The Viper, page 4
As brakes squeaked, he forced himself into motion and patted around for a weapon he didn’t have, while off to the left, a car door opened—no, two. And that spelled certain death if he couldn’t find something to shoot or stab with—
Footsteps on the ground cover, rustling on the approach. At least two sets, closing in.
No scent that he could catch over all the stench, but like it mattered? He knew what was coming.
Determined to at least go out punching, he flipped around in the tight squeeze, and as his head lifted, he felt a foot on the side of his face. Kane’s.
In a sudden surge, he pushed himself up, only to get caught in a tangle of legs and the folds of that cover he’d wrapped Kane in when he’d carried the male out. The seat belt he’d fastened around the other prisoner at the last second was holding what was clearly dead weight in place above him, all those loose, unresponsive limbs making Apex’s gut twist.
Batting the blanket aside, he was able to see better, thanks to the glow of the dashboard. Breathing. Okay, at least Kane was breathing. For how long, who the fuck knew.
“Mayhem?” he hissed.
No reply. No movement, either, from the guy behind the wheel who was hanging in his seat from his belt just like Kane was.
With the grim triaging done, Apex assessed whether he could squeeze into the front to look for another grenade or maybe a gun. The impact should have thrown anything loose forward, the kinetic energy of the objects unchanged even as the SUV hit a hard stop—
“Apex,” came a voice from what seemed like far, far away. “Don’t start shooting, for fuck’s sake. It’s me.”
“Lucan?”
“I’m going to get you out of this wreck.”
Apex put his hand to his head and winced. Maybe this was because of a concussion? Then again, he’d had a few in his lifetime, and they’d never come with auditory hallucinations before.
“What the hell are you doing here, wolven,” he mumbled.
There was a pause. “Are you complaining? Because I’ll leave you in this wreck if you’d rather wait for Santa-fucking-Claus.”
“Hollow threat, wolf.”
But come on, of course the guy would return. That half-breed had too much lupine DNA in him to desert anyone from what he perceived as his clan, and too much vampire in him not to protect those who he thought were his. Even though he’d escaped the prison camp with the human woman he’d claimed as his mate, and in spite of the fact that he shouldn’t get anywhere near the place, at least not without a pistol to his pea head, here he was.
“Take Kane first.”
Lucan’s voice was muffled. “Cover your head.”
“What?”
“Cover your damn head, just in case.”
An absolutely insane part of Apex wanted to stick his fucking neck out because he was just that kind of a defiant SOB. But he ducked down and took shelter behind the seat.
“Be careful of Kane!” he barked. “And Mayhem!”
Up at the front windshield, there was a dull thud. And then a second that was louder, and a last—
“I’m in.” The wolven’s voice was clear as a bell now. “Oh, hell, Mayhem…”
“Is he dead?” Apex said as he pushed himself up.
“I don’t know.”
Apex tried to look around, but the blanket’s dark folds turned everything into a stage set that had yet to be revealed.
A familiar female voice now: “Unlock the doors.”
“Why is Rio here?” Apex demanded. “Are you fucking nuts? The guards are coming. We were followed—”
“Of course you were,” Lucan’s shellan muttered. “That’s why we’ve gotta stop talking and move fast.”
It had been a long time since anyone had essentially told him to shut up. Like maybe, ever.
“Take Kane out from up above,” he said. “He’s not going to make it if you try to get him out of the front.”
Conversation now on the periphery, quick and intense, between the wolven and his female. And then there was a rocking—Lucan climbing up onto the side panels as Rio started to rip out what was left of the safety glass from the windshield frame. After that, another round of f-bombs, which Apex didn’t need translated to guess the problem: The rear door was jammed.
“Toss me the tire iron,” the wolven said to his female.
Another smash, and this time there was a raining of small fragments.
Now Lucan’s voice right above: “Okay, Kane. This is going to get rough. I’m sorry—Apex, I’ve got him. Can you release the seat belt?”
