Absolution

by Susannah Sandlin

  Glory had grown tired of the self-condemnation that had arisen inside her when she was a teen, and she’d run away from the family who fueled it, learned to be strong, discovered how to trust herself. Mirren’s condemnation came entirely from within, though, and he obviously didn’t know how to escape it. She could tell him what she saw when she looked at him, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d just order her to stop talking. Unless she tied him down with his own silver-laced rope, which she’d noticed sitting coiled on a table in the rec room. Then he’d have to listen to her.

  She grinned to herself. Oh yeah, that was brilliant.

  She explored Mirren’s rec room for a while after finding the rope. Besides the sofa and another big fat-screen TV, he had one corner devoted to weights. Barbells and tension machines. She’d never thought about a vampire having to keep in shape. Maybe he did it out of habit or just for enjoyment. Could they actually build muscle, or had that abundance of heavy muscle come from his prevampire life? She had a feeling if she asked, he’d tell her it was none of her business. She’d ask Melissa instead. She def nitely had the vampires’ number.

  In another end of the room was a rectangular space with a motorcycle resting on a heavy pad to protect the floor. Or at least half of a motorcycle, with lots of shiny red steel and the word Indian written in script across the side. Well, how ironic was that, given her heritage? She laughed a little as she examined it.

  The bike was big and bulky, and its style ft Mirren perfectly, except she’d have expected him to have a black bike. Scattered around it were parts and tools. Good to know he didn’t have them all in his kitchen.

  What Glory didn’t see in Mirren’s space was anything personal. No clothing, except the odds and ends thrown around on the furniture. The man needed a housekeeper in the worst way. No bed. God, she hoped he didn’t sleep in a coffin. What did vampires sleep in? She’d never had the displeasure of seeing any of the vamps around Matthias’s estate go into their daysleep.

  Because it wouldn’t be safe, would it? For the fist time, Glory realized how much trust Mirren had shown by letting her see even this much of his personal space. The house upstairs was for show. This was where he lived.

  Except, there had to be more. Beginning at the stairwell, she carefully walked the large room, staring at the wooden floor. If this was the original basement to the house, as Glory suspected, it probably had concrete underneath the wood flooring. But Mirren wouldn’t have a space down here without more than one way out. She’d been around enough vampires now to know their paranoia ran deep, and with good reason.

  There were no windows, so it made sense that there would be either a wall panel or floor panl that could be shifted around like the one leading into his upper hallway. Pacing the room, moving aside area rugs, she focused on the sound of her footfalls. There it is. A square space in the back corner of the room, opposite the other stairway, that sounded different when she walked across it, less solid. It was covered with an area rug that wouldn’t move.

  Dropping to her knees, Glory felt beneath the edges of the rug and thought her fingers detected a crease in the wooden flooring, slightly rougher than the place where the planks came together.

  She sat back on her heels and thought about it. If it was another hatch, it probably had some kind of intricate locking system like the one leading upstairs. Manual, not electronic. She closed her eyes and visualized the rug lifting up, the movement of wood beneath it in the clockwise-counterclockwise rotation Mirren had used above. She sensed power gathering, but lost her concentration and had to start over. The second time, the wooden pieces seemed to be straining against a barrier or against each other.

  Damn it. She thought a few seconds and tried again, visualizing the tiles moving opposite the direction Mirren had used earlier. At the sound of a click, she was so startled she lost her footing and fell on her butt on the floor. It worked!

  Cautiously, Glory pulled on the rug and grinned when the whole thing lifted, big square of flooring and all. She leaned over the hole and peered down. The opening was narrow—probably not much wider than Mirren’s shoulders—with a metal ladder attached to one wall. A dim light shone from the bottom.

  OK, vampire. I’m boldly going where I suspect no woman has gone before, or not in a heckuva long time. Glory eased her feet onto the second rung of the ladder and began to descend.

  CHAPTER 17

  “Damn it to hell and back, Randa. Would you hurry?” Will fired another two shots form his hiding spot wedged behind the blackened remains of the old Clyde’s BBQ building, then ducked. Wood chips few as a returning shot dug a trench into the beam nearest his head. “They’re going to shoot my fucking eye out while you try to reload. What kind of soldier were you—a toy soldier?”

