“What have you got?” Micah stood behind Io at the massive computer console that looked like something out of the movie, The Matrix. Six monitors displayed frozen images from various security cameras around or near the Sentinel.
Io swiveled in his chair to face him, pulling a cherry Tootsie Pop from his mouth with a slurp. “You owe me for this.”
Io normally didn’t stay at AKM during daylight hours, especially not since he’d mated King Bain’s daughter, but Micah had implored him to stick around after his shift to help hack into the city’s security cameras.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll buy you a fruitcake for Christmas. Now, what have you got.” He crossed his arms and glanced from one screen to the next, trying to figure out what he was looking at.
With a snort, Io spun his chair to face the monitors as he shoved the Tootsie Pop back in his mouth and tucked it against his cheek. “I hate fruitcake.” The hard candy knocked against his teeth as he tapped a couple of keys on his keyboard. The top left monitor sprang to life. Io slurped the lollipop as he pulled it out of his mouth again and used it to point to the screen. “Okay, here’s our boy at your place, playing Spiderman.”
Micah watched as Skeletor’s dark image glided down the side of the building, placed his hand on the window of his apartment, and then a moment later, the glass shattered.
“What did he use to break the window?”
Io tapped another sequence of keys and brought up the image of a small device that looked like one of those hand buzzers people pranked their friends with back in the fifties, only this was larger, flatter, and matte black. It had what appeared to be a small speaker in the center. The contraption looked military grade.
“My guess is that he’s using one of these.”
“And this would be . . .?”
“It’s called an oscillator. I found this one on the Dark Net.”
The Dark Net. The black market. Where society’s criminal element did their online holiday shopping.
Io brought up several more images as he continued explaining. “The idea is, you hold one of these babies up to a pane of glass, activate it so it gives off a sound at the right frequency, and”—he popped his fingers open as if mimicking an explosion—“Boom! Broken window.” Io crossed his arms. “But ones this small and this powerful ain’t cheap. Your guy is well funded.”
Great. Just what Micah needed. A rich cat burglar with nothing better to do with his time than to break into his apartment and steal ancient artifacts.
He should have put the ankh in one of the two seventeen-thousand-dollar Fort Knox safes in his home in the burbs. That’s really where the damn thing belonged, not in the small, easily cracked safe in his apartment. But through centuries of despair after losing Kat, he’d lost his ability to give a fuck and had tucked everything into the small safe without much care over what happened to it. When he mated Sam in January and finally bobbed back to the surface to breathe again, he’d all but forgotten about the safe. Besides, he’d grown complacent with the idea that if no one had stolen his priceless heirlooms in nearly a thousand years no one ever would.
He’d been so wrong, and now he was paying the price.
But hindsight was twenty-twenty. Once he got his father’s ankh back—and he would get it back—he would rectify his mistake and put it where it should have been in the first place.
But first, he had to get the damn thing back.
“Okay, so what else have you got?”
Io grinned, leaned forward, and typed out another command. Another monitor came to life. “Okay, here’s your boy in the alley fighting that drag queen, Cordray.”
Micah smirked. “Drag queen. You’re funny.”
“Thought you’d like that.” Another monitor unfroze as Io continued typing and sucking on his Tootsie Pop. “And this is the shot from the alley. See, there he goes.” The thief gunned his motorcycle and raced away from where he’d left Cordray sitting on her ass in the rain. “And this”—Io pointed to another monitor—“is the parking lot where you found the abandoned mask. Watch.”
Micah leaned forward and rested his hand on the desk beside the keyboard. A moment later, Skeletor rolled into the parking lot. His back was to the camera, and he was hunched over as if he knew it was there and wanted to hide his face. He reached under his hood. A moment later, he tossed the mask in the dumpster. Then he gunned the throttle, spun the rear tire around, and sped away, keeping his head down.
Yep, Skeletor knew the camera was there.
But Micah caught the flash of skin around his jaw. “Stop. Rewind.”
Io did as instructed.
“Now, go forward. Slowly.”
The image began to scroll.
“There. Stop.”
Micah leaned closer and narrowed his eyes. Looked like Skeletor had a square jaw and black, close-shaved stubble. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something. Add that to what Cordray had said about Skeletor having vivid, grey-blue eyes, and they at least had the start of a suspect’s sketch. Slowly but surely, they were building a face to go with the mask.
Io squinted and leaned toward the monitor. “Is he laughing?”
