Alterant (25 page)

And as an Alterant, she was forbidden from anything even remotely close to mating.

Even if she was willing to take the risk and could handle the idea of intimacy, sex could trigger a violent reaction, far worse than today’s. She might shift and kill someone who tried to have sex with her.

Storm would have to understand that moving beyond a kiss required a level of trust she was incapable of giving. In fact, just thinking about it required too much effort until she got some rest.

Darkness filled in around her thoughts.

She’d almost fallen asleep when a voice whispered, “Trust is nourishment for a starving heart.”

Evalle sat straight up and opened her empathic senses.

There was no one in the room except her and Feenix.

She might have been dreaming, but it was the same female voice she’d heard while hunting the Kujoo. Except the last time she’d heard the voice inside her head, not spoken out loud.

NINETEEN

I
sak Nyght sat on the edge of his desk. He watched through the glass observation window between his office and the attached hangar, where six men loaded ammo into specialized weapons he’d designed.

He flipped the cell phone in the air, then caught it again and again, amused over the voice mail he’d just cleared.

Tzader Burke wanted something from him?

Isak had checked up on Burke, wanting to know who this guy was before he decided if he’d return the call or not.

His national defense contacts in Washington, D.C., had explained a few minutes ago that Tzader was connected high up the political food chain in D.C. So was Isak, because they knew he hunted nonhumans. Correction. He killed nonhumans, like those inhuman Alterants that turned from human to beast.

This yellow smog crawling just above the ground in cities was triggering the change.

Which meant he had bigger targets than Tzader Burke.

His contact had actually warned him to be careful, adding that word had reached D.C. that Tzader was not happy about the Nyght Raiders being in the Southeast, specifically Atlanta.

Tough.

Isak answered to no one and had his own ties higher up, but he only called in those favors for something significant.

Nonhumans were significant.

He could handle Tzader Burke without calling on D.C.

Isak punched the call back number, curious more than anything.

When the call connected, Tzader answered, “Hello, Isak.”

How had he known who was calling? Isak blocked all form of ID on his phones. “What do you want, Burke?”

“To know if you’ve seen someone.”

Isak grinned. “What makes you think I’ve seen anyone you know?”

“Because your Nyght squad misses very little that goes on in the city. I know you’ve been hunting in Atlanta.”

“Then you know I don’t hunt humans. You got a non-human you want to tell me about?” He waited through a short silence. “No? Guess there’s nothing to talk about.”

Tzader made a growling sound. “I see you earned the nickname ‘prick’ honestly.”

“Now you’re trying to flatter me.”

“You can tell me what I want to know, or I can make it difficult for you to hang around Atlanta.”

Isak said, “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got better ways to waste my time. File a missing person’s report with Atlanta PD if you’ve lost someone.” He started to slide his thumb over to end the call when Tzader said, “I’m looking for Evalle Kincaid.”

This time the silence was on Isak’s end. How did Tzader know Evalle? Isak’s contact had indicated that Tzader handled special projects for D.C. but not exactly what those projects were.

“Still there, Isak?”

“I’m here. What do you know about Evalle?”

“More than you can imagine.”

Isak extended and closed his trigger finger. Did Tzader know that Evalle talked to demons? The first time Isak had met the woman a demon had been preparing to eat her. He’d blasted the demon into bite-size chips. Why would Tzader call him unless he had some inkling about Isak’s relationship with Evalle, a strange one at that. He’d had to kidnap her just so they could have dinner together.

Isak asked again, “How do you know her and why’re you looking for her?”

“Can’t share that. I just want to know if you’ve seen her on any of your surveillance equipment.”

“Not in a few days.” Truth, but Isak wouldn’t have told him even if he had seen Evalle.

“Heard from her?”

That pretty much confirmed Tzader knew Isak and Evalle were acquainted well enough to talk on the phone. “Not a word.”

“If you see her or hear from her, let me know.”

“We’re back to why should I?”

“Her safety depends on it. That’s all I can share and not put her at further risk.”

“I suppose I can let you know if I run into her,” Isak said flippantly.

“Let me be clear. I’m asking for intel if you care about her safety. Other than that? Stay. Away. From. Her. Your ability to continue breathing depends on not crossing me when it comes to her.” Tzader hung up.

Isak brushed the Off button on his phone and lifted the radio on his desk. He called up Laredo Jones, his right-hand man, who was in the hangar with his team. When Jones answered, Isak said, “Bring the team to my office. We’re going hunting.”

TWENTY

N
ight had overtaken Atlanta when Evalle rode her motorcycle away from her apartment and turned on Marietta Street, heading toward Grady Hospital to find her favorite Nightstalker.

A pocket of yellowish haze hung low over the sidewalks.

She’d never seen a fog like that.

Sirens screeched on the east side of downtown.

For a city that normally bustled with nightlife at nine in the evening, downtown roadways were eerily empty. She stopped at a cross street, just short of entering the fog that was translucent enough to see through.

The sulfuric stench burned her nose.

Reaching out empathically, she encountered hostility unlike anything human. Her beast stirred, interested in the battle.

That was new and something she needed to avoid.

