Lover's Bite (23 page)

Jack stepped into his path and faced him squarely. “Do you not get that it
has
to be me?” He lowered his head, then searched for words. “Do you know what I've put her through? Do you have any idea how much pain I've caused her in the past—how much I'm still causing her, now that she believes it was all just another con, that I've played her all over again? It
has
to be
me,
Reaper. I'll either die in the effort or I won't, but either way, she'll know the truth. She won't be able to doubt it anymore. She won't have to spend the rest of her life believing that no one ever really…”

“Loved her,” Roxy whispered, when Jack couldn't go on. She dropped her head and blinked her eyes, which had become suspiciously damp. Then she faced Reaper. “You have to let him do it, Raphael. It's not about danger, and it's not about whose fault this is. It's about love. And really, what else matters?”

“God, I think I'm gonna puke,” Briar muttered, and she shot Jack an accusing look, as if he'd somehow betrayed her.

Maybe he had, in a way. The two of them had been alike—both outcasts among this tightly woven group of friends. Both formerly on the wrong side in battle. Both swearing love was nothing but a lie, an illusion used to anesthetize the masses to the reality that life sucked.

He used to believe that. He didn't anymore.

“All right,” Reaper said. “All right, we'll do this your way. But if you get your ass killed, Jack…”

“I'll do my best not to.”

Reaper clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to Rhiannon. “Is it time, then?”

She glanced at the clock on the wall and nodded. “Yes. If we inject him now, the effect should last all day. Unless they tranquilize him.”

“And what would happen then?” Jack asked.

Rhiannon held his gaze. “We have no idea what effect mixing this drug with the tranquilizer would have on a vampire. It's never been tried. So don't let them tranquilize you.”

He thought that was far easier said than done, and she knew it.

Rhiannon unzipped the small black pouch she'd brought with her, and took out a syringe and a glass vial filled with clear fluid. After poking the needle through the vial's rubber stopper, she pulled back the plunger. Then she put the vial, still two-thirds full, back into the pouch, where he glimpsed a few other cellophane-wrapped syringes. She zipped up the pouch and dropped it into the chair where she'd been sitting.

Jack shivered a little and wondered just what the day ahead would bring. And then he squared his shoulders and knew it would be worth it, whatever the outcome. He moved toward Rhiannon as she tipped the syringe, needle end up, flicked it with her forefinger, and squirted a bit of the drug out the tip.

Vixen ran forward and flung her arms around Jack's neck. He was stunned by the surge of emotion that welled up in him at her gesture, and he hugged the odd little creature in return.

“I knew you were good inside. I knew it all along.”

“You're pretty smart, then, because I didn't,” he told her.

Seth came up beside her as she released Jack. He gripped Jack's hand hard. “Good luck, Jack.”

“Thanks.”

“I have ice packs chilling in the freezer,” Roxy said. “I'll put them in the body bag with you. There's no telling how long they'll let you lie there in the desert sun before they come to get you. It might help some.”

“Thanks, Roxy.” Jack glanced at Briar. “What, no tearful goodbye from you?”

“If you get dead, it's your own idiotic fault,” she snapped. Then her lips thinned, and she sighed. “Try not to.”

Ilyana said nothing, and Crisa just watched everything with her eyes wide. Jack wasn't sure if she fully understood what was happening or not.

Rhiannon, for her part, pretended to be unmoved, but Jack thought he saw emotion in her eyes. “As touching as this is,” she said, “if we don't get started, we're not going to make it to the appointed place on time. And we don't want to be even a minute late or we'll never make it back here. They've given us little enough time before sunrise as it is.”

Nodding, Jack faced her and extended his arm. “Do it.”

Rhiannon sank the needle into his flesh.

 

“Better?”

Topaz came to slowly, to find a glass being held to her lips. She drank deeply and tried to sit up as her mother set the glass aside. “I passed out?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“And the barbarians brought me sustenance?”