Micah pushed off the desk and stood tall as he peered at the frozen image. “Yeah, he’s laughing. Little fucker. He knew the camera was there. He knew we’d use it to track him.”
“Which means . . .?”
“That he’s toying with us. He obviously knows who I am, and he obviously knows I have resources to hunt his ass down.” Which put Micah behind the eight ball, because he knew exactly squat about Skeletor. Eye and hair color, and a square jawline with black stubble weren’t a lot to go on.
“And he’s using those resources to taunt you.” Io turned his attention back to his screens. The hard cherry shell of his Tootsie Pop knocked against his teeth as he tongued it to the other side of his mouth. “Ballsy little fucker.”
“You’re telling me.” And when he found this sonofabitch with balls the size of an elephant’s, he’d teach him a thing or two about respect the Micah Black way. Which involved fists and maybe a pair of steel-toed boots.
“So,” Io said, “if he knew we would tap into the city’s cameras to track him, what good is all this footage I found? He probably staged his entire egress for maximum exposure to ensure you’d follow him.”
“Exactly.” Micah leaned forward again, placing his hand on the back of Io’s chair as he scanned the monitors. “Which means he’s got an ego. And you of all people know how egos are. They sometimes get in the way of smart decisions.”
Io had been known to make some pretty boneheaded decisions in his past, all because he thought he was the bee’s knees. In fact, one of those decisions—going after Princess Miriam—had almost gotten him killed a few weeks ago. It had also been the reason Trace had spent two weeks in King Bain’s dungeon, Tristan was still on house arrest, and Micah was in charge of the team now. So yeah, it was safe to say Io knew the trouble an inflated ego could cause, even if all had ended well when Miriam turned out to be his mate.
A knowing grin spread across Io’s face. “Hey, I resemble that remark.” He chuckled. “But you’re right. If we’re patient, our boy will eventually screw up.”
“And we’ll be there when he does.” Micah would personally lead the welcome party when Skeletor—or whoever he really was—made his first wrong move and walked straight into Micah’s waiting fist. “Show me the rest.”
The next screen came to life. “I followed him through the city to this location.”
“That’s the Millennium Park parking garage.”
“Yeah, and guess what?”
“What?”
“Less than five minutes after he pulled in on his motorcycle, he came back out on foot.” Io sped up the playback and stopped as a black-clad figure exited the garage, headed north on Michigan Avenue, crossed the intersection at Randolph Street, and disappeared inside the Heritage building.
“That’s a residential building,” Micah said, frowning. “Do you think he lives there?”
Io shrugged. “Hard telling.”
Micah straightened. It seemed too easy. If Skeletor knew Micah would tap into Chicago’s street cameras, why would he lead him to where he lived?
“Did he come back out?”
Io shook his head. “Nope, and I’ve scanned all the footage. He went into the Heritage and stayed there.”
“Doubtful.” Micah’s instincts told him he was missing something.
“Maybe he wants you to find him.”
“Why? So I can kill him?” Because killing the guy was right near the top of his to-do list. Right under stuffing his foot up the guy’s ass.
“Maybe that’s the game he’s playing. Maybe this was all just an elaborate ploy to get your attention, and he wants something from you.”
“Oh, he’s got my attention all right.” Micah considered his options then pulled out his phone. He hit Severin’s speed dial. As he waited for Sev to pick up, he said to Io, “I want you to do background checks on everyone who lives at the Heritage.”
“That’ll take some time.”
“I don’t care. Do it. I want this asshole.” He started for the door.
“On it.” Io turned back to his console just as Sev picked up.
“It had better be burning, bleeding, or in the middle of an apocalypse for you to interrupt me right now, Micah.” Sev sounded out of breath.
Micah heard Ari moan in the background. Those two fucked more than he did, and that was saying something, because his favorite pastime was exploring Sam’s body as often as he could.
“Don’t you two ever quit?” he said.
Sev let out an irritated sigh. “Either tell me why you called, Micah, or I’m hanging up.”
Micah grinned. He respected Sev’s style. “I need you. Now.”
Sev cleared his throat, and Micah heard a rustling noise that sounded as if Sev’s head was planted firmly in a pillow. “Um, not only am I in the middle of something right now, but you’re gonna make Ari jealous saying shit like that to me.”
“Like what?” Ari said in the background.
It sounded like Sev put his hand over the phone, but Micah still heard him say, “Nothing, I’ll tell you later.”
