He stilled. His brain raced to make sense of it all. His Jaz down. Not feeling well, and medics putting him a stinking medivan. “Why is my arm strapped?”
“Your arm is strapped so you don’t tear the internal glue. You have to have it immobilized for two days.”
He wiggled his fingers and his heart rate dropped. Not like his legs. He met and held the nurse’s hazel gaze, digging for the truth of her words. “There’s nothing wrong with it?”
“Not a thing. The surgery went well. The blast nicked your spleen, cut your bowel, miraculously missed anything vital. Everything has been cleaned and repaired. You’ll be fine.”
Not a lie. He closed his eyes, and swallowed to try and moisten his dry mouth. He tried to sit up, using his left arm to push.
“Sir, you need to stay still.”
“Want to sit up.” He growled the words, not caring how the nurse flinched. His chair stood in the far corner of the room “I need a bar so I can pull myself up, and I want my chair brought to the side of the bed.” He hated being at the mercy of his damaged body, the mercy of a nurse’s whim. He needed to find Jaz see if she was okay.
The nurse scowled at his obvious distress, looked at his chair in the corner, then hurried to his chart. “Oh. Right. Paraplegic.” She eyed him over, put her hand up. “Stay calm. I’ll get an orderly to help you sit up, but there’s no leaving the bed.” The nurse hurried out. He felt her relief at having a reason to escape the room.
Xylvar glared at his legs and his arm, then gave his chair the same dirty look for being so far away. Being incapacitated riled his independence gene.
A young dark man with a mop of curly hair walked in. “I’m an orderly. What can I do for you?”
“Could you bring my chair over to the left side of the bed?”
“Sure.” The orderly gave Xylvar and easy smile and brought the chair over. Without being asked, he helped Xylvar sit up and drop into his chair. Within a minute he’d attached the drip to the chair back. “There you go sir. Where to?”
“I can take it from here.”
“Sorry, sir, but while you’re in the medical center, a staff member must push you.” He walked behind the chair. “Where to?”
“I don’t know. I want to find the bed of a woman. Jasmine…”
“I’m here.” Her voice, cool and clear, came from the doorway. “Typical, just wake up after a major op and you’re already bossing people about.”
The orderly left. Jaz walked to a visitor’s chair beside Xylvar. “I seemed to have fared far better than you in yesterday’s takedown, even though I was unconscious.”
He looked her over. Good, she appeared fine, no harm done. “All part of the fun.” He shifted his right arm to a more comfortable position. “You know if any of our survivors from yesterday have coughed up any good leads?”
“A little. Most were just new recruits. Jen, however, was bloody undercover through the Criminal Justice Department.” Jasmine let a half laugh. “Didn’t see that one. Good actress. Pretty much thought she was scum.”
“She said she’d recently recruited Vanessa and James.” He still wanted the story on those two, but for now it could wait.
“Interesting. I’ll have a longer chat with Jen.”
“Maybe she’ll know more about Kabul and Carsen.”
“The man giving us the ‘how to milk’ chat yesterday I recognized as someone who came to the clan’s reserve to replace a load of wiring. He’d already done a similar job on Crea land. I’ve already passed that on to Kaid. The wiring’s being stripped out now.”
“Ramine saw a Crea come and go from the holding cells.”
Jasmine put her hand on Xylvar’s. “Makes you sick to think people are capable of turning on their own, but Zane already knows. Might be the same guy I heard about at the café. The Crea that’s some sort of grunt. The one Scarface didn’t want to involve in taking Crea from his own clan.”
Xylvar turned his hand to take hers. An act so foreign, he hardly knew how to hold it comfortably.
A flash of surprise on her face, Jasmine closed her fingers around his. “Somehow all these people are linked. Somewhere there’s a key player, or set of players.”
“Key players often like applause. They’ll eventually come out to seek acknowledgement.
“Let’s hope we’re there to witness their final bow.”
#
Deep in Katoom’s Eli clan forest, Xylvar sat in his chair on the veranda overhanging the bubbling, mossy creek below. Kaid gave him the cabin to stay in for as long as he wanted, the one in which he’d unwillingly agreed to go undercover with Jaz.
