Midnight's Master

Chapter 17

She hurt. Holly didn’t want to open her eyes because the pain was so intense.

And because she was afraid.

A grinding teased her ears. Grinding, grinding…

No, not a grinding, the sound of a car moving.

The van.

Her eyes flew open, but she could see only darkness. What the hell?

She shook her head, twisting- oh, God, what happened to me? Her eyes-no, not blind, a blindfold . The fabric slipped just a bit. Holly tried to wrench her hands up but couldn’t move.

She was tied, her hands bound behind her, her feet strapped together.

No! Someone had lodged a thick cloth in her mouth, so she couldn’t cry out. Holly could only lay there, and wait for whatever the hell would come next.

Kim, strapped to that table, blood all around her.

No.

Niol stared at the vampire before him, the stench of decay filling his nose. The bastard was smiling, long, thin fangs glinting.

“You think I’m scared of you, demon? I’m fucking immortal! Nothing scares me!”

Idiot. Had to be newly turned. Niol smiled. “Just because you can live forever, asshole, doesn’t mean you will .” He focused his power, felt that sweet rush of dark heat, and threw the vamp across the room.

The guy smashed into a table. Niol moved fast, grabbed a broken piece of wood, and shoved it right over the vampire’s heart. “Now, for the last time, what do you know about the woman at Myer’s who hired those idiots to torch my bar?” Because it was all connected. Dots . Little fucking dots. All he had to do was follow the trail and find his killer.

“S-she w-wasn’t into v-vamps…” Gasped out.

Better. At least the asshole wasn’t denying he’d seen the woman anymore. Niol had gone through three demons and one shifter to get to this asshole. Connecting the fucking dots. Everybody remembered something. Remembered seeing someone, somewhere.

This guy-Lane Mims-he was the link Niol needed.

“Who was she interested in?”

“D-demons. Only w-wanted to w-watch d-demons…”

Niol’s muscles tightened. “Why?”

“L-let me go!”

“Tell me what I want and maybe I will.” He shoved the weapon a good half-inch into the vampire’s chest. “Tell me nothing and I’ll kill you.”

Blood coated the vamp’s shirt. “D-don’t know wh-why. She-she just watched d-demons.”

Because she wanted to slice them to bits?

“What else do you know about her?”

“She-she was a student at MU.”

Mellrune University. Niol’s blood heated. What were the odds?

Lines of pain etched onto the vamp’s face. “F-followed her one n-night.”

Yes, he knew that. Knew that old Lane made a habit of following human women-and sometimes doing more. When he’d been human, the guy had landed in jail twice for rape. Becoming a vampire sure hadn’t changed the guy for the better, and Niol knew his human habits hadn’t faded. “And?”

“W-went to some lab at the u-university.” The vamp’s breath blew into his face. Rancid.

“You mean to tell me you followed the blonde back to the university one quiet night…” Lane only hunted at night. “She went into a deserted lab, and you didn’t take a bite?” Niol shook his head. “Lane, I’m disappointed.” By your bullshit.

The vampire’s eyes narrowed and the evil inside showed its face. “B-bitch wasn’t…alone.”

Niol eased up the pressure on the vampire’s chest, just a bit. “Really?”

“Some ass-asshole with her. S-started m-making out w-with h-him the minute…she w-went inside-place smelled l-like f-fucking bleach-”

Niol bet the lab had smelled better than the vamp. He clenched his back teeth and ordered, “Tell me what the man looked like.”

The vamp’s head shook. “C-couldn’t…s-see much-”

Niol smiled. “I know you, Lane. I know you like to watch.” Watching and hurting. That was the way Lane got off with his prey.

A smile, trembling with pain but wide with memories. “N-never know h-how close…to-to d-death they are-”

His fingers tightened around the wood. No, some people never knew.

He’s not an innocent. After the jerk finishes telling me what I want, no reason I can’t stake his ass.

Holly’s face flashed before him.

“What. Did. He. Look. Like?”

“T-tall. B-blond.”

Every damn dot connected. Fuck.

“B-big d-dick-”

His cell phone rang.

The call that saved the asshole’s life.

“Hold him,” he snarled to the demon on his right.

Thomas gave a grimace but took over vamp duty.

Niol glanced down at the phone and felt his gut tighten. Holly’s guards. But, no, it wasn’t them.

It was a number he’d never seen before. His eyes on the squirming vampire, he punched the button to take the call. “Who the hell is this?”

Laughter. Cold and high.

“Got somethin’ of yours.” The voice was female. Mocking.

“Do you?” He’d never sounded calmer or been more afraid. Not Holly. Not her-

A lamb among wolves. And she hadn’t even known it.

“I’m going to slice her open, from groin to neck.” More laughter.

Niol fought not to incinerate everyone and everything around him. “Don’t touch her.” The demons around him stilled at his fury.

