The Thorndyke Trilogy 2: Dancing at Midnight (25 page)

“You. You’re the first real-life vampire we’ve ever caught.”

This room had no windows, and De’Ath and his henchman were standing between Nathan and the door. He had to get her out of this room and somewhere he could fly.

And he had to keep De’Ath alive, which complicated matters. He wanted to question the bastard before he died. The plan was simple. He’d find where she was, pick her up, shape-shift, and get the fuck out of there, with Vella and the others coming in to clean up. If he shape-shifted now, he couldn’t carry Kristen and an unwilling De’Ath.

He turned to Kristen. “She’s not well. I want her out of here.”

De’Ath laughed. “It won’t do any good. Not until I say so.”

Vella linked with him.
“He’s right. That kind of trance is too deep for anyone except a Sorcerer to get into. And it would be so invasive they’re likely to damage her.”

“There’s one way,”
he replied, but he didn’t elaborate. The notion had just come to him. He’d do it—even if he was labeled a pariah—if he could, but he couldn’t think about it now. Couldn’t do it now.

He’d convert her. The Talented world utterly forbade converting someone without consent. Both parties had to be agreeable, or the one doing it would be guilty of forcible conversion and condemned to death. The only thing that would save him would be her agreement post-conversion, but he’d never discussed it with her. She’d never given her permission. Apart from her penchant for toy and model dragons, had she ever evinced a desire to join him?
No.

He couldn’t bear the thought of her death. He’d give his own for her if he needed to, and he’d do it without hesitation.

Dare he take the risk? If it was him in danger, he’d do it without blinking, but with Kristen… No.

His mind worked as De’Ath clearly didn’t want it to. That alone made him determined to win.

What was De’Ath’s weak point? What did he care about more than anything else?

Himself. Nobody else. Nathan sensed no significant other, nobody figuring in De’Ath’s mind as someone he’d risk anything for.
“We need to take De’Ath alive.”

“I got that,”
Dalton said grimly.
“Get her out of there. Leave him to us.”

“Yeah.”

For a prime objective, that worked for him.
“Alive,”
he insisted.

“Yeah.”

He had to trust them, although he’d rather trust nobody with Kristen’s well-being. He stood next to the bed, letting her presence wash over him. Although she couldn’t see or hear him, she was still there, still breathing, and he needed that.

“You know I won’t go anywhere until I know she’s safe.”

“Bring her with us.” De’Ath nodded to Stuart, who crossed the room, knife in hand, and sliced off the plastic cuffs.

Although De’Ath had shielded his mind, he wasn’t aware of one thing. Nathan had years of experience, some of it dealing with evil bastards like him. He might know that Nathan was a dancer but not the rest. Not the fighting in two world wars and other conflicts, not the years of experience soldiering.

De’Ath wanted Nathan to fight him. To pamper De’Ath’s ego, to prove to his colleagues that he was the best. To put a Talent on his score sheet. Nathan wouldn’t do it, even though he longed to get his hands around the bastard’s neck. So much that he could feel it, the bones cracking under the pressure of his fingers, the air coughing out from his throat.

Because if he did that, he’d lock Kristen into a world of her own where even he couldn’t reach her. Only that most terrible of creatures, a Sorcerer.

Instead of going into a destructive rage, he bent to lift Kristen. If they thought that would hamper him, they were so wrong. She lay in his arms, warm and sweet, breathing regularly, but no other signs of life enlivened her form. His heart ached. De’Ath went ahead, then Nathan. Stuart brought up the rear.

He let Stuart follow, and as he made a fuss of stepping through the door, he managed to leave the kid behind. He freed a hand, holding Kristen one-armed, and deliberately closed the door, trapping Stuart inside. The door was only fastened with an old-fashioned lock, but the
snick
told him Stuart would be safe long enough for him to do what he needed.

Three men stood outside. Not nearly enough to stop him. Nathan shape-shifted. First his body and legs, then his head, giving himself the power he needed. But he kept his arms human, folding her close to his body. He didn’t need his wings yet.

Shouts of alarm reached his ears, and he would have grinned if he could have. He wasn’t done yet. Although his next act couldn’t be as devastating as he’d wanted, he’d make his mark.

