Burn the Night (29 page)

Kneeling on the ground behind her, I tightened the whip around her neck again, slowly choking the life out of her. I watched as her lips turned an ugly shade of blue and her eyes began to bulge from their sockets. Her long red fingernails clawed at the leather whip before finally dropping limp at her sides. I remained on the ground, holding her tight until I heard her heart stop beating at long last.

Unwrapping the whip, I stood, letting her fall to the ground in a heap next to her chair. She was hidden behind her large, tall desk and would go unnoticed at first glance. But I was running out of time.

As I replaced the whip at my side, I could hear heavy footsteps pounding up the cement stairs toward the first floor.

Coming out from behind the desk, I continued toward my right to finish off the last of the offices so I could meet up with Rowe. Unfortunately, the doorway to the stairway exploded open and men with guns poured into the office building. I paused where I was, trying to decide whether I should continue with my extermination or stop the men who offered the greater threat. Rowe could undoubtedly finish off the office workers without a problem or help from me. I needed to cover his back so he could work quickly.

Pressing my back to one wall, I waited for the footsteps to get closer. I clenched my knives in my fists, sending another streak of pain through my hands from the shards of glass still embedded there.

Blood dripped from me, staining the carpet in a motley spotted pattern. As the first man appeared around the corner, I swung both of my arms out. One knife buried deep in his muscular gut while the second one hit him in the throat. I continued to rip through his body, pulling the knives free as he collapsed to the floor in a convulsing, quivering mass of spurting blood.

The man behind him paused in horror. Like the others who had just burst in from the stairwell, he was dressed differently than those men I’d encountered so far in the office building, with their white shirts and striped ties. These men wore black pants and shirts in an effort to blend in with the darkness.

Weapons were openly strapped to their bodies, as if they were the ones selected to wage the coming war against the different races. If they were looking for a war, then I was willing to give it to them.

Placing my hand over that of the man who clutched a gun, I forced it up to his temple and pulled the trigger, blasting his brains against the opposite wall. He gave one last scream of terror before he slumped at my feet, dead, drawing more attention in my direction.

Flashlights flicked on, bright spotlights through the darkness, in an effort to spot their attacker, but I pulled back around the corner. While still cloaked from their view, I was dripping blood onto the carpet, which was bound to give me away eventually. Wiping my knives clean on my pants, I ducked low and swung around the corner. I took down one armed man after another. Gunfire filled the air as they frantically searched for the creature killing their men with amazing speed. A couple bullets skipped across my leg and another plunged through my shoulder, clipping my collarbone before I managed to finish them off.

Rowe appeared a couple minutes later, covered in blood, to find me sitting against the wall in the middle of a hallway filled with dead bodies. I once again wiped my knives clean on my clothes and shoved them back in the sheaths on my body. Most of my wounds had healed, but I was moving a little slower than I had minutes earlier. I had lost a lot of blood, and the glass still needed to be removed from my skin. I felt bruised and more than a little worn from the fights, but I would be able to manage as we headed down to the basement level. Below us, I could still sense a pair of lycanthropes, which I knew would be of interest to Barrett.

Smoke was starting to hang in the air on the first floor, and the temperature was steadily rising.

The fire we started on the second floor had grown and was now determined to make its way down to the first floor. While it had set off a panic among the humans, giving us the ability to easily sneak up on them, it was now cutting our time short.

“I think it’s time to call in Barrett,” I said as I slowly eased back to my feet by sliding my back up the wall.

“You’re hurt?” Rowe asked, looking more than a little surprised.

I shrugged and immediately regretted the action, as my collarbone was still struggling to mend.

“It was a narrow hallway and they got in a few lucky shots.”

“And the glass? You’re sparkling in the light,” he said.

“The witch got in one spell before I could kill her. You have any problems?”

“Nothing worth mentioning. The humans are dead and the naturi are alive. Just as it’s supposed to be,” he said with a wide grin.

