Angel's Pain (21 page)

“It wasn't really a lie, about your mother. She turned against us. What we are. To me, that was the same thing.”

“She turned against what you are, you mean,” Matt said. “I'm not the same—not yet.”

“But you will be. And you'll be one of the strongest, most highly trained, most godlike creatures the immortal world has ever known. Because I'll have taught you. I'll have prepared you. You'll be like—”

“A prince. I know.”

“You will. I love you, son. I want the best for you. I swear it.”

“Then save her, Dad. I've never asked you for anything. But I really want this. Please…save her.”

Gregor licked his lips, and then he nodded. “Yes. You're my son, and you want this. So you'll have it. It's only fitting. I'll take care of it, Matthias. You have my word.”

 

Reaper hung up the phone and turned to Briar. They were sitting together in the motel suite's living room, while Dwyer had gone to the bedroom to take a nap. They, too, would have to sleep before long. It had taken time to reach Marquand. He'd been on the road, already on his way to join them at Rhiannon's request, and the conversation had been a long one. The night was growing short.

“Eric will be joining us here shortly after sundown,” Reaper said. “He says the mansion has an underground entrance Gregor may not know about. It was installed as an emergency escape route, and if it hasn't caved in by now, it should still be accessible.”

“That's great.” Frustrated, Briar glanced toward the bedroom. “What are you going to do with
him?
”

“Do?”

“We can't just leave him free to run off while we sleep. Either he'll be long gone by the time we wake, or we'll find ourselves in a CIA dungeon somewhere.”

“I don't think he'll betray us.”

“How can you
possibly
be sure of that?”

He thinned his lips. “I can't. That's why we're going to spend the day elsewhere.”

“Yeah? And are we going to knock that Fed bastard out and hog-tie him before we leave?”

He shook his head slowly. “He'll be here when we come back at sundown. He's not going anywhere.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He wants something.” Reaper lifted his head and gazed into Briar's eyes. “I feel it. I don't have anything else to base it on. Haven't read any errant thoughts or picked up any dark vibes from him. I just feel it. There's something in this that he's after, and he's as determined to get it as we are to get Crisa back. I just don't know what it is.”

“Or who,” Briar said softly. And she looked at him then, as if she were worried about him. As if she were concerned. For him. Imagine that.

Yeah, he thought. That was exactly what he
was
doing. Imagining it.

He sighed, shaking his head, doubting his own intuitions about Dwyer, as much as he doubted them about this woman. From the beginning he'd believed there was something deeper in her, something more. Something real. He still did. But he was all too aware that he could be wrong.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Don't,” she said. “You're right, I've sensed it, too. But what can he be after, Reaper? What…besides you?”

“I don't think that's it. He'd have tried to take me in by now. Could have had a team waiting in ambush when we first showed up. Why wouldn't he, if that were his goal? No, it's something else.”

She glanced at the bedroom door. “Let's get out of here, okay?”

He nodded, gripped her elbow and thought about asking her to tell him what she wanted with Gregor, but then thought better of it. She'd asked him not to. She'd refused to discuss it. Maybe he needed to respect that.

Besides, he would find out soon enough. They would be face-to-face with that bastard as soon as night fell.

He nodded, opened the door and led the way. He didn't bother waking Dwyer to tell him they were leaving. He would figure it out on his own when he woke.

 

Reaper drove them to a pretty, if garishly painted, little house, white with pink shutters and trim, and a lavender door. It looked like a place where Strawberry Shortcake would want to live.

He slowed the car down as he cruised slowly past the tiny paved driveway. “Will that do for the day?”

She looked at it as they cruised past. At the flower boxes in the windows, where orange and yellow marigolds were about the only things still in bloom. She looked at the heart-shaped cutouts in those pink shutters and grimaced. “Fortunately, someone lives there.”

“They're on vacation.”

She lifted one brow higher than the other.

“Feel around for yourself,” he said.

Sighing, vowing she wouldn't spend the day in that cute little peppermint candy cottage if her name were Gretel, she focused on the place, opened her mind and let the sensations rush through her.

Nothing. Not even an animal's energy emanated from inside.

“There's a doghouse.” Reaper pointed. “And a doggy door. But no dog. It feels like it's been awhile since anyone's been here. Three, maybe four days.”

“Okay. But how do you know when they're coming back?”

“Who goes on a four-day vacation?” he asked.

“Look, we'll find verification before we settle in for the day, all right? Let's just go inside and look.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. He was pulling the car to a stop a block and a half away from the little house, in a lay-by where it wouldn't attract undo notice. “Why that place?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It's homey. Cozy.”

“Two words I wouldn't have expected to exist in your vocabulary.”

“They haven't,” he said. “Not in a long time.”

She sighed and decided to humor him. “All right, what the hell.”

They got out of the car and started walking back toward the house. It was one of three on the block, but there wasn't a lot of space between it and its nearest neighbor, so they kept to the shadows. Briar looked skyward. There was at least an hour until dawn. Maybe an hour and a half.

Damn.

