Kiss of Darkness (17 page)

He stood. “I’ll come with you.”

She pursed her lips and he waited for her to tell him no, to argue. It surprised him when she only shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

What was she up to now? He followed her out. She eschewed the elevator too and hurried down the emergency stairs. He followed her down and into the basement.

At the locked door, she swiped a security card then laid her palm flat against a reader. The light turned green and she twisted the knob. He followed her in, felt the weight of the lead-lined walls pressing against him as he entered. There would be no teleporting in or out of this place. It was as secure as they could make it. But what happened if they were trapped? If one evening demons crowded in the hall waiting for them to exit? He filed the problem away for later. These weren’t his people and therefore not his immediate concern, though he knew it was something he’d have to help Gia address. Assuming she hadn’t already of course.

She walked over to a tall good-looking man with the aura of great age and Luke bristled even after seeing the thick gold band on his left hand. He approached, set a hand on her hip and held her to him when she would have jerked away. The scientist cocked an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“Timothy. Luke.” She ground out the introductions through gritted teeth. “What’s up?”

Timothy nodded but didn’t offer to shake his hand. Smart man. He handed Gia a stack of papers. “Prelim from Benjamin’s compound. We’re re-running to double-check.”

“Why? What did you find?”

“It’s more what we didn’t find.”

Her brows drew together as she skimmed the pages. He read it over her shoulder. Line after line of item numbers matched with names. His stomach rolled. They’d matched what remaining body parts they could through DNA.

“Where’s Benjamin?” she whispered, flipping to the last page. He wasn’t there either and she looked up to meet Timothy’s gaze. Luke kept his suspicion and his sadness, to himself. He’d known Benjamin for years. He may have been a hybrid, but he was one of the good guys. Had he gone rogue? Was that why there were no remains of his to identify? It would explain why the demons had found the hybrids so easily.

Timothy shrugged. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Gia was shaking her head.
Not rogue. No way.
He didn’t think she was even aware of using telepathy to speak to him, she was so aggravated by the thought. She went over the list again.

“Janet’s here.”

Janet was Benjamin’s wife. They’d been bonded for years, as long as Luke had known him. Supposedly, a bonded hybrid couldn’t go rogue, but was that true? They were as insular as the other supernatural races and more secretive about some things than the nightwalkers and lupines.

A heavy burden of dread pooled in his belly. What if he couldn’t keep Gia safe? What if the bond wasn’t enough? He couldn’t live without her; that was not an option. But he’d seen a hybrid rogue or two in his time. Once gone there was nothing that could bring them back.

A female technician cautiously approached Gia and told her she had a phone call. He was glad for the distraction. She turned to the closest desk, picked up the handset and answered it absently, still mulling over the DNA results, but her demeanor changed immediately. Her body language screamed alert and her skin paled. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong. He was standing close enough to overhear.

“I have to go. Timothy, let me know right away when you get those results.”

“Sure. Is there a problem?”

“Another attack. On one of the safe houses.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, eyes a little red as his anger swelled.

“Something like that,” she grumbled and after giving the scientist directions to the house, spun around to leave the lab. In the hallway she looked surprised when Luke fell into step beside her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as she took the stairs up two at a time.

“Going with you.” Elaboration wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t up for debate and she must have seen his resolve in his eyes because she didn’t argue the point.

Back in her office, she shut down her computer and secured all her paperwork in a locked drawer. Overkill since the hybrids owned the building and it had state-of-the-art security, but under the circumstances he didn’t blame her. She nudged him out the door, secured it, then flickered out of sight without even warning him. Sighing, he delved into her mind, found the location and followed. One day very soon he was going to show her who was boss. He just hoped it was still him when the time came.

Chapter Twenty-Two

He stood in the shadowed woods, watching as the others started to arrive, but it was only one he was interested in, one the trap was set for. The part of him that used to be human struggled to remember why it was so important to take out this one particular woman, but the demon shrugged it off. It didn’t matter.

