The Curse (22 page)

“Yes, I remember, but I wanted to make sure
you
didn’t forget.” It wasn’t as though she did a lot of cooking, but she would like to keep the last two pots she had. She hadn’t figured out if he had short-term memory loss sometimes or if he just did things out of pure mischief.

“’Kay. Go ride?”

“Not right now. Maybe later.” Once she knew for sure the Svart trolls were gone. Before heading out on her motorcycle, she leaned over and kissed his forehead, careful not to get stuck by one of his horns.

The ride to meet Isak took no time since the meet point was only a mile from home.

His black Hummer sat alone on the top level of an expansive parking deck. The deck was not being fully utilized, and she’d chosen this location specifically because the upper floors would be empty in the early evening. After stowing her gear and adjusting her sunglasses, she turned to find Isak standing by the open passenger door of his truck.

Black dress pants and a cobalt-blue, button-down dress shirt did nothing to tone down the black-ops warrior beneath the civilized veneer. Short brown hair with gray flecks at his temples shouted former military, just as much as the hard jaw and intense blue gaze that scoped the area around her in a blink.

“How ya doin’, Isak?”

“Not bad. Ready?”

“I hadn’t planned on going anywhere.”

“Thought you wanted to borrow something.”

“I do, but I haven’t told you what yet.”

“Does it turn demons into shrapnel?”

She didn’t want to explode the troll. “Maybe.”

“Then I know what you want. Let’s go.”

“Are you going to put a sack over my head, Isak?”

“No.” Mr. Serious didn’t even crack a smile.

“Then why can’t I just follow on my bike?”

“Because you’ll be blindfolded.”

Crap. She walked over and put a foot up on the running board, picking up the seductive scent of cologne. Humongous hands grabbed her around the waist and lifted her onto the seat before she could protest. Taking a breath to keep herself calm, she told him, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m five-ten, I’m wearing jeans and need no help getting into a truck.”

He put his left hand on the back of her seat and leaned in, a glint of heat burning in his eyes. “I noticed. Every. Sweet. Inch. Especially the jeans. Buckle up … unless you want help with that, too.”

Guess she’d find out how much of a gentleman he was, or he’d find out just how dangerous she could be.

Once he had the wide black cloth in place over her sunglasses, she prepared to be pelted with questions about why she wanted a special weapon. But when Isak cranked the engine, Garth Brooks crooned a country tune as the vehicle backed up, then headed forward.

Ten minutes into the ride, Isak hadn’t said a word.

She tapped her fingers, picking up speed with each tap until a warm hand covered hers.

Every muscle jumped to alert.

He started brushing his thumb back and forth over her skin, the simple gesture reminding her that he was no threat to her. With that realization, tension that had locked the muscles in her shoulders all afternoon eased.

When the truck rolled to a stop a half hour later, Isak said, “You can remove the blindfold.”

She uncovered her sunglasses to find his truck parked inside a huge warehouse. At the far end of the ginormous building, people stood beneath bright fluorescent lights at workstations. She assumed they were assembling weapons or some defensive devices that Isak manufactured.

Heavy-duty, twelve-foot-tall stainless-steel cabinets lined forty feet of one wall in the thirty-thousand-square-foot building with a ceiling that peaked at twenty feet. One section of the warehouse had been framed in as an office area that could provide six to eight average-size rooms.

But this was not the hangar she’d visited the night Isak had kidnapped her for an Italian meal. The hangar hadn’t been as bright inside, and it had been more open, with fewer shelves and minimal office area. A place his teams—the Nyght Raiders—could congregate and plan.

This place was a production facility with bright lighting, tools on workstations and the smell of machine oil.

One young man in jeans and a flannel shirt ran a forklift, carrying loads from the rear of the building to the front. He moved stacks of crates, lifting them high in the air to place on neatly organized shelves running in rows just left of the overhead door behind Isak’s Hummer.

The forklift driver’s shaggy gray hair and rumpled clothes didn’t match Isak’s buff military look, but the guy’s sharp gaze scanning everywhere as he worked and his taut posture spoke of alertness on a par with the other Nyght Raiders.

Two more vehicles were parked inside. With the right color scheme and a few decals, one could have been an armored security truck for money pickups. But who drove that sleek, do-me-red BMW Z8?

Not Isak, who filled the cockpit of this Hummer.

He’d have to wear that tiny car.

“You’re looking for one of my Nyght weapons, right, Evalle?” Isak hadn’t made a move to get out of the Hummer yet. He had his arms crossed and his attitude locked into quiet-curiosity mode.

“Yes. Hopefully, a smaller version of the one you used to destroy that demon when we first met.” She’d been interrogating a Birrn demon until Isak blasted it with one of his superweapons. The demon imploded before she could get intel she’d desperately needed. Granted, when Isak showed up the Birrn had appeared close to chowing down on her. Small detail.

“What’re you trying to kill?”

She could only dodge him so long without having to share something. If she said the weapon was for another demon, she’d get the wrong weapon. “I need something that would stop a troll without drawing the attention of … citizens.”

The drone of the forklift motor running back and forth filled the pause before Isak said, “Trolls.”

She nodded, but that hadn’t been a question.

“When did you see a troll?”

Answering that honestly opened the door to more questions. “I’d rather not say.”

“But you’re not protecting the troll.”

“No. I want to protect myself
from
the troll.” There. She’d played the girl card in spite of how vulnerable that made her sound. She could kick a troll’s butt any day.

Isak shifted his body, muscles bunching when he propped an elbow on the driver’s door. “Tell me where to find this troll and I’ll handle it.”