“Don’t get too excited,” I growled. “We still need to get down to the basement and see what the coalition actually knows. The witch could see me, but she didn’t know what I was. It might mean they don’t know about our people yet. We need to be sure before we leave this place.” Rowe turned serious as he pulled the little black walkie-talkie off the waist of my pants and pressed the button. “Any problems?”

“None.” Barrett’s voice came back scratchy but easily understandable. “However, smoke is pouring out of the roof. I imagine that the fire department is going to be here soon.”

“Then you better haul your ass in here fast so we can get this done. There are two lycan waiting for you to play with.”

“I’m coming,” Barrett replied. And with him would be the entire fury of his pack.

Twenty-one

R
owe took the point going down the stairs while I headed up the rear, with Barrett sandwiched between us, his guns drawn. Rowe and I remained with our knives, preferring to stick with the old ways.

We were faster that way. Rowe paused at the bottom of the stairs and pointed toward the light coming from under the door.

“Private power generators,” he whispered, answering his unspoken question. “They’re ready for us.”

I didn’t doubt it. They had sent a dozen armed men up to the first floor and not one of them came back alive.

Standing back against the wall, Rowe pulled the door open. A barrage of gunfire flew in, peppering the staircase and far concrete wall. Rowe looked over at me and raised an eyebrow while smiling mischievously. It was a look that didn’t fill me with confidence.

“Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot!” he cried in a wavering voice, as if terrified. He even changed the pitch and tone, removing any potential threat from his voice. “I only came here to bring you one of these dirty werewolves when the lightning storm started.”

“Bring out the dog!” ordered a harsh voice. Rowe pulled me behind him, motioning for me to hold the door open.

In one smooth motion Rowe pushed Barrett down to his knees with guns in both hands. As I moved into the doorway, Rowe stood behind Barrett, who fired while Rowe flung knives at the visible enemies. Screams of pain went up for a couple of seconds in shock before the armed men answered with their own gunfire. I put one foot on Barrett’s hip and slid him out of the way while slamming the door shut. Bullets pounded against the thick metal door before they finally gave up.

“How many did you get?” I demanded, holding the door closed with my shoulder.

“Two,” Rowe replied.

“Four,” Barrett added as he changed the magazines in each gun so they were fully loaded again.

I quickly scanned the basement area and sensed only ten more men, at least three of whom were wounded. The lycans were still there, toward the back of the building.

“Do you think we should try that trick again?” Barrett asked.

“They’ve already moved away from the entrance to the other rooms,” I said, pulling one of the knives from my side. At the same time, the light seeping from under the door went out, plunging us into total darkness.

“They must have night vision goggles if they hope to take us in the dark,” Barrett grumbled.

“Night vision goggles?” I repeated, looking over at Rowe.

“Devices to allow humans to see in total darkness,” he replied quickly as he grabbed a fresh knife.

“Can you see anything at all, Barrett?” I demanded. My vision was fine. It had taken me a second to get readjusted, but I was accustomed to the darkness of the night.

“I’ll be able to in a minute,” he replied as he stepped away from us. He quickly stripped off his clothes and laid them in a rumpled pile at the foot of the stairs before changing into wolf form. There was no mistaking that this wolf was a shapeshifter. He was simply too large. I frowned. While he would have the edge in speed and added dexterity, he couldn’t wield a weapon beyond the massive jaws and sharp teeth he possessed. All told, I wasn’t sure that he had an advantage in his wolf form. However, I suspected he wouldn’t be able to see his opponent otherwise, and Barrett wasn’t about to allow us to leave him behind when we finally took down the last of the coalition members.

“Barrett, we’re going to leave the lycans to you to take care of,” Rowe directed, edging closer to the door again. “We’re going after the humans. If you can sniff out Daniel while you’re at it, give a howl and we’ll come running. Otherwise, we’ll have to beat it out of a couple survivors.”

“Hopefully he’s here,” I muttered before Rowe jerked the door open again.

He walked out first, scanning the area with both his eyes and his powers. No one was in the immediate corridor except for the prone bodies of six dead men leaking blood across the tile floor. Rowe and I moved silently down the hall, while Barrett’s claws clicked across the floor behind us.

