Chapter Two
It started out like anormal enough mission. Then again … all missions do, don’t they?
Jacken Brun stood braced for action next to his other two operatives, all three of them riding up the Scripps Memorial Hospital elevator in focused silence. Their fourth operative, Cleeve, had already been dropped off at Admin. There, as per their usual MO, the young computer dweeb would hack into the hospital’s system and enter transfer orders for their target female, giving this abduction a nice, official stamp of approval.
On Jacken’s right was Vinz Mihnea, decked out in a Brooks Brothers suit and lab coat for the role of doctor he’d be playing, reeking of Elvis appeal with those thick black sideburns. On Jacken’s left was Thomal Costache in a pair of scrubs. Thomal’s flattop blond hair might’ve made him look too much like the soldier he really was, but his face would distract from that; he had the kind of unreal good looks most women found fertility-inspiring. Having Thomal along pretty much guaranteed a whole lot of babbling, “Of course, sir. Anything you want, sir.”
Jacken had no way of knowing that in less than fifteen minutes one of these men would have a knife planted in his chest. And not just any knife. A B?taie Blade.
Yeah, that’s what the real goatfuck turned out to be. Jacken hadn’t even remotely considered that there might be competition for the woman at the hospital, especially from someone who carried a B?taie Blade. They’d never faced opposition before, not in their six previous, immaculately executed abductions. For a short second, Jacken had worried his team had gooned something up. It’d been two long years, after all, since the data-filtering spyware they’d embedded in the laboratory computers of various hospitals around San Diego had spotted a woman’s blood containing the coveted Peak 8 in it. But no. Their only mistake had been getting caught with their pants down.
The elevator dinged its arrival on the fifth floor.
Game on.
Vinz broke right and headed for the doctor’s lounge, where he’d wait for the go-ahead from Jacken once the transfer orders were complete. Thomal went left, a syringe filled with 250 mgs of Ketamine tucked in his breast pocket next to a fountain pen – really a mini camera and microphone – and headed for his destination: Room 506, temporary living quarters of their target.
One Dr. Antoinetta Parthen.
Jacken found the nearest deserted waiting room, and stationed himself there – as good a place as any to conceal himself from the general public. Sunny Californians seemed to get all jumpy around the distinct Rambo vibe he gave off. He bought a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the vending machine, planted his butt on an uncomfortable couch, then set his laptop on the coffee table and flipped it open.
The main screen instantly lit up into three smaller screens: video inputs from each operative’s fountain pen camera. Two quadrants were on top – one for Vinz, one for Cleeve – and a half-screen on the bottom for Thomal. From this point on, Jacken would serve as the team’s communications center. Even though his men could hear and speak to each other through earpieces, he was the only one who could see the whole picture.
Cleeve’s voice crackled into his ear. “Transfer orders are in, cha-ching.” The kid angled his fake fountain pen toward his face and tossed Jacken a pleased-as-punch smile. “Who d’ya love, huh?”
Jacken twisted his lips. That was damned fast. “I owe you a beer at Garwald’s Pub, runt. Now shut up and get out of there. Vinz – show time.”
“Aw, man, I just grabbed a jelly donut.” The image in Vinz’s quadrant changed, a long hallway appearing, at the end of which was a nurse’s station.
Jacken sipped his coffee as he marked Vinz’s progress; Thomal’s, too. The lower screen showed that Thomal-the-male-nurse was just arriving at Antoinetta’s room. Passing by the door, Thomal continued down the hall about ten more feet and stopped beside a gurney.
Jacken narrowed his eyes at Thomal’s half-screen. What the hell was the man doing?
“Good morning, I’m Dr. Bernard,” Vinz was saying to a busty nurse with the name Barbara Hollowitz stamped on her ID tag.
“Um, Jacken,” Thomal said in a low tone. “The subject’s awake.”
Jacken furrowed his brow. “At 3:45 in the morning?”
Vinz cleared his throat pointedly. “Yes, Miss Hollowitz, I see by the patient’s chart that Dr. Parthen has a concussion and is being awakened periodically according to proper procedure.”
“Ahhhh,” – Thomal elongated the sound in understanding – “that explains it. You want me to go in there and charm her, chief?”