“Yeah.” Fighting through the loose limbs and folds of wool, Apex found the belt’s anchor. “You ready?”
“Yup.”
The resulting groan of pain was hard to hear, and then the load on top of Apex eased in increments while the other prisoner started to be pulled off of him. As the blanket went along for the ride, Apex could finally get a good look at—
“Oh… shit,” he breathed. “Mayhem.”
As Rio squeezed herself into the cockpit, the prisoner didn’t acknowledge her—given all the blood running down his face, he had to be either dead or unconscious.
“Apex, release this belt for me, too?”
Shoving his hand forward, he did the duty, and then refocused and tried to help with the Kane evac. The moaning was goddamn awful to hear, but at least it meant there was still life. Although at this rate, the extraction was going to finish the fucking job—
Everything stopped as Kane screamed.
“The blanket’s caught,” Lucan said. “Shit.”
Apex’s one and only impulse was to shove as hard as he could, but where was that going to get them other than skinning Kane alive. Either he lost what was left on his bones when the wool wrap came off, or the window with its busted rim of glass did the duty.
See, this was why it was better not to get involved with other people.
Their suffering became your own.
* * *
Up on top of the tipped-over SUV, Lucan tried to be gentle with Kane, he really did. But there were limits when you were attempting to drag the dead weight of a male through an opening barely big enough for the size of the guy’s shoulders. Plus even emaciated, Kane was over a hundred pounds, and with his body so weak, he was slippery as hell to grip.
And then there was that fucking blanket.
“We’re out of time,” Apex said from down below. “We’ve gotta get him out.”
This was correct, of course.
As one of Lucan’s boots slipped out from under him, he slammed down on the side panel, and lost the ground he’d gained.
“Hang on, buddy,” Lucan gritted as he reestablished his foot position. “Just a little farther—on three.”
“Got it,” Apex called up.
“One… two… three—”
All at once, the prisoner broke free, and with the abrupt release, it was all Lucan could do to keep from losing his balance and taking them both down to the ground. As he steadied himself, he laid the guy out along the flank of the car, and the way that head fell back was truly alarming. Alarming, too, was the blood on the mouth, the bruises on the face. And all those raw wounds that glistened and wept.
Lucan pulled open what was left of one of the eyelids. The whites were showing and nothing else. “Shit—”
Apex leaped out of the broken window like his boots were spring-loaded, the momentum so great that he not only cleared the vehicle, but pulled off a somersault in the air. Landing hard, it was no surprise that he went immediately to Kane, even though he himself had a head wound that was bleeding.
“Is he breathing?”
The question was spoken roughly, and the answer was what it was: Anyone could see that the bare chest was going up and down. But Apex clearly cared so much that he didn’t trust his own eyes.
“For the moment,” Lucan hedged as he leaned out to the side.
At the front of the SUV, Rio had pulled Mayhem out of the driver’s seat and laid him flat on the scruffy weeds. Face up to the sky, the male was moving in an uncoordinated way, arms circling weakly, legs up-and-down’ing, like he was drunk and trying to run.
There was a lot of blood on his face, like a glossy, red mask.
And then things got worse.
Off in the distance, through the tree line, the unmistakable flicker of headlights coming fast was the tick-tock of a doomsday clock.
“We’ve got company,” Rio said.
After which things got worse-er.
Flaring his nostrils, Lucan scented the air and bared his fangs. “Rio, get your gun out.”
Cranking his head around, he re-tested the scents coming over on the breeze and got a confirmation that made his pecs tighten. Great. The one thing that he really didn’t need added to this shit show.
“Mayhem says it was a wolf,” Rio called out. “In the road. He swerved to avoid a wolf.”
“Yeah, I can scent it from here.”
Lucan measured the approaching vehicles. They were closing in, an inexorable gunfight rolling toward them like a storm surge.
