Mac made a low sound, like a man inexplicably stretched too far.
Gwen glared up at the screened corner. “I don’t know the rules to this sick game,” she said, “but we’re leaving.”
“You should have done that very thing when I gave you the chance.” There was little regret in that voice. “Now you’re part of ‘this sick game,’ which I have been playing for longer than you can even imagine. You may or may not survive.”
Gwen said something very, very rude indeed, tossed her head, and marched up to grab the woman’s arm—ignoring her questions and fears and heading to march right out the door.
Until Mac growled.
Like an animal.
Growled.
Gwen froze. Slowly, she turned—just her head, looking over her shoulder.
This man, she didn’t know. Wouldn’t have kissed. Wouldn’t have spoken to. Wouldn’t have ever gotten that close.
Not with that made-for-a-grin mouth twisted in a snarl and that dangerous stance and the sword flowing out from his hand like an extension of his arm and the shadows gathered darkly around him like close companions.
“Mac,” she said, trying not to let the uncertainty out.
The woman tugged Gwen’s arm, little whimpering sounds in her throat, and Gwen turned on her. “Stop it!” she snapped, her words as much of a command as she could make them—thinking about the high emotions of the park, of the gas station. That’s when Mac had been so staggered before. Then, and those times when the ugly, viscous wash of feeling had crept over her. “Stop it! You’ll make things worse!”
“Clever woman,” the man told her, both approving and unmoved.
The woman clutched at her, unable to comprehend, little sounds stuck in her throat where she might have been trying for words.
Mac’s inhuman growling had ceased; his breath came hard and fast through clenched jaws.
Gwen doubted it was an improvement. She cast a desperate glance at him. The sword shone even brighter, she thought, as impossible as it was to be there at all.
“Pretend,” she told the woman, not taking her eyes off Mac. “Pretend. You’re not frightened. We’re going to walk out of here. Think about it—us walking out of here.” And then she held the woman back as she took a single step, certain that any greater movement would push Mac over the edge of whatever line he walked. “In your head. Imagine it. We’re walking out of here. There’s nothing to stop us, is there? We can leave when we’re ready.” The whimpering had stopped; Gwen gave the woman’s arm an encouraging squeeze. “That’s right. Calm. Breathe deeply. Think kittens and unicorns and double rainbows.”
But she didn’t look away from Mac. Not anymore. Not as she calmed the woman—breathing deeply, murmuring reassurance...feeling some of the uncontrollable hysteria ease. Seeing the reflection of it in Mac—the slow return of sanity to his expression.
“You,” the man said, now more annoyed than approving, “have been a mistake all along.” A pause, too meaningful to amount to anything good, and then he added, “Or did you think I was too stupid to have a gun?”
Gwen’s carefully even breathing stuttered to a stop, leaving her lungs instantly aching. The woman beside her exploded back into fear, from silence to a gasping cry, and Gwen—
Gwen just plain couldn’t blame her. In some part of her mind, Gwen was gasping right along with her. But she never took her eyes off Mac, not even as she tightened her hold on the woman, giving her a little shake—
Mac threw a hand in front of his face, staggering back at the emotional onslaught. The sword flared a frightening quicksilver glow, coloring everything around it with hot silver-blue light. He cried out—pain or denial, Gwen couldn’t tell—and his face twisted until he raised the sword, so full of intent that the sudden surety of imminent danger slammed into her.
The woman cowered, tearing away from Gwen to fling her hands out in a protective gesture, warding away the looming blows, her hand streaming blood and her knees grinding into the concrete.
“No!” Gwen screamed at Mac, a fierce cry into the echoing room. She flung herself toward him, up within his easy reach, leaving herself completely open. Not going for the weapon that loomed so large in the open room, but reaching for Mac himself. Finding his tortured gaze and looking straight at him and pouring out all the caring and understanding she could muster.
He closed his eyes, a noise of agony in his throat, and wrenched around—staggering, going down, and flinging the sword away.
