Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: Shadowmaster\Running with Wolves (21 page)

Aaron stared toward the door a long time. “When I told you I still loved you,” he said, “I meant it. I would have done a great deal to win you back.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

He smiled absently. “If you could get him to admit that he'd been sent by the Expansionists to kill me and taken out Patterson by mistake, I could stop the interrogation and get him transferred to a more comfortable cell. But I'm afraid nothing less than execution will satisfy Congress or the people.”

“What else do you want to get him out of the city?”

Smashing his cigarette into a crystal tray on the sideboard, he gestured for her to sit again and joined her on the couch. “You weren't so far off the mark, Nix. Someone has actually threatened to release supposed
‘evidence'
that I had this Drakon kill Patterson because of my political ambitions.”

And Phoenix knew. She didn't yet understand the reason, but she
knew
.

“I'm being blackmailed,” he said, as if she hadn't understood the first time. “All lies, of course. Ridiculous. But it
could
cause difficulties, a temporary scandal until the matter is sorted out. It won't help this city or the Enclave. I have to make sure the blame is fully placed on those it should be.”

“Who's doing this?” Phoenix asked. “Who would dare try to blackmail the mayor of the Enclave?”

“The operative who was supposed to help protect me. Who was so slow to tell you she'd found the assassin. Brita Ward.”

Phoenix closed her eyes. “And what can I do about it?”

“It's very simple.” He got up, walked to an antique rolltop desk and tapped a complex series of numbers and letters onto the keypad that locked the top in place. He pushed it back and entered a code on one of the small drawers underneath. Then he moved something around inside the drawer, finally withdrawing a narrow, opaque tube about the length of Phoenix's hand.

“This,” he said. Once again he glanced toward the door and sat on the couch, so close that his shoulder touched hers. “Inside this tube is a syringe. It contains a drug that will insure that she never gets a chance to destroy me or the Enclave with her lies.”

The biological weapon, Phoenix thought. The means of destroying the entire Opir species.

“What is it?” she whispered, pretending ignorance.

“Painless death,” he said. “It'll seem as if she has a common virus, with flu-like symptoms. Slightly uncomfortable, no more. Then she'll just drift off to sleep.”

“You're talking about murder.”

“Not murder. Political necessity. I believe she's a double agent, Nix...working for the other side as well as ours. But if that gets out, it could cause as much chaos as if I were assassinated or charged with Patterson's murder.”

“How did you find out what she was?”

“I don't have hard proof. But given her attempt to blackmail me, I can't take any chances.
We
can't.”

“If this drug... If it's so deadly, how can you use it where it might—”

“It can't harm anyone else,” he said. His voice hardened. “You'll have to take my word for it. If you do as I tell you, and make absolutely sure no one ever knows what happened, I'll get your precious Drakon out of the city, and you can go with him. If you fail or word of this gets out, he'll be executed, and I'll have you exposed as a traitor.” He pushed the tube into her hand. “Hide this, and go see your lover. You'll have fifteen minutes with him. If you don't get your chance to take Brita out in the next few hours, I'll arrange to have the two of you meet in a convenient location.”

She stared at the weapon in her hand. He wasn't worried that it might hurt someone else, because it only worked on Opiri. If it worked on dhampires, he'd never risk it.

And that meant he knew Brita was more than half-Opir.

“Remember what I've told you,” Shepherd said, rising. “I'll speak to Chan personally. It might take an hour or two to arrange, but you'll be able to see the prisoner within the next few hours. No one will interfere.”

“I can return to my quarters, then?” she asked.

“Of course. By all means, rest until my men come to get you.” He smiled. “Don't disappoint me this time, Nix.”

Without bothering to answer, Phoenix pocketed the tube and strode toward the door. The security people parted to let her pass, and the four who'd brought her fell in around her again.

As they set off for Aegis headquarters, Phoenix nearly trembled with rage. Whatever Brita had done to her and Drakon, whatever plans her Citadel might have for the Enclave, Phoenix couldn't commit cold-blooded murder. Especially not with a biological weapon meant for genocide.