Her mother set the empty glass aside and shook her head. “No. I provided that.” She held up a hand to reveal her forearm, which had a strip of cloth bound tightly around it. “You were too weak to take it on your own. I've been feeding you from a glass. How are you feeling?”

Topaz took stock, felt the power flowing through her, the healing, rejuvenative power of vampiric blood. “I feel stronger. How long have I been out?”

“Most of the night. But there's still time. And I have a plan.”

“What is it?”

“Uncomplicated and straight to the point. I smash through the door, you take them out. Simple.”

“Not simple at all,” Topaz said. “You'll get jolted and be useless to help us escape.”

“I have a feeling you can handle the three of them on your own.”

“You have more confidence in my fighting skills than I do, then.”

“You can do it,” Mirabella said. “And once you do, you just get me out of here and find us shelter before sunrise.”

“It could kill you, Mother.”

Mirabella shook her head. “Dawn is only an hour away. You grabbed the handle and survived it. I think I can manage a much briefer contact without dying from the shock.”

Topaz nodded, because the logic of that made sense. “I still don't like it. But I don't think we have any other option.” She got to her feet, smoothed her clothes, glanced at her mother again. “You took a shower, didn't you?”

“Didn't have any other plans. Are you ready?”

“I'd better be. We can't wait much longer and have any hope of success.” Topaz moved closer to the door and tipped her head to one side. “I don't feel them out there. But I hear the television blaring.”

“They've probably blocked mental contact between rooms to keep us unaware of their comings and goings,” Mirabella suggested.

“Yeah. That's probably it.” Topaz positioned herself slightly to one side of the door, crouched and ready to spring on the unsuspecting mortals beyond it. Her mother backed all the way to the farthest end of the room, paused a moment to gather her energy and then launched into motion.

By the time she hit the door she was moving quickly. Not at full speed—there wasn't enough space for that—but fast enough. She hit the door bodily, and it flew open with a crash. Mirabella surged through, then collapsed to the floor on the other side, even as Topaz lunged into motion herself, leaping her fallen mother, and preparing to snap the neck of the first mortal she saw.

Except there were none.

Frowning, Topaz stood, poised for battle, and scanned the room, all senses searching. But there was no one there. She checked the bathroom, the closets. Nothing. No one.

Turning, she spotted her mother, trembling on the floor just as Topaz had been several hours earlier. “They're gone,” she told her, moving closer, crouching beside Mirabella. “We're alone here.”

Blinking against her pain, Mirabella said, “They've gone to make the exchange.”

“But it's
not
an exchange if they didn't take us with them.”

“No,” Mirabella said. “It's a trick. A trap. Your friends are in danger, Topaz.”

Topaz rose from her mother's side and went to the door to peer through the peephole. She pursed her lips and sighed, then went back to her mother again. “There are guards outside the door.”

“They didn't hear that crash?”

Topaz shrugged. “Maybe the TV blocked it.”

“How many?” Mirabella asked. Her voice was weak, but she was struggling to stay focused.

“Four that I can see. There could be more. I can't sense anything beyond this room.”

“Is the window in this room rigged with electricity, like the one in the bedroom was?”

Topaz went to the window, yanked open the drapes, and saw only clear glass. “It doesn't look like it.” Then she glanced down. “But it's way too far to jump, even for us. At least twenty-three stories. Maybe twenty-four. And it doesn't look possible to climb down.”

“We're going to have to try.”

“You're too weak, Mom. I can give you blood—”

“Don't be ridiculous. It's the only thing keeping you as strong as you are right now. One of us has to be able to handle this, baby. And I'm afraid it's going to have to be you. Open the window.”

“I don't even know if it opens.” Topaz checked and found that it did, then fumbled the safety grate away and dragged it into the room. Then she turned to find that her mother had pulled herself to her feet and was making her way weakly across the room. She had torn her skirt off at midthigh, to give herself more freedom of movement.

