“Lea, who’s after us?”
“Keep steady, Cal. I don’t think those shots are meant for us.” But the two vehicles weaving in and out of traffic—the obvious source of the firefight—were drawing closer. I didn’t recognize the driver of the one in the lead. Long blond hair and a death grip on the wheel was all I really saw as she jerked the car over the curb to avoid smashing into the jam in front of her. “Good driver.”
I shifted to get a look at her passenger.
The journalist.
I wanted to talk to him. Which meant keeping them alive was a good idea. The second vehicle was the classic black sedan used by most government officials.
I punched the back window, wanting as clear a shot as possible. The glass spider-cracked rather than shattered. With a snarl, I ripped out what remained of it. The woman driving the journalist barely dodged the hunk of window.
Settling the gun stock tight into my shoulder, I sighted down the scope. My crosshairs settled on the forehead of the driver in the black sedan. “Easy as pie,” I whispered, breathing out and squeezing the trigger.
The gun bucked, the shot muffled by the roar of traffic and honking of pissed off drivers. The driver of the black sedan slumped forward, a spray of blood hitting the windshield, and a second set of hands reached forward to try and steer. They weren’t successful, of course—the sedan veered off the road and slammed into a row of oncoming traffic. Less than ten seconds later, sirens and lights were coming in from all directions. The cavalry was arriving.
“We still have a tail,” Calvin pointed out. “Or are we leading them on a chase?”
“I still want to speak to the journalist.” I leaned into the trunk, grabbed Caine by the hair and dragged him toward me. “Unless you want to talk?”
He spit a gob of blood and bile on me, hitting me in the chest. I wiped it off. “You’re lucky that didn’t go any higher.”
“Or what, you’d torture me?” he sneered.
I leaned close enough that our noses touched. “There are worse things than torture, Caine. I could make you my pet, make you love me even as you wish me dead. I could take your greatest fears and make you want them so much you beg for them on your hands and knees. That is a gift of mine.” I slid my fingers around his cheek and dug them into his thick hair. I gripped him hard. “I could make you my bitch.”
Horror flickered through his eyes, followed fast by lust. That was the problem with this particular threat. It either worked like a charm or it turned the assholes on.
“Do it then.”
I shoved him back into the trunk, kicking him for good measure. I didn’t care that he was still wrapped in the mesh. Being ‘fair’ was not my game when it came to vampires.
“Lea, we’re here.” Calvin’s voice held more than a hint of displeasure. He didn’t like to be reminded of how bad I could be. Neither did I, if I were being honest. But this was the calling I had. I was a Cazador, the last of the hunters, and I would wipe out the vampire blood lines even if it cost me my soul and what was left of my humanity.
If there was even any left inside me.
I looked out the window to see just where we’d stopped. We were parked on the curb in front of an abandoned building in the south end of Harlem.
I stepped out of the car, strode to the trunk and popped it open. Caine grinned up at me. “You aren’t so tough. You want to make me love you. You’re lonely, just like the rest of us.”
Tipping my head to one side, I listened for the sound of tires, ignoring Caine and the words that were too close to the truth for my comfort. “Damn, you lost our tail, Calvin.”
He grunted. “I can only go so slow. Get your bloodsucker and let’s get this done.” Calvin hefted a bag that held my fletchettes and an array of other unpleasant things. Silver pins, holy water, wooden splinters...the perfect tools for torturing a vampire.
Calvin had taken us to a building that was run-down and very obviously empty. Gang tags littered the exterior and the doors were missing; even the stairs leading to the entrance were partially destroyed. A chain link fence surrounded the property, warning signs hanging off it.
“Condemned. They’re demolishing it soon.” Calvin pointed at the sign on the chain link fence that said exactly that. The date was only a week away. Which meant it was perfect for our uses. We pushed our way through the fence, me dragging the groaning vampire behind us.
Up the broken stairs and into the main hall we went. I wondered briefly what the place had once been. Huge double-wide stairs with ornate railings led up and down, but there was really no question as to which direction we were going.
I jogged ahead of Calvin, letting Caine’s body bounce down the stairs. This would just be the warmup.
The basement was dank and smelled like shit and piss. I curled my nose. “Good place for you to die, Caine?”
“Fuck you.”
I crouched beside him. “In your dreams.” I twisted a gloved hand into the filament and turned it, twisting it deeper into the flesh of his chest. He screamed, finally giving way to the pain.
“It’s bad, isn’t it? Is this how the little boys scream when you rape them?” I whispered as my guts churned with acid. As good as I was at this, I hated it. Hated the crying, the pleading. Hated feeling like I’d finally become the type of monster I’d sworn to wipe off the face of the earth.
And yet, this asshole deserved this and so, so much more.
His blue-green eyes flew to mine, and I saw the truth there. “You don’t know anything about me.” But the lie trembled on his lips.
I leaned in and put my lips to his neck, fighting the urge to cringe. “It can be over in an instant. You and I both know I need your permission to access your memories. Give it, and I will show you mercy.” Damn, I didn’t really want permission, I didn’t need more horrors to fill my mind.
