Let it burn.
“Gas.” She had turned her head, craning to witness what could be seen of the destruction. “And whatever else he had for running the labs. But cameras in there too. Evidence.”
He was cheered at the caution, for it showed she was not entirely lost to shocked numbness. “We shall evade all notice for some short while. Mortals forget things.”
“There’s forums. Online. They’ll hunt us.” Barely audible, each word muffled, forlorn. She shuddered, finally turning away from the view, and pressed her face into his shoulder despite the blood, the filth, the evidence of pursuit and battle daubed upon his clothes.
Was it wrong to find the single movement so sweet as to stagger even an Archon? In the distance a howl arose, high and savage—a wolf singing to the absent moon, perhaps drunk with sudden freedom. “Then they will die.”
It was quite simple, after all. He bore her into the darkness, already occupied with the task of finding shelter.
CHAPTER 29
Being carriedalong by a monstrous whirlwind was strangely soothing. Just holding on was enough, taking deep lungfuls of night air and listening to the wind rush past. Not a leaf touched them, not a twig snapped underfoot, and every so often the old vampire pressed his lips to her temple, a warm forgiving touch.
Yet a hatefully familiar sensation rose in her arms and legs. Dawn approaching, and with it utter vulnerability.
Simone didn’t ask about the house—built onto another mountainside, one side propped on triangular trusses, and during daylight probably granted a fantastic view of a valley meandering with the nearby river. The garage was empty save for two snowmobiles under faded, fraying blue tarps, and the decor was a clunky mix of the seventies and several decades leaving their detritus since. It smelled disused but not abandoned—a vacation home, one her ex-husband would never have been able to afford even in good years at the agency.
The power was on, the pipes rattled but eased their protests once enough water gushed free. Even the fridge in the kitchen hummed, though she would have bet hard cash it was empty and dry as a bone.
If even a dollar bill remained in her torn pockets, that was. Her bag was gone,again, along with her coat. She was back to having absolutely nothing, at least until she could get her hands on a laptop or smartphone. Maybe the payment from Huske was still sitting in Jane Smith’s laboriously acquired work account, maybe it wasn’t. She’d been a fool to agree to the meeting, but then again, what elsecouldshe have done?
The world gave a woman no real options, ever.
For all the insanity, John looked pretty much the same. Hatless, sure, with tiny spatterspots of blood on his jacket and jeans, a tinge of caustic smoke lingering in the cloth, but still moving with uncanny vamp grace, still full of that terrifying, precisely calibrated and leashed strength. At least he didn’t seemangry, though how anyone could tell—he’d cut through everyone in the lab without breaking a sweat, and what he’d done to Huske…
Simone shuddered. Once started, the waves of trembling didn’t want to stop. Shivers poured through her as she huddled on a lumpy L-shaped couch in what would have been a comfortable den, complete with sunken central fireplace and a prissily closed wet bar on the northern wall.
Would a nip of whiskey help? She was contemplating the notion, hugging herself, occasionally glancing at the crocheted and beaded afghan neatly folded on the short end of the couch when a warm breeze ruffled her hair and he was suddenlythere, kneeling before her knees and peering at her face with what could almost be construed as an anxious expression.
Eyebrows drawn together, mouth a straight line, that wariness hiding in his blue gaze diminished but not gone. He studied her closely; Simone braced herself for punishment or worse.
She had, after all, technically and temporarily escaped him. Even if it was only by default.
“This is safe enough,” he said finally, as if conferring a medium-sized favor. “No fresh clothing, for which I apologize. Tomorrow night the closest city will have everything we need. Will you…”
What was he going to ask? “Will I what?” The thirst, scratched but not slaked, burned in her throat. Her left arm throbbed, the rest of her full of vicious little nipping, clawing pains.
All in all she’d gotten off super lightly. She probably could have fought her way out of Huske’s imitation supervillain lair alone, but Simone was forced to admit she was glad it hadn’t been necessary.
“Had I been swifter, you needn’t have suffered so.” Deliberate, pronouncing each word carefully. The stilted cowboy drawl was almost preferable to the hint of laborious care, she discovered. “I promise you it shall not happen again. Will you forgive me, sweet Simone?”
Will I what? Christ Jesus, what a question. How was it possible for an old, old bloodsucker to belessof a monster than Elton Huske? Or maybe she was the biggest monster around, and just hadn’t known it all this time. “Don’t worry about it,” she managed, numbly. “I… I just…”
The lab, the fight, the fire, all blurred together inside her head. She swayed, the couch creaking as her weight shifted, and suddenly she outright craved sleep, even if it was like a light switch flicking and the thirst would be even worse when she popped back into resentful, exhausted existence.
“Come.” He rose, with slow, infinitely controlled grace, and when he touched her left arm the contact didn’t hurt nearly so bad as her heart. He was gentle, steering her up three steps at the den’s entrance, down a shag-carpeted hall, and into the main bedroom. Even the mirrored tiles on the ceiling and wall near the bed provoked nothing but weary amusement; so long as helet her lie down, the vampire could do whatever he wanted to her stupid, aching, trembling body.
He paused just inside the door, and Simone had never thought she’d be glad of the sudden shimmer over the walls, the still, dead air now meaningtrappedbut alsosafe. He hadn’t shot her with poison and strapped her to a slab; the thought that Huske might have been afraid he’d killed his golden goose during her daylight sleep was thinly amusing.
She was glad she couldn’t remember anything they’d done to her during that stupor. What kind of ‘scientists’ put up with his bullshit?
At least Barry got out. Though if she ever saw him online again, she might be tempted to do something childish.
“You need to feed,” John said, almost kindly. He nudged her toward the bed—king-sized, rustic frame of knotted pine, a red plaid comforter, and at least it wasn’t too dusty. She obeyed the pressure, though another wave of shivers hit when she was stretched out on her side, his iron-hard arm snaking under her head, the warmth of him against her back. There was a slight sharp sound, fangs breaking a hard crust, and when his other arm slipped over her shoulder and the cut on his wrist pressed against her mouth Simone didn’t hesitate.
She took what was offered, and the taste veered between tangy lemonade to a dripping chocolate cone on a hot summer’s day, then shaded into something far more complex as the heat of his blood settled behind her breastbone and began to spread. Not food, not drink, but something soft and frightening.