Wildfire (Hidden Legacy #3)(28)

We rounded the bend and I moved deeper into the house toward the sound. I glanced at Cornelius. He held up four fingers. Four creatures. I only had four bullets left in this magazine. I’d need a lot of firepower in a hurry. I ejected the magazine, slid it into my pocket, and put my spare in. Thirteen shots, twelve in the magazine and one in the chamber. I’d have to make them count.

A short hallway turned to the left, bringing me into the second living room.

“. . . bleeding out. There is no need for violence,” Rynda said. Her voice trembled.

“Give me the file and all your problems go away.” Male voice.

“How do I know that you won’t kill us?”

“You’re playing for time, thinking that whoever fired that gun downstairs is going to rescue you.”

I pressed my back against the wall by the doorway. I couldn’t see into the room, and once I got in there, I’d have to act fast.

“I’ve been doing this a very long time. Nobody is coming to save you, Rynda.”

Cornelius closed his eyes and opened them slowly. They were very blue and luminescent, almost catlike.

“Your knight in shining armor is clutching at his guts on your floor. Apparently, you don’t care.”

A man moaned.

“Stop it!” Rynda yelled.

“Keep going the way you’re going and I’ll make you watch as they eat him alive.”

“Leave him alone!”

“Fine. Pick a kid. I’ll do one of them instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare, Vincent.”

“You know perfectly well that I would. Just give me the fucking file. This mother’s last stand is getting tiresome. Here, I’ll pick for you. That one.”

“Mom!” a little girl screamed.

I lunged into the room. Someone pressed pause on the world, the room crystal clear in a split second. On the left, a dark-haired man in black clothes with his arms crossed on his chest. The summoner Prime. Vincent.

A creature waited next to him, indigo blue, with a spray of ghostly black and paler blue rosettes and spots across its fur. At least two and a half feet tall at the shoulder, six feet long, with a thick neck crowned with a fringe of tendrils, a short wide muzzle with dagger teeth, and wide paws as big as my hand. It reminded me of a tiger.

Two bat-apes crouched by Vincent, one by his feet and the other on the table behind him. On the right, fifteen feet away, the third bat-ape sat over Edward’s body. Edward lay on his back on the blue rug. A wet wound gaped in his stomach. The third bat-ape was digging in it with its claws. Edward’s eyes were open and filled with pain.

Rynda stood behind Edward, her arms around her two children, her face a bloodless mask.

If I killed Vincent, it would cure everything that was wrong with this picture.

“Run!” I barked, and fired.

The world snapped back to its normal speed in a roar of gunfire. The bat-ape by Vincent’s feet jerked upright, throwing itself into the path of the bullet meant for the summoner. I’d missed by a tiny fraction of a second.

I pumped three bullets into the bat-ape. Its head jerked with each impact, but it still stayed upright.

Four.

Five.

Rynda didn’t move. She just stood in the same spot like a deer in headlights. Damn it.

The creature by Edward leaped over his body and charged me. I pivoted and put six bullets into its skull. It toppled over. I spun back. The first bat-ape sprawled on the floor, dead. The last bat-ape had taken its place, blocking Vincent.

Only one shot left. I put it into the bat-ape’s left lower eye, ejected the magazine, brought the other out . . .

“I wouldn’t,” Vincent said.

The feline beast snarled, a strange sound that was half pissed-off tiger and half the deep bellow of a sea lion. The fringe of bright blue tendrils, six inches long, rose in a collar around its throat, the thickened ends glowing with bright blue. His huge maw gaped open, his dagger teeth an inch from Rynda’s daughter.

“This was fun,” Vincent said. “Drop the magazine.”

I opened my hand and let it fall to the floor.

“Put the gun down.”

I crouched and lowered the weapon to the floor.

“Kick it.”

I gave the Baby Desert Eagle a nudge with my foot. The gun slid across the floor to the left side. If I threw myself down, I’d be able to grab it. If I could get close enough to Vincent, I could shock him.

The last bat-ape, Vincent’s new meat shield, crouched, revealing the summoner. Vincent was about Rogan’s age, handsome, dark brown hair, a square jaw, dark eyes, and the perfect amount of scruff on a dimpled chin—generations of all the right genes in all the right places.

If I lunged at him, the bat-ape would tear me apart.

Vincent rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I have to say this. You there, dashing male secretary! Drop the frying pan.”

The pan clattered to the floor behind me.

Vincent smiled.

That languid, assured smile told me everything I needed to know: none of us would walk out of here alive. He would kill me and Cornelius, then he would finish off Edward, Rynda, and the kids. Vincent was one of those people who derived pleasure from wielding power over others, and there was no greater power than life or death. He would toy with us, like a cat with an injured bird, then he would kill us.