Glancing at Apex, he tossed the male the one gun he had. “Defend them while I go deal with a relative of mine.”
Apex caught the weapon and nodded without a word.
Leaping from the side panel of the SUV, Lucan hit the ground and ran down the undercarriage to his mate. “I’ll be right back.”
“Be careful.”
He kissed her quickly and then tore off, jumping up the shallow embankment. The road was unlit, but he didn’t need streetlamps to see. The wolf’s body was about forty feet away, in the center of the pitted asphalt strip, blood staining the white-and-gray fur of the chest, a gray tongue lolling out of open jaws. Surprisingly, the rib cage was still going up and down. That wasn’t going to last.
Even though it had been decades, Lucan recognized the male. It was another of his cousins.
The first had been brought in by the Executioner mere nights ago. For whatever reason, the wolven had come off the mountain and were circling the prison camp—
The growl came directly across from Lucan.
As he lifted his stare to a stand of bushes, a set of glowing blue eyes was locked on him.
“Rio,” he said loudly, without looking away from the wolven. “Get back in our car—”
“What?”
“Get in our car, right now.”
“But what about—”
“Now!” he barked as he sank down into his thighs and prepared for a fight.
Whether it was going to be on four paws or two feet, that was the only question.
Talk about spoiled for choice.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was with no small measure of confusion that Kane opened his eyes and regarded the night sky above him. Given the pain he had just endured, he had assumed… that the next thing he saw would be the foggy landscape of the Fade and the white door he had been told of by wahlkers.
But he had no mist, no door. He had only the dreary heavens above the earth, the twinkling stars offering little in the way of beauty and absolutely no mysticism to him.
Although if he was alive, he had a chance to—
“I’ve got to move you to some better cover. I’m sorry.”
Turning his head, he found it difficult to focus on the near-to, but after a moment, the face on a level with his own registered.
“Apex.” Dearest Virgin Scribe, his voice was so hoarse. “Wherever are we…”
“Brace yourself.”
His fellow prisoner left him no time to follow that order, but perhaps it was for the best. As Kane’s pain receptors once again became all he knew, the electric shocks boring through him like swords, the contortion of his limbs and spine nothing he could control, he retreated into his skin, the world lost unto him. Those icy cold heavens, too.
It felt like an eternity until he was laid out flat on the ground, and certainly the agony departed on its own schedule, what had arrived with a slamming alacrity retreating upon a leisurely stroll.
He opened his eyes again as a way of enduring the torture. In all his nights of suffering, he’d found that if he could focus on something, anything, outside of himself, he could beat back some of the onslaught—
Mechanicals. As his sight sharpened, he was looking at an interwoven thicket of pipes, shafts, wires, pans: It was a vehicle on its side.
In a flash, he remembered a gunfight, Apex leaning out of a window, throwing something—and then…
“You need to leave me,” he said to the other male.
When there was no response, he gritted his molars and turned his head up and around. Apex was kneeling beside him, his hands planted on the scourged earth, his body poised as if he were going to attack what was left of the SUV.
“You are going to leave me here,” Kane repeated, “and save yourself.”
As the other male opened his mouth, he found an octave lower in his tone. “Let me go. I heard what Lucan said. A wolven in the road. And there have to be more in the woods if we hit one, and there will be another flank of guards on top of all that. You’re free. You’re out of the prison. Go.”
The male lowered his eyes, and in the tense silence, Kane studied those harsh, lean features. He had seen much of them since he had detonated his collar and the circlet had exploded. Apex had stayed for hours at his bedside, for reasons he still could not understand.
“You need to save yourself.”
Apex didn’t reply. Didn’t nod or shake his head. He was like a statue, though under his surface, there was heat and life. And aggression.
“Can you move him?”
The female voice was a surprise, and yet expected, given who had pulled Kane out of the back of the toppled vehicle. Lucan’s shellan was dressed in darkness, and she had a gun in her hand. Though there was blood on her cheek and smudging across her jacket, she was as unflappable as a person in their place of usual habitation.
