The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  Moving in tandem, they took up their positions—Dex standing with his back to the doorframe, gun pointed at the ceiling, while Sam stood just behind and to the right of the door, his arm extended as he clutched the knob. Sam met Dex’s eyes and silently mouthed, One…two…three. Then he yanked the door open wide, standing back as Dex whirled into place, gun held out.

  And faced an empty doorframe.

  Both men stayed where they were, frozen, waiting. Seconds ticked by. Then a full minute. Then two. Finally, Dex inched his way forward as Sam tried to get a good look to either side, but there was no way to do that without poking his head out the door. Dex took one step, then another, before his outstretched hands—both clutched around the would-be assassin’s weapon—breached the plane of the doorway.

  And a hand appeared out of nowhere, karate-chopping the pistol right out of Dex’s grip. Dex cursed as Sam lunged forward—

  Only to skitter to a halt as Sydney casually sauntered into view, dangling the gun around one finger. She looked them both up and down, a scornful, sardonic expression on her face. “Idiots.” She popped the magazine, checked the ammo, reloaded, and re-chambered the weapon—and Sam just stared. Not that there was anything strange in what she’d just done; Dex had done the exact same thing not two minutes ago. But she did it about ten times faster than Sam had ever seen anyone do it, and that included his military-trained buddies from Fox Company.

  Fuck. He’d known she was good. Seen her in action on many occasions. Stood by, helpless as an infant, while she saved his ass time and time again. But he’d never seen her do anything like that before. That wasn’t just practice. That was artistry.

  Who the fuck was Sydney Carpenter?

  “What the fuck, Syd?” Dex growled. “Trying to give a guy a heart attack?”

  A delicate eyebrow lifted. “The door was locked. Since I didn’t lock it, and I knew you were expecting me, I figured there was a reason for the caution.” She held up the gun. “Seems I was right. Since when do you carry a dinky gun like this, Dex?”

  “Not mine,” Dex grumbled. He poked a thumb over his shoulder. “His.”

  “Whose?” Sydney strode into the room—and froze, a scowl darkening her brow. “Fuck. Vinny.”

  Sam exchanged a look with Dex. “You know him?”

  She nodded, jaw taut. “Regular at the Evil Eye. Liked to play personal pony for some of the guys who claimed connections with the Big Man. Asshole. Drunk.” She glanced at the .22 and snorted. “Moron, too.”

  Sam held up the license. “I.D. says his name is Melvin.”

  A sardonic snort. “He went by Vinny. A real scumbag.” She cocked her head. “A still-breathing scumbag. You didn’t kill him?”

  “He’s not a darkling,” Sam said, voice rough.

  “Might as well be.” She squatted down next to the prone man, crossing her arms on top of her knees and looking at him with her head cocked at an angle. “What’d you do to him, Dex?”

  “Hey!” Dex cried. “Sam knocked him out, not me. He’s the one busy throwing temper tantrums today.”

  Sam winced, and the remark earned him an eyebrow-raise from Syd. He shook his head just slightly. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the would-be assassin. “You get anything out of him?”

  “No,” Dex said with a pained grimace. “Sam punched him in the balls. Conversation was pretty much impossible after that.”

  She laughed. Actually laughed. Sam and Dex, in perfect accord, shuddered at the sound of it. Remind me never to piss her off, Sam thought. Like, ever.

  “Well then,” Syd said, still chuckling, “let’s see what brought him to our door.”

  “Sam rang his bell pretty hard,” Dex said doubtfully. “He might be down for a while.”

  “I’m so disappointed in your lack of imagination,” Syd replied mournfully—then stood up, aimed her boot, and stomped down on Vinny’s left knee. Sam heard bone and tendon pop just before Vinny came awake with a gasp of agony. Sydney must have been ready for that, because she shoved the gun barrel into his mouth and practically down his throat.

  Needless to say, he didn’t scream.

  “Hi Vinny,” Sydney said in a sugar-coated, syrupy Southern accent. “Remember me? Damsel? From the bar?”

  To Sam’s surprise, the man’s eyes widened with abject terror—and it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the gun in his mouth.

  Sydney smiled sweetly. “Yeah. You remember. I’m gonna take this out now, ‘kay? Do me a favor and don’t scream. This here pistol ain’t my regular weapon, and I’m not real sure it’s stable, if you catch my drift.”

