Lover's Bite (25 page)

“We're going to have to wait, Reaper,” Roxy said again. “I'm sorry.”

It was at that precise moment that Reaper heard Jack's agonized screams begin.

“R
eady?” one agent said to the other two.

Jack no longer cared who was speaking. It didn't matter. His muscles were practically itching to move, to spring, to attack. His body was finally being taken from the suffocating heat of the car's trunk and carried into blissful coolness. He smelled the air-conditioning and began to feel its relief within a moment or two, as the leather bag cooled and his body followed suit. Short of being ablaze, Jack didn't think any vampire had ever been this hot and survived.

He was suspended between two of the men as they carried him, and he knew he was inside, but nothing beyond that. He was within a structure, and it was cool. He sensed only the three agents, Magnarelli and his two sidekicks. He couldn't detect the presence of any others. No drones or armed soldiers were waiting to back them up. Good.

The way he felt right now, they wouldn't stand a chance against him without help.

Finally he was slung onto a hard surface. And almost before he could anticipate what would come next, the zipper was being yanked open. Every cell in him tensed as he prepared to spring. And the moment the leather was pulled open, he did, coming out of the body bag in a fury, springing first onto his haunches and then launching himself over the heads of the three men, flipping in the air and landing behind them.

They spun, their faces expressing shock and disbelief, and Jack lunged at the first one, landing a kick to the man's chest that sent him smashing head-first into the wall so hard that he crumpled. Spinning to the left, he delivered a roundhouse to the second man's jaw. That agent careened and teetered, then went down. But at almost that same instant, Jack felt the sting of a dart in his shoulder. He turned toward Magnarelli, who'd fired a tranq gun, and lunged at the bastard, but a second dart plunged into his chest, and then a third, in the neck, all in quick succession.

Jack's muscles slowed, his senses slowly went numb, and yet he tried to reach for Magnarelli, even as he sank to his knees. His last thought was of the words he'd heard Rhiannon say earlier. “We have no idea what effect mixing this drug with the tranquilizer would have on a vampire. It's never been tried. So don't let them tranquilize you.”

Don't let them tranquilize you.

Shit.

He soon found out what the results would be—at least the initial ones—as Frank Magnarelli, a lone mortal no stronger than most, lifted him up off the floor, slammed him into a chair and handcuffed him to it. Jack's efforts at resistance didn't even slow the guy down. Eric Marquand's version of No-doz kept the tranq from knocking him out, but the tranq kept him too weak to do much in the way of fighting for his life.

“There are things I want to know, Jack,” Magnarelli said, standing in front of him. “And you know I'm not going to go easy on you. I'm pretty angry with you right now.”

“I imagine you are,” Jack said.

Magnarelli punched him in the face, a dead-on blow that knocked him over onto his back, chair and all. It felt as if it had crushed his nose and split his lip, and landing on his cuffed hands hurt almost as much as the punch had.

Bending, Magnarelli gripped Jack's shirtfront and lifted him upright again. “So how is it you're awake during the day, Jack?”

Jack shrugged, licked his lip, tasted blood, and hoped it wasn't too much. He didn't think it was. It hurt like hell, but he didn't feel as if it were pouring out of him. Yet. “I don't know. It's some kind of fluke. Maybe something to do with how hot it got inside that body bag while you drove me all over hell and gone in your damned trunk.”

The agent didn't believe him. “I suppose we can get that information later. It's not like you're ever going to taste freedom again.”

“No?”

“You don't fuck with the CIA, pal. So let's not make this tougher than it has to be. Where is Rivera?”

“Who?”

“Raphael Rivera.”

“Come again?”

Magnarelli hit him again, in the gut this time. The chair skidded backward but stayed upright, as Jack doubled over as much as the cuffs would allow, mouth agape.

“Reaper,” the agent said. “And you can stop playing stupid with me, Jack. You know his name.”

When he could form words again, Jack said, “I know his name. But I don't know where he is. I only agreed to your plan to get Topaz and Mirabella back. I never knew where Reaper was. You're wasting your time.”

“We'll see about that.”

The other two, who'd been lying flat out from Jack's attack, began stirring now. One of them got up, and Magnarelli said, “Grab your partner and go get the women. He'll talk faster if they're the ones suffering for his silence.” He took note of Jack's stunned expression. “That's right. We still have them. You're not the only one who can pull off a con, Jack.”

Jack had figured he could handle any torture this jerk could dish out. But if he were hurting Topaz, Jack knew he would talk in short order. He also knew Reaper would want him to.

“While they're gone,” Magnarelli said, “we're going to see just how much pain you can take, Jack.” He walked to a corner and picked up a bag.

“We can't cut you, or you'll bleed out, so maybe we can come up with some creative alternatives.” From the bag, he took out a hammer, and a pair of pliers.

Jack closed his eyes. Surely the pain would knock him out sooner or later.

Or maybe it wouldn't.

 

Topaz woke with a scream ringing in her head, in her mind.
Jack's
scream. She sat up fast, her eyes opening wide as she swung her head, searching for him, ready to do serious harm to whoever might be hurting him. The reaction was instinctive and gut level. But in an instant she realized his scream had been mental. Jack wasn't here. And in that same instant she understood just where
here
was. There were sheet-draped bodies on gurneys all around her. Their feet were exposed, and tags hung from their toes.

Solemn-faced, she slid her gaze to her own exposed feet and saw a tag attached to her own big toe, as well. With a growl of impatience, she leaned forward and yanked it off.

