by Connie Hall
Takala noticed that Lilly was still sleeping, and the one other passenger in first class hadn’t moved positions. The lady had the seat all the way reclined, and she slept on her right side. Harmless enough. Takala sat down as quietly as possible and put the phone back in the cradle. Her hands were trembling. What was up with that?
She felt odd, too. Shaky. Her heart beat wildly as if she’d just run a marathon. Her lips felt strange. She touched them and flinched. They were sensitive and swollen as if she’d been kissed. Something had happened to her back there in the bathroom, but what?
She concentrated, trying to recall her last memory. Talking to Stephen…suddenly losing the connection. What had he said? Stay away from Nightwalker. Could she really trust Nightwalker’s word if he had warned her to beware of someone? Well, she didn’t have much confidence that Lilly wasn’t a killer. She couldn’t get close to Lilly or reveal who she was until she was certain of her character. And something told her Nightwalker would stop at nothing if he wanted someone dead. And he was a vampire, for heaven’s sake. Even Fala had warned her not to trust a vamp. So, at the moment, she had no faith or trust in anyone but herself. And her memory was playing tricks on her.
She wished she had her Glock, but after Homeland Security put her through an hour of rigorous red tape, scrutinizing her background, her concealed permit, and her private investigator’s license, they still made her check the weapon. It was in the cargo hold under lock and key, and she’d have to wait until touching down to get it. She hoped to get it past French security.
Something about not having her weapon made her nervous. She reclined her seat and closed her eyes, trying to remember those moments she’d lost. For some reason her mind conjured up the image of Nightwalker. Something about him nagged at her. She gave up trying to think about it and felt wide awake.
She pulled out a piece of peanut-butter fudge from the bag and one of the tiny bottles of rum she had stashed from the last stewardess round. If she couldn’t sleep, at least she could have a snack. When she opened the rum, the smell of it wafted through her senses. She took a long, deep sniff, and the scent brought back a feeling of terror. Must be her nerves working overtime. She downed the bottle.
Chapter 6
They caught a tailwind over Greenland and made good time. At three in the morning, the 747 set down on a Charles de Gaulle runway. The airport was about twenty miles from Paris, so the pilot had told them, but on the landing approach Takala hadn’t been able to see the lights of Paris for the cloud cover, a major disappointment. All she could see was opaque darkness out the windows and her own reflection in the glass. Not good.
Her hair was greasy and probably had remnants of slime in it, compliments of the gecko shifter. And her eyes looked numb from being sequestered in an airplane for hours and from sleep deprivation. They were wide open and staring. She was a zombie with bad hair.
She pushed the errant strands of hair back behind her ear and applied some lip gloss. At least she looked a little more human.
She desperately wanted to breathe fresh air, see sky overhead, walk on terra firma. Maybe it would help her jet lag and this antsy feeling crawling through her. She hadn’t been able to shake the strange sensation that someone was watching her and Lilly. Nor could she account for the lost time in the bathroom.
She glanced behind her. A stewardess was helping the other first-class passenger pull down an overnight bag from the storage compartment.
Takala flanked Lilly as they debarked and headed up the gangplank. The pilot and stewardesses were lined up, saying goodbyes, tired smiles plastered on their faces.
Takala stayed on Lilly’s right side, keeping her body between the crew and her newly acquired client. Takala had been hired as a bodyguard, and she hoped she was impressing Lilly with her skills—at least enough so that Lilly would keep her around.
She still didn’t trust Lilly, even though she looked like her mother in the old photo and had the same powers. Hadn’t Nightwalker warned her that Lilly was a killer? But hadn’t Lilly accused Nightwalker of being one, too?
Takala needed to find out for herself if Lilly’s character was as bad as Nightwalker had said. She was also interested in learning why Lilly had chosen France to escape Nightwalker, and the real reason Nightwalker was after her. Takala didn’t understand why he would set up his own agents to frame Lilly for their murder. Even Stephen didn’t think that was possible, unless they were dirty. She could believe it if one agent was corrupt, but five? Highly suspicious.
