Avenger of Sins (SPECTR Series 3, #6)

Chapter 4

FOUR

Gray wrenches back from the needle, sending it flying. The attached syringe is empty, plunger fully depressed, and a sensation of numbness spreads out with every heartbeat. Their limbs feel wrong, muscles going to rubber, and suddenly the floor impacts their knees. The dog scrambles away, growling and barking in a rage at the woman who appeared beside them as if out of thin air.

“Jo.” Caleb’s thoughts are sluggish. “Ryan hid her from us—he must be close. We’ve got to move…”

Gray snarls at her. He’s clearing the poison from their blood, but it takes time, and that is one thing they may not have.

She flicks her honey-blonde braid back over her shoulder. “It seems like the good Doctor Foster had a problem abusing sedatives,” she says. “My luck; your loss.”

Fire blooms along her fingers—a pyrokinetic. Caleb’s fear spikes their blood, but feeling is coming back into their limbs, Gray needs only a few more seconds?—

Night lunges across the room, fangs bared at Jo. Jo swipes at the drakul’s face, fingers trailing fire, and Night jumps back to avoid being burned. Shaking off the last effects of the drug, Gray grabs Jo’s wrist, below the flames.

They spread, running like water over her skin. The sleeve of her shirt catches, even though the skin beneath remains whole, and the flames bite into their fingers like a thousand hungry mouths.

He wrenches back, the smell of their own cooking skin thick in their nostrils. A flare of panic from Caleb, who does not like this, and for the first time in a long while they try to control the same limb at the same time and end up flailing.

“She cannot kill us,” Gray snarls aloud.

“No?” Jo cocks her head. “Maybe not. But you won’t enjoy what I can do.”

She goes up like a torch, entire body wreathed in flame, clothing turning to ash around her. Caleb is stunned into silence, and even Gray feels uncertain as her heat blisters their face and singes the fine hairs. How much of their blood has she drunk?

“I’ve only felt this powerful once before,” Jo muses, her eyes reflecting the flames. “At the Center. When I was possessed. But this is a thousand times better. Surrender now and give me your blood, and I won’t hurt you.”

“What the fuck is happening?” Caleb asks, pointlessly. “Has Ryan driven her crazy?”

Gray scrambles back quickly, and she stalks after him, the bed sheets catching flame as she brushes against them. “Go down,” she snarls at him. “I gave you enough tranquilizer to drop a horse. Why are you still up?”

She, or Ryan, has underestimated them. Good.

He slows his movements, pretending confusion. The dog continues to bark madly, and Night hovers nearby, uncertain what to do.

“Take the creature and leave,” Gray says, slurring the words intentionally.

Night doesn’t question, vanishing with the dog quickly as a shadow flickering across a room. Jo doesn’t seem to care; all of her attention is on him.

On his blood.

She reaches beneath the mattress, setting it alight as she does so, and draws out a wicked knife. “Too bad we can’t bleed you the way we did before. But this will be enough for now.”

He waits until the knife is in its downward arc, toward their throat, before flinging up his arm.

The thick leather of their coat foils the blade; the sweep of his arm knocks it free from her hand. With his other hand, he grabs for her wrist again, bracing for the pain. “Surrender!” he orders, even as skin blisters and peels, and Caleb writhes under their shared skin. They just need to hold on a little longer, push through the pain?—

She brings the hand that had held the knife around, under his guard, and grabs them by the face.

Agony.

Gray roars in fury and pain. Fingers jam into his mouth, bringing fire with them, trying to cook their brain from the inside.

He bites, instinct overriding all else. There are flames in their mouth, melting the fat in their lips, but bone crunches under fangs and Jo screams in an agony of her own.

She wrenches away leaving behind shreds of flesh, the taste of her blood lost to charred tastebuds. With another roar, Gray surges to their feet.

Jo scrambles back, hand cradled to her chest and blood pouring down her arm. Flame spreads with her every movement, further engulfing the room.

They aren’t supposed to bite mortals, if John finds out?—

“This is an exception!” Caleb all but shouts. “She was trying to make drakul flambé, for fuck’s sake!”

Fear shows in Jo’s eyes now, and the flames begin to die from her skin even as they spread everywhere else. Smoke fills the air, excoriating their throat and lungs.

“Surrender,” he snarls again.

With a sob of pain and terror, Jo stumbles away from them—and topples backward out the open window.

He starts after her, but there is fire everywhere now, the heat blistering their exposed skin. “We have to get out!” Caleb insists, his fear and pain thrumming along their nerves.

Growling in frustration, Gray runs out of the bedroom, through a hall filling with smoke, then across the living room and out the front door. Night stands in the yard, still holding the dog.

“Put it down and help me,” Gray tells her.

The rattle of an opening garage door comes from the side of the house. He runs toward it, as a cream-colored SUV pulls out, tires squealing on the concrete. Jo’s face, white with pain, flashes past in the passenger seat.

