by Mary Hughes
Only it wasn’t. It was full of water. All the hairs on my body rose.
“We need a scream,” Armband said.
Thuggoh squeezed my breasts.
My heart tripped into overtime. I was alone, in the grasp of the associate of a known murderer, and thanks to my clever patrol idea, no one knew where I was.
“Get the fuck off me!” I doubled my struggles. Unless things changed quickly, I was dead meat.
Aiden Blackthorne, by dint of sheer concentration and willpower, of which he normally had magnitudes but with Sunny’s scent and feel and taste clamoring in his awareness he had barely enough to remember to breathe, managed to actually arrive at the Dawn terminal.
Inside, the building was divided front and back. The front door opened to a noise-filled room, humans and vampires clicking away at keyboards and the chatter of impact printers spooling out multi-part forms. The back had truck bays in the east, a loading platform in the middle, and to the west a short-term storage area and a locker room with showers.
Three trucks were currently at the loading dock, a couple of long-hauls and one city delivery. He put on leather gloves and joined in unloading. The work centered him and helped him feel more in control.
Until a trucker bumped into him and he realized he’d been standing there, picturing Sunny’s face as she orgasmed for him.
Immediately he grabbed a stack of the heaviest boxes he could find. He was not savoring Sunny’s scent or thinking about her lush lips or pretty breasts or soft anything. He tossed freight so fast he actually beaded up a sweat.
Then a bad feeling hit, so hard it bent him in two.
He jerked straight, alert for immediate danger. Nothing smelled or looked off, and around him, truckers continued to work. The biggest, a vampire named Elwood, raised a questioning brow at him.
Aiden shook his head, pulled out his phone and hit his only speed dial. If not here, then the problem was with Ric.
“Hello, asshole,” Ric Holiday answered, out of breath.
This was the boy who’d survived the hellhole of Nosferatu’s assassin training camp with him. The friend whose pact meant he’d never assassinate again. They’d grown up—vampires became their ideal age, no matter how old when turned—and now Ric had an international business, a large human household, and was on his way to being Minneapolis’s master vampire.
He also had a new bride and was constantly enjoying that fact—loudly, in bed. Aiden knew it wasn’t particularly to annoy him, but he also knew Ric considered the annoyance a bonus.
So the panting was sitch normal. Aiden relaxed minutely. “Hello, fuck-face. How’s your beautiful doctor?”
“Still pregnant. Finally over the puking. She got the residency she wanted.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll keep her too busy for you two to behave like over-caffeinated bunnies.”
“Just wait until you find your mate. I’ll be the one laughing then.”
“You’ll be the one cringing.” But for some reason Aiden felt soft ripe grain and smelled sunshine.
An iron fist of foreboding hit his solar plexus, freezing his breath, his very heart.
Sunny was in trouble, danger following her. “Damn it,” he gasped. Sucking air through his nostrils, he forced lungs and heart back into rhythm. “Elwood, I’m headed out.”
Ric’s voice floated up from the phone. “What’s wrong?”
Aiden pressed the phone to his ear as he settled into a ground-eating lope, destination the cop shop. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Damn it, now?” The shht of thrown covers came with Ric’s voice. “I’ll be there in five hours.”
Aiden was fiercely glad this male was his friend. “Using what, a rocket? Don’t. Who’d protect Minneapolis? Besides, I could be wrong.”
“Your bad feelings are never wrong. I wish they were. Hole up, Aiden. I’ll be on the first flight out.”
“It’s not a problem with me.” Maybe Sunny was getting another coffee-dumping, or slipping on a jelly donut—nothing life-threatening. Still, he hurried. She might be in pain. He might need to lick it better.
“Is it Eloise?” Ric asked. “Did you meet with her?”
“No and no.”
“I knew something was off when you didn’t call last night. Did Nosferatu find her?”
“Is he on your doorstep, threatening your humans? Is he trying to destroy you?”
“No.”
