by Reinke, Sara
“Is he dead?” she asked.
Julien pretended to feel for a pulse. “Uh…no.” She was wearing a collar; her telepathy was blocked. She’d have no way to tell if he was lying or not. It only took five pounds of pressure per square inch to completely crush a human windpipe. He’d applied more than that when he’d pulled the chain in a chokehold—a lot more.
He reached down and grabbed the guy’s sidearm. It wasn’t much; a Cobra .32-caliber. But it was fully loaded and better than nothing, so he shoved it beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. Edith, meanwhile, patted down the guy’s pockets and came up with a key ring. None looked small enough to fit the locks on his manacles, but there was no mistaking the silver key with the Cadillac insignia imprinted on it.
“We’ve got a getaway vehicle now,” she remarked, dangling them so Julien could see.
He nodded. “Come on. Let’s get him in that cabinet where I was hiding.”
Once they’d stuffed the guard inside and shut the doors, Julien shuffled back and forth, digging through drawers and cupboards, looking for something he could use to pick his cuff locks.
“We should get going,” Edith said. “This place is crawling with Nikolić’s men. There’s a boxing gym or something in the back, I think. They’re always coming and going out of there.”
“Not boxing—draka,” Julien said, grabbing a large paperclip he found at the bottom of one of the drawers. It wasn’t as sturdy as a lock pick, but it was small and slender, and he could bend it in any number of ways while working it against the tumblers. As he got to work, he glanced back at Edith. “It’s a kind of Russian martial art. Nikolić and his guys use the term in the loosest possible sense. They beat the shit out of each other—for sport.”
“Nice.” Edith folded her arms across her chest and looked around nervously. “Is Mason here, too?”
“I don’t think so. At least, he wasn’t in the same car trunk they stuffed me into to get here.” He meant this as a joke, but she didn’t look amused.
“What the hell is going on, Julien?” she asked, a crimp forming between her brows. “I thought Nikolić kidnapped Mason to force me into finishing some research Phillip had started for him. He told us he was trying to break away from your family.”
“Let’s just say he and I go way back,” Julien said, frowning as he wiggled the paperclip. “Not necessarily in a good way. He has reasons to hate me that have nothing to do with whatever project he had cooking up with Phillip or my family…or Mason.” The manacle snapped open and he grinned. “Hot damn!”
“Is Mason alright?” Edith asked as he started on the other cuff.
“He’s fine. Been getting in some private practice while he’s hanging out with Nikolić and the gang. I keep telling him he ought to charge them by the hour, but…” His voice faded as he glanced up at her. Again, he’d been trying to be light; again, it hadn’t worked. There was no mistaking the annoyance in her eyes at his lame attempt at humor—or the worry for Mason. “He’s okay, Edith. Really.”
“So you’ve seen him?”
The second cuff popped open, and they fell to the floor in a noisy tangle. “Yeah.” He nodded, squatting down to work on the ankle restraints. “Several times.”
“I…I’m sure he was pleased.” Her voice had taken on a strained quality. “Despite the circumstances, I mean. It’s been…what? Two hundred years?”
“Almost, yeah.” He could have been a dick and told her to the year, month, day—even hour—how long it had been, but didn’t. Even now, it would’ve hurt her; he could see this as plain as day. “He, uh…he looks good. So do you. Really good, Edith.”
He looked up at her, and after a moment, she turned away. “So do you, Julien,” she murmured. “Then again, you always did.”
As he popped the lock on the last cuff binding him, he stood, kicking the chains away. Rubbing his wrists each in turn, he offered Edith a smile. “Now for this goddamn collar.”
“I don’t know…” she began hesitantly.
He tugged on it a couple of times, but it was no use. He couldn’t get his fingertips beneath the band enough to tear it loose. There were no mirrors on hand, but there was that steel paper towel case that had tipped off his presence to the guard. Julien went to it. Tilting his head back, he tried to get a good look at the collar in the blurry reflection. There were a series of black plastic-covered boxes affixed to the collar. One was the shocking device; he could tell this one easily enough simply by the pair of electrode prongs between its underside and his skin. Each prong conducted an electrical current, one positive, one negative; Julien’s neck completed the circuit, resulting in a shock when the device was triggered.
