Embraced By Darkness

It was another three hours before the doctor managed to drag his overworked butt into my room. After a quick check - during which he marveled over the pink scar on my leg and healing capacity of werewolves in general - he declared me fit enough to go home. To say I limped out of there in record time would be the understatement of the year.



Once in the car, I rang Kellen to let him know I was out. He invited me to lunch the next day, and I accepted happily. No matter what he might have said, he still wanted to be with me. Right now, that was all that mattered.



When Rhoan and I got home, I had a shower and something decent to eat. With body and belly happy, I went into Rhoan's room, grabbed his laptop, then hobbled over to the sofa.



Rhoan plopped a coffee on the table next to my feet, the heat of the cup warming the side of my foot even though it wasn't actually touching, then sat down on the sofa opposite.



"What are you looking for?"



"I asked the cow to do a full background search on Jorn and Yohan Duerr, the owners of Mirror Image."



"Do you think the man you smelled at the club was Jorn or Yohan in disguise?"



"Possibly. And if he was also the man Adrienne ran into at the club, then it would certainly explain her rushing off to the island."



He frowned. "How?"



"Apparently she has a psychic gift that allows her to see images of the past or future when she touches people."



"Oh, that would not be a fun one to have."



"No worse than having ghosts wanting to sit around and chat." I rubbed my leg gently, wondering how long it was going to take for the ache to go away. "Jorn and Yohan apparently shipped over here a couple of years ago from England. I just wanted to know why they came here - whether they were running to better weather, or simply running from trouble."



"If they were running from trouble, they wouldn't have gotten into the country."



"Convictions keep people out, not suspicions."



"True. And new identities are easy enough to get."



"I'd like to think DNA scanning will put an end to all that." I reached past the laptop and picked up the coffee, taking a sip before placing it back down again.



"DNA scanning technology is expensive and still being trialed," Rhoan said. "It won't get into airports or docks for years."



I grunted, looked into the eye scanner, and waited for the laptop to connect into the Directorate's computer system.



"I guess even if they are finally installed, the bad guys will have worked out a way to get past them."



"Always. Cops playing catch-up with criminals is the way of the world."



The laptop beeped, an indicator my file had been retrieved. "Well, well, well," I said, after scanning the first page. "It seems that Jorn and Yohan owned a nightclub in London that was linked to over a dozen disappearances. All of the missing women were blondes, and all of them were from well-off werewolf families."



Rhoan raised an eyebrow. "Linked how?"



"Seems they were all last seen on the nightclub's premises." I scrolled past the full details of the victims. "The report says that the owners were very cooperative with the police, and handed over all available security tapes. Apparently Jorn and Yohan were never under serious suspicion, and the tapes showed each of the women dancing with a different man on the night of their disappearance. The disappearances were never solved, and the file remains open. Interestingly, the disappearances stopped once they sold the club."



He took a sip of his coffee, then said, "Odd coincidence that they've started up again here, and not long after opening another club."



"Neither you nor I believe in coincidences like that." I scrolled to the next page. "Oh, and it gets better."



"More murders?"



"One more. In Germany." I read the report quickly. "The twins were born in Germany. Their mom died young, and their daddy had a habit of bringing home new moms weekly."



"Whores?"



"Nope. Daddy was a doctor, and tended to float his boat amongst the well-off and comfortably rich. Wasn't too concerned about whether his conquests were married or not."



"Don't tell me, he slept with one married woman too many?"



"Even better. He slept with a rich young werewolf very close to the full moon."



"And she tore him apart in the heat of the moment." Rhoan shook his head. "Humans never seem to learn."



"You can't just blame humans. Us wolves have a responsibility of care, too, you know." After all, we knew how violent we could get.



"So what happened to the wolf?"



I hesitated, reading on quickly. "Nothing. The mating act was consensual, and the death itself was deemed accidental. She did minimum time."



"I take it the twins didn't take this too well?"



"They were witnesses to the mauling, and apparently neither of them said a word before or after the trial. Doctors said it was shock."



