The bus came to a halt around the back of the house and military guy stood up. “As I read your name, you will leave the bus and walk over to the red door. From there, you will enter and complete the obstacle course. Depending on whether you pass or fail, you will either be led to your quarters or returned to the bus. Is that understood?”
We dutifully nodded, and he said, “Nerida Smith.”
The fox-shifter stood and marched off the bus. As she neared the red door, it opened. She went through and the door closed behind her. Though I listened hard, I could hear no sound coming from behind the door. Whatever was happening inside was quiet. Either that, or the house was extremely well soundproofed.
The twins were next, then a dark-skinned woman who looked extremely fragile. About five seconds after she’d entered, I heard the screams—high and frightened. Military guy looked down at his folder and ran his pen across the page. Our first failure.
Ginny, the tat lady, was next, then Berna. “Good luck,” I said, as she rose.
She gave me a tight sort of nod that spoke of nerves more than a reluctance to acknowledge me, and headed out of the bus. No screams came from either woman, which I guess meant they’d passed. A blonde went next, and she also failed.
“And the lucky last,” he said eventually. “The mouthy werewolf.”
I stood. “I guess you’re meaning me.”
He pointed toward the red door with his pen. “Let’s see how sassy you get in there.”
“Obstacle courses don’t scare me.”
His sudden grin held a decidedly nasty edge. “Oh, this one might.”
And wasn’t that something to look forward to. I jumped off the bus and headed for the door. “Going into the house,” I murmured. “Turning off sound until I’m sure it’s safe.”
“Luck, Riley.”
“Thanks.”
I lightly pressed the com-link to switch it to off, then took a deep breath as the red door opened. The room inside was long and shadowed, and filled with varying stacks of boxes. I looked up as I went through the doorway, noting there was no door sensor on the inside of the frame. Meaning this particular exit was one way only. Cameras lined the roof at regular intervals, so someone was monitoring everything that happened between this door and the exit.
I wondered if they’d intervene if things got nasty.
The door began to swing shut automatically. I stopped on the small landing and sniffed the air. There was nothing more than age and dust to be smelled, but that didn’t mean the room was empty. Awareness tingled across my senses, a warning that there were several other non-humans hiding within the maze of boxes—and one of them was a vampire.
The door clicked shut, then the lights went off, leaving a darkness that was blacker and thicker than night. I blinked, switching to the infrared of my vampire sight. An unfair advantage, but then, who said I had to play fair?Whisper-soft steps rode the stillness. I glanced to my left—not because that was where the footsteps were coming from, but because someone was hiding there. I couldn’t see them—they had to be hiding behind some sort of metal, because I wasn’t seeing their heat signature. But their presence itched at my skin, as irritating as sand caught in a shoe.
I ignored the stairs, leapt over the railing, and dropped lightly to the floor. The footsteps stopped. For several seconds there was no sound other than the light rasp of my breathing. Then the red heat of a body flickered across the darkness, moving from one pile of boxes to another. Not the vampire, but some other nonhuman. I wasn’t getting specifics, which made me wonder if they had some sort of psi-deadeners installed in the room.
I undid my buckle, then pulled the belt out from around my waist and held the two ends lightly in one hand. I didn’t want either the people in this room, or those who were watching, to realize exactly what I could do, so using the spider-shaped buckle as a weapon might just deflect from the fact that I was faster and stronger than any half-breed should be.
I moved forward to the first line of boxes. Movement stirred the air, not footsteps but something else. Something that was arcing toward my head with deadly force. I dropped and lashed the buckle across the darkness. It hit something solid, and a man grunted. I followed the soft sound and dove forward, tackling the person I couldn’t see with infrared at knee height and bringing him down. His head hit the concrete with a sizable crack, and he didn’t move. And he still wasn’t visible, even though he was solid to the touch. A spirit lizard, probably. The one I’d killed after he’d assassinated Roberta Whitby—the sister Starr had wanted out of the way—had been little more than an outline, a figure who had a basic shape but no distinct features.
