Chase the Dark (9 page)

Aside from surreptitiously monitoring Ash, Piper obsessively checked that the ring box was still tightly lodged in her bra. At this rate, she would have a permanent dent in her flesh, but after waking with the box worked halfway out, she wasn’t taking any chances.

They slept through the following day, taking turns to watch for signs of prefects. Ash’s convoluted trail was working; there was no sign of a search. Maybe the prefects had given up, though Piper didn’t put a lot of hope into the thought. She wasn’t that lucky.

Shortly after nine o’clock the following evening, Piper crouched behind a dumpster with Ash and Lyre on either side of her, staring across the street at the brightly lit medical center.

Ash had decided they should start with the medical center closest to the Consulate. Piper’s heart pounded. Aside from the lights, the place looked deserted.

“Ready?” Ash whispered.

Piper nodded, glancing at her comrades. Both were unrecognizable in stolen jeans, black t-shirts, and runners. Both daemons had adopted new glamours, opting to look like normal humans with nondescript brown hair and eyes. Apparently, changing eye color required a lot of effort. Ash looked unremarkable, and hopefully forgettable, but Lyre was the same level of mouthwatering gorgeous as usual, only in a different color scheme—all part of the plan.

She glanced at her own unflattering jeans and blah gray t-shirt. If Ash was keeping his end of the deal, her hair was now tacky bleach blond and her eyes would be blue instead of green. She’d had no idea daemons could apply glamour to other people, but Ash was no regular daemon. Even for him, it was tricky and took a lot of concentration; it also required him to be touching her, which is why they were holding hands. Awkward.

Lyre took a deep breath, rose to his feet, and strode boldly out into the street. She and Ash watched him vanish through the double doors and into the medical center. They waited. After three minutes, Ash tugged her up and, trying to look like holding his hand didn’t bother her at all, she let him lead her to the doors. Her heart felt like it was beating against the back of her throat.

Inside, the bright lights made her. A long counter shielded by thick, scratched plastic overlooked a large waiting room full of mismatched chairs. On either side of the counter, barred doors like jail cells offered glimpses of long halls. Patients being admitted were buzzed through the right side door. Patients on their way out used the left side door. A bored security guard sat on a chair inside the right-hand door, reading a tattered book.

Lyre leaned against the plastic barrier, talking to the middle-aged nurse on the other side of the desk. She was the only other person in the room besides the security guard. Her attention was fixed on the incubus’s face and a bright blush stained her cheeks. Every couple of seconds, her gaze would sweep as much of his torso as was visible before locking on his face again.

Ash steered Piper to two chairs near the security guard’s door and plunked down, managing to look irritated, bored, and anxious at the same time. Piper perched on the edge of her seat, breathing too quickly and knowing she looked anxious, bordering on panicky. Ash cast an impatient look at the desk as though he were waiting his turn to talk to the nurse. Piper bit her lip and tried not to stare at Lyre. When an incubus really turned on the charm, it was risky to even look at him.

Lyre leaned against the barrier as if it were the only thing stopping him from swooping down on the woman right where she sat. His eyes smoldered like muted fire, roving across her face as though he couldn’t stop himself, and that sexy half-smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. He murmured through the circle of holes in the plastic that enabled conversations, his words soft and intimate. The woman giggled, pressing one hand to the base of her throat.

Piper looked away, teeth clenched as she suppressed an uncalled-for urge to drape herself over the incubus. That poor woman didn’t stand a chance. A human might have wondered why the nurse was buying it; not only was she twice Lyre’s age, but even in her youth, she’d probably never had such a good-looking young man look twice at her. It was all part of the incubus magic; women always fell for it, no matter how unlikely his attention, how exaggerated his compliments, how farfetched his promises. No girl was immune.

