When Temptation Burns: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 6) (24 page)

“Yes, I do.” He studied Doyle for another long moment. “You’ve got quite the reputation. Paul says you saved his life.”

It was a peace offering, and Doyle accepted it. “I’m just glad I was there to help.”

Bryce looked at both Doyle and Andy in turn. “It’s my belief that the attack wasn’t random. That vampire sought Paul out. He’s making an impact, as all powerful leaders do. He’s a threat.”

“Clearly,” Andy said. “But this is where it starts to fall apart for me. A threat to what?”

“Their organization, of course,” Paul said.

“Their what?”

“They’re everywhere, you see. In our lives. In our government. They’re a solid network. A tangible entity.”

Andy was staring at him, and Doyle could see the horror that was written all over her face. “You’re serious?”

“He is so totally serious,” Wes said.

Paul nodded. “I even have proof. Just the other month I managed to acquire a tape from a reporter who’d been present at the scene of a crime. On it, you can hear someone telling the crowd to forget. To destroy all of their pictures and their tapes.”

“I don’t understand,” Andy said, but Doyle did. Somehow Paul had managed to get his hands on a tape that had captured Tucker or some vamp telling the lookey-loos
at a PEC crime scene to forget what they’d seen.
Shit
. That shouldn’t have happened.

“They were covering up the crime,” Paul said. “A vampire or a werewolf killed someone and left the body, and the press showed up at the crime scene, and these creatures swooped in and used their mind tricks to make them forget.”

“Sounds like something from
Star Wars
,” Andy said. “Besides, it obviously didn’t work. You have the tape, so it wasn’t destroyed.”

“Because the reporter got into a car accident leaving the scene. Purely coincidental, but it meant that the tape wasn’t destroyed. And it found its way to me.”

Andy shivered visibly. “This is all overwhelming.”

“It is. But it’s real, too,” Paul said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Doyle could see that Bryce was looking at him, and Aaron was looking at Bryce. He took a step forward, presenting a façade of determined solidarity. “Then we need to take decisive action. Do something to bring these monsters down once and for all.”

“Exactly,” Paul said. “And I’m glad that’s your attitude. I’m hoping we can get you more involved in the organization.”

“Do you have anything particular in mind?”

“We have something big in the works. I expect to have more details soon, but let’s just say that within the next few days, things are going to change dramatically for our dark friends. Trust me when I say it’s an operation that’s going to make history.”

“That may be too soon,” Bryce said.

“I agree,” Aaron added. “Doyle needs time to train with the other men.”

Doyle hid his excitement under a calm façade. This was the prize in the cereal box. “Of course I’d like to participate,” he said. “But I don’t want to risk the operation.” He looked at Bryce and Aaron, but the person he was really speaking to was Paul. “If you feel like your team is a well-oiled machine and that I’d mess things up, just say the word. I can sit out one operation—so long as I know I’ll be in the thick of it eventually.”

Paul laughed. “Didn’t I tell you? A true team player. No, Doyle. You’re in this with us. You’ll meet the men. And they know damn well they can use a fighter like you. Isn’t that right, Bryce?”

Bryce nodded, the gesture deferential. “Of course.”

Doyle took care not to smile. His little bit of reverse psychology had done the trick perfectly.

The doorbell rang again, and Wes laughed. “Shit, I’m popular today.”

He started in that direction, but Doyle called him back sharply.

“What?”

“There’s something—” But what could he say? That his preternaturally keen sense of smell had told him the Big Bad Wolf was at the door?

He grabbed Andy’s arm and gave Wes a shove toward the back door of the house. “I just have a bad feeling about this,” he said as the sound of the front door crashing in echoed throughout the house.

“Run!” Doyle yelled, his hand clutching Andy’s wrist so tight she was certain he was going to bruise it. In front of them, Aaron, Bryce, and Paul veered to the left, crashing down a small hallway into what she presumed was Wes’s bedroom.

