Brighid's Flame (2 page)

Tara hovered at one end of the nave, waiting for Vincent to find time for her, a flute of champagne in her hand. She was accustomed to hovering on the perimeter for her benefactor's attention. Vincent was rarely in residence at the Tower, and busy with business when he was. He'd always found time for her, however—rare hours that were the brightest spots of her new life. So as he circulated the room with Stephen in tow, she bided her time.

Tara had been trained to a hunter's patience. She just wasn't very good at it.

Julien materialized at her side, swirling a glass of rich brandy she'd made sure was available for him. “We needn't wait for them,” he said. “He'll need to charm the lot of them before the night's done.”

Tara nodded but didn't look away, hoping Vincent would give her some sign of being ready for her. Instead, Gwen took Vincent's arm and smiled at her, cocking her head in a clear signal of release. Tara understood—Vincent would see her at home.

She supposed she should have resented the dismissal. But Vincent had a great deal of work to be getting on with, and she would do whatever was needed to help him in his cause. So instead of waiting around, she smiled her agreement. “Let's go.”

Julien returned her smile, taking the now-lukewarm champagne from her and setting it aside along with his brandy before offering her his arm.

As soon as they were outside, however, he excused himself to answer his phone and stepped off to one side. Tara occupied herself with adjusting her wrap and studying the throng of people stretched along the opposite side of the street. Some took pictures while others raised protest signs.

A guard respectfully pulled her out of the open, indicating one of his colleagues should collect Julien, who in the course of his phone call had wandered unthinking onto the steps, his free hand in his pocket.

Something rippled through the crowd, like a shark fin through ocean waves. Tara's heart stopped, but not before the crack and flash of that potential violence bearing fruit.

Julien crumpled even as Tara's feet were already moving in instinctive panic. A split second after he hit the ground, she tore her gown sliding to his side. All around her, the Dante security detail launched into swift, well-trained action. The crowd broke apart like scattered pool balls, first going ragged at the edges as individuals and small groups disappeared, followed by larger bunches.

Tara ripped Julien's shirt away from his chest as he stared at her with blue, blue eyes. Blood pulsed from the burnt wound. Mouth dry, her nerve centers turned to ice that spread throughout her body. She turned to scream for Gwen.

Stephen was already at her side, handing her an earpiece and a stun gun. “Go,” he said.

Her hand clasped the handle of the gun with an involuntary curl of muscles that knew what to do better than her mind at this point. Her other hand fumbled to properly hook the earpiece around her ear. A small, rectangular, translucent lens slid out in front her eye.

Her training kicked in. She took one last look to Julien, whom Stephen had begun to administer to. His eyes had followed her, beseeching. Strange calm pervaded her, numbing its icy chill to nothing. Then she turned and began pursuit.

Chapter Two

Tara's bare feet slapped along the cool marble floor leading to Vincent's office. Her ruined shoes, one ankle strap broken, dangled from one hand. Her other hand clenched around her earpiece. The cold from the floor worked its way into her bloodstream until she couldn't stop shaking.

Stephen caught her in both arms before she could shove open the door of Vincent's office. His warmth permeated her body's chill, and she dropped her shoes to accept his embrace. She allowed herself the familiar comfort, but soon pulled away. “How is he?”

“No word yet.” He didn't let go of her, not completely. His brilliant eyes compelled her into relative calm. “It'll be all right.”

Tara stepped back, both hands sliding into his and squeezing as she released the earpiece into his care. She took one or two breaths to brace herself. “I'm ready.”

When they entered Vincent's office, the entrepreneur came out from behind his sleek, unadorned desk, arms open to her. She rushed into them and reveled in his strength as she couldn't with Stephen. “I'm so sorry, Vincent.”

He hushed her. “This is in no way your fault.” He smoothed her hair back with tender hands, cornflower eyes avid. “Do you understand me, Tara? No one—not me, not Gwen, least of all Julien—blames you in the least. But I need you to focus so we can resolve this.”

She nodded, and made the vast effort to pull her shattered emotions together. His hands still on her bare forearms, Vincent nodded at Stephen over her head. Then he pulled Tara with him back behind his desk, an obvious signal that he required her at his side.

Stephen slid his tablet from where he'd apparently left it on Vincent's desk, leaving the earpiece in its place. “You got him pretty early on with the dart gun,” he said, his hands now free to work with the tablet. A smaller version of the satellite feed at the St. John's event pixelated over the office rug, hanging in midair.

“Adding a tracker dart emitter to our standard issue stuns was a smart move.” Tara watched carefully, shoving all feeling firmly into a box to be dealt with later. Then she folded the box, over and over again, into a neat origami square. She continued to fold until it was the size of an index card, which she then filed away. Gwen would have been proud.

The crowd and buildings across the street from the cathedral swam into view from the perspective of the lens on her earpiece. Within a few moments, the feed stabilized. In the right-hand margin, a running list of coordinates and calculations scrolled rapidly enough to make her dizzy. Stephen, she knew, had no trouble skimming and absorbing the information she only discerned as a blur.

