“Wow,” Gwen said. “I thought you’d be wearing one of those Phantom of the Opera masks. Or a brown paper bag. Or something, after that whole warehouse drama.”
He smiled. “That was an initial indulgence.” Unexpected, that cultured, controlled voice coming from his unprepossessing self. “I needed to feel out your friend. I’ve done that, don’t you think? That particular indulgence would be a little too conspicuous under these circumstances, in any event.”
Mac couldn’t help but snort. “As if anything you’ve come here to do is likely to be inconspicuous?”
The man inclined his head. “There is that. Of course, I think you’ll discover that most people will be too busy to care.” At Mac’s frown, he added, “You won’t be feeling that just yet. I sent it in other directions.”
No longer behind him, Gwen raised her hand like a schoolgirl. “Oh,” she said. “Me! Me, call on me!”
Mac wanted to snatch her up and throw her back into the Jeep. Did she not see the guns? Did she not truly understand what this man would do to her if he realized what she had? The value she could be to him?
For Mac himself had watched it happen—the deepening of the bond between Gwen and that pendant. She might not understand it fully yet, but soon enough, she would. And once she truly controlled the pendant, she could affect any wielder she encountered.
He didn’t even breathe a sigh of relief when the man chose to be amused. “Now that you’ve seen what I can offer you—or what I can do to you—now is the time to answer your questions.”
Gwen didn’t hesitate—and she didn’t stay behind Mac, either, even if she did stand closely enough to brush up against him. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “And how old are you? And what’s your name? Although that one’s not so important if you don’t mind being called that man. It’s worked for us so far.”
That man chuckled. “You are indeed charmingly forthright.” And while his hired muscle shot startled reactions to that chuckle, Mac watched the hired muscle.
He could take them. He’d take damage, too—but he’d heal. They wouldn’t. He just needed the right moment.
And the right moment was coming, presaged by an early summer sunset against a monsoon sky. Once that sun slipped under the horizon, there’d be no lengthy desert twilight. That man could see in it, he suspected, just as Mac could. And by then, Devin James would join them. If Mac and Gwen had been right to call him, he’d help. If not...
Well. One thing at a time.
“Where I started is irrelevant. I come from everywhere.” There was no particular pretension to the man’s words. “I’ve been around the world often enough to have lost count. I have a stake in every nation, and I know the roots of them all.”
Gwen frowned. Boastful words for any man; surprising words for the man before them. The unprepossessing form and presentation, the singular lack of drama now that he’d abandoned the conceit of the screen. Even then, he’d been matter-of-fact about it; simply not ready to reveal himself, and quite obviously aware of Mac’s ability to pierce the darkness.
The man from which the hatred came. Completely unconvincing. If it weren’t for the muscle...
But the muscle was there. And the muscle watched Mac as he watched back, ever monitoring the area—quiet park around them, the hum of cars beyond the cement arroyo, Gwen’s quick shiver as she moved up against him.
“You may,” the man said, and smiled, “call me Rafe.”
There, finally, at the edges of the smile—that was the man Mac had heard in the warehouse. That was the man behind the sweeping tarry hatred. Barely showing through—but showing through, he was.
Rafe said, “As for my age...old enough to have seen the rise and fall of cultures and leaders and countries.” Again, his smile was not nearly so benevolent. “Old enough to have had a hand in some of those events.”
“The blade,” she said, and her reaction trickled through to Mac as she absorbed Rafe’s words. As she believed them.
He hid his reaction to her; hid it fiercely. If Rafe even suspected what she had, what she could do, he would stop this jolly little pretense and he would come for her. He’d find a way to use her, and if he couldn’t, he’d simply kill her and take the pendant for himself. Never mind the man’s obvious penchant for control—Demardel could take him down outright, severing him from the blade he’d exploited so well.
If only they knew how to use it.
“Got it,” Mac said out loud. “You’re older than dirt. You travel. You like causing trouble. What I want to know is why here?”