Jaz, being clan already, had her own small cabin in the far back quarter of the single female section. Her distance from him and from the inner clan population worried him. Many hours of cyber research conducted by himself, Jaz, and several other clan members, hinted the two Crea men on clan land, the ones the Pure faction were aiming to kidnap, could potentially be Katoom Crea clan members. And if they were correct in their clan choice, the males were housed in a cabin not far from Jaz’s. No one knew what time or day, or even if it was definitely Katoom clan, but anything leaving his Jaz potentially vulnerable stole Xylvar’s peace.
Just in case, the two Crea men were armed and ready. Guards in camouflage hid in the undergrowth surrounding their cabin.
Everyone on Crea land hoped the Crea traitor and his cold-blooded mob came calling. The welcoming committee planned a ferocious greeting.
Xylvar spotted Kaid and Dan on the path to his cabin. Until now, they’d mostly left him alone to heal, the only company he craved had wild, black, curly hair, deadly knife skills, and screamed during orgasms.
He had enjoyed making her scream.
He flexed his right arm without a twinge in his shoulder, and nodded to the two Eli. “Visiting the invalid?”
“Yep. We brought brownies, too.” Dan handed him a small, covered tray.
Holy shit, they really did bring brownies. Xylvar didn’t know what to do or say. He stared at the brown squares, which had a thick layer of raspberries on top, his mouth watered, and something inside his chest shifted.
Katoom’s clan made him feel welcome, part of the whole, at home. Nearly two decades had passed since he last felt at home anywhere.
Dan leaned against the veranda rail and grinned. “You look stunned. Clan care for clan. It’s our way.”
“Bliss made them. Figured you could do with some home cooking.” Kaid’s voice rumbled with a mix of embarrassment and pride.
Xylvar put the tray in his lap, resisting the urge to growl over them. “Thank her—please. And the real reason for the visit is…?”
Kaid held out a small folder. Xylvar took it and looked inside. “Boston?” Again. He didn’t know he needed more tests.
“Next Wednesday. You’re on the operating table first thing Thursday morning.”
Something in his chest dropped a thousand feet, leaving him feeling both hollow and thrilled, like a kid taking his first roller coaster ride. “This is worth more credits than we agreed on.” What was he saying? This was his procedure. Paid for in full.
“So, you’ll owe clan a few favors, and we’ll all feel good for trying to help you. Now thank us so we can leave.”
Xylvar looked into the swirling silver and blue of Kaid’s eyes, met the dark and silver of Dan’s. “Thank you. I won’t forget this.”
Kaid gave a half wave. “Walk. That’ll be enough thanks. Oh, and afterward? This cabin, it’s yours. You can either stay and join clan, work for us, or take a break here before you decide what to do with the rest of your life.”
Dan nodded. “Tariq and I’ll be over with a bottle of bourbon later, kill a few drinks, play some cards.”
Friends. Such a foreign feeling, a foreign experience. “Sounds great.” And it did.
The two males left, and Xylvar flicked through the paperwork. Surgery, accommodation, rehab…clan had prepaid everything. He looked around the veranda, back into the cabin
. And if he wanted, he had a home.
The burn in his eyes felt so foreign he flinched when a tear fell.
The soft fall of boots on gravel drew his attention to the track once more. If clan members weren’t in a hurry, they would walk or run around the settlement rather than drive, relishing the quiet, enjoying the sights, sounds and scents of the natural world. And the soft roll of Jaz’s hips, the bounce of her breasts, the breeze blowing her hair around, meant he, too, found the natural approach far more appealing.
Or proved, cripple or not, he was still a male.
“Hey, heard Bliss sent you brownies.” She gave him a greedy grin. “Thought you’d need a hand eating them. Bliss’s brownies are legend.”
He put his hand over the brownies. “I think I can manage.” She disappeared from sight while she walked through his cabin before appearing beside him. She looked around, nostrils flaring to find the source of the brownies’ rich, chocolatey scent.