No. He cannot let them escape, not after what Ryan did to John.

He leaps as it speeds past, grabbing hold of the roof rack. The driver—Ryan, presumably—throws the vehicle into a tight turn to exit onto the road, and their body slides across the slick metal. But Gray’s hold doesn’t loosen; it will take more than that to shake him off.

The SUV accelerates, tearing off through the darkness, swerving from side to side in an attempt to shake them off. Night won’t be able to catch up at this rate. It’s up to Gray and Caleb to stop these mortals.

He punches through the roof; Jo screams in terror. A glimpse through the hole shows her huddled against the passenger side door, still holding her mangled hand, tears streaming down her face.

The vehicle doesn’t slow, so Gray grasps the edge of the hole and pulls, peeling back the steel. If he can just make the opening big enough to get inside…

Ryan glances up at them, just a brief break in his concentration on the road. He’s steering with one hand; in the other, he holds a gun.

“Tell John I’ll talk to him again soon,” Ryan says, then pulls the trigger.

A flash of light, followed by a greater flash of pain as the bullet smashes into their skull. The world flips over-and-over, starry sky swapping places with the ground.

Then they hit the road hard, all the wind exiting their lungs in a whoosh. The howl of the speeding car’s engine fades away into the night.

“Ouch,” Caleb says after a long moment.

Indeed. Gray sits up as the pain in their skull subsides, then spits out the bullet into their hand. Its silver jacket gleams in the starlight.

Unease stirs through Caleb. “That’s SPECTR ammo. Probably Pittman’s gun. So where is Pittman?”

We do not have enough information to say.

“Yeah, but…it doesn’t look good, does it?”

Mortals often wish reassurance that what they fear, however logical, is not how things truly are. Gray doesn’t bother to answer, instead climbing to their feet. The glow of the fire paints the sky behind them, and sirens split the night. We should return to John.

“Yeah.” Caleb’s frustration is Gray’s own. “He needs to know Ryan got away from us. Again.”

The blare of a siren sounded behind them. Zahira slowed and pulled onto the shoulder. A fire engine roared past, red lights flashing off bare trees and darkened windows.

Just a car crash, or a heart attack. Some late-night emergency that had nothing to do with them.

More sirens and lights came up behind them. Two more firetrucks screamed past, followed by an ambulance.

All heading in the direction of the house.

John sat up straighter, his heart thumping with a sudden surge of adrenaline. “Something’s gone wrong.”

Zahira pressed her lips together and stepped on the gas, falling in behind the emergency vehicles. Before long, a column of black smoke appeared above the trees, lit amber from the fire below.

They passed the point where they’d dropped off Caleb, Gray, and Night. Another mile, and the flaming wreckage of a house appeared before them.

Zahira pulled off the road well away from the emergency vehicles and took out her phone. “That’s the address,” she confirmed. “Foster’s house.”

John climbed out of the SUV. The stink of burning wood, plastics, and Goddess knew what else filled the air. Neighbors had come out of their houses and stood on the lawns. One woman clutched a small dog, her face buried in its fur. Beside her, a young man waved his arms at the firefighters and yelled, “Uncle Ted! Uncle Ted’s in there!”

John’s heart sank. The blaze burned fiercely—had Jo started it with her prokinetics? And if so, had it been on purpose?

And were Caleb and Gray inside?

Goddess, please no. He took out his phone and hit their number.

It rang through to voicemail.

Fuck.

Hands shaking, he started to text. But he’d barely hit a couple of letters before Night materialized beside him.

John yelped in surprise, phone falling to the ground as he instinctively reached for his Glock.

“Night?” Zahira exclaimed. “Are you alright? Where are Caleb and Gray?”

“Here,” Caleb said, and a surge of relief nearly took John to his knees.

Instead, he flung his arms around them as they emerged from the darkness behind Night. They reeked of smoke, burnt hair, and a disturbing smell like charred pork. “Fuck, you two had me scared for a minute,” he said.

Caleb hugged him back. “Sorry. We ended up toe to toe with Jo, and it didn’t go so well for anyone involved.”

“Tell me.”

“We will. But let’s get out of here first, before anyone starts wondering who we are and comes over to ask questions.”

It was a good suggestion. They all climbed back in the SUV; Zahira carefully executed a three-point turn and aimed them away from the fire and back toward town.

As they drove, Caleb related everything that had happened. When he finished, Night said, “This was pointless. The mortal is dead, the other mortals gone. We should abandon this foolishness.”

“I would if we could,” Caleb told her. “And honestly, if you want to take off, this would be a good time to do it. Kaniyar’s got other things on her plate; you could be long gone before she realizes.”

Night considered for a moment. Then she shrugged. “We will hunt together?”

