Crimson Death (73 page)

Between one second and the next, one thrust of his body and the
next, he brought me screaming wordlessly, too overwhelmed for any words to hold. I spasmed with the orgasm, throwing my head back, closing my eyes.

“Look at me, Anita. Look at me!” His voice was a deep growl, so bass it didn't sound like him at all anymore.

I opened my eyes and looked up to find his lips half-parted, his eyes almost frantic. He fought his body to keep its rhythm so I would scream my pleasure just one more time. I felt my nails dig into his arms where I was still holding on. He stared into my eyes and I stared back, and what I saw just a second before looked almost like fear, as if he were afraid to let himself release. His body shuddered above me, stumbled in that rhythm, and he cried out above me, his eyes wide and frantic as he thrust himself as deep inside me as he could get, which made me scream for him again. I felt him shudder inside me, felt him go inside me, his body pulsing with it, which made me cry out again and rake my nails down his arms.

He finally closed his eyes and bowed his head over me, while his chest rose and fell as if he'd been running. There was a fine sheen of sweat down the middle of his chest. I wanted to touch his curls so close above me, but I couldn't make my arms work. I couldn't make anything work. I was just floating in the afterglow of all of it.

His voice was breathy as he said, “Thank you.”

It took me two tries to say, “Oh, Domino.”

He raised his head enough to look at me.

I smiled and said in a voice that was almost too breathless to work, “Domino, it was my pleasure. Oh God, it was so my pleasure.”

He smiled then and started to pull himself out of me, one hand going to the condom to make sure everything stayed in place. He half collapsed beside me. “I need to clean up.”

I patted his chest sort of awkwardly, because it was a bad angle for it. “You do that. I can't move yet.”

He got to his feet beside the bed and then staggered into the wall, trying to get into the bathroom. It made me laugh, and he laughed with me. Sex so good you run into walls.

I
WAS STILL
lying on the bed, letting my mind and newly healed body drift, when there was a forceful knock on the door. It was the sort of knock that police give, very authoritative and loud. The adrenaline rush cleared the floating happiness of afterglow. I sat up and called out, “Domino?”

There was a knock at the connecting door, and Ethan said, “Coming through,” and opened the door without asking. He had a gun bare in his hand, and I was okay with that. I was scrambling across the bed for the one I'd left handy on the bedside table. Once I had it in one hand and the sheets covering my chest in the other one, I felt a little better. I always needed clothes and weapons to feel really secure.

Domino came out of the bathroom, still nude, but he had a gun in his hand, which meant he'd stashed one in there somewhere and I hadn't known it. I was sort of impressed, or sad with myself. “I heard,” he said.

“Who is it?” Ethan asked from the open connecting door.

Domino shook his head and went toward the door. Most people would have put their eye to the peephole, but he didn't. He stood to one side and about a foot from the door, as the knock sounded again, and a man's voice said, “Hotel security!” The voice had that cop sound to it. I was betting he either had been a cop or was one earning extra money on the side.

“I'm sorry. Who did you say you are?” Domino asked, though I knew he'd heard perfectly.

“Hotel security. Is everything all right in there, sir?”

“We're fine.”

“Could you open the door and let us verify that everyone in the room is fine?”

“I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable with opening the door,” Domino said.

“Sir, if you don't open the door, we will be forced to unlock the door and enter without your permission.”

“The safety bolt is on. You won't get in,” Domino said.

“We are just following up on a noise complaint, sir,” a second, slightly less authoritative voice said.

Domino turned and looked at me, smiling in that way that men do when they're proud of the noise you've made together. “If you had a noise complaint, I'm sorry. We'll be quieter.”

“People said they heard a woman screaming. I'm terribly sorry, sir, but we need to verify that the woman is not in any distress.”

Domino smiled broader and shook his head. “Anita, can you tell them you're not in distress?”

I held the sheet a little tighter to my chest as if I needed more cover-up just to talk through the door. “I'm sorry we were loud, but I'm fine.”

“I'm sorry, miss. We'd love to be able to take your word through the door, but we need to actually see you face-to-face,” the second male voice said; he sounded younger than the other one.

“Is there a law in Ireland against loud sex?” Domino asked.

“No, sir,” said the voice through the door, “but there is a law against domestic abuse. If you don't open the door and let us see the lady for ourselves, we will be forced to call the Gardai and report this as a potential assault.”

“I didn't think we were that loud,” I said.

Ethan said, “You were loud.”

“If you didn't know what we were doing, would you think I was screaming for help?”

“Maybe.”

