Gareth cleared his throat. “Isabella happened.”
“Shit.” Vander stood a few feet behind Cassiel. He raised his brows with a half grin. “What did she do?”
“She kidnapped Dagan’s Darkoor prisoner and is taking the creature back to his base.”
“No.” The single word slipped from Gareth’s mouth before Falden’s second in command could stop it. “Is she fucking insane? Have a death wish? She’s human!”
“She’s mine. Understand? We kill first and ask questions later.”
Vander’s half grin became a twisted smile. “Slice up some Darkoor. I like the sound of that. Let’s go.”
With a synchronized motion that spoke of centuries fighting together, the four Knights nodded as one. Each touched a button on their armor and disappeared as if they had never existed at all.
Isabella fought the urge to lean on the Caldorian walking behind her and approached the ugly thug standing just outside the doors of one of the seediest nightclubs in town.
Of course they would operate out of a place like this. Old warehouse. Tons of space, above- and belowground. This particular building had two levels of basement; she knew because she’d broken the story on the last set of owners who’d been running a chop shop for stolen cars out of the lower levels.
Stolen cars didn’t sound so bad now, not compared to what she was afraid she would find inside. Stomach churning, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, stomach acid burning her throat.
“Skinner.” The huge creep guarding the double doors that led inside looked her over with interest. “You’re late. Boss won’t be happy.”
“And just who is your boss?” Isabella asked oh so nicely.
The big guy shrugged. “Don’t know his name.”
“Of course you don’t.” She put on her best fake smile and continued with her plan. “What is your name?”
The big man looked to Skinner, who, as ordered, remained silent. “Boss calls me Spider.”
Isabella inspected the oversize tattoo of a large spider that took up the entire half of the man’s neck and understood exactly where he’d gotten his name. “That a black widow on your neck?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Spider grinned down at her, and she tried not to grimace at the blackened edges of his yellow teeth. Man really needed a dentist. And a new job.
“Are you human?” she asked, batting her lashes at the scum.
“Mostly.”
Mostly? What the hell did that mean?
Later. She’d ask Falden… No. She wouldn’t ask Falden anything. He’d lied to her. Kept secrets from her. Told her they could never be together, not for real. If this thing between them was just sex, well then fine. It was just sex. Still, anger warred with pain at the thought of losing him.
“Spider, how many other bad guys are inside?”
“Fuck. We keep standing here, we're going to get shot,” one of the Caldorians standing behind her grumbled, but she ignored him.
Spider looked past her to the Caldorian guard with a sneer. “You’re already dead, Caldo. Already fucking dead.”
“Spider. Tell me how many others are inside and whether or not they are armed.”
The guard laughed, actually laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t count. And yes.”
Shit. “Do you know where the boy, Matthew, is being held?”
Spider just looked at her.
“Spider, tell me where Matthew is being held.” She pushed her voice harder, saw the shimmering energy in the air between them and watched, fascinated, as the energy waves seemed to be absorbed by the man she spoke to.
“He’s one floor up, left side, third door on the left. Drugged up real good, too. Ain’t going nowhere.”
They’d drugged Matthew?
Isabella caught her breath, sweat beading her brow. Spikes in her temples. No, not just spikes, iced spikes with barbs. No. Screws. Iced screws twisting slowly. Slowly. Boring into her head through her skull.
“Miss, your ear is bleeding.” The Caldorian behind her sounded concerned, but Isabella didn’t have time for that, not now. Not with Matthew in there overdosing or dying. God.
“Spider, you are going to open this door and take us to Matthew. And you are going to kill anyone who gets in our way. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Spider turned and slid a key card over a lock she hadn’t seen before. The strange pop of a magnetic seal or air lock opening sounded, and she glanced to Bhaosz.
“Bhaosz, you will help Spider take us to Matthew. Kill anything and anyone who tries to stop me or hurt me. Do not hurt me, Matthew or the Caldorians. Do you understand?”
