Fortunately, there was no one to witness his awkward landing, and within moments, he had knotted the rope and dropped it down to the window where Hana waited. She grabbed on and scaled it with a few economical motions, taking his hand for the final jump to the roof itself. She gave him an odd look, which he didn’t understand and didn’t have time to worry about. Coiling the rope once more, he draped it over his head and one shoulder, then turned her to face the neighboring building. Pointing silently at the empty space between them, a distance that approximated his own height if he’d been lying down, he asked with his eyes if she could make the leap. She gave him that odd look again and shook her head.
He nodded in understanding. He’d come of age and trained in a much more primitive era, although they hadn’t thought so at the time. Technology had eliminated the need for so much human strength and endurance, that even warriors such as his Hana had been trained far differently than he had. He didn’t judge her for it, though. Far better for her to know her abilities and limitations than to risk her life proving something that didn’t need proving. On the other hand, he figured she must have a safe route out of the neighborhood. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been prepared for a window escape.
She proved him right in the next instant, when she touched his arm and led him to the back of her building, which was far larger than he’d thought. Apparently, there were four additional condominiums in a mirror image of her own and her neighbors’, both upstairs and down. Reaching the edge, she crouched low and peeked over the side; then pausing only to give him a confirming nod, she swung over the side and started down a metal ladder which was bolted to the wall.
Gabriel waited until Hana was halfway down, not wanting to put too much weight on what appeared to be a flimsy ladder, then followed her to the street. Once there, they made their way to what was more an alley than a street, moving away from the direction where they’d seen the lookout from the front window. After several blocks, the alley came up against yet another tall building. Unfortunately, there was only one exit, which took them between some more buildings and back to the street in front of her condo. Gabriel took the lead at that point. He stepped out of the alley and walked a few paces toward her condo, rather than away, then leaned casually against the building, as if waiting for someone, while he used his peripheral vision to scan in both directions. Finding no threats, he walked back to the alley entrance and held out a hand without stopping. Hana clasped it, and they strolled down the street, as if they had no reason to hurry. She’d donned a jacket over her obvious weapons and had provided yet another piece of too-small clothing for him—a jacket to cover his knife.
“I’ve got another place about a mile from here,” she said, leaning in to him as if they were lovers.
Gabriel had to remind himself that they weren’t. He still thought of her as very much his, but that didn’t mean she felt the same way, no matter how she’d responded earlier. His feelings weren’t in any way reliable, much less appropriate.
“It’s small, but closer to the bank,” she was saying, “so we can regroup there until it opens. I should go to the bank alone, by the way. You’re—”
Gabriel snorted. “Not a chance. No one’s looking for me, älskling. I don’t exist.”
She frowned. “EL-skling,” she repeated. “I don’t know that word.”
He smiled crookedly. “It conveys affection.”
Her frown deepened, but then she gestured, brushing away the thought. “Whatever. Look, this is a very exclusive financial institution. You can’t walk in there looking like you climbed out of someone else’s hamper.”
He didn’t understand everything she’d just said, but he was certain he’d been insulted. Hana’s clothes hadn’t fit well enough to conceal the armor he’d worn under his tunic, armor that had been gifted to him by Nicodemus and was imbued with magical protections. He didn’t know if it would stop modern weapons, especially the guns which were carried by so many of their enemies, but Nico had been a very powerful sorcerer. The armor would provide at least some protection, and he’d had no intention of heading into battle naked. So, he’d put the armor against his skin, then salvaged his tunic, and pulled the too-small jacket over it all. It had made him feel better about heading out among their enemies, but he couldn’t argue with the way it looked.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “My friend’s a personal shopper in Karuizawa. I’ll have her bring some things over.”