“Turn around, hon,” Mirabella instructed. “You're going to have to carry me.”

“I don't know if we can do this.”

“What's the worst that can happen?”

Topaz shuddered to think. But she turned. Mirabella wrapped her arms around Topaz's neck, her legs around her waist. And then Topaz climbed out the window, hung by her hands from the edge, eyed the next ledge below her and let go. They plummeted, but she kept her hands touching the building's side, and when she felt the next ledge, she gripped it for all she was worth. And somehow she caught it and held on. She dangled there, terrified and yet exhilarated.

“We did it! It worked.” She smiled in spite of herself. “We can do this. Just drop from ledge to ledge until we're close enough to jump to the ground. Hold on, here we go.”

She released her hold on the second ledge, and again they fell. But this time, when her fingers hit the next ledge down and she tried to grip it, the cement crumbled in her hands and they kept right on falling.

T
hey piled into the van, all of them, their plan in place. Jack's one goal was to ensure that Topaz got out of this mess alive. His own safety didn't matter as much to him, though he would give ten years of his undead life for one more night holding her in his arms. He didn't know why the hell it had taken him so long to realize that his feelings for her were real and not just part of a con game too convincingly played. It reassured him to know that Reaper would tell her the truth, if worse came to worst. But he would much prefer to be able to do it himself. And not just tell her, but show her, convince her, love her until she could never doubt his feelings again.

The hell of it was, he might never get that chance. The suit-monkeys were going to be pretty pissed off once they realized they'd been played.

Roxy pulled the van to a stop on the shoulder of an abandoned stretch of desert and turned around in her seat. “This is it. The GPS says the drop's a mile, due east, straight into the desert.”

Jack drew a breath. “Well, grab the body bag and let's go, then.”

He gripped the side door, started to open it, but Reaper stopped him with a hand on his arm. “They could be watching and you're—
I'm
supposed to be drugged and inside the bag at this point. We don't want to tip them off too soon. Not until we get Topaz and her mother safely out of harm's way.”

Sighing, Jack released his grip on the door. “So you're gonna haul my ass all the way out there in a body bag?”

“I have to stay out of sight. Seth, Rhiannon, you take him out there. It'll take both of you to bring the women back here. And the way they've set this up, there's barely time to do it and get home before sunrise, so you'll have to be fast.”

It was far from a perfect plan, but they had precautions in place. Jack picked up the body bag and handed it to Seth. “Sorry about this, kid.”

“It'll be worth it if it works.” Seth opened the side door and took the body bag out, then unfolded it on the ground and unzipped it.

Jack sat down on the van's floor with his back to the door. Seth gripped him under the arms and tugged him out as Jack let his head fall forward, feigning unconsciousness. He let Seth do all the work, lifting him, positioning his body in the open bag and closing the zipper completely. He was careful, tugging it tight to be sure no sunlight could leak through.

Freaking cowards, afraid to face him by night, Jack thought. He felt frustrated and murderous. Every cell in his body rebelled against lying still, and in a far different way from anything he'd ever felt before. It must be part of the drug's effects.

He felt himself lifted, bag and all, then tossed over Seth's shoulder and carried into the desert to meet his fate.

A short while later, Seth lowered him to the desert floor. Jack listened to the conversation going on around him and fought with himself the entire time in his effort to remain perfectly still while everything in him was straining to move, to act, to fight.

“Where are they?” Rhiannon asked. “I don't see any other body bags lying here waiting, as promised.”

Jack tensed, waiting, wanting to tear through the bag and find Topaz himself.

“There's a note,” Seth said. “There, pinned to that cactus.”

Jack heard the paper rattle and tear a bit as Seth read aloud. “You'll find your women three miles further, due east. Good luck beating the sun.”

“Damn them for this,” Rhiannon muttered. “If you're out there watching, you men should get your affairs in order—soon!”

Sorry, pal, but we've gotta run,
Seth told Jack mentally.

