Chosen by Blood (24 page)

He shook his head sharply.

A mage’s enchantment powers, like vamp persuasion, were, like everything else, most effective when surprise was an element. Although they could likely control Mahone within seconds, he’d be expecting it and might be able to fire his gun before the persuasion took hold.

“Stop this, Kyle,” Felicia snapped, but Knox saw the hint of confusion—and yes, fear—that had darkened her eyes. Knox wanted to kill Mahone for that alone.

“Were you in on it, Felicia? Or did Devereaux have you fooled, too?”

Knox growled and, picking Parker off his feet and carrying the agent with him, stalked closer toward Mahone.

Felicia shook her head. “Knox, stop.”

The command momentarily made him freeze. “I’ll stop once I’ve killed him,” he agreed.

“You’re not going to kill him. No one’s going to kill anyone.” She glared at Mahone. “Isn’t that right, Kyle?”

“Conceding that would be stupid and I’ve been stupid enough.” Mahone narrowed his eyes at Knox. “When did you do it? Did you teleport in from the limo once you knew where you were headed? How’d you clean the blood off yourself so fast?”

In response, Knox shifted his grip until he had Parker in a choke hold. Mercilessly, he squeezed until Parker was gasping for air, his feet dangling off the ground and thrashing wildly.

“Knox, stop!” Felicia cried.

Looking at her in disbelief, Knox didn’t loosen his hold. “Why are you—”

“He thinks you killed the scientists,” she shouted. “He won’t hurt me. He’s just trying to gain an advantage, stupidly, so he can get information.”

“I don’t think he killed the scientists, I know he did,” Mahone shot back. “There’s no way anyone else could have gotten into those rooms so fast. Not without teleporting there.”

Parker had stopped kicking his feet, and his gasps for air were quieting. “I didn’t kill the scientists,” Knox said slowly, his gaze locked on the gun at Felicia’s head. If he saw Mahone’s trigger finger quiver . . .

Mahone’s finger didn’t shift but his hand did. He snapped the gun away from Felicia, pointing the barrel upward. Immediately, Knox dropped Parker. Instead of grabbing Felicia away from Mahone, however, he grabbed Mahone and teleported into the warehouse.

As soon as his feet touched the ground again, he pushed Mahone away from him. Mahone landed on his knees with his forearms pressed into the floor. Both he and Knox cursed as the sleeves of his lightweight gray jacket darkened with blood.

Dr. Lipinski was lying on the ground, her throat sliced and blood pooling around her body. Mahone scrambled to his feet, slipping slightly before recovering his balance.

“Damn it,” Knox shouted as he knelt beside the scientist’s body, searching for signs of life. Of course, there were none.

Immediately, he opened his senses and tried to take in any residual thoughts or emotion that might have been trapped in the room. Just like before, he got nothing.

He heard Mahone’s enraged growl, however, loud and clear, before the human plowed into him.

Mahone’s strength surprised him. He’d gotten in the one punch before, but now Mahone wrapped his fingers around Knox’s throat as if he truly believed he could kill him. Knox had had enough.

Picking up Mahone as easily as he had Parker, Knox pinned him against one wall. “I didn’t do this,” he said through clenched teeth. “Think about it, Kyle. You know I wouldn’t do this. It serves no purpose for me.”

“You got the info about the antidote,” Mahone gasped. “You got what you needed and you killed them.”

“No. I didn’t kill them. Look at me and listen. I. Didn’t. Kill. Them.”

“You’re the only one—”

“No,” Knox said, emphasizing it by knocking Mahone’s head back against the wall. “I wouldn’t do it, Mahone. Start thinking straight or I’ll snap your neck right now.”

Slowly, Mahone’s rough breaths eased in equal proportion to the wild look in his eyes. When he was finally calm, Knox let him go so that he slid down the wall and to his feet.

“They’re all dead?” Knox asked.

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“I want to see.”

Rubbing his neck where Knox had gripped him, Mahone stared at him. “Fine.”

“Mahone.”

Mahone turned back to him.

“I’d advise you not to use Felicia as a shield again. Next time, I’ll be expecting it. And I will kill you before I let you touch her again.”

