Claimed (13 page)

“Hmmmm.” Tex cleared his throat.

“Sorry, man.” Creed slid away from Chiana, who made a small noise of protest. As he put distance between them and the need to possess her lessened, he faced a hard reality.

The spell may have worked too well. Chiana couldn’t hurt him, which was good. The downside was that the spell also guaranteed he was the only man she was attracted to. That, combined with her heightened pheromones or whatever the hell it was, might be even more dangerous for them both.

“Show the man your tattoo,” he ordered. “The one at the top of your butt.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll drop my drawers right here.”

Tex stepped closer, offering a smile Creed suspected worked on many a woman.

“You got that tattoo right after you joined the agency, huh?”

Chiana nodded.

“I’ll bet you were pretty buzzed, drinking steady after a bad night. Your partner or somebody else from work suggested it, and you were in the mood for a little body art.”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“You’d be surprised what I know. You’ll probably also be surprised to learn that thanks to your tat, the agency can find you whenever they want.”

Chiana pulled down the back of her pants and turned her head to peer at the tribal tattoo she could barely see.

“You’re crazy,” she said, still looking. “The tracer was in my bra.”

Tex laughed. “The agency believes in overkill. You should know that by now.”

Chiana pulled her pants back in place and shook her head. “A little proof would be nice.”

Tex nodded at Creed, who pulled off his shirt and turned his back to her.

“See that?” Tex ran a finger across the thunderbird whose wings arched from shoulder to shoulder. “His tracer is right there, in the feathers at the neck. The only difference between yours and his is that that only activates when he’s dead.

“I’m a consultant for agents who value their privacy. I can have that out in a couple of minutes. Just say the word.”

Chiana buried her hands in her hair. This was crazy. No way could a stranger know she had gotten drunk in Atlantic City with a couple of fellow agents and stupidly agreed to get a tattoo. They’d walked down the street and into the first tattoo parlor they’d seen. It couldn’t have been a set-up.

Yes, it could
, whispered a voice inside her. She’d never been to Atlantic City before; they had. She’d had a lot more to drink than any of them, and they made her feel as if that tattoo was a rite of passage.

“Thanks, but I’ll take my chances,” she said, nervous about letting a stranger even touch her there, let alone cut on her.

Creed shook his head.

“Tex takes it out.”

Chiana stiffened.

“No way. My body, my choice. That’s what he said.”

Tex patted the cot and said, “It’s painless. You lay down; I put in a local anesthetic and slip the tracer out with the smallest of incisions. A stitch, a Band-Aid and you’re good to go.”

The thought of even such a slight procedure gave Chiana the willies. She’d been dead-ass drunk when she got the tattoo. She’d like to be even drunker now.

“Got any whiskey?” Never hurt to ask.

Tex grinned. “I’ve got a bottle of Kentucky bourbon, wax seal intact. That do?”

She nodded. He opened the bottle and grabbed a plastic tumbler. Ignoring him, Chiana grabbed the bottle and tipped it to her mouth. She took a long drink, cringing at the burn as it slid down her throat. Lowering the bottle, she wiped her lips and sighed.

“Ready?” Tex asked.

Holding up a finger in the universal symbol for wait, she took another swig, then one more. When the hot buzz of the liquor hit her stomach, she handed the bottle to Creed, slid her pants to mid-thigh and lay on the cot, stomach-down.

“Ready when you are,” she said, her words slurring softly.

She kept her eyes on Creed, who stood with crossed arms watching the other man slide a needle into her skin. As it took effect, Tex unfolded an alcohol wipe and cleaned the area around the tattoo before sliding a latex-gloved finger across the colorful design. When he was satisfied he’d found the tracer, he took a small scalpel from a drawer, sterilized it with a new alcohol pad and made a small cut in the heart of the tattoo.

Eyes closed, head to the side, Chiana didn’t react. She stayed still as Tex pulled out a tiny square of plastic-encased wires. She didn’t move until Tex pulled a stitch through and said, “All done.”

Chiana slid off the table, pulled up her pants and fastened them.

“Doing okay?” Tex asked. He offered the small transmitter for her inspection, holding it with a pair of surgical tweezers. Chiana tipped her head and studied it.

“So I’ve been wearing this thing for five years now.”

“It happens,” Tex replied. “Most people die with ‘em still stuck beneath their skin, never aware Big Brother is keeping tabs on them.”

“Hey, give credit where it’s due,” Creed interrupted. “Even the federal government doesn’t have anything this sophisticated.”

“Good point.” Tex placed the electronic device on a flat stone, fired up a butane torch and smiled. “Say bye-bye.”

Two minutes later, the transmitter was a black, melted mass in the middle of the stone; the air inside the truck reeked of burnt wires and scorched plastic. Chiana’s nose prickled, and her throat scratched from the minute particles lingering in the air.

Tex proved to be more gregarious than Creed. He answered Chiana’s questions as he stood at the small sink, washing his hands and cleaning scalpel and tweezers.

“Take these out often?”

She tried to keep the question casual. If implanting bugs was a routine practice, good enough. If she’d been singled out, she might give in to the thin layer of frustration and simmering anger that lay beneath the surface.

“Often enough.” Tex dried his hands and turned to her. “Usually, it’s after someone walks away from the agency, or they get thrown out for pushing things too far.”

Chiana still had a dozen questions she was dying to ask when Creed interrupted the conversation with a simple, “Send her a postcard, buddy, we’ve got to roll.”

Tex nodded. Pulling open another of those stainless drawers, he lifted out a box of keys.

“Pick your poison,” he said.

