Before Dawn (7 page)

Her stomach churned uneasily. She lifted the mug again and took another swallow. “How old was he?”

“Thirteen.”

Oh, Jesus
, she thought, digging a fist into her stomach as if she could massage away the sick feeling congealing in the pit of it. She let the counter take more of her weight to still the trembling that threatened to make her knees buckle. She was thirty-two and Edmond terrified her. How had a thirteen-year-old boy coped?

By growing up and killing as many of them as he could.

Absurdly, tears prickled the backs of her eyes, and she had to look away.

Savage straightened. “Finish that,” he ordered, tapping the lip of the mug with a thick forefinger. “You look like you need it.”

She clutched the mug with both hands and brought it up to her mouth. The liquid, still hot but more drinkable, splashed a little against her lips, hit her tongue, and she swallowed. The yawn caught her by surprise, as did the invisible weights that attached themselves to her eyelids. She yawned again and set the mug on the counter.

“Mercy?”

Savage’s voice sounded far away. She could barely focus on it. She wanted to lie down and close her eyes. She wanted to—

Her palms slapped the counter, fingers spread wide. It was a repeat of the episode in her office but not as strong. Because the drug wasn’t aided by alcohol this time.

Her eyes found Savage and narrowed, but it was so difficult to concentrate on all three of him with her head swimming, making the sleep that beckoned very tempting. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, then opened them wide. The drowsiness didn’t abate.

Still on the counter, her hands fisted.
Focus, Mercy, focus.

She felt a hand touch the slightly numb flesh of her upper arm, and she drew away, a little clumsy, a little graceless, as if her limbs were not entirely under her control. All three Savages were suddenly beside her, looming menacingly over her, and she stumbled away from them, turning as she retreated. The back of her hand smacked the mug, and it skidded a little ways across the smooth counter. Her fingers snagged the handle, and drawing on the pitiful dregs of her remaining strength, she hurled the cup at the middle Savage. The hot liquid, followed by the mug, hit the arm he’d raised at the last instant.

He swore vehemently as she made a poor imitation of bolting.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Despite the uneven, undulating floor under her feet, she dodged Savage and the doorway came closer. She was stopped short and cried out sharply when he seized a fistful of her hair and jerked. She tumbled backward and struck her head. A brief flash of dancing lights, then her world went black.

* * * * *

Dawn wasn’t far away. The late winter sky was only shades lighter than pitch, but years of hunting vampires trained him to always know when the sun would come up. It had proved useful on more than one occasion.

Ryan navigated the Volvo through the relatively light traffic. He was thankful this city never slept as it made it harder for Edmond to know he was coming. If his had been the only car on the road, it would’ve raised suspicion.

He dropped a glance at the palm-sized GPS-cum-tracking monitor. Edmond was three blocks ahead of him and still on the move. Where the hell was the little blood sucker headed? He’d been traveling either on foot or in a vehicle with no discernible destination for the last forty-five minutes. Between Savage and him, had they injured Edmond enough to force him to stick to the ground? As much as he didn’t like taking on the vampire in unknown territory, Ryan couldn’t safely deal with him in a well-populated area. Too much risk for exposure, too much potential of collateral damage. He had to wait for the vamp to reach his destination, then he could scope out the area and move in.

At this rate, he wasn’t going to make it back to the farm house before Mercy woke up.

Ryan blew out a sigh. He’d almost managed to keep her out of his thoughts for a whole five minutes.

Mercy had drifted into an exhausted sleep before the aftermath even started glowing, and Ryan had decided not to wake her when he left. He knew it was cowardly, but had he woken her, he might not have left at all.

In the periphery of his vision, he saw the blinking red dot stop—and remain stopped. His pulse sped up. Months of watching and waiting were about to pay off. He eased down on the gas, and the sedan smoothly accelerated, eating up the three blocks he’d deliberately maintained for cover.

He was in a densely populated residential area, high-rise apartment buildings stacked cheek to jowl on either side of the street. If Edmond used one of the apartments as a safe house, he wouldn’t have too much trouble remaining unnoticed in the mass of sixty- to eighty-hour-workweek yuppies.

Ryan drove past the red dot, and his eyes went to the rearview mirror. A doorman in a navy and gold uniform was helping a woman emerge from the back of a taxi with one hand before closing the car door with the other. The woman stumbled and would’ve fallen had the doorman not been gripping her hand. Was she tipsy from excessive alcohol consumption or a late-night blood donation?

Ryan was going to find out.

He turned right at the corner and pulled the vehicle to the curb but didn’t kill the engine. The red dot started moving again. As it passed him on the monitor, so did the taxi on the street. There was no one in the vehicle besides the driver.
What the hell?
Had Edmond used the taxi earlier and the tracking device fallen off him?

The cell phone sitting in the cup holder beeped once. Ryan reached for it, didn’t recognize the number displayed in the LED screen, but answered it anyway.

“McGinnis, it’s Helsen.”

His blood chilled.

Consciousness came in drips and drabs. She became aware of the hard slab of stone under her head and body first. She wanted to move, to ease the discomfort and pain of being in the same position for too long. But an instinct too powerful to dismiss wouldn’t let her. Ignoring the burning in her muscles, she remained still, letting herself come to full wakefulness.

Her head was filled with a throbbing mass that used to be her brain, but the rest of her felt as normal as it was going to get. Her hands and feet were bound together with something tight and wide. Tape. Probably duct tape, that all-purpose tool.

Mercifully, she was still clothed, but the room was cold, drafty. Despite her vision being limited to the darkness behind her eyelids, she thought the room was large. Maybe even cavernous. A hint of salt teased her nostrils. Was she smelling the ocean? Was she being kept hostage in one of the many warehouses lining the waterfront?

Someone slapped her. Hard. Her eyes opened and then narrowed when she saw to whom the offending hand belonged.

