Heavy Metal (A Goddesses Rising Novel) (Entangled Select) (25 page)

No time to search drawers. Both guys approached her again, one from either side of the island. The one she’d scratched still held his cheek, blood seeping through his fingers, and looked very pissed. The other was cautious, moving more slowly than his partner.

“You guys know how to drain me?” she taunted. “You wanna become leeches like your pal Anson? You have to start with a willing goddess, morons. You can’t just steal it the way you are. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.”

“Don’t listen to her,” the unscratched guy told his friend. “Anson said we’ll have all the power we want. He knows how to do it.”

“Why would you believe him?” They’d stopped moving, and she caught her breath. If she could distract them long enough, maybe she could find a way to knock them out completely this time. There was no one else here, so she had time…

She’d barely thought the words before the jinx went into effect. The front door opened, and four more dudes with rich-kid clothes and lightened, carefully tousled, or just-a-bit-too-long hair came in. They stared at the group in front of them, and unfortunately for Riley, easily grasped what was going on. There was only one thing left to do.

She opened her hands and let the metal pieces clatter to the floor.

…

“This is taking too long.” Sam stopped halfway down the first second-floor corridor and stuck his hands on his hips. Way too many apartments stretched ahead of them. At every door he stopped, concentrated, registered Marley as a kind of marker, and tried to sense anyone in the apartment. Sometimes they heard TVs, people talking or yelling or laughing, music, or odd noises he couldn’t identify. Regular sounds of regular people living regular lives. He never got anything like the seventh sense that identified Marley as non-regular, and every stop took a couple of minutes. At this rate, it could be hours before they found Riley and Quinn.

“We should go upstairs. Start at the top.”

“We could. But you said you thought it was equally likely they’d use a smaller apartment to throw you off, in case you knew they were rich. Or used to be.”

Sam moved to the next door and closed his eyes, leaning close. Silence. Darkness. Nothing. “I don’t know. This just seems fruitless. But if we go upstairs and no one is up there, it’ll be just as much a waste of time.” He tried the next door. More TV murmuring, nothing else. “I don’t even know if I’m doing this right.” He fisted his hand and brought it up like he’d hit the wall, but landed it in a light tap, instead.

“Are you okay?” Marley stepped closer and looked up at him with concern. “You don’t seem right.”

“I’m fine.” He shoved away from the wall and kept going. The mess of hunger and illness and nerves was nothing compared to what might be happening to his…to Riley and Quinn. A ticking clock at the back of his head told him they might already be too late. “Let’s go upstairs. There’s nothing down here.”

Marley didn’t answer, but speed-thumbed the buttons on her phone as they waited for the elevator. Sam assumed she was texting Nick to tell him what they were doing.

He closed his eyes and let his mind go, feeling for Riley. His anxiety could be messing everything up. Or maybe some of the power had drained, and he didn’t have enough to find her. He could have bypassed her location already.

He swallowed down the renewed rise of nausea and swayed, lightheaded. With a tight grip on the wall rail, he righted himself before Marley glanced up from her phone. She didn’t notice his weakness, luckily, or she might have tried to make him stop.

Another wave of dizziness brought blackness and sharp, tiny lights around the edges of his vision. Fuck. Even if he managed to find Riley, how the hell would he rescue her without falling on his face?

…

The four newcomers grinned at what they clearly thought was cornered prey.

“What’s this?” the tallest asked Gashface. “I thought Anson said to keep them locked up until he got here.”

Gashface shifted his gaze, and Riley knew they’d been acting against orders when they first came into the bedroom. “She was trying to get out.”

“Looks like she succeeded.” Another one raked her body with his gaze, so slimy and disgusting she couldn’t believe he wasn’t riddled with pustules. He took a few steps closer. “You get a sample?”

“No one’s getting a sample,” the other guy Riley had hit in the head ordered. He’d abandoned caution and moved up on her left, boxing her in fully but holding a halting hand out toward his friends. Riley wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t helping her. He just didn’t want to face Anson if these guys got carried away. Eying the various looks of avarice and excitement, she thought he was the only one here halfway in his right mind.

