She turned to look at the demon, obviously desperate for backup. “Tell him.”
It lounged against the work table, deceptively casual in stance, but its eyes burned with interest. “It is true that I have, over centuries, taken on the characteristics of my former masters. And I, in turn, have shaped them.”
“So it was always sought after by the power hungry,” said Mick. He took Sophie by the shoulders, willing her to understand. “I’m not. Never have been. I have no intention of wielding the Eye at all, just tying up its power long enough to make the deal and get Liza.”
“And then what?” she demanded. “Be bound to a demon for the rest of your natural life? To have that kind of power at your beck and call, just waiting for an excuse to be used? Even the most noble of men would bow to that eventually. You may not even have to consciously decide to use it. For all you know, the demon can act on your desires, whether they are voiced or not.”
That gave him pause. Mick was confident he could control his own actions, but his desires? That was another matter entirely. He looked to the demon for confirmation. “Can you?”
It shrugged. “It is a symbiotic relationship. I know the thoughts and desires of my host. But I have never had one who did not act on those desires, so, truthfully, I do not know. The Eye is not the tool of honorable men.”
“Then it’s time you had an injection of honor to remind you of what you could have been.” Decided, Mick let her go. He took a step toward the table where the Devil’s Eye lay, but Sophie countered, moving into him.
“What about the rest of your Pack? What happens to them if the Eye corrupts you?” she demanded.
He looked down at the small hands pressing against his chest, over the heart that was quite suddenly thudding with a fear he hadn’t considered. His Pack, his family was everything to him. He’d devoted his life to protecting his group of misfits. The idea that the Eye could somehow change that, could somehow make him hurt them was untenable. He would never betray his Pack. And that conviction was what held him firm in his resolve. “It won’t corrupt me,” he said.
“But what if—”
Mick laid a finger over her lips, stopping whatever additional protest she was about to make. “I can’t operate on what-ifs and maybes.” He didn’t give himself time to think about whether he was just talking about the situation with Liza, ruthlessly shutting off the thought of what could be with Sophie if things had been different. For all his bravado, he knew he was probably signing a death warrant. If regret was bitter on his tongue, it was a familiar taste. “I have to operate on what is. This is. The only way we can get Liza back is if we deliver the Eye and the kidnapper can’t actually use it. There is no other choice. I have to do what’s right for her.”
“What about what’s right for you?”
“I don’t matter.” It was a simple, honest statement, something he fully believed. The Pack was more important.
“You do to me.” She looked shocked, but she didn’t take it back and the words hung between them, evidence of a connection he could barely admit to.
He wanted time. Leisure to explore this unexpected gift. But time was a luxury they didn’t have, and Liza’s life depended on their actions in the next hour.
Mick cupped her cheek, memorizing the feel of it beneath his hand as he whispered, “It will be all right, Sophie.” Then he stepped around her and reached for the Eye.
The stone was cold to the touch, making the skin of his palm shrink and tighten. Then it melted, and the liquefied mass began to climb up his arm, growing and groping like some giant amoeba.
“What the fuck?”
Mick couldn’t help it. He shook his arm, trying to dislodge the crimson blob. But it stayed wrapped around him, moving up to his shoulder, his chest, down his torso, cocooning him in freezing bands that drove the air from his lungs.
“Mick!” Sophie screamed and started toward him.
“No!” he gasped. “Stay back!”
He fell to his knees, his wolf rising up in response to the threat. His limbs popped and twisted in an agonizing attempt at a shift that left him caught between forms. He tipped back his head and let out a long, anguished howl that was choked off as the noxious liquid invaded his mouth. Panic gripped him, strangling even tighter than the nebulous blob itself. Trapped. He was trapped inside this thing, inside his own body. Dying.
You must give in to the Eye. The demon’s voice stroked his mind like barbed fingers, slicing, sliding their way inside.
Mick screamed at the invasion, though it was silence that echoed through his brain. Terror was a living thing, clawing its way out of his chest, fighting against the bonds of the Eye.
Accept. Give in. Or you will die.
How could he calm down and accept this when he couldn’t fucking breathe!
If you are dead you will be of no use to your Liza.
Mick tried to calm his racing heart and reached for his wolf. For the Pack, my brother. We must do this for the Pack.
He held still and waited.
Centuries passed until he had all but forgotten his name, his purpose, until at last he gave himself up to the agony.
And at length the pain eased. His limbs lengthened, settling into human form again, stiff and aching from the partial shift. Mick opened his mouth and found he could once again gasp for breath. Someone was weeping.
Not dead then, he thought vaguely.
Breathing was good. It eased the pain in his chest. As he lay there, he came aware of hands wrapped awkwardly around his shoulders, his head in a lap. The weeping woman.
He wanted to reassure her that he was all right, but speech seemed beyond his abilities just now.
“What did you do to him?” she snarled at someone.
He recognized that voice. It pulled at something hot and possessive inside him.
“Demon or no, if you’ve done permanent damage to Mick, I’ll find a way to make you bleed.”
He knew that voice too. Booming and angry. Somehow short. And the name, Mick. It rolled around in his head before settling.
That’d be me, he realized.
