Out of the Night (31 page)

"Get out of here," he ordered Dirk.

"Not without you. Let's hurry and check the rest of this place."

Mac knew not to argue. By the time they checked the last room on me floor, Mac realized that he and Dirk were in trouble. Despite the doors sealing off each floor of the stairwell, the halls were filling with smoke, making it hard to breathe and almost impossible to see. The temperature inside the building had risen so that the oppressing heat worked in concert with their fatigue until every step seemed to require herculean effort.

For the first time, Mac doubted whether he and Dirk would get out alive. Beside him, Dirk, still weak from his attack, stumbled and fell to his knees.

"Man up, soldier. This is no time to quit." Mac gripped Dirk's arm and pulled him to his feet, but it cost him precious energy he couldn't spare. Both men bent over, trying to catch their breath and avoid the thickest smoke, which rose to blanket the ceiling just above their heads.

"We've got to get out of here," Mac said, his voice hoarse.

Dirk nodded and the two took several steps toward the stairwell, their feet like leaden weights, but already Mac saw they couldn't go down that way. Smoke seeped up from below.

The next explosion knocked them both to the floor.

The temptation to stay down was too great. Glancing at Dirk's still form, Mac was afraid his friend might already be dead, and his mind filled with images of Lanie. He knew now that if she'd been in the building, she, too, must be dead. The thought brought a sharp pain to his chest. He had failed her.

The urge to fight for his own survival died. If Lanie was gone—if he'd never see her again—then what was the point of going on? Better to have no life at all.

I'll see you soon, baby.

At least, he hoped he'd see her in the afterlife—hoped that he'd lived with enough honor to deserve to see her—and then silently chuckled as his mind conjured an image of the two of them, dressed in white gowns, perched on the edge of a billowy cloud, talking—because God knew, the woman always wanted to talk about something.

Even now, he heard her voice in his head, calling his name.

Before him, the smoke swirled and a form appeared within its midst, moving toward him. An angel, come to bear him home. He closed his eyes and felt only relief because if an angel was coming for him, then maybe he wasn't destined for the pits of hell after all.

When next he dared look, she was closer, one hand covering her nose and mouth, the other outstretched, beckoning him.

His eyes stung from the bite of the smoke, but he forced them open, wanting to see her face. Slowly the image became clearer, and he found himself staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes. She was a mirage, a final boon from God.

"Lanie?" he croaked, his voice rough.

"Mac? Are you hurt?" She ran her hands intimately over his chest and arms, checking for signs of injury, and it gradually occurred to him that this was no mirage. This was flesh-and-blood Lanie. She was alive—and she was here, with him.

The realization was a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart. Suddenly he found the energy and strength he'd lacked before. He gripped her shoulders with both hands and pulled her to him in a fierce, near desperate embrace. "I'm sorry for everything I said earlier," he croaked.

He felt her arms tighten around him as she nodded against his shoulder. "It's okay. We'll talk about it later."

He wanted to laugh out loud, but his throat hurt too much. Instead, he released her and then bent over to check on Dirk.

"Is he dead?" Lanie whispered in the unusual quiet.

"I don't think so. Not yet." He shook Dirk and got a small response.

"Mac, we have to hurry," Lanie urged him. "That fire is right below us, and it's burning fast. We don't have much time."

"Help me get him up."

Mac got to his feet and then reached down to grab one of Dirk's arms while Lanie took the other. Together they pulled him up and he opened his eyes. Mac noticed that once Dirk focused on and recognized Lanie, he seemed to rally. As a group, they moved into the last room on the hall and headed for the window. Looking out, Mac met a grim sight. The fire escape that should have led them to safety was little more than a rusted, tangled web of metal, barely hanging from its last remaining anchor several stories below.

"Let's try the other side," he suggested. With Lanie between the two men, her arms around each, supporting them as needed, they moved back out into the hallway and hurried to the opposite side.

They'd taken only a couple of steps past the stairwell door when Lanie pulled the men to a stop. She motioned for them to stay put while she moved forward slowly, testing each step with her foot before placing her weight on it and taking another. After several tentative steps, she backed up and repeated the process off to first one side and then the other. Finally, she returned to Mac's side.

"The whole floor's spongy," she announced, gesturing to the expanse of hallway before them. "I think the fire's coming up directly below here. It's not safe. We need to find another way out."

Mac saw her gaze travel upward and knew what she was thinking. They couldn't go down, but they could go up. Unfortunately, there was no way to know if the fire had leaped over a floor and burned up there as well.

Still supporting Dirk, Mac started for the stairs, intending to lead the way. Lanie stopped him.

"I'll go first," she shouted. He shook his head, but she cut him off. "Mac,
this
is what I do. I'll go first."

