Page 108 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
Dazed, thrilled, imagining in lurid detail just how grateful she might turn out to be, he said, “In fact, I’ll take you to see her right now.”
He followed behind her. They all did. Handcuffed, barefoot, silent, Lumina walked down a long, sterile corridor. She plainly heard the one called Three trying to quietly urge Thorne to put this off, to interrogate her before rewarding her, but Thorne wasn’t having it.
“Time enough for that later,” he said, and that was the end of that.
Lu wished she’d learned the craft of stroking a man’s ego years ago. How much easier life might have been.
She’d left the book behind in the interrogation room. It was a laughably poor choice by the guard who’d given it to her, and she could only wonder at his motives. She didn’t think he was on Dieter’s side, judging by the way he smirked at her, but then again, she’d learned how appearances can truly deceive.
The book was The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. It contained a quote near the beginning that made Lu think long and hard.
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Much like a sheathed knife, her true power lay in concealment.
Thorne watched placidly as the doors to the suite swung slowly open, and mother and daughter saw one another for the first time.
He’d arranged to have Jenna transferred to the suite he’d built in anticipation of her acquiescence to giving him the information he’d wanted about the whereabouts of the rest of her people. She hadn’t given him that information yet, unfortunately, in spite of his best efforts with the Breast Ripper and similar unpleasantries. Because she was what she was, she healed uncommonly fast, and so when her daughter first laid eyes on her, she looked relatively healthy.
If you weren’t looking into her eyes, that is. Then you could really see what she was all about.
At the moment those fathomless eyes, electric yellow-green and impossibly large, were trained on her daughter.
Thorne gestured to one of the guards to release Lumina from the handcuffs. His order was promptly followed. Then the two women stared at one another in a silence that grew and stretched, becoming uncomfortably long.
Why is nothing happening? he thought, frowning. Perhaps this was their way, this stoicism? He shook that thought off because he’d seen Jenna collapse in an emotional heap when showed the video of Leander. So what was this?
Just as he was about to clear his throat and suggest that it was enough visiting for one day, Lumina ran to her mother, closing the distance between them in a bolt of blurred motion. She threw her arms around her mother’s neck. They stood like that, silent, clutching one another, so similar in looks it was eerie, like seeing the older and younger version of the same person at once.
“Well,” said Thorne into the hush, “I’ll give you two a moment. Lumina, when you’re finished here, I’m afraid there are a few things we’ll have to discuss.”
He turned away, leaving, but Lumina’s voice stopped him.
“May I ask you a question?”
When he turned back to look at them, Lumina and her mother were holding hands. Staring at him with faint, ferocious smiles on their faces. Thorne’s chest tightened with a disturbing premonition that he was no longer predator, but prey.
“Do you happen to know what ‘gie it laldy’ means?”
“What?” he asked, confused, irritated, struggling to push aside the growing certainty that something was terribly wrong.
Lumina said, “I heard it recently, and I didn’t know what it meant. Do you?”
His response was curt and cold. “No.” He turned to leave again, but Three spoke up.
“It’s old Scottish slang, sir. It means, ‘give it loudly.’ Give it one hundred percent. Pull out all the stops, so to speak.”
Lumina Bohn threw back her head and laughed, deep and throaty. It was chilling in its exuberance. Then she looked at him, smiling widely, her eyes gleaming animal bright.
Just as the hair atop his head began to lift with the first, sparking crackles of electricity, Lumina said, “Such great advice.”
To his horror, the fused metal collars around both women’s necks popped off simultaneously, falling with a clatter to the floor. Then Lumina waved at him, a tiny motion of her fingers that wasn’t a hello.
And the world exploded into flame.
Sleeping fitfully in his hospital bed, the Grand Minister was abruptly awoken by an earthquake.
He thought it was a dream at first. The clattering windows, the jumping floor, the building groaning and shaking in a way no stationary object ever should. His eyes flew open and he stared around the room in disbelief, not comprehending what his eyes were seeing.
