Lover's Bite (22 page)

Jack felt a chill go up his spine. “How many body bags failed the test before you found one that passed?”

“Sixteen. And yes, we used live subjects. You have a problem with that, Jack?”

Jack didn't bother to answer. His gut was churning as he glanced at Reaper and saw a similar reaction. Raw fury.

“So I drug him, put him into a body bag, and…?”

“And leave him where I tell you. I have a nice spot in the desert picked out. Once the sun comes up, so I know he can't go off on me or try anything, and the rest of you can't ambush me, I'll pick him up. You'll find your women waiting in the same spot, in the same type of bag. You leave him and take them, and we're done. By the time your so-called Reaper wakes up, he'll be in CIA custody.”

“You've really covered every base, haven't you?”

“I like to think so. So that's how it's going to be. Naturally, there's not enough time tonight for you to retrieve the body bag, drug Rivera and drop him in the desert, and it'll take a solid hour to get out there. The sun will be up in fifteen minutes. But I'll tell you what. I'll keep your women safe and comfy with me while they lie around completely oblivious and utterly defenseless all day. And I'll call you right after sundown, and let you know where to find the body bag and where to leave Rivera. How's that sound?”

“If you touch them while they sleep, they
will
wake, Magnarelli. And they will wake in a rage that makes the one you people managed to plant in Reaper's mind look like a child's game.”

“That's the first time I've heard
that
bit of vampire trivia. Are you sure you're not just making it up, Jack?”

“Are you sure I
am?
Go ahead. Risk it. If I don't hear from you tomorrow night, I'll know you're dead. Drained to a lifeless husk and left to rot somewhere. It's no less than you deserve.”

Jack felt the fear rippling from the other man. Not a lot of it, and not for more than an instant. But it had been there, and it had been real. Jack met Reaper's eyes and saw him nod in silent approval of the blatant lie.

“I'll call you after sundown tomorrow,” the CIA man snapped. “Be near the phone.” And then he was gone.

 

Topaz and her mother sat staring at one another. They'd taken stock of the entire room. They'd sized up the men in the next room and decided they could take them, if they rushed them. But they were exceedingly low on time—sunrise was right around the corner. They might not have time to find shelter elsewhere, safe from any other agents who came calling, and even if they did, it would be so close at hand that they would probably be found in short order.

So for today, they would sleep here in the care of the CIA, not so much because they trusted these liars to keep them safe—they would be stupid to do that—but because they both realized that they had no viable choice but to stay and take their chances.

But at sundown? At sundown they would make their move.

They'd had their entire conversation mentally, without the men in the next room being any the wiser.

And then one of them entered. The blue-eyed one who'd carried Topaz after she'd been darted. “About time you two turned in,” he said. “Sunup in five.”

“Your concern is touching,” Mirabella said.

“I'm going to rip out your jugular at sunset, you know,” Topaz told him. “I tend to wake up ravenous and slightly cranky.”

He blinked. Of the three, he seemed the only one with at least some semblance of a heart beating in his chest. The others were far less human. But she hated them all.

“You'll be happy to know that Jack has agreed to do as he's been told. You'll only have to be with us one more night.”

“Why one more night? Why not make the exchange right after sundown, when we rise?”

“I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you. I just thought you'd want to know. Is there anything you need before you…er…retire?” He glanced beyond her, and Topaz knew it was because he couldn't look her in the eye, even though he made it seem as if he were checking the room for anything that might be lacking.

“Your heart on a plate, with ketchup,” Topaz said.

He shot her a look. “I'm being as nice as I can here.”

“Yeah, I just love kidnappers with manners,” she said.

He backed out of the room. “Good night.” Then he closed the doors. She heard the lock turn, and she called, “If you think that mortal lock could keep us in here against our will, my friend, you are sadly mistaken. When we're ready to leave here, believe me, we'll—”

Tanya, stop!

The harsh tone of her mother's thoughts stunned her. And wounded her, too, though she told herself that was utterly stupid.

There's no point in giving away everything we've got. If they don't know we can beat that lock, for example, why tip them off? We could easily wake up to a new lock, one we can't break.