Jacken plunked his coffee cup down. “It’s why I put up with your annoying personality, Costache.”
Thomal half-stifled a laugh. “Well, no prob on this one. I caught a whiff of the lovely Miss Parthen on the way past and … damn, she smells hot.”
The busty nurse tsk-tsked sympathetically. “My, Dr. Bernard, you’re certainly getting an early start this –”
“Just get moving before I call in Arc to replace your ass.” Arc was Thomal’s older brother, taller and longer-haired but with the same blond “dreamboat” attractiveness. He was currently hanging out in the downstairs parking garage with the other backup team members, probably chewing gum and playing hacky sack, not a worry in their heads about this mission. Jacken grunted. “He’s better looking than you are, anyway.”
“That hurts me, man.” Thomal strode into Room 506, switching to a cheery, “Good morning, Dr. Parthen.” He moved over to Antoinetta’s bedside, giving Jacken his first glimpse of her: the soft lines of an elegant profile, shimmering strawberry blonde hair spread out across the pillow. The muscles in his stomach tightened. Even with her image pixelized by the computer screen – not to mention she probably wasn’t at her best in a hospital – she was a knockout.
Then things got moving. He shifted his gaze back and forth between screens as he kept track of his two main players, the babble of multiple voices filling his earpiece.
“ … sure you’ll find everything complete, Miss Hollowitz,” Vinz assured the nurse, “with the transfer request ….”
“ … change in doctor’s orders, Dr. Parthen,” Thomal was saying in a chipper tone. “He’d like you to get some solid sleep now.” Thomal’s hands reached for Antoinetta’s IV.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Antoinetta interceded.
“If you’d sign here, Dr. Bernard,” Nurse Hollowitz crooned, “then we’ll just head down to Room ….”
“I have a concussion, Nurse. I’m not supposed to sleep deeply.” Antoinetta’s voice turned authoritative. “I’d like to see your badge.”
Ah, shit. “You need to throttle back, Vinz,” Jacken hissed. “The target isn’t knocked out yet.”
Vinz’s voice suddenly mellowed into warm honey. “You know, Barbara, that’s a very beautiful necklace you’re wearing. Do you mind if I take a closer look at it?”
Jacken saw Thomal plunge the syringe of Special K into Antoinetta’s IV tube.
“My God!” Antoinetta blasted. “What did you just give me?” She started to yank the IV needle out of her arm.
Thomal grabbed her wrist.
A loud crack rang out as she slapped Thomal across the face with her free hand. “Let go of me!” She reached for her needle again, and they started to struggle.
“Oh, ho, my fun meter is pegged now,” Thomal panted out.
“ … a lovely stone, Barbara. Is it an opal …?”
Jacken gritted his teeth. “For Chrissake, Thomal, is this what you call charming the target? Get moving!”
“Ah!” Thomal exhaled, straightening from a limp Antoinetta. “Target is sacked out, gentlemen.”
Jacken released a pent breath. “You hear that Vinz?”
Apparently, yes. Vinz’s video image started down the hall again. “Well, I should probably see to my patient,” he said to the nurse, both of them entering Room 506. “Don’t want to get stuck in San Diego rush hour traffic if – oomph!” The picture in Vinz’s quadrant fell to the floor, blanking to fuzzy snow. A second later, the nurse screamed once, then went abruptly silent.
Jacken stiffened on the couch. What the –?! “Costache!?” he barked.
But the image in Thomal’s quadrant was jiggling wildly, the sounds of scuffling and cursing exploding into Jacken’s earpiece. Holy shit! He jumped over his laptop and the coffee table in one leap and ran from the waiting room, moving down the hall with absolute silence in his heavy boots. Pressing his back flat against the wall just outside of Room 506, his breathing tight, he peered around the jamb.
A low curse snarled past his lips. Vinz’s body was sprawled out on the floor in a stain of spreading blood, a knife sticking out of his chest, that busty nurse flopped over the top of him with her ass in the air. Two other men were in the room, both large, both dressed in the type of metal-accessorized aggressive black leather usually saved for BDSM parties. One had a shaved head with black flame tattoos curling up from his temples to the top of his skull. The other guy had spiked black hair and the same tattoos, his climbing the length of his neck.
