With a glance at Kaylin, who gave me a thumbs-up, I swung my feet over the edge and dropped directly on top of one of the men. Kaylin followed, landing to take down the other, and within the blink of an eye, Wrath joined us.
I heard a loud shout from the other end—the others must have attacked at the same time we did—but I’d learned by now to keep my eyes on my own opponent. I quickly rolled up off the ground. When I’d landed on the man, I’d gone down on my knees, but the snow had cushioned the worst of the shock. As I rose to my feet, I was surprised to see that he was already standing.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I circled him warily, as Kaylin mirrored my movements with his opponent.
“Stand back. Or you’ll regret it.” With one quick sweep, the man I was facing pulled out something fist-sized and opened his palm for us to see.
“Fuck, a grenade? What the hell are you doing with a grenade?” My first thought was that Geoffrey had sent them here to blow us all up, a suicide bombing mission. Bloodwhores would do whatever their masters asked. But something in his demeanor told me he was no bloodwhore. No, day-runners were more valuable than bloodwhores.
“You—and the redhead—come with us and we’ll let the rest of them go.” He flicked his finger toward the pin.
I glanced at the grenade, then back at him. “How bad do you want us?”
“My orders are to bring the two of you back with me.” As he spoke, the two men from the opposite end of the building herded Rex, Peyton, and Chatter back toward us. They, too, had a grenade.
“No. You want us that bad, you’re not going to blow us up.” I shook my head. “This is so not going to happen.”
“You think so?” The man stared at me, his duster dark against the snow, and then he nodded to his buddy, who marched over and grabbed Peyton, dragging her in front of me. He tied her hands behind her back, and then pulled out a roll of duct tape and quickly strapped the grenade to her, while his partner kept us at bay with the other grenade. As he looped a string around the pin of the grenade and stepped away from Peyton, unwinding the string as he went, I suddenly realized what he was doing.
“Stop—don’t. Don’t do this.”
“You and your cousin come with us and we’ll let this one go without blowing her into a thousand bloody pieces.”
As I began to panic, Wrath suddenly turned into an owl and headed directly toward Peyton. Kaylin sent a shuriken into the man’s hand. He screamed, dropping the line leading to the grenade’s pin. At the same moment, Chatter turned into a pillar of fire and began spinning toward the man still holding the grenade.
“Get back! Get back!” I screamed to Rex, as I dove for a nearby snowbank. I shaded my eyes, tried to see what was happening without raising my head too far, but a large explosion lit up the area. Sharp screams filled the air, one after another. I staggered out from behind the snowbank, glancing around wildly. As Wrath lobbed something the other direction, yet another explosion rocked the ground.
Trying to catch my breath, I tried to ascertain who was still standing and who wasn’t. Rex was over by Peyton’s side—apparently he’d run toward her instead of diving for cover. He was stripping the ropes off of her hands. Chatter was standing there, looking slightly crazed. I ran over to him and he opened his arm to me.
I grabbed him around the waist, holding tight. “Oh, Chatter, I thought you blew yourself up.”
“My fires are far greater in power than his weapon. But we’d better take care of the one who is left.” He nodded over to where our opponents had been standing. “Best to assess who he is and what they were after.”
The first man with the grenade was nowhere to be seen, but shredded material and body parts told me that he’d gone up in the explosion when Chatter engulfed him. The man who had tied up Peyton was on the ground, bloody and dead—Kaylin was leaning over him with a dripping blade. Wrath had taken out the third man, who was now sprawled dead near his feet. And the fourth was cowering on the ground, his hands in full sight above his head.
I hustled over to him. “Take your coat off. Slowly. Drop it on the ground.”
He obeyed, and then I made him strip down all the way. When he was standing shivering and naked, I nodded.
“No hidden explosives. You can put on your boxers and undershirt again.” He did, as I motioned for Kaylin to pick up the guy’s clothing.
“Let’s get him inside and see what we can find out about him. Blindfold him first, though.” We couldn’t let him go, but on the off chance he escaped, I didn’t want him casing the joint for info on us.
