Bond of Fire (25 page)

A year ago, loose tongues in Moscow attached to hungry men and women had chattered about one of the current government’s favorites starting it up again. In a few months, he’d be selling bubonic plague to anyone willing to deposit a fortune in a Swiss bank account.

The only way to utterly destroy such a plant was fire—utterly eradicating every trace from every room and piece of equipment. No chemical cleanser could be as thorough, while bombs would only scattered the pieces across an innocent landscape. Equally important, no Western politician wanted to see anyone in the current Russian government growing rich from this valley’s harvest of death. Whitehall had decided to send Hélène’s small team in, rather than commandos with thermite grenades.

She was so far away on this rocky slope, none of the old defenses watched her, if Whitehall’s penny-pinching intelligence had gotten it right for once. No
prosaico
should be observing this mountain, since only a
vampiro
firestarter could attack the place from here. It was too far for a shoulder-launched missile.

Which didn’t stop the skin on the nape of her neck from standing up every few minutes. They’d had a strangely quiet journey here.

At least when she was doing this work, she didn’t have time to think about missing Jean-Marie…

“Got it,” she murmured, finally focusing on one of the ugliest metallic jumbles she’d ever seen. They were lying on a boulder field at the edge of an immense forest. If there were a knife-edged rock that hadn’t found her ribs, she didn’t know about it. Or one that didn’t long to break somebody’s ankle.

“Can you see the storage lockers?” Duncan Ross asked. A great bear of a Scotsman and her number two, he was condemned to wear the same brutally uncomfortable body armor she wore. It kept sunlight, mosquitoes, and flies out but ensured that every drop of sweat stayed in. As a
vampiro
, he’d have been far happier shifting into something with teeth—and a thick fur coat to keep the biting pests out.

“Uh-huh. Looks just like the plans.” Thank God. If the bastards had done any remodeling, she’d have had a harder time finding the targets, given all the trees and rocks near the plant. “Found the research labs, too, plus the manufacturing plant.”

He didn’t quite heave a sigh of relief. “Just let me know when you’re ready to start, will you?”

“Right.” Lots of mosquitoes but nothing larger was stirring—a nasty sign. She’d have been happier if small critters were wandering around, proving no two-legged predators were patrolling other than themselves.

She counted the distant sentries through her glasses as they patrolled, clearly identifiable as brilliant splotches of heat.

One of her bodyguards sat down beside her in wolf form, his tongue lolling out as he tasted the air. She glanced over, and he nodded, giving the all-clear.

The other five members of her team began to give their assurances.

“Ready,” she said softly.

She reached out to the most distant, the most buried, of the storage lockers and stirred its molecules into frenzied motion. Faster and faster, hotter and hotter, until metal caught fire and burned like a welder’s torch. Damn near as hot as the surface of the sun—thermite grenade hot, like the result of a commando raid.

A second locker and a third, all of them, destroying forever stockpiles of bubonic plague, which had taken decades to accumulate.

“Alarms have sounded,” Duncan reported. “Sentries are evacuating the inner core and manning the outer perimeter.”

Just as they’d planned back in London. The scientists would probably get away, taking whatever knowledge they held in their heads. Even so, it would be a long time, if ever, before the greedy fools rebuilt that plant.

She grinned and turned her attention to the great vats and piping in the manufacturing plant. A bigger target required a broader brush, a heavier push of concentration until an entire building glowed red, burst into flames, and crumpled into a magma flow of blazing metal which poured over a ravine’s boulders.

Even from here they could hear the sirens. Somebody had started firing old antiaircraft guns at the sky.

“Hélène, they’re sending helicopters out,” Duncan hissed. “They’ve zeroed in on this mountain as the only location left unprotected.”

Shit, they knew about
vampiros
. It was definitely time to leave. But the labs were on the hillside above the plant and the storage lockers. Did she have the right to risk everyone’s life? Hell, how many of her missions didn’t rate the words
highly dangerous
, if not
suicidal
?

“Prepare to evacuate,” she said calmly and moved her glasses one last time. Dammit, the labs were slightly hidden in the smoke. Could she pull it off? If she took out their foundations, dropping them into the manufacturing plant’s quagmire below…

Ping! Ping! Bullets whizzed past her head. The damned helicopter was making life very difficult.

Duncan cursed.