“Just a minute. We need to get some clothes on before we open the door,” Domino said, and backed away from the door. I'd have liked to say he was being paranoid, but the knock had spooked me, too. Maybe we were all just professionally paranoid.

“Thank you, sir, ma'am, miss.” It was the younger security guard again; he sounded uncomfortable even through the door.

It wasn't just clothes we needed. The guns and blades that we'd been wearing were in a pile on either side of the bed. We had no official status in Ireland, so without one of the Gardai that knew us, or Nolan and his people with us, if we opened the door and the security people saw this many weapons, they would call the cops. We could put some of the dangerous stuff under the edge of the bed, but I didn't want to shove them too far under, because then you couldn't reach them, or worse yet I didn't want to spend time searching for a gun that I'd forgotten was under the bed. I'd never done it yet, but I didn't want to break my streak.

“Sir, ma'am?” said the cop voice at the door.

“Just tidying up,” I called out, trying to sound like a woman who had rented a hotel room with her lover and was maybe hiding bondage gear or sex toys from sight, not weapons. Nope, no weapons here.

Ethan holstered the gun he'd drawn so he could help us put weapons in the closet. Domino pulled on underwear and jeans. He picked up his holster, but Ethan shook his head.

I whispered to Domino, “We don't have any legal status here. Without Nolan and his crew, we're just armed strangers to these men. I don't know what we were thinking going out without Nolan or someone with credentials to vouch for us.”

“We couldn't bring Donnie and Griffin upstairs with us,” he said.

“Still should have asked for a card or something from Nolan,” I said.

“You were in pain, and we were thinking about sex,” Domino said.

“Edward let us walk off alone, too,” I said.

“Him, I don't have an excuse for,” Domino said.

Neither did I, which meant I'd be talking to him about it later, but first . . . another loud knock. “We've been patient, but either you open this door now, or we call the police, assuming that the lady in question is injured.”

Domino put on a T-shirt loose over the top of his jeans and put one handgun at the back of his waistband. It wasn't an ideal place to carry for real, no matter how many times you see it in movies, but for a few minutes to not spook hotel security it would do.

I'd started to put a robe on, but in the end I got one of the few oversize sleep shirts that I'd packed and put it on over jeans. I could
have hidden my AR-15 under it without it showing, but I settled for my EMP tucked into the holster I normally carried it in; yay gun belt! I had to put it a little more to the front than I normally carried it, but I wanted concealment more than I wanted a fast draw. We only had show the hotel security that I wasn't a victim, and then we could call Edward or any of our people still at the police station and get an escort back there. The fact that Domino and I had both taken the time to arm ourselves before we opened the door said we were indeed paranoid.

The last knock shook the door. “This is the last warning, sir. Open the door or the Gardai are being called.”

“We're coming,” I called.

Ethan went back to the other room, shutting the door between. Domino and I visually checked the room one more time for weapons, and then he opened the door with his body not in line of sight from the door, and me farther behind him. I'd stopped arguing with the bodyguards when they were guarding.

“Sorry, really, but the room was a mess,” Domino said in a wonderfully ordinary voice.

The two men in the doorway were both wearing dark suits and white button-up shirts, and they were shorter than Domino. The one in front was older and heavier, carrying enough around his middle that combined with the gray buzz cut of his hair he'd need to worry about cardiac health soon. His white button-up shirt strained across his chest and stomach, showing the undershirt as an imprint because it was all too tight. The second one looked like he should have still been in high school if he'd been in the States. Baby-fine white-blond hair cut short and a spattering of freckles across his cheeks made him look like an extra on a 1950s sitcom, but the black suit fit him well and the shoulder spread looked more grown-up than the face.

I probably looked about the same age in the huge T-shirt and jeans, so I guess I shouldn't throw stones, and God knew what my hair looked like after sex. Yeah, the stone throwing could wait.

A voice down the hallway asked, “What's wrong?”

“Go back inside, ma'am. Just a noise complaint.”

“Miss, could we step inside the room so we don't attract more attention, please?” the older one asked.

I didn't see a problem with it, but the bodyguards and I had a deal: I would remember to let them do their job. So I said, “Domino?”

“Sure,” he said, and stepped back, keeping me behind him as they came through the door. Once we were all in the room, it seemed a lot smaller.

“Miss, please step out where we can get a better look at you,” the older one asked.

It was reasonable since the lights were dim in the room, so I stepped out from behind Domino. I fought the urge to touch my hair; if I'd been that worried about it, I should have looked in a mirror before we opened the door.

He arched an eyebrow that was still black like his hair had been once. The young one gave me wide dark eyes. Apparently, I wasn't meeting expectations for him either.

“Were you fighting?” the older one asked.

“No,” Domino said, “we were . . .”

