Biting Me Softly: Biting Love, Book 3

by Mary Hughes

  Ruthven released me with a jerk, tried to dance back. Logan’s mist thinned and spread, wrapping Ruthven in mummy’s bandages, tighter and tighter. Ruthie’s face went from furious (and a little charred) to confused to downright terrified.

  “Steel!” Ruthven struggled hard, managed to jab a hand into his coat pocket. “You cannot win. I am Lord Ruthven, Ruler of the Night.”

  Whew. Talk about corny. Logan’s mist was streaming tighter and faster. Ruthven barely managed to jerk his hand free but when he did, he was holding—a Big Red Button. Race’s BRB, if I wasn’t mistaken. More corn but suddenly I wasn’t laughing.

  “Stop,” Ruthven repeated. “I engineered this to topple Nosferatu but I will get a greater pleasure using it to destroy you.”

  I nearly fell off my feet. Ruthven was the challenger for Nosferatu’s territory, the target of Project Shield. The terrorist who was going to destroy not the Willis Tower but the one-hundred-seventeen-year-old landmark Museum building.

  Not of I could help it. “Hey, Lorne. Isn’t it a bit extreme to blow up thousands of innocent visitors just to kill Logan?” I snatched at the button as Logan’s mist rose on Ruthven’s body, gathering around the vampire’s neck.

  It left Ruthven’s hands free. He yanked the button away from me, snarling. “I hate Steel and his whole family. Nothing is too extreme to rid me of him.”

  Whoa. I thought I had issues. Ruthven had a whole can of festering hate-worms.

  “And rid myself of you, Liese Schmetterl—gack.”

  Logan’s mist whirled around Ruthven’s neck, so concentrated and fast it looked like a ghostly garrote, or a noose tightening.

  Ruthven’s neck snapped.

  I swallowed a shriek, jumped back. Good thing because an instant later Logan condensed from the mist, his long dagger drawn. “That’s for Adelaide. And this is for daring to threaten Liese.” A single, powerful slash severed Ruthven’s throat.

  Blood spurted. Another hard cut severed the neck. The head toppled. And the body—

  Ruthven’s final act was to slap a hand down on the button.

  “Damn it!” Logan caught it as the body collapsed. But I could see the button was depressed and it was too late. I covered my head with my hands and breathed a final I love you to Logan and… and…

  And nothing.

  No pain, no shock. Not even a long black tunnel and beckoning point of light.

  I opened my eyes. Logan was rapidly dismantling the button using a claw for a screwdriver. I trotted to his side, studiously ignoring the headless body. “Why didn’t we blow up? Is that a fake?”

  Logan’s brows knit. “No, it’s hooked into a radio transmitter… Oh, of course. Ruthven’s too much a coward not to give himself time to escape. He must have built in a delay.”

  “How long do we have?” I clutched Logan’s melon-sized biceps. “Are the kids safe?”

  “The kids are fine. I made sure Bud was shepherding them out before I came for you. And time? Long enough for Ruthven to escape. That should mean I have long enough to evacuate the museum. I’ll call Smilvane to start that, then look for the bomb.” He yanked my mop door-wedge loose with one hand while he thumbed numbers into my cell with the other.

  “Don’t you mean we?”

  “No.” His tone was as flat as I’d ever heard, his resolution punctuated by punching open the door. “You are leaving. Quickly, quietly, and—” He stopped so fast I ran into his back.

  The museum had been struck by Noah’s flood.

  “What the—” Logan’s head swiveled, taking in the scene around us in that fast, almost supercomputer way I’d come to know and love. Water sprayed all around. People ran past us, skidding and sliding, headed for the exit like they couldn’t get out of there fast enough. As evacuations went, it was messy and unplanned, but any port in a storm.

  Speaking of which…I squinted up, wondering if the Storms exhibit had gone horribly wrong, but the indoor rain was the fire sprinklers. No alarm and no fire, yet all the sprinklers were busy fizzing, as far down the corridor as I could see. “This isn’t possible. Sprinklers are heat-sensitive. They go off individually in response to rising temperatures, not all at once for no reason.”