Rafe’s amusement glimmered with the same hinted darkness as his smile. “Did you think it was for you?”
No. Until these past few days, he’d believed his blade to be one of a kind—but now there was not only Rafe, but also Devin and Natalie.
“I felt a call, just as I’m sure you did.” Rafe slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled out a palm-sized blade, a triangular thing gone stout at the diminutive guard and sheathed. Even as it cleared his pocket, it glimmered, flashing into the uncovered sweep of an Arabian dagger. “Before I leave, I’ll know what’s going on—and I’ll make sure there’s no threat left in it.”
Right. And where was Devin James? The man who called this city his turf? What had he known about the call?
Natalie, Mac thought, had not told nearly enough of their secrets.
“The truth is, had I known of you, I would have come anyway.” Rafe shrugged at Mac; beside and behind him, his men shifted—knowing him well enough to read something into that gesture. “You’re a prize, no doubt. That blade of yours...similar to mine, in many ways. It feels. It grows strong on those feelings. And,” he said, smiling, “it shares them.”
The men shifted again—and Mac got it then. Especially as Gwen pressed back against him, a shiver rising from within her that had nothing to do with their damp, chilly clothes or the rising gloom of the soaked park. She felt their intent; she fairly vibrated with it. Shh, he thought at her, pushing through the knife—hoping it would stay only between them.
For he, too, understood. Rafe was playing with them for his blade. Trying to wring out the stress and tension of it, even as he pushed at Mac’s self-control—and tried to push his buttons.
And did so with total success—if not in the way that he imagined.
You can’t have her. You can’t have me. And you can’t have this blade.
“You mean,” Gwen said, the strength of her resolve stiffening her entire body, “you’re a parasitic leech.”
“Ah.” Rafe’s eyes glimmered with quick anger, a peremptory expression that didn’t belong on that unprepossessing face and its nondescript features. “As I said, charmingly forthright. But in this case, so very far from correct. I give as well as take—or hadn’t you noticed?”
“You give in order to take,” Gwen corrected fiercely. “To destroy!”
The strength of her reaction coursed through Mac twofold—through the blade, reaching eagerly for such purity of emotion, and through the link they’d so recently explored. He drew back from it—drew himself up, jaw hard and nostrils flared and trying to keep it from swirling through his concentration. Trying to keep it from Rafe, lest he see the clarity of their connection and come to understand it as more than just the effect of the blade.
“Think bigger,” Rafe advised her. He caressed his own blade, fingers running lightly over glimmering metal. Behind him, the sun crusted the edges of the lowest clouds, offering a brief, final slash of light across the glowering Sandia thunderheads.
Lightning flickered, ever more apparent in the failing light; the local car headlights had become few and far between, here in this city where people had quickly learned to stay inside at night. “Fear is the most powerful human emotion we have. Fear drives everything we do. Fear controls us—and can be used to control others. Fear does not destroy...fear builds. It changes nations.” He looked at Mac, a direct challenge. “You can be part of that.”
Mac snapped back a
response—and then didn’t. He clamped down on it, unwilling to risk Gwen’s reaction should it slap through their ever-clearing connection, and kept his voice even. “You mean like the Ku Klux Klan? Like Hitler’s Germany? Like the Crusades, and the people who picketed this very park today?”
Satisfaction gleamed in the man’s expression. “Not like those things.”
Gwen reached back for Mac—found his hand and held on. “You,” she said. “You had something to do...with all of it? Those horrible things?”
“People who fear are so very easy to exploit.” Rafe held his blade up to what remained of the light. “People who fear can so easily be guided to hatred, and shaped into weapons.”
Sociopath. Mac realized it with a slap, drew a sharp breath at it. The perfect marriage of blade and human; the creation of an ultimate evil.
No. You can’t have her. You can’t have me. And you can’t have this blade.
