Utter panic struck his gut. A hungry, newly turned roaming the halls unguarded was a derangement waiting to happen.
“Alice!”
He ran down the hall, shoving open every door along the way and surprising more than a few subjugates.
“Alice!” he roared. He raced down the stairway. The team had left already so he grabbed a few subjugates who’d been cleaning and sent them on a search mission. Hell and damnation. If she’d left the estate, he’d have little time to track her before she ended someone and got herself into a world of hurt like she’d never known.
After another half hour of fruitless searching, he reached a point of critical horror. She was going to give him a heart attack. If they were mated, this would’ve been a simple matter of reaching out telepathically. Her shiny newness made that impossible without that bond, and he had no way of knowing how far she’d gotten away from the estate.
He scoured the edges of the grounds for signs of her passing. Fuck. There’d been far too much foot traffic during their search for Kenji. Rounding the corner of the transformation facility, he nearly ran right into her. He tipped his head back and took several long, deep breaths before he said anything. “You took three centuries off my life. Where’ve you been?”
Giving her a once-over, he checked for blood. Just in case. Physically she seemed fine. It was her behavior that had the alarms going off. Swiveling around in a foggy daze, she hadn’t said a word.
“What happened? Why’d you leave the bedroom?”
Finally, she looked at him. “Ian?”
“What’s wrong, turtle?” He reached for her arms, and then he nearly did have a heart attack. His hands passed through her. “Holy fuck.”
She was casting. So if she wasn’t here physically, where the hell was she?
“Talk to me. Where are you?”
Her spectral self lost color until she appeared white. “I don’t know. It’s too dark, and I can’t see. It smells dusty.”
“Are you hurt?”
“My head…” Her ghostly version reached for the crown of her head. “I think someone hit me.” Her eyes widened. “Someone took me, Ian. I can’t move, and it’s getting harder to—”
Her form flickered and then dissipated only to reform.
“I can’t hold this much longer, and I’m seeing double vision but with two completely different images. It’s messing with my mind.”
His pulse leaped into a gallop. “Tell me everything you can possibly see, hear, smell, or feel. Give me something, Alice. Anything.”
“God, I can’t… Wait, there’s an echo. Water dripping.” She closed her eyes. “My wrists are tied behind me, and I’m on a cold, hard floor like concrete. I hear a horn, distant but there. Not a car. A foghorn maybe?”
An explosive mix of rage and distress rolled his gut into a nauseated knot. Swallowing past the despair crushing his esophagus, he drove his hands into his hair and gripped tight against losing his shit. She could have described a thousand sites around the marinas and harbors along the waterfront, and any of them could have been reached in the time he’d conferred with his teammates. He needed a fucking miracle.
Alice cried out as she began to fade again. She reached for him, and even knowing he couldn’t touch her, he held his arms out to her. The mist of her passed through him. For that one second, he was there with her in the cold darkness, and then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-three
With her head pounding a tribal rhythm, Alice returned fully to her physical presence. Her heart ached more painfully than her head. If she were to die tonight, she would have given anything to feel Ian’s arms around her one last time, if only for a moment. God, she hadn’t even buried Zach yet. There was so much left for her to finish and so much life ahead to experience.
It took a supreme effort, but she finally coaxed her head off the floor. It was so damned dark, but then her vision sharpened as if at will. Wow. Turning Immortalis had its benefits. That knowledge slammed the fight right back into her. She’d never been one to accept the hopeless-victim role easily. At one point, she’d taken down a mugger with a well-placed knee and her trusty pepper spray. Her eyes had stung for hours afterward, but the price had been worth watching the sleazebag cry like a baby.
She couldn’t lie there helplessly and mourn her own death before it happened. A survey of her surroundings revealed an enormous, mostly bare room, somewhere industrial and abandoned from the looks of it. Sometimes abandoned. The detritus of the homeless and the degenerate littered the floor in a scattered mass of broken furniture, old clothing, and meager bedding. The windows were small, cracked, and filthy and the walls sparsely covered in the worst excuse for graffiti she’d ever seen. And she’d seen train cars pass with pretty bad examples of what should have been urban artwork.