  Logan grabbed my hand, strode briskly after the fleeing people. “It’s a setup.”

  My eyes snapped to his face, his ferocious frown the only indication of how hard his superb brain was working. “What do you mean?”

  He led me past the blue stairs, across the center concourse. “Ruthven said he set this up to topple Nosferatu. The button triggered the sprinklers.”

  “What kind of terrorist act is that? Make everybody catch pneumonia?

  “No, there’s more to it. Scare people toward the exit, but then what? And how did Ruthven engineer this when he’s as technically literate as a gnat?” He screeched to a halt and cocked his head. “Shit.”

  “What?” But a moment later I saw what he’d heard.

  The mob of people who’d thundering down the frozen escalator and stairs were coming back. Hundreds of people, shaking and trembling, and not just with wet.

  Behind them, driving them like cattle, were over fifty fanged Lestat vampires brandishing guns.

  Smack in the middle of the humans was the white face of supermom Zinnia Jones.

  Logan’s swearing took on a distinctly French tinge. “If we live through this I will personally guillotine that woman.”

  “She probably just wanted to help.”

  “And instead she’s made herself a target. Now you see why I want you out of this?” Logan picked me up and in a twinkling we were at the blue staircase. The Foucault pendulum swung a gentle rhythm behind us, trailing water.

  I clung to his strong shoulders. “Haven’t I been a help up to now?”

  He snarled at me. Snarled. “Yes, damn you. I still want you safely out of this.”

  “And I want to be a size six. Since that ain’t happening, why don’t we try to figure out where the bomb is?”

  “I’ve been trying. None of this makes any sense. Why start an evacuation just to herd people back into the museum?” He stared intently at nothing, mind obviously churning.

  “Well, if the bomb could take out the whole building, it wouldn’t matter where the people are. Ergo—”

  “Ergo, it’s a small bomb, small enough that they need to consolidate the humans into a confined area. So they start the sprinklers to gather people at the entrance, then herd them wherever they want. Okay, that makes sense. Now the only thing we need to figure out is where—” He stopped speaking and turned toward the green stairs. His pupils constricted to pinpricks. “No. That can’t be it.”

  “What?”

  “The stairwell—” His nostrils flared. “We’ve got company.”

  A very red Razor limped toward us from the bathroom corridor, trailing smoke. “Lord Logan! I’ve been looking all over for you. Pax. I got news. The boss is gonna elocution people. When it was you against us, well, that was one thing. But zapping innocent humans—that’s abdominal. It could be Hattie.” He stopped in front of us, panting. “But I don’t know where.”

  I didn’t even have time to translate that before Logan was moving past him. “Smilvane said there were modifications done on the cogenerator installation. Emergency changes to the 1.75 megawatts electrical generator. It’s on the second floor above the meeting rooms. The green stairwell.” Race fell in behind us.

  My fingers clutched Logan’s shoulders as the implications hit. “Electricity. That’s why the sprinklers. Human skin has natural resistance.”

  “Dry,” Logan agreed. “Wet, it’s about four hundred times more conductive.” He set me down just outside the green stairs and kicked aside the warning sign. The railings had been stripped down to bare metal and the stairs were covered with chain mats. “That’s just fucking grisly.”

  “Mass electrocution.” I tried to swallow, couldn’t. “Electrical source above, ground below, metal in between. Current drawn through the path of least res
istance. Wet humans wouldn’t add much. The stairwell is a natural electrocution chamber. Ruthven did this?”

  “The boss is crazy,” Razor said. “But smart. He’s been working with a bunch of genesis to fix this up.”

  Geniuses, my mind supplied.

  “The Steel Software wannabes.” Logan slapped the wall in frustration. It made a hollow clanging sound, a metal cladding. “Damn. I can’t fight fifty Lestats, not all of them, not and still stop this in time.” The crescendoing thunder of feet behind us underlined his words. “I’ll have to cut the electricity at the source.”

  “Sixty Lestats, asshole, and you ain’t getting by us,” bellowed a voice from above. An instant later a big knife-wielding body crashed into Logan.

