Redemption (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (36 page)

“What happened out there?” Damned if Penton wasn’t getting to be a dangerous place. But she couldn’t see herself anywhere else now.

The older man, Michael, shifted on the exam table, wincing as Krys examined his injury. “We’d gone to the old mill, trying to run off the humans Owen’s scathe was keeping tied up,” he said, his heavy Southern accent sounding more local than most Krys had heard there. “There was only four of them, all dogs.”

“Dogs?” Krys frowned at him.

“Humans who’ve been enthralled so many times they can’t do much besides follow orders,” the other man said, introducing
himself as Gary. He was younger, and Krys remembered seeing him with Will at the town hall meeting. A fam, maybe? “They were armed and waiting for us. It was FUBAR start to finish.”

“How’s Tim?” Michael asked.

Krys shook her head. “Not good. Next hour is going to be touch-and-go.”

“Mirren’s gonna do some damage,” Gary said. “I don’t want to be here when the big guy finds out somebody put a hole in his fam. Can we leave?”

“I guess, soon as Melissa stitches you up. Keep your phones on you, though.”

She called Melissa in to do the suturing, and glanced at her watch again on her way back into Tim’s room. Four forty. She, too, kind of wished she could be somewhere else when Mirren heard what had happened, but she figured she’d have a front-row seat.

Krys was adjusting the fluids feeding into Tim’s IV when Jennifer arrived, a petite blonde who looked scared and half in shock herself. She caught the distraught woman’s arm before she got to Tim. “Take a deep breath,” she said softly. “Calm yourself down. Then sit with him, talk to him quietly, try to get him to respond to you. Don’t let him see you’re afraid.”

“Is he going to make it?”

Krys hesitated and Jennifer covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

“What you can do for him is to not let him see how scared you are. Talk to him. Can you do that?”

Jennifer swallowed hard, wiped her eyes, and nodded. She took a couple of deep breaths and walked to the stool next to Tim. As soon as she said his name and took his hand, his eyes shifted and latched onto her.

At least he won’t die alone.
Krys squeezed her shoulder. “He sees you. Keep talking to him.”

She slipped into the hall and leaned against the wall, exhausted, closing her eyes and beating her head gently against the painted paneling. There were still two patients in the clinic who’d been injured in the restaurant explosion, and now Tim. How was Aidan going to fix this? In her visions Hannah had seen Krys helping him, but how? She could treat the injured but that wasn’t going to solve the problem.

After checking on Tim again, she walked to the front reception desk, leaning against it and waiting for Mirren or Aidan. She wasn’t sure who would get there first. Tim was Mirren’s fam, so he’d know something was wrong as soon as he woke. But Mirren and Aidan were bonded as well, so it was a toss-up as to who’d get where, and when.

Turned out to be Aidan. She’d barely registered his car pulling into the lot before he strode through the doors, his eyes pale and angry. If she’d had an ounce of sense, she’d have avoided him when he looked like that—very predatory and not so human, despite his iron self-control. But she hurt for him. This was one more thing he’d blame on himself.

“How is he?” Aidan put a hand on Krys’s elbow and headed toward the exam rooms.

With him she had to be straight up. She stopped outside the door and kept her voice low. “Honest answer? I’ve done all I can. It’ll be a miracle if he makes it—I’m surprised he’s still alive.”

She stopped him on his way into Exam One. “Not that one, next one. You had two guys stabbed but the wounds were minor. Mel’s stitching them up, and I told them they could go home but stay by the phone in case you wanted to talk to them.”

He nodded. “Names?”

“Gary Thomas and Michael something.”

Aidan nodded again and eased into the second room. Krys followed close behind in case he tried to talk to Tim, but he stopped just inside the door, watching Jennifer as she continued to chatter in the face of Tim’s unblinking stare.

Aidan looked devastated.

A minute later, Tim flatlined. Krys had already moved the clinic’s portable defibrillator into the room, so she ordered everyone but Melissa outside and used the paddles. His heartbeat bounced erratically for a few seconds, then flatlined again. Krys knew it was hopeless but she worked on him for another ten minutes before calling time of death. Even Penton would have to file reports, but she’d figure out the paperwork later.

