“Bane, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Donna Reed…if you like to fuck apple pies.”
“Apple pie wouldn’t talk back,” he muttered to himself.
“What did you just say?” Morrigan turned her navy eyes to him. He shook his head and kept working at the cut on his lip. “That’s what I thought. Now, you are sure this is the right house?” She nodded her head toward the bungalow in front of them. The lights were out, and they could see no sign of activity inside. The doctor had either turned in for the night or gone out. Either way, she would just wait.
From behind them, a raspy voice chimed in. “Thirty-two.”
“Thank you, William,” she said, refusing to turn around and look at him. She avoided looking at any of the hired help if she could. Disgusting excuses for human beings. Better off dead than alive, their particular breed of scum-sucking, backlot living made her stomach turn. William’s teeth had been so neglected that they were turning black. His blond hair hung down to his skinny shoulders and was caked with dirt and grime. He was just the kind of sucker she knew would take this job. It was the same with the other two, who were just as nasty and dirty.
But if you promise a rabid dog a bone, it will do just about anything, won’t it?
“Well, gentlemen,” Morrigan said as she looked down at her designer shoes, the ones she made Bane replace after her stiletto-meets-internal-flesh incident, “let’s get this over with. Remember, we need the doctor alive. I do not know how many times I have to stress this. Alive. He’s no good to our cause if he is dead.”
“What if he’s not home?” one of the greaseballs from behind her asked.
Morrigan had never possessed a huge patient streak, and as of late that patience was growing thinner and thinner by the day. She pulled a blade off Bane’s vest and hurled it at the man, embedding it deep in the flesh of his upper arm.
“Then you wait for him, you oxygen-depleting maggot!”
The man tried to pull the blade out, gritting his black teeth, refusing to scream. The fact that he didn’t cry out must have earned him a little bit of respect from Bane. He turned around and wrapped his hand around the handle to give it a quick pull.
“No harm, no foul, right?” he said as he wiped the blood off the steel and replaced it in his vest. “Where are you going?” he asked Morrigan when she turned on her heels.
“I’m going to wait in the car.”
“I thought—”
“Ah, but therein lies your problem, Bane. You aren’t supposed to think. Now run along and do what I told you.” She turned on her heels again and clicked her way to the running BMW.
* * *
Bane watched her back the entire way, seething. He sealed the cut on his lip and was about to reopen it when he had a change of heart. Fuck that. Once she was in the car, she stared at him, her eyebrows raised. She lifted a hand and gave him a single wave with her fingers, as if telling him to go on, motioning for him to carry out her orders like he was a small child.
“She’s a bit pushy there, isn’t she, pal?” William sidled up to stand next to him.
“She’s a bitch,” he muttered. “A cold, heartless bitch.”
“Aren’t they all,” William replied with a chuckle.
“Not all of them,” Bane said. In tandem, they all made their way up the sidewalk. Bane’s body was hot and angry. Two hundred years of a nagging housewife was getting a little bit old. On impulse, he fired a single shot into the Colonial-style porch light before busting through the front door.
Chapter 16
Taris was twitchy.
And they all dared to hazard a guess as to why.
“You feel him, don’t you, T?” Achan looked over at him. He was nervously releasing the clip and putting it back into place.
“It’s not just him.”
Because of their bond with the other Nines, everyone could feel the tingle in their skin that they were close, but Taris and Bane were blood. The burn was more palpable. If the bond had been fresh, he could have pinpointed his exact location.
All was silent after that. Sarah guided them to the street on which Nick lived, and the instant they pulled the big black van onto the narrow road, Taris began to fidget. For the majority of the twenty-minute ride, he had been stone still and quiet. The only exception was the one time when he had broken into her thoughts and whispered, “Trust me. My life protects yours.”
The silence was making her nervous. Actually, nervous was not the word for it. Terrified would have been a better adjective. Her apprehension was only made worse when Taris made them stop the van.
“What’s going on, Taris?” Rhiannon asked.
He lifted a single finger to his lips. Gently, he opened the passenger door and slid out, his pistol cocked and ready.
“We walk from here,” he whispered. “They are here, both of them. I don’t want one alerting the other.”
“Sounds good to me,” Achan said as he flipped off the headlights and turned off the ignition. He opened his door and slid out onto the pavement, quietly clicking his door shut. Sarah sat there and watched as both Achan and Taris pulled the sliding door, easing it open. Taris leaned in and held out a hand to her, guiding her to the concrete of the sidewalk. He instantly pushed her body behind his, holding her tight against him with one hand.
“Judah, you all right?”
The sound of metal slides and clicks drifted around her, and she saw Judah step out of the van. His handsome face was twisted with anger.
“They are no doubt coming heavy,” Judah said as he helped Rhiannon out of the back. He held out a hand for Zillah, but she ignored it, stomping out onto the pavement herself. She threw her trench into the back before helping Rhiannon slide the door shut.
“S’all good, Dad,” Achan said as he pulled the slide back on his gun. “They can come as heavy as they want. I haven’t had a good fight in a few weeks.”