 

 

Within an hour, Knox and the rest of his team were being driven back to Quantico in the same luxurious limo. He looked around and immediately wanted to rip something—anything—apart. The contrast between their slick ride and the dejected faces surrounding him was a fucking joke.

Anger flooded his veins even harder, and Knox gritted his teeth to hold back his shouts of fury. The anger, however, was something he welcomed; it was so much better than the defeat and fear he’d felt in the isolated warehouse/prison he’d just left.

The scientists were dead. Every single one of them. Someone had gotten into Mahone’s fortress of steel and had managed to slit the throats of all five.

“Something’s wrong,” Felicia said. “The timing of these murders is too coincidental to ignore. And you said that place was locked tighter than Fort Knox”—she didn’t even smile at that—“with a platoon of agents on guard.”

“It was an inside job,” Knox said. “It had to be. Of course, everyone’s going to deny that. They’d rather believe I had something to do with it. That I somehow materialized inside, did the deed, and then materialized out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Felicia sneered. “Anyone who knows anything about vamps—”

“I agree something’s wrong, all right,” Hunt interrupted, “and that it was an inside job. The number one suspect to look at is your pal, Mahone.”

“Mahone didn’t kill them,” Felicia protested. “I’ve known him half my life and he’d never sanction something so senseless.”

“Oh, come off it,” Hunt snapped. “You know as well as I do he wasn’t saying ‘pretty please’ when he was asking those scientists for information.” He jerked a thumb at Knox. “I’m betting the vamp wasn’t going to ask nicely, either. What does that mean? That you can believe in a government that’ll use torture in order to get information, but not one who’ll kill to keep the information from getting out?”

“What possible reason would Mahone have for killing those scientists?”

“Maybe Hunt is right. Maybe the scientists finally cracked and told Mahone where the antidote was,” Knox said quietly. “Maybe since he didn’t need us to find it anymore, he wanted to make sure the scientists didn’t tell us where it was before he could get it himself.” Even as he spoke, Knox wasn’t buying it. He was just processing. Going through all the possibilities because nothing seemed to make any sense.

Felicia twisted around to see him. “So you think this is all an elaborate hoax? That Mahone formed the team to what? To throw you off the scent? Wave the possibility of the antidote in your face for the sole purpose of keeping it away from you? That makes no sense.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Wraith muttered. “Government intelligence is an oxymoron.”

“Ha ha,” Felicia snarled. She looked once more at Knox. “If you think Mahone is that devious, then why not me, too? I work for him after all. I’d have had the inside scoop to all of this.”

Knox stared at her. What she was saying was like rubbing at an already raw wound. He didn’t want to hear it, so he was harsher than he meant to be when he said, “You don’t need to point that out, believe me.”

She flinched and sucked in a breath. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing other than what I just said.” He knew he’d hurt her, but he remained stubbornly quiet. Once again, his thoughts returned to the sight of those scientists, those
mortal
human scientists, with their lifeblood spilled around them. When he glanced up, he saw that Felicia’s face had settled into a mask of stiff betrayal. Knox sighed and reached out to cover her hand with his own.

She smacked it away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. None of you.”

“What about me?” O’Flare piped up. “I’m a human, too. Who knows, maybe I’m in on Mahone’s little scheme.”

“Shut up, O’Flare,” Wraith snapped.

“Ah, the wraith speaks,” O’Flare said with little heat. His words, in fact, sounded more obligatory than impassioned. “ Although you really do need to work on your vocabulary, Wraith. They say variety is the spice of life.”

Knox watched the amazement form on everyone’s faces. He was sure his own face was just as amazed. Lucy rarely spoke with anything but a calm, rational tone. To hear her scream, in the small, crowded confines of the limo no less, was startling indeed.

“ All of you have done nothing but bicker since the day this team has been formed. It’s no wonder we’re not getting any relevant information. You’re too busy making asses of yourselves to think straight.”

When Lucy looked out the window, Knox cleared his throat and motioned for her to continue. “I’d like to hear how someone who’s thinking straight would proceed from this point.”