It was this asshole, Spike Boy, who was clutching a blue-faced Thomal by the throat.
Louder alarm bells went off in Jacken’s head. Whatever power these men were wielding was something outside the norm. Thomal was one of the fastest of his kind, and Jacken had never seen anyone get a firm grip on the man unless he allowed it in training.
Hissing under his breath, Jacken reached to the back of his belt and eased a long knife out of its sheath. He stepped through the doorway and, keeping to his maxim of fuck up an enemy first, ask questions later, he threw the weapon with a sharp snap of his wrist. Aiming for a point as far away from a collision with Thomal as possible, he sent the blade thwacking into the meaty part of Spike Boy’s shoulder.
With a scream, Spike Boy stumbled backward into a medical cart, sending metal drawers clattering, scissors, gauze, forceps tumbling to the floor. Thomal crumpled out of the man’s hands, and then Spike Boy himself dropped.
Jacken turned on the other one, Skull—just as that peckerhead let fly his own knife. Jacken hit the deck and rolled, hearing the knife swoosh just past his head, then thunk into the floor. A moment later, it exploded, geysering up ragged pieces of linoleum. Holy Christ. Only one type of knife exploded. A B?taie Blade! Who the hell were these assholes? There wasn’t time for a QA. Powering to his feet in front of the bed, Jacken plowed a hard right cross over the mattress into Skull’s face, landing the punch dead center. Skull’s head snapped back, the bones in his nose splintering beneath Jacken’s fist. The man hit the wall, bounced forward, then grabbed Jacken by the shirtfront.
Jacken shouted as Skull hauled him off the floor with impossible strength, tossing all 215 pounds of him over Antoinetta’s bed and into the far wall. His shoulder rammed out a hole in the drywall, the plaster blasting apart into a dense white cloud around him. Landing unsteadily on his feet, he struck out blindly and missed, his head spinning. His upper gums throbbed ruthlessly in primitive reaction to the violence.
Spike Boy was on his feet now, too, Jacken’s knife still sticking out of his shoulder, white liquid oozing from the wound. White …?
Spike Boy slammed a fist into Jacken’s gut.
Air whooshed out of Jacken’s lungs. Jesus Christ, these guys were strong. “I need backup!” he yelled, hoping like hell Thomal’s fountain pen would pick up his shout, his own mic being inconveniently attached to his laptop back in the waiting room.
Skull and Spike Boy exchanged looks.
“Bloody fuck!” Skull whirled and snatched up Antoinetta.
Jacken bolted forward, but Spike Boy’s fist flying into his peripheral vision stopped him. Ducking the punch, he came up with a brutal uppercut that evidently sloshed Spike Boy’s brain in his skull; the asshole made a second trip down to the linoleum, this time in an unconscious heap.
Jacken grabbed Antoinetta out of Skull’s arms, pulling so hard he fell backward onto the bed with her.
Skull jumped on top of him, toppling Antoinetta to one side of the mattress, her body wedging against the bedrail. Skull grabbed Jacken by the collar and cranked back a fist.
Two things pinged Jacken’s senses in rapid succession: one huge holy-shitter was that Skull’s eyes were as black as his own. Not just very dark brown, but as black as if the pupils had eaten up the irises – and only one breed of man owned black eyes. Second, Skull stank … like corroded metal or transmission fluid. Not at all like blood. Not at all like the way he should’ve smelled with the black eyes of an Om R?u.
Jacken dodged the punch Skull threw at him. Skull countered by trying to put him in a headlock. Jacken grappled with the man, grunting and cursing, their arms and legs tangling. Muscling Skull underneath him, Jacken hit the fucker hard enough to split the skin on his knuckles. Skull rolled Jacken back over, both men landing on Antoinetta’s feet, and punched Jacken in return, a ring on his finger tearing a line of flesh out of Jacken’s cheek in a streak of pain.
Jacken snarled, grabbing Skull by the throat and –
“Well, heck, looks like I’m missing all the fun.”
Jacken and Skull stopped fighting and snapped their eyes up to the door in unison. Relief jackhammered Jacken’s heart. Nyko!
