by Gaelen Foley
“No, Niall,” he said after a quiet heartbeat, “I won’t.”
Niall flashed a broad smile. “How quaint you are, Falkirk, with all your medieval superstitions. You actually believe in that nonsense, don’t you?”
James stared at him, appalled by this sacrilege.
“For my part, I deal in realities,” Niall said, drifting closer. “At least I can reason with Bloodwell, but you’re just a funny old quiz, aren’t you? Has it ever worked? Even one of your silly dark spells, hm?”
James looked away in fury, but he could not hold his tongue. “You are a disgrace to our creed. You understand nothing.”
“Power, James,” Niall said. “That is what I understand. Dress it up with all your ancient rituals if you like, but at the end of the day, it’s like every other religion, isn’t it? Nothing more than a pantomime men use for control. I’m going to have to take those scrolls from you now, old man. Hand them over.”
James looked at him for a long moment. “I will not.”
Niall’s eyes narrowed. “My father wants them.”
“He cannot even understand them! They’re of no use to him!”
“But they’re of use to you? How?” Niall studied him. “Just what were you planning on doing with these moldy old parchments? What sort of trouble are you up to…?”
James glared at him; all of a sudden, Niall’s eyes flashed. “Traitor!” he murmured, staring at James. “You mean to manipulate the others into going against my father, don’t you? You think you would do better in his place?”
“And so I will,” James vowed as he pulled out a gun.
But he wasn’t fast enough. Niall leaped across the table and grabbed his arm, driving it upward, firing the single bullet into the ceiling.
Crystals shattered on the chandelier, and the next thing James knew, Niall had gripped him by the throat and slammed him back against the nearest wall.
Pain shot through James’s frail, arthritic body.
Struggling for air, he fought to dislodge the red-haired giant’s fingers from his throat, to no avail.
“You schemer,” Niall snarled in his face as he towered over him. “You know how we deal with traitors in the Council.”
“You’re the traitor!” he choked out. “You and your father have betrayed the creed. You’re only out for yourselves!” James closed his eyes, gathered all his concentration, and with what little breath remained, began to utter the most lethal curse on Niall he’d ever learned.
Niall laughed in his face. “What are you going to do, old man, summon a demon to kill me?”
At that moment, the French doors to the balcony exploded open in shattering glass, and Drake flew into the room. The black-haired agent crossed the chamber in a blinding streak of wrath, crashing into Niall; he slammed him to the floor.
James’s neck was wrenched a bit as Niall lost his grip. He gasped for air, astonished, as the two large, muscular men launched into a battle that quickly wrecked the room.
Drake! James thought in amazement, rubbing his throat and still shaking. Where the devil did he come from?
They sprang up from the floor where they had toppled and turned against each other in rage. Then the weight of their warrior bodies collided in a savage mutual attack. With an almost animal fury, they battered each other, crushing furniture, denting walls—each meaty collision of fist or elbow to torso and jaw producing a thud.
When Drake grabbed Niall in a choke hold, his face turned even redder than his hair, but he seized the nearby desk chair and slammed it over his shoulder at his opponent. Drake released him, staggering back. He fell against the bedpost, where he steadied himself, blood beginning to trickle from a cut above his temple.
His eyes were slightly dazed for a second after the blow to the skull. But as Niall spun around, he shook it off, and when the red-haired giant stalked toward him, bringing up his fist, Drake launched forward and delivered a huge roundhouse kick that swiped Niall’s feet out from under him.
Falling flat on his back with an angry shout of pain, Niall flipped onto his stomach at once to get up, but Drake dove on him before he could rise, planting himself astride Niall’s back to pin him to the floor and brutally wrenching both of his arms up behind him.
Niall grappled against the lock that Drake now held on him. “I’ll kill you,” he gasped out.
“Give me my knife, James!” Drake ground out.
James’s gaze homed in on the knife slung on a weapons belt around Drake’s waist.