Micah chuckled softly. “Fuck your mate, Sev, but make it a quickie. Then get over to the Millennium parking garage.” Micah marched down the hall toward his office.
“The Millennium garage? Why?”
“Just hurry and fuck your mate and get going. I’ll e-mail you the details.” Micah disconnected.
He needed a day walker for this task, and since Trace was cooped up with Medusa’s daughter, that left Severin.
Sometimes, being a full-blooded vampire pissed him off. Mixed-bloods had all the fun. They could go out in the sun, came with a variety of nifty powers, and had a lot more flexibility, in general.
No more than ten seconds after he e-mailed the video and all the pertinents to Sev, Micah’s mobile rang.
He answered without checking the caller ID. “Micah Black.”
“Micah.” It was Brak.
Shit, he’d forgotten to call him.
“Brak, hey. I’m sorry I haven’t called about Trace. It’s been . . .” He thought back over the last twenty-four hours. “Crazy. Very crazy.” Understatement.
“Oh, okay.” Brak sounded disappointed.
Micah felt like a cad for dropping the ball. “He knows you’re here, Brak. He knows you want to see him. But things got a little out of hand, and there’s been some personal shit going on . . . and the bitch—I’m sorry, female—who was supposed to sign for his release has got a hair up her ass and—”
“When can I see him? It’s important I see him, Micah.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to set something up soon.”
“And our father. Is he doing better?”
Maddox had been moved to the new underground facility a few days ago. He’d been too much of a loose cannon to keep here, where they couldn’t secure him without strapping him to a hospital bed about a foot too short to hold his massive form. And Micah wasn’t going to have any of that shit. The new facility had Plexiglas hospital rooms for these exact situations. Maddox could remain safely tucked away until his mental synapses began regularly firing to the tune of less violent outbursts. Right now, his mood blew with the wind, sometimes creating a tidal wave and sometimes a refreshing ripple. And sometimes he was a tsunami, like he’d been the day he redecorated his hospital room by breaking just about everything not bolted down and putting a few holes in the walls for good measure.
“Your father’s safe. He’s behaving erratically, so we thought it best to keep him—”
His desk phone blared, then the incoming speaker turned on. “Micah! We need you in the trauma unit! NOW!” Urgency shot through Dr. Snow’s voice as something crashed in the background.
Trauma was where the victims of Bishop’s lab had been taken, and a couple of them had been in pretty bad shape. This couldn’t be good.
“Brak, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. There’s an emergency.” He was already racing out of his office. “I’ll call you back.”
He disconnected before Brak could say anything more.
Trevor strolled around the corner up ahead, wearing nylon shorts and a sweat-drenched T-shirt. His face was turned downward as he read something on his phone. Micah was glad Trevor had chosen to stick around for a while now that his friend, Gina, was settling in as Malek’s new mate. The guy came in handy in tight situations at a time when they were badly shorthanded. Like now.
“Trev! I need you.”
Trevor glanced up then immediately stuffed his phone in his pocket and snapped to attention. “What’s going on?”
“Trauma unit. We’ve got a problem.”
Trevor fell into stride alongside him as they ran down the hall. “Any idea what?”
“Something that requires some muscle if they called me.” So the more muscle he could take with him, the better.
They cranked around a corner and almost ran into Stryker, who jumped out of the way.
“Where’s the fire?” Stryker quickly recovered and joined them.
“Trauma unit,” Trevor said.
A few seconds later, the three of them plowed into the medical ward and were greeted by angry shrieks coming from behind the double doors where Bishop’s victims had been taken.
Holy hell! That shit sounded more mutant than vampire.
God help them if one of Bishop’s vics had turned.
Micah busted through the double doors to find the staff scurrying every which direction, some with hypodermics, others simply trying to get out of harm’s way. One ducked as a flesh-colored upchuck tray flew through the air.
“What’s going on?” He and the others rushed into the fray.
One of the nurses pointed toward the second room on the right. She was out of breath and bleeding from a gash over her eye. Fear blasted from her gaze. “It’s Kieran. He’s melting down.”
Melting down. Hopefully that wasn’t the medical term for a patient who was going mutant.
The commotion from inside the room intensified. Machines buzzed, and metal crashed against metal as someone yelled for help.
“Help them!” Micah said to Trevor, pointing to the nurses rifling through medical supplies. Then he snapped his fingers at Stryker, who looked like a howitzer in a T-shirt. “You’re with me. Now!”
