Red Night ((Book 1) Timewalker Chronicles) (7 page)

When he reached Trent’s back door, he was rewarded by the sound of Alexa’s sexy voice cursing, and the door handle rattling. “Need a little help?”

“You were supposed to wait in the car.”

A chuckle escaped, despite the situation. “Sit still like a good boy while you go in there and get yourself killed? Not in this lifetime, angel.” He hated talking to air.

“But they can see you.”

“Yeah, and we’re all dead tomorrow anyway.”

Apparently she didn’t have a sassy comeback for that. Alexa reappeared in front of him and he sighed in relief. So far, she’d had no luck picking the lock. Then he heard a soft click and her soft sigh of relief. “Finally.”

The heavy oak door swung open silently and they both tensed in anticipation of an alarm sounding. Instead, an unnatural silence crept out of the house to envelop them in its cold embrace. The alarm panel next to the door stared back at them with an eerie green glow.

Worried blue eyes flashed back at him over Alexa’s shoulder. “Something’s wrong.”

He wanted to argue, but couldn’t. The very air seemed to dread their entry. Sliding his arm around her waist he forced her behind him. “I don’t suppose you’d go wait in the car?”

She tried to shove past him, but he tightened his grip. “Stay behind me…and disappear.”

The house was wrecked. Expensive artwork torn off the walls and smashed over antique chairs in the front room. Tables overturned. Lamps shattered. Plush couch cushions embroidered with scenes of nineteenth century social life, ripped to shreds. Dishes in pieces on the paisley patterned carpeting. Even the drywall was punched through. Holes of various sizes dotted the walls in a haphazard fashion where someone had obviously used a sledgehammer with gusto. Spray paint adorned two walls in the dining room with curse words and juvenile insults. Luke shook his head. “Looks like kids.”

Alexa’s disembodied voice answered from the other side of the formal dining room. “That’s what they wanted it to look like.”

“Maybe.” He had a bad feeling about this. “Alexa, go back outside. Don’t touch anything. I’ll look around.”

Silence.

“Alexa?”

“I’m not leaving.” Her answer drifted to him from another room. Was she upstairs? His gaze darted to the circular staircase that hugged the left side of the marble-floored foyer.

“Shit.” He sprinted up the stairs two at a time.

In contrast, the second story was pristine. Gilded mirrors and paintings decorated the walls in precisely measured intervals. Artificial flowers sat undisturbed in imported vases that lined the hallway like sentinels resting on the hardwood floors. The quiet was more pronounced here, the well paid for perfection of their surroundings drove the silence home like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence. All the doors were closed. All but one. “Alexa?”

Where was she?
His instincts screamed at him that someone was up here, waiting for her. Thank the Lord she was invisible to the naked eye. With her penchant for rushing headlong into trouble he hoped that ability would be enough to keep her from getting killed.

He crept closer to the open doorway and was almost glad she didn’t answer. If he didn’t know where she was, no one else would either.

The one open door loomed in front of him and he stood to the side for a moment, just listening. Silence. He slid into the room and looked around. Two ivory reading chairs and a burgundy loveseat huddled around a gas fireplace along one wall. Thick navy carpeting muffled his footsteps as he walked over to the sprawling antique desk across the room. The middle wall was covered in windows and floor to ceiling bookshelves decorated with leather-bound volumes of the classics. Books he was sure Trent had never read. But then, it was obvious that appearances meant everything to Trent. The entire house was a testament to his social ambitions.

The computer was humming where it sat in the shadows beneath the desk. He took two more steps before he saw the trails of dark liquid that splattered and slid down the front of the flat screen monitor. Artificial light flashed beneath the splatter pattern, casting a strange glow on the wall behind the desk.

Luke’s legs stopped of their own accord. He knew what he was going to find, knew, and didn’t want to permanently sear the image into his consciousness by looking.