Using the paperclip again, he pried the plastic case off another of the little boxes. “Pay dirt,” he murmured. This one had a series of colorful wires wrapped around a metal core, and he suspected it was some sort of electromagnetic generator—which would explain how their telepathy was blocked when the collars were in place.
Now I just have to figure out how to deactivate it.
“Julien.” Edith still sounded anxious. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”
He cut her a glance over his shoulder. “Do you like being without your telepathy?” he asked, and when she didn’t immediately reply, he took this as a negative. “Me, either.” Turning back to the mirrored surface, he canted his head again, trying to study the wiring. “In fact, over the years, I’ve figured out how to hone mine. You know, the way you can concentrate a sunbeam through a magnifying lens to fry an ant? I can do that with my mind. Not fry an ant, I mean. But the telepathic equivalent. That kind of thing…it’d come in pretty handy right about…” His voice faltered as his collar suddenly beeped. “What the…?”
“Oh, God.” All of the color abruptly drained from Edith’s face, and she shrank back against the wall. “I told you!”
“What?” He blinked at her, bewildered.
“There’s some kind of explosive on the collars,” Edith said. “C4 or something like that. Nikolić said if we messed with them, it would trigger them to blow.”
Julien froze, his eyes widening. Now, Edith’s earlier words made sense: Why don’t you just go ahead and blow my collar up right now?
“Why in the hell didn’t you say something before now?” he cried, whirling around to face her.
“I thought you knew,” she cried back.
He turned back to the mirror, his eyes wide with horror. C4 in the collar sounded like Nikolić’s style, alright. That lousy son of a bitch.
“There’s a ten-second delay before detonation,” Edith said. “Oh, God, Julien…!”
“It’s alright,” he said—as much to calm himself as her, even though his heart had now ramped up the rate, pounding in bright and mounting alarm. When he reached up again, pawing futilely at the strap, she cried out.
“Wait! Stop—don’t pull on it any more. Nikolić said the collar would automatically explode if we try to remove it.”
Shit, Julien thought. “Then I’ll have to disarm it,” he said, and she stared at him, dubious and scared. “I can do it…I think. Just…uh, stand clear and do me a favor, will you? Start counting…backwards from…let’s say seven seconds.”
She blinked at him, stricken, and he struggled to smile. “I’ll start, then,” he said. “Seven.” Beckoning to her with his hand, he added, “And you say…?”
“Six,” she whispered in a shaky, frightened voice.
He turned back to his reflection, looking at the collar. He removed the lid from another of the cases and found what he’d been looking for…sort of. It was C4, alright; there was no mistaking the grey, putty-like globule that had been pressed into place beneath the plastic cover. Several black wires protruded from the explosive, but unfortunately for Julien, they protruded from both sides.
“Four seconds,” Edith said. “Julien, hurry!”
“Goddamn it,” he muttered. Because that meant the C4 had been set up in a circuit, too; the remote con
trol device only triggered one of the explosives to detonate. After that, like in a line of dominos falling over, each subsequent C4 explosion was triggered by the last.
“Three seconds,” Edith cried.
There were four other boxes on the collar to choose from; any of them could be the initial device. The only way he’d be able to tell was to find the one with only one set of wires protruding—the wires leading to the next box. Forgoing daintiness, Julien grabbed one, wrenching the plastic casing off, only to again find wiring on both ends of the C4.
Fuck!
“Two,” Edith said.
Fuck, Julien thought again, ripping off the next cover, then the next. Fuck, fuck, fuck…!
The last one he pulled back was the initial device. He sank his fingers into the firm, clay-like explosive and tore it away from the collar. The underlying wires set to cause its detonation broke free, and the other lines to trigger the next explosion pulled out as well.
