Nick made sure none of his surprise at the sudden shift in attitude showed. If the vampire could play nice, he could, too. “The problem was never that I couldn’t find him locally, it was that I didn’t have enough time to spend on it. He’s too heavily shielded, and I had too much other shit going on that couldn’t wait. Sotiris might be the biggest player on the dark side, but he’s not the only one.” He shook his head. “But that doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that I still can’t find him in the time we have—” There were groans all around, but not from Raphael, he noted. The fucking vampire was watching him patiently, knowing there was a “but” coming. “But,” Nick continued, his gaze meeting Raphael’s. “I can find Hana.”
“Explain, please.”
Well, shit, he couldn’t lord it over the fucking vamp after he’d said, “please,” could he? “At the time of the attack, I was teaching Hana to strengthen her shields, manipulating her magic from inside her awareness, so that she could see what I was doing. It was similar to what I’d wanted to do in using my spell to provide her with shields, but there was no spell involved. We were, however, linked, and since I went after Sotiris without taking time to break the link . . .”
“You still are,” Raphael said. “Will Sotiris notice it? Can he break it?”
“Possibly, and yes. But it’s a minor sort of link, something typically used to teach children. It won’t be obvious unless he looks for it, and there’s no reason for him to do so.”
“Unless he knows what you were doing here tonight.”
Nick nodded. “You think we have a traitor. I don’t. The only people on my side who knew what we were doing are all in this room, and I trust them completely. As for yours? The one thing I’ve never doubted about you, vampire, is that your people are loyal.”
“And no one outside the conference room last night knew what we were doing until just half an hour before we came here tonight. Juro suspects a listening post off the coast,” he said, gesturing at the water.
Nick looked at Casey who was the most tech-savvy of his people.
“He’s right,” she said. “Even a cheap parabolic dish would pick up three hundred feet out. An expensive one, with directional mic capabilities could do a hell of a lot better and wouldn’t be thrown off by the water noise.”
“So you’re saying that if we talked about our plans for tonight with the door open, or even worse, on the deck—”
“They could pick up every word. Right. Assuming neither of you nor Kato included sound blocks in your handy-dandy wards?”
Nick berated himself silently as he looked at Kato, who only shook his head. Nick sighed. “Okay. Check me on this, guys,” he said to his team, “but I don’t think we discussed any specifics, just that Hana was going to be here with Gabriel, with a lot of . . . comments on the fact that you”—he tipped his head at Raphael—“had insisted on providing a vampire escort.”
Damian and the others glanced at each other, then nodded agreement. “Sounds right,” he said.
Nick continued, “So all they would have picked up is that Hana and Gabriel were going to be here tonight, with no details about why. There’d be no reason for Sotiris to think it was anything other than a dinner among friends, and that means there’s no reason for him to look for a link between me and Hana. If we move fast enough, we should be able to locate Hana and get her out of there before Sotiris tries to force her to help him.”
“If he’s gone to all this trouble to grab her, why would he wait to take what he wants from her?” Raphael asked.
Nick nodded his understanding of the question. “Because while his attack tonight was a ploy to get me away from here, we were still doing our best to kill each other. That takes energy. Plus, when he ran, as he always does, he closed the time warp behind him, and that takes serious energy. A sorcerer at his level is never truly drained, but he’ll be tired, and he’ll assume not only that I’m equally tired, but more importantly, that I’m still unable to find him. I figure we have a day before he tries to persuade Hana to help him willingly. And when that fails, he’ll use force.”
“We go in tomorrow then,” Damian said. “First thing in the morning, just before dawn, when he won’t expect it.”
“No,” Raphael said flatly. “You’re not doing this without me and my people. Not this time.”
Damian would have argued, but Raphael was only looking at Nick. “I have a hundred times your manpower, and I’m a vampire lord. That means something when it comes to sheer magical strength, and it’s a power that you sorcerers have never managed to figure out. You take on Sotiris, we’ll rescue Hana and deal with whatever other defenses he has in place. Besides, there’s Gabriel to consider. He needs to be in on this. He deserves it.”
“You’re not bulletproof, vampire,” Nick reminded him.
Raphael just grinned. “I am when I want to be, sorcerer.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “I’ll wait until sunset, then tug on my link with Hana to get a location fix.”
Jared stepped up to Raphael at that moment and said quietly, “The human authorities are en route, Sire. Our contacts delayed them as long as we could, but they’ll be here in minutes.”
“Get everyone moving.” He turned to Nick. “We’ll leave from my estate tomorrow night. Be at the gate at one hour past sunset. You can look up the appropriate time up online.”
And then he was gone. No good-bye, no jaunty, “Tomorrow we hunt!” He simply pulled Cyn close, strode out the front door, and a moment later, he was gone. Along with all his people.
Nick stared at the empty doorway. “I hate that motherfucker.”
“I think we all get that,” Damian commented. “But he gets it done, and he has the fighters we need. Not to mention his own power, which is rumored to be magnitudes above any other vampire on the planet right now.”
