Page 107 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
The lights began to dim. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest it felt as if it would burst. There was a roaring in her ears and a thrum like a thousand wing beats inside her head. Images flashed before her eyes, color and light and movement, but all she could think was a single word.
Christian.
It wasn’t over yet. She could still find a way.
Caesar reared back, then slammed his fist into her face.
She heard the crunch of bone as if from very far away, felt the wet warmth spread over her cheek and down her neck. There was still no air, and her lungs burned with the effort to breathe. Caesar screamed his question in her face again, but the room was starting to go black, and everything was fuzzy around the edges.
“This can’t have been her idea—the boyfriend must have planned this—we have to assume he knows where we are!” Caesar was furious, shouting at his men, the vise around her throat tightening with every word. “Call Marcell—evacuate the bunkers—institute emergency protocol! And for fuck’s sake, make sure they take the serum!”
Suddenly the vise was gone and Ember was dragged off the desk, landing with a bone-jarring thud on her knees. She coughed and gagged, gulping air and tasting blood. Her arms were held high over her head as Caesar ran his hands carefully over the vest, and around her waist, legs, and shoulders, searching for the detonator.
He found the short metal cylinder, slender as a pen, taped to her right forearm.
He carefully removed it, unstrapped the vest from her body, and set both aside on the desk.
“Take that with us Nico, we might have a use for it—but be fucking careful!” he barked.
The one with the bandaged hand came forward and took the vest, while another picked up the detonator between two fingers, stared at it for a beat, then slowly left the room, holding it at arm’s length in front of him.
The two men holding her released her arms at Caesar’s command, and Ember collapsed to the floor, struggling to remain conscious. Pain flared like fireworks through her nerve endings, and everything was fractured and disjointed, like images in a funhouse mirror. Caesar stared down at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes silvery-black and glittering like coins at the bottom of a wishing well.
“You’re so lucky you have something I want. If you didn’t, you’d already be gutted like a fish.”
He leaned down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and dragged her to her feet. He held her up while she swayed and struggled to focus her eyes on him, to breathe through her shattered nose. He pulled her closed and hissed into her face, “What should we name him?”
He saw the confusion in her glassy eyes, and smiled with evil glee. “Oh dear, this just keeps getting better! You don’t know, do you?”
In the frozen, bottomless moment that followed, Ember’s mind struggled to absorb what he was saying while at the same time recognizing the sound of cars pulling into the lot behind the store and braking to a screeching stop. Caesar heard it too, and so did his remaining two men. They all stiffened, on instant high alert.
“Out the front!” he commanded. In one swift movement he lifted Ember off her feet and threw her over his shoulder, headed for the door.
“What do we do with this one, sire?” asked one of Caesar’s men, indicating a petrified, panting Marguerite.
Without even looking back, Caesar snapped, “Break that bitch’s neck.”
Hanging upside down with blood from her nose dripping in her eyes, Ember saw the two men approach Marguerite. She cowered back into her chair, sobbing as they surrounded her.
Even above the sound of her own screams, Ember heard the crunch of bones, then an abrupt, ghastly silence, then nothing at all as Caesar’s hand closed hard around her throat, cutting off her air supply, and dragging her down into darkness.
“I told you we shouldn’t have come in so goddamn hot!” shouted Thirteen to Jahad as they raced to catch up with the two black sports cars speeding away from the bookstore through the crooked tangle of Barcelona’s streets.
“Shut up or I’ll rip out your intestines through your throat!” growled the albino.
Thirteen ignored that and screamed, “They can hear everything—they can hear a pin drop from a mile away! you think they wouldn’t be able to hear us pull into the lot like bats out of hell? You just blew the element of surprise, you stupid fucking snowflake!”
Jahad shot him a murderous glare then drove on in glowering silence while Thirteen in the passenger seat pounded his fists on the dashboard of the SUV, red-faced with fury and frustration.
This was not how he’d imagined this moment.
Though Thirteen had the sneaking suspicion his throat would be slit the moment he let his guard down or turned his back, the albino had agreed to work with him. It was clear the other man didn’t like being threatened, even clearer he hated having to rely on anyone outside his little cult, but he’d called his men together, gathered his weapons and supplies, and let Thirteen ride shotgun as he directed him to the little bookstore where the tip had indicated the Ikati might be.
As it turned out, the tip was 100% spot on.
But instead of sneaking up in a covert fashion, the albino had come in guns blazing and they’d blown the whole thing. Now they were engaged in a high speed car chase through the narrow, cobblestone streets of a city with an excellent police force who were armed with Walther P99 sidearms and known for shooting first and asking questions later.
Fucking brilliant.
