Absolution

by Susannah Sandlin

  Not here? Krys is dead? Mirren looked around, eyes scouring every corner for a sign of Glory, but his attention jerked back to Krys when she coughed.

  “Where’s Glory?” Mirren thought Will asked it, or it might have been him. His mind couldn’t understand the broken glass, the cracked lathing behind missing chunks of plaster, the cords and shelving strewn across the living room floor. He tried to make sense of the mess, to find Glory in the debris.

  “Glory’s gone. Renz must have taken her.” Aidan rose to his feet with Krys in his arms and gestured toward the sofa. Will wiped all the glass from the cushions so Aidan could lay her down. “She should wake up soon and can tell us what happened. She’s healing.”

  But what about Glory? Your mate will heal, but what about my mate? Mirren couldn’t move. For the first time in his life, his training had failed him. His strength, his tactical skills, his taste for violence—what good did it do him when he couldn’t help the one person who mattered?

  Krys coughed again, and her eyes fashed open, focused on Aidan, then shifted to Mirren. “Help me sit up.” She struggled to a seated position with Aidan’s help and started to talk.

  Mirren usually welcomed the hour before dawn. It was a quiet time he always saved for refection. No one would ever accuse him of being a deep thinker; he knew that. But this was his time of accounting for the day as he put it to rest. Had he behaved honorably? Had he fought to the best of his ability? If he had acted dishonorably, had he atoned?

  Now he sat with the acid pen, his chosen tool of absolution. It vibrated in his palm, its buzz accusatory and shrill, calling for its burn on his skin. He couldn’t do it.

  Not because his art had failed him. He could put small bleeding hearts all over his body.

  And not because he didn’t need to atone. He’d failed to keep Glory safe, plus he’d let her care about him, maybe even love him a little. He loved her more than a little, he realized now, but he didn’t blame himself for that. How could he not love her? She was full of life and spirit and joy, even after the things Matthias had done to her.

  No, he couldn’t mark himself, because he knew she wouldn’t want him to, simple as that. When he found her, he wouldn’t face her covered with new badges of blame. If he didn’t find her, his life was forfeit. Again, simple as that.

  Krys had told them the whole ugly story, including how Glory had saved her by raining down Mirren’s monster TV on top of Renz’s head. Mirren felt a rush of pride at Glory’s spirit, although she’d paid for it dearly when Renz had choked her, then knocked her out with one of Mirren’s own motorcycle gears—the source of his ongoing headache was her possible concussion.

  They’d called Hannah in, then Tanner and Randa, trying to figure out a strategy. It all felt surreal, this planning, this discussion of tactics. As if the person they were devising a rescue for had no more meaning than a simple bounty of war or combat spoil. Not the woman who’d shown him the man he could be, the one he’d given up on ever becoming until he’d met her.

  Now, it was time to go into their daysleep, and Mirren’s only consolation was knowing that Renz, too, would have to bow to the limitations of their kind. Wherever he was, wherever he had taken Glory, he’d be as powerless to act during daylight hours as the rest of them. Because of his age, he could move around a little earlier than dusk and stay up a little later than dawn, but he still couldn’t move outside a lighttight space.

  They’d decided to send Tanner and Randa north to Virginia to keep tabs on Matthias, just in case Renz decided to jump sides now that he knew Aidan had faunted Tribunal law by turning Krys. It was hard even for Mirren to imagine Matthias and Renz as allies, but vampire politics had created odder alliances.

  Will had spent most of the night, and would resume tomorrow night, computer-hacking his way behind Lorenzo’s financial dealings, searching for clues to where he might have taken Glory. There was no point in just going for the sake of going. They needed an idea of where to start looking.

  Hannah was waiting to see what Will found out, and would try to use her psychic mojo to guide them. So far, she could tell them only what Mirren already knew—that Glory was alive.

  Aidan was taking care of Krys, and Mirren tried not to feel a stab of jealousy that his best friend’s mate was safe, while his was in the hands of a power-mad bureaucrat with no respect for human life.

