Lover's Bite (21 page)

She decided to let all that rest for now. Her mother was right. The focus now had to be on their situation and on their options.

“I've become good friends with a vampire named Reaper.”

Her mother nodded. “I know. I was very worried about it, at first, but I—”

“You know about Reaper?” Topaz interrupted, staring at her mother with a frown.

“I told you, love, I've kept careful track of your life. Always.
Always,
Tanya.”

“It's Topaz now.”

“It's Tanya to me and always will be.”

Topaz sniffed skeptically but went on with her story. “Reaper used to work for the CIA. They did some stuff to him. Brainwashed him. And now they can control him with nothing more than a couple of trigger words.”

“Control him? In what way?”

Topaz drew a breath and decided to tell her the truth. After all, Mirabella's life was on the line now. She deserved to know why. Well, maybe “deserved” was too strong a word. She likely
deserved
to be drawn and quartered for abandoning her baby to the wolves the way she had. But she at least had a right to know.

“Reaper was an assassin for the CIA. Now he does the same job for the undead, taking out rogues when the need arises. The CIA wants him back. When they use his first trigger word, he becomes enraged, mindlessly violent. He'll destroy anyone in his path until and unless the second word is uttered. And we don't know what that second word is.”

Her mother's eyes grew wider as she listened.

“The CIA wants him back in their control. A vampire hit man, one entirely under their power, is too valuable a prize not to try to reclaim.” Topaz met her mother's eyes squarely. “They plan to use us to get him.”

“Jack will bring him in to save your life,” her mother guessed.

“Jack wouldn't cross the street to save my life.” Topaz wondered why those words rang so false to her, even as she uttered them. And yet, she told herself, they were true. “But Reaper would. He'll hand himself over to them for our sakes.” She put a hand on her mother's arm. “We can't let that happen.”

Her mother met her eyes, so much emotion swirling in her own that Topaz couldn't begin to interpret her feelings. “Then we won't,” she said. “But we're going to have to work together to get through this, Tanya. We're going to have to trust each other.”

Topaz stared at her and thought that trusting the woman who'd abandoned her was going to be a hurdle. But she would try.

B
riar hit him.

Jack hadn't been expecting it, hadn't been ready for it, and didn't even sense it coming. But when it did, he sure as hell knew it. She delivered a powerful uppercut to his jaw that snapped his head back, lifted him off the floor and sent him down again flat on his back. It hurt like hell, and surprised him even more than it hurt him.

He sat up slowly, shaking the stars from his eyes and glancing up to ask her just what the hell her problem was, but the words died on his lips when he saw the way she was struggling to get free of Reaper, who stood behind her with a solid grip around her waist.

“Dammit, let go of me!” she shouted.

Reaper stood calmly and showed no intention of complying with her demand. “You don't know the whole story.”

“I know all I need to know. That asshole's been ratting us out to the feds this whole time.”

“Ratting
me
out, Briar. And while I appreciate you getting this angry on my behalf—even while I fail to understand it—it's not necessary. I promise you that.”

She calmed marginally. “On your behalf, my ass. I was on the run with you, don't forget. Dodging spooks, seeing them show up almost before we caught a minute's rest anywhere we went. Your behalf? Shit. I don't act on anyone's behalf but my own.”

“I've known what Jack was doing the entire time,” Reaper said.

Briar went stone silent and stopped struggling. Reaper loosened his grip on her, and she turned to face him, her eyes widening. Jack pushed himself slowly up off the floor, sensing it was safe now. Behind him, Seth and Vixen were coming slowly forward, both of them looking every bit as stunned as Briar apparently was by Reaper's unanticipated revelation.

“At first I thought Jack was putting me at risk by keeping the agents informed of my whereabouts in exchange for money. I later realized he was giving them information, but he was giving it to them late. Keeping them a step or two behind me.” He glanced at Briar. “Us,” he corrected. “Still later I learned he wasn't doing it for money at all, but in exchange for information that might help him track down Topaz's mother. It was a closely guarded secret, what really became of her.”

“I thought they found that out on their own,” Vixen said. “When Topaz got that letter her mother left for her and compared it with the one her creator wrote.”

Roxy gathered Crisa off the bed. “Argue amongst yourselves. I'm taking this one to the van. We need to get her somewhere safe, feed her something, or she's not going to make it.” She carried Crisa out of the room, Ilyana rushing ahead of her to open the door.