She wanted to go to him. To wrap him up from behind and make it okay. All of it.
But she knew better. It wasn’t okay. And that damned awareness of hers...the one that said she was a target...
Still shrieking as loudly as the woman behind her.
She snatched up the sword. Not sure what she was thinking, only that now she had a weapon and she still hadn’t seen any damned gun and let’s get the hell out of here!
“We’re going,” she told the woman without turning around—and told Mac, too.
She hadn’t taken more than a step before the sword twitched in her hand, its unaccustomed weight startling her. She held it away from herself, eyes going wide.
It changed. The guard shrunk away, the hilt writhed in her grip—and before she could do so much as thrust it away from her, it jerked again and slid coldly along the palm of her hand, slicing deep.
She dropped it with a cry, as much repulsed as startled, watching with horror as it was, suddenly, nothing more than a pocketknife, a sullen and retreating glow.
“You really didn’t think it would be that easy?” The man stepped out from behind the screen, arrogant—and entirely correct—in his assumption that unlike Mac, she couldn’t see him in the darkness.
And Mac was down, wrapped in his own little world of shock and misery. The knife—but she’d only barely glanced away!—was gone.
Gwen glared up at the catwalk. “We,” she said, all but spitting the words one by one, “are leaving now.”
To her disbelief, the man nodded. “You may go,” he said. “That I would turn him in one day wasn’t to be expected. That he is so very close... It’s enough. Return to your hotel, if you will. I will be pleased to have a talk with that blade once he takes the road.”
“Not,” Gwen said. “Gonna. Happen.” Bold words. Full of complete crap, as she clutched her bleeding hand to her chest, cradling it. But only for an instant, as she turned her back on the man—oh, God, her skin crawled at that—and grabbed Mac’s shoulders, giving him a little shake. “Come on,” she said. “Come on, we’re going—” A tug, a jerk. He moved with rigid uncertainty and a blank, dazed expression.
It was good enough. They made progress. Gwen hesitated beside the woman and tapped her on the shoulder. “C’mon,” she said, plucking at the woman’s sleeve, raising her from her protective hunch. “Outta here.”
She barely heard the slice of sharp metal through air.
She didn’t recognize the deep hollow thunk that followed.
She didn’t understand why the woman suddenly stiffened, her eyes wide and her mouth dropping open.
Not until the man said coldly, “You presume. She was always mine.”
And the woman slumped again, a heavy throwing knife deeply embedded in her back and her eyes already gone vague.
Gwen turned on him, awkward and tangled as Mac lurched against her. “You—”
“Go,” he suggested, just as coldly. “While you still can. You’re interfering with my feast.”
* * *
Gwen didn’t quite remember making it to the door. Or how she’d managed Mac, who bore his own weight but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. Or how long, exactly, she stood blinking in the bright sunshine, trying to orient herself, once they were outside.
She found her injured hand wrapped around the pendant through the T-shirt, her mind gone to that habitual place of oh, please let me get through this.
She spat a noise of self-disgust. She wasn’t Daddy’s little girl any long
er. She hadn’t been for a long time. She just hadn’t wanted to let it go.
Besides, who needed help? The van sat right where it had been left, and if memory served, the driver had simply dumped the keys in the cup holder. It was probably pretty damned safe to assume no one would steal from his employer.
Well, no one but Gwen.
“Borrow,” she muttered, hauling Mac along—all muscles, no working brain—and jerking the driver’s door open to discover yes!, the keys were there, right next to the handcuffs—and yes!, the van’s side door slid right open. She managed it all, pushed Mac in through the side door with efficient haste, and then—out of the corner of her eye—caught sight of her suitcase sitting just outside the building.
So is the van a trap?
Or maybe they’d just expected her to walk out that door when she’d had the first chance, leaving Mac behind.
Scrambling, she grabbed the case, shoving it in beside Mac. She flipped his legs inside and slid the door closed with a resounding slam.
