Mandy M. Roth - Magic Under Fire (Over a Dozen Tales of Urban Fantasy)

by Unknown

  Hell. If he got her back to the secret room, that was the first thing he was going to do—NAP or no NAP.

  “There’s a door,” she said after a brief pause. She was still looking like she didn’t know what to make of him. “Not the main one, but a hidden side door through the wall. I don’t think they know it’s there.”

  His heart gave a little jump of hope—hope that he could actually complete his mission, hope that she might actually care whether he got his ass fried, hope that he might actually be alive tomorrow to kiss her again—and he nodded. “Will you tell me where?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  She made move to rise, but he tightened his grip on her arm to hold her down and started to give her all the reasons why that wasn’t going to happen.

  But Marisa fixed him with a look and he closed his mouth, surprised by the ferocity there, evident even in the faulty light. And damn, she looked hot with all that dark hair loose around her face, and her eyes unhindered by lenses and frames.

  “I’ll show you,” she said. “It’ll be better cover if I go with you. It’ll hide your face and mine if we’re—uh—talking to each other. And it’s difficult to explain how to access it. And besides—you fainted only a couple hours ago. You might have a concussion or something, and there’s that loss of blood—”

  “All right then,” he said, seeing the sense in her plan but at the same time feeling a trickle of foreboding and a nudge of guilt. “But pull the blanket up around you to hide your white shirt, and—the rest of you. And you’re staying inside the walls.”

  The fact that she didn’t respond should have warned him, but Luke was more concerned about getting out of Marck’s sight and away before they were discovered.

  So, with a combination of resignation and delight, he gave her back her glasses and slid his arm around her waist. Then, once more kissing the hell out of her, he hauled them both to their feet, wrapping her in the blanket. Half walking, half stumbling, faces close to each other as if whispering sweet nothings, hair mingling, forehead and glasses bumping, they meandered their way out of the circle of light cast by the movie.

  All the while he had his face buried in Marisa’s cheek, chin on her hair, arm locked around her waist with his hip sliding against hers, Luke was sharply aware of Ian Marck and his two goons. Where they were. Who they watched. How they moved.

  To his acute relief—and a little disbelief—Marck hardly spared the two of them a glance as they tottered off into the darkness. It could have been because they looked as if they were ready to tear the other’s clothes off—well, at least he did—and seemed unthreatening…but whatever the reason, Luke was thanking the good Lord for it.

  He was going to have to set things right, clear things up, as soon as possible…but for now, he’d enjoy.

  As if to punctuate their intent, so as to leave no doubt for anyone who might have been watching, he spun Marisa around and backed her up against a tree trunk…and followed, lining his body all along hers as she was sandwiched between him and the tree.

  Now he could really get into the moment. Bury himself in her scent, enjoy the taste and feel of her. She tensed for just a second before easing her arms around him and diving right in. Oh yes.

  He had hands full of curves: hips, ass, torso, and the pleasure of more sliding against him. She had her fingers shoved up into his hair, her belly pressed against his fly, one leg angled around his. And her mouth: busy, hot, and sleek, matching his kisses as if she too had waited six years for it.

  At last, after far too long for safety, but not nearly enough for satisfaction, Marisa twisted her face away. Their lips separated with a delicious little pop. Her glasses were adorably askew and he pushed them back into place.

  “Is it safe now?” she whispered, panting a little. “Are they gone?” Her breasts—full, tight, and high—were still pushed against his chest, and he tightened his arms when she started to put space between their bodies. Her hair was a delicious mess of dark tangles and looked like she’d just climbed out of bed. Her lips were full, glistening in the moonlight, parted like she was ready to take him on again. “Luke? Are they still watching?”

  Right. He shook his head mentally. The bounty hunters. The NAP. Ian Marck. “I don’t see them.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” She pulled firmly from his grip, slipping away with a little rain of bark that had come loose while she was writhing against the tree.

