Better by far not to give him the chance.
I carefully cranked the laser up to full strength. Rhoan had once told me that these lasers had the power to blast a hole through several brick walls and still kill someone on the far side. I hoped to God he hadn’t been bullshitting. My life might very well depend on what happened next.
I sighted the laser on the vampire’s dark form and pressed the trigger. The bright beam shot across the night, powering through the walls with as little effort as it powered through flesh. Only he moved, so instead of slicing off his head, I cut off a leg and a part of one arm.
His limbs plopped to the ground and he screamed—a high, inhuman sound. He fell, and flopped around like a fish out of water. I couldn’t feel sorry for him. Not when his silver bullet was burning inside me.
And not when he was dragging himself toward me, the thick scent of burned flesh mingling with the reek of his anger, filling the night with his need for revenge.
I took a deep breath, then rolled sideways. Pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt ripped through my body, followed by a white-hot burning sensation. Dizziness swept through me, leaving me weak and ready to throw up.
I hissed, sucking in air, furiously blinking away the sweat dripping into my eyes as I tried to sight my would-be assassin. He was heading to the right of the stairwell, so I now had a better angle at his neck.
I pulled the trigger without hesitation. The bright beam flashed out, once more slicing through concrete and flesh and bone with equal ease.
The vampire’s head rolled to one side, and his body stopped moving.
I was safe but not out of danger. I blew out a breath and pushed into a sitting position. The entire length of my left leg was a mess. Thankfully, the bullet had smashed through the fleshy section, not bone. Blood still pulsed from the wound, and with my jeans already saturated, there was nowhere else for the blood to go but on the ground. And the pool was spreading fast.
I had to get the bullet out. Had to get help. Fast.
I pressed the com-link button and said, “I hope to God someone is listening, because I need help.”
“We got Kellen’s call,” Jack said, in a voice that hinted at annoyance. Probably because I had the com-link off once again. “Rhoan’s already on his way, as well as a med team. What’s the situation?”
“I’ve been shot with silver. The vampire is down and out. And I need to get the bullet out.”
“Rhoan’s two minutes away.”
“I’m on the roof above Tivoli’s.” I sucked in a breath, gathering courage, trying to ease the sick sensation of fear. “And I need this bullet out now.”
Already the numbness was beginning. I’d been shot too often with silver in the past, and as a result, I’d developed a hypersensitivity to its presence. For most wolves, there was at least some breathing space before the effects truly started to roll in. But for me, the minute silver lodged in my flesh, my body started reacting. I couldn’t afford to wait for help. The numbness, and the creeping death, might have already taken hold by then.“Riley—” Jack said, concern suddenly overriding the anger.
“Boss, give me five. I need to remove this bullet.”
I took another deep breath, and released it slowly. My whole body was shaking with the knowledge of what I was about to do. What I had to do if I wanted to survive. I ripped the sodden jeans away from the wound, to get a clearer view. God, the wound seemed positively huge…
Probably just as well. It gave me plenty of room to maneuver.
Giving myself no more time to think, I stiffened two fingers then drove them into the wound’s opening. Deep into my own flesh. Heat flashed white-hot through my entire body and a scream tore through me, only to lodge somewhere in my throat. Sweat became a torrent pouring down my face and suddenly I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel. And it hurt. Oh God, how it hurt.
I hissed, panting for air, as I forced my fingers deeper, feeling past muscles and sinew, searching for the bullet lodged deep in my leg. Again heat flashed through me and black oblivion threatened. I fought the tears and the pain, trying to stay awake and aware. Then I touched the bullet, shifted it, and I screamed again. But somehow, I got my fingers around it. Somehow, I pulled it free of flesh. With the little strength I had left, I opened my hand and let the bullet roll away, then called to the wolf within. Shifting shape would at least stop the bleeding, even if it didn’t immediately heal the wound. With the bullet gone, the bleeding and fierce burning stopped. All that remained were nausea and weakness.
And then, finally, the utterly peaceful bliss of unconsciousness.
“Riley?”
