by Lara Adrian
“Trust you,” she whispered, closing her eyes and tipping her head back against the office door. “I guess that’s something I can’t do right now, Dante. I have to go. Good-bye.”
She flipped the cell phone closed and shut the ringer off altogether. She didn’t want to talk anymore, not to anyone.
As Tess walked over to put the cell on her desk, her gaze caught on something else that had been troubling her since she’d found it earlier that morning. It was a computer flash drive, a slim, portable data-storage device. She’d discovered it underneath the lip of the examination table in one of her clinic rooms—the very room where Ben had been yesterday, when she’d caught him unexpectedly and he’d made excuses that he came in to repair the table’s sticky hydraulics.
Tess had suspected he wasn’t being truthful with her—about a lot of things. Now she knew that was the case. But the question was, why?
In a furious mental outburst, Dante glared at his cell phone and sent the device hurtling against the opposite wall of his living quarters. It shattered with the impact, emitting a shower of sparks and smoke as it broke into a hundred tiny pieces. The destruction was satisfying, if brief. But it did nothing to assuage his anger, all of it self-directed.
Dante resumed the tight pacing he’d been doing while on the phone with Tess. He needed to be moving now. He just needed to keep his limbs in action, his mind alert.
He’d been making a brilliant mess of everything lately. While he’d never held an inkling of regret for being born of the Breed, now his vampire blood seethed with frustration over the fact that he was trapped inside. Denied the possibility of fixing things with Tess until the sun finally retreated below the horizon and freed him to move about in her world.
He thought the wait was going to drive him out of his mind.
It nearly had.
By the time he went to find Tegan in the training facility at a few minutes to sundown, his skin was hot and prickling, too tight everywhere. He was antsy and itching for combat. His ears were ringing, the incessant buzz like a swarm of bees in his blood.
“You ready to roll, T?”
The tawny-haired Gen One warrior looked up from the Beretta he was loading and gave a cold smile as the clip snapped into place. “Let’s do it.”
Together they headed up the winding corridor of the compound to the elevator that would take them to the Order’s fleet garage on street level.
As the doors closed, Dante’s nostrils began to tickle with the acrid tang of smoke. He glanced at Tegan, but the other male seemed unaffected, his gem-green eyes fixed before him, characteristic in their unblinking, emotionless calm.
The elevator car began its silent climb upward. Dante felt an intense heat lapping at him from the ghost of a flame, just waiting for him to slow down enough that it could catch him. He knew what this was, of course. The death vision had been dogging him all day, but he’d managed to beat it back, refusing to give in to the sensory torture when he needed his head fully in the game tonight.
But now, as the elevator reached its destination, the precognition slammed into his head like a hammer. Dante went down on one knee, leveled by the force of the hit.
“Jesus,” Tegan said from beside him as Dante felt the warrior take his arm to keep him from sprawling on the elevator floor. “What the hell? You all right?”
Dante couldn’t answer. His sight filled with billowing black smoke shot with bright plumes of flame. Over the crackle and hiss of encroaching fire, he could hear someone talking—taunting him, it seemed—the voice low, indistinct. This was new, a further detail in the elusive nightmare he’d come to know so well.
He blinked away some of the haze, struggling to stay present. To stay conscious. He caught a glimpse of Tegan’s face in front of him. Shit, he must look bad, because the warrior who was known for his ruthless lack of feeling now suddenly flinched back, pulling his hand away from Dante’s arm with a hiss. Behind his pained grimace, the tips of Tegan’s fangs shone white. His light brows dropped down low over his narrowed emerald eyes.
“Can’t … breathe…” Dante gasped, every panting breath he took dragging more phantom smoke into his lungs. Choking him. “Ah, God … dying…”
Tegan’s eyes bored into him, flinty sharp. His gaze was unsympathetic but level with a strength Dante knew would keep him steady.
“You hang on,” Tegan demanded. “It’s a vision, it’s not reality. Not yet, anyway. Now, stay in there, ride it out. Go back as far as you can, and absorb all of the detail.”
