Eternal Pleasure

by Nina Bangs

  “Neva will win.” Thadeus was usually right about these things. “Yvette has become overconfident. Besides, the red wolf is in better shape.”

  Thadeus had no sooner made his prediction than Neva crouched and rolled under a leaping Yvette. She struck at the gray wolf’s soft underbelly with teeth and claws. Blood flowed, and Yvette screamed in shock and pain. Neva wasted no time. As Yvette fell to her side, Neva ripped out her throat. Then she stood shaking over her dead enemy.

  Detached, he watched the drama to its gory conclusion. “Very good. I want Neva on our team. See that it happens.”

  He barely noticed when Thadeus left to disperse the circle and release Neva. His plan was unfolding right on schedule. Soon he’d be on his way to Dallas. Maybe he’d leave Seir in charge of Houston when he left. The demon had shown himself to be coldly efficient.

  He was preparing to address the audience when his cell phone rang. Annoyed, he pulled it from his pocket. “Yes?” After listening to the brief message, he calmly returned the phone to his pocket. He walked over to where Thadeus was giving orders for the disposal of Yvette’s body and pulled the sorcerer aside.

  “Plans have changed. Our enemies are on their way here.” He watched Neva, still in wolf form, glaring at everyone in the room. “Throw another wolf in with Neva. A new fight will keep the audience distracted. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Thadeus paled. “Which enemies?”

  “Jude’s vampires, Macario’s wolves, and even a few of the Gods of the Night.” Absently, he rubbed at the spot on his sleeve again. “I truly regret I can’t stay here to pit my powers against theirs. But sometimes one must forgo pleasure for duty. Our leader is a big-picture type.”

  Thadeus’s gaze skittered around the room. “But we can’t leave. We—”

  “The humans upstairs can tell them nothing. The nonhumans here for the first time also know nothing. I have no information in my office that will provide any clues.” He glanced over the audience, which was starting to get restless. “There are some here who have already committed to us, but they still can’t help our enemies. What can they say? All they know is that my name is Wyatt and I’m recruiting an army to kill all humans.” He shrugged. “Our enemies already know that.”

  Thadeus drew in a deep, gulping breath. “So what will happen?”

  “They’ll charge in, scare the shit out of the people upstairs—have I mentioned how much I enjoy your human colloquialisms?—and probably kill most of the nonhumans who try to leave the building. Even those down here who aren’t involved in our endeavor will fight just for the joy of it all. If we’re lucky, they might even kill a few of our enemies.”

  “Why don’t we close the place down and send everyone home?” Thadeus had gained some control of his fear.

  “No time. Start the next fight, and then meet me upstairs. And do it fast.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll give them a half hour. That should put them in the middle of their attack. Then you’ll notify the police.” As he climbed the steps, he wondered how they’d found him. But he shrugged the thought away. It didn’t matter. He was almost finished in Houston.

  “There.” Ty pointed to the building that squatted on a small patch of land at the tip of Brady’s Island. “That’s it. I feel wrongness there.”

  The building faced the Houston Ship Channel and showed the only signs of life on the small island. On one side, a narrow strip of water separated the island from the mainland. And on the other side, was the Channel with its constant flow of large ships.

  It seemed strange to locate a club in the middle of all this heavy industry. Everything about the area made Ty uneasy. The darkness revealed an alien landscape filled with shadowy silhouettes—warehouses, large storage tanks, refineries, terminals, docked barges, and big empty parking lots.

  “The restaurant’s been here a long time, but I didn’t know there was a club too.” Kelly stopped the SUV in the restaurant’s huge parking lot, which looked like it also served whatever industries shared the island. She got out of the SUV and peered around. “Jeez, talk about depressing. Not my fave place to be late at night.”

  Ty, along with Shen and Lio, joined her.

  “The restaurant is closed. That’s good. The only people we’ll have to deal with are the ones in the club.” Ty didn’t want a bunch of panicked humans stampeding across the bridge to the mainland, carrying their tales to God knew where.

  He took time to study the other cars. Some had people sitting in them. As he watched, Macario and Jude got out of two vehicles and walked over.