Go. Just get them back safely. That's all that matters.

 

Reaper waited as the sun got closer to rising. He'd taken precautions of his own, precautions none of the others were aware of. He'd slipped that little black pouch of Rhiannon's into a pocket when no one was looking, and he had a syringe full of the drug prepared and ready. He did not intend to sleep through this while his friends risked their lives.

“They're taking longer than they should have,” Roxy said. They had all gathered beside the van, except for Ilyana, who stayed in the front seat, and Reaper. He remained in the back, staring through the side window toward the paling sky above the desert.

“Roxy,” he said, “open the hidden compartment in the back. We need to get everyone into shelter. We can't wait any longer, and we're clearly not going to make it back to the bungalows before dawn.”

Roxy reached into the van and hit a button. The rear seat folded back as the floor slid open, revealing a comfortably padded bed hidden beneath it. As soon as it was open, Briar ran around to the rear and opened the back doors.

“Good,” Reaper said from the front seat. “Briar, you, Crisa and Vixen get in.”

“What about the rest of you?” Vixen asked. “There's not room for five of you to rest up there.” She voiced her concern even as she obeyed Reaper's orders, climbing under the floor and crowding as far to one side of the hidden bed as she possibly could.

“We can fit. We won't be able to lie down, but we can fit.”

“But the sun—”

“Show her, Roxy.”

Roxy hit another button, and a black barrier slid upward, separating the front seats from the rest of the van. Other screens slid upward, as well, blocking the side and rear windows. Then she got out of the van, walked around to the back and joined the others.

“You see?” she said with a smile. “Once we close these doors, the entire back of the van is completely safe. Everyone will be fine.” Worriedly, she looked again at the sky and added, “If they hurry up and get their asses back here, that is.”

“Leave the back doors open, Roxy.” Mentally, Reaper called out to his friends.
Seth, Rhiannon. Where the hell are you? The sun's about to rise!

They left the women farther away, Reap,
Seth replied.
We've got them, and we're running for all we're worth, man, but—

Are they all right?
Reaper interrupted.

Drugged, I think. We didn't have time to check, had to grab them and run. I don't know if we're going to make it, Reap.

We'll make it,
Rhiannon put in.
Just have some damned shelter waiting when we get there.

Dive into the van. The back doors will be open and waiting. And hurry, dammit.

Thanks so much for that bit of wisdom, my friend.
Rhiannon's tone dripped with sarcasm.
And here I was thinking of taking my sweet time.

“The sun,” Roxy said. She was pointing, and Reaper could see its orange rays beginning to paint the sky far on the eastern horizon.

“Briar, Crisa, get in there,” he commanded. “There's no more time.”

Briar climbed in, but Crisa backed away. “I'm afraid!”

Reaching for her hand, Briar said, “It'll be okay. You'll be right beside me. I promise, it'll be okay. We'll…we'll talk until the sleep takes us. Come on, Crisa. Trust me.”

Reaper blinked, shocked at the warmth in her tone—something he'd never heard coming from Briar in the time he'd known her. He assumed it was false, put there to soothe Crisa so she didn't get them all killed. Then again, Briar had shared blood with the childlike vampiress. Perhaps the bond it had created had softened Briar's icy heart.

He pretended to pace away in worry, but in truth he only needed a private moment. Taking the needle from his pocket, he quickly injected himself, then pulled his sleeve down over the site and tossed the spent hypodermic into some desert sage before returning to the van.

Crisa took Briar's hand, then climbed in on the makeshift bed, sitting upright.

“Good,” Briar said. “Now just lie back.”

Roxy was already racing around to the front of the van, and the moment Briar said, “Close it up, Roxy,” she hit the button and the floor slid slowly closed over the three women. He could hear Crisa sniffling as it did, and he could also hear Briar's voice, soothing and soft, as she tried to comfort her.

Then Roxy was beside him again. “Get in. Get as far toward the front as you can. I'll wait here and close the doors as soon as the others are inside.”