Dante let the images swamp him once more, knowing Tegan was right. He had to open his mind to the pain and fear so he could look past it to the truth.
Panting, his skin searing from the heat of the inferno surging all around him, Dante forced himself to focus on his surroundings. To place himself deeper into the moment. He stretched his mind backward from the worst of the vision, halting the action, then sending it into reverse.
The flames shrank away. The smoke reduced from massive, roiling clouds of black ash to thin gray tendrils that crept in along the ceiling. Dante could breathe now, but fear still clogged his throat with the realization that these would be his last few minutes of life.
Someone was in the room with him. A male, judging from the scent of him. Dante was lying prone on something icy cold and slick while his captor yanked his hands behind his back, then bound him at the wrists with a length of wire cord. He should have been able to snap it like twine, but it wouldn’t budge. His strength was useless. The captor bound Dante’s feet next, then hog-tied him on his stomach, a slab of bare metal beneath him.
Loud crashes sounded from somewhere outside the room. He heard bansheelike shrieks, smelled the coppery stench of death nearby.
And then, a low taunt sounded near his ear: “You know, I thought killing you was going to be difficult. You’ve made it very easy for me.”
The voice faded into a self-amused chuckle as Dante’s captor came around to where his head hung over the edge of the metal platform that held him. Denim-clad legs bent at the knee, and slowly the torso of his would-be killer came into Dante’s line of sight. Rough fingers grasped him by the hair, lifting his head up to face him in the instant before the vision started to fade away, as quickly as it had come…
Holy hell.
“Ben Sullivan.” Dante spat the name out like ash on his tongue. Released from the clutches of the premonition, he dragged himself to a sitting position on the floor. Dante wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow as Tegan stared at him in grave acceptance. “Son of a bitch. It’s the Crimson dealer, Ben Sullivan. I don’t fucking believe it. That human—he’s the one who’s going to kill me.”
Tegan gave a grim shake of his head. “Not if we make him dead first.”
Dante pushed himself up to his feet, planting one palm against the concrete wall next to the elevator while he tried to catch his breath. Beneath his fatigue, rage simmered, for Ben Sullivan and for former Agent Sterling Chase, who’d evidently taken it upon himself to let the bastard go.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he growled, already stalking across the cavernous garage, flipping one of his malebranche blades between his fingers.
CHAPTER Twenty-six
Ben’s captors had let him sit forever by himself in an unlit, windowless, securely locked room. He kept waiting for the one they’d called Master to appear—the nameless, faceless individual who’d been covertly financing the development and distribution of Crimson. Time dragged, maybe a full twenty-four hours since he’d been picked up and taken here. No one had come for him yet, but they would. And in a dark corner of his mind, Ben understood that when they did, he wouldn’t get out of the confrontation alive.
He got up off the floor and made his way across the bare concrete to the closed steel door on the other side of the room. His head was screaming from the beating he’d taken before he was dragged off the street to this place. His broken nose and neck wound were crusted over with dried blood, both injuries on fir
e with raw pain. Ben put his ear to the cold metal door and listened to movement getting louder on the other side. Heavy footsteps clopped nearer and nearer, the purposeful gaits of more than one man, punctuated by the metallic jangle of chains and weaponry.
Ben backed up, retreating as far as he could into the darkness of his holding cell. There was a snick of a key turning the lock, then the door swung open and the two huge guards who’d brought him here came inside.
“He’s ready for you now,” one of the thugs growled.
Both men took Ben by the arms and wrenched him hard before shoving him forward, out the door and into a dim hallway outside. Ben had suspected he was being held in some kind of warehouse, based on the crude quarters he’d been stowed in until now. But his captors led him up a flight of stairs and into what looked to be an opulent, nineteenth-century estate. Polished wood gleamed in elegant, low lighting. Beneath his muddied shoes, a soft Persian rug spread out in an ornate pattern of deep red, purple, and gold. Above his head in the foyer his captors pushed him through, a large crystal chandelier twinkled.