Bhaosz’s face shifted, and she caught a glimpse of the gaping maw, the rows of teeth below eerily human eyes. How did he do that? Change his form only halfway? Gross. Somehow he managed to form words. “I will devour your enemies. I am hungry.”
“Fine.” She didn’t care if he ate bad aliens. “Just kill them all first, eat after.”
He shook his head. “Eat on the way.”
Shit. Looked like that was the best she was going to get, and the Caldorian guard was right. A warm trickle of blood made its way from her ear canal down past her earlobe on down to her neck. Bhaosz sniffed at her.
“No. Not me, asshole. Save it for the bad guys.”
“Smell good, human.”
“No, I don’t.” Her nose scrunched up in disgust.
Bhaosz’s maw opened wider, and he leaned forward. Immediately the muzzle of a Caldorian weapon was shoved up under his jaw. Hard.
“Back off, Darkoor.”
Bhaosz lifted his hands in a sign of surrender and followed Spider inside the building. She looked back at the two unlucky guards she’d brought along. “You two stay here. I have a feeling more of you guys will be here in a few minutes. Wait for them. I don’t want you two getting killed.”
“Miss, it’s too dangerous for you to go in there alone. We can…”
“Stay. That’s an order.” Warm, salty liquid ran from her nose to her lips, and she tasted blood, wiped it away. She was too close to stop now. And if she could get Matthew out without risking anyone else’s life, especially Falden’s—
Her heart squeezed painfully. No, not especially Falden. Any of the Caldorians. Or human police, for that matter. “Stay outside until the other Caldorians arrive.”
“Fuck.” The second guard fought her, but in the end the energy waves sank into his skin and his gaze went slack. “We will guard the door.”
“Perfect.” Not waiting, Isabella stepped inside to the sound of screams. Shots fired. More screams.
The warehouse had been turned into a dance club with an open floor and balconies on three levels overlooking the open center. The dance floor was empty of partygoers. The real action wouldn’t start until after dark, when the drunks, drug dealers and people looking for a good time flowed through the front doors. Ten paces to the first corner. When she rounded it, chaos greeted her. Spider fired his weapon gleefully at anything and everything that moved…and there was plenty of movement. A quick count and she estimated at least twenty guards, aliens, whatever they were, all running toward them from various hallways and balconies within the building.
The basement would be down below, no doubt crawling with more Darkoor. Right now she was after Matthew. She’d worry about taking down the blood market, black market, fucking aliens-eating-people market later.
Spider was three-quarters of the way up the stairs where he’d said they were keeping Matthew. Bhaosz was kneeling at the landing, covered in blood, body parts from…someone…ripped and torn by his nightmare-inducing teeth as she watched.
“Bhaosz! Keep going.”
“Hungry!” His roar was defiant, and the pain in her head was making it difficult to see. She stumbled up the stairs past him, following Spider.
“Bhaosz, kill anyone who follows me up the stairs.”
“Hungry.” His face was coated in blood. All traces of the civilized creature were lost to the
madness she saw in his reptilian eyes.
“Kill anyone who follows me,” she repeated more forcefully.
He stared at her, obvious hunger in his gaze, then dismissed her as he took another bite.
Shit. Had she lost him? She didn’t know. Didn’t have time to waste. She’d lost sight of Spider.
Nausea gripped her hard at the smell of blood, the sound of rending flesh, of Bhaosz’s gleeful gulping and slurping.
Was he eating that person whole? She gagged, held down the contents of her stomach as the alien’s throat expanded around his food, making quick work of an entire arm, shoulder and all. And not from a small man.
“Oh my God.”
Tripping over her own feet, she fell to her knees on the stairs and scrambled away from Bhaosz, who was already tearing off the opposite arm of his dinner.
Running her hands against the wall for balance, she climbed back to her feet and moved as quickly as she could up the stairs. Ahead of her, the sound of yelling, of screaming, of weapons firing came to an abrupt halt.