  Oh yes, she’d been writhing. And making soft little sounds, and shivering a little. Luke forced himself not to think about that right now. Instead, he found her hand with his and allowed her to lead him off into the shadows.

  Time to get serious.

  CHAPTER 6

  I t was a good thing there were lots of shadows, Marisa thought as she hurried Luke toward the hidden door. Because otherwise, he’d be able to see how flushed and embarrassed she was.

  Good grief, she’d nearly torn off his clothes, practically mauled the guy to death! She bit her lip, shame rushing over her as she remembered grinding her hips into him, clutching those broad, strong shoulders as if he were her savior and she was drowning, and refusing to come up for air during their long, passionate kiss—just taking more and more and more.

  Kissing him and running her hands all over those firm slabs of muscle had been just as amazing as she’d always imagined in her deepest, darkest fantasies. Even now, she was hot and fluttery inside, full and throbbing elsewhere. Shaky-kneed. Out of breath.

  Then, suddenly, she was brought back to reality. The terrible, eerie cries carried in on the night air once more, reminding her of the task ahead of them.

  “Rrrrruuthhhh…ruuuuthhhhh…”

  The zombies were coming closer. Searching, always searching…

  And here she was, fog-headed and butterflied in the belly, and making out with Luke Desmond.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  What must he think of her? Although…Luke had seemed to be more than a little interested in what was going on. He certainly wasn’t ambivalent. But then again, what man wouldn’t be at least a little turned on by a woman who lunged into his arms at the slightest provocation?

  Partly because of his blond good looks, Luke had always been known as a player—a guy who liked women, many women, all women—even when he was with Lainey.

  Oh boy. Lainey. That felt like an even colder shower than realizing how desperate Marisa must seem to him…her sister’s former fiancé…

  No. Forget about everything else. Just focus on now.

  And the fact that you’re going outside the city walls when the zombies are out.

  Oh God. What was wrong with her?

  But she couldn’t let him go alone. She couldn’t let him get caught—by either Ian Marck or the zombies. He was still weak, and injured, and…well, she didn’t want anything to happen to him.

  “This way,” she whispered, tugging his hand. A quick glance behind confirmed no one was following them as she led him between the buildings that made up the living spaces for the settlement of River Vale.

  At one time, before the Change, the buildings had been a cluster of homes and small shops in a little downtown square. Grandma Nell used to describe it as Main Street, U.S.A.—though Marisa couldn’t quite picture what that meant. Now, whatever buildings had survived the earthquakes and storms had been maintained and turned into homes for the hundred-fifty people who lived here. Those usable structures had been enclosed by a protective wall decades ago. Beyond the barrier were other places that were vacant, either structurally unsound or simply uninhabitable.

  Caved-in roofs, ivy-and moss-covered walls, broken and mildewed windows, cracked pavement and bricks, curling siding—those buildings were part of the landscape now, which included a jungle of trees and grasses, wild tomatoes, berries, and other vegetables, along with vestiges of twenty-first century America. Old mailboxes, rusted-out vehicles, street lamps, buckled-up sidewalks, sagging billboards, obliterated signs and grass-veined roads showed off fifty years of
decay and the muscle of Mother Nature.

  The barrier encircling River Vale was more than ten feet high and five to ten feet deep in places, because it had been partially constructed of whatever massive objects the survivors could gather and wanted to remove from the midst of the settlement: billboards, train cars, vehicles. There were other materials too, like bricks, metal roofing, and even pieces of wrought-iron fence. A team maintained the wall, ensuring there were no weak points, no openings through which the crooning, crying zombies could struggle.

  Not that they were smart enough to do so, the orange-eyed creatures who stumbled and staggered and had the motor skills of an eighteen-month-old, but no one wanted to take the chance.

  “Here,” Marisa said as they came to an old piece of gate. It looked as if it were merely propped and fastened against the train car behind it, but it wasn’t.