Okay, then. She was down to the crazy idea. She had to time it right, though. The little bit of power she’d held onto faded completely. Twisting her body, she gripped the handle of the top oven door, which was half the size of the main oven. The action looked frightened, and she tried to sell it with wide eyes and faster, shorter breaths. It worked, and the semicircle around her shrank, closing in.

She only had one shot at this. Ignoring the heated pain in her hands, Riley drew hard on the energy flowing through the stainless steel, harder even than she’d drawn to lift the forklift.

“Come on, babe, we—” Slimy dude laid his hand on Riley’s shoulder.

With a shout, she ripped the oven door off its hinges and spun, swinging it around as hard as she could. The motion itself knocked the slimeball off her. The guy behind him yelped and scrambled back, knocking over a third guy.

Riley kept going, hitting guy number two in the head again and leaping over him as he dropped, this time eyes rolled back, body completely limp. With her momentum exhausted, the oven door sagged toward the floor and bumped her legs. Someone wrapped his arms around her from behind, shouting orders to his friends. Riley couldn’t get free to swing the door. Panic closed her throat and loosened her grip, but that stupid door was her only weapon. The only thing keeping Quinn safe.

She held on and concentrated on her own strength. She let go with her right hand and jabbed her hugger in the side with her thumb. Despite her lack of leverage, he jerked sideways, his grip loosening. Riley closed her fist around the fabric at the back of his shoulder, bent, and flipped him on top of his unconscious buddy.

“Who’s next?” she demanded. Yikes. That hadn’t come out quite as warrior-like as she’d intended. Kind of high and squeaky instead.

Gashface now stood sentinel at the end of the hall, as if keeping Riley from getting back to Quinn. But she knew he didn’t want to go up against her again. Unlike the others, he had a healthy fear in his eyes. He also, she realized, had the weakest prickle of all of them.

Two were down, one probably for the duration of the fight, the other with enough wind knocked out of him to be no threat for a few minutes, at least. That left three.

Their confident glee had given way to furious determination of the “no girl will beat
me
up” variety. Riley shifted her grip on the oven door handle so she could hold it up by her shoulder, almost like a shield, and pressed her other palm out toward the boys. Power zoomed through her from the metal to her free hand and blew outward in a shockwave. Two of the guys flew backward, one hitting a jutting corner of the wall with a sickening
crack
. The other landed on his back in the middle of the empty floor between the kitchen and living room. His breath whooshed out of him.

The third guy leaped lightly onto the island countertop and crouched, ready to spring on top of her. Riley didn’t have time to draw more energy and barely got the oven door up between them when he leapt. His weight bore her to the floor. She cried out at the crushing combination and let go of the handle, scrabbling in her pocket for the remaining smaller, sharper pieces.

He grabbed at her wrists and after a few seconds of tussling, he had the upper hand. He straddled Riley, who lay twisted on the floor on her left hip, with her right wrist held down above her head. She panted and tried not to yell again with the pain stretching her muscles.

“Get…
off
…me!” She didn’t stop struggling, even as he laughed and pinned her harder.

“Looks like I won this round. Anson has to let me go first now.” He leaned closer to her face. Sour breath made her gag, and she turned toward the floor trying to avoid it. “You’re lucky I didn’t learn how to suck you dry yet. But just wait. It’s coming.” He made a slurping, tongue-flipping sound.

“Oh, God, I’m gonna throw up.” Riley heaved in his direction. He jerked back but didn’t move far enough away. When nothing happened, he immediately pinned her again.

“Help me!” he called over his shoulder. “We need to get her into the room with the other one.”

Unseen hands clamped around Riley’s ankles, and her pinner swiveled to pick her up by the wrists. She bucked and arched and twisted, but with no metal, she couldn’t get the strength to break free. In fact, she didn’t even seem to make it hard for them. She’d crashed, weaker after all the power she’d drawn.