“Move out,” she snapped. One more lab to go…

Bullets filled the air. Somebody was shooting back at the chopper.

The lab’s wooden struts caught fire, and it began to tumble.

Somebody yelped, the immediately recognizable sound of hard training compensating for a bad wound.

Duncan yanked Hélène unceremoniously onto her feet and raced for the forest, ignoring the rocks that slipped and turned under his feet. Her bodyguard ran beside them, flowing over the treacherous terrain with four-footed grace, obviously holding back his speed. If only they’d let her learn how to shift, she could have done the same. Duncan would have matched her, and they’d be in the woods in no time—without risking her men.

It would be a damned long way back to the extraction point, especially with one man already wounded.

Bullets filled the air around them, singing against the stones and spitting up dust.

She ran faster, praying nobody died on this mission. Wishing Whitehall would let her learn to shapeshift into something useful, instead of treating her like a fragile idiot good for only one task.

Missing yet again, the only man who’d ever treated her as an equal everywhere and anywhere.

AUSTIN COMMANDERY, MID-JUNE

The Austin Commandery was Don Rafael’s original Texas ranch, built after he had enough fighting men to force a settlement deep within what was then hostile Indian country. It still maintained its status as a garrison and a fortress, emphasized by its sturdy buildings and stout limestone walls. Only a few miles from Compostela Ranch and close to Austin, it was now occupied by Ethan’s
mesnaderos
and their supporters.

Most of the buildings and their interiors gave clear evidence of the decades they’d been occupied by warriors—longhorn cattle skulls looming from the rafters, the arrowhead collection covering the billiard room’s walls, the racks of shotguns and rifles by every door, and more. The walls were plaster or rough-hewn limestone blocks, and the ceiling’s beams were clearly visible in most rooms, although the physical comforts were always the latest available—at least everywhere except in the meditation and punishment cells.

Ethan’s private quarters reflected his personal taste: a highly sophisticated, very modern mix of architecture, light, and décor where every detail combined into a hard-edged unity. Conveniences, whether technological or hygienic, were concealed behind panels and curtains. Like the man himself, the rooms gave up their secrets grudgingly, although they would obey direct orders from a privileged few, like those gathered here tonight.

Only three of the inner council lounged on the leather chairs: Jean-Marie, Ethan, and Caleb, Gray Wolf’s
cónyuge
.

Rafael was with Grania O’Malley, his new lover, whom he’d devoted himself to since they’d first met over two weeks ago. Such fidelity was a shocking display of interest—almost weakness—in a
patrón
, and one that all of his men were working damn hard to conceal from Madame Celeste. Tonight they were tuning personnel assignments so the meeting wasn’t, technically, anything he needed to attend.

Caleb was Texas’s second-oldest
compañero
and a brilliant geologist, neither of which would have normally qualified him for attendance. He was here as Gray Wolf’s alternate, since their
conyugal
bond allowed Gray Wolf to know everything that Caleb saw, felt, or thought. Gray Wolf was in Dallas, picking the brains of dryland farming researchers, one of his favorite passions.

Jean-Marie flicked a glance at Ethan, gauging his temper. Ethan was keying in the last changes to the watch list, his blond hair blazing under the light until he resembled a Renaissance angel. Not a cherubic one, of course, all chubby cheeks and smiles—but the type who stood with a flaming sword at the gates of hell.

They’d first met a year before the Civil War when Rafael had dragged in the young horse thief to learn some badly needed manners. They’d grown to be friends in the decades since, even with Ethan always giving Jean-Marie the subtle deference due an older brother. The former guerrilla had been stretched by this war, as they’d all been, making him a more brilliant fighter and leader.

Even so, Jean-Marie wondered what Ethan wasn’t telling anyone. Ethan was seldom talkative, but he didn’t usually hide secrets from Rafael or his elder
hermanos
. Recently he seemed to be shying away from private conversations. Odd, very odd.

But not as important as the rapes, suicides, and unexplained deaths plaguing central Texas.

Jean-Marie’s phone chimed softly, making his jaw clench, and he automatically hit the ignore button. The unique ring—three descending tones—meant another suicide prevention hotline hadn’t been able to prevent a death. A different ring announced when there’d been an unexplained death of a woman. Damn Madame Celeste’s two devils and their penchant for feeding on respectable women’s terror, which left their victims no peace afterward except in the grave!