“Give it to me!” Drake roared when he did not move fast enough. But there was no way James was going anywhere near the two of them.
Let them kill each other. He was getting out of here. He began quickly putting the Alchemist Scrolls back into their kingwood case.
Drake’s eyes were mad and wild, fiery coal-black, his face darkening with the strain of holding Niall down. Both men’s arms were shaking; they were two forces of brute strength pulling in opposite directions.
Niall plowed all his massive strength into trying to free himself, but Drake would not allow it.
All of a sudden, Drake let out a barbaric war cry and with a mighty jerk, dislocated Niall’s right shoulder. The red-haired man’s bloodcurdling scream was cut short as he passed out from the no-doubt-blinding burst of pain.
Drake immediately pushed to his feet and, crouched over Niall’s oddly inert form, pulled out his knife with an evil hiss of metal to cut his throat.
“Drake, no!” James said sharply, stepping toward him.
Drake slowly looked over at him.
And James realized he had summoned a demon, indeed.
“Why not?” he growled.
“Malcolm will send an army after us.”
Drake did not look concerned about an army.
“If they recapture you, they’ll put you back in the dungeon,” James added in a calm, cool voice, holding the demon’s stare.
The warning worked.
How terrified he still was of that dungeon, James mused, as the Drake he knew gradually returned, flickering back to awareness behind the killer’s eyes. His fingers flicked restlessly around the knife’s handle.
“Here. Use these to bind him.” James quickly found the manacles that his late bodyguard, Talon, had often used for binding Drake.
Maybe Talon had been right to do so, after all, James thought. Talon had always insisted that Drake was exceedingly dangerous, but seeing him for so many weeks in his helpless state, it had been easy to forget that.
After what had just happened, James thought this point well worth remembering.
His chest still heaving, Drake accepted his former shackles with a bitter smirk and put them on Niall’s wrists as the semiconscious Promethean let out a groan. He slammed the manacles shut. James also handed him the leg irons.
Drake put these on Niall as well, then stood up and sheathed his knife. Then he looked at James. “Are you all right, sir?”
He waved this off impatiently. “Of course. What in the world are you doing here?”
“I escaped. There’s not much time. The Order agents aren’t far behind me.”
“How did you get away?” James asked, a bit suspicious. This might be a trick, some wicked Order trap.
“No time to explain. We have to get out of here. Now. They’ve got half a dozen men on my trail.”
James frowned. He handed Drake a clean handkerchief so he could wipe the blood off his face.
“Come, sir, we have to go now.”
James hesitated, then decided to trust him. If Malcolm already suspected his plans of insurrection, then he had little choice. With Talon dead, Drake was the only one left who might protect him. “Very well. Fetch my coat, over there, be a good lad, would you?”
While Drake did as asked, daubing the handkerchief over his cut with a wince, James attended to the Scrolls.
When another low groan arose from Niall, still inert on the floor, Drake glanced coldly at the man he had thrashed. “Why don’t you want me to k
ill him?”
“Leave him alive for the Order. Perhaps they’ll stop chasing you if we give them Niall in your place.” Shrugging on his greatcoat, James handed Drake the travel bag he’d already prepared. After all, he had intended to leave England in a day or so to journey to the other Promethean leaders’ strongholds. He would show them the Scrolls and tell them of his plan.
He picked up the Scrolls’ case, then nodded to his fierce young friend. They left his room, hurrying down the third-floor corridor of the hotel. Drake, with weapon in hand, hurriedly shepherded him down the back stairs, watching this way and that for any sign of the Order.
“Come, sir. Let us make for the river. A boat will be our fastest way to safety. Your coach is too fine to blend in—we must not be identified. I’ll call a hackney.”
James nodded, briefly scanning the ex-Order agent’s face. He had got so used to seeing Drake in a trusting, childlike state that after the lethal capability he had exhibited back in the room, James was unsure if this was all a ruse. Was it possible he had truly turned Drake into a Promethean?