The voice invaded the black peace of unconsciousness, and recognition stirred. Rhoan. If he was here, I was safe from whoever else might come after me.
I mumbled something unintelligent then turned away from him, not ready to surface just yet. Not ready to face the pain and nausea that undoubtedly awaited.
“Riley? We’re taking you to the hospital. Even though the bleeding has stopped, you’ve lost too much blood.”
“No hospital,” I murmured, but the words didn’t seem to reach my lips.
“The medics are here now. I’ll come with you.”
“No hospital,” I said again, and wasn’t sure if the words hit my lips that time or not.
Because everything faded again.
When I finally woke, it was to the smell of antiseptic. Never a pleasant aroma at the best of times, but when it’s accompanied by an underlying note of sickness and disease, it just became a gut-churning stench.
I hated hospitals. Always had. But it wasn’t just the smells that got to me—it was the death. The feeling that the dead awaited. Even when I couldn’t speak to the dead, the awareness of them in places like this had haunted me.
But thankfully, there was another scent overpowering those hospital smells, and it was all warm spice and leather. A scent I could concentrate on, depend on. A scent I’d recognize anywhere.
“Bastard,” I muttered, opening my eyes to look at my brother. There were dark rings under his eyes and his lips had that bloodless look vampires tended to get when they hadn’t been eating properly. He mightn’t be wholly vampire, but he sure as hell looked like one right now. Thankfully, he was never likely to smell like one—even on his sweatiest days. “You took me to the hospital. I told you not to.”
“You,” Rhoan said tartly, voice sounding a whole lot fresher than he looked, “were muttering all sorts of things, and not one of them made sense.”
“You could have guessed. You know I detest hospitals.”
“I also knew you needed one. There was blood everywhere.”
“Speaking of which—have you eaten recently?”
He gave me the look. Meaning he hadn’t. “Don’t you start lecturing me, or I’ll get the doctors to hold you here longer.”
“Bitch.” I pushed up into a sitting position, but the sudden movement made my head spin. So, obviously not fully over that whole blood-loss thing yet. “What happened to the vampire?”
“You shot him dead.”
“So? Dead is not always dead with a vampire. Didn’t Jack mention something about their consciousness taking longer to fade than their body?”
“Yep.” He shifted his feet from the bed and reached down into the bag on the floor. I smelled the chocolates before he pulled them out. “I brought you these. Thought you’d appreciate something decent to eat.”
“If you think offering me a chocolaty bribe will make me forgive you for dragging me into a hospital…you could be right.” I accepted the purple box with a grin, and quickly opened them up. The rich, chocolaty scent drifted up, and I sucked it in with a happy sigh. Not hazelnut coffee, but damn near as good. I picked out a strawberry cream and a caramel, then offered the box to Rhoan. “So did Jack actually get anything out of the shooter before his consciousness left?”
“He was a gun for hire. His calls came in on his business phone and part payment had to be deposited into his account before he’d start tracking down the target.”
“He doesn’t have caller ID or anything on his phone?”
“Nope. Guaranteed anonymity is part of the deal.”
I bit into the chocolate, felt the gooey strawberry filling spill into my mouth. Bliss itself. “Bank transfers aren’t anonymous.”
“No. But the money for this one came through an overseas account.”
“Which are harder to track down?”
“They are when they’re opened under false names.”
While I had no doubt that the Directorate, with all their resources, would eventually pin down the actual owners, it would take time. And if there was someone wanting to get rid of me, we didn’t exactly have a whole lot of time. “So how did he track me down?”
“Bug underneath your car.” He picked out several chocolates, then handed me back the box.
“Did he put it there?”
“Nope. He was just sent the receiver.”
“So someone got close enough to bug my car.” Which I suppose, considering I parked either in the street or in public parking lots most of the time, wasn’t a hard thing to do. “But I can’t think of one person that I’ve annoyed enough to go to the extreme of hiring a hit man.”“What about Blake? Or Patrin?”
I shook my head. “Granted, they’re both angry that I didn’t manage to save Adrienne, but they still want me to track down her killer. If they were going to do anything, they wouldn’t do anything until after that happened.”