Hunger pangs of evil proportions radiated through her, and she would kill—literally kill—for a donor. Never mind her uninhibited disgust at the thought of consuming blood. Her fangs wouldn’t retract, and they felt strange in her mouth, like something foreign had possessed her.
Jerking at her bonds, she explored what she could of them with her fingers. Chains. How the hell was she supposed to get out of those? A few hard, exhausting pulls later, she quit. There was no getting out of them. Being such a new vampire, her strength was at near-human level. She wasn’t sure an older vampire could break out of them.
At least her legs were free. She pushed herself upright, joints aching with the exertion. No doubt her hunger was partly to blame for her weakness. Standing and getting her legs to propel her the hell out of there—that would be the ultimate challenge.
“Awake at last?” A male’s voice came from behind her without warning, sending her heartbeat into momentary arrhythmia. When he stepped in front of her, and she recognized Kenji, her surprise shot through the roof. Too bad she was wrong about her ultimate challenge. He was it.
“Vampire got your tongue?” His laugh came out much more like a purr. “Make yourself comfortable. It won’t be long before we’re ready for you.”
“Who else is here?” It took some effort to get words past her fangs. She cleared the froggy rasp from her throat and tried again. “What do you have planned for me?”
“It’s not a Legion’s place to question.” Kenji’s arrogant sneer needed a good sandblasting. A woman in what could only be called an exotic dancer’s version of a catsuit sauntered in behind Kenji. If Alice knew of another word that went beyond surprised, she would have used it to describe her reaction when she recognized the woman. The burn scar on her face made her impossible not to recognize, though Alice had only seen her once before.
“Done already?” Kenji asked the woman.
“Close.” Otsana stretched her back. “I liked it better when Rev was around to do the dirty work. I’m not used to bending over so long.”
Kenji giggled, and Otsana acted as if she could slay him where he stood.
“I hate it when you get this bad. It’s been too long since you’ve partaken.” An accusation saturated her statement, and Kenji caught on to it.
“It’s not my fault Revenant screwed up the last one before we were ready.”
The Domina eyed Kenji with unadulterated contempt. “He didn’t screw up, you child. He was greedy and didn’t want to share with you anymore.”
“But I was taking care of him,” Kenji whined. “I supplied him and sheltered him.”
She tossed her head in a rather dramatic manner. “Fool.”
Alice couldn’t believe her eyes, much less what she was hearing. They were flipping nuts. Gone. Completely over the cuckoo’s nest by a hundred miles. Otsana was channeling an empress version of Imelda Marcos while Kenji had regressed to diaperhood.
“What does this have to do with Ander, and how did you manage alibies?” Alice asked.
“Silence, Legion.” Otsana didn’t look her way as she fiddled with her nails. “The wax,” she murmured under her breath. “Can never keep the wax from getting under my f
ingernails.”
Okaaaaay. No answers to be had from the pair of wingnuts. All she knew was incredible luck had come into play in her case. If the process had gone as the other murders, she should have been dead by now.
“But I’m Immortalis Legio. I thought you only took Dominorum.” Alice directed the question at Kenji, the weak link of the two. He only laughed.
Otsana laughed along with him. “Why would Dominorum kill other Dominorum? Certainly a Legion had to have done it. Silly rabbit.”
Of course. Revenant was the scapegoat, but how did Ander fit? He could have been the backup plan. Unless he was part of it, too, which was still entirely possible.
“I get first dibs on her ability.”
Otsana screeched. “No, you don’t.”
“I turned her.”
“With that argument, I’d never get any since I’m not an adjuvant.” She actually stomped her foot like an overly pampered princess.
Good God, was that why Alice was still alive? They’d taken her because she was an adjuvant. For once in her life, she would have welcomed the short end of the stick. If having the spectral ability brought her into this nightmare, she would gladly do without it.
“Besides,” Otsana said, “if it weren’t for me, Revenant wouldn’t have shown up at Ander’s, and you couldn’t have made her in the first place.”