Nick scowled, but had to admit, “The rumor’s probably true. I’ve never fought him, but we’ve . . . tested each other a few times. No doubt he’s an asset. But I still hate his guts.” He sighed, then looked around. “Jesus Christ, Kato. What the hell did you guys do to this place?” Distant sirens sounded outside. “And what the fuck are you going to tell the cops?”
“A kidnapping gone bad,” Damian announced. “Grace’s dad is loaded, right? High-profile international finance guy. They came after Grace, expecting her to be alone, or maybe with her boyfriend, but not knowing her boyfriend had skills.”
A police siren burped in the courtyard, and Nick started for the door. “I’ll handle the cops. We need to start looking for Hana.”
HANA WOKE, KNOWING she was in trouble. She had no recollection of how she’d gotten here, but her memory of the last minutes before she’d been kidnapped were vivid. Gabriel covered in blood, so much blood. He’d told her to let him die, not to surrender herself. But Hana had known she’d be taken either way, and if she went along, then maybe Gabriel would live. She wished for the kind of connection Cyn seemed to have with Raphael, so that at least she’d know if Gabriel had survived. Or if that bastard in his armored suit had ordered him killed anyway.
She lay quietly, eyes closed, channeling the various sensei she’d studied with over the years, remaining motionless but alert, using her other senses to gain information. She was lying on a bed, the mattress firm beneath her, her fingers resting on something soft and quilted. The only scent she detected was a very faint detergent smell, as if the room had been cleaned sometime in the last month or two, but not recently. A central air conditioning system was blowing cool air, but there was heat on her legs that felt like sun through a window. She sensed no one else in the room with her. No aftershave or perfume scent, no breathing or sudden throat clearing, not even a whisper of movement. She waited as long as she could, until her bladder told her she needed to respond, and then she opened her eyes and looked around. Remaining still a moment longer, she fina
lly sat up then stood, convinced she was truly alone. She’d been right about the bed, too. It was big and heavy, with an elaborately carved headboard and matching footboard. A brocade chair sat to one side, with a small dresser on the opposite wall. There was a window to her left, and the sun’s position told her it was mid-morning. Two doors stood off to her right. She headed for the one which was open to reveal a bathroom.
She dealt with the morning’s necessities, then did a quick search of the bathroom which revealed nothing useful. There was not so much as an extra bar of soap, though unused towels hung on the wall. Hana had no intention of stripping down for a shower, however. She took the time to wash her face and arms, then finger-combed her hair and rinsed her mouth. If her captors were offended by bad breath, they should have given her a toothbrush and toothpaste, or at least some mouthwash.
Knowing she might be under surveillance but figuring the one place they might not bother with would be the empty, windowless bathroom, she patted her pockets, looking for potential weapons. They’d already taken the gun Cyn had given her, throwing it away before leaving the house. They. She was thinking in terms of the entire assault team, but it had been the guy with the 50 cal Desert Eagle, the one who’d threatened Gabriel’s life, who’d carried her out of the house. He’d been big, but no bigger than some of Raphael’s vampires, or for that matter Gabriel or Damian. It was the armored suit and the gun that had made him such a threat. She hoped she lived to see someone take him down. Gabriel deserved a chance at him, since he’d been the one with a gun to his head, but she’d settle for anyone on their team. Maybe Elke. Wouldn’t that be sweet? To watch tiny Elke wipe the floor with him?
Assuming her time was short, she put aside dreams of future revenge and searched the bathroom walls and fixtures, looking for any tell-tale sign of a camera. They’d gotten most of her concealed weapons, but not all of them. Sitting on the toilet, where she was out of range of the mirror, she quickly removed her left shoe. Lifting the insole, she retrieved a thin, flat blade. It was a last-ditch kind of weapon, with one end of the blade taped to provide a reasonably safe grip without bulking it up too much for concealment. It wasn’t an easy weapon; she’d usually ended up with at least one sliced finger after training with it. But it was sharp and deadly in the right hands . . . like hers. Sliding it into the thin Kevlar sheath sewn into the waistband of her pants, she put her shoes back on and flushed the toilet. She then washed her hands one more time, just in case anyone was listening, and walked back out to the bedroom.
Crossing to the window, she saw nothing but a long downward slope of scrub brush, patchy with green grass and what looked like miles of green hillsides. Those hills were peppered with widely spaced homes, which told her she was in a city. And not just any city. She was confident this was still L.A., because the scrub on that slope looked an awful lot like what she’d seen on the Malibu hillsides near Raphael’s estate. And while she couldn’t remember much, she didn’t think they’d flown her anywhere. That was mostly hunch, but it seemed like a good one.
There was one thing she didn’t need to depend on a hunch for, however, and that was how deep in shit she was. There was no doubt in her mind as to who’d paid the team of killers who’d taken her, and no doubt what he wanted with her. She stood at the window, eyes closed, trying to picture her magic and build some shields. Nico had barely begun to show her the basics, having spent most of the early part of the night teaching her a few easy spells. There was one that conjured fire, which would be great if she found herself stranded in the wilderness and needed a fire to scare off the wolves or keep herself warm. But first, she could probably start a fire much faster on her own, without any magic at all, and second, the creature threatening her was a lot more dangerous than a pack of wild wolves.
