Fangtastic (15 page)

“I know it. Have you seen Bobby?”

“Not yet.”

“What about the guy I'm supposed to grill?”

“It's Terrence.”

“The guy who looks like the Mad Hatter?”

“I know, right?”

“Got it.” I handed her the ring back and we returned to the men, chatting away about poisons. She was, anyway. The Feds must have briefed her for her role. Must have, because she couldn't really be that into death, could she? A BFF would know.

I debated waiting for Bobby, but for all I knew he was watching from afar. Plus, I suspected I'd do better with the Mad Hatter on my own than with an escort.

“I'm off to the bar,” I announced when we got back to the group. “Anyone else want anything?”

“Terrence, love, would you get me a bloody Mary?” Marcy asked. “I think I need some electrolytes or something. I'm feeling a little—” She swayed dramatically on her feet. Ghedri and Guy rushed to help her.

“Anything for m'lady,” Terrence said hurriedly, not even questioning why
I
couldn't fetch and carry. Oh, she was good.

I took Terrence's arm and held it in an iron grip as I steered him away from the clan. When I had him all to myself, I leaned in close. “So, I hear you were in with Dion's group. What's it like inside the cult?”

He jumped, and instantly tried to get his arm back, but I wasn't going to let him get away that easily. “I—I don't want to talk about that.”

“Too bad,” I said heartlessly. I let an ominous note creep into my voice. “You heard them say I was pulled into the club's inner sanctum. You don't think I was called in for nothing, do you?” I didn't know what they all thought went on in there, but clearly the inner sanctum was a source of awe. I could use that.

“What do you mean?” There was a tremor in his voice. I didn't want to be proud of putting it there, but …

I licked my lips, slowly, and that was clearly all he could take. There must have been fang showing. Really convincing fang. I ran my tongue over my teeth to check, lingering on the canines. Yup, sure enough.

“Nevermind. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, okay? Your boy Dion … he's lost it.”

“Lost it how? What did you see?”

“I don't”—he swallowed—“I don't want to talk about that.”

“Terrence, we've been over this. You're not going anywhere until you tell me.”

His gaze darted left and right, as if looking for rescue. He pulled away again, testing that there was still no escape, which, of course, there wasn't.

“The girl,” he said finally. “They fell on her like dogs. And now, the way they have her hooked up like some kind of Frankenstein's lab experiment … ”

“You said
they
, but you were a part of it. Weren't you?”

I could see the whites all around his eyes. He didn't answer right away, which was answer enough.

“I got out,” he said defensively.

“And they just let you go?”

His gaze stopped rolling around the room and he looked at me, really looked at me for a moment … and then his attention caught on something over my shoulder.

“Focus, Terrence. Come back to me. Who are
they
? What girl? I need you to tell me about her.” Who could it be? Elise's former roommate, Kinesha Williams? Someone we didn't know about?

But the sanity train had left the station. “No,” he said in a hush, as if to himself. “No, they didn't. They couldn't. They're here.”

He yanked at his arm, like his life depended on getting it free, like he'd leave it behind with me if he could just so the rest of him could escape. I looked over my shoulder to see who he was so afraid of, and froze.

Kelly Swinter sat at the bar, drinking something froufrou and pink. She raised it when she saw me glancing her way. She looked a little rough around the edges, which made sense for someone who'd only the night before been drained nearly to death and left behind in a burning building. But she also looked dark, deadly, determined, and completely fixated on us.

“Come on,” I said, tugging on the arm Terrence was so desperate to free.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Out of here, that's for sure.”

“Oh, thank God. I didn't think they'd dare come back, but—”

“Less talk, more walk.”

Terrence nearly lost his footing on the stairs, but a hand came out of nowhere to grab him and keep him from falling on his face. And attached to the hand was a nice arm …
very
nice, as I knew from intimate experience.

“Our informant?” Bobby asked, his gaze meeting mine and zapping me with that current that always threatened to restart my heart. Took my breath away every time.

“Our informant,” I agreed. “We're getting him out of here.”

“Then let's go.” Bobby cleared the way down the stairs, but as we got to the ground floor, I saw Elise lurking by the entrance.

“This way.” I aimed us all for the side door leading into the alley where Hunter had caught up with me the first night.

The door was propped open, as I'd known it would be, for people coming out for smokes. I yanked it wider and burst through, Terrence huffing and puffing at my side, Bobby one step behind me.

All of us headed right into a trap.