Jack was straightening now, brushing off the back of his jeans. “Unfortunately,” he said, “these agents are as good at running a game as I am. Maybe better. They gave me information damn near as useless as what I'd been feeding them. Until we got here, at least. Once they knew we'd learned the truth about Mirabella on our own, they threatened to harm her unless I drugged Reaper and turned him over to them.”

Reaper nodded. “And he told me all about it,” he said to the others. “Jack hasn't done anything behind my back. Well, at first, but even then, no harm was intended.”

“Unfortunately, good intentions or not,” Seth snapped, “those bastards have Topaz
and
Mirabella now.”

“So what the hell do we do now?” Briar asked.

Seth sighed heavily, still battling the slowly fading effects of the drug. “You guys keeping shit from the rest of us is totally responsible for all of this. You both realize that, right?” He was shifting his angry gaze from Jack to Reaper and back again. “The only thing we can do now is find out where these agents are holding Topaz and Mirabella, bust in, kick ass and rescue them.”

“Won't work. They know how to secure a house and block mental communication, just like Gregor did.” Jack stood with his head lowered, his stomach in knots. The thought of Topaz in danger…the fear of the thoughts that might be running through her head right now. What she might be thinking. What those agents might have told her. She undoubtedly believed the same thing Briar had. What must she be going through right now?

Dammit, he should have told her the truth.

“Then what the hell do you suggest we do?” Seth barked.

A familiar “owwwwuuugaaa” sounded from outside. Shirley's distinctive horn. “I suggest,” Jack said, “that you all go out and take care of Crisa, and leave me to take care of the problem my actions created.”

“It's not your problem, Jack.” Reaper met his eyes. “I'm the one they're after. I'm the one who let all of you hook up with me, putting every one of you at risk.”

“And I'm the one who chose to deal with the devil to get what I wanted,” Jack said.

Reaper sighed. “Let's get out to the cars. We'll head back to the cabins, take care of Crisa, and try to figure a way out of this mess.”

As they retraced their steps out through the front hall, Jack noticed a cell phone sitting suspiciously in plain sight on the floor just to the right of the door. Something told him it wasn't there by accident, so he picked it up and slipped it in his pocket, wondering just when and how this particular chicken was going to come home to roost.

 

Crisa was, Briar thought as she opened the van's sliding door and climbed in,
exactly
what this band of misfits needed. Something about her wasn't right. And not in the same fish-out-of-water way Vixen had been a little off. This one was mental.

Crisa lay across the rear seat, eyes closed, shivering visibly. Ilyana, the unreadable skinny blonde, knelt on the floor, holding her hands, palms down, on either side of the wound in Crisa's arm, head bowed, eyes closed. Roxy was behind the wheel, and the engine was running.

Briar took everything in with one swift gaze, then went to the middle seat and sat down sideways, arm resting on the seat's back, eyes focused on the nut job, though her words were for the blonde. “You get the bleeding stopped?”

Without looking up, Ilyana said, “Between the patch-up job, Roxy's witchcraft and my Reiki healing, we've got it mostly stanched. But not completely.”

“She's not gonna make it without blood,” Roxy said. “And I'm not convinced that cold mortal shit in the plastic bags is going to be potent enough to save her.”

Briar looked forward at the image of Roxy's eyes in the rearview mirror, and Roxy looked back at her, even though she couldn't possibly see her, since Briar cast no reflection.

Still, the look Roxy sent her told her
exactly
what she was suggesting.

Briar glanced out the van's windows, only to see Seth and Vixen pulling away in the Mustang, following Jack and Reaper in the Carrera. She should never have surrendered the Mustang to Seth, and agreed to ride back in the van with the damned mortals and the wounded loon. But it was too late now. They were in a mad fucking rush to get back to their base—and if there was a more unlikely headquarters for a band of night walkers than a pair of beachfront cottages, she couldn't think of one—none of them aware the little nut wasn't going to last long enough to get there.

Briar didn't doubt Roxy's intuition on that score.

She focused on Reaper as the van bounded along the barely paved road.
Roxy says the whack job isn't going to make it back without a shot of vampire blood, pal. You'd best pull over and switch vehicles.

His reply was quick and firm.
Why would I waste time on that when you're right there with her already?

Because I'm not doing it.