“Something fast and overlooked,” Creed answered.

“Here you go.” Tex flipped him a pair of keys on a small ring. “Third from the end, back row. Looks like hell, runs like it’s boosted with rocket fuel.”

“Good enough.” Creed said. “And thanks.”

Chiana watched him drop a roll of bills on the table along with the keys to the SUV they’d arrived in. As Creed led her out the door and across the parking lot, she realized that after years of controlling her own fate, she’d irrevocably placed it in the hands of this man.

That ought to scare her to death. Instead, she felt the safest she had in a long, long time.

* * * *

Chiana had expected the key from Tex to fit something rough and rugged, like a tough four by four that would climb hills and ford rivers. Or a Hummer, maybe, created for war but converted to be a suburban status symbol. When Creed slipped the keys into the door lock of this old truck, she thought he’d misheard its location. She could see it hauling pigs or hay, but not as a getaway vehicle.

That was before she noticed its tinted windows, unexpected in a rust bucket with as much primer as paint on the exterior. And before Creed unlocked her door and she opened it to an interior that looked new and a dash with gizmos she’d never seen before.

“I take it this thing’s not straight off the farm,” she said.

Creed didn’t answer. Big surprise. He’d gone silent during her tracer removal and stayed that way except for his brief goodbye to his friend. Not that he’d been any brilliant conversationalist. Still, if she was heading for her death, she’d at least like to know the favorite food and best childhood memory of the guy who was determined to die with her.

Chapter Nine

Mick felt like death warmed over. His body ached as if he had the flu, he had one mother of a headache and he was repulsed by food despite the fact that he was starving. Whatever was wrong, it wasn’t an ordinary illness. He didn’t have chills, fevers or a combination of the two. His pulse was steady when he took it, as he suspected his blood pressure also would be.

He tried to remember when the cruddy feelings began. Before his blackout, he knew that much. He blinked and tried for any memory past driving to the diner in Louisville for breakfast.

Be nice if he knew where he was. Or why he’d come here. A vague memory buzzed at the back of his brain, something to do with Chiana. He tried to reel it in, make it concrete, but he couldn’t.

Mick looked, trying to place a familiar landmark.

Nothing.

A billboard a few yards down advertised a car dealership, his first clue where he was. He stared at it in confusion. If that dealership was local, then he was in West Virginia. But why?

Taking a deep breath, he slid behind the wheel of his truck, wincing as the movement activated the hammers inside his head. Despite the pounding and the nausea, he knew he had to get out of here. Had to go home. Had to be there when…

Damn. He couldn’t remember why he had to be back in Louisville. It wasn’t Monday yet. Was it?

He turned the key and eased the pick-up into drive, pulling back onto the highway when there was a break in traffic. He found a traveling speed and hit cruise control. He’d let the truck take him back while he tried to figure out whether he was sick, crazy or possessed.

* * * *

“We need to talk.”

“You know that’s one phrase every man dreads, don’t you?” Creed glanced over at Chiana, who looked both serious and unhappy.

“Too bad. I’m tired of being treated like a victim. I’m a senior agent, a position I got by working my ass off, being willing to take any assignment and not giving up before the job is done. No offense, but I don’t need a strong, manly guy to come save fairy-princess me. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, but I have to know everything, not just the bits and pieces you toss my way.”

“Nice speech,” Creed said. “Been working on it long?”

The silence that followed made him halfway regret his smart-ass reply. Yeah, she probably should know everything. He’d want to, if it was him.

“What do you want to know?” he finally said.

“What the worst is that can happen. I mean besides my being hauled off to another world. What’s the worst that can happen in this one?”

“We die.”

More silence.

“How much do you know about my mother?”

“Nothing about her personally,” Creed said. “And not as much as I should about Valkyries.”

“I didn’t know I was one until right before my mother died,” Chiana confided. “When she first told me, I thought the pain meds she was on were making her hallucinate. Of course, that’s before I got into this line of work and learned how many creatures we share our world with.”

“When did you decide she was right?”

Chiana gave a short laugh. “When something touched me in the parking lot yesterday morning and an unwanted piece of body art showed up on my arm.”

They were both quiet as the miles slid away under their tires. Creed would have given his left arm to know what she was thinking. Did she have some knowledge she didn’t understand but might get them out of this mess?

Or was she thinking about letting the spirit warrior take her?

“Do you want to do me?” she suddenly asked.

“Do you?”

“Yeah, you know. Horizontal tango, two bodies tangled in the sheets. Sex.”

Creed was speechless. Of all the things he thought they’d talk about, this was definitely low on the list.

“I mean, Odin wants his Valkyries to be virgins, right? So if I’m not one, the ghost dude following us will go away and everything will be fine. Yes or no?”

“No.” Creed pushed down harder on the accelerator.

“Why ‘no’? No, you don’t want to have sex with me or no, that’s not going to do the trick?”

“No, because this thing has gone too far. From what Lillian’s books say about Odin, patience isn’t on his list of virtues. If the dead warrior manages to take you back and you’re not pure as the driven snow, he’ll find ways to punish you, plus send his messenger back to take care of the guy who did the deed.”

“As in sorry, you’re dead?”

“As in I’ll die eventually, but he’ll plan many horrible things to do with me first.”

“Oh.”

Creed had managed to slam a mental door on the most disturbing of the things he’d read while Chiana slept. Her question opened it wide again. Guardian Security was one of only a handful of organizations around the world that knew better and fought the things that go bump in the night, yet Creed knew the folks on the top floor were blissfully oblivious to the duties of the agents who worked on the lower floors.