13

The door slammed shut behind us. I only had time to take in the sight of Nelson, Elise, and some new muscle-headed minion before I was whirling to face whatever was coming from behind.
Kelly
,
stil
l looking as pale as the grave, launched herself away from the alley door, swinging some kind of flat wooden bat with nails driven through it straight for my head. Bobby threw Terrence to the side, out of the way of the fight, and jumped in front of the bat, catching the impact with his outstretched hand. One of the nails pierced right through it, the blood lashing my eye, which I closed just in time.

Then one of those I'd turned my back on brought a
second bat crashing down on my head, and my world shattered into sharp shards of pain. I went down to my knees.

Behind me, Bobby gave an animalistic cry and suddenly Kelly went flying through the air toward my attacker. I didn't know whether he'd flung her off her bat or picked her up with his mental mojo—telekinesis was a wonderful thing—but either way, it was effective. Kelly struck Elise and both hit the pavement hard. Unfortunately, Nelson and his muscle-headed Burly Boy were still standing and rushed in to take the girls' place.

“Stop!” Bobby ordered, reaching for his other power, telepathy. He could compel others as well as talk mind-to-mind.

Burly Boy halted, but Nelson didn't so much as flinch. Of course he'd be one of the few who, like me, was immune to the compulsion.

Seeing him still rushing at Bobby, I rallied and got to my feet, swaying from the pain in my head that threatened to split me down the middle. Terrence, I noticed, was trying to crawl away, but one of the downed girls who'd landed nearby reached out to grab his ankle in a death grip. He cried out, but Bobby was my bigger concern. The world stopped moving on me just in time to see Bobby dodge the bat Nelson swung at him and then yank it out of his hand. He never saw the threat in the other hand coming—Nelson pulled a stake from a waistband or pocket or thin air and before I could react, it was buried in Bobby's chest.

He went down hard, and my heart went with him. The seams of my dress ripped as I let out a mighty roar and scissor-kicked Nelson, catching him right under the chin as he spun away from Bobby's fountaining blood. I didn't spare a glance for where he fell, but dropped to Bobby's side immediately, afraid to touch him, more afraid not to.

His eyes were open and he was staring at me, his mouth opening, but nothing coming out. The stake had hit right of center. Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking. The heart was slightly
left
,
right? No, the stake couldn't have hit his heart. I insisted. Not Bobby. He wasn't going anywhere. He was
mine
.

I dragged a nail across my wrist and got some drops into his open mouth before hands clenched on my shoulders and dragged me away. Burly Boy, free from Bobby's compulsion, had caught me. I fought against him like a wildcat, needing to get back to Bobby, to see if he'd swallowed, if he was alive. I didn't know … they never covered this kind of thing in super-spy training. Should I have pulled the stake? Could he heal with it still stuck inside him?

“Bobby!” I cried out, like that would help, like his name alone would bring him back from the dead.

“Take her,” Nelson ordered. “And Terrence.”

“What about
him
?”
Burly Boy asked, nodding at Bobby.

“He's no good to anyone anymore.”

“Nooo!” I didn't know if I said it out loud. I didn't know anything anymore except that
he could NOT die
.
Not for real. I kicked out again and managed to catch Burly Boy in the shin. He cried out and dropped all his weight onto his other leg, momentarily unbalanced so that when I hurled myself to the side, he had to let me go or fall along with me.

The girls were up again. Elise held Terrence in an
inescapable grip, but Kelly was free and, like her two friends, fully focused on me. It was three against one.

A war cry sounded from the end of the alley, drawing all eyes before the killer kids could jump me again.

Eric appeared out of nowhere, looking like something out of one of the
Librarian
movies. The crazy inventor came charging at us, swinging a cane from which he pulled a slender sword.

The kids didn't wait for us to bring the fight to them. Burly Boy dove for me again, sheer fists of fury since he'd lost his bat. I was unarmed but ready for him this time, and sidestepped, grabbing his arm as he went by to propel him forward—face-first, I hoped, into the pavement.

Eric reached my side, waving the sword around wildly to ward off the others and pulling something that looked like a watch out of his pocket. This was so not the moment to check the time. I was pretty sure the killer kids agreed. I could tell by their body language that Nelson and Kelly were getting ready to spring when a blur of motion came from behind and Eric dropped like a ton of bricks. Burly Boy had found his bat and used it upside Eric's head. I was next. Too stunned by everything that had just happened to dodge this blow, I went down, Eric's body half-breaking my fall.

