Flameout (5 page)

“I'm not running any more than you are.”

“But as you noted earlier, it
is
the sensible choice.”

“This is a very different situation.” I squinted up at him. “Are you going to report the attack?”

“A leaderless den intent on revenge is a threat to
everyone
, so yes. Both the Australian Vampire Council and the local elders will be informed and action will undoubtedly be taken. They can't afford to have a leaderless den on the loose, if only because it would be a public relations nightmare.” He half shrugged, an action that had his arm brushing mine ever so briefly. “You wouldn't have to leave for very long.”

“Which doesn't alter the fact that I'm not doing it.”

“What if they come after Rory?”

A chill ran through me; it wasn't fear but something else. Instinct. Foreboding. I tried to ignore it. It was pointless worrying until I had something more concrete than a vague feeling. I might be cursed with the ability to foresee death, but it usually came in the form of prophetic dreams. And while foreboding was
sometimes a precursor to them, I'd learned a long time ago that the dreams would come when they're good and ready, and not before.

“Luke has already threatened that.” I lightly rubbed my arms to erase the lingering chill of apprehension. “It resulted in me bringing a building down on top of him.”

“Which
didn't
stop him. Nothing but death will stop him, and you know it.”

“But at least I've come closer to achieving that goal than PIT has.” Anger gave my tone bite. “What in the hell is your mob doing?”

“I don't know.”

It was softly said, filled with repressed anger, and my gaze jumped to his. “What in hell is
that
supposed to mean? You're lead on this case—how could you
not
know what's going on?”

“It's simple. Rochelle and I are now under house arrest until this whole red cloak mess is sorted out.”

I stopped abruptly and stared at him. “What?”

He grimaced and pressed a cool hand all too briefly against my spine, lightly pushing me on. “While I do not believe there's any sort of telepathic connection between Luke and myself—”

“There's not,” I cut in. “He said that himself. He can read your emotions, not your thoughts.”

Bitterness briefly crept into his expression. “You know as well as I that
anything
Luke says can't really be trusted.”

“But in this case, I don't think he was lying—”

“And
we
cannot take a chance on your uncertainty,”
he said. “Especially given he
does
appear to have some sort of line into PIT. If not myself or Rochelle, then someone else.”

“So by locking you two up, you can see whether or not there's another player in PIT's midst?”

“And Rochelle and I can keep an eye on each other.”

Meaning they were locked up
together
. Annoyance—or maybe even jealousy—flitted through me. It was a useless emotion, given the situation, but one I instinctively couldn't help.

I briefly looked away. “That being the case, why were you allowed out tonight?”

He shrugged again, and again his arm brushed mine. Awareness and desire cascaded through me, and I silently cursed both Luke and fate for bringing this man back into my life.

Because, really, who was I kidding? I couldn't remain friends with him—not if I wanted to retain any sort of sanity. I might not be human, but I wasn't without a heart and a soul, and there was only so much pain I could stand in one lifetime.

“It wasn't a PIT mission, as such. It didn't really matter if Luke was aware of our actions.”

Was there a hint of awareness in the soft rumble of his reply? Perhaps even a sliver of yearning? Or was that merely my endlessly hopeful heart hearing what it wanted to hear?

I took a breath and slowly released it. “That almost sounds like you were being used as bait.”

“In many respects, I was.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So where is the backup team?”

“There wasn't one. As the vamps noted, this whole situation has stretched PIT's resources to the limit.”

“It hardly makes sense to use you as bait, then leave you without a backup team if the wolf comes calling.”

He smiled, but it was a cold thing, containing little in the way of amusement. That hint of awareness and yearning—if indeed it had even existed—had very definitely fled.

“In this particular case, the bait is very capable of taking care of himself.”

“In normal circumstances, yes, but there were too many red cloaks here tonight for even you to handle. They would have taken you—”

“Maybe not,” he cut in. “Maybe they only attacked because
you
were here.”

I blinked. “Why on earth would you think
that
?”

“Because of the vamps.”

“I'm not seeing the connection—”

“They came here to kill
you
. And the information that you were here could have only come from Luke.”

“Yes, so?”

His gaze met mine, blue eyes gleaming like ice in the darkness. “Given the speaker and microphone I found, Luke was obviously aware of both my presence at the grave site and the fact that I was all but alone. If snatching or killing me
had
been his sole goal, he could have ordered the cloaks to attack earlier. But he didn't—not until you arrived.”