Taking care not to hurt Kristen with the added heat his next action necessarily brought to his body, he opened his jaws and roared.

Tongues of flame shot from his mouth, taking out one of the men and searing the wall on the other side of the large room. Around the shot, hotter than the hottest blowtorch, soot formed, black ringing the devastation. His next flame destroyed the sofas ranged against the wall. He targeted them deliberately because they looked old, which meant they would emit poison gas when they caught fire. They wouldn’t hurt him in this form, and he’d ensure the fumes didn’t get to Kristen. Then he flamed a few other things for good measure. The wooden chairs.

Something beat against his side. They’d shot at him, but with his tough hide, they had no chance of penetrating more than a tiny bit. His dragon hide was as good as a bulletproof vest. Better because it was self-healing.

He turned his attention to the man who’d shot at him, but he kept De’Ath in his sights. After a yell, the man had raced across the room. Nathan had to admire his cursing; it was, at the least, inventive. He truly had believed Nathan was a vampire.

The stink of burning filled the room, and the black smoke made even Nathan cough.
Time to go
. Without looking, he turned his back to the smoke to shield the woman in his arms, stepped backward, and kept going. Right out the big window he’d seen when he came in.

The shards of glass didn’t bother him in the least, but the extra draft fed the fire, and the flames burned brighter.

As he left, the other dragon swept in. A matte-black dragon, deadly, her eyes red fire, her mouth open and slavering.

But Nathan was already falling. He and Dalton had practiced this move over the years until they could do it with their eyes closed. Dalton stood below, his legs braced, ready to receive the precious burden. When he was no more than six feet from the hard ground, Nathan dropped her and shifted his arms into wings, finishing his move with a breathtaking high swoop.

“I have her. I’m taking her back to the apartment,”
Nathan said.

“No, the club. I want her out of this trance as soon as possible, and the club’s nearer.”

“Sure.”

Already the screams of the emergency service vehicles were getting closer. Dalton had actually called them before Nathan flamed the club, just to make sure. As he looped around to return, the other dragon emerged from the window, Stuart dangling from a sling she wore around her neck. If Nathan had taken one of those in with him, he’d have given the game away. Someone might have recognized it for what it was. So far their plan was working, but they had to get De’Ath out of there. Nathan moved in, transmitting to Dalton that he should stay where he was and guard Kristen. Dalton sent an acknowledgment. As Nathan fought the flames, half closed his eyes, and flew back through the shattered window, a crash deafened him. First an ominous creak, then wood, cement, and glass all rolled into one cataclysmic sound, and then nothing.

Debris struck him, but Nathan ignored it. His heart pounding, he flew around the room, or what used to be a room. The floor had fallen in, smashing down to the club below.
Shit. Oh, shit.

He spied a dark shadow, partly covered with a huge timber beam. Never had he willed harder for an evil man to live. Just long enough, and then Nathan would kill him. But he had to live now.

De’Ath’s long hair straggled around him, caught in the wood. The flames, forced back by the crash, found force again and roared around him, renewed by the extra fuel from the dance floor.
Fuck
. Soon the contents of the bar area would start popping.

Nathan shifted the beam easily and went to scoop De’Ath up before he saw it. A shard, a huge splinter of wood sticking out of the man’s side. A death wound, if Nathan removed the splinter.

Swiftly, he severed the piece of wood from whatever was holding it, ignoring De’Ath’s groans of pain. “Fuck. Don’t you know when you’re beaten?”

Nathan spoke directly in the man’s mind while hell broke out all around them.
“You have a job to do before you die. You don’t have my permission to do it yet.”

De’Ath laughed in his face. “I don’t need your permission. You can watch your woman breathe her life away. She’ll never know you now.” He winced but continued with his poison. “Rescue me or not, I won’t do it.”

Oh yes he would. Nathan knew people who made his telepathy look like child’s play, terrifying beings who possessed psi qualities so strong they could rule the world if they wanted to. They’d do this. He wouldn’t set them on Kristen because sometimes, their methods resulted in destroying the mind they were trying to save. They never gave any guarantees. But he’d have no compunction in setting them on this piece of worthless shit, as long as they made him free Kristen from her thrall before they did their worst.