  Everyone had a role to play. And all Mirren could do was wait.

  CHAPTER 26

  Jackhammers beat a painful rhythm in Glory’s skull, and she groaned into her pillow. It took a few minutes for her to fully awaken and remember what had happened—or what had happened before Lorenzo the Psychotic Vampire tried to choke her. The last thing she remembered was Mirren’s big motorcycle gear—the one she’d tried to lob at Renz’s head—coming straight for hers.

  She sat up and looked around. Soft sunlight cast golden stripes across a wide-planked oak floor, pushing its way through a window covered with partially opened blinds. Glory got up too fast from the plush bed she’d been lying on and had to hold onto the wall for a moment to let her balance catch up with her movements. She stumbled to the window and shoved the blinds aside. Where the hell was she? And was Krys alive? Had she been taken too?

  A massive tree towered outside, its leaves small green ovals, its charcoal-gray trunk twisting limbs into thick, misshapen tentacles. Beyond it, Glory could see a sliver of bright blue sky and a sea of red brick and flowers. A garden of some kind, and she was on the second floor of a house. A nice one. Maybe an old one, judging by the tall ceiling, high baseboards, and the ornate crown molding that marched its way around a room with walls the color of fresh butter.

  She ran her fingers along the ornate iron bars that covered the windows. Security bars—she’d seen plenty of them in her parade of Atlanta-area apartments. People in high-crime areas put them on their windows to deter burglars. The grillwork usually was bolted deep into the window facings so they wouldn’t be easy to remove. If it took too much time, the reasoning went, the burglars would move on to an easier target.

  Sure enough, these grilles were tightly fastened, and—something she hadn’t seen—they were on the inside of the window glass. Breaking the window would get her exactly nowhere.

  Glory paused and listened for any signs of movement in the house, then walked to the door as silently as she could, ignoring the doors that led to what appeared to be a small bathroom and maybe a closet. She still wore her boots, jeans, and sweater that she’d had on at Mirren’s what felt like a lifetime ago, eating lamb chops with Mark and Melissa and Krys. As she crossed the room, her heels scuffed on the wooden floor, causing a couple of the old floorboards to creak. So much for sneaking around.

  She turned the doorknob and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. The door felt old and solid, its knob crafted of faceted glass, its hardware made of aged, scarred brass rather than the brass-covered aluminum of modern doors.

  Glory rattled the knob. “Hello? Anyone out there?” No one had ever been around at Matthias’s house; she never left the little windowless room he’d thrown her into—at least not until he decided to feed her to Mirren—and no one but vampires ever came in.

  But things were different here, obviously. Glory stepped back at the sound of heavy footsteps growing louder. They stopped outside the door. “Need something?” Deep voice, male, with an accent she couldn’t place.

  Well, duh. “Yeah, you can let me out of here.”

  Soft laughter. “Nice try, lady. Anything else?”

  Weird accent the guy had. Sort of Southern, but sort of not. “Could I have something to drink?” If she could get the door open, Glory had a chance of escaping.

  “There’s a tap in the bathroom, cups by the sink. Help yourself.” The footsteps sounded again, followed by a sigh, the scraping of a chair, and the drone of a television that had been turned on to something with a cheering studio audience.

  Great, she had a guard who liked talk shows. “Hey,” she shouted again. �
��Where are we? Where is that son of a bitch Lorenzo?”

  She’d cursed. Mirren would be proud of her. But there was no answer from her guard.

  Well, screw him and the donkey he rode in on. She’d make other plans. Glory had had enough of being bullied. If he wanted to shoot her or suck her dry, fine. She’d go out fighting.

  There was a nice bedroom suite in the room, and she searched for a potential weapon. A bedpost might work, but how much force could she put behind it, especially against a vampire? Maybe she could break the mirror that hung over the dresser and use a shard of glass. You don’t need to break anything or take it apart, idiot. Use your skills.

