Avenger of Sins (SPECTR Series 3, #6)

Chapter 1

ONE

Ryan’s head throbbed, a fierce ache that started behind his eyes and encompassed the rest of his skull, until even his teeth hurt. He leaned over the bathroom sink of the seedy motel in some backwater town in Mississippi. He’d chosen it because it looked like the sort of place that would take cash, skip asking for a driver’s license, and in general want to know as little as possible about its guests in case the police came calling. He’d been right on all counts.

It was a dump, of course. Stains on the carpet, beds, ceiling. The cloying stink of mold. Towels that looked like someone had used them to wipe off grease from a car repair.

But none of that mattered. He’d endured far worse in sterile surroundings. He’d take honest dirt any day.

A glance in the mirror revealed the whites of his eyes had gone entirely scarlet. It had been years since he’d used his telepathy so regularly, pushed himself so hard, and it was taking a toll on his body. Unfortunately, resting his talent now was out of the question.

He filled an off-brand dixie cup with tap water and drank it down. The water tasted faintly of rust. Or maybe that was just the lingering flavor of blood in his mouth.

The vampire.

For a moment, when he’d first heard John’s thoughts, he’d been certain he was mistaken. Vampires weren’t real; everyone knew that. And sure, he’d gone on one of the hokey “vampire tours” shortly after he first moved to New Orleans. Forced Jennifer and Marc to go with him, because he knew they’d hate it and all he wanted was to make them miserable in ways both big and small.

His parents had been terrified when he turned up on their doorstep so many years after they threw him away. Their fear was the first thing to make him feel as though he had any control since childhood. Gods knew they’d deserved every second of it after what they did to him.

But vampires were just a fun way to scare the tourists. Until one showed up on John’s arm.

Damn the creature for escaping the bank vault; he’d been so sure it wouldn’t be able to get out before he came back for more blood. Instead, it had shown up at the abandoned naval base on Poland Avenue. Prevented John from grabbing the Director of SPECTR herself.

Prevented John from escaping.

Now John was back in SPECTR hands. A prisoner once again. Bile rose to the back of Ryan’s throat, and he gripped the sides of the ancient porcelain sink.

A part of him understood why John had been drawn to the vampire. He’d picked fragments of their relationship from John’s thoughts, enough to know Caleb had been an ordinary telekinetic before being involuntarily possessed by the fucking thing. Even with his true memories blocked, John felt a twinge of kinship.

From the outside, the vampire didn’t seem all that bad, considering most demons were driven to maim and destroy. But in the lab, at the Center for Loving Redemption, Ryan had demons forced into his body, over and over again. He knew their madness, hunger, and pain. Knew the foul stain they left behind, even after they were gone.

He’d tried to spy on the vampire’s thoughts just once. Only surface thoughts, of course; without etheric energy to boost his telepathic ability, he couldn’t go any deeper than that. At least, not on a subject that wasn’t otherwise impaired, like Granddad had been the night he’d sent him to meet the rougarou.

Caleb had seemed fine, but the demon inside him…

It felt big. Terrifying. Like Ryan was standing before an oncoming storm that would sweep him away. As though Katrina had returned with all its power and destruction, tucked away into the body of a thin young man. Unleashed, it would wreak untold havoc.

Ryan longed to turn around and go back to New Orleans. Save John from SPECTR, from the vampire. John belonged here, with him and Jo. The only three survivors from their time as lab rats.

But that wasn’t an option. SPECTR would grab him again, and he’d spend the rest of his life locked away in some underground facility, experimented on just like he’d been for so much of his life. They’d be careful this time, learn from their mistakes. Rotate personnel so he couldn’t manipulate their thoughts slowly over the span of months and years.

Then there would never be any justice. The people who had done this, who had destroyed their childhoods and their lives, would continue on free and happy. So, no, he couldn’t turn back. John was lost to him.

He straightened his shoulders and wiped the tiredness from his face as best as he was able before returning to the main room. Jo sat in a chair beside the window looking into the parking lot, staring out in silence. She appeared as exhausted as he felt.