Hell,
Topaz thought back at her.
It's a miracle I ever survived without you, isn't it? These guys are experts on our kind. I'm not telling them anything they don't already know. Though I do appreciate the motherly advice.

Sarcasm isn't an attractive quality, Tanya.

It's Topaz. And I'll be as sarcastic as I want. You think I've been searching all over the country for you just so you could start mothering me now? Keep it, Mirabella. I don't fucking want it.

Her mother's face was stricken. She went to the bed where she'd slept earlier and sank onto it, her back to Topaz. “I'm sorry, you know. I'm sorry. I know it doesn't change how you feel, but it's true, and I'll keep saying it until you believe me. If I had thought I had any other choice, I would have taken it. I swear it on my soul.”

“Even if you had no choice when it…happened,
Mother,
even if you couldn't see yourself raising a mortal child, there have been a lot of years in between. You could have contacted me once I was an adult. And you
certainly
could have stuck around and told me the truth the night you changed me over. You can make up all the reasons you want to for abandoning me as an infant, but there just aren't any excuses that explain why you did it all over again the night I was reborn as a vampire.”

Mirabella was silent as she pulled back her covers and stripped off the gown she wore, revealing the black lacy slip beneath it. Then she lay down in the bed.

Topaz stripped off her jeans, removed her bra from beneath her shirt without taking the shirt off, and then she crawled into the other bed.

The sun was rising. Topaz felt it, the weight of it, the tug of sleep—of death, really—pulling at her.

“You're right,” her mother said at last. “There is no excuse. I was ashamed. I was afraid to face you. I was afraid of the very condemnation you've now delivered. I didn't want to feel your anger, much less your hatred. But I'm sorry, Topaz. I'm so sorry.”

I never hated you,
Topaz thought, even as she drifted into sleep.
And it's Tanya.

 

“I have an idea. A germ of an idea,” Reaper said as Jack drove. And then he focused his mind, leaving it open to Jack's, to keep him in the loop.

Rhiannon. Can you hear me? Rhiannon. It's Reaper, and it's urgent.

Moments ticked past. Moments during which Jack was unsure Reaper would receive an answer. “Where is this Rhiannon you're trying to reach?” he asked.

“In the States. I'm not sure exactly where.”

Jack gaped at him, then clamped his jaw closed when he realized what he was doing. “Surely even your mind isn't powerful enough to reach that far,” he said.

“She's my maker. And one of the most powerful vampires alive. She'll hear me.”

And she did, Jack realized with awe when she finally replied.

For the love of the gods, darling, if I wanted to be bothered, I would have called you. What is it?

Reaper smiled, something Jack had seen rarely enough to notice it with a touch of surprise.
Your friend Eric Marquand, the vampire scientist…

Yes, yes, my dear Roland's best friend. What about him?

I heard a rumor that he created a formula several years back that would allow a vampire to remain awake by day. Is it true?

Jack snapped to attention, surprise echoing in his mind. Not only had he never heard of such a formula, he could feel the vampiress's reaction, and it wasn't a good one.

It's true. But Roland nearly killed me when he tried it. It makes us violent, Reaper. It's dangerously flawed.

That's a chance I'm going to have to take. Can you get it for me—and get it to me—before tomorrow night is out?

Why? Why would you need something so volatile?

Lives are at risk. I can't go into detail, though I'll tell you the rest when I see you. Trust me when I tell you it's vital. Can you do this for me?

I can.

In time?

I have a private jet.

Will you?

There was a pause, and then, finally,
Yes. I will. Tell me where you are.

 

By the time they arrived back at the bungalows, Reaper and Jack had a plan worked out. They still hadn't agreed on which of them was going to be taking up space in that body bag twenty-four hours from now, but Jack thought he would win that argument in the end.

It wasn't foolproof, their plan. It was going to take the help of every last member of their gang. Even the mortal ones. But it could work.

Hell, it
had to
work. Jack had no intention of letting Topaz die thinking he had played her yet again. It was killing him to know she thought it now, even for a little while. He had to get to her. He had to tell her the truth. And then it occurred to him that he might die himself before he got the chance. This plan was risky at best. Suicidal at worst.