It appeared so. He watched him, bemused, as Drake prowled out fearlessly toward the street. He lifted his hand to his mouth and let out a loud whistle, then waved his arm to be seen by one of the waiting hackney coaches down the dark street.
James winced, hoping the Order agents Drake had said were following him had not also heard his whistle.
Drake strode back to the wall where James waited in the shadows. When he began pacing with impatience for the carriage to reach them, James watched him. “You seem much better.”
“Somewhat, yes.”
He volunteered nothing more until James posed the question bluntly: “Have you regained your memory, my boy?”
Drake paused for a long moment, then turned to him. “Enough to know who I can trust and who I can’t. They left me for dead,” he added in a hard tone. “You’re the one who got me out of the dungeon. Besides,” he added in a low tone as he swept the dark streets with his even darker glance, “why should I remain in England? There’s nothing for me here.”
“If you join me, you will be a hunted man—and not just by the Order. Malcolm will send others when his son does not return.”
“Which means you need me all the more if you wish to stay alive,” Drake answered in a hard tone.
“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” James said dryly.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” Drake muttered, as the hackney finally rolled up in front of them.
They walked over to it; Drake got the door for James and steadied him as he started to step up; but all of a sudden, a cool-toned voice gave an order from a few feet behind them. “Don’t move…another inch.”
Click.
James froze at the sound of a pistol being cocked behind him. He looked warily over his shoulder, then was filled with recognition. “Well, if it isn’t the Order’s resident scholar.”
“Evening, Falkirk. Lord Westwood,” Jordan greeted them coolly, a pistol in each hand. “Terribly sorry about this, gentlemen, but if either of you moves, I’m afraid I’ll have to shoot. You. Put your hands up,” he advised the hackney driver, who blanched and obeyed, taking his hands off the reins.
Jordan advanced, keeping them in his sights.
“Now, look here, young man,” Falkirk spoke up, taking an oh-so-reasonable tone. “You and I are much too civilized for this nonsense. You are not going to shoot me.”
“No, I am going to shoot him.” Jordan pointed his left-hand pistol at Drake. “Step away from the carriage, Lord Westwood. You’re a traitor to the Order, and however scrambled your wits may be, I think you know what that means.”
Drake lifted his chin in defiance.
“Don’t give me any trouble, Drake. I’d really rather spare you. You come peacefully with me, or else.”
“Let him go,” Falkirk said. “We left a prisoner for you upstairs in his place. Third floor, Room 32. The door is open.”
Jordan eyed the old man suspiciously. “Niall?”
“Yes.”
“Alive or dead?”
“Alive,” said Falkirk.
Jordan nodded. “All the same, Drake is going to have to come with me. Let’s go, now, move!”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Drake murmured.
“Don’t try me.” Jordan aimed a pistol at his forehead, but in that split second in which even he wondered if he could pull the trigger and kill a brother agent, Drake’s glance flicked past him.
His lips twisted in a cynical half smile.
And suddenly something smashed Jordan in the back of the head. He lurched forward, thrown off-balance, seeing stars, and tasting horror—for his first thought was that he had been shot in the head. He fell to one knee on the cobblestones. Amid those stunned, reeling seconds, he scarcely cared that Drake kicked the gun out of his hand, threw Falkirk into the hackney, and leaped in after him with a shout at the driver to go.
Clutching the back of his head, Jordan blinked hard, then looked at his hand.
Only a little blood. What the hell?
Squinting through the meteor shower of stars he was still seeing, he noticed the fist-sized rock on the ground beside him. A bloody stone? Some little David had just made a Goliath of him?
He cursed and straightened up, trying to shake off the cobwebs, and suddenly realized Drake was getting away.
He cursed again. The carriage was already too far down the road to chase—but who the devil had helped the lunatic escape by throwing that rock at him?