They hauled her down the hall and dropped her on the floor in the original room. But instead of locking her in alone with Quinn, who didn’t seem to have moved at all, they closed the door behind them. The one who’d pinned Riley flicked on a flashlight and shone it directly at the bed.

Riley’s heart stopped when she saw Quinn, so pale and still, her eyes closed, listing sideways under the weight of the steel bar in her lap.

“What’s with her?” one of the guys said
sotto voce
, as if not wanting his friends outside to hear what they were doing. And he probably didn’t, if these two were here for first dibs.

“Dunno. But she’s ripe. Can you feel it?” Excitement lit the guy’s voice. The beam of light brightened around Quinn as he moved closer to the bed. “All that power, completely unstable. It’d be easy to take.” He inhaled deeply through his nose.

Holy crap, he was insane. Riley got up on her hands and knees, but the other guy kicked her in the side. Pain exploded around her ribcage, and she fell sideways, unable to draw breath. Sam’s image flashed in her head, his fury if he saw what they were doing to her, the retribution he’d exact on them. She imagined his gentle hands lifting her, supporting her, and rolled onto her hands and knees.

“What are you doing?” the kicker asked. Riley heard him from a long way away. She had to get up, to stop them somehow, but couldn’t move any farther.

“I’m taking it. It’s right
there
.” Now he sounded like an addict.

Riley blinked hard. Her vision focused on his feet right in front of her, his shins up against the bed. She craned her neck and saw him leaning, reaching slowly for Quinn. She just had to grab his legs. Tackle him, pull him down. Away from Quinn.

Riley’s arms shook, barely keeping her off the carpet, and lifting even one hand from the floor seemed beyond her capability.

Okay, then, reach for the bed.
Talk about addiction. If she could touch the metal, she should be able to fill her lungs and gain enough strength to keep fighting.

Guy number two stepped closer to the bed and leaned toward his friend. But before he even opened his mouth, Quinn exploded into motion, swinging the metal pipe in a quick backhand to the crazy guy’s head, and even quicker forehand to the other one.
Boom. Boom.
They were down.

The blaze of red pain along Riley’s side subsided, her lungs expanded, and blessed air filled them. “Quinn,” she croaked.

Quinn shoved herself off the bed, but as soon as her feet hit the floor she overbalanced and landed next to Riley. “Crap. That didn’t work.”

“Come on.” Riley struggled to her knees and reached for Quinn, who waved her off.

“I’m okay. Just overestimated. I can do it.” And she pulled herself up with a lot less grunting and moaning than Riley.

“I was afraid they’d hurt you before.” She braced her hands on her knees, panting.

“They were too panicked about losing you.” Quinn held out the pipe.

Riley took it gratefully, closing her eyes with relief and joy at the immediate infusion. “How did you do that?” She mimicked Quinn’s one-two swings with the pipe.

“The strength you gave me. I was able to hold on to it, save it for the right moment.”

“Yeah, but…”

Quinn smiled. “I wasn’t always an old lady, Riley.”

She felt herself blush and hoped the flashlight, now on the bed, was dim enough to hide it. “That’s not what I meant. I thought you were dead.”

“Sorry. Had to lull them. I wasn’t going to be flying around the room or anything. Shot my wad on that one move, too.” She lurched toward the door. “There are others out there, right? I heard the commotion.”

“Yeah, four of them. They’re probably recovered by now.” Riley let Quinn go out the door before her, but squeezed past her in the hall to take the lead. She had more versatility with the pipe, and she was not letting those assholes take
anything
. Not magically, not physically.

The hallway was clear, and no bodies—prone or standing—were visible. Riley dashed down into the main room.

And came face to face with Anson and his three Numina bosses.

Chapter Nineteen

In all our centuries of existence, we have dealt internally with factions who did not fall in line with Numina’s greater purpose and intent. The time has come, we fear, when internal sanction will no longer suffice. As such, we must reach out to our counterparts to seek mutually beneficial outcomes.

—
Numina
, board of directors e-mail

As soon as Sam stepped off the elevator, he felt them.

All
of them.

“Get Nick and John up here,” he ordered. “Now.”

Marley dialed and put the phone to her ear. “What is it?”