He and Stryker rushed into the small room just as Kieran picked up a nurse and tossed her as if she weighed nothing more than air. She slammed into the wall and crumpled to the floor.
“Get her out of here!” Micah shouted at the other nurses.
Dr. Snow struggled to get close enough to inject Kieran with what Micah assumed was a sedative.
Shit better be strong enough to knock out a brontosaurus. Kieran was severely out of control.
“Micah!” She caught his eye. “I need you to hold him down.”
Just how was he supposed to do that? By asking nicely? Not gonna happen. He and Stryker would have to do their best cement truck impersonation if they had any hope of restraining this guy.
One of the other nurses shouted, “Grab him! Don’t let him go!”
Kieran strained for the door. The muscles and tendons of his neck were strung tight, his fangs exposed, black eyes full of fear, panic, and something else. Evil. Pure evil.
Fear, panic, and evil. There was a Hallmark moment if he ever saw one.
Kieran spotted Micah, and evil took the lead as his eyes narrowed into malicious slits. “You’re dead.” He sounded more like a gorilla trying to speak English. The black mass of tattoos covering his arms, chest, and torso shifted and slithered over his skin.
Okay, that was fucking bizarre. Who was this Kieran character, and how the hell did he have tattoos that moved?
“Jesus, he’s . . .” Trevor stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Kieran.
Micah dashed a glance at Trevor. “He’s what?” But he didn’t have to hear Trevor’s answer. He could see it in his mind.
“Beautiful.” Trevor breathed the word more than said it.
“Yeah, well, he seems about ready to tip to the dark side, so put your tongue back in your mouth and give us a hand.”
Trev hurried into the room. “I’m there. Just . . . damn!”
Great. Trevor had a hard-on for the Antichrist.
“You’re all dead!” Kieran seethed violence. “I’ll kill you all for doing this to me!” He flung off one of the nurses trying to contain him. She tripped over her own feet and fell ass-first to the floor in her haste to get away from him.
Micah jumped over her and shot around him, wrenching Kieran’s phantasm-covered arms behind his back before he could take another step. Shit, Kieran was strong.
Kieran growled and thrashed, tugging against Micah’s hold. Then one of the wispy, black markings lifted off Kieran’s skin and began to curl around Micah’s wrist.
And freaked Micah the fuck out!
Are you shitting me?
“Stryker! Trevor! Get over here! Take his other arm.”
Whatever those tattoos were, they weren’t ink.
Within seconds, he, Stryker, and Trevor had Kieran in a stronghold and dragged him to his knees. The black tendril left a trail of ice as it continued winding its way up Micah’s arm. What the hell was it doing to him?
“Doc! You’d better hurry up if you’re going to get that needle in him!” Micah clenched his jaw and pulled on his reserves, his muscles straining.
Dr. Snow rushed forward and stabbed the hypodermic into Kieran’s shoulder, plunging the contents into his arm.
Kieran screeched, and Micah winced as the sound split his eardrums. But the black-tattoo-ghostly-devil-mark thing released Micah’s arm and snapped back onto Kieran’s skin.
Thank God.
Within seconds, Kieran’s body sagged, but he wasn’t unconscious. Just super chilled.
“Please, God,” Kieran said, voice ragged, “just kill me and get it over with. I can’t live like this anymore.” Desperation, sorrow, and fatigue wrapped around Kieran’s words, and he sounded as if he were surrendering, but to whom? Then a weak but malevolent chuckle rose unexpectedly from inside Kieran’s chest. “God can’t help you, and I’ll never let you die.” This voice was different than the one Kieran had just used to beg for death. It sounded as if someone—or something—else had taken up residence inside his body and was using Kieran’s voice to talk to him. Talk about your split personalities.
Micah eyed the freakish tattoos as he let Kieran go and hastily backed away. The farther he got away from that devil paint, the better. Given the conversation Kieran had just had with himself, Micah was starting to think there was a lot more to Kieran than met the eye, and he would bet those living tattoos weren’t ink, but something worse. Much worse.
Kieran’s drugged gaze wobbled to his. “Who are you?” He was back to voice number one. The normal voice. The one Micah guessed was Kieran’s true voice.
“Name’s Micah.” He raked his hair off his face, breathing hard. “How about you help me out, Kieran, and stay calm so we can get you back into bed so that nobody else gets hurt?”
Kieran’s face relaxed further, and his lips parted. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, just sat there on his knees in the middle of the floor as he looked around. “Where am I? What is this place?”