“Then he didn’t find her.” Aiden passed Randy’s Candies and Nieman’s Bar, over halfway to the police station.
“I wish we’d never made that deal. But my humans are vulnerable. She was our only bargaining chip.”
Nosferatu wanted to destroy Ric and Aiden, but the old vampire had called a truce while they found his long-lost daughter—it had to be them because only a handful of people knew that she was his daughter. Once they found Eloise, Ric’s humans would be dead, and the two of them would be back on Nosferatu’s hit list, which was why Aiden had scheduled the meet last night.
Tonight he listened with half an ear, chafing to get to Sunny.
“You’ve almost got to feel sorry for the old bastard,” Ric said. “She’s his weakness because he loves her.”
“His version of love, at any rate. Look, Ric, about Eloise…she tried to hurt me.”
There was a stunned silence. “What? How?”
“Silver bomb.” Aiden arrived at the police station. No sign of Sunny. He gave Ric a terse explanation as he scented for her, walking around the building, trying to pick up her trail.
“Come home,” Ric said when he’d finished. “We’ll find another way to fend off Nosferatu.”
“Yes. No.” Aiden caught Sunny’s scent going west and set off on it like a bloodhound. “I can’t leave yet.”
“Why not?” Ric paused and Aiden could almost hear the clink as his friend’s mind put the puzzle pieces together. “It’s a female, isn’t it? Immune to mind control by any chance?”
He and Ric had been friends too long. “Curiosity killed the cat—and severely maimed the annoying asshole.” Sunny’s scent cut south. Aiden pushed faster.
“So I’m right.” Ric’s tone held satisfaction. “Is this female a doctor?”
For some reason female grated. “Sunny is an excellent cop.”
“You know her name?” Ric’s pseudo-shock radiated from the phone. “Good fuck—that’s the first time I’ve heard you call a woman anything but convenient.”
It echoed Aiden’s teasing Ric when his friend had met the woman who’d be his mate. It wasn’t nearly as funny from this side. Aiden said, “She’s police. You know how I feel about authorities. She’s nothing to me.” He clenched clawed fingers, exquisitely aware he was lying. “Drop it.”
Two blocks away, a sleek black car sped past. Aiden stopped. No logical reason to suspect anything was wrong with that car, yet his blood ran cold.
A child on an oversized pink motorscooter buzzed past him, a child who appeared to be a girl, from the front basket and plastic flowers. Damn it, where were that child’s parents? What was she doing zipping along city streets at nearly fifty miles per hour? He ran toward car and scooter. The trailing scent hit him.
That was Sunny.
He blew into mist and arrowed after her. He snapped back ready to yell at her—she was nowhere to be seen.
The card-in-spokes buzz of the scooter came from the north. Damn it, he’d gone straight and she’d turned. He reoriented on her scent, opened all his senses and kicked into a run.
“What’s going on?” Ric’s voice floated up to him.
He clapped the phone to his ear. “My bad feeling.” Sunny’s scent took him to the Adam’s street bridge, where the smell of another human and the knee-jerk necessity of keeping the masquerade slowed him to a normal run. His skin pricked unhappily; he blamed it on the river.
He passed a human in a lumpy butterscotch parka chatting on his cell phone. The man’s eyes followed Aiden with a gleam he definitely did not like.
Coming off the bridge, he saw the black car parked ahead, in Settler’s Square. There was no sign of the scooter or Sunny.
Ric said, “If you won’t come home, at least promise to call me the instant you need help. Got it?”
“Yes, Mother. I’ll let you know—”
“Get the fuck off me!”
Female. Stressed. Sunny. Aiden slammed the phone in a pocket and blew into mist. He was never rash but he never hesitated when his friends were in need either. He ignored the fact that his instant reaction went beyond unhesitating into reflex.
He streamed directly for her—only to snap solid a few yards short, ankle-deep in water.
A terrible burn seared his feet. He leaped into the air—or tried to. His limbs wouldn’t respond, locked.
