She smiled and shook her head. No, we'd better not...oh, my God...Lucan. Slow down. Stop the car!
He braked at once, and pulled over near a tree-lined, elegant residential street. As the vehicle came to a halt, Elise put down her window. A cold February breeze rushed inside.
Down here, she said, her veins tingling.
She focused on the sensation, pulling it into her, trying to pine its source. It was Tegan; she had no doubt. And the heat that traveled her bloodstream was not a pleasant warmth, but an acid burn.
The searing heat of pain.
Oh, God. Lucan, he's being held somewhere on this street--I'm sure of it. And he's hurting. He's hurting...very badly. She closed her eyes, feeling it even more now that the car was turning onto the pleasant drive. Hurry, Lucan. He's being tortured.
She felt queasy, both with the idea of Tegan being abused, and with the twisting anguish coursing through every cell in her body. But she held on, searching for any sign that they were getting close. The white-hot spike of pain that hit her as they drew up on an old stone-and-timber manor house told her they had found him.
The house was set back from the street, quiet, but well tended. Obviously lived in. A white Audi sedan was parked at the carriage house garage. There was birdseed in the feeder hanging from a pine bough in the center of the yard. A kid's sled lay on the snowy front walk.
Right here, she told Lucan. He's in that house. Lucan frowned as he took in the same details she had, but he cut the headlights and killed the engine. You're certain?
Yes. Tegan is being held inside.
She watched as Lucan armed himself. He was already wearing an arsenal of weapons--two large handguns and a pair of sheathed daggers--but he grabbed a leather satchel from behind the passenger seat and unzipped the bag to reveal even more.
He glanced up at her and muttered a ripe curse. I'm not sure it would be safe for you to wait--
That's good, she said, because I don't plan to. I can help you find him once we get in.
No way, Elise. It's too fucking dangerous. I can't take you in there. I won't. He slapped a clip into one of his guns and holstered it. Then he pulled another knife and a coil of wire from the duffel and stuffed both into a pocket of his combat jacket. As soon as I head for the house, I want you to slide over and take the wheel. Drive out to the--
Lucan. Elise met his stern gray gaze and held it firmly. Four months ago I thought my life had ended. My heart was ripped out by Marek and the Rogues who serve him. Now, by some miracle of fate, I'm happy again. I never dreamed I could be. I've never known this kind of love--the love I have for Tegan. So, if you think I'm going to sit out here and wait, or run out of harm's way when I know he's in trouble--when I know he's in pain-- well, I'm sorry, but you can forget it.
If my brother is the one holding him--and let's be goddamn clear about this, we both know it's got to be Marek--then there's no telling what we're going to find in there. Or what might come out of there when the dust finally settles. Tegan could already be lost.
I need to know, Lucan. I'd rather die trying to help him than stand by or walk away.
A slow grin spread over the face of the Order's fearsome leader. Anyone ever tell you that you're one stubborn female?
Tegan might have said so once or twice, she admitted wryly.
Then I guess he'll have to understand what I was up against when he sees you with me. He handed her a sheathed dagger attached to a leather belt.
Elise strapped the weapon around her waist and cinched the buckle. I'm ready when you are, Lucan.
Okay, he said, shaking his head in defeat. Let's go get our boy.
They exited the car and swiftly, cautiously approached the human residence. As they neared the place, Elise was assaulted with both the pain of Tegan's suffering and the growing awareness of Minions on the property. Her mind filled with a concert of corrupt thoughts, ugly voices pounding into her consciousness.
Lucan, she whispered, mouthing a warning to him. Minions inside--more than one.
He nodded, and motioned for her to come up near him. He gripped a wooden trellis that climbed up the side of the house, testing its strength. Can you climb it?
She took hold of the makeshift ladder and started pulling herself up. Lucan met her at the top; all it took for him to reach the level roof of the second-floor terrace was a powerful flex of his legs. He landed soundlessly from his fluid leap and thrust his hand down to help pull her up the rest of the way. A pair of French doors were open onto the tiled patio, the wispy white curtains riffling out like ghosts. Elise could see a woman in a nightgown lying motionless on the floor inside the room. Her arm was outstretched, unmoving, the wrist savaged and resting in a pool of spilled blood.
