by Lori Sjoberg
The door to the apartment was hanging by a hinge, the frame splintered around the knob. Dmitri shoved the door open and rushed inside to find Sarah standing by the kitchen with the phone pressed to her ear. A nasty bruise marred her right cheek, and she was holding a bat in her free hand. Her eyes widened at the sight of them before flooding with obvious relief.
“David!” She dropped the phone and the bat and rushed across the room, burying her face in his chest. He crushed her against him and closed his eyes as he stroked a hand over her hair.
“Where’s Gwen?” Dmitri’s pulse raced as he scanned every inch of the room. The apartment was trashed, with furniture overturned and shit tossed all over the floor. There was a hole in the drywall by the dining room table that was large enough for a person to fit through.
Sarah stepped out of David’s embrace and turned toward Dmitri. “A group of reapers attacked us. We tried to get away, but they caught us out by the mailboxes.” Her voice shook, and she looked like she was about to cry. “I tried to help, but Gwen told me to run, and then they shot her with a stun gun—I’m so sorry.”
Panic knotted in Dmitri’s gut before exploding into white-hot rage. He’d tear them to pieces, every last fucking one of them. “How many? Where did they go?”
Sarah closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples. “Six, maybe seven. I can’t say for sure. They said something about taking her to Patrick.”
Dmitri cursed. That asshole had his woman.
“We need to tell Samuel,” David said.
“Why? What’s he going to do? He sent us on this wild goose chase because he couldn’t locate Ziegler himself.” Dmitri stalked across the room like a caged animal. The urge to commit violence boiled in his veins, almost uncontrollable in its intensity. Where would Patrick take her? He stopped short and turned to Sarah. “Was Gwen wearing her running shoes when she was taken?”
Her brows drew together. “Ah … yeah. I think so.”
“Good. Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Because I can use it to pinpoint her location.”
David stared at him with a look of sheer disbelief. “You put a GPS tracker on your girlfriend?”
“Given the situation, wouldn’t you?” He’d planted it beneath the insole of her shoe not too long after Cooper had shot her.
David opened his mouth, but then closed it without answering the question.
Turning his attention back to the phone, Dmitri installed and activated the GPS app and pulled up Gwen’s coordinates. “They’re heading south on the Turnpike.” If he left now, he could probably catch up to them in less than an hour.
David gave a curt nod. “All right, let’s go. If you want, I can make a few calls and bring in some extra manpower.”
“Thanks, but with the way Ziegler’s been recruiting reapers, we can’t be sure who’s friend or foe.” Aside from David, he trusted his crew in Orlando, but they were too far away to draft into service. “You don’t have to do this,” Dmitri said, although he truly appreciated the offer. “You should stay here and take care of your woman.”
“His woman is going along with you,” Sarah said, a note of irritation seeping into her words.
“What?” David shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
Eyes narrowed, Sarah crossed her arms and jerked her chin up to meet his gaze. “She’s my friend. I’m helping, and that’s final.”
Dmitri eyed the bruise on the side of Sarah’s face. Her heart was in the right place, and he respected her attitude, but she simply lacked the ability to help. “No offense, but you look a bit shaky. It might be better if you stayed out of harm’s way.”
“I’ll be fine by the time we get there. Trust me, I can help.”
Yeah, right. He didn’t have time for this shit. If she wanted to put herself in danger, that was between her and David. “All right, but you pull your own weight. You get into trouble, and you’re on your own.”
“Deal.”
Even though Gwen knew it was useless, she struggled against the restraints. The big, beefy guy had cuffed her arms to the chair and duct-taped her legs at the ankles. A second thick layer of tape held her firmly against the seat back. In front of her were a card table and two folding chairs that had seen better days. Again, she yanked against the cuffs, straining against the stainless steel until her wrists were raw and bleeding.
