Alterant (33 page)

“That’s why I called Isak,” Tzader said, not noticing the urgency behind Quinn’s statement.

“Really think Isak will tell you where she is?”

“No, but he can lead us to her. I just got word on the way here that some of his men have been sighted.”

Quinn didn’t share Tzader’s certainty over Isak Nyght. The chap was former Special Forces. He’d created a unique squad of former military special-ops soldiers he called the Nyght Raiders. A few years back he and his men had all
opted out of the military, disappeared for a bit, then surfaced Stateside, searching for nonhumans.

Isak could be more threat than help to Evalle if he figured out she wasn’t human. Quinn pointed out, “Don’t you think it’s odd that Isak hasn’t realized Evalle’s not human?”

“Yes, and that worries me, because he will eventually.” Tzader put down his empty beer bottle and scratched his head. “I’m starting to think we may have to move Evalle somewhere away from here once she’s clear of this Tribunal mess. Isak is obsessed with killing Alterants after losing his best friend to one. He terminates them on sight. If he doesn’t know she’s an Alterant it’s because she’s managed to keep her bright green eyes hidden from him behind her sunglasses.”

A face smoked through Quinn’s mind.

Kizira? He hadn’t seen her in years except for a few brief times and always rife with conflict. He’d had a glimpse of her this past week when the Beladors had faced off with the Kujoo . . . and he’d seen her in O’Meary’s mind today.

But that had been a vision from the future, not a real interaction. It might not even come to pass.

Quinn swallowed, hoping his wrung-out mind was just dredging up random thoughts. “What do you want me to do?”

Tzader gave him an assessing look. “I need you healed up before you face a threat. It’s too dangerous to put you out on the street until you have full use of your kinetics.” He held up his hand when Quinn started to argue. “I saw the light flicker when you tried to turn it on. You’re
nowhere close to a hundred percent, which makes you vulnerable to an attack.”

Quinn’s voice dropped to an evil level. “Oh, I’d make something pay dearly if it attacked me in my present mood.”

“But if you had to link with another Belador . . . you’d put him or her at risk.”

The truth cut through Quinn’s bravado, forcing him to think beyond his own need to strike at something. Where had that blatant aggression come from? Couldn’t have been Conlan, because, in spite of what he’d seen, Quinn still believed in the kid. Everything he’d encountered in Conlan’s mind had come from an upstanding young man and a loyal Belador.

No one should be convicted of a crime he hadn’t committed yet and certainly not based solely on a vision. Quinn said, “Agreed. I’ll call you as soon as I’m feeling top shape. Let me know the minute you locate Evalle.”

“I will.” Tzader gave him another questioning look but nodded and left.

Quinn suddenly felt unclean, as though he needed a shower.

On the way to the bathroom, a female voice whispered from deep in his subconscious.
Evalle is special . . . powerful . . . she is meant for greater things.

Ice pumped through his heart.

His mind was screwing with him, because that had been Kizira’s voice.

Dismissing the voice, he stepped into the bathroom and turned the shower hot enough to boil his skin red. When he dropped his robe he noticed a scrape across his
shoulder. Now that his mind was returning to normal, he realized the skin on his back felt raw.

Why was that? He twisted his neck to look over his shoulder into the mirror.

Two sets of scratches raked his shoulders, as if . . .

Impossible. Even Tzader hadn’t been able to get past Quinn’s protective ward. Quinn hadn’t been with a woman in the past two weeks.

But the scratches awoke another image in his mind with brutal clarity.

Excruciating pain and pleasure twisted in a sexual dance of erotic torture.

A woman’s body stretched out beneath him, urging him on as he drove into her mindlessly. Her body had glowed softly in his dark room. Her milky shoulders tensed before she climaxed. Her face . . .
No!

Kizira couldn’t have been here.

He’d have known if she had.

He clutched his head with cold and clammy hands. When he opened his eyes his gaze caught on a thin swish of pale color against the vanity.

The bracelet made of his braided hair lay on the dark brown granite.

What had he done?

What had he allowed Kizira to do to him?

What had he told her about Evalle?

Quinn smashed his fist into the wall. Rage and betrayal roared through him.

No one was safe as long as Kizira could access his mind.

That meant one of them had to die.

TWENTY-SEVEN

L
ights disappeared in the tunnel, which only sharpened Evalle’s ability to see Tristan starting to shift into his beast.

The man seriously needed anger management.

She had to help him calm down. “Who is Petrina?”

“My sister!” Tristan raised his fists, shaking them at an empty tunnel where the soldier spirit had just vanished. He yelled,
“You’re a dead bitch, Kizira!”

Evalle stood very still, anticipating any sudden change or attack. She didn’t want to end up a dead bitch, too.

Thunk . . . thunk, thunk.

She turned at the noise.

Bricks were piling on top of each other, forming a wall. She jerked around, looking past Tristan to where rough-cut beams that could be railroad ties began piling to form another barrier.

The Maze of Death residents were barricading her in with Tristan . . . who would be a full-blown beast in another minute.

Would being in this maze cause him to lose control of his beast?

“Calm down, Tristan,” Evalle warned.

His neck thickened, veins sticking out. He swung his head back and forth, finally seeing the walls forming,
and roared a vicious curse, then slammed his body against the stack of railroad ties. The wall didn’t give an inch.

He started pounding the wooden barrier, his body still changing.

“Stop!” she yelled at him. “You’re making it worse.”

His shirtsleeves split when his arms lengthened. The back of his shirt ripped where his neck bulged. He’d be half again as big and twice as deadly within seconds if he didn’t stop shifting into a beast.