Gabriel didn’t comment. They might be close to making a clean escape, but they hadn’t managed it yet. Unnecessary talk would only distract them when they were still very much in danger. He didn’t begin to relax until they’d walked several more blocks. They were still on Hana’s street, but since it wasn’t perfectly straight, her condo was no longer in sight. With every passing minute, more people and cars appeared on the streets and sidewalks, and he relaxed a touch more. He and Hana were no longer a lone couple, but just one more in a crowd. Granted, he wasn’t the typical Nagano citizen, but he did his best to look harmless, rounding his shoulders and keeping his head lowered as much as he could without hampering his vision.
“There,” Hana said softly, nodding up ahead. “We can take that next turn. It adds a few blocks, but it gets us off this street.”
Gabriel had no sooner nodded his understanding than he looked up and met the eyes of a killer. He’d never seen the man before, but he knew what he was. Because he was a killer, too. Their gazes held a moment too long, each assessing the other, and then the killer glanced at Hana and his eyes went wide.
With a shout in Japanese, the man reached beneath his jacket, but Hana was faster. She fired twice and immediately stashed her gun back under her jacket, as red bloomed on the man’s chest, and the two of them ran for cover with everyone else. They hit the corner and turned, wanting to get out of sight and put some distance between them and the man she’d probably killed.
“You think he was alone?” she asked tersely.
“No. Better question: did he get a signal off to anyone before he went down?”
They got their answer a moment later when four men in the plain black uniform of whatever private army was pursuing them stepped out from between two buildings. Gabriel registered their presence in the same moment that all four turned their guns on him and fired. As he went down, his only thought was that at least Hana wasn’t hurt. They wanted her alive. They’d only shot him because he was in the way of that goal. He hit the hard pavement, felt something give way in his chest, and heard himself grunt in pain. Someone kicked him as they ran past, leaving him for dead, or near enough, as they rushed to grab Hana.
She screamed his name. His eyelids were almost too heavy to lift, as he looked up and saw her fighting them off. Her knife was drawn, blood dripping from one enraged attacker as he backhanded her and dragged her toward a car that pulled up with a screech of tires.
A churning started in his gut, a fire that he hadn’t felt in millennia, a rage he’d fought to control for most of his life. But he didn’t fight it now. Not with Hana’s life at stake. He came to his feet with a furious roar, pulling his knife as he surged upward, stabbing one of the men in the kidney, then reaching up and snapping his neck before he could fall. Two of the others swung around, their expressions registering shock when they saw the blood soaking his clothes, shock turning to horror when they saw his face. They fired their weapons, but terror slowed their reactions for a critical few seconds as Gabriel grabbed one and gutted him, letting him slide to the ground while still holding the slithering coils of his own intestines in disbelief. The third man got a single shot off, and some part of Gabriel felt his shoulder weaken, but he was beyond pain. He stepped into the man’s guard and grabbed the gun, wrenching it around and firing two bullets point blank into the assailant’s chest, adding a third against his forehead to be certain of death. Dropping the gun, he surged toward the last attacker, the one who’d grabbed Ha
na and was trying to force her into the car while she kicked and fought, her knife having been knocked aside, and the man’s grip leaving her unable to reach her own gun in its shoulder holster beneath her jacket. The man punched her face, splitting her lip. He pulled his fist back for a second punch, but it never connected. He screamed when Gabriel grabbed his fist and crushed it, pulling him away from Hana and digging his fingers into the man’s throat.
He would have killed him then, would have ripped out his esophagus and left him to choke on his own blood, but Hana was calling his name. He looked up to see her running around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, but that wasn’t what stole his breath. Blood poured from her swollen mouth, from a vicious tear in her cheek, and a slice across her forehead. Hana was bleeding.
And he lost it.
His gums swelled as he gripped the man by the hair and jerked his head back. He felt power surge at the terror in the man’s eyes, the knowledge that his end was upon him and it would be a horrible death. Fangs slid out and the pathetic creature beneath him gave a pitiful scream as Gabriel’s fangs sank in his neck and he drank. Life raced through his veins, bringing a heat and power like no other. This was what he’d needed, what he’d earned on this battlefield. This was the victor’s share.