He head-butted me, breaking my nose. I rolled back, holding a hand to my face as I choked and gagged on the heavy blood flow. Spitting a gob of it out, I nodded. “Fine. Then we do this the hard way.”
Calvin reached the bottom step and shoved my bag across the floor to me. Neither of us liked this part, but this time I was going to make an exception. This sodomizing bastard deserved everything I could think up.
From my bag, I pulled a twenty-foot length of rope. Feeling Caine’s eyes on me, I flipped the rope up over an exposed beam in the ceiling. A few quick knots and I had a noose settled over Caine’s neck.
“Now, we all know you don’t really need to breathe; that’s not what this is for.” I played with the rope a bit, loosening and tightening it until I had Caine on his tiptoes, dangling in the air in front of me. “Don’t worry, that’s just a plain old rope. No silver in it. Wouldn’t want you to end yourself before I’m done with you.” I smiled at him, baring my fangs. With one quick jerk, I yanked the net off. The movement spun him around and I was able to grab his hands and tie them behind his back with a section of the netting.
Long ago, I had realized a hard truth about myself. I hated this torture.
But the vampire in me—the monster—loved it.
After a few more minutes, I had his arms and legs tied so he was spread-eagled in front of me. Behind me, Calvin set up the folded-down dog crate I’d had made specifically for vampires. The wires were thick, hardened steel wrapped in silver. I pointed at it, barely two feet by three feet by three feet. “That’s for you when you don’t want to give up the answers I like. That’s your home, dog.”
Caine shivered and I stripped his pants off him. He was naked in front of me, but he didn’t look away; there was no shame. His muscles rippled as I put a hand over his belly button, avoiding the welts and wounds that the netting had caused. For now, anyway.
“Tell me about the bioengineering.”
“Fuck off and die.”
“Not quite the answer I wanted.” I pressed a finger into the hollow of his belly button, feeling the hard knot that had been his tie to a mother who’d been dead for hundreds of years. A
shiver ran through his body. I lifted an eyebrow. “You tell me when you want me to stop and chat.”
I pressed, slowly pushing him until the ropes restraining him stopped his body. Yet I kept pressing. My finger popped through the belly button and he grunted. I didn’t look at him. I hooked my finger and dragged him back with me, the wound somewhat superficial at that point. “Calvin, hand me—”
“This is stupid, I don’t need my stomach any more than you do. I don’t need any of my organs,” Caine snapped, fear making his voice waver.
“Oh, I know. But it hurts the same as if you did need them. The one thing,” I held up a pair of pinchers with my free hand as I fished around in his gut for a line of intestine, “no one tells vampires is that along with their increased sensitivity to hearing, smelling, touching, and fucking, they also are blessed with an increased sensitivity to pain. But you already know that, being as old as you are.”
I tugged a loop of his guts out through his belly button. I hooked it with the pinchers and rolled the tool 360 degrees. Caine’s jaw dropped open and his eyes stared at his innards as they dripped fluid onto the floor. I didn’t flinch. All I had to do was think about all the children he’d hurt, how many of them had suffered so terribly, their last minutes filled with horror and pain.
Yes, this time I was going to enjoy getting my answers.
I twisted the pincher again and tugged at the same time, spooling the guts as if they were pasta. “I think even when you’re ready to talk, Caine, I might not be.”
He looked at me, and I smiled up at him. “For your sins, Caine. Though I doubt this will help your soul go anywhere but hell.”
CHAPTER 8
RACHEL
Self-defense wasn’t the only thing I’d learned from my dad and my brothers. They’d helped me develop all kinds of skills my other friends had never dreamed of acquiring.
How to track just about anything.
How to use firearms.
How to drive like a NASCAR pro. That third one was coming in handy at the moment, although the streets of Ohio were a hell of a lot easier to maneuver than midtown Manhattan.
“How’d you know where to find me?” Derrick rested a hand on the dash as he juggled his attention between the black government-issue car behind us and the older sedan ahead.
“Please,” I groaned, swerving around a stopped taxi. An oncoming car jerked away from us and laid on the horn, its tires squealing. “We’ve moved long past that shit, Derrick. Who the hell am I chasing and why is the government on us like white on rice?”
He let out a low moan as I veered around another taxi and into oncoming traffic, barely missing a Volvo before swinging back into the appropriate lane. I snuck a glance at Derrick, about to chastise him for his stubbornness, but I saw blood seeping through the shirt he’d taken off and wrapped around his thigh.
“Shit. That’s bad.”
He untied the shirt, moved it around to a dry spot, then retied it, trying to hide his cringe from pain. “Flesh wound. Don’t lose that car.”
I looked into the rearview mirror. “I’m more worried about losing them.” I motioned my head toward the black vehicle still chasing us.
Derrick paled even more when he saw how close they were. “My bag. My research…is it…”
“Hidden. They sacked my place trying to find it, but they didn’t. It’s safe.”
“Thank you.” He paused. “If they catch us…” His words came out breathy. “If they do, you have to leave me behind, Rachel.” He grabbed my arm. “Promise me.”
“Absolutely not.” I shrugged him off with more force than intended, but I wanted the message to come across loud and clear.