Sam looked from one end of the corridor to the other. The elevator was in the middle of one long hall. Unlike downstairs, which had both interior and exterior apartments built in the building’s square layout, this floor only had the one hallway. Two apartment entries were on either side, with a fire door directly across from the elevator. A set of stairs led down to the next level, where the main fire stairs were in the four corners of the building.

“Sam?” Marley had finished telling Nick to come up to the top floor and moved to stand in front of him, looking worried. “What is it?” she repeated.

“That way.” He strode down the hall to the right. Stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t wait for the others. Something was happening. “A whole mess of them. I don’t know. Five? More? Some of the signatures are hard to read. Almost like they’re merging and splitting. But Quinn and Riley are definitely in there. They’re bright. Hot.” He stopped before anything else came out of his mouth. Like how he could tell Quinn’s because of the poison slicked through her blue and green light, and Riley’s had the smell of honeysuckle, which was so stupid because he couldn’t
smell
anything. But they were very different from the Numina morons.

Sam thought he saw them differently from how Riley did. She felt their location, the prickle a physical expression of something mental. For Sam, it was more of a shimmer, like the mirage hovering above hot pavement in the summer. So light he could barely detect it, and that was why he wasn’t sure how many.

He faced the apartment door and prepared to kick it in.

“No!” Marley jumped forward and blocked his leg. “You have to wait for Nick and John!”

“There’s no time!” Sam pointed back to the elevator. “Go wait for them. Show them which apartment. I have to go in there
now.
Don’t argue, Marley, please. I have no choice.”

Sam couldn’t explain how he knew this. When he’d made love with Riley, that brilliant flash of light, that sense of sinking into her, joining with her…it hadn’t been metaphorical. Now that he was near her again, he understood. His illness hadn’t been because he wasn’t close enough to the ocean. It was because he wasn’t close enough to
her.
His body knew her, knew she was near, and thirsted for what she could give him.

Which terrified him almost as much as her abduction, and on a whole different level.

The nausea, headache, and raking pain faded as he moved closer to the bodies he sensed, though the movement of the power inside him sped up. It was eager and tired of being pent up.

Well, he was about to give it something to do.

As soon as Marley was far enough away, Sam lifted his foot again and slammed it against the door, following it into the bland apartment. He held his fists loose and ready, and balanced on the balls of his feet as he swiftly took in what he was up against.

A bunch of guys in their young twenties gaped at him from their sullen group in the kitchen area. One bled from cuts on his cheek. He and some others had nasty facial bruises, too. A couple looked dazed, one kept an arm wrapped around his waist, and one stood as if he had unbearable back pain.

Flanking them were three older, obvious father figures, if not actual fathers of some of the guys. Sam recognized Danner, the financial wizard who’d swindled half his clients yet still managed to avoid jail despite being partly responsible for the economy’s collapse. Another was a man named Lilling, a former senator who’d stepped down after pictures of him with prostitutes were spread around the Internet, time-stamped and confirmed to have been taken while his wife was in the hospital recovering from the stillbirth of their third child. Sam didn’t recognize the third guy but had no doubt he was as much of a scumbag as the first two.

“What are you doing?” Danner demanded. They’d shifted to face Sam, puffing themselves up with indignant self-importance but presenting no immediate physical threat.

What chilled Sam’s blood, the reason he’d known it was so urgent to get in here, was the rest of the scene.

Riley lay on the floor, blood trickling from her temple. She was limp, apparently unconscious—please, just unconscious. Anson ignored Sam as he shoved a scuffed, painted square metal tube under Quinn’s chin and pinned her to the wall with it. Quinn got her hands up behind it but clearly didn’t have the strength, or any goddess-based ability, to budge it from her neck. Still, her expression was unfazed, almost bored.

Anson was only a couple of inches taller than Quinn. He leaned in close to her face and hissed, “It’s mine. All of that awful, dark, angry power churning inside you? It was mine first, and it’s mine now, and you’ll give it to me. Or I’ll kill her.” He gave a head jerk toward Riley. “And Sammy gets to watch. If we’re lucky, your precious protector will join him. Now
that
would be a dream come true. Draining you, painfully and slowly, while he’s impotent.”

