CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
He looked down. He’d been shot. He hoped it was a graze. The burning sensation was nothing compared to what he’d just been though. He decided to ignore it.
He gave himself a moment and took some deep breaths, ignoring the carnage around him. His body really hurt, but he had his power and he could leap.
His next thought was Sam.
Where was she? Was she all right? Was she at Loch Awe, which might be a very safe place for her?
At least the monk had gone back to 1527.
Which meant that was where he was going, immediately.
The anger returned, burning inside him. It felt like it was in his blood, his veins. He got up, holding his side. Another near-immortal would take a day or two to heal. He did not have that luxury.
Ian limped over to the table and stripped the doctor of his surgical pants, which he pulled on. Then he paused. Before he went back in time to find and kill the monk, he had to locate Sam and make certain she was all right. He strained to find her.
Sam, where are ye?
A long moment passed. There was no answer.
He tried again. Sam?
When he didn’t feel or hear her, he sought her with his visual telepathy. Although there were drugs and antibiotics in his system, surely the gift would work now.
Instantly, he saw her standing in a modern office, furious. He recognized the setting—she was at HCU.
He breathed a sigh of relief. It occurred to him that he was more concerned for her than he should be, but he’d worry about that later.
Ian crossed the room, which was vacant except for the examination area. The steel door was ajar and he went through it. He froze.
Facing him, hanging from the beam above, was a cage on a pulley.
He started to breathe hard. For one instant, there was fear.
Then he vanquished the fear. But the shock remained and he looked down the gray sterile hall, and knew it was familiar. Dread sickened him.
He didn’t hesitate. Garage doors which obviously led to the street outside were to his right, but a single steel door was to his left at that far end of the corridor. Ian strode to it.
It was unlocked.
The moment he stepped into the next small hallway, he froze again.
It was the back of the entry hall of a Victorian-era home. The space was small and cramped. Ten feet away, a handsome, antique wood door with glass pane windows faced him. To his right were narrow stairs with a hand-carved wooden banister, leading to the bedrooms.
He knew a parlor was to his left, a kitchen behind that.
He reeled, dizzy and sick.
This was where they’d kept him.
He faced the back door he’d just come through and cried out.
An inscription glowed there—the same inscription he’d seen in Hemmer’s vault. The same inscription he’d lived with as a nine-year-old boy.
Evil rose up, behind him.
NICK brEATHED A SIGH of relief as the steel doors of the armored transport vehicle were closed and locked by two U.S.
Army soldiers. Behind him, the military jet he’d taken to and from Glasgow was on the runway of a private airstrip on western Long Island.
The soldiers nodded at him, clad in their khakis, wearing the insignia of the Rangers.
They leapt into the cab and started the ignition.
His gut tensed as the engine came to life. He’d had nothing but a sense of dread since leaving Loch Awe. But the vehicle did not explode.
Nick walked over to the black sedan awaiting him. Kit was behind the wheel. Her gaze locked with his as he opened her door and said, “Move over.”
She had to get out on his side to do so. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” He slid behind the wheel and put the Lincoln into Drive as Kit hopped into the passenger seat. The words didn’t feel right. It had been too easy—one of the easiest cases of his life. He reminded himself that a very evil entity had Maclean. His gut churned.
He pulled out onto the barely lit drive, following the armored transport. Kit sat beside him, seething. “Spit it out,” he said, not really in the mood for her opinion. He needed a drink. He wouldn’t mind some sex.
“Why didn’t you give Sam a ride back home?” she demanded, turning to look at him. She was pale. There were circles under her eyes.
“Sam is on suspension while I decide whether to fire her or not.” He spoke calmly, turning onto a country road that would take them to 495 and the city. He meant it. She’d gone renegade on him. That made her a bad—and dangerous—agent. It made her a rival.
“Great,” Kit grumbled. “What about Maclean? Are we hanging him out to dry?”
“Find him and we’ll save his unlucky ass,” Nick said, glancing at her.
He saw the other vehicles at the same time that Kit did.
They came headlong at them. Nick knew what they intended—to separate him from the page. He clung to the wheel, determined not to be forced off the road.
“Nick!” Kit shouted at him.
It was a form of playing chicken, he thought, as the two big black SUVs came right at them, probably at eighty or ninety miles an hour.
At the last possible moment, he swerved aside. There was no choice, because he knew either demons, mutts or subs were at the wheel, and they’d commit suicide to stop him.