But she
could
do something so dangerous that it could lead to devastation of everything she held dear, as well as the destruction of the enemy. Unless she was very wrong, she had a precious sample that might have some use in the hands of an expert who could study it, break it down to its components, learn how it was made and perhaps...

It was only a desperate hope. But it was all she had. And Brita had better be reasonable enough to see it.

Or everything they both valued would end.

Chapter 21

P
hoenix
.

She was there when Drakon returned to consciousness as, suddenly and painfully, someone plunged a needle into his arm.

But as the room swam into focus around him—bare, brightly lit, with only a table between him and the interrogator's chair—he knew it couldn't be true. Phoenix...

Phoenix was dead. They had told him so. Brita had killed her, after he'd left her helpless. They had used that against him, as if they'd known what it would do to him.

Somehow, they had known.

“Awake, are we?” the woman's voice said from across the table.

He blinked to clear his vision. The room was too bright for his Opir eyes, but he knew it was meant to be. He had fed from Phoenix—how long ago?—so there was little danger yet that he would starve. Not yet. But he had no doubt that they'd try that measure along with many others in order to obtain his secrets.

They must also realize he was prepared to die before he told them anything.

Phoenix.

“In case you're wondering, it's a new drug, recently developed in our labs,” the woman said. She had graying black hair in a short, practical style, a lined but handsome face, and wore a conservative dark suit. It was clear she was high up the chain of command, and Drakon was vaguely surprised that she would have been assigned to the second round of interrogations.

“Very effective,” Drakon said, his speech still a little slurred. He lifted his head. It felt as heavy as one of the pylons in the market where he, Phoenix and some of his crew had taken temporary shelter.

Was this the biological weapon meant to wipe out the Opiri, or some variation of it? If the former, he was probably already dying, though the mechanism of the pathogen remained a mystery. Perhaps they were still testing it, knowing he'd be executed, anyway.

It would be very good if he were to die, preferably as quickly as possible.

“Have you devised a method for delivering it as a projectile?” he asked.

The woman leaned back. “I believe we're here to question
you,
Drakon.”

He pulled his arms against the restraints that held his hands bound together and fixed to a chain set into the floor, too weakened by the drug to make more than a token effort. “I've told your interrogators everything I know,” he said.

She tapped her tablet with a square fingernail, bringing up a screen he couldn't see. “My name is Director Chan. I will be conducting the second phase of this interrogation. If you cooperate, we can finish this matter quickly, and you'll be remanded to a reasonably comfortable cell—”

“I'll be executed,” Drakon said.

“—or,” Chan went on, as if he hadn't interrupted, “if you are stubborn, I'll be sending some of my experts to deal with you.”

“Experts whose usual methods of questioning include daylight or simulators with the same effect, starvation and of course the conventional forms of torture, which cause pain to Opiri even if we're somewhat more durable than humans,” Drakon said.

“So you are.” Chan pursed her lips. “It sounds as if you are familiar with our procedures, Drakon.”

“Every Opir knows about human techniques.”

“Especially every Opir agent. Or assassin.” She leaned forward again, pushing her tab to one side. “Where shall we begin?”

Six hours later, near what Drakon estimated as dawn, they left Drakon alone to
“think over”
what he and Chan had discussed. Chan had expressed her deep disappointment in Drakon's refusal to be reasonable, and profound regret at what would follow as a result.

After two more hours of enduring the blinding light, he began to feel the first stirrings of hunger. He could go several days without blood, but he suspected the drug they had given him was somehow affecting his metabolism, weakening him and insuring that he wouldn't recover too quickly from any torture the interrogators might inflict.

He knew his brief respite was about to end when the lights brightened still more, taking on the heat and brilliance of a simulated sun. It was not yet hot enough to burn, but he felt his skin tighten and the first pain begin. The two men who entered the room were expressionless, professional, prepared to do whatever it took.