“Good,” Savage said as he bent over her, “I was afraid I gave you too much of the sedative and you would sleep through everything. He wanted you awake for the fun and games. Probably wants to monologue so you can appreciate his master plan before he kills you.”

Fear turned her stomach into a ball of ice heavier than lead. Then the tentacles of cold traveled to her lungs, wrapped around them, and tightened until she couldn’t draw breath.

He. Edmond.

She must’ve said the name aloud because Savage’s lips stretched into a grin that would’ve made her shiver with revulsion had she not been rigid with more than just cold.

“He’s not here. Out having an appetizer, I think. But you’re right. I brought you here for him. It’s such a pity you’re not just a pretty face.”

Looking amused, he chucked her under the chin. Something about that cavalier action, the presumed familiarity, the mere
touch
, made her anger rise, and the sudden heat of it cracked the ice from within.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, very low, very even, because allowing her hate to take over would only amuse him, like a dog performing tricks. “Ryan thinks you’re his friend. He trusts you.”

“I am his friend. That’s why he’s out on a wild goose chase and not here trussed up like you.”

“Why? Is Edmond paying you that much?”

Savage’s grin became brittle as his eyes hardened. “When the Council recruits you, they deliver a spiel about saving mankind, about how it’s a noble and worthy duty. What they
don’t
tell you is that your life expectancy is halved, the hours and pay suck, and you’re always lurking in shadows so the people you’re saving can continue on with their mundane lives, happy in their ignorance.”

“If you want money and adulation, try Hollywood.”

He laughed. “If circumstances were different, you and I would enjoy each other.”

She grimaced and shuddered. “In your dreams.”

“No, in a couple days, it might be in
your
dreams.” He paused a beat. “Well, maybe not, considering his plans for you.”

She froze. “He agreed to turn you.”

“Yes. The money was icing.” Savage leaned in closer, putting his lips too close to her ear, and she jerked her head away. He simply plowed his fingers into her hair and cupped her scalp, keeping her head still. His voice lowered conspiratorially. “Imagine what I can do with their power, their strength, their speed. Imagine what I can do with all the time in the world. The possibilities are endless.”

She glared up at him, willing him to know the hatred and fury welling up inside her. “Burn. In. Hell.”

He laughed again and drew back, straightening. “I suspect I will, but only after a few centuries, maybe even a millennium, of ruling my own little piece of this world.”

“Are the bruises even real? Or did you paint them on yourself?”

“They’re real enough,” said Savage, running a hand over the front of his chest. “But not nearly as bad as I said. No broken ribs, no knife wound. Since his healing powers currently are better than mine, Edmond donated the blood.”

Savage’s gaze moved beyond her, and Mercy saw his muscles tense, his entire body stiffening, his shoulders bunching. Then she felt the presence too. Her stomach lurched then roiled, even as it collapsed on itself, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stirred as if disturbed by unseen fingertips. She didn’t need to look to know who’d noiselessly entered the room. Her eyes remained steady on Savage’s still, wary form. He was in league with the devil, but he wasn’t foolish enough to turn his back on him.

Mercy swallowed, but it was difficult with her mouth like the Gobi Desert. In stark contrast, the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet went hot and clammy. Fear was something solid in her throat. The cavalry wasn’t coming to save her because Savage
was
the cavalry.

* * * * *

Ryan knew Vanessa Helsen was damned good at blending into the shadows when she needed to do so. After all, his line of work had started with her ancestors. That he spotted her from three buildings away meant he needed to hurry. Not that his instincts weren’t already clamoring for him to do something, anything, to get Mercy back. Preferably something physical, something destructive. He smothered the urge, knowing Mercy couldn’t afford to have him make any more mistakes.

He’d left the Volvo three blocks back and gone the rest of the way on foot. He located her in the dark, narrow gap between two warehouses, crouched behind a stack of cardboard boxes. She was tall and deceptively slender. Her dark brown hair was cut short enough to be hidden under a skull cap because, as she’d once explained to him, it gave the enemy less to grab onto. The cap was black, matching the rest of her outfit. Boots, pants, long-sleeved shirt, and in concession to the chilly weather, padded outer vest. She shifted, and he caught the tiny gleam of silver on her outer thigh. The blade strapped to her left thigh wasn’t fully hilted in its sheath. It was an uncharacteristic oversight. The rest of her weapons were hidden from view.

One hand automatically going inside her vest, she spared him a quick backward glance when he deliberately made a small scuffling noise to alert her to his presence. He crouched next to her and tapped a finger on the sheathed blade strapped to his own thigh. She shoved her blade fully into its leather sheath, then handed him a wireless headset. Ryan separated the earpiece from the communication module. The former went in his ear canal and the latter clipped onto the collar of his shirt.

Vanessa gestured to the darkened building across the road and spoke in a low voice that wouldn’t carry. “The tracer I put on Savage’s vehicle says it’s in there.”

“Best point of entry?”

“Upstairs window on the north side. Lock’s busted.”

“See any movement?”

“No. Windows are all painted over. The vamp isn’t risking a blind falling down.”

“How long have they been in there?”

She hesitated, then said, “Twenty minutes. But the vamp’s MO is to take his time with his victims. Also, she was unconscious when Savage carried her from the house. If they wait for her to wake up, that could buy us some time.”

He felt a sharp pang in his chest. Ryan hadn’t realized he’d been hoping Vanessa had made a mistake, that it hadn’t been Nate Savage who’d betrayed them. They’d been friends, or as close as people in their line of work could come to friendship. They’d gotten wasted together when it became too much. And when he’d been new and on his first assignment, it had been Savage who’d saved him from having his throat torn out. How had he not known Savage had turned? How had he not even suspected? And now Mercy was paying the price for his blindness.