  Logan only swayed with the impact, then used the Lestat’s impetus against him and smashed him into the wall. Vampire skull shattered. The knife clattered to the floor.

  “That’s one of the boss’s hand-picked guards.” Razor nodded at the fallen Lestat. “More above. Want me to sweet-talk them? They know me.”

  Logan drew his blade and made short work of the fallen Lestat. “We don’t have time to persuade them.” I could see the decision to trust Razor flash in Logan’s golden eyes. “Go talk to them, distract them. When I attack, you attack.”

  “Got it.” Razor trotted up the stairs. A moment later Logan followed, lightning-fast.

  I picked up the knife, slipped cautiously up the stairs after. Fifty Lestats behind us, and if the fallen Lestat was to be believed, ten above. Well, nine now. The sound of intense fighting heralded three headless bodies tumbling down the stairs past me. Okay, six. I pressed against the railing, heart pounding. Swallowing my fear, I gripped the knife harder and continued up.

  At the top was a large landing. To my right, the stairs continued up. In front of me, a knot of Lestats guarded an unmarked metal door, probably the generator room. I counted eight vampires. Damn, the fallen Lestat had lied. Razor grappled with one, both vampires’ fangs straining, their faces that hard, angled plate. A sheet of red ran down the Lestat’s neck from where Razor’s blade had bitten deep.

  Logan fought so fast he was practically mist, zipping from one vampire to the next, pausing only long enough to slash a throat or sever a neck.

  But the Lestats were big, armed to the teeth, and well-trained. It was taking too long. A shriek came from below. The first of the herded people had arrived in the stairwell. And there were still four Lestats left up here.

  Slicing it down to three, Logan turned and saw me. A look of pain crossed his face. With a sudden, brutal roundhouse he kicked through the heads of all three Lestats, knocking them flat. But instead of finishing them, he flashed to me and took my face in his hands. “Liese, get out of here if you can. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.” He looked deep into my eyes, not his Svengali stare or laser eyes, but a clear golden hazel. “Liese. Sweetheart, please.”

  Scuffling broke out below. Good, someone was resisting. That would give us more time. But not much.

  I threaded my fingers through his gorgeous wet hair. “Wherever you go I’m going. Remember, I’m safer with you. And you don’t have time to disagree.” To forestall argument I pressed a kiss to his luscious mouth.

  “Damn,” was all he said right before he whirled away for a hard slash that dropped a recovered Lestat at my feet.

  Razor had taken out another. Logan, with a quick double-cut, destroyed the last.

  But a roar from below cut through human cries and we knew it was only a matter of time before these twelve were replaced. I tried the door. “Locked.”

  “Move aside.” Logan exploded in a spinning back kick worthy of Chuck Norris. The door bent. A second kick nearly took it off its frame. He pushed it fully open and we were confronted by a room dominated by a blue-green generator.

  Logan stepped through the wreckage. Razor and I followed.

  “Is that it?” I had to raise my voice to be heard. “Kinda loud.”

  “This size generator? Usually vibration and noise is much worse. They damp it.” He was walking around the unit, eyes taking in everything.

  The cries below became screams. Our time was running out. But I was overwhelmed by so many pipes and hoses, panels and conduits and wires. Which would shut the generator down? Or at least disconnect the stairwell electrocution chamber?

  “Damn.” Logan glared at the generator. “There’s supposed to be a control panel here with an emergency stop. It’s been removed. Anything that might help us has been immobilized with polyurethane foam. And I’ll just bet all the circuit breakers and safety mechanisms have been disabled.”

  “We have to do something. What about this?” I pointed at a small display bolted to the side, its screen no more than 320 by 240 pixels. Digitized gauges were at fifty percent and edging toward the red end. “It’s not foamed.”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed. “The wannabes have set up a web portal. If this is the image of their remote annunciator—”

  “Their what?”

  “Remote monitor. And if I’m reading this right we have less than a minute until the electricity kicks to the stairs.”

  I swallowed my teeth. “Can we bring the people up here? Is this room electrified?”

  Razor said, “The problem with that is it will also bring up fifty Lestats.”

  “Intruders!” A shout came from the doorway. “To arms!”

