Shadowmaster
Shadowmaster
Susan Krinard
Humans and vampires on the brink of warIn San Francisco, a fragile truce is threatened by an assassination plot. Dhampir agent Phoenix Stryker has the beauty, brains – and blood – to infiltrate the vampires’ secret society and save the city. But once she’s in she finds her target, the assassin Drakon, is not the monster she expected.Handsome, honourable and irresistibly attractive, Drakon will stop at nothing to save his people – and protect the woman he needs even more than the blood that keeps him alive. Now the key to the world’s survival may lie in their dangerous alliance…
“Are you telling me the truth?” Drakon asked very softly.
He settled his weight—his heat, his maleness—beside her on the bed.
“I—” For a moment Phoenix forgot what she was about to say, enveloped in the blatant desire emanating from him.
“It would be safer for me to turn you in,” he said. “You wouldn't do that.”
He sighed. “You don't know what I'm capable of,” he said.
She'd been prepared for this, prepared to offer her body.
The problem was that her mind was refusing to use her body as just a tool in a war for the Enclave's survival. Her nerves hummed in response to the aura of sheer sexual need that surrounded him, and she realized that in the brief time she'd had contact with him, she had developed a very personal interest in her “savior.”
Her enemy.
SUSAN KRINARD has been writing paranormal romance for nearly twenty years. With Daysider she began a series of vampire paranormal romances, the Nightsiders series, for the Mills & Boon
Nocturne™ line.
Sue lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, serge, her dogs, Freya, Nahla and Cagney, and her cats, Agatha and Rocky. She loves her garden, nature, painting and chocolate … not necessarily in that order.
Shadowmaster
Susan Krinard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
With thanks to Lucienne and Leslie,
who have never given up.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#ufa8b0f09-6d5a-598b-8aef-94cb0a52be96)
Chapter 2 (#u7c0b1935-371d-59fe-aa1c-039887bb6a76)
Chapter 3 (#ud3db80d4-80e2-5c37-8083-2d4eb02c8a44)
Chapter 4 (#u5da430d3-a0d6-5656-a13e-5c9306bdc242)
Chapter 5 (#u0d00fc2c-ac15-5aec-b5ae-f363bc4a9766)
Chapter 6 (#u353dcfe0-b842-563d-b348-65d20a023079)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
“We don’t know who he is,” the director said. “We know it’s a he, and we believe he goes by the name ‘Drakon.’ There are certain unconfirmed reports that he has connections in the Fringe, here in the city. We don’t know where he’s hiding, if he’s working alone or if he has contacts within this very agency.”
Aegis Director of Operatives Julia Chan swept the table with her gaze, pausing to search each pair of eyes locked on hers. Phoenix was only one of many, but she felt as if Director Chan were looking into her soul. Weighing strengths and weaknesses. Going over a mental checklist of successes and failures in Phoenix’s relatively brief and undemanding career—mentally studying her psych eval, deciding if the agent’s abilities and qualifications were up to the task.
No doubt the director was wondering if an agent who was only half-dhampir like herself—only a quarter Opir and three-quarters human—and had never had a major mission in the field, could possibly be capable enough for a job that could mean life or death for the largest Enclave of humans on the West Coast of the former United States of America.
Then the director’s gaze moved on, and she nodded brusquely. “You’ll have full, detailed reports on your tabs. Study them thoroughly. We’re sending only one agent during the initial stage of the search. We’re betting that the assassin is heterosexual, and like most Opiri, he’ll naturally be attracted to dhampir blood.” She swept the audience with a cold stare. “Let me be very frank—you may have to use sex as a way of getting to him, not to mention your blood. As always, if you feel or believe you’re not up to the task of using every personal asset to find this killer before he brings down our government, tell me now. You’ll receive no black mark on your record for declining, under the circumstances. And, as always, every word spoken in this room is strictly confidential. Any leaks will be investigated and the traitor will face the harshest possible penalties.”
She closed her tab, gathered up a few printed notes and left the room.
“Well, that was clear enough,” Yoko said close to Phoenix’s ear as they rose from their seats at the table. “We always knew what we were getting into when we joined Aegis.”
“Joined?” Phoenix said, shaking her head. “Since when did you dhampires have any choice in the matter? You can’t be left to run loose in society, half-vampires that you are.”
Yoko took Phoenix’s arm, her catlike pupils dilating. “You talk as if you don’t think you’re one of us. Just because you look fully human...”
“I inherited my looks from my mother, eyes and all. And she didn’t go through what most of yours did. She wasn’t taken during the War by some bloodsucker against her will.”
“No. But she married one of the first dhampires ever to be identified,” Yoko said, her round face suddenly serious. “Even the people who adopted him as a kid before the Awakening had no idea where he came from. At least most of us knew our real mothers.”
“But not the Nightsiders who made them pregnant,” Phoenix said, brutally blunt. “Who abandoned them as soon as they were done with them. I had a complete family to begin with, even though no one outside a few in the old government knew my dad was working against the bloodsuckers during the War.”
“And kept on working for us after,” Yoko said, “even when he could have retired with honor.”
“Do you really believe that?” Phoenix asked, unable to hide the bitterness that never quite went away. “In the end, he left us like any true dhampir’s ‘father.’”
“He died on a mission. He was a hero, and everyone knows it.”
A hero, Phoenix thought. The kind she could never be. And all her anger, all her hurt couldn’t change that fact.
“Aegis was everything to him, more important than his own wife and child. I’d rather have a live father than a dead hero.”
For once, her voluble friend had nothing to say. It wasn’t as if this were the first time the subject had come up between them, but sometimes—when Phoenix least expected it—the anger came boiling up again.
Oh, Aegis had provided well for the widowed wife and fatherless child. And once Mother died, the agency had become Phoenix’s only family: deciding, after much evaluation, that the half-dhampir child was worth training, though her abilities were constantly tested and weighed against those of every full dhampir, the agents sworn to maintain the Armistice between humans and Nightsiders by every means possible. Unauthorized combat, ambush, deceit, submission, sex. Whatever it took.
Because only dhampires, with their almost catlike eyes, could see by night like full-blooded Opiri, could move nearly as fast and were nearly as strong, could meet Opir operatives in the Zone with some hope of survival.
But this wasn’t the Zone. An Opir assassin was inside the walls of San Francisco Enclave, ready to kill the mayor and foment chaos in the city at a time when the volatile politic situation could be set off by the smallest spark. The forthcoming election had the two factions—the mayor’s and Senator Patterson’s—at daggers drawn. And every report confirmed that the bloodsuckers were preparing for a major offensive.
And yet the mayor insisted that peace could be maintained and renewed. Mayor Aaron Shepherd. The man Phoenix had once loved. And had thought loved her.
Yoko seemed to read her mind. “I know,” she said. “This is kind of personal for you.”
Phoenix didn’t encourage further conversation on the subject, so Yoko moved on. “‘Contacts within this agency,’” she quoted Chan. “If they think that’s even possible, it’s bad. Could make this job a suicide mission.”
“So what’s new?” Phoenix asked as she and Yoko stopped by the mess hall for coffee and sandwiches. “I’d go in a heartbeat if I thought they’d pick me.”
Yoko grabbed a steaming mug and chose a table. The room was nearly deserted. Once they were seated, Yoko looked around and leaned close to Phoenix again.
“Maybe you didn’t notice how long Chan stared at you,” she said. “Maybe they haven’t sent you on any really dangerous missions. They haven’t been able to look past their prejudice. But you’re still Titus’s daughter.”
Titus’s daughter, Phoenix thought. That was the thing, wasn’t it?
“I don’t want any lives in my hands,” Phoenix said, sipping the nearly scalding coffee and welcoming the almost painful burning on her tongue.
“But you don’t have to cut yourself off from everyone,” Yoko said, laying her hand on Phoenix’s wrist. “I worry about you. You don’t go anywhere or see anyone. Except me, of course.”
Phoenix smiled. “Stop worrying, Yoko. I keep busy. I don’t feel deprived.”
“Look, Shepherd was one guy. There are guys who don’t care what we are, whether it shows or not. They won’t try to keep you hidden. Like Abdul...we’re happy together. Might not last forever, but almost nothing does.”
No, Phoenix thought. Nothing does. Not even life.
“Not interested,” she said. “I don’t like having those kinds of ties to weigh me down.”
“Because no matter how much you may complain about our being forced to join Aegis because of what we are,” Yoko said, “you live for the work, like your father. That’s another reason why Chan didn’t leave you off the list.”
“Or they just think it would be safer to send in someone who doesn’t have dhampir eyes. A lot easier than performing surgery on one of you.”
Yoko bit her lower lip. “It all depends on their tactics. A full dhampir could really tempt the assassin, and the Agency doesn’t seem to think your blood would be addictive. But if Aegis wants to keep a low profile...”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Phoenix said.
Uncharacteristically quiet, Yoko gazed into the depths of her cooling coffee. “Phoenix...can you be objective if they assign you to this mission?”
“Whatever my past relationship with Shepherd,” Phoenix said, drawing herself up very straight, “I know what he means to the Enclave. He’s holding everything together, giving the people courage and hope. He wants to end the mandatory deportation of minor lawbreakers to Erebus.”
“Which the bloodsuckers will never agree to,” Yoko said. “They have to have serfs, after all.”
“But he’s against it, and that’s a very popular position now that the Enforcers are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find citizens to deport,” Phoenix said. “I respect him for that.”
“And the alternative is Senator Patterson, who wants to crack down on so-called ‘offenders’ even more.”
“What else can you expect from a guy who used to be commissioner of the Enforcement Bureau?” Phoenix asked.
“The elections are going to be ugly this year, no matter how civil they try to be.”
“That’s why they have to choose just the right operative,” Phoenix said.
“You may not think you can do it, Nix, but I have faith in you.” Yoko covered Phoenix’s hand again. “I hope you’re the one.”
* * *
Yoko got her wish.
Chan called Phoenix into her office the next day. The spring morning was sunny but cold, with a brisk wind off San Francisco Bay.
“You read the report?” Chan said as Phoenix took the seat on the other side of the wide and very valuable cherrywood desk.
“I did,” Phoenix said.
“What were your thoughts?”
“I assume you chose me because I look human.”
“That was indeed a major factor, Agent Stryker. It was not the only one. You also have no need for blood or a patch to help you digest human food like all full dhampires, though your protein requirements must be met to the best of your ability. Any further thoughts about this mission?”
“I can get him,” Phoenix said, half-afraid of appearing so much more confident than she felt.
The director looked at Phoenix as if she were peering over the tops of old-fashioned reading glasses. “You will have a great deal of personal discretion in this, but your job is not to ‘get him.’ It is to watch and listen, try to make contact with someone in the Fringe who knows Drakon, locate his headquarters if possible and report back without being caught. That is more than sufficient.”
But not for me, Phoenix thought. Dad died for this city. If I have any way to bring this assassin down myself...
“The question is whether or not your former relationship with the mayor could in any way compromise the mission,” Chan said, shaking Phoenix out of her thoughts. “Do you believe there is any chance it might in any way affect your performance?”
Phoenix knew she couldn’t avoid the issue now, as she had with Yoko. The affair was supposed to have been secret. Aaron had convinced Phoenix that it would be a good idea if the then vice mayor kept his personal relationships private. He didn’t want to be seen as having possibly influenced her acceptance as an operative for the Agency.
“It’s different with us,” Aaron had said. And Phoenix had accepted, because she’d been hungry for love, for acceptance by those who couldn’t decide where she fit in.
They’d parted “friends.” At least from Aaron’s side of the equation. It was easy enough for him. He didn’t have to think of her at all. She saw his photo on her tab nearly every day. Mayor Shepherd, one of the most successful and beloved leaders in Enclave history.
Phoenix sat very straight and held the director’s gaze. “No, ma’am,” she said.
“No resentment of this Agency for sending your father off to die?” Chan asked bluntly. “No undue hatred of the Opiri for killing him?”
“No, ma’am. No more than any dhampir operative would have.”
The director cocked her head. “Honest, at least. Is there anything else you wish to say?”
“I know the mayor must be protected at all costs for the sake of our survival.”
“All costs,” Chan said, looking down at her tab. “Including the possible seduction of whomever seems likely to assist in your locating Drakon. There are several known Bosses in the Fringe you might approach in your search for him. You’ll find a list on your tab, but our preferred candidate is a Boss called The Preacher.” She paused. “Are you up to that, Agent Stryker?”
“You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle,” Phoenix said.
For the first time, the director smiled in apparently genuine amusement. “You’re beautiful, Agent Stryker. Most men would consider you very desirable, regardless of species. You wouldn’t have been considered if you didn’t have most of the advantages dhampires possess. And your blood shouldn’t be addictive to Nightsiders, either...which could be a mixed blessing.”
“But it’ll still attract them,” Phoenix said. “And I can use that.”
“It’ll be at your discretion whether or not you wish to reveal your dhampir heritage at any point during the mission,” Chan said, “but remember that you are not to engage Drakon or his followers unless you have no other choice. If the enemy recognizes what you are and fails to believe any of your cover stories, there won’t be anyone to get you out.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“And you have to remember that though you’re still stronger and faster than humans, you’re at a disadvantage in a head-to-head with most other dhampires and certainly all Opiri, with very few exceptions.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m grateful for your confidence in me.”
“Frankly,” Chan said, chewing on her stylus, “I was against it. I think you still have something to prove. You were an orphan, mother dead by suicide, no other living relations. Your father’s legacy is all you have to define yourself. During this mission, you have to put all that behind you.”
“Ma’am, I’ve always—”
“You’re not out there to be a hero, Stryker, only to complete the mission as outlined in the briefing.”
“I understand completely, Director Chan.”
“I hope you do.” Chan sighed. “The committee believes you can handle this. But again I must ask, are you prepared to carry out this mission with every asset at your disposal, without qualms or emotional involvement?”
“If there are any doubts,” Phoenix said stiffly, “perhaps it would be better if another agent is assigned.”
“No. The committee has faith in you, and I’ll have to do the same.” She typed a quick note on her tab. “There’ll be a more detailed report, your eyes only, waiting for you in your quarters, outlining your cover stories and the support you’ll receive from the Agency. Not to be shared with anyone, is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. Very clear.”
“Then you’re dismissed. Be prepared to move out at 0100 hours tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Director.” Phoenix rose, turned and walked out of the office. Her heart was pounding, but not with fear. She’d have a chance to show them again. She wasn’t that weakling orphan anymore, and she would never stop proving it.
No matter what it took.
Chapter 2
“Move them along,” Drakon told Brita, all too aware that it was only a few hours until dawn and there was always the chance that the authorities would be waiting for just the right moment to strike. There were only a few secret ways in and out of San Francisco that remained unknown to Aegis and the Enforcers, in those less regularly patrolled areas along the Enclave’s southern Wall and right in the heart of the Fringe.
That, Drakon thought, was the only reason this passage hadn’t been discovered. Even the Enforcers were wary of the Fringe, since more than a few had died here.
Brita hustled the last few emigrants out of the concealed hole in the Wall and had a brief word with the hired gun who was to escort them to the boat. Drakon didn’t trust the man, but the coyotes knew better than to betray the Boss they knew as Sammael.
They knew he would hunt them down and kill them. They didn’t know he was an Opir.
They didn’t have to.
“Done,” Brita said as the others sealed and hid the exit with heaps of trash and artfully scattered pieces of twisted metal and broken concrete. She slapped her hands together as if to rid them of something she hadn’t wanted to touch.
“Damn it, Sammael,” she said, “you know this isn’t worth the risk. The crew is starting to question why they should be involved in this at all.”
Scanning the other members of his crew, who were just finishing their work, Drakon smiled coldly. “We’re paid well enough,” he said.
“Sure, by the ones with rich relatives who don’t want members of their family deported to Erebus,” she said. “But what about the ones you help for free?” She jerked her head toward the hidden passage. “Some of them didn’t have a single Armistice dollar to their names.”
“Why should you care, Brita? It hardly affects you.”
“It’s dangerous. Just like every time we make a trade, the crew thinks about how much money they could get for the product you save for the Scrappers out of your own cut.”
“Half of the crew were Scrappers themselves,” Drakon said, referring to the poor Fringers who survived on any scraps of food or any other necessities they could find. “It’s not my concern if they have no compassion for their own kind. They obey, and they get their percentage. They don’t, and they face me.”
“And what if they just desert?”
Drakon had given up counting the number of times he and Brita had had this same argument, and he was weary of it. “And go where?” he asked. “To The Preacher? The members of his crew seem to die with distressing regularity. Dirty Harry brings in big hauls, but loses plenty just as big because of his lack of judgment.”
“That’s right,” Brita said, scuffing her worn boots in the dirt. “But you’re assuming everyone in the crew has a brain.”
She knew damned well he assumed no such thing. Brita was one of the few people he trusted with his life, but he had never made the mistake of trusting the rest of his crew.
Listening and watching carefully, Drakon walked away, Brita on his heels. He could hear the others following, relying—as he supposedly did—on their dim headlamps to find their way in the dark. Drakon could never let them suspect he didn’t need the light at all.
He knew there might come a time when he slipped and one or more of the crew recognized his superior strength and his aversion to the sun, no matter how carefully he tried to hide both.
He looked human. As human as any of them, with his genetically altered reddish-brown hair and light gray eyes. That camouflage the scientists in Erebus had given him, but they couldn’t change the essentials of his nature.
“We gonna make it in time to the handoff?” Repo asked, trotting alongside Drakon like a puppy eager to please his master. He was the smallest of Drakon’s crew, and though he was as tough as any of them, he’d been treated like a runt for most of his life, the victim of every bully in the Fringe until Drakon had stepped in.
“They’ll wait,” Brita snapped.
Yes, Drakon thought, The Preacher would wait. He needed the product Drakon and his crew had smuggled into the city. Just as he needed the camouflage that being a Fringe Boss brought him. Drakon, Brita, Repo and the rest made their way through the abandoned, garbage-strewn streets, beyond the pale of the city proper. The meeting place changed every time; tonight it was in the virtually abandoned section of San Francisco once known as the Mission District.
As if they knew what was up—and, inevitably, they did—the Scrappers had fled the area and remained undercover, well out of the reach of the not-unthinkable chance that The Preacher might “recruit” one or more of them, especially unwilling women.
The Boss in question was standing just behind a small fire, the light casting his craggy face in dramatic shadow. Drakon had never been impressed by The Preacher’s theatrics, and they were usually dangerous. A fire in the Fringe was an invitation to the Enforcers.
Aware of the ever-present danger, Drakon approached the fire and signaled for the others, except Brita, to stay behind him.
“Well met, Angel of Darkness,” The Preacher said, smiling through his beard. The band of very dangerous-looking men behind him smiled almost as unpleasantly. “Do you have the shipment?”
Drakon narrowed his eyes at the unexpected brevity of The Preacher’s overture. “In a hurry, Preacher?”
“Tonight’s not good,” the Boss said, his grin never wavering. “Feel it in my bones. Let’s do this.”
Brita stepped forward with the tiny box that held the keys to the storage facility. One of The Preacher’s men, twice her size, looked it over as if he actually doubted what it contained.
Drakon and The Preacher had been trading for over a year, and the other Boss knew damned well that Drakon always stood by his word. The Preacher’s man passed Brita a box in return.
“You sure you don’t want to come over to our side?” the man asked Brita with an ugly leer.
Her lips puckered, ready to spit. “Stand down,” Drakon said softly. “Tell your thugs to keep their mouths shut, Preacher.”
The other Boss shrugged. “Lay off, Copperhead. We ain’t here to buy women.” He nodded to Drakon. “Good to do business with you, as always. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
His crew laughed, all guttural male voices, since female followers were considered property of the crew, not full members. Drakon kept his mouth closed, remembering again not to show his teeth. Though he wore caps to conceal his incisors, he never took unnecessary risks. Whatever Brita might believe.
In spite of his contempt for his fellow smuggler—whose specialty was reselling Drakon’s items at a very marked-up price to “middle class” citizens north of the Fringe—Drakon made the traditional offer of his hand. The Preacher made no attempt to reciprocate.
Brita opened her mouth to say something inadvisable when a woman came running out of the darkness. She halted suddenly when she saw the Fringe crews, looking about wildly as if to seek escape.
The first thing Drakon noticed about her was the cloud of dark hair flying around her panicked face. The second was that she was quite beautiful. And clearly not of the Fringe.
“Shit,” Brita said, pulling her illegal sidearm. “A raid?”
“I don’t know,” Drakon said, gesturing toward the rest of his crew, who had automatically begun to take up defensive positions. “Get everyone back to the Hold. If there are Enforcers on the way, I’ll—”
Before he could finish, Copperhead went straight for the young woman and grabbed her arm before she could dash off into the darkness. Acting purely on instinct, Drakon moved in, shoved the man out of the way and took the woman from him none too gently.
She gasped as he gripped her arm, and he eased up a little. Her hair obscured her face, but he could see her parted lips, hear her gasping for breath. She’d been running hard for some time.
“Are you—” She swept her hair out of her face with a trembling hand. “Are you The Preacher?”
“That would be me,” the other Boss said, stepping around the fire. “What do you need, my dear?”
Drakon stepped between him and the woman. “I don’t know who you are,” he said close to her ear, “why you’re running, or what you want with him. But you’re not from the Fringe, or you wouldn’t be asking for a Boss who’ll keep you on your back for the rest of your life.”
She stared from him to The Preacher, who smiled enticingly.
“Whatever you need,” The Preacher said, “I’ll gladly provide it, pretty thing.”
“Your choice,” Drakon said, his tone indifferent but the rest of him far from it. Touching her was like making contact with a live wire. His whole body seemed to catch fire, and he could not only feel the blood pumping through her body but smell it, as well. As he could smell the woman’s hair, the clean scent of it, though her clothes were torn and her face splotched with dirt. Her body held the faint musk of perspiration and that indescribable scent unique to women of both species. His cock stiffened, though the time for arousal couldn’t be worse.
Her eyes narrowed, as if she’d felt the physical change in him. For a moment he wasn’t sure if she’d bolt right into The Preacher’s willing arms. Drakon was inexplicably tempted to drag her away, willing or not.
“What’s your name?” she asked, astonishing him with the clarity of her voice and the sudden, fearless intensity in her eyes.
“We need to get out of here,” Brita said, cutting off his answer. “If she’s running from Enforcers....”
“I told you what to do,” Drakon snapped. “Get them home.”
With an openly hostile glance at the woman, Brita signaled to the others. As they melted into the darkness, The Preacher stamped the fire out with one heavy boot.
“I’ll give you five hundred A-dollars for her,” he said.
The woman reached down and gripped Drakon’s hand as if for dear life, and he understood the unspoken message in her eyes. He knew he was acting against sense, against reason, against the dictates of his mission, but he couldn’t let her go. He ran, pulling her with him, making his way easily in darkness that would confound his rivals. “Who’s after you?” he said, not even slightly winded.