His older brother was standing in the doorway, looking super bad-assed huge with his tall, broad, muscular body filling the entire frame. Eyes as cold and dark as black glaciers peered out from a tumble of shaggy black hair, and a savage array of black interlocking teeth tattoos ran the length of his forearms and ringed his neck. Nobody would guess that on the inside Nyko was pure marshmallow, because on the outside, he looked one hundred percent psycho serial killer.
Thank crap for that. “About damned time,” Jacken growled.
Eyebrows lifting, Nyko started into the room, but made it only one step inside when there was a blur of motion off to the left.
From out of nowhere, Skull suddenly had a pair of medical scissors sticking out of his neck, a disgusting gurgling sound coming from him.
Thomal stood next to the bed, a nasty sneer on his face. “Sorry, guys, but I owed these bitches a spanking.”
A white foamy substance like shaving cream oozed from Skull’s wound. Some of it blopped onto Jacken’s chest and began to eat through his shirt. “Jesus!” He heaved Skull off, letting the man crash unaided to the floor, and shot to his feet, tearing his shirt off and hurling it aside. “What the hell?”
Nyko shook his head, his expression troubled as he crouched down next to Vinz and checked for a pulse. Nyko rolled the nurse off the fallen warrior, her removal exposing a unique sunflower burst of blood on the wall.
A startled curse came out of Thomal’s mouth.
Nyko carefully pulled the knife out of Vinz’s upper chest and held it up with one hand, the other jammed to Vinz’s wound.
The hilt was carved with intertwining black flames, not like the interwoven black teeth they were used to seeing on their pain-in-the-ass Om R?u neighbors’ knives, but still with the boiling red crystal on it that marked it a B?taie Blade.
“Yeah, I saw it,” Jacken said grimly.
Thomal hissed a breath. “What the hell are these jagoffs doing with an Om R?u blade?” The man already looked like warmed-over shit, both eyes red from blown capillaries and dark bruises forming around his throat.
“Maybe because they are Om R?u,” Jacken returned.
Thomal’s blond brows arched high. “The only Om R?u in existence live next door to us.”
Jacken tossed Nyko a roll of gauze. “These slimeballs have black eyes, B?taie Blades, tribal tattoos, and were strong as fuck.”
“They also bleed acid,” Thomal pointed out.
“Then we need to look into the possibility that they’re a different genetic branch of Om R?u.”
Nyko looked up from bandaging Vinz. “A branch that just so happens to be after our women, too?”
Thomal made a guttural noise in his chest, his protective hackles going up.
Women like Antoinetta carried a bloodline that was key to the salvation of their race. Jacken and his men of the Warrior Class protected and guarded any they found like the rare and precious commodity they were.
“We’ll debrief further when we get back to ??ran?.” Jacken grabbed a bag and started shoving Antoinetta’s personal effects into it. “We’ve got to get out of here. Sunrise is riding up our asses, and we don’t want to get stuck in the safe house with Vinz needing to see Dr. Jess right away.” He looked at Nyko. “What’s the SITREP?”
“No more bad guys are en route,” Nyko replied. “I put the backup team on the stairwell to keep an eye on that. Couple of nurses heard some noise coming from this room, but Arc is pulling a flirt ’n divert.” Nyko pushed to his feet, tossing Vinz over his shoulder as if the warrior weighed no more than a CPR dummy. “Still, we should get going PDQ.”
“Agreed.” Jacken reached for Antoinetta. “Let’s get our target safely down to—Whoa!” He jerked back a step.
Thomal stepped up beside him. “Told you she smells really good.”
Really good? That was a massively enormous understatement. He hadn’t been able to tell before, what with so much of Vinz’s blood masking her scent, but … Jesus.
Thomal glanced at Jacken’s bare chest. “You sure you want to be the one carrying her, chief?”
Jacken exhaled a short breath. Right, the feel of this woman’s fragrant body pressed close to his, with only her thin hospital gown as a barrier between them, would probably make it right to the top of the Bad Idea Column. “You take her,” he ordered.
But as soon as Thomal scooped up Antoinetta and settled her snugly against his chest, Jacken had the sudden, savage – and totally irrational – urge to tear out Thomal’s perfect blond entrails.