Lycan Unleashed (13 page)

“He? What coin?” Natalie paused. “He also could have had a second charm, to knock himself out after it was done. That would be an easier one to make and a cheaper one to get.”

That idea was interesting. And quite possibly correct. “I can’t really fill you in on all the details, right now. But a coin disappeared on a case I’m working from evidence. I think—I think it was enchanted.”

Silence greeted my statement.

“We found burns, on the victim’s body. They were burned in by the coin and they felt like witch to me—not exactly, but similar enough.” I knew what I was saying wouldn’t make much sense to Natalie, but she worked with the police enough to pick up enough to follow me, and while I had her on the phone, I might as well ask after the coin itself. “I’m pretty sure that the coin was more than a decoration.”

“Was it old?”

“The coin? Yes. I don’t know how old, but it looked pretty ancient. And the vamp energy on it suggested someone had owned it for decades—maybe centuries.”

The sound of Natalie muttering to herself and pages flipping was her only response for a few seconds. “I’ll have to do some research.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“And, Astrid—”

“Yes?”

“It’s nice to hear from you.”

With those words reverberating through my mind, the line clicked dead. I stared at my phone for a few precious seconds, before heading back to the house. I didn’t have time to consider what she meant.

Jarvis had settled sullenly in the corner, and Vasquez stalked through the room, barking the occasional order to the poor saps on the other end of his cell phone.

I opened my mouth to say something accusatory, then snapped it shut. Mason had been gone too long. His team hadn’t reported back. Would we find them in time if I outed Jarvis? It was a risk.

A risk I couldn’t take.

And before I could think through the situation enough to make sure that doing nothing for now was the best approach, an officer ran in and said something low to Vasquez. Vasquez barked a quick order and the cops started filing out of the building.

“Holmes, get back to the station,” Vasquez ordered.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

He paused giving orders long enough to turn to me, and the worry behind the hardness guarding his expression hit me like a shot in the chest. “One of Mason’s team radioed in. They’ve met some resistance. We’ve got officers en route. I need you to get back to the station.”

The news was like a brick smashing into my stomach and I fought against the nausea that rolled through me. Resistance? Was Mason okay? I barely stopped myself from blurting out questions that Vasquez would have no answers for. I had to stay calm. I couldn’t help him if I didn’t stay calm.

I nodded to Vasquez when he glanced at me, but I kept my eyes on Jarvis. The imp walked quickly after the other officers. Staying just far enough away that he wouldn’t notice my gaze, I followed him and the other officers out of the house.

Mason would be fine. He had to be. And if I rushed over there to help him, he wouldn’t thank me. Not to mention the fact that I’d be too late to do much but hover over him. But I could still make a difference. Still help.

Mason’s driveway and street parking had been almost entirely commandeered by the police. Jarvis was easy to keep in my sight as he ducked into his Ford Ranger. Most city-dwellers didn’t drive pickups; he wouldn’t be difficult to follow.

As the rest of the cops headed south—no doubt on their way to Mason’s last known location—Jarvis went north. Exultation rushed through me and I turned to follow him. He drove unhurriedly toward his destination. Overly confident bastard.

I followed for a few miles until he turned off into an older part of town. A couple of miles and a few turns later and we were officially in one of the least pleasant Chicago suburbs. Old strip malls intermingled with unkempt houses and old apartment buildings, with a sprinkling of industrial structures for good measure.

Jarvis pulled into an abandoned strip mall parking lot, and I drove on, pulling into a convenience store next door. The truck disappeared and I parked and waited. Counting down five minutes by the clock on my dash, I struggled not to chew my nails in anticipation. When he didn’t resurface, I got out of my car and walked around until I could observe the back of the strip mall. Jarvis was nowhere to be seen, but his truck was parked neatly at the back door of an old supermarket.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. The distance was at the limit of my range, but I was certain that I could sense anything with a significant power signature. The lycan energy jumped out at me first.

Mason.

Shit. What had they done? Taken him from the house they’d raided looking for Min? But why?

At this distance, I shouldn’t have been able to say that it was him for sure. But we’d spent enough time together—grown close enough—that I was certain he was the lycan I sensed.

A darker power signature licked the edges of his, farther away from where I stood and watched. That one I couldn’t confirm with any certainty, but I was willing to bet that it was Min’s. Nearly overrun by the powerful vamp and lycan auras around him, Jarvis’s imp aura drowned, a flicker of weak energy.

Two oh-dubs. I could easily handle a couple of humans with a gun, and probably an imp too. But the vamp would be a challenge. No. Going in alone would be stupid. Suicidal. But if the place was swarmed with cops and their sirens and flashing lights, then they might just kill Mason and go. Chances were, Jarvis carried a portable radio with him as well. So radio silence was imperative.