He didn't like it, but she was right. This was her area of expertise, so he nodded and let her go before him. With the possibility of grave danger ahead, it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

They headed straight for the top floor, hoping they'd find a way down. When they reached the door to the roof, Lanie touched the back of her hand to it, checking the temperature to make sure a blazing inferno didn't lie on the other side.

A second later she put her hand on the knob, but when she tried to turn it, nothing happened. She tried again, with the same result. It was locked. She cast a worried glance at Mac and he knew what she was thinking—with a locked door before them and a raging fire burning toward them from below, they were trapped.

But they weren't dead yet. With Lanie standing next to him, looking at him with such despair in her eyes, he knew he couldn't give up. He felt the monster that he tried so hard to keep suppressed lurking beneath the surface and gave it free rein, feeding it the anger and frustration he felt.

His vision took on a reddish tone, nearly blinding as he picked up patterns of heat all around. Of their own accord, his lips started to curl and his fangs began to show. He heard Lanie's gasp and felt Dirk tense beside him. He shot his friend a look and saw him waging his own personal war.

"Let it out," Mac snarled.

"I don't know if I can control myself," Dirk admitted, his glance touching on Lanie.

Her eyes widened at the implication. Mac knew that if Dirk couldn't control himself, then Lanie was in as much danger from him as she was from the fire. Even now, the structure of the building was compromised. If they didn't get onto the roof soon, they could very well fall through to the floors below.

"We have no choice," he said, addressing them both. "I won't let you hurt her." He held Dirk's look as the other man considered his words.

Then he grabbed the knob of the door and on his nod, he and Dirk threw their weight against it. The door crashed open and they ran outside into the warm morning sunlight.

Mac and Dirk instantly flung their hands up to shield their eyes as Lanie ran to the edge of the roof and looked over the side. Mac, still adjusting to the brightness, squinted as she ran along the entire perimeter, looking over the edge at intervals.

He walked over to stand beside Dirk, and they looked down at the roof of the building next door. A small alley, about fifteen feet wide, separated the two buildings. As he stood there, calculating the odds of the idea forming in his head, Lanie joined them.

"We're going to have to jump," he announced.

"Mac, it's ten stories to the ground," Lanie protested. "We won't survive."

He shook his head and pointed to the building next door. "It's only a one-story drop to the next building."

Lanie looked down at the alley that loomed as wide to her as the great Rio Grande and knew she was dead. Maybe Mac and Dirk, with their SEAL training and chupacabra-enhanced abilities, could make that jump, but there was no way she could.

She saw Mac look at Dirk, who gave a solemn nod. Then Mac turned to her. She didn't realize she'd been shaking her head until Mac cupped the sides of her face with his hands. Any other time, she might have been frightened by the eerie red glow of the eyes looking deeply into hers, but behind that light was intelligence, concern, and the confidence she so desperately needed at this moment.

"I'm not going to let you die." He infused the words with such self-assurance, she found herself almost believing him.

In the distance, she heard the faint wail of a siren and hope sprouted. "Do you hear that? We don't have to jump."

"They're too far away, Lanie."

"No. They'll be here soon. They'll have ladders." When he looked doubtful, she hurried on. "You don't even know if you'll make it. You're weak from the sun."

"This isn't the first time we've faced overwhelming odds under the worst possible conditions," Mac told her, referring to himself and Dirk. "We'll do what it takes to get out of this alive—all of us."

At that moment, the building rumbled beneath them and they heard a loud crashing noise. Lanie knew then that Mac was right—there was no more time. Below them, the floors were collapsing. It wouldn't be long before the entire building followed.

"Go!"

She turned at Mac's shout and saw Dirk start running. Lanie saw no sign of hesitancy as he approached the edge of the building and leaped off. Her heart felt as if it went with him. For several seconds he hung in the air and then disappeared from sight. Hardly daring to breathe, she
rushed to the edge, praying she wouldn't see his dead body sprawled on the ground in the alley below.

Amazingly, there on the roof of the other building stood Dirk, looking winded and weak, but still alive. She felt Mac's hand on her arm and allowed him to pull her to the opposite side of the roof.

"I can't do this." She waved a hand at the opening. "It's too wide."

"That's why I'm going to carry you."

"What? No," she protested. "I'm too heavy."

"Not for me. Now, climb on." He turned so his back was to her and bent down.

From the vibrations of the roof beneath her feet, Lanie knew she really had no other choice. The building was about to cave in. Grabbing hold of Mac's shoulders for support, she hopped on his back and wrapped her legs around his waist.

Then, before she had time to adjust, Mac was up and running. She felt his muscles working under her legs as he raced across the roof, and then suddenly he gave a great leap and they were airborne.

Fear ripped a scream from her, and she clutched his neck in a near stranglehold, afraid she would fall. For a few seemingly endless moments, the yawning opening of the alley was the only thing beneath them, and Lanie felt the pull of the street far below. Then everything sped up as the roof of the other building rushed to meet them.