They knew his moods well and he saw their eyes jerk to the exits.

“Try and stop me.” A taunting whisper.

The vampire whimpered.

“If you really want to save the demon reporter, then come and get her.”

A trap-one meant to catch and kill him. Niol didn’t care. The crazy bitch had the perfect bait. “Where?”

More laughter. “You come alone- and you tell no one -or you’ll find Storm in pieces.”

The woman had just asked for her own death. “Agreed.”

A sound that could have been a purr. Then she rattled off the address and said, “Can’t wait to see you, love. ”

The call ended and the rage exploded.

She was bait. Holly curled against the floor of the van. Bait to lure Niol to his death.

“You’re awake, aren’t you, demon?” That voice seemed familiar.

Holly didn’t move.

“I know you are.” Screamed.

Not even a flinch. She wasn’t about to let her body betray her.

Where had she heard that voice?

“Your lover’s coming, and I’m going to have so much fun playing with him.”

The van jerked to a stop. Holly let her body roll forward. Her head rammed into some kind of bag.

“Dammit, she’s still out.”

Not alone. Holly forced herself to keep breathing slowly. The psycho woman was talking to someone else. Holly had only heard the woman speak. She’d woken just before the bitch called Niol.

“You think he’ll really come after her?” The woman asked, her voice high and shaking with excitement.

One of the van’s doors squeaked open. A second door opened immediately after.

Definitely not alone.

Christ. Where have I heard that voice before?

She could have told the woman that, yes, Niol would come after her. Holly didn’t doubt it for a minute. He’d come after her and bring hell’s fury in his wake.

She’d seen the fury before and knew that she’d see it again.

Provided, of course, she could stay alive until he came for her.

The doors slammed shut. One, then the other.

Breathe. Breathe.

Squeaks and groans as the van’s back doors opened.

Then hands closed around her ankles and yanked her toward the killer.

“Come on, Holly, you’re not fucking fooling me.” A man’s voice.

And this voice-she knew it instantly.

No.

He jerked her up and ripped away the blindfold.

Holly blinked and stared up at the face she knew too well.

Zack.

She shook her head. This isn’t happening. Why would Zack want to hurt her? Or Sam? Or-

“Fucking demon.” He turned his head toward the woman. “See her eyes, Michelle? I told you she was just like the rest of them.”

Michelle. Blond grad student Michelle. Ms. I’ll-Do-Anything-for-that-A Michelle.

Michelle smiled at her, smiled with her perfect capped teeth, and said, “This is really going to hurt you.”

Holly almost choked on the gag.

“Let’s get her inside and on the table. We’ll keep her alive until he gets here.” Zack licked his lips. “I can’t wait to cut him open. Those other demon bastards said he was the strongest-”

They’d probably been willing to say anything before they died.

“I’ll find the secret with him, I know I will.”

The secret?

I was engaged to this freak?

She shook her head again. No, Zack couldn’t be in front of her, he couldn’t be planning to kill her, to slice her up and-

And Zack made his living dissecting specimens and studying them.

He held up a syringe. “For old times’ sake, I can make this easy on you.” He reached for the gag and wrenched it out of her mouth.

Holly licked her lips and tasted blood. Probably from that nice smack she’d taken into the concrete.

“What do you say, Holly? You don’t have to feel the pain. One little stick and you’ll slide right into the darkness.”

The darkness. “Fuck you, asshole.” She wouldn’t make this easy on him. Not Zack. This couldn’t be happening.

His lips tightened. “Then, demon whore, get ready to scream.”

And she did. A loud, long desperate scream that she really hoped someone would hear.

Come on, just let one shifter be within a five-mile radius…

Zack’s fist came right at her face.

When she opened her eyes the next time, Holly was strapped to a table. An operating table. Oh, damn-not a nightmare.

Michelle’s smiling face popped over her. “Wakey again, huh?”

Yeah, it was a nightmare. Holly growled and jerked against the restraints that held her.

Michelle leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “You should have taken the drugs. Zack likes to play.”

Bile rose.

The blonde pulled back and glanced over her shoulder. Then she reached for the instrument tray and picked up a scalpel. The light glinted off the sharp edge. Another sweet smile. “He likes to play,” she said again, “and so do I.”

And then the crazy bitch took the scalpel and sliced down Holly’s left arm.

She screamed, her head jerking off the table.

“No one’s going to help you, Holly.” Zack. Twisted, insane Zack. Zack the Demon-Hunter. His footsteps slapped against the floor and then he was beside Michelle. “Things like you,” he continued, “don’t deserve to live.”

Her arm burned with a fiery pain and the blood flowed out, fast and hard. “And you think sadistic killers like you do?” Had he always been crazy? How could she have missed this?

Shit-she was a reporter! She should have been able to see crazy staring her right in the face.