  Jude smiled at Kelly, triggering Ty’s automatic primal response. He allowed himself a silent snarl.

  “I suppose it’d be too much to hope for a bloodbath.” Jude looked resigned.

  Macario bared his teeth. “I intend to rip out a few throats. Call it werewolf therapy.”

  Lio glanced at Kelly. “Am I likely to run into any ships in the water?”

  Kelly looked startled. “Why would you be in the water?”

  “Fin sent me, so obviously he expected me to be in the water.” Lio took patronizing to a whole new level. “I assume if you surround the place, anyone trying to escape with this Neva will take to the water.” His smile was all wicked anticipation. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Who’s he?” Macario didn’t try to hide his suspicion.

  Ty did the introductions. “This is Lio. He’s one of the Eleven.” He nodded at Shen. “This is Shen. He’s a shifter. We can use him tonight.”

  “What’s the plan?” Jude’s eyes had a hungry shine. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a taste for this kind of thing.”

  “Maybe you guys should call your people over so I don’t have to repeat everything.” Ty waited as the vampires and werewolves joined the group.

  Jude’s vampires deserved a second look. There were five of them, all male. Tall, muscular, and dressed completely in black, they should’ve been vampire clichés. They weren’t. These men absorbed the darkness, and only a primitive soul like his could appreciate the flood of primal power flowing from them. Ty sensed no humanity in them, no souls, nothing to connect them to warmth or kindness. They would kill with passionless efficiency.

  Just like you. It hit Ty then. That was what he’d been millions of years ago. But now he was something else, a hybrid, and he wouldn’t be as he once was ever again. But will you ever be completely human? No, but if he could balance yesterday and today, it would be a beginning. Jude’s soft laughter pulled Ty’s attention back to their leader.

  “Impressive, aren’t they?” Jude’s pride echoed in his voice. “They belonged to a very old, very powerful clan that was destroyed a few hundred years ago. No one else would take them in because of their clan’s reputation for viciousness. I took the chance, and I’ve never regretted it. I only call on them for special occasions. Feel honored that you’ll see them in action.”

  Ty nodded at the vampires, and they nodded back. But their expressions never changed. No smiles, nothing but hard stares. So much for extending the hand of friendship.

  Ty switched his attention to Shen. “Fin said to send you in before we did anything. So I guess you change into something small that no one would notice.” He frowned. “That’ll make you pretty vulnerable.”

  “Do you change into a mouse?” Macario looked hopeful.

  Shen’s gaze shifted back and forth between Ty and Kelly. “Not a mouse. Something…different.”

  Ty frowned. What the hell was wrong with him? It didn’t matter what he changed into as long as he could find out what was happening inside. “Okay, change.”

  “Do you remember when you filled out all those papers for Fin, Kelly?” Shen wasn’t smiling.

  Puzzled, she nodded.

  “In the blank space that asked what you feared most, you put snakes.”

  Uh-oh. Ty watched Kelly’s eyes widen to saucer size.

  “Oh, shit.” Her words were breathed out on a shiver.

  “Yeah.”

  Lio
looked interested. “What kind?”

  Shen’s gaze never left Kelly. “Inland Taipan.”

  Lio whistled low. “There was some show on TV about you. Most toxic venom of any snake on earth. A single bite has enough poison to kill up to one hundred humans.”

  “Or two hundred fifty thousand mice.” Shen sounded proud of that. “So you can forget about me being vulnerable.”

  “Yeah, yeah, this is all really impressive, but let’s get on with it. If Neva’s in there, I want her out. Fast.” Macario looked ready to charge the club.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Kelly watched Shen with unblinking horror.

  Shen sighed. “Sorry, Kelly.” Then he stripped off his clothes and shifted.

  Ty grabbed Kelly before she could bolt. He wrapped her in his arms. “He’s Shen. No matter what he looks like, he’d never hurt you.”