Furious, Jordan stalked into the darkness in the direction from which the stone had been lobbed. He faintly heard the echo of light, pattering footsteps, but no one was there.
“Hey!” he roared, running a few steps after them, but confounded, he soon gave up. He was chasing shadows—and beginning to feel like a damned fool.
All he knew was that it was no Promethean who had struck him, for they did not waste their time throwing mere rocks. It would indeed have been a bullet. Whoever had thrown it had not intended to kill him, but he shuddered to think they’d certainly had their chance. He spat another disgusted curse, then went back around to the front of the building to see if Falkirk’s claim about Niall at least was true.
As he approached the entrance, galloping carriage horses barreling down the street to the hotel heralded his colleagues’ arrival.
“You’re too late,” Jordan said flatly, resting his hands on his hips as Max jumped out of the coach. “He’s already gone. That way. I believe they were headed for the docks.”
“Parker!” the marquess ordered.
“Yes, sir!” Sergeant Parker and his men didn’t bother getting out of their coach but drove on, following Drake, which, apparently, they had been doing all day.
“What are you doing here?” Max asked, but Jordan waited for the others to join him before he explained.
Virgil and Beauchamp got out of another carriage and came striding over, but Jordan lifted his eyebrows when Warrington jumped down from the other coach, six and a half feet of pure mean.
Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington, was the team’s most formidable killer.
“Good timing!” Jordan greeted him. “When did you get back from Scotland?”
“Just today. What the hell happened?”
Jordan braced himself and told them.
“Niall’s in London?” Rohan echoed.
But while Max groaned over how close Jordan had come to capturing Drake, Virgil pivoted and began marching toward the hotel entrance without a word.
“Sir?” Beauchamp jogged after him, casting the others a curious glance over his shoulder.
“I guess we’re going in.” Rohan’s knife produced a soft metallic hiss as he drew it from its sheath.
“Virgil, wait for us!” Max strode after him.
They followed the old Highlander into the building and up to the third floor, and found Room 32, just as Falkirk had advised.
Jordan’s jaw dro
pped when he saw their waiting prisoner.
“Thank you, Drake,” Beau said wryly, leaning on the doorframe.
The men laughed a little at Malcolm’s brawny, furious son spewing curses at them as he lay prone on the elegant carpet, manacled hand and foot.
Except for Virgil.
Without the slightest trace of a smile, he strode in and crouched down to check the extent of Niall’s injuries.
“Give me a hand with him,” the old man muttered.
“Can’t we just drag him?” Rohan jested.
Virgil shot them a furious glance, and all of a sudden, the warriors quit laughing.
A stunned silence fell.
“Damn,” Rohan murmured, one syllable sufficient to express the shock they all felt.
As the realization hit them, the men exchanged stunned glances.
Seeing Virgil and Niall side by side, the truth was as plain as their matching noses on their braw Scottish faces, and the thick, flame red hair on both men’s heads. They were of equal size and build, as well. And the truth was suddenly obvious.
Niall Banks was not Virgil’s nephew. He was his son.
Chapter 14
Virgil quickly masked his emotions behind his usual gruff exterior; Max rushed to assist their handler in helping Niall to his feet. One side of his face swollen, nose bleeding, and one shoulder hanging at an unnatural angle, Niall was apparently in too much pain to do more than snarl at them and plead for help by turns.
“Let’s bring him in and get that shoulder set,” Virgil muttered.
Max nodded to him. “I’ll come with you.”
The mood had gone awkward, all the men feeling rather like chastened boys in the face of their mentor’s secret anguish. Still, Jordan had no doubt that Niall would have gladly slit any of their throats if he got the chance.
Beau stopped Max on his way. “Do you want me to go after Drake or ask some questions around here and see if the hotel staff or guests have got anything to share about Falkirk? Might prove useful.”
“Good idea. Parker and his men are after Drake. Let me know what you find. Thanks, Beauchamp.”