“You’re in Chicago. At AKM. We rescued you from Bishop’s lab.”
A shallow frown crossed Kieran’s brow, and Micah sensed the pain of cobalt withdrawal assaulting him. “It hurts.” Kieran tried to pull out of Trevor’s and Stryker’s hold, but the sedative Dr. Snow had given him was doing its job, making him docile. Manageable.
The nurses shrank away as Micah warily stepped forward, eyeing those wicked black markings, and lowered onto his haunches. “You’re in withdrawal. Bishop drugged you. He was giving you cobalt. We’ve been detoxing you, but it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to hurt. But that’s a sign it’s working and the shit’s getting out of your system.”
Kieran’s face contorted painfully as he tried to free himself again. “It HURTS!” Kieran threw back his head and shrieked toward the ceiling. The nurses cringed and skittered from the room. He doubled over and groaned, his tattoos breaking through their outlines and bleeding black into the surrounding skin.
Micah frowned as the images rolling through Kieran’s mind began splintering into fractured shards, as if Kieran’s brain was running into interference and could no longer process rational thought.
Then Kieran’s body went deathly still. His demeanor changed so suddenly that it felt like a wizard had slammed his magical staff against the floor and sent a shockwave of silence through the room. An instant later, Kieran’s head snapped up. His eyes glowed red.
Ummm, okay . . .
“Let me go.” They were back to voice number two. The one that belonged to someone—something—else.
Kieran tore himself out of Trevor’s and Stryker’s grip and lurched to his feet, knocking Micah over. The fist he took to the jaw sent his brains into next year. The one that landed on his abdomen a split-second later nearly made him lose his breakfast.
That was going to leave a bruise. On his stomach.
In a blink, Kieran leaped off him and shot toward the door. Micah scrambled to all fours, coughing through the pain in his diaphragm, and looked up as Stryker blocked the exit like a concrete wall. Trevor staggered to his feet then gave chase. Moving with the speed and grace of a leopard, Trevor caught Kieran’s arm, kicked his feet out from under him, spun him around, and locked him in a choke hold as he drove him to his knees again.
Go, Trevor! Micah hadn’t known he had it in him.
“Calm the fuck down, buddy,” Trev said. “You’re not going anywhere right now.”
Kieran resisted, growling and spitting as he tried to reach around and pull free of Trevor’s hold. But Trevor had him, and he had him good and tight. His biceps and the muscles in his forearms and shoulders flexed impressively as if he were tapping into every last reserve of strength he possessed to keep Kieran down.
Micah jumped to his feet and reached for the hypodermic Dr. Snow had just picked up. “Give it to me!”
Pale-faced, she handed it over.
He spun back around. “Hold him still,” he told Trevor.
“I’ve got him.” Trevor’s voice strained. “Just hurry up. He’s stronger than he looks.”
“No shit.” He knew firsthand exactly how strong Kieran was. What he didn’t know was whether it was the cobalt withdrawal, that freakish black shit crawling over his skin, or the unknown entity squatting in Kieran’s body making him that strong. Two out of three? All of the above?
Micah drove the needle into Kieran’s neck and plunged the contents into his body as Kieran’s red eyes lasered fury at him.
“I’ll kill you!” Kieran strained but began to relax almost immediately as the sedative went to work.
“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to get in line behind everybody else.” Micah pulled the needle out and carefully handed it back to the doctor.
Hopefully, this dose would top off the first and knock Kieran out for good.
Within seconds, Kieran melted into a mass of lax flesh in Trevor’s arms.
Thank God. Micah collapsed into a nearby plastic chair and rubbed his bruised stomach.
“You okay?” Dr. Snow touched his shoulder.
He combed his hair off his face. “I’ll be fine.” He looked around the disheveled room. It appeared the drama was over, but the cleanup would take a while. “What the hell happened in here?”
One of the nurses poked her head into the room as Trevor lifted Kieran and carried him toward the bed.
Dr. Snow motioned her to enter then turned her attention back to Micah. “We were pulling him out of his induced coma today. Everything was going well, and then he just went crazy.”
“Obviously.” Micah scanned the mess of broken equipment littering the floor. “Maybe you should transfer him to the new facility, where they can keep him under observation in one of the Plexiglas rooms.”
“Once we stabilize him, I’ll consider it, but he’s obviously too strung out on cobalt withdrawal to move right now.”