There was a pause. Then,
We have to get to shelter before sunrise. We're already going to have to do eighty or better all the way to make it. No. We can't stop. You'll have to take care of it.

I'm not fucking doing it.

She felt his frustration.
Then she's going to die. Your call, Briar.

Briar stared at the screwed-up woman on the backseat. And even as she did, the girl's eyes opened and met hers head-on. They were unfocused and rather dopey, although Briar suspected that their usual state wasn't much different.

“Is Rey-Rey in one of the other cars?” Crisa asked in that childlike way she had that set Briar's teeth on edge.

“Would he be the skinny one who was with you at that hospital from hell?”

Crisa nodded, eyes drooping, then widening again. “I don't know why I feel so cold. I never feel cold.”

“You never feel cold because you're a vampire,” Briar told her. “We don't feel it the way mortals do. Didn't your precious Rey-Rey ever explain that to you?”

She shook her head. “So why do I feel it now?”

“Because you're dying.”

Ilyana gasped and sent Briar a look. Briar ignored it, got up, moved into the rear of the van and nudged Ilyana. “Give me some space, okay?”

Ilyana didn't need to be asked twice. She was still petrified of Briar. As well she should be, Briar thought, since she would just as soon eat the other woman as look at her.

Briar knelt on the floor beside Crisa. “Your friend Rey-Rey is already dead. If you'd prefer to go with him, I totally get it. Been close to suicide myself a few times, and I'll tell you right now, my only regret is that I didn't do it. Life stinks on ice, as far as I can see, and I'll probably off myself sooner or later. Would have by now, I imagine, except I'm kind of curious to see how this mess turns out. So if you wanna die, I'll let you. Go with my blessings. But if you don't, I can take care of that, too. It's really no skin off my nose either way. Totally your call. So what do you say?”

Tears had been pooling in the dying woman's eyes ever since the first sentence of Briar's little diatribe, and now they spilled over, running down her cheeks and sinking into the cloth seat, making dark blotches in the fabric.

“Rey-Rey is dead?” she rasped.

“Yeah. Sorry, kid. It's a tough break.”

“B-but he's a
v-vampire.
”

“And vampires can die. Though I don't imagine he explained that to you either, did he? Yeah, we can die. Just like you're going to in another couple of minutes.”

“He took care of me.” A full-body shudder worked through her. Or maybe it was some kind of spasm. One of those death throes you heard about, Briar thought. Crisa jerked all over, and then she stopped, her body limp, her eyes closed.

For a second Briar thought she was dead.

But then the girl pried those crazy eyes of hers open a little bit and said, “I'm too young to die.”

“I was afraid you'd say something like that.” Briar shook her head, but at the same time she rolled back her sleeve. She tripped the trigger in her ring that made the tiny blade flash out of its center and jabbed it into her left wrist. Then she held the cut to Crisa's lips. “Drink, then.”

 

Jack answered the cell phone on the first ring, even though he was driving. He'd told Reaper about finding the phone, and they'd both been expecting the call. He didn't say “Hello.” He didn't say his name. He said only, “If you hurt her, you'll die. If you even raise your voice in her general direction, you'll die. And it'll be slow.”

“Wow,” the man on the other end said. “So it's safe to say she's mistaken in her assumption that you wouldn't—how did she put that again? Oh, yeah, ‘cross the street to save her life.'”

“Why would she think that?”

“Probably hit her around the same time she learned you've been working for us.”

“You bastards.”

“Hell, Jack, it's not our job to fix your love life. You can take care of that yourself as soon as you get her back. Then you can start worrying about mother-in-law problems, just like the rest of us.”

Jack met Reaper's eyes, took the phone away from his ear long enough to hit the speaker button, then laid it on the seat between them. He was fairly certain Reaper could have overheard the conversation anyway, but he did it as a gesture. He needed Reaper to know that he'd told him the truth. “You've got me over a barrel, Magnarelli. Just tell me how you want to do this.”

“I'll tell you
exactly
how I want to do it. And you're going to do it that way. No changes. No adlibbing. No deals. This is a take-it-or-leave-it offer, Jack. You say yes to every term, or they both die. All right?”

“Depends on what you have to say.”

“I want Rivera. I want him delivered in broad daylight.”

“And just how the hell do you suggest I do that without both of us becoming toast?”

“Tranq him before sunrise. Stuff him in a body bag—I've left one for you in a strategic location. It's sun-proof.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

“It's been tested.”