  Vinny’s Adam’s apple worked up and down. Too afraid to nod, he flicked his eyes up and down several times in quick succession.

  “Good enough.” Syd pulled the muzzle out of his mouth but kept it pointed at his nose. “Now. Be a good boy, an’ tell me who sent you after me.”

  Vinny was trembling so hard he looked like a crack addict in withdrawal. “N-n-n-no one…”

  Syd tsked like a Southern belle. “Ain’t gonna cut it, hun.”

  Vinny swallowed. “N-n-not sent after you,” he finally stammered out. His eyes flicked toward Dex and Sam. “Th-them.”

  “Uh huh. An’ who sent ya?”

  Vinny trembled even harder.

  Sydney let the tip of the .22 caress the side of Vinny’s jaw. “Tell me the truth now, sugar. Was it Madge?”

  Vinny pissed his pants. Dex cursed, while Sam settled for wrinkling his nose at the stench. He’s really that afraid of a little old lady? Sam thought in amazement. I mean, Merle was pretty scary, and that pink flower bathrobe, but…

  “What’d Madge tell you to look for?” Syd asked. “How were you supposed to find these mean ol’ boys behind me?” She let the gun’s muzzle trace his lower lip.

  Vinny looked like he was about to cry. “C-c-car,” he finally stammered out.

  Dex started cursing, and Sam took a moment to cast a sympathetic look his way. Dex had always loved that damn car. Now that they’d been made in it, they’d have to abandon it.

  Sydney tsked again. “Well, that’s unfortunate. Tell me, she seen the license plate? Or just the make and model?”

  Vinny shook his head frantically. “No plates. No l-l-license. Just s-saw the car.” He swallowed hard, still trembling, and licked his lips. “Her eyes aren’t so good, you know.”

  A pause. “Uh huh. An’ why’d she send you after them?”

  His eyes darting every which way. “She…she thought those t-two bombed the bar.”

  “And I guess she wanted payback, huh?” Syd said, sweetly commiserative. Vinny nodded, looking like a bobble-head toy. “Well, now, I can’t blame her for that. Too bad she sent you, since I’m guessin’ she didn’t tell you to be on the lookout for yours truly.”

  Vinny’s head started wagging back and forth rather than up and down. “N-n-no! I swear! I didn’t know you were here!”

  “Uh, Syd…?” Sam started, real concern making his palms sweat. The guy sounded like was facing Freddie Krueger.

  Sydney just shook her head, a deep, mournful expression on her face. “Too bad, Vinny. ‘Cuz I done told you what would happen if I ever saw you again. You remember that, don’t you?”

  Vinny started crying.

  “Syd…?” Dex piped up now, voice urgent.

  She ignored him, looking down at the gun in her hand. “It’s a real shame, her sending you off by your lonesome. Especially with a little gun like this.”

  Sydney straightened—and Sam went wary. “Syd…”

  “A little thing like this? That can get you killed ‘round these parts. You wanna see what a real .22 looks like, Vinny?”

  Before any of the men could act, Sydney lowered Vinny’s gun—and whipped out a Ruger SR22, complete with a five-inch suppressor screwed to the barrel. “This is a .22, Vinny. Can’t skimp on the hardware. Not in these parts.”

  And she shot him, right in the left eye. It sounded like a ping-pong ball hitting
a wet bathmat. Vinny went down, collapsing like a rag-doll. It happened so fast, Sam didn’t even get a chance to breathe, much less stop her.

  Probably her intention. The thought gave him chills.

  Dex gaped at her. “What…that fuck—”

  “Relax. He didn’t even bleed.” Her accent melted away like dandelion fluff. “Help me get him into the bathroom.” Sydney holstered her weapon at the small of her back.

  “What the hell?” Sam demanded. “Syd, you can’t just—”

  “Can’t just what, Sam? Kill humans?” Those lethal, ice-blue eyes turned on him. “Wanna know what I witnessed the night I met Vinny? Him raping one of Madge’s girls behind the dumpster. Couldn’t afford even a quick hand-job, so he took it out on that poor hooker’s broken body, making it out like she’d tried to steal his non-existent money. By the time I showed up, he’d cut her face and both her breasts, broken her hands, and smashed her nose. Said he didn’t want her to be able to cheat another man again. I got him off her and sent him packing.”

