“Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Erin only smiled. “But I do,” she said softly. “I also know the secret to Jared’s power. If anything happens to me or Jared, there are a lot of people who are going to find out all about your cancer-treating scam and what you are really doing with Chosen blood.”
Something she said had struck a nerve. Cinatas paused before a set of elevators and stared hard at her. Then he smiled. “I look forward to extracting all of that information from you at my leisure. Don’t try and out-psyche me, Morgan. You’ll lose every time.”
The elevator doors opened, and Cinatas shifted to slide the stretcher in. At the last second Erin screamed at the top of her lungs, “It’s a trick, Jared! Don’t believe anything.”
Cinatas shoved the stretcher so hard that it bounced against the elevator wall, jarring her hand painfully. She fought for breath as the elevator doors closed.
Cinatas backhanded her hard, splitting her lip. The acrid taste of blood filled her mouth. He stared down at her as if fascinated, then he swiped her lip with his finger, bringing a drop of her blood to his mouth.
He acted as if he were sampling a sweet treat. “Your blood doesn’t taste any different than other Chosen blood. It will be interesting to find out why you are so special. Why are you under the protection of the Vladarian Order, Morgan? Why did they request that only you administer their transfusions? Why does only Pathos determine your fate?”
The elevator ascended, and Erin shut her eyes. Jared. Somehow they were both connected to the same circle of evil, one that was going to destroy them both.
With the scent of the doctor’s corrupted Chosen blood gnawing at his senses, Jared waited a few minutes after the man left before making his move. Jared’s captor hadn’t been able to shut him back into the metal box completely, and that crack proved to be Jared’s edge. Twisting his foot, Jared eased his toes into the opening and shoved against the side so hard that the steel drawer slid out, bringing him into the garish light.
He hung out from a row of drawers. Now that he was freed from the tight space, he could sit up, which gave him more leverage against the chains on his wrist. Flinging himself forward, he focused all of his weight and strength on his right wrist and strained to break himself free.
That was when Erin’s scream rent the air, cutting through him like a knife. Anger and fear coursed through him, rising with a feral need to destroy Cinatas. The chain broke loose, and Jared set to work on his other arm and his legs, visions of tearing the doctor apart with claws and fangs spurring his anger. He heard Erin’s second scream and realized that the quality of the vibrations was different from the first, as if this one had come from the television. Then Erin yelled that it was all a trick. The desperation in her voice had Jared’s heart pumping with bloodlust. Once free, he started to run for Erin, but with his heightened senses, he realized that the sheriff, Emerald, and Dr. Batista’s breathing had slowed.
Jared jerked open the drawers he smelled them in, pulled off the tape covering their mouths, and broke the plastic binding their wrists before he dragged them off the cold metal slabs to the warmer tile of the floor. The sheriff was starting to stir when Jared ran from the room.
Jared entered the lab next door and followed Erin’s scent to two metal doors that he had to pry apart. The scent of her Chosen blood lingered more heavily in the air than before. A creaking sound from above gave him the direction he needed to go.
He ran back down the corridor for the stairs, but had to deflect a blow coming from the doorway of the room he’d escaped from.
“Son of a bitch,” the sheriff said, shaking his good arm as the metal pole he’d held clattered down the hall. “Why didn’t you say something to let me know it was you? Where’s Erin?”
Glancing into the room, Jared saw Dr. Batista leaning over Emerald, who moaned groggily. The sheriff had tied a bandage around his arm over his shirt and held his arm close to his side.
“The satanic doctor has taken Erin up. I need to follow.”
“Both of you go after Erin,” Dr. Batista said.
“I’m not leaving you two defenseless,” the sheriff said.
Dr. Batista stood. “I’m in a morgue, Sam. I’ve got more weapons at my fingertips than you can imagine. Ever had formaldehyde sprayed in your face? And if push comes to shove, my pistol is still in my pocket. But we aren’t going to do anything but pull the fire alarm and slip out the back door just as soon as Emerald can run. It should take the fire department less than five minutes to get here. I think we can manage to stay hidden for that long.”
