Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: Shadowmaster\Running with Wolves (10 page)

“Sammael said he wasn't to be harmed,” she said, holding Brita's gaze. “Will you leave him alone?”

“I'm sure that's exactly what
you
want,” Brita said. “But Sammael's still my Boss. I'll wait.”

“Then you take him. I'll hold these guys off as long as I can.”

“You never did tell me what you are,” Brita said as she bent to grab the Enforcer.

“As I recall, you avoided the same question.”

Brita barked a laugh, lifted the Enforcer in a fireman's carry and hurried away, vanishing into the mist that had settled over the Fringe. Phoenix crouched just inside the doorway of the building, watching as The Preacher's men emerged out of the low-lying fog and advanced, some breaking off from the larger group and circling to either side of the building.

Ten. Using both her Aegis training and half-dhampir strength and speed, she could probably take five of them down in quick succession. But the others would be coming at her at the same time.

If Sammael were with her, they could do it together. But she wanted him well away from this. After what she'd done, he might simply choose to let The Preacher have her.

Never,
she thought. But now that she knew she might die at his enemies' hands, her thoughts drifted to the impossible what-ifs: What if she and Sammael had been born on the same side of the war? What if they could have been true lovers? Not just for sex, but—

Her foolish dreams ended when the first three Fringers ran straight for her, wielding highly illegal burners, knives and rebar welded into clubs. The burners were the most dangerous, and Phoenix let the advance guard think they had her before she feinted to one side, darted in and grabbed one of the weapons, smashing the trigger and tossing it aside.

Immediately the other man with the burner fired at her, and Phoenix barely got out of the way, rolling and springing to her feet just in time to avoid another blast. She charged the man, struck him hard in the face and wrenched the burner out of his hand. She turned it on the third man, who was almost on top of her. He stopped, staring at the deadly weapon in her grip.

By then, another five of The Preacher's men were coming at her, fortunately armed only with hand weapons more easily countered. Phoenix torched the ground in front of them, and they fell back, their faces contorted with rage and the uninhibited desire to do any number of terrible, ugly things to her before they killed her.

“If you're after the Enforcer,” she called, “he's gone.”

“Because you let him go!” one of her opponents shouted back at her. “We know why you're here! If you give yourself up, we may decide just to sell you back to the Squeezers instead of...” He grinned, showing a mouthful of black and missing teeth.

He said they knew why she was here, Phoenix thought as she weighed her next move. But did they mean they knew she wanted out of the city, which must be common knowledge by now, or that she was working for the Enforcers, or Aegis?

They couldn't know that she was part dhampir, or they would have been more cautious in attacking her. Checking the burner again, Phoenix realized that the magazine was nearly empty. It wouldn't be good much longer. And she could hear the men who had split off from the group moving behind her. Two of them were coming through the building, one around the side. She might avoid them, but she had six still-viable fighters facing her.

She decided again on the direct approach and ran straight at the closest man, grabbing his arm and twisting it until he was forced to drop his club. She swung the club at the next nearest opponent, hitting him square in the jaw. Bone snapped, and he fell back with a scream. Two other men came at her, and she felled one with a roundhouse kick but narrowly missed another, who was nimble enough to dodge out of her way.

But the other three were still behind her, and she had to divert her attention long enough to take one of them out. A sudden light caught her eyes, and for a moment she was blind. Something struck her hard on the shoulder, leaving her numb on one side and utterly unable to defend herself.

She blinked as the two men who had been behind her were lifted off the ground, feet dangling, collars twisted into their necks by hands stronger than any human's. Sammael knocked the men together and tossed them to the side like torn sacks of Fringe garbage.

The few men still standing took one look at Sammael and stumbled away. The sun broke through the mist, glinting over the tops of the low buildings to the east. The Preacher's crew ran without looking back. Phoenix let them go, and Sammael made no move to follow.

Instead, he backed away, head bent, until he was inside the building's doorway. Phoenix followed quickly. She knew at once that he was hurt in some way, though his clothing seemed intact and unbloodied. His headlamp was gone.