“You nearly got us caught the first night.”
Otsana flicked her fingers in an airy brush-off. “I took care of that bum, and I didn’t even have to kill him. You know how good I am with compulsion.”
Alice felt sick to her stomach. All this time, she’d harbored doubts about Ian’s involvement but he’d been truthful to her that time. Otsana’s twisted actions had been what she’d held against him, whether she’d condemned him openly or not. Never again. Nothing could stand between them anymore. If she made it out of there alive.
She could hope for Ian to come, but that would be idiotic. He had no way of knowing where she was. No one could save her but herself. The chains would be loud. That was the biggest problem, but the wingnuts made enough noise to wake the deaf.
The bickering pair headed toward an opening on the far side of the room. Candlelight flickered in the darkness beyond, and it gave her the shudders. She’d seen all too graphically what they intended to do with her. Before they reached the doorway, Kenji bent to grab something from a bag on the floor. A large, black-bound book. The journal? That would explain why the pompous Dominorum would even work with a Legion to begin with. It hadn’t fit well that they’d include Revenant in any of their plans.
Their voices faded as they disappeared into the other room, and Alice wasted no time to get free or die trying. Once again, the memory of a blade slicing her made her throat go tight and dry and her breath grow choppy and shallow. God, she couldn’t have a panic attack here. It would only hinder her escape.
Taking up the slack in the chain, she heard a few clinks, but otherwise she’d kept quiet. When she pushed to her feet, a teensy wobble nearly brought her down, but she locked her knees.
The windows in the room were merely cracked, not broken. Any attempt to break one would draw the sharks back into the room. She found where Kenji had come from earlier, another door on the other side of the room. There had to be an exit out that way somewhere.
Creeping toward it, she was within ten steps of freedom when a sharp yank of her hair stopped her in her tracks. Kenji jerked her back and then a short pipe crashed down.
Chapter Twenty-four
Alice had disappeared without giving him one shred of information that could identify where to find her. Ian roared his frustration and fell to his knees, his chest achingly tight. Then it hit him. The graffiti. He’d seen it before. He’d seen those windows and the square supports down the center of the room. The old Fisher Flour Mill the team had cleared of Slavers a few months back. Was there significance in the fact it was also one of Chimera’s properties? And Luc had mentioned that Ander financed the Chimera Corporation.
Without pause, he leaped to his feet and ran straight into a flash. It would’ve taken at least twenty costly minutes to drive to Harbor Island even if the freeway were clear, which it never was. He barely had time to hope he wasn’t wrong before he came to a jarring stop and collapsed. The recovery time was a bitch, and he couldn’t wait longer than it took to regain his land legs. Too much time to his way of thinking. Over ten minutes had passed between Alice’s disappearance and the time he could stand. He distinctly recalled hearing movement in the room where Alice was held.
She might be dead.
No, she’s alive. She has to be. He wouldn’t survive it if she weren’t.
At first, he only detected noises from the harbor wildlife and the boats’ hulls squeaking against the bumpers at the marina, but then he caught the rattle of chains and the hum of low, murmuring voices coming from the main building. Voices. There were multiple kidnappers, and he had no way of knowing how many.
After a careful recon, he stole into the structure through a broken window barely big enough to squeeze through. He entered a small office and passed into a darkened room lit by a large circle of candlelight. Definitely in the right place. Standing to the side of the open doorway, he risked a quick survey.
Kenji crouched low to the floor. Thick as manure and half as useful, the Dominus hadn’t detected his presence. Fuck. Alice. Prone on the concrete, blood streaked down the side of her face. When he noticed the pipe in Kenji’s hand, he couldn’t stop his forward momentum. Vision shifting red, he charged from his cover and drove into the bastard like a demon freed from hell.
Kenji hit the ground hard but recovered quickly, nailing Ian’s ribs with the pipe. The air in his lungs whooshed out. It only took a moment for Kenji to rap him three more times and one for good measure to his solar plexus. Damn. He rolled to his feet faster than Kenji anticipated and landed a roundhouse to Kenji’s chin. The Dominus reeled back, and Ian delivered another two punches to the man’s midsection. Kenji hunched down to protect his innards.