“Em is—”
“Never going toforgive you if you don’t get your arse movin’,” Emerald said as she struggled to sit up, bracelets clinking. “And next time I tell you to bloody listen, you’d better. I don’t want to see a fecking morgue again as long as I live.”
“I must go.” Jared turned to leave.
“Wait,” the sheriff said. He ran across the room and broke open a glass case. He tossed Jared an ax, then snatched up a red canister. “I hope you know how to swim. Let’s go.”
Jared ran to the stairs, taking them four at time to the sheriff’s frustrating two. They reached the top and slid from the stairwell to the roof, where the loud roar of an engine with a steady whopping beat was deafening to his sensitive ears.
“Shit,” said the sheriff. “There must be a helipad on the roof with a copter ready to go.” He ran to a metal door and tried to open it, but found it locked. “I bet Erin is either on the copter or about to be. If they take off with her, it’ll be hell to find her. We need to stop that bird. Let’s find another door.”
“Wait.” Jared placed a solid kick right next to the knob, busting the door open. He moved out into the whipping wind, ears on fire with pain from the deafening sound. The sheriff dogged Jared’s steps. A metal building stood between them and the helicopter. He didn’t see Erin, didn’t smell Erin, but he saw an armed man pacing in front of a set of glass doors.
Jared skirted the shed, keeping out of sight of the guard. The blinding wind from the helicopter blades stung his eyes, and the roar of the engine sent hot, sharp needles of pain through his head. His teeth bit into his lip, drawing blood, and he growled deep in his throat as a darkness inside clawed to the surface. It was as if his anger and fear had unleashed a beast within him. If the satanic doctor had done to Erin what he said he was going to do, then Jared would rip the man to shreds. He had to know the man paid the ultimate price for hurting Erin.
“We need a back door if this gets ugly,” the sheriff said as he tapped Jared on the shoulder. He pointed to two hoses wound on heavy metal spools anchored to the roof. The sheriff grabbed one hose, dragged it to the edge of the roof, and lowered it to the ground. He motioned for Jared to do the same with the other hose.
“You mean an escape,” Jared said as he threw the hose over the side.
“Guess you can swim pretty damn well. We make a damn good team,” the sheriff yelled. “You distract the guard from the left, and I’ll blast him from the right. If we get his gun, we’ll be top dog.”
Erin could hear the chop of the helicopter blades the second Cinatas wheeled her out of the elevator. She was surprised to see daylight streaming in through the glass windows and doors.
Outside, the dark silhouette of a black helicopter ready for flight stood in contrast to blue sky and white clouds, a brightness that gave an ironic twist to the hell she was in. A guard with a gun paced in front of the doors.
Cinatas stopped in the corridor.
“Why are you doing all of your own dirty work?” Erin said. Considering the way Cinatas lived, she expected an entourage of servants at his beck and call 24/7.
“The purity of the act, Morgan. I like to personally handle certain interactions. You wouldn’t send a servant or an employee to experience your orgasm and have them report back to you, now would you? I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere without me.” He walked d
own the corridor, chuckling to himself.
How could a man that mad get where he was in the world without someone realizing his insanity?
Out of the corner of her eye, Erin saw the fevered man she’d spoken to in the lab. He hovered in the shadowed doorway next to her stretcher. If she could get him to help her a little, maybe…
“Please,” Erin said. “Can you pull the needle out of my hand? It hurts so badly. He won’t ever know. I’ll tell him it fell out.”
The man looked furtively up and down the hall, then at the guard outside the door. He didn’t pull out the needle, but, falling to his knees and reaching beneath the stretcher, he started loosening the straps, freeing her hands.
Before she could pull the needle from her hand or the man could undo more of the straps, they both heard Cinatas returning.
The man slunk back into the room, and Erin slipped her free hand back beneath the binding. Erin swore the first thing Cinatas looked at was her hand, as if finding the needle there told him that nothing had been disturbed since he left.