“I didn't ask you. I asked her,” he said, and even with the Irish accent, it was still a cop voice, abrupt and cutting across any nonsense.

Domino didn't argue, just stepped a little back so I was more to the front. “No, we weren't fighting,” I said.

“We had reports of a woman screaming, miss. If you weren't fighting, what were you doing?”

I could have been coy, but I wasn't good at it, so I decided to try the absolute truth. “We were having sex.”

He looked startled instead of cynical for the first time. His sidekick looked at the floor as if he suddenly didn't want to look at me or Domino. I don't think they'd expected me to just admit it.

“And that's your story?” the older guy asked.

“It's the truth,” I said.

Domino held his arms out so they could see the bloody scratches on them. “The sex got a little rough, but it wasn't my girlfriend who got hurt.”

I blushed, didn't mean to, but it helped our story, so it was a well-timed blush. “Sorry about that, Dom, really.”

“I'm not complaining, Anita, just explaining to the nice hotel security.” We shared one of those couple smiles, one that was actually not
real for us, but we both played it for real. I realized that I'd gotten better at undercover work over the years; I'd never be great at it, but I was improving.

The older security person was looking from one to the other of us as if he knew something was off, but not what. If he'd been an on-duty cop he'd have probably found a way to check us out more, but he was hotel security and he'd done his job. We just needed to keep looking pleasant until he left.

The younger guy was so embarrassed that he still couldn't look at either of us. With everything people do in hotel rooms, I wasn't sure he had the nerves for the job. Then he looked up, and there was something in his eyes that didn't match embarrassment and made him look older.

The older guy said, “Well, thank you for letting us in your room, and just keep the noise level down.” He started to turn for the door, and his fist lashed out at me as he moved so that it was just a continuation of the movement. I managed to avoid being hit, but the other fist was swinging back at me. The young one had rushed Domino, and we were both suddenly too busy avoiding getting hit to go for the only guns we had within reach.

T
HEY WERE MOVING
in a blur of speed; all I could think of was Magda in the hallway with Mort. I remembered what he'd said:
Don't try to see it. Just feel it.
I was faster than human, faster even than Mort, but I wasn't as fast as the big fists that were flying at me. I managed to avoid the blur of his big fists, and blocked a few, but it was a waiting game. Either I was going to find an opening and cripple him, or he'd get through my guard and that would be it. I didn't have time to look for Domino, or wonder where Ethan was, because it was everything I
could do just to keep ahead of the fight I was in; I could hear the noises and got the sense of the fight that Domino was having in his part of the room, but that was it. And then there was a sharp pain in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't raise my arms. I couldn't . . . A fist connected with the side of my face.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor looking up with the big guy sitting across my waist. I wasn't completely passed out, but I was close, and I couldn't catch my breath. Why did my chest hurt? I was stunned from the blow to my face, which made some things feel distant, but the pain in my chest and the fact that I couldn't catch my breath, that wasn't from this fight. I didn't see the door to the connecting room open, but I saw him look up, saw his eyes react, and then his hand moved. I got a glimpse of a silver blur and thought,
Knife
. It felt like my right shoulder had been hit by a baseball bat and my arm went numb, but I was already numb and distant from the head blow; what was happening to me? I saw the younger guy go past toward the door behind me. I wanted to look for Domino and Ethan, but I still couldn't move enough. It would pass. I knew it would pass, but would it pass in time?

“Don't kill that one,” the older guy said. “She's having trouble breathing.” He didn't sound Irish at all now, more Ukrainian, or maybe Russian, or something.

I heard the sounds of fighting and another sound that was wet and not good. Someone was hurt bad. What did he mean,
Don't kill that one
? Why had the young one been able to just walk away from Domino? I heard sounds of struggling behind me. I still couldn't catch my breath. My chest felt like he was sitting on it instead of my waist. There were bad sounds coming from the other side of the room where Domino had been. I could move now, I was pretty sure, but if I turned to look at Domino or Ethan, then the man on top of me would know I could move. I wanted to use that one chance to try to save us, not just look around. Fuck.

The wet, bubbling sounds in the other part of the room sounded more frantic. I sort of knew what they meant, but I didn't want to think it all the way through, not yet. I started gasping for air—couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe . . . couldn't . . .

“Take that thing out of him, before you kill her, too,” the older guy said.

I had to look now, but I knew. He was my animal to call, one of my
moitié bêtes
; he gave me some of his healing, speed, strength, stamina, and I gave him more power, but there were downsides.

