Know Thine Enemy (37 page)

She offered a tender smile.
"It was."

"
How the fuck can you say that? How the fuck could you have known what I'd do? Shit, Izzie, I didn't know myself until you were in my arms." He paused. "I still don't. I just knew I couldn't let you go."

"
I knew because I love you."

Ryker grew still, his eyes wide and vulnerable. Izzie would wager her whole existence no one had seen him like that. These soft looks, this openness, were entirely for her.

"I knew when I asked you to bite me again in the shower," Izzie continued. "This was always where we were headed."

"
You said you didn't know what love was before."

"
Doesn't mean I didn't feel it. I just didn't know what it was."

Ryker considered her for a long moment, then the shadow in his eyes drew away, replaced with the stormy cloud of endless wonder she
'd grown to cherish. The same look he'd given her when he saw her on the other side of his cell, the body of the guard between them. The connection they'd forged the first night in the alley had solidified then. She hadn't realized it at the time, but it was the moment she accepted they would be in each other's lives forever.

"
You understand, right?" he murmured, closing the space between them. His lips found her brow, his hands trailing gently up and down her arms. "You didn't before."

"
Understand what?"

"
This is it. You and me from this point on."

Izzie smiled and cupped his cheeks.
"Vampire of mine," she said, and kissed him softly. "You never stood a chance of giving rid of me."

* * * * *

Though Ryker sensed Wright would keep his end of the bargain, there was no way he'd tempt the hunter by making himself vulnerable. Izzie remembered generally where Michael kept residence, and there was no reason to suspect the psychopath had uprooted. Per the conditions of their agreement, Wright handed over his truck to Izzie and took temporary custody of the motorcycle she'd left at the community garage near The Wall a lifetime ago. She led the way through the warehouse district, and Ryker sat comfortable with the knowledge they could run Wright down should his allegiance run out.

Once the details from Izzie
's memory shifted from firm to uncertain, she parked the truck on a side street's curb, and they resumed the hunt on foot. At Ryker's insistence, Wright maintained a distance of twenty-five feet ahead of them, armed with his crossbow and responding to whatever directional orders Ryker or Izzie decided to issue. The hunter was obviously not pleased with the arrangement, but had little say.

Ryker noticed this immediately
—Wright wouldn't argue with Izzie now. He could barely look at her, and when he did, the shame on his face was damn big pill to swallow. Had the circumstances been different, the hunter might be worth someone's pity. But the circumstances weren't different. No one could change the fact that Wright had aimed and fired his crossbow, and Izzie had jumped in the path. Wright had still been the piece that moved his former friend and ally toward death, turning her into the thing he hated above all else.

Yet there was love there, too. Love that death couldn
't eradicate, even when death came back. Whatever else, Ryker was certain Wright's affection for Izzie—be it romantically inclined or, as he now suspected, more like love between siblings—would never falter because of what she'd become. He might hate what she'd done in the steps between, but things were never coated as wholly evil or wholly good.

And perhaps, in pulling the trigger, Wright had finally caught a glance of his reflection.

Either way, Ryker had nothing on which to substantiate his theories, and he was the sort of guy who went for cold hard facts rather than speculation, especially where the permanent sort of death was concerned. He and Izzie remained evenly spaced behind Wright, she armed with her dagger and Ryker with Bessy leaning against his shoulder.

"
We're getting close," Izzie whispered. "These buildings all look the same."

He nodded. While he might not have had the luxury of a personal tour, he did have over a century of sniffing out his enemies under his belt. And Michael
's odor grew heavier with each step, almost offensive to the senses. Either his cousin wasn't using the scent-camouflage he'd relied on before, or assumed Ryker was far enough away not to hide anymore.

Izzie froze without warning, raising a steady hand and pointing to a building across the street with a bright green door and a crumbling veranda.
"There."

"
You sure?"

"
No. It just looks more familiar than the others."

Ryker shrugged.
"Fair enough."

Izzie broke away from his side then, racing to catch up with Wright. Ryker watched her take the hunter
's arm and steer him in the indicated direction. Her movements became more pronounced, more confident. As though the closer she came to the building the more certain she was it was the right place.

"
Three of them," Izzie said as Ryker approached. "The two women and Prentiss himself."

"
Might be more now," Ryker replied.

Wright wore a scowl.
"You brought me out here for three fucking vamps? Are you shitting me?"

Ryker shrugged.
"Call it a workout."

"
Let's hope for more. I need to kill things."

"
Anyone ever tell you you're an angry person?" Izzie asked.

Her tone was light and her eyes sparkled, but Wright
's visible discomfort at the question stalled any humor her words might have evoked.

Instead, he shrugged a shoulder and replied,
"Hear it every now and then."

Ryker eyed the crossbow in the hunter
's arms. "Just make sure you don't aim that at a friend,
friend.
"

Wright didn
't respond, but for a shadow of a second, Ryker would have sworn his mouth tugged upwards in what could only resemble a grin.

The man nodd
ed at the door. "Anyone gonna knock?"

"
Knocking is for the civilized. Last I checked, drugging me twice and selling me to mad scientists isn't civilized." Izzie tried the handle but it was predictably locked. She shrugged, raised a leg and punched her foot at the knob, kicking it in with a fierce explosion of splintered wood and dust.

"
Well, that's one way to do it," Ryker murmured.