In any case, Tara's focus was on her shadowy quarry, both in the video and in the present. Her mind worked furiously, capturing details, cataloguing some and dismissing others as irrelevant. Within a few blocks, her gun came into view and fired.

Now a map appeared in the top right-hand corner of the busy margin, a red dot tracking Julien's shooter. But still no clear picture of the man could be had in the shadow-blurred, oily streetlights. Tara growled in frustration. She couldn't bear another thirteen blocks worth of no answers. “Can we get another angle?”

“Let's see.” Stephen fussed with the tablet while Tara kept a firm stranglehold on her patience. The perspective in the video shifted, and the three of them leaned forward.

Still nothing at first. If anything, visibility was worse. All she could make out was a flash of gray and red from the shooter's hoodie, the hood pulled up. Ironic, she thought, that the bastard should be wearing one of the sweatshirts the Dante Foundation handed out in the hundreds on a weekly basis. Then—

“Stop the video.” Tara left the sanctuary of Vincent's desk to confront the image before her. She knew him. What's more, without watching the little red dot on the map, she knew where he was heading. She didn't bother wasting time deciding whether or not she believed the evidence of her own eyes. “It's Nearly Nick,” she and Stephen chorused.

Vincent's eyebrows lifted. “Nearly what?”

“Nearly Nick,” Tara repeated. Excitement for the hunt buzzed through her veins as she turned a tight smile on her guardian. “He's the reason you found me.”

Gwen intercepted Tara outside Julien's rooms. The sultry redhead had exchanged her evening gown for one of her stark business suits, minus the jacket, and with the sleeves of her Oxford shirt rolled up to the elbow. She held her arms open to Tara with a maternal smile.

Tara let relief wash over her. Gwen wouldn't be so calm if Julien weren't going to recover. She breathed in Gwen's comforting, familiar scents of cool water and misty gardenia, tempered by expensive beauty products.

Gwen soon put her fears to rest. “He's going to be fine.”

“Can I see him?”

“In a moment. He's being given something to sleep.” Gwen draped an arm about Tara's shoulders, drawing her away from Julien's half-open door. “Tell me.”

Tara held nothing back. Gwen didn't seem surprised to learn the identity of the shooter. She knew very well Tara's history with Nearly Nick—so-called because, as the salvage dealer himself put it, he was so generous in his dealings he was “nearly Saint Nick.” Tara supposed he considered himself charming.

Stephen had been so unbelievably sick that winter, sheltering practically outdoors with few resources. She'd been desperate, and so she'd gone to Nick. And Nick had exploited her need to coerce her into stealing medicine from the Dante Foundation, who had not yet gotten around to doing anything about the Central Park Shanties.

She'd been caught, of course. But her failure had ultimately brought her and Stephen to Gwen's attention, and thus to Vincent's. The rest, as they say, was history.

“So you're going back home,” Gwen guessed.

“No,” Tara corrected. “I'm just going back to the beginning.”

Finally, she was given approval to see Julien. She hovered in the doorway of his bedroom suite, the spacious room fully windowed ceiling to floor along one wall. The panorama of New York City at night was still magical, even in this day and age. It never failed to take her breath away, to amaze her in its very real, tangible proof of how far they had come, she and Stephen. She was reminded every day, by the similar view in her own rooms on the opposite side of the Tower.

Julien lay propped up in bed, the low lights gilding his hair and skin. His shirt was undone to the waist, muscled chest rising and falling with his shallow breathing. Anger pooled in her gut, churning with dread.

He sensed her presence. Her breath caught as his head turned slowly, eyes drifting open as though from a nap on a lazy, sunny Sunday. His smile when he saw her was little-boy sweet. “Tara.”

She approached the bed, afraid of causing him further harm. She perched on the edge with as much delicacy as she could manage. There were deep, purple bags under his eyes, and his bandaged chest was bruised. “Oh Julien.”

His hand covered hers. “It's all right, darling. I'll be up and running things again before you know it.”

Her heart caught at the endearment. It had to be the painkillers. She slid her hand from under his and unthreaded his tie from his collar with exquisite care. His eyes never left hers. “I have to go away for a while,” she told him, voice soft.

“Over this.”

“Yes.” She put his tie aside and oh-so-carefully began the painstaking process of removing his blood-caked shirt. She slid the tailored fabric from his shoulders, down arms made strong by his years of boxing and fencing.

Despite being wounded, his vitality still shone, drawing her in, wrapping her in warmth. Julien freed his arms from the sleeves of his shirt, first the painful left, followed by the right. As soon as he was free, he reached for her.

Definitely the painkillers.

His kiss was something she'd longed for since she'd first seen him at the age of fifteen. The reality proved so, so much better. He tasted of the brandy he'd had at the event, brandy and fire. It filled her, as his good hand sank deep in her hair, his mouth claiming hers with all the savoring of a ten-year wait.