My chest felt like it was collapsing, I was struggling to breathe, and it fucking hurt to try. I had to see. I turned my head, while I gasped like I was suffocating. Domino was pinned to the closet door with what looked like a sword hilt sticking out of his chest. Blood was bubbling out of his mouth; he coughed on it, choked on it. I had a shadow of the pain he was experiencing and the frantic struggle to breathe, drowning in your own blood while your lungs collapse and your body keeps trying to breathe, because your body keeps trying to work, even when it's too broken to ever work again.

I watched Domino struggle for breath, and knew no matter how much pain I was enduring, it wasn't as bad as what he was feeling. He looked at me with those fire-colored eyes, and what I saw in them was failure. Drowning in his own blood and all he was thinking was that he'd failed me. I did not want that to be his last thought. I tried to tell him with my eyes that he hadn't failed me. I couldn't speak and I didn't want to try to talk to him mind-to-mind; I was afraid it would make everything worse.

The blond stood in front of him, wrapped one hand around the hilt, and braced the other against Domino's chest. He pushed as he pulled on the hilt, and just that extra pressure on his chest made us both start to choke, our bodies shaking and starting to convulse.

The man sitting on me tried to hold me down and keep me from hurting myself, I think. “Get it out of him, now!”

“It's stuck on a bone, or something,” the other one growled.

“If she dies . . .”

The blond tore it out of Domino's chest, blood gushing around it as his body fell to the floor. It bowed my spine, made me try to breathe and not be able to, and then suddenly I could breathe. My chest still ached, but it wasn't a sharp pain anymore. I breathed and it hurt to do it, but I could do it. Shallow breaths hurt, but . . . I tried a deeper breath and it wasn't painful. Another one and it was better. Other
things were better, too. I thought of Nathaniel and knew he was standing with Damian beside him, and Dev was there, too. I could feel them now, and they could feel me. They knew at least some of what was happening to me now. I was afraid to open up the link as completely as I could, because I didn't want the shapeshifter who was touching me to sense what I was doing.

The shapeshifter in question said, “That's it, calm, even breaths. You'll be all right.”

I didn't want him to comfort me. I didn't want him being nice even when I knew it was a means to an end. For some reason they didn't want me dead, so he'd work to keep me alive, but that was the only reason I wasn't bleeding out on the floor with Domino. I turned to look at him. He wasn't moving at all now. He just lay there on his side, but he'd fallen at an odd angle, unable to cushion or direct it. His neck was hyperextended, which would make breathing even harder, or maybe easier. I didn't know anymore. But I could see his face, see his eyes too wide as he struggled to breathe, that awful wet sound coming from his chest, or his throat. Blood coated his chin and mouth. I could still taste his mouth on mine. He shook, or shivered; a gout of blood spilled out of his mouth and the horrible wet rattling breathing stopped. I saw his eyes go, watched him dying inches from me.

I screamed. I screamed for help. I screamed, because there was nothing else I could do. The man on top of me popped me in the side of the face the way you hit a cat that was chewing something, not to hurt, just to startle. It made me look away from Domino to him.

“No screaming,” he said, and took a syringe out of his jacket pocket. He removed the plastic that covered the needle.

“After the screaming she already did, they'll just think it's more sex,” the other one said.

I didn't look at him but kept my eyes on the man with the needle. I did not want to let him give me whatever was in the syringe. I didn't even have to know what it was, to know that much. I must have telegraphed something, because when I tried to hit him, he blocked me with his arm and settled his weight more solidly on my waist. He had to weigh over two hundred, maybe closer to three; I was pinned unless I moved him. All I could do was try to struggle enough to keep him
from using the needle. I'd alerted Nathaniel and the others; they'd tell Edward and Nolan, and the other police. They knew what rooms we were in; if I could delay long enough, maybe help would come.

I still didn't know what they'd done to Ethan, other than that he wasn't supposed to be dead. I wanted to look behind me and see for myself, but the man sitting heavy on my waist leaned down toward me with the needle. I put my arms up the way you did when you sparred except my arms were probably his target, so it was hard to know what part of me to protect.

“I promise you the drugs will just knock you out, nothing else.”

“Your word of honor?” I asked.

He looked a little surprised, and then said, “Yes.”

“For me to take your word, you'd have to be from a century where that really mattered, and this is not that century.”

“My original century was, Miss Blake. I give you my word of honor that this will only make you sleep.”

“I believe you,” I said.

“Then put down your arms and let me give you the shot.”

“Nope, I don't want to be unconscious.”

“We can hit you until you're unconscious,” the younger one said.

“You don't want to kill me, and hitting someone repeatedly in the head until they're unconscious is a good way to do that by accident.”

“But I do want to kill you. I want to kill you so very much,” he said, as he walked closer to us so I could look up at both of them.