She looked at his lap, her mouth twitching, then leaned in close, her lips a tantalizing couple of inches from his. “Greedy, much?” She grabbed the tray, yanked off the top, and inhaled the heavenly released aromas. “Man, I’ve got to learn how to cook these.” She handed a thick brownie to Xylvar, and took one herself.
He bit into one. “Help yoursemmm. Phit, this ib gob.”
“Gob. Yeah, they’re definitely gob.”
She bit into hers and chewed, while she squinted at the creek below. “I’ve tracked Rich down. He’s in Bozeman, though officially he’s in New York.”
“Slight geographical discrepancy.”
“Mmm. And it means someone else in the agency or department is in cahoots with him.”
“Odd that he’s focused on this area. The Pure movement is popping up in most states. You have considered he could be doing an undercover job?”
“I’d like to think so. But then why have two lots of subspecies agents taken out of all the potential population? One I could believe is a coincidence, but two? Nah. And in any case, why is he in this area? He knows the eastern states. Most of his contacts are also east side.” She paced up and down the veranda deck. “And how did he find Father Morgan? The man doesn’t have blood-sucking asshole here written on his cyber links. Nothing we or clan looked at pointed a finger at him.”
“Morgan might have found Rich.”
“Yeah maybe. They must have a connection somewhere. I just have to find it.”
“We will. But first we need to find your other missing agents.”
“Don’t I know it. Poor Monique and David have been gone for weeks. And that’s the other thing pointing to Rich. He’s the only person who knew they were assigned to Bozeman. I came here to tell you I found out something else.”
“What?”
“Savtos Kabull was working undercover for Rich. Not the FBPI, but Rich.”
Plot didn’t just get thicker, it started to turn to glue. Xylvar’s link beeped. He pulled out the link, and there it was. The green light attached to Father Morgan’s vehicle entering the gates to the storage facility. He turned the link toward Jaz. “I think we’re on.” He dug into his chairs side pocket, tossed her a starter disc. :Can you grab the van?” Clan had left the vehicle for Xylvar’s use.
She spun. “Be back in five.” She took off running, and damn if that back view wasn’t just as hot as the front.
Xylvar headed for his stash of weapons.
Once they were loaded and ready to roll, he sent an emergency text to Kaid, then tossed the link into Jasmine’s lap. “You tell them what we think is going on.” A short shot of adrenaline had his heart beating a fraction harder. Sitting around healing wasn’t his thing. Action, however, he lived for.
Xylvar and Jaz followed the signal coming from Father Morgan’s vehicle north until they entered, then left Bozeman behind.
With a twist of her hands, Jaz showed him her link’s screen and pointed to a small dot on the map. “He looks to be heading to this ghost town.” In the middle of the village the dot stopped moving.
“Ghost town.” At least they wouldn’t be dodging traffic or having to avoid pedestrians. Outside the uninhabited village, Xylvar pulled their van over. “Show me a complete map of the town.” Lack of traffic made the place easy to negotiate, but it also meant there’d be no hiding in traffic, no blending in with other vans. To be seen would blow all their plans, and Morgan would realize he’d been tracked.
Jaz brought up the image. “That’s it. All we have is this two-year-old aerial image.”
“Not a lot of cover.” Rutted, rough, and studded with field grasses, and lined with sidewalks with small trees growing through the cracks, the main road led to the village center. Trees still lined the streets of the mostly-rotting or half-demolished timber houses. Some were no more than a lone stone or brick chimney, or a set of foundation stumps sticking out of the ground like rotten teeth.
Xylvar slowed and swore under his breath. “Morgan’s car.” He pulled into an old driveway, aiming the van through the long grasses, and pulled up behind half a stone wall. The rest of the rocks lay in piles around its base.
“You go first. Meet you on what’s left of the road.”
They found Father Morgan’s vehicle parked outside an old stone church. The church’s wooden doors, though showing signs of wear, were closed to the outside world. Jasmine flicked her hand down to the side, indicating where Xylvar should go, then ran to the front of the church.
He took the route she’d indicated, and slowly and quietly rolled down the strip of land beside the building, smashing the long grasses and wildflowers as he went.
Blaster ready, he inched toward the back door.