Doyle was leading her and Wes in the opposite direction, through the kitchen. A door at the back stood half-open, and Doyle urged them both through it, then slammed it behind them. A garage.

Wes’s car took up most of the space, and they had to scramble over the hood to get to the other side and the door that stood closed. To their left, at the rear of the car, was the huge overhead door, but Andy assumed Doyle didn’t want to go out that way. She’d seen those doors as they’d driven up to the house, and like in most structures, the garage was only a few feet from the front door.

“Alley?” Doyle asked, pointing to a small door at the other end of the garage. “Can we get out that way?” His question was quickly answered when the door burst open and two men in leather pants and biker jackets rushed in from the alley—but they weren’t typical gangbangers. They were werewolves. Andy could tell because they seemed to be in the midst of some horrible change, their bones elongating as she watched, and their faces sprouting hair like demonically possessed Chia pets.

“Go,” Doyle said. He smashed a fist through Wesley’s car window, then punched the button on the dashboard control box to open the garage door.

Nothing happened.

“It’s broken!” Wes shouted.

“Get back,” Doyle said, gesturing behind him.

Andy complied, scooting down the narrow path between car and clutter toward the big folding door.

Wes didn’t. Instead, he rushed past Doyle, leading with a knife—and tossed himself at the two werewolves.

“Fuckers!” he cried. “Are you the ones who did it? Are you the ones who killed Stu?”

“Dammit, Wes, no!” As Andy watched, Doyle lunged forward to grab the kid and pull him back, but one of the werewolves got to Wes first. He clutched Wes’s shirt in his hand and tugged him up so that he was right in his face.

“His eyes!” Doyle yelled, lunging forward. “Wes, go for his eyes! You need to—”

But he didn’t get to finish the sentence, because the second werewolf launched himself at him, and over and over they went, a flurry of hands and hard bodies and fists.

“Eyes, Wes!” Andy screamed, but the kid’s bravado had evaporated in the face of reality. He was freaked, and he stabbed his hand out blindly, missed the werewolf’s eyes, and opened himself up for a brutal attack. The werewolf’s hand had warped even more—it was all razor-sharp claws and long bones—and as Andy watched, it slashed out, slicing Wes from his neck down through his chest. The kid’s mouth hung open, but no cry of pain came out. Instead, he just looked shocked as he stumbled
backward. He dropped his knife, then fell, his blood spilling out onto the concrete floor.

Andy screamed.

In front of her, Doyle and the second werewolf were a messy tumble of arms and legs and fists.

Beyond them, the first werewolf turned his attention from Wes to her. She saw his eyes glint with dark glee, and then he sprang forward, launching himself over Doyle and the second werewolf like he was playing some freakish game of leapfrog. He landed on the hood of the car, and then made one more leap directly at her.

She stumbled backward. The garage was tight, and she didn’t have room to maneuver. The car was on her right and a series of shelving lined the space to her left. Stacks of newspapers took up most of the shelf space, but interspersed with the papers were gallon jugs of paint. Andy grabbed one and flung it, tossing it hard at the attacking werewolf and catching him in the face.

He howled, and she felt a sense of deep satisfaction, but she didn’t have time to enjoy it. She needed to find another weapon—and fast.

Behind them, she saw Doyle slam the werewolf he was fighting against the side of the car, before jabbing it in the eye with his thumb. “You—” The werewolf’s words came out in a pain-filled gasp. “You’re a—”

But Doyle didn’t let him finish. He silenced the werewolf with a knee to the crotch, and when the creature sank to the ground, Doyle dropped down on top of him.

That was when a solid wall of werewolf blocked her view.

“Bitch.”
He grabbed her by the neck and yanked her close, and she found herself staring, terrified, into a face that was half-human and half-wolf, with terrifying gold
eyes. His mouth hung open, all sharp teeth and menace. She struggled, kicking and scratching, but she might as well have been doing nothing for all the good it did. Then she felt a tug from behind, and she was tossed aside into the shelving like a bag of groceries.