“Take out whomever you can as fast as you can,” Judah whispered as they began to creep their way into the darkness of the tree line. “Just remember that Bane is mine.”
* * *
Nick pulled his car into the driveway. His phone was steadily buzzing in his back pocket, and he felt like a colossal idiot for putting it there in the first place. He couldn’t get to it while he was driving, so the first thing he did when the ignition was flipped off was reach for it.
Five missed calls, three voice mails, and one email. All from Sarah. He laughed to himself. She no doubt got his message and was furious. He stepped out of the car and scrolled through the menu screen. The crunch of glass beneath his feet made him stop.
“Son of a bitch!” Nick bent down to look at the shattered remains of the once glorious porch light. He fumbled with the menu screen on his phone again and clicked on the voice mail. He held the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he inserted the key into the lock. Wiping glass from the bottom of his shoes, he crossed the threshold and shut the door just as his first voice mail began to play.
First new message:
Nick, it’s Sarah. Don’t go home. Please, go anywhere, just don’t go home. There is someone waiting for you there, and I need you to call me as soon as possible. Please, Nick, just trust me and don’t go…
Suddenly, a blast rang out and searing pain flooded the side of Nick’s head. His Blackberry shattered to the ground, and he grabbed his ear. Shit, the top half had been damn near shot off!
“Evening, Dr. Patton.” A deep voice rang out into the darkness, followed by cackles. Someone was in his house.
“We’ve been expecting you.”
* * *
Taris took off into a full-out sprint when he heard the shot ring out. He pushed Sarah toward Achan.
“Keep her safe,” he yelled as he rounded the back of the house. With a swift jerk, Taris pulled the doorknob completely out of the door. Rhiannon and Zillah wasted no time in pushing their way through. Judah followed suit, separating the women and making his way into a dark kitchen. Cautiously, he flipped on
a light. Nothing in there.
“Living room,” Taris said, and they all followed him, guns at the ready. They waited just outside the door. Rhiannon reached behind her, and the deadly slide of her sword rang out.
“You are going to help us.”
The all-too-familiar voice flooded the space between them, and Judah’s blood ran hot. It was too much, knowing that Bane was in the other room. He nodded to Rhiannon, who nodded back with a smile. Stealth was always her greatest secret weapon. While everyone crouched down, Rhiannon slowly pushed open the door. Behind Bane were two other men, each holding pistols almost bigger than they were. It took her no time to move in behind them. With nimble fingers, she pulled a dirk from the hiding place in her boot and made quick work of slicing their throats open from left to right before either of them had the chance to cry out for help. Their bodies thudded to the ground, but Bane didn’t even flinch at the sound.
“Hello, pretty,” he said over his shoulder. “Been a long time, has it not?”
Suddenly, the light flipped on, and a chorus of guns cocking and knives unsheathing filled the room.
“Mark my words, you bastard, I will dance on your grave when you die,” she hissed between her teeth.
“Oh, surely you don’t mean that,” he chuckled as he jerked Nick in front of him and held the Glock to his head. Bane looked around at faces that, for centuries, he’d tried to forget, faces he thought he would never see again. Rhiannon was as beautiful as ever. Achan, with the little girlie doctor behind him, was as large as he’d remembered. Taris he’d seen just a few days earlier, but this time he was changed. He was the warrior he remembered. He was the warrior he’d respected and looked up to and always wanted to be.
“So nice to see you again, Zillah.”
Zillah pointed her gun at his head. “You look like a clown. Been watching too much Rocky Horror Picture Show, eh?”
Taris had previously seen the nightmare his brother had become, but the shock of it was almost too much for the rest of them. His once handsome brother, his baby brother who had looked so much like him, now had electric blue hair, several piercings in his ears, and long fingernails with black polish. Crimson shadow matching the pigment in his irises surrounded his eyes. His lipstick was a blood red, and when he smiled, it made his fangs look that much larger, that much more dangerous.
“Turn around so I can remember you better,” he hissed between his teeth.
“Lick me, asshole.”
“I already have.”
Judah began to make a run at Bane but was stopped short when a shot was fired into his shoulder.
“Not so fast there, buddy.”
They turned to see a dirty man sitting in the hallway, pointing a pistol at Judah’s head.
“Any of you move, and pretty boy gets it, you understand? Now drop ’em—all of ’em.”
They could all see Taris twitching and took a step back. One by one, they dropped their weapons, laying them on the floor in front of them. Achan pushed Sarah farther back behind him, and they slowly inched their way toward the couch.
“You might not wanna watch this, sweetheart,” he whispered.
“Watch what?”
She barely got the question out before she saw Taris move.
“Judah, duck,” he said as he made for the wall and used it to push himself off. He jerked his left arm, and from the leather sheath covering his scars flipped out several rows of razor-sharp points. As his body twisted in the air, he brought his forearm down to the man’s throat. He swung around behind him like a pole until he was once again standing directly in front of him.