Given Luke had already told me his plans to capture—and torture—me, that was certainly more than a possibility. “Either way, PIT basically hung you out to dry, and that's not particularly nice of them.”

He half smiled, but again, there was little in the way of humor in it. “You can hardly expect them to worry about the safety of someone who may be giving information to the enemy, even if unknowingly.”

“If they thought
that
,” I snapped, “they'd have killed you.”

He didn't immediately say anything, but when he did, his voice was oddly wistful. “
That
option is still very much on the agenda.”

Another of those almost prophetic chills ran through me. “You can't be serious! If anything, you're their best means of
capturing
Luke. If he's using a link to gather information, surely you—and they—can do the same?”

“He's the hive master, not me.” He wasn't looking at me, wasn't looking at anything, really. Whatever he was seeing, it was internal rather than external. “I see nothing. Nothing beyond what he wants me to see.”

The chill got stronger. “Meaning what, exactly?”

He glanced at me. Just for an instant, the darkness flared and all I could see, all I could taste, was the bitterness of death and destruction. Mine, his, the world's.

But it was gone in a nanosecond. He stopped and half shrugged. “I'll leave you here.”

I glanced around. We were at the gate already. Obviously, Sam wasn't the only one not taking much notice of his surroundings.

“Sam . . .” I reached out to touch his arm, but he stepped back so swiftly he practically blurred.

I dropped my hand and clenched my fingers against the bitterness and anger that surged through me. It was a stupid response and one that deserved no time or thought.

“Keep safe, Em.” His voice was remote. “And for god's sake, keep away from the cloaks and the sindicati.”

That
wasn't going to happen—not when our search for the missing research notes was now so entwined with both the cloaks and the vampires.

But he knew that as much as I did, so it was pointless replying.

A small, somewhat bitter smile briefly touched his lips, but he didn't say anything. He simply turned and hobbled away, his body merging with the night in an almost ghostlike manner.

Leaving me wondering if I was seeing his future.

R
ory had parked our small rental car just down from the gates. His gaze swept me as I climbed in, and concern flared in his amber eyes as his smile of greeting faded.

“I take it there was a problem?”

“You could say that.” I leaned across the center console to kiss his cheek then quickly filled him in on not only the attacks, but also what the vamps had said. “It appears we now have something
else
to worry about.”

He snorted softly. “I doubt whether another mob joining the
let's hunt the phoenixes
party is going to make
that
much difference to us right now.”

“Maybe not.” I thrust a somewhat shaky hand through my hair. “But it's not like we need an extra reason to be watching our backs, either.”

“True.” He started up the car. “Where to next?”

Home,
I thought wistfully, because right now, I really wanted nothing more than to sleep in my own bed. But that wasn't an option given the aforementioned bad guys after our butts. Home was being watched by both the sindicati and PIT. And while we trusted PIT—up to a point, anyway—the same could not be said of the sindicati. Not even of the faction we had a temporary truce with.

“I need to sleep,” I said. “But more than that, I need to recharge.”

Recharging was something phoenix pairs had to do on a regular basis or face diminishing powers and death. It was a process that involved completely merging our energy and our spirits to both reinforce our connection and rejuvenate our strength. It was also the reason we could never let each other go. No matter how much we might love someone else, we could never remain completely faithful to him or her. Not if we wanted to live.

After a quick glance in the rearview mirror, Rory pulled out of the parking spot. “We can't risk doing that at the hostel. Even if we're careful, the place is a tinderbox.”

Fire might be ours to control, but it wasn't something that was upmost on our minds when we were in the midst of recharging. Which is why we had a specific, fully fireproofed room in our apartment. But that option had gone by the wayside when we'd decided to go “off grid” a few days ago. We'd not only dumped our cars and our phones' SIM cards, but had also quit using our credit cards—and that meant most high-end hotels were out. Hell, even cheap motels required some form of card for security these days. Thankfully, Jackson had used this particular hostel before, and knew it had no such qualms as long as cash was paid up front.

“We could just drive up past Kilmore,” Rory said, “There's plenty of open space up there.”

I nodded and, as a familiar golden M came into
view, said, “But you can pull into McD's first. I'm in desperate need of a cup of tea and some fries.”

He immediately headed into the drive-through to order my food and drink, as well as a coffee for himself. As he swung back out onto the highway, I carefully pulled the lid off the cup to let the tea cool then started munching on fries.

Rory leaned over to snag several then said, “Jackson's planning to do an early-morning raid on Rosen's house.”