He put a hand on Reaper's arm as he pulled into the driveway that led to the beach houses.

Reaper looked at him.

“If anything happens to me…” Jack began.

“I'll tell her the truth,” Reaper said. “Just like I told the rest of them. She'll know you weren't running a con this time, Jack. You have my word on that.”

“She has to know something else, too,” Jack said. “That I…that I…” He closed his mouth, unable to say the words that had always come so hard to him. “Just tell her it was real this time.”

“Hell, Jack, are you just figuring that out? Roxy's known it from the day she met you.”

Jack shot him a surprised look as he braked to a stop and cut the engine. Reaper only smiled at him, and then they jumped from their vehicle, just as Vixen and Seth got out of the Mustang. The four stood watching as Roxy's van bounded along the driveway and came to a stop in front of the first little beach house.

She opened the driver's door, got out and blinked at the eastern sky. “It's starting to pale. Come on, get inside, all of you. Hurry.”

The van's side door slid open, and Briar stepped down, carrying Crisa in her arms. Reaper rushed toward her. “I'll take her,” he said, reaching for the wounded girl.

But as Reaper tried to take her away, Crisa's arms snapped around Briar's neck, and she buried her face there, clinging.

Briar rolled her eyes, then met his. “Great. Now she thinks I'm her mommy. I hate you for making me do this, Reaper.” Then she carried Crisa up the front steps and into the bungalow.

T
he jet landed on one side of the border, while Reaper waited on the other. Before he knew what she intended, Rhiannon had raced toward him, her powerful body moving far too fast to be visible to the human eye, even if anyone had been looking. For the most part, the border patrol were more concerned about keeping people from coming into the U.S. than they were about keeping them from leaving it. Still, the jet might have drawn some attention, Jack thought worriedly.

Too late to worry about that. The jet she'd left behind was taxiing across the expanse of naked desert and taking off again seconds after she'd debarked.

And then she was standing in front of him.

“Rhiannon,” he began, a warning note in his tone. “Why did you send the plane away without you?”

“Oh, please,” she said. “Don't waste time on worn-out arguments, Reaper. I'm here, I'm your maker, and I'm staying. So shut the hell up and let's get on with this.”

He held her gaze for one long moment, then sighed. “All right.”

“Glad to see you can be sensible.”

He thought about Briar. About Rhiannon meeting Briar. Rhiannon
hating
Briar. Rhiannon and Briar ripping each other's hair out.

Hell, this mission had better go off as planned, not to mention as fast as humanly possible.

 

Topaz woke quickly and completely. One instant she was in the depths of her deathlike slumber, and the next, her eyes and her senses were wide open, scanning. She sat upright in the bed and virtually sniffed the air for signs the room had been entered while they'd been asleep, but she saw none. More importantly she
felt
none. Her bed was exactly as it been when she'd fallen asleep. The door was still closed. She didn't feel as if she'd been touched while she'd rested, and she thought that if she had been, she would know it.

With a sigh of relief, she let the tension ease from her body and turned to see her mother coming awake more slowly. Mirabella woke like a cat, gradually, eyes opening a bit at a time, then closing again, as if sleep were too blissful to leave behind just yet. Then they opened again, a little wider this time, and finally she stretched her arms above her, arched her back and tipped up her chin. Then she rolled onto her side, facing Topaz with a bright smile. “Good morning.”

“It's evening.”

“Then…
good evening.
” She said it the way Bela Lugosi would have said it, her accent ridiculously overblown.

Topaz fought back a smile and kept her expression serious. “This is no time for joking around, Mother. Our lives are on the line here.”

“What better time will there be, then?”

“We have to get out of here before Reaper gets himself killed trying to rescue us.”

Mirabella's cheerful expression faded. “Are you so sure it won't be Jack doing that?”

Topaz averted her eyes. “I believed in him once, and he betrayed me and broke my heart. I was stupid enough to give him another chance, and he did it all over again. There's no way I'll ever trust him again.”

“Or me, either, I imagine,” Mirabella said softly. “And for exactly the same reasons. I walked away from you…not once, but twice. And it doesn't matter that I've regretted it ever since, does it, Tanya?”