I pulled my cell phone out and hit Vasquez’s name. Four rings and then he picked up.

“This isn’t a good time, Holmes.”

As quickly as I could, I told him the address and very specific instructions about radio silence. He was surprisingly silent on the other end of the line.

“You’re sure he’s in there?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“You maintain your distance until we get there. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. I’ll get some uniforms out there sooner.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Astrid.”

“I got it.”

He cursed and the phone went dead. Despite what Vasquez feared, I knew I was outmatched. I’d wait it out. But Mason’s face flashed in my mind. I had to get closer.

I pulled my 9mm out of the glove box where I’d stuffed it the first night I’d lost my badge and police-issued sidearm. I jogged to the back door of the grocery store and listened. Then I closed my eyes to allow my other senses to take the forefront of my mind. Mason’s energy still rolled, but so did the others.

A cry, muffled by the door, snapped my eyes open. What were they doing in there? Were they hurting him? Killing him? I closed my eyes again, and his energy swirled and spiked unnaturally. I’d seen energy do that before. Not long before it faded into nothingness. If I waited for Vasquez to organize a rescue, would I lose Mason forever?

No.

I’d just found him. Against procedure or not, I had to get in there. Distract them. Something. Entering that building would mean putting my life on the line. It would mean that I cared enough about Mason to risk my life to spare his. Logically, I knew that he wouldn’t thank me for it. But there was nothing else I could do. If I lost him when I could have saved him by distracting his torturers, I couldn’t live with myself.

With trembling fingers, I touched my phone’s screen. It would take Vasquez at least thirty minutes to get here. He’d said twenty, but there was no way. Not in traffic. Not even with lights flashing and sirens blaring. It was a long shot, but there was a small possibility that someone could get here sooner. If he was back in town.

I just had one more phone call to make. But the door was so close, I couldn’t take the time to run back to the car to make sure the vampire inside didn’t overhear me.

So, as quickly as I could, I sent a text message that I hoped my partner wouldn’t be too far away to answer.

Chapter Thirteen

T
he handle of back door to the grocery store was locked, but not the deadbolt. A few quick motions with a credit card and I was in, gun in hand. The room I entered was dark, with small bits of light creeping in through mostly boarded-over windows. A dank smell touched my nose, mildew and bacteria-ridden stagnant water. I shut the door quietly behind me. Perspiration beaded on my forehead and between my breasts. Even though I couldn’t detect much noise from my break-in, Min’s ears would be far more sensitive.

But no vampire greeted me as I crept forward in the general direction of what I was certain was Mason’s energy. I wished I could close my eyes to get a better fix, but that wasn’t an option.

The back room I was in connected to the main store area through a short hallway with doors on either side. Old restrooms, by the signs on the doors. The air was oppressive, and the suffocating quality grew as I moved farther from the door. Dirt coated the floors. Some areas only a heavy sheen of dust, while others were marked where furnishings had been removed but the area beneath them hadn’t been cleaned.

Other things were splattered on the floor as well. Dark stains coated in enough dust that it was difficult to tell their original color. Pink droplets I could almost convince myself had come from an old meat department in the grocery store, if they hadn’t looked so fresh. Not days old, no. But maybe weeks. I wasn’t much of a germaphobe, but I was almost willing to convert at the sight and smell of the old supermarket.

I crept into the hallway toward the main part of the store. A red stain, dark and almost hidden in the shadows, slid across small sections of the floor. My breath caught in my throat. Blood. Blood and what looked like drag marks.

My gun felt solid in my hands. Real. I thumbed off the safety and took another step. The shelving was still intact. I paused. Was that normal? It didn’t seem like it. I’d thought they scavenged all they could when one of these places closed. Maybe the owner had thought including it would sell the property faster. Regardless of the reason, it made seeing anything all the more difficult.

Inky darkness bathed the room. Farthest from the front windows, and blocked from the back ones save for the hallway, the area was shadowed, and my mind jumped to fill the spaces with lunging imps and salivating vampires.

I risked a moment of lost focus to try to feel out which direction Mason was. Left, and still in front of me. Keeping my eyes darting and my gun fixed, I headed toward his familiar energy.

The smell hanging in the air went from dank to spoiled in the meat section. I didn’t dare peek into the once-refrigerated bins, but I was certain that they hadn’t been well cleaned after the supermarket closed. My feet were nearly silent against the dirty floor, but the slight tap of my shoe was audible—just barely—to my ears. The vampire—wherever she was—would certainly hear me coming.

My heart thudded against my chest at the thought, and my body tensed to run. To leave until backup could arrive. But I couldn’t leave Mason here in this horrible, rank place alone. I couldn’t leave him to die on the teeth of a vampire. I couldn’t open a box tomorrow and find his accusing eyes staring back at me.