Judging by her surroundings, she was inside some type of abandoned warehouse. The place was rusty, falling apart, with puddles of standing water on the concrete floor. Large metal beams supported rafters that looked like they were about to fall down. A musty odor fouled the air, and sunlight peeked through gaping holes in the roof. Except for the pair of reapers who checked on her every five or ten minutes, the only other occupants seemed to be pigeons.
Outside, an engine rumbled. It didn’t sound right for a car or truck. A boat, maybe? She’d seen seagulls flying overhead, so it was possible. The engine stopped, and a few minutes later she heard a pair of voices approaching.
Locks clicked, and the door screeched open on hinges in need of WD-40.
“Wait here, the others should arrive shortly,” Patrick said to someone outside the room. He tucked his phone into his pocket as he walked inside and closed the door behind him. Dressed in tan khakis and a white polo shirt, he looked more country club than crazed mutineer. He paused, his eyes moving over her in quick appraisal.
“I apologize for the restraints.” There was a note of sympathy in his tone, but who knew if he actually meant it. He ran a hand through his windblown sandy-brown hair as he walked toward her.
“Don’t apologize unless you’re going to remove them.”
“You know I can’t do that. If I do, you’ll try to escape.”
“No, if you do, I’ll rip your lungs out.” And she’d enjoy every damn minute of it.
Patrick’s expression turned hard. “Very well. If you insist on acting uncivilized—”
“Uncivilized?” Her voice echoed across the cavernous room. “I’ll show you fucking uncivilized!” She yanked on the restraints so hard she nearly dislocated her own shoulder. “You’re the bastard murdering reapers!”
His shoulders fell on a heavy exhale. “I’m not going through this with you again.”
“That’s good, because I’m not in the mood to listen to your bullshit.”
Patrick flushed, and his eyes thinned to slits. He’d always been the kind to get easily riled up. “In that case, I’ll get to the point.” He propped his hands on his hips and stared down his nose at her. “Where is the artifact?”
Back in Orlando, with Ruby and Jack, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Artifact?” Gwen wrinkled her brows in feigned confusion. She mimicked the way he spoke when she said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Could you describe it for me?”
Definitely not the answer he was looking for. Patrick’s lips pressed into a thin white line. “I don’t have time to play games. Now tell me where it is before I lose my patience.”
“Oh, well gee, when you put it that way …” She paused as if thinking it over. “How about no?”
“Dammit, Gwen!” He turned beet red as he stamped his foot like a child having a tantrum. “You’re only delaying the inevitable. Why must you be so difficult?”
“Because you’re acting like a psychopath.” Gwen took a deep, calming breath and willed her nerves to settle. By now, Sarah must have gotten hold of the guys and told them everything that happened. Perhaps if she stalled Patrick long enough, Dmitri could find her before things got too ugly. “Listen to reason, Patrick,” she said. “The portal works both ways. There are things on the other side, terrible things. If you open the rift, they’ll invade our world.”
He scoffed. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Tell that to the Akkadians.”
“They were primitive,” he said, dismissing the possibility. “I’ve taken all of the necessary precautions.”
Was he
serious? Of course he was. Lunatics always considered their plans foolproof. “Like what? How can you take precautions against something you know absolutely nothing about?”
With a heavy sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gwen, you’ve always been overly cautious.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” That healthy sense of paranoia had saved her bacon on more than one occasion. She tugged once more at the cuffs. “Come on, Patrick, stop being so naïve. Deep down, there’s a part of you that knows this won’t end well. It’s bad enough that you’re dooming yourself, but think about what you’re doing to your followers. You have the power to stop all of this before things get even more out of hand.”
Patrick shoved his hands in his pants pockets and stared straight down at his shoes. Muttering to himself, he paced the length of the dingy room. Once. Twice. Had she finally gotten through to him? Her hopes began to rise. But by the third pass he’d stopped muttering and his expression turned to stone.
Shit. That probably meant she was screwed.
