Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: Shadowmaster\Running with Wolves (19 page)

They gazed at each other as Drakon felt his heart slowly tear itself apart. His watch pinged. Five minutes left. He laid down the rifle and, still crouching, led her to the bulkhead door. She smiled at him, believing he had given up, and preceded him through the door to the landing.

Careful to make sure she wasn't watching, he removed two capsules from a tiny inner pocket in his jacket. He popped them into his mouth, holding them on his tongue, and pulled Phoenix around to kiss her again.

She struggled when she felt the pills pass over her tongue and into her mouth. She tried to spit them out, but he covered her lips with his hand and massaged her throat with deliberate, carefully calculated strokes.

“Don't fight it,” he said, resting his cheek against her hair. “If they find me, I'll tell them I drugged you. You'll only be out for an hour or less, depending on how the drug works on your metabolism.”

Phoenix tried to shake her head. She was weeping, but she couldn't keep fighting him. She swallowed, and after a minute her eyes drifted shut. Drakon carefully laid her out on the landing, stroked her hair one last time and ran back out onto the roof. He retrieved the rifle and set up facing the Capitol building, the sun already beginning to burn through his clothes.

One minute passed. Two. And then it was noon, and there was no flash, no signal, nothing to suggest that Brita had succeeded. He waited another several minutes until he could feel his skin begin to blister, and then withdrew halfway inside the bulkhead.

It was over.

Letting his head drop back against the inner wall, he pulled Phoenix into his arms, wondering how he could get her down the stairs and to safety when she couldn't walk. Carrying an unconscious woman over his shoulder would be too conspicuous. If he could just—

“Drakon!”

Brita was running up the stairs, her expression tight with anger and urgency.

“I couldn't make it work!” she said, stopping just below the landing as her gaze flickered from his face to Phoenix's. “I had no way to communicate, but at least she found you.” Brita crouched. “What's wrong with her?”

“What's
wrong
with her?” Drakon asked, dragging Phoenix's limp body behind him. “You sent her up with some story about my intending to kill Patterson, telling her to stop me! Elders, Brita, what were you thinking?”

“I sent her here to stop you and get you away because I had to try to make sure no one else found you here,” Brita said. “I never told her you meant to kill Patterson.”

Drakon didn't believe her. Her voice was strained, lacking its usual confidence. She was too earnest, almost pleading with him to understand. To accept.

“I had to knock her out in case someone found me here and believed she was helping me,” he said, holding Brita's eyes. “You told her you were working for Aegis, and I told her you're with me. Whatever the truth is, she knows that much. Are you planning to kill her for that?”

“We can't let her go back to Aegis.”

“She's still going outside the Wall. Once I know she's safe, you and I will do whatever we have to.”

Brita looked out the half-open door to the roof. “The meeting's happening right now. Matthew Patterson is out there, standing in front of the assembled reporters and politicians and Enforcers. If you ever wanted revenge, you've lost it now. Matthew will never talk.”

“You convinced me that killing the mayor was necessary,” he said. “More vital than any revenge.”

“But now we're here, and you've got nothing to lose. You can take Patterson now, and that makes their pact to destroy us almost as unstable as if you'd killed Shepherd. We can still use it.”

Drakon looked down into Phoenix's face. It was almost peaceful. As if even now she trusted him.

“No,” he said. “I'm getting her out of here.”

“I expected you to say that,” Brita said. Without warning, she half-jumped, half-ran over Drakon, snatched up the rifle and ran out onto the roof. Drakon had barely rolled Phoenix off his lap when he heard the shot. Ten seconds later Brita was back through the door and on the landing, perched on her toes and ready to run. She dropped the rifle at Drakon's feet.

“Congratulations,” she said. “You have your revenge. And so do I.”

Drakon moved, but not soon enough. Brita jammed a gun under his jaw, and he heard the wail of sirens on the streets surrounding the building.

Brita had set him up, exactly as Phoenix had said. She'd never intended for him to kill the mayor. Whether she'd really wanted Patterson dead or only wanted to make it look as if Drakon had killed a major political figure in the Enclave didn't matter now.

For some incomprehensible reason, she had betrayed her so-called
“brother.”
He no longer had any understanding of her loyalties. All he could do now was maintain a plausible story that Phoenix had in no way been involved. A story plausible enough to counter anything Brita might claim to her masters at Aegis.