“Are we agreed then?” Ethan’s right hand thumped the keyboard a few times, closing his entries. Light rippled across the wall behind him and settled into new blocks of text, displaying the new assignments. The great map of Texas facing it glowed in different colors, reflecting the new day and nighttime strengths in various places.

“I still don’t like leaving Luis alone. All he’s got to back him are some thirty-year-old
compañeros
.” Caleb’s forefinger stabbed the symbol for Austin. Red-haired and freckle-faced, casually dressed in jeans and T-shirt, he was usually relaxed and ready to joke but not when it came to filling in for his beloved
cónyuge
. Then he worked with an intensity and brilliance that could astonish even Ethan.

“They may be young
compañeros
but they’ve all got decades of combat under their belts,” Jean-Marie countered, summarizing the earlier argument, and came to his feet, unable to sit still.

The death count—whether from suicides or Beau and Devol’s murder victims—was now into double digits by his reckoning. If the
prosaico
media caught wind of it and guessed the cause, they’d panic. There’d be hell to pay afterward for all
vampiros
, guilty or not.

“If Madame Celeste is smart enough to try something during daylight…” Caleb measured off the miles to New Orleans.

“Which she never has been,” Jean-Marie reminded him yet again.

“We’ll call in Hennessy’s oldest pair of
compañeros
from Dallas if there’s serious trouble,” Ethan said firmly, sliding the keyboard out of sight.

“It’s more important our only pair of
cónyuges
are on the same shift,” the
alferez mayor
reasoned. “Gray Wolf has to work nights, which means you’re there, too.”

Caleb hesitated.

“You know damn well two
cónyuges
, even if one’s a
compañero
, are damn near unbeatable in a duel,” Jean-Marie drawled, deliberately keeping his voice calm. “With Beau and Devol—Madame Celeste’s top two assassins—here in Texas, we need the two of you as our strike team, ready to stop any trouble those assholes might start.”

“Shit, I know it’s the only way,” Caleb muttered, throwing up his hands. “But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed, especially if Beau and Devol work together. It’d be different if I was a
vampiro
.”

“Giving us two experienced duelists and
cónyuges—both
of them with
vampiro
speed and strength? You couldn’t wish you were a
vampiro
half as much as I do.” Ethan snorted and started double-checking his revolvers. “But it won’t happen in time for this fight.”

“Takes a minimum of two years to make a
vampiro
,” Jean-Marie confirmed, double-checking his knife sheaths in preparation for departure now that Caleb had agreed.

“Yeah—but first, Gray Wolf has to agree to let Don Rafael turn me into a
vampiro
.”

Ethan flinched.

Jean-Marie whistled, not quite glancing at the
alferez mayor
out of the corner of his eye. “Oh ho ho, is that the worm in the apple?”

“Yeah.” Caleb slammed down his hands, propelling him into movement. “Hell, we’re
cónyuges
! He knows down to his bones how completely I’m committed to him.”

“But only Don Rafael can create
vampiros
in Texas.” Jean-Marie quoted the Texas
esfera
’s first law.

“Yeah—but there’s no way in hell Gray Wolf will let me near Don Rafael’s bed, even if it’s only for a few months during
La Lujuria
while I become a
vampiro
. Despite the fact it’d give us immortality together.”

“Shit, you are in a mess,” Ethan agreed, coming up beside Jean-Marie. His voice was a shade too hearty.

“I tell you, I’m jealous when I look at some of the couples who’ve pulled it off—Eli and Sam, Gregor and Anders…On the other hand, unlike the fellows who prefer girls—at least I’ve got hope Gray Wolf will change his mind one day.”

Beside Jean-Marie, Ethan was immobile, hard grooves carved into his face.

Jean-Marie winced. Agonizing though it was, at least he’d buried Hélène and knew he’d never find the same heart’s ease with anyone else. He wasn’t someone desperately in love with a woman. He didn’t have to pray Don Rafael would reconsider one of his famously immovable decisions and permit a lady to become a
vampira
in Texas.

NORTHERN SCOTLAND

The small plane burst out of the fog, catching sight of the landing pattern only at the last moment. Hélène automatically planted her feet firmly, bracing herself for the coming steep descent and screeching stop. Despite the decades the British Secret Service had used this isolated station, they’d never bothered to lengthen the runway. Supposedly, poor facilities deterred detection.