I didn’t bother checking whether he was okay—just felt along his arms until I found the weapon he’d been holding. Nunchakus. The bastard could have taken my head off—and it probably explained the screams I’d heard earlier. The two women had been caught unawares by the black thing that had virtually no heat signature and no smell.
After grabbing the weapon with my free hand, I moved back to the boxes and squatted down. Footsteps whispered across the silence again, this time from behind me. I padded forward, away from the steps, keeping low until I reached the end of the line of boxes. I felt for the top, noting that while it was high, it was still within my leap range, then threw the nunchakus as far and as high as I could. As they whirled through the air, I leapt on top of the box and made my way silently back along the top of them.
Tension filled the air, coming from the creature who was almost directly below me. The nunchakus hit something with a god-awful clatter, but no one reacted. Then again, the two men left in the room were, at the very least, professionals, and not likely to be scared senseless by an unexpected noise. I waited, watching the heat of the man below me until he finally began to creep around the end of the box.
I unrolled the belt, flicking the buckle end toward the back of his head. It hit hard, and he went down the same way.
One to go.
And I couldn’t see him. Or rather, couldn’t see the heat of him. Either he was hiding behind something toward the end of the room, or, like the black thing I’d felled, he was somehow invisible to infrared.
I jumped back down to the floor and walked across to the wall. There was no sense in trying to be quiet, as the person ahead was some sort of vampire, and he’d hear the beat of my heart no matter how quiet the rest of me was. But with my back to the wall, at least I cut off one avenue of attack.
The air stirred, washing the faint stink of vampire across my nose. This one obviously washed more than Gautier, but I was betting the closer I got to him, the more he’d reek. One of these days the morons were going to wake up to the fact that their refusal to wash was making them easy prey for those of us who hunted by scent, and I’d be in serious trouble. Hell, the only reason I knew Gautier was around most times was thanks to his ungodly stink.
The stirring air told me that this vamp was on the move. I kept making my way along the wall, moving past the stacks of boxes as quickly as I could. The vampire was in the center aisle between the two rows, moving back as I moved forward. Tension rolled through me—not fear, just a need to get this over with.
His move, when it came, was quick. So quick I didn’t even see him, just got the faintest whiff of approaching death, then felt the force of his blow as it hit my chin. I reeled backward and half-fell, smashing my knee into concrete with enough force to bring on tears. Then he was on me, a whirlwind of strength and energy, his blows crashing into my body, my arms—anywhere and everywhere. After throwing up my right arm to block some of his punches, I flipped the belt buckle into my other palm and wrapped my fingers between the spider’s metal legs, so that they stuck out like vicious little daggers. Then I punched hard and low. He obviously realized my intent, but he wasn’t half as fast as he should have been. My blow drove deep into his dangly bits, and he dropped like a stone, wheezing for air and writhing in pain.
I took a shaky breath, then rose and replaced my belt. The lights came back on, and the door at the other end of the room clicked open. I remained near the wall until the last moment, just in case it was a trick, but no one jumped out at me.
I was barely out of the room when the stink of a vampire curled around me, so thick, so putrid, I gagged.
Only it wasn’t just any vampire.
It was Gautier.
Chapter 6
I froze. What the hell was Gautier doing here? How had he gotten here? He might be a vampire by design rather than choice, but he was still restricted by the same rules all vampires faced. He wasn’t old enough to be walking around in late-afternoon daylight—and though he could certainly move around in a blacked-out van like Jack did, there was no way on earth he could have gotten into one without being seen or tracked by those watching him.
And Jack would have warned me. He might have faith in Liander’s skills, but he still would have told me Gautier was on the loose in the estate, simply because he knew Gautier was the one person who could blow the whole mission wide open.
My gaze rose to that of my nemesis, but those muddy brown depths held none of the hatred, none of the sick evil that was usually so evident in Gautier’s gaze. This wasn’t him, but yet another clone, one who shared his image and his smell. Relief swept through my system, leaving me momentarily shaking. Some guardian I was.Not that I was one. Not a kill-on-order one, not yet.