“I...” The woman gasped, and it was clear she wasn’t in any state to explain.
“You’re leading Enforcers into the Fringe,” he said.
She didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop until they were far enough into the Fringe that the only illumination came from the scant light of false dawn in the west. He was running out of time.
But he still needed a few answers before he took her into the very heart of his hard-won turf.
As he came to a stop, she bent over, hands on knees, to catch her breath. He saw that her clothing was some kind of uniform, though a very generic one, the kind of standard issue that would be given a city or Enclave employee—known in the Fringe as a govrat, a citizen with a clearance rating high enough for government work.
As she straightened, he studied her face, making a rapid assessment: features somehow delicate and strong at the same time, stubborn jaw, smudges and scratches on her face that did nothing to lessen her beauty. Her body was slender and fit, that of a woman able to handle herself in a fight.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Lark,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“Who’s after you?”
She met his gaze, half-defiant and half-afraid. “The Enforcers.”
Exactly what he and Brita had suspected. “Why?” he asked.
“If we don’t move soon, it won’t matter.”
He almost laughed at her bravado. “Why did you come with me?”
“I don’t know. I was told to find The Preacher.”
“Why?”
“They said he could get me out of the city.”
“He wouldn’t,” Drakon said. “You were given very bad advice.”
“Can you help me?”
“If you’re running from Aegis or the Enforcers,” he said, “you’re not my enemy. If this is a trick, you won’t get out of this alive.”
“A trick?” she said with a burble of choked laughter. “What kind of trick?”
Drakon considered that he might have jumped to conclusions a little too quickly. Something about this woman almost convinced him that her fear was real.
“What can you pay for my help in getting out?” he asked.
“Information. But you won’t get it until I know I’m safe and none of your Fringer friends are going to hurt me.”
The sound of fast-moving vehicles thrummed from less than a quarter mile away. Whether she was leading them or running from them didn’t matter now. Drakon seized her wrist again, and they ran until Lark—if that was really her name—was panting hoarsely and beginning to stumble. Drakon turned a sharp corner into an alley. She leaned against him as if she might fall without his support. He wasn’t thinking at all when he put his arm around her.
He could still smell her blood. Almost feel it inside him.
He reached inside his jacket pocket with his free hand and pulled out one of the blindfolds he and the crew had used on the emigrants. “Turn around,” he said.
Her gaze fell to the cloth in his hand. “You’re kidding. If you think I’d ever—”
“I’m not letting you into my Hold without this. I give you my word that you’ll come to no harm.”
“The word of a—”
“Criminal, a fugitive from justice? Enclave justice?” Drakon turned her and tied the blindfold around her head before she could even think of struggling.
“I must be crazy,” she said, her voice rasping with exhaustion.
“No,” he said. “You’ve made the only possible choice.” Taking her arm again, he led her alongside the building, constantly listening, and took a very circuitous course toward the Hold, dodging the sounds of approaching troops. They didn’t seem to be gaining ground, perhaps more concerned about ambush than moving too recklessly.
He continued on by one of the many hidden pathways he and his crew had devised over the past year, frequently doubling back to make certain they weren’t being followed. Dawn was beginning to break when they finally negotiated the last obstacles and entered the Hold.
The building didn’t stand out from the other half-collapsed structures throughout the Fringe, but there were traps set at every possible entrance, and guards at every boarded window. The widely spaced lights were flickering and dim. The common rooms, mess and meeting room were protected by many external walls, like a castle keep. No one could reach Drakon and his crew without the use of explosives. Like so many other of the black-market items Drakon and the other Bosses dealt in, those were hard to come by.
Repo was crouched right outside the inner door. He sprang to his feet and stared at the woman in astonishment.
“You brought her?” he asked.
“No questions now.” Drakon pulled Lark through the maze of corridors, passing the occasional crew member without pausing for explanation, and took her straight to his private quarters.
“Sit,” he said, half-pushing her down on his narrow bed.
She probed the firm surface with her hands. “Where am I?”
“Where no one else will bother us.”
She tensed, and he knew immediately what she was thinking. “I am not The Preacher,” he said. “I have no intention of molesting you. But I can’t protect you until I get more information.”
“Protect me from whom?” she asked, turning her head slowly as if to take in any sounds that might help her get her bearings. “I thought you were the Boss here.”
“Most of my crew have the option of going elsewhere if I seem too soft.”
She turned her face toward him as if she would be staring if he could see her eyes, and he realized he’d just admitted something to her he wouldn’t say to anyone but Brita.
“Soft because you agreed to help me?” she asked.
“I haven’t agreed yet.”
“But they won’t be happy with what you’ve done. Would one of them challenge you?”
It was too late to retreat from the subject now, and he still had complete power over her in spite of her troubling insight. “You seem to know a great deal about the Fringe for a Cit,” he said.
Cocking her head, she smiled. It was a particularly lovely and enticing smile. “You’re unexpectedly honest and well-spoken for a condemned criminal,” she said.
Drakon pulled the room’s single chair close to the bed. “You work for the government,” he said, a statement of fact.
Her smile faded. “I did.”
“You’re on the run from your own kind, and yet you’ve somehow convinced yourself that only the ignorant and deceitful have been deported?”
When she didn’t answer, he pressed on. “Why are you running?”
“Do you think I could get some water?” she asked. “I haven’t had anything to drink in a while.”
Her sudden change of tone put Drakon even more on his guard. “I’ll have to tie you up.”
“I won’t resist.”
Far from trusting her, Drakon removed a heavy pair of shackles and short chain from a locked drawer. “Get up and turn around,” he said.
She obeyed without protest, and Drakon bound her hands together behind her. “Members of my crew are scattered everywhere throughout the Hold,” he said. “If you attempt to escape, they will almost certainly kill you.”
Chapter 3
“Your orders?” Lark said, resuming her seat on the bed after Drakon had her shackles in place.
“No one will take the risk of letting you escape.”
“I came here willingly, didn’t I?”
Drakon didn’t bother to answer. He went out into the corridor—where, as expected, Repo was keeping watch—and sent the man for water. When Repo returned, he was obviously near bursting with questions.
“Be patient,” Drakon said. “Find out what the others are saying, and report back to me.”
“Yes, Boss.” Repo hurried off, and Drakon went back into his room. He undid the shackles and handed Lark the slightly cracked glass, which she drained quickly.
“More?” he asked.
“Not now, thanks.” She ran the back of her hand across her lips...those full, enticing lips. Drakon swallowed. He wondered just how much she’d be willing to trade for her safety.
And felt no better than the other Bosses, whom he despised.
“Then let’s get back to the essentials,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I told you,” she said. “My name is Lark.”
“Lark what?”
“What difference does it make?”
“You do realize that you are completely in my power?”
“Ooh, scary,” she said, her mouth twisting into an ironic smile. “Have you ever read the pre-war literature known as ‘comic books?’”
Drakon froze, caught one of the thousands of memories he had managed to bury deep in his mind since his deportation. A little boy, laughing in delight because his father had managed to buy him a very rare bound edition of The Iron Corps for Christmas. It hadn’t been black market, but Drakon—the man he had been then—had saved up a portion of many months’ salary to buy it, even though Mark had still been a little too young to understand all the words.
“I know of them,” he said coldly.
“Then I don’t have to explain.” She shifted her weight, and even that slight movement brought his attention back to her body and the aching hardness that refused to be banished even by a firm act of will.
It’s the blood, he told himself. Like fine wine, human blood came in many vintages.
And he’d never smelled anything so rich and sweet. He wanted it, badly. But he knew his reaction now was fueled as much by hunger as inconvenient lust.
He would have to access his stores very soon. They had been going down more quickly than he’d expected and would need to be replenished, not a task he could entrust to any member of his crew. “Lark,” he said, pushing his hunger aside. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She pulled a few strands of her dark hair out of the blindfold. “I’ve been branded a traitor by the government.”
“Why?” he asked.
She plucked at the blouse of her torn uniform. “I was an Admin. Very low clearance. I came across confidential information I wasn’t supposed to be able to access. Someone found out, and—”
“What kind of information?” he interrupted.
“Let’s just say that it would be more than a little embarrassing for the higher-ups, and possibly make trouble for certain parties involved in the election.”
Suddenly, Drakon was interested in Lark for more than her blood, her beauty and her spirit. “And what?” he prompted.
“They regard any breach very seriously. Rather than take a chance I might use it, they trumped up charges against me and were going to have me executed. I was able to—”
“Executed?” he interrupted. “Not deported?”
“They don’t deport traitors,” Lark said, a grim set to her mouth.
“And are you one?”
She suggested he do something anatomically impossible. Drakon let it pass. Whatever she’d discovered, it couldn’t just be “embarrassing for the higher-ups.” Drakon knew well enough that the Enclave government could be as ruthless as the Citadel’s Council, and would sooner kill than take the slightest chance of a security risk.
“So you think you’ll be safer out of the city,” he said.
Her blindfold shifted, suggesting eyes widening in astonishment. “Wouldn’t you, if you didn’t have such a good thing going here?”
He leaned over the bed. “What do you know of my business?”
Her body quivered as if it recognized the threat of a predator. “Only what I saw, back there. What you told me. And what everyone knows about the Fringe.”
“That there are ways of getting out in this part of the city? Why do you think such exits exist?”
“You are kidding, right?”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“Everyone remotely connected to the government knows that such passages exist. Most of them have been shut down by the Enforcers, but someone always manages to find another one. It’s common knowledge that convicts can be smuggled out of the city for the right price.”
“The price.” Drakon straightened and circled the room, his heart beating fast. “Why do you believe we have use for information on the foibles of a government official?”
“That’s not all I have,” she said. “Some of it might be very useful to your...operations.”
He came to a stop before her. “If you have something valuable to us, why do you believe you can withhold anything we choose to take from you?”
“You mean by torturing me? Or do whatever you thought this Preacher guy would do?” She shook her head. “That would be a mistake. You see, even the lowest-level govrats—to use your Fringe lingo—are given anti-torture conditioning. It’s not much, but usually it works by triggering a fatal chemical reaction in our bodies after a significant amount of pain is applied.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard of such conditioning,” Drakon said.
“It’s new. They want to keep it secret, of course. But I’m telling you now because I have nothing to lose, and you’d be better off taking what I’m willing to give you instead of losing all of it. I promise you that what you’ll get from me will be worth what I’m asking.”
Drakon took the chair again.
“Assuming you have such information,” he asked, “how are we to substantiate it without risk to ourselves?”
“I never said it was without risk,” she said, “just as I knew it could be a fatal risk coming out here.”
Perhaps even worse than merely fatal, if he acted as loyalty dictated. He had no reason to trust her. If he found a chance to pass her on to Erebusian agents who could get her to the Citadel, she could be extremely valuable as a source of intelligence.
But he couldn’t envision taking such a drastic step, and he certainly wouldn’t return her to her Enclave hunters. His mission had been clearly defined, and once completed would have virtually the same effect as if he were to tear the government down with his own two hands.
One highly popular mayor, in the midst of a highly contentious election, dead. The mayor who claimed to want to end the deportation of criminals to Erebus, cut off the tribute of blood serfs who were so essential to maintaining Opiri society in the Citadel of Night. Essential to maintaining the Armistice and preventing another devastating war.
Aaron Shepherd. One of the two men in all the world Drakon wanted dead more than he wanted to live.
* * *
Phoenix couldn’t see the man’s face, but she didn’t have to. She’d memorized it the first time she’d glimpsed him, when he’d snatched her away from the leering henchman of The Preacher, the Boss she’d been sent to find.
Either someone at Aegis had given her very bad information, as this man had told her, or her instincts had been dangerously off. But she didn’t think hearing a man offer to buy her for “five hundred A-dollars” would inspire much confidence in even the most desperate fugitive.
She could honestly say she’d been incredibly lucky. This Boss’s treatment of her had been no worse than she might have expected from any one of his kind, likely better than most. He was handsome, most definitely, with his defined features, gray eyes and auburn hair. Strong and fast, his movements swift and graceful. He had struck her right away as being someone extraordinary.
Even so, she hadn’t been sure until she’d seen the faint red reflection behind his otherwise very normal-looking eyes. His incisors were covered in some way she couldn’t quite define. She’d been luckier—or unluckier—than she or Aegis could possibly have imagined.
The man who had “saved” her from The Preacher wasn’t human. After the first shock had passed, Phoenix had quickly realized that neither his fellow Boss nor either of their crews knew what he was. His coloring told her he must be a Daysider—one of those very human-looking “mutant” Opiri who could walk in daylight without suffering fatal burns—and Daysiders looked very human to most non-Opiri. The headlamp he wore wasn’t just protective camouflage, since his breed couldn’t see nearly as well in the dark as dhampires or other Nightsiders. But he seemed to have forgotten that no ordinary man or woman could keep up with him, and that he was supposedly leading a human female to safety.
What he believed to be a human female.
He didn’t seem even remotely concerned about what he might have revealed, but if he believed her story, he wouldn’t expect a govrat to be looking for Opiri in the city.
And this Opir had done very well for himself by becoming a turf Boss. He couldn’t be the assassin Drakon, since no one less than a Freeblood—the lowest rank among full-blooded Opiri—could be trusted with such a task, and only a true Nightsider could operate in the dark with complete freedom.
But any Opir in the Enclave had to know who and where the assassin was hiding. This was too big an operation for one agent to handle alone. Others would be helping him make preparations. All resources would be thrown behind the killer, regardless of the danger to the other spies in San Francisco.
“I knew it could be a fatal risk coming out here,” she’d told him. She had been warned that the Fringe could be dangerous, but now that she’d seen it—seen how people were forced to live, families scraping by on whatever discarded material they could find, raiding garbage bins in the Mids, forced into theft and worse by the very need to survive and protect those under their care—she understood why the Fringers might attack an outsider.
It had made her feel sick, this suffering...a feeling she’d had to force aside as a distraction she couldn’t afford. And any trouble from the people here was by far outweighed by the incredibly delicate and deadly task of prying information out of her “captor” without getting herself summarily killed or, almost as likely, smuggled out of the city and shipped right off to Erebus for interrogation.
Phoenix wondered if he’d accepted her implausible story about the new anti-torture conditioning. What she did have was an implant in one of her molars, the old reliable standby of covert agents since well before the War.
But she wasn’t nearly ready to die. She’d completed Phase One of the operation: making a connection with someone influential in the Fringe, one who could help her locate an Opir operative. The Preacher, or another like him, was to have provided the necessary access, but she’d bypassed that step entirely. Phase Two, finding an Opir spy, was also complete.
That was all she was supposed to do. Phase Three, pinning down the location of the assassin Drakon’s hiding place, was to be the work of a more experienced agent. She should have been making plans to escape and return to Aegis.
But not yet. Not quite yet. She was in too good a position to give it up now. Even though Aegis wouldn’t know how far she’d already come, they’d follow through with their part of the plan by continuing the search for the “fugitive.” And when she finally did return, she’d have plenty to give them.
Now the Daysider’s silence was heavy, as if his mind was focused on weighty matters...as well it should be. But she knew he was thinking of other, more personal subjects, as well, not the least of which was her body.
She’d been well aware of his arousal; it had been impossible not to be, given the impressive size of his package. She could still smell his desire for her like a heady perfume, even though she could no longer see the way his pale gray eyes followed every slight move of her body.
She’d planned to keep him from realizing that she knew what he was as long as possible, and prevent him from finding out what she was, until she had no other choice but to consciously make use of her true nature. But if part of his nearly instantaneous and obviously powerful attraction to her was due to the scent of her part-dhampir blood, she had no idea how long her secret could last.
“Lark,” he said.
She almost—almost—forgot to respond to her alias.
“Was the information you plan to sell to me the reason your government believed you’d betray them?” he asked, resuming their conversation as if there had never been a break. “Or was it something else?”
Phoenix thought through her cover story. There was still something about her claims he wasn’t buying.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. “I found some...stuff that I thought might bring in a little extra income. They don’t pay us govrats that much, you know. Not at my clearance level.”
“What stuff?” he asked, his husky baritone sending unwelcome shivers down her spine.
“Just a little persuasion,” she said. “A politician who’d rather not have anyone know he keeps a little something on the side.”
He snorted. “And they caught you?”
“They only found out at the last minute who did it.”
“And you were stupid enough to risk so much without taking sufficient precautions.”
“Maybe I needed the money fast.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to tell you my life story to get you to help me?”
“You’ll have to provide a lot more than that if you want our help.”
“Isn’t that what this conversation is all about?”
The chair he was sitting on creaked, and she turned her head to follow the sound of his progress around the small room.
“It isn’t only the Enforcers who are chasing you,” he said. “Not if you’ve been declared a traitor. Traitors are the ones who might reveal things to the bloodsuckers that could bring the Enclave down.”
“And you think I—” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t have that kind of information. And everyone knows the Nightsiders are evil monsters. Why would any Cit pass Enclave secrets on to those who would only enslave her?”
“Aegis must think you have those kinds of secrets,” he said. “They could be sweeping the Fringe in an hour.”
“I didn’t access Aegis files! I can’t even get near them!”
His weight—his heat, his warmth, his maleness—settled beside her on the bed. “Are you telling me the truth?” he asked, very softly.
“I—” For a moment she forgot what she was about to say, enveloped in the blatant desire emanating from him.
“It would be safer for me to turn you in,” he said. “Anonymously, of course.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
His breath sighed very close to her lips. “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he said.
“You warned me about The Preacher, even before he—”
“Maybe my motives weren’t very different from his.”
“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t molest me?”
“I wouldn’t take any woman against her will.”
But the rough purr in his voice told her exactly what he meant by will. She’d been prepared for this. She’d been ready to offer her body in payment for what she had to have, regarding it as no more than part of her mission.
The problem was that her body was responding to his nearness, his potent masculinity, as powerfully as he was reacting to her. And her mind was refusing to think of using that body as just a tool in a war for the Enclave’s survival. Her nerves hummed in response to the aura of sheer sexual need that surrounded him, and she realized that she had somehow developed a very personal, visceral interest in her “savior.”
Her enemy.
“Before we go any further,” she said, “would you mind telling me your name?”
Her question broke the spell. “Sammael,” he said, slight annoyance in his voice.
“That sounds familiar,” she said.
“An archangel,” he said. “Some call him the ‘Angel of Death.’”
“Now you’re trying to scare me again.”
“Perhaps my bark is worse than my bite.”
She nearly burst into highly inappropriate laughter. “Is that what the other Bosses say?”
“Ask the ones who tried to invade my turf.”
“Very reassuring. Okay, about that information. It could make it a lot easier for you crimin... Your smugglers to establish better contacts and get access to valuable goods outside the Fringe. And I do have a way for you to check on it before you commit yourself.”
“What is it?”
“I want your word that you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you.”
He laughed, a sound that would have been pleasant under other circumstances. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, running his warm, calloused hand down her arm, his skin caressing where it brushed over the hole in her uniform blouse.
Oh, God, she thought, feeling all the heat in her body rushing to a very precise location between her thighs. “Until you...until you have a good reason to believe me,” she stammered, “you’ll continue to wonder if what I’m offering is worth your help. Just give me a chance to...prove myself.”
“And what will you do once you’re free of the Enclave?”
Phoenix found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the conversation. “What do the other emigrants do?” she asked, her heart beginning to race. “Make a life somewhere in the Zone?”
“Where they may starve or be picked up by bloodsuckers,” he said.
“Obviously, that’s a chance they’re willing to take.” She steadied her voice. “If my choices are blood-slavery, execution or a very unlikely chance at life and freedom, I’ll take the last, thank you very much.”
“No matter how slim the odds?”
“Yes. Will you give me a chance?”
It didn’t seem possible that he could move any closer, but he did. “There is no question of your leaving the Hold until your background story is thoroughly checked, your initial information proves genuine and all risks have been carefully weighed.”
She bit her lip. She might as well bring the subject out into the open.
“You mean you think I’m leading the Enforcers into the Fringe,” she said.
He met her gaze sharply. “Are you?”
“You’re thinking that I was out to find Bosses and expose them, aren’t you?”
“A good guess,” he said grimly. “It’s been tried before.”
“I was looking for The Preacher, but there was no guarantee I’d find him. And the only reason I’d do anything like that is if I were some kind of spy.” She laughed. “I can’t believe you’d think that for a moment. Not about someone like me, a humble govrat.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You’re right.” She frowned. “So what are you going to do to check out my story?”
“That doesn’t concern you. I’ll make the decision about whether or not you stay. My crew will abide by my decision once the situation has been explained to them.”
“What if they don’t?”
His voice dropped to a low growl. “If you’re afraid any of them might hurt you, you can stop worrying. You’re under my protection.”
Another silence fell, seething with sexual awareness. Use it, she told herself. Distract him. Bind him to you. Give him a reason to take this situation personally. Very personally.
She knew she wasn’t at any risk that he might take her blood and learn what she really was. He’d be giving himself away. And she couldn’t think of any sane reason he’d do so, just as he knew he couldn’t be taking blood from his crew.
But where he obtained his blood was a disturbing question she had to set aside for now. Deliberately striking a pose she knew would emphasize the curve of her breasts under her shirt, she turned her head toward him, sensing without sight how close his lips were to hers.
“Perhaps you’d like a more immediate gesture of goodwill,” she said. “I’m prepared to give you something I know you want.”
“And what is that, Lark?” he said, though Phoenix knew very well that this was only a kind of formality between them. A maneuver with only one possible ending.
She licked her lips. “Me,” she said. “Right here, right now.”
Chapter 4
Sammael’s weight shifted as he drew back. “You would sell yourself, then,” he said roughly.
“Isn’t that what you were hinting at all along?” she asked. “Isn’t it possible I want you, too?” She reached out blindly and touched his jaw. The muscles bunched under her fingertips. “Even if I can’t see your face right now, I seem to remember you’re not hard on the eyes.” Her fingers skated down his chest and ridged stomach and came to rest on his cock, straining against the confinement of his pants. “But you’re certainly hard in other ways.”
Sammael didn’t so much as twitch. “You expect to manipulate me with sex. You must have a very low opinion of my intelligence.”
With an effort, Phoenix kept herself from flinching. His body certainly wasn’t faking its interest, and yet he seemed almost offended by her offer. After putting the moves on her with his caresses and insinuating voice.
Was this a game to him? Did he think he was manipulating her?
She outlined his cock with the palm of her hand. “You seem to have a very ‘high’ opinion of my physical assets,” she said.
“I can find women who have a better reason to share my bed.”
“You said my life is yours. My life includes my body.”
He slipped out of her grasp. “I don’t take advantage of powerless women.”
“So you said.” She laughed. “Which is the true Boss, I wonder? The one who makes clear he wants a woman in his bed, or the gallant protector who treats a fugitive like a virgin princess?” She stretched, feeling her nipples aching under her thin bra. “I want you. There’s no reason not to mix business with pleasure.”
“Do you make a habit of sleeping with men you don’t know, especially criminals?”