Quinn’s eyes darted to Sam, and now she showed real fear. She shook her head at him, and Sam knew she meant for him to leave. Not to give Anson incentive or another victim. But she knew better.

Sam readied to engage his old college buddy, but he’d been too quick to dismiss the suits.

“Don’t move.” Lilling raised a semiautomatic pistol, aimed at Sam’s heart. Sam lifted his hands to his sides, willing to stall and give Nick and John time to arrive. Even the odds. Or reverse them.

His heart raced anxiously as he eyed Riley. She hadn’t moved at all. He couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. His throat tightened, cutting off his air.
Think, you moron.
Nick’s voice as his subconscious was back.
You’re not normal anymore.

Sam swallowed and closed his eyes, but his mind darted around in panic. He couldn’t settle on anything, couldn’t calm himself enough to tap the ability. Moments ago he’d been alight with awareness, but now he couldn’t separate anything.

Deep breath. Pull it inward. Ignore everyone here except yourself. Feel what’s inside you
.

That was Riley’s voice, not Nick’s. Sam followed the words instinctively and imagined a dome around him, protecting him from outside interference. Another deep breath, and the anxiety faded. There was a
snap
of energy, and the power in Sam seemed to identify the energy in Quinn. He could “see” it, and gasped at the darkness dominating it. Three distinct swirls intertwined but didn’t combine. One silvery-green, cool and clear, like sheets of rain. That had to be Tanda’s, and to Sam’s relief, it didn’t seem damaged by the poison around it. A faint, barely there strand would be Beth’s. It was pure grief, fading even as he examined it. The last was exactly like the smudge that was Marley, only this was live, and demanding. It had nowhere to go and battered at Quinn like a crazed, caged animal.

Sam shifted his focus to Riley and had to lock his knees when her power sparked to life in his awareness. He recognized it immediately, though he’d only glimpsed it before. It was more solid than the others, with less fluidity and swirl. The shine was metallic, hard, and contained every color in the universe.

All Sam cared about was that it was there. She was alive.

He opened his eyes, wondering what had happened while his eyes were closed. No one had moved, and he realized it had been only seconds, not the long minutes it had seemed.

Anson didn’t back off Quinn but gave orders despite his bosses standing right there.

“Danner, get her.” He indicated Riley again. Instead of the older Danner, though, one of the young guys—the one with the scratched cheek—separated from his friends and walked warily to Riley. “Take her back in the other room. Strip her down. I don’t want to risk leaving a single sliver of metal on her.”

Sam growled and shifted forward, but Lilling went, “Ah-ah!” and cocked the pistol. Sam’s jaw clenched until it ached, and he wanted to flatten them all. But even if he had enough power for that, which he wasn’t sure he did, he definitely wouldn’t have the control to avoid hitting Riley and Quinn with it, too.

“Tie her up. Then you guys—” Anson glared over his shoulder. Sam felt a spike of alarm at the brightness of Anson’s eyes. They’d been dimmer than that earlier tonight. More normal. Was he leeching Quinn right now?
How?
Sam closed his eyes again and couldn’t detect any flow of power between Anson and Quinn. Maybe it was a trick of the light.

“The rest of you, go with him. Keep her quiet until I get there. You can handle that when she’s unconscious, can’t you?”

Anson’s scathing tone cut through Sam’s fear. The implication was that they couldn’t handle Riley when she was awake. Sam held back a smirk of pride. She must be responsible for all of their injuries.

That’s not a good thing
. The smirk dropped. She was helpless now, and they’d want revenge. They were going to do their worst if Sam didn’t stop them.

Anson’s next words froze his blood. “If she wakes up, let her know she’s next.”

Sam didn’t move, but his expression must have changed because Lilling cleared his throat and shifted his body to block Sam from the group gathering Riley up and carrying her down the hallway.