Right, just like an empty wallet improved creativity and everyone needed to be toughened up to do a good job. Her mouth tightened.

The plane bounced, and she flung her arm across her sleeping seat mate, making sure he wasn’t harmed. But his all-too-even, painkiller-assisted breathing never changed. She sighed, thankful for one small favor.

They’d lost two of her team’s eight people during this last mission. No matter what the official report would say, she and the rest knew the true cause—exhaustion. Too many missions, coming too close together, had left too little time to rest and learn the ways of the new enemy. Damn those hard-pushing, shortsighted bureaucrats to hell!

Three of the remaining five had privately told her they didn’t plan to reenlist, while the other two were already slated to become instructors. Her team was wiped out—and they’d been the best of the best.

The outcome might have been different if the damned Secret Service still permitted a mix of
vampiros
and
compañeros
, instead of demanding only
vampiros
and
prosaicos
.
Compañeros’
greater stamina and lifespan permitted greater skills and longer missions, as had been proven during both world wars.

And by dearest, dearest Jean-Marie…

But, no, the penny-pinching accountants had ruled out
compañeros
, calling their pensions too expensive.

Damn fools. They could have at least looked at how those American patrones were using
compañeros
as warriors and future
vampiros
. Texas’s Don Rafael, in particular, was a vicious fighter ruling an enormous
esfera
. He’d only incorporate
compañeros
into his men’s ranks if they were effective.

She growled under her breath. The plane’s engines screamed while it fought to land, echoing her opinion of the bureaucrats.

Duncan glanced sideways at her. Probably wondering why she was visibly angry, instead of her more typical icy calm.

The plane brought itself to a stop, and the lights came up. Its passengers unfolded themselves from their team, silently gathering their duffels with the ease of long practice. Hélène went down the stairs first, expecting to find someone from London to give them passes home. Duncan brought up the rear, using his strength to ease the injured.

Fog wrapped itself around them, barely bothering to reveal an architectural abomination’s sullen lights squatting next to the tarmac. Diesel fumes touched the air, along with jet fuel. Somewhere in the distance, waves beat relentlessly upon the land, a reminder of tides’ inevitable success.

“About time you made it back.” A tallish man, on the shady side of thirty, shoved his thinning blond hair back from his forehead. “There’s a coach waiting to take you lot in for debrief. After that, the chief wants to start planning the next mission.”

Two of her men groaned, very softly.

Hélène’s hackles rose at the fool’s tone. Another of those stupid
prosaico
bureaucrats, who thought he was powerful because he was one of the very few who knew about
vampiros
.

It was past time for Whitehall to learn what a treasure her people were. If that meant doing without them for a while, the lesson could start immediately—before anyone else died.

The only sure way to give her team a break was to remove herself, since they were trained to work with her—the rare and dangerous firestarter.

“Any questions?” asked the young bureaucrat, stomping his feet in a futile attempt to warm them.

“What’s the magic word?” She smiled at him sweetly.

“What?” His brows snapped together.

“The magic word that will make me want to take my people on this mission.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you have to do this!”

“I don’t have to—and neither do they. You see, my contract with the British Crown ends when I can walk in twilight—which now I can. So time’s up, and you have to
convince
me to accept a new mission.”

“That’s insane.”

“No, that’s a fact. You can look it up in your own archives. It gets better, too.” Tossing in an American colloquialism was delicious fun—it made his face turn even redder, his neck swell, and her people glow. “Since every team member is trained to work only with one
vampiro
, not as individuals—if I don’t go, they don’t either. At least not until they’re retrained, which takes time.” She goaded him a little more. “I’m still waiting to hear that magic word…”

He came out of his stupefaction with a roar. “By God, I’ll have you arrested for treason!”

“Try it and every other
vampiro
in Britain will come after you, starting with the
vampiros mayores
.” That home truth was edged with steel. “Do you have a fine speech for me?”

“Of course not!”

“In that case, I bid you
au revoir
.” She bowed slightly, never taking her eyes off him. “Come along, friends, we’re taking that vacation they promised us a year ago.”

She entered the building’s dubious warmth, and the others followed, never looking back at the gobbling bureaucrat.

She’d have to make sure her people were taken care of next, before she rested.

But what could she do after that to heal? Make more money?