Into the Light (The Admiral's Elite Book 2) (28 page)

He tore his eyes from her and let his anger fuel his senses, flooding them until he was nearly overwhelmed by his surroundings. The light breeze lifted his hair, tossing it and he swore it was being plucked from his scalp. Light breaking through the patchy cloud cover burned his eyes and he blinked, lowering his lids to shield them from the glare. Garbage from dumpsters behind the local shops, wet, earthy scents from the street competed with each other to set his nostrils to tingling.

“Michael,” Black cautioned him to reel himself in. Distance was nothing when one knew another’s soul. The admiral could read Michael’s continued struggle in his silence and used centuries of understanding motivation to help his Second. “Shut out everything but her. What is her course? Has her pace increased?” Black let him consider his answers and asked a last question. “Can you feel its energy?”

Taking a deep breath and breathing out his nose to clear the acrid scents of city from his nostrils, Michael dipped his head and felt the burning lessen. Fortunately, winter sun in this snowy state was not strong enough to harm him and he felt his body come back under his control.

“Very good, Michael,” Black encouraged. “Now, what do you feel?”

Unzipping the coat he’d been wearing, Michael shrugged and let it fall from his shoulders, dipping his phone hand he let it slip off to land on the cement behind him without making a move to stop it. His sleeves, already rolled up, exposed his forearms. Skin open to the vibrations of demonic energy, Michael waited. Not for long. With his mind calm and flesh exposed, it was less than a minute before he felt the tingling once again on his arms. “I feel it,” he breathed into the phone.

Black said nothing, only waited.

Several more steps and Becca stumbled at the curb. Without thinking, Michael’s hand shot out and caught her elbow.

Black’s stern reprimand joined Becca’s outcry in Michael’s ears.

“Sorry,” he told them both.

“If it has possessed her, you cannot touch her without the demon knowing it. It feels any reaction her body has to yours.” Black spoke evenly, glossing over the facts with no hint of emotion. “It will not risk her wasting her energy on anyone save
it
.”

For a second Michael almost smiled before he remembered himself. Becca would be mortified if she’d heard Black talking about how her body reacted to Michael’s touch. He knew the thrill it caused her; he felt it as well. That and he could sense her body’s changes when he was near. Usually it filled him with a Neanderthal pride, knowing he had that sort of pull with her. With it causing her discomfort, he felt a sense of shame at it this time. Oddly, the fear that Black would use it to bind her to him had dissipated.

Through Michael, Black already had control of her. If he were going to use it, he would have by now. Michael finally realized that. He had been so blinded by his fear that Becca would see his bond as a weakness, he’d failed to see that Black had grown to view her as an asset and not just a disposable pawn. Feeling that knowledge filter through his brain, he was liberated temporarily until reality set in yet again.

“Sir.” Michael acknowledged his superior and brought his rambling, racing thoughts back to heel. Unlike the windigo, the demon was confined to the ley lines where the earth’s energy was strongest. All of the demon’s activities had been isolated to this main track through town Becca now was tied to, telling him that the ley line they were following was on this street. That limited their options to this straight line only. The next question would be whether the demon would want more bodies or just Becca. At this hour, evening hotspots were out. However, they had gone past the coffee shop and bakery already; the morning gathering places. “Where are you taking her?” he wondered under his breath.

Waiting, Black let Michael study the details without interruption.

Right about then the marquis protruding over the sidewalk blocked the sun and Becca made a sharp left, stopping abruptly when she slammed into the glass door. To his horror, instead of putting out her hands to open the door or even to brace herself, she backed up a step and went forward again. The glass cracked in several places.

“Becca stop!” he shouted at her. There was no getting between her and the glass and to move her bodily would be to hurt her. Frozen, he watched her body follow instructions only she could hear.

“Where…?” Was all he heard in his ear before his hand crushed the phone and the worthless pieces rained down on the cement with empty clatters.

She made no indication she had heard him. Stepping forward again, her body whacked the glass and Michael heard it shatter. The smell of blood assailed his nostrils and his vampire raged.
I will kill it!

Biting back the reluctance he felt, he launched himself between Becca and the breaking door before she could strike it again. Crying out in agony, she threw back her head and tensed her muscles as the demon possessing her voiced its opinion over having its vessel touched by another.

Mine.
His vampire ground out in a low voice not heard by human ears in thirty years. At least not any that survived.

Becca’s body jerked and her jaw fell open as the demon’s control hiccupped. It was only for a second, but long enough for Michael to rip the door open, breaking its lock, and whipping her through to set her back down on her feet before she could be used as a battering ram again. Jaw clamping back shut, Becca limped forward through the sparsely lit foyer, across the dark blue carpet ornamented with kettle-sized depictions of dancing popcorn puffs and soda cups with jauntily tilted straws as the demon’s control was renewed.

Below her knee, the front of her dark pants glistened as the blood leaked from a gash in her knee. The right side of her face darkened as well from the tear in her scalp just above her hairline. Michael smelled more emanating from somewhere under her coat and was more than alarmed that she would soon weaken from the blood loss. A hint of some foreign scent in her blood gave him pause, though there was no time to consider what it was. She continued to follow.

Ryan trailed Gabrielle, his awareness capturing the change in her stride when the demon began to guide her again. The need to take her bodily from that place, far from where anything could hurt her or force her into submission was physical and Ryan felt the seams let go as he shoved his hands deeper in his pockets.