  “I didn’t know this existed,” Luke said in a hushed voice as Marisa unlatched the gate. “How long has it been here?”

  “I don’t know. Dad showed it to me before he died.”

  The gate gave a soft sigh and a faint whine as she pulled it open. Behind it she pushed on the boxcar wall, and then yawned an opening—the old door—in the train car. “In there. There’s a tunnel—like a passageway. It goes through the right end of the car there, and then under a piece of metal and through a truck. We come out next to the big oak.”

  “We? I think not.” He made as if to push past her, but Marisa grabbed his arm.

  “I’m coming with you. Someone needs to keep a lookout. And you’ve been hurt. Where is your bag hidden?”

  Before he could respond, she heard it. The soft sound of a footstep, crunching on stone. A murmured comment wafting through the night. A shadow coming around the corner.

  They both froze, then he shoved her through the open door just as she pulled him by the arm. Marisa had the presence of mind to drag the wrought-iron gate closed behind them, and Luke reached out to help it settle into place without a telltale clank.

  Silently, they slipped into the pitch-black interior of the train car, Luke’s strong hand guiding her up and inside. There were no words between them—only her hand tugging his as she tried to feel her way through to the trap door on the other side without tripping on anything or banging her foot against the metal floor or wall.

  “I heard someone over here,” came a voice from outside. Stronger, very certain, and much too close. And it sounded horribly familiar.

  Luke and Marisa stilled for a moment, bodies close enough to feel the other’s unsteady breathing, and waited. She was cold and stiff, her stomach jolting unpleasantly.

  “They went this way,” replied a voice recognizable as Ian Marck’s. “We’ll find them.”

  “Let’s go,” Luke breathed ever so softly into her ear. Prickles accompanied the warmth of his voice. “Okay?”

  She nodded once, her head bumping his chin. Better to put distance between them and the—what did he call them? The snoot.

  Marisa had been through the tunnel only once before, and in the daylight, and then under the guidance of her father. But she knew the path, she just had to avoid— Ugh. It was all she could do to keep from gasping when something bounded over her foot, brushing past her leg and streaking (but fortunately not slithering) away.

  Luke squeezed her hand as if to say, “Steady,” and she continued on, holding her glasses in place just in case. Cobwebs and dust stirred, indicating that few, if any others, knew about this escape route. She stepped on something crunchy, then something soft and oozing that made her stomach lurch—and then lurch again when the foul stench reached her nose.

  But she navigated to the corner of the car where the side door was. There was a low ridge around it to mark the spot, and she easily found the metal ring that opened it. With her hands and a very few soft words, she explained what had to be done.

  Then, together, they pulled open the heavy door slowly, silently, carefully, even as the sound of the bounty hunters’ continued search made its way through the walls of the train car.

  Things went more easily after that, for they found themselves outside the boxcar—where illumination from the night sky helped light the way—and then navigated along the tunnel that ran through the wall.

  The voices of the snoot had become more distant, but the sounds of the zombies were unhappily drawing nearer. The huge oak tree loomed just outside the wall, and its wide-spreading branches scraped the dark blue sky, brushing the stars and moon.

  Something moved there, high among the branches. An owl? A wild cat?

  Marisa stopped along side the old truck that acted as the last part of the passageway. “Climb through here, and that’s it. We’re outside.” She reached for the door handle and pulled on it gingerly, but it was soundless. Someone kept it well oiled.

  “Wait.” Luke pulled her hand back and looked down at her. “You’ve brought me this far—there’s no reason you need to go out there too. No reason for you to put yourself in that sort of danger.”

  “What’s so important you need to go out there, then?”

  Their voices were still very low, and they stood in the middle of the deep barrier surrounded by old vehicles, pieces of metal sheeting, and other junk piled carefully in a strong protective fence. The moon shone down from above, but the walls rose to at least ten feet high on either side. They were safely hidden…for now.