Kieran’s head lolled back over Trevor’s arm, exposing his neck, to which Trevor sucked in an audible breath.
“You doing okay there, Trev?” Micah said.
Trevor nodded hypnotically without looking at him. “I’m good.”
Micah could almost see the little hearts with cupid wings fluttering around Trevor’s head. Looked like the Antichrist had an admirer. Micah only hoped Trevor knew what he was getting into with Kieran. Falling for this guy couldn’t be good for anyone’s health.
Dr. Snow addressed the nurse. “Keep him heavily sedated and start pumping him full of fresh blood. And up his dosage of buprenorphine.”
Micah had heard of bupe, as it was called on the street. It was an opioid used to counteract human opioid addiction. How about that for fighting fire with fire?
“You’re using bupe on him?” he said.
The doctor nodded. “Yes. We’ve found it’s as effective in vampires against cobalt as it is in humans against opioids.”
“But not as effective as Io’s all-natural approach.”
“No, but much more palatable.”
From what Micah knew of Io’s anti-cobalt tonic, which was used inside AKM for the most extreme overdoses, it wasn’t the tastiest of concoctions, but it sure got the job done. It had helped Miriam beat her own cobalt addiction in record time, keeping her indiscretions out of the public eye. Something King Bain was extremely grateful for. The last thing he needed was bad press on the royal family.
The nurse helped Trevor get Kieran settled back into bed. Then Trevor gently pulled the sheet over him as if he were tucking a fragile Fabergé egg into a velvet pillow. From the awestruck expression on Trevor’s face, as well as the way he pushed back Kieran’s shaggy, dark-brown hair then brushed the backs of his fingers down his cheek, he clearly wasn’t going anywhere soon.
Stryker helped clean up the room. Broken equipment was hauled out as limping orderlies brought in new monitors and an IV.
Dr. Snow lightly touched his arm. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.” She bobbed her head toward the door as she stepped toward it.
Micah regarded Trevor. “Hey, Trev. You gonna be okay in here while I talk to the doc?”
Trev looked up, his gaze glossy, as if he were having a special moment with demon boy. “Yeah. Fine. I’m fine.”
As Micah passed Stryker on the way out of the room, he said, “Could you stick around for a few and help Trevor keep an eye on that guy.”
Stryker gave him a single, tight nod. “I don’t need to be anywhere right now. I’ll hang here for a while.”
“Thanks.”
Micah followed Dr. Snow to the other side of the circular nurse’s station. Everyone was busy putting the pieces back together, picking up dropped supplies, and straightening strewn paperwork, so no one paid them any attention.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s about Savill.”
Savill was the young male Bishop had turned into a dissection tutorial in his lab. Thankfully, they’d been able to rescue the kid before he died. Hopefully, that hadn’t changed since the last time Micah had checked in on him, because the doctor’s expression was pretty grim.
Micah snapped to attention, his sore abdomen and jaw forgotten. “Is he okay?”
Dr. Snow paused. “We found his parents.”
Based on her tone, this wasn’t a good thing. “And . . .?”
She sighed and brushed back her hair. “Micah, they’re human.”
That sound splatting in Micah’s ears was the proverbial shit hitting the fan.
“Human? How is that possible?”
“They adopted Savill when he was just an infant. They didn’t know.”
As if Savill’s situation wasn’t bad enough. Surviving and coming through this ordeal alive had just become the least of his worries, because with human parents, odds were damn good that Savill had no idea he was a vampire. And since he was still young—barely twenty years old, if that—he probably hadn’t yet experienced any significant physical changes to raise concerns.
And yet Bishop had still been able to identify him as a vampire. Poor kid probably had no idea why he’d been taken or what was happening to him.
“What’s the status? Have the parents been handled?” he said.
“Yes, a team from AMD was sent to fix the situation.”
The Adjustment and Manipulation Department—AMD—was responsible for handling such cases. All the King’s Men had protocols in place to handle situations like this, where efficiency, delicacy, and attention to detail were required. Pictures were faked, false stories were concocted, and any and all bases were covered. No doubt AMD had already supplied the CPD with a file detailing Savill’s “abduction.” Or maybe they had told the parents Savill had been killed in some tragic accident. Micah had no idea how the AMD did its job. He just knew they did it and covered the vampire race’s collective ass.
“What about Savill? Has he been told?”
Dr. Snow shook her head. “He’s still in an induced coma, one I’m inclined to prolong under these new circumstances.”
