“Holy shit, we should keep the puppy,” Rachel said.
That’s what I was afraid of. That the puppy would be at our heels.
He threw the man into the other agents like he was rolling a bowling ball. They went down in a clatter, several guns going off at once.
Ivan stepped over them and held the door open. His eyes met mine. “Ladies first.”
Indeed.
CHAPTER 6
RACHEL
“I’ve been with you less than ten minutes and we’ve already fought off demon dogs and government agents,” I said as we ran down the steps.
“Never a dull moment,” Lea grunted, obviously frustrated by my human pace. Even the werewolf behind me was getting impatient if the way he was crowding my heels was any indication.
“It would have been great if I’d had time to change into more appropriate on-the-lam clothes.” At least I had on decent shoes. It had taken me less than a week to figure out that only the most practical walking shoes would work in a city this big.
“Are you really discussing your outfit at time like this?” the werewolf snapped as I took the last steps the ground floor. “Typical blonde.”
We needed to stop and assess the surveillance in the lobby, so I had no qualms about whipping around and hooking my foot around the back of his ankle. I caught him off balance and shoved him against the wall with my forearm across his Adam’s apple, not an easy task considering he was so much taller than me. But he’d bent his knees when he fell, putting off his center of balance. “Don’t ever make a statement about my hair color in conjunction with my intelligence or ability again,” I forced out through gritted teeth. “Got it?”
A slow grin spread across his face. “You have an interesting friend, Cazador.”
Lea grunted as she cracked open the door to peer outside.
The werewolf looked completely amused. “You do realize I could rip your head off? I could flick you away like a fly.”
“How many blondes have caught you off guard like I just did? One stumble and I could have easily shoved a silver stake into your heart.” I poked the left side of his chest to make my point, then dropped my forearm. “Do not underestimate me.”
My comment about the silver stake had wiped the grin off his face and he stood to his full height, glaring at me.
“If you two children are done, can we go?” Lea asked, glancing back at us. “I only see four men by the exits, but who knows how soon the others will be down.”
I shifted my messenger bag, thankful I hadn’t taken it off in the room. “Let’s do this.”
“Maybe we can find a side exit and get out undetected.”
Given our lousy luck, that seemed unlikely, but I let Lea lead the way. We stuck close to the wall and headed toward a hall to our left. To my surprise, we almost made it, but one of the guards caught a glimpse of Lea and alerted his friends.
I took off in a sprint. “Run!”
Lea pushed me ahead of her. “Go, I’m right behind you!”
I sprinted around the corner, skidding to a halt when a man in a suit stepped in front of the glass door leading to the street. Despite the half dozen people in the lobby, he lifted his gun to shoot. Lea jumped in front of me as the sound of a gunshot filled the hall. Ivan released a low snarl and bolted for the shooter. The man’s eyes widened as he lifted his gun toward Ivan, but Lea reached him before he could pull the trigger again. She struck his arm, sending his gun skittering across the floor, and Ivan shoved him against the wall. His head hit the marble with the sound of an overripe melon.
The agent sank to the floor. His head flopped over like a rag doll’s, but his chest still rose and fell with his breath. “Wait,” I said as I squatted beside him.
Leah growled, “We don’t have time to wait.”
But I’d already pulled out his earpiece and microphone. I switched the microphone off and inserted it into my own ear. “Now we’ll know what they’re up to.” The other agents’ voices filled my ear.
Ivan gave me a grudging look of approval as we took off for the street, Lea in lead.
As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I saw the men headed toward us. “Shit.”
Lea bolted into traffic, and cars screeched to a halt to avoid hitting her. Ivan and I followed her path, but the agents crossed behind us, so we didn’t gain much ground.
Ivan grabbed the corner of a newsstand as soon as we reached the sidewalk, the worker restacking a rack of magazines. He pressed his shoulder into the edge and the entire stand lifted off the ground and crashed onto the sidewalk. Merchandise spilled into their path, creating a bottleneck of shouting pedestrians and raging newsstand owner.
We took advantage of the diversion to race south, agents still pursuing. I began to get winded after two blocks of that grueling pace. The agents were losing ground fast, and after another two blocks, I could see neither hide nor hair of them.
“We need to find a subway,” I panted.
“Where’s the nearest station?” Lea asked.
Ivan ran beside me, barely looking winded. Asshole. “The Rockefeller, but we’ll be too easy to find. We need to head to Grand Central. We can lose them in the tunnels.”
“There’s no one to lose,” I snapped. “We’ve lost the guys behind us.”
“But now we have fresh pursuers,” Lea said, pointing to a tight group of men headed straight for us.
“They’re directly in our path to Grand Central, not to mention it’s at least six more blocks,” I said. “We need to hide.”
Lea shot me a nasty look and pulled her cowl down around her face. Then she grabbed me, flung me onto her back, and took off at an even faster sprint in the opposite direction of our new pursuers. My only consolation was that Ivan struggled to keep up with her.
She slid around the corner, turning east, and I clung to her for fear of being flung off. The men behind us had little chance of keeping up, but we still weren’t in a position to lose them yet. Ivan steered us down Madison.
