Dark Vengeance Part 2

by Reinke, Sara

  No, he begged as the man upturned the second bottle, and let the nectar-thick contents burble down the tube. When the man reached for a third bottle, there was nothing Brandon could do except clamp his eyes shut and wait for it to be over.

  His abdomen was so distended at that point, it was painful; his belly so swollen, he felt ready to burst, his skin splitting open and his guts spilling out in a steaming heap. Only half the third bottle managed to make it down his gullet before he started to vomit. He felt a rush of liquid rise in his throat, then spew from between his lips in a frothy, sour-tasting geyser. The men immediately turned him loose and backed away as Brandon doubled over in the chair, retching. The effort sent spasms of pain shooting through his broken, battered ribs and he cried out silently, jerking against his bonds.

  Shuddering, trying to spit the last remnants of vomit from his lips, he looked up, watching as the trio of men walked out the door in a single-file line. He could feel the feeding tube dangling from his nose, tickling the back of his throat. With a mute cry of disgust, he shook his head furiously, gulping for breath, trying to dislodge it. When he realized the futility of his efforts, he fell still, hanging his head.

  Two hundred years, he thought, closing his eyes and trembling. That was how long Aaron had endured the sorts of abuse he was now suffering. He couldn’t imagine how; couldn’t fathom how Aaron could have made it without his mind being completely shattered. Please, God, let someone find me. Augustus, or Jackson…someone has to be looking for me. I don’t know how much more of this I can take… God, please…help me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After breakfast, Augustus drove Lina to Latisha’s house so she could pack a quick bag with some clothes and toiletries. As they pulled into the driveway, Lina noticed a couple of panels of plywood propped against the side of the house near her mother’s bedroom window.

  “I thought Jackie said he’d put those up to cover the broken glass,” she said with a frown, opening her car door. She crossed the front yard to the bedroom, where the glass in the lower panes had burst from the heat of the flames. As she leaned closer, inspecting the damage to these same panes, she saw a shadowy figure suddenly dart across the bedroom doorway inside.

  Holy shit! Wide-eyed, she turned to Augustus. “Someone’s in the house,” she exclaimed. “Go in through the front door—I’ll try and head them off in the back!”

  “Angelina—” he began in protest, but it was too late. Lina took off, sprinting around the side of the house toward the lanai. She heard the back door squall on its hinges, then slap shut as the dark figure appeared ahead of her, cutting across the yard, heading toward the canal.

  Her gun was in the car, along with her badge, but Lina didn’t hesitate. “Hey!” she shouted, bringing the intruder to a momentary, skittering halt. It was all of the opportunity she needed; Lina leapt, arms outstretched, and tackled the son of a bitch, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing beneath her to the ground. As soon as they landed, she was again in motion, clasping one of the man’s wrists between her hands, and scrambling to get her legs beneath her. She had better luck this time than she’d had with the Serbian giant, Nikolić, and wrenched the guy’s arm in a sharp wrist lock, craning his hand behind his back and pinning him to the ground. She heard him suck in a startled, hurting breath that ripped up into a ragged cry the further she wrenched his arm.

  “Angelina!” Augustus came running around the side of the house.

  “I got him!” she cried. “Get your phone out and call 9-1-1. Tell them to—”

  “Angelina,” the guy beneath her said, startling the glorious, ever-living shit out of her. In a breathless grunt, he added, “It’s Valien. Get…off…!”

  She blinked, startled. “What?” Looking down, she realized what she hadn’t before—the man pinned beneath her, glaring at her in surly profile, was indeed Valien Cadana.

  “I…can explain…” he panted.

  “Explain what?” she exclaimed. “Why you’re looting my mother’s house?”

  “I’m not trying to steal anything,” Valien groaned, as she gave his arm a demonstrative little twist. “Goddamn it, would you stop and listen to me? I’m looking for something that belonged to my father—that belongs to me. I know Pilar gave it to you.”