I groaned. “How early is early?”

Rory gave me a somewhat amused look, and my stomach sank. Obviously, this was
not
going to be a good night for catching up on sleep.

“He's talking four a.m.”

I groaned again. “Why so early? It's not like it's going to make much difference if we go later. Besides, PIT will have searched the place already, and if anything was there to be found, it would now be gone.”

“Actually, PIT hasn't searched it. The cops apparently did.”

“What? Why?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they're short staffed. I actually suspect they're also using us to do some legwork for them—it's the only possible reason they haven't warned us away from Wilson's case. They want us to uncover the missing backup notes—if, indeed, they actually exist—so they can swoop in and snatch them.”

Given what Sam had said about PIT being stretched to the limit, that was more than possible. Especially given our investigations were the only reason PIT currently had a copy of Baltimore's notes.

Of course, I also happened to be the reason De Luca's section of the sindicati had also gotten their hands on most of those same notes, but I could hardly be blamed for that when PIT and Sam had been reluctant to tell us not only about the virus, but also how important the notes were in trying to find a cure—or, at the very least, create a vaccine.

“But Rosen lived in a high-security apartment on Southbank. How the hell are we going to even get in there, let alone avoid all the surveillance? We won't be able to cut the alarms—that'll just bring everyone running. And we can't cut the power, because all systems have battery backup.”

“All of which I said when he mentioned it.”

“Did he also mention a plan to get around those two—rather major—problems? Or is he just planning to set fire to a substation, thereby cutting power to the entire area, and hope for a miracle?”

“Two questions I also asked, and was met with a
do I look that crude to you?
comment.”

“I bet you said yes.” Amusement ran through me. “I certainly would have.”

Rory's grin grew. “A friend apparently works for the security company that looks after Rosen's building. He or she has access to a pass card for building and override codes for the apartment.”

I blinked. “But won't unauthorized use of the override code raise all sorts of alarms back at the base?”

“Not if the person who has that code is scheduled to do an in situ maintenance check on the system.”

Trust Jackson to know someone with
that
sort of
pull. I offered Rory some more fries. “Are you accompanying us on this venture?”

He shook his head at the offer and plucked his coffee from the holder instead. “I think it's safer if I remain in the background, at least when it comes to this sort of investigation or anything unrelated to the cloaks.”

“You just like the idea of riding to the rescue if something goes wrong.”

He chuckled softly. “Old habits do die hard.”

I grinned. Rory had been a cavalry officer during several of his lifetimes, the last time as a redcoat in the British army during the eighteenth century. I'd managed to be one of the women chosen to follow their man into war during that period, but I'd hated my time there. As a camp follower, we wives had been expected to only cook and wash for all the soldiers, but we'd often acted as nurses. It was hard, dirty, and dangerous work, and lots of women died, as much from disease as from the war itself. Thankfully, as the military became more mechanized, the cavalry lost its appeal to Rory, and neither of us had seen action in any of the world wars.

We hit the Northern Highway and cruised on through the night, eventually finding a suitably barren-looking spot several kilometers north of Kilmore. Rory pulled off the road and stopped between two old trees. I climbed out and breathed deep. The air was cool but rich with the scent of eucalyptus and an approaching storm, and it went some way to washing the lingering tease of Sam's scent from my nostrils.

Rory walked around to the front of the vehicle and
held out a hand. As I clasped it, his fingers became flame, sending a shudder of longing running through me. Merging might be a necessity for us, but fate had at least allowed it to be pleasurable.

He led the way through the scrubby grass then held down the top couple of strands of the old barbed wire fence so that I could climb over. The paddock beyond was a wasteland of rocks, browned earth, and old eucalypts. There were no houses to be seen, nor was there any livestock—not that cows or sheep would hang around long. Not once we became full flame, anyway.

He came to a stop in the middle of a wide rocky circle and tugged me a little closer. “So,” he said, his breath warm on my lips. “Fast or slow?”

“That's a main highway down there,” I said, voice dry. “With the way our luck is running, someone will spot us and come running up with a fire extinguisher.”

He chucked softly. “Fast, it is, then.”

With that, he became flame. I threw back my head as the heat of him burned through me, my nostrils flaring as I sucked in the fierce glory of him. Desire surged, primal and hot, and my own fires ignited. They were a firestorm that ripped through every muscle, every cell, breaking them down and tearing them apart, until my flesh no longer existed and I was nothing but fire.