Kit held on to her seat as the sedan roared over an embankment, hit the woods and kept going. Nick braked, steering through the trees wildly, swiping one with his left front fender. It caught the sedan and hooked it, spinning it around. He pressed harder on the brake and the damned car stopped.
He looked at Kit.
She looked back. “I’m okay.”
He cursed, launching himself from the car, running for the embankment. When he got to it, the road was empty. The armored transport was gone.
His cell phone rang.
He seized it.
“Hello, Nick.” Rupert Hemmer laughed at him. “I think I have something that you want.”
IT WAS THREE IN THE MORNING. Sam paced Nick’s office, as furious as she’d been at Loch Awe, when he’d stolen the page of illusion from her.
She’d received some incredulous looks when she’d arrived at HCU.
She wasn’t sure what those looks meant. Did it mean that everyone knew she’d betrayed Nick—and the agency?
Having Macleod parade around HCU was not a good idea, not from anyone’s point of view.
Only those cleared to higher levels of file access knew about the Brotherhood, much less time travel.
Because the monk expected to make contact with her at Maclean’s apartment, it had seemed like a good idea to send Tabby and Macleod there.
Sam wanted to throttle Nick with her bare hands.
Until that day, she’d liked, respected and even admired him. That had all gone up in smoke. She would never look at her boss again the same way. And he wasn’t her boss anymore. They were done.
The door opened and Nick came in, looking disheveled, his right eye bruised. Sam didn’t hesitate. His eyes widened and he halted as she strode over to him, slamming her fist in that damaged right eye.
“Jesus,” he said.
“You answer to me now,” Sam snarled.
He gave her a long look, as if she hadn’t just clocked him, and walked over to the minibar in his office. He put an ice cube on his eye and said, “Must be love, huh?”
“I’ve been here for seven hours, Nick, waiting for you to get back!”
“Some of us like to travel the old-fashioned way.”
“Where’s the page?”
Nick sobered, tossing the cube of ice into the waste basket beside his desk. “I’m sorry, kid. It’s gone.”
Sam stared coldly at him. “You mean it’s at the Pentagon? Or do the Feds have it? Or maybe it’s downstairs in those vaults CDA controls—the vaults no one knows anything about?”
“I need a drink,” he said. He walked over to the built-in bookcase on one wall, mostly crammed with books, and started pouring scotch. He filled two highball glasses and offered her one.
Sam shook her head. “Where is the page?”
“You’re really in a twist.”
“Don’t get sexist with me.”
“Hemmer has it.”
She choked.
“He fucking ambushed us. He stole the transport. How he intends to open it, well, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose he’ll torture those Rangers.
Don’t worry.” His smile was grim as he tossed back half the scotch.
“Every Fed, every cop and half the U.S. Army is looking for him. The Rangers won’t give it up easily. ”
Her mind raced. “Then go ambush him at his penthouse!”
“Arresting him won’t get us the page. Killing him won’t get us the page. If he has the power, he’ll control us.”
Sam didn’t care about Hemmer. “Ian has been captured. The monk has him in a warehouse in Brooklyn. I have to find him. Help me.”
He touched his right eye. “Gee, can you ask nicely?”
“I am begging, not asking.”
“Sam, I don’t want Maclean to suffer any more than he already has. I’m sorry about what I had to do. I have Kit and a team trying to locate Ian. We’ll bust him out when we do.”
She whirled away, pacing, frantic. “If it’s not too late.”
The light on his intercom blinked. Nick walked over to his desk. “Don’t tell me you found something?”
“A trucker found four dead men, a few hours ago,” Kit Mars said. “The NYPD is on the scene and the call just came in. This one is ours.”
“And?”
“It’s a warehouse in Brooklyn, 2145 West Elm. I threw the addy at Big Mama. Nick, Robert Moran owned it. Guess who’s the landlord now?” Excitement filled her tone. “Rupert Hemmer.”
Nick looked up. “Let’s go.”
Sam was already out the door.
IAN STOOD VERY STILL, staring at the monk.
The monk slowly smiled at him. “Alone at last.”
He gave himself a moment. He recalled the worst moments of his life, inflicted by this demon.
“You were very creative, Ian, escaping as you did. But did you really think I wouldn’t be watching your every move?”
He smiled slowly, coldly. The anger was gone now. There was only killing intent. “Did ye get off on watching me beaten?”