“There’s an entrance close,” he said. “A couple blocks.”
People gave us odd looks—an inhumanely fast person with a woman on his or her back was bound to draw attention, but it was New York City. For all they knew, it was a scene from an action movie. Hopefully they wouldn’t figure out there weren’t any cameras rolling.
We’d made it several more blocks, and I knew we were close when I heard something over the earpiece. “They’re sending more backup,” I shouted. “They’re two blocks behind us.”
“They’re close,” Ivan said, looking over his shoulder. “But I think we can make it.”
Lea pushed forward with a new burst of speed, only slowing when we reached the entrance. I slid off her back and the three of us entered the station. With any luck, we’d get lost in the crowd, but that seemed unlikely considering my companions were a big beefy guy and a woman in leather and a cowl. I had a better chance of getting lost on my own, but there was no way that was going to happen. I pulled my subway pass out of my bag as well as a spare I kept in case I lost my other.
“Lea, lower your cowl.”
“What? Why?”
“We have to blend in. Or try to.”
I led the way to the turnstiles, then ran my other pass over the card reader and motioned her through.
“Are you shitting me?” she asked in disbelief. “Always the rule-follower. Even in a foot chase.”
“See that guard over there?” I gave a flick of my finger toward a man who was standing with his back to the wall, keeping a watchful eye on the turnstiles. “He sees us jump the stiles and he’s going to call for backup.”
“Ladies,” Ivan said, already through the stiles, “let’s continue this discussion on the train.”
Lea stalked through the gate behind me.
“Which line?”
“The one with the closest platform.” I was starting toward the first tunnel when Lea tensed.
“They found us.”
“Shit.” We bolted down the steps
as a train pulled into the station. “Hurry!” I shouted. “I think we can make it.”
The men in black suits were right behind us as we reached the bottom of the stairs. The passengers were already loading, which was a bad sign. We were still far enough away that we might not make it.
Seeming to sense my concern, Lea grabbed my wrist and rushed toward the train, pulling me so quickly my feet barely touched the tile floor. We squeaked past the closing doors just before they sealed.
I grabbed a pole, hanging over while I tried to catch my breath. It was only as the train pulled away from the platform that I realized Ivan was still on the other side of the door. And the men in suits were only feet behind him.
Oh, shit.
CHAPTER 7
LEA
“Damn, I thought he’d be faster than that,” Rachel said.
I watched through the window as the men in suits reached for Ivan, only to find him already gone, climbing over the people on the platform to evade capture.
“He has a thing about opening doors for women,” I muttered as I turned.
Rachel was already doing a sweep of the car, moving quickly. Checking the far end to see if any suits had made it onto the adjoining car.
Without any training on my part, she was already a better partner than Calvin. He’d been such a mess at first, focused only on revenge.
“You’re hunting the monsters who did this?” He pointed at the two bodies on the floor of his apartment. Wife and child, throats savaged, very little blood to be found. I nodded and kept my mouth shut. The last thing he needed to know was that he’d be working with a monster to catch the monsters.
He ran a hand over his dirty blond hair, making it stick up in every direction. His blue eyes hardened as he nodded. “I’m in.”
“I’m the boss. You will do what I say. When I say it.” I spoke evenly, putting only the slightest bit of pressure behind my words.
“Fine. But we’ll get to kill them?”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand to me. “I’d sell my soul to the devil to find the monster who did this. To make him pay.”
I gripped his hand. “Well, Calvin, you may have done just that.”
I blinked, looking for Rachel. “Ivan will catch up—”
Over Rachel’s right shoulder at the far end of the subway car stood an impossible sight. Tall, dirty blond hair, blue eyes, one eyebrow raised as he shook his head. It was as if he’d stepped out of my memory. “Calvin?”
Rachel spun around, but I was already moving. I pushed past her and bolted to the end of the car. People, there were too many damn people, no matter how hard I shoved them. Less than ten seconds passed and I was standing where I’d seen him. The space was empty. I rubbed a hand over my face. Was I seeing things?
“What the hell? Did you say Calvin?” Rachel caught up to me.
I nodded. “Maybe. Fucked if I know.”
“There isn’t a person over fifty on this car, Lea,” Rachel pointed out, her hands on her hips.
I drew in a breath, scenting the air on the back of my tongue. There was nothing that smelled like Calvin. Just a subway car full of poorly washed bodies. “No, he looked like he did...when he was younger.”
“Not possible.”
I let out a breath. “I know we left him behind, Rachel. Yes, he was dead. Yes, the facility blew up. But—”
“Lea. Even you know it isn’t possible. Not this time.” Her voice softened enough that I knew she understood. I wanted Calvin not to be dead. I wanted to know my old friend was still alive and out there somewhere.
The subway car slowed to a stop and the light over the door blinked. I didn’t look where we were getting off, just stepped onto the platform and started out of the tunnel. Rachel jogged to catch up. “Hey. It’s normal to see people you care about after they’re dead. I went through it with my buddies in Iraq. Three of them, actually.”