He felt the impact of her presence, of her power when she teleported into the yard and drew in a covetous breath. That was why. Her strength was raw and earthy, channeled in the wrong place, channeled into fighting demons rather than taking control of them. He needed her power.

The other two appeared, the tall black man and another woman, the two who were always near the blonde. Winter. He took another deep breath, let her rage wash over and through him. Such power. Such strength. He grinned. Such a waste. He wouldn’t waste it though. When he ate her brain and heart her power would be his, her soul would be his. And he’d rule. He’d take that unusual force of hers and channel it into beating the warlord, then he’d make himself king on earth.

He had to act quickly before more of the hybrids arrived, and he knew they would. He took a step forward, reaching with his mind to connect to the two demons he’d ordered to hide nearby, but snarled in frustration when two more people flickered into the clearing. Nightwalkers, and both scanning, something the hybrids had been foolish enough to forget to do. He’d counted on that.

The mind of one of the walkers brushed by his, hesitated for a split-second. If the nightwalker had attacked in that moment, he might have killed the beast, but he didn’t and that moment of weakness saved him. He teleported out, far enough away that he would not be detected and roared his rage to the sky.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dupree and Gia arrived as she did, watchful and alert, though she doubted anyone else who saw them would realize that. She concentrated on keeping that thought to herself, buried her active thinking into a hidden corner of her mind. There had to be a trick to keeping your thoughts to yourself even if you shared a mental bond with someone.

Marcus and Luke both appeared while she was practicing it and she felt them sweeping the area, knew they were communicating with each other as they did so. Saw the slightest stiffening in Marcus’s spine as he found something that wasn’t right.

“What?”

“You didn’t scan,” he growled. “An amateur’s mistake, Winter.”

She cocked an eyebrow, refusing to take umbrage at his accusation. “What is it then?”

“Demon. Gone now.”

Scowling, she faced the woods, letting her senses expand and flare out. Nothing. If there had been something there, her demon should have alerted her. Usually if there was a demon nearby, her demon was exultant, eager to engage and spill blood. She felt the energy void where the demon had been but her other half didn’t react to it. Frowning, she turned in a careful, slow circle, scanning as far as her mind would reach. There was nothing else there, but she couldn’t shake the feeling something was off. Wrong. She snorted to herself. That was crazy. Of course something was wrong, demons had attacked one of her safe houses.

Jordan was waiting for her at the front door, quiet and observant and patient. He nodded when she approached and pushed the door open. She didn’t wince at the sight or scent of the blood everywhere. Was she getting used to it? No. A piece of her buried so deep she was hardly aware of it, cried out its outrage, its vows for vengeance, as she calmly walked through the still house looking for something. What, she didn’t know, couldn’t say.

The demons had made a bigger mess than usual considering there’d only been four hybrids in residence at the time of the attack. Limbs were scattered everywhere, blood and brain matter dripped from the walls. She gritted her teeth and turned away in revulsion from a torso that had obviously been chewed on, the heart and several organs missing.

She stepped back outside and took a deep breath of fresh air into her lungs, but it didn’t help. She walked around the side of the building to empty the contents of her stomach behind a bush. Marcus was somewhere nearby, she felt him, but he kept his distance, close enough to aid her if necessary but far enough away to avoid her wrath. The man might be smarter than she’d given him credit for.

Her fingers dug into her knees as the last of the dry heaves ended and she stood with relief, rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth. Yuck. Dupree stepped into view and silently handed her a bottle of water. She unscrewed the top and took a long drink, swishing it around her mouth before spitting it out. Then she poured the rest over her hands and shook them off.

“Thanks.”

He nodded. “No problem.”

Two sets of headlights turned into the driveway, one after the other, and Gia joined them. “Techs.”

It hadn’t been necessary to tell her. Her night vision was as good as theirs. Better even. But she recognized it as a need to fill the silence, the intervening moment the time Gia needed to steady herself. She exhaled a long breath as the team unloaded equipment from the van and turned to face Winter.

“I was with Timothy when Dupree called, listening to the prelim report from Benjamin’s.”