  She tried the lock first, focusing on it and trying to open it the way she had in Mirren’s upstairs bathroom. But other than the knob turning, nothing happened. She squatted in front of the door and examined the keyhole—an old-fashioned type that probably had a big iron key to trip its lock. She could see straight through the hole to where a big pair of brown leather boots were propped on a chair, tapping a toe in time to music on the TV. Her guard, obviously. And he must have the key with him. If it were in the door, she could have moved it.

  Glory got back to her feet, pleased to note the dizziness she’d felt was gone and a burst of strength had infused her limbs. Her mind went to Mirren, and when she closed her eyes, she could feel him, could feel their connection.

  He had to be down for his daysleep. Glory didn’t know where Lorenzo had taken her, but it probably wasn’t so far from central standard time that the sun she saw streaking through the window wouldn’t also be shining in Penton. Even in day-sleep, he was giving her strength—wasn’t that what Krys said happened with mates? And if he could give her strength, eventually he could find her.

  Unless he wants you to stay lost. Glory shook that thought away. Even if Mirren wanted to ditch this mating thing as soon as he found her, and no matter what he thought of himself, he was an honorable man.

  He would try to find her, but it would be better to not wait for rescue. Renz was different than Matthias—he already knew what she could do, or at least he did if he’d figured out how that big-screen TV came flying at his head. And he’d either kill her if she was too uncooperative or find a way to force her into helping him. It wouldn’t be hard. All he’d have to do was threaten Mirren, who he knew was her mate. Or threaten anyone in Penton, for that matter.

  Glory returned to the window and tried to get the bolts on the security bars to unscrew themselves, but either her powers weren’t strong enough or she wasn’t visualizing them properly. She’d learned from manipulating the wooden puzzle hatches in Mirren’s house that she had to visualize at least generally how something worked. The whole puzzle thing might have been a fluke she couldn’t repeat under pressure.

  OK, no windows, then. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the furniture, rugs, lamps. Maybe, before she wielded a weapon, she could use her talent to identify the possibilities. She’d tried the technique a couple of times in the Penton superette stockroom, but now it was time to see if it worked with more than just English peas and cans of chicken noodle soup.

  She took a few deep breaths, cleared her mind, and walked to the center of the room. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her senses to examine the room’s contents. She felt her power bu ilding…whoa. Glory opened her eyes and looked around her, but nothing had moved. Her power had never built up so quickly or so strongly before, but the soft tug in the middle of her chest told her why. Mirren was helping her, whether he knew it or not.

  OK, I can do this. We can do this. She closed her eyes again and drew from the strength of that unseen bond to bring her power up faster than before. She sensed the heft and weight of the furnishings, fixtures, rugs. Another pulse of her power and they shifted, all of them, just a fraction of an inch to the left. It worked. That’s all she needed to know for now.

  Next, she waited for sundown—by her watch, if they were still in the central time zone, she had another two hours. When he came to her, she’d listen to what Lorenzo Caias had to say, and if she didn’t like it, she would rain expensive antique furniture all over his big old vampire parade.

  Glory was hungry, so she spent the next hour fantasizing about what she could make for Mirren. Her research book had told her the gallowglass were fond of black pudding, so she’d looked it up, thinking it must involve dark chocolate. Holy cow, but had she been off base. Cooking animal blood until it congealed enough to fill a sausage casing was just epic grossness. Mirren would not be tasting that in her bloodstream. Dark chocolate, though—she could do a lot with dark chocolate.

  Maybe, when she opened her restaurant in Penton, she could have a line of chocolate desserts. The fams could buy them and make their vampires happy. Maybe she could create a whole line of fam food. Because she wanted that restaurant. She wanted to rebuild where the barbecue place had burned down, and she’d decided to ask Mirren and Will to be investors. If she only asked Mirren, it would feel too much like he was paying her to be his fam—make that his mate—but if she asked them both, it would be a legitimate business deal. Maybe Mark could even help her put together a business plan and a proposal.

  Did she dare hope for something so close to what she’d always wanted? Given that she was sitting in yet another locked room, being held prisoner by yet another vampire, maybe she should just think about staying alive.