  Immediately, Lina opened her hands, releasing her grasp. She stepped back warily as Valien stumbled to his feet, then limped in a semi-circle to face her.

  “The wayob,” she said, and he nodded, his dark hair hanging, disheveled, in his face.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have to give it to me. Right now. It’s the only way to stop Tejano—to stop all of this.”

  * * *

  “Why does Tejano want that statue so badly?” Lina asked. The three of them had gone back into the house, and sat in a semi-circle on the couch and adjacent loveseat, all facing each other. The stink of smoke was still pungent and strong, and Lina had gone through the house opening as many windows as she could.

  Valien shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. She had to admit that he looked like hell. He was a handsome guy—not her type, because she’d never been into the tattooed, rough-and-tumble, “Rebel-without-A-Clue” look—but it was plain to see the stress of the past few weeks was getting to him. His eyes were listless, ringed in heavy shadows, as if he hadn’t slept much. His chin and cheeks were dusted with a thick, coarse growth of stubble. He looked up, cutting his gaze between Lina and Augustus, his brows lifted in implore. “Please. Give it back to me.”

  Augustus nodded once in concession. “Of course.”

  Lina’s eyes flew wide. “What?” she exclaimed. “You…you can’t just—”

  “I most certainly can,” Augustus interjected. He’d put the shoe box in the trunk of Latisha’s car before the fire had struck, meaning to bring it with him to his hotel. He’d brought it inside upon their discovery of Valien, and reached inside to get the wayob now. With a flick of his hand, he tossed the statue across the room. Valien caught it deftly.

  “You bastard! I promised Pilar I’d keep it safe,” Lina snapped, feeling her cheeks ablaze with sudden, furious color. All at once she felt like a fool for having trusted Augustus with the wayob; she could damn near hear Jackie laughing at her for her stupid naiveté. Whirling toward Valien, she added sharply, “Your father died to keep Tejano Cervantes from getting that thing!”

  “And I’m not willing to let anyone else die for it,” he snapped back. “My mother and sister are both in the hospital—my mother’s hooked up to a ventilator for God’s sake! Tejano’s got Brandon—what else, Angelina? Who’s next? I’ll trade this to get Brandon back, to make Tejano leave my family alone once and for all!”

  “I want Brandon back just as bad as you do—both of you,” Lina said, glaring between the two men. “But this isn’t the way. Don’t you get it, Valien? Tejano’s not going to leave you alone. This is only going to make things worse—and you won’t have anything to bargain with next time. Nothing to get him to back off.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” Valien told her grimly, and he started to stalk toward the back door.

  “Your father wasn’t,” she said, stopping him in his tracks.

  “I’m not my father,” he replied coldly, turning to impale her with a hardened glare. “I never will be—never want to be. I’ve never wanted any of this—the responsibility, the power, none of it, but it came to me anyway. The decision is mine to make, not my father’s and not yours. And I’ve made it.”

  Again, he swung around and stomped away, ducking out onto the lanai. She started after him, but Augustus caught her by the crook of her elbow.

  “Let him go,” he said quietly.

  “Like hell,” Lina snapped, shrugging violently to dislodge his grasp. She marched forward again, but suddenly stopped as again the air around her grew heavier, keeping her feet firmly planted on the living room carpet, her arms dangling impotently at her sides—another damn telekinetic hold. The novelty had worn off for Lina.r />
  “Turn me loose,” she seethed at Augustus.

  “I said, let him go.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “So he can give the wayob to Tejano? Jackie was right all along, you lousy, self-serving son of a bitch! You’re not here to help Brandon, or anyone other than yourself, your own selfish interests! I can’t trust your sorry ass any farther than I can throw you! I don’t know why in the hell I ever—”

  “So he can give the wayob to Tejano, yes,” Augustus told her, his brows narrowing. “But not this.”

  He’d reached into the breast pocket of his shirt as he’d spoken, and as he pulled something out, he held it in his hand for her to see—the little clay vial they’d found hidden inside the statue’s hollow compartment.

