Holiday with a Vampire 4: Halfway to DawnThe GiftBright Star (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Susan Krinard

  Saxon prepared to move, but the instant Carl reached toward Angela, Calleigh leaped between them and raised her hands, breaking her bonds.

  And then she raked her hand across his face, her nails leaving gashes and long ribbons of blood that drizzled down his cheeks.

  Chapter 6

  Carl Bailey let out a cry of rage that seemed to shake the walls.

  He changed then, for long seconds becoming some horrible parody of both wolf and man. There were split seconds of horror-movie recall in which it seemed he was nothing but bones, teeth and a macabrely grinning mask, sheets of sinew and muscle, and then...

  Then he became the biggest, most vicious-looking silver wolf ever to walk the earth.

  He cast back his head and let out a howl that seemed to shatter the earth.

  Saxon dug in his pocket for his phone and hit speed dial, praying he would get a signal this deep underground. He knew that if the call went through, his fellow cops would have his location and hear the terrifying cacophony.

  No more waiting.

  Saxon leaped into the fray, aiming his gun and its specially made silver bullets at the crowd.

  “Stop!” he demanded as the room went still. “Do you all want to die?”

  “Take him, you fools!” Carl Bailey roared, back in half-human form. “He can’t kill you!”

  “This gun is loaded with silver bullets—I sure as hell can kill you!” Saxon responded.

  One of the half-changed wolves stepped toward him. “Silver bullets? Sure!” He laughed.

  Saxon shot him.

  He dropped.

  The crowd surged forward and Saxon shot indiscriminately into the wall of fur and flesh.

  Carl Bailey took a standing leap that carried him over Saxon’s head to take up a position behind his acolytes, where their flesh protected him from harm. His followers howled and screamed, shifting between forms in their fury and terror and pain.

  “Control yourselves! He can’t kill all of us!”

  Saxon shouted to be heard above the din. “Let the women walk out of here with me and there will be no more death!”

  For a moment there was silence except for the whimpers of those who had been wounded.

  Several others lay dead on the floor.

  “Stop this!” Saxon shouted. “Stop this cycle of death!” He walked into the center of the room, despite knowing that this action left his back exposed and that he didn’t have enough silver bullets to take them all down.

  But this was wrong.

  It was wrong anytime any race or religion set out to destroy or enslave another, to take all the power and use it without mercy.

  “You are powerful,” he exhorted them. “And because you’re powerful, your responsibility is to protect others, not use them and destroy them. What is the matter with you? There has never been a force so great in the history of the world that it has managed to subjugate all men, all races, forever. They will rise against you—and you will be exterminated. Follow Carl Bailey and they will find a way to hunt you down and kill you. All of you. Even the mortals—frail as they may seem—will show you abilities you never dreamed they possessed. What they lack in strength they make up for in cunning. They, too, are capable of cruelty—but they’re also capable of laws and compromise and governance to protect the weak among them.”

  He heard growling.... But he also heard whimpering, a sound that could mean pain—or a fierce desire to heed his words held in check only by fear.

  “Stop the death—including your own,” he commanded them.

  “Saxon!”

  He heard Calleigh cry his name in warning and whirled to see one of Carl Bailey’s die-hard lieutenants leaping at him.

  He fired at point-blank range, and the wolf went down like a rock.

  “Fools! He can’t shoot all of you at once!” Carl shouted.

  Saxon was grateful for his acute Elven hearing. Grateful that he knew one of the wolves was nearly on his back. He spun, thrusting an elbow into the creature’s side with a force that sent his attacker flying back against the wall.

  “The women! He can’t shoot the women!” someone—apparently brighter than Carl—called out.

  Damn! The creature was right. He had to reach them before the werewolves did.

  He swung around, shooting the two creatures separating him from Calleigh and Angela. Then he leaped to join the women, who immediately flanked him. He quickly handed Angela his knife so that she could cut herself free.