De’Ath must have read some of that, because his eyes widened, and he opened his mouth, no doubt to say something else foul. Nathan had had enough. And if they stayed here much longer, the heat might get bad enough to burn even his hide. Only the phoenix thrived in fire.

He shape-shifted his wings long enough to throw De’Ath on to his back, and then he returned to his dragon form. He’d have to do a lot of damage control about this incident, but he’d do it. Dragons could look amazingly like shadows at times or not be there at all. They could send out a pulse, a vibe that persuaded people they weren’t seeing what was in front of their eyes. A report fed to the news of a publicity stunt by someone would take care of most rumors.

Fuck that. If anyone realized what they’d seen, he’d ignore them. It had happened plenty of times before, and people dismissed it as the ravings of a nut.

With De’Ath securely on his back, Nathan rose up. The roof was still in place, but not for long. Yells echoed over the flames—men and women. The fire officers and paramedics Dalton had called, shouting to each other over the sounds of the vehicles and the radios.

Time to go
. He took care not to dislodge his unwilling passenger and kept his mind firmly in De’Ath’s, refusing to let the man die.

Once out of the window, he breathed more freely, despite the choking smoke and the flames that surged around them. The black poisonous smoke made by the foam in the old sofas wouldn’t affect him, other than making him cough, but it would hurt De’Ath. Nathan despised the man, hated that he had to rescue him.

He soared up and then turned, planning to land on the roof of Maskerade, and then he heard De’Ath’s voice in his head. Shit, the man had picked up that skill fast.
“I’m dying. I know it; you know it. I’m bleeding internally. And a vampire doesn’t like dead meat. I know now you’re not one, but your new girl, Diana, is, isn’t she? She was the one I picked up in the first place. The one my colleague told me about.”
He paused, and his body moved as he gasped.
“I’m not going to be food for vampires.”

Before Nathan could stop him, he rolled to one side and off, plummeting to the ground below.

De’Ath was nothing more than jelly on the pavement, and Kristen was a zombie. No sentience, all locked away deep in her mind.

Nathan had never known such despair.

Chapter Thirteen

The night after the fire, Nathan was ready to give up and follow Kristen to wherever she’d gone. When they brought food to him, he ate it. When they told him the customers wanted to see the amazing dance, he just swore at them. Apparently Steve had sorted something out. Good old Steve. The clubs that had meant so much to Nathan a decade ago now meant nothing at all, turned to ashes with the ruins of Vampire Heaven.

A doctor had reattached her finger, but he said it might be too late. That was the least of Nathan’s worries right now. The big bandage mocked him, reminded him of his failure in taking care of her.

He barely glanced up when Dalton came in.

“Hey.”

Nathan kept his attention on Kristen. “She’s not waking up, is she?”

“Not on her own, buddy. We’ve tried everything we know. Short of finding a Sorcerer to snap her out of it, that’s it.”

Nathan appreciated his friend’s honesty. He sighed and turned to him. Dalton’s face was drawn, lines furrowing his handsome features. His usual snappy appearance was crumpled. He’d taken a turn sitting with Kristen when Nathan had to visit the bathroom, and he’d promised to come if she so much as breathed differently. All the time he’d showered off the blood and filth of Vampire Heaven, Nathan prayed and kept his mind firmly in hers. He’d pleaded with her, begged her to come back, ordered her, but nothing had worked. He couldn’t reach that spark that was Kristen, the essence that was locked away in a tiny corner of her mind. He didn’t have the key or the means to break the lock. And the knowledge was killing him.

He’d brought her back to his apartment. There would be no quick solution. De’Ath had been dead before he hit the ground, it turned out. He’d broken his back in the first fall when the ceiling had come down, and any movement would have killed him. It was likely that he knew that and provoked Nathan to throw him on to his back. De’Ath gained revenge any way possible—by his own death.

Nathan wished the bastard’s soul to join Judas Iscariot in the deepest level of hell. But that wouldn’t bring Kristen back.

“How’s Stuart?”

“Recovering,” Dalton said. “His thrall wasn’t hard to break. He was interested in the theory, anyway. Once I told him Talents do exist and showed him proof, he got excited about that. We could hardly keep the truth from him since a dragon flew him out of there. It just needed persuasion to get him to work from the inside, and with me on the outside, we shattered the thrall.”