HANA SAW THE driver’s door open on the attackers’ sedan, saw the driver step out, as if ready to help, saw the fear on his face when he realized his fellow henchmen were all down or dead. Pulling her gun, she leapt forward, reaching the door before he could pull it shut behind him, then yanked it open and shot him in the face. She didn’t know if he was dead or not. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the hell out of there before every policeman in Nagano descended upon the scene. What had their enemies been thinking to stage that kind of attack in broad daylight? She pulled the driver onto the street and looked up to scream Gabriel’s name. The man sure as hell could fight. He had the last of the four assailants down, his hand at the man’s throat. He looked up at her call, and she saw his eyes register everything about her. And then, as if a light had switched on, his eyes gleamed like the darkest bronze, his mouth opened in a vicious snarl, and fangs slid down over his lip.
Her first thought was that the fangs hadn’t been some nasty whim of the sorcerer—they were very real. Her second, as he bent his head to ravage the dying man’s throat, was . . . Fuck me, I have to get him out of here.
HANA RAN BACK to the sidewalk and did the only thing she could think of to get his attention. She punched his injured shoulder as hard as she could. He lifted his head with a snarl, but she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Not her Gabriel.
His eyes cleared almost instantly as he recognized her. He started to say her name, then seemed to realize his fangs were in the way. Looking away, he did whatever it took to make them disappear, then shoved the now-dead man aside and stood. “Hana?” he asked, but he didn’t look at her, checking out his hands, staring at his feet, anywhere but at her.
She didn’t like it, but the psychoanalysis would have to wait until later. “Come on,” she said briskly, pulling him to the car. “Get in. We have to leave now.”
He moved at once, understanding their position, regardless of whatever else he was feeling. Striding to the car, he was inside with the door closed by the time she slid behind the wheel.
“Cell phone,” she said, handing him the burner phone from her jacket. She always carried at least one with her, had them stored in the pockets of every jacket, every purse, not to mention all over her multiple bolt holes, and in a few hiding places outside those places, too. Grandfather had raised her to be something much closer to paranoid than cautious. Reaching out blindly to turn the phone on, she said, “Enter these numbers,” and rattled off one of her grandfather’s emergency lines, the kind one called when everything went to shit. She wasn’t even sure it would still work, didn’t know the extent of the damage done, the lives lost, in the battle last night. Had it only been one night? It seemed much longer.
She watched from the corner of her eye as Gabriel punched the numbers one at a time, his big fingers slow on the tiny buttons. When he finished, he looked over and barely met her eyes before dropping his gaze. “What now?” he asked.
She took the phone from him, concealing a scowl lest he think it was aimed at him, instead of the situation. Putting the phone to her ear, she listened to it ring, not breathing until it was answered with the expected, coded response.
Speaking in rapid Japanese, using the same code, she identified herself. The man on the other end expressed his relief that she was alive, his voice tight with a grief that told her what she already believed. . . . Her grandfather was dead. Swallowing her own sorrow, she told him everything she knew about her attackers, including the clusterfuck she’d just left behind. And she told him what she needed. Even in death her grandfather had power in Nagano. He’d had no son to assume leadership—at least no one willing—but someone else would rise to the throne. His organization wouldn’t die with him, and his various contacts knew it. All those payoffs, those bought officials in government and law enforcement, were about to earn their pay. She hung up without saying she’d be in touch, even though she would, then handed the phone back to Gabriel.
“Tear it apart,” she said. “The back comes off easily. Rip everything else out and throw it a piece at a time out the window.” She powered his window down just enough for his fingers to fit through.
He didn’t question her, just ripped the phone into pieces as if it were made of paper, then dropped it in pieces until they were several blocks away and it was all gone.
“We need to ditch this car,” she said. “Get rid of it, I mean. No need to worry about DNA or fingerprints. You’re sure as hell not in the system, and neither am I. Grandfather made sure of it.”