When Lucy didn’t acknowledge him, Knox sighed. “Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with sugar on top.” As he said the words, Knox looked at Felicia, noting the blush that instantly rose to her cheeks. But he didn’t miss the way she pursed her lips, either. She was clearly still pissed by his earlier comment.

Sweet and sour—that was Felicia. Suddenly, all he wanted was to kiss that mutinous expression off her face. As he pictured it, he hardened. Now, in addition to his frustration and fear, he had to deal with an aching cock that was so hard he could use it to hammer nails.

“Fine.” Lucy turned to face Knox, who adjusted his jacket to cover his crotch. “Did you get a sense of anyone’s identity when you saw the scientists? I don’t mean reading their minds, but I know certain things just come to you, information that surrounds a person and just announces itself to those who can hear. Did you hear anything like that?”

“No,” Knox answered truthfully.

The mage seemed to deflate right before his very eyes. “Oh.”

“Uh, hello?” All eyes turned to O’Flare, who was waving his hand. “Human psychic here. How come no one’s asking me if I know the scientists’ names?”

Anticipation filled the air. “Do you?” Lucy asked.

“No.”

“Prick,” Wraith muttered. This time her insult was followed by a round of murmured agreements.

“I’ve got something better than their names.”

Knox glared at the man. “Stop playing games and just tell us.”

O’Flare smiled. “Okay. I’ve got their addresses.”

“Bullshit.”

O’Flare ignored Hunt. “I get these visions sometimes. Often I don’t know what they are or what they mean. Sometimes my dead grandfather is able to help me out with that, but it takes a ritual or two, quite a long process really, to make contact with him.”

O’Flare glanced at the wraith, who immediately looked away, but not before both Knox and O’ Flare saw the spark of interest in her normally dull eyes.

“Anyway, last night, after all of the tension with Mahone, I had a vision. A series of numbers, all jumbled together. Then a list of words. Again, none of them making any sense.”

“And what?” Felicia urged. “Your grandfather came and visited you and told you the addresses of five dead scientists?”

“No. He didn’t have to. I didn’t know it until now, but that’s what the vision represents—their addresses. At least one but probably more. And the address has significance. I can’t explain how I know, I just feel it. And when I get a feeling like this, I’m never wrong.”

“Never?” Wraith asked hesitantly.

O’Flare locked eyes with her. “Never.”

“Then what do we need to do?” Knox asked.

“I need to get back to Quantico and sit down with someone who’s good at puzzles. Any chance any of you qualify?”

Knox waited for a hand to go up, but was still unprepared for the one that did.

“I’m pretty good at them,” the wraith said gloomily.

O’Flare just grinned. “See? I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

 

 

They arrived in Quantico within the hour. While O’Flare and Wraith holed up together, hopefully to decipher the addresses from O’Flare’s vision, Felicia locked herself in her room. She was so pissed that if she didn’t, she was sure she’d come unglued.

Was it true? Did Knox really think she was helping Mahone to play him? After their history? Her history with his family? After what they’d become to each other?

“And what exactly is that, Felicia?”

She shrieked and whirled to face Knox. “You—you . . .” Cocking her arm back, she punched him in the face with all her might. He didn’t even try to deflect the blow, so his head snapped back. But just barely.

“Don’t sneak into my room again,” she ordered, “and don’t sneak into my mind, damn it.”

Knox touched the corner of his mouth, then wiggled his jaw. “I plead to the first but not the second,” he countered. “You were muttering to yourself.”

“I was not . . .” she began, but then paused. Had she . . . Okay, so maybe she had been. It didn’t justify his little surprise drop-ins. She turned her back on him and rubbed her knuckles, more for something to do than because she’d hurt herself on his thick, dense skull.

“Again, I’m hearing your thoughts loud and clear with absolutely no effort on my part.” As he spoke, Knox tugged her around and took her hand. After a brief game of tug-of-war, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles she’d been rubbing.

She’d just started to melt before she remembered she was pissed at him. She snatched her hand away. “Don’t. You might get dirty. After all, I’m a traitor, right?”

“I never said that.”

“Yes, you—”

“No,” Knox insisted loudly, his voice practically booming to be heard over hers. “I didn’t. I said you didn’t have to list all the evidence that might lead someone to jump to that conclusion.”