“He will wake.”
Mick frowned at the outside embodiment of the voice from his mind. There was something important attached to that voice. Something he was supposed to do. He fought toward consciousness.
A field of vivid Aegean blue resolved itself into a woman’s eyes. His woman. Sophie.
She looked down at him, her face run with tears. “You’re alive!”
“Seems that way,” he croaked.
“Are you all right?”
All right seemed like a mighty subjective term to him. But he forced his lips into a semblance of a smile to ease the lines of strain and worry on her face. “Let’s just stick with not dead for now.”
He struggled up and a glistening red stone rolled out of his hand and onto the floor.
That was when he saw the demon across the room and remembered. Liza. Kidnapped. I just made a deal with the devil.
“What time is it? How long was I out? Are we too late?” The words spilled out in a rush.
“There’s time still, but we have to go now,” said Sophie, grabbing one of his arms as Olaf grabbed the other and tugged up. “But can you make it? You’re not in any condition to fight.”
“I can make it,” he said, deliberately stepping away to prove he could stand on his own two feet. “I’ll do whatever needs doing.”
Olaf gingerly picked up the Devil’s Eye and handed it over. “I don’t ever want to see this, or Hefty Smurf over there again.”
It was warm now. Mick nodded and slipped it into his pocket. “Thanks for your help.”
“Fat lot of good it did. I’ll waive my fee since I didn’t provide a usable product.” He reached out, gripping Mick’s forearm. “Good luck, my friend. You’re gonna need it.”
Chapter 7
The radio station was down when Mick tried to check the forecast one last time. Not that it mattered. Hurricane Roy wasn’t the
ir primary concern. Liza and her kidnapper were waiting.
Wind buffeted the car with rain and debris. The storm was upon them. It was now or never, whether New Orleans got flattened or not.
The faded signage said Hennessey Yacht Building Company: Hand-built vessels since 1884.
Clearly nobody has much use for hand-tooled yachts since the economy tanked, thought Mick.
The warehouse was like any other in the area—rundown and unassuming, crouched behind a dilapidated chain link fence that had a few holes big enough for a man to slip through. The only boats in evidence were moored further down the waterway, riding uneasily on the churning waters of the Mississippi River. The building itself was brick, its face dotted with dozens of small, filthy windows, pockmarked in places by broken panes. The place appeared to be abandoned to the vagrants and drug dealers who frequented the neighborhood.
Mick fidgeted. The Eye was a warm weight in his pocket, the demon an uneasy presence in his mind. Sophie fidgeted beside him in the passenger seat.
“Mick, if this doesn’t—”
He laid a finger over her lips to stop her words. “Save it, chère. We’ll talk about it on the other side.”
He handed her the Eye. Gingerly, she placed it back into the case and snapped it closed. Then she looked at him long and hard, her eyes full of things neither of them dared to speak.
I believe it is time.
Mick frowned at the intrusive voice. But the demon was right.
“Let’s go.”
They had to wrestle the car doors open against the wind. Sophie stuck close as they made use of one of the gaps in the fencing and ran for the relative shelter of an overhang above a metal door. Their staggering progress to the door of the warehouse took twice as long as it should have, but they made it. A chain hung limp from the handle, but there was no padlock. Clearly they were expected.
“You ready?” he asked.
Sophie’s face was white and pinched with anxiety, but she nodded, her Sig Sauer clutched tight in one hand.
Mick thought those lightning balls of hers would be more effective against whatever they were about to encounter, but she seemed steadier with the gun, so he left it alone. Instead, he said, “We’re gonna get Liza back. I promise.”
He didn’t let himself think about whether it was a promise he could keep. Faith and straight-up stubborn were keeping him going here. That and the knowledge that both of them needed him to be strong. He disentangled the chain holding the old metal door shut and carefully eased it open. The rusty hinges screamed in protest, and even though the noise was lost in the general wail of the storm, he winced, body tensed for something to fly out of the dark at them. There was no response to the noise, so he slipped inside with Sophie close behind.
He waited, ears straining as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Except for the sounds of their breathing and the roar of the wind, the warehouse was silent. Too silent. The wolf prowled beneath his skin, hackles raised. And yet, when he lifted his nose, he caught traces of Liza’s scent. Faint, but there. It was overlaid with wood and metal…and blood. Suppressing a growl, Mick crept forward, Sophie on his heels.
The narrow hallway led past a row of what had probably been offices, their windows now dark. At the end of the hall, a series of huge metal racks, still loaded with wood, rose high above them. The ceiling sloped up toward a central point with a skylight. Mick could make out the lines of some kind of crane apparatus with a system of chains and pulleys. Probably for moving the ships from one point to another.
Sporadic thuds of debris hitting the walls sounded like gunfire and the roof above groaned under the onslaught of the storm.
“Better hurry, Sophie. I’m getting impatient.” The voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Something metallic groaned and snapped beyond the wood racks. Mick froze, listening to the sound of saws starting up. Then they heard the muffled scream. Sophie was already running toward the middle of the building. He loped after her, trying to snag her before she left cover, but he didn’t make it. Stopping before the end of the racks, he didn’t follow her out. Keeping hidden might give them an advantage if things didn’t go as planned.
