had probably been meant for Lore’s forearm, but whatever.
In a determined flurry, she bundled into her coat and ran out into the snow. A few of the main buses were running, and there was no way she could be identified under a hood, scarf, mitts, and layers of sweaters. Everyone out on the streets looked like a bundle of knitting projects. She doubted anyone could even tell she was Undead, much less pick her out of a lineup.
The bus took longer than she expected, but it successfully dropped her at the edge of the hospital grounds. The parking lot was largely empty, but plenty of people had slipped, skidded, and snow shoveled their way into Emergency. The desk at the entrance was mobbed, making it easy to simply walk past. The nurses were too busy to care about one young woman wandering by, craning her neck to find one tall hellhound.
The gray tiled floor was covered in wet footprints. Talia could see the occupants had filled every bench. She caught the stink of wet wool and coats that had gone too long without dry cleaning. Chatter filled the place, mostly folks swapping bad weather stories.
After the quiet of Lore’s bedroom, Talia was overwhelmed by the noise. Plus, she was hungry. She’d refused the icky refrigerated blood and now she was regretting it. The ambient smell of the hospital wasn’t helping. Beneath all that antiseptic was . . . Oh, don’t go there.
The sight of Lore leaning against the wall, one leg bent and arms crossed, banished all thoughts of hospital food. The memory of his taste brought saliva to her mouth. She walked up to him, untying the long striped scarf she’d swiped from his drawer.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” Now that she was close, she could see the strain around his eyes.
“How is he?”
“The doctors put him on hemodialysis to clean as much of the toxin out of his blood as they can. They say it’s the only thing that works on werewolves.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“They don’t know yet, but at least they’ve got plenty of blood donors. I think all of Pack Silvertail showed up.”
They reached the elevators and Lore punched the button. “Perry was lucky to get a bed. Not all hospitals are equipped to treat shifters.”
Talia understood. A lot of people still believed that werebeasts would automatically heal if they changed form. That worked with small injuries, but few could summon enough energy to change after trauma and massive blood loss.
The elevator arrived, disgorging an orderly pushing an empty gurney. They got in and the doors closed with a shudder. With glacial slowness, it started going up. They were alone, but she could smell the hundreds of warm bodies that had come and gone throughout the day, some cleaner than others.
Talia glanced at Lore. A deep frown line creased his brow. She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. Startled, he glanced down, then squeezed back.
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
“It’s good not to be alone when things go bad.”
He couldn’t quite manage a smile, but the worry line relaxed.
The elevator doors opened and they exited on the third floor.
“I hate hospitals,” Talia grumbled. Health care administrators seemed to search the world over to find the most stomach-turning shades of paint. This ward had walls the hue of squished caterpillar guts.
She trailed Lore down the corridor, unbuttoning her coat. They’d rounded the corner, heading to the area marked NONHUMAN PATIENTS when Lore slowed, putting a hand on her arm. Up ahead she could see a cluster of people hanging around the doorway. Many of them looked related—lean and compact, with brown, wavy hair. They moved like they were on springs, filled with restless energy. A few paced back and forth, the others doing their best to stare down the nurse. Wolves.
There were a few more who weren’t shifters—including a tall, dark-haired human. Handsome in a square-jawed, no-nonsense way that belonged to action movies and cop shows. Baines.
&nb
sp; “Oh!” She pulled aside, hugging a pillar.
Lore stopped dead, moving so that he blocked the hallway. “He doesn’t know you’re innocent.”
And the guy with the evidence she needed lay in a hospital bed with poison in his blood. Slowly, Talia turned her back to the crowd. All her nerves were on alert, all the colors and sounds of the hospital suddenly too sharp. “Why don’t you go check on Perry? I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in an hour.”
“Baines is looking for me, too.”
“Should we go and come back later?”
Lore looked unhappy, but shrugged. “Baines doesn’t have anything on me. He just wants to talk. I’ll get rid of him.”