She turned off the monitors and unhooked them before nodding to a tearful Melissa to open the doors again. Jennifer could be as hysterical as she wanted to be now.

Mirren stood motionless in the hallway, and when Krys shook her head, he clenched his jaw and followed Jennifer into the room, closing the door softly behind him.

“I’m sorry.” Krys took Aidan’s hand.

“This has to stop,” he said, his voice so quiet she strained to hear. “It ends tonight.”

G
un: check.

Knives: check.

Extra bullets: check.

Pissed-off, righteous fury: check.

Aidan slipped into his Kevlar vest and jerked the straps tight.

Mark handed him a jacket, but he shook his head. “It’ll slow me down.” He’d fed from Mark at his insistence, since Krys and Melissa were busy at the clinic, but now it was time to go.

Mark pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and checked the clip.

“Go home,” Aidan said. “This is my job.”

“Listen, Ai—”

“No. I won’t have Mel go through the shit Jennifer’s dealing with tonight. Besides, I need you to contact Will and Hannah and the other scathe leaders. They know the chain of command if something happens to me. I’m shutting down the bonds between me and everyone except Mirren. Tell him if that bond
gets cut, he’s in charge.” He paused. “Mating bonds can’t be cut, so keep an eye on Krys.” That was a factor he hadn’t dealt with before.

He didn’t give Mark a chance to answer, brushing past him to the porch, down the steps and to his car. He cranked it and was backing out of the driveway when a figure behind him gave him no option but to slam on the brakes.

Mirren got into the passenger seat, sliding it back to accommodate his long legs. His voice was quiet. “You aren’t taking this one by yourself. That son of a bitch is mine, and I want his human shooter too.”

Aidan nodded. He didn’t like it, but a man had a right to avenge his own. He backed his car out of the drive and headed toward downtown.

“What’s the plan?” Mirren checked the clip in his gun.

“Kill Owen,” Aidan said. “I haven’t thought much beyond that.”

“Works for me.”

They drove in silence to a side street a block from the mill. It was still early evening, and Aidan thought chances were good that if the scathe had found day spaces nearby, the vamps might not have gone far.

He parked the car in an alley between a closed-down feed store and the old Greyhound station, and they sat for a few seconds, listening, scanning the area for movement.

“Let’s go.” Aidan exited the car and eased the doors closed, Mirren behind him. They stayed in shadows, moving in silence toward the mill.

The rectangular two-story building rose like a tombstone of Southern industry—Aidan’s first purchase in his systematic acquisition of Penton. His plan had been simple: buy all the
land, period. Nobody outside the scathe could move in because he controlled the real estate. But he hadn’t done more than a cursory walk-through of the mill. He should’ve been paying more attention.

He visualized the interior as nearly as he could remember it: large, cavernous factory floor where the remnants of a few behemoths lay scattered: roller combs with needle-sharp steel teeth, spinning machines, and, along one end, the remains of a weaving room containing the skeletons of a couple of massive early-twentieth-century machines.

Offices and smaller rooms were upstairs and in poor repair, thanks to a crumbling, leaky roof. Aidan doubted they’d improved since his walk-through. The partial basement had collapsed around the stairway.

They circled the building and approached the rear entry. Aidan shut down his mental bonds to Will and Hannah, and mentally told Mirren to do the same. If they both went down, Will would take charge. Damn...they really could have used Lucy.

They stood outside the entry and listened.
Humans inside,
Aidan said.
No vampires. Secure any humans unless you find Tim’s shooter; do what you want to him. I’ll flush Owen out, but I’ll need to cut our bond temporarily to lure him.

Mirren nodded and moved away, dark, fast, lethal.

Aidan leaned against the brick wall, turning his mind to his brother. Once, he’d known Owen better than anyone, could have predicted his moves. Maybe he still could. Time had passed, but he doubted Owen had changed any more than Aidan had. Vampires didn’t do personality changes—they kept whatever shitload of baggage they’d had when they were turned.

