hidden talents (17 page)

“I might kill her,” she objected - stupidly, no doubt.

“Not if you"re careful,” Blackwater said silkily.

“Will she heal?”

The Eunuch smiled with only his violet eyes, which were too avid for

comfort. “Magically inflicted injuries tend to leave terrible scars on vampires.”

So she"d never sing again. Not for the enraptured crowd made one by her magic voice. Not for the man who loved her. Not even for herself. Ari could tell what singing meant to the club owner, how it was the true expression of her soul.

Severing her vocal chords would be like cutting off Jimmy Hendrix"s hands, a theft the whole world would be poorer for.

No matter how much they wanted to live, neither Maxwell nor Sarah would approve of her doing this.

“I can"t,” she began to plead, but Adam chose then to lean across her

shoulder.

“I"ll fry the bitch if you want,” he said.

His werewolf hearing must have picked up their conversation.

“That won"t do,” Blackwater said primly.

“The fuck it won"t,” Adam said. “Ari ain"t gonna cave for you.”

Before either of them could stop him, Adam extended both index fingers and shot two shimmering lines of power from between his knees toward the stage. The carpet to either side of Mariska"s heels ignited in foot-high flames. The singer let out a shriek that actually shattered a few wineglasses. Despite this feat, Ari gawked at Adam, stunned by the image of the blazing fire reflected in his horn-rimmed lenses. He was a cop, sworn to protect and serve. What the hell was he doing?

“Shit,” he muttered. “My aim is crap.”

Her sanity recovered. He"d missed the singer on purpose. He"d been trying to spare Ari a terrible choice. As soon as relief welled up, terror swallowed it. What if Blackwater figured out what he"d done?

Adam must have known this was a concern. He furrowed his brow and

squinted behind his glasses, his fingers straightening to try again.

Blackwater seized his fire-tattooed wrist before he could. “Idiot. I told you that wouldn"t do.”

At least the crowd wasn"t watching them. They were screaming, the ones in front jumping to their feet, the ones in back trying to reach the exit as an assortment of shrill alarms went off. Growling curses, Blackwater grabbed Ari and Adam by the scruff of their necks. He pushed them ahead of him into the panicked mass of people. Ari saw Lord Grygir leap across the flames to where Mariska was cowering. Ignoring the musicians, he scooped the singer up in his arms - her knight in faerie armor, she supposed. He took a second to stare deeply into her eyes, then whizzed away with her like a special effect out a movie. A wake of sparkles trailed after him.

“
Move
,” Blackwater ordered, clearly incensed by the rescue.

They moved and kept on moving, even when some bright soul found a fire

extinguisher and doused the flames into submission.

By the time they and the bodyguards reached the Hummer, Blackwater"s

curses had sunk into brooding. From experience, Ari knew this wasn"t a good sign.

He didn"t speak during the ride home, just wedged himself beside a window and drummed his long fingers on his thigh. With his other hand he pinched his lower lip. His gnome-skin gloves made this especially creepy.

“Boss,” said the one called Francis, “do you want us to -”

Blackwater shut him up with a glare.

The tense silence reigned until they pulled up in front of the house. The roundabout"s obsidian pavers were shiny enough to reflect the moon.

Blackwater craned his neck to consider the satellite. Like a poster for a horror movie, the moon illuminated the edges of a window in the clouds. Its phase wasn"t full, but it was past three quarters. Ari wondered how close it needed to be before it tugged Adam into turning. Could he resist it? Would they be gone from here by then?

The state of the moon seemed to weigh on Blackwater too. His jaw tightened as he stared at it.

A distinctive winged silhouette crossed the glowing edge of the clouds. Ari"s heart leaped to recognize it. Grant had found them. He could tell Adam"s team where they were.

“Fuck,” Blackwater spat. “Darius, shoot that down.”

Darius was the tusked demon. He pulled out a silver pistol and steadied it on his thick gray wrist.

“No!” Ari cried, running toward him without thinking.

The gun went off as she hit the spink. Darius was eight feet tall and quite a few feet wide. Ari wasn"t going to knock him over. She barely made him move, though the jostling ruined his aim. Grant wheeled away, apparently unharmed, disappearing over the neighboring woods.

Darius turned to gape at her, clearly having trouble believing she"d just done that.