She realized Doyle had leaped over the car and shoved her aside so that he could move in for the attack.

She sat up, gasping and sore, and though half of her field of vision was filled with the fighting men, beyond them she could see the body of the werewolf that Doyle had kneed in the crotch. He was dead—of that she was certain. His chest was sagging open and his heart had been ripped out. She rolled to her side and vomited, then realized she couldn’t stop shaking. She fought through it, and crawled the long way around the car, circling back to the hood where Wes had fallen, hoping that he’d somehow survived.

He hadn’t, and a cry of anguish and fear slipped from her lips as she tried to force her mind to order her thoughts. The silver knife Wes had wielded was on the ground next to her, and she clutched it tightly. A small part of her told her she had to help Doyle—that she couldn’t bear it if he ended up like this—but another part told her there was nothing she could do. That he had it under control. She believed that last part—she didn’t know why or how, but he really did seem to be holding his own.

Through the fog of her horror, she watched him battle it out with the werewolf that had attacked her. Fists and teeth and fury and—most strange—she saw that Doyle’s skin had taken on an orangish glow. Exhaustion, she assumed. The blood that was rushing to her head must have altered her perception.

A wild wind whipped around them, kicking up the newspapers, and even though she knew she was in shock, she still couldn’t understand how there could be wind in a garage.

And then, when the werewolf got in a solid blow and sank his teeth deep into Doyle’s shoulder, she saw his eyes turn red with fury.
Red
.

She cried out, and he turned to her, his face still Doyle’s, but at the same time not.
Oh, dear God, he is one of them
. Not a werewolf, but something.

“Knife,” he groaned, and it took a second for her to realize that he wanted the silver blade she’d snatched from Wes.

For a split second she hesitated—he’d lied to her in the most fundamental way. He’d taken advantage of her belief that he was human, and he’d slid so self-righteously into her bed. But that didn’t mean she could let him die. Dammit all, he might be a prick, but she was better than that. After all, he’d saved her life.

She tossed the knife.

Fortunately, she hadn’t moved too slowly, but her aim had been crap. The knife got caught in the wind, though, and it seemed to fly straight into his hand. She had the oddest feeling that he’d made it do that. And then he had it in his fist and was thrusting it down, straight into the werewolf’s heart.

The wolf’s scream echoed in the enclosed space, and Doyle backed away, stumbling, his shoulder bleeding, his face returning to a more human color, only even paler than usual.

As the werewolf fell—hopefully dead—to the pavement, Andy crawled to Doyle’s side. His breathing was ragged, and his face splotchy. His skin looked, well,
off
,
and she realized now what was going on. He was like Jordan. Doyle was a spy—he was getting inside Paul’s organization so that he could scope it out.

She stumbled to her feet and forced herself to move toward the door. She had to get out of here. Had to get clear so that she could think, dammit,
think
.

Her hand closed around the doorknob. She was ready to push through into the alley, but she hesitated. She squeezed her eyes shut, not sure if she was being stupid or kind, then turned back around to face him.

“What are you?” she whispered. The voice of reason told her to stay back, that he was dangerous, but her heart fought back, twisting in grief at the sheen of blood that covered him.

“Go,” he said. “Trust your instincts, and get the hell out of here.”

She almost did. Probably would have, too. Except that she saw the way he was shivering. His body was trembling as if he were covered in ice. Only moments earlier, he’d been her savior, strong enough to fight the creatures that were attacking them. Not anymore. Now he was weak, and she couldn’t help the gnawing fear that if she left him, he’d fade away into nothingness.

She moved closer.

“I told you to get out of here,” he said. “I want you gone.”

“You told me to trust my instincts. I’m staying.” She shifted to get a better look at his shoulder, and he winced. “This doesn’t look too bad.”