I forced myself forward and—gun first—rounded a corner into what must have been the fresh produce section. A fairly large amount of open space had large expanses of bins around it that once held potatoes and apples and onions. I’d made my way from the back to the front of the store. The light snaked in from the boarded up windows. And in the open space was a single, sturdy-looking chair, where a man was tied by his wrists and ankles to the heavy metal frame.

Mason looked up, moving his head slowly. Blood ran down his face and coated his neck and chest. Skin swollen and bruised, he was barely recognizable. And I could see punctures in his neck.

Our eyes met and recognition flashed in his eyes.

Suddenly one of the shadows moved, so quickly that I only registered the movement when the flash reached me. My gun flew from my hand and pain ripped up my arm and through my shoulder. I was face down on the ground, gun arm twisted behind my back before I could even squeak in protest.

The vampire yanked my other arm back and then pulled me to my feet. A loud chuckle rolled through the air from behind me, masculine and arrogant. And Jarvis walked around to stand between me and Mason.

“Thank you for being so naïve and following me here, Astrid,” he said. “And thanks for coming in when we called.”

Min shoved me forward and I barely caught my footing before running headlong into Jarvis. I backed up a step when it looked like he was going to try to help me balance myself. Great. I’d not only walked right into a trap by following him, but I’d tightened the noose around my neck by coming in at the first hint that Mason was hurt. But I’d known that walking in. I hadn’t come in here to take out a vampire and an imp. I’d walked into the building to distract them long enough for Mason to escape, and I hoped long enough for help to arrive.

“We need to finish this. She may have called in for backup,” Min said, voice humorless. What did Jarvis see in her? Oh right, a fellow homicidal maniac.

“You were a good cop, Jarvis,” I said. I knew no such thing—he’d only been in our unit for a few months. But I figured he’d be easier to get talking. Help was on the way. I just had to keep us alive for a few more minutes. “Why are you doing this?”

“None of your business,” Min said, simply. Jarvis gave her an annoyed glance, but didn’t argue with her.

“I’m guessing money,” I said, “because it can’t be her sparkling personality.”

Min simply gave me a smug grin, her menacing aura and vampiric energy swirling around her, coin flipping easily through her fingers. For a split second I lost myself in that energy, the swirl of shadows surrounding her, moving in their flowing, liquid way, before jerking back to reality.

“Then again, maybe you’re the one who’s slumming,” I told her. “Come on, an imp?” I shrugged, doing my best to appear nonchalant. It might not fool a vampire, but Jarvis wouldn’t be able to hear my thundering pulse.

“Bitch,” Jarvis snapped, and pain exploded from my cheek.

I spit out a mouthful of blood and teetered on the edge of falling down. I’d gotten a reaction, if a bit more violent than what I had been looking for.

Keep them distracted
.

“Well,” I said thickly, “I get why she’s doing it. Probably in love—or lust—with Nicolas.” I shrugged, and pain ran up from the shoulder Min had wrenched. “But who could blame her. I mean, who could resist a powerful guy like that, when she goes home to an imp?”

I was ready for the strike this time, but it still hurt like hell. I fell to the ground, wrists screaming as I broke my fall with my hands. Blood dripped from my face to puddle on the ground. I tasted it on my tongue. And the flavor was almost a welcome change from the burnt coffee filling my nose. An angry, low growl filled the room, and I braced for another hit, but it didn’t come.

“This is why I don’t do field work,” I said, my voice strangely thick. I blinked back the waves of darkness threatening to overcome me and looked up at my captors. But they were no longer watching me. Something moved behind them. Something shuddered and shook and groaned. Something was creating enough of a spike in Mason’s aura to make concentrating fully on the scene nearly impossible, even with waves of pain rolling over me from every part of my body.

Lycan energy flooded the room, blinding me even as I tried to see what was happening. I pushed up from the ground and struggled to my knees, narrowing my eyes against the silver flood of power that only I could see even though I knew I wasn’t seeing it with my physical eyes. And then I couldn’t smell anything but fresh air and wide open spaces. And the energy shone even more. So radiant and sharp I almost lost my focus on him. On what was happening to him.

Mason’s scream shook me to my core. Agony and fury and triumph. All rolled into one terrible sound. His arms flexed against his bindings, and waves moved beneath his skin like water in the ocean. Land rolling in an earthquake.

Like an animal, his fingers stretched and clawed at the chair, but he didn’t seem to be trying to get free that way. It was more like the pain of whatever was happening to him was too much to bear without movement.

What was wrong with him? My mind flashed to a spell that could be hurting him so much, but I dropped the idea as soon as it surfaced. I knew what was happening, I just couldn’t believe it.