  “I…well, Marisa…I haven’t been completely honest about—”

  It was all she could do to keep her outraged reaction to something less than a shout. Clamping her teeth together, she glared up at him and gave him punctuating shoves in his oh-so-solid chest. “Why—am—I—not—surprised! Have you been honest about anything?”

  “Okay, look,” he whispered, lifting his hands. “It’s not what you think. And I’m trying—it’s just a little complicated, and dangerous. Marisa, what I’m involved in is really…it’s dangerous.”

  “I’m getting that,” she muttered, and removed her hands from his chest before they got too settled there. The light filtered over his thick blond hair, giving him a moonbeam halo. A silvery glaze touched his nose and chin and kissed his lips. Damn, it was difficult to ignore how gorgeous he was in the uneven light—dark and shadowy and powerful, yet soft and glowing and sexy. And earnest, as he began to talk her off the ledge.

  “The thing is,” he explained in a low, rapid-fire tone, “I sort of alluded to this earlier. I’m not back here by chance. I was sent here by some guys I know from New Vegas. They wanted me to do something, and since I’m from River Vale and know the area and the people, they thought I’d be the best person to do it without—er—drawing attention. And so, when I got here, I left the equipment—it’s contraband, Marisa; dangerous stuff that if the snoot were to find, well…there’d be a lot of shit hitting the fan. So I left it outside in case I got nabbed, and besides—I didn’t want to leave it with anyone here at River Vale and put them in danger as well.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called an NAP—network access point. It’s for a… Dammit, Marisa, the less you know, the safer you are.”

  “Tell me. I let you into the secret room—against my better judgment—even though you weren’t nearly as injured as you led me to believe. I’m the only one living besides the Waxnickis who know about—”

  “Did you say Waxnicki?” Luke grabbed her arms, gaping at her. The whites of his eyes glowed large in the low light.

  “You know them?” She fixed her crooked glasses.

  “They’re why I’m here. They’re the ones who sent me.”

  “Lou and Theo sent you?”

  His lips twitched. “How many Waxnickis do you think there are?” The tension seemed to leave him, his grip on her arms relaxing into something more like a caress. Then he released her abruptly. “So you know the Waxnickis. Well, I guess that makes things a little easier.”

  “They built the safe-room for Grandma Nell and Dad. He was…he was part of something called the Resista
nce.”

  Luke gave a soft laugh, shaking his head. “I should have known. That secret door contraption has Lou and Theo Waxnicki written all over it.” He paused, then reached up to touch a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “So you’ve known about them all along. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  Marisa’s heart tripped a little at the way his voice dropped. “What did they send you here to do? Are you part of the Resistance too?”

  He nodded. “They sent me to set up the NAP. It’s a weatherproof device that sits high on a building—usually on a rooftop—and runs on solar power. It’s hardly larger than a dictionary, so no one would see it from the ground. It will help the Waxnickis connect computers to each other in what they are calling the new internet. Sort of a communication system.”

  Marisa knew, at least in theory, what the internet had been. But the whole idea of being able to talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time, was mind-blowing. And while she knew the Resistance existed, she knew few details. Her father, like Luke, had wanted to protect her. The less you know, the better.

  Yeah, well, that was bullshit—but what could she do about that now?

  “So you hid the NAP outside the wall? And now you want to go get it.”

  “Right. I’m going to…I want to set it up on top of the Shelby. And then I want to take something—it’s a photograph I stole from Marck—back to Envy.”

  Something metallic clanged softly, the warning ringing with foreboding through the night. The hair shot up on the back of her neck, and Marisa nearly lurched into Luke’s arms. They’re coming, she mouthed. They found us!

  Let’s go, he replied silently, and tugged her quickly into the truck…then scrambled through, pulling her out into the darkness.

  Out beyond the walls of safety.

  Out where orange eyes glowed in the shadows.

  CHAPTER 7

  L uke could smell them. The creatures Lou Waxnicki called gangas.