This wasn’t going to end the fight. He needed a weapon. Ian reached for the KA-BAR in his boot, and Kenji used the delay, taking Ian to the ground. They struggled until Ian got a knee into Kenji’s gut. As the adjuvant instinctively curled inward, Ian slipped his knife and twirled it comfortably into his hand.
Before he could strike, agony tore into him, rendering him immobile. Fire spread through the middle of his back. He fought his trembling fingers, but his knife clattered to the floor. A wrench of his body pulled him to the side. He looked down at a long blade extending from his upper abdomen, and utter disbelief struck him.
What. The. Fuck.
The blade passed in reverse through him, and a kick to his upper back sent him sprawling. He couldn’t stop his roll or brace himself. He couldn’t fucking move anything below his wound. And the pain. The pain made him wish he were dead. His sight blurred and sharpened several times before he could focus on the face hovering over him.
“My, my, love, you do tend to show up in the wrong places,” Otsana said.
What a fool he was. He’d made a Kenji sort of mistake. Even knowing others were present, he’d been too out of his mind to pay attention to his surroundings. He had to have crept right past Otsana. How could he help Alice now?
A biting cold inched through his upper body and the tremors grew worse. He tried to speak, his chest protesting the motion of the effort.
“Ev-everyone knows. You sh-should run.” Better they escape than for Alice to die before they made their getaway. They didn’t need to know no one knew where they were. He’d been rash to chase a lead without calling Dec. Or he’d been just plain desperate to get to Alice.
Grabbing his ankles through his boots, Otsana only laughed while she dragged him next to Alice and left him without explanation. Kenji followed her into the other room with a satisfied smirk in his direction.
The pain grew into a full-body ache with the power of a steamroller behind it, and he
groaned. Alice stirred beside him at the sound. Slowly, she rolled to her stomach and pushed up, a whimper escaping her at the movement.
“Alice,” he whispered. Her head jerked to the side, her gaze meeting his.
“Oh God, Ian. What are you doing here? How did you find me?” And then she saw the blood. Her red eyes flared bright with what Ian recognized as hunger, but she gasped when she caught sight of his wound. “No!”
“Alice, y-you have to g-get out.” His chest jerked spasmodically, making speech nearly impossible.
“I can’t. They put chains on me. They heard me trying to leave, and Kenji caught me. And how am I supposed to carry you? I can barely walk on my own.”
“You’re gonna l-leave me.”
A fierce expression came over her. “I’m not leaving you, you stupid hick.”
“I-I c-can’t move.”
Her beautiful eyes filled with tears. “What did they do to you?” She frantically staunched the blood at his belly, her hands quaking nearly as much as his. Like stopping the bleeding would help. Otsana had severed his spine, ensuring him a long, slow death. It was a long ago used technique to disable a vampire until you could dispense with further action. Things like interrogation—or torture. Often an Immortalis would be left in such a condition to slowly starve or bleed to death. Otsana had known exactly what she was doing. She was, after all, old enough to have survived the last civil conflicts between the Immortalis castes.
“What can I do, Ian?”
“C-come here. Let me s-see the lock.”
She scooted closer immediately and turned around but questioned him anyway. “Why?”
He smiled, though she couldn’t see with her back turned. “I w-was a th-th-thief when Sean f-found me.”
She twisted to see over her shoulder. “The locks. That’s how you kept getting into the VLO office. And my house.”
He jerked his chin down in a nod. After drawing his custom-made tool from his belt, he maneuvered his fingers over the lock, feeling it out. Otsana and Kenji hadn’t expected anyone with lock-picking skills to show up so it was only a simple padlock. All he had to do was use two pins on his tool, and then she’d be free. Should have been simple, but it took four tries before he could get his fingers to work accurately enough to pop the lock open. He held his hand under the chain as he unwound it from her wrists to keep it from making too much noise
Bad Cop (Entangled Covet) Page 18