  Randa popped a new clip into her semiautomatic. “Go to hell, Will-I’m-not. Or I’ll knock you out with that cheap-shot trick you used on me.”

  She elbowed him out of the way and fired off three quick shots before ducking beside him.

  “I was in a hurry, and you were in my way.” Will got off a shot before another bullet chipped into the beam he was using for cover. A shout sounded from across the street, and Will hazarded another glance over the charred half wall. “Aidan’s here, and Tanner, and a bunch of the others. About time.”

  “We’re not so outnumbered now. You go first—I don’t trust you behind me.” Randa’s green eyes blazed in the streetlight’s arc.

  Will grinned. Damn, but she looked sexy when she was getting ready to kick some vampire ass, even when it might be his. “Strongest fighters first.” He edged past her and ran from cover to cover, heading toward the center of the main street where the fighting pulsed and moved like a single live thing with shifting, moveable parts. Randa’s feet pounded the pavement behind him.

  They’d been on their nightly patrol when the first stranger showed himself. Stepped right in the middle of Main Street like a gunfighter in a Hollywood Western—a simile Mirren would appreciate. By the time Will stopped the car, the guy had been joined by twenty more. By the time he and Randa got out, twenty had swelled to thirty. All raggedy-assed, starving vampires, a few with guns. Guns didn’t care how weak the shooter was. Didn’t take much muscle strength to pull a trigger.

  They finally got close enough for Will to assess the fray. In his left hand, Aidan slashed with the wicked curved kukri blade that was his fighting weapon of choice; in his right was his pistol. Tanner had two blades, moving with speed and grace as he eviscerated a tall scarecrow who’d come after him with bared fangs. Vampires could feed from other vampires in an emergency, at least for a short time, but it was poor sustenance. These guys were as hungry and desperate as their scarecrow bodies said they were.

  Randa plowed into the melee—at least it had mostly degenerated to knives now. The invading stick figures with guns obviously hadn’t had a bounty of ammunition.

  Shit. Will saw a familiar face among the fighters. Ford, one of his father’s flunkies from his Miami estate, had slipped to the far side of the group where Randa fought and had taken aim at her unprotected back.

  Will ran for them, yelling, “Randa, down!” Before he got to her, a sharp pain caught his side, and he twisted to find a knife attached to the hand of another ugly-assed vampire. He heard the shot and hoped like hell Randa had moved in time, but he had his hands full with Big Ugly, who’d pulled his knife out of Will’s flesh with a wet, sticky splat and had his arm pulled back for a second stab.

  “Oh, screw this.” Will dropped his knife and fired his pistol instead. The man’s silvery green eyes glazed over as his chest exploded in a spray of pink blood and meat. Dude had been seriously underfed, and now Will wore half of him on his chest. Not a good fashion statement.

  He searched for Randa and saw her on the ground, sitting up slowly. “You OK?” He held out a hand to help her up, and to his surprise, she accepted his help. “Where’d you get hit?”

  “Nowhere.” She jerked her head toward the theater that sat across th
e street from Clyde’s. “I didn’t get shot. I got Mirrened. He bowled me over just as the guy fired.”

  Will stared at the scene playing out in front of the theater, where the marquee advertised a Twilight marathon. One fig ure stood outlined in the backlit space, swinging a sword two-handed. Heads were flying. Literally. “Holy fuck,” Will whispered, jumping aside as a severed head rolled near his feet, its blond hair askew, its face frozen in wild-eyed shock.

  Randa’s mouth hung ajar. “What you said.”

  Aidan, Tanner, and the other members of the Penton scathe had moved back, watching while Mirren cleaned out the remaining invaders like a one-man wrecking crew. They were going to have some serious cleanup to do. Very few of these bodies were still in one piece.

  Skirting the main fighting arena and dodging body parts, Will and Randa circled around to Aidan.