For an instant, some of Ben’s alarm eased. Maybe everything would be okay, after all. He was deep into the shit lately, but this wasn’t the nightmare he’d expected it to be. Not some torture chamber of horrors as he’d feared.
Ahead of him, a set of open double doors framed yet another impressive room. Ben was guided there by his handlers, who then held him securely in the middle of the large formal sitting room. The furniture, the rugs, the original oil paintings on the walls—all of it reeked of extensive wealth. Old wealth, the kind you didn’t get without a few hundred years of practice.
Surrounded by all that opulence, seated like a dark king behind a massive, carved mahogany desk, was a man in an expensive black suit and dark sunglasses.
Ben’s palms started to sweat the instant his eyes lit on the guy. He was immense, broad shoulders straining beneath the impeccable fall of his jacket. The pressed white shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the neck, but Ben didn’t think it was a sign of casualness so much as an indication of impatience. Menace permeated the air like a thick cloud, and some of Ben’s hope strangled on the spot.
He cleared his throat. “I, uh … I’m glad to finally have the chance to meet with you,” he said, hating the tremor in his voice. “We need to talk … about Crimson—”
“Indeed, we do.” The deep, airless reply cut Ben off with its appearance of calm. But from behind those dark glasses trained on him, fury seethed. “It looks as though I’m not the only one you’ve annoyed recently, Mr. Sullivan. That’s quite a nasty gash on your neck.”
“I was attacked. Son of a bitch tried to tear my throat out.”
Ben’s shadowy employer grunted with obvious disinterest. “Who would do a thing like that?”
“A vampire,” Ben said, knowing how crazy it had to sound. But what had happened to him down by the riverfront was only the tip of a very disturbing iceberg. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. Like I said when I called the other night, something’s gone really wrong with Crimson. It’s … doing things to people. Bad things. It’s turning them into bloodthirsty lunatics.”
“Of course it is, Mr. Sullivan. That’s precisely what it was meant to do.”
“What?” Disbelief made Ben’s stomach drop in his gut. “What are you talking about? I created Crimson. I know what it’s supposed to do. It’s just a mild amphetamine—”
“For humans, yes.” The dark-haired man stood up slowly, then came around the side of the enormous desk. “For others, as you’ve discovered, it is something much more.”
As he spoke, he glanced toward the open doors of the room. Another pair of heavily armed guards stood at the threshold, their hair shaggy and unkempt, fierce eyes seeming to burn like embers under their heavy brows. In the dim light from the candles in the room, Ben thought he saw the gleam of fangs behind the guards’ lips. He flicked a nervous glance back at his employer.
“Unfortunately, I have discovered something troubling myself, Mr. Sullivan. After your call the other night, a few of my associates visited your laboratory in Boston. They searched your computer and records, but imagine my dismay to hear that they could not find the formula for Crimson. How do you explain that?”
Ben held the sunglass-shaded gaze that pinned him from only an arm’s length away. “I never keep the true formula in the lab. I thought it would be safer kept offsite, with me.”
“You need to give it to me.” There was little inflection in the words, no movement in the powerful body that stood before him like an impassable wall. “Now, Mr. Sullivan.”
“I don’t have it. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
“Where is it?”
Ben’s tongue froze. He needed a bargaining chip, and the formula was all he had. Besides, he wasn’t about to sic these thugs on Tess by telling them he’d hidden the Crimson recipe in her clinic. He hadn’t meant to leave it there for long, only until he’d sorted out his options in this mess. Too late to call back that misstep, unfortunately. Even though saving his own ass was his primary concern at the moment, putting Tess in the middle of this was out of the question.
“I can get it for you,” Ben said, “but you’ll have to let me go. Let’s agree on this like gentlemen. We sever all ties right here and now and go our separate ways. Forget we know anything about each other.”