He slashed eyes down. He stood in a shallow concrete bowl, pooled with water that wasn’t just buzzing, it was burning. Intense, inside, like his skin was a meat sack of stinging hornets. Like his brain was needles.
His fangs and talons shot out. His skin hardened and his vision went red. Automatic vampire mode, but it made no sense. Water buzzed; it wasn’t so severe he wanted to tear off his own head because he couldn’t think.
Then he saw Sunny in the grip of a human, gaping at him, horror in her dark eyes. He clenched his will and tried to get to her, but his limbs wouldn’t work and the best he could do was a single slow step, like slogging through molasses if sorghum were made out of pain.
A bright orange cable caught his eye. One end led to the nearby band shell and the other…stripped of its plug, wires strewn like intestines, it lay in the pool, spewing electricity.
The water was electrified. When his mist had passed over it—directly over it, on his way to Sunny—it had jumped him solid.
This was a deliberate setup.
But simple electrocution wouldn’t kill him. And when he got out of this pool, the man holding Sunny was dead. He slogged another step—and was stunned to see the man release Sunny to snatch up a blue box.
Sunny ran immediately toward Aiden. He realized she didn’t know about the electricity. Not deadly to him, but to humans…if a direct jolt to the heart or brain didn’t kill her immediately, the burns from current running through her body like an electric cooker would.
“Nu-uh!”
Acid horror eating him, he saw her try to slow, to stop before she hit the water.
His brain shot into overdrive. Human skin when dry resisted electricity up to 100,000 ohms. Water lowered protection to 1000 ohms. Continued high voltage broke down the skin until it was half that. He’d have only moments after she hit to save her…
She skidded to a halt at the water’s edge, panting. He relaxed minutely.
Her dark quick eyes scanned the area. They lit on the stripped wires. She grabbed the cable—he flinched but she gripped the insulation behind the live end—and tugged.
The cable stayed put.
He forced another single, slow, painful step. The water felt like razor blades slashing his ankles. He dug his claws into his palms to start another step as the man came to the edge of the pool, popping the top of the blue box.
The sting of salt bit Aiden’s nostrils. The man was pouring in salt.
Horror hit Aiden. Salt increased water’s conductivity. His skin was tougher than a human’s, but it was already compromised. Severely compromised skin plus ion-zipping saline? In a few seconds at most, mega-amps of electricity would invade his body.
It would zap him unconscious. He’d be at the goon’s mercy. Worse, Sunny would be unprotected.
He had to get out. He battled another step forward but it was like a nightmare—the edge was so far away.
He tried to will himself into mist. His cells sluggishly responded…and almost immediately the needle-sharp electrical pain forced him solid.
The electricity was so potent that his hair rose. He had seconds at most before blacking out.
His last sight was Sunny, still trying to tug out the cable—that was nailed to the concrete edge.
Chapter Eight
Thuggoh held me and I thought I was dead when Aiden Blackthorne suddenly snapped into being inside the pool.
My relief sang. Now his graceful shoop-shoop would bring me instant freedom.
But his body was clenched, his face tight with pain. He saw me and slogged, excruciatingly slow, toward me.
Without warning, Thuggoh released me and snatched up a blue box.
Suspicious, but I had more immediate concerns. Blackthorne was obviously in trouble. I ran for him.
He forced a stuttered “Nu-uh” through a locked jaw. I slowed, confused.
Until I saw the bright orange electrical cable.
One end snaked from the band shell’s public address system. The other end was stripped and lay in the water.
Electrocuting Blackthorne, who’d labored all of another step.
Most modern appliances have a GFI, or ground fault interrupter. Nixie had bitched early and often that our PA was built when mammals were new. Only two outlets in the whole band shell, a real nightmare when faced with a band’s worth of amplifiers, sound boards and electric guitars.
Because of regulations, the band shell outlet, where the power actually came in, was up to code.
The PA’s wasn’t.
The GFI outlet, its anti-theft cover laying broken and useless to one side, had a business-like gray cable running from it to the PA. The orange cable came out of the PA and ran to the pool.