  The drone of the TV in the hallway suddenly went quiet, and Glory heard voices. She swiveled the desk chair she’d been sitting in so it faced the door, and she waited. Each breath took an effort as she watched the doorknob, anticipating the clink of the key hitting the lock, waiting to see that glass knob turn.

  Finally, the key did rattle, and the orb of faceted glass turned with what felt like exaggerated slowness. If she’d been in a movie, the music would be holding one long, tense note.

  When the door swung open, Lorenzo stood in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his pressed black slacks, his crisp white shirt open at the collar. He appeared very casual, except his stance betrayed his caution. He glanced around the room before fully stepping inside, then glanced upward, above his head. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t have a piece of furniture waiting to give me another concussion. Clever trick with the Slayer’s television.”

  The Slayer? Glory remembered Matthias calling Mirren that, right before he expected Mirren to kill her. “Why do you call him Slayer?”

  Lorenzo took a chair near the fireplace but didn’t move it closer to Glory. She was glad she’d hurt him enough last night to make him wary, but she didn’t want him too cautious. Play cooperative prisoner, get him relaxed, stay alert for an opening.

  “You’ve taken Kincaid as your mate and don’t know his background? How…human.” Lorenzo chuckled. “Impulsive. Rather charming, actually.”

  Like she was going to admit their mating was an accident. “I don’t care what he was in the past, only what he is now.” And Glory realized that was true. “I know he was a gallowglass warrior before he was made a vampire.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “They were mercenaries. Brutal and brilliant. After he was turned, he worked for the Tribunal. He hunted people down and executed them. Had quite the reputation for being creative in torturing his prisoners before removing their heads. We’d like to get him back—his talents are wasted in that little town of Aidan’s.”

  “He won’t ever go back to you. He doesn’t want that life anymore.” She might not know every last detail about Mirren’s past, but she knew that much. The work he’d done for the Tribunal is what had scarred him and given birth to that self-hatred he fought.

  Glory had overheard enough in Penton to know that Matthias Ludlam had the same ideas about making Mirren a killer again. But her mate wasn’t that slayer-for-hire anymore. He could call it up when he needed to—she’d seen the cuts and blood when he’d come in from the fight a few nights ago. And that aggressive, restless part of him liked it; she could tell by the ferocity with which he’d made love to her a
fterward.

  But the difference was, he wouldn’t kill for money now.

  Lorenzo seemed to read her thoughts. “But might Kincaid become the Slayer again to, for example, save his mate?” Lorenzo smiled broadly enough that Glory could spot his fangs, which sent a shudder across her shoulder blades.

  She’d expected Lorenzo to use her as a weapon but hadn’t thought about him wanting to use her to control Mirren. She clenched her jaw and looked him smack-dab in his beady brown eyes. “He won’t do it to save me. And I won’t let you put that on his shoulders.” She’d kill herself first. And she’d try her damnedest to take Lorenzo Caias with her.

  Lorenzo laughed. “I see why he likes you, Gloriana Cummings—yes, I know your name. But I also saw Kincaid’s face when I brought up the idea of bringing you to testify against Matthias. I’m willing to bet he’d do just about anything to keep his little squaw safe.”

  OK, that was just…grounds for murder. What a condescending, arrogant bastard. He might have a shinier veneer on him than Matthias Ludlam, but Lorenzo Caias was cut of the same disgusting piece of cloth. She’d show him what a “squaw” could do.

  “You want me to help you take Matthias Ludlam down? I won’t do it unless you leave Mirren Kincaid alone.”

  More laughter. “My dear, you have a highly inflated view of your own power in this situation. Here’s the way I see it. You will give a video testimony of what happened with Matthias—if we have to drug you, so be it. I hear you had quite a quick reaction to the heroin Matthias plied you with. And from what I understand, it only takes one good shot to make you an addict all over again.”

  A chill spread across Glory’s skin. This guy knew way too much. Next to him, Matthias Ludlam was only an amateur sadist.