“Gargoyles are pests,” he said in a slow deep voice. “Giant gnomes with wings. And they spy.”

Ari wasn"t sure she should admit she knew they were sentient beings.

“They"re cute,” she said. “And I wouldn"t watch you shoot gnomes either.”

Eyes rounded with amazement, he looked over her head to his boss,

obviously seeking instruction. Ari knew she didn"t want to see the Eunuch"s expression.

“Get her out of my sight,” he said through gritted teeth. “And post someone on the roof to take down that gargoyle if it returns. I don"t care if they need a bazooka.”

Orders received, Darius caught her upper arm in his massive hand, his grip more than swallowing its circumference. He pulled her fast enough to make her stumble, especially in the stupid strappy heels she wore. Each time she fell, he simply lifted her off the ground and set her down again. Ari had had nightmares about things like this, about being a child and too small to fight being dragged along. To her surprise, once they were out of sight and inside the house, Darius moderated his pace to one closer to her own. Ari panted to catch her breath, too afraid to ask him to slow more.

“Human,” he rumbled when they reached the door to her cell room. “You"d better stop doing crazy things. I"ve seen that man kill girls like you for less.”

This was quite a speech for someone she hadn"t heard say a word until

tonight.

“You can"t
like
working for Blackwater,” she burst out impulsively.

“He pays,” said the demon. “And I"d rather live here than home.”

This was all the explanation she was going to get. He propelled her into the room as if her comment had angered him more than her spoiling his shot. The door closed with a resounding thud.

A prisoner behind it, Ari rubbed her arm where it felt like the demon had crushed her muscles.

Way to go
, she thought dryly.
Always making friends and influencing people
.

∞

Adam no longer had to wonder why the gargoyles had a grudge against

Blackwater. The paranoid crime lord must have killed a few already. Adam"s heart had just about stopped when Ari rushed Darius.

She hadn"t known Grant wasn"t in real danger. It
would
take a bazooka to kill a gargoyle from that distance. She probably thought Adam was a dolt for standing there with his mouth open. But at least his inaction was consistent with the role he"d assumed.

He consoled himself that she"d know he"d meant to miss setting Mariska

Andoor on fire.

“Look,” he said to Blackwater, judging it time to speak. “I"m sorry I didn"t hit your target back at the club, but I know Ari. She wouldn"t have gone along.

She"s got a thing about hurting innocents.”

Blackwater"s jaw worked with rage, his elegant profile to Adam. When he turned to face him, Adam didn"t have to fake a flinch. There was more than a hint of crazy behind his glare. “I suppose it"s too bad for you that I needed
her
to do as I asked.”

This was an interesting emphasis, almost as interesting as Blackwater

ordering Darius to get her out of his sight, presumably before his anger drove him to injure her.

“I can talk to her again,” Adam offered, nudging his borrowed glasses to the bridge of his nose. “Try to make it up to you.”

Blackwater slitted his eyes at him. “Oh, you"ll be making this up to me, one way or another.”

On that ominous note, he stalked to the compound"s entry, leaving Adam to trail behind, which he did reluctantly. One of Blackwater"s human goons was holding the door open.

“Where"s Vito?” the big boss demanded.

“Uh,” said the suited man, looking highly uncomfortable. “I"m sorry to be the one to tell you, but that last spell shorted Vito out. He dropped and went an hour after dinner.”

“Dropped and
went
?” Blackwater repeated dangerously. “Vito is dead?”

Such was Blackwater"s authority that, if they"d been wolves, the hulking goon would have been groveling on the floor. Instead, his shoulders hunched and his head ducked lower. “I"m sorry, sir. We didn"t know he was that bad off.”

“Didn"t know?” Blackwater screamed at him. He lashed out, taking the

cringing man so harshly across his face that his gloved fist split the skin over one cheekbone. “What do I pay you idiots for?”

His employee put up no defense, just covered his bloodied cheek and bowed nervously. “Do you want me to call in another of the trained Talents?”

“I need them,” Blackwater huffed, his fit of rage easing. “They"ve still got plenty of juice left.”

The frightened goon"s eyes cut to Adam.

Uh, oh
, Adam thought, not liking that even before Blackwater"s cool gaze joined in.