  “We’re getting out,” he told them quietly. “We need to back up along the hall and around the corner. Block the way, so they can’t surround us. It’ll force them to come at us a few at a time.”

  Their barely perceptible nods assured him that they’d heard him, and as a group they moved backward along the passageway.

  He kept his gun on the crowd, and they moved as quickly as they dared.

  “You’ll never get out—this place is a labyrinth!” Carl warned. He was making his way through what remained of the hesitant crowd, but he kept two of his followers in the lead as lupine shields.

  “You’re killing your own people, Bailey,” Saxon persisted. “Doesn’t that matter to you?” Carl responded in growls, so Saxon addressed the throng. “Don’t you see? You’re expendable to him. He calls you magnificent creatures, tells you you’re poised for greatness, but he treats you as puppets, as tools in his rise to power!”

  “Stairs. Stairs behind us,” Calleigh whispered to him.

  His feet touched something.

  He looked down, and his stomach rebelled.

  He was very much afraid that he’d found the craps dealer.

  He was a pile of bone and ripped clothing, broken and gnawed limbs, blood and death.

  He heard Angela moan softly.

  “Hold yourself together. You can do this,” he told her. “You are Elven.”

  He sensed rather than saw her nod. She swallowed and kept moving with him. One by one, with Saxon going last, they backed their way up the narrow stairway.

  “The door,” he whispered to Angela, who was first to reach the top. “Just push it up.”

  He caught Calleigh’s eyes. Beautiful eyes. They were wolf eyes, that extraordinary glittering gold shot through with green.

  He’d known that werewolves could be remarkable, just as he’d known that all sentient beings came with a capacity for evil. But overall they were good, driven by the desire to live and let live. The fight for survival had made monsters of many in the past, humans included. But laws and rules created a world where everyone could live and prosper.

  Until you threw a Carl Bailey into the mix.

  Saxon kept his eyes trained on the wolves that were still stalking them, step by step.

  He heard Angela open the hatch at the top of the stairs and climb through.

  “Go!” he shouted to her. “Run!”

  He felt Calleigh behind him.

  “Go,” he ordered her. “Take your sister and get out of here.”

  The minute she was through, he followed, slamming the hatch down and jamming the latch with a nearby rock. He felt Calleigh next to him and knew from the tension in her body that something was wrong.

  He spun quickly...

  ...and found himself facing the captain.

  Captain Clark Bower. The man who was so near to retirement—the man who had ordered Saxon to put an end to the chaos.

  And he had a semiautomatic trained on the three of them.

  Saxon stepped onto the wooden hatch to further delay the werewolves and weighed his odds.

  Elven could heal almost magically, but they weren’t immune to bullets, silver or otherwise. Elven had tremendous strength—but a bullet in the heart trumped the strongest muscle.

  “Captain,” he said, his shock evident in his voice. “You’re in on this? You’re human, for God’s sake.”

  “Human, hardworking and tired as hell. I’ve watched monsters—human monsters—do terrible things, go to court, blame it on a video game and be
acquitted. I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten and nearly ripped to shreds by a junkie running on coke and adrenaline. And now—now I have a retirement package that wouldn’t support a poodle for a month. Sorry, Saxon. You’re a good cop, a good guy. But I’m ready to savor the fruits of a long career as provided by those with the true power. Carl Bailey will set me up in a penthouse for life with a monthly allowance that will keep me well into my twilight years.”

  Saxon could hear the wolves banging at the hatch beneath his feet.

  “Step aside,” the captain told him.

  He held his ground. “Why is it that we can all be so incredibly stupid when we want to be seduced?” he asked. “Carl Bailey used Monty Reilly and dozens of others, and he’s using you. He tricked a weak young man into doing his bidding tonight, and he’s tricking you. He intends to kill everyone who helps him as soon as he’s done using them.”

  The captain’s gun remained on Saxon; his hands were steady.