“You'll be careful,” he told her, forehead pressed against hers, breath harsh in his throat.

“Yes,” she agreed, breathless, as he kissed her again.

Tara awakened just as a tarnished sun eked its head over the decayed steel horizon, the morning mist wreathing the upper reaches like smoke. Her right leg was hooked over Julien's left, her arm draped across his bare abdomen. He was deeply asleep, a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth.

Blushing furiously, Tara eased away from him. He murmured and covered her hand over his stomach, stopping her in place. Within a few moments, his breathing deepened once more, and she was able to fully extricate herself.

She slipped from his suite, clicking the door shut behind her. Gathering the hem of her ruined gown in one hand, she escaped to her own rooms. She debated whether or not she was disappointed that Julien had passed out from the drugs before his attentions could escalate from kissing. On one hand, she'd waited so long for Julien to indicate he was ready for more from her. On the other, now that he had apparently decided he was, he'd applied his characteristic persistence and drive to the matter. When Julien knew what he wanted, he didn't like to wait. But Tara would prefer to savor the experience of being wooed by him, now that things were changing between them.

Ten minutes and one invigorating shower later—even the great Vincent Dante was subject to hot water rationing—saw Tara exiting her bathroom, tying her knee-length kimono of silver gray in place. Stephen was just entering her living room, breakfast tray in hand. “Is that coffee?” she asked hopefully.

He grinned, his dark sweater turning his eyes to jade. “Would I ever let you down?”

“Forgive me for doubting.” She took her customary seat at the smoked-glass table for two at the windows overlooking the Hudson, gesturing her usual invitation. “What are we working with?”

Stephen poured the coffee, added a dash of cream and two sugar lumps to his. “How is he?”

“Resting. He'll be up and about in a few days.”

Stephen nodded. “You'll have to go in unarmed. We can't risk you getting caught in the Shanties with an open weapon, not even the stunner.”

Tara's amused smile flat-lined, but she nodded her understanding. Weapons were strictly forbidden in the Shanties—which only meant weapons tended to be restricted to the creatively concealed or homemade variety. She would have to improvise. “Something tells me you won't leave me unprepared.”

“The van leaves in an hour. Will you be ready?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Who's doubting now?”

“Perish the thought.” Stephen sat back, one leg crossed over the other as he regarded her over the fragrant steam. “Why do you think Nick did it?”

Tara wrapped both hands around her china cup. “Does it matter?”

“It might. The Dante Foundation has probably put a crimp in his business operations, for one. We fill a need in the Park he doesn't.”

“Yes, but how does shooting Julien change that? Vincent—”

She stopped, frozen in realization. She pictured Julien and Vincent standing side-by-side, as she'd seen them last night. This image changed to a tall, golden figure in an expensive tuxedo surrounded by security. A shooter made night-blind by the city's obscuring pollution and the rising anger of a crowd verging on mob, their signs bobbing aloft. The figure pulled into the shadows by a guard. The shooter, overly-anxious, nervous, and with underground resources able to obtain nearly anything.

Underground.

“Tara?” Stephen took the cup from her hands before she dropped it. “What's wrong?”

“What if Julien wasn't the target at all?” she said, eyes still blank with the horror her imagination wrought. “What if the target was Vincent?”

They stared at each other. The Dante Foundation without Vincent Dante—inconceivable. Not to mention devastating for the city. Tara, Julien, Stephen, and Gwen could all work ten times as hard as they did at present, but without Vincent, no one would take them seriously.

Tara's fists clenched. It took supreme conscious effort to uncurl them. There had been threats, of course—even before the fall of Dreamtech, Vincent had cultivated plenty of enemies looking to stop him gaining a foothold. But this was the first time anyone had actually attempted to take a shot at him. And why Nick? “We need to find out what's going on. Now. We can't give them another opportunity.”

Stephen checked his ever-present tablet. “Vincent's indoors all day in meetings. Gwen will be with him the entire time.”

So there was
some
good news, at least. Tara had been wondering when it would be along. “Get everything ready. I'll be with you in half an hour.”

When he was gone, Tara remained where she was, cooling coffee forgotten. She stared at her milky reflection in the cup, at her sleek new haircut, the graceful press of her manicured hands on the ivory china. Her nails were polished nearly the same color. Then she looked out over her misty city, and thought again how fortunate she was.

She set her coffee cup back down on the glass table with a muted
chink.
Then she went to her closet and opened the double doors. She wasn't much of a shopper—she had no affinity, let alone interest, for it—so most of the clothes inside had been chosen by Gwen.

A small trunk sat in the corner, concealed behind her long coats and wraps. She knelt on the rug and pushed aside her black overcoat with one hand so she could pull the trunk into the light with the other. She hadn't so much as acknowledged the trunk since she'd filled it and closed it ten years ago. She hadn't bothered locking it, as there was nothing within worth taking. The keys still dangled from the lock, the combination set at triple zero. She pressed open the clips on either side, and found them stiff with disuse.