  “Forty-nine.” Logan sighed. “Damned villains. Handle him, Race, will you?” Logan tossed Razor his blade. “This will be a mite more efficient than your pig sticker.”

  “Hey, thanks.” Razor flicked vampire-fast to the doorway, felled the Lestat in one blow. He flipped Logan’s blade in his hand. “Nice.”

  I turned away before the inevitable decapitation. “Aren’t you afraid Razor’ll use your blade on you?”

  “It’s a risk,” Logan said. “But that Lestat’s warning will bring more. Race, properly armed, will buy us a few needed seconds.”

  “To do what?”

  “This.” Logan turned to a panel on the wall. He extended claws at least an inch long. With a sudden, sharp jab, he poked them straight into the metal and pulled. “The electricity is routed from the generator and split. I’m betting this holds the boxes that do that. One of them will power the stairs.” The panel creaked, distorted. Logan’s jaw firmed. The metal distressed further with a creaking whine, and finally gave. The panel door ripped off.

  Dozens of boxes sprang out amid a hornet’s nest of cables.

  Not little cat-5 cables, either. Thicker than my wrist, each cable was wrapped in black conduit with only the coppery ends showing they were metal.

  “Why wasn’t that sealed?”

  “It was. Glued down with superstrength epoxy. Guess Ruthven’s ‘genesis’ weren’t expecting him to cock up their plan by luring an Alliance vampire here. Damn.” Logan stared in consternation. “How many fucking boxes are there? I’ll never pick the right one in time.”

  I came to his side. The torn-open panel looked like open-heart surgery gone tragically wrong, with the help of a cherry bomb. “Just pick any one.”

  “Right.” He smashed a fist into one of the boxes, splintering plastic. Inside, the cables were secured to a brass bar with screws the size of my finger.

  “We need to disconnect those cables.” I dug in my purse for a screwdriver but Logan stopped me with a quick shake of his head.

  “Screw finesse.” He tore off his jacket. Grabbing the cables he heaved with mighty strength. If I’d thought his muscles had bulged ripping open his shirt it was nothing compared to now. His jaw clenched, his chest expanded like a bellows. His biceps, pectorals and trapezius swelled under his wet shirt and hardened to boulders. The cable in his right hand tore loose, spitting electricity. A few seconds later the other pulled free in a shower of sparks.

  I ran back to the monitor. The gauges were still rising, less than ten percent until hitting red. Maybe twenty seconds left. “Damn it, no.”

 
Shouts sounded from below, and a scream, high-pitched with terror.

  Logan smashed a fist into the wall, denting it. “This is taking too long. We have to find the box connecting the stairs, and we have to find it now.”

  “Master Logan!” Zinnia’s shriek echoed up the metal well.

  I spun wild eyes around the room. Time was running out. Too many options, only one right. The death of hundreds of people imminent.

  How could we solve this insoluble problem?

  Fear and desperation struck me so hard I nearly bent double. Logan instantly gathered me in, folding me against his powerful chest. His warm body and a soft kiss on my hair comforted me. Panic receded.

  Trust myself. As a programmer, system designer and sysop I was built to solve problems. So. Best option, find the correct connection. How? How to pick out a single box, the same as all the others in design, function, and implementation. Built the same, used the same, installed the same—

  Wait.

  The box that we wanted accommodated a new load, the stairs—so it was probably also new.

  We were looking for a box that wasn’t part of the original installation. A new box, which would stand out—

  “Logan, that one!” I was drowned out by a half dozen screams. I tried again but the whole stairwell started ringing with horrified shouts.

  I jabbed at a box. Logan, not even bothering to smash it open, grabbed its cables and wrenched. “Why this one?” He huffed it, laboring against the cables.

  “Every other box in here is green. This one’s blue.”

  “Brilliant.” He closed his eyes and strained harder.

  Me, brilliant. Know what? I actually believed him. To cover the absurd swell of my heart, I trotted back to the control monitor and pretended to study it. Was smacked into reality by what I saw. Five seconds. Four.

  “They’ve…really…got this…tight.” Logan’s chest swelled and I could see the tendons stand out on his neck. “Coming…coming…”