CHAPTER TEN #3
Just the way he’d come unglued when he’d destroyed John. Facing that demon had brought another kind of reaction. He’d gone berserk in the process of destroying it, and broken down afterward. He’d shed tears. And she didn’t know what those tears had meant, either.
She’d never forget what she’d just seen a moment ago—or what she’d seen in his apartment the other night.
But there was so much more. Maclean was unbelievably complicated. He hadn’t been careless or indifferent when he’d been trying to bargain with Nick over his file. He’d been angry and desperate. The facade had been shattered then, too.
Ian Maclean was badly fractured. Beneath the surface arrogance and nonchalance, the indifference and who-gives-a-damn attitude, she couldn’t imagine what really existed.
She’d seen glimpses. There was fear, anger, pain.
Just possibly, there was shame. He certainly was determined to keep his past covered up and she didn’t blame him.
The bad-boy image was only the tip of the iceberg.
Sam told herself that if she started giving him the benefit of the doubt, she was done.
Compassion was bad enough, but trying to make him into someone okay was not.
He wasn’t okay. He wasn’t kind or caring—not at all.
In fact, he was ruthless and selfish. But she didn’t feel better. Because now she knew why.
She’d be ruthless and self-centered, too, if she’d been locked up for sixty-six years by one of history’s greatest demons.
He’d come all the way downtown to Hemmer’s because he’d thought she was there and in trouble.
“Get it together, Rose,” she warned herself.
The Sam of old would be furious at being abandoned in such a cowardly way.
She’d have no respect for anyone who turned tail and ran.
But she wasn’t angry at all. She was shaken by what she’d seen and what she was starting to comprehend.
Very few human beings, mortal or not, could survive what he’d survived with any degree of sanity.
What if he wasn’t half as bad as he made himself out to be?
What if a real person was buried beneath the bad-boy facade?
Sam couldn’t believe herself. She shouldn’t be thinking about him. None of this was her business. Her business was recovering the page.
But she was thinking about him. Worse, she wanted to know even more. And she was definitely feeling sorry for him. There was no way to avoid her feelings now.
Sam cursed.
If he wasn’t a total jerk, if a heart beat in that hard, sexy chest, so what?
The day the page wound up in the right hands was the day they were done.
He’d go his way and she’d go hers, never mind that sex tape from the future.
Something was wrong with that tape. She wasn’t capable of smiling at a lover that way, and Maclean wasn’t capable of making love.
She told herself to forget it. She would be thrilled when they were done. Her life could go back to normal: Sam the Slayer, alone against the evil in the world.
And she thought about her sister and Brie, then Allie. She sighed and sat down on the floor. She didn’t even know what was normal anymore, she thought.
She was facing the locked vault door. She needed to think about that.
There was only one way in and out of the vault, obviously.
At some point soon, Ian would recover from the leap.
Maybe he’d return and free her. She was fairly certain he wouldn’t leave her in the vault to rot.
On the other hand, she was not into relying on others or counting on miracles.
She needed to prepare herself for a battle.
If Hemmer came back, she’d have to take him out in order to free herself.
She lusted to destroy Hemmer now. The bastard had threatened Ian. He deserved a really good, slow, old-fashioned hanging.
Sam got back up to adjust her weapons. And that was when comprehension suddenly clicked.
Hemmer surely knew that Ian could leap if he had to, because that was how Ian had stolen the van Gogh for him. And that meant that Hemmer hadn’t cared about capturing Ian. She’d been the target.
As she realized that, she felt the huge and heavy weight of evil gathering outside the vault. She tensed. Hemmer did not carry such darkness with him. Too much black power was out there.
The locks clicked.
Sam slid her disk into her hand.
The vault door was pushed open, revealing a man in dark robes.
It took her one moment to realize that the evil being wasn’t a modern-day monk. His robes were from an earlier time, the wool was coarsely woven, and he wore pointy shoes. He even had a leather and cord girdle, from which hung big, awkward keys. He was medieval.
Her brain buzzed. You’re out of your time. Nick had accused Ian of that. And she was standing face-to-face with a medieval man now.
“’Allo, Samantha Rose,” the cleric said, smiling. He had a heavy French accent. He lifted his hood and cowl, revealing the perfect features, the blue eyes and blond hair of the purest demon. The monk would give Brad Pitt a run for Angelina Jolie’s heart.