I was nearest the pool so I dashed to the stripped cable end, grabbing just behind live wires, and pulled.
Nothing happened. The damned thing was fastened onto the concrete.
Thuggoh tilted the blue box toward the water. Crystals poured, glittering in the electric lights.
Salt.
Blackthorne’s eyes slid shut.
Even I knew not to mix saltwater and electricity. I dropped the cable and pulled my gun. “Police! Stop that.”
The goon dumped the last of the salt in and raised his hands mockingly.
Smoke came from Blackthorne’s skin and puffed from his mouth. I had to stop the flow of electricity, now.
I turned my gun toward the band shell, flipped off the safety, and breathed in. One chance. I’d have to shoot out the GFI.
Sounds impossible. Adrenaline pumping, electricity crackling. But there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a Ruffles studying for important exams while my mother and brother nattered and bumbled and caused general mayhem—how to concentrate amid chaos. I’m a great shot, under even the most distracting of circumstances.
My vision narrowed to the exposed outlet, so tiny and far away. I counted heartbeats, ba-bum-rest, ba-bum-rest, ba-bum-squeeze.
The gun kicked in my hand but I didn’t feel it. My whole being was concentrated on that gray plug.
If the bullet hit, the GFI would take care of stopping the flow of electricity. If not…I held my breath while my heart continued its comfortable ba-bum-rest.
The bullet hit. The outlet shattered.
Blackthorne burst from the pool—and slugged Thuggoh. The goon collapsed without a sound, the empty salt box hitting ground with a hollow whunk.
I spun, looking for the rest of the perps. The sedan was gone. Barely visible between the branches of the big pine the city used for a municipal Christmas tree, Elle Louise Smith watched.
For a moment Smith’s gaze was intent on Blackthorne, frustration so concentrated her eyes seemed to burn like red beams.
Then she just…disappeared.
Blackthorne swept me into his embrace. “Thank you.” His arms were made of heat and strength. “You saved me.”
“Luck.” I was tethered to
his gorgeous dark eyes, fans of black lashes making them even sexier.
“That shot wasn’t an accident.” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “That was skill.”
I watched his lips move, shaping words, and wished they were shaping me instead.
They stopped moving…and got slowly closer. Looked like I was going to get my wish. My heart sped up in anticipation.
“You’re a dead man, assassin.” A sibilant voice interrupted us.
Blackthorn’s lips receded. In one smooth move he drew his long knife and spun to face the speaker. “Hello, Mace. Didn’t I kick your butt far enough last night?”
“Last night.” He growled it. “I’m getting even for last night, with backup this time.”
I stared in disbelief at the skull-like face I’d hoped never to see again. Behind Mace, half a dozen vampy-looking guys in imposing long leather coats postured.
Six. Double last time. My heart beat harder. Sure, Blackthorne had easily bested three vamps but he’d just suffered near-electrocution. Twice as many, all heavily muscled, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in an impressive solidarity, booted my heart into my throat.
Yet Blackthorne lounged with that easy grace that spoke volumes about his power and skill. “Please. You think half a dozen youngsters scare me?”
“Youngsters?” Mace sneered. “I brought my best. We’re gonna kick your ass this time.” He signaled to a pair of vampires behind him, a beefy tomato-nosed prizefighter and a hulk with a thin mustache even scragglier than my brother’s. The two moved up to flank him.
Mace grinned, his canines extending a few extra millimeters. “This ain’t Minneapolis, Blackthorne. This is Lestat turf. We’re gonna burn you, and then we’re gonna toss your charred husk out of our territory.”
“Strictly speaking, this is Alliance territory,” Blackthorne said.
I recognized the words from my brother’s ramblings. The Alliance, the Good Guys. Lestats, the Bad Guys.
Blackthorne’s gaze flicked over the vampires as if weighing his opponents. He nodded toward the prizefighter, then the hulk. “I know Scythe and Mamie. But who are the rest?”