She was rambling. He was so unnervingly quiet. “We need to leave the country. I don’t know who’s behind this or what they want—”
“You,” he said quietly, staring out the window. “They want you.”
She wanted to punch him again, force him to look at her. But all she said was, “Right. For my fucking so-called gift, which is the only thing that makes me valuable. No one but Grandfather ever really cared if I lived or died—”
That got a reaction out of him. She nearly jumped when he swung his head around and snapped, “I care.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But if they kill me—”
“They won’t kill you,” he growled. “They’ll use you.”
Hana felt the first stirrings of fear. She’d been heartbroken at her grandfather’s murder, furious and full of vengeance. But the idea that they might capture her? That they’d hold her prisoner and force her to use her magic to do their bidding? She was a warrior, trained in the art and theory of battle. But this? She didn’t know how to fight something like this, didn’t know where to begin.
“We’re leaving the country,” she told him, turning onto an ordinary street in a quiet suburb, slowing her speed so as not to draw attention. “I’ve already made arrangements for new papers for both of us. I hate to wait that long, but I can’t risk using the old ones, and you don’t have any.” When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I have a house near the airport. We’ll leave the car as close as we dare and walk the rest of the way. I don’t want to lead anyone to the house, but we can’t exactly walk long distances the way we are, either.” She gestured at him, and then at the blood on her face, catching his wince at the latter. Did he feel guilty because she’d been hit? For fuck’s sake, he’d been shot. More than once. And he’d probably saved her life.
They’d be safe at the new house while they waited for the new papers to arrive and arranged private flights. She didn’t dare use any of her grandfather’s aircraft. Her enemies, and possibly the authorities, might be watching. But she had her own resources, ones that, just like the various safe houses, weren’t connected to her real
identity in any way. It would all take some time, but they could use that time to recover. To clean up and eat something. And to talk. She didn’t know what bug had crawled up Gabriel’s ass—why he wouldn’t look at her and would barely speak even a few words. But she was going to find out.
GABRIEL COULD FEEL Hana watching him, could feel her curiosity and her disgust. He didn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t be disgusted? He was a monster. Not because he was a berserker on the battlefield. That was in his blood. His bastard of a father had been the same way, as had his father before him. In his day, Gabriel had been one of the fiercest warriors among his people, known for painting himself with his enemy’s blood, for literally ripping them to pieces in his zeal to destroy. Such rages were almost admired on the icy battlefields where he’d been raised. But that was before he’d been captured by the enemy of his people, held prisoner, and tortured for more days and nights than he’d been able to keep count of. And when they’d finally finished with him . . .
The Frozen North, somewhere in the mists of time
GABRIEL ROARED HIS anger, straining every muscle against the chains that bound him to the altar, the stone slick with his sweat, with blood where his skin had been scraped raw. The icy metal dug into muscle and bone as he struggled, but still they held, enraging him with his failure to escape. Never before had he been so impotent in the face of an enemy. Not since he’d been the smallest child had anyone ever succeeded in holding him against his will. He was Gabriel Halldor, the greatest warrior who’d ever lived. Entire armies had fallen before his rage, bloody bodies piled up like kindling as the terrified survivors turned their backs and ran for their cowardly lives.
But the last battle had been different. Magic had tainted the field, a coward’s weapon brandished from afar, but one that held power nonetheless. Especially when wielded by a practitioner of sufficient skill. Sorcerer. The word had been whispered over the battlefield until it had become a roar in his ears. He’d watched one warrior after another fall, not struck down by blade or ax, but falling like a maiden fainting dead away at her first sight of a naked man. He’d felt the spell pounding at his own senses, felt the animal within him, the enraged creature who lusted for the enemy’s death and gave him his berserker strength. Felt it howling its defiance at the puny spellcaster who lacked even the courage to show his face. Gabriel had butchered his way through half the enemy’s forces, determined to find the sorcerer and destroy him, to show him how real men fought their battles.
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