“Come, now,” Rafe said. “I’ve given you this time to think—to understand. I’ve protected you from the influence the rest of the city feels this night, these past moments.” He took a deep breath, his chest lifting and his eyes closing—right there before them, soaking in the emotional storm of the entire city.
Gwen made a noise, realizing it, too. Feeling as he did—the indecency of it. The lurid nature of it.
Rafe opened his eyes with a snap of motion, looking directly at Mac. “But my patience has come to an end, and frankly, you’re boring my men.”
The first trickle of it nudged in at him—the first nauseating wave of churning darkness.
No— The blade’s protest whispered in his mind, its remembrance of pain. And at the same time—yes oh yes deep rich agonies, fears and oh WANT but let me LET ME oh SHOCK give me PAIN WAIL—
Mac must have made a sound. He must have stiffened or sucked air or gritted out a curse, understanding it now—that the blade’s pain, his pain, came from more than just the overwhelming emotional swamp. It came from Mac’s rejection of it—of what the blade craved and what Mac denied.
Gwen whirled to him, alarm over her paled features, eyes gone dark with fear and straining to see him in the deep dusk. “Mac!”
No! You can’t have her! You can’t have me. And you can’t have this blade!
Where the hell was Devin James?
Chapter 17
Devin climbed out of his car with the Rio Bravo highway entrance ramp in sight and stood within the open door, scowling down the long double rows of motionless headlights. Horns blared all around; to his left, a fistfight had broken out. Without looking, he dipped into the center console of the battered old truck and pulled out his phone.
A glance gave him the number Natalie had programmed there before he’d left the estate; he dialed it. Up ahead came the screech of tires and the profound slam of metal into metal as someone rear-ended a car on the other side of the overpass, scattering shrapnel and parts; Devin winced. “Dammit,” he said into the phone. “Pick up the—”
It clicked over to voice mail and he heard the brief grumble of a masculine voice, the details of it lost in the background noise.
Devin swore more resoundingly, made as if to toss the phone—and at the last minute pulled it back. A moment later, he had Natalie.
“Devin?” she said—uncertain, as she might well be, with the horns and chaos that greeted her before his voice did.
Not to mention the strangely dangerous feel of the city around them.
“See if you can get through to those two,” he said, without wasting time on preamble. “I’m stuck at the Rio Bravo entrance. It’s out here happening again—”
“I can’t hear—what?” she said, raising her voice in sympathetic response to the chaos at the bridge. “Devin, be careful— Can you feel it?”
“I’m okay!” he shouted into the phone. “Stuck in traffic! Call them! Keep calling them! I’ll get there when I can.”
This time, he did toss the phone back into the truck, standing beside it to stare down the road...more thoughtfully this time. A fight or two on the other side of the overpass, cars jammed up at the entrance ramp as if everyone had made the turn at once and no one had given way.
Anheriel tugged at him—a blade eager for the action and far too aware of the currents flowing through the night. Excited by them—energized by them. With hours of practice behind him, he instantly shifted his attention to the smell of wet asphalt, the faint chill of the breeze against his face...the feel of his toes in enclosing shoes.
Anheriel subsided, leaving behind a righteous little grumble. It was, after all, trying to earn redemption. It was supposed to be drawing his attention to situations in which he might prove useful.
“Don’t worry about it,” Devin told it, letting his gaze linger on the fast-fading sunset glimmer of dark violet and bruised blue clouds. “There’s plenty of action where we’re going.”
If we ever get there.
He saw easily through the gloom, past the confusing shine of headlights off water—straight to the heart of the vehicular mob—a monochrome jumble of metal and violence through blade-given night vision. Gridlock and brainlock. These people weren’t going anywhere.
He pulled the truck keys, reacquired his phone, slammed the door with the extra oomph necessary to make it latch and left it locked in the middle of the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Two hundred yards of walking between abandoned vehicles and those harboring terrified, huddled occupants, and he reached the tightly jammed underpass. He barely hesitated in his stride, bounding to a trunk, a roof, a hood...boring through to the problem intersection itself.