The moment she was inside he leaned against the nearest wall, gripping his arm. He looked up and met her gaze.

His face was red and blistered, but it was his expression that stopped her cold.

“What are you?” he asked, his voice hoarse and rough. “I saw you fight. You shouldn't have been able to see well enough in the dark to get here, or stay ahead of me.” He blinked, his eyes watering through the puffiness of his eyelids. “Dhampir?” He breathed in sharply and winced. “No. The eyes are wrong.”

Phoenix knew she had to be honest with him now, as honest as she could. Some part of the truth would be so much more convincing than lies she couldn't back up.

But it was very hard to think when she was looking straight into his badly burned face.

Chapter 10

“Y
ou're right,” Phoenix said, calmly holding Sammael's stare. “I'm not completely human. But I'm not a dhampir, either. They haven't got a word yet for what I am. My father was a dhampir, sent on a suicide mission by Aegis. My mother was human, and she died soon after my father failed to return.”

Sammael laughed, the sound as raw as if he had swallowed fire. “I should have seen it. There were signs, if only I'd—”

Phoenix swept down before he could finish and grabbed him as he fell. She eased him to the floor.

“What happened to you?” she demanded, looking him over more carefully. “Your face, and your hands...”

“Burners...will do that,” he said, no longer looking at her.

“If one caught you in the face, you're lucky to have your eyes or any of your features,” she said, thinking desperately of some way to treat his wounds. She knew the pain must be excruciating.

“Looks worse than it is,” he whispered hoarsely. “Just leave it alone.”

Phoenix didn't even bother to respond. She had no ready source of water, no cold packs or bandages, nothing to help him.

But he was a Daysider. He would heal, certainly more quickly than a human. She didn't know if he would scar, but she was simply grateful he was alive and in one piece.

“You weren't burned when you saved my life,” she said.

His eyes, frigid with hostility, met hers again. “I wasn't burned by those men. I got these while I was on my way to you.”

“More of The Preacher's men?”

He grunted in answer.

She decided not to press for details. “How do you know so much about dhampires?” she asked.

“Who doesn't?” he said with a curl of his lip. “I asked you before if you worked for Aegis. You denied it. But if you're even part dhampir, you have to be with them. They don't let non-humans run around the Enclave unsupervised.”

“No, they don't,” Phoenix said, sitting beside him. “But I'm not good enough to serve as an agent. I did work in the lower levels of Aegis, and I did get unsupervised access to classified information. I intended to use it against the Agency somehow, but I never got the chance before they realized what had happened.”

“You
intended
to use it against them?”

“For what they did to my father and mother. Losing him killed her. The Agency raised me like some kind of estranged aunt who didn't want the burden of a niece she'd never met. I didn't belong anywhere. I have no reason to be loyal to them, and every reason to make them realize that dhampir agents aren't just objects to be thrown away to keep humans safe.”

She stopped herself before she was tempted to embellish the story, which he was going to doubt, anyway. But there was something in his face that suggested he found her tale more plausible than the one she'd told him before. As if the idea of revenge made perfect sense to him.

“So you still want to escape the city?” he asked. “Then why did you turn on me?”

“I'm sorry, but I couldn't let you throw that Enforcer to the Scrappers, even if they have every right to want to tear him to pieces.”

“You believed that was what I intended?”

“I couldn't take the chance.”

“Where is he now?”

“I ran into Brita, literally. She took him back to the Hold.”

“Why would you think she wouldn't just kill him?”

Sammael, of course, still had no idea that she knew what Brita was, but he also knew what any Opir was capable of.

“She'd probably give him a quicker death,” Phoenix said, “and I wasn't going to run into the arms of the nearest Enforcers just to save him.”

He stared at her, jaw set. “You've won
him
a reprieve,” he said, “but unless you leave immediately, I will be keeping you at the Hold indefinitely.”

She shrugged. “Thanks for the generous offer, but given the condition you seem to be in, you can't very well keep me. I could get away anytime. But I don't plan to leave until I have a sure way out.”