We dragged him inside. Rhiannon gave me an odd look.
“We heard explosions. Are you all okay?” Luna hurried forward. When she saw we’d tied the man up, she pulled out a chair and pushed him into it, firmly knotting the ends of the cord around his wrists to the back of the chair.
“We’re okay. We survived to fight another day.” I frowned, feeling useless.
Peyton clapped me on the shoulder. “At least you weren’t tied up with a grenade strapped to your chest.” She tried to force a laugh, but her eyes told me just how drained she was from the experience. Rex came up behind her and led her to a chair, stroking her hair with an unexpectedly gentle hand. I glanced at him and he gave me a soft smile. Right then, I knew that he would love Peyton more than her mother had ever professed to.
“Yeah…that was…unexpected.” I cleared a space on the table and pulled up a chair, looking at our prisoner.
Rhiannon turned then, and her eyes lit up when saw him. “Erik!”
I stared at her, openmouthed. “You know him?”
“Know him? Leo and I double-dated with him and his girlfriend several times.” She suddenly dropped to a chair. “What the hell was going on out there?”
There was no way to avoid telling her. “This guy and three others came to kidnap the two of us. I’m not sure who the hell sent them—”
Rhiannon paled. “Erik is a day-runner for Geoffrey, just like Leo.”Erik snorted. “Leo ain’t no day-runner anymore.”
A knot in the pit of my stomach churned. “What do you mean?”
“Geoffrey turned Leo. He’s one of the vamps now.”
“Vampire?” Rhiannon deflated, a look of horror on her face. “You mean…”
“I mean, Geoffrey gave him what he wanted.” Erik spit on the floor, then shivered. “It’s cold, can you give me a blanket or something?”
“You tried to kill us, and you want a blanket because you’re cold?” He had balls, that much I’d say for him.
He shrugged. “Believe what you want. I wasn’t sent here to kill you. I was sent here to take you and Rio back to the boss men.”
“Rio?” Now I was confused.
Rhiannon bit her lip, tears forming in her eyes. But she left them unshed. “That’s what my nickname was among Leo’s friends.” She examined him, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. Leo’s really a vampire now?”
Erik let out a little sigh. He sounded almost disappointed. “Yeah. Geoffrey turned him yesterday. And that means, no more hanging out together. Leo already thinks he’s better than us. Geoffrey promised him that if he served him faithfully, he’d turn him, and now that it’s happened Leo’s already flying high on the pig.”
I smelled sour grapes. Maybe we could turn this to our advantage. “What happens to you if you go back without us? Geoffrey was smart enough to outfit you with grenades. Obviously he knew we wouldn’t go without a fight.”
Erik shivered. “The Master’s not going to be pleased.”
I motioned to Kaylin. “Get a blanket, would you?” Then, casually, I turned back to Erik. “Maybe he won’t do a thing. Or maybe…he’ll give you to Leo to play with. How is Leo handling the whole vampire thing, so far? He thirsty? I hear newborn vamps have an incredible thirst and they don’t care who they suckle from.”
Erik nodded, paling. “Yeah, he’s been working Geoffrey’s stable, all right.” He turned to where he must have guessed Rhiannon stood. “Honestly, I didn’t want to bring you in. Leo’s pissed at you right now, but he said he’s willing to take you back if you apologize. And you”—he looked in the direction of my voice—“he hates. He told me…Never mind.”
I could just imagine what Leo had said about me. I’d rather be locked in a room with Lannan any day now that I knew Leo had gone over to the Crimson Court. He wouldn’t last long, though, if he kept up his snotty attitude.
“Yeah, I know what he thinks of me. What does Geoffrey want with me?” As if I didn’t know. I had the feeling that our prestigious Regent was looking to turn me as per his original plan.
“He doesn’t tell his day-runners all his plans.” He squirmed a little as Kaylin dropped the blanket over him, but then his teeth stopped chattering. “What are you going to do with me? You going to kill me, too?”
