She slowed her pace, listening to every little sound, hyper-alert to her surroundings. The houses were small, she’d guess no more than two bedrooms. On the other hand, they all had ground-level windows, so she assumed there were basements. Basements were handy places to hide things, especially if you needed to shield the magical energy of something like the Talisman. It didn’t work on her, because her talent was . . . what? Magical, she guessed. After all these years, it still struck her as odd that Sergeant Major Theodore “Ted” Lewis could have produced a child with such a fluffy gift.
She approached the target house. It was unremarkable to the naked eye, but she could feel the Talisman inside, like a beast testing the boundaries of its cage, waiting to get out. Pausing in the deep shadows cast by their back neighbor’s tree, she crouched down and studied the house through the tall, chain-link fence that closed in the backyard. After a few minutes, she was forced to admit there was nothing to see. A little bit of light leaked around the drawn shades, and the infrequent passing shadow confirmed someone was inside. But there was nothing to distinguish this house from all the others, nothing except the shrieking of her magical senses, that was.
She had to believe they had some enhanced security on the place, but from where she stood, there was nothing obvious. Either the surveillance devices were all motion-sensitive and thus not detectable until it was too late, or Sotiris had set up magical wards that were too close-in for her to detect, until after she’d tripped one of them. She had no intention of testing her theory, however. By now, Nick was almost certainly on his way with Damian, and it was his job to handle Sotiris, not hers.
Rising from the crouch, she continued down the alley, intending to circle the block and do a walk-by of the front of the house from the other direction. A big, black dog with a mouthful of vicious-looking teeth came at her out of nowhere, straining against the chain holding it in place, and she jumped so violently that she nearly tripped. What was really creepy was that the dog didn’t bark. Even its growl was more of a high whine, and she realized someone had severed the animal’s vocal chords. Now that was someone she wouldn’t mind meeting in a dark alley with Damian and his sword at her side.
She frowned. Why the hell had she put Damian in her little vengeance fantasy? She didn’t need either of his swords. She shoved him out of her thoughts and reimagined herself in the dark alley with a big gun instead. Her frown only deepened. As vengeance fantasies went, it was much more satisfying when Damian had lopped off the man’s head.
Speaking of heads . . . she needed to get hers back in the game. She walked on toward the opposite end of the alley, still alert, but fighting the urge to relax. That was the last thing she could afford to do. If there were any danger of detection, it would be on the other half of her little mission, when she planned to stroll right past the front of the house.
She reached the end of the alley and paused. Some instinct was warning her that there was danger here. She stretched her senses out as far as they could go, but felt nothing. Nothing magical, that was. She didn’t have Damian’s warrior instincts, which were pretty damn close to magic, too. And why was she thinking about him again? Determined to finish this recon and get back to her Yukon before he and Nick arrived, she marched to the end of the alley and turned . . . right into the arms of a big, burly guy who had one huge arm wrapped around her upper body, her arms pinned, and her mouth covered before she could so much as squeak a protest. He grinned down at her.
“You’ve caused a lot of trouble, bitch. It’s time you made up for it.”
The arm around her body jerked and suddenly his hand was on her breast, squeezing hard. She swallowed a gasp, more in anger than fear, and kicked back at him, thrashing as hard as she could.
“What the hell, Linwood?” another voice demanded. “The boss said to bring her around, not feel her up in the fucking alley.”
“Fuck you,” Linwood snarled. “It’s not going to hurt the bitch, and the boss is too far into his big show-and-tell to notice a pipsqueak like me. Or her, for that matter.”
“You maybe. But he asked for her specifically. Hand her over.”
Well, that wasn’t good, Casey thought to herself, then stumbled and nearly fell when the big thug abruptly shoved her in the direction of the other guy.
“You’re back on patrol, Linwood. Try not to fuck it up,” Thug Number Two snapped, then grabbed her arm and dragged her back down the alley. “Scream or make any noise at all, and I’ll knock you out,” he threatened.
“Thanks for the rescue,” she said sarcastically.
“Shut the fuck up. You won’t be so smart once the boss gets hold of you.”
Casey had a feeling he was right about that. The “boss” had to be Sotiris, right? She’d been going head-to-head with his surrogates for almost as long as she’d been doing this job, but she’d never met the big man himself. And she couldn’t say she was looking forward to it now. It seemed she’d walked right into a trap. He must have been aware of her following them the whole time. The big question was, why bother to capture her? Why not just kill her and be done with it?
Her captor dragged her through the dark backyard and up a few steps to the rear of the house. The door buzzed open almost the moment they hit the steps. It confirmed her assessment of the surveillance situation earlier. Not that it did her much good at this point.
They kept going through a small kitchen, into a hallway. They passed a dingy living room, and an even dingier bathroom, and then her captor was manhandling her down the stairs and into the basement. Nothing good ever happened in a basement.
“Cassandra Lewis,” a smooth voice crooned. “We meet at last.”