“I’m a criminal now, too. As you pointed out.” She pressed against him again, wrapping her arms around his neck, straddling him so her thighs were clasped around his waist.
Suddenly, he was kissing her, pushing his tongue inside her mouth and cupping her bottom as he ground into her.
And she enjoyed it. This wasn’t some sacrifice she had to brace herself to endure. Heaven help her, these feelings of attraction—desire—hadn’t been imaginary. He was an Opir, and she was ready...eager...to have sex with him.
She hated herself for it. She was too close to stepping over the line, forgetting that this was all part of the job—and the minute she did, all objectivity would be gone. It had happened before, and it had started the same way. With passionate, heedless sex.
This wouldn’t be heedless. All she had to do was unzip his pants and her own, drag him back to the bed, pull him on top of her, inside her...
It almost worked. She had his zipper down and his cock in her hand. He slipped his palms under her shirt to cup her breasts and kissed her again, spreading her thighs with his knees.
An instant later his heat was gone, and she was alone again.
“Your method needs refining,” he said. “You know you’re desirable, and you pretend to be willing. But no man or woman attains power in the Fringe without the ability to separate truth from lies.”
“Was my body lying?” she asked, pulling her legs together as she sat up on the bed.
“It was your test,” he said. “You wanted to see if I’d lied about taking advantage of you. I’m not playing along. You won’t buy my trust that way.”
He was angry. Very angry. And there was contempt in his voice, as if he didn’t believe a woman had as much a right as any man to freely express her desires.
That’s not why you’re here, she reminded herself. This is a job. Nothing more.
“You have nothing to gain by this,” he said. “Either your information is useful, or it isn’t. You’ll be left alone until I’ve made my decision.”
Phoenix breathed deeply, concentrating on slowing her heartbeat. “Where are you going to keep me? Do you have a cell for prisoners in this Hold of yours?”
He paused, as if he hadn’t expected the question. “You’ll stay here.”
“In your room?”
“For the time being. You’ll have only minimal contact with the others. You’ll wear the blindfold when you do leave this room, and then only in my company. When you’re here alone, you can take it off. I’ll be locking you in.”
“Thanks,” Phoenix said wryly. She pulled the fabric off and tossed it on the bed. His expression was rigidly controlled, jaw clenched, eyes hard. He was mastering his desire, but with a great deal of effort.
He’d said he had women willing to share his bed, and Phoenix had absolutely no doubt that he was telling the truth. It wasn’t only because of his position of power in the Fringe or his good looks, but because he exuded need as well as strength, an odd kind of gentleness as well as indisputable masculinity and a sense of leashed danger tempered only by a peculiar kind of thieves’ honor.
Gentleness? she thought. All Opiri are killers by nature, Daysider or not.
No reluctant kindness or self-control could change that.
“What are the sleeping arrangements?” she asked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light from a tiny lamp on the bedside table.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I can sleep anywhere. I’ll take the floor.”
“I wouldn’t dream of subjecting a guest to such treatment.”
“So now I’m a guest? How flattering.”
“Don’t push it,” he said, turning toward the door. “I have business to attend to. Remember, your life and freedom depend on your good behavior and what you tell me.”
“You’ve made that very clear.”
He met her gaze again, his eyes searching her face. How ironic that he was the one Boss she couldn’t hope to fight, either through the use of her superior senses or by physical means.
A trade-off, she thought, as he walked out the door and locked it behind him. Sammael would know about the assassin as no human would. But she was going to be fighting in other ways—fighting his nature and her own—if she hoped to get the information she wanted.
Because if she didn’t figure out how to carry out this mission without losing her head, it was already over.
* * *
“So who is she?” Brita asked as Drakon sat down at the battered meeting room table.
Remembering Brita’s warning, Drakon scanned the faces of his crew. Very few of them would be considered desirable companions by ordinary Enclave citizens. Some, both men and women, had suffered ugly lives of poverty and abuse. The majority of them had been condemned to deportation for relatively minor crimes, and had chosen to brave the dangers of the Fringe rather than submit. A few were simply dissidents with revolutionary ideas who had found their lives made “uncomfortable” by the Enclave authorities.
The ones he considered likely troublemakers were slumped in their mismatched chairs, clearly disgruntled by Drakon’s decision to bring an outsider into the Hold without consulting anyone else. Others seemed openly curious, but the majority were waiting for an explanation, their expressions neutral.
Brita was in the last group, and as Sammael’s lieutenant she had the right to speak first. Drakon nodded to her.
“Who is she?” Brita repeated impatiently.
“A fugitive,” he said. “An administrative assistant who gained access to certain restricted information that may be of use to us.”
“A fugitive,” Shank said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “Just what we need, more Enforcers on our backs.”
“They never even got near us,” Drakon said, staring into Shank’s eyes. “She wanted help, and I determined that the benefits outweighed the risks.”
“You mean you wanted her for yourself instead of selling her to The Preacher. She’s quite the looker.” Shank licked his lips. “I wouldn’t refuse, either, if I was you.”
“If you know my mind so well, Shank, what am I thinking now?”
The human quickly dropped his gaze, but his posture remained defiant. In spite of Brita’s repeated warnings, Drakon wasn’t concerned. If necessary, he’d make an example of the man, or any others who challenged him. He had to maintain his cover. And his connections.
“What did she do?” Ferret, lean and tall, asked quietly. “Try to sell this information? Blackmail?”
“I haven’t had time to learn the details yet. I’ll know soon enough.”
“You went too easy on her,” Brita muttered.
“She’s been here less than an hour,” Drakon said. “She wants out of the city, and is willing to pay.”
“And you think she’s telling the truth?” Repo asked.
“Have you ever had cause to doubt my instincts?” Drakon said, sweeping the crew with his gaze a second time.
No one had the nerve to answer him. Brita alone shook her head. “Don’t waste your time, Sammael,” she said. “I can get this ‘information’ out of her without the bargaining.”
“She’s to remain alone and untouched, in my room.”
“So Shank was right,” Beachboy said, tossing his shaggy blond hair away from his forehead.
Drakon rose abruptly. Beachboy shrank in his seat.
“My only interest in this female is what she can give us in return for her escape,” he said. “And I’ll make sure it’s worth our help.”
“And if it isn’t?” Brita asked.
Drakon’s silence gave them their answer. Glances were exchanged, and Brita shook her head, clearly disgusted. Drakon ignored her.
“So what’s next, Boss?” asked Grimm, folding his thick arms over his protruding belly. “We gonna make some real money this time?”
“We have a shipment of fresh produce coming in from the South Bay agricultural compound tomorrow night,” Drakon said. “My contacts have arranged for one of the ships to be rerouted to the Hunters Point shipyard for repairs. From there, we’ll have to get the cargo into the city.”
“And you’ll give half the stuff away to the Scrappers, like always,” Shank complained.
“You know how I do business. The Scrappers know things even we don’t, because no one pays attention to them. We feed them, and they help us.”
“Fear is enough to keep ’em in line,” Shank said.
“Would you like to test that theory?” Drakon said, planting his fists on the table and leaning toward the human.
Again, Shank backed down. A charged silence fell over the room.
“I’m going to send most of the crew to watch the passage and make the run to the shipyard,” Drakon said. “I’ll need a few of you with me to take care of other business. Brita, you’ll remain at the Hold and keep an eye on Lark. Make sure she gets food and fresh clothes.”
“Sammael—”
“I need you here. No interrogation. Just provide her with necessities until I return.”
“And if she makes trouble?”
“There are shackles and a blindfold there if you need them. But she’s not to leave my room.”
“Fair enough,” Brita said, though she was clearly peeved at being left behind.
“The rest of you will receive your instructions at 1300 hours,” Drakon said. He walked away from the table, indicating that the meeting was over. The whispers and mutterings he heard as he left the room were no more than he expected under the circumstances.
Listening carefully to make sure no one followed, he strode to the roofless room where he kept his blood stores. The refrigeration unit ran on solar power, but the door was flush with the intact room adjoining it. Drakon had no need to step into the dangerous morning sunlight. He opened the two manual locks, noting again that his supplies seemed more thin than he remembered, and withdrew a vial of blood. He took a careful, measured amount—just enough to keep him strong and alert, but never quite sufficient to ease his hunger completely.
It seemed all he had become was hunger. Hunger for blood, for peace, for revenge. And now for a woman he’d only met a few hours ago.
He locked the blood away again, boarded up the room and returned to the labyrinthine corridors of the Hold. Lark’s unique scent seemed to permeate the entire building, and his new and constant state of arousal was worse than a week without blood.
“Be careful,” Brita said, coming up behind him.
Drakon turned to face her. “More rumblings from the crew?” he asked.
“I’ve known you too long,” she said. “Don’t forget I’ve seen the stray kitten you brought in.”
“Your point?”
“You usually don’t have any problem with women, but that female’s got you riled, and you aren’t thinking clearly.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said softly.
She shrugged. “Whatever you plan to do with her when you have the information you want, be careful. Shank could be right—she might be a spy for the Enforcers, just waiting for the perfect time to signal them.”
“I had considered that,” he said drily. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.”
“Just don’t put it off too long.” With a shake of her head, she walked away.
Damn her, Drakon thought. He should never have let it become so obvious. But Brita was right. In a matter of hours he seemed to have developed some kind of unprecedented obsession with his captive, and it wasn’t normal. Not normal at all.
He didn’t like puzzles. He never had. In his old life, everything had seemed clear-cut, the rules easy to follow. All that had ended with his conversion.
Now he had begun to realize that not everything had changed. Once he’d been capable of real emotion. Humans believed that even new-made Opiri lost their ability to “feel,” and Drakon had believed they were right.
But they were wrong. And Drakon was beginning to realize just how wrong. What troubled him most wasn’t just the way Lark aroused physical need, but that she also touched parts of him he’d believed long dead. The ability to admire courage, to recognize the admirable traits among those he’d once served.
And to make dangerous mistakes.
He returned to his room, collected himself outside the door and went in. Lark was sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up and her eyes closed. Her lovely face was almost haggard, with shadows under her eyes and tension above her brows that couldn’t be feigned.
“How was your meeting?” she asked, opening her eyes. “Has your crew decided to throw me to The Preacher’s tender mercies?”
“No,” he said, standing very still as her scent washed over him and produced what had become his body’s inevitable response.
“What next, then?”
Drakon sat on the chair. “Tonight we have a job, and you’ll be left here under guard. When we’re done, we’ll test the validity of your information.”
“I’m not going to run, you know.”
“We’ll know how much you can be trusted soon enough.”
Leaning forward, Lark wrapped her arms around her knees. “Who are you, Sammael? What brought an obviously educated and cultured man such as yourself to become a Fringe Boss dealing in stolen goods?”
Drakon laughed to himself. Yes, in his old life he had received a fairly decent, rudimentary schooling, the one afforded all Enclave citizens. But Lark spoke of education in a difference sense, and her use of the word culture was meant to convey some kind of status far above the one he’d been born with.
He’d never been one of the Enclave’s elite. What he’d learned of “culture” had come from his Opir Sire, who had seen something in him worth cultivating and had boosted Drakon up the Opir ladder from serf to vassal to Freeblood in a remarkably short period of time. He had stopped aging at twenty-nine, five years ago. It seemed an eternity.
“I was one of those dissidents the government is so fond of denouncing,” he said, skirting very close to the truth. “I spoke out against certain unjust laws and restrictions, the forced separation of families under the Deportation Act.”
“Then you agree with the mayor,” she said with what seemed to be real interest. “You’d like to see an end to deportation.”
“I would like to see some other means of dealing with the problem of satisfying the Opiri,” he said. “But I spoke out on these matters before Shepherd came to office, and I was warned in advance that I was to be taken in for questioning. So I escaped.”
“Shepherd held the same views then, and he was a senator....”
“I had no reason to trust any political authority, whatever his or her promises.”
A spark of anger flashed in Lark’s eyes, but she covered it quickly. “You’re right,” she said. “They can’t be trusted.”
And you didn’t like hearing me criticize the government, he thought.
“Patterson and Shepherd are very much the same, in spite of their supposedly opposing views on peace and deportation,” he said. “And whatever their earlier ideas might have been, power has a strange effect on people. It changes their commitments and alters their promises.”
“How has power affected you?” she asked sharply. “Everyone knows it’s dog-eat-dog in the Fringe. How many people have you killed, just to keep your power?”
“I do whatever is necessary to protect those under my care.”
“Your care? Stealing food from people who need it, dealing in contraband, trading on citizens’ fear of deportation by demanding everything of value they have just so they can—”
“And yet you came here knowing all this,” he interrupted. “You worked for those who abused the people from whom I steal ‘everything of value.’ What benefits did you receive from your employment, Lark?”
Flushing, Lark looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said, as if she meant it. “We’ve all become harder since the War.”
“No,” Drakon said. “People haven’t changed. Only the circumstances.”
“The entire human race never had to fight for its very survival before.”
“And now the Opir race does the same.”
“You’re defending them?”
Drakon knew he’d almost revealed too much. There was something about this woman that threw him so far off balance that he thought he could actually confide in her. Let her see something of himself that he’d shown no one else since he’d been with Lord Julius. Explain why he had to...
“I’ll have a tray brought to you,” he said, turning to leave.
“Wait,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
He turned halfway, his hand on the doorknob.
“Don’t you want the test information?”
“Tell me,” he said.
She did, in brisk detail, as if he were a military commander and she a soldier making a formal report. Drakon could find nothing suspicious in what she said, but that meant nothing at all.
“You’ll remain here for the day,” he said. “You may not see me again for some time, but my lieutenant, Brita, will see to your needs.”
“And will you keep me chained while you’re away?”
“Should I?”
Her direct gaze met his. “I promise to be good,” she said with a wry half smile.
Instinct—blind, animal instinct—almost drove Drakon to join Lark on the bed and take her up on her earlier offer. But once again he controlled himself, remembering that they had nothing in common except that she was human, and he had once been.
“Keep your promise, Lark,” he said, striding to the door. “Be very, very good.”
Chapter 5
“He’s crazy.”
The woman with the short black hair and nose ring took the chair, folded her arms and stared at Phoenix balefully. Phoenix had seen Sammael’s lieutenant when she’d run into his meeting with The Preacher, but hadn’t really met Brita until she had brought a breakfast tray bearing an odd combination of nutrient bars and surprisingly fresh vegetables, along with a change of clothing. She came again at lunchtime, when she’d escorted Phoenix to one of the shared bathrooms to clean up.
Phoenix had seen and heard enough to know that Sammael and Brita didn’t always see eye to eye. But Phoenix had no idea where Sammael had gone, and Brita hadn’t enlightened her. In fact, the woman had barely spoken, and on the third visit, when she’d brought a sparse dinner, she’d left Phoenix alone for well over eight hours.
By Phoenix’s estimation, it was probably about four in the morning...an odd time for Sammael’s second-in-command to come calling.
“Why?” Phoenix asked. “Because he believes me? Or has he done something else you don’t approve of?”
Brita scowled. “I got a message from one of the crew,” she said. “I guess your information must have panned out.”
That didn’t sound right to Phoenix. Sammael hadn’t said he planned to check on it when he’d left. And even if he had, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to act on what he’d learned either last night or this morning.
Studying the woman’s grim face, Phoenix pretended to be relieved...which wasn’t so far from the truth.
“Then I guess he’s not so crazy after all,” she said. “Maybe it’s time you started to trust me, as he does.”
“Not likely. I’m just following orders.”
“It sounds as if you don’t trust Sammael’s judgment.”
“I was against keeping you here,” Brita said, the words sounding almost bitter. “If I were him, I’d have killed you on sight.”
Phoenix sat very lightly on the edge of the bed, her feet planted firmly on the floor. “Really?” she said. “It seems to me that your obvious dislike of me isn’t just concern over who I am and what I may be doing here. You’re personally worried about Sammael, aren’t you?” She smiled. “Afraid that I might have some...undue influence over him?”
“You?” Brita snorted. “I know you’ve been offering him every asset you have, but he hasn’t taken you up on your offer, has he?”
Phoenix clenched her jaw, wondering exactly how much Sammael had told Brita. “All I want to do is get out of San Francisco,” she said.
“And you think he sees you as anything but a tool? He’s had better than you a hundred times.”
That was just the kind of reaction that told Phoenix she had to keep pushing. She knew next to nothing about this woman, who clearly had almost as much authority over the crew as Sammael did.
She had to uncover Brita’s motives, decipher her relationship with Sammael, and learn just how much of an obstruction she might be to Phoenix’s mission.
There was no sign that Brita had any idea what Sammael really was. But what if she did? If she was as close to him as she seemed...
Surely not. No free human would aid an Opir spy, even assuming she also knew nothing of what Erebus intended for the mayor.
Still, this was the Fringe, where anything was possible and hostility against the government was rampant. Phoenix had to be certain. She had to risk asking questions of a woman who obviously despised her.
Even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers.
“Are you his lover?” she asked bluntly.
Brita’s muscles tensed as if she were about to fling herself on Phoenix. Phoenix braced herself for attack.
“His lover?” Brita spat, visibly struggling to get her anger under control. “Neither one of us has time for that.”
Phoenix released her breath slowly. At least she wasn’t dealing with jealousy, which was a very dangerous and irrational emotion.
What troubled Phoenix was that her relief wasn’t in the least objective. It was uncomfortably personal, as if she couldn’t bear the thought that—
“By the way,” Brita said, abruptly derailing Phoenix’s uneasy train of thought. “Sammael said to move you to a new room of your own.”
Phoenix stared at the Fringer woman in surprise, noting that her body had relaxed as if there had never been any tension between her and the prisoner.
And that made Phoenix very, very suspicious.
“I don’t understand,” Phoenix said. “I thought Sammael wanted me to stay here.”
Brita stretched out her long legs and crossed her ankles. “He doesn’t want you to leave the premises, but you may be staying here for a while, and you can’t spend all your time locked up in this room.”
“Sammael’s orders?” Phoenix asked.
Brita didn’t answer. She rose and jerked her head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll show you to your new digs.”
She strode through the door without once looking back. Phoenix followed slowly, half-expecting an ambush.
The corridor outside was damp and cold. The only light came from Brita’s headlamp, which she turned on as soon as they left Sammael’s room, and a few flickering lights spaced several yards apart. Phoenix assumed they conserved energy whenever possible, since the Fringe’s access to the city’s power grid was strictly limited.
Brita escorted Phoenix along several corridors and stopped before a warped door. “About as good as any room you’ll find here,” she said, “and it has a decent bed.”
She led Phoenix inside. “If you need anything,” she said, “bang on the door. This place gave up being soundproof a long time ago, if it ever was. But you wouldn’t be very smart to try and leave this room without an escort. Every exit from this building is guarded by a whole network of booby traps and alarms, and they have to be disarmed very carefully.”
“How many prisoners do you have here, anyway?” Phoenix asked.
“Just do as I tell you.” Brita closed the door, locking it from the outside. Phoenix listened for a while after Brita’s footsteps had receded into the distance.
This was obviously some kind of test...or a trap. And Phoenix was by no means sure that it was Sammael’s idea. She would certainly learn the truth when Sammael and his crew returned. Since they worked at night, they’d be finishing up their current “business” by dawn or soon after...only a couple of hours away.
Brita had told her not to leave the room, and Phoenix knew it would be dangerous to try. On the other hand, she might never have a better shot at looking for evidence that Sammael was in direct communication with Drakon, and how he might lead her to the assassin. The odds that anything obvious would turn up were probably thousands to one, but the odds weren’t her concern. The looking was.
Still, she didn’t attempt to leave until she heard voices that seemed to be coming from outside the building, too indistinct for her to decipher the words but clear enough for her to identify one of the speakers as Brita.
After a few moments’ careful consideration, Phoenix decided to take the risk. She tested the door and quickly discovered that the lock was broken—more proof that this might very well be a trap. She paused outside, listening again.
Brita definitely wasn’t in the building, and Phoenix was finally able to pinpoint the direction of the voices. Before she did anything else, she had to know what Sammael’s lieutenant was up to.
Still, she hesitated, sensing something out of kilter besides the obviously ineffective lock. It took her a few minutes to find the webwork of nearly invisible wires stretched between floor and ceiling on each side of the door, clearly meant to trigger an alarm on contact. Or perhaps do something much worse.
But Brita clearly didn’t know that this govrat’s training had included such esoteric skills as disarming bombs and alarm systems.
In five minutes, Phoenix had found the trigger and disabled it. She used every one of her half-dhampir skills to make her way through the maze of corridors while avoiding the surveillance cameras she spotted at each end of every hall or corridor. She found a rear exit and searched the area for the “booby traps” Brita had mentioned.
As she’d suspected, there didn’t seem to be any safeguards to prevent escape, only to keep potential enemies out. If Sammael’s crew did take prisoners or hostages, they certainly weren’t confined in rooms with half-broken locks.
Once she was certain she wasn’t going to trip any alarms, Phoenix carefully moved through the outer door. It was hidden from the view of outside observers by the strategic placement of old crates and pieces of discarded metal and wood, but the voices grew more distinct, and soon she could make out the words.
“I told you I’m happy where I am,” Brita said. “I don’t care what you offer me. I’m not switching crews now.”
“Even though everyone in the Fringe knows that Sammael’s crew is getting restless because he gives half your booty away?” the man’s voice asked.
“He gives a shit about the people who live here. And you’re wrong about his crew. I grew up in the Fringe. I know what it’s like, and I know how to survive here. Sammael’s no weakling, and you’re never getting to him through me.”
“We can always find someone else.”
“You don’t think Sammael’s watching? You think he’s so soft that he’d let some traitor go over to your Boss?”
There was a long silence, and Phoenix could almost hear the man’s shrug.
“Your funeral,” he said. “But The Preacher’s gonna come for Sammael’s turf sooner or later, and it’s gonna be a nasty war. Whoever loses is gonna take his crew down with him, so you better make sure you’re on the right side.”
“And you better make sure you don’t come here again, or I’ll kill you myself.”
The man laughed. “You can try.”
The sound of his footsteps receded, and then there was only the darkness and silence.
Phoenix retreated just inside the door and waited until Brita returned, disarmed the alarms and stepped into the Hold. Her pupils were huge in the darkness, and when she saw Phoenix she stopped in apparent shock.
“You were talking to someone from The Preacher’s crew,” Phoenix said, leaning against the wall.
Brita’s eyes narrowed. “You got past the web.”
“You were laying a trap for me,” Phoenix said, dodging the question. “Why?”
“Because you’re not who you say you are.”
As you are not, Phoenix thought. “You’ve obviously believed that from the beginning,” she said aloud, taking a step toward Sammael’s lieutenant. “Who do you think I am, Brita?”
“You’re not human.”
Phoenix wasn’t shocked. If she recognized Brita, then it was bound to work the other way. But she had to be sure. “Why would you think that?” she asked calmly.
“Maybe Sammael is blind, but I’m not.”
“And what do you see so clearly that he doesn’t?”