  “I’m an old man, Saxon. Old and tired. I know you. I know all about you. You can afford to let the years go by. You can grow very, very old and still be in your prime.”

  A board burst beneath Saxon’s feet. The pack would be bursting free any second.

  “Let the women go,” he said to the captain. “Let them go—give them a chance to escape—and I’m yours.”

  “No!” Calleigh cried. “No, listen, Captain, please...please, look at me!”

  Saxon frowned, about to protest, but Calleigh had already drawn the captain’s attention.

  Yet she just stared at him, hopefully, searchingly, as if speaking to him through the changing expressions in her eyes. What was happening? Suddenly Saxon remembered how he had watched her dancing in that glass enclosure, remembered how their eyes had met, the way she had watched him with complete disdain—and yet he had kept staring at her...hypnotized.

  Just as the captain now seemed to be under her spell, his gun hand down by his side, his expression slack.

  But before the captain relaxed so fully that he dropped his gun, there was a massive bang as the hatch shuddered beneath Saxon’s feet, and the sound broke the spell.

  The captain realized his imminent danger and pointed his gun directly at Saxon’s chest....

  The crack of a bullet split the night.

  Time seemed to slow as Saxon braced himself for the pain. Yet nothing ripped into his flesh. Instead, as he watched, a red stain spread out over the captain’s chest and he fell forward.

  “Dirk!” Angela cried. An angelic smile illuminating her face, she rushed forward into the arms of the man who had come to her rescue.

  Saxon stared in surprise. Dirk stared back. He was shaking, but his arm was around Angela, holding her close. His voice was barely a whisper. “I had to come. I love her.”

  “Great,” Calleigh said. “Now get her out of here.”

  “Get them both out of here,” Saxon snapped at Dirk.

  The wood beneath his feet was splintering. “For the love of God, get them both out of here now!”

  Everything seemed to happen at once. Calleigh shoved her sister and Dirk, pushing them away.

  The hatch shuddered as it started to give, and Saxon moved to the side, ready to fight for his life.

  Then the wailing of sirens resounded in the night, and flashes of headlights cut erratically through the darkness.

  The cavalry was arriving at last.

  Dirk finally grabbed Angela’s hand and raced with her toward the road.

  The hatch burst open.

  Calleigh stood shoulder to shoulder with Saxon as the werewolves surged forth in full, vicious splendor. He started shooting and didn’t stop, and they began to fall, the dead delaying the living and buying him time. But there were just too many of them, and one injured wolf hurtled into him, nearly dragging him down.

  Calleigh whirled and shoved, using her strength to send the wolf flying.

  They backed away from the hatchway, Saxon still shooting, but there were so many of them. Too many.

  For every werewolf that fell, at least two more came.

  But then he felt the ground tremble as the squad cars came roaring up, and dust rose around him as he was joined by Keeghan McMurtree and a horde of men in uniform, guns blazing.

  “Werewolves... Your bullets...” Saxon began.

  “Silver, of course,” McMurtree said with a grin.

  The wolves fell by the dozens then, dying as animals, twisting in their death throes, becoming human again. Someone rushed past Saxon, and he realized that it was Calleigh. She was carrying a tear-gas grenade that she’d taken from one of the cops, and she was streaking toward the open hole in the desert floor.

  “Calleigh!”

  He called her name just as Carl Bailey appeared in his mammoth silver glory. He raked out a massive hairy paw and brought her down, then dragged her against his massive chest and open, slavering jaws. The grenade fell into the hatch.

  Choking fumes rolled out and filled the night air.

  Saxon couldn’t fire: he might hit Calleigh.

  Saxon shoved his way through the stragglers still coming at him and pitched himself atop Carl Bailey’s shimmering silver back. He clawed at the wolf with a strength he’d never even suspected he possessed. His gun went flying as he wrapped an arm around Carl’s massive neck and tightened it in a choke hold.