"And the wolf? How long did she survive after serving her time?"



"Two days. She was found shot with silver and beheaded in her apartment by her sister." I hesitated. "Her head was never found."



"Wonder what they did with it?"



"I don't think I want to know, thanks."



He grinned. "No sense of adventure, that's your problem."



"Too right. The boys were suspects but apparently had watertight alibis. They were both at a nightclub, and plenty of people saw them."



"An easy thing to arrange if you're a face-shifter."



"Yep." I moved on to the next file. I had to hand it to Sal - when she went digging, she really dug far and wide. Next was two passport photo shots and I frowned. Neither of the men looked anything like the man I'd seen in the club, The man who'd been called boss.



Of course, it was always possible that he was head of security rather than one of the twins, as I'd been presuming, and therefore it was totally possible for him to be called boss without actually being the owner.



"What?" Rhoan said.



"Wait." I went into the system and did a photo search through the motor registration and licensing departments. Once I had my photos, I split the screen and put them both up.



"This," I said, turning the laptop around and pointing to the passport photos, "is the Jorn and Yohan who came into Australia fifteen months ago. And this" - I pointed to the license photos - "is the Jorn and Yohan who own the club. And he," I added, pointing at the license photo of Jorn, the paler of the twins. "Is the man who smelled like Jared."



"Jorn Duerr, Jared Donovan, and what was the other guy's name? Jim Denton? Same initials, same man?"



"Good possibility. So does that mean it was Jorn who chatted up all the women on the island?"



"The only way you're going to know that is by asking the women themselves."



"Sorry, I've had my quota of speaking to the dead for this week. But we could try talking to the parents."



He glanced at his watch. "It's not too late now to make some calls."



"You'll help?"



He nodded. I placed the laptop on the coffee table, took a quick sip of my coffee, then rose to get my cell phone. He took two numbers, I took one. But it took longer than I thought it would to get information, simply because talking to anyone who has suffered a loss was hard - especially when the mere act of talking to them again raised their hopes of possible leads. A possible ending.



"Okay," Rhoan said, when he hung up from the last of them. "According to the parents of my two ladies, neither of their daughters slept with anyone up there. They did, however, mention meeting a human who was trying to chat them up. One lot can't remember a name, the other thought it was something like Yuri."



I leaned back in the sofa with the remains of my cold coffee. My leg was aching and I couldn't be bothered getting up to refill my cup. I sipped it, and tried to bluff my taste buds into thinking it was iced coffee. "Mine think it was John. Which means both twins are working the island. What I don't get is, why would they wait until the women are back home before they abduct them? Why not do it while they're away from normal surroundings?"



"I think you need to ask our two suspects that. But," he added hastily, as I made motions to get up. Never an easy thing to do when you had a sore leg, I might add. "Not tonight. Tonight you need to sleep and rest. Tomorrow we'll head over to the club together and suss out the place."



"Jack might not be happy about that. They are, after all, human."



"I said suss the place out, not beat them up. We can do that after we get some evidence. Right now, we have nothing but theories."



"And a background that points to a long history of kidnapping crimes."



"They weren't convicted of anything in either England or Germany. If we move too soon, we'll lose them here, too." He paused. "Do you think they could be behind the truck and the shooting attempts on your life?"



I frowned. "Why would they even suspect I was onto them?"



"We share the same surname as Adrienne. She disappears, you appear. A suspicious mind wouldn't think that was an accident."



"But how would they track me? I mean, no one but you and Kellen knew where I was going from the airport."



"They put trackers on your car. It wouldn't be hard to slip one into your purse." He rose. "Where is it?"



"Over near the door."



He walked over, picked up the purse, and started fishing through it. After about five minutes, he dropped the purse and walked back. "There you go."



The thing in his hand was about the size of a dime. Which was rather large for trackers, these days. Hell, I'd had ones the size of a pinhead embedded into my foot. And then there was the ones in my ear. "Jared helped carry my bags the day I left the island. I wonder if he slipped it in then?"



"Could be." He dropped it on the ground and stomped on it. "Might be worth you going in disguise tomorrow."