She didn’t bother to readjust the driver’s seat; she perched on the edge, reaching for the pedals, and got the thing started, pulling away with an inadvertent squeal of tire as nerves overcame control and her foot jerked down. Out of the parking lot, along the feeder lane that ran parallel to the stockyard spur of the railroad line, and out onto—
Onto...
“What do I know about Albuquerque streets?”
This one didn’t seem highly traveled, and the light traffic was exactly what she wanted. She shot out onto the road, turning left toward a distant cross street, and then fought a battle with her foot—getting their speed down enough so they wouldn’t be a cop magnet.
How could she explain the blood to anyone? Hers and the woman’s, all over her shirt. How could she explain Mac? Stunned but not drugged and still looking dangerous. And what the hell would she do if he roared out of his little daze in full dark warrior mode?
More than that...what would she do if he didn’t?
She managed to slow the van. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed no pursuit. By the time she reached the cross street and recognized the I-25 on-ramp not far to the east of the intersection, her hands, wound and all, were nearly steady on the steering wheel.
The suitcase shifted as she took the turn; resolutely, she refused to check back. Either it was rolling around or it wasn’t. Either Mac was rolling around or he wasn’t.
“Shoulda woulda coulda been in Vegas,” she muttered, shifting lanes to reach the highway entrance ramp.
And then, there they were. Merging with traffic, heading for the airport. Imagine that. Evil didn’t just live in Albuquerque—it lived right in the middle of it.
“I am twenty-nine years old,” she said, “and I have found evil.”
It didn’t even sound pretentious.
It just sounded true.
Chapter 9
Worst hangover in the world.
Mac tried to think past the pounding in his head. The blade didn’t help, lurking in sullen retreat. The awkward stretch of his arms to the side, the hard floor beneath him...those things didn’t help, either. The metal biting into his wrists—
“What?” he said. What the fu—
“Dammit.” Gwen’s voice bit off in frustration—not far, but muffled all the same. “Ow!”
Frustration. Not fear. Pained, but not hurt.
The blade told him nothing. Sulking. Sulking, why, again?
He opened his eyes and found the hotel carpet an inch away. Wow. That sure as hell was dirtier than he’d thought it would be.
—hunger—
He had no doubt. As much as the blade had indulged its sickening obsession, slopping tortured emotions through Mac with abandon, it hadn’t truly engaged anyone for days. Nearly a week. No blood, no flesh, no sustenance. That its hunger plucked at him now...
No, no great surprise.
The handcuffs. Now, those were a surprise.
Gwen muttered another expletive.
“Maybe I can help,” he suggested, wincing at the very sound in his head but his voice no less dry for it.
“Mac!” Her footsteps vibrated lightly on the floor; her bare feet came into view. “You’re back!”
Had her voice always been that loud? He winced again, making no manly effort to hide it. “I’m—”
—resentment anger feastfeastfeast BLAME—
He found a growl in his throat, his wrists battering against metal cuffs looped around the leg of the bed, his body burning with the blade and the sudden exhaustion of the effort he’d apparently made to free himself.
“And that,” Gwen said, plunking down in a chair she’d pulled up where he could see her, “is why you’re cuffed in the first place.”
For the first time, he saw her shirt—stained with blood both smeared and soaked in. “I don’t—” He couldn’t quite finish past the dread in his throat. “God, Gwen, tell me I didn’t—”
—hurt her hurt hunger wantwantWANT—
He burst through the other side of it with wrists throbbing and head shattering and stomach this close to retching, breathing fast through jaws grinding hard enough to ache.
The blade had him. After all this time—
“Tell me,” he said, barely more than a whisper, and his eyes closed against the painful light of the room, “I didn’t do that.”
“I— What?” She must have realized, looking at herself. “It’s not all mine. And what’s mine is thanks to that...that...knife-sword-thing of yours.” She said it defiantly, as though he might laugh at her for thinking she’d seen what she’d seen.