“Things like how easily you move in the dark. And other—” She cut the air with her hand. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I just know.”
“Do I look inhuman?”
“Looks can deceive.”
Indeed they can, Phoenix thought. “If what you believe is true,” she said, preparing herself for a fight she didn’t want, “why didn’t you tell Sammael at the beginning?”
Brita turned on Phoenix again, ignoring her question. “If you’re not human, you have to be with Aegis,” she said. “You’re here to find and expose Sammael, and whatever Bosses you can take down with him.”
“You’re Sammael’s lieutenant,” Phoenix said. “If you’re so sure about this, you have an obligation to tell him, don’t you?”
“Why are you so eager for him to find out?” Brita asked.
“Why are you so willing to keep it from him?”
“Because...” Brita nearly trembled with anger. “You know why.”
“Could it be that you think I might let him know about enemy Bosses sending envoys to his lieutenant? He might wonder how often you’ve done this before.”
“You have nothing on me,” Brita snarled.
“Does he know you’re not quite human, either?”
Brita froze. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were out there with no light, and it’s dark as pitch in here. You aren’t wearing a headlamp, but you saw me as soon as you walked through the door.”
Lips pressed tightly together, Brita rearmed the alarm system. “You’re wrong.”
“I doubt it. It’s true that you don’t look like a dhampir, and you aren’t a Daysider if you can see so well in the dark, but—”
“A Daysider?” Brita raised a clenched fist. “You’re calling me one of them? Is that what you’re saying?”
Brita did an excellent job of feigning rage, Phoenix thought. A reaction like that couldn’t easily be faked.
But why would someone neither human nor dhampir nor Daysider, evidently unknown to Aegis, be in the Fringe working for a Boss who happened to be an Opir agent?
It couldn’t be a coincidence. She and Sammael had worked too closely together to hide from each other. No...Brita knew what Sammael was, and she was working with him...working to help the assassin prepare for his strike.
Phoenix knew he had to be a Daysider, and that Brita was just as potentially dangerous as Sammael. He was still almost certainly the one in charge, but that was little comfort under the circumstances.
But what was she? She had human coloring and seemed to lack the sharp incisors, but she could easily be hiding her teeth under caps. She could be a blood-drinker.
Or was she, like Phoenix, more human than Opir? She obviously wasn’t a serf. Why would the Opiri, who despised humans, use someone like her to forward their designs? “I’m not calling you one of ‘them,’” Phoenix said.
“But I’m calling you an Aegis operative,” Brita said.
“Now you’re the crazy one,” Phoenix said. “Sure, I’m not completely human. But some of us don’t want to work for Aegis, and the only way to avoid that is to get out of the city.” She met Brita’s gaze. “I’d guess it’s the same with you, isn’t it?”
“I saw you run right toward the fire, right into danger, when you were supposedly trying to escape the Enforcers,” Brita said, jerking up her chin. “I know you’re in the Fringe to locate Bosses and turn them over to the government.”
“You know?” Phoenix asked mockingly. “Sammael has harbored the same suspicions, hasn’t he? Why hasn’t he taken action?”
“Because...because you...”
“Have him under my spell?” She snorted. “If I were after the Bosses, I’d have had two of them right where the Enforcers could find them. You’ll notice I didn’t alert them.”
“Because maybe you wanted to catch more than two fish.”
“But I haven’t tried to escape, and by now—if you were right about me—I’d have realized that my odds of exposing any of the other Bosses would be just about impossible. Maybe we should just agree that you aren’t ready to defect to another crew and I’m not here to betray Sammael, and go on about our business as if nothing has changed.”
“No deal.”
“Even if I tell him what you were doing out there with one of The Preacher’s crew?” Phoenix sighed. “Look, I’m not asking you to trust me. Just let me get out of the city.”
“Not good enough.”
“What do you want, Brita? I was right before, wasn’t I? It’s not just a matter of your own survival and freedom. You may not be Sammael’s lover, but you’re more than merely his lieutenant.”
Brita seemed ready to object, but suddenly her shoulders sagged and she looked away.
“I owe him a lot,” she said. Most Bosses use people who aren’t members of their crews like disposable objects. The Scrappers, everyone who tries to survive here in the Fringe, don’t matter except when they can be useful. And since Bosses only recruit the strongest and meanest people in the Fringe, it’s always the weakest who end up being victims.”
“And you used to be one of the victims, even though you’re more than human? You must have grown up having to hide what you are.” Phoenix rubbed her lower lip. “What is that, anyway? Not Opir, not dhampir, not Daysider....what are you?”
They stared at each other. Brita finally broke the impasse.
“Sammael took chances on a lot of us,” she said. “But we learned fast, and pretty soon we were as good as the other crews. Maybe better, because we didn’t take anything for granted.” She ran her hands through her spiked hair. “If it matters to you at all, Sammael gets food and other necessities to the Scrappers, keeps the worst-off from starving. He holds back some of our booty just for that, even if it comes out of his share.”
“You make him sound like a paragon of virtue.”
“He can be as ruthless as any of the others if he’s riled enough. I’ve seen him take down two Bosses, which is why not even The Preacher messes with him, big as he talks. But he’s one of the good guys, if someone like you can see anything past what you’re taught by your government masters.”
“Not my masters.”
“So you keep saying. But now your excuse is that you just want to get out of working for Aegis. It’s all lies.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’ve done or who I am. I’m not here to expose anyone. Sammael will sell me what I need because he can use what I’ll pay him. And once I’m outside the city, you won’t have to worry about my motives, will you?”
“If you even plan to leave the city.”
“We’re talking in circles now, Brita,” Phoenix said. “But tell me...does Sammael know what you are?”
She waited for a tense, extended moment for Brita to inadvertently betray her true relationship with the Daysider. But Brita’s answer was firm and simple.
“No,” she said. “And I will kill you if you tell him.”
“Then we do understand each other.”
Brita stared at Phoenix for a long time. “I’m going to show you something,” she said. “I want you to see this before you go back and betray him to the Enforcers.”
“I told you I’m not—”
“I’ll have to take you outside the Hold.”
“I don’t think Sammael will like that, do you?”
“This won’t be a trap, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know you want to know more about him, and I’m going to give you that chance.”
The other woman’s sudden change of attitude both worried and intrigued Phoenix. She couldn’t very well turn down any chance to see more of the Hold or anything else Brita was willing to show her, even though Brita was almost certainly lying about her own motives. “So will you try to slit my throat as soon as we’re outside?” Phoenix asked.
“I’ll give you fair warning when I’m ready,” Brita said.
“That’s very kind of you.”
Brita shrugged. “You stay here.” She strode off, leaving Phoenix right in front of the armed entrance. She returned a few minutes later with the blindfold in her hand.
“What’s the point in taking me to see something if I can’t see it?” Phoenix asked. “Or are you going to put me up in front of a firing squad?”
“It’s only until we get there,” Brita said, moving behind Phoenix to tie the cloth around her head. “Then you’ll see everything, I promise.”
Possibly even my own death, Phoenix thought. But she was still ready to fight, and she wasn’t going down without one.
Chapter 6
Brita took Phoenix’s arm, and then they were outside in the damp coolness of early morning, the smell of the bay carried on a chill predawn breeze from the east. Phoenix took particular care to note and memorize the various small changes in scent along their path, the many turns and double-backs, everything that might help her find this way again.
After a very short while, Phoenix realized they were heading south, toward the Wall. Her heart jumped in her chest. Was Brita going to let Phoenix out of the city without Sammael’s knowledge?
Soon enough, Phoenix realized her guess was wrong. Brita removed her blindfold and Phoenix saw that they were near the corner of one of the countless decrepit buildings that provided such unreliable shelter for the “citizens” of the Fringe. Brita gestured for Phoenix to stay where she was.
From her position, Phoenix could see the Wall rising up above the shorter buildings, separated from them by an empty lot. The barrier was studded with thick shards of glass and every other conceivable sharp surface, capable of stopping a would-be human escapee or slowing a Nightsider invader. The top of the Wall was crowned by coil after coil of razor and barbed wire, extending the barrier’s height by another good twenty feet.
But there were clearly weaker spots in the Wall—small cracks deepened by time and changes in weather, crumbling concrete here and there, evidence of efforts to file down the sharp points that made even touching the Wall so deadly. And along the base, stretching to either side as far as Phoenix could see, were mountains of boxes and metal scraps and every kind of abandoned appliance and machine, arranged in such a way as to appear like garbage thrown against the Wall. It was exactly the deceptive kind of barrier used to block the entrances to Sammael’s Hold.
A concentrated effort by Aegis or the Enforcers could clear it away in a matter of days, exposing the hidden passages the Bosses kept finding...or creating. But there were never enough Enforcers to waste on patrolling the south Wall and preventing a handful of lawbreakers from escaping every few weeks.
Phoenix was about to ask what she should be looking for when the faint beam of a headlamp pierced the darkness and a small group of people—men, women and children—crept out of the shadows. Two of Sammael’s crew seemed to be leading them, while several others, armed with stolen Enforcer rifles, followed behind, walking backward to watch for any pursuers.
Sammael came last. His headlamp was barely bright enough to extend a few inches beyond his face, but he moved easily, as if this place was very familiar to him. He spoke to his crew in a voice too low for Phoenix to hear, and then joined the emigrants.
There were about a dozen of them, huddled together with their meager belongings. Meager, in some cases, because their owners could only carry so much out of the city. It was evident that one family was from the Mids, another couple almost certainly from the Nobs. But the mingled fear and hope was the same on every face.
These were people condemned for deportation for minor crimes such as shoplifting or running a red light—foolish little infractions that showed how desperate the government was becoming in its search for convicts to send to Erebus as blood serfs. Some were accompanied by family members who would give up everything to remain with their loved ones, even brave the dangers of the southern Zone and risk their own very possible deaths.
Phoenix leaned against the wall of the building, taking deep breaths to ease her distress. She had never been so close to one of these unfortunate people. Aegis had kept her protected from such sights, from such thoughts.
Now there was no escape from reality. She had always disliked the practice of deportation, but the situation was complicated and very volatile. That was why the two main political factions, Patterson’s and Shepherd’s, were so hostile to each other. No one wanted deportation, but those who supported Patterson believed an end to it would lead to another devastating war, while Shepherd’s supporters claimed that there had to be another way to negotiate a new, permanent kind of peace.
She turned her troubled attention back to the waiting emigrants. A wealthy-looking couple was clinging to each other, the fiftyish woman with a tearstained face and the man staring about him in apparent confusion, as if he couldn’t guess how he’d come to be in such a place. Their money obviously hadn’t been enough to buy their way out of punishment.
The Mids family, consisting of two young children and a single man, sat together in a small circle of misery. The girl, perhaps ten, simply looked blank. The boy, a few years younger, was crying. The father’s face was wretched with misery.
Was he leaving a wife behind, a wife already condemned? Did he hate this city, one of the last refuges for humanity on the West Coast of the former United States?
“There will be additional supplies waiting for you outside the walls,” Sammael was saying, cutting into her thoughts. “You’ll be in the Zone for the most of the next hundred miles south of the city. Avoid the agricultural Enclaves. There are said to be several unauthorized human settlements between here and the Los Angeles Enclave. I can’t vouch for their safety, but you’ll be better off with other people around you.”
The man with the two children pushed his hand inside his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of A-bills. “I’m sorry I don’t have more,” he whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. “If I did...”
“Keep it,” Sammael said, stepping back. “You may eventually find them useful, and I don’t need your money.”
“But I understood...”
“I don’t need your money,” Sammael repeated. He knelt to face the little boy, stroking the child’s dirty hair away from his forehead. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. He smiled at the girl. “You’ll take care of your little brother, won’t you?”
The girl’s face lost its blank look, and she focused on Sammael’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll take care of him.”
Sammael took her hand and squeezed it very gently. “That’s a brave girl,” he said. He got up, nodded to the father and turned his attention to the wealthy-looking couple.
“Two hundred A’s are all I need from you,” he said.
The woman’s moist eyes widened. “That’s all?”
“You’ll have a hard enough time adapting as it is,” Sammael said. He hesitated, lowering his voice. “You do understand you may die out there, or be taken by rogue Freebloods.”
“We understand,” the man said. “At least we have a chance.” He held out his hand. “Thank you.”
Sammael ignored the hand, and the man let it fall. “There will be no turning back,” he said.
A series of nods, a sob, a sharp breath followed his announcement, but no one seemed interested in backing out. A few moments later, Sammael joined his crew in chivying the frightened people into what seemed to be a solid stack of concrete blocks.
Phoenix continued to stare long after they had disappeared from view. Her bones seemed to have melted, and only a sheer act of will kept her on her feet.
Sammael had let those people out for nothing, or almost nothing. He’d risked his life and those of his crew out of sheer altruism, just as Brita had described.
No, not just altruism. Compassion. A Daysider showing compassion to his enemies, people he was supposedly willing to help destroy by aiding in the mayor’s assassination.
It was a paradox. He had no stake in these peoples’ lives, no reason to want to help them.
“Only three Bosses smuggle people out,” Brita whispered, “and the price the others charge is very high. With The Preacher, it’s a miracle if you get out at all. Sammael does it because he wants to help.”
Does he? Phoenix thought. Or was all this some kind of trick to upset what Brita believed to be Phoenix’s plan? Was it possible that Sammael was pushing these people right into the arms of bloodsuckers waiting to ambush them outside the walls? Wasn’t that just as likely...more likely coming from an Opir?
No, she thought. Not from a man who had touched the little boy with such gentleness, spoken to the little girl in just the right way to give her a purpose, a reason to go on.
None of it made any sense.
“Come on,” Brita whispered, grabbing Phoenix’s arm again. “We need to get back before they do.”
Phoenix resisted her tug. “You showed me this because you think it would change my mind about exposing Sammael and your crew...if that were my intention, and if I could get out of here alive?”
Brita didn’t answer. She blindfolded Phoenix again and hurried her back to the Hold by the usual circuitous route. But every moment, Phoenix was aware that she was being given a chance to escape, that Brita must have had more than one reason for taking the “guest” out to observe Sammael’s act of apparently selfless philanthropy.
Was Brita hoping that she could force “Lark” to act recklessly to expose Sammael and the secret passage? Did she want an excuse for a fight and a chance to kill? Phoenix didn’t give her what she wanted. Once they were back at the Hold, Brita escorted Phoenix to her room, followed her in and closed the door.
“You didn’t run,” she said.
“But you expected me to try,” Phoenix said, standing near the bed.
“I don’t know what to make of you, and I don’t like—”
“Not knowing,” Phoenix finished. “Believe me, I understand.”
Brita snorted. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, for now,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I won’t be watching.”
“And I’ll keep your secrets as long as you keep mine.”
“And what you just saw this morning?”
“I’m not planning on telling anyone. It might backfire on me, too.” She offered her hand, which Brita pretended not to see.
“The others will be back anytime now,” the lieutenant said. “I suggest you get some rest.”
She left, played with the lock outside—presumably with the intent of hiding the fact that it had never been functional in the first place—and walked away, her footsteps barely audible in the corridor.
Twisting her hair into the usual ponytail and tying it with a scrap of twine, Phoenix considered what she’d learned. There was so much she had yet to understand. Once again she weighed instinct against her orders. If she were to follow her instructions precisely, this would be the time to return to Aegis with the intelligence she had collected...presuming she could escape now that she’d let several opportunities pass. She’d made direct contact with an Opir spy, after all. And more.
But that wasn’t good enough. Even if she could manage to get away, she still didn’t know exactly what role Sammael was playing in the assassination. If she could pin that down, she could return to Aegis having done everything she could.
That meant she had to keep pretending to want to escape the city and still find a way to stay with Sammael until she understood his connection to Drakon. And she couldn’t forget her purpose, though part of her wished she could get away from the Enclave...from duty, from doubt and all the other emotions she shouldn’t be feeling. From wondering if Sammael’s actions with the emigrants had been done out of genuine compassion Opiri weren’t supposed to possess. That no agent of murderers could possess.
She sat on the bed and massaged her temples. Wasn’t the fact that she wanted to believe proof that she hadn’t been the right choice for the job after all? They should have sent someone harder, more focused, more dedicated. Like her father. Someone who wouldn’t be thinking that maybe she wanted to stay with her enemy...not out of necessity, but because she was beginning to—
Care. About an Opir who took in the weak of the Fringe, shared his “take” of profits with the poor, helped human convicts escape and refused to take advantage of a prisoner he badly wanted.
She laughed. She kept assuming all that was true. God help her.
But it wasn’t too late. There was still time to pull herself back from the brink and harden her heart, remembering that Sammael’s supposed goodness to the fugitives and the people of the Fringe meant nothing in the end. His breed had killed Dad, would keep killing until they’d won their war and enslaved all mankind.
Turning off her troubling thoughts, she slept fitfully for the next two hours, trained, as were all agents, to rest whenever the opportunity arose but with senses tuned for any change in the immediate environment. By dawn—which she couldn’t see but sensed as clearly as if she were looking out a window—she woke to the sound of the crew returning to the Hold.
But she didn’t hear Sammael’s voice. She rolled off the bed and half-ran to the door, every muscle tense and heart beating fast. Other voices rose in argument, and she knew something had gone wrong.
Sammael hadn’t returned. Phoenix was struck by the sudden fear that the Enforcers scouring the Fringe, supposedly looking for the treacherous govrat, had taken Sammael against orders, anyway. Could his helping the emigrants have exposed him somehow?
There was another, just as chilling, possibility. Phoenix had heard the very unsubtle threats leveled at Brita by The Preacher’s representative. What if one of his followers, or a whole crew of them, had caught Sammael somewhere alone?
She banged on the door for a good minute before it swung open with a loud creak. Standing in the doorway was a small, wiry man she hadn’t met.
“Brita said to check up on you,” the man said, gazing at her with pointed curiosity.
“Where is she?”
“Busy. You need the bathroom or something?”
“I want to talk to Brita,” she said, trying to balance the tone of her voice between worried concern and stubborn insistence.
“She ain’t available. I’ll tell her you asked after her when she’s free.” He began to close the door, but Phoenix wedged her boot in the crack.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Repo.”
“Where’s Sammael?” she asked. “Did something happen to him?”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve heard a lot of arguing, but not his voice.”
Repo shrugged.
“He didn’t return with your crew, did he?”
“That ain’t none of your business. It ain’t smart to pry into stuff that ain’t your business, not in the Fringe.”
“It’s my business when he’s the one who’s supposed to get me out of the city.”
“He’s Boss. He can do what he wants, and he don’t report to nobody. If your info checks out, he’ll keep his word.”
The door groaned as Repo closed it behind him. Phoenix hardly noticed.
If your info checks out, the man had said. So Brita had been lying about Sammael already knowing that Phoenix had been telling the “truth” about her information.
But why? Just to throw Phoenix off her guard even more? Someone’s voice—a man’s—rose above the others Phoenix could hear in another part of the building.
Sammael’s. He was back. Safe.
Finding her way to the bed, Phoenix sat down heavily. She felt as if she had won a sudden and unexpected reprieve from some terrible punishment, and yet she was ashamed. Ashamed that she’d cared about Sammael’s welfare, not just about losing her chance to learn the nature of his connection to Drakon.
Ashamed that she could imagine his fingers pushing her hair back as tenderly as he had the boy’s, speaking to her just as gently.
Could she make him care for her? Not simply desire her, but care in a way that he wouldn’t want her to leave his side until his work was done?
No. She had to concentrate on what she knew was real...the sexual desire he refused to act on for reasons of his own. If it was weakness he feared, she had to make him believe he was in no danger of falling into a trap by making love to her. If it was her dhampir blood that drew him to her, so much the better. He wouldn’t give himself away by trying to take it, but there still might be a way to use his craving against him.
If Brita hadn’t already told him that Phoenix was part Opir.
* * *
It had been a very close call.
The crew was nervous, exchanging uneasy whispers, fidgeting, glancing right and left as if they expected Enforcers to burst in on the Hold at any moment.
That, Drakon thought, wasn’t going to happen. The men and women who’d finished up with the shipment had narrowly escaped the Enforcers, it was true, but they weren’t anywhere near the Hold, and the crew would settle down once they knew they were safe.
But every moment of the debriefing, as Drakon covered each small error and moment of nearly fatal inattention, he thought of Lark. He had been thinking of her when they had been in the midst of unloading the shipment of produce and hiding it as close to the city Wall as possible, in preparation for bringing it through after the next nightfall made it safer to move the material.
He’d been thinking of her when they’d run into the Enforcer patrol soon after releasing the fugitive humans. He’d thought of her when he had come so very close to capture—to losing his life, since he was required and intended to die first—after he’d deliberately caught the Enforcers’ attention and led them on what once had been commonly known as a “wild-goose chase.”
And he’d imagined her body, her warm lips, her welcoming arms as he made it to the Hold just before dawn, half regretting that he had survived. Knowing that she had, at best, offered herself to him only because it was a way of buying her escape from the Enclave.
Knowing, too, that she might even have been behind the Enforcers’ attack.
Now, as he discussed the operation with his crew, he could think only of going to her. Brita had moved Lark to new quarters—ignoring Drakon’s express orders to keep her firmly locked up in his room—and had reported that their guest had been very cooperative ever since.
Perhaps too cooperative.
Recalling himself to the task at hand, Drakon finished the debriefing. “Go eat and rest,” he said, rising as he dismissed the crew. Brita and most of the others left, but a few lingered.
“What you gonna do now?” Shank said with a leering glance. “Go check on the client, maybe give her a little personal attention?” He glanced around the table at the others who had remained. “It’s her fault there’re so many Enforcers around, whether they’re really chasing her or she brought them with her.”
Drakon walked around the table and backhanded the human, sending him flying halfway across the room. It was always a risk to display his more-than-human strength, but he had to keep Shank in line before he encouraged others to defy his Boss.
When Shank lifted himself off the floor, groaning and swearing, Drakon was standing over him.
“You can leave now,” he said, “or stay and keep your mouth shut. But if you run and pass on information that can damage this Hold or any of the crew, I will personally hunt you down. Understand?”
Shank wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “I get it,” he said sullenly.
For a moment all Drakon could do was stare at the blood on Shank’s mouth. Fresh blood. So long since he’d had it. So easy to take.
So deadly to his purpose.
“Sleep,” he told the others, quickly backing away. “I’m sending most of you out tonight to finish the job. Those who don’t want to risk it and forfeit their share of the profit are free to do so.”
With many glances at the unfortunate Shank, the last of the crew filed out of the meeting room. Drakon spent a good half-hour walking aimlessly through the corridors, trying to convince himself not to go to Lark’s new quarters. He didn’t succeed.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/susan-krinard/shadowmaster/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Susan Krinard
Humans and vampires on the brink of warIn San Francisco, a fragile truce is threatened by an assassination plot. Dhampir agent Phoenix Stryker has the beauty, brains – and blood – to infiltrate the vampires’ secret society and save the city. But once she’s in she finds her target, the assassin Drakon, is not the monster she expected.Handsome, honourable and irresistibly attractive, Drakon will stop at nothing to save his people – and protect the woman he needs even more than the blood that keeps him alive. Now the key to the world’s survival may lie in their dangerous alliance…
“Are you telling me the truth?” Drakon asked very softly.