Like a ghost come back to life, Alexa came into focus beside the desk. The shock in her eyes told him what she would say before she spoke to confirm it. “I think he’s dead.”

So much for ending this thing tonight. Trent’s death would multiply their problems by a factor of ten.

Alexa jumped back with a yelp.

He rushed to her side, blood pounding in his ears.

“He moved.”

If there was one thing he did
not
want to do, it was look down. Resigned, he dropped his gaze just as Trent’s fingers curled around his pant leg like giant blood stained leeches. “Shit.”

“Luke.” Trent choked and sputtered where he laid flat on his back, then spit blood onto the floor. “He took it. I’m sorry.”

Dropping to one knee beside Trent, he attempted to see beyond the blood. His boss had been shot multiple times. Chest. Stomach. Head. It was a miracle he was still alive. But he wouldn’t be for long. “Alexa, find me a phone.”

“No. Too late. Just listen.” Trent grabbed Luke’s forearm in a death grip. “Get the case back. He’s crazy.”

“Who?” Trent’s fingernails cut into his skin but he barely noticed. The only thing that mattered was finding out who had the virus now.

“Kline.”

Matthew Kline. He remembered the name from Alexa’s tale. Matthew was the man with whom he shared the privilege of being among the first to die. “Who is he?”

“He lied. Tomorrow. The Plaza. He said…” Trent rolled onto his side and blood slowly poured from his open lips like thick red syrup. The warm liquid slurred his words. “…we deserved it.”

Luke knew enough to realize that Trent’s stomach was filling with blood. Probably his lungs too. The paramedics couldn’t make it in time. “Why?”

Trent’s eyes closed, his last words were a sigh of surrender. “For playing God.”

Numb, empty, Luke stared down at the dead man’s face. If anyone had been playing God, he had. He’d created the monster and Trent had been killed for it.

Still staring at Trent, he was vaguely aware of Alexa as she unplugged Trent’s computer, kicked the side panel off, and smashed everything inside with her black boot heel. After just a minute silence once again surrounded them. His little time traveler was efficient.

“Luke?” Alexa whispered from somewhere behind him.

Luke ignored her, gave his analytical mind a minute to catch up to the horror staring at him through Trent’s lifeless eyes. What a mess! The M-6 was missing. Now Trent was murdered. This was rapidly getting out of hand. Who could he call? Would the Colonel believe any of this? Even if he left Alexa out of the story, the entire thing would sound paranoid. He now had a dead body and the missing cultures to back up his claims. Or get him locked away forever. The Colonel would believe him. But how quickly could the Colonel mobilize a team? And would they help or hurt his and Alexa’s chances of stopping this thing? He couldn’t just call the police. The Mutant Project was classified above top-secret. Word leaked out and there’d be mass hysteria. Streetwide panic. Shit would hit the fan so far up the food chain it would be a national scandal.

“Luke!” Her panic laced whisper caught his attention and Luke sprang to his feet.

“What?”

“Someone’s still here.” She jerked her head in the direction of the hallway.

“Give me your gun.” He closed the distance and pushed her behind him. Shock widened her eyes and made him smile, despite the dire situation. “Relax. I’m not an idiot either.”

Without hesitation, she grabbed the gun from her ankle holster, but refused to give it to him. “I’m an expert marksman. Are you?”

“I’m not bad.” He was an excellent shot, but he didn't want to leave her unprotected. Her raised eyebrows told him she wasn’t buying it. She handled the gun with such ease it seemed like a natural extension of her hand. Better to keep her safe. If he had to take someone out, he'd have to do it the old-fashioned way...with his bare hands.

“You think my mother would send me off into the big bad universe with no training at all? I could kick your ass right now or shoot you from a block away. My fingerprints aren’t on any government database, either.”

The woman had a point about the fingerprints. Then she darted past him into the hallway, and disappeared into thin air. “Damn it.”

“Come on.” Her voice was drifting toward the staircase just a few feet away. “He’s downstairs. Let’s see if we can get this guy and get the hell out of here.”