But he’d hid so well from her.

Zack frowned, his perfect brow lining. “I’m not a killer. I’m a scientist.”

“You’re fucking insane!” If she got loose, she was going right for his throat.

The lines faded from his forehead. “You would think that, I suppose. Being what you are.” His fingers reached out and smoothed back her hair.

Michelle’s grip on the scalpel tightened.

“I should thank you, Holly.” His fingers lingered on her cheek.

She jerked her head away from him.

“If it hadn’t been for you, I never would have even known about the monsters who live in this world. I didn’t realize what was right in front of me.” His lip curled in disgust. “The impure, trying to desecrate the human race with their taint-”

She wouldn’t listen to his bullshit. “You’re the only monster I’ve seen, Zack. You’ve killed . Carl. Sam. Julia. Those weren’t specimens in your lab, they were people. People with families and lives and-”

His fingers clamped over her mouth. “They weren’t people. They were demons.”

The pressure of his hand was almost enough to break her jaw.

“Demons…like you.” He glanced at Michelle. “I can still remember when I first really saw you. You’d been lying to me, tricking me-”

“I told you she wasn’t good enough for you,” Michelle muttered, glaring. “Right from the beginning, I told you!”

His fingers lifted and he wiped them on his shirt.

As if he were cleaning himself off.

Asshole.

“Then when you surprised me that day at my office-”

You mean when I caught you with your head between her-

“Your eyes changed. Flashed to black.”

Her chest ached worse than her arm and her head. She’d unknowingly revealed too much to him, and so many had paid the price for her mistake.

“At first I thought I’d imagined it.”

“But I saw it, too,” Michelle piped up with a nod. “And I’d seen it before…”

“Michelle knew what you were.”

And she knew exactly what Michelle was, too.

“So I started watching you and you lead me to the others.”

Something was squeezing her heart. Too tight. “You didn’t have to kill them.”

He blinked and actually looked confused. “Of course, I did. How else could I study them? I had to look inside-”

Oh, God.

“-to see if I could find the source of their power.”

Michelle tossed her scalpel back onto the tray. “It’s all genetics. I’ve told you that from the beginning.”

“I think there are differences in the brain. There have to be in order to account for the psychic surges in the demon population.”

“But genetics are-”

They were arguing like they were in a damn lecture hall. They’d killed, terrorized, all for-“Some kind of sick experiment!”

They shut up, finally, and turned their stares back to her.

Zack nodded. “You do understand.”

Hell, no, she didn’t. “You cut them up, sliced them apart to-”

“Ah…now, I had to do a bit of work with my knife, bloody things up, you know-couldn’t have it looking like a professional just went right in and extracted an organ or two.’

Bloody things up.

“If I hadn’t used the knife to hide most of my scalpel incisions, the cops would have known that a…professional was working.”

Working? Working! Professional, her ass. Psychotic.

“Your lover will be the perfect specimen,” Zack said with a nod. “All his strength…I know I’ll find the secret with him.”

Once he cut Niol open.

Not going to happen.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You should get the hell out of here while you can.”

“The demon’s not going to hurt me.” A twist of his lips. “Come on, you know better.”

“I-I’ve seen him kill. He’ll destroy you.”

“I’ve seen him kill, too,” Michelle said. “For you. ”

We started watching.

Zack tapped his chin. “I think the demon will do just about anything for you.”

“No, you’re wrong!”

“He won’t leave you here to die. He’ll come for you. Come alone, and when he does…”

Michelle lifted a syringe. “I’ll be ready.”

Her eyes narrowed on that syringe. “What is that?” Fear hushed her voice because sure, she knew Niol was kick-ass strong and she’d been trying to scare the psychopaths around her, but …

But they were acting too confident. They knew full well just how dangerous Niol was-that was obvious. They wanted him because he was dangerous.

“You knew that I had a master’s degree in pharmacology, didn’t you, Holly?” Zack took the syringe from Holly. “This is a little brew I’m pretty proud of, I’ve got to say. Sure, it doesn’t work perfectly. I haven’t quite figured out the demon system, but it can knock a demon out in five seconds.”

“But sometimes the demons wake up before they’re supposed to,” Michelle said. “Like a patient in the middle of an operation when the anesthesia wears off.”

They were both insane.

“Sure you don’t want a taste?” Zack brought the needle close to her arm. “You’ll be out so fast-”

And what? Wake up when they were cutting her open? “Keep that thing away from me!” There had to be a way for her to escape.

Why-why couldn’t she have been born with stronger demon powers? She would have loved to be able to toss the freak duo across the room with just a thought.

He leaned toward her. “Are you scared, Holly?”

Hell, yes, but she’d never admit it to him.

An expression of sadness drifted over his face. “I had plans for you, back at the beginning. I was going to spend my life with you-”

“You were screwing her !” Bad enough he was threatening to kill her, now she had to listen to this crap again.