He pulled out a chair and sat beside her. Reaching out, he covered one of her hands with his. Their eyes met, and for a moment he reminded her of the Patrick she used to love like a little brother. “Be reasonable. All you have to do is let me know where it is. You can tell Samuel that I took it from you, and he’ll never know the difference.”
“I’ll know, and then we’ll all have to deal with the consequences.”
Anger flashed across his face, but it disappeared just as quickly. “It’s only a matter of time. Why put yourself through so much unnecessary discomfort?”
She didn’t know what he meant by that, but she suspected she’d find out soon. Pushing back against the fear that threatened to choke her, she met his unwavering gaze. “Because it’s only a matter of time before Dmitri sends you to judgment.”
He let out a derisive laugh. “I’m not afraid of that savage.”
“You should be. He’ll tear your head off and use it for a soccer ball.” She wondered if Patrick had tried to contact Dmitri in an attempt to barter her freedom for the relic. Probably not. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have succeeded since Dmitri’s phone was in her back pocket.
Patrick’s hands balled into fists, and for the first time she wondered if he might strike her. But instead, he reached for his phone and punched in a number. “Get in here. Now.” After disconnecting he muttered, “Some people just don’t listen to reason.”
About a minute later, the door creaked open. A tall, thin man entered the room, carrying a small tray filled with tools. The guy appeared to be in his late fifties, with sunken eyes, sallow skin, and close-cropped hair the color of ash. Given his age, his life force was unusually strong. Definitely not human, and he wasn’t a reaper. Demon, maybe? No, that wasn’t right. The pitch was totally different. He ignored her as he set the tray on the table and began rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt.
“I regret having to do this, but you’ve left me with no other option.” Patrick gestured toward the older man. “Noah and I met a few years ago while I was working a job in Charleston. He knows more about inflicting pain than you or I could possibly imagine.”
Considering her past, she seriously doubted it. Maybe this was karma’s way of paying her back for what she’d put Dmitri through. She eyed the tray of tools on the table, the jagged saws and sharpened scalpels that shared space with a bottle of iodine and what looked like an ice pick. A pair of syringes was set to the side, filled with some sort of milky white liquid.
Fear rose up her throat like bile. This was going to suck.
“I’m giving you one last chance,” Patrick said, the threat in his voice unmistakable. “Tell me where I can find the artifact, or I turn you over to Noah.”
Gwen’s gaze darted from one man to the other, her pulse pounding in her ears. Thinking back, she remembered Dmitri’s unwavering defiance when confronted with horrific torture. She clung to the memory, using it to settle her nerves and calm her erratic breathing. He’d endured the pain, and so would she. All she had to do was last long enough for him to rescue her. She dug deep for every last ounce of her courage, lifted her gaze, and stared into Patrick’s cold eyes. “Ya vam nichego ne skazhu.”
His brows crinkled. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we’re in for a long night, because I’m not telling you anything.”
A crash on the Turnpike backed up traffic for miles and shot Dmitri’s blood pressure through the roof. He didn’t have time for this shit. He needed to get to Gwen. Frustration mounting, he pulled off the road and drove on the shoulder until he reached an exit. With David’s help, he found an alternate route that finally put them back on course. Still, they’d lost over an hour on the road, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Gwen during that time.
They were heading deep into the Everglades now, to a place off US-1 where the streets were dirt and rutted with potholes. A canal ran along the side of the road, and several alligators basked along the shoreline. When they got to within a few miles of the tracker’s location, Dmitri pulled onto the side of the road and popped open the trunk.
Drawing a deep breath, Dmitri forced back the growing alarm that threatened to consume him. Was she okay? What were they doing to her? Memories of his own captivity flashed through his mind, and his blood chilled to ice. God help that asshole if he harmed her in any way, shape, or form.
“Why are we stopping?” Sarah asked.
“We need to gear up before we get there,” David explained. He got out of the car and opened her door before following Dmitri to the trunk.