We turned a corner and came upon a room with a set of windows in the wall, revealing men seated behind a series of glowing blue screens, furiously typing in away while glancing continuously over their shoulders.

“They’re trying to delete their information from the computers,” Rowe said. “I’ll take care of them. Continue down the hall and don’t get yourself killed.”

“As you wish,” I muttered under my breath while Rowe slipped like a ghost into the room, then quickly proceeded to kill every human inside. Three down. Just a few more to go.

Barrett accompanied me down the long hall to a pair of double doors. Gripping the blades tightly in each hand, I drew in a slow, steadying breath. My powers were completely useless, considering how far underground we were. I had to rely completely on my training as a killer. But then, Rowe had been very thorough in my training as a defender for the queen and a protector of the people. Yet, after spending most of my life trapped in a cage, I had begun to wonder if I would ever get the chance to try my skills out on armed humans.

As I edged the door open, I heard the ominous click of weapons being cocked and locked into position. Not hesitating, I dove into the room and leapt behind a tall set of crates off to one side. Gunfire filled the air, lighting up the black room. Barrett scampered after me and settled behind the boxes.

Bullets chipped away at the wooden crates and pinged off the concrete walls near us. We were pinned down, but that would only last for so long. It was only a matter of time before they started their approach and took aim from a significantly shorter distance.

“If I draw their fire,” I said to Barrett, “can you get behind them?” The wolf nuzzled my arm for a second before turning in the opposite direction to poke his nose out from behind the box. He was ready for me to draw their fire.

Pushing my back away from the crates, I rolled my shoulders and closed my eyes for a second as I summoned my wings. They sprouted from my back, tearing through the soft material of my shirt. The thick blackness of the wings blended with the darkness of the room, allowing me to stretch them to their full length before drawing them in again. Climbing carefully to the top of the stack of crates, I slithered across on my belly, then balanced on the edge with my wings extended. The ceiling was just high enough to allow me to glide a short distance. Unfortunately, I would reach the ground a few feet directly in front of them. Barrett only had one shot to get at them before I was torn to shreds by their weapons.

Clenching my teeth, I launched myself off the crate and glided across the room. I threw three knives down on them before they even took notice at the attack from above. Screams of horror went up and they moved their weapons so they were now pointed at me. Just before reaching the ground, I jerked my wings in and tucked my body into a ball so I rolled forward, making myself a smaller target.

Luckily, more screams went up, accompanied by a low growl as Barrett struck. To lend him a hand, I rolled back to my feet and jumped over the table the men who took refuge in the room had been hiding behind. With my knives slashing with frightening speed, I dispatched the last of them, while Barrett tore another man apart with his teeth.

The lights suddenly flicked on as we finished with the bloody work. I raised one hand to shield my eyes from the overwhelming glare, blood dripping on my nose and running down my cheek. I blinked a couple times and twisted around toward the entrance to find Rowe standing in the doorway, looking a little bloodier than he had been only a few moments earlier.

“Finished in here?” he inquired in a light voice.

My wings settled around my shoulders as I looked around at the carnage. An array of black and lethal-looking weapons was spread out on the table I’d leapt over. The four men in the room had been hacked to pieces in a matter of seconds and were now lying in pools of their own blood. “Just finished,” I replied.

“I took a peek around the place,” Rowe said, keeping his eyes on me as Barrett wandered off to a corner to change back into human form. “There are three locked doors. Two with lycans behind them and one with a human.”

“The human has to be Daniel,” Barrett said in a low, rough voice, just barely back in human form.

“What do we do about the other lycans? Are they prisoners as well?” I asked as we headed toward the door Rowe was holding open for us.

“Doesn’t matter,” Barrett said with a shake of his head. “They betrayed their people. They could have taken their secrets to their grave and they didn’t. They deserve death. But right now my main concern is getting to Daniel. We need to reach him before the fire department arrives and this place caves in around us.”