But so was Drakon. He smiled at them, showing his teeth.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.

As one of the men closed the door behind him, the other approached Drakon with his right fist tightened. There was a loud clang from the corridor as another door closed.

And then it began.

* * *

“Drakon.”

The voice cut through the fog of constant pain as neatly as Opir incisors through the softest human flesh. He knew it wasn't real; he'd been in a nearly constant state of delirium, his vision blurred by the bombardment of bright light, his nose filled with noxious odors meant to offend the keen Opiri sense of smell, his skin icy from the bitterly cold temperature. The heat and light of the sun could destroy a Nightsider, but Opir bodies functioned at a much lower temperature than humans'.

In every way, they had made the place
“uncomfortable”
for him...after beating him thoroughly, though only with fists. That had been unpleasant enough, though far from sufficient to make him break. Or die.

“It's all right, Drakon. I'm here.”

He tried to shake the phantom voice out of his head, wondering how they'd managed to devise this new form of torture. Recordings? More simulations?

The woman, who might have looked something like Phoenix if Drakon had been able to see properly, entered the room carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass. With one hand she closed the door behind her, and looked around as if she were assessing the small, featureless space. Suddenly, the temperature warmed, the lights dimmed and the hideous stench diminished.

The illusion approached the table, set the tray down and made a slow circuit of the room. It seemed she was looking for something; she glanced up at the cameras, examining them closely.

“They've been turned off,” the vision said, as if to the air. “And so have the recorders and listening devices. We're alone.”

“Is that important?” he asked, trying without success to focus on her face. “Do they think this is going to work better than the other methods?”

She turned to him, her expression suddenly dark with rage and anguish. “I'm so sorry, Drakon.”

He leaned back as much as he could, his body afire with pain, and smiled. “I'm sure you are,” he said. “Who are you? A projection? Or did they just find someone who looked like her and dressed her up nice and pretty?”

“This is Phoenix, Drakon. I'm alive. I'm here to help.” Moving like an old woman, she took the chair on the other side of the table and poured water into the glass. “Please try to believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said, his head rolling on the back of the hard chair. “Why shouldn't I?”

Without warning, she pulled something from the inside of her jacket pocket. She got up and moved toward him slowly. He braced himself as she knelt behind him.

There was a low, brief buzz, and Drakon felt the bonds give way. Immediately, he freed his hands, turned in his chair and reached for the woman. She remained kneeling where she was, looking up into his face. He grabbed her shoulders and slid his hands toward her neck. He still had just enough strength....

“I know they haven't given you any blood,” she said. “You can have mine, or you can kill me. My stupidity brought you to this.”

He withdrew his hands. They were shaking so hard that he couldn't have hurt her if he'd tried.

“Who are you?” he rasped.

Taking him gently by the arms, she kissed him. The thought came to him that only one person in the world had ever kissed him that way. It wasn't something anyone could fake.

“Phoenix?” he said.

“Yes. It's me. I'm alive.”

He took her face between his hands, examining every feature, every tiny imperfection that made her so beautiful.

“Alive,” he said.

This time he kissed
her,
and it went on for a very long time. Then he enfolded her in his arms and held her fast, his cheek resting on her hair. When he pulled back, she was smiling and weeping at the same time.

“We're both alive,” she said. “And we're going to stay that way.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Will it do any good...if I tell you that the only thing that matters is that you're alive and safe?”

“None whatsoever.”

“If you're wrong about the monitors—” He gripped her shoulders. “Phoenix, you've signed your own death warrant.”

“I have reason to believe they did as I asked,” she said.

He stiffened. “What reason? Because you can convince me to tell them what they want to hear?”

She got up and moved around to the table. “Please,” she said. “Drink some water.”

Slowly he turned in the chair and took the glass. He stared into the clear liquid for a moment and then, holding Phoenix's gaze, drank it all.

Nothing happened. He felt no different. If it was drugged, it was very slow-acting. Which it very well might be.

