Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(15)

He wished the damn things would stay put for another hour or two. They needed time, instead of some false show of optical-only optimism that would burn them both to a crisp.

Ah, the romance.





9




THE CABIN WAS OLD and small. The covert security measures were new and plentiful.

Ahmare would have been impressed under different circumstances.

Each of the four windows had iron bars and steel mesh—although only on the inside so as not to attract attention. The front door had no doubt been wooden when the place had been built, but that flimsy option had been swapped out for a reinforced steel vault panel. Motion detectors and security cameras had been mounted in each of the corners, and more mesh covered the walls, ceiling, and floor, ensuring that no vampire could dematerialize into the interior.

She was willing to bet there was an escape hatch somewhere, a way to get underground, but damned if she could find it.

“I’m going to use your shower,” the prisoner told Nexi.

He—Duran—didn’t wait for a yes or no—or for directions, not that there was any question where the running water was located. He just walked into the closet-sized loo and shut the door.

A low rushing hum came on immediately and suggested he wasn’t wasting time, and she appreciated that. But him being efficient with the soap and water wasn’t going to affect the velocity of the daylight hours. They were still going to take forever, like a bone healing on a human.

Weeks . . . months. Before mobility could once more be had. Or at least it was going to feel like that.

Ahmare looked across at the Shadow. That the female was watching her, all hunter-tracking-prey, was not a news flash, but come on. And one of the two guns with those laser sights was still palmed.

“You mind putting your weapon back in that holster,” Ahmare said.

“You’re not in a position to make demands.”

“If I was going to come at you, I would have already.”

“Tough talk.” The Shadow didn’t seem to blink, those black eyes so steady, it was as if they were made of glass, like the lens of a camera. “You like old Schwarzenegger movies? Bet that’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to a real fight.”

Ahmare made a show of checking out the interior again. The fact that the Shadow had figured out she was a teacher, not an actual fighter, seemed like a portent of failure. Sure, she had been trained in self-defense after the raids, and she had been teaching those skills to others at gyms up in Caldwell. But that was not the same as being a soldier.

Don’t think like that, she told herself. What was the saying? ‘Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right’?

The furniture was all also-ran afterthought. Mattress on a wooden stand. Travel trunk with the lid down. Table and two chairs that were handmade, but not by someone who cared about how things looked. Then again, this bolt-hole was about war: A workstation housed gun-cleaning supplies and stones to sharpen daggers and knives. Holsters for various weapons hung on pegs. Bomb detonators and sniper rifle tripods lined various shelves.

“You ever kill somebody before,” the Shadow asked. “I’m just curious.”

“Yes,” Ahmare said roughly.

“Oh, fancy. You didn’t like it, though, did you? What didn’t work for you? The mess? You seem like someone who doesn’t like messes.”

This is just a conversation, Ahmare told herself. Given what I’m going to face, this is nothing. No problem. Just words.

“Or is it the guilt.” The Shadow leaned back against the mesh-covered wall of the cabin, crossing one combat boot over the other. “Yeah, I’m guessing you don’t like the weight of the dead around your neck. The memories hang like a heavy chain right on your sternum and make it harder to breathe. When you close your eyes, the smell of the fresh meat and gunpowder comes back to you and chokes you. It’s all about being robbed of air at the end of the day, isn’t it. No more air, no more life. Both for you . . . and him. It was a him, wasn’t it. You couldn’t kill a young or another female, I don’t think. You don’t have it in you.”

Ahmare’s eyes went to the closed door of the bathroom.

Hurry, she thought.

“So who was it? Who’d you send to the Fade.”

The Shadow started to flip her gun up and down, casually tossing it and catching the weight as if she controlled every single molecule in the weapon, in herself . . . in the whole world. She seemed, as the Beretta caught air and returned to her palm again and again, to be in charge also of gravity . . . of time itself.

That confidence was captivating in the way of a cobra. Hypnotic because it was—

The Shadow pointed the gun directly at Ahmare’s chest. “Answer my fucking question.”

—deadly.

Those black eyes flashed peridot, and Ahmare knew with absolute certainty that she was going to fail at getting Chalen’s beloved back to him. The Shadow was right. She was a classroom chump, a videogamer who excelled in an armchair but was going to be picked off first in the actual field of conflict.

All target practice, no tried-and-true.

She thought of her brother and mourned him like he was already dead.

The Shadow smiled, flashing long white fangs. “Poor little girl lost in the wood. You think Duran’s your hero? You think he’s going to rescue you? Let me tell you that he won’t. That male is going to desert you when it counts and you’re going to end up dead in a place where your kin won’t find the body. If you’re smart, you’ll back that SUV out of my garage and get gone. For someone like you, it’s better to admit defeat up front than be forced into a failure that puts you in the Fade. At least if you cry uncle now, you’ll still be able to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes and the last season of The Big Bang Theory in September—while you’re working out at the gym and shooting targets on the range—”