Page 12 of Avenger of Sins

John yelped in surprise, phone falling to the ground as he instinctively reached for his Glock.

“Night?” Zahira exclaimed. “Are you alright? Where are Caleb and Gray?”

“Here,” Caleb said, and a surge of relief nearly took John to his knees.

Instead, he flung his arms around them as they emerged from the darkness behind Night. They reeked of smoke, burnt hair, and a disturbing smell like charred pork. “Fuck, you two had me scared for a minute,” he said.

Caleb hugged him back. “Sorry. We ended up toe to toe with Jo, and it didn’t go so well for anyone involved.”

“Tell me.”

“We will. But let’s get out of here first, before anyone starts wondering who we are and comes over to ask questions.”

It was a good suggestion. They all climbed back in the SUV; Zahira carefully executed a three-point turn and aimed them away from the fire and back toward town.

As they drove, Caleb related everything that had happened. When he finished, Night said, “This was pointless. The mortal is dead, the other mortals gone. We should abandon this foolishness.”

“I would if we could,” Caleb told her. “And honestly, if you want to take off, this would be a good time to do it. Kaniyar’s got other things on her plate; you could be long gone before she realizes.”

Night considered for a moment. Then she shrugged. “We will hunt together?”

“Yeah.” Caleb made a face. “We’re pretty hungry after getting set on fire and then being shot in the head.”

“Then I will stay.”

“You’re a drakul of simple needs.” Caleb leaned forward and held something out to John.

Puzzled, he extended his palm, and Caleb dropped a bullet into it. “This is what we were shot with. Silver-jacketed lead. You might want to send it to Kaniyar for ballistics, but I don’t know who it could belong to except for Pittman.”

John’s heart sank. Ryan had said he was a killer, but he hadn’t mentioned Pittman. “That isn’t good.”

“And you didn’t see Pittman with them, correct?” Zahira asked.

“No.”

John curled his fingers around the bullet. “So either Ryan let him go, or left him tied up somewhere. Or he’s dead.”

“Yeah.” Caleb sighed. “And Ryan doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to leave loose ends.”

Jo whimpered as Ryan carefully wound gauze around her splinted fingers. She needed a hospital, but SPECTR would certainly be monitoring any emergency rooms within a hundred miles of Thomasville. So instead, he’d stopped at the first all-night drugstore they came across and bought everything he could think of that might ease her pain and halt the bleeding.

This was his fault. He should never have let her stay behind and confront the drakul alone. But she’d wanted more blood,and if their plans were to work, he needed to keep what they had left for himself.

And he’d wanted to talk to John.

He’d been in the car, listening for thoughts, for any sign of someone waking up at the commotion inside Foster’s house. And then, to his shock, he’d touched a mind he knew almost as well as his own.

Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. But he hadn’t been able to resist.

It hurt, being here without John. It should have been all of them together, meting out justice, taking back their lives.

But the drakul had fucked it all up.

Ryan had expected to fight human monsters, not NHEs. The vampire had been a wild card from the beginning. He should have done more, planned more carefully. If he’d put to use some of the schemes for restraining the drakul he’d pulled from Pittman’s head…but that would have taken more time and resources than he had.

If only the damned thing hadn’t caught up with them so quickly. The operation itself had gone smoothly. Foster had been waiting for them, sitting upright in his bed with gun in hand. He’d tried to negotiate rather than taking a shot, though given his shaking hands he probably couldn’t have hit them if he’d tried.

“I wasn’t the one giving the injections,”he’d insisted, eyes wet with fear.“I worked in the lab—I needed that job to feed my family. I was just following orders!”

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