Two men dressed in the neon-striped coveralls of road workers split to give him a wide berth when they passed him on the sidewalk. Ducking his eyes, he glowered impotently at his shoes, tracking her with his other senses. It wouldn’t work for them to have the police called in now. He could imagine that detective facing off with a demon. The mental picture of his bulging eyes and wet pants brought out a nasty chuckle that sent a courier walking behind them rushing around and out in front of him like someone poked him in the ass with a hot prod.

Her light steps diverted, carrying her into the street, and Ryan looked up. A dark green minivan with one headlight was coming down the street toward her, its speed unchecked. A quick glance through the windshield revealed its dark-skinned driver’s eyes were down, on a phone was Ryan’s guess. Cursing, he sped up and snared her around the waist with one thick arm less than two feet before the van reached her, not setting her down again until they reached the other side. Several gasps and one stray scream, the only indicators her apparent suicide or his daring rescue were even noticed. He gave silent thanks they weren’t in a busier city or it wasn’t rush hour. Although that might have required fancier footwork than the simple snatch and grab he’d performed. If it hadn’t been Gabs, he wouldn’t have even broken a sweat. But it
was
Gabs and he feared losing her. Moisture had sprung up under his arms and was already beginning to run down his back and into his waistbands.

Feet set back on the cement, Gabrielle resumed her measured strides without pause while Ryan panted and staggered on shaking thighs before he collected himself with a quick glance around to make sure no one was following. Typical humans, they notice as soon as something upsets their routine, but would never dream of wading in to offer help or ask what happened.

Again his thoughts turned bitter as Ryan’s memory briefly traipsed past his last sweating, staggering walk as a human through his own small town. A young soldier on leave, struggling to return home after being attacked by what he’d believed at the time to be a giant dog or bear. No one helped him or spoke to him, even those for whom he’d mowed lawns, pumped gas, and delivered papers as a youngster. Not a peep. They’d let him go, to spend the next month sweating, healing and seeing visions of impossible things alone in the house his family had left him. When his first change came and he felt the irresistible urge to leave his home in favor of the woods, he knew he would never see any of them again. That staggering, sickly man had been the image they would forever recall when talking about young Ryan Hallbeck who had gotten some wild hair to all of a sudden up and sell the family place, never to be heard from again.

Shaking off the familiar bitterness he never allowed himself to feel, he concentrated on the woman who needed him, even if she didn’t love him. Just as he caught up to her, she turned down an alley and walked up the short set of metal steps to pull on a metal door leading into the back of some undistinguishable brick building. The screeching of a metal lock breaking reached his ears as he took the first step and he caught the door before it closed. A few seconds of blinking and his eyes adjusted. He could smell old butter and the syrupy sweetness of a soda machine. Were those popcorn
men
wearing
suits
on the carpet? “I’m not dying here,” he thought as the door settled back into its frame with a scrape, leaving them in the quiet darkness.

Chapter 28

The burning in Becca’s body was intense. She’d lost all sense of time and place, seeing only the flames that had haunted her for months. She felt nothing but heat all around her and the stroking of the flames as they seared her flesh. She could smell her skin cooking, hear it crackling as the ley line demon beckoned her ever onward.

“I can make it all go away,” he promised, the owner of the voice in her head. “Come to me and I will take the pain. I will take the dreams and the fear from your mind.”

The promises continued, all essentially the same, all desperately needed. Becca followed blindly. At some point in the endless torment she’d forgotten to suspect the voice of having anything to do with her pain. It came to represent only salvation. Blind was an appropriate term for Becca’s journey. Her sight was negligible, the only way she could see was through a series of tiny holes in the center of her vision. Staring straight ahead with wide eyes, she was able to pull in enough light to make out most of what she might run into, though without control of her body she could do nothing but watch as she slogged forward. Narrow view aside, there was little she’d picked up during her walk to the theatre. Rushing flames deafened her. Her sight’s cautions of danger blinded her. Her body’s constant state of agonizing scorching had succeeded in removing any chance of knowing when or if Michael laid another hand on her. Michael, where had he gone? Didn’t she want this?

“He’s gone on without you, girl.”

Alone against the fire demon. Again. Becca’s mind recoiled. It was her greatest fear returned. How could Michael have left her? In her limited capacity, she was unable to comprehend more than the loss she felt tear its hole in her heart. Gone was any sense of relief that she would face the demon alone or that no harm would come to him. Grief compounded her physical and mental pain. Her feet stuttered and a moan escaped her lips.

“You are not alone. I am here,” the voice soothed. “Come to me and this will all be but a memory.”

Becca couldn’t be alone against the demon again, her fears told her. She’d been terrified of this exact moment since facing it the first time. Even if she wanted to be selfless, with the time finally upon her, she felt terror take hold in her body. She let her feet follow the voice, wanting what it offered more than anything. Maybe it would take her fear, stand with her against the demon. Walking under the large marquis jutting over the sidewalk, she lost the light that had allowed her sight. After the first impact with the door, she backed up and tried to regain control of her body.

“It’s the demon. He has put this barrier between us. Break it. Break it down with your body if you must. You will be free of all pain when you come to me but first you must reach me.”