He settled his weight—his heat, his maleness—beside her on the bed.
“I—” For a moment Phoenix forgot what she was about to say, enveloped in the blatant desire emanating from him.
“It would be safer for me to turn you in,” he said. “You wouldn't do that.”
He sighed. “You don't know what I'm capable of,” he said.
She'd been prepared for this, prepared to offer her body.
The problem was that her mind was refusing to use her body as just a tool in a war for the Enclave's survival. Her nerves hummed in response to the aura of sheer sexual need that surrounded him, and she realized that in the brief time she'd had contact with him, she had developed a very personal interest in her “savior.”
Her enemy.
SUSAN KRINARD has been writing paranormal romance for nearly twenty years. With Daysider she began a series of vampire paranormal romances, the Nightsiders series, for the Mills & Boon
Nocturne™ line.
Sue lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, serge, her dogs, Freya, Nahla and Cagney, and her cats, Agatha and Rocky. She loves her garden, nature, painting and chocolate … not necessarily in that order.
Shadowmaster
Susan Krinard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
With thanks to Lucienne and Leslie,
who have never given up.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#ufa8b0f09-6d5a-598b-8aef-94cb0a52be96)
Chapter 2 (#u7c0b1935-371d-59fe-aa1c-039887bb6a76)
Chapter 3 (#ud3db80d4-80e2-5c37-8083-2d4eb02c8a44)
Chapter 4 (#u5da430d3-a0d6-5656-a13e-5c9306bdc242)
Chapter 5 (#u0d00fc2c-ac15-5aec-b5ae-f363bc4a9766)
Chapter 6 (#u353dcfe0-b842-563d-b348-65d20a023079)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
“We don’t know who he is,” the director said. “We know it’s a he, and we believe he goes by the name ‘Drakon.’ There are certain unconfirmed reports that he has connections in the Fringe, here in the city. We don’t know where he’s hiding, if he’s working alone or if he has contacts within this very agency.”
Aegis Director of Operatives Julia Chan swept the table with her gaze, pausing to search each pair of eyes locked on hers. Phoenix was only one of many, but she felt as if Director Chan were looking into her soul. Weighing strengths and weaknesses. Going over a mental checklist of successes and failures in Phoenix’s relatively brief and undemanding career—mentally studying her psych eval, deciding if the agent’s abilities and qualifications were up to the task.
No doubt the director was wondering if an agent who was only half-dhampir like herself—only a quarter Opir and three-quarters human—and had never had a major mission in the field, could possibly be capable enough for a job that could mean life or death for the largest Enclave of humans on the West Coast of the former United States of America.
Then the director’s gaze moved on, and she nodded brusquely. “You’ll have full, detailed reports on your tabs. Study them thoroughly. We’re sending only one agent during the initial stage of the search. We’re betting that the assassin is heterosexual, and like most Opiri, he’ll naturally be attracted to dhampir blood.” She swept the audience with a cold stare. “Let me be very frank—you may have to use sex as a way of getting to him, not to mention your blood. As always, if you feel or believe you’re not up to the task of using every personal asset to find this killer before he brings down our government, tell me now. You’ll receive no black mark on your record for declining, under the circumstances. And, as always, every word spoken in this room is strictly confidential. Any leaks will be investigated and the traitor will face the harshest possible penalties.”
She closed her tab, gathered up a few printed notes and left the room.
“Well, that was clear enough,” Yoko said close to Phoenix’s ear as they rose from their seats at the table. “We always knew what we were getting into when we joined Aegis.”
“Joined?” Phoenix said, shaking her head. “Since when did you dhampires have any choice in the matter? You can’t be left to run loose in society, half-vampires that you are.”
Yoko took Phoenix’s arm, her catlike pupils dilating. “You talk as if you don’t think you’re one of us. Just because you look fully human...”
“I inherited my looks from my mother, eyes and all. And she didn’t go through what most of yours did. She wasn’t taken during the War by some bloodsucker against her will.”
“No. But she married one of the first dhampires ever to be identified,” Yoko said, her round face suddenly serious. “Even the people who adopted him as a kid before the Awakening had no idea where he came from. At least most of us knew our real mothers.”
“But not the Nightsiders who made them pregnant,” Phoenix said, brutally blunt. “Who abandoned them as soon as they were done with them. I had a complete family to begin with, even though no one outside a few in the old government knew my dad was working against the bloodsuckers during the War.”
“And kept on working for us after,” Yoko said, “even when he could have retired with honor.”
“Do you really believe that?” Phoenix asked, unable to hide the bitterness that never quite went away. “In the end, he left us like any true dhampir’s ‘father.’”
“He died on a mission. He was a hero, and everyone knows it.”
A hero, Phoenix thought. The kind she could never be. And all her anger, all her hurt couldn’t change that fact.
“Aegis was everything to him, more important than his own wife and child. I’d rather have a live father than a dead hero.”
For once, her voluble friend had nothing to say. It wasn’t as if this were the first time the subject had come up between them, but sometimes—when Phoenix least expected it—the anger came boiling up again.
Oh, Aegis had provided well for the widowed wife and fatherless child. And once Mother died, the agency had become Phoenix’s only family: deciding, after much evaluation, that the half-dhampir child was worth training, though her abilities were constantly tested and weighed against those of every full dhampir, the agents sworn to maintain the Armistice between humans and Nightsiders by every means possible. Unauthorized combat, ambush, deceit, submission, sex. Whatever it took.
Because only dhampires, with their almost catlike eyes, could see by night like full-blooded Opiri, could move nearly as fast and were nearly as strong, could meet Opir operatives in the Zone with some hope of survival.
But this wasn’t the Zone. An Opir assassin was inside the walls of San Francisco Enclave, ready to kill the mayor and foment chaos in the city at a time when the volatile politic situation could be set off by the smallest spark. The forthcoming election had the two factions—the mayor’s and Senator Patterson’s—at daggers drawn. And every report confirmed that the bloodsuckers were preparing for a major offensive.
And yet the mayor insisted that peace could be maintained and renewed. Mayor Aaron Shepherd. The man Phoenix had once loved. And had thought loved her.
Yoko seemed to read her mind. “I know,” she said. “This is kind of personal for you.”
Phoenix didn’t encourage further conversation on the subject, so Yoko moved on. “‘Contacts within this agency,’” she quoted Chan. “If they think that’s even possible, it’s bad. Could make this job a suicide mission.”
“So what’s new?” Phoenix asked as she and Yoko stopped by the mess hall for coffee and sandwiches. “I’d go in a heartbeat if I thought they’d pick me.”
Yoko grabbed a steaming mug and chose a table. The room was nearly deserted. Once they were seated, Yoko looked around and leaned close to Phoenix again.
“Maybe you didn’t notice how long Chan stared at you,” she said. “Maybe they haven’t sent you on any really dangerous missions. They haven’t been able to look past their prejudice. But you’re still Titus’s daughter.”
Titus’s daughter, Phoenix thought. That was the thing, wasn’t it?
“I don’t want any lives in my hands,” Phoenix said, sipping the nearly scalding coffee and welcoming the almost painful burning on her tongue.
“But you don’t have to cut yourself off from everyone,” Yoko said, laying her hand on Phoenix’s wrist. “I worry about you. You don’t go anywhere or see anyone. Except me, of course.”
Phoenix smiled. “Stop worrying, Yoko. I keep busy. I don’t feel deprived.”
“Look, Shepherd was one guy. There are guys who don’t care what we are, whether it shows or not. They won’t try to keep you hidden. Like Abdul...we’re happy together. Might not last forever, but almost nothing does.”
No, Phoenix thought. Nothing does. Not even life.
“Not interested,” she said. “I don’t like having those kinds of ties to weigh me down.”
“Because no matter how much you may complain about our being forced to join Aegis because of what we are,” Yoko said, “you live for the work, like your father. That’s another reason why Chan didn’t leave you off the list.”
“Or they just think it would be safer to send in someone who doesn’t have dhampir eyes. A lot easier than performing surgery on one of you.”
Yoko bit her lower lip. “It all depends on their tactics. A full dhampir could really tempt the assassin, and the Agency doesn’t seem to think your blood would be addictive. But if Aegis wants to keep a low profile...”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Phoenix said.
Uncharacteristically quiet, Yoko gazed into the depths of her cooling coffee. “Phoenix...can you be objective if they assign you to this mission?”
“Whatever my past relationship with Shepherd,” Phoenix said, drawing herself up very straight, “I know what he means to the Enclave. He’s holding everything together, giving the people courage and hope. He wants to end the mandatory deportation of minor lawbreakers to Erebus.”
“Which the bloodsuckers will never agree to,” Yoko said. “They have to have serfs, after all.”
“But he’s against it, and that’s a very popular position now that the Enforcers are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find citizens to deport,” Phoenix said. “I respect him for that.”
“And the alternative is Senator Patterson, who wants to crack down on so-called ‘offenders’ even more.”
“What else can you expect from a guy who used to be commissioner of the Enforcement Bureau?” Phoenix asked.
“The elections are going to be ugly this year, no matter how civil they try to be.”
“That’s why they have to choose just the right operative,” Phoenix said.
“You may not think you can do it, Nix, but I have faith in you.” Yoko covered Phoenix’s hand again. “I hope you’re the one.”
* * *
Yoko got her wish.
Chan called Phoenix into her office the next day. The spring morning was sunny but cold, with a brisk wind off San Francisco Bay.
“You read the report?” Chan said as Phoenix took the seat on the other side of the wide and very valuable cherrywood desk.
“I did,” Phoenix said.
“What were your thoughts?”
“I assume you chose me because I look human.”
“That was indeed a major factor, Agent Stryker. It was not the only one. You also have no need for blood or a patch to help you digest human food like all full dhampires, though your protein requirements must be met to the best of your ability. Any further thoughts about this mission?”
“I can get him,” Phoenix said, half-afraid of appearing so much more confident than she felt.
The director looked at Phoenix as if she were peering over the tops of old-fashioned reading glasses. “You will have a great deal of personal discretion in this, but your job is not to ‘get him.’ It is to watch and listen, try to make contact with someone in the Fringe who knows Drakon, locate his headquarters if possible and report back without being caught. That is more than sufficient.”
But not for me, Phoenix thought. Dad died for this city. If I have any way to bring this assassin down myself...
“The question is whether or not your former relationship with the mayor could in any way compromise the mission,” Chan said, shaking Phoenix out of her thoughts. “Do you believe there is any chance it might in any way affect your performance?”
Phoenix knew she couldn’t avoid the issue now, as she had with Yoko. The affair was supposed to have been secret. Aaron had convinced Phoenix that it would be a good idea if the then vice mayor kept his personal relationships private. He didn’t want to be seen as having possibly influenced her acceptance as an operative for the Agency.
“It’s different with us,” Aaron had said. And Phoenix had accepted, because she’d been hungry for love, for acceptance by those who couldn’t decide where she fit in.
They’d parted “friends.” At least from Aaron’s side of the equation. It was easy enough for him. He didn’t have to think of her at all. She saw his photo on her tab nearly every day. Mayor Shepherd, one of the most successful and beloved leaders in Enclave history.
Phoenix sat very straight and held the director’s gaze. “No, ma’am,” she said.
“No resentment of this Agency for sending your father off to die?” Chan asked bluntly. “No undue hatred of the Opiri for killing him?”
“No, ma’am. No more than any dhampir operative would have.”
The director cocked her head. “Honest, at least. Is there anything else you wish to say?”
“I know the mayor must be protected at all costs for the sake of our survival.”
“All costs,” Chan said, looking down at her tab. “Including the possible seduction of whomever seems likely to assist in your locating Drakon. There are several known Bosses in the Fringe you might approach in your search for him. You’ll find a list on your tab, but our preferred candidate is a Boss called The Preacher.” She paused. “Are you up to that, Agent Stryker?”
“You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle,” Phoenix said.
For the first time, the director smiled in apparently genuine amusement. “You’re beautiful, Agent Stryker. Most men would consider you very desirable, regardless of species. You wouldn’t have been considered if you didn’t have most of the advantages dhampires possess. And your blood shouldn’t be addictive to Nightsiders, either...which could be a mixed blessing.”
“But it’ll still attract them,” Phoenix said. “And I can use that.”
“It’ll be at your discretion whether or not you wish to reveal your dhampir heritage at any point during the mission,” Chan said, “but remember that you are not to engage Drakon or his followers unless you have no other choice. If the enemy recognizes what you are and fails to believe any of your cover stories, there won’t be anyone to get you out.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“And you have to remember that though you’re still stronger and faster than humans, you’re at a disadvantage in a head-to-head with most other dhampires and certainly all Opiri, with very few exceptions.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m grateful for your confidence in me.”
“Frankly,” Chan said, chewing on her stylus, “I was against it. I think you still have something to prove. You were an orphan, mother dead by suicide, no other living relations. Your father’s legacy is all you have to define yourself. During this mission, you have to put all that behind you.”
“Ma’am, I’ve always—”
“You’re not out there to be a hero, Stryker, only to complete the mission as outlined in the briefing.”
“I understand completely, Director Chan.”
“I hope you do.” Chan sighed. “The committee believes you can handle this. But again I must ask, are you prepared to carry out this mission with every asset at your disposal, without qualms or emotional involvement?”
“If there are any doubts,” Phoenix said stiffly, “perhaps it would be better if another agent is assigned.”
“No. The committee has faith in you, and I’ll have to do the same.” She typed a quick note on her tab. “There’ll be a more detailed report, your eyes only, waiting for you in your quarters, outlining your cover stories and the support you’ll receive from the Agency. Not to be shared with anyone, is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. Very clear.”
“Then you’re dismissed. Be prepared to move out at 0100 hours tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Director.” Phoenix rose, turned and walked out of the office. Her heart was pounding, but not with fear. She’d have a chance to show them again. She wasn’t that weakling orphan anymore, and she would never stop proving it.
No matter what it took.
Chapter 2
“Move them along,” Drakon told Brita, all too aware that it was only a few hours until dawn and there was always the chance that the authorities would be waiting for just the right moment to strike. There were only a few secret ways in and out of San Francisco that remained unknown to Aegis and the Enforcers, in those less regularly patrolled areas along the Enclave’s southern Wall and right in the heart of the Fringe.
That, Drakon thought, was the only reason this passage hadn’t been discovered. Even the Enforcers were wary of the Fringe, since more than a few had died here.
Brita hustled the last few emigrants out of the concealed hole in the Wall and had a brief word with the hired gun who was to escort them to the boat. Drakon didn’t trust the man, but the coyotes knew better than to betray the Boss they knew as Sammael.
They knew he would hunt them down and kill them. They didn’t know he was an Opir.
They didn’t have to.
“Done,” Brita said as the others sealed and hid the exit with heaps of trash and artfully scattered pieces of twisted metal and broken concrete. She slapped her hands together as if to rid them of something she hadn’t wanted to touch.
“Damn it, Sammael,” she said, “you know this isn’t worth the risk. The crew is starting to question why they should be involved in this at all.”
Scanning the other members of his crew, who were just finishing their work, Drakon smiled coldly. “We’re paid well enough,” he said.
“Sure, by the ones with rich relatives who don’t want members of their family deported to Erebus,” she said. “But what about the ones you help for free?” She jerked her head toward the hidden passage. “Some of them didn’t have a single Armistice dollar to their names.”
“Why should you care, Brita? It hardly affects you.”
“It’s dangerous. Just like every time we make a trade, the crew thinks about how much money they could get for the product you save for the Scrappers out of your own cut.”
“Half of the crew were Scrappers themselves,” Drakon said, referring to the poor Fringers who survived on any scraps of food or any other necessities they could find. “It’s not my concern if they have no compassion for their own kind. They obey, and they get their percentage. They don’t, and they face me.”
“And what if they just desert?”
Drakon had given up counting the number of times he and Brita had had this same argument, and he was weary of it. “And go where?” he asked. “To The Preacher? The members of his crew seem to die with distressing regularity. Dirty Harry brings in big hauls, but loses plenty just as big because of his lack of judgment.”
“That’s right,” Brita said, scuffing her worn boots in the dirt. “But you’re assuming everyone in the crew has a brain.”
She knew damned well he assumed no such thing. Brita was one of the few people he trusted with his life, but he had never made the mistake of trusting the rest of his crew.
Listening and watching carefully, Drakon walked away, Brita on his heels. He could hear the others following, relying—as he supposedly did—on their dim headlamps to find their way in the dark. Drakon could never let them suspect he didn’t need the light at all.
He knew there might come a time when he slipped and one or more of the crew recognized his superior strength and his aversion to the sun, no matter how carefully he tried to hide both.
He looked human. As human as any of them, with his genetically altered reddish-brown hair and light gray eyes. That camouflage the scientists in Erebus had given him, but they couldn’t change the essentials of his nature.
“We gonna make it in time to the handoff?” Repo asked, trotting alongside Drakon like a puppy eager to please his master. He was the smallest of Drakon’s crew, and though he was as tough as any of them, he’d been treated like a runt for most of his life, the victim of every bully in the Fringe until Drakon had stepped in.
“They’ll wait,” Brita snapped.
Yes, Drakon thought, The Preacher would wait. He needed the product Drakon and his crew had smuggled into the city. Just as he needed the camouflage that being a Fringe Boss brought him. Drakon, Brita, Repo and the rest made their way through the abandoned, garbage-strewn streets, beyond the pale of the city proper. The meeting place changed every time; tonight it was in the virtually abandoned section of San Francisco once known as the Mission District.
As if they knew what was up—and, inevitably, they did—the Scrappers had fled the area and remained undercover, well out of the reach of the not-unthinkable chance that The Preacher might “recruit” one or more of them, especially unwilling women.
The Boss in question was standing just behind a small fire, the light casting his craggy face in dramatic shadow. Drakon had never been impressed by The Preacher’s theatrics, and they were usually dangerous. A fire in the Fringe was an invitation to the Enforcers.
Aware of the ever-present danger, Drakon approached the fire and signaled for the others, except Brita, to stay behind him.
“Well met, Angel of Darkness,” The Preacher said, smiling through his beard. The band of very dangerous-looking men behind him smiled almost as unpleasantly. “Do you have the shipment?”
Drakon narrowed his eyes at the unexpected brevity of The Preacher’s overture. “In a hurry, Preacher?”
“Tonight’s not good,” the Boss said, his grin never wavering. “Feel it in my bones. Let’s do this.”
Brita stepped forward with the tiny box that held the keys to the storage facility. One of The Preacher’s men, twice her size, looked it over as if he actually doubted what it contained.
Drakon and The Preacher had been trading for over a year, and the other Boss knew damned well that Drakon always stood by his word. The Preacher’s man passed Brita a box in return.
“You sure you don’t want to come over to our side?” the man asked Brita with an ugly leer.
Her lips puckered, ready to spit. “Stand down,” Drakon said softly. “Tell your thugs to keep their mouths shut, Preacher.”
The other Boss shrugged. “Lay off, Copperhead. We ain’t here to buy women.” He nodded to Drakon. “Good to do business with you, as always. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
His crew laughed, all guttural male voices, since female followers were considered property of the crew, not full members. Drakon kept his mouth closed, remembering again not to show his teeth. Though he wore caps to conceal his incisors, he never took unnecessary risks. Whatever Brita might believe.
In spite of his contempt for his fellow smuggler—whose specialty was reselling Drakon’s items at a very marked-up price to “middle class” citizens north of the Fringe—Drakon made the traditional offer of his hand. The Preacher made no attempt to reciprocate.
Brita opened her mouth to say something inadvisable when a woman came running out of the darkness. She halted suddenly when she saw the Fringe crews, looking about wildly as if to seek escape.
The first thing Drakon noticed about her was the cloud of dark hair flying around her panicked face. The second was that she was quite beautiful. And clearly not of the Fringe.
“Shit,” Brita said, pulling her illegal sidearm. “A raid?”
“I don’t know,” Drakon said, gesturing toward the rest of his crew, who had automatically begun to take up defensive positions. “Get everyone back to the Hold. If there are Enforcers on the way, I’ll—”
Before he could finish, Copperhead went straight for the young woman and grabbed her arm before she could dash off into the darkness. Acting purely on instinct, Drakon moved in, shoved the man out of the way and took the woman from him none too gently.
She gasped as he gripped her arm, and he eased up a little. Her hair obscured her face, but he could see her parted lips, hear her gasping for breath. She’d been running hard for some time.
“Are you—” She swept her hair out of her face with a trembling hand. “Are you The Preacher?”
“That would be me,” the other Boss said, stepping around the fire. “What do you need, my dear?”
Drakon stepped between him and the woman. “I don’t know who you are,” he said close to her ear, “why you’re running, or what you want with him. But you’re not from the Fringe, or you wouldn’t be asking for a Boss who’ll keep you on your back for the rest of your life.”
She stared from him to The Preacher, who smiled enticingly.
“Whatever you need,” The Preacher said, “I’ll gladly provide it, pretty thing.”
“Your choice,” Drakon said, his tone indifferent but the rest of him far from it. Touching her was like making contact with a live wire. His whole body seemed to catch fire, and he could not only feel the blood pumping through her body but smell it, as well. As he could smell the woman’s hair, the clean scent of it, though her clothes were torn and her face splotched with dirt. Her body held the faint musk of perspiration and that indescribable scent unique to women of both species. His cock stiffened, though the time for arousal couldn’t be worse.
Her eyes narrowed, as if she’d felt the physical change in him. For a moment he wasn’t sure if she’d bolt right into The Preacher’s willing arms. Drakon was inexplicably tempted to drag her away, willing or not.
“What’s your name?” she asked, astonishing him with the clarity of her voice and the sudden, fearless intensity in her eyes.
“We need to get out of here,” Brita said, cutting off his answer. “If she’s running from Enforcers....”
“I told you what to do,” Drakon snapped. “Get them home.”
With an openly hostile glance at the woman, Brita signaled to the others. As they melted into the darkness, The Preacher stamped the fire out with one heavy boot.
“I’ll give you five hundred A-dollars for her,” he said.
The woman reached down and gripped Drakon’s hand as if for dear life, and he understood the unspoken message in her eyes. He knew he was acting against sense, against reason, against the dictates of his mission, but he couldn’t let her go. He ran, pulling her with him, making his way easily in darkness that would confound his rivals. “Who’s after you?” he said, not even slightly winded.
“I...” The woman gasped, and it was clear she wasn’t in any state to explain.
“You’re leading Enforcers into the Fringe,” he said.
She didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop until they were far enough into the Fringe that the only illumination came from the scant light of false dawn in the west. He was running out of time.
But he still needed a few answers before he took her into the very heart of his hard-won turf.