Godammit, he couldn’t let them do this. Impotent fury warred with the knowledge that he couldn’t help her with a bullet in his chest, either. He braced himself to act, to lash out at Lilling and his gun in three…two…

But then, right in front of him, Anson tipped his head back and wrapped his hand around Quinn’s throat. The sudden surge of energy raised all the hairs on Sam’s body. Anson was doing the impossible. Somehow, some connection between them made him capable of taking power back from Quinn. Sam wanted the poison out of her, too, but not like that. And Anson wouldn’t stop there. He’d leech whatever natural ability Quinn had left, leaving her empty. Maybe killing her. Finishing the job the transfers had started.

And then he’d go for Riley.

Sam leaned forward scant inches. A sharp report echoed around the room, and he jerked back a few steps. He stared at Lilling, then at the bullet hole in the wall to his right. His reaction had been instinctive, but he couldn’t move fast enough to avoid a bullet. Not even when enhanced with residual power.

“Don’t. Move.” Lilling re-aimed at Sam’s chest. “Next time will be fatal.”

Fuck!
Nick, where the hell are you?

Sam had no other options. This time, he didn’t bother closing his eyes. He gathered all the power inside him and fired a spear of it across the room. It sliced between Anson and Quinn, knocking the leech back. Everyone else froze at the motion. Gasping and choking, Anson bent with his hands at his neck. Sam closed his fist, imagining the energy closing around Anson, forcing itself down his throat.
You want it? Eat it!

Lilling’s attention was off Sam for a few seconds in the ruckus. Long enough. In two big strides, Sam gripped Lilling’s wrist and shoved upward, twisting the gun out of his hand by the barrel. Thank God for protector training. He ejected the clip and the round in the chamber, stripped the weapon, and tossed the pieces in different directions.

He never stopped moving. All he could think about was getting to Riley. Danner Senior, apparently wiser than the others when it came to self-preservation, didn’t get in his way.

“Son of a
bitch
!”

Nick had arrived. Finally.

Sam didn’t look back. Nick and John knew what they were doing. They’d take care of Quinn. “I’m coming, Riley!” he bellowed, wanting her to hold on, to fight. But it was a tactical error because at his shout the hall filled with Anson’s minions. They weren’t any better at fighting than their bosses—fathers?—in the outer room, but they were far better at getting in the way.

Sam punched, jabbed, dodged, but each Numina loser he took down blocked his path, tripped him up. He hauled some behind him and plowed through the melee. If he’d had any power left, he could have gotten through much more easily, but the little bit still glowing in him wouldn’t obey him.

His last opponent stood in front of the door to the room where Riley was, a knife in his right hand. Sam lurched to a stop, eyes flicking from the blade to the guy’s arm across the doorway to the dark room beyond. He strained for any sound and thought he heard a sob.

“If you hurt her,” Sam growled.

“Yeah, you can’t do anything about it.” The guy handled the knife well, unlike most thugs. Sam might have a foot on him in height, greater reach, and superior strength, but none of that would stop him from being gutted if the guy knew what he was doing.

“What do you think you’re getting out of all this?” Sam asked. “You got daddy issues you’re trying to resolve? You think if you help him get back on top, he’ll be proud of you or something?”

Knife Boy sneered. “Don’t bother with the amateur psychology crap. My father has nothing to do with this. He died a long time ago. All I’m in this for is power. They have it, I want it. So I’ll take it. That’s the way it’s been for thousands of years.”

Sam nodded. “Sure. I get it. Much easier to steal something from someone else than to work hard to achieve your own goals. Lazier, but easier.”

“If you say so.”

“So how are you going to steal it? Anson tell you the secret yet?”

He didn’t answer, but the sudden lack of expression told Sam that Anson hadn’t let them in on anything. He’d probably strung them all along with promises he couldn’t—or simply wouldn’t—fulfill.

“You are one dumb fuck,” Sam said amiably. He relaxed his stance and grinned as if they shared a joke. The kid’s face darkened, and his hand tightened on the knife. Sam eased onto the balls of his feet and watched the kid’s eyes, because they’d telegraph his movement.