“Then go check on Perry. I’ll stay out of sight. And look, I know a thing or two about specialty ammunition. I want to get a look at what’s left of the slug.”
“That’s evidence. Baines is going to want it.”
Talia bit her lip, wondering if she was saying too much. “Whatever he can do, I’m better. Trust me on this.”
Worry furrowed his forehead again. “I’ll see what I can do. Be careful.”
“I will. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Kissing her lightly, he squeezed her hand and left her there. Talia stuck her hand in her pocket, wishing she could keep the warmth of him a moment longer.
Wow. Weren’t they in couple mode?
There’s no way it can last. There’s too many reasons why it won’t work, starting with the fact that you’re a monster and a monster-killer. How’s that going to play with his pack?
Talia hunched against her inner voice, wishing it would just shut up for ten seconds. She liked what was going on with Lore. The fact that he had protected her made her feel worth protecting and, dammit, she meant to enjoy that for as long as she could.
She went back to the elevator, taking it to the main level. It wasn’t hard to find the cafeteria from there. The greasy smell might as well have been a flashing sign.
Talia suspected the place was designed with the hospital’s future revenues in mind. It was the typical mix of cardiac-arresting doughnuts and fried food, dirty tables, and lighting so bad no one would notice that she was a vampire. About the only things she could ingest there were the cashier or herb tea. She was contemplating her options when she saw Errata at one of the tables by the wall, scribbling in a notebook.
She was about to walk over when she caught sight of someone else out of the corner of her eye. What the hell?
Talia turned, frowning in the direction she thought she’d seen her brother. That’s crazy. Max is thousands of miles away. Shaking herself, she blinked the image away. It was unsettling. She’d been thinking about him and had seen his name on the bulletin board that morning. Obviously, she was missing him a lot.
Talia headed over and sat down opposite Errata. The werecougar looked up. Her eyes were red from crying.
“Hi,” Talia said softly. “Lore’s gone upstairs. I’m waiting for him here.”
Errata closed the notebook and took a swallow of coffee. She looked like a woman trying to compose herself. “Why Perry? Everybody loves him.”
Talia felt a pang for her. There was never only one victim. “He had evidence that he was going to show Lore. Maybe somebody knew about it.” By somebody, she meant Belenos.
Errata gave her a look that said she understood what Talia was getting at. “But how?”
“Or what? Do you know what he found?”
Errata shook her head. “I’ve been at CSUP all day. We’re short-staffed because of holidays. I was going to meet him late tonight. Then Lore called me at the station.”
Once again, Talia thought she saw Max walk by in the distance. This time she got a better look, and it made her sit bolt upright. “Excuse me.” She stood up, feeling suddenly light-headed. “I just saw someone I know.”
“Is everything okay? You don’t look happy about it.”
Without answering, Talia strode quickly between the tables, heading for the corridor where she thought she’d seen him pass. It had been a glimpse, his head and shoulders above the half wall that separated the eatery from the main hallway, but his profile had been clear. Talia knew Max’s face as well as her own.
What the blazes was he doing in Fairview?
A chill ran over her body as she put puzzle pieces together. There weren’t a lot of options. Max did only one thing: He hunted, and he used silver safety slugs. Perry had survived, and professionals came back to finish the job if they didn’t succeed the first time. As long as her brother was here, Perry was in danger.
No, no, I must be having a brain cramp. This can’t be real. She reached the hallway and looked around, dreading and wishing for a glimpse of Max’s dark head.
She nearly missed him in the hospital crowd. He was turning into the service stairway that led down to the basement. The tension in Talia’s shoulders cranked up a notch. What’s down there? She ran to follow, wishing she had more than a knife to defend herself.
Max was her brother, but he would likely kill her on sight. Stupidly, that didn’t stop her from longing to cry out after him. She wanted to see recognition in his eyes one more time.
Slipping through the door, she stood on the landing for a moment, listening to the sound of footfalls descending. Why was he going down there? There was no underground parking at the hospital. That was all outdoors.