The morgue was unmanned, as far as she could tell, as she slid off the cold metal and onto the bare floor to begin peering under the other sheets in search of her mother. She was still wearing her clothes, though they were torn, stained with dirt and blood, and even some street tar. Whatever injuries she'd sustained from the fall had been healed by the miraculous power of the day sleep. And that was little more than sheer luck—she could just have easily expired before the day sleep arrived to heal her. She could have bled out. She could have lain there a bit too long and been exposed to the rising sun. Anything could have happened.

She hoped her mother had been as lucky.

Finally she tugged back a sheet and saw her mother's face. It was unmarked. Her dress was tattered as hell, though. She must have been badly injured, Topaz thought. Maybe too badly.

She touched her mother's face. “Are you alive?”

Her mother didn't respond. A little knot of fear formed in Topaz's stomach, but she quickly reminded herself how slow her mother was to wake. The way she took her time about it, waking only by degrees, as if surfacing from some deep ocean crevasse.

And then she heard Jack screaming again, and everything in her body jerked to attention. It tied her heart in knots. Yes, he'd lied to her, used her, broken her heart to mere bits, but none of that had made her stop loving him. Oh, it had made her
want
to stop, but it hadn't killed the feeling. She didn't think anything ever would. And she would be
damned
before she would allow some sorry son of a pig to hurt him.

“Mother!” She gripped her mother's shoulders, shaking her gently. “Mother, come on. Wake up, we have to hurry.”

Mirabella moaned softly and began her routine, stretching her arms above her, arching her back in her catlike way.

Topaz removed the toe tag and begged, “Mom, wake up. We don't have time for stretching and yawning and basking. We have to move.”

With a soft “mmmm,” Bella stopped stretching and opened her eyes.

“Someone has Jack,” Topaz told her. “He's being tortured. Right now, as we speak.” To herself, she added, “I'll freaking kill them.”

Those loving eyes went icy cold, and Mirabella swung her legs to the side, sitting up and then standing all in one fluid motion. “Where?”

Topaz took her mother's hand, and the two of them moved through the dismal underworld, inhabited only by the dead, in search of an exit. When they found one, it led into a hallway, and after briefly searching that, Topaz found a sign marked
Salida
with an arrow that pointed up a flight of stairs.

They took the stairs at a run, not caring whether they might be seen. No one would stop them—they might try, but they wouldn't succeed. At the top there was a wide door with a push bar on the inside. Topaz hit it, and it swung open wide, revealing a parking lot, some shrubs.

She lunged through the doorway and let it close behind her, then stood for a moment, listening,
sensing.

It didn't take long before the scream came again, but this time a coherent stream of thought came with it.
If they hurt Topaz, I'll kill them. I'll kill them or die trying. I swear to God, I will.

She blinked and sent a look at her mother.

Mirabella nodded. “Yes, I heard it, too. I told you he loves you.”

“Just because he doesn't want me hurt, that doesn't mean he loves me.”

“He went after you. He's in those bastards' hands because of it. He risked himself to save you.”

“You don't know that.”

“Who else would be torturing him?”

Topaz shrugged and turned to face east. “He's this way.”

“Then let's go.”

They began to run, racing at top speed, until Topaz heard her mother's plea, delivered mentally.
Stop, darling.

There was pain in that plea, a sensation of weakness flowing into Topaz as clearly as the words. It was so heartrending that she came to a halt immediately, and her mother did, too. As soon as she stopped moving, Bella sank to her knees, and fell forward, palms to the earth.

“Mother, what is it?” Topaz shouted, dropping to her knees beside her. But even as she asked the question, she knew. Her mother had been electrocuted, then taken a fall that would have killed a mortal ten times over. She was older than Topaz, and therefore more powerful, but also much more susceptible to the debilitating weakness brought on by pain and blood loss. Furthermore, she'd given Topaz her own blood, then imbibed nothing to complete her own healing. The day sleep could heal, yes, and it had. But to restore Bella's strength, she needed blood. Topaz helped her into the concealing shelter of a grove of trees.

“I can't go on,” Mirabella said softly. “I'll just rest here awhile. You have to continue on without me, Tanya.”

Topaz stared down at her mother. “Those agents are still after us, I'm sure of it. I can't leave you alone.”

“Send someone back for me. No doubt the others are on their way to help Jack, as well. Send one of them. Until then, I'll be fine.”

“But, Mother—”

Her mother pressed a palm to Topaz's cheek. “Go, darling. I know you won't believe me, but this…this is worth anything.
Anything.
This kind of love, the love you feel for him…it's once in a lifetime, Topaz. Believe me. I know. Go find him. Do it now.”

Topaz nodded, knowing her mother was right. What she felt for Jack
was
once in a lifetime. She only wished what he felt for her was a fraction of that. Or that he felt anything real for her at all.

But she couldn't control his feelings any more than she could control her own. She loved him, good or bad. No matter how much and how deeply he hurt her, she loved him. And as lousy as he'd treated her, Topaz thought, there wasn't a person on this planet who was going to get away with hurting the man she loved.

“No way in hell,” she said aloud, and she pressed a kiss to her mother's cheek, then straightened away from her. As she strode forward, launching into a run once more, she held Jack's image in her mind, and her heart seemed to swell to bursting. She realized it didn't matter what he'd done to her. She loved him, flaws and all. She loved him, as cold and uncaring as he had been toward her. She loved him unconditionally. And it was all right if he didn't feel the same. She could live with that, because she was a strong, incredible woman. If they couldn't be together, so be it. She would manage to go on. But she would go on loving him. Always.

What she wouldn't be able to live with, she knew, would be her own guilt if she allowed anything bad to happen to him.

 

“Well?” Magnarelli said, when his sidekicks returned. “Where are they?”