“Down,” Brita said, her voice utterly unfamiliar. “On your belly. If you fight, you know what happens to
her
.”

Drakon knelt and lay down as best he could in the small space beside Phoenix's body. He turned his head, resting his cheek on the concrete to look at her quiet face. Her hair had fallen over her eyes, and all he wanted to do was tuck that errant strand behind her ear.

Planting her knee on Drakon's back, Brita cuffed him forcefully enough that she would have broken a human's wrist. Then she chained him to the banister. Drakon could hear the Enforcers starting up the stairs from the first floor.

“Why?” he rasped. “Why, Brita?”

She didn't even look at him. She knelt beside Phoenix, pulled something out of her pocket—a small vial of blue liquid—and forced Phoenix's lips open. Drakon kicked at her desperately, just managing to jar her arm before she'd poured more than half the contents into Phoenix's mouth. The vial went flying and smashed against the wall, leaving a spatter of sapphire streaks on the graffitied concrete.

Swearing in the Fringer way, Brita kicked Drakon in the head. By the time he was able to see and think again, the Enforcers were on him. One spoke with Brita, one of them called for an ambulance, and three others hauled Drakon to his feet.

“She was right,” a woman's voice said into her com. “We have him, and the weapon. There's a woman here with him, but she's unconscious. We're bringing them in.”

Moving with all his carefully hoarded strength, Drakon spat out his caps, flung himself at Brita and snapped at her neck. A baton connected with his skull, and everything went black.

Chapter 19

T
he first thing Phoenix smelled was the acidic stench of antiseptic grotesquely mingled with the fragranace of a bouquet of flowers on the table beside her bed.

Or, more precisely, the medical cot with its uncomfortable pillows and a stiff, white sheet pulled up to her waist, covering her bare legs under the hem of her gown. The infirmary was very quiet, the walls very white, the amenities sparse. Phoenix was alone in the room. A black-and-white picture of the original Golden Gate Bridge hung on the opposite wall.

Memories came back in bits and snatches: Drakon's grim face, the black rifle in his hand, her own voice pleading, bitter pills being forced into her mouth, sorrowful eyes.

Drakon had drugged her. But she'd heard the shot. She'd heard someone speak the word
revenge.

She swung her legs over the side of the cot, yanking the IV out of her arm, and searched the room for her clothes. She didn't get very far. The door opened, and a nurse walked in, his white uniform untouched by a single stain or discoloration.

“Up already, I see,” he said, scribbling something on his tab. “Good to see you doing so much better, Agent Stryker. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you lie down.”

Phoenix strongly considered resisting him, but she soon found she was too dizzy to stand. The nurse tucked her in, replaced the IV tube into the access port in her arm and studied the monitor over the bed.

“Vitals good,” he said, making another notation. “They'd be better if you hadn't tried to get up. It was touch-and-go there for a while, you know.”

“I've been unconscious?”

“On and off for two days.” He frowned at her over the tab. “Do you remember anything from during that time?”

“No.” She realized she had an agonizing headache, but it was the last thing in the world that mattered to her now.

Drakon. The last she'd seen of him was when he'd given her the drugs. She'd heard a little of his voice after, and another woman's. Then...the shot. Drakon had killed someone. Patterson? Had Drakon left her there and gotten away, knowing she wouldn't be considered an accomplice if she'd been unable to participate?

“You were drugged, almost fatally,” the nurse said. “Fortunately, your system was strong enough to fight it off. I'll send the doctor in to speak to you. You'll have to follow a—”

“Tell me what happened,” she said, sitting up.

“Easy.” He pushed her down gently with a big hand on her shoulder. “You were found on the roof of an apartment building with the man who tried to poison you and the woman who brought him down. She's an operative, like you. She said you knew where this Drakon was headed and went to stop him, but he overpowered you and killed Patterson. She was able to stop him from escaping before the Enforcers arrived.”

There was only one
“she”
the nurse could be talking about.

“Drakon,” she said. “He—”

“The mayor has given you and Agent Ward commendations for your work in bringing the assassin in. Congratulations.”

The monitor above the bed began to beep as Phoenix's heartbeat shot up to almost dangerous levels. Moving efficiently, the nurse checked her IV and made an adjustment.

“You need more rest,” he said. “Your entire system has been through a bad shock, and you're naturally experiencing some trauma after being held hostage and nearly killed by an Opir assassin. The more you cooperate, the sooner we can let you out of here.” He checked her vitals again. “I'm going to speak to the doctor. Try to sleep, and he should be around in about an hour.”