“I agree. Hearing he’s a vampire could blow a fuse bigger than the incision down his abdomen.” He dragged his palm down his face then stood akimbo, head bowed. “Jesus, this is a mess.”
The doc let out a heavy sigh. “You don’t know the half of it.”
He raised his head. “Why? What haven’t you told me?”
She cursed and looked away, her expression grim. “We’ve taken some blood.”
“And . . .?”
“There are some anomalies.”
“What kind of anomalies?” A sinking feeling dipped into his gut.
Worry filled her eyes. “Micah, he’s not half-human.”
“But I thought . . .” Micah frowned past her shoulder to the prone form of the young male in the room behind her. “Isn’t he a mixed-blood?”
“Yes, but he’s not a vampire-human mix.”
Something in Dr. Snow’s tone made dread shimmy down his spine. “Then what is he?”
“Micah, Savill is half lycan.”
Well, how about that? A vampire and a lycan had gotten together and made a love child. There went the neighborhood. This had to be the third time today hell had frozen over.
“Are you sure?”
She gave a single nod. “I personally ran the results myself. Three times. I’m positive.”
“Fuck me.” Micah rubbed his palms up and down his face.
No one in the vampire community would want to take in a young that was half lycan. It was too risky.
This was a double dose of shit news. Savill needed someone to help him acclimate to his new world, but no one would lift a finger to help a young, pre-trans lycan, even one that was only a half-blood.
It wasn’t that vampires and lycans didn’t get along. The two races got along fine, or as fine as they could. They weren’t besties by a long shot, but for the most part, they coexisted peacefully with one another, if not a bit tensely at times, given their history. The problem was that when it came to lycans, no vampire wanted to risk getting in the way of a mouthful of juvenile lycan fangs, and who knew whether Savill would lean toward vampire or lycan once he reached maturity? It was a toss-up. There wasn’t a lot of precedent to provide an informed hypothesis about how a vampire-lycan mix would mature, and lycan genes were the only ones on earth strong enough to compete with those of a vampire.
He could contact Memnon and Rameses for help. They were the leaders of the lycans. But they would probably disown Savill rather than take him in or offer assistance. After all, in their eyes, Savill was a genetically inferior orphan. Hell, they might even kill him. Lycans were a lot stricter on mixing bloodlines than vampires, so it was a wonder Savill had been conceived at all. Some lycan had risked an awful lot—including his place in the lycan hierarchy—to mate with a vampire. Micah wasn’t sure if that was incredibly courageous or insanely stupid.
Either way, he was in a tight spot. No way would he hand Savill over to Memnon and Rameses if there was even a chance they would kill him, but who could he convince in the vampire community to take Savill in? And how would he convince them when there was no way to know which genes would dominate Savill’s blood once he matured?
He needed to do some research to see if something like this had ever happened in the past and how it had turned out.
“Goddamn it.” He glanced back inside Savill’s room. “This is shit ugly news.”
Dr. Snow followed his gaze. “Tell me about it. He’s going to need constant monitoring once he comes out of this.”
If he came out of it, because they still didn’t know if Savill would survive the damage Bishop had done to him.
“Any ideas how to handle that? Given what we now know about his lineage?” Because no way could they release Savill into someone’s care without providing full disclosure.
The doc shook her head. “Not yet, but he’s going to need someone to take him in and teach him about his new life. We can’t just toss him back out on the street. He’ll never survive. He’s going to need a lot of care and counseling, Micah, and I can tell by your reaction that you already know how hard that’s going to be to find under these circumstances.”
“Damn near impossible.” Micah shook his head, feeling about as helpless as a peanut.
The electronic ringtone of his mobile phone snagged his attention. Damn, couldn’t he get just five minutes to think?
He pulled the phone from his pocket. Sev.
“I’ve got to take this,” he said to the doctor. “But I’ll do some checking and get back to you about Savill.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to Kieran’s room as Micah started out of the trauma ward.
“Sev, hey. You at the Millennium garage?”
“Yeah. Found your guy’s motorcycle, too.”
“How do you know it’s his?” Micah pushed through the double doors leading back into the outer hall.
“Because he left you a note.”
Micah came to an abrupt stop. “He what?”
“It’s actually a poem, but it’s definitely for you.”
Something in Sev’s wary tone rankled Micah’s nerves. This was going to leave a bad taste in his mouth, wasn’t it?
“What’s it say?”