“One,” Edith whispered, and they both stood there, wide-eyed and shaking as absolutely nothing happened. “Are…are you alright?”
“I think so. Holy shit.” He couldn’t help himself; he started to laugh, hoarse and warbling. “Holy fucking shit!”
* * *
He disarmed her collar next. She held very still as he worked, carefully prying each of the C4 casings loose until he found the lead device. When he’d finished disarming it, he snapped all of the cases back into place to disguise what he’d done.
“We can take them off now, right?” she asked hopefully. “You disconnected the explosives.”
“Yeah, but if they catch us, they’ll just put new ones on. We need to leave the collars on so we can fool them if we have to.”
“But they can still shock us…” Edith began.
“I’ll take care of that, too,” he promised. Pulling up the hem of his T-shirt, he peeled back the tape over the dressing on his side.
“What happened?” Edith asked, drawing his gaze.
“Anna got me with a hunting knife. Collapsed my lung or something like that. Mason said I’m lucky it didn’t kill me. You know how dramatic he is.”
He dropped her a wink and this time, she managed a smile. “Yeah. I do.”
“He put a chest tube in me,” Julien continued. “Something about it draining the air and blood out so my lung could reinflate. I don’t know. Anyway, he put something he called Vaseline gauze underneath this dressing.”
Her eyes widened in alarm as he slipped his fingertips beneath the edge of the sterile dressing and pulled out the greasy strip of gauze. “That’s to help keep the wound sealed,” she said. “So your lung doesn’t collapse again. You shouldn’t—”
“Vaseline is dielectric,” he said, cutting her off, and why the hell he hadn’t thought of this before was beyond him. “That means it doesn’t conduct electricity. It makes a good insulator, and it doesn’t hold a lot of heat when it’s exposed to a live current.” Tucking his fingertips beneath her chin, he tilted her head back, then leaned forward. He carefully tore the ribbon of petrolatum-coated gauze in two, and slipped one of the pieces beneath Edith’s collar directly behind the electrodes to the shocking mechanism. “In other words, the collar can’t shock you now, no matter how high they crank it.”
She blinked at him in something akin to amazement. “Thank you.”
He chuckled as he craned his head back, reaching up to slip the remaining gauze in place beneath his own collar. “You’re welcome.”
“Can we please get the hell out of here now?”
“I think that sounds like a good plan, yeah,” he said, leading her to the door. But when he eased it open a cautious margin and glanced outside, he immediately drew back, his breath whistling sharply through his teeth. “Well, the front door’s out.”
“What?” Edith pushed him aside and opened the door slightly again. She, too, gasped, shrinking back. “The foyer’s full of guards!”
“That’s kind of what I meant, yeah.”
“What are they doing there?”
“Probably came running when they heard the alarm go off. Looks like they’re trying to break up into hunting parties.”
Edith looked at him solemnly. “For you.”
“Yeah. Any back door to this place you know of?”
“Yes,” Edith said, hurrying back to one of the stainless steel tables that had obviously been her workstation. She had a laptop computer there—though to get on the internet, she needed a password that only Anna could provide—and mountains of papers. Grabbing one of the sheets, she flipped it over to the blank side and grabbed a pen to mark out a quick schematic. “The building is shaped like a U. The foyer and lab are in the middle. My room’s over here, in this wing. It’s a dormitory of some sort—I’ve seen a lot of men coming and going. Younger ones mostly, but some of Nikolić’s men, too. I think this wing is the gym they use for that fighting you were talking about. I’ve heard them talk about a lower level, too, but I haven’t been down there.” Pointing with the tip of her pen to the gym side of the drawing, she added, “This is the entrance they brought me in through.”
“Good enough,” Julien said. “That’s where we’ll head.”
She blinked at him as if he was crazy. “How are we going to manage that? The only way out of the lab’s through that door…” She pointed. “…or the one that cuts through the supply room. Both lead out to the foyer, and it’s crawling with guards. Not to mention how many of them are going to be in the gym, I bet.”