  “Think you can get Mirren to save that one?” Will gestured at Ford, who chose that moment to begin edging away from the pack. The vampires who still had heads apparently had at last realized their numbers were no match for the big man with the sword, not as weak and starved as they were. More than one whispered “Slayer” loud enough for Will to hear. Which meant Mirren could hear. Which meant the silvery light in his eyes was glowing even brighter because he was pissed.

  Will chased after Ford and tackled him, pressing the gun to the man’s temple and shoving his face into the pavement with a lot of pent-up aggression. “Long time since I’ve seen you outside Miami, Ford.”

  Coal-black hair tumbled over a pair of glittering dark eyes. Will had always thought the man’s sharp nose resembled an oversize beak, and his emaciated state only made it bigger by comparison. “Get up slow,” Will said. “Keep your mouth shut if you don’t want to bring yourself to the Slayer’s attention.”

  Ford made a frantic sound, and his eyes rolled in Mirren’s direction. The big guy had stopped his rampage because he couldn’t find anyone else to behead who wasn’t part of his own scathe. His eyes had already landed on Will and Ford like a physical weight.

  Will pulled the shorter man to his feet and hauled him to Aidan by the back of his coat. “Meet my old friend, Ford Nix, from Miami. Works for my father.”

  “Is that so?” Aidan’s eyes, always a light blue, paled to hard ice. “He send all of you here?”

  Ford hadn’t taken his eyes off Mirren, who’d wiped his sword blade off on one of the jackets of his victims and sheathed it—all the while watching Ford with a dispassionate expression.

  Aidan wrapped his fingers around the front of Ford’s neck, drawing his attention away from Mirren. “I asked you a question. Don’t think Mirren Kincaid is the only one here capable of taking off a head.”

  “I’d be happy to help.” Will grinned at Ford and jiggled his hand, which still grasped the back of the man’s jacket. Ford jostled like a marionette and tried to wrest himself away.

  “I’m telling you nothing.”

  Aidan nodded his head. “I understand that, Ford. I do. But here’s the thing. You’re going to die here telling us nothing, or you might have a chance to survive—note I said might—if you tell us something of value. Like who these guys were and what convinced them to come here tonight.”

  Ford jerked out of Will’s grasp and straightened his coat. “It didn’t take much, Murphy—the promise of lots of unvac-cinated humans. All they have to do is kill you. And the Slayer. The little Indian girl. Then your humans are all up for grabs. Oh”—he smirked at Will—“and bring little William home in whatever condition we want, as long as he can heal eventually. Daddy’s not happy with his little boy.”

  Aidan gestured at the carnage as Mirren joined them. “Your plan didn’t work too well, did it?”

  Ford shrugged. “Told Matthias it wouldn’t—these guys weren’t strong enough to fight off a cold, much less your lot. But starving vampire fighters are easy to find these days. Don’t think these will be the last.”

  “What’s your role here?” Will couldn’t figure out why the manager of Matthias’s holdings in Miami would be pulled out to handle a shit job like this.

  “Daddy thought Miami would be a good place to take you so you could spend some quality time with me. Let you cool your heels for a while. Think over your life options, so to speak. Told him I’d be happy to help.” He stepped forward, slid a hand over Will’s crotch, and squeezed hard before Will could shove him away.

  Ford was a sadistic bastard, and Will saw that scenario too clearly. They’d starve him, weaken him, then let Ford use him till he was so broken he’d do whatever Matthias wanted to get away from Ford. A chill shot up his back. He couldn’t think of a fate that was much worse, including having his head separated from his body.

  He’d always thought his father would eventually give up, move on to bigger problems and leave him alone. Now, he realized he’d been wrong. Matthias would see him heeled, or dead.

  Aidan stepped between Ford and Will. “Guess what, Ford. Your lottery ticket just got punched. Go back home. Call your boss. And tell him, next time, we won’t stop at killing the poor assholes he sends to annoy us. Next time, we come for him.” He put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “All of us.”

  A deep voice rumbled from behind them. “Want me to escort him out of town?” Will turned to find a blood-covered Mirren fixing Ford with anger-silvered eyes, and knew if the big guy took Ford anywhere, it would be to his final resting place. Which was what he deserved.