I said nothing simply because I wasn’t sure how I felt. The only way Calvin could be alive was as a vampire. That was the only answer.
And I didn’t want that for him. I’d stake him myself before I let this world make him the thing he hated most.
Without having to say anything, we both knew the suits would come for us at one of the subway line’s drop-off points. It would be nice for things to work out like they did in the movies, but we weren’t stupid. This wouldn’t be a clean getaway.
We moved with serious speed. At the top of the stairs, I tugged my cowl tighter around my face, more out of habit than anything else, since the street was swathed with shadows from the nearly set sun, and did a visual sweep of the area. So far, so good. The apartment building across the street caught my eye. “We need to get to higher ground so we can see them coming.”
“Agreed.” Rachel pointed. “That apartment building work?”
Again, she showed just how much she trumped Calvin as a helper. I tapped her on the arm. “Keep close,” and we were off, sliding through the grid of cars that might as well have been a parking lot rather than a street. As I scanned the area, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time pressed in around me.
Being hunted was a shitty sensation. I much preferred to be the hunter.
I led the way around the side of the building. A fire escape ladder hung a good twenty feet in the air in a dark narrow alley.
“You can reach that, right?” Rachel asked me, like it was no problem.
“Who do you think I am? The Jolly Green Giant in disguise?” I grinned, though, and ran at the wall. I leapt straight up as I reached the building, scrabbling with my hands and boots to propel me the last few feet. Dangling from the ladder, I jerked my body and the mechanism let loose and dropped to the ground with a grinding screech.
Rachel winced. “I hope none of those fucking dog things are around to hear that.”
“Other things make noise besides us, Rach.”
She lifted both hands as she put a foot on the ladder. “Really? I’m beginning to think they could hear us fart if we let one rip.”
The laugh that burst out of me caught me by surprise. And apparently Rachel too, because she stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s good. Just...shocked the shit out of me.”
My lips twitched. “Please don’t go there.”
She grinned and started up the stairs. I followed, then pulled the ladder up from the first landing. A single screech, and it was locked back in place. We were at the third floor before we found an unlocked window.
Sliding through, it was easy to see why.
“Rich people always think nothing bad is going to happen to them. Like their money somehow protects them.” Rachel ran a hand through the silk curtains. The place was solid white: floors, ceilings, walls, artwork, curtains, and furniture.
Perhaps it was a bad sign that my first thought was we were probably going to get blood on everything and the cleaning bill was going to be a real bitch.
The thought of blood made my throat tighten. “I need to feed soon after all that exposure to the sun. So let’s hash this shit out.”
Rachel nodded as she moved to the wet bar across the room and poured herself a big glass of water. She downed it, then pulled out a half full bottle of something else. Whiskey aged in oak barrels, judging by the smell.
“Not a word. I need it after the day I’ve had,” she said as she tipped a generous amount into her glass with the last of her water.
I drew the scent in and let it coat my saliva glands. What I wouldn’t give for the burn of a shot of whiskey. Unfortunately, my taste buds wouldn’t pick up the nuances and the alcohol would make me sick.
I moved around the side of the brilliantly white leather couch and sat, leaning into the overstuffed cushions.
“Something bad is coming.” I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck as if to scrub away the sensation of being hunted.
“No shit—” Rachel paused and stared at me over the rim of her glass, “
—Sherlock.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ve pissed off enough people; there’s no way to know what direction the blow will come from. Men in suits today. Vampires tonight. Demon dogs in the morning. Something new by mid-afternoon.”
“You don’t know that.” She put her glass down.
“Just a guess. Who contacted you after the report?”
Her eyes flickered down to her glass and back up. “A creepy-ass scientist. I’m meeting him tonight.”
I raised both eyebrows. “Really? Let me guess, midnight?”
She grunted. “Not real subtle, is it?”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “No. You feel okay about going on your own?”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
The slightest shuffle of cloth at the window had me on my feet and spinning toward it. Ivan grinned at me, already half in through the opening.
“Never going to sneak up on you, am I?”
“How the hell did we not hear the ladder?” Rachel snapped. “Seriously, did you fly your ass in here?”
He grinned at her, but his charm didn’t work on Rachel. She glared back. He let out a sigh. “I jumped. Those ladders are always squeaky.”
Rachel flicked her eyes my way, as if to confirm it was, indeed, possible for him to do that. I gave her the barest of nods.
“Fuck. I’m surrounded by X-Men.” She slugged back her whiskey.
“Is she always this touchy?” He looked at her, then back to me.
Time to lay the ground rules. “You’re going to keep following me, aren’t you?”
“You don’t know it yet—” he stepped through the window and leaned against the frame, “—but you’re going to need me. This goes deeper than vampires, Lea. And to answer you, yes. I’m going to keep following you. Besides, the view is nice.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Rachel moved out from behind the wet bar.
“It means I’d like to get to know her on a more personal basis. She has a nice ass.” He winked at me and Rachel threw her glass at him. He ducked and came up with a frown etched on his mouth. There it was—the look of an enforcer.
Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) Page 4