With an encouraging smile, the nurse left the room. As soon as she knew he was away from the door, Phoenix got off the bed.

All at once various monitors began to beep and complain loudly, and she knew she wouldn't be able to get out of the room simply with determination and brute strength. She lay back down, and the monitors went silent again.

They'd all come running if she set off the alarms. Especially since she'd received a
“commendation”
from Mayor Shepherd.

As had Brita. Brita, who'd betrayed both her and Drakon. Whatever Drakon had given Phoenix, he hadn't meant to kill her. Something must have gone wrong.

Brita had brought him down. If she'd made Drakon helpless somehow, she could have done anything she wanted to Phoenix.

And no one would believe a top agent like Brita would attempt to kill a fellow operative. But if she'd meant to, why wouldn't she just accuse Phoenix of being a traitor and let Aegis take care of her?

I should have convinced him,
she thought.
I should have made him see that Brita was his enemy
.

The
why
didn't matter now. She had to find a way out of this place. She had to find out what had become of him.

Two days. He was probably under interrogation in one of the cells built for Opiri. Two days.

And since he'd never tell them anything...

Reaching back to her most basic training, Phoenix breathed deeply and relaxed all of her muscles one by one. When she was calm again, she let herself drift, convinced her body that it was well and whole, that any distress was long past. She heard the monitors humming contentedly. Maybe, if she could use a form of biofeedback to keep her vitals level...

It wasn't the doctor who entered the room as she was preparing to get up again. Only the most rigid discipline kept her from leaping out of the bed and attempting to strangle the woman in Aegis casuals standing several feet away.

“I wouldn't advise it,” Brita said. “You might relapse, and that wouldn't be good for anyone.”

“Where is Drakon?” she demanded.

“Incarcerated, as you might expect.” Brita wandered around the room, pausing before the photograph of the bridge. “We're not being watched or recorded, so we can speak freely here. As far as I know, he's still alive. As for his condition...” She shrugged. “That I can't tell you. But torture, of course, isn't condoned by Aegis or any part of our government. So I suppose he's uncomfortable, but not badly hurt.”

Even if they did hurt him, Phoenix knew Drakon would never break. He'd say nothing of his fellow operatives or the Citadel's plans. He'd never tell them why he had a personal reason to hate Aaron Shepherd and John Patterson.

And he wouldn't beg to live. He knew none of it would make any difference.

“If any harm comes to him,” Phoenix said, “I'll—”

“You do realize he tried to kill you?” Brita said, coming to stand beside the bed again.

“No. I don't know what happened, but he didn't want me to have any part of what he was going to do. And I know you set him up. You wanted Patterson dead, but you didn't want to take the risk of getting caught.”

“An accurate assessment,” Brita said, her voice as cool as ever and yet with a completely different cadence than the one she'd used in the Fringe. “But everything I told both him and you is true...there is a deadly biological weapon in production. And Drakon is expendable.”

“Expendable? He said you two had—”

“Come from the same father?” She laughed, revealing teeth as neatly capped as Drakon's had been. “Drakon was only
made
by my father. Maybe families don't mean the same thing to us as they do to you, but we have our loyalties. And our knowledge of what a man or woman is worth.”

“And he's worth nothing.”

“Except as a tool. That was all he ever was, a tool with his own agenda, one that also suited Erebus. But he lost any usefulness when he began to have feelings for you. He could no longer be trusted.”

So his feelings for me brought him to this,
Phoenix thought. Would it have been better if he'd never felt anything at all?

“So now Patterson's dead,” Phoenix said. “How will that help you?”

“I don't plan to share all my secrets.”

“I can tell them everything you told me. I'll—”

“Sound a little crazy, given the drugs you've just recovered from. And I'm by far the senior operative. I've given them results. Whatever you did to help, I brought the assassin in. And saved your life.”

“Why didn't you kill me, when you knew I might give you away?”

“Who says I didn't try?”

“The drugs—”

“I...shall we say, attempted to enhance their effects. But Drakon interrupted, and I had to hope what I'd given you was enough. Evidently, it wasn't.”

Phoenix clenched her fists. “You made a big mistake, leaving me alive.”

“That can be remedied, if you cause me any trouble. But I may still find a use for you. That is, if you want to save Drakon.”