“I may decide never to help you escape.”

“I'll take my chances.”

He shifted, the muscles under his seared skin contracting. “Why haven't they sent Aegis after you?” he asked.

“I don't know. It may simply be because they figure the Enforcers can handle me.”

“Have they seen you fight?”

“I never got the chance to show them.”

He clearly knew she was still holding something back, as she had so many times before. “So you're an outcast after revenge,” he said, “but you still don't want to hurt the ones hunting you.”

“Maybe revenge means killing to you. It doesn't to me.”

He closed his eyes. “I know you can find your way back to the Hold. Go and take care of your Enforcer. I need...” He averted his damaged face. “I need to rest.”

“I can carry you back.”

“I don't think so.” He took in another ragged breath. “Just leave me alone.”

He began to rise, gasped and thumped against the wall. Phoenix grabbed his arm and forced him to sit again, aware as she did so how violently he flinched at her touch.

She backed away and sat on the floor a safe distance away. “You're not completely human, either, are you?” she asked, deciding she had nothing to lose by revealing her knowledge when he couldn't hurt her.

And because she didn't believe he would. Not even to protect himself and his mission. His face had swollen with the burns, but she couldn't mistake the change in his expression. He was genuinely startled, as if he'd expected her to say something else entirely.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“For a while,” she said. “I realized you couldn't be full Opir, or your teeth would show it.” She touched her own normal incisors. “I assume you don't drink blood.”

“Then what do you think I am?”

“Why don't you tell me?”

“I'd like a few answers first,” he said, his body visibly relaxing. “How is it that
you
had a dhampir father, when nearly all of them were children at the end of the War?”

“Nearly all,” she said. “But some were fathered before the War began, before the Awakening, from humans the Opiri Elders took as serfs when they were the only Nightsiders roaming the earth. My father escaped to the Enclave in the middle of the War, and found sanctuary here. Back then, half-Opir children were treated no better than serfs by the full-blooded. But they were valuable, the same way they are now.”

“For their blood,” Sammael said. “An aphrodisiac with potentially addictive qualities.” He laughed. “When you tried to seduce me, were you hoping to use your blood against me?”

“Aegis doesn't believe that a half-dhampir's blood would have the same effect,” she said.

“Yet even true dhampir children were abandoned in droves once the War was near its end,” Sammael said.

“Most of the Opiri who abused and abandoned our women were masterless Freebloods. They weren't interested in hanging around to care for any children they fathered.” She paused. “But you know all that.” She sighed. “Now it's your turn.”

“My mother was a dhampir,” he said slowly. “She also escaped, toward the end of the War.”

“Is she still alive?”

“They're both dead, like your parents.”

Phoenix's heart ached that it was so easy for him to spin such a lie, a past that so deliberately echoed her own. “What happened?” she asked.

“My mother was killed by humans because of her Opir blood,” he said, utterly without expression. “My father attempted to take revenge and was killed by Enforcers. That is why I became a dissenter and an enemy of the government.”

“My God,” she said. He was so convincing. She could almost believe he was exactly what he claimed to be.

“I understand why you hate Enforcers,” she said, “and why you'd want to kill your captive. But I'd have to try to stop you if you tried.”

“I don't understand why you care about him at all.”

“Maybe I just admire his courage. As I know you do. But I do wonder why you help humans when they killed your father and mother.”

“I don't blame everyone for the work of a few.”

But he'd help kill them, anyway, Phoenix thought with anguish. “I guess being a Fringe Boss is a way of spitting in the face of the people you
do
hate.”

“You're very perceptive,” he said.

But not enough,
Phoenix thought. Not enough to understand how he could be the man he was and still be part of the potential destruction of the Enclave.

“You need to get back to the Hold,” she said, “so those burns can be properly looked after.”

“Rest is what I need now,” he said. “And since—as you so accurately pointed out—I can't very well hold you prisoner,
you
go back. I'll follow when I can.”

His stubbornness left her at a loss. Yes, he needed rest, but they weren't so far from the Hold, and he now knew that she could carry him.