Jaz ran around him. “I can’t see them from the front.” Near the back door she beckoned him to come forward as she peered through a glassless window.
“There’s only one man in there other than Morgan.” Her voice softer than a whisper. She pointed behind them to a small, dark all-wheel drive. “One vehicle.”
“This isn’t our takedown.” Xylvar pulled out a tracking device. “Stick that on the vehicle. Let’s see where Morgan’s contact goes.” Every point of delivery for the gold could lead to the Pure headquarters.
Device planted, they eased away from the church and headed back to their vehicle. Minutes later they drove off, hiding in a thicket of trees farther down the road. Jasmine coded in the new tracker to Xylvar’s link.
Father Morgan passed them soon after, closely followed by the vehicle from behind the church. They waited ten minutes before leaving, tracking Morgan once more through Bozeman. The other vehicle, their new tracking device beeping, turned off the main highway as it hit the town center.
“I’m sending this guy’s tracking code to Rooster and Kaid.”
“Morgan’s heading out of town and going south.”
Jaz grinned. “He’s taken the industrial exit, headed under the highway. Much easier to follow a car with a tracker.”
“Yeah, glad the bastard didn’t swap cars this time.”
Xylvar, just a few minutes behind, took the same turn. “Knew it! He’s heading for the old hunting trail.”
Within minutes they hit gravel, the gravel soon turning to hard-packed, washed-out dirt. They bounced over corrugations, dipped into ruts.
Jaz turned to him, a scowl marring her normally smooth brow. “This van won’t make it over. We should call Kaid, get a four-wheel drive.”
“Call. But I’m going as far as the van can go.” The van lurched and bounced over the ridges of hard earth, rocks, and tree roots, dropping and jolting into the ruts. Using the hand controls, Xylvar slowly maneuvered the van around the worst hazards. They came to a wide long rutted area, a pile of huge boulders on one side of the track, and a dead tree, branches splintering the late afternoon sky, on the other side. Xylvar brought the van to a halt. How the hell did he get the van through that?
“Damn it, we’re going to have to wait for Kaid.” He started to back up to park off to one side, hopefully beh
ind some bushes, so they could watch the track in case Morgan returned before Kaid and his crew arrived. Several hundred yards ahead, the sun bounced of something bright. “Shit, that’s his car, next to the large, rocky outcrop.”
“I didn’t see it. We have to hide.”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
After backing up a few hundred feet, he drove off the side of the track, stopping behind a thicket of trees.
“Come on kitten, gear up, and let’s go see what our fair church leader is doing in such a remote place.” Xylvar threw open his door and hit the chair hoist. Once on the ground, he threw his chair into auto.
Jaz tossed him a couple of blasters, took a couple for herself. “I don’t know where you get kitten from.”
“You’re a bit wild, have black hair, claws, and watchful eyes. You remind me of a panther. Besides, I’ve heard you purr.” He gave her a wink as she ran beside him.
“Only for you. I purr only for you.” On that she jogged ahead of him. He took a wide arc to the back of Father Morgan’s vehicle where Jaz waited.
Xylvar nodded toward a small path worn into the long grass. “I can smell him. He’s gone down there.”
“I’ll go first.” Blaster in one hand, Jaz carefully edged forward, Xylvar following a few feet behind. As much as it pissed him off, he knew Jaz going first made sense.
At a deep crevice in the rock, they stopped and listened. When they heard nothing but the sounds of nature, he indicated she should go farther in. He eased his chair forward, mentally measuring the gap between the rock faces every couple of feet. Wedging his chair between two rock walls would make him easy to catch and kill, bait.
“Psst.” Jaz caught Xylvar’s attention. She tipped her head toward a triangular crack leading into a cave. He nodded, and they entered an unknown pit of darkness.
Xylvar amped up his vision, knowing Jaz would be able to enhance her vision to a far greater degree. They stole deeper into the cave until they came to a long-ago blown-out doorway. Bones from a species he didn’t recognize were scattered nearby, their empty-eyed skulls watching. In the blasted area of the rock stood a rust-colored door.
Flames of Hope Page 29