“Yeah.” Caleb made a face. “We’re pretty hungry after getting set on fire and then being shot in the head.”

“Then I will stay.”

“You’re a drakul of simple needs.” Caleb leaned forward and held something out to John.

Puzzled, he extended his palm, and Caleb dropped a bullet into it. “This is what we were shot with. Silver-jacketed lead. You might want to send it to Kaniyar for ballistics, but I don’t know who it could belong to except for Pittman.”

John’s heart sank. Ryan had said he was a killer, but he hadn’t mentioned Pittman. “That isn’t good.”

“And you didn’t see Pittman with them, correct?” Zahira asked.

“No.”

John curled his fingers around the bullet. “So either Ryan let him go, or left him tied up somewhere. Or he’s dead.”

“Yeah.” Caleb sighed. “And Ryan doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to leave loose ends.”

Jo whimpered as Ryan carefully wound gauze around her splinted fingers. She needed a hospital, but SPECTR would certainly be monitoring any emergency rooms within a hundred miles of Thomasville. So instead, he’d stopped at the first all-night drugstore they came across and bought everything he could think of that might ease her pain and halt the bleeding.

This was his fault. He should never have let her stay behind and confront the drakul alone. But she’d wanted more blood, and if their plans were to work, he needed to keep what they had left for himself.

And he’d wanted to talk to John.

He’d been in the car, listening for thoughts, for any sign of someone waking up at the commotion inside Foster’s house. And then, to his shock, he’d touched a mind he knew almost as well as his own.

Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. But he hadn’t been able to resist.

It hurt, being here without John. It should have been all of them together, meting out justice, taking back their lives.

But the drakul had fucked it all up.

Ryan had expected to fight human monsters, not NHEs. The vampire had been a wild card from the beginning. He should have done more, planned more carefully. If he’d put to use some of the schemes for restraining the drakul he’d pulled from Pittman’s head…but that would have taken more time and resources than he had.

If only the damned thing hadn’t caught up with them so quickly. The operation itself had gone smoothly. Foster had been waiting for them, sitting upright in his bed with gun in hand. He’d tried to negotiate rather than taking a shot, though given his shaking hands he probably couldn’t have hit them if he’d tried.

“I wasn’t the one giving the injections,” he’d insisted, eyes wet with fear. “I worked in the lab—I needed that job to feed my family. I was just following orders!”

Just following orders— the cowardly refuge for someone who’d been happy to do his job, right up until facing the consequences. If Foster’d had the nerve to at least own up to his own culpability, Ryan might have had some sliver of respect for him.

But what had he expected? People with any sort of courage wouldn’t torment helpless captives who couldn’t fight back.

Jo let out a moan of pain, and he winced. “Sorry, sorry. I’m trying not to hurt you.”

“Do you think…am I going to lose it?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” he reassured her, though in truth he wasn’t sure. Her right hand was a mangled mess of broken bones and shredded flesh where the creature had sunk its fangs in deep. She might as well have been bitten by a mountain lion or a grizzly bear.

She needed stitches and antibiotics. Hell, she needed surgery to put muscles back together and try to prevent permanent nerve damage, if that was even an option at this point.

But as usual, none of them were getting what they needed.

If only things could have played out differently. If they could have reunited under better circumstances.

That was a pipe dream, though. There was no other way things could have happened. Not once John began to remember; not after Ryan committed to giving his old friends back their true selves. From then on it was inevitable that SPECTR would find out. Ryan would be recaptured and put into some black ops site. As for what would happen to the others, he didn’t know, but SPECTR wouldn’t let them loose to tell the world about its sins.

So the only choices had been to sit and wait for SPECTR to come for him—for them all—or try to enact some justice.

There was no happy ending ahead for any of them. Hadn’t been since the day they’d walked through the Center’s doors.

“They’re going to be waiting for us,” Jo said. She leaned her head tiredly against the passenger door, skin gray from pain. “We aren’t going to get Lydell, are we?”

“We are. We’ll have to be more creative, that’s all.” He secured the gauze and stepped back. “None of this was in vain, Jo.”

“I hope not.” She licked her lips. “Can I have some more blood? It will make me feel better.”

It probably would. That sensation of power, the headiness of it, would push through the pain for a while. But if they weren’t going to get any more, they needed to ration what they had left.

“Try to sleep,” he said. “That’s what you need to heal. Lie down in the back seat, and I’ll drive.”

She acquiesced. They’d stolen another car to replace Foster’s; curse the drakul for ripping open the roof and making it so noticeable. As she settled in the back, she said, “John wasn’t there.”

Ryan slid into the driver’s seat. “He was nearby. Waiting.”

“I wish he was with us,” Jo murmured, sounding on the very edge of sleep. “What do you think Kaniyar did to him?”

Ryan started the car, swallowing back the grief that slashed him like a knife. “I don’t know. But I doubt it’s anything good.”