“I hope you enjoyed the flight over,” Lilly said, smiling over at Takala. “Nothing compares with first class.”
“Yeah, it’s nice, but they scrimped on the meal portions.”
“Dinner was four courses.” Lilly’s dark brows met over her nose, and she seemed to take the remark as a personal affront.
“Oh, and really good. They just didn’t give you very much.”
“They were normal portions. I ate so much I must have gained two pounds.” Lilly eyed Takala with distaste. “That fudge you ate didn’t seem to harm your figure. How can you eat so many carbs and never gain weight? If I ate all that fudge, I wouldn’t be able to button my pants.” She eyed the almost empty bag of fudge Takala carried.
Takala whispered so the people behind her couldn’t hear. “It’s my metabolism, part of my strength. Sampson had his hair. I have food.” She shrugged.
“Oh, a curse.”
“I don’t know. Eat anything you want and never gain weight. Some people would kill for that kind of curse.” Takala heard the defensive tone in her own voice, and she changed tracks. “So, what’s next on the agenda?”
“As soon as I’m safely in a taxi, I’ll pay you. Then you’ll be free to catch a flight back to America.”
“You won’t need my services any longer?” Takala tried to come up with a reason to be near her, but she didn’t want to seem too obvious.
“No, I’ll take it from here. As soon as I’m certain we weren’t followed.”
“I’m not going back right away. I’ve never been to Paris. I’m gonna hang around and sightsee.” Takala hoped that gave Lilly a segue into inviting her to tag along.
“It’s lovely. You’ll have great fun,” she said with an airy tone of dismissal.
Takala wondered if Lilly had ice water in her veins or was only interested in getting on with the business of murder. She was nothing like the person of Takala’s hopes and daydreams. She had always seen her mother as a replica of her grandmother, Meikoda. Meikoda was exacting and severe, but she could also be loving and kind, with a heart of gold. But Takala felt little warmth in this stranger. Well, they couldn’t part just yet. Lilly left Takala no choice but to follow her.
The airport didn’t seem quite so busy in the early morning. A few people were awake, sitting at food counters, or reading, but most were sleeping, slumped in their seats as they waited for flights.
Takala couldn’t shake that feeling of eyes on her, and she glanced around. Only passengers on the flight. Several women struggled with tired, crying children.
She and Lilly hopped on the shuttle that took them past the baggage-claim area. They passed through customs and had to wait for Takala to get her Glock. At first they wanted to keep the gun while she was in Paris, so she had called Blake. He used his connections to contact someone in charge of airport security. After a fifteen-minute wait, they handed her the Glock with a warning not to use it. It helped to have good friends in high places.
She thanked them for the advice. Then she and Lilly headed for the taxi pool. They stepped through double glass doors and out into a covered portico. It stretched from the main airport to a parking garage across the street. Moths fluttered around yellow fluorescent lights. Beyond the lights, Takala could see only darkness.
She turned to look for the porter and saw an empty desk. Strange. Most airports kept porters on duty all hours of the night. Late flights or not, passengers always demanded help with their luggage. No one home here.
She couldn’t see one taxi visible in the four lanes, either, but she smelled remnants of car exhaust lingering in the air. It mingled with the dense humidity of impending rain. But there was also something more tangible weighing the atmosphere down, something that made the skin at the back of her neck crawl.
“I don’t like this,” Lilly said, voicing what Takala felt.
“Me, either. Smell that sudden stench?” Takala sniffed the air.
“Rotten eggs?”
They both looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Demons.” Some demons had a decaying odor that accompanied their dark magic and signaled their arrival.
Unfortunately, the warning came too late. Eight hover demons materialized, floating right out the side of the brick parking garage. They lifted their scythes in unison.
“Nightwalker strikes again,” Lilly murmured. “He really wants me dead.”
“Not if I can help it.” Takala decided she had a lot of questions for this Nightwalker vamp—if she ever met him face-to-face. “Run, Lilly!” Takala turned to face their attackers.