  “Syd…” Sam said, pained. “You still can’t—”

  Her eyes flashed like sun-shot glaciers. “I didn’t kill him at the time, Sam, because he wasn’t so far gone he couldn’t be redeemed. Not quite darkling enough to earn an early grave. But I told him if I ever saw him again, I’d be the last person he ever saw.” Her lips turned up in a humorless grin. “As you can see, I keep my promises.”

  No arguing with her when she was like this. Sam swallowed, feeling like a mouse staring down an enraged lion. Even a mouse packing an Uzi wouldn’t be able to stand against her. “What about the body?” he said, rather than the hundred other arguments crowding behind his tongue. “We can’t just leave him here. They’ll connect his…death…with the people who rented the room.”

  “Glories of cash-only,” Syd said flatly. “Just help me get him to the bathroom.”

  Sam grimaced. “I used cash, but they still got my I.D. before they’d let me rent the room, Syd.”

  Sydney heaved a long-suffering sigh. “And which I.D. did you use? Your real one, or your minted-fresh-by-Uncle-Sam cover I.D.?”

  “He used the cover,” Dex said. “But that won’t help us when they find a body in the room. When they find out he wasn’t a darkling—”

  She laughed. “And how will they find out, Dex?” One eyebrow lifted sardonically. “Unless I’m mistaken, the only way the DEA knows how to identify darklings is through direct eye contact. Tell me, can you make eye contact with a dead man?”

  Silence.

  Sam exchanged yet another look with his partner. Dex looked like he’d swallowed rat poison, but he lifted one shoulder in a tiny, almost-imperceptible shrug. What else can we do? Dead is dead. Sam nodded grimly and leaned down to take Vinny’s shoulders while Dex gathered his feet.

  “Where do you want him?”

  “In the bathtub,” Sydney said casually.

  Sam and Dex lifted the dead-weight in tandem. Sydney skipped on ahead of them, pushing the bathroom door open wide. She pulled the bath curtain aside for them, then hopped up onto the closed toilet lid to get out of their way. After they deposited Vinny’s sad little body in the tub, she pulled several towels down from the rack above the toilet and tossed them to Sam.

  “See if you can do something about that piss stain.”

  Grumbling, Sam handed Dex half the towels and marched back into the bedroom. The two men knelt beside the obvious wet spot and started mopping.

  “You ever seen her this cold?” Dex murmured after a brief silence.

  Sam shook his head. “What the fuck is going on here, man?”

  “Syd’s keeping a lot of cards close to her vest.”

  A grim nod. “And we’re being put up for the pot.”

  A brief hissing noise came from the direction of the bathroom. Sam cocked his head, listening, but it could have just been the faucet. A moment later, three muted thumps echoed from the bathroom. Sam straightened, immediately on high alert. He glanced at Dex, who gave him a silent nod, then crossed the room.

  Sydney was just closing the bath curtain as he poked his head in. He frowned. “You know that won’t stop them from finding him.”

  She snorted. “Still less obvious than leaving him out in the open. Here. Catch.”

  He caught a small, black plastic object after she tossed it to him. It was a flip-phone, the kind usually carried by drug-dealers and pimps. “His, I presume.”

  She rinsed her hands in the sink. “You presume correctly, good sir. Sadly, it means more trouble for us. Check the last message.”

  Scowling, Sam flipped the phone open and navigated to the text message alerts. The last message sent from the phone read, Found them. It was sent to a ridiculously fake phone number, all zeroes but for the last three: 666.

  “Let me guess. That’s not Madge’s number, is it?”

  One corner of her mouth lifted. “Appropriate, surely, but no. That’s Levi’s attempt at irony.”

  Sam grimaced as he followed her back out into the bedroom, still scrolling through the saved messages. “Doesn’t look like he reported where he’d located us. That might buy us some time.”

  Sydney knelt next to Dex and began helping him soak up the stain from the carpet. “A little. But Levi will know something’s up when Vinny doesn’t report back. That’s when the real fun begins.”

  “More minions sent after us?” Dex guessed.

  “No. Police.”