Marek, Lucan said softly, in explanation of the carnage. Will you be all right walking through there?
Elise nodded. She followed him in through the scene of recent violence, past the dead human woman and the husband who had evidently tried without success to fend off the vicious vampire attack. Bile rose in Elise's throat as they stepped out into the hallway and found the body of a young boy.
Oh, God.
Marek had broken in and killed them all.
Lucan ushered her past the child, taking her wrist and holding her behind him as he made a quick visual check of the hallway. She felt the sudden blast of mental pain, but had not seen the Minion coming until he was on them, having come out of another room just as they approached. Lucan silenced Marek's mind slave before the human had a chance to scream a warning. With a dagger slicing deeply across the Minion's throat, it sputtered in shock, then dropped in a lifeless heap to the floor. Lucan gave it no pause at all. He stepped over the corpse, waiting for Elise to do the same.
As they neared a stairwell that led to an upper floor of the house, Elise's veins lit up with an electric kind of intuition. She could almost feel Tegan's heart beating inside her own body, his labored breath a constriction in her own lungs.
Lucan, she whispered, pointing to the open door. It's Tegan. Up there. He moved into the unlit well and peered up the stairs. Stay close, and stay behind me.
Together they climbed the steep, narrow steps. At the top was a barred door. Lucan lifted the metal lock. He glanced back at her, and even in the darkness she could see the expression that seemed to caution her to brace herself for whatever they might find on the other side.
Tegan was alive behind that closed door-- that much she was sure of--and that's all she needed to know. Do it, Lucan, she whispered.
He pushed the door open and barreled through like a freight train, drawing a large blade and burying it into the Minion guard who pounded toward them in attack. Elise held back her scream as another one moved in and got like reward, going down in a bleeding, heavy crumble to the wood- planked floor.
But it was the sight of Tegan that nearly ripped a keening howl from her throat. Shackled to a pair of thick beams with irons on both wrists and ankles, his body bowed out, hanging limply from its restraints. His beautiful face was nearly concealed by the lank droop of his sweat-soaked, blood-coated hair, but Elise could still see the damage there. He was bloodied and beaten all over from a recent bout of torture, his body not yet having the time to speed healing to the abused tissue and bones.
She thought him unconscious until a visible tension suddenly crept over his muscles. He knew she was there. He felt her presence just as she would know his anywhere.
Tegan... She started to run to him, but drew back sharply when he lifted his head and she saw the razor-edged glint of fury in his eyes. Oh, God...Tegan. Get out of here! His voice was raw gravel. The amber eyes glaring at her from under the bruised brow were filled with animal rage and pain. His fangs were enormous, more deadly than she'd ever seen them. He railed against the chains that held him. Goddamn it! Get the fuck out of here now!
Tegan. Lucan stepped up now, approaching warily but without hesitation. He reached out to take hold of one of the manacles fastened to Tegan's wrist. We're taking you out of this place.
Get back, he growled.
Lucan sniffed at the air. What the fuck? He wiped his thumb under Tegan's nose, where a faint pink crust had collected. Ah, Christ, Tegan. Crimson?
Marek...he gave me a lot of the shit, Lucan... Tegan grunted, the slits of his pupils going thinner in the middle of all that glowing amber. You get it now? It's Bloodlust. I'm too far gone.
No, you're not, Elise told him.
Jesus, he hissed through the huge fangs. Leave me--both of you! If you want to help me, Lucan, get her the hell out of here. Get her far away from here.
Elise walked up to him and gently touched his matted hair. I'm not going anywhere. I love you.
As she tried to soothe Tegan, Lucan tore the shackle and chain free from the post with a mighty yank of his arm. Tegan's right arm dropped down loosely, metal clanking. When he reached for the other, it was Tegan who growled a warning.
"Lucan--"
Too late. The gun blast cracked sharply in the dim room, an orange explosion coming from near the stairwell. Lucan took the hit in his back and went down on one knee. Another shot rang out, but the reporting ping said it missed the target and hit stone instead.
