Hunter's Rise (38 page)

Toronto scowled as he skimmed the next message.

This entire compound is a fucking disaster—there’s shit
in here that’s toxic to humans even in small amounts. It’s poison. I’m also getting traces of cyanogenic glycosides and—

“Cyano what?” Toronto swore. Gibberish— it was all gibberish. He punched in a message.
Josiah? I’m not the chemistry freak. I’m not following this.

A brief moment of nothing and then, a short, terse explanation.
Like most poisons, it’s the amount you ingest that will get you. This isn’t just one kind of poison, either, it’s a shitload of poisons.

I told Rafe he needs to get out there with a team and start looking for dead bodies, because any human around this shit for long was a corpse waiting to happen.

Humans are fucked. For us, depends on how big a dose you get and how strong you are. The shit is poison, though. Could drive one of us crazy—eat the brain right up.

“Drive us crazy,” Toronto muttered. Lifting his gaze up, he studied the house. Sylvia had already opened the locks.

What if somebody was already on edge?
he texted Josiah.

Then this would push them over hard and fast.

He shoved the phone into his pocket just as Sylvia opened the door and slipped into the house… alone.

T

HERE
was another mirror. Hell. Did he have to use the same damn mirror? Sylvia caught sight of her ghostly reflection and even before she turned to face it, she knew what she’d seen.

The house appeared empty, but was anything but.

She could hear him, moving around somewhere below.

She could smell, too, that scent from the house in New Madrid. Beyond that, there wasn’t anything familiar about it. She didn’t like it, though. It smelled… wrong. Off. Like death.

This wasn’t
exactly
like the smell of death; it was close, like rotten meat, hidden away, or forgotten about. It hung on the back of her tongue, clogging her senses until she could hardly smell anything past it.

Past
him
, she corrected. It was coming from the vampire.

She paused by the mirror and made herself block
everything out. She didn’t need to breathe, so if she stopped relying on her nose, she wouldn’t have to worry about having that rotted stink in her head. Hearing a whisper of sound behind her, she moved to the side, drawing a blade.

And then she stilled as she saw Toronto prowling his way toward her. His eyes were glowing— swirling back and forth between pale blue and eerie gold.
Wolf eyes…

She lifted a brow and mouthed,
Outside
.

Shaking his head, he looked past her to the mirror. His nostrils flared and a ripple of distaste danced across his face, the gold in his eyes gleaming brighter, hotter.

Then he looked back at her.

So much for him waiting outside.

Turning back to the mirror, she reached up, sliding her hand along it. This one was newer, she supposed. The mechanism was hidden differently, too, took a moment to find it.

But once she hit it, the door slid open with a whisper and she found herself staring down a flight of stairs that were horrifyingly familiar.

He’d built it right over the spot, she realized. Exactly.

As a fist wrapped itself around her gut, she rested a hand against the wall. The smell was stronger now. Stronger. And the vampire wasn’t moving, either… waiting, she realized.

He was waiting… down there in that dungeon.

S

HE’S
here…

Kit peered toward the stairs and wondered why he didn’t run.

I need to run. I should—

There was another smell, too, and it was one that struck fear into the very heart of him.

But she was here…

I’ll save you, Sada
—

Even through the pain, he’d remembered that promise. And he remembered how he failed. He also remembered screams. Solomon’s screams as Harold drug him away.

But he’d paid. Good ol’ Harry. Kit giggled. He’d paid the price, oh, he had.

*  *  *

T

HAT
mad little giggle sent a shiver down Sylvia’s spine as it echoed up through the stairwell.

Judging by the way Toronto aligned himself at her side, he didn’t like it, either.

She wanted to remind him that he was supposed to be outside. Watching. Ready to chase…

Except some part of her didn’t really want him gone, and another part of her suspected whoever was down there wasn’t going to take off on them. If he was, he’d have done it already.

Swallowing the metallic taste of fear that had risen in her throat, she started down the steps. Memories slammed into her.

He’ll pay you—

I’m so sorry—

He wouldn’t listen—

I’ll gut you—

I’ll get you out… I’ll get you out… I’ll get you out I’llgetyououI’llgetyouout—

“You got out…”

The voice tripped her up.

It caught her off guard so badly, she almost tripped and went to her ass.

That voice. Oh. That voice.

Stunned, she turned her head, seeking out the speaker. Shadows danced along the edges of her vision, distorting everything she saw. A hand touched her shoulder. “It’s him. He uses shadows,” Toronto murmured, his voice all but inaudible. “He’s there.”

Glancing back, she saw where he was watching and she followed that line, staring through the shadows… and just like that, the illusion of darkness faded. She saw… a ghost.

“No.” She shook her head. “You… you’re
dead
.”

He stared at her, his eyes bleak, haunted. And mad. The light of insanity glinted there.

“You got out,” he whispered again.

“You
died
.”

He rose from his crouch on the floor, dragging his
tongue across his lip. And she saw the fangs. Fangs that seemed too large for his mouth. He had been a skinny boy, she thought distantly. A skinny, sad little boy who’d just wanted to try and undo a mistake…

Tears blurred her eyes. “I’m sorry, Christopher.”

He flinched. “
Don’t say sorry to me, boy
,” he parroted, his voice mocking.

Then he cocked his head, looking puzzled and confused. “You got out, Sada. How did you get out? I kept coming back, looking for you… but he said he killed you. Just like he killed Solomon.”