She snatched her senses away from the misty cloud and searched for another route.

A new patch of fog had begun filling in the street behind her, floating her way.

Trapped.

Her palms were damp. That fog was not natural.

Could she hold her breath and drive fast enough
through the yellow cloud in front of her and reach clear air without shifting into her beast form?

If I sit here another minute I’m not going to have a choice.

Sucking in a deep breath, she rolled on her throttle and raced ahead but slowed when visibility dropped to ten feet in front of her. She couldn’t risk hitting a pedestrian, with so little line-of-sight distance.

Fifty feet into the fog she started seeing fallen bodies, no . . . pieces of bodies. What had attacked them?

Across the street on her left, a teenage boy wearing a hoodie and carrying a backpack rushed along in the same direction Evalle rode. A woman in a business suit walked just as quickly toward him, both obviously in a hurry to get through the fog. But when the woman reached the boy, the woman slowed as they almost passed each other and swung her briefcase, knocking the kid sideways.

Evalle’s lungs were crying for air, but she hit her brakes. She’d have to breathe if she got involved in that fight.

The kid jumped up and shoved the woman against the granite wall of the building along the sidewalk.

Crud.

Shoving down her bike stand, Evalle yanked off her helmet and gasped for air. Sulfur burned her throat. Her beast sent a tremble through her body. Before she could dismount, the woman had coldcocked the teenager.

As Evalle rushed over, the woman just walked away casually, as if she’d only stopped to ask directions of a passing stranger. When Evalle reached the young man he turned out to be in his early twenties.

She coughed from the sickening sulfuric air and bent down to give the kid a hand, asking, “You okay?”

He shoved up and swung a fist at her.

She caught his arm. “Whoa. Stop it.”

“Screw you. Get your hand off me or I’ll kill you.” He swung another punch she knocked away. His eyes were crazy wild.

She let him go with a shove to create space between them.

This fog was affecting humans.

Her first thought had been to warn him to stay away from the fog, but this guy was out of his mind. Instead, she pulled her glasses off and let him have a look at something really scary.

His eyes practically popped out of his head. He turned and ran.

Any other time she’d protect her nonhuman identity, but with this kind of insanity going on no one was going to believe him if he told them about glowing green eyes.

He was lucky she hadn’t shifted.

She paused, taking stock of her emotions. Her beast wanted to battle, but she had control of her urge to change. So the fog didn’t bother Alterants?

A flash of energy swatted her skin.

She wheeled around to find a person in the last stage of changing into a beast.

The thing was hideous, with hair across its arms and legs. The distorted head on top of his shoulders had a mouth full of fangs, beaked nose, huge ears and patches
of hair on his head, plus a single horn that stuck straight out of his forehead.

And brown eyes.

An Alterant? Not green eyes like hers or black like Tristan’s eyes had been in his cage.

Was this a new type of Alterant?

Could this be what had been shifting across the country and killing? If so, the fog had to be behind the outbreaks.

The thing snarled and raised stubby arms with clawed fingers, coming for her.

Evalle took a quick look for humans. None . . . that were still alive. She lifted her hands and shoved a blast of kinetic energy at him.

He backed up a couple of steps and cocked his head at her.

He should have been knocked into the roll-off construction Dumpster twenty feet behind him.

She didn’t want to kill him if she could figure a way to contain the beast and throw him into the Dumpster to hold him. Then she’d have Storm get word to VIPER. Capturing one of these things might help them figure out what they were, why the fog triggered their change and how to stop this from happening.

Based on her line of work, she reasoned that some preternatural being had created this fog to make the beasts shift, but why?

The beast stomped forward and lifted a fist he shook at her.

She laughed. “You don’t scare—”

Something that felt like a bowling ball launched from a cannon hit her in the abdomen. The kinetic punch knocked her off her feet and slid her backwards ten feet.

She sucked in air and shoved up on her elbows.

A man in thrift-store clothes, an unkempt beard and ratty hair came riding up from behind the beast on a rickety bicycle. He rode past the beast without a glance, as if it didn’t exist, but gave Evalle a long, curious look before pedaling past her.

He hadn’t seen that beast?

But the beast saw the man on the bike and started after him.

That’s it. VIPER would have to catch another guinea pig.

Evalle shoved up to a crouch. “Hey, Badass. You want to play? Bring it.”

The beast stopped and swung eyes rotting with evil at her.

She lifted her dagger and waited for him to charge.

Didn’t take long.

Leaping to her feet, she moved forward. In the first stride, she used her kinetic power to shove off the sidewalk, onto the wall, running horizontally for two steps that put the beast at her left shoulder.

He swung claws at her that extended six inches.

She flipped away from the wall and out of his reach at the last minute. Arcing over his head, she stabbed her dagger into the side of his throat, whispering, “Stay put” to the death spell on her blade.

When she landed on the ground and spun around, purple liquid spewed from his throat.

He howled, grabbing at the dagger, but that majik blade would not come out by any hand but hers right now.

Striking out wildly and banging his fist against the handle of the dagger, the beast lasted less than a minute before it collapsed. When the thing finally died, the body changed back into a female in her midtwenties.