“See, we have a problem here, Erik. We can’t really let you go back to Geoffrey now, can we? Or maybe…maybe we can.” I circled him, longing to give him a punch or to twist his hair or pinch him—anything to pay back what he’d threatened to do to Peyton.
“Send him back as a messenger?” Kaylin wasn’t as hesitant as I was. He reached out and gave Erik a sharp slap on the cheek. “Buck up, old boy. Maybe you won’t die after all. At least not until Leo gets his fangs in you.”
“Yeah, maybe he won’t die right away.” I nodded. “Erik, listen to me.” I leaned down and spoke gently into his left ear. “Does Lainule know that Geoffrey sent you here?” I watched him squirm as he tried to avoid my breath hovering around his neck. I reached out and played with the jugular vein. “My lover Grieve could easily take a nip out of you. Or Lannan, perhaps. You know we have Lannan Altos on our side?”
“Please, not that freak. Though I don’t know if Leo’s going to be much better.” Erik fidgeted and then his head lolled forward and his voice was soft but clear. “No, the Summer Queen doesn’t know about this. Geoffrey told me to keep it all on the down-low. That we weren’t to let anybody know what we were doing. She—they—had a big argument the other night. I heard them. She threatened to stake him and he ordered her out of his mansion.”
So there was trouble in paradise.
“Do you know why they were fighting?”
“Not really, but it was about you. She was saying they’d made a huge mistake. Geoffrey was yelling at her, saying that if she had let him take you by force, the plan would have gone off without a hitch.” He stopped, then breathed very slowly. “Are you going to kill me? You might as well. Geoffrey will know I talked, and he’ll punish me. Or he’ll give me to Leo, who’s going to be pissed out of his mind that I’m coming back without Rio.”
“You’re quite the loyalist.” Rhiannon walked over and gave his leg a sharp nudge with her toe. “I’m disappointed in you, Erik. I thought we were friends.”
Erik shrugged. “Day-runners have no friends. You should have figured that out by now. We’re bound to our masters and there’s no getting away. The only way out is either to become a vampire, if they’ll agree to it, or a bloodwhore, or die.”
Rhia knelt by his side and lightly put her hand on his knee. “Leo always planned on this, didn’t he? He wasn’t doing it just for the money.” Her voice sounded strained, and I realized that all her illusions about Leo were crashing to the floor. Even if he wasn’t her true love, she had loved him. And betrayal hurt.
Erik hung his head again and when he spoke, I had the feeling he genuinely regretted what he was saying. “Yeah…he told me when he first started that he wanted to be a vamp. He told me he wanted the power and money and respect that came with it. When he met you, he started talking about how he planned on first becoming a vampire and then bringing you over to be with him.” He coughed, adding, “Rio, he really does love you…in his own way.”
“You mean he’s wants to possess me. He doesn’t give a damn about what I think. He wants me under his control. I’ll bet…you said he’s going through Geoffrey’s stable. You don’t just mean he’s drinking from the bloodwhores, do you? He’s fucking every woman he can, isn’t he? Am I wrong?”
After a pause, Erik shook his head. “No. You’ve got him pegged.”
I motioned to the others and we moved away where he couldn’t hear us. Being a yummanii, he wouldn’t have exceptional hearing. As we gathered in the far end of the room, I glanced back at our bound, blindfolded prisoner.
“What do we do with him? We have two choices. Kill him or send him back. Ten to one, if we set him free he’s going to bolt, try to run. Geoffrey and Leo will kill him.” For the first time, I actually wished Lannan was awake. We could use a vampire’s input on this. “We could keep him till Lannan wakes and ask him, but Geoffrey will know something’s wrong.”
“No, he won’t.” Kaylin shook his head. “He won’t know anything is amiss until tonight because Geoffrey—and Leo—have to sleep during the daytime. They’ll be aware of something going on when they wake to discover Erik and his cronies aren’t back, but there’s not a damned thing they can do through today. I say we keep him here. Tonight we’ll ask Lannan for his opinion.”
We headed back to the bound day-runner. “So, you know Lannan Altos? If we ask him what to do with you, what’s he going to tell us?”