The nurse drank in every one of Lyre’s hot looks and velvet words, blushing even more brightly. Barely two minutes later, she stood and sauntered toward the gate, her wide hips swaying. The light overhead blinked green and a low buzzer sounded. Smiling without breaking eye contact, Lyre pushed the barred door open. The security guard barely glanced up from his book. The incubus stopped inside the door, one hand resting on a steel bar, as he let his worshipful stare travel slowly over the nurse as if she were Aphrodite’s reincarnation. Even Piper was impressed by his acting skills; incubi generally went for the young and gorgeous.

Ash slid from his seat, pulling her by the hand while she shook off the haze of inappropriate fantasies parading through her mind. Damn horny incubus thoughts.

Lyre moved away from the door as Ash took his place. He lured the nurse down the hall so smoothly she never even noticed Ash and Piper coming through the still-open door. The security guard looked up and saw them. His mouth opened furiously. Ash stood in the threshold, staring like he’d forgotten where he was. Panic flashed through Piper. Before the guard could speak, she plastered on a vacant smile and plopped down on his lap. His jaw dropped, his protest forgotten.

“Hi,” she said breathily, batting her eyelashes. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a succubus, so the man stared at her for only a second before he looked at the oblivious Ash with an “is she effing crazy?” look.

Ash was still holding her hand. She slung her other arm around the man’s neck and cuddled in. “I missed you, daddy,” she cooed in a little girl voice. “Where have you
been
?” She giggled brainlessly.

The guard looked outraged at being mistaken for dad-aged. With a sudden shake of his head, Ash finally snapped out of it. He mumbled an apology as he leaned over her as if he were going to pick her up. Instead, he caught the guard’s wrist. The air sizzled with magic and the man’s eyes rolled back. His head lolled as he went limp and started snoring.

Piper lurched to her feet and shoved Ash with both hands, forcing him out of the way. As he stepped back, her hair blinked from blond back to red and black. “What the hell was that, Ash?” she spat. “You almost ruined everything.”

He again looked down the hall, his nostrils flaring. Without a single word of explanation or defense, he shook his head and turned toward the nurse’s desk. Piper almost burst with fury but before she could say anything else, Zwi sprang onto the desk, a file folder already clamped between her teeth. Ash scooped her off the desk and passed Piper the folder. She swallowed her anger, saving it for later, and snapped the file open. It was her uncle’s. Could Zwi read?

“He’s in room 344,” she read. “Damn. I was hoping he’d be on the main level.” She skimmed the page. “Thank God. It says he’s expected to recover . . . anticipate scarring . . . damage to left eye . . . broken ribs on right side . . . oh no.”

“What?” Ash demanded.

“It says his throat was damaged from”—she squinted at the page—“inhaling superheated air during the explosion. What if he can’t talk?”

“Only one way to find out,” Ash muttered, grabbing her hand. Her hair turned blond again. “Let’s find the stairs.”

Lyre had vanished with the middle-aged nurse. Lucky for him, he didn’t have to do anything with the woman—an incubus talking dirty could keep a girl distracted for quite a while. The idea was to get in and out without anyone in the medical center realizing something shifty had happened. Ash couldn’t put everyone to sleep.

They passed two cranky-looking nurses on their way down the hall. Piper had to work hard to act natural but Ash, like all daemons, was a flawless actor. The nurses barely glanced at him. She hoped Ash hadn’t noticed how sweaty her palm was getting. What she wouldn’t give to have a weapon hidden on her somewhere; they could run into gun-toting prefects at any moment.

They found the stairs without incident. As they began climbing, Piper’s nerves ratcheted higher. Ash glanced at her and she knew her anxiety was triggering instincts he normally kept suppressed—those pesky hunter instincts that made him want to pounce on fearful prey.

Reaching the third floor, he peeked through the heavy metal fire door and immediately ducked back inside. Zwi changed color to match the whitewashed brick walls and slipped through the crack. Piper clutched Ash’s hand and leaned closer.

“Prefects?” she mouthed.

He shook his head. “Doctor,” he whispered.

She squinted at him. “Uh, so what’s the problem?”

“He’s a daemon,” he explained, peering through the crack. “He’ll recognize me as daemon straight off.”

