Born in Blood (The Sentinels #1)(98)

A ripple of emotion sluggishly flowed over Frank’s face. Anger. Frustration. Regret?

“You will soon discover.”

A vague answer that told Duncan nothing. Did he mean that he didn’t know? Or had he been commanded not to say?

Fine. He was trained in interrogation. If you couldn’t get the answer you wanted from a direct approach, you came at it from another angle.

“How can Callie raise an army?”

Frank smiled and Duncan shuddered. It was creepy as hell.

“She is to be the sacrifice.”

Sacrifice?

Duncan snapped.

Launching forward, he grabbed the front of his onetime friend’s polo shirt, shoving the barrel of his gun beneath his chin.

“You bastard. Tell me where she is,” he shouted.

Frank blinked, ignoring the gun.

Or maybe he just didn’t care.

Dead was dead, after all.

Then, without warning, he tilted back his dark head to release a shrill burst of laughter.

Duncan made a sound of horror.

If the smile was creepy, his laughter was downright hair-raising.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’ve been waiting for you, O’Conner,” Frank explained.

“Why?”

“To kill you.”

His disturbing smile remained intact even as he shoved his hands against Duncan’s chest and sent him flying against the wall with enough force to rattle his teeth.

Surging back to his feet, Duncan squeezed off two shots, hitting Frank directly between the eyes. The zombie never halted as he moved forward, the bullet holes closing with magical ease.

Holy... shit.

Duncan shoved his gun back in his holster. No sense in wasting bullets. Not when there might be other enemies lurking in the dark. Enemies that might actually die from a gunshot wound.

Besides, he was pissed-off, frustrated, and overwhelmed with terror for Callie.

A good old-fashioned beat down was just what he needed.

Waiting for Frank to take another step forward, Duncan swung his fist directly at the man’s chin, connecting with a satisfying crunch of bone.

Frank stumbled back, but swiftly recovering his balance, he resumed his stoic march toward Duncan.

Reaching behind him, Duncan grabbed a vase off a nearby table, tossing it at the zombie at the same time he kicked out with his foot.

The vase shattered against Frank’s face and his kick caught him in the middle of his stomach. But once again he barely recoiled before he took a last step to stand directly before Duncan.

And then the fun began.

Managing to dodge the first punch, Duncan couldn’t avoid the uppercut that banged his head against the wall and knocked him loopy. Next came the kick to the knee that made him stumble to the side, just in time to move in the path of the right hook.

Thankfully Duncan had spent his childhood being tortured by his older siblings, which meant he could not only take a beating, but could still get in a few good punches.

They might not do any good, but dammit, if he was going down, he was going down swinging.

He didn’t know how long he played the punching bag for his old friend, but he was seeing double when he heard Fane’s voice over the ringing in his ears.

“Cop.”

A vicious blow to his stomach doubled him over, but jerking up, he managed to clip Frank on the chin with the top of his head.

Frank lost his footing and Duncan took the opportunity to glance over his shoulder at the tattooed warrior who shoved his head through the hole in the wall.

“Callie?” he demanded of the Sentinel.

Fane gave a bleak shake of his head. “Gone.”

“Goddammit.”

The word had barely left his lips when Frank was on his feet and moving back in for the kill.

The bastard was nothing if not persistent.

Duncan braced for another beating, too consumed with his rage at the knowledge they’d wasted hours on a wild goose chase to give a shit.

But just as Frank was close enough to continue the fight, three shadows appeared from behind him to drive him to the ground.

Duncan leaped out of the path of Wolfe as he went flying past, hitting the same wall that Duncan had smashed into earlier.

“We have to get him downstairs,” the Tagos muttered, jumping to his feet as he absently wiped the blood from his bottom lip.

Duncan frowned, watching in horror as Frank pinned Arel to the floor, impervious to Niko’s vicious kicks to his head.

“Why?”

“There’s a panic room we can lock him in.”

Duncan shuddered. “Do you think it will hold him?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” the Sentinel muttered. “But it will give us a few hours to come up with a better plan.”

Duncan grimaced.

A better plan ...

Yep, that about summed it up.

Callie had heard horror stories over the years of abandoned children who’d gone in search of their birth parents.

She knew one witch who had approached her mother only to have the hysterical woman pull out a gun and shoot her in the leg. Another psychic learned he’d been removed from the home by the police when it was discovered that his father was using him to read the minds of ATM customers to discover their PIN numbers.

Still, she was fairly certain that she took first prize in the Worse-Parents-Ever contest.