“Oh lord,” he murmured, “that feels
so
good.”

It certainly did. He was life, need, and necessity, and his essence flowed to every corner of my soul, reaffirming the connection between us and assuring that life went on.

But this dance wasn't
just
about affirmation. As we
moved, the fiery threads of our beings entwined, intensifying the pleasure, heightening the need. Soon there was no separation—no him, no me, nothing more than a growing storm of ecstasy. And still the dance went on, burning ever brighter, until the threads of our beings were drawn so tightly together it felt as if they would surely snap. Then everything
did
, and I fell into a fiery pit of bliss.

“That,” I said, once I'd regained flesh form and had breath enough to talk again, “was a damn fine way to end an evening.”

“That it was.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head then stepped back and offered me his hand again. This time, it was flesh rather than flame that met my fingers. “Shall we go?”

I nodded, and together we made our way back to the car. It took little more than forty-five minutes to drive back to Collingwood and The Journey Man, the old hostel that was our temporary home. It was actually a two-story pub on Johnson Street, with accommodation in the two floors above the bar, as well as several small apartments in the rear yard. Its exterior was as basic as the accommodation—the concrete walls were an odd green-gray color, and the ground-floor windows had been painted black. Though they were large, each one was made up of at least twelve smaller panes, some of which had been broken over the years and replaced by different-colored glass. The upper floor had smaller sash windows, and many were either stuck open or in serious need of repainting.

Rory swung into the street that ran along the side of the building and found parking only a few doors down
from the rear entrance gate. We both climbed out and headed for the two-story shoe box the Journey Man's brochures rather grandly called “an apartment with all the mod cons.” Which wasn't a lie if you considered something out of the last century modern.

I opened the screen door, then the somewhat battered main door, and walked in. The room inside was a combination of kitchen and living room, and was clean and functional despite its run-down, last-century facilities. I flung my purse on the nearest sofa and headed for the stairs.

“You're not stopping for tea?” Rory asked.

“Not if Jackson's intent on waking me at an ungodly hour.” I blew him a kiss over my shoulder. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.”

“They try, and I'll sizzle the little bastards.”

With his laughter following me, I headed up the stairs, stripped off my clothes, and then collapsed into my allotted bunk. And not even Jackson's soft snoring could prevent sleep from claiming me.

*   *   *

A warm, rich aroma invaded my slumber. It took several minutes to register that it was tea and toast, and my mouth started watering even before my eyes were open. I might have eaten a large bag of fries before Rory and I had recharged, but my stomach was something of an endless pit. Thankfully, a phoenix's system ran far hotter than that of humans, and as a result, we could basically eat mountains of food without fear of putting of weight. Fate hadn't been a total bitch when it came to us, it seemed.

I scrubbed at the sleep clinging to my eyes then opened them. Though Jackson's body was little more than shadow, his emerald eyes gleamed brightly in the darkness. He was squatting in front of my bunk, a plate of buttered toast in one hand and a mug of steaming liquid in the other. Obviously, breakfast was being delivered bedside to make up for the obscene hour.

“Morning, sunshine.” He looked altogether too bright and cheery, considering it was—according to the clock on the wall opposite—three o'clock in the goddamn morning.

“I thought you were planning a four o'clock raid?” I grumbled, keeping my voice as soft as his. Rory was asleep in the bunk above the one Jackson used, and I didn't want to disturb him. One of us might as well enjoy a good night's sleep.

“Which is why I'm waking you now. We need to be there by four to meet the tech who'll get us inside.”

“Just as well you bought me tea, then.”

I reached for the mug, but he pulled it out of my reach. “Nope, no food or refreshment until you get your lovely butt out of bed and into the shower. Oh, and wear dark blue. We leave in ten minutes, whether you're ready or not.” He paused, and amusement glimmered in his eyes. “Personally, I'm hoping for not. It's been far too long since I've seen you in all your naked glory.”

“You,” I said darkly, “are positively evil.”

“And you love it.” He leaned forward, dropped a quick kiss on my lips, and then rose. “The clock is ticking.”

I muttered something decidedly unpleasant at his
retreating back even as I was admiring the long, lean length of him. Dark fae in fiction bore very little resemblance to reality. They were neither small nor winged, and the only ones who were ethereal in
any
way were the air fae.

With another soft curse, I flung the covers off and got up. The night air was even colder at this hour, and goose bumps skittered across my skin as I padded over to my bag to gather fresh clothes, then headed for the shower.