Maybe it was simply that he wanted her to think he was much weaker than he was, so he wouldn't reveal what she knew to be true...that he was really a Daysider.

“All right,” she said, getting to her feet. “But I'm going to find some water first. You're going to need it.”

She searched the building for any sign of plumbing that still functioned, but found nothing. That was only to be expected, since it would be inhabited if the Scrappers had the necessary resources available.

She had more luck in one of the adjacent buildings, where there were, in fact, several families of Scrappers getting by with whatever was available. Unlike the ones she'd met with Sammael and the young Enforcer, these people were more suspicious than hostile and were willing to share a bit of water when she told them that a friend had been burned by The Preacher's men. She thanked them profusely and returned to Sammael.

He was fast asleep, though she was amazed he'd permit himself to take the risk. She set the bowl of water down, along with clean scraps of fabric, and bathed his face with extreme care. Once he was partly awake, she made him drink and half-carried, half-pulled him into deeper cover under a stairwell, making him as comfortable as possible. He was too exhausted to fight her.

There was no question of leaving him alone now. But by late morning Brita had returned, and she ran off immediately to fetch a pair of Sammael's larger male crew members. They carried him back to the Hold, Brita in the lead and Phoenix following, alert for the slightest hint of danger. Brita looked at Phoenix narrowly, but seemed satisfied that Sammael's
“guest”
hadn't learned more than she should know about the Boss. She believed Sammael's secret was still safe. For now.

Once they reached the Hold and the men set Sammael down, he shook them off and stepped back. He seemed better than he had, Phoenix noted—his face less swollen, less pain in his eyes, more grace in his movements.

“I'll see the prisoner now,” he said.

Brita and Phoenix began to protest, but he gave each of them a look that silenced them both. Though he appeared to be stronger, Phoenix didn't doubt for a moment that he needed more rest and whatever treatment she could offer to augment his natural healing abilities.

Claiming to have important business to attend to, Brita left. Phoenix followed as Sammael strode down the corridor with the big men at his heels. Before he entered the room, he beckoned to Phoenix. “I want you to come in when I rap on the door,” he said.

“Why?” Phoenix asked cautiously.

“Maybe you can shed a little more light on why he behaved the way he did.”

“I'll do my best,” she said.

“I think you will,” he said, and closed the door between them.

* * *

“Who are you?” the young Enforcer asked, his voice strained with the effort to conceal his fear.

Drakon paced slowly back and forth in front of the prisoner's chair, concealing his pain and exhaustion as he passed in and out of the circle of light focused on the Enforcer's face. He truly
was
little more than a boy, probably no more than twenty, with a slightly square jaw that still had a bit of softness to it. If he were anything like his father, he'd have nothing left of that softness soon enough.

But Drakon was amazed that the young man had been permitted to become an Enforcer, let alone work without an experienced partner at his side. If Drakon had had any choice at all, he'd never have taken the boy. But he hadn't been left with a choice.

Then. But now...

“Who do you think I am?” Drakon said.

“You were with the traitor,” the Enforcer said, turning his blindfolded head this way and that as he tried to gauge the size and dimensions of his surroundings. “You're going to be in big trouble for taking me, but maybe if you give her up...”

“I don't think I'm the one in trouble,” Drakon said. He glanced at the door. Several of the crew were outside, awaiting his decision.

Having the young man eliminated would still be the simplest course, as long as Drakon was very careful to make it look like an accident or the work of one of the other Bosses. More specifically, The Preacher's.

And Drakon was tempted. One of the two men he most hated would suffer greatly because of his death. But Lark had threatened to stop him—or try to—if he attempted to carry out the most extreme option. And Drakon didn't want to hurt her unless he had absolutely no alternative.

“The patrolmen are doing their jobs,”
she'd said,
“and it's not their fault if their superiors believe I'm a traitor.”

Doing their jobs, Drakon thought bitterly. Just as he had done in his human life, before he had seen his error, before he had been deported to become a serf in the Opir Citadel.