The pain in his seemingly young voice, the pain she saw in his insane eyes… it was real. “He didn’t kill me. After he was done playing with me, he just let me go.”

“He…” The man-boy looked down, thin shoulders stooped. A harsh sigh escaped him. “He let you go.”

“Yes.”

A harsh roar escaped him and he turned, driving one fist into the wall. The rock shattered under the impact, and Sylvia stared. Power rolled from him and she realized one painful fact. The boy she’d thought she’d killed… he was stronger than she was. He was insane. And he was strong.

“He killed Sol,” Christopher whispered. “He told me he killed you. After he made me drink his blood, he threw me out on the street and told me that I’d burn.”

Christopher turned a tortured face to stare at her. “All these years, I made myself pay for failing you… and he let you go.”

Small, hard muscles bunched— Sylvia saw it coming. But she was still too dazed to move.

Toronto didn’t have that problem. He moved her aside and she felt another ripple of power roll through the air.

When he moved in front of her, he wasn’t the pretty, laughing blond, nor the brooding silent stranger of the past few hours.

He was a hulking thing from the depths of a nightmare— torn between wolf and man and towering almost seven feet in the air, the werewolf caught the vampire as it came for them.

*  *  *

I

T
was disconcerting, Toronto had to admit, facing the illusive Kit. He’d been changed when he was still a teen, a young one, at that, possibly underfed. He didn’t look much older than fourteen, with dishwater blond hair that hung in his eyes, a thin face and big, summery blue eyes that somehow managed to look innocent despite the depravity that lurked behind them, despite the wild light of madness.

This was no innocent child he faced— Toronto knew that. But it threw him for a moment. It wasn’t until the vampire came for him, mouth open to reveal fangs, that Toronto was able to really get his brain on board with what his body already knew.

This was a killer.

A monster— one who was quickly losing any bit of sanity he might have once possessed. And Toronto’s job was dealing with the monsters.

This one just happened to come in an innocent-looking package— a strong, wiry one. Toronto threw the strong, wiry little bastard across the room after he sank vicious fangs into Toronto’s forearm, tearing it open. He went flying, crashing into the wall, and Toronto went after him. The boylike monster didn’t stay down long— strong, and fast, he was up and moving before Toronto reached up.

Catching him, Toronto hurled him across the room again, this time in the other direction. He wasn’t in the mood for a battering contest. He wanted the answers. He had to have those answers, and he wanted this over with.

Sylvia looked lost. He needed to get her away from here.

As he moved past her, he bent, grabbing one of the blades he’d dropped during his shift. It was a sleek piece of work— a mix of titanium and silver, one of his favorites. Custom-made, stronger than silver alone. As the vampire surged to his feet, Toronto aimed and threw. It went straight through a thin shoulder and buried itself into the stone wall. The vampire screamed. As the shock of the pain and the silver hit him, Toronto grabbed another blade— a longer one, this time, and drove it into the vamp’s belly, skewering him
and pinning him to the wall. Peering down into dazed, pain-filled eyes, he growled out, “I take it you’re the one called Kit.”

The vampire spat in his face.

“That’s a yes.” He could speak in this form— the words weren’t perfect, but they were understandable. Laying a clawed hand on the vamp’s throat, he squeezed. “Know what I am?”

“A furry, cock-sucking bastard?” With a wild grin, Kit jerked against the silver blades pinning him to the wall. His eyes were half-mad. It wasn’t just the pain doing it, though. It was more. Pain wouldn’t leave him smelling like that… like something inside him was rotting away. He was crazy.

“I’ll take that as another yes.” Flexing his claws, Toronto let them scrape gently over the thin neck. “We can do this fast. We can do this slow. I don’t really give a fuck. You know you’re going to die. You decide how it goes. I’d like to know why you changed Pulaski, but that’s a waste of time— you’re an evil little bastard and that answers that. So let’s get down to the big question— why expose us? Why did you leave a body for mortals to find?”

Kit panted. Then he coughed, a trickle of blood coming out of the corner of his mouth. “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Fun and all. Besides, you wanted him dead, didn’t you?”

Snarling, Toronto bent over and snapped his jaws shut, just a hair away from Kit’s face. In this form, he could practically bite the vamp’s head off. Not that he would— he didn’t want any of that foulness stuck inside him. “Dead is one thing… publicly dead is different. Why?”

“Why not?” Kit smiled at him, and that mad glitter in his eyes seemed to increase for a moment before a fit of coughing seized him.

Disgusted, Toronto jerked the blades out of him. “Crazy son of a bitch. I hope you’re ready to die— let’s see how loud you can scream.”

He jerked the longer blade free, ready to plunge it into Kit’s heart and be done with it. He had the answer he needed to give to Rafe— the man was crazy. He was a powerful vamp, trapped in the body of a young teenager— spending
eternity like that would be strain enough, but this guy’s mental state was already unstable. Somewhere along the way, he’d just lost it or maybe he’d come through the Change like this.

Didn’t matter. The madness had been eating at his brain for a good long while.

As he went to drive the blade into Kit’s chest, Kit moved… Toronto was prepared for that.

What he wasn’t prepared for was Sylvia, and as he went to catch Kit, Sylvia caught Toronto’s arm. Kit reached up, grabbing the silver blade from his shoulder and swiping out, trying to get to Sylvia with it.

Snarling under his breath, Toronto pulled her back as Kit stumbled a few feet away, blood oozing from his wounds in a slow flood. Silver-wrought wounds wouldn’t close easily and Toronto planned on killing him before he had a chance to heal up.