Blackthorn [3] Blood Torn (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

J
ask picked up three different scents. Intense scents.

‘Trouble?’ Sophia asked.

‘They’re keeping quiet – three of them from what I can detect.’

‘An ambush?’

‘Taking me on, there’s something more to this.’

Much more to it if there were only three of them. Even inebriated vampires weren’t that stupid. In a space like that, with such little interference from any other scents or noises, they were easy to detect and locate.

Sophia stared out into the darkness. ‘Do you think they followed us from Hemlick’s?’

‘Maybe.’ He glanced back at her. ‘Do you still have the other syringe?’

She hesitated for a moment then shook her head. ‘Fresh from the source it is,’ she said with a shrug.

He looked back into the darkness. ‘We need one of them alive. For questioning.’

‘Then I guess that’ll be down to you.’

He scanned the darkness for movement, for shadows. He could detect outlines as easily as humans reading a heat sensor. And they were hiding. ‘They’re not striking.’

‘Just watching?’

He caught a glimpse. Not just watching – backing away.

And he knew why. Just as he’d suspected, they weren’t out to get them – they were informants. Informants that realised they’d been spotted.

‘Fuck,’ he hissed.

He didn’t want to leave her, but he’d never catch them with her alongside him.

He pulled off his jacket and handed it to her.

‘Stay here!’ he demanded. ‘Anything comes near you, you don’t play the heroine, you just scream – you understand me?’

He didn’t have time to wait for her response.

Jask sped into the darkness. Vampires were fast, but not as fast as lycans. And very few lycans were as fast as him.

They knew to split up. One took an abrupt nine o’clock turn to the left. The other two, further ahead, split up with less of a distance between them – one taking a one o’clock turn, the other three o’clock.

Nine o’clock vampire was hightailing it back into the density of the estate whilst the others were heading off site. If he lost him, nine o’clock would not only be harder to trace but had the potential to give a few nasty surprises along the way.

Besides, Phia was back there.

He’d have to take him out swiftly and cleanly if he stood any chance of catching up with the others.

The wind swept through his hair, the drizzle masking his face as he kept his focus fixed ahead, his feet barely skimming the ground as he pursued his prey.

He vaulted one-handed over the railings before leaping over the discarded crates and household items in his path like hurdles. All the time, he navigated as if he were in familiar territory – assessing risk, height and depth before he even reached the obstacles.

He was already closing the gap between him and the vampire despite the latter moving at an admirable pace.

Until nine o’clock took a sharp right and ploughed into one of the abandoned buildings.

Jask didn’t bother to be slowed down by the door that had clearly done so to his opponent. Seeing the pane-free window beside it, he lifted his legs, curled forward and swept through, landing nimbly beyond.

Catching sight of nine o’clock slamming through the double doors at the other end of the corridor, Jask used the wall behind him as a kick-off and sprinted ahead. He cleared what was left of the corridor in seconds, bursting through the doors to outside.

The vampire had barely reached the bottom of the stone steps.

Jask used the top step like a springboard, twisting mid-air, aligning himself perfectly with his target.

He wrapped his arm around nine o’clock’s neck, using it as a pivot, snapping it with ease, before landing nimbly again, his feet and fists hitting the ground simultaneously.

He looked back up the steps.

He was cutting it fine. But it wasn’t impossible. He’d covered greater distances, pursued even faster prey in equally short times. It had been a while, but his heart was pounding, his senses tuned, adrenaline fuelling him with all the energy he needed to work his inherent skills to full effect.

Jask ploughed back up the steps three at a time.

They’d head back to the hub. They’d know it was the only chance they stood of escaping him if they mingled with as many other scents as they could. Anything else – anything into the more sparse or lower populated areas that time of night would be suicide.

And to best take advantage of distance and time, to put his predatory skills to best effect until he could pick up their scent trail again, there was only one way
he
could go.