She spun around to find a man who could only be Sotiris standing there in the flesh. He wore a three-piece suit, of all things, and appeared older than she’d expected, given his ancient rivalry with Nick. Nick was late twenties, maybe thirty years old in appearance. But Sotiris looked to be in his late forties, a handsome man, with dark hair and elegant features.
She met his sneering gaze. “Uh huh,” she said cautiously. “You could have called any time if you’d really wanted to meet me. We could have had a nice cup of coffee instead of freezing in this dumpy basement. Why’d you pick this house anyway? It’s not exactly loaded with creature comforts,” she added, casting a disapproving glance around the basement, her eye falling on a haphazard stack of empty wooden boxes, which, according to the stenciled labels, had once contained ammo and weapons. “Do we eat on the MP5 crate?” she asked.
Sotiris moved faster than she could follow, his right hand snapping out like a snake’s strike, slapping her face. Hell, calling that a slap was too kind. It felt more like a truck hitting her as it knocked her to the floor.
“You will learn to respect your betters,” he lectured, his voice completely devoid of emotion. No anger, no frustration. “Tie her up,” he ordered someone behind her.
Suddenly, her arms were grabbed painfully tight, bound behind her back at the elbow and wrist, before she was spun around and shoved into a rickety chair in the middle of the basement. Her ears were still ringing, but while her captors tied her to the chair, she took the opportunity to check out the rest of the basement, looking for weaknesses, potential weapons, possible exits. And found not much.
She’d secretly hoped that someone had overlooked a stash of weapons in one of those boxes, but that seemed a vain hope. There was a plain concrete floor with two boarded-up windows high up on the wall, well out of her reach even if she wasn’t bound to a chair. On the wall opposite the empty ammo boxes was an equally disorganized stack of old furniture and cardboard boxes. Everything there looked like it had simply been tossed into a big pile without any regard for the contents.
Granted, the furniture all looked as rickety as the chair she was tied to, but the boxes were taped shut and labeled, as if they had once mattered to someone.
Maybe the previous owner of the house? She frowned, wondering if they’d left voluntarily—she chanced another glance around the cluttered basement—or if they’d left at all. That thought made her shudder, a reaction that Sotiris evidently took for stark terror. She wasn’t terrified. Not yet. Scared out of her mind, for sure. But not terrified.
“Are you frightened, Ms. Lewis?” Sotiris simpered. But his next words were as hard and cold as ice. “You should be. Your life is now very much in my hands, and believe me, I’ve no care whatsoever for your continued well-being.”
Casey forced herself to pay attention, to study him as she would any other problem. How did a human being turn into such a monster? Had he been born that way? Were sorcerers born to be good or evil? Nick probably knew, but they’d never discussed it, because until a few days ago, she hadn’t known he was a sorcerer. She sighed. “What do you want?” she asked Sotiris, growing tired of the game.
“I want what’s in that pretty little head of yours.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “You mean the magic-sensing thing? Why would you—?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a god in this reality. I don’t need your puny talent.”
“Then what?” she asked, truly confused.
“Information, you idiot. I want to know about your new friend.”
She frowned again. “I don’t know—”
The blow was a solid fist this time, from one of Sotiris’s thugs. It connected with the side of her head, knocking her to the floor, chair and all. Her head hit the concrete floor, and she lay there a moment, nerves singing with too much pain to move, her thoughts too blurred to react in any way.
“Get her up.”
She was jerked upright, the ropes ripping into her skin, her head still ringing from the double impact.
“Tell me about the warrior.”
Casey blinked at Sotiris in confusion, and it wasn’t an act. She was having trouble focusing her thoughts. “Warrior,” she repeated, her tongue feeling clumsy and thick as she tried to make sense of the word.
She saw the blow coming this time and tried to duck away from it. The thug’s fist missed her head, but she screamed when it hit her still-healing shoulder. “Stop it,” she hissed desperately, tears streaming down her face. “What do you want?”
“Who’s the warrior? What’s his name?”
She had enough brain power left to be puzzled at the track of Sotiris’s questions. He wanted Damian’s name? Why would he. . . . No, he wanted to know which one of Nick’s warriors had been freed from his curse. Why did it matter so much to him?
“He didn’t tell me his name,” she said quickly, to avoid getting hit again. “He doesn’t speak any English, and whatever language he does speak, I’ve never heard before.”
“You’ve spent several days with him. You must have learned something.”
She shrugged, swallowing a pained cry for her poor shoulder. “He’s pretty jumpy,” she rasped. “Everything scares him, or at least, it freaks him out. Cars, phones, television, you name it,” she continued, warming to her deception. “He’s like a caveman or something.”
“And the weapon?”
“You mean his sword?” she asked, playing dumb. She started to shrug again, but caught herself. “It’s a big-ass sword,” she said dully. “That’s all I know. I don’t do edged weapons.”
Sotiris’s hand snapped out, striking her across the face. It was better than being punched and shoved to the floor again, but as she tasted blood in her mouth and tongued a loose tooth, she thought that wasn’t saying much.
“Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know. I was too busy fighting for my life against a bunch of assholes to notice,” she said bitterly. Then she couldn’t help adding, “Oh, wait, the assholes are friends of yours, aren’t they?”