  Lina’s eyes widened in surprise. “You kept the blood,” she whispered.

  “Yes. Valien doesn’t know about it. I could see that in his mind,” Augustus said. “And since you cannot miss what you are not even aware of, Tejano won’t realize it’s missing, either, if he reads Valien’s mind—if he knows to look for it himself.”

  He didn’t as much as bat an eye, but the air around her shifted again as he released his gentle telekinetic hold. Lina stumbled slightly, reclaiming her footing. Her cheeks still felt warm, but from embarrassment now, not anger.

  “Yeah…well…he’s still going to head straight to Tejano from here,” she grumbled, wanting—no, needing—to find a reason, however pathetic and slim, to stay angry at him. “He’s going to bring him the wayob and then he’s going to get his dumb ass killed.”

  Not that she cared really, either way. But Valien was Jackson’s friend, and including Brandon, Lina could count on one hand the number of people who could say that—and that was if she kept three of her fingers folded.

  “No, he’s not,” Augustus told her. “I could see that in his mind. Valien hasn’t made any plans to meet Tejano yet. But the boy is desperate to protect his family. I cannot blame him for that. He had no intention of leaving here without the statue. So I gave him what he wanted and bought us some time…a little bit, anyway.”

  “Time for what?” Lina asked.

  “To stop him,” Augustus replied. “To protect him. To get to Tejano first—and Brandon.”

  It made perfect sense, she had to admit. Much as she would’ve preferred not to. With a sheepish sigh, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me? I never would have said—”

  “Because Valien’s a telepath,” Augustus cut in. “A very powerful one, from the sense of things. He can’t read my mind—my shields are too strong. He met me earlier, so he was expecting that. But he would have realized right away if your mind was closed to him, if I was blocking it to have a private conversation with you. It would have made him suspicious.”

  “Still…” Embarrassed, Lina cut her gaze away. “I wouldn’t have said those things.”

  “What, that I’m a son of a bitch? That I’m only here to serve my own interests, not Brandon’s? That you can’t trust my…how did you put it?…my sorry ass farther than you could throw me?”

  That he seemed more amused than insulted by her outburst only made her feel even more humiliated. Her face hot with abashed color, Lina crossed her arms and scowled. “Yeah. That.”

  Augustus chuckled as he tucked the vial of wayob blood back into his shirt pocket. He said no more, but he didn’t need to. That hint of laughter spoke volumes.

  * * *

  “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Lina said with a troubled frown as a half hour later, she pulled into a parking slot at the police station.

  “It will be fine.” Augustus didn’t seem bothered in the least. But then again, she figured he didn’t know any better.

  “You see that car over there?” She pointed to a silver Ford Taurus parked close to the building’s front doors, a clear indication that whoever had driven it—in this case Marcus—had either arrived at the station really early that morning, or had never left for the night. “The guy who’s renting it is the FBI agent who told me about all of your alleged criminal activities. I’m willing to bet he’ll recognize your face.”

  Augustus unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “It will be fine,” he assured her again.

  They walked inside together, and almost immediately, Lina’s hopes that they could slip in unnoticed were dashed. The place was packed, a veritable hive of activity, and a patrolman called out in greeting before she’d even made it past the time clock.

  “Hey, Detective, you doing okay?”

  “Yeah, Dave,” she said, forcing a strained smile. “I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

  “I thought Fairfax said you were off to Miami,” the officer, Dave, said, and when he clapped Augustus on the shoulder as they breezed past, she realized he’d been talking to him, not her.

  “Hey, Velasco, what happened to the PTO?” another called with a laugh. “You love this place that much, man?”

  Velasco? Lina thought with a bewildered glance at Augustus. Why in the hell would they think you’re Elías?

  Because that’s who they see when they look at me, Augustus told her telepathically. When her eyes flew wide in surprise, he had to visibly struggle to bite back a laugh. How better to get inside a police station than to be in the disguise of a police officer?

  But you’ve never even met Elías, she protested.