“Hey,” Adam said, hoping to head off whatever this was. “I"ve got juice left.”

“Yes, you do,” the boss man agreed. “But since you"re currently proving less useful than I"d hoped, I"ll have to squeeze a bit of it out early.”

∞

Ari had been correct about the house having a basement. In contrast to the sleek white and gray ground floor, the basement was unfinished, low of ceiling, and wired like a spaghetti factory. Who needed a firebug when they had

incompetent electricians? If the place hadn"t been built mainly of concrete block, Adam would have worried about them burning up in their beds.

The code violations couldn"t quite distract him from the fun he knew was coming.

The Eunuch"s hired muscle shoved him through what looked like the door to a utility room but turned out not to be. Adam fell to his hands and knees not on more cement, but on a smooth and tingling electrum floor. The alloy of gold and silver was ideal for holding magic, which was why security grills and charms were so often made from it. The more electrum got used, the better it worked - not unlike seasoning a cast iron pan. This electrum was warm under Adam"s palms, so it must have been used a lot. Adam concluded Blackwater"s pet sorcerers performed the majority of their rituals here.

As his eyes adjusted to the flickering florescent light, he discerned faint chalk lines on the burnished metal - probably the remnants of the spell that had killed the unfortunate Vito from New Jersey.

“Chain him,” Blackwater ordered from behind him.

Adam struggled, but not as hard as he could. Avoiding what was coming

wouldn"t gain him much. Blackwater had more muscle to throw at him, some of it equal to his greater than human strength. He"d simply have betrayed an advantage he preferred keeping to himself for now. In any case, escaping before he had an exit strategy for Ari wasn"t an option. Whatever value she had for Blackwater, Adam couldn"t count on him not hurting her while he went for the cavalry.

On the other hand, Adam didn"t hesitate to give the door-goon and Francis a few oven-fresh bruises.

In the end, they chained him to eyebolts in the wall with four lengths of iron chain, his wrists and ankles spread like daVinci"s Vitruvian Man. The wall he was fastened to was bare but for water pipes. Metal storage shelves lined the others, holding items in mason jars and bowls that were best not examined closely. Many ingredients for ritual magic were every bit as disgusting as non-practitioners had heard.

More prosaic but hardly less alarming were a garden hose attached to a

spigot, a handsaw, and a drain cut into the silvery-gold floor. Rust-like stains splotched the area around it. That they weren"t rust Adam felt pretty sure.

“Open it,” Blackwater said to his sorcerer.

Adam smelled Francis"s sudden anxiety. Nonetheless, he obeyed his boss"s cryptic order. He grabbed two raw quartz crystals from a shelf, plus a bowl of ingredients.

Adam"s stomach clenched when he recognized the new chalk pattern Francis knelt down to draw.

The sorcerer was opening an illegal portal, a door to a different dimension. It wasn"t a benign bunny realm either. The protective runes he worked into his circle were designed to contain highly unsafe energies.

Francis was no bunny himself, but he was sweating when he finished. He

didn"t like the idea of opening this gate any more than Adam did. Adam was glad he"d activated his subdermal recorders back at the club. The Eunuch could get quite a few years in prison for what he"d asked Ari to do. For this act, if the dimension he was accessing was dangerous enough, he could get the needle.

The hidden bugs were designed to see and hear through Adam"s skin, and to survive his death by any number of gruesome means. Being grateful for that wasn"t the most heartening reaction he could have had.

“Ready, boss,” Francis said nervously.

Blackwater waved for him to proceed, the tension that had also come into him less than reassuring. Blackwater"s nerves were steelier than his employee"s, but he wasn"t calm either.

Francis knelt outside his circle, bowed his head, and began murmuring in the language of the high fae. Adam wasn"t fluent, but he knew enough to realize he was addressing an intelligent entity.

Great
, Adam thought, sweat breaking out underneath his outstretched arms.

Francis was summoning a demon.

Francis set fire to something black and squishy that had lain in the bowl. The two quartz crystals sat inside the chalk circle, maybe four feet apart. As the foul black thing burned, light streaked up from the quartz, inscribing the shape of a door frame. Francis chanted louder, beads of sweat rolling down his temples as he began to shake. This spell was going to cost some sand from his hourglass, knowledge that wasn"t comforting Adam much.