“You’re too smart by half, Ms. Lewis.”
Not smart enough, obviously. Or she wouldn’t be tied to a chair, playing punching bag to this asshole.
“It’s really too bad you got suckered in by Katsaros and his noble intentions. Tell me, have you fucked him yet? That’s usually his way.”
Casey fought to control her reaction to the crude turn in the conversation. He’d probably done it on purpose, just to rattle her.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Sotiris continued with barely a breath in between. “That’s all right, I don’t need to know about Nicky boy, I know everything there is. After all, we practically grew up together.”
Well, shit, then why wasn’t he asking Nick these questions? “Look,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “I get it. You and Nick have a history. Or maybe you just don’t like the competition. But whatever it is, I don’t have your answers.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Katsaros. I want to know which one of his over-muscled followers turned up in that alley and why.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t know. He came out of nowhere and started waving a damn sword around. I thought he was nuts, but then he started killing your guys, so I didn’t care. And afterward, Nick called and said he couldn’t get away, so I’ve been stuck babysitting the guy.”
“Really?” Sotiris said cynically. He gestured to the side, and one of his flunkies turned over what looked like . . . shit! They had her purse, which meant they had access to her damn cell phone. The flunky handed it to Sotiris. “Let’s see whom we have here. He scanned her call log. “Well, there’s Nick, of course. And that silly assistant of his. Too chipper by half, that one.” He scrolled farther down the list. “A few unknown callers, probably junk but worth checking out.” He frowned. “And that’s it?” he asked in disbelief. “Goodness, you don’t have much of a life do you? What does the warrior look like?” he snapped abruptly, clearly hoping to throw her off with the sudden change of subject.
She gave a genuine sigh. Her head was killing her, her jaw was throbbing in time with her racing heart, and it felt like her arm had been ripped from her shoulder again. And this guy wanted to go all fanboy on Damian for some reason.
“He’s big, blond, and good with a sword. That’s all I know.”
“What does Katsaros call him?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them together. They’ve been having these private little meetings without telling me.”
“You’re annoyingly useless. Other than as an amusement for my men, of course. Lucky for you, they won’t have as much time to play as they’d like.” He looked over her head to the guy who’d punched and knocked her over her earlier. “Get rid of her, and make it messy. I want a pretty package waiting for Katsaros when he arrives.”
He spun on his heel and headed up the stairs, calling orders as he went. She heard just a snippet of conversation from the top of the stairs, after he left the basement. It wasn’t much. Just a few words, but with what she already knew, it was enough. He planned to auction off the Talisman to the highest bidder sometime very soon. And before that, he was going to do something spectacular enough to ensure the artifact fetched a high price.
They were officially out of time. They needed to stop him now. She needed to stop him. But how?
Her captor came around to stand in front of her, letting her see his face for the first time. To say he was pierced was an understatement. How the hell did this guy ever get through airport security? Both eyebrows, his nose, his lip, his ears . . . all had multiple piercings each. It made her wonder where else he was sporting metal, but as quickly as she had the thought, she shoved it away. She really didn’t want to know.
He grinned, and she saw he’d filed his teeth to sharp points. And her fate was in this guy’s hands. A guy who’d been ordered to “make it messy.” Damn.
NICK DIDN’T BOTHER trying to be discreet as he roared down the Interstate. It was impossible with the Ferrari anyway. It was too noticeable, too much like an
invitation to pull him over. Not for the first time, he wished he’d taken the time to switch out cars before leaving Kansas. But he’d been so excited when he’d heard Damian had been freed, that all he could think about was getting here. He could deal with the cops, if it came to that. Vampires weren’t the only creatures who could magic their way out of a ticket. But he didn’t want to waste the time it would take.
His phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID. Lilia. “Good morning, beautiful,” he said. He always called her that, not because she was beautiful—or not only because she was beautiful because she sure as hell was—but because it made her cheeks pink up in a blush every time. He knew she was blushing now, even though he couldn’t see her.
“Nick,” she said in that breathy way she had when he’d caught her off-guard. She cleared her throat, then shifted into pure business mode. “Something weird is happening with the signal from Casey’s phone,” she said briskly.
“What?” Damian demanded from the passenger seat.
“Damian? It’s good you’re there. But you guys should have let me know you’d met up.”
“Lilia,” Nick chided. She had a tendency to get spun-up about details and forget the big picture. “What about the phone signal?”
“Right, sorry. Casey’s phone stopped for a while, but it’s moving again, and that doesn’t make sense. I’ve tried calling her, but there’s no answer, and that’s not good, not normal. Casey always stays in touch. She’s the only one of you guys who follows protocol on that. She might not be able to talk, but she’d at least answer the damn phone, even if it was only to let me hear what was happening on her end.”
“Where is she now?”
“The phone was stationary for a long time, but it’s now traveling down I-355.”
Nick thought for a moment. “Okay, give me the address of her last stop, but keep tracking the phone.”
“I’m sending the address to your nav system.”
The Stone Warriors: Damian Page 29