  “No, let him deliver his message,” Will said. “And, Ford, when Aidan said all of us would come after Matthias, make sure he knows that includes me.”

  Ford had shut his trap when Mirren showed up, and now kept his eyes on the ground. Aidan took his upper arm in a tight grip and shoved him toward the center of the street. “Tanner, Randa, take Mr. Nix to Atlanta and dump him somewhere downtown, preferably in a bad neighborhood. Make sure he’s unared.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Mirren sat in the clinic office with Aidan, Will, and Hannah. The warm tones of the room, with its soft lighting and cherry furnishings, made him restless. He itched like a son of a bitch from at least a dozen silver-blade wounds that seeped blood, not to mention the drying vampire shit all over him. Blood, tissue, and a dark smear he couldn’t identify. A shower was called for, then a date with his acid pen to pay for the twenty heads he’d taken. He’d counted them.

  The last thing he wanted to do was sit and have a war council.

  He felt amped, like he always did after a ragefest. Taking a woman, and taking her hard, would smooth the edges off his restlessness, but he didn’t want to think about the only woman he wanted, the one waiting in his daysleep space. He could never let his violence touch her, but what had he been thinking, letting her in his private living quarters? Good God, he’d even let her see how he got into the stairwell.

  He was a freaking idiot where that woman was concerned, and it had to stop. Tonight.

  “We’ve got some things to go over apart from what just went down.” Aidan sat behind that big desk like he was the sheriff of Dodge City, rounding up his posse. Better him than me.

  Hannah frowned at Aidan, her dark brows bunched like they always did before she said something creepy. “You talked to people on the Tribunal. Something happened to Will’s father.”

  Will sat up straight. “Somebody whacked the old bastard?”

  Mirren shifted his gaze to Will. Had the news really been about Matthias’s death, he wasn’t sure Will would be so blasé about it. For all his insistence on how much he hated Matthias and all the man had done to ruin his family, Will was Matthias’s son. Blood ties sometimes ran deeper than people realized.

  “Nothing that drastic,” Aidan said, nodding at Hannah. “But I did talk to Renz Caias. He’s coming down to talk about a couple of issues, but he wanted to let me know something about Matthias that impacts all of us. Will, your father has been thrown off the Tribunal’s Justice Council for hiring Owen to attack us in January and using the council to advance his own agenda.�
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  Will grinned. “Poor old Dad.”

  Mirren almost smiled himself. About time the evil bastard got taken down a notch, but he was still a part of the Tribunal, and he still had allies. “There’s a downside to that news,” he said. “Matthias will really be after us now.”

  “Exactly.” Aidan leaned back in his chair, and Mirren followed his gaze to one of the primitive oil paintings on the office wall. The town’s former doctor, murdered by Aidan’s brother, had pulled them from his own collection. Mirren thought he might like them if he could see the colors. They weren’t polished, but they had heart and energy. Like he was a flipping art critic.

  “Renz said Matthias didn’t take losing the council seat well,” Aidan continued. “He’s hired a bunch of people to do investigative work—probably to cover his tracks before Renz can collect any more dirt on him. And he said something else.” Aidan looked at Mirren.

  “ Yeah?”

  “Renz has put a motion forward to remove Matthias from the Tribunal altogether, if not bring him up on charges. He’s trying to prove he supplied Owen with tainted blood to use as a biological weapon.”

  Good for Renz. Mirren didn’t trust him, but Aidan did, so he kept his mouth zipped.

  Aidan got up and began pacing. “He overheard the head of the Tribunal warning Matthias that Renz was coming after him, telling him to tie up any loose ends.” He waited a few moments, frowning at Mirren. “And as you and Will have already pointed out, Glory Cummings is a loose end.”

  Shit. “So you want me to take her out of here, somewhere they can’t find her?” Suddenly, Mirren felt the ache of every wound on his body. It had to be the injuries, right? Couldn’t be that the thought of never seeing Glory again made him tired. And pissed off.