As he came to a stop, she bent over, hands on knees, to catch her breath. He saw that her clothing was some kind of uniform, though a very generic one, the kind of standard issue that would be given a city or Enclave employee—known in the Fringe as a govrat, a citizen with a clearance rating high enough for government work.
As she straightened, he studied her face, making a rapid assessment: features somehow delicate and strong at the same time, stubborn jaw, smudges and scratches on her face that did nothing to lessen her beauty. Her body was slender and fit, that of a woman able to handle herself in a fight.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Lark,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“Who’s after you?”
She met his gaze, half-defiant and half-afraid. “The Enforcers.”
Exactly what he and Brita had suspected. “Why?” he asked.
“If we don’t move soon, it won’t matter.”
He almost laughed at her bravado. “Why did you come with me?”
“I don’t know. I was told to find The Preacher.”
“Why?”
“They said he could get me out of the city.”
“He wouldn’t,” Drakon said. “You were given very bad advice.”
“Can you help me?”
“If you’re running from Aegis or the Enforcers,” he said, “you’re not my enemy. If this is a trick, you won’t get out of this alive.”
“A trick?” she said with a burble of choked laughter. “What kind of trick?”
Drakon considered that he might have jumped to conclusions a little too quickly. Something about this woman almost convinced him that her fear was real.
“What can you pay for my help in getting out?” he asked.
“Information. But you won’t get it until I know I’m safe and none of your Fringer friends are going to hurt me.”
The sound of fast-moving vehicles thrummed from less than a quarter mile away. Whether she was leading them or running from them didn’t matter now. Drakon seized her wrist again, and they ran until Lark—if that was really her name—was panting hoarsely and beginning to stumble. Drakon turned a sharp corner into an alley. She leaned against him as if she might fall without his support. He wasn’t thinking at all when he put his arm around her.
He could still smell her blood. Almost feel it inside him.
He reached inside his jacket pocket with his free hand and pulled out one of the blindfolds he and the crew had used on the emigrants. “Turn around,” he said.
Her gaze fell to the cloth in his hand. “You’re kidding. If you think I’d ever—”
“I’m not letting you into my Hold without this. I give you my word that you’ll come to no harm.”
“The word of a—”
“Criminal, a fugitive from justice? Enclave justice?” Drakon turned her and tied the blindfold around her head before she could even think of struggling.
“I must be crazy,” she said, her voice rasping with exhaustion.
“No,” he said. “You’ve made the only possible choice.” Taking her arm again, he led her alongside the building, constantly listening, and took a very circuitous course toward the Hold, dodging the sounds of approaching troops. They didn’t seem to be gaining ground, perhaps more concerned about ambush than moving too recklessly.
He continued on by one of the many hidden pathways he and his crew had devised over the past year, frequently doubling back to make certain they weren’t being followed. Dawn was beginning to break when they finally negotiated the last obstacles and entered the Hold.
The building didn’t stand out from the other half-collapsed structures throughout the Fringe, but there were traps set at every possible entrance, and guards at every boarded window. The widely spaced lights were flickering and dim. The common rooms, mess and meeting room were protected by many external walls, like a castle keep. No one could reach Drakon and his crew without the use of explosives. Like so many other of the black-market items Drakon and the other Bosses dealt in, those were hard to come by.
Repo was crouched right outside the inner door. He sprang to his feet and stared at the woman in astonishment.
“You brought her?” he asked.
“No questions now.” Drakon pulled Lark through the maze of corridors, passing the occasional crew member without pausing for explanation, and took her straight to his private quarters.
“Sit,” he said, half-pushing her down on his narrow bed.
She probed the firm surface with her hands. “Where am I?”
“Where no one else will bother us.”
She tensed, and he knew immediately what she was thinking. “I am not The Preacher,” he said. “I have no intention of molesting you. But I can’t protect you until I get more information.”
“Protect me from whom?” she asked, turning her head slowly as if to take in any sounds that might help her get her bearings. “I thought you were the Boss here.”
“Most of my crew have the option of going elsewhere if I seem too soft.”
She turned her face toward him as if she would be staring if he could see her eyes, and he realized he’d just admitted something to her he wouldn’t say to anyone but Brita.
“Soft because you agreed to help me?” she asked.
“I haven’t agreed yet.”
“But they won’t be happy with what you’ve done. Would one of them challenge you?”
It was too late to retreat from the subject now, and he still had complete power over her in spite of her troubling insight. “You seem to know a great deal about the Fringe for a Cit,” he said.
Cocking her head, she smiled. It was a particularly lovely and enticing smile. “You’re unexpectedly honest and well-spoken for a condemned criminal,” she said.
Drakon pulled the room’s single chair close to the bed. “You work for the government,” he said, a statement of fact.
Her smile faded. “I did.”
“You’re on the run from your own kind, and yet you’ve somehow convinced yourself that only the ignorant and deceitful have been deported?”
When she didn’t answer, he pressed on. “Why are you running?”
“Do you think I could get some water?” she asked. “I haven’t had anything to drink in a while.”
Her sudden change of tone put Drakon even more on his guard. “I’ll have to tie you up.”
“I won’t resist.”
Far from trusting her, Drakon removed a heavy pair of shackles and short chain from a locked drawer. “Get up and turn around,” he said.
She obeyed without protest, and Drakon bound her hands together behind her. “Members of my crew are scattered everywhere throughout the Hold,” he said. “If you attempt to escape, they will almost certainly kill you.”
Chapter 3
“Your orders?” Lark said, resuming her seat on the bed after Drakon had her shackles in place.
“No one will take the risk of letting you escape.”
“I came here willingly, didn’t I?”
Drakon didn’t bother to answer. He went out into the corridor—where, as expected, Repo was keeping watch—and sent the man for water. When Repo returned, he was obviously near bursting with questions.
“Be patient,” Drakon said. “Find out what the others are saying, and report back to me.”
“Yes, Boss.” Repo hurried off, and Drakon went back into his room. He undid the shackles and handed Lark the slightly cracked glass, which she drained quickly.
“More?” he asked.
“Not now, thanks.” She ran the back of her hand across her lips...those full, enticing lips. Drakon swallowed. He wondered just how much she’d be willing to trade for her safety.
And felt no better than the other Bosses, whom he despised.
“Then let’s get back to the essentials,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I told you,” she said. “My name is Lark.”
“Lark what?”
“What difference does it make?”
“You do realize that you are completely in my power?”
“Ooh, scary,” she said, her mouth twisting into an ironic smile. “Have you ever read the pre-war literature known as ‘comic books?’”
Drakon froze, caught one of the thousands of memories he had managed to bury deep in his mind since his deportation. A little boy, laughing in delight because his father had managed to buy him a very rare bound edition of The Iron Corps for Christmas. It hadn’t been black market, but Drakon—the man he had been then—had saved up a portion of many months’ salary to buy it, even though Mark had still been a little too young to understand all the words.
“I know of them,” he said coldly.
“Then I don’t have to explain.” She shifted her weight, and even that slight movement brought his attention back to her body and the aching hardness that refused to be banished even by a firm act of will.
It’s the blood, he told himself. Like fine wine, human blood came in many vintages.
And he’d never smelled anything so rich and sweet. He wanted it, badly. But he knew his reaction now was fueled as much by hunger as inconvenient lust.
He would have to access his stores very soon. They had been going down more quickly than he’d expected and would need to be replenished, not a task he could entrust to any member of his crew. “Lark,” he said, pushing his hunger aside. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She pulled a few strands of her dark hair out of the blindfold. “I’ve been branded a traitor by the government.”
“Why?” he asked.
She plucked at the blouse of her torn uniform. “I was an Admin. Very low clearance. I came across confidential information I wasn’t supposed to be able to access. Someone found out, and—”
“What kind of information?” he interrupted.
“Let’s just say that it would be more than a little embarrassing for the higher-ups, and possibly make trouble for certain parties involved in the election.”
Suddenly, Drakon was interested in Lark for more than her blood, her beauty and her spirit. “And what?” he prompted.
“They regard any breach very seriously. Rather than take a chance I might use it, they trumped up charges against me and were going to have me executed. I was able to—”
“Executed?” he interrupted. “Not deported?”
“They don’t deport traitors,” Lark said, a grim set to her mouth.
“And are you one?”
She suggested he do something anatomically impossible. Drakon let it pass. Whatever she’d discovered, it couldn’t just be “embarrassing for the higher-ups.” Drakon knew well enough that the Enclave government could be as ruthless as the Citadel’s Council, and would sooner kill than take the slightest chance of a security risk.
“So you think you’ll be safer out of the city,” he said.
Her blindfold shifted, suggesting eyes widening in astonishment. “Wouldn’t you, if you didn’t have such a good thing going here?”
He leaned over the bed. “What do you know of my business?”
Her body quivered as if it recognized the threat of a predator. “Only what I saw, back there. What you told me. And what everyone knows about the Fringe.”
“That there are ways of getting out in this part of the city? Why do you think such exits exist?”
“You are kidding, right?”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“Everyone remotely connected to the government knows that such passages exist. Most of them have been shut down by the Enforcers, but someone always manages to find another one. It’s common knowledge that convicts can be smuggled out of the city for the right price.”
“The price.” Drakon straightened and circled the room, his heart beating fast. “Why do you believe we have use for information on the foibles of a government official?”
“That’s not all I have,” she said. “Some of it might be very useful to your...operations.”
He came to a stop before her. “If you have something valuable to us, why do you believe you can withhold anything we choose to take from you?”
“You mean by torturing me? Or do whatever you thought this Preacher guy would do?” She shook her head. “That would be a mistake. You see, even the lowest-level govrats—to use your Fringe lingo—are given anti-torture conditioning. It’s not much, but usually it works by triggering a fatal chemical reaction in our bodies after a significant amount of pain is applied.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard of such conditioning,” Drakon said.
“It’s new. They want to keep it secret, of course. But I’m telling you now because I have nothing to lose, and you’d be better off taking what I’m willing to give you instead of losing all of it. I promise you that what you’ll get from me will be worth what I’m asking.”
Drakon took the chair again.
“Assuming you have such information,” he asked, “how are we to substantiate it without risk to ourselves?”
“I never said it was without risk,” she said, “just as I knew it could be a fatal risk coming out here.”
Perhaps even worse than merely fatal, if he acted as loyalty dictated. He had no reason to trust her. If he found a chance to pass her on to Erebusian agents who could get her to the Citadel, she could be extremely valuable as a source of intelligence.
But he couldn’t envision taking such a drastic step, and he certainly wouldn’t return her to her Enclave hunters. His mission had been clearly defined, and once completed would have virtually the same effect as if he were to tear the government down with his own two hands.
One highly popular mayor, in the midst of a highly contentious election, dead. The mayor who claimed to want to end the deportation of criminals to Erebus, cut off the tribute of blood serfs who were so essential to maintaining Opiri society in the Citadel of Night. Essential to maintaining the Armistice and preventing another devastating war.
Aaron Shepherd. One of the two men in all the world Drakon wanted dead more than he wanted to live.
* * *
Phoenix couldn’t see the man’s face, but she didn’t have to. She’d memorized it the first time she’d glimpsed him, when he’d snatched her away from the leering henchman of The Preacher, the Boss she’d been sent to find.
Either someone at Aegis had given her very bad information, as this man had told her, or her instincts had been dangerously off. But she didn’t think hearing a man offer to buy her for “five hundred A-dollars” would inspire much confidence in even the most desperate fugitive.
She could honestly say she’d been incredibly lucky. This Boss’s treatment of her had been no worse than she might have expected from any one of his kind, likely better than most. He was handsome, most definitely, with his defined features, gray eyes and auburn hair. Strong and fast, his movements swift and graceful. He had struck her right away as being someone extraordinary.
Even so, she hadn’t been sure until she’d seen the faint red reflection behind his otherwise very normal-looking eyes. His incisors were covered in some way she couldn’t quite define. She’d been luckier—or unluckier—than she or Aegis could possibly have imagined.
The man who had “saved” her from The Preacher wasn’t human. After the first shock had passed, Phoenix had quickly realized that neither his fellow Boss nor either of their crews knew what he was. His coloring told her he must be a Daysider—one of those very human-looking “mutant” Opiri who could walk in daylight without suffering fatal burns—and Daysiders looked very human to most non-Opiri. The headlamp he wore wasn’t just protective camouflage, since his breed couldn’t see nearly as well in the dark as dhampires or other Nightsiders. But he seemed to have forgotten that no ordinary man or woman could keep up with him, and that he was supposedly leading a human female to safety.
What he believed to be a human female.
He didn’t seem even remotely concerned about what he might have revealed, but if he believed her story, he wouldn’t expect a govrat to be looking for Opiri in the city.
And this Opir had done very well for himself by becoming a turf Boss. He couldn’t be the assassin Drakon, since no one less than a Freeblood—the lowest rank among full-blooded Opiri—could be trusted with such a task, and only a true Nightsider could operate in the dark with complete freedom.
But any Opir in the Enclave had to know who and where the assassin was hiding. This was too big an operation for one agent to handle alone. Others would be helping him make preparations. All resources would be thrown behind the killer, regardless of the danger to the other spies in San Francisco.
“I knew it could be a fatal risk coming out here,” she’d told him. She had been warned that the Fringe could be dangerous, but now that she’d seen it—seen how people were forced to live, families scraping by on whatever discarded material they could find, raiding garbage bins in the Mids, forced into theft and worse by the very need to survive and protect those under their care—she understood why the Fringers might attack an outsider.
It had made her feel sick, this suffering...a feeling she’d had to force aside as a distraction she couldn’t afford. And any trouble from the people here was by far outweighed by the incredibly delicate and deadly task of prying information out of her “captor” without getting herself summarily killed or, almost as likely, smuggled out of the city and shipped right off to Erebus for interrogation.
Phoenix wondered if he’d accepted her implausible story about the new anti-torture conditioning. What she did have was an implant in one of her molars, the old reliable standby of covert agents since well before the War.
But she wasn’t nearly ready to die. She’d completed Phase One of the operation: making a connection with someone influential in the Fringe, one who could help her locate an Opir operative. The Preacher, or another like him, was to have provided the necessary access, but she’d bypassed that step entirely. Phase Two, finding an Opir spy, was also complete.
That was all she was supposed to do. Phase Three, pinning down the location of the assassin Drakon’s hiding place, was to be the work of a more experienced agent. She should have been making plans to escape and return to Aegis.
But not yet. Not quite yet. She was in too good a position to give it up now. Even though Aegis wouldn’t know how far she’d already come, they’d follow through with their part of the plan by continuing the search for the “fugitive.” And when she finally did return, she’d have plenty to give them.
Now the Daysider’s silence was heavy, as if his mind was focused on weighty matters...as well it should be. But she knew he was thinking of other, more personal subjects, as well, not the least of which was her body.
She’d been well aware of his arousal; it had been impossible not to be, given the impressive size of his package. She could still smell his desire for her like a heady perfume, even though she could no longer see the way his pale gray eyes followed every slight move of her body.
She’d planned to keep him from realizing that she knew what he was as long as possible, and prevent him from finding out what she was, until she had no other choice but to consciously make use of her true nature. But if part of his nearly instantaneous and obviously powerful attraction to her was due to the scent of her part-dhampir blood, she had no idea how long her secret could last.
“Lark,” he said.
She almost—almost—forgot to respond to her alias.
“Was the information you plan to sell to me the reason your government believed you’d betray them?” he asked, resuming their conversation as if there had never been a break. “Or was it something else?”
Phoenix thought through her cover story. There was still something about her claims he wasn’t buying.
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. “I found some...stuff that I thought might bring in a little extra income. They don’t pay us govrats that much, you know. Not at my clearance level.”
“What stuff?” he asked, his husky baritone sending unwelcome shivers down her spine.
“Just a little persuasion,” she said. “A politician who’d rather not have anyone know he keeps a little something on the side.”
He snorted. “And they caught you?”
“They only found out at the last minute who did it.”
“And you were stupid enough to risk so much without taking sufficient precautions.”
“Maybe I needed the money fast.”
“Why?”
“Do I have to tell you my life story to get you to help me?”
“You’ll have to provide a lot more than that if you want our help.”
“Isn’t that what this conversation is all about?”
The chair he was sitting on creaked, and she turned her head to follow the sound of his progress around the small room.
“It isn’t only the Enforcers who are chasing you,” he said. “Not if you’ve been declared a traitor. Traitors are the ones who might reveal things to the bloodsuckers that could bring the Enclave down.”
“And you think I—” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t have that kind of information. And everyone knows the Nightsiders are evil monsters. Why would any Cit pass Enclave secrets on to those who would only enslave her?”
“Aegis must think you have those kinds of secrets,” he said. “They could be sweeping the Fringe in an hour.”
“I didn’t access Aegis files! I can’t even get near them!”
His weight—his heat, his warmth, his maleness—settled beside her on the bed. “Are you telling me the truth?” he asked, very softly.
“I—” For a moment she forgot what she was about to say, enveloped in the blatant desire emanating from him.
“It would be safer for me to turn you in,” he said. “Anonymously, of course.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
His breath sighed very close to her lips. “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he said.
“You warned me about The Preacher, even before he—”
“Maybe my motives weren’t very different from his.”
“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t molest me?”
“I wouldn’t take any woman against her will.”
But the rough purr in his voice told her exactly what he meant by will. She’d been prepared for this. She’d been ready to offer her body in payment for what she had to have, regarding it as no more than part of her mission.
The problem was that her body was responding to his nearness, his potent masculinity, as powerfully as he was reacting to her. And her mind was refusing to think of using that body as just a tool in a war for the Enclave’s survival. Her nerves hummed in response to the aura of sheer sexual need that surrounded him, and she realized that she had somehow developed a very personal, visceral interest in her “savior.”
Her enemy.
“Before we go any further,” she said, “would you mind telling me your name?”
Her question broke the spell. “Sammael,” he said, slight annoyance in his voice.
“That sounds familiar,” she said.
“An archangel,” he said. “Some call him the ‘Angel of Death.’”
“Now you’re trying to scare me again.”
“Perhaps my bark is worse than my bite.”
She nearly burst into highly inappropriate laughter. “Is that what the other Bosses say?”
“Ask the ones who tried to invade my turf.”
“Very reassuring. Okay, about that information. It could make it a lot easier for you crimin... Your smugglers to establish better contacts and get access to valuable goods outside the Fringe. And I do have a way for you to check on it before you commit yourself.”
“What is it?”
“I want your word that you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you.”
He laughed, a sound that would have been pleasant under other circumstances. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, running his warm, calloused hand down her arm, his skin caressing where it brushed over the hole in her uniform blouse.
Oh, God, she thought, feeling all the heat in her body rushing to a very precise location between her thighs. “Until you...until you have a good reason to believe me,” she stammered, “you’ll continue to wonder if what I’m offering is worth your help. Just give me a chance to...prove myself.”
“And what will you do once you’re free of the Enclave?”
Phoenix found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the conversation. “What do the other emigrants do?” she asked, her heart beginning to race. “Make a life somewhere in the Zone?”
“Where they may starve or be picked up by bloodsuckers,” he said.
“Obviously, that’s a chance they’re willing to take.” She steadied her voice. “If my choices are blood-slavery, execution or a very unlikely chance at life and freedom, I’ll take the last, thank you very much.”
“No matter how slim the odds?”
“Yes. Will you give me a chance?”
It didn’t seem possible that he could move any closer, but he did. “There is no question of your leaving the Hold until your background story is thoroughly checked, your initial information proves genuine and all risks have been carefully weighed.”
She bit her lip. She might as well bring the subject out into the open.
“You mean you think I’m leading the Enforcers into the Fringe,” she said.
He met her gaze sharply. “Are you?”
“You’re thinking that I was out to find Bosses and expose them, aren’t you?”
“A good guess,” he said grimly. “It’s been tried before.”
“I was looking for The Preacher, but there was no guarantee I’d find him. And the only reason I’d do anything like that is if I were some kind of spy.” She laughed. “I can’t believe you’d think that for a moment. Not about someone like me, a humble govrat.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You’re right.” She frowned. “So what are you going to do to check out my story?”
“That doesn’t concern you. I’ll make the decision about whether or not you stay. My crew will abide by my decision once the situation has been explained to them.”
“What if they don’t?”
His voice dropped to a low growl. “If you’re afraid any of them might hurt you, you can stop worrying. You’re under my protection.”
Another silence fell, seething with sexual awareness. Use it, she told herself. Distract him. Bind him to you. Give him a reason to take this situation personally. Very personally.
She knew she wasn’t at any risk that he might take her blood and learn what she really was. He’d be giving himself away. And she couldn’t think of any sane reason he’d do so, just as he knew he couldn’t be taking blood from his crew.
But where he obtained his blood was a disturbing question she had to set aside for now. Deliberately striking a pose she knew would emphasize the curve of her breasts under her shirt, she turned her head toward him, sensing without sight how close his lips were to hers.
“Perhaps you’d like a more immediate gesture of goodwill,” she said. “I’m prepared to give you something I know you want.”
“And what is that, Lark?” he said, though Phoenix knew very well that this was only a kind of formality between them. A maneuver with only one possible ending.
She licked her lips. “Me,” she said. “Right here, right now.”
Chapter 4
Sammael’s weight shifted as he drew back. “You would sell yourself, then,” he said roughly.
“Isn’t that what you were hinting at all along?” she asked. “Isn’t it possible I want you, too?” She reached out blindly and touched his jaw. The muscles bunched under her fingertips. “Even if I can’t see your face right now, I seem to remember you’re not hard on the eyes.” Her fingers skated down his chest and ridged stomach and came to rest on his cock, straining against the confinement of his pants. “But you’re certainly hard in other ways.”
Sammael didn’t so much as twitch. “You expect to manipulate me with sex. You must have a very low opinion of my intelligence.”
With an effort, Phoenix kept herself from flinching. His body certainly wasn’t faking its interest, and yet he seemed almost offended by her offer. After putting the moves on her with his caresses and insinuating voice.
Was this a game to him? Did he think he was manipulating her?
She outlined his cock with the palm of her hand. “You seem to have a very ‘high’ opinion of my physical assets,” she said.
“I can find women who have a better reason to share my bed.”
“You said my life is yours. My life includes my body.”
He slipped out of her grasp. “I don’t take advantage of powerless women.”
“So you said.” She laughed. “Which is the true Boss, I wonder? The one who makes clear he wants a woman in his bed, or the gallant protector who treats a fugitive like a virgin princess?” She stretched, feeling her nipples aching under her thin bra. “I want you. There’s no reason not to mix business with pleasure.”
“Do you make a habit of sleeping with men you don’t know, especially criminals?”
“I’m a criminal now, too. As you pointed out.” She pressed against him again, wrapping her arms around his neck, straddling him so her thighs were clasped around his waist.
Suddenly, he was kissing her, pushing his tongue inside her mouth and cupping her bottom as he ground into her.