Topaz didn't answer.

“Jack might be having regrets of his own by now. I mean, he
must
be. He must have felt something for you. You're too intelligent and too perceptive and far too wary to be completely fooled, even by him.”

“I believed what I wanted to believe. I fooled myself far more than he ever could have.”

“So it's yourself you don't trust?”

“I don't trust anyone. Myself included.”

Mirabella nodded slowly. “You know, even in baseball, you get three strikes.”

“This is life, not baseball,” Topaz said, turning her back on her mother and everything she was saying.

“And what if you're wrong?” Mirabella asked. “You said you don't trust yourself, that you fooled yourself into believing something. But what if you're wrong about being wrong? What if you're judging him, judging
me,
according to how you
think
we feel, how we made
you
feel, without even knowing how either of us truly feels? You're judging us by the mistakes we've made in the past, without caring how different we might be in the present. If you'd give us a chance, Tanya, you might find out that you're completely wrong. You're so convinced that no one will ever love you that you wouldn't see it if it were staring you right in the face. You can't even see that you've been loved all along. By me, at least. And maybe by Jack, as well.”

Topaz still had her face averted. She had to keep it that way, because her eyes were wet, and that was something she didn't want her mother to see. In a tight voice, she said, “Please don't try to make me start hoping for that. It only leads to heartbreak—every single time.”

“Why did you spend so much effort searching for me, Tanya?” her mother asked. “Was it only to condemn me for my actions, show me your anger, vent it a little and then walk away?”

Topaz blinked her eyes dry and faced her mother. “I honestly don't know. I think I just wanted to ask you why you walked away.”

“The first time, necessity. The second time, shame. And I'm sorry, but those are the only answers I have to give.”

“They're not good enough.” Topaz paced the room. “Let's get on with this.”

“All right.” Her mother got out of bed finally, and pulled on the white-and-green halter dress she'd been wearing the night before. “I wish we had time for a shower.”

“If we hang around too long, they're liable to decide to drug us again. Besides, I wouldn't trust those three enough to shower here.” Topaz put on her shoes as she said it.

Her mother shrugged. “They couldn't do more than peek, and that wouldn't kill us.”

“Neither will skipping a shower. Come on.”

Sighing, Mirabella slipped on her shoes. High heels, open toes, spotlessly white. She came to stand beside Topaz, right at the bedroom's closed door.

“I'll see where they are first,” Topaz said. “Then we'll rush them, no holds barred. We can move faster than they can see us coming.”

“It's as good a plan as any,” her mother said.

They stood, silent and ready, on either side of the door. Topaz reached for the handle, gripped it—and then went rigid as a bolt of electricity hammered through her body. The blow was like a wrecking ball to the chest, and it sent her flying backward. She hit the foot of a bed and crumpled to the floor, shaking all over.

“Tanya!” Her mother was beside her instantly, kneeling on the floor, her hands cupping Topaz's head, her eyes searching and wide with fear. “What…?”

Behind them, from beyond the closed double doors, a voice spoke, loudly enough for them to hear. “Sorry about the electricity, ladies. You try the window, you'll find the same precautions have been taken.”

Topaz looked toward the window, and though her eyes were less than focused, she could see that the glass had been lined with a metallic screen from the inside. Had it been there all along, or had someone been inside this room last night after all?

“I'm afraid you're confined to your room for tonight,” their captor said. “No point in fighting it.”

Still lying limp and trembling on the floor, Topaz lifted her head slightly. “I'm
so
going to kill them,” she whispered, her body still vibrating with the effects of the jolt it had taken. Her every muscle felt stretched and torn, and the pain of that was debilitating. Even so, she was absurdly glad she had been the one to grab the door handle, not her mother.

To her shock and surprise, her mother no longer looked worried or frightened. Her face now wore an expression of raw fury. She turned her head toward the door. “You will pay for that stunt, gentlemen. You will pay
dearly,
mark my words.”

“Relax,” the man said in reply. “It won't kill her. And don't try anything so foolish again. Any part of the door you touch is going to give you the same results. Bide your time, and by nightfall tomorrow you'll wake amongst your little gang again. All of them but one, that is.”