  Distracted by the attack, Carl loosened his grip on Calleigh, who slipped free as Saxon and the wolf rolled together through the dust and dirt. Cacti pierced Saxon’s flesh, but he didn’t feel a thing.

  Finally Carl pinned the Elven cop beneath him, and Saxon looked up and saw Carl’s predatory eyes on his. Saw his gaping maw. Saw his canines as he bent down, saliva dripping, to savage Saxon’s throat.

  Elven had strength, Saxon reminded himself.

  And cunning...

  He waited, then rolled at the last second.

  The werewolf took in a mouthful of dust, and Saxon leaped to his feet.

  Carl made a quick recovery, rising and standing for a moment, silhouetted against the moon, a giant silver-haired man-wolf in all his strength and glory.

  And then a shot rang out and he fell.

  Blood soaked the ground beneath his body as he melted back into human form.

  Saxon turned and saw Calleigh holding his gun in a two-handed grip, arms still outstretched, ready to shoot again. And she was shaking.

  He walked over and wrapped his arm around her. She was beautiful, tall, slender, vulnerable there in the darkness.

  He didn’t speak; he just held her. He could hear McMurtree and the others finishing their cleanup of the remaining combatants.

  Calleigh pressed closer to him. “I’ve just killed my own kind,” she said softly.

  “You had to,” he said. “You saved my life.”

  She flashed him a smile. “No, you saved all our lives. I’m not sure he would have been a match for you, but...”

  “But?”

  Her eyes met his. The same eyes that could seduce, that could kindle with pure wickedness, were, at this moment, completely giving, and as bright and beautiful as the sun.

  “I don’t like to take chances, you know?” she whispered.

  McMurtree walked over to them and gestured at the bodies strewed across the desert. “How the hell are we going to explain this?” he asked.

  Chapter 7

  The City News and Herald

  Las Vegas

  Desert Raid Puts End to Militia Threat

  A violent militia group with an underground stronghold and vast cache of weapons was brought down last night in the desert outside Las Vegas.

  Inside the secret underground complex police found evidence connecting the dissidents to the recent deaths and disappearances in the city. Police speculate that the militia leader orchestrated the violence to destabilize the city and facilitate an attempt to take control.

  The death toll is still being determined, but police have revealed that two prisoners being held by the cult were freed i
n the raid. The names of the dead are presently being withheld, pending notification of next of kin.

  Captain Clark Bower of the police is among the dead; his position is being temporarily filled by Lieutenant Keeghan McMurtree, one of the officers who led the assault.

  Further information will be made available as it is released to the press.

  “Not bad,” Calleigh said, putting down the paper.

  She and Saxon had escaped the frenzy in Vegas and taken a suite in a luxury hotel in Reno. Calleigh was curled up next to Saxon on a deeply upholstered love seat. He was staring out at a view that, unlike what every window in downtown Vegas offered, was not of neon lights or man-made towers.

  These plate-glass windows looked out over the majestic splendor of the mountains.

  Calleigh touched his cheek. “Good story, don’t you think?”

  He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but she kissed him, and that was the end of the conversation.

  * * *

  She was sleek and beautiful. She had skin like silk, radiated heat like the sun and demonstrated a range of passion to match the golden fires that burned in her eyes.

  Her kiss had the power to turn his blood to lava. She could move as if making love were the most exotic dance known to man, and she had the ability to make him forget himself and the world, leaving him absorbed in a feeling of wonder that they were alive and together.

  They lay in each other’s arms on the floor in front of a leaping fire, sated and spent.

  She turned and looked at him, stroking his face as he stared back at her in wonder.

  She smiled slowly. “News flash. Elven cop seen with Vegas entertainer. Can a true Elven find happiness with a half-breed werewolf?”

  He smiled. “I seem to be too worn-out to think of an answer.”

  She smacked his shoulder lightly. “Cut me some slack. I’m laying my heart at your feet.”