Phoenix's heart set the monitor to buzzing again. “How?”

“I don't know yet.” She sighed and glanced toward the window, where the sun cast stripes of golden light across the floor through the blinds. “It might interest you to know that something good came of all this. Matthew Patterson actually stood before the assembly and his father and read off those secret files. He seemed to take some satisfaction in doing it, I hear, though he was naturally horrified when his father was shot.” She shrugged, as if none of this mattered to her at all. “The mayor has already issued a statement proposing strict new anti-brutality measures to the Senate. And I've heard Shepherd blames himself for Patterson's death. He assumes the assassin received faulty intelligence and believed
he
was to be with the group going to meet Matthew.”

“I want to see Drakon,” Phoenix said.

“I'm sure Aegis will want to discuss your experiences with him as soon as you're fit.”

“I want to see him. Now.”

“Maybe that can be arranged. I have some influence, as you might imagine. But I can also arrange that you never see him again...if you make the mistake of sharing what we've discussed in this room.”

“I won't betray my own people again.”

“We'll see.” Brita bent to sniff the flowers on the bedside table. “I hope you liked my little get-well gift. I think I'd better leave you to your rest now, or the doctor will come charging in, demanding to know why I'm taxing your strength.”

“Physical strength isn't everything,” Phoenix said through clenched teeth.

“I might worry if you had more of the other kinds of strength,” Brita said as she walked to the door. “But you aren't particularly clever, and you suffer from the worst weakness of all. Sleep well.”

Phoenix lay still for a long while after, mastering her emotions, thinking carefully. Brita could attempt to expose her as a traitor, if she chose to. And she claimed to have influence over Drakon's fate, as improbable as that sounded. She was still extremely dangerous to the Enclave.

But if the part about the biological weapon was true, then Brita couldn't be blamed for wanting to stop it. Phoenix wouldn't hesitate to do whatever was necessary to bring such a horror to light.

Could Shepherd possibly be involved? The man she'd once loved? The one who wanted a peace that could never be broken?
Had
he been working with Patterson, who claimed to want to maintain the current Armistice with its brutal deportation laws?

Killing the majority of Opiri would achieve a
“lasting peace.”

Hardly able to bear the wait, Phoenix composed herself again and was ready to be at her most cooperative when the doctor arrived. She did such a good job that the doctor agreed to let her dress and take a walk—a short one—through the medical center. She gave Phoenix a pair of loose hospital pants and slippers, as well as a less flimsy top that pulled on over the head. Then the doctor left and resumed her rounds.

Phoenix found her ID badge in the side table drawer and was out of her room and into the corridor in minutes. She located an unlocked office and a closet containing a pair of neatly pressed women's pants and casual shirt, a size too large, which she threw on over her hospital clothes. Then she left the medical center, concealing her dizziness with a bold front of authority, and made her way to her quarters. She exchanged the borrowed clothing for her casual fatigues and went straight to the underground detention facility.

Guards stopped her at the first gate, but she managed to get past them by flashing her ID and telling them who she was. The second set of guards were not so easy to convince. They were more sympathetic when she explained that she wanted to see the bloodsucker who had nearly killed her, even if it was only through the observation window.

The third set of guards turned her away with a brusque apology and a recitation of orders that could not under any circumstances be disobeyed. Phoenix spun around and strode back the way she had come, knowing that she'd have to go straight to the top.

Chan would see reason. Phoenix just had to think of the right approach. She had to find out how much, if anything, Drakon had told his interrogators, and then make a case that she might get more out of him because of their
relationship,
which Brita might or might not already have reported.

She was almost to Chan's office when a familiar man intercepted her: Behr, one of Mayor Shepherd's top security men. He made it very clear that the mayor was very anxious to see how she was doing, and that he would be happy to request the doctor's permission for her to visit him in his Capitol apartments.

Phoenix had no interest in waiting a second longer than necessary. Behr escorted her to a side entrance, where three other security men and women were waiting. Outside, where the trees were leafing out and birds were singing, it might have seemed as if nothing at all was wrong—except for the complete absence of civilians on the normally busy streets and the scores of Enforcers, police, Aegis and military personnel patrolling the area and guarding the complex of government buildings around the Capitol building. Phoenix had to pass through unusually strict and thorough security measures to enter the building, amounting to virtually a strip search. Only her status as an Aegis operative spared her a cavity search as well.