With a briefcase and a pistol in hand, he pushed her out to the roof.
Erin heard Jared howl. Turning her head, she saw him on the roof running toward her. Then another yell from the opposite direction showed the sheriff barreling at her, too. The guard raised his gun at the sheriff, and the sheriff blasted the guard in the face with foam from the fire extinguisher he brandished.
Cinatas jabbed the gun into Erin’s jaw so hard that tears burned her eyes. The doctor faced Jared, laughing. “Shall I shatter her face for you? Will you obey me then?”
Jared paused, but the force of his fury still ran strong in him, and he howled his frustration, making even Cinatas jump in fear. Erin used that moment to jerk her hand free and grab Cinatas’s wrist. She wrenched hard, pointing the muzzle of the gun away from her. Cinatas pulled the trigger, and a rapid fire of bullets sprayed the helicopter. Sparks flew.
Cinatas jerked free of Erin’s hold, pointed the gun at Jared, and fired. Jared moved like lightning, throwing the ax as he ducked. The ax would have hit Cinatas in the chest, but he twisted and it sliced into his cheek and shoulder, knocking him to the ground, blood spurting as he screamed in pain.
Arms free, Erin pulled the needle from her hand. Then she snatched the IV from her arm before she started grabbing at the straps around her chest and waist.
The pilot of the helicopter must have decided to leave. The engine roared louder and the helicopter lifted a foot, wobbling above the helipad.
Cinatas sat up screaming, waving an automatic pistol at the helicopter, then firing a volley of random shots that went wild. Glass shattered in the building behind them, and the ping of bullets ricocheting off the helicopter filled the air.
Suddenly, a shower of sparks erupted from the rear of the helicopter, and smoke billowed out. The helicopter lurched.
“Run,” the sheriff yelled, pointing to the rear of the helicopter.
Erin barely saw fire flare from the back of the helicopter before Jared ripped the straps keeping her prisoner. He lifted her up and ran. She squeezed her eyes shut. They were running for the edge of the building. She knew they were going to jump and the forty-plus-foot drop ahead turned her stomach.
“Hold on to my neck,” Jared yelled, releasing her legs as he bent and grabbed a fire hose. Then, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, he jumped over the edge of the roof. The sheriff, too, grabbed a hose and leaped from the roof, barely avoiding the fireball on their heels as the helicopter exploded in a flash of searing heat. They slid down fast, making Erin’s stomach wobble. Once they hit the ground, her gaze locked onto Jared’s, finding his gaze on her with a frightening dark intensity. He made her feel as if she was his life-line from hell. He drew her closer, wrapping his arms around her, bringing her flush against him. Then his mouth descended on hers with bruisingforce.
Jared was on fire with the sweet, intoxicating taste of Erin. The trace of her Chosen blood from her split lip upon his tongue, and the mind-crazing scent of her blood wafting from the puncture wound on her arm, sent him over the edge. He pressed her to the wall.
The universe could have ended at that moment, and he wouldn’t have cared. To have her in his arms was all he wanted, to touch her, to feel her, to smell her … he had what he craved, and everything else could go to hell. Erin met his kiss with fervor. She moaned, crushing the full softness of her breasts to him.
All of the pain, the anguish, and the bloodlust that had been building since she’d disappeared from his sight eased, but he had this overwhelming urge to devour her with his whole being, to make himself such a part of her that both of them would cease to exist separately. The kiss came from the dark and light depths of his soul, and he wanted hers in return.
The sheriff jabbed Jared in the back. “We have to find Em and Annette now!”
Erin pushed back, seeking release. Jared wanted to tear the sheriff apart, but caught his emerging growl mid-throat. What the hell was wrong with him?
You’re damned. The darkness is out of control. You tasted human blood last night, and you’ll not stop until you’ve sated yourself on Chosen blood.
He groaned. How could he have forgotten last night?
He could no longer stay with Erin. Yet how could he leave her?