And went beyond it to the first interlocked row, while the violence roiled behind him and Anheriel whined to join in. He backtracked two rows, chose a vehicle, and helped himself to the keys still in the ignition, cranking the wheels hard. The car jerked, hanging up on the bumper of the car ahead of it, and then broke free with a brief crunch of metal and glass, heading over the road shoulder to the raw desert.
No one noticed when he floored the accelerator, shooting up the entrance ramp. “On my way,” he muttered, as if Mac and Gwen could hear him.
* * *
Gwen turned on the unimposing man who called himself Rafe. “Stop it!” she cried as Mac slowly sank to his knees. “You’re a monster!”
Rafe tipped his head in acknowledgment. “But a successful one.” He eyed her up and down, his eyes lingering on the wet cling of material at her breasts and backside. “If he turns, will you go with him? If he dies, will you go with me? Because there is something about you...and, quite frankly, I can’t have you running around as a loose end.”
“Get real,” she snapped at him. “What am I going to do, call the police? And tell them what exactly?”
Rafe gave an eloquent shrug. “There’s someone else here—another blade. I haven’t had time to track it down, but I suspect it is the very blade that called us each here. It is a power come into its own—and it might well use you against me. I didn’t live this long—which, as I’ve mentioned, is very, very long indeed—by being careless with loose ends.”
“Maybe you’ve lived long enough.” Gwen’s fury left her mouth completely unfettered.
Rafe smiled, and the coldness of it in those bland features slapped her anger down hard. “Would that you were entitled to an opinion.”
Mac grabbed the Jeep’s bumper, then the fender—hauling himself back up to his feet, completely focused on Rafe. “You,” he said, grinding the words out in a voice Gwen didn’t recognize. “Son. Of. A. Bitch.”
Rafe regarded him with something akin to fondness. Sick, sick fondness. “I really wish you’d accept the situation,” he said. “You would be a great asset to me.”
Mac’s grin was as dark as they came. “There’s an ass in that word, in case you thought I wouldn’t notice. Not my thing.”
Rafe flipped a dismissive hand at them. “Die, then,” he said, making it a casual command. “In agony, while you’re at it.”
Gwen’s breath stutt
ered as Mac made a gargling noise, his eyes rolling back; he slid down the side of the Jeep. She wanted to dive after him, holding him, turning the pendant on him.
But that would only leave them both vulnerable.
She took an involuntary step toward Rafe, hands fisted, so full of anger—overflowing with it, unfamiliar and debilitating, clouding her thoughts, changing her intent—
And realized that it came to her through Mac.
That her connection with him flared strong again.
Recklessly, she reached for it, thinking of calm and cool as he pushed against the wet ground, on his knees. Thinking of her hand in his, thinking of her mouth on his. Forging past the chaotic agonies still beating against her thoughts...giving him something other than hate and fear and pain. She gave him a quiet current, imbuing it with what they were together and what they’d had together.
“Gwen—” he said—as if there should be more to it, but he couldn’t quite manage it.
It sounded like a warning.
“Is that it, then?” Rafe stepped closer, his features coming alive with interest. “Is that the key to you? Your one last chance, Mac. Your Gwen goes free—and you become mine. You give over to the wild road and join me, and no one ever touches her. Permanent asylum. She can stay with you, or she can go back to whatever life she had before she met you. Lady’s choice.”
The thick, scraping flow of imposed emotions faded—Gwen felt it through Mac, and felt the dim echo of it through herself. Mac lifted his head—his expression terrible and strained, his gaze latching on to Rafe’s.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Rafe said so softly. He took a step closer, crouching with one hand resting over his knee, his own blade so casually held there. “You’ll do it. For her, you’ll do it.”
“Wait,” Gwen said. “Wait, wait, wait. What? He will not! Mac, no! You will not!”
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