“Too late.” Lilly took up a fighting stance behind Takala’s back.
The hover demons separated, circling them. Drooping hoods obscured most of their faces. All Takala could see were dark, indistinguishable features and two glowing green eyes.
One grew bold and lunged at Takala.
She grabbed the scythe before it struck, then whipped the weapon back at the demon like a javelin.
The scythe careened through its body, the blade’s tip protruding out the other side. It squealed and buckled. Green goo, demon blood, spewed from the gaping hole left in the demon’s body and robe. As soon as the blood hit the air, it left only green smoke in its wake. The hover’s dead spirit coagulated and frothed into a green gelatinous mass. The wool of its mantle, like the green blood, disappeared in a poof of gray smoke. Takala watched as the hover’s spirit whirled out of the portico and up into the air. She knew it would be sucked back to hell’s dimension and reappear again in some other noxious form. Like angels, demons’ spirits never died; they were just recycled. Made killing demons frustrating.
At the death of their brethren, the other hovers let out a loud, piercing shriek that deafened Takala. She had heard that the demonic war cry of hovers could actually deafen a human. She hoped her ears stopped throbbing and ringing soon.
The battle turned ugly.
Hovers attacked simultaneously. Four hovers moved in on Lilly. Takala tried to help her, but she had three of her own to battle. She knocked away a scythe that came at her side, then somersaulted, avoiding another blade. Instinctively she reached for her gun, but she realized it was useless. Bullets couldn’t kill hovers anyway; only the hell-mined metal of their own weapons and magic worked on them.
She saw Lilly couldn’t get near the demons to siphon their power. They slashed relentlessly at her with their scythes as she ran for her life. Takala rarely admitted defeat, but she knew they didn’t stand a chance.
“The demons attacking Takala Rainwater are mine,” Striker said.
“We have the others.” Brawn and Katalinga fell on the demons chasing Culler. She had ducked behind a long line of empty baggage carts and was using one to fend off the hovers.
Striker suspected these were the same demons who had killed his agents, so he would show them as much mercy as they had bestowed on his men.
He materialized near one, grabbed the scythe and shoved it into the demon’s gut.
Green blood ejected in all directions, disintegrating as it reached the earth’s atmosphere.
He wheeled to attack the demon who had cornered Takala on the ground, hacking recklessly at her. She managed to stay ahead of the blade by rolling and tumbling. In seconds he was on the demon and caught it from behind in a chokehold.
A hover could conjure fire, and its body became a burning green torch. But it couldn’t hold on to the scythe, and that fell to the ground with a loud thump.
The demon thrust both flaming hands into Striker’s face. Striker leaped back and lost his hold. The hover turned into a blur of attacking flames. Striker teleported to stay out of the demon’s reach.
“Demon spawn, take that!” Takala had picked up the scythe, and she thrust it into the hover’s flaming back.
The demon shrieked, then exploded into green ash.
“Demon spawn?” Striker raised a brow at her.
“If the shoe fits.” She eyed him boldly up and down as if she’d spoken about him, her mismatched eyes radiant with a suspicious light.
A hover attacked from the side.
Takala still held the blade, and she stood her ground. For a moment it was a struggle of who could hit harder and faster. Metal sparked red as they clashed. It surprised him how agile and strong Takala was. Striker found an opening, grabbed the blade from Takala, and sent it straight through the demon.
It screamed and dissolved.
Takala rounded on him. “Hey, stay out of my way—unless you want to get hurt.”
“You needed help,” he said.
“I handle my own battles, thank you very much.”
“You are welcome.”
“I wasn’t thanking you.” Something dawned in her face, and her expression turned serious as she said, “I know you. You’re Nightwalker?”
“At your service.” To his dismay, he realized he hadn’t erased all her memories of him, only the one in the bathroom. She’d seen him at Culler’s home. Culler must have given her an earful of lies about him. He wished now he had cleared all her recollections.