More gunfire erupted as two Minions and a Rogue--Marek's henchman, all of them armed with semiautomatic weapons--poured in and started squeezing off rounds. Elise felt a heavy weight curl down around her, pulling her into the shelter of hard muscle. Tegan's breath sawed roughly in her ear, but his free arm was wrapped around her, his body arched over her to protect her from the fray.
She felt helpless, watching Lucan battle three opponents while she cowered in the cage of Tegan's body. Lucan dodged many of the rapid-fire rounds, but a good lot of them hit their mark. The Gen One warrior weathered the assault, returning fire as the dance of combat put the room in a smoke-filled, ear-splitting chaos. The Rogue went down in the fray, killed by Lucan's titaniumlaced bullets. The body sizzled and convulsed on the floor, writhing as death swiftly claimed it.
When one of the Minions came in closer, his sights trained on Lucan, who was eluding the gunfire of another and sending back more of the same, Elise reached down to feel for the hilt of her dagger. She pulled it loose of the sheath, knowing she would have to throw it, and she would have only one shot.
Tegan growled her name in warning as she rolled free of his arms. She came up to her feet and took quick aim, then brought her hand back and let the blade fly.
The Minion roared as the dagger embedded deep under his arm. He fell back with his weapon still firing, sending a spray of bullets high into the rafters. Some of them hit the black ceiling, the sound of shattering glass an ominous counterpoint to the battle taking place below.
Oh, God, Elise gasped as painted shards dropped from the broken skylights.
The ceiling was glass--recently coated with black paint to blot out the sun. Marek must have taken that immediate precaution when he set up camp in the humans' house.
Now, as another large piece of glass broke away and fell to the floor, Elise stared up at the sky overhead.
A sky that was slowly pinkening with the first early light of dawn.
Chapter Thirty-four
They'd been scouring the steep, jagged crag for some hours and still no trace of the crypt. Night was starting to fade. None of the warriors scaling the rocks had any real affection for the sun--particularly Dante, after a nasty UV tangle a few months ago--but as later generation Breed, they could each withstand daylight for a short amount of time. With the aid of their solar- protection gear, they might be able to double that exposure.
But not so for the Ancient they hunted now. If the Gen One offspring of that alien being began to blister and burn in under ten minutes, the Ancient's UV-allergic skin and eyes would incinerate in seconds. That made for a decent backup plan, if the Order somehow failed to take the creature's head. Assuming they could even find the suckhead's hiding place amid all this inhospitable rock.
Dante shot an assessing glance up at the sky. If we don't get a hit on something in the next half hour or so, we'd better start heading back down.
Chase nodded. He stood beside Dante in the mouth of a shallow cave that had yielded nothing but some discarded beer bottles and the days-old remnants of an extinguished campfire. Maybe we're off somehow. Some of us could branch out along the farther ridge and check closer to the summit.
It's got to be here, Dante said. You saw the tapestry. That range Kassia sewed into the design is this one, right where we're standing. We're close, I'm telling you--
Hey, D. Nikolai was perched on a rocky promontory several yards above the mouth of the cave. Rio and Reichen just found another opening up here. It's pretty tight, but it goes deep into the mountain. You might wanna have a look.
Dante and Chase made a quick scramble up to where the others had gathered. The mouth of the cave--if you could even call it that--was a vertical slit in the rock. Small enough to be concealed unless you were right on top of it, yet wide enough for a man to sidle through with care.
Chisel marks, Dante observed, running his hand along the edge of the opening. Based on the weathering, they've been here for a while. This could be the place.
Six sober gazes held his as he drew the sword he carried and quietly gave the operation's commands. He would go in first, see how far the opening went and if there was anything on the other side. The others would wait for his orders-- two on guard outside the mouth of the cave, and the rest ready to move in behind him on his signal if they had in fact found the crypt.
He squeezed between the vertical plates of rock, his head turned toward the pitch blackness ahead of him. The smell of bat dung and mold offended his senses the deeper he crept inside. The air in here was cold, damp. There was no sound at all, only the soft scrape of his movement as he progressed.
Somewhere along the way, he noticed that the crush of stone was easing. The walls began to widen incrementally, then, at last, they opened up onto a cavernous space deep within the mountain.