Topaz released a pent-up breath, and it came out in stutters. “We can't let them take Reaper.”

“I'm not sure what we can do to stop them. Not yet, anyway. You need to get your strength back first.”

Topaz nodded and steadied herself. Her body was slowly relaxing, muscles uncoiling. “Sounds like we have all night. Somehow they've set the exchange to take place by day, though I can't imagine how.”

Her mother slid her arms beneath Topaz and lifted her. She carried her to the bed and lowered her onto it. “Rest. Get your strength back. We'll deal with them once you've recovered.”

 

“It's ridiculous to keep arguing about this,” Jack said.

“I agree,” Reaper replied. “So stop arguing. Rhiannon, give me the injection.”

They were all gathered in the first of the bungalows. Night had long since fallen, and the bastards' phone call had come right on schedule. Seth and Vixen had made the trip, to an abandoned gas station fifteen miles away, where they'd found the body bag waiting, as promised. With it came a note with further instructions.

Reaper was to be tranquilized before dawn and taken to a spot in the desert. Rather than written directions, Magnarelli had left a GPS device, preprogrammed to guide them from the site where the body bag had been to the place in the desert where they were supposed to leave Reaper. It had been rigged with a timer and wouldn't boot up until a couple of hours before dawn. Jack imagined that not knowing the exact location ahead of time was supposed to make it more difficult for them to set up some kind of an ambush. As if they could, by day. Magnarelli had specified the time they were to leave Reaper in the desert, promising dire repercussions to Topaz and Mirabella should they arrive one minute earlier. They would barely have time to reclaim the women and make it back to the bungalows before sunrise. Which was exactly what the bastard must have intended.

Rhiannon hadn't moved from her spot, resting queen-like in a rattan chair with a fan-shaped back, her legs crossed, one of them exposed by her skintight gown's extensive slit. She and the others had been listening to the two men argue for the better part of an hour now, and Rhiannon was growing visibly tired of it.

Now she uncrossed her legs and rose slowly. “I'm afraid that I have to agree with Jack on this, my friend,” she said to Reaper.

He stared at her as if she'd sprouted horns.

“They can control you,” she went on. “They can utter that trigger word and send you into a murderous rage, and you know it. Adding this drug of Eric's to that mix could be disastrous. You could kill us all, including the captives. And for all we know, that might very well be what these jackals intend.”

Seth had been pacing, aggravated and intense. He stopped then, and faced Reaper. “Much as I hate to be on his side in anything, Reap, I agree with Jack, too. He made this mess, anyway, so he needs to clean it up. He should be the one in that body bag when they pick it up in the desert.”

The others nodded. Even Roxy, to Jack's surprise. She nearly always took Reaper's side. But it seemed everyone agreed with him on this. All but Crisa, of course, who hovered very close to the chair where Briar sat, and offered no opinion one way or the other.

“And just what do you think is going to happen when they realize it's not me in that bag?” Reaper demanded. “What do you think they'll do when they find out they've been double-crossed?”

Briar said, “They want you alive. They won't unzip the bag in the desert in full daylight. You'd go up in flames. They'll have to get you back to shelter before they do that.”

“And by then,” Roxy added, “Ilyana and I will have Topaz and her mother safely out of their reach. It'll be too late for them to come to harm.”

“But what about Jack?” Vixen asked.

Of them all, she was the only one who had taken the time to consider that, Jack thought. Besides him, at least.

“If this drug Rhiannon brought does what it's supposed to—” Jack began.

“It does,” Rhiannon interrupted.

“Then I'll be fully conscious when they open that bag to check its contents. And I intend to come out swinging.” He shrugged. “I'll kill all three of the bastards. The rest is simple. I find some shelter until dark, and then meet up with the rest of you.”

“They'll have more than three agents,” Reaper said. “You've only seen three, Jack, but don't underestimate these guys. They'll have backup, and they'll have tranq darts ready. And you'll be facing them alone.” He shook his head. “I don't like this.” He paced the floor. “No. No, I can't let you do it, Jack.”