  No, but you have, he replied pointedly. And they all have. I can cull from their memories to create the illusion, to trick their minds into seeing and hearing your friend. To demonstrate this, he seemed to change before her very eyes. In an instant, Augustus was gone, and she saw Elías walking beside her. The illusion was so perfect, the imitation so flawless, it startled her, and she damn near tripped over her own feet.

  “You see?” he said, catching her by the arm to spare her a fall. Only she heard him speak in Elías’s voice.

  “Okay, that’s really weird,” Lina muttered, shaking loose of his grasp. When she glanced in his direction, and found his appearance hadn’t changed, she scowled. “Cut it out already. You’re creeping me out.”

  * * *

  “Lina, hey,” Marcus exclaimed. His bright smile abruptly faltered when he caught sight of Augustus stepping through the doorway behind her. “Uh…Detective Velasco…good morning.” Visibly puzzled, he pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. “I thought you were in Miami?”

  “Change of plans,” Augustus told him with an affable smile.

  “What are you doing here?” Marcus asked, turning to Lina. “You should be getting some rest.”

  “I’m fine, Marcus,” she assured. “Really.”

  “Have a seat at least,” Marcus said, walking around the side of his desk. Taking her gently by the arm, he steered her toward a nearby chair. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “I’d love a cup, thank you,” Lina said.

  “I would, too,” Augustus said, despite the fact that Marcus hadn’t addressed the offer to him. “Two creams, please. No sugar.”

  Marcus fumbled for a smile. “Of course. Sure. I’ll be right back.”

  As he walked past Augustus, he shot another withering glare. In his wake, Augustus smirked and shook his head.

  The young man seems fond of you, he remarked telepathically to Lina.

  The ‘young man’ is a Special Agent with the FBI, Lina shot back. He also happens to be the one who clued me in on their criminal investigations of you. Also—we’re just friends.

  I told you before, I have nothing to do with any of that, Augustus replied mildly. And do friends usually go out for dinner together…on the first night of their acquaintance, no less?

  It was a working dinner, she growled, feeling her face blaze with bright, hot color. When he tipped his head back and chuckled out loud, she stood, fuming, and shoved past him, marching out the door.

  * * *

  She caught up to Marcus in the station’s break room, and found him wrestling with a foil packet of ground coffee as he tried to load the automatic
percolator.

  “Hey.” Some of the frustration in his face softened when he saw her. “Sorry to be taking so long. There wasn’t anything fresh, so I thought I’d make a pot.” With a frown, he continued tugging vainly at the edges of the foil pack. “Didn’t realize I’d need a degree in engineering to get into one of these things.”

  “Not engineering. Astrophysics.” With a smile, Lina slipped it from his hands and turned it counter-clockwise until she found the pre-made notch in one of the seams. She tore it open easily, and handed it back to him.

  He laughed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She watched as he upturned the packet, pouring a pile of aromatic, pulverized coffee beans into the basin of a paper filter. “You got it from here?”

  He laughed again. “Yeah, I think so.” Then, cutting her a glance, he said, “So what’s Velasco really doing back so soon?”

  Lina’s smile faltered. “Uh…well, it’s just…that’s Elías for you. He’s investigated Cervantes for awhile now. It’s hard for him to let it go. He can be hard-headed like that.”

  “Oh.” Marcus nodded, loading the filter into the machine and pressing the start button. With a hiss, the coffee began to brew, dripping almost immediately down into the awaiting glass carafe in a steady, chocolate-colored stream. “I sent some stuff off last night to the FBI lab in Miami. I know he used to work down there, and thought he might still have some connections who’d let him know about the break in the case.”

  Curious, Lina cocked her head. “A break?”

  “At least, I hope it’s one,” Marcus added quickly. “We found a vial of liquid on Nikolić when we booked him. I thought it was something like GHB—the date rape drug—given Nikolić’s history. I called in a STAT analysis, got the results back just a little while ago.”

  “It wasn’t GHB?” Lina surmised from the puzzled look on his face.