A whirling fireball of energy sailed past them and they ducked.
They both looked up at the same time to see Brawn and Katalinga. Katalinga’s arm was sliced open, and Brawn fended off two attackers by throwing magical balls of blue energy at them. But he was getting tired, and the demons were advancing, easily evading them.
Before Striker could stop her, Takala leaped to help. He had to admit, either she was the most courageous female he’d ever met or she had a death wish.
He searched for Culler. Nowhere in sight. Had she escaped?
Takala lured a demon from Katalinga, protecting her, while Striker and Brawn fought the other foe.
Striker could hardly keep his mind on dispatching his adversary for worrying about Takala’s safety. But Katalinga wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing, and she shifted into a lynx and leaped up on the demon’s back, hanging on the robe by her claws. It was the distraction Takala needed, and she grabbed the scythe and drove the handle back into the demon’s midsection. It screamed and gusted into a green cloud.
Katalinga fell to the sidewalk, landing on her feet.
While Brawn distracted the demon with his fireballs, Striker seized the handle of the scythe and used the demon’s own hand as he propelled the scythe into the hover’s side. It shrieked at its own death; then its gel-like soul warped upward.
When they were done, and everyone save Striker was catching their breath, Brawn said, “That was close. What a bunch of devil spawn.”
Striker and Takala shared a private look. She fluttered her brows at him as if to say, “Told you so.”
Striker found himself grinning. He’d smiled more since meeting Takala Rainwater than he had in decades. He didn’t like this influence she had over him, and he forced his mouth back into a stern line. He noticed that the magic spell that had kept the area clear of humans had dissipated, and people were gawking at them through the glass doors. Striker pushed a button on his phone and thought of where he was; then the cleaners appeared.
They looked like normal businesswomen and men in black suits. They held what looked like tiny cell phones but were in reality devices that erased human minds. Striker nodded toward the humans behind the glass. The cleaners began zapping them with a white crystal ray.
“Nifty,” Takala said. “My people clear human minds, but with magic.”
“This is easier and more efficient,” Striker said. “And doesn’t harm h
umans.”
“Our white magic doesn’t hurt them.” She looked offended.
Striker found himself wanting to run his tongue along her lips and taste them as he said, “Yes, but at B.O.S.P. we don’t need to cast spells. We’ve moved past spells, hex bags, and the stone ages.”
“Stone ages!” She snarled at him. “I’ll have you know our magic is timeless. And it’s environmentally friendly. We don’t need to mine or grow crystals.”
He’d give her that one concession. “There you have us.”
Takala hadn’t heard his reply, for she had seen Katalinga down on the sidewalk and she was already hurrying to help her. The agent was still in lynx form, lying on her side. Blood smeared her chest and paw from a gash on her shoulder. Takala had taken off her jacket and was about to throw it over the cat, when Brawn stopped her.
“Pardon me, but she’s my partner. I’ll help her.” He shot Takala a proprietary look.
Takala stepped back and waved to Katalinga. “Sorry, just trying to help.”
“Thanks, but I got it.” Brawn’s brows narrowed in concern as he gently scooped Katalinga up in his arms, her lynx form growling in pain. He addressed Striker. “We lost Culler.”
Striker had his gaze on Takala. He could see the cogs behind her eyes turning as she blurted, “Wait one doggone minute. Lilly Smith has another alias?”
“Culler is her code name,” Striker said.
“So she told the truth when she said she worked for the same agency as you?”
Striker swept his hand toward Brawn and Katalinga. “We all work for B.O.S.P.”
“Well, isn’t that cozy.” One of Takala’s brows shot up; then she spoke to Striker. “And are all of you trying to kill Lilly Smith—I mean, Culler?”
Striker said in an unnervingly calm voice, “If that were the case, she would already be in a body bag.”
Takala narrowed her gaze at him, her thick ginger lashes only giving her beautiful eyes a sexy bedroom look. “Well, I guess G-men can tell the truth, sometimes.”