“Tristan!”

He swung a face distorted with rage at her that would scare a demon.

Bones in his jaw cracked and muscle stretched to accept a double row of fangs. He snarled at her. Saliva dripped from his lips.

Not the controlled beast she’d met in the jungle.

She couldn’t survive fighting him in her human body and doubted changing into her Belador battle form would make any difference. Not with his extra kick from the Kujoo highball.

Tristan dropped his head back and bellowed a blood-chilling scream. His fingers lengthened into sharp claws.

How could she reach him? What could make him stop when he was this far out of control? Didn’t he realize he was wasting precious time they could use to save the three Alterants?

And his sister?

His sister.

She pointed a finger in Tristan’s face she hoped wouldn’t
end up snapped off by those fangs. “I will
not
help you save your sister unless you stop changing right now!”

That must have gotten through, because he stilled every movement but heaving, labored breaths.

Evalle pressed her point. “Take a look around at the walls closing in on us. I need you able to think.”

Tristan’s chest expanded and contracted quietly. He stared at her through green eyes burning with fury, as though she had been the one to hand his sister to the Medb.

Maybe he wasn’t cognizant of anything in this form.

Maybe he wasn’t as in control of his beast as he’d have her believe.

“Come on, Tristan, get a grip on yourself unless you want to leave your sister at Kizira’s mercy.”

Several tense seconds passed before he slammed a fist into the pile of railroad ties, then dropped his arms to his side. He finally began to change back and withdraw into his normal body.

She gave up the breath she’d been holding. For the first time since coming into this place, she enjoyed a moment of relief. Odd how facing down something she
knew
could kill her had taken her mind off the mere threat of what
might
be in here.

Returning to his normal body didn’t completely take the edge off Tristan’s anger. He stomped back and forth in front of her, growling when he wasn’t spewing threats. “That bitch! I’m going to kill her if she hurts my sister. Rip her head off.”

Evalle gave him a minute to vent in hopes it would help him calm down more, then said, “We can’t do anything
without your guide service. You scared off the soldier ghost who knows how to get us there.”

Tristan stopped pacing and absorbed her words. “
Fuck
!”

“Shouting ran him off the last time, and it’s wearing on what little patience I have left, so cut it out. Not to mention that cursing isn’t helping your case either, since a Civil War soldier is from an era when they didn’t talk like that in front of women.”

That brought a wry twist to Tristan’s lips. His eyebrow lifted in a derogatory arch. “I doubt he’s concerned about offending the sensibilities of a woman wearing tight jeans, boots and a shirt short enough to expose her midriff. Not that I have any complaints about you being down to two buttons left on your shirt, but you’re far from the image of a lady.”

Had he just dissed her? “Fine. Go shout your head off and curse every ghost in here if that makes you feel better than saving your sister from the Medb.”

That slapped the arrogance off his face, along with some of his color.

She hadn’t intended to give him a verbal kick in the nuts, but she was running out of time and, at this point, so was Tristan.

And she’d had enough of his hardheaded attitude.

“You’re right,” he admitted, wiping an agitated hand across his blond hair, raking the short hairs out of shape. “We have to find the soldier’s chamber, and fast. I wish he’d at least have had a sense of time so we’d know when Kizira might start killing Alterants.”

“I agree, but we have one small problem. What about these walls?”

“Hell. You willing to suffer trying to knock these railroad ties loose with kinetics?”

Not really, and she didn’t think that would improve their situation anyhow. “I could handle the pain and we’ll heal eventually, but using any power at this point might tick off these ghosts even more. Can you teleport us to other areas down here?”

“I’ve only teleported in and out of the maze at the couple places where the subway intersects these tunnels, so I don’t know if we could actually teleport outside the maze from here. If I tried to teleport us from here and the maze shifts something solid into an area I remember as being an open landing, we’d die. It’d be like hitting a solid wall at mach speed.”

She saw no other way out. “We’re screwed.”

“I can go first. If it works, I’ll come right back for you, but it’s going to take me a minute or two before I can teleport again.”

“Wait a minute. You’re going to leave me
here
? What if you hit something solid and splatter? I’m stuck down here forever.”

He shoved his hands to his waist and leaned toward her. “What’s
your
idea, then?”

“I don’t know. Let me think.” She removed her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes, then put the glasses back on. What had he just said? “You need a minute or two to teleport a second time even for a short distance? That’s why you didn’t shift to fight the demons that attacked us in the jungle, isn’t it? You were saving your energy to teleport from one continent to another when we reached the next village.”

He crossed his arms and gave her his silent routine.

Confirmation, as far as she was concerned, but . . . “Was that another side effect of your Kujoo cocktail?”

Still no answer. Fine. Taking a look around, she said, “The ghosts did this to us. Why don’t you ask them nicely to let us continue? Apologize for disturbing their home.”

A small muscle flexed in his jaw while he thought. He finally grumbled something, then stared at the railroad tie wall and said, “I’m sorry I disturbed you. If you’ll let us pass, I will respect your home.”

Nothing happened.

He glared at her. “Happy?”

“Do I
look
happy?” She dealt with Nightstalkers all the time, Grady in particular. Sometimes they just wanted to show off what they could do and show you who ran things in their world. She turned slowly as she spoke to the ghosts. “You have an interesting home. Nothing built above ground is anything like this.”

Tristan’s sigh suggested she was a moron.

A gas lantern took shape on one of the walls, and a rug appeared beneath her feet.

The look on Tristan’s face
now
was priceless.

She cleared her voice and said, “I’ve been admiring all of the maze. Do you have anything else to show us?”