But Phoenix would never do that to him. Never.
“I love you,”
she'd said. And he'd believed it then. He wanted to believe it now.

“They said they caught my fellow agents,” he said. “Were they lying?”

“No.”

“How did they find them?”

“With the help of an
‘anonymous source,'
” she said.

“Are they still alive?”

“Yes. But you can't help them now, Drakon. Neither can I.” She reached across the table to take his hand. “I didn't come to trick you. I came to tell you that there is hope.”

“Hope...of what?” he asked, gazing into her eyes with a strange feeling of contentment.

“Just believe me. Please, Drakon.” She poured him another glass of water. “Drink.”

“Where is Brita?” he asked, ignoring the glass.

She must have heard the fury in his voice, though he never raised it above a near-whisper. “She spoke out for me,” Phoenix said. “Gave me part of the credit from stopping you and bringing you in. I don't know why.”

Once again Drakon glanced at the cameras and recorders set into the walls. Phoenix followed his gaze.

“If anyone's listening,” she said, “they won't report what they're hearing to anyone except the person who's arranged this meeting.”

He didn't ask her who she meant. He knew he'd find out soon enough.

“I believed Brita,” he said, his emotions overcoming his determination not to let her see him falter. “I had no idea—”

“I know what she is,” Phoenix said evenly. “I know why she turned against you. She always regarded you as a tool to be thrown away when you weren't useful anymore.”

“When she saw me...as too weak,” he said, perfectly understanding why she had come to that conclusion.

“She's brilliant, Drakon,” Phoenix said. “But no one here is going to believe me if I try to tell them. She's been with Aegis a long time. She's highly trusted. And she captured the assassin who killed John Patterson.”

“She tried to kill you.”

“I know. But only one person realizes who she really is. And he's the one who's going to help us.”

Drakon clenched his fist. “The mayor.”

The mayor. One of the men responsible for the pathogen that might be killing him even now. And Phoenix said he wanted to
help
them.

“Don't trust him,” Drakon said, swinging around to face her again. “Whatever he's told you to do—”

The door opened again. Phoenix shot to her feet, falling automatically into a defensive crouch. Weak as he was, Drakon did the same.

But the young man who entered raised his hands above his head and stopped just inside the closed door. “You don't have to worry about me,” he said. “I'm the one who made sure the monitors really were turned off. It helps to be a hero who wants to give the bloodsucker who killed his father the beating of his life.”

* * *

Matthew Patterson didn't smile. He glanced from Phoenix to Drakon and walked into the room, slowly lowering his hands.

“Drakon,” he said. “Phoenix.”

“I didn't kill your father,” Drakon said, approaching the younger man slowly.

“I know.” The Enforcer's brown eyes were glazed with tears, and Phoenix's heart ached for him. She'd thought him incredibly foolish at first, this young man who had so valiantly tried to help maintain Phoenix's cover in the Hold, and then become Drakon's hostage to expose his father's crimes against justice. Just as Brita had told Phoenix before she'd sent her into the trap, John Patterson's son had done what Drakon had apparently asked of him.

And then his father had been shot right in front of him.

“I don't know what to say,” Phoenix said, genuinely at a loss.

“You don't have to say anything,” Matthew said. “I know neither one of you had anything to do with it.”

“How?” Phoenix asked, wondering what he had heard since Patterson's death. What he had been told.

“Because I spent two days talking to Drakon while you were gone from the Hold,” he said. “I learned a lot about him, what he thought and believed. And he told me about you.” He almost smiled. “What a guy says about a woman gives you a good idea about who he is.”

Phoenix swallowed. What
had
passed between them during her absence? Had Drakon seen something of his long-lost son in the younger man, or what he might have become had he lived? Opiri aged almost imperceptibly, over centuries rather than years.

But Drakon looked to be only in his late twenties, and his own son would have been considerably younger than Matthew. Some kind of bond had grown between them—one, Phoenix thought, that she might never understand.