Jask sped back along the corridor but instead of ploughing back through the window, he took a sharp left. He ascended the stairs three at a time again, his powerful thighs enabling him to clear floor after floor as if aided by a fast-moving escalator. He burst out of the fire doors onto the rooftop. He scanned the route to the exit from the estate, calculated the number of flat roofs that he had detected on their way in there.

It was a trait of every lycan – wherever you were, for whatever purpose, know the territory, know the threat points and know the quickest exit route.

He allowed himself three minutes to make up for lost ground, for lost time.

He lowered into the sprint position, his knuckles flexing against concrete. He rocked back twice before feeling his energy peak. And, with only a few bounding steps before reaching the edge, he cleared the twenty-foot space between the buildings with ease.

Like boulders across a river, he leapt onto roof after roof, using disused cables, discarded scaffolding poles, anything he came across that would prove useful for leverage. He navigated pipework and external fire steps with nimble ease before landing as far as his route would allow.

They’d gained more distance than he’d anticipated, but they’d also made the mistake of re-finding each other, both knowing the route that was the best option for their survival.

Jask crouched, his eyes darting between one and then the other in the distance.

It didn’t matter which one he took out first, only that the other saw it.

He leapt off the building, landing on the roof below and then the next, then an outbuilding before finally grounding. He leapt over the skip, cleared the upturned, burnt-out car and pounded the concrete like it was made of rubber.

One o’clock was his target. And, as he glanced over his shoulder and realised just that, the vampire picked up pace.

But not pace enough for the lycan leader, who had no intention of letting him escape.

Jask sprung off the ground, closed the gap, took the vampire down onto the rough terrain with him, rolling and scuffling until he finally wrapped his solid forearm around his neck and wrenched.

Bones cracked.

The vampire’s body fell limp.

Jask’s sharp gaze locked on three o’clock who had made the mistake of stopping to look back, just as he’d hoped he would.

Three o’clock had the sense not to run, but to just take a few wary steps backwards as Jask got back to his feet again.

Even from twenty-five feet away, he could hear the vampire’s heartbeat race at almost human rates from his exertion. Now, no doubt, equally in panic.

‘Who do you work for?’ Jask asked, steadily closing the gap between them.

The vampire’s eyes narrowed. He knew he was onto a loser, but the pride indicative of his species was still there.

‘Whoever it is isn’t going to help you now,’ Jask exclaimed. ‘And we both know it.’

The vampire glanced across his shoulder to the nearest cluster of buildings – all only one-storey. Even though he knew Jask would outrun him, his powerful sense of self-preservation wouldn’t allow him to roll over just yet.

‘Are you anything to do with what happened to Marid?’ Jask persisted.

The vampire genuinely looked confused at the question.

‘Why are you here?’ Jask asked. ‘Why are you following us?’

Still the vampire remained silent.

‘You were spying on us,’ Jask said. ‘You were spying on
her
. So I’ll ask you again, who were you reporting back to?’

The vampire cut his losses. He turned and ran towards his only hope for cover.

Jask brought him to the ground seconds later.

He got to his feet and lifted the vampire with him. He slammed him to the wall, one hand around his throat as he slid him two feet off the ground.

‘Talk,’ Jask said sternly.

The vampire inhaled and exhaled deeply through his nose, his eyes locked in defiance on Jask’s despite his fear.

Jask tightened his grip. ‘There’s a lot I can do to you before your death,’ he reminded him. ‘And you know it.’

‘There’s a bounty on her,’ the vampire finally said. ‘You’d be best to cut your losses.’

‘So why not try to claim her now? Because I was there?’

‘Cut your losses, Jask,’ he repeated.

‘Who set the bounty?’

The vampire glowered back at him.

Jask pressed a little closer. ‘Protecting them? Or protecting yourself?’

The vampire looked away.

His reticence was insulting enough, but to be more fearful of whoever set the bounty than him was one step too far in light of recent circumstances.