“Spider?” she whispered, desperate for some sign that all was not lost.
“He’s dead.”
The voice was booming, large, as if a giant spoke. Then she saw the creature. Huge, a head again taller than the Caldorians, with skin stretched tight, blacker than black, its body absorbing all light. Within its sunken face, evil eyes burned with angry intent. Soulless. Predators in the wild killed for survival. This…thing killed for pleasure, she was sure. Instead of eyebrows, rounded bone protruded from the skin, the white nearly blinding in the darkened hall. Jagged bones formed a white line along the cheeks and around the mouth, down its chest.
Isabella backed up, only stopping when she hit the wall. She couldn’t get enough air, terrified by the gruesome creature in front of her. She blinked several times, hoping she was hallucinating. Shadows danced on the walls, screams echoing eerily in the stairwell. “Tell me where Matthew is,” she commanded, her voice shimmering through the air.
“You already know where he is.” The creature countered, defying her with ease.
She tried to get a grip on the wall, but there was nothing to hold on to as her nails scraped over old paint and dirt. “You will take me to him now, and then you will escort us outside, unharmed.”
“So the little Caldorians can save you?” The creature snickered, ignoring her command.
Real fear settled around her like a cloak. Her whole body trembled. Caldorians weren’t little. They were huge. Well over six feet tall. Muscled. Strong. But then, the terrifying creature in front of her was easily two of them put together. “Who are you?”
The creature’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I am the boss here. And you, Isabella Serrano of Earth, are causing problems.”
“I’m sorry.” She lied, her heart hammering in her chest as she inched closer to the door on the left. Where Matthew had to be. He had to. If she could just get to him, she could use her voice one more time and get them out of there.
She inched past Spider’s dead body and glanced away, ashamed of what she’d done to him. He was a bad man, a very bad man, but she was responsible for his death, wasn’t she? The door was close now. She reached for the knob. Turned. The door swung open on silent hinges.
Peeking in, she saw the boy’s head resting on his arm. He appeared to be unconscious, laid out on a sleeping bag covered in filth.
“Matthew?” She backed into the room, determined to reach him. She couldn’t afford to panic. Not now. Once she had him, she would get them both out of there. She’d find a way. Use her voice. Use the power that had turned Spider and Bhaosz into weapons.
Sliding to her knees beside him, she pulled his head into her lap. He was breathing, thank God. But that was all. His skin was yellow and sickly, his lips partially blue as if he didn’t have enough oxygen in his body, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. Too fast. A rapid pulse fluttered at the base of his neck, and his skin was cold. Clammy.
“What did you do to him?” she yelled. A tear slid down her face. Clumsily she wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her cheek.
The creature made a strange clacking sound, presumably a laugh, as four very ugly men filed into the room. From the look of their jaws, their eyes, she suspected they were all Darkoor. Like Bhaosz wasn’t bad enough? Now there were more?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, gathered what strength she had left, which wasn’t much. The room was spinning, her nausea had not abated after watching Bhaosz’s feast, and the flickers at the edges of her vision were getting bigger. Darker. Like shadows growing in her mind.
“You will escort me and the boy to the entrance and let us go.” Her voice shimmered across the air, power behind every word.
The horror in charge chuckled. “No. We won’t.”
Blood ran freely down her neck, and a steady trickle leaked from her nose. She wiped it away once more. Damn. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t her voice working on them? She tried again.
“You will escort me and the boy to the entrance and hand us over to the Caldorians.” She squinted, tried to see the shimmering waves of her voice envelop the Darkoor guards surrounding her. Nothing.
White-hot fire speared her spine from skull to hips, and she whimpered, dropping over Matthew’s body to try to protect him. Her headache exploded like a mushroom cloud inside her skull, and the pain made her scream.
“Someone’s been using maju paste.” The booming voice of the monster filtered through her senses like an echo in a dark canyon. “Bring her and the boy to the first floor. And find out who she belongs to. I want them both alive.”
“Yes, boss.”