But he had no doubt. Whatever had happened during those missing moments in the warehouse—a woman, the high emotion boiling straight through the blade to his soul, the man above so very certain of Mac’s nature—so very close to being right—the blade had obviously revealed itself to her.
“Please,” he said, forcing himself to audible speech. “Tell me I didn’t kill that woman.”
“Not you,” she said, fast enough. “But she’s dead. And we’re only here because that man thinks he can turn you. I’d ask what that means but I kinda maybe know. Even if I don’t actually have any idea.” She came down off the chair, creeping just close enough to touch his leg. Hesitant, but not for herself—more afraid she’d somehow hurt him. Her hand was wrapped in duct tape.
—resentment hunger—
“Back off!” he snarled, and then was so very sorry, groaning as his head split into shards of thought and being. Slowly eased, as he remembered to breathe again. Not yet. It didn’t have him yet.
Dimly, he heard her say, “I think it’s mad at me. I dared to touch it, you know. And I took you away from there. I...I think I stopped it, when it would have taken you. For good, I mean. Don’t ask me how.”
He forced his eyes open. He had a good view of her now, on her knees on the dirty carpet, one hand on his leg, her hair carelessly twisted back and her light blue eyes gone dark with concern.
Her T-shirt, smeared and blotted with blood, except for the clean wrinkled circle just beneath the notch of her collarbones. The pendant. The thing that stood as no coincidence between them. Her father. The way nothing seemed to work quite as expected for either of them when they were together—and at the same time exceeded all expectations.
Don’t ask me how, she’d said, kneeling beside him with concern on her face and a clean, clear, bloodless spot where she had a habit of touching that pendant. He looked at her, then, full of darkness and light both—dread and hope—and he said, “I think I know.”
* * *
But she still wouldn’t unlock the cuffs.
She sat cross-legged beside him, she rested her hand on his thigh, she ached for his struggle and she found her heart pounding in overdrive every single time she thought of what they’d just been through, but she wouldn’t unlock the cuffs.
And he didn’t ask her to. That alone told her too much.
So did the tension beneath her hand, the fle
x and play of muscle that sometimes trembled with an internal effort she couldn’t even begin to measure.
“I’d stopped for gas,” Mac said. Finally telling her. He couldn’t be comfortable, his arms twisted to the side like that. The pillow she’d just tucked under his head seemed like a small thing. He didn’t even seem to notice it, eyes focused on some point on the wall. “Indiana, I think. I’m not sure. Things got confusing—” Under her hand, muscle went rock-hard; his eyes went dark and his jaw tight and his whole body arched ever so slightly.
He forced his next words, fighting through it—fighting whatever had tried and come so close to possessing him. “It was late...one of those pitch-black nights. And there was this little bar next door, had food.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even see it coming. Two guys in a scuffle, one of them had a knife and this...meanness...”
He looked directly at her then and shrugged, as best he could. “I thought the other guy needed some help.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Because that’s what you do, right?”
The words didn’t quite seem to strike home for him; he frowned but let it go. “The guy with the knife knew how to use it. But he was...sick. Or high. Or something.”
She wondered if he was thinking the same thing that crossed her mind. Or possessed. She only said, “Or something.”
“He cut me before I even knew how far gone he was. And I—” Mac frowned, lost in that memory...searching it. “I must have gotten the knife away from him. I’m not sure. Just...suddenly it was three days later, and I wasn’t even in the same state. I didn’t have any of those cuts, and there was this...blade.” He took a deep breath. “I know more about it now. It’s...in my head. I didn’t know it thinks of itself as a demon blade, but now I do. I think...maybe it has a name, but it won’t tell me. I learned pretty damned fast that it would patch me up when things went bad. There’s a price for that, of course. And I learned what it wants.”
She spoke softly, as if she might somehow avoid disturbing that blade. “That’s how you find the trouble spots. It tells you.”
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