She stopped herself a second before snarling that she didn’t need a man protecting her. What had made Quinn believe she could do this? Unclenching her jaw, she spoke with an even tone. “I don’t know where the troll is right now.”

“I can put a detail on you.”

Isak could be a persistent son of a gun, but he wasn’t going to get the answer he wanted. “I’m not interested in having bodyguards follow me around. If you don’t want to loan me a weapon, then just say so and I’ll figure out something else.”

Isak gave it a couple beats, then said, “Wait for me to open your door.”

That wasn’t a yes, not yet.

He allowed her to step down unaided.

Just as her boot touched the concrete floor, the door to the office area opened and a slim woman of average height walked out. She could be late forties or early fifties, too attractive to pin down. Beautiful brunette hair in a short, swooshy style fanned around her tanned face. She wore knee-length white pants and an aqua-blue shirt with a flared collar. Cinnamon lips smiled when she noticed Isak.

He put a hand to Evalle’s back, gently urging her toward the office and this woman.

The forklift’s tires squealed with a sharp turn.

Evalle glanced at the machine … then at the driver, who was heading straight for the three of them.

The driver’s head began stretching into a grotesque shape, his mouth widening with fangs. Brown eyes.

Seconds slowed down with each heartbeat that thudded in her chest at this living nightmare unfolding.

A Rías.

As the forklift careened toward them, Isak grabbed Evalle, then lunged for the other woman, shoving them both toward the office.

Evalle kept her balance and spun around in time to see the driver alter his direction toward her and the woman.

She didn’t doubt that every person in this building was armed, but not one of those technicians two hundred feet away would get here in time, and the handgun Isak had just drawn would only anger the beast further.

No one could stop that Rías in the next five seconds.

Except Evalle. If she didn’t use her kinetics, this woman would die, and possibly Isak as well.

No time to worry about consequences.

Evalle slapped a kinetic shot at Isak’s hand, knocking the weapon away. She ignored his furious shout and threw up a wall of kinetic energy to block the forklift from plowing into her and the brunette at full speed.

The forklift hit the invisible energy and bounced backward with the front end lifting into the air.

What had been a human driver only a moment ago had now fully shifted into a Rías, which dove off the forklift as the machine tilted over on its side.

The beast lunged to attack.

Evalle called her dagger up from her boot, spinning it in her hand as she surged forward to meet the threat. She pulled her arm back, aiming to drive the dagger into his chest, but the Rías moved like a spear of lightning, diving for her feet.

He knocked her legs out from under her.

She flipped, landing on her back, and jumped up.

The Rías came at her again.

She hit the beast with a kinetic blast, but he swatted it back at her, knocking her glasses off. The sudden light blinded her.

Out of instinct, she kinetically exploded all the overhead lights, confusing the Rías long enough for her to spin around and boot him hard in the chest. He flew backward twenty-five feet, slamming against the wall and falling to the floor … where he started shifting back into a human.

It all happened in a matter of seconds.

The sound of weapons being racked echoed behind her.

Evalle shouted, “Don’t shoot! He’s a human.” She turned, looking for her sunglasses.

Red dots lit up her chest.

Her sunglasses were hooked over the long barrel of a Nyght demon blaster Isak pointed at her heart. “So your eyes
are
green. Alterant green.”

“I can explain, Isak.”

“What makes you think I care?”

SEVENTEEN

D
on’t shoot
, Isak.”

Evalle hadn’t said that. She’d
thought
it, but the shouted order had come from the brunette dusting off her white pants.

No hysterics. No glazed look of deep shock.

The brunette ordered another man to throw on the backup security lighting in the warehouse. Her heels clicked all the way over to where the unconscious Rías had now shifted back into the human forklift driver.

“Don’t get near that thing,” Isak snapped at the brunette, who ignored him with a wave of her hand that caused silver bracelets to jangle.

Evalle would like to get a better look at this woman beyond what she could see in her peripheral vision, but Isak still had his weapon pointed at her chest.

He’d picked up a night-vision monocular somewhere, looking even more deadly than usual—like a cyborg on a death mission. He said, “So what was this trip about, Evalle? Thought you could come here and kill all of us?”

She shook her head, suffering unexpected pain at the look of disappointment on his face and even more at his words. She’d had a strange relationship with Isak so far, but she’d always considered him a friend. “No. I don’t harm humans.”

“That’s a hard sale when I know what an Alterant is capable of. What’d you do to make our forklift guy turn into a beast?”

He thinks I’m the reason that Rías shifted?
“What makes you think I can make someone change into another form?”

“I have no idea what
something
like you can do. I don’t make a habit of letting Alterants live long enough for someone to study them.”

She flinched at the insult, then moved straight from terror of dying to seriously pissed off.

But now was not an advisable time to let her temper rip. Isak hadn’t shot her. Yet.

This called for diplomacy.

She sucked at that, but gave it a try. “I know you don’t like Alterants, Isak—”

“I like ’em just fine … well-done.”

The brunette clicked across the concrete floor until she stepped up beside Evalle.

Men armed for combat formed a perimeter of firepower.

Isak’s finger trembled as if it took all his willpower to not shoot. Muscles flexed in his jaw, his neck, his forearm, straining against his need to act.

Even though the brunette’s head barely reached Evalle’s shoulder, she spoke with unquestioned authority. “I mean it, Isak. Don’t shoot her.”

“She’s an Alterant, Kit.”

So that was the woman’s name. It fit her.

“She saved my life.”

“Alterants are killers.”

Evalle shook her head. “I have
never
harmed or killed a human. I have protected thousands.”

Halogen lights started coming on overhead, slowly brightening the warehouse.