There was note, a tremor to her tone that alerted Winter to the fact something wasn’t right. “And?”

“They’ve got initial DNA on all the…parts. Benjamin wasn’t there.”

It took her mind a few seconds to process that information and in that time Marcus and Luke joined them.

“Those results are certain?” Marcus asked.

“You’d have to discus that with Tim. Those were the results. Under the circumstances, the tests will all be re-run, but our lab is very good. Don’t hold your breath they’ll come up with something different on the second go-around.”

She knew Luke and Marcus were talking privately about it, caught a little bit of Marcus’s side. Narrowing her eyes she turned to glare at him.

“Ben did not go rogue. No way.”

Marcus was quiet, holding her gaze for several long moments before answering. “You can’t be sure of that.”

“I
know
him. He brought me into the Order. Trained me. Taught me everything I know.”

His expression softened.
I’m sorry, baby, but it’s the most obvious explanation.

“He was bonded. He couldn’t go rogue,” Gia interjected.

“Exactly.” What about his wife? “Janet?”

Gia frowned. “She is on the list.”

Shit. If Benjamin were alive, he’d last a few days, a couple of weeks at most, fighting the demon. If he didn’t create a new bond immediately, she’d be forced to hunt him down. She reached out for his mind, unsure if the flicker of awareness was real or just blind hope or absolute terror. She didn’t want this damned job, Ben’s job, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be the one hunting an old friend and mentor.

The unavoidable conclusion was he was alive. Somewhere. Somehow. But she refused to believe he’d gone rogue, not so soon, or that he was the one betraying them. It just didn’t fit with the Ben she knew. He’d fight, long and hard. He always had. But even Ben, who she’d believed damned near invincible during her early years in the Order, could be overwhelmed, could fall. He could be anywhere, injured but alive and unable to call for help.

“How big was the search radius around his compound?” she asked Gia.

“A mile. I can have another, bigger sweep done tonight.”

She nodded. “Do it.”

She ignored Marcus’s disapproval. She knew she couldn’t afford to waste any resources. She also knew she couldn’t leave Ben alone and defenseless and that was the only logical explanation. Unless the demons had taken him. Marcus grunted.

“Why would they take him, Winter? As a hostage? They don’t do that.” He paused. “Unless they’re torturing information about your Order out of him.”

Gia huffed. “He would never give up anything. He wouldn’t betray us.” Winter nodded agreement.

Marcus shook his head. “Maybe not and it doesn’t matter. They don’t take hostages.”

They didn’t. They also weren’t known for launching large coordinated attacks, but there had been cases, instances her Order hadn’t shared with anyone over the centuries. Times when a particularly bright and cunning warlord came from the Underworld. She groaned. Fuck a duck. They should have realized when there were two attacks that that’s what they were dealing with. It shouldn’t have taken three. Only a warlord was smart enough to track down the Order’s compounds and safe houses, smart enough to plan the attacks. And a warlord, especially a powerful one, could be very, very dangerous because he controlled large numbers of lesser demons, could command them and expect to be obeyed.

“A warlord.” She faced Dupree and Gia, but felt the two nightwalkers stiffen at her words.

“Myth,” Luke said.

She turned around to face him, but Gia beat her to it. “No, they aren’t. Why do you think the Order was created in the first place? You were too busy feuding with lupines. Someone had to deal with the threat.” She turned back to meet Winter’s gaze and Winter could tell she was displeased with her next words. “I’m going to get the relevant books from the library and bring them back to the nightwalkers’ house.” She seemed to consider something a moment. “Nadia, too.” Nadia was an Order historian and a friend. Winter trusted her implicitly.

She nodded, dismissing Gia, knowing Luke would stay at her side and they would both be safe enough at the abandoned commander’s compound where the library was housed. She ground her back molars together. She shouldn’t be concerned about the nightwalker’s safety no matter what he might mean to her friend. Marcus was a bad influence. Fisting her hands on her hips, she glared at him but he only looked back calmly, cocking one eyebrow as he waited her out.
Ignore him, Winter. Just ignore him.