  “Dammit, I know that. In my head I know that.” Kelly shuddered as she watched the six-foot-long snake slither away. “Stupid. I’m so freaking stupid. I know he won’t hurt me, but what’s inside me doesn’t listen to reason. I can’t control the fear.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Ty wasn’t a comforter, didn’t know how. But he stroked her hair as he murmured encouragement.

  And by the time Shen slithered back, Kelly had pulled herself together a little. She watched with outward calm as he returned to human form and slipped back into his clothes. But Ty could feel her heart still pounding out a terrified rhythm.

  Once dressed, Shen faced the group. “Okay, here’s the deal. The room in the front is a regular club for humans. Only about twenty people. In back there’s an office and a storage room. Both doors were closed, and I couldn’t find any cracks to slither through. While I was there, a guy came along and went into the storage room. Just before he closed the door I got a glimpse inside. Looked like a regular room with boxes and stuff. Thing was, nobody was in there, and he didn’t come back out. My guess is there’re stairs leading to a basement or something.” Shen paused. “And I think we’d better hurry. There was lots of noise coming from down below, howls and stuff. Something’s happening, and wolves are involved.”

  Macario’s low, rumbling growl said it all.

  Ty nodded. “Lio, go down by the water and get ready to bare your soul if anyone heads your way. Make sure it’s the enemy, though, before you chomp.” He still didn’t rule out the possibility that this was a dead end, that it had nothing to do with Nine or that Neva wasn’t here at all.

  Lio snorted his opinion of Ty’s word choice. “Right. I just hope no ships come along while all this soul baring is going on.” He walked away, and once beyond the parking lot faded into the shadows.

  Jude looked worried. “How do we do this without scaring the crap out of the humans? We don’t need mass hysteria getting in the way of our operation.”

  “And here I thought for a moment you had a heart.” Kelly shook her head in mock disappointment.

  Jude grinned. “Hey, the Tin Man and me, babe.”

  Macario paced. “I’m going in and killing anything that gets between Neva and me.”

  Ty exhaled wearily. “I know how you feel, but we can’t just rush in. Fin seems to think Nine will be gone, but we don’t know that for sure.”

  Kelly glanced around at the shadowy outlines of nearby buildings. “From what Fin has said, if Nine is inside, then he already knows we’re here.”

  Ty made sure he had their attention. “And if that’s true, then he’s just sitting back waiting for us to come through the door. I don’t want any of us to end up dead.” The fear that Yvette had taken Neva elsewhere or that she might already be dead looked like a phantom ghoul in the darkness.

  “There’s a fire alarm in the club. Set it off and it’ll clear out the humans.” Shen was careful not to stand too close to Kelly.

  “Good thought. Where is it?” Ty watched Kelly watch Shen.

  “Near the restrooms.”

  “Come on, come on. We’re wasting time.” Macario’s patience was at an end.

  Ty nodded. “Someone needs to go in there, trip that alarm, and shout fire. The humans will run out the front door.”

  “I’ll leave some of my pack out front. They’ll make sure the humans keep on going to their cars.” Macario smiled for the first time.

  “Good. A few vampires should stay out here too. Make sure none of the nonhumans try to get out with the humans. Lio will take care of anyone who makes the mistake of trying to swim across the channel.” Ty looked at Kelly. He knew she wouldn’t stay out here where she’d be relatively safe. Not while Neva was possibly inside and still alive. So he’d give her the safest job he could think of. “You and Shen go in as a couple. Then you can set off the fire alarm when we’re ready. I’ll call your cell phone to let you know.” And Shen can make sure you stay out of trouble.

  Kelly’s gaze skittered to Shen, then away again. “Sure.” She took out her cell phone to set it on vibrate.

  Shen made a disgusted sound. “Stop looking at me that way. I’m human, Kelly.” He held his arms away from his body. “See?”

  She nodded, but Ty recognized the shame in her eyes.

  “Everyone else will go in the back entrance. We’ll wait at the door to the storage room, and when the alarm goes off, we’ll catch the rats abandoning ship.” He opened his mental link to Fin. If something went wrong inside, Ty might need whatever help Fin could channel his way.