“Not a minute before, Roxy,” he said. “If they roast, I roast with them. Understood?”

She held his eyes.

“And if that happens,” he went on, “remember that Topaz and Mirabella should still be safe, in those body bags. It'll be up to you and Ilyana to get them back to safety on your own.”

“I understand,” she told him.

He climbed in, but he didn't move away from the doors.

“Dammit,” Roxy said, looking skyward again. “The sun is cresting the—”

“Faster, dammit!” Rhiannon's voice boomed.

And then she was there, hurling the heavy body bag from her shoulder into the back of the van. Reaper grabbed it and pulled it as far in as he could, then reached for Rhiannon's hand. But she was turning, racing back the other way.

Reaper sprang from the van and followed. Seth came into view then, running full bore, but he wasn't nearly as strong or as fast as Rhiannon and Reaper were. Rhiannon yanked the body bag off his shoulder as his hair began to smoulder. Reaper grabbed the younger man and jerked him right off his feet, and then they raced for the van as he felt his skin beginning to blister.

At last they were there, hurling their cargo into the blessed darkness and clambering in behind them.

Roxy slammed the van's rear doors closed. Reaper fought off the pain of being seared by the first and weakest rays of the slowly rising sun, and wished he could count on the day sleep to alleviate it and heal him. But the day sleep wasn't coming. Not for him.

He watched as Seth, his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest, fell into slumber. Rhiannon sat near Reaper himself, leaning against his shoulder, body relaxed, eyes closed. And Reaper stayed awake, becoming more so with each moment that passed.

As Roxy put the van into motion, he eased Rhiannon's weight from his shoulder, leaning her against the closed door, then moved on hands and knees to the two body bags that rested on the van's floor. He wanted to make sure the women were all right. He unzipped the first bag.

A dead man lay inside. Mortal, not vampire. A neat bullet hole marked the center of his forehead. His skin was blue-gray and cold to the touch. Swearing under his breath, Reaper yanked at the zipper of the second bag and found the very same thing. Another dead male mortal lay inside.

“Roxy!” he bellowed.

Ilyana released an alarmed squeak as the van veered wildly. Then brakes squealed, and the van came to a bumpy stop on the road's shoulder.

“Reaper?” Roxy called from the front seat. “What are you—how—hell, you used that drug of Rhiannon's on yourself, didn't you?”

“Of course he did,” Rhiannon replied, the sound of her voice making Reaper jump. “As did I.”

He stared at her, blinking in shock. She'd been feigning her sleep! “Rhiannon, why would you…?”

“Because I know you very, very well, Reaper. And I wasn't about to let you face all this alone.”

He shook his head slowly, processing their new situation. “Roxy,” he said, “there are bodies in these bags.
Human
bodies. Men, both of them. Looks as if they were killed execution style. Single shot to the head. The CIA didn't keep their end of the bargain.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Roxy said. “So what the hell are we going to do now?”

“I'm damned if I know,” Reaper said.

“Well, I do.” Rhiannon closed the zippers on the two bags as she spoke. She probably didn't like looking at the dead men inside, he thought. “Turn the van around. Go back to the site by the desert. Find a place to park where we won't be readily seen,” Rhiannon said. “We sit there, and we watch for those bastards to come for the body bag we left them. Then we follow them back to wherever it is they're holding Topaz and her mother.”

“If it's not already too late,” Reaper put in, even as Roxy turned the van around and floored it.

“It isn't,” Rhiannon said. “The sun only just rose. They're too cowardly to risk facing you before daylight, in case you might not be tranquilized as promised. By daylight, as far as they know, there's no chance of you reviving and giving them what they so richly deserve. So they wouldn't have gone after you until dawn. And it'll take them a lot longer to walk that distance than it took us. They'll still be there.” She tapped the barrier between the back and front of the van. “As soon as they leave, follow them. Carefully.”

“You bet I will,” Roxy promised.