And she enjoyed it. This wasn’t some sacrifice she had to brace herself to endure. Heaven help her, these feelings of attraction—desire—hadn’t been imaginary. He was an Opir, and she was ready...eager...to have sex with him.
She hated herself for it. She was too close to stepping over the line, forgetting that this was all part of the job—and the minute she did, all objectivity would be gone. It had happened before, and it had started the same way. With passionate, heedless sex.
This wouldn’t be heedless. All she had to do was unzip his pants and her own, drag him back to the bed, pull him on top of her, inside her...
It almost worked. She had his zipper down and his cock in her hand. He slipped his palms under her shirt to cup her breasts and kissed her again, spreading her thighs with his knees.
An instant later his heat was gone, and she was alone again.
“Your method needs refining,” he said. “You know you’re desirable, and you pretend to be willing. But no man or woman attains power in the Fringe without the ability to separate truth from lies.”
“Was my body lying?” she asked, pulling her legs together as she sat up on the bed.
“It was your test,” he said. “You wanted to see if I’d lied about taking advantage of you. I’m not playing along. You won’t buy my trust that way.”
He was angry. Very angry. And there was contempt in his voice, as if he didn’t believe a woman had as much a right as any man to freely express her desires.
That’s not why you’re here, she reminded herself. This is a job. Nothing more.
“You have nothing to gain by this,” he said. “Either your information is useful, or it isn’t. You’ll be left alone until I’ve made my decision.”
Phoenix breathed deeply, concentrating on slowing her heartbeat. “Where are you going to keep me? Do you have a cell for prisoners in this Hold of yours?”
He paused, as if he hadn’t expected the question. “You’ll stay here.”
“In your room?”
“For the time being. You’ll have only minimal contact with the others. You’ll wear the blindfold when you do leave this room, and then only in my company. When you’re here alone, you can take it off. I’ll be locking you in.”
“Thanks,” Phoenix said wryly. She pulled the fabric off and tossed it on the bed. His expression was rigidly controlled, jaw clenched, eyes hard. He was mastering his desire, but with a great deal of effort.
He’d said he had women willing to share his bed, and Phoenix had absolutely no doubt that he was telling the truth. It wasn’t only because of his position of power in the Fringe or his good looks, but because he exuded need as well as strength, an odd kind of gentleness as well as indisputable masculinity and a sense of leashed danger tempered only by a peculiar kind of thieves’ honor.
Gentleness? she thought. All Opiri are killers by nature, Daysider or not.
No reluctant kindness or self-control could change that.
“What are the sleeping arrangements?” she asked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light from a tiny lamp on the bedside table.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I can sleep anywhere. I’ll take the floor.”
“I wouldn’t dream of subjecting a guest to such treatment.”
“So now I’m a guest? How flattering.”
“Don’t push it,” he said, turning toward the door. “I have business to attend to. Remember, your life and freedom depend on your good behavior and what you tell me.”
“You’ve made that very clear.”
He met her gaze again, his eyes searching her face. How ironic that he was the one Boss she couldn’t hope to fight, either through the use of her superior senses or by physical means.
A trade-off, she thought, as he walked out the door and locked it behind him. Sammael would know about the assassin as no human would. But she was going to be fighting in other ways—fighting his nature and her own—if she hoped to get the information she wanted.
Because if she didn’t figure out how to carry out this mission without losing her head, it was already over.
* * *
“So who is she?” Brita asked as Drakon sat down at the battered meeting room table.
Remembering Brita’s warning, Drakon scanned the faces of his crew. Very few of them would be considered desirable companions by ordinary Enclave citizens. Some, both men and women, had suffered ugly lives of poverty and abuse. The majority of them had been condemned to deportation for relatively minor crimes, and had chosen to brave the dangers of the Fringe rather than submit. A few were simply dissidents with revolutionary ideas who had found their lives made “uncomfortable” by the Enclave authorities.
The ones he considered likely troublemakers were slumped in their mismatched chairs, clearly disgruntled by Drakon’s decision to bring an outsider into the Hold without consulting anyone else. Others seemed openly curious, but the majority were waiting for an explanation, their expressions neutral.
Brita was in the last group, and as Sammael’s lieutenant she had the right to speak first. Drakon nodded to her.
“Who is she?” Brita repeated impatiently.
“A fugitive,” he said. “An administrative assistant who gained access to certain restricted information that may be of use to us.”
“A fugitive,” Shank said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “Just what we need, more Enforcers on our backs.”
“They never even got near us,” Drakon said, staring into Shank’s eyes. “She wanted help, and I determined that the benefits outweighed the risks.”
“You mean you wanted her for yourself instead of selling her to The Preacher. She’s quite the looker.” Shank licked his lips. “I wouldn’t refuse, either, if I was you.”
“If you know my mind so well, Shank, what am I thinking now?”
The human quickly dropped his gaze, but his posture remained defiant. In spite of Brita’s repeated warnings, Drakon wasn’t concerned. If necessary, he’d make an example of the man, or any others who challenged him. He had to maintain his cover. And his connections.
“What did she do?” Ferret, lean and tall, asked quietly. “Try to sell this information? Blackmail?”
“I haven’t had time to learn the details yet. I’ll know soon enough.”
“You went too easy on her,” Brita muttered.
“She’s been here less than an hour,” Drakon said. “She wants out of the city, and is willing to pay.”
“And you think she’s telling the truth?” Repo asked.
“Have you ever had cause to doubt my instincts?” Drakon said, sweeping the crew with his gaze a second time.
No one had the nerve to answer him. Brita alone shook her head. “Don’t waste your time, Sammael,” she said. “I can get this ‘information’ out of her without the bargaining.”
“She’s to remain alone and untouched, in my room.”
“So Shank was right,” Beachboy said, tossing his shaggy blond hair away from his forehead.
Drakon rose abruptly. Beachboy shrank in his seat.
“My only interest in this female is what she can give us in return for her escape,” he said. “And I’ll make sure it’s worth our help.”
“And if it isn’t?” Brita asked.
Drakon’s silence gave them their answer. Glances were exchanged, and Brita shook her head, clearly disgusted. Drakon ignored her.
“So what’s next, Boss?” asked Grimm, folding his thick arms over his protruding belly. “We gonna make some real money this time?”
“We have a shipment of fresh produce coming in from the South Bay agricultural compound tomorrow night,” Drakon said. “My contacts have arranged for one of the ships to be rerouted to the Hunters Point shipyard for repairs. From there, we’ll have to get the cargo into the city.”
“And you’ll give half the stuff away to the Scrappers, like always,” Shank complained.
“You know how I do business. The Scrappers know things even we don’t, because no one pays attention to them. We feed them, and they help us.”
“Fear is enough to keep ’em in line,” Shank said.
“Would you like to test that theory?” Drakon said, planting his fists on the table and leaning toward the human.
Again, Shank backed down. A charged silence fell over the room.
“I’m going to send most of the crew to watch the passage and make the run to the shipyard,” Drakon said. “I’ll need a few of you with me to take care of other business. Brita, you’ll remain at the Hold and keep an eye on Lark. Make sure she gets food and fresh clothes.”
“Sammael—”
“I need you here. No interrogation. Just provide her with necessities until I return.”
“And if she makes trouble?”
“There are shackles and a blindfold there if you need them. But she’s not to leave my room.”
“Fair enough,” Brita said, though she was clearly peeved at being left behind.
“The rest of you will receive your instructions at 1300 hours,” Drakon said. He walked away from the table, indicating that the meeting was over. The whispers and mutterings he heard as he left the room were no more than he expected under the circumstances.
Listening carefully to make sure no one followed, he strode to the roofless room where he kept his blood stores. The refrigeration unit ran on solar power, but the door was flush with the intact room adjoining it. Drakon had no need to step into the dangerous morning sunlight. He opened the two manual locks, noting again that his supplies seemed more thin than he remembered, and withdrew a vial of blood. He took a careful, measured amount—just enough to keep him strong and alert, but never quite sufficient to ease his hunger completely.
It seemed all he had become was hunger. Hunger for blood, for peace, for revenge. And now for a woman he’d only met a few hours ago.
He locked the blood away again, boarded up the room and returned to the labyrinthine corridors of the Hold. Lark’s unique scent seemed to permeate the entire building, and his new and constant state of arousal was worse than a week without blood.
“Be careful,” Brita said, coming up behind him.
Drakon turned to face her. “More rumblings from the crew?” he asked.
“I’ve known you too long,” she said. “Don’t forget I’ve seen the stray kitten you brought in.”
“Your point?”
“You usually don’t have any problem with women, but that female’s got you riled, and you aren’t thinking clearly.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” he said softly.
She shrugged. “Whatever you plan to do with her when you have the information you want, be careful. Shank could be right—she might be a spy for the Enforcers, just waiting for the perfect time to signal them.”
“I had considered that,” he said drily. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.”
“Just don’t put it off too long.” With a shake of her head, she walked away.
Damn her, Drakon thought. He should never have let it become so obvious. But Brita was right. In a matter of hours he seemed to have developed some kind of unprecedented obsession with his captive, and it wasn’t normal. Not normal at all.
He didn’t like puzzles. He never had. In his old life, everything had seemed clear-cut, the rules easy to follow. All that had ended with his conversion.
Now he had begun to realize that not everything had changed. Once he’d been capable of real emotion. Humans believed that even new-made Opiri lost their ability to “feel,” and Drakon had believed they were right.
But they were wrong. And Drakon was beginning to realize just how wrong. What troubled him most wasn’t just the way Lark aroused physical need, but that she also touched parts of him he’d believed long dead. The ability to admire courage, to recognize the admirable traits among those he’d once served.
And to make dangerous mistakes.
He returned to his room, collected himself outside the door and went in. Lark was sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up and her eyes closed. Her lovely face was almost haggard, with shadows under her eyes and tension above her brows that couldn’t be feigned.
“How was your meeting?” she asked, opening her eyes. “Has your crew decided to throw me to The Preacher’s tender mercies?”
“No,” he said, standing very still as her scent washed over him and produced what had become his body’s inevitable response.
“What next, then?”
Drakon sat on the chair. “Tonight we have a job, and you’ll be left here under guard. When we’re done, we’ll test the validity of your information.”
“I’m not going to run, you know.”
“We’ll know how much you can be trusted soon enough.”
Leaning forward, Lark wrapped her arms around her knees. “Who are you, Sammael? What brought an obviously educated and cultured man such as yourself to become a Fringe Boss dealing in stolen goods?”
Drakon laughed to himself. Yes, in his old life he had received a fairly decent, rudimentary schooling, the one afforded all Enclave citizens. But Lark spoke of education in a difference sense, and her use of the word culture was meant to convey some kind of status far above the one he’d been born with.
He’d never been one of the Enclave’s elite. What he’d learned of “culture” had come from his Opir Sire, who had seen something in him worth cultivating and had boosted Drakon up the Opir ladder from serf to vassal to Freeblood in a remarkably short period of time. He had stopped aging at twenty-nine, five years ago. It seemed an eternity.
“I was one of those dissidents the government is so fond of denouncing,” he said, skirting very close to the truth. “I spoke out against certain unjust laws and restrictions, the forced separation of families under the Deportation Act.”
“Then you agree with the mayor,” she said with what seemed to be real interest. “You’d like to see an end to deportation.”
“I would like to see some other means of dealing with the problem of satisfying the Opiri,” he said. “But I spoke out on these matters before Shepherd came to office, and I was warned in advance that I was to be taken in for questioning. So I escaped.”
“Shepherd held the same views then, and he was a senator....”
“I had no reason to trust any political authority, whatever his or her promises.”
A spark of anger flashed in Lark’s eyes, but she covered it quickly. “You’re right,” she said. “They can’t be trusted.”
And you didn’t like hearing me criticize the government, he thought.
“Patterson and Shepherd are very much the same, in spite of their supposedly opposing views on peace and deportation,” he said. “And whatever their earlier ideas might have been, power has a strange effect on people. It changes their commitments and alters their promises.”
“How has power affected you?” she asked sharply. “Everyone knows it’s dog-eat-dog in the Fringe. How many people have you killed, just to keep your power?”
“I do whatever is necessary to protect those under my care.”
“Your care? Stealing food from people who need it, dealing in contraband, trading on citizens’ fear of deportation by demanding everything of value they have just so they can—”
“And yet you came here knowing all this,” he interrupted. “You worked for those who abused the people from whom I steal ‘everything of value.’ What benefits did you receive from your employment, Lark?”
Flushing, Lark looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said, as if she meant it. “We’ve all become harder since the War.”
“No,” Drakon said. “People haven’t changed. Only the circumstances.”
“The entire human race never had to fight for its very survival before.”
“And now the Opir race does the same.”
“You’re defending them?”
Drakon knew he’d almost revealed too much. There was something about this woman that threw him so far off balance that he thought he could actually confide in her. Let her see something of himself that he’d shown no one else since he’d been with Lord Julius. Explain why he had to...
“I’ll have a tray brought to you,” he said, turning to leave.
“Wait,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
He turned halfway, his hand on the doorknob.
“Don’t you want the test information?”
“Tell me,” he said.
She did, in brisk detail, as if he were a military commander and she a soldier making a formal report. Drakon could find nothing suspicious in what she said, but that meant nothing at all.
“You’ll remain here for the day,” he said. “You may not see me again for some time, but my lieutenant, Brita, will see to your needs.”
“And will you keep me chained while you’re away?”
“Should I?”
Her direct gaze met his. “I promise to be good,” she said with a wry half smile.
Instinct—blind, animal instinct—almost drove Drakon to join Lark on the bed and take her up on her earlier offer. But once again he controlled himself, remembering that they had nothing in common except that she was human, and he had once been.
“Keep your promise, Lark,” he said, striding to the door. “Be very, very good.”
Chapter 5
“He’s crazy.”
The woman with the short black hair and nose ring took the chair, folded her arms and stared at Phoenix balefully. Phoenix had seen Sammael’s lieutenant when she’d run into his meeting with The Preacher, but hadn’t really met Brita until she had brought a breakfast tray bearing an odd combination of nutrient bars and surprisingly fresh vegetables, along with a change of clothing. She came again at lunchtime, when she’d escorted Phoenix to one of the shared bathrooms to clean up.
Phoenix had seen and heard enough to know that Sammael and Brita didn’t always see eye to eye. But Phoenix had no idea where Sammael had gone, and Brita hadn’t enlightened her. In fact, the woman had barely spoken, and on the third visit, when she’d brought a sparse dinner, she’d left Phoenix alone for well over eight hours.
By Phoenix’s estimation, it was probably about four in the morning...an odd time for Sammael’s second-in-command to come calling.
“Why?” Phoenix asked. “Because he believes me? Or has he done something else you don’t approve of?”
Brita scowled. “I got a message from one of the crew,” she said. “I guess your information must have panned out.”
That didn’t sound right to Phoenix. Sammael hadn’t said he planned to check on it when he’d left. And even if he had, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to act on what he’d learned either last night or this morning.
Studying the woman’s grim face, Phoenix pretended to be relieved...which wasn’t so far from the truth.
“Then I guess he’s not so crazy after all,” she said. “Maybe it’s time you started to trust me, as he does.”
“Not likely. I’m just following orders.”
“It sounds as if you don’t trust Sammael’s judgment.”
“I was against keeping you here,” Brita said, the words sounding almost bitter. “If I were him, I’d have killed you on sight.”
Phoenix sat very lightly on the edge of the bed, her feet planted firmly on the floor. “Really?” she said. “It seems to me that your obvious dislike of me isn’t just concern over who I am and what I may be doing here. You’re personally worried about Sammael, aren’t you?” She smiled. “Afraid that I might have some...undue influence over him?”
“You?” Brita snorted. “I know you’ve been offering him every asset you have, but he hasn’t taken you up on your offer, has he?”
Phoenix clenched her jaw, wondering exactly how much Sammael had told Brita. “All I want to do is get out of San Francisco,” she said.
“And you think he sees you as anything but a tool? He’s had better than you a hundred times.”
That was just the kind of reaction that told Phoenix she had to keep pushing. She knew next to nothing about this woman, who clearly had almost as much authority over the crew as Sammael did.
She had to uncover Brita’s motives, decipher her relationship with Sammael, and learn just how much of an obstruction she might be to Phoenix’s mission.
There was no sign that Brita had any idea what Sammael really was. But what if she did? If she was as close to him as she seemed...
Surely not. No free human would aid an Opir spy, even assuming she also knew nothing of what Erebus intended for the mayor.
Still, this was the Fringe, where anything was possible and hostility against the government was rampant. Phoenix had to be certain. She had to risk asking questions of a woman who obviously despised her.
Even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers.
“Are you his lover?” she asked bluntly.
Brita’s muscles tensed as if she were about to fling herself on Phoenix. Phoenix braced herself for attack.
“His lover?” Brita spat, visibly struggling to get her anger under control. “Neither one of us has time for that.”
Phoenix released her breath slowly. At least she wasn’t dealing with jealousy, which was a very dangerous and irrational emotion.
What troubled Phoenix was that her relief wasn’t in the least objective. It was uncomfortably personal, as if she couldn’t bear the thought that—
“By the way,” Brita said, abruptly derailing Phoenix’s uneasy train of thought. “Sammael said to move you to a new room of your own.”
Phoenix stared at the Fringer woman in surprise, noting that her body had relaxed as if there had never been any tension between her and the prisoner.
And that made Phoenix very, very suspicious.
“I don’t understand,” Phoenix said. “I thought Sammael wanted me to stay here.”
Brita stretched out her long legs and crossed her ankles. “He doesn’t want you to leave the premises, but you may be staying here for a while, and you can’t spend all your time locked up in this room.”
“Sammael’s orders?” Phoenix asked.
Brita didn’t answer. She rose and jerked her head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll show you to your new digs.”
She strode through the door without once looking back. Phoenix followed slowly, half-expecting an ambush.
The corridor outside was damp and cold. The only light came from Brita’s headlamp, which she turned on as soon as they left Sammael’s room, and a few flickering lights spaced several yards apart. Phoenix assumed they conserved energy whenever possible, since the Fringe’s access to the city’s power grid was strictly limited.
Brita escorted Phoenix along several corridors and stopped before a warped door. “About as good as any room you’ll find here,” she said, “and it has a decent bed.”
She led Phoenix inside. “If you need anything,” she said, “bang on the door. This place gave up being soundproof a long time ago, if it ever was. But you wouldn’t be very smart to try and leave this room without an escort. Every exit from this building is guarded by a whole network of booby traps and alarms, and they have to be disarmed very carefully.”
“How many prisoners do you have here, anyway?” Phoenix asked.
“Just do as I tell you.” Brita closed the door, locking it from the outside. Phoenix listened for a while after Brita’s footsteps had receded into the distance.
This was obviously some kind of test...or a trap. And Phoenix was by no means sure that it was Sammael’s idea. She would certainly learn the truth when Sammael and his crew returned. Since they worked at night, they’d be finishing up their current “business” by dawn or soon after...only a couple of hours away.
Brita had told her not to leave the room, and Phoenix knew it would be dangerous to try. On the other hand, she might never have a better shot at looking for evidence that Sammael was in direct communication with Drakon, and how he might lead her to the assassin. The odds that anything obvious would turn up were probably thousands to one, but the odds weren’t her concern. The looking was.
Still, she didn’t attempt to leave until she heard voices that seemed to be coming from outside the building, too indistinct for her to decipher the words but clear enough for her to identify one of the speakers as Brita.
After a few moments’ careful consideration, Phoenix decided to take the risk. She tested the door and quickly discovered that the lock was broken—more proof that this might very well be a trap. She paused outside, listening again.
Brita definitely wasn’t in the building, and Phoenix was finally able to pinpoint the direction of the voices. Before she did anything else, she had to know what Sammael’s lieutenant was up to.
Still, she hesitated, sensing something out of kilter besides the obviously ineffective lock. It took her a few minutes to find the webwork of nearly invisible wires stretched between floor and ceiling on each side of the door, clearly meant to trigger an alarm on contact. Or perhaps do something much worse.
But Brita clearly didn’t know that this govrat’s training had included such esoteric skills as disarming bombs and alarm systems.
In five minutes, Phoenix had found the trigger and disabled it. She used every one of her half-dhampir skills to make her way through the maze of corridors while avoiding the surveillance cameras she spotted at each end of every hall or corridor. She found a rear exit and searched the area for the “booby traps” Brita had mentioned.
As she’d suspected, there didn’t seem to be any safeguards to prevent escape, only to keep potential enemies out. If Sammael’s crew did take prisoners or hostages, they certainly weren’t confined in rooms with half-broken locks.
Once she was certain she wasn’t going to trip any alarms, Phoenix carefully moved through the outer door. It was hidden from the view of outside observers by the strategic placement of old crates and pieces of discarded metal and wood, but the voices grew more distinct, and soon she could make out the words.
“I told you I’m happy where I am,” Brita said. “I don’t care what you offer me. I’m not switching crews now.”
“Even though everyone in the Fringe knows that Sammael’s crew is getting restless because he gives half your booty away?” the man’s voice asked.
“He gives a shit about the people who live here. And you’re wrong about his crew. I grew up in the Fringe. I know what it’s like, and I know how to survive here. Sammael’s no weakling, and you’re never getting to him through me.”
“We can always find someone else.”
“You don’t think Sammael’s watching? You think he’s so soft that he’d let some traitor go over to your Boss?”
There was a long silence, and Phoenix could almost hear the man’s shrug.
“Your funeral,” he said. “But The Preacher’s gonna come for Sammael’s turf sooner or later, and it’s gonna be a nasty war. Whoever loses is gonna take his crew down with him, so you better make sure you’re on the right side.”
“And you better make sure you don’t come here again, or I’ll kill you myself.”
The man laughed. “You can try.”
The sound of his footsteps receded, and then there was only the darkness and silence.
Phoenix retreated just inside the door and waited until Brita returned, disarmed the alarms and stepped into the Hold. Her pupils were huge in the darkness, and when she saw Phoenix she stopped in apparent shock.
“You were talking to someone from The Preacher’s crew,” Phoenix said, leaning against the wall.
Brita’s eyes narrowed. “You got past the web.”
“You were laying a trap for me,” Phoenix said, dodging the question. “Why?”
“Because you’re not who you say you are.”
As you are not, Phoenix thought. “You’ve obviously believed that from the beginning,” she said aloud, taking a step toward Sammael’s lieutenant. “Who do you think I am, Brita?”
“You’re not human.”
Phoenix wasn’t shocked. If she recognized Brita, then it was bound to work the other way. But she had to be sure. “Why would you think that?” she asked calmly.
“Maybe Sammael is blind, but I’m not.”
“And what do you see so clearly that he doesn’t?”
“Things like how easily you move in the dark. And other—” She cut the air with her hand. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I just know.”
“Do I look inhuman?”
“Looks can deceive.”
Indeed they can, Phoenix thought. “If what you believe is true,” she said, preparing herself for a fight she didn’t want, “why didn’t you tell Sammael at the beginning?”