Sev awkwardly cleared his throat. “It says”—Sev let out a heavy exhale—“why don’t I just send you a picture?”
“Do that.”
He disconnected, and a moment later, his phone vibrated with a text. He opened the attachment. The poem had been handwritten in neat, block print.
Oh, mighty Micah
You aren’t as tough
As I’ve been led to believe.
You’re just a pussy
A great big wussy.
You make me want to heave.
You think you’re good
You think you’re great
But I do so make this oath.
I stole the key
It’s now with me
And good luck finding both.
Rage boiled inside Micah’s blood as he hit Sev’s speed dial. That little prick.
“Our guy’s a real Shakespeare, isn’t he?” Sev said.
“Shakespeare’s dead, just like he’s going to be when I find him. Get over to the Heritage hotel. I’ll call you back in five.” Micah disconnected, already storming toward the surveillance room, where Io was hopefully making headway on his background checks. Micah refused to rest until this cocky little fucker went down, and everybody had better be with him on that or they’d get his booted foot up their asses, too.
“Tell me you’ve found something,” Micah said as he burst through the door.
Io had just stuffed half a Snickers bar in his mouth and turned toward the door, eyes wide. He glanced at his screen then gave Micah a helpless I-just-got-started-so-how-could-I-have-found-something look as he started chewing.
Micah leaned over Io’s shoulder, scanning the screens, unable to make sense of anything Io was working on.
Io chewed as fast as he could then swallowed. “Jesus, Micah, I’ve only been at it for thirty minutes. Do you know how many people live in the Heritage?”
“No.” He hit Severin’s speed dial and cranked his phone to his ear.
Io’s fingers began flying over his keyboard. “Well, it’s a lot. There’s a lot of people to check.”
Sev picked up. “Micah, hey, I’m at the Heritage.”
“Find anything?”
“Define anything.”
Micah could already tell he wasn’t going to like what Sev had to tell him. “What did you find?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
Hopefully it wasn’t another in-your-face poem, or Io’s console might be in danger of suffering a natural disaster at the hands of Hurricane Micah.
“Tell me.”
Sev let out a heavy breath. “You know how Chicago has an underground pedway?”
The pedway consisted of five miles of underground tunnels pedestrians could use to travel around the heart of Chicago without exposing themselves to the elements.
The bad feeling in Micah’s gut intensified. “Yeah? What about it?”
“The Heritage has access to it.”
“Motherfucker! I knew you were going to say that.” Micah snapped his fingers in the direction of Io’s keyboard. “Bring up a map of the pedway.”
Io made a few keystrokes, and the map popped up on his center screen.
Just as Micah thought. The Heritage was smack in the middle, with branches of underground walkways extending in all directions. “Damn it.” He slammed his palm on the desk. Skeletor could be anywhere.
“Your guy could have gone anywhere,” Sev said, as if reading Micah’s mind.
Io’s shoulders drooped as he sat back in his chair. “Let me guess, our guy doesn’t live at the Heritage. He only used it as part of his escape route.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Micah said.
“So the trail’s gone cold?” Io shoved the other half of his Snickers bar in his mouth. The room smelled like chocolate and peanuts. Just how many of those things had Io eaten since killing his Tootsie Pop?
“Yeah,” Micah said. “Stone cold unless Sev can pick up any clues.” To Sev he said, “See if you can find anything. This guy likes to play with us. Maybe he left something for us to find.”
Or maybe he made a mistake. That would be even better. Given Severin’s history as special forces in the human military, if Skeletor had left anything behind, Sev would find it.
“I’ll see what I can dig up.” Sev disconnected.
Micah raked his fingers through his hair and began pacing. Think, Micah, think. Who could he have pissed off who would want to seek retribution against him? Well, shit, that was a pretty long list. But who of that list had this kind of verve? This kind of intelligence and cunning? These resources?
He couldn’t think of a single suspect.
“What the . . .?” Io said behind him.
Micah turned around. “What is it?” But he could already see what had Io frowning and holding his fingers several inches off his keyboard as if it had grown snake scales.
The monitors flashed then blacked out. Small squares blinked randomly over the screen.
Then a message began typing out in large letters.
You’re a day late and a dollar short
But oh so fun to watch
As you chase, toil, and try to keep up
While I knock you down a notch.
The key is mine, with me it stays
No more of your concern
Because I’m better, a real go-getter
So fuck you, Micah. Crash and BURN.
This prick wanted a war? Well, he just got one.