A tight smile curved his employer’s mouth. “Don’t try to negotiate with me. You are beneath me … human.”
Ben swallowed hard. He wanted to believe that the guy was just some kind of demented vampire fantasist. A nut job who was heavy on cash but light on sanity. Except he’d seen what Crimson had done to the kid he’d dealt it to the other night. That horrific transformation had been real, hard as it was to accept. And the ragged, searing gash in his neck was real too.
Panic started hammering hard in his chest.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here. Frankly, I don’t wanna know. I just want to get the hell out of here in one piece.”
“Excellent. Then you should have no trouble complying. Give me the formula.”
“I told you, I don’t have it.”
“Then you will have to re-create it, Mr. Sullivan.” A brief nod brought the two armed guards inside. “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing your lab equipment here. Everything you need is in order, including a test subject for the finished product. My associates will show you the way.”
“Wait.” Ben shot a look over his shoulder as the guards began to remove him from the room. “You don’t understand. The formula is … complex. I don’t have it memorized. To get it right could take me several days—”
“You have no more than two hours, Mr. Sullivan.”
Bruising hands grasped Ben in an unyielding hold and pushed him back toward the descending stairwell that gaped ahead of him, as black as endless night.
Chase strapped on the last of his weapons, then checked his ammo supply one final time. He had one pistol loaded with regular rounds; another held a clip of the hollow-nose titanium specials that he’d been given by the warriors for the express purpose of killing Rogues. He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t need to use those, but if he had to blast through a dozen feral vampires to reach his nephew, he damn well would.
Grabbing his dark wool pea coat from the hook near the door, he stepped into the hallway outside his private quarters in the Darkhaven. Elise was there; he nearly ran into her in his haste to be on his way.
“Sterling … hello. Have you been avoiding me? I’d been hoping I could talk with you.” Her lavender eyes swept him in a quick glance. She frowned, seeing the array of guns and knives that circled his hips and crisscrossed his chest. He felt her apprehension, could smell the sudden, bitter note of dread mingling with the delicate scent that was simply her own. “So many terrible weapons. Is it very dangerous out there?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he told her. “Just keep praying for Camden to come home soon. I’ll take care of the r
est.”
She picked up the tail of her scarlet widow’s sash and idly smoothed the silk through her fingers. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, Sterling. Some of the other women and I have been discussing what more we can do for our missing sons. There is strength in numbers, so we thought that perhaps if we banded together … We would like to do some daytime searches of the waterfront or the old subway tunnels. We could look in the places where our sons might have gone for shelter from the sun—”
“Absolutely not.”
Chase hadn’t meant to cut her off so abruptly, but the idea of Elise leaving the sanctuary of the Darkhaven during daytime hours to venture into the worst parts of the city made his blood run cold. She would be beyond the protection of himself or any other members of the Breed so long as the sun was out, and while the Rogues would be no danger then for the very same reason, there was always the risk of running into their Minions.
“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question.”
Her eyes widened momentarily in surprise. Then she quickly glanced down, giving him a polite nod, but he could see that she bristled beneath the veneer of her propriety. As her closest kin, even by marriage, Breed law gave Chase the right to impose a daytime curfew on her—an antiquated measure that had been in existence from the origination of the Darkhavens nearly a thousand years ago. Chase had never imposed it, and while he felt like an ass for doing so now, he could not allow her to risk her life while he stood by and watched.
“Do you think my brother would approve of what you want to do?” Chase asked, knowing that Quentin never would agree to such an idea, not even in an effort to save his own son. “You can help Camden the most by staying here, where I know you are safe.”
Elise lifted her head, those pale purple eyes flashing with the spark of a determination he’d never seen in them before. “Camden is not the only child missing. Can you save them all, Sterling? Can the warriors of the Order save them all?” She let out a small sigh. “Nobody saved Jonas Redmond. He’s dead, did you know that? His mother senses that he’s gone. More of our sons are disappearing, dying every night, yet we are supposed to do nothing but sit here and wait for bad news?”