“You'd better not have scrambled his brains,” Nelson growled at Burly Boy. “We need him.”

“His powers, not his mind,” Burly protested, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Just pray they're not one and the same. Load him up with the others,” he ordered.

I was grabbed roughly and tossed over Burly Boy's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The metal baseboards of the van cracked my back, but it was my front getting all the attention as Burly Boy felt me up, searching for contraband. He found my two phones and tossed them into the alley just as Nelson threw Eric in next to me. Elise thrust Terrence in as well. The latter scuttled to a corner of the van, where he huddled in a protective ball.

My heart ached for Bobby as the doors slammed shut, locking us in and him out. I couldn't help seeing that stake in his chest, blood pouring out, the vacant look on his face … I called out to him mentally to
fight
,
to live. Though I knew they couldn't hear me, I even cried out silently to Marcy and Brent to find him and to the universe at large. Bobby had a destiny. The psycho-psychic had said so. He hadn't yet achieved it, and therefore …
He. Could. Not. Die.

No one answered me. No one.

The whole van smelled like blood—Eric's, mine, Burly Boy's. Strangely, not Nelson's. If anyone had gotten in a decent blow at him, it hadn't so much as broken the skin. I wished him internal bleeding and much of it.

I needed to get some of that blood into me, to build up my strength so we could escape and take the kids down. Because I
would
take them down for what they did to Bobby. If it was the last thing I ever did.

I tested my strength. Sure enough, my legs twitched when I told them to and the rest of my body was coming back online, recovering from the repeated blows to the head that had knocked me all but senseless. Another minute or two and I could probably wrestle a kitten into submission. Maybe even a full-grown cat.

Nelson was too smart to get close enough for me to grab. But Eric … surely he wouldn't mind donating some blood to aid his escape. Maybe I could just lap up some of the blood that was free-flowing from his head wound, clean it up a little for him. But after what had happened with Kelly, I was still a little afraid to feed in need. What if I lost myself again and couldn't stop in time? Eric I actually liked.

I inched toward him, hoping the motion of the van would mask my movement. I'd no sooner gotten close than Nelson grabbed me by my shiny red belt and yanked me against him instead, wrapping his arms around me to hold them to my sides, careful to keep all of his extremities outside biting range. I kicked and fought like an alley cat, but it didn't do me a bit of good. For someone who was human, he was preternaturally strong, and for someone who looked all of seventeen, he was supernaturally scary.

I craned my neck until I could look him in the eyes. If they were windows into the soul, his was a neglected locker room—ripe and rank with the stench of body odor, sweat socks, and dirty jock straps. In a word, vile.

“Who
are you
?”
I gasped.

“I am
Chaos
.”

“Go to hell, that's my title.” Even if I didn't have the tiara and sash to prove it.

“The hell it is,” he answered as the van careened wildly around a corner, sandwiching me between Eric's unconscious body and his own evil incarnate. My skin literally tried to crawl away from Nelson's touch, but there was no escaping the iron grip. I started to focus on survival, watching the windows, trying to see where we were so that when we got away …

We stopped after ten to twenty minutes of hell, and Burly Boy leapt out to raise a door by hand. I could hear it rattle along its groove, even though I couldn't really see from my position on the floor. Some sort of garage or loading bay door, from the sound of it. Either not automated or without power. A fat lot of good that knowledge did when a third of the state seemed to be for sale or foreclosure. Deserted sites were probably a dime a dozen. I needed more intel.

Nelson hauled me out roughly. “I've got this one.”

Elise and Burly Boy reached for the others, and I saw Eric's eyelids flicker upward for a second. But if the light was on, no one was home. I didn't see any awareness, any fight. He was either a very good actor or Burly had really scrambled his brains with that blow to the head.

Nelson carried me through the hangerlike loading bay and into an area that looked like it used to be office space. The only things left behind were cheap metal carts, like the kind used to wheel supplies or mail around an office. Nelson started to tip me onto one of them as Burly Boy came through the door carrying Eric. The survival instinct rose up in me, and I kicked a foot free to send my cart careening into the next so that it slammed against the wall. Burly Boy dropped Eric to the floor to help Nelson with me. I clawed and kicked, but between them both they managed to get me up onto a cart and tied down with some kind of super-strong cord.

But I'd finally bloodied Nelson. He'd carry the scratches from my nails for a good long time. Maybe they'd even scar. A start on my payback for Bobby.