There was a series of scaffolding and catwalks at varying levels around this central work area. He leapt up to the nearest one, using the noise of the equipment and the storm to mask the sound of climbing.
Sophie skidded to a halt, the hand with the box held aloft. “Stop! I’m here! Stop it!” she shouted.
Mick followed her gaze to see Liza suspended by handcuffs from a hook on one of the chains hanging from the ceiling. Her face and head were crusted with blood, her shoulders bunched oddly. Dislocated, Mick realized, probably from struggling to get free.
Mere feet away, an enormous circular saw hummed. Her body writhed, her eyes wide and terrified. She was whimpering behind the gag. Oh gods. He gauged the distance, but even in wolf form, there was no way he could reach her. His eyes travelled up to the pulley system, searching for access.
“Excellent. I’m glad to see you made it out of the catacombs unscathed.”
Mick could hear the smile in the voice and finally tracked its source. The man stood at the edge of a catwalk, high above the workspace below. He was white, almost from tip to toe—platinum hair, fair skin, and even a white suit. Vampire. A very, very old one. Mick automatically curled his lip in a snarl.
“Cassius?” The shock in her voice had Mick turning his attention to Sophie.
“The very same,” said the vampire with a sarcastic bow.
“But I don’t understand. Why would you go to all this trouble? You’re an Elder on the Council. You could get access to the Eye without me.”
“Ah yes, but not without the rest of those simpering dolts knowing about it. It’s so much harder to stage a coup when they see it coming.”
“You want to overthrow the Council of Races?” asked Sophie slowly.
Don’t we all? thought Mick. Yet he didn’t think whatever Cassius had in mind was in line with the goals of the Underground.
I could help with that, said the demon.
Shut up, Mick snapped.
“Yes, yes, child. Catch up with the program here. The Council is hopelessly stuck in the past, content to exist with their collective heads stuck up their asses. War is coming, whether those doddering fools recognize it or not.”
War? Mick shifted uneasily. The Underground had known there was another group in play, but their intelligence hadn’t uncovered anything like this. Keep him talking, petite.
“Why would you start a war?” demanded Sophie.
Mick edged his way closer to Liza.
“Oh I’m not in the business of warmongering. But I do know how to pick the winning side. You see, our kind were gods once. These idiot humans worshiped and feared us. Then we were forced into hiding at the behest of the Council. The beings I work for are quite tired of the Council’s fears of human discovery dictating how the world is run. The Eye is merely a more expedient means of returning to our proper station in life. As for the humans, well, someone must be left as biddable slaves. Now, bring it to me.”
Too much. He’s said too much, Mick realized. He can’t possibly have any intention of letting them live.
“Not until you stop the saw.”
“You seem to forget that you are in no position to bargain, Sophie. I could drop her and break your neck before you could get halfway to the door. Don’t insult my generosity. Bring me the Eye,” he repeated.
I could kill him, whispered the demon. It would be nothing.
No, thought Mick. I will not use the Eye.
He sensed the demon’s frustration and ignored it, keeping his attention on Sophie as she crossed the warehouse to the ladder beneath Cassius.
“Throw it up,” he ordered, leaning over to catch the case.
Sophie hesitated, looking over at Liza.
“Now, Sophie!” snapped the vampire.
She tossed it high.
/> Cassius snatched it from the air, lips curving in triumph. “At last.” He ran his hands over the case in a lover’s caress.
“Stop the saw, Cassius,” Sophie ordered.
“Now, now, I must inspect the artifact.”
Sophie’s hands fisted at her sides as Cassius flipped the clasps open and tilted the top back. The Eye lay nestled in the case, glowing dimly. The vampire’s eyes flashed red with lust. Then slowly, he reached out a hand and picked up the stone.
For a moment he looked rapturous, and Mick instinctively felt for the demon.
I am waiting for you to let me do something, it said.
Cassius fisted his hand around the Eye and hissed like a viper. “Do you take me for a fool!” he demanded, springing off and catwalk to land only half a dozen feet away from Sophie.
Mick bit back a snarl, his wolf pressing close to the surface at the threat to his woman. As she edged backward, he crept forward, muscles coiled for action, eyes on the vampire.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I brought you the Eye.”
“It is bound!” thundered the vampire.
“Not my problem,” said Sophie coolly. “You asked me to get the Eye from the catacombs. I did that. I didn’t open the case, didn’t touch it, just as we were ordered on the retrieval mission. If something isn’t right with it, that’s not on me. I kept my end of the bargain. Now let my sister go.”
“Who is bound to the Eye?” demanded Cassius, stalking forward.
Let me take care of this, begged the demon.
No, Mick thought. This is for me to do.
Mick leapt. He couldn’t make it all the way to Sophie, but he landed with enough deliberate noise that the vampire whirled to face him.
“That’d be me.”
~*~
No! Sophie wanted to scream it as Mick deliberately made himself Cassius’s target.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Cassius.
Mick circled, drawing the vampire away. “Let’s just say I’m a concerned employer. You’ve deprived me of a waitress on one of my busiest nights.”