One more day. He wanted, needed, one more day with her.
A horn beeped and a hearse came bouncing around the corner of the building. Emerald and Dr. Batista waved at them from the cushy interior. Emerald brought the hearse to a jerking stop and called out, “Get in. The fire department is driving up. We need to leave before we’re seen.”
“The hell we do,” said the sheriff. “If that son of a bitch is still alive, I’m going to take his ass to jail and nail him to the wall.”
“No.” Emerald shook her head. “They find out who we are before we’re ready to fight them, and we’re all going to be dead. This time you need to have all of the facts before you act, or what happened in Belize will happen again.”
“Who told you—”
“The Druids were kind,” Emerald said. “Are you going to listen before you act?”
“I’m driving,” the sheriff said, cursing as he slid into the driver’s seat. “We’re leaving the scene of a crime. This is so far over the line of the law that—”
“Evil recognizes no law,” Jared said. “You might have to cross a line to bring them to it.”
Chapter Eighteen
Showered and clean, Erin faced the sheriff across the dining-room table in Emerald’s cottage with a mug of hot Irish coffee warming her hands. Band-Aids were all she needed to cover her physical wounds, but she was sure that emotionally and psychologically, she’d never be the same.
It was hard to believe that only eight hours had passed since their abduction. “So that’s the whole story, from the time I left early Friday morning after finding the four bodies in the lab with no fire, until Emerald found Jared and me walking down Spirit Wind Mountain from the Sacred Stones.”
“Then it’s your Tahoe that is torched on State Road Forty-four?” he asked, not looking anywhere near happy with any of the story he’d gotten since returning from the Sno-Med facility. Reports were that the building was still on fire. There were some injured and maybe some dead, but no official report yet.
The hearse sat out in front of the cottage, a grim connection to it all. And the sheriff hadn’t heard anything yet that made the price of leaving his integrity worth the ticket.
“The Tahoe must be mine. As I said, I left it in a hayloft. It was not on fire either.” She stared down at her notepad. She’d found it where she’d dropped it outside the cottage this morning.
“What about the dead man on the side of the road?” the sheriff demanded.
“I don’t know anything about him. Unless Cinatas left one of his discarded men lying about, the man might not have a connection to any of this.”
“The Tsara that attacked Erin. The creature that hit her car,” Jared said from w
here he brooded in the shadows. He hadn’t said much of anything to support her story, not even reaffirming her account of who he said he was. He’d been quiet and withdrawn since returning, as if the evening shadows darkening the sky outside the windows held more interest than Cinatas.
“What do you mean by that?” the sheriff asked.
Jared turned to him. “Tsaras are spiritual assassins of such virulent poison that one bite condemns its victim to the damned. Heldon cannot create beings, as Logos can. So Heldon must use what he can reap from the mortal realm to serve his evil. The fingerprints identifying the executed man from South Carolina are likely to be accurate. I would expect Heldon to have used one of your worst for his special assassins.”
“Are you trying to tell me that some joker from way down under grave-robs executed serial killers? This is just getting too far-fetched to believe. I know Sheriff Slater. All I have to do is call him and tell him what happened, and all of this can get sorted out through the legal channels that it needs to be done through. Do you have any idea of how guilty we look because we didn’t stay and report what happened?”
Emerald groaned. “Sam, I told you. The Druid—”
“I don’t want to hear about crystals or druids! I want facts!” The sheriff exploded from his chair to pace the room.
“Can you tell me that you have knowledge of all things within this world and within the spirit realm?” Jared demanded of the sheriff.
“Do you?” the sheriff countered.
“Not all, but more than is known to mortals. With so many things that you cannot explain, there is more logical reason for you to believe in what is being revealed tonight than for you to discount it as false. Are you willing to risk the lives of everyone here because you cannot grasp what you can’t see? Or are you strong enough to accept your limitations and grant that others can have strengths that you do not have? You can’t discredit what I said about Tsaras until you exhume the serial killer’s remains. My guess is his casket will be empty.”
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