They cut through the backyard, senses alert. If a human noticed them, they would have felt it, but no one did. At the back door, Reaper reached for the knob, crinkled his brow and stared at the lock as if trying to make it burst into flames.

Briar laughed. She couldn't help it.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, brows lifted. “What's so funny back there?”

“You. Are you trying to melt it or just scare it to death?”

“I'm…concentrating.”

She laughed again.

“
What
?”

“Uh, would you mind if I just…”

He moved aside, flipping a hand, palm up, toward the door, as if to say,
All yours.
Then he stood there, arms crossed over his chest, watching her.

Briar held her palm an inch from the door, just beneath the knob, then moved it quickly upward about two feet. Then she gripped the knob and turned it.

“Oh, come on, you can't possibly have—” Reaper began. But he shut up when the door swung open.

“I can't possibly have…what?” she asked, sending an innocent look at him as she stepped inside.

“How did you…?”

She grinned. “Jack taught me. He's even better at it than I am. Don't feel bad, though. It takes months of practice.”

“I've
had
plenty of practice.”

“At telekinesis—moving objects with your mind. But with locks you have to go beyond just pushing the tumblers around. You skip the details and just command it to open.”

“And it just does?”

“Yeah. Eventually, when you get good enough to make it.”

He closed the door behind him, smiling back at her as his eyes roamed her face, and she felt an odd little hitch in her breathing. Then her smile died, and she averted her eyes.

“It's good to see you smiling, Briar.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Everything's going to be fine, you know. We'll get Crisa, we'll get that damn chip out of her, and she'll be fine. Even if Dwyer can't do a lot, you can bet Marquand can. He's a genius, you know.”

She shook her head. “No. I don't. I'd never even heard of him before I met you.”

“Guess you'll have to take my word for it, then.”

“Okay.”

She looked around the house. They'd entered a neat-as-a-pin kitchen with sunny yellow walls, white wooden cupboards, a sunflower-patterned wallpaper border and matching curtains, dish towels and pot holders.

“It's almost puke-worthy.”

“No, it's really not. Feel the energy. The people who live here are happy. They love this place.”

She could feel that without even trying. “Which makes it even more puke-worthy,” she observed. Then she crossed the room and looked at the calendar that hung on the wall. The photo for October featured a pumpkin-faced scarecrow reclining on a bale of hay amid russet leaves under a harvest moon.

“Looks like you were right,” she said, and she pointed to where one word was written across seven days' worth of spaces. BAHAMAS. “They won't be back until the day after tomorrow.”

“Then we're safe here for the day.”

She moved through the place. “I could use a snack.”

“We probably shouldn't hunt too close to where we're going to rest, though,” he said.

She agreed. “It can wait until nightfall. Maybe I'll eat your friend Dwyer. He's got it coming.”

“There are things we need from him first,” he said.

She nodded. “More than you know.” He looked at her oddly, but she just shifted to a new topic. “So is this the kind of place where you lived with Miss Sunnybrook Farm?”

“Sunny…?”

“Rebecca,” she clarified.

“Oh. Uh, no. We had an apartment in D.C. Huge, modern, expensive. Nothing like this.”

“That shoots one theory out of the water,” she muttered.

He shifted his feet. “I think I'll find a shower, get cleaned up before bed.”

“Okay.”

He walked away, and Briar took the backpack from her shoulder, opened it up and took out her notebook. She had a list of items that were her priorities. She'd been adding to it, altering it, changing the order, daily since they'd left on this mission. Sometimes more than daily.

Right now it read:

Save Crisa

Kill Gregor

Kill Daddy Dearest

Leave the Scooby Gang

Forget him

 

She studied the list, licking her lips. She'd crossed out the part about killing her father, because it no longer applied. Killing him would have been a mercy, so it was no longer on the list. Saving Crisa was still first. But now she had so many other things on her mind, essential things. Vital ones.

She tore the page from the notebook, crumpled it and started a new list on a fresh page.

 

Save Crisa

Return the kid to his mother

Torture secrets out of Dwyer & give them to Reaper

Kill Dwyer

Kill Gregor…slow.

Leave the Scooby Gang

Forget about him

 

She tapped the pen on the final line numerous times, so there were dots all over the space after the final word.

Forget about him.

She was no longer sure that was possible. And she didn't like what she was seeing in the way she'd rearranged her list. All of a sudden her own needs: vengeance against Gregor, getting the hell away from the white-hats, erasing her feelings about Reaper from her mind forever—which shouldn't be hard, because those feelings were purely physical—had been pushed off the top of the list in favor of things that had to do with other people.

With helping Crisa and the kid and Ilyana—a woman she didn't even
like
for God's sake—and Reaper.

Helping Reaper. Yeah. And if she were being really honest with herself here, she would move that one right up to the top of the list. Right underneath saving Crisa's life, or maybe even side by side with it.

Because in spite of herself, and in spite of what she had always thought she knew about men, he was a good one. He'd dropped everything to try to help her save Crisa. He'd left his precious pups on their own, even when they got themselves into trouble—which was, she figured, inevitable—and stuck with her. He'd kept his promise. She had no reason to think he wouldn't keep it right to the end.