  Macario didn’t look happy. “Why wait at the door? Why not just go in and get the bastards?”

  Jude answered that. “Impulsive werewolves.” He cast the pack leader a derisive glance. “How do we know what’s waiting for us? We’re not even sure Neva’s there. And if by chance Nine is in the building, I want some maneuvering room.”

  The pack leader snarled at Jude. Ty stepped in before a fight broke out. “We don’t have time for this kind of crap. Save it for the enemy. Let’s get moving.”

  A few minutes later he watched Kelly, clutching that stupid flute case along with her purse, walk into the club with Shen a good five steps behind her. Shen was letting her have her space. Smart man. And if anything happened to her…His soul stirred. Nothing would be left standing on this island. And not even Fin would be able to control Ty’s rage.

  Or his despair. Here in the darkness, he admitted that. His feelings for her had been there from the beginning, growing stronger with each hour, but he’d mistaken them for instincts from another time. The urge to mate was all he’d ever known.

  Well, what he felt now was unmistakably human—fear for her safety and the need to keep her close forever. Love? If so, it was a hopeless emotion; what woman in her right mind would go through the ordeal Fin had described just to claim him?

  He pushed those thoughts aside as he waited for all the werewolves except Macario to change. Then he crept to the back of the building.

  Jude held up a hand and whispered, “Shen can slither through small openings. We can’t. This door will probably be locked, so—”

  With a muttered curse, Macario pushed in front of Jude and calmly kicked the door down. Everyone froze.

  “Son of a bitch.” Jude muttered his opinion of that approach.

  As an alarm blared the news that some idiot had taken out the door, Ty pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in Kelly’s number. Almost immediately they heard the fire alarm sound. The music stopped, and Kelly shouted, “Fire!” Then pandemonium erupted from the club.

  Macario led the charge into the hallway. He barely paused to kick down the first door he came to. “Office,” he flung over his shoulder.

  “He could’ve checked to see if the damn door was locked first.” Jude’s tone held nothing but contempt for Macario’s primitive breaking-and-entering skills. “What ever happened to sneaking in and catching the enemy by surprise?”

  “Jude and I will make sure none of them try to escape out the front with the humans. If they get past you, herd them out the back. Lio will take care of them if they hit the water.
And for God’s sake don’t kill everyone. One of them might have information about Nine.” Ty ignored the grumbling around him at that order. He placed himself in the middle of the hallway, blocking the path to the front of the building. The human screams were fading into the distance, where they mixed with the howls of wolves and the sounds of cars peeling out of the parking lot. Ty hoped the werewolves weren’t having too much fun.

  Jude joined him just as the door to the storage room burst open and a rush of nonhumans tried to force their way out into the hallway.

  They hadn’t counted on an enraged werewolf. Macario’s change was almost instantaneous. He was already in mid leap as he became wolf. And then he slashed his way through the howling mob with teeth and claws. They gave way before him, and he disappeared into the storage room.

  Ty shouted above the noise. “Some of you go in and help him.”

  He didn’t get a chance to see if anyone obeyed him. The nonhumans from the storage room poured into the hallway. Within seconds, the narrow hall was filled with leaping, snarling wolves and battling vampires.

  Ty, along with Jude, turned back anyone who tried to fight past them. No immortal with incredible power seemed to be among those rolling around on the floor and bouncing off the walls. In fact, as far as Ty could tell, there were only werewolves and vampires in this bunch. And not especially powerful ones at that. Time to put this show to bed before Jude’s vampires ripped out everyone’s throats.

  “Freeze.” He put all the power of his other soul into the command.

  They obeyed. For a moment.

  Ty spoke before they could get their second wind. “You can all walk away from this. We just need some information. You—” He pointed at a sulky-looking vampire. “What was going on down there?”

  The vampire shrugged as he cast Jude a nervous glance. “We’d heard you could bet on some good fights at this club. Real fights. We just got through watching two werewolves mix it up. This was our first time here.” He aimed his comment at Jude, who didn’t look impressed. Then he nodded at a woman who stood beside him. “We were waiting for the next fight when the alarms went off.”