Powerful Moves [L.U.S.T.] (Siren Publishing Classic) (25 page)

For a man seemingly obsessed with beauty, you sure surrounded yourself with the most gruesome of mankind
. “So I’ve heard,” Elena said blandly.

“It saddens me to say I will miss this.” Le Mort actually sounded melancholy. “I have come to prefer it this way, the buildings, the lights, the traffic. I wish I could be around longer to enjoy it.”

“It’s good you realize your nights are numbered.” Elena crossed her arms, her mind reeling. He let her go easily enough.

Because he knows you can’t fly on your own and if you jump you’re a dead woman
.

She could make a run for it. She slid her gaze to her right where she spotted a door that likely led to a stairwell into the Bank of America Plaza.

And he’ll appear at the door before you can even get to it
.

Given that he could move a gazillion times faster than she, he’d probably reach the door before she finished the thought to run.

His jovial laughter drew her attention back to him.

“You think they are going to kill me, don’t you?”

“Michael will.” Elena put all the certainty she felt into those two simple words. It was enough to make them split the blowing wind like speeding bullets. “He’s already done it once. This time he’ll make sure you’re dead.”

“Sweet Elena, your loyalty is touching but misguided, I’m afraid.” Le Mort all but tsked as he shook his head. He slowly turned his head, and the look on his face sent razor-sharp blades of fear slicing at her soul. “It will be Michael that dies tonight. And once he is finished, Gideon and your precious Tavius will fall. Then everything will be as I wish.”

“Haven’t you forgotten someone?”
What happened to The Whisperer and the rest of his organization?

“You speak of your father now, do you? The Whisperer is the least of my concerns, sweet Elena. I have taken from him what I came for. That agency you and the Delacroix brothers have built are delightfully taking care of the rest for me.”

Was he right? Had Tavius and the other LUST agents neutralized the tangos already?

Elena yelped when he was suddenly so close to her that she felt the lapel of his coat brush her shoulder. He yanked her into his arms. She didn’t miss the hint of pure evil satisfaction that moved through his lifeless eyes.

“He senses me. It is time to go.”

“Where to this time?”

“Back to the beginning.”

* * * *

It’s too easy
. Tavius felt a prickle of unease as he took in the tango compound less than a hundred yards in the distance. He knew this was where he’d see the flash of light, knew that a flash like that could only come from the blaster saber. Mere minutes had passed from the time he teleported himself and Elena into the cabin, informed the others, and teleported here. Yet, from the looks of things, one would never guess there was any kind of weapon testing going on at all, let alone the discharge of one of the most vicious weapons this realm had ever seen. He didn’t dare wonder if they’d replicated the eraser magnum yet, too.

He counted fourteen bodies in various states of nonchalance inside and outside the tiny cabins situated in an arch around what he deemed the testing field. Five agents, if he included himself, of varied power levels and abilities against fourteen tangos, one of whom they knew had no metaphysical powers at all. The odds were definitely stacked in LUST’s favor. So why did he feel like the shit had already hit the fan?

“About time I caught up with that son of a bitch again.” Elliot barely put voice to his words, but Tavius heard them loud and clear. “The Whisperer, ha! I’ve said a few choice whispers about the fucker over the years. Funny how sometimes things just fall right into your lap, isn’t it, boy?”

“Hmm,” Tavius grunted.
And sometimes things feel too good to be true just because they are
. “There’s no sign of Le Mort or either of the weapons.”

Elliot puffed out a breath. “You sure?”

Tavius scanned the compound again. “Positive.” There was just enough moonlight combined with the scattered lights in the compound for him to see every square inch.

“I figured as much. It would be too damned easy if we got them all at once.”

“We’re in agreement, then.” It should’ve made Tavius feel better. It didn’t. Instead, the prickle of unease morphed into a spike of real fear. His heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest.
What the hell?

“About it not hitting right, yeah, we’re in agreement. There isn’t a chance in hell The Whisperer would let Le Mort go off with weapons like the ones you say he brought the plans for.”

“Not unless he doesn’t know Le Mort’s gone or that he took the weapons with him.” The words barely rolled from Tavius’s lips before Elliot stiffened, a full-scale alert radiating off him in waves.

“Something’s happening.”

Tavius saw it, too. The tangos at the compound went from laid-back to spitting pissed with a few clipped words he couldn’t translate. The Whisperer looked positively livid as he spat out a string of rapid-fire language and gestures to match. “Can you understand them?”

Tavius didn’t hear Elliot’s response over the sudden roar in his ears. His vision swam in a flurry of fear and thoughts not his own as a scene, warmer, greener, and darker than the area around him, took over his sight.

Elena
. He didn’t know if he spoke her name aloud or simply thought it, but he felt her respond. In that moment, Tavius knew two firsts in his life, the experience of a mind-to-mind connection and the insurmountable fear as he realized the arm locked around Elena belonged to Regulus Le Mort.

“Le Mort has Elena on the trail.” Tavius recognized the scenery from the night he came through the realms.

“I know.” Elliot tapped his temple. “Michael and Gideon are almost on them. You go. LUST will take care of these boys.”

Tavius didn’t hesitate. He teleported and found himself face-to-face with Le Mort.

* * * *

Elena didn’t expect Le Mort to let her go. When he set her on her feet she stumbled backward, tripping over a tree root and falling smack on her tailbone. Pain spiked through her rear and travelled up her back. She let out an undignified yelp then caught her breath as she looked up and found herself staring into the barrel of the strangest weapon she ever saw.

“Yet another beauty for me to behold. What do you think?” Le Mort sneered down at her, the weapon level with her forehead.

Elena wouldn’t exactly call the thing beautiful. The cylindrical object appeared to be a cross between a .64 magnum and the mind-eraser thingy from
Men in Black
.