Brita turned on Phoenix again, ignoring her question. “If you’re not human, you have to be with Aegis,” she said. “You’re here to find and expose Sammael, and whatever Bosses you can take down with him.”
“You’re Sammael’s lieutenant,” Phoenix said. “If you’re so sure about this, you have an obligation to tell him, don’t you?”
“Why are you so eager for him to find out?” Brita asked.
“Why are you so willing to keep it from him?”
“Because...” Brita nearly trembled with anger. “You know why.”
“Could it be that you think I might let him know about enemy Bosses sending envoys to his lieutenant? He might wonder how often you’ve done this before.”
“You have nothing on me,” Brita snarled.
“Does he know you’re not quite human, either?”
Brita froze. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were out there with no light, and it’s dark as pitch in here. You aren’t wearing a headlamp, but you saw me as soon as you walked through the door.”
Lips pressed tightly together, Brita rearmed the alarm system. “You’re wrong.”
“I doubt it. It’s true that you don’t look like a dhampir, and you aren’t a Daysider if you can see so well in the dark, but—”
“A Daysider?” Brita raised a clenched fist. “You’re calling me one of them? Is that what you’re saying?”
Brita did an excellent job of feigning rage, Phoenix thought. A reaction like that couldn’t easily be faked.
But why would someone neither human nor dhampir nor Daysider, evidently unknown to Aegis, be in the Fringe working for a Boss who happened to be an Opir agent?
It couldn’t be a coincidence. She and Sammael had worked too closely together to hide from each other. No...Brita knew what Sammael was, and she was working with him...working to help the assassin prepare for his strike.
Phoenix knew he had to be a Daysider, and that Brita was just as potentially dangerous as Sammael. He was still almost certainly the one in charge, but that was little comfort under the circumstances.
But what was she? She had human coloring and seemed to lack the sharp incisors, but she could easily be hiding her teeth under caps. She could be a blood-drinker.
Or was she, like Phoenix, more human than Opir? She obviously wasn’t a serf. Why would the Opiri, who despised humans, use someone like her to forward their designs? “I’m not calling you one of ‘them,’” Phoenix said.
“But I’m calling you an Aegis operative,” Brita said.
“Now you’re the crazy one,” Phoenix said. “Sure, I’m not completely human. But some of us don’t want to work for Aegis, and the only way to avoid that is to get out of the city.” She met Brita’s gaze. “I’d guess it’s the same with you, isn’t it?”
“I saw you run right toward the fire, right into danger, when you were supposedly trying to escape the Enforcers,” Brita said, jerking up her chin. “I know you’re in the Fringe to locate Bosses and turn them over to the government.”
“You know?” Phoenix asked mockingly. “Sammael has harbored the same suspicions, hasn’t he? Why hasn’t he taken action?”
“Because...because you...”
“Have him under my spell?” She snorted. “If I were after the Bosses, I’d have had two of them right where the Enforcers could find them. You’ll notice I didn’t alert them.”
“Because maybe you wanted to catch more than two fish.”
“But I haven’t tried to escape, and by now—if you were right about me—I’d have realized that my odds of exposing any of the other Bosses would be just about impossible. Maybe we should just agree that you aren’t ready to defect to another crew and I’m not here to betray Sammael, and go on about our business as if nothing has changed.”
“No deal.”
“Even if I tell him what you were doing out there with one of The Preacher’s crew?” Phoenix sighed. “Look, I’m not asking you to trust me. Just let me get out of the city.”
“Not good enough.”
“What do you want, Brita? I was right before, wasn’t I? It’s not just a matter of your own survival and freedom. You may not be Sammael’s lover, but you’re more than merely his lieutenant.”
Brita seemed ready to object, but suddenly her shoulders sagged and she looked away.
“I owe him a lot,” she said. Most Bosses use people who aren’t members of their crews like disposable objects. The Scrappers, everyone who tries to survive here in the Fringe, don’t matter except when they can be useful. And since Bosses only recruit the strongest and meanest people in the Fringe, it’s always the weakest who end up being victims.”
“And you used to be one of the victims, even though you’re more than human? You must have grown up having to hide what you are.” Phoenix rubbed her lower lip. “What is that, anyway? Not Opir, not dhampir, not Daysider....what are you?”
They stared at each other. Brita finally broke the impasse.
“Sammael took chances on a lot of us,” she said. “But we learned fast, and pretty soon we were as good as the other crews. Maybe better, because we didn’t take anything for granted.” She ran her hands through her spiked hair. “If it matters to you at all, Sammael gets food and other necessities to the Scrappers, keeps the worst-off from starving. He holds back some of our booty just for that, even if it comes out of his share.”
“You make him sound like a paragon of virtue.”
“He can be as ruthless as any of the others if he’s riled enough. I’ve seen him take down two Bosses, which is why not even The Preacher messes with him, big as he talks. But he’s one of the good guys, if someone like you can see anything past what you’re taught by your government masters.”
“Not my masters.”
“So you keep saying. But now your excuse is that you just want to get out of working for Aegis. It’s all lies.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’ve done or who I am. I’m not here to expose anyone. Sammael will sell me what I need because he can use what I’ll pay him. And once I’m outside the city, you won’t have to worry about my motives, will you?”
“If you even plan to leave the city.”
“We’re talking in circles now, Brita,” Phoenix said. “But tell me...does Sammael know what you are?”
She waited for a tense, extended moment for Brita to inadvertently betray her true relationship with the Daysider. But Brita’s answer was firm and simple.
“No,” she said. “And I will kill you if you tell him.”
“Then we do understand each other.”
Brita stared at Phoenix for a long time. “I’m going to show you something,” she said. “I want you to see this before you go back and betray him to the Enforcers.”
“I told you I’m not—”
“I’ll have to take you outside the Hold.”
“I don’t think Sammael will like that, do you?”
“This won’t be a trap, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know you want to know more about him, and I’m going to give you that chance.”
The other woman’s sudden change of attitude both worried and intrigued Phoenix. She couldn’t very well turn down any chance to see more of the Hold or anything else Brita was willing to show her, even though Brita was almost certainly lying about her own motives. “So will you try to slit my throat as soon as we’re outside?” Phoenix asked.
“I’ll give you fair warning when I’m ready,” Brita said.
“That’s very kind of you.”
Brita shrugged. “You stay here.” She strode off, leaving Phoenix right in front of the armed entrance. She returned a few minutes later with the blindfold in her hand.
“What’s the point in taking me to see something if I can’t see it?” Phoenix asked. “Or are you going to put me up in front of a firing squad?”
“It’s only until we get there,” Brita said, moving behind Phoenix to tie the cloth around her head. “Then you’ll see everything, I promise.”
Possibly even my own death, Phoenix thought. But she was still ready to fight, and she wasn’t going down without one.
Chapter 6
Brita took Phoenix’s arm, and then they were outside in the damp coolness of early morning, the smell of the bay carried on a chill predawn breeze from the east. Phoenix took particular care to note and memorize the various small changes in scent along their path, the many turns and double-backs, everything that might help her find this way again.
After a very short while, Phoenix realized they were heading south, toward the Wall. Her heart jumped in her chest. Was Brita going to let Phoenix out of the city without Sammael’s knowledge?
Soon enough, Phoenix realized her guess was wrong. Brita removed her blindfold and Phoenix saw that they were near the corner of one of the countless decrepit buildings that provided such unreliable shelter for the “citizens” of the Fringe. Brita gestured for Phoenix to stay where she was.
From her position, Phoenix could see the Wall rising up above the shorter buildings, separated from them by an empty lot. The barrier was studded with thick shards of glass and every other conceivable sharp surface, capable of stopping a would-be human escapee or slowing a Nightsider invader. The top of the Wall was crowned by coil after coil of razor and barbed wire, extending the barrier’s height by another good twenty feet.
But there were clearly weaker spots in the Wall—small cracks deepened by time and changes in weather, crumbling concrete here and there, evidence of efforts to file down the sharp points that made even touching the Wall so deadly. And along the base, stretching to either side as far as Phoenix could see, were mountains of boxes and metal scraps and every kind of abandoned appliance and machine, arranged in such a way as to appear like garbage thrown against the Wall. It was exactly the deceptive kind of barrier used to block the entrances to Sammael’s Hold.
A concentrated effort by Aegis or the Enforcers could clear it away in a matter of days, exposing the hidden passages the Bosses kept finding...or creating. But there were never enough Enforcers to waste on patrolling the south Wall and preventing a handful of lawbreakers from escaping every few weeks.
Phoenix was about to ask what she should be looking for when the faint beam of a headlamp pierced the darkness and a small group of people—men, women and children—crept out of the shadows. Two of Sammael’s crew seemed to be leading them, while several others, armed with stolen Enforcer rifles, followed behind, walking backward to watch for any pursuers.
Sammael came last. His headlamp was barely bright enough to extend a few inches beyond his face, but he moved easily, as if this place was very familiar to him. He spoke to his crew in a voice too low for Phoenix to hear, and then joined the emigrants.
There were about a dozen of them, huddled together with their meager belongings. Meager, in some cases, because their owners could only carry so much out of the city. It was evident that one family was from the Mids, another couple almost certainly from the Nobs. But the mingled fear and hope was the same on every face.
These were people condemned for deportation for minor crimes such as shoplifting or running a red light—foolish little infractions that showed how desperate the government was becoming in its search for convicts to send to Erebus as blood serfs. Some were accompanied by family members who would give up everything to remain with their loved ones, even brave the dangers of the southern Zone and risk their own very possible deaths.
Phoenix leaned against the wall of the building, taking deep breaths to ease her distress. She had never been so close to one of these unfortunate people. Aegis had kept her protected from such sights, from such thoughts.
Now there was no escape from reality. She had always disliked the practice of deportation, but the situation was complicated and very volatile. That was why the two main political factions, Patterson’s and Shepherd’s, were so hostile to each other. No one wanted deportation, but those who supported Patterson believed an end to it would lead to another devastating war, while Shepherd’s supporters claimed that there had to be another way to negotiate a new, permanent kind of peace.
She turned her troubled attention back to the waiting emigrants. A wealthy-looking couple was clinging to each other, the fiftyish woman with a tearstained face and the man staring about him in apparent confusion, as if he couldn’t guess how he’d come to be in such a place. Their money obviously hadn’t been enough to buy their way out of punishment.
The Mids family, consisting of two young children and a single man, sat together in a small circle of misery. The girl, perhaps ten, simply looked blank. The boy, a few years younger, was crying. The father’s face was wretched with misery.
Was he leaving a wife behind, a wife already condemned? Did he hate this city, one of the last refuges for humanity on the West Coast of the former United States?
“There will be additional supplies waiting for you outside the walls,” Sammael was saying, cutting into her thoughts. “You’ll be in the Zone for the most of the next hundred miles south of the city. Avoid the agricultural Enclaves. There are said to be several unauthorized human settlements between here and the Los Angeles Enclave. I can’t vouch for their safety, but you’ll be better off with other people around you.”
The man with the two children pushed his hand inside his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of A-bills. “I’m sorry I don’t have more,” he whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears. “If I did...”
“Keep it,” Sammael said, stepping back. “You may eventually find them useful, and I don’t need your money.”
“But I understood...”
“I don’t need your money,” Sammael repeated. He knelt to face the little boy, stroking the child’s dirty hair away from his forehead. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. He smiled at the girl. “You’ll take care of your little brother, won’t you?”
The girl’s face lost its blank look, and she focused on Sammael’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll take care of him.”
Sammael took her hand and squeezed it very gently. “That’s a brave girl,” he said. He got up, nodded to the father and turned his attention to the wealthy-looking couple.
“Two hundred A’s are all I need from you,” he said.
The woman’s moist eyes widened. “That’s all?”
“You’ll have a hard enough time adapting as it is,” Sammael said. He hesitated, lowering his voice. “You do understand you may die out there, or be taken by rogue Freebloods.”
“We understand,” the man said. “At least we have a chance.” He held out his hand. “Thank you.”
Sammael ignored the hand, and the man let it fall. “There will be no turning back,” he said.
A series of nods, a sob, a sharp breath followed his announcement, but no one seemed interested in backing out. A few moments later, Sammael joined his crew in chivying the frightened people into what seemed to be a solid stack of concrete blocks.
Phoenix continued to stare long after they had disappeared from view. Her bones seemed to have melted, and only a sheer act of will kept her on her feet.
Sammael had let those people out for nothing, or almost nothing. He’d risked his life and those of his crew out of sheer altruism, just as Brita had described.
No, not just altruism. Compassion. A Daysider showing compassion to his enemies, people he was supposedly willing to help destroy by aiding in the mayor’s assassination.
It was a paradox. He had no stake in these peoples’ lives, no reason to want to help them.
“Only three Bosses smuggle people out,” Brita whispered, “and the price the others charge is very high. With The Preacher, it’s a miracle if you get out at all. Sammael does it because he wants to help.”
Does he? Phoenix thought. Or was all this some kind of trick to upset what Brita believed to be Phoenix’s plan? Was it possible that Sammael was pushing these people right into the arms of bloodsuckers waiting to ambush them outside the walls? Wasn’t that just as likely...more likely coming from an Opir?
No, she thought. Not from a man who had touched the little boy with such gentleness, spoken to the little girl in just the right way to give her a purpose, a reason to go on.
None of it made any sense.
“Come on,” Brita whispered, grabbing Phoenix’s arm again. “We need to get back before they do.”
Phoenix resisted her tug. “You showed me this because you think it would change my mind about exposing Sammael and your crew...if that were my intention, and if I could get out of here alive?”
Brita didn’t answer. She blindfolded Phoenix again and hurried her back to the Hold by the usual circuitous route. But every moment, Phoenix was aware that she was being given a chance to escape, that Brita must have had more than one reason for taking the “guest” out to observe Sammael’s act of apparently selfless philanthropy.
Was Brita hoping that she could force “Lark” to act recklessly to expose Sammael and the secret passage? Did she want an excuse for a fight and a chance to kill? Phoenix didn’t give her what she wanted. Once they were back at the Hold, Brita escorted Phoenix to her room, followed her in and closed the door.
“You didn’t run,” she said.
“But you expected me to try,” Phoenix said, standing near the bed.
“I don’t know what to make of you, and I don’t like—”
“Not knowing,” Phoenix finished. “Believe me, I understand.”
Brita snorted. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, for now,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I won’t be watching.”
“And I’ll keep your secrets as long as you keep mine.”
“And what you just saw this morning?”
“I’m not planning on telling anyone. It might backfire on me, too.” She offered her hand, which Brita pretended not to see.
“The others will be back anytime now,” the lieutenant said. “I suggest you get some rest.”
She left, played with the lock outside—presumably with the intent of hiding the fact that it had never been functional in the first place—and walked away, her footsteps barely audible in the corridor.
Twisting her hair into the usual ponytail and tying it with a scrap of twine, Phoenix considered what she’d learned. There was so much she had yet to understand. Once again she weighed instinct against her orders. If she were to follow her instructions precisely, this would be the time to return to Aegis with the intelligence she had collected...presuming she could escape now that she’d let several opportunities pass. She’d made direct contact with an Opir spy, after all. And more.
But that wasn’t good enough. Even if she could manage to get away, she still didn’t know exactly what role Sammael was playing in the assassination. If she could pin that down, she could return to Aegis having done everything she could.
That meant she had to keep pretending to want to escape the city and still find a way to stay with Sammael until she understood his connection to Drakon. And she couldn’t forget her purpose, though part of her wished she could get away from the Enclave...from duty, from doubt and all the other emotions she shouldn’t be feeling. From wondering if Sammael’s actions with the emigrants had been done out of genuine compassion Opiri weren’t supposed to possess. That no agent of murderers could possess.
She sat on the bed and massaged her temples. Wasn’t the fact that she wanted to believe proof that she hadn’t been the right choice for the job after all? They should have sent someone harder, more focused, more dedicated. Like her father. Someone who wouldn’t be thinking that maybe she wanted to stay with her enemy...not out of necessity, but because she was beginning to—
Care. About an Opir who took in the weak of the Fringe, shared his “take” of profits with the poor, helped human convicts escape and refused to take advantage of a prisoner he badly wanted.
She laughed. She kept assuming all that was true. God help her.
But it wasn’t too late. There was still time to pull herself back from the brink and harden her heart, remembering that Sammael’s supposed goodness to the fugitives and the people of the Fringe meant nothing in the end. His breed had killed Dad, would keep killing until they’d won their war and enslaved all mankind.
Turning off her troubling thoughts, she slept fitfully for the next two hours, trained, as were all agents, to rest whenever the opportunity arose but with senses tuned for any change in the immediate environment. By dawn—which she couldn’t see but sensed as clearly as if she were looking out a window—she woke to the sound of the crew returning to the Hold.
But she didn’t hear Sammael’s voice. She rolled off the bed and half-ran to the door, every muscle tense and heart beating fast. Other voices rose in argument, and she knew something had gone wrong.
Sammael hadn’t returned. Phoenix was struck by the sudden fear that the Enforcers scouring the Fringe, supposedly looking for the treacherous govrat, had taken Sammael against orders, anyway. Could his helping the emigrants have exposed him somehow?
There was another, just as chilling, possibility. Phoenix had heard the very unsubtle threats leveled at Brita by The Preacher’s representative. What if one of his followers, or a whole crew of them, had caught Sammael somewhere alone?
She banged on the door for a good minute before it swung open with a loud creak. Standing in the doorway was a small, wiry man she hadn’t met.
“Brita said to check up on you,” the man said, gazing at her with pointed curiosity.
“Where is she?”
“Busy. You need the bathroom or something?”
“I want to talk to Brita,” she said, trying to balance the tone of her voice between worried concern and stubborn insistence.
“She ain’t available. I’ll tell her you asked after her when she’s free.” He began to close the door, but Phoenix wedged her boot in the crack.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Repo.”
“Where’s Sammael?” she asked. “Did something happen to him?”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve heard a lot of arguing, but not his voice.”
Repo shrugged.
“He didn’t return with your crew, did he?”
“That ain’t none of your business. It ain’t smart to pry into stuff that ain’t your business, not in the Fringe.”
“It’s my business when he’s the one who’s supposed to get me out of the city.”
“He’s Boss. He can do what he wants, and he don’t report to nobody. If your info checks out, he’ll keep his word.”
The door groaned as Repo closed it behind him. Phoenix hardly noticed.
If your info checks out, the man had said. So Brita had been lying about Sammael already knowing that Phoenix had been telling the “truth” about her information.
But why? Just to throw Phoenix off her guard even more? Someone’s voice—a man’s—rose above the others Phoenix could hear in another part of the building.
Sammael’s. He was back. Safe.
Finding her way to the bed, Phoenix sat down heavily. She felt as if she had won a sudden and unexpected reprieve from some terrible punishment, and yet she was ashamed. Ashamed that she’d cared about Sammael’s welfare, not just about losing her chance to learn the nature of his connection to Drakon.
Ashamed that she could imagine his fingers pushing her hair back as tenderly as he had the boy’s, speaking to her just as gently.
Could she make him care for her? Not simply desire her, but care in a way that he wouldn’t want her to leave his side until his work was done?
No. She had to concentrate on what she knew was real...the sexual desire he refused to act on for reasons of his own. If it was weakness he feared, she had to make him believe he was in no danger of falling into a trap by making love to her. If it was her dhampir blood that drew him to her, so much the better. He wouldn’t give himself away by trying to take it, but there still might be a way to use his craving against him.
If Brita hadn’t already told him that Phoenix was part Opir.
* * *
It had been a very close call.
The crew was nervous, exchanging uneasy whispers, fidgeting, glancing right and left as if they expected Enforcers to burst in on the Hold at any moment.
That, Drakon thought, wasn’t going to happen. The men and women who’d finished up with the shipment had narrowly escaped the Enforcers, it was true, but they weren’t anywhere near the Hold, and the crew would settle down once they knew they were safe.
But every moment of the debriefing, as Drakon covered each small error and moment of nearly fatal inattention, he thought of Lark. He had been thinking of her when they had been in the midst of unloading the shipment of produce and hiding it as close to the city Wall as possible, in preparation for bringing it through after the next nightfall made it safer to move the material.
He’d been thinking of her when they’d run into the Enforcer patrol soon after releasing the fugitive humans. He’d thought of her when he had come so very close to capture—to losing his life, since he was required and intended to die first—after he’d deliberately caught the Enforcers’ attention and led them on what once had been commonly known as a “wild-goose chase.”
And he’d imagined her body, her warm lips, her welcoming arms as he made it to the Hold just before dawn, half regretting that he had survived. Knowing that she had, at best, offered herself to him only because it was a way of buying her escape from the Enclave.
Knowing, too, that she might even have been behind the Enforcers’ attack.
Now, as he discussed the operation with his crew, he could think only of going to her. Brita had moved Lark to new quarters—ignoring Drakon’s express orders to keep her firmly locked up in his room—and had reported that their guest had been very cooperative ever since.
Perhaps too cooperative.
Recalling himself to the task at hand, Drakon finished the debriefing. “Go eat and rest,” he said, rising as he dismissed the crew. Brita and most of the others left, but a few lingered.
“What you gonna do now?” Shank said with a leering glance. “Go check on the client, maybe give her a little personal attention?” He glanced around the table at the others who had remained. “It’s her fault there’re so many Enforcers around, whether they’re really chasing her or she brought them with her.”
Drakon walked around the table and backhanded the human, sending him flying halfway across the room. It was always a risk to display his more-than-human strength, but he had to keep Shank in line before he encouraged others to defy his Boss.
When Shank lifted himself off the floor, groaning and swearing, Drakon was standing over him.
“You can leave now,” he said, “or stay and keep your mouth shut. But if you run and pass on information that can damage this Hold or any of the crew, I will personally hunt you down. Understand?”
Shank wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “I get it,” he said sullenly.
For a moment all Drakon could do was stare at the blood on Shank’s mouth. Fresh blood. So long since he’d had it. So easy to take.
So deadly to his purpose.
“Sleep,” he told the others, quickly backing away. “I’m sending most of you out tonight to finish the job. Those who don’t want to risk it and forfeit their share of the profit are free to do so.”
With many glances at the unfortunate Shank, the last of the crew filed out of the meeting room. Drakon spent a good half-hour walking aimlessly through the corridors, trying to convince himself not to go to Lark’s new quarters. He didn’t succeed.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/susan-krinard/shadowmaster/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Susan Krinard
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: Humans and vampires on the brink of warIn San Francisco, a fragile truce is threatened by an assassination plot. Dhampir agent Phoenix Stryker has the beauty, brains – and blood – to infiltrate the vampires’ secret society and save the city. But once she’s in she finds her target, the assassin Drakon, is not the monster she expected.Handsome, honourable and irresistibly attractive, Drakon will stop at nothing to save his people – and protect the woman he needs even more than the blood that keeps him alive. Now the key to the world’s survival may lie in their dangerous alliance…