Izzie nodded.
"Think they know we're here now."

"
Element of surprise, Izz." Wright shook his head, stepping over the threshold and into the shadows. "Not exactly stealthy."

"
For three fucking vamps?" she mimicked in a falsetto. "Are you shitting me?"

"
Element of surprise," the demon hunter repeated, his tone somewhat strained. "No matter how many vamps."

Izzie shrugged and smiled, a large, toothy smile that showcased her newly sharpened fangs. Ryker had only seen them but twice throughout the day, and hadn
't realized she already had mastered drawing them out without the promise of sex or blood to coax her. "I
am
the element of surprise," she said.

Whatever Wright had been about to say fell to the wayside the next second. He whirled around and took aim, firing blindly into the darkened space at his left. Something grunted from the shadows, and then the hunter was gone, on the trail of a wounded vampire.

"That was fast," Ryker said.

Izzie blinked and met his gaze, then her attention drifted to something over his shoulder. The next thing he knew, she had flipped over him, her dagger painting
invisible strokes in the air as she clashed headfirst with one of the vamp bitches from the alley.

Ryker
's shoulders dropped. "Fuck."

He
'd seen her in action before, watched her as she handled herself among a bunch of loudmouthed predators who probably deserved the death he'd prevented her from giving them, but whatever he'd stumbled upon that night had nothing on this. Izzie became a blur, ducking, blocking, rolling, kicking and biting. She sliced and slashed, drawing bloody red lines across the blonde vampire's face, digging her blade into soft tissue. Ryker lingered just long enough to see if she needed help, but it seemed foolish getting in the middle of a one-sided slaughter.

Izzie had been deadly as a hunter
. Now she was death incarnate.

The air split apart then with the wail of a familiar voice, sending tremors through the walls and rattling the floor, pulling together in a mess of syllables and outrage. Above all, he heard,
"Niles!"

It was almost over.

The stomping of feet thundered toward him. Ryker swung around and aimed Bessy into the dark, firing blindly. He heard rather than saw the shot connect, felt the impact as his bastard of a cousin staggered into view. He fired again before their gazes connected. Michael's eyes were wild and feral, a bloody crater residing now in the space near his heart. It wasn't enough; Bessy couldn't kill his kind—the most she could do was slow them down.

"
Just couldn't stay away, could you, Niles?" Michael roared. His legs might wobble, but they were determined to close the space between them. "No. Had to go and fuck up a good thing."

Michael swung but he had no coordination. Ryker ducked, swung, and aimed again.
Red splattered, and a chunk of the bastard's arm disappeared.

"
This is what you do?" Michael screamed. "You deny me peace? You murder Caroline and—"

"
Oh, fucking stuff it!" Ryker snapped.

Then Izzie appeared behind Michael, her arms linking around his throat and her legs wrapping around his waist. The bloodied dagger remained in her hand.
"Your friend ran away," she said, her voice low. "Seems she lacked faith in the cause."

Michael thrashed wildly, but Izzie didn
't relent.

"
It's good," she continued, "I didn't want to kill her, anyway. I have a soft spot for brainwashed groupies."

"
Fucking bitch!"

"
You wanted me here," Ryker murmured, stepping forward. "You've been trying to get my attention for years."

"
I wanted you dead," Michael sputtered. "You deserved death."

"
But you didn't kill me. You sold me. And her. An innocent girl."

"
Caroline was innocent!"

"
Caroline was dying, you twit. Do you think she'd still be alive if I hadn't done what I did?"

"
She deserved a better fate!"

"
Yes, she did." Ryker caught Izzie's gaze and held. "We all do."

For a second, a split second before she drew the blade into Michael
's chest, Ryker felt a twinge of regret, of kinship for something he wouldn't again touch.

It wasn
't enough to come and demand vengeance for a debt—and fuck knew both he and Izzie deserved their pound of flesh for what Michael had sold them to—but demanding it like this felt caustic and brutal, felt much more like the actions of a monster than of the man he tried so desperately to be. For whatever else Michael had done, Ryker shared the guilt. He had made his cousin into what he was. Built him from the second he didn't seal his fate that night in the Natchez cemetery.

The man Ryker had known in childhood had died in the war, died alongside his sister and mother. Whatever he was now was a demon of a different color. Though Ryker wasn
't responsible for his actions, he was responsible for
him
in some small way. For the rabid creature he'd become.

And then the universe aligned with itself and provided one of those perfect moments
—a time when masks fell aside and people were revealed for who they really were. The steely, spiteful look on Michael's face blinked out just an instant, and he caught a glimpse of the frightened boy captured beneath the hatred and fury.

The boy said,
"Please, Niles. Please."

He wasn
't pleading to live. He was begging to die.

And that was one thing Ryker owed him in full.

* * * * *

Izzie swore to herself this would be her last. The last time she went out with a mind to kill. The last time she added new bloodstains to her dagger. Judge, jury, and executioner wasn
't a role she welcomed—it never had been. Yet even as she knew she deserved whatever she took for what they had sold her into, deciding fate wasn't something she was cut out for.

Prentiss was dangerous. That much was certain. Anger and resentment had fueled his search for over a century, and there was no reason to believe he
'd stop with Ryker. Thus when Prentiss bowed his head and asked for death, she tossed her lover the blade and let him give it. But that was it. Death had been too much a part of who she was. She didn't want to be that person anymore.