“Did we really do that?” she asked, almost to herself.

Her thoughts unspooled in a jumble: we’re going to get arrested, that was so stupid, why did I go along with that, I’m going to jail, can we run?

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her firmly. Considered pushing his thoughts into hers, redirecting them…but no. The vampire was on the loose now; there wasn’t going to be another source of etherically charged blood conveniently waiting for him. He needed to conserve it for more important tasks.

Such as interrogating their captive.

Agent Pittman, executive assistant to Director Kaniyar. Her pet empath she’d brought up through the ranks with her, ready to do whatever she asked of him.

It didn’t take a telepath to guess Pittman’s thoughts right now; his expression of fury told its own story. But underneath, Ryan heard fear.

He wants names, he has to, met Carrie Lydell at—no! Stop! Think about something, anything, concentrate on breathing, in, out, in, out, fuck is he going to kill me?

Pittman lay propped up against the headboard of one of the beds, securely bound with a duct tape gag. The perks of a motel: back the car up to the door, yank someone out of the trunk, and it’s only a couple of feet until they’re inside and out of sight. Not that there were many other guests to see anything; no one stayed at a rundown motel on Christmas Day unless they had no choice.

Ryan picked up the thermos filled with blood he’d drained from the vampire. He took a quick sip, trying to ignore the taste. Energy instantly crackled through him; his vision seemed sharper, his mind clearer. The thoughts of Jo and Pittman grew more distinct, easier to pluck from the air.

He resealed the thermos, then sat on the edge of the bed beside Pittman. “Now,” he said as he reached for the gag, “you’re going to answer some questions.”

“I brought the clothes the director asked for,” said the agent standing awkwardly in the conference room door. Caleb hadn’t caught her name or rank, had no idea if she was local or someone Kaniyar had brought with her to New Orleans. Either way, her eyes were wary as she held out a shopping bag in Night’s direction.

Unlike Gray, who could hide inside of Caleb’s living body, Night was clearly inhuman. Her body might be that of a soccer mom, short with rumpled blonde hair. But her eyes glowed like those of a predator reflecting the light from a campfire, and fangs flashed whenever she spoke.

Now she fixed her eerie gaze on the agent. “I have clothing already.”

Technically true, but Christmas-themed pajamas decorated with bloody bullet holes weren’t going to cut it. “Do you want mortals losing it around you?” he asked. “Because you’re pretty conspicuous right now.”

Night frowned slightly. Drakul learned pretty quickly that screaming mortals had the annoying tendency to get in the way during a hunt. “No. I will accept this disguise.”

Zahira, no doubt seeing the other agent’s uncertainty, reached out for the bag. “I’ll take over from here.”

The agent nodded, backing toward the door as she did so. “Great. I got a bunch of stuff, sizes fourteen to eighteen since women’s clothing sizes don’t mean shit.”

“Thank you,” Zahira said, but the other woman was already out the door and gone.

Smart lady.

“Come with me—I’ll help you,” Zahira told Night.

He half expected Night to protest, but she only followed Zahira out of the room. Night wouldn’t bother with figuring out the right sizes or what looked acceptable on her own; with Zahira’s help she at least wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Too badly, anyway.

And now, at last, Caleb and Gray were alone with John.

Gray hovered close to the surface, not speaking but observing keenly. John had been quiet since Kaniyar left them in this boring-ass beige conference room at SPECTR-NOLA headquarters.

Which wasn’t really surprising. What the hell did you say, after being mind-controlled by someone you thought you knew? Someone you trusted?

If Caleb ever saw Ryan again, he was going to wring his fucking neck.

Gray stirred at that thought. “He tried to take John away. He stole our blood. I do not like him.”

Yeah, no kidding.

Caleb leaned across the table toward John. John didn’t look good—of course he didn’t—eyes bruised and hair unkempt, the shadow of stubble darkening his jaw.

“Hey,” Caleb said softly. He stretched out his hand and let it rest on the table, an invitation rather than a demand. “How are you doing?”

John stared at nothing. “I don’t understand why he did this,” he said at last.