A look of shock and terror was frozen on the man’s face. His fingers went limp, and he dropped the gun. It landed on Taris’ boot, and Taris flipped it up, catching it in midair. He pointed the gun at the man’s head but didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he used the tip of the barrel to push on his forehead. The tiny amount of pressure sent the man’s head tumbling off his body and rolling into the hallway behind him.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Those were the first words Nick said since his ear had been nearly decimated.
Achan felt Sarah waver behind him and barely had time to catch her before she passed out.
Judah used the same tactic as Taris and nudged the barrel of his pistol enough so that he could launch it into the air. He caught it, immediately pointed it at Bane’s head and then looked at Nick.
“No offense to you, buddy, but regardless of whether it’s now or later, this jackass will kill you. Now I can do you a favor and quickly put you both out of your misery at the same time, or you can agree to walk out this door and let whatever may happen, happen. Either way, you die.”
“What a mercenary sentiment, Judah,” Bane replied, digging the barrel into Nick’s temple even harder. “But we need him alive for much the same reason that you need that one over there.” He nodded toward Achan, who had a passed-out Sarah tucked up against him. “We plan on letting this one live.”
Judah pulled the other gun from his holster and pressed it right beside the other barrel at Bane’s head. “Liar. When have you ever done anything so noble? You’ll use him up and spit him out, just the way you have always done. When have you ever cared for anyone or anything other than yourself and that hell-on-wheels devil bitch of yours?”
“Now, Judah, I resent that.”
Morrigan stepped around Bane. Her eyes scanned the room as if she were a welcomed celebrity. The smirk on her face was cold, calculating. “I always thought you liked me.”
“I like the idea of your head on a spike, Morrigan, and that’s about it.”
She clicked her tongue as she planted herself between Nick and Judah. A click at her side made Judah look down. She had a pistol pointed at Zillah.
“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, any of you. Let us take him, and we will be out of your hair.”
“I don’t think so, Morrigan.”
Her body tensed as Taris’ voice flooded in beside them. Somehow, in the distraction, Taris and Rhiannon had managed to slip out the back door and come through the front. He stepped to one side of Bane while his left arm was firmly at his back. One jerk of Taris’ blade and Bane would be torn in two. Rhiannon stepped in behind Bane and slid the edge of her sword between his legs.
“Only girls wear makeup.” Rhiannon stood up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “I can fix that for you.”
“Taris,” Morrigan interjected, “it’s been a long time. I see the years have been kind to you.”
“Screw you and your fake cordial bullshit,” he spat back at her. “Lower the gun, and tell your lapdog here to let Nick go, and we’ll let him live for you to punch around another day.”
She lowered the gun but only for a moment before she raised it and repositioned it.
This time she aimed at Achan, who was holding a terrified and now painfully awake Sarah.
“Tell you what, darling, let’s make this interesting.” She pulled the hammer back on the gun. “I take her out, and we can fight for him. No point in having two of them, now is there?”
Taris started to take a step toward Sarah. It was instinct now for him to place himself between her and that bullet. Achan could handle it. He’d been shot several times before in battles. Achan could handle the bullet. Sarah couldn’t.
His promise to her—“My life protects yours”—was reeling in his head. Morrigan’s laugh broke through his primal urge to jerk Sarah into his arms and fight off any threat.
“How sweet, Taris. After all these years, you have finally moved on. I hope she’s worth it. It would be a shame to scar yourself for a woman you cannot keep.”
Taris jerked his arm just enough to dig the blades into Bane’s back. “Rot in hell, Morrigan.”
She aimed the gun at Sarah’s head and watched as Taris’ body jerked even more.
“The woman is mine,” Achan blurted out.
Morrigan laughed. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Prove it.”
Achan’s eyes met Rhiannon’s, and she gave him a quick nod. Judah and Zillah maintained their battle stance, and Taris looked at him with murder in his eyes. Rhiannon knew what he was doing, but Taris was blind to it. He was too clouded by Morrigan’s presence, by Bane, and the gravity of the situation. He seethed, his chest heaving as he watched Achan lean down to whisper something in Sarah’s ear.
“If you want us all to get out of here alive, for the love of God, just play along. I’m gonna get my ass kicked for this, but play along.”
Sarah nodded and swallowed as Achan dipped his head and captured her lips with his. They were soft and gentle, but she could feel the shiver in them. It had to be convincing, so she lifted her hands and laced her fingers through his black curls. The kiss was no more than a grade-school peck, and they both knew if they wanted to keep their skin, it had to go deeper. He coaxed her mouth open by licking her lips, and their tongues locked together. They each made what sounded like a scripted moan.
A loud growl drew them apart, and they turned their heads to watch the fury that had been unleashed in Taris. Judah and Zillah stepped back as he jerked his arm around to Bane’s side, cutting his skin to the sinew. Bane cried out and dropped his guard, sending Nick crashing to the floor. Zillah stepped in and quickly jerked him up, pushing Nick behind her as she kept level aim on Morrigan.
Taris flung his body at Morrigan with all his might, his powerful shoulders sending her crashing through a coffee table. Her gun flew out of her hand, and Taris kicked it aside. He placed a heavy boot on her delicate chest.
Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) Page 14