Her heart did a hop, skip and a jump before settling into a rapid beat that pushed her blood through her veins way too fast as realization dawned. Not an eraser-mind thingy but an eraser-
everything
thingy. This was the eraser magnum made from the weapon plans Le Mort stole in the Terra realm.

Umm, hello, anyone in my head
?
I’m in a bit of trouble here
.

Though she didn’t hear an answer, she felt the air move around her. Not a natural breeze, but the presence of vampire and wolf. Michael landed on his feet in front and slightly to the left of Le Mort. A black blur whizzed past, becoming recognizable only when it came to an abrupt halt in front and slightly to the right of Le Mort. Gideon shifted from wolf to human.

“Fancy meeting you here.” Gideon’s greeting came light and playful, though the murder in his eyes said otherwise. “It’s been a while, Le Mort. Yet I see you’re still using women to put my brother at your mercy.”

Elena never saw Michael stiffen the way he did at that comment. His jaw tightened. His features went completely blank. But his eyes, by the Goddess, with all his control he still failed to keep the anguish out of his eyes.

“Rebecca belonged to me as this one belongs to you.” Though his response was obviously to Gideon’s statement, Le Mort’s attention focused on Michael. “The fourth jewel is mine as well. Where is it?”

“Are you offering a trade, Le Mort?” Michael’s elegantly spoken words held none of the despair Elena had noticed in his eyes. “Our Elena for the final piece of the necklace?”

No. Elena wouldn’t let that happen. The United States didn’t negotiate with terrorists, and the LUST agency didn’t negotiate with bloodsucking vampires.

“I am offering nothing of the sort.” Le Mort gave a haughty jerk of his head. “Once you are dead, the other three pieces will lead me to the fourth. They have led me thus far already.”

“I led you this far.”

Elena glanced at Gideon, asking with her gaze if he knew anything about that. Gideon didn’t meet her gaze. She vowed when this was all over she and her fathers would sit down and have a long talk about secrets. Right now, they all had far bigger problems.

She wouldn’t allow herself to look at the weapon trained on her head. Concentrating on the fact that it could obliterate her very existence with a single shot wouldn’t help her figure a way to get out of its line of fire. Michael could move objects with a thought, but could he remove the magnum from Le Mort’s grasp before the vampire could get off a shot? Elena didn’t know and couldn’t say for sure that she wanted to find out.

Power started simmering on the air, draining the oxygen, making it difficult to breathe. Elena swallowed and tasted the foulness of evil tainting the good. She felt the weight of it slicing over her like a leather whip. She forced herself to think through it, beyond it, and laced her strength around her own abilities.

“You could not kill me before.” Le Mort’s tone turned mocking. “What makes you think you can do so now? I made you, Michael, and I was master to that which changed your brother.”

“And it was proven many decades ago that all that means squat.” Gideon stood with his hands loose at his sides, feet shoulder width apart, looking every bit relaxed even as he readied himself to fight.

Elena ignored Le Mort’s next words, pulling her attention inside herself, curling her focus around the anger she’d stockpiled since Rio. Le Mort’s anger, she mused as she felt it build, felt it start to push for a way out. Could it be used against him? Could she turn it into a physical force to knock him on his ass? The sensations now ramming against the wall of her control felt solid enough.

“I will not die here tonight.” Le Mort’s tone rang with a conviction that made Elena wonder what new trick he had up his sleeve.

She saw his grip on the magnum change, felt the dart of fear reflexively pierce her gut, and gasped when she sensed Tavius in her mind. She barely had a moment to think before the connection sliced in two.

Three things happened at once. Elena released her hold on the anger, letting it fly as she bolted to her feet and round-house kicked the magnum from Le Mort’s grasp. Gideon caught the weapon in midair. And Tavius appeared out of nowhere directly in front of Le Mort.

“Zolan.” Le Mort hissed, eyes glowing red as power fused the molecules between them.

“It’s about time I caught your ass.”

Elena saw it happen. Le Mort and Tavius stared one another down for a heartbeat that seemed to last an eternity, and in that flash of a second she knew. A glistening golden triquetra appeared behind Le Mort.
The gate to Terra
. It couldn’t be anything else.

“And yet you fail again.” Lips sneering, Le Mort back stepped right into the golden light and vanished.

Michael moved faster than a bullet toward the triquetra only to stumble ungracefully right through where it had been.

“The gate sealed itself,” Tavius told him. “You won’t get through.” His gaze landed on Elena’s, held, and she heard the words he didn’t speak aloud.
Only I can
.
I love you, muirnin. Know that before I go
.

Elena nodded.
Lucky for you there’s few trees on Terra
, she thought and actually heard him chuckle as he disappeared.

The sun beat down from a cloudless sky over the Atlanta city park. Birds chirped their merry song. Kids laughed and screamed gleefully as they played on the slides and swung on the swings. Treetops fluttered in the spring breeze.

For a moment, Elena could almost forget that a few blocks over a six-lane interstate stretched for hundreds of miles packed with bumper-to-bumper horn-honking traffic. The view from that interstate offered buildings of all sizes and shapes, neon lights and billboards galore.

“He said he would’ve liked to stay in this realm longer, to experience the way things have changed since the Civil War.” Elena angled her head, studying the brown bird with red and blue feathers that landed on the ground at her feet.

“So he could go on a feeding frenzy like he did in New Orleans.” Cedric stretched out his long legs and leaned back on the park bench with a contented sigh. “Today’s world is a buffet for vampires. Hell, half the population would give their left nut along with half their neck to become one.”

Elena frowned. “Sad world we live in, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t get the impression Terra was much better.” Cedric slid her a glance. “Technology out the ying-yang, some of it apparently so dangerous no one should have thought of it to start with, but very primitive otherwise.”