No need to ask who “he” was. Ryan Starkweather, originally called John Starkweather, the telepath. Handed over by his parents to a SPECTR operation pretending to be an anti-paranormal facility that would “cure” their child of his ability. Locked away, tortured by having demons forced in and out of him, injected with god-knew-what cocktail of drugs in an attempt to control the demons inside.

Four other kids had been with him. Two were dead. One missing alongside Ryan. The fourth, John Starkweather, born Jonathan Low. Mind-wiped, memories replaced, then scooped up by SPECTR to become an agent without ever remembering what they’d done to him. Hell, they positioned themselves as his savior, his haven.

“Ryan wanted to get close to Kaniyar, get the names of everyone who tortured you, and then kill them all starting with her.” Caleb shrugged. “It’s no deeper than that.”

And fuck, he kind of sympathized with the guy. Ryan might be a psycho, but the people on that list had been fine with torturing kids. This was all top-secret stuff; they’d never see the inside of a courtroom. There was no hope of justice unless Ryan took it into his own hands.

But Ryan had also decided to take over John and Jo’s minds, order them to shoot up him and Gray, and Night. Night just hopped bodies, but Gray and he ended up locked in a bank vault after having been bled by Ryan, who wanted the ability-boost of a drakul’s blood to fuel his revenge.

So Caleb’s sympathy was running a lot thinner than it would have otherwise.

The look John shot him was like a stake to the heart. Grief, anger, betrayal, all aimed at the only target in the room. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Ryan loved us. You can’t even begin to understand the sort of bond we formed, locked up and tortured together. We were all we had. We’d die for each other.”

Caleb flinched. That last bit had been in present tense, and he didn’t like that at all.

Gray picked up on his alarm. “Does John wish he was still with the telepath?”

No; of course not.

“Then explain it to me,” Caleb suggested, keeping his voice as gentle as he could.

John wiped at his eyes. “When he revealed himself to Jo and me…it was like coming home. Even before I got my memories back, I felt a connection to him. I thought it was because we were related, but no. It went deeper than blood.”

A wash of concern from Gray. Caleb breathed deep, not wanting to add to it. There were a lot of advantages to being a drakul, but emotional feedback loops could get overwhelming fast. “I hear you. But he wasn’t the boy you knew back then.”

“Of course he wasn’t.” John shot a bitter glare at the camera monitoring them from the corner. “The rest of us got out. But he was stuck in a lab for years after they realized he was a true telepath. He sacrificed himself for us, and I didn’t even remember his face.”

In Caleb’s opinion, none of the test subjects had gotten out. One had been abandoned in the ruined Center to be transformed into a naga, one put in a different lab, and the rest parceled out to state schools for the paranormally abled, to be swept up in SPECTR’s claws once they were of age.

The people at the state schools must have known, at least the principals, or headmasters, or whatever the fuck they were called. They’d steered certain students right into SPECTR’s academy.

Had someone been keeping an eye on John all these years? Maybe not Kaniyar or any of John’s direct coworkers, but some quiet operation still ticking along within SPECTR?

He tucked those unpleasant thoughts away for later. “I know,” he said. “And I know those years in the lab changed Ryan. And that’s not his fault! Far from it. If you want my opinion, all the blood is on SPECTR’s hands here. But Ryan knew you’d never go along with his killing spree, so instead of respecting your decision, he forced you to carry out his orders. That’s not love, John.”

John sat still for a long moment, before sliding his hand over and taking Caleb’s. Caleb gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, and Gray hummed just under their shared skin.

The door opened, and Kaniyar walked in, followed by a Black man with a green armband on his sleeve. An empath. Right on cue, he looked at Caleb and recoiled slightly, unable to sense his emotions thanks to his possessed state.

Kaniyar looked grim, even for her. “I’ve made some phone calls to warn potential victims,” she said, taking a seat at the head of the conference table. The empath sat down uneasily, as far as he could get from Caleb and Gray. “So it’s time to start talking.” Her eyes fixed on John. “Tell me what Ryan Starkweather’s next move is.”