The last thing Isabella saw before the world went dark was four men coming toward her, their faces melting into something gross. Inhuman. Darkoor.
Chapter Eleven
Falden, Gareth, Cassiel and Vander, silent and unseen to all but each other, ran through the fighting that had already begun. King Dagan’s Caldorians had arrived to find the two guards who had accompanied Isabella trapped behind her car as the occupants of the building fired from both the front door and the roof. The fighting was intense. Their enemy had come fully prepared.
Direct Energy Cannons blasted from within the fortified walls of the nightclub, the impact shaking the ground. Glass from nearby windows shattered. Laser pistols fired short blasts, the smell of singed skin and blood heavy in the air as dozens of Caldorians clashed with the creatures pouring out of the broken door, the sound deafening. Falden barely registered the commotion.
How did this happen? He’d gone to a human bar, met a human woman. He’d been on mission. No distractions. No weakness. No fear.
For thousands of years he’d mastered fear.
The ice-cold terror running through his veins jumbled his thoughts and made tactics difficult. Planning? Impossible. All he could feel was helpless terror that Isabella could be hurt. Rage that anyone on this planet, or any other, would dare touch her. Regret that he’d let her slip through his fingers.
“You with us, Falden?” Gareth spoke directly to his commander, not allowing Vander or Cassiel to hear his concerns. Thousands of years of combat, of friendship, of loyalty kept him from assuming command of the mission despite the fact that Falden was clearly distracted. Falden was never distracted. In fact, the others often joked that their leader had no emotions at all. But the swirls in Falden’s skin and the fury in his normally cool gaze made liars of them all. Falden not only felt, he felt deeply. Possibly even more intense emotions than the rest of the younger Knights. They’d all looked to him for guidance. Counsel. He made the hard decisions. He was the oldest. Invincible. Until now.
“If they hurt her, they all die.” The absolute conviction in Falden’s voice was broadcast to all three of his team.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get to her in time. She was only a few minutes ahead of us,” Gareth assured him.
“Perhaps.” Falden was not prepared to offer himself false
hope. If she had infiltrated a group of Darkoor, she may have been killed immediately upon her arrival. If they traded in humans as well as tech, they’d keep her alive. At least for a while.
In his hand, Furon glowed brightly, electric sparks arcing up and down the blade like it was alive.
“What’s with the light show, old-timer? Get ahold of yourself or they’ll know we’re coming,” Cassiel joked, as he often did. And he got away with it because of age.
However, he was not wrong. Falden looked above them and saw clouds swirling at an alarming rate. Lightning split the sky into tiny pieces that made the area look like a broken mirror with dozens of uneven and jagged pieces above their heads.
“Storm Caller is doing his thing.” Referring to Falden’s sword, Vander tapped his own weapon where he kept it strapped to his back. “Let’s do ours.”
Falden lifted his chin to indicate the roof. “Cassiel, Vander. You two hit the roof. Gareth and I will go in the front.”
Vander grinned. “No prisoners? We’re cleaning ’em out?”
Falden’s dark scowl made Vander tilt his head.
“Just making sure, Commander. It’s not the usual order.”
Falden thought of Isabella. Her dark brown eyes. The soft silkiness of her hair. The way her lips melted against his. The gentle touch of her hands on his flesh, and the more demanding way those same fingers dug into his shoulders, his ass, demanding more. His. She was his.
“Kill them all.”
Cassiel and Vander each removed a small black object from their personal arsenals strapped to their black tactical shoulder slings. Each weapon was coded to work only for its owner, transforming instantly from a nondescript object no bigger than a human thumb into tools or deadly weapons. In this case, black wire rope. The ends of the metamaterial could stick to any surface. Vander took three steps and tossed the end of the rope up to the top, followed closely by Cassiel. Like wraiths in the night, they floated up as the wire rope retracted, disappearing seconds later over the rooftop.
Alien Knight Blind Date Disaster (Lumerian Knights Book 3) Page 16