She was still standing there when the door opened behind her without even the pretense of a polite knock, and a man walked in, self- importance hanging over him like a halo. He was middle-aged, with an expensive haircut, a fake tan, and clothes that appeared tailor made to fit his slender form—the very opposite of the men she’d grown up with and been surrounded by this last week—most especially, the man she loved.
“Hana Himura,” he said smoothly, although he couldn’t keep the note of superiority from his tone, his nose all but raised in the air at being forced to speak to someone so far beneath his status.
“Who are you?” she asked, mostly to delay the inevitable, because she already knew who he was.
“I am Sotiris. We’ve met, but perhaps you don’t remember,” he said, touching his own chest lovingly, while frowning down at her like a disappointed parent. “You’ve given me a lot of trouble.”
“You should probably let me go then, unless you want more.”
He fake-smiled in pretentious amusement. “And who’s going to trouble me, you? Or the great Nicodemus? He’s been searching for this place for years and never found it, and you, my dear, have barely crawled from the primordial ooze compared to me.” He chuckled at his own cleverness.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because as it turns out, you’re a very useful crawler, which is the only reason you’re alive.” He pinned her with a cold stare that lacked any hint of civility. “Let’s be clear. Should you cease to be useful to me, I’ll kill you. I’d rather see you dead than in the hands of my enemies.”
“Why would I help you? You killed my grandfather.”
He shrugged aside her accusation. “You misunderstand. Your cooperation is preferable, but not necessary. Would you like a demonstration?”
Hana backed up until she hit the wall, fighting the terror flooding her body with adrenaline, while she struggled to remember everything Nico had taught her about shields. Her magic was there, like a blob of glittery play-slime, just waiting to be formed into something. She drew on it, shaping it into a protective shield and reinforcing it with her will, keeping it flexible so it wouldn’t shatter the first time Sotiris hit her with his much greater power.
She was prepared to fight for her life and her sanity, for the people she cared about, for Gabriel. She was prepared to die for them. But she wasn’t prepared for Sotiris to tear through her shield like paper, laughing as he reached for her throat, his touch a searing pain that scorched every nerve with agonizing fire. She screamed, but she was her grandfather’s student, warrior-trained to set aside pain and keep fighting. Dropping her hand to her waistband, she fumbled with fingers she could barely feel to find the taped end of her blade, slicing herself as she pulled it from the hidden sheath and grasped it in her fist.
Sotiris wasn’t paying any attention to what she was doing, too focused on drinking in her screams, feeling her writhe in his powerful grip. Focusing every bit of control she had left, Hana lifted the blade and slashed his throat.
Or she tried. At the last minute, the bastard saw something, the flash of the blade, maybe, or the movement of her arm. Whatever it was, he lifted his own arm to block it and caught the blade on his forearm instead. The brutally sharp knife sliced through his fine clothes and into his flesh, hitting bone before it stopped.
“Bitch!” He let go of her throat but slapped her across the face hard enough to send her to the floor, cracking her head on the heavy bed’s footboard as she fell. Hana lay there, stunned for a moment by the lingering pain from his touch and the blow to her head. But Sotiris didn’t wait. Twisting his hand in her long hair, his fingers coated with the blood running down his arm, he dragged her to her feet. “I warned you. I’m going to tie you up, stick an IV in your arm to keep you alive, and use you like my personal amplifier. And if things get really slow, maybe I’ll let Bluto have some fun, too. He’s quite taken with you.”
Hana gathered what moisture she could find in her dry mouth and spit in his face.
He gave a furious shout and punched her in the stomach, doubling her over while everything in her stomach came up, tinged with blood as she
threw up onto the floor.
Sotiris dropped her, shaking a hand covered in vomit. “Disgusting,” he snarled, then glared down at her with such rage, she thought she’d burst into flames. What really happened was worse.
Hana screamed as a spike drove into her skull, as the spike became a funnel and Sotiris began sucking her brain like a vacuum, stealing her thoughts, her magic, everything, until she had to strain to remember who she was, what she was—a person, a fighter, a woman beloved by a warrior with bronze-colored eyes who would come for her. She squeezed her mental self into a tiny ball, hiding from the unthinkable violation of her mind, hoping she could stay alive long enough to be found.
He let her go at last, dropping her to the floor like a wet towel, then standing over her and laughing in undeniable joy. “Damn, that felt good. Fuck me. I am a god!” He let out a triumphant shout, then looked down at her. Hana could barely see the frown creasing his face. “I wonder how long it takes you to recharge?” he muttered, then leaned down to cup her cheek in perverse affection. “I’ll get the doctor in here. You and I are going to have a wonderful relationship.” He grinned. “For me, anyway.”
He was still laughing when he left the room.
Hana couldn’t move. She lay there, helpless, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Chapter Twelve
NICK WORKED THROUGH most of the night and into the morning, going far more slowly than was his usual want as he gently followed his link with Hana. It was delicate work, and the object of his search was so critical—not only to him personally, but to the world itself—that he was exhausted by the time he finally got a bead on where she was being held. He emerged from the office, sweat- drenched, barely able to focus his eyes on the material world because he’d been searching inward for so long, following magical pathways that only a sorcerer could see.
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