He was shifting.

The years Mason had avoided his change—bottled it—should have prevented this. Should have made it impossible. A lycan who hadn’t changed in years could no longer change alone. Could no longer change without the full moon above and a pack to help. Could definitely not change under a half moon—during the day, no less—while hurt and nearly unconscious.

But there was no denying what was happening in front of my eyes.

Mason’s skin stretched and his bones popped and cracked, moving into new positions. Skin broke, and I cried out when blood poured from the wounds that appeared. Wounds that only healed when fur pushed out from beneath his skin.

The vampire was shouting something at the imp, but Jarvis seemed hypnotized by the sight. Min started toward Mason, and I realized that I had to do something. Anything. If she reached him mid-change, he would have no chance. He’d be unable to defend himself.

I searched the floor desperately for my gun. Finally, I spotted it. Mason growled, loud and long. Min stood over him. Jarvis still appeared stunned and oblivious to anything but Mason. Over the filthy floor, I lunged for the gun. My fingers closed over the cold, reassuring steel.

I didn’t hesitate.

My aim from the floor wasn’t great, and I had normal rounds loaded in my gun, but I got two good hits to the vampire’s shoulder. One second, blood splashed from her shoulder, and the next, Min was standing over me. Rage coated her face and her pretty features were transformed into something truly ghastly.

I tried to swing my gun up, but ran into solid vampire. Solid, pissed vampire. I didn’t see her move again, but the agony shooting from my neck was very real. Someone cried out in pain.

It might have been me.

It felt like Min was chewing through to my bone. Then the vampire was gone, though the sting radiating from my neck didn’t fade. Min flew across the room, and I heard metal breaking and plastic and glass shattering.

And I looked into the eyes of the beast.

Mason as a man was hard and handsome, but the word beautiful would never have occurred to me to describe him. But as a fully changed lycanthrope, there was no other word that fit. But it was a terrible beauty. Tawny hair covered his body, and his eyes—still the dark gray I’d come to rely on so much in the last few days—flashed with animalistic fury. Muscles flexed and moved under his fur—muscles that were different from those of any animal or man.

His arms were far too long for his still-bipedal body, and the claws at the end of them looked as sharp as razor blades. I should have been afraid. Lycans who turned after so long as humans had a harder time with control and were more prone to blackouts and rages. But I saw
him
in those eyes. And I could never be afraid of Mason.

Mason jerked, and I pushed myself up from the ground. Jarvis was on Mason’s back, holding on by a knife he’d plunged between the lycan’s shoulder blades. Imps weren’t particularly strong, but they were fast as hell, and sneaky. Jarvis flung himself from Mason and skittered away into the darkness.

“We have to get out of here.” I choked out the words, hoping Mason could understand between my swollen mouth and his lycan form. Mason turned to look at me, his eyes widened and then narrowed into an even more intense rage. I must look like hell.

A growl escaped him and he jumped to the side, revealing Jarvis at his back again. Knife in hand, an evil glee danced through the imp’s eyes. Being with Min hadn’t changed Jarvis into a psychopath. I bet he’d been that way for a very long time.

Suddenly Min was there too, lips drawn back to reveal bloody fangs and swinging a large piece of metal—an old shelf by the looks of it—at Mason. They ignored me. Rightly assuming that I wasn’t the real threat in the room.

I swung my gun up but I couldn’t get a safe shot in. Finally Mason spun around quickly and Jarvis pulled back, knife back in the imp’s hand from between Mason’s ribs. Jarvis was quick as hell, but he’d tuned me out and was looking for another opening to stab Mason again. Blood ran down the knife and Jarvis bared his teeth. Mason cried out in pain.

I fired.

The imp went down like a stone. Clean chest shot.

Mason and Min fought, still so fast it was difficult to see who was winning. But they were both tiring. Both wounded and bleeding all over the stained floor. Their energy swirled and mixed with the imp’s fading aura, adding to my confusion.

Mason backhanded the vampire and a
crack
sounded, harsh and loud. Min faltered and fell back, dazed.

“Stay there, Min,” I shouted, finding my voice somewhere in the surreal fog rolling through my mind. I aimed right at her fangs.

She wouldn’t survive a headshot in her condition. She had to know that. Barely able to maintain her footing, she raised her arms slightly—a short, quick movement of defeat.

And then her head was gone.

I didn’t see the vampire coming from behind her. Nor did I see the quick motion he used to tear Min’s head from her body. All I saw was the aftermath. Blood spurting from Min’s neck as her heart continued to pump, unaware that it was dead. Her body, falling in slow motion.

And Luc Chevalier. Holding Min’s head in his hands.