Silently, she followed, scanning for some clue as to what drew Max. Weren’t morgues usually in the basement? Creepy.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, putting her hand on the knob of the fire door that separated the landing from whatever lay beyond. Nerves urged her to hurry, to try to catch up, but experience told her to play it cool. She listened a moment, and was rewarded with the shush-thump, shush-thump of a heartbeat. He’d heard someone coming, and was waiting on the other side of the door. Talia debated, her hand hovering above the door handle. Abandon the chase, or find out what her brother might know? That meant confronting him.
The quiet was broken by the sound of a round being chambered. He knew he was being followed.
This was a dance she’d done before, but it usually ended in a death. She’d have to be good, very good, to make this end well.
She grabbed the door handle and pushed it open with as much force as she could muster. In the same gesture, she tucked and rolled, making herself as tiny a target as possible. Max fired at where her head had been moments before.
Regaining her feet, she grabbed him from behind and slammed his face into the painted concrete of the wall. He grunted with surprise, dropping the semiautomatic. Talia yanked his head back, using his hair as a handle.
“Talia!” His voice held pure horror.
“Sh!”
Max was silent.
She waited, forcing away the chorus in her heart that was cheering, It’s Max! It’s him! Were they safe? After the gunshots, she expected a sudden rush of security guards, or morgue workers. Somebody.
Nobody came. For whatever reason—budget cuts? shift change? the weather?—the basement was deserted. A shielding spell? There were such things, to keep passersby from noticing a crime. If someone had used one, she wouldn’t necessarily know.
“Talia.” Her name came out in a croak.
That yearned-for look of recognition was in his eyes. She breathed in the familiar scent of him, childhood coming back in a rush of remembered laughter, fights, shared meals, and shared secrets. He was solid proof that she’d had a life and people who loved her.
But that life hadn’t been kind to him. Once, dark-haired Maxim Rostov would have given Joe a run for his money in the hot-guy department. The few years since she’d seen Max had been hard. He was only thirty, but he looked haggard, his dark eyes eating up the rest of his face. In his own way, he’d suffered as much as she had. Poor Max.
“You!” he snarled. “What are you doing here?”
She flinched at the rage in his voice. “I ran away. I had to get away from Belenos. This was on the other side of t
he continent.”
He was immobilized, her fingers laced through his hair, her other hand pressing him into the wall. She was stronger than him now, and she could smell the fear coming off him in waves. Tears welled in her eyes. She was doing this to him. His little sister. “If I let you go, are you going to try to kill me?”
She hoped he would say no, and wished even harder that she could believe him. “I still love you. You’re still my brother.”
“You bit me!”
It had been one of the king’s embellishments of cruelty. He’d taken both brother and sister, but Turned only one. Then he served up the other for dessert. Barely days old, burning bright with hunger, she’d had no self-control.
Guilt seared her like acid. “I’m so sorry.”
Max bucked, struggling to get away. “Bullshit.”
“It’s true. I am. At least Belenos let you live.”
“He made me a venom junkie.”
That shocked her. Then Talia understood what had happened. Her brother hadn’t been for killing. The vampire king had other suffering planned for him. Dozens of bites. Dozens of doses of addictive venom. Degradation of the chief Hunter’s son had been the objective.
She hadn’t known. “Oh, Max.”
“I kicked it.” Slowly, he turned his head to fix her with furious eyes. The movement must have cost him a clump of hair. “I beat what he did to me, which is more than I can say for you.”
His disgust hit her with the force of a blow. She felt her lips growing cold with emotional shock. “He made me dead. That’s a little harder to cure.”
Suddenly Max blinked hard, confusion crumpling his face. “I know. You’re one of them now.”
“I’m still Talia.”
He began to silently sob, his anger finally giving way to grief.
“Oh, Max.” She bent close, meaning to kiss his cheek, but he reared away, nearly breaking free.
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