He dropped her a wink. “I have a plan. Help me get our friend out of the cabinet.”
* * *
“He’s dead,” Edith exclaimed in horror as the guard’s lifeless body fell with a heavy thud half-way out of the cabinet. There was no disguising it this time; the man’s face had taken on a waxy pallor, his lips mottling in shades of purple and dusky blue. His eyes had also somehow opened, at least partially, and he seemed to be staring sleepily up at Edith.
Turning to Julien, she gasped, “He suffocated in there!”
“No, he was dead before that,” Julien assured her, grunting as he wrestled the man’s unwieldy form clumsily out of the cupboard.
“You mean…you killed him?” Edith blinked at him in nearly comical shock. He’d forgotten that the Morins lived such posh, sheltered lives. They didn’t even kill to feed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sure,” Julien agreed, first untying, then removing the guy’s heavy boots one at a time. “I could’ve invited him to…I don’t know…sit down over coffee or something. Some chai lattes. Talk through our differences. Make friends with him.” He glanced up at her and scowled. “Are you going to help me or what? I need his clothes.”
Working together as quickly and quietly as they could, they stripped the guard down to his boxer shorts. Still crouched on the floor beside him, Julien ducked his head and pulled off his T-shirt.
He’d found a cell phone in one of the guard’s cargo pockets. Although the calling service had been disconnected, it had a voice app that worked like two-way radios. When he raised the volume settings, he realized Nikolić’s men used it to communicate with each other; a flurry of static-tinged conversation flooded over the open line. Most of it was in Serbian or Russian. Most of it involved him.
“They’re describing my clothes,” he told Edith. “I don’t think any of them except Anna know my face well enough to recognize me, especially dressed in one of their uniforms. Hand me his shirt.”
“You don’t really think this is going to work,” she said. She’d been staring at him, but cut her gaze quickly away as he looked up, and as she held the man’s black shirt out, Julien could have sworn she was blushing. “You swapping clothes, I mean. Besides, listen to them—they’re speaking Russian or something.”
“Kakoye sovpadeniye,” he remarked. “Ya tozhe.” What a coincidence. So do I. When Edith blinked in surprise, he laughed. “I speak about forty languages fluently. Enough so that if I don’t know it, I can fake it pretty good.”
As he stood, he pulled the hem of the black shirt down over his stomach. “Toss me his pants, please.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Do you know how to use that thing?” Edith nodded pointedly to the .32 pistol Julien now wore holstered at his hip as he moved to open the door to the lab.
He cut her a glance, his brow arched. “I think I can manage,” he said. “You ready?”
She was afraid. Even with his telepathy stifled, he could feel fear radiating from her in thick, heady waves. And he didn’t blame her. She was placing a tremendous amount of confidence and trust in him—a man she’d barely known two hundred years earlier, and sure as hell didn’t know now. A man who was in love with her husband. A man she probably still—and rightly—hated.
Edith nodded. “Yes.”
Only moments earlier, he’d watched as she’d knelt in front of a small refrigerator and pulled out two small medicine vials, each one bearing a Pharmaceaux International logo. She’d stuffed these down into one of her pockets, then gathered together an armload of papers—spreadsheets and printed documents, charts, and graphs.
“Phillip’s research,” she told him urgently. “We can’t let them keep it. It’s too dangerous.” When he’d cocked his head, quizzical, she’d only added, “I’ll explain later.”
“Here’s how this is going to go down,” he said. “We’re going to walk together to the gym, then out the back door and around the side of the building until we find this car…” He held up the keys she’d found, then tucked them back in his hip pocket. “Then we’re going to back track to the brownstone where Nikolić’s keeping Mason.”
“You’re sure you can find it again?” She sounded doubtful; after all, he’d been in the trunk of the car when they’d delivered him. Despite this, he still felt confident; he’d paid attention to the movements of the car around him, keeping careful count of each turn and its corresponding direction, and ticking off the passage of time in his mind. If he couldn’t find it exactly, then he could get them awfully damn close.