His nostrils flared. “Michelle understood me.”

Uh, yeah, that was obvious. Who else would have joined in to help him torture and kill?

Michelle’s fingers curled over his shoulder. “Of course, I do. You just want to make the world a better place.”

His shoulders fell and blessedly, that needle dropped away from her arm. “That’s all I want. To rid the Earth of those who don’t belong, the mutations who should never have been born.”

So now she was a mutation?

“I’ve got to check outside,” Zack murmured, placing the syringe on the instrument tray. “Got to make sure I see the demon coming.”

Because if he didn’t, Niol would kill him before Zack ever had a chance to scream.

He turned away, hurrying from the room.

And leaving her with Ms. Cut Happy.

Michelle tilted her head, seeming to listen to Zack’s footsteps as they faded away.

Holly glanced around the room, trying to figure out where she was. The walls were bare, old, yellow. No furniture was in the room.

Another abandoned house? An old office building? Where?

“What can you do?” Michelle asked and Holly’s gaze turned back to her. The woman studied her with narrowed blue eyes. “Can you make fires? Move objects?”

Why did she want to know?

“I don’t think you can,” she continued. “You would have tried something by now.”

True.

“Carl tried.” She lifted her hand and brushed back the long fall of blond hair that partially hid her forehead. The move revealed a slanting red gash. Still healing. “He got me-”

Good for Carl. She was glad he’d gone out fighting. He’d always been a fighter.

“But he couldn’t stop Zack.”

Holly swallowed.

“What can you do?” Michelle asked again.

Nothing. But she’d be damned if she admitted her weakness. Instead, Holly narrowed her own eyes and growled, “You really don’t want to find out.”

Michelle jerked away, her elbow ramming into the table. “The p-power is wasted on you! You don’t deserve it, just like you didn’t deserve him.”

Now that didn’t sound like a woman who thought demons were a terrible mutation who needed to be stopped. Holly’s lips parted. “You don’t want to destroy the demons-you want to find out where their strength comes from!” Because she wanted the same power. Twisted bitch.

Michelle just smiled her cold, perfect smile.

Holly jerked against the restraints. “Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” A lie, but so what?

The smile dimmed a bit.

“I didn’t start out as a demon,” Holly continued, voice low. “I became one.” Ah, but she could bullshit with the best of them. “You can change, too. Let me go and I’ll tell you everything. ”

Michelle’s fingers fluttered in the air. She glanced toward the open door.

Come on. Come on…

Then she looked back at Holly. “I-”

“He’s here!” Zack’s bellow.

Holly’s heart seemed to stop.

Zack ran into the room, face flushed. “Get ready! Grab the g-”

The wall behind him exploded.

When the dust cleared, Niol was there-looking tall and dark and very pissed.

And Zack, bleeding and shaking, was at Holly’s side, the scalpel pressed to her throat. “You so much as blink, demon, and I’ll cut her from ear to ear.”

The blade already was cutting her. Digging into her skin and sending a rivulet of blood sliding over her flesh.

Niol’s black eyes were on Zack. So much fury. The air in the room boiled with his rage.

Holly wasn’t breathing anymore.

Then Niol laughed and she’d never heard a colder sound. “Dr. Hall, you don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with-”

The floor trembled, rolled, and when Zack cried out, Niol raised his hand. The scalpel jerked free of Zack’s fingers and flew right to Niol’s waiting palm.

The restraints holding Holly broke free. Love demon power. She heaved up, twisted, and shoved both of her feet right into Zack’s chest. He stumbled back, arms waving as he tried to catch himself.

The bastard hit the floor, hard, and Holly jumped to her feet.

“My kill. ” Niol’s voice was guttural.

She hesitated and glanced up into his eyes.

Niol stalked forward. Zack flew up into the air as if jerked by a puppet string. “You took what was mine, asshole.” The puppet master. Niol threw him across the room.

Zack thudded into the far wall, landing close to a slowly rising and bleeding Michelle.

The floor rolled again.

Niol is out of control. She knew it, could feel it in the fierce rush of air all around her.

“Now I’m going to take everything that’s yours.”

Zack’s fingers shot up and he began clawing at his throat, as if fighting against unseen hands. His face mottled and his eyes bulged.

Niol was killing him, with just a thought.

“Niol-”

The roar of a gun.

No.

Holly jerked at the sound. Michelle was on her feet, a wide grin on her bloody lips, and a gun in her hand.

One that was aimed right at Niol.

One that she’d already shot.

“Again!” A scream from Zack. A Zack who was breathing again.

Holly’s gaze flew to Niol. A red circle, ever widening, bloomed in the middle of his chest. The bitch had fired straight at him, right into his heart.

Niol fell to his knees.

“No!” This time, the roar was Holly’s.