Jask pulled the vampire from the wall and threw him down onto all fours. He moved in behind him, jammed his knee into the small of his back. He drew back the vampire’s arm so it was extended painfully behind him, and slammed his fist into his shoulder blade to hold him in place before yanking the vampire’s arm with the other.

The vampire cried out as his wrist broke, as his shoulder shattered.

Jask stood back as the vampire slumped to the floor, sneering in pain into the concrete before forcing himself up with his good arm.

Jask circled in front of him. ‘There are a lot more bones left,’ he said, before circling around the back of him again as he rolled up his sleeves. ‘And you’ve got a lot of blood to lose. So, who set the bounty?’

‘Fucking…’ the vampire hissed before sensibly stopping himself, instead spitting at the ground.

‘
Who
set the bounty?’

‘Someone you do
not
want to be fucking with,’ the vampire declared, glowering behind at Jask.

Jask stepped up to his side, kicked him hard and precisely in the stomach and then in the jaw.

The vampire collapsed to the ground, squirming on the concrete and spitting out blood.

Jask grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground and slammed him against the wall again. ‘You should know I’m not known for my patience. Now who the
fuck
do you work for? Or do I have to start making you bleed properly?’

The vampire’s attention shot past Jask’s shoulder.

But even in his distraction, Jask had already sensed movement. Had already picked up on the approaching scent.

* * *

Sophia had hesitated less than a couple of minutes before she’d pursued Jask.

As she hurried in the direction he had headed, she knew her chances of catching up with him were minimal. But it wasn’t just because he might need her – her own common sense told her the shorter the distance between them, the quicker he could get back to her if she
did
scream.

She scanned the darkness, checking three hundred and sixty degrees in occasional steady spins as she ploughed on through the estate. All around her was silent other than the distant beat from the hub resounding and echoing through the avenues between the buildings.

She couldn’t see Jask. She couldn’t hear Jask. And as only the partial moonlight led the way, the sense of isolation crept over her skin.

She clutched his jacket tighter to her chest.

It could have been a ploy on the ambushers’ part – to separate them.

But Jask would have had that in his calculations. He wouldn’t have just run off and left her if he believed that. Jask had been thinking something else. The urgency that he’d sped off with had emanated purpose – a purpose she had to trust.

She should have stayed behind. She should have waited like he’d told her to.

But the thought of all three vampires turning on him had wrenched her stomach. It could have been a trap for him. Jask might have been strong, he might have been fast, he might have been powerful, but taking on three vampires?

It was a never-ending area of debate amongst the humans – as to who really was the most powerful out of vampires and lycans. Lycans were faster. Lycans were more nimble. Lycans were unmatched in their strategy in numbers. But vampires were more calculated. And, as for sheer physical strength, one on one it came down to the opponents.

And Jask was alone with three of the bastards out there.

Sophia checked across each shoulder as she kept moving ahead. There were so many things to hide behind, under, in. She couldn’t switch off for a second. She couldn’t let her guard down for even a fraction of that.

She’d kill them. If they hurt Jask, she’d kill them.

Her fists clenched as she strode with more purpose, hugging Jask’s jacket tight to her chest, her need to protect him overwhelming.

Let them take a bite out of her if that’s how they chose to play it. She’d take a bite out of herself if that’s what it came to, and force her blood down their throats.

She picked up her pace to a trot, a sense of urgency overriding her fear.

They could already have cornered him. Be taunting him. Torturing him. She knew what they were capable of. She thought of Marid. If they were a species that could do that to their own, then it was unthinkable what they could do to a lycan at their disposal.

She ran, avoiding the debris around her as nimbly as she could.

She ploughed ahead, having no idea if she was even heading in the right direction. The buildings loomed over her. The emptiness of the place echoed back. She needed a clue. Something. She was on the cusp of screaming his name but knew how idiotic it would be.

She kept running. Running as fast as she could in her heels that irritatingly clicked on concrete. The stupid heels Jask had bought her. She was tempted to run barefooted but with the litter, let alone broken glass, her guaranteed cut feet would attract vampires even more than her feminine footsteps.