Who could argue with that logic? When he reached the staircase a blinking red light caught his eye. Seconds later a steady beeping filled the house. “Alexa, he tripped the alarm.” Motion detectors he’d paid no attention to suddenly blinked down on them with evil red eyes from every corner as if they knew their master was dead. “We gotta get out of here. Now!”

Neither spoke while they raced from the house. Alexa watched him wipe her fingerprints off of the back door handle, and then followed behind him like a shade, darting from shadow to shadow, sprinting back to his Cherokee.

Next to him, Alexa flinched when the engine’s roar was a thunderclap on the silent street. Luke pulled away from the curb, turned the Jeep around, and headed home. When they were a safe distance from Trent’s house, Alexa stirred on the seat beside him. “That went well.”

“We’re not dead, yet, angel.” Not the most comforting words, but the truth. “We know where he’s going with it, and I have friends who can help us.”

Strain was lining her forehead and draining the color from her already pale face. Leaning her head back against the headrest she closed her eyes. “We’ve got less than twenty-four hours.”

Alexa knew Luke would disapprove. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with him about it so she sat across from him inside the car with her mouth shut and counted the minutes. This was her mission. Her only reason for existence. If that meant she had six-inch knives strapped to both thighs and her 9mm handgun on her ankle, so be it. If she had to shoot a few people at the party to make sure no one walked out of there infected with M-6, then, so help her God, she was going to do it.

That included herself and Luke. She’d never been much for praying, but if she were forced to kill a man in cold blood to save the world, and then rot in prison on this planet for the rest of her life, she was going to need all the help she could get when it was time to pull the trigger.

The car stopped and their driver opened the door for her. As much as she hated herself for it, she fled the confined space and Luke’s knowing gaze like a panicked rabbit would flee a fox.

“You look beautiful.” Luke stepped out of the rented limousine behind her onto the sidewalk in front of the Frost Bank Tower and lightly caressed her arm. He looked drop-dead gorgeous in his tuxedo. No pun intended. “The dress is perfect.”

“Thank you.” What was the use in playing coy? She knew she looked good. But last time she’d checked, being beautiful wouldn’t help her stop a psycho.

What she needed was to stay calm, centered. Beneath this killer dress was her 9mm Lady Remington. Stuffed inside a matching clutch she had several rounds of ammunition. Hiding a large number of bullets had posed a problem so she’d left most of them behind. Standing there yesterday afternoon, listening to the pawnshop salesman sell his wares to the visible customers, she’d concluded that she couldn’t kill that many people anyway. She might be forced to hold them all prisoner in quarantine and watch them die of Red Death, but she couldn’t shoot innocent victims in cold blood. Even though a shot through the heart would be a more merciful ending.

No. She was just going to have to stop Matthew Kline before he had a chance to infect them all at the party. Putting a bullet into his fanatical skull would be less of a moral challenge.

Looking good when she put him out of his misery was just an added little bonus. She guessed she just had a little too much of her mother in her. And the testosterone of nine men in the house to contend with growing up. Dressing up was always fun.

She’d swept her hair up into a sexy chignon that exposed her long neck and made her hope Luke would find an excuse to kiss the sensitive skin there. The dress was the same pale blue as her eyes, like an arctic glacier, and shimmered when she moved. The layered material was so soft, it felt like rose petals beneath her fingertips. More importantly, it didn’t make a sound when she moved. Delicate spaghetti straps bared her shoulders and drew attention to the translucent wrap of the same material that she draped around her shoulders and over her arms. The bodice hugged her body in waves until it reached the flare of her hips, then the dreamy material fell straight to the floor. She looked demure, innocent, and still had room under the skirt to hide her gun.

Only one thing ruined the whole effect, pantyhose. Horrible disgusting things. That was one thing she’d hoped hadn’t been invented in this dimension. Why didn’t they send someone back through time to prevent that thinly veiled attack against women?