“But you won't, at least not here and now.”

“And why won't I?”

“Because someone else wants me alive, and that someone else has enough power over you to make your friend afraid of me dying here and now.”

“You gave away too much,” he said to his friend.

“You shouldn't have used the weapon on one of her
moitié bêtes
. It could have killed her.”

“He was better than I thought he would be, and the other one was coming through the door.”

“So you admit that you couldn't take him without resorting to a
magical weapon,” the one sitting on me said, and there was derision in his voice. I'd thought they were partners but was beginning to think they didn't really like each other. It didn't mean that they weren't work partners, but it did mean that they weren't a completely united front. Division in the ranks always gave opportunity to find people you could turn;
traitor
was only a bad word if they were betraying you. If they were helping you betray the other side,
traitor
could be a very good word.

The young-looking one snarled at his friend, an edge of growl in it that sounded too deep to come from his thinner chest. He looked in shape, but it was the shape of someone who hadn't hit all their secondary growth spurts yet, and now he never would.

He raised the weapon he'd taken out of Domino's chest, and it didn't look magical. It looked like a short sword, but the blade was almost pyramid shaped and the blade wasn't . . . It seemed heavier and oddly shaped. I tried to look at the blade coldly, trying to see the magic in it and not Domino's blood all over it. If I looked at it clinically I wouldn't start screaming again—maybe.

The one who was sitting on me moved, and I was there to sweep at his hand with the needle in it. “Come help me hold her.”

There was a noise behind me. The younger one looked at the source of the noise. “If you don't want me to kill that one, too, we need to get out of here before he comes to.”

“Then help me with her.”

I wanted to look back for Ethan, but he was only unconscious; they'd said so, and there was no reason for them to lie about it after what they'd just done to Domino. I kept my attention on the two men in the room who could hurt me; the rest would have to wait. I prayed for Ethan and for myself and for Domino, though I knew dead when I saw it. The dead don't need prayers; that's for the living.

“You're not going to win this one, Anita Blake.” It was the young guy, standing over me now. There were no extra lines on his face; he still looked about seventeen, but his eyes . . . It was like looking into two dark caves.

There was another small sound behind me. It sounded like a knife
moving in flesh, but that couldn't be it. Our attackers were in front of me, and Ethan was alone. Calm, I had to be calm, had to think. “You know my name, but I don't know yours.”

He smiled. “I am Rodrigo, and this is Hamish.”

“Do not give her our names.”

“Why not? She's not going to tell anyone.”

That let me know they meant to kill me, not here and now, but I wasn't getting away to share any information. So why not kill me here, and could I reach my gun before they killed me, or knocked me out? The big man settled more solidly against my waist.

“Forget the gun. You can't get to it,” he said.

He was right. I hated that he was right, but he was. “What do you want?”

“Aren't you going to ask why?” Rodrigo asked.

“Why what?” I asked.

“Why we're doing this? Why we killed them? Why we haven't killed you?”

“No, I'm not going to ask any of that.”

“Why not?” he asked, and smiled, as if he realized the irony.

“Because it won't help.”

He looked at me with those cave-dark eyes. I realized the only other person I'd ever seen with eyes like that was a serial killer, and one of the most frightening people I'd ever met. It let me know what I was dealing with, but I bet he hid behind that youthful face and slaughtered people, joyously.

“My, how very practical of you.”

“You have no idea how practical I can be, Rodrigo.”

Rodrigo laughed, head back and delighted. “Was that a veiled threat? Do you think you will ever be in a position to harm me? Oh, that is optimism such as I have not heard in centuries.”

“Don't tease her,” Hamish said.

“What does it matter?”

“The look she's giving you matters.”

Rodrigo knelt beside us; his knee brushed my arm and I moved away. He tried to pin my arm, but I kept moving it away. He frowned
at me like I was a misbehaving child. “Now, Anita, you know you can't possibly elude us. We will pin you and Hamish will give you the shot.”

“I know,” I said.

“Then it's not very practical for you to struggle against the inevitable, is it?”

“I suppose not.”

“But you're going to struggle anyway, aren't you?”

I lay there, looking up at both of them. The big guy was getting sort of heavy on my waist and stomach. Funny how if I was having good sex the man never seemed that heavy, but in other circumstances I realized just how much smaller I was than most men. I wasn't going anywhere with him sitting like that, but I didn't have to move him. I just had to keep him from sticking whatever was in the syringe into me. If I could delay everything long enough I was still hoping that the cavalry would ride to the rescue; I just needed to give them as much time as I could. “Yes, I'm going to struggle anyway.”