“Rachel.”
I shifted a quick glance his way before looking back at the road. “No. This is like the desert, you dickhead. No man left behind.”
“This isn’t like the desert, Rach. This is bigger than the both of us. What I’ve uncovered... One of us has to get out of this and get this information to someone who can do something about it.”
“And who is that?”
He was quiet for several seconds. “I haven’t figured that out yet. This stretches into the higher levels of government.”
I remembered the circled area on the Iraqi map. “The Pentagon?”
He remained silent.
My anger surged. “I know you’re trying to pull some macho save-the-chick bullshit right now, but the car riding my fucking ass proves that I’m in this. They know where I live, Derrick.”
He let out a deep sigh. “Yes, I think someone in the Pentagon is involved.”
“Then go to the CIA or the FBI. Those guys hate each other.”
“They’re in it, too.”
“What?”
The government car smashed into my back bumper, slamming us forward. I whipped the wheel and skidded around the car in front of us, barely missing an oncoming vehicle. The driver screamed at us with his horn while jamming his middle finger into the air.
Gunshots rang out behind us and Derrick and I both ducked.
My heart skipped a beat, then kicked into overdrive. “Those fuckers aren’t playing around.”
“They want this quiet. They’ll blow off this car chase by calling us terrorists.” He groaned. “This is exactly why I stayed away from you the past two years. I knew you’d catch wind of it and end up in the thick of it. But when I saw you in the alley…” He turned to look at me, fear in his eyes. “I never should have come to your apartment.”
“What you should or should not have done is a moot point. I am in this now, so deal with it. I take it they want your information. Is it backed up anywhere?”
“Like on the cloud?” he asked in disbelief, but his voice was weaker than before. “I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“So the stuff in your bag is all we’ve got?”
“No. There’s a backup in a safety deposit box in New Jersey. Under an alias.”
The back window of the car I was chasing burst out and landed on the road. I swerved to miss the debris as I saw a rifle tip extend out the open window. The woman from the park was holding it up.
“Derrick! Duck!”
Derrick and I both hunched down in our seats. A gunshot rang out and the government car accelerated and shot into oncoming traffic.
The car in front of us sped up and darted around a taxi. I pressed the accelerator, about to swerve to clear a motorcycle, but the oncoming traffic began screeching to a halt, the cars swerving into the lane in front of me.
“Shit!”
I managed to avoid hitting any moving vehicles, but could only watch as the taillights of the car we were chasing careened around a corner.
“Did she take out his tire?” I glanced over my shoulder.
“No,” he said, looking behind us. “She took out the driver.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How? There’s no way she could have made that shot with such accuracy at that distance.”
Sirens sounded in the distance, and it hit me that during our several-minute chase we hadn’t encountered a single law enforcement officer.
The passenger door of the government car pushed open and one of the men who had been in my apartment stumbled out, blood trickling down the side of his face. My pulse kicked into overdrive when I saw the gun in his hand.
“We have to go, Rachel.” Anxiety thickened Derrick’s voice.
“No shit.” But that was easier said than done. The traffic in front of us had no intention of moving anytime soon, that much was obvious. I backed up several feet, then headed for the sidewalk.
“And we have to follow that car. We can’t let them get away.”
“I’m working on it.” I needed to get out of here before the cops showed up. A gunshot rang out, shattering the back glass. The fact that they were being so blatant in their pursuit only proved that they would do anything to catch us. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t walk away from this alive.
“Rachel.”
I gunned it, sending ped
estrians scattering left and right as I pulled around a parked sedan and into an open lane.
“They turned that way.” He pointed to where they’d disappeared.
“I know!” I hadn’t meant to be short, but it wasn’t an everyday affair for me to take part in a car chase and shootout. I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned the corner, heading away from the parking lot of cars. The police were behind us, thank God, along with our trigger-happy tails, but the car was a good minute ahead of us. I had no idea how we were going to find it.
Derrick must have been thinking the same thing. “You live here. What’s in that direction?”
“Correction. I live in East Harlem. But lucky for you, I know this area. There’s nothing much over here. Just a few abandoned buildings a couple of blocks ahead.” He was on to something. “So who’s the guy?”
He remained silent.
Dammit. “Do you think she wants the same information you’re after?”
He hesitated long enough to draw my attention.
“Derrick! I’m not some fucking idiot, so stop treating me like one. We need that information, all right?”
“I don’t know why she wants him, but I need the information Caine has. He’s the key to everything.”
“Since she didn’t kill him, she must want to know what he knows, too. Which means we need to find him before he spills it all and she kills him. An abandoned warehouse would be the perfect place for her to get information.”
“I think we have time. He’s probably somewhat resistant to torture and not easy to kill.”
“What is he, military? CIA?”
He laughed, but it sounded ragged. “No. Definitely not.”
“Then who is he?”
“Like I said, you’d never believe me. Hell, I’m not sure I even believe it. But I do know I need to find him.”
We drove around for fifteen minutes before I stomped on the brakes. “There!” Parked halfway down an alley was the older model sedan, the back window conspicuously missing. “There’s no one in the car. They must have taken him inside that building.”
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