It wouldn’t have made sense to prepare their weapons earlier. Not when they’d been on a busy stretch of highway where someone might have called the cops on a car full of armed civilians. “What’s your preference?” Dmitri asked as David approached.
“That depends. What have you got?”
Dmitri leaned into the trunk and unzipped the bags containing the cache of weapons he’d retrieved from Ruby’s house.
Sarah’s jaw dropped open. “Holy crap, that’s enough firepower to take down a third world country.”
The corners of Dmitri’s mouth twitched as he shrugged on his load-bearing vest. The nylon mesh was equipped with multiple pockets to store his ammo, knives, and a few explosive charges. They had no way of knowing what they were stepping into, and he hoped it would be enough. “This is nothing. You should see what I have back home.”
David scanned the trunk’s inventory with marked interest. “Where’d you get the Kalashnikov?”
“Picked it up at a drug house a few years ago.” After sorting through the carnage and harvesting the souls of the deceased, he’d helped himself to one of the automatic rifles left behind. Since then, he’d added a tactical scope with laser sight to give the weapon a greater degree of versatility.
After a minute or so David gestured toward the nylon case in the back. “I’ll take the M4 and the Beretta. Give her the Sig Sauer.”
An uneasy feeling settled over Dmitri as he slapped a fresh magazine into the M4 and handed it to David. He did the same with the Beretta, checking it first to make sure it had a full clip.
“You sure you want her doing this?” he asked in a low voice. The last thing he wanted was to catch shit from David because his woman got involved in something she couldn’t handle.
“Yes, he’s sure,” Sarah answered for him, the irritation plain in her voice.
Experience had taught Dmitri not to argue with that tone. He racked a round in the chamber of the Sig Sauer and flipped the safety on before passing the gun to Sarah. “Not a word if you shoot yourself.”
Sarah nodded, her face filled with a steely determination that he couldn’t help but appreciate. “You got it.”
Gwen lifted her aching head. A thick, damp haze clouded her thoughts, but she still maintained just enough clarity to remember where she was and what was happening.
Her entire body hurt so much she’d moved i
nto a whole new territory of pain. Glancing down at her ruined hands, she fought the urge to retch. The missing skin on top would regenerate in a day or two, but she had no idea how long it would take before her fingernails grew back. Broken ribs dug into her flesh, making every inhale pure agony.
Patrick had been right. Noah knew things about dispensing pain that she’d never even considered. More than once, she’d passed out from the wrenching agony, only to be revived for another round of questioning. And after everything they’d put her through, she’d be damned if she told them a thing.
The sun had set a little while ago, and the darkening sky was visible through the holes in the roof. Where the hell was Dmitri? He should have been here already. For hours, she’d clung to the hope that he’d rescue her, but now she wasn’t so sure. The possibility that he wasn’t coming hurt worse than all of the torture. Ruthlessly, she shoved the doubt aside. He’d make it stop, she repeated in her mind. He would. And after that, he’d make the bastards pay.
“State your name,” Noah said, his tone clipped and commanding. There was a guttural quality to his accent that she couldn’t quite pin down.
Gwen raised her gaze from her hands. She glared at Noah with a look of pure hatred, and something clicked in her mind. “You’re one of the Gutians, aren’t you?” It would explain the foreign thread in his life force that she couldn’t quite identify. He wasn’t demonic, and he wasn’t a mage. But he was most certainly evil. She could sense the malevolence in the core of his being. “You’re using Patrick to open the portal so your kind can invade our world.”
Noah didn’t confirm or deny her accusation, but the flicker of awareness in his eyes confirmed her suspicions.
“State your name,” he repeated, and a wave of hostility radiated off his body.
A trickle of blood stung her eye, and she blinked to clear her vision. Thoughts of vengeance filled her mind, and a vicious grin stretched across her mouth. Oh, yeah. They were so going to pay for all this. “Ya vam nichego ne skazhu.”