A leopard might change its spots, but even if it put on a zebra suit, it would still be a leopard. And Owen would still be
charismatic and funny and able to charm the horns off a devil. He’d also still be an arrogant bastard, a show-off, and, at heart, a coward.

Aidan walked into the center of the mill’s empty rear parking lot and stood beneath the light, his back to the tall wooden pole still crowded with staples from handbills advertising garage sales and bake-offs and fairs long past. He waited.

Occasionally his senses alerted him to vampires in the vicinity, and even to a couple of humans. Gunshots rang from the front of the mill, tingeing the cold air with the acrid odor of spent bullets and human blood. Whatever it was, Mirren could handle it.

It took an hour for Owen to get close enough for Aidan to sense him, approaching from behind. He slowed, no doubt wondering where the cavalry was hidden. Aidan didn’t move.

Finally boot heels clicked on the pavement behind him. “Áodhán. You’ve come to turn over the keys to your fair city?” Owen walked around to face his brother. He’d just fed; his skin was flushed and his blue eyes darker than usual. Aidan wondered if the human donor had survived. Owen didn’t have any weapons visible but for a knife strapped to one thigh and a long silver blade—a sword—strapped across his back, hilt-up for an easy cross-draw.

He searched Owen’s face for the boy he’d idolized when he was young, hoping he wouldn’t find a trace of him. It would make killing him harder. But the brothers locked gazes and Owen smiled—the same smile he’d used on their
máthair
to get out of milking; the one with which he’d charmed the girls while Aidan didn’t have the nerve even to speak to them. It lit up his face, and for a second he was
Eógan
again.

But memories were a trapdoor through which Aidan couldn’t afford to fall. “You know why I’m here. It’s time this ends.” He slid into the formal tongue. “I declare an impasse broken only by battle.” He didn’t move as Owen prowled around him, but his nerves were sharp, his fingers ready to react.

“By proxy again, is it? I agree.” Owen held up a hand toward the woods behind them. The same young girl he’d used to ambush Mirren emerged from them. “You remember Sherry?”

Aidan looked at the young girl, who licked her lips and fidgeted with the buttons of her coat. Nervous.

Interesting that he’d brought the girl—could she be the only scathe member he had left? “No proxy. You’ve made it clear you don’t honor the accords,
Eógan.
” Aidan spat his brother’s name in the old language, the sight of the child wiping out the sentimental crap and replacing it with icy rage.

Owen laughed and nodded at Sherry, who circled behind Aidan and out of his view. He could hear the girl’s shoes making soft thuds on the pavement before stopping directly behind him.

“You must think I’m a fool, Brother. I know the way you bond your people and how big your scathe is. You think I’m stupid enough to go against you one-on-one?”

“I know you aren’t stupid.” Aidan held his hands out, palms up. “I have severed the bonds to my lieutenants. It’s just us.”

Owen’s mouth pulled up in a slight smile. “Even you wouldn’t be that big an
eejit.
” He walked to within a few inches of Aidan and raised his eyes slightly to look at him. “I always forget you grew taller than me, little brother.”

He leaned in, his face next to Aidan’s, and inhaled deeply. “You are that big a fool,” he laughed softly. “Except—” He
grabbed Aidan’s shoulders and inhaled deeply again. Aidan stiffened but didn’t push him away.

“
Amrae n-amrae
,” he exhaled.
Wonder of wonders
. “I sense one or two bonds remaining, and you have taken a mate. My congratulations to you, Brother. Maybe we can share again.”

Aidan clenched his jaw but kept his expression bland. He hadn’t expected Owen to be able to tell that his bond with Krys was different. Wrong, obviously.

He sensed, rather than heard, movement at his back, and he suddenly dropped to a crouch as Sherry rushed him from behind, knife flashing in his peripheral vision. She was no fighter. He easily grabbed her arm and pulled the knife from her grip, shoving it into her abdomen and angling it upward. She fell to the ground with a whimper. The girl would survive, but Owen wouldn’t be sending her in to fight for a few days.