“Yes,” Apex said. “I’ll pick him up.”
“No,” Kane cut in.
“We need to get him and Mayhem in our car with the doors locked.”
Apex moved fast. So did the female. And Kane must have passed out as he was picked up because the next thing he knew he was sitting upright, a belt over his shoulder and across his chest, his feet arranged in an alignment so precise, his proper mahmen would have approved.
“Kane, lock the door. Do you understand?”
Unable to move his head, his eyes sought the deep voice. Apex, again. Apex, always. Leaning down into the vehicle.
“Dematerialize out of here,” Kane commanded.
“Lock it.”
A hearty steel panel was slammed, and then Apex jammed his forefinger to the glass, to a little shaft that protruded from the door.
Apex’s eyes burned. “I’m not leaving you until you do it.”
Kane complied with a fumble of the hand that still had fingers; then he collapsed back into the seat. As his head lolled, he discovered he had a partner in injury. Next to him, Mayhem seemed to be in the same shape, his face covered with blood, his eyes blinking in an uneven rhythm.
“You all right?” the other prisoner mumbled to him.
Kane didn’t bother answering as it seemed like a reflexive inquiry, the kind of thing that came from politeness or practicality, even though Mayhem was not known for either—and in any event, the male did not seem to have enough energy to track whatever reply would be proffered.
And oh, interesting. The prisoner had his collar still on, the steel band with its explosive charge and tracking device, intact. Somehow, it must have been disabled or it would have detonated as soon as they were off the grounds.
Forcing his head to other side, Kane stared out of a stretch of milky glass. Up on the road, he saw Lucan straighten from a crouch and focus on something just outside of view. And beyond the male, in the darkness, snaking through a landscape of trees… a line of headlights.
Cars. Many. On the approach.
Guards.
Although Kane was not of this modern era, having been locked in time since he had been incarcerated centuries before, he recognized what he was in and what was coming at them. He had seen all kinds of motorized conveyances, the trucks, SUVs, and cars used to transport the drugs that were packaged at the camp and sold for a profit. And he knew how many guards could fit in a lineup like that.
This was going to go very badly. For all of them.
As if a horse spooked, his mind abruptly retreated from the present. But rather than go to a safe void, it went to the worst possible place, sucking him down into memories that he always fought: He went to another night when death had come, although not on tires, but upon footfalls…
* * *
On the evening of his shellan’s last breath, Kane was sitting at his desk in his study, the accounting of his estate before him, the columns of figures and tallies like sand sifting through his palms, nothing sticking except the odd numeral or line title. No matter how oft he reengaged with the material, he tracked none of it, his lack of comprehension forcing him to start and restart.
And start once more—
Fidgeting in his chair, he relit his pipe because the ember had gone out in its rosewood bowl, and as he puffed out clouds of smoke, they floated up and lingered high in the elegant, masculine room, making him think of steam engines—
When a rhythmic tapping sounded, he was confused as to its origin. Then he tilted to the side and looked under the desk. His heel was bouncing on the rug, animated by the surges of energy that had made it difficult for him to settle in any fashion, in any activity, in any position, for the previous eight nights and days.
He was not the only one within the household who was not feeling himself. As well, his Cordelhia was off, although her symptoms were the opposite to his own. In contrast to his hyperactivity, she had been sluggish and without impulse, neither eating nor sleeping overmuch of late.
And what joy for them both.
Like a present for the anniversary of his birth, her needing was on the arrival. The change of her hormones, the fertile charge, was thick in the air, teasing his nose, causing his fangs to descend and stay in that position, making him restless nearly to the point of insanity. And the servants in the house felt it as well, although given that they were doggen, they were not affected on a visceral level. They did endeavor to provide extra privacy, however, dispatching themselves unto errands that kept them away during both the day and the night in a rotating schedule.