  Dex’s eyebrows rose. “The leader of an extensive crime ring’s gonna report us to the cops?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, Levi loves irony. He owns all the cops in a hundred-mile radius. It’ll tickle him no end to send them on a manhunt for us. We need to move. Sorry, Dex. Gotta ditch the car.”

  Dex scowled. “Vinny said Madge didn’t get a good look at the plates. Maybe we can—”

  “Vinny lied,” Sydney said with a snort. “Madge has perfect vision—and perfect recall. You really think a little old woman with failing eyesight could keep control of a place like the Sin Motel? No, she got the plates, and she passed the information along to Levi. He’ll have a BOLO out for us the moment he realizes one of his wannabe-minions is missing. Count on it.”

  Charged silence fell over the room as the three of them worked to clean up the mess. Sydney stuffed the dirty towels under the bathroom sink, then gathered up her duffle bag and slung it cross-wise over her chest like a bandolier. Sam and Dex both grabbed their go-bags, and all three headed toward the door.

  Sam paused, hand on the doorknob. “Why’d you come back early, Syd? Did your recon turn up empty?”

  “Yes, and no,” she said with a small grimace. “Suffice to say, my original plan won’t work. We’ll need to come up with a new one.”

  “Are you ever going to tell us what the fuck is going on?” Dex demanded, anger burning in his eyes. “You’ve been dragging us all over bum-fuck Montana, Syd. How about telling us the truth for once, instead of that bullshit story you spouted back at the Sin Motel?”

  She gave Dex a sad little smile. “So you figured that out too, did you? Well, it was a good story. A rousing tale of darklings and danger guaranteed to hit the best-seller list.” She looked down, briefly, then met both their eyes. “I’m sorry I lied to you. Sorry about a lot of things, actually, which feels odd to say at a time like this. But I needed the two of you out of my hair. Since you’re determined to be a part of this whether I will it or no, it seems I have no choice but to read you in.”

  “That would be helpful,” Sam growled.

  The corner of her lip twitched. “Come on. There’s a bus stop four blocks away.”

  “Syd!” Dex barked.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, expression softening. “Let’s find a new HQ. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

  Chapter 14

  Another freaking motel room.

  Dex dumped his go-bag next to one of the ubiquitous queen-size beds. This one had a striped bedspread instead of floral, so at least it di
dn’t hurt his eyes. Otherwise, the room looked like every other motel room he’d ever stayed in, except this one conveniently provided a small table with four tiny chairs. Sydney deposited her duffle bag on one of them, pulled the zipper, and removed a folded paper map. She spread it on the table and beckoned him and Sam over.

  “All right, here’s the deal.” She pointed to a spot on the map. “We’re here. The motel we just left is here, on the other side of town. Not saying much, I know, since this whole place would fit in my back pocket, but still, I think we got enough distance to give us some cover. Once they find the Galaxy, they’ll start with nearby accommodations. We should have a little breathing room.”

  “Just tell us what’s going on, Syd,” Sam growled. “No more secrets.”

  She chuckled softly. “Cards on the table. I may have lied about how I came to be here, but I didn’t lie about why—I have been tracking Levi for the last six months. I found his stronghold a while back, and I’ve been trying to figure a way past his defenses.”

  “Why not just shoot the fucker?” Dex asked, annoyance making his voice harsh. “Fuck, Syd. I’ve seen you set up a sniper rifle and take out a darkling from half a mile away. Why not just get it over with?”

  “Because Levi has defenses I can’t penetrate from outside,” she said. “You think the president has good protection? The Secret Service ought to take notes from Levi’s security team. No one gets close without a triple-vetting system, background check, fingerprint scan, and probably a DNA scan by now if he’s managed to steal the technology. Levi isn’t your run-of-the-mill darkling asshole. He’s been doing this a long time, guys. He knows how to protect himself.”

  Sam ran both hands over his face as he moved to stand at Sydney’s shoulder. “So tell us how you’ve been planning on getting past it.”

  Sydney tapped the map, her fingertip brushing the slight curve of highway where the Evil Eye Bar used to be. “I started there because it was sort of a hang-out for locals who answer to Levi. Not all of them were darklings, so I could blend in a little. It was also a good place to catch gossip. I found out a lot of useful information just from listening. Like the fact that Levi only trusts a few hand-picked men to vet his potential recruits.”