The minutes ticked by, their precious time trickling away. Sooner or later, someone would find the sleeping guard and shake him out of his magic-induced nap. The guard would then wonder where those two kids had gone. And Lyre couldn’t keep the nurse busy forever.

As she waited, a flicker of motion caught her attention. A big black spider clung to the wall near the landing a few feet away. She sucked in a breath and inched back. It crawled a little further up the wall. She stared, barely breathing.

“What are you doing?” Ash hissed.

She blinked, realizing she was pushing him into the door in her unconscious attempt to get away from the spider. “Uh—”

“Where are my keys?” someone male demanded right on the other side of the door. A female voice muttered a reply, then the guy growled, “They were in my pocket a minute ago.” Another female mutter. “I didn’t
drop them
.”

Ash smirked into the line of the light leaking between the door and jam. Piper smiled nervously. Zwi was brilliant.

“Let’s go,” Ash said as the thumping footsteps retreated. He straightened and stepped boldly through the threshold. Piper leaped to follow, delighted to leave the spider behind. The hallway smelled strongly of chemicals and was quiet with a sleepy sort of stillness. Closed doors lined the hall, each with a number. The nearest was 302.

“Which way?” she whispered.

A trilling sound made them both look up. Zwi clung to the ceiling, a ring of keys in her mouth and her wings flared for balance. She scuttled off toward the east end of the building. Together, she and Ash strode after her. The hall seemed to go on forever but the room numbers weren’t increasing fast enough. Shouldn’t there be more security guards or something? Where was everyone? The entire floor was totally silent.

The hall took a sharp left. Ash and Piper crept to corner and peered around it. Halfway down to the hall, just as they’d feared, two prefects stood guard on either side of a closed door. They looked bored out of their minds but both had holstered handguns. This was where things got dicey.

Ash pulled her back and let go of her hand.

“Change of plan,” he whispered. “I have a better idea.”

He took a couple steps back and closed his eyes. Concentration tightened his features. His whole body shimmered like he was standing on the hottest pavement ever. He grew taller and his clothes brightened into pale blue doctor’s scrubs. A goatee formed on his face and he aged fifteen years. The shimmers faded and a total stranger stood in front of her. He looked like a doctor down to every detail, including the clipboard under his arm. She was betting he was an identical replica of the doctor with the missing keys.

“That’s . . . wow,” she breathed. “I didn’t know you could take glamour that far.”

“It’s not glamour. It’s an illusion.”

Piper frowned. Wasn’t glamour a type of illusion? Ash told her to wait there and stepped confidently around the corner.

Zwi appeared beside her, poking her pale nose out to watch her master. Piper followed suit, peeking around the corner. Ash had reached the prefects. He looked down at his clipboard and said something to the prefects. One of them shook his head, looking irritated.

It happened so fast Piper would have missed it if she’d blinked. The illusion vanished as Ash slammed a fist into each prefect’s throat. They collapsed in unison, unable to make a sound. The draconian hit one then the other with his sleep spell. Piper rushed around the corner and ran to meet him.

Well, so much for the no-suspicious-behavior strategy. Maybe the prefects would assume the doctor was crazy. Together, they dragged the prefects into an empty room across the hall. Then, shaking slightly with nerves, Piper reached for the doorknob to room 344.

The door swung open before she touched the handle.

CHAPTER 5

A
T
the same time the door handle disappeared from under her hand, Ash yanked her back. He backed up so swiftly Piper tripped on her own feet.

Two men stood in the doorway grinning—no, leering. They were daemons. Even though their glamours made them essentially indistinguishable from humans, Piper had years of training in recognizing daemons; it was more a gut instinct than any sort of telltale sign. Daemons had this
feeling
to them, like the air right before a thunderstorm.

These two looked like leather-clad bounty hunters, heavily muscled and tattooed, no less than six and half feet of nasty bully mixed with powerful arrogance. One of them massaged his knuckles as if he couldn’t wait to use them. The second, armed with a blond Mohawk, folded his arms with difficulty—too much bulging muscle—and kept on leering.