"Good idea. I still have those wigs Liander gave me."



He nodded. "Then go get some rest. You look beat."



"If I tried telling you to go rest, you'd have a tantrum."



He gave me a grin. "Too right. I'm a boy. Boys can look after themselves. You're a girl. You need to be loved and protected."



I tossed my empty cup at him. "And you said you hadn't been listening in on my conversation with Kellen."



He laughed and caught my cup one-handed. "So I lied. Now go get some rest."



I did.





Rhoan pulled into one of the many vacant spaces in the parking lot and stopped the car. He leaned forward, crossing his arms over the steering wheel as he stared at the building that housed Mirror Image.



His look was one of amusement. "God-awful-looking place in daylight."



I pulled at the black wig irritably, then said, "Doesn't seem to stop anyone from coming, though."



Indeed, the lot was half full, which wasn't bad considering it was barely eight in the morning. Even the Blue Moon would be ecstatic to have this sort of crowd at this hour, and that place was doing the best of all the wolf clubs.



"They've got an awful lot of security lining the building."



"Cameras and infrareds are pretty much the norm nowadays, aren't they?"



"They've also got motion sensors."



"So?"



"So, why have motion sensors and infrareds on a building that supposedly houses twenty-four hour action for human and nonhumans?"



"Given they're apparently getting into a little blackmail action with some of their 'special' guests, it's not entirely surprising they're security conscious. They wouldn't want the police wandering in and uncovering their covert operations now, would they?"



"No, I guess not." He glanced at me. "You ready?"



I nodded and opened the car door. Even though it was still early in the day, the sun held the promise of heat. Melbourne weather had apparently decided that we needed some of the warmer stuff after the series of chilly days, and the forecasters were predicting a hot one. Hence the jeans and the bright yellow tank top. I needed to get some sun on my arms.



We walked across to the front doors. The bouncer, a big man with shoulders the size of a tank, cheerfully waved us through to the payment area, then opened the main doors.



Music blasted out. Rhoan looked at me. "Techno. I hate techno."



So did I, but I shoved a hand into his back and lightly pushed. "Stop whining and get inside."



Bright light hit us the minute we entered, momentarily blinding me and forcing me to a halt. It rolled on quickly enough, leaving dots of red and yellow dancing before my eyes, dots that seemed to get lost in the myriad of colors so evident on the packed dance floor. The scent of sex and lust swum around us, its sweet aroma stirring my hormones to life yet again.



I touched my brother's shoulder and pointed to an empty booth halfway along the wall to our left. He nodded, and we made our way down the stairs, my heels once again slipping on the polished white tiles. It was a wonder they didn't do something about that, because they were leaving themselves wide open for law-suits in the sue-happy environment of modern Melbourne.



"Fuck," Rhoan said, once we were seated, "This place is huge. It's got a good feel, though. Even with the all the humans."



I raised an eyebrow. "So you've changed your mind about the 'no humans in wolf clubs,' rule?"



"Not in the least."



I grinned and nodded toward the double doors at the end of the bar. "The private rooms are in there, but the doors are security-key coded."



"Good thing about security-keyed doors is the fact that a loss of electricity fucks them up." His gaze scanned the room. "What's down near the back?"



"Bathrooms and fire exits."



"What about an electrical switchboard?"



I shrugged. "It's not something I tend to notice. Why?"



"Because we need to cut the power." He rose. "When the lights go out, get through those doors. I'll meet you there."



"The room we want is on the right."



He nodded and walked away. I crossed my arms and watched the dancers on the floor for a while. Desire stirred, but I ignored it. Not only because I'd made a promise to Kellen, but because it would be stupid to risk it even if I wasn't here to work. Besides, most of those out on the dance floor this morning were human. Maybe all the nonhuamns had gone into the private area.



Of course, my reluctance to dance with humans didn't actually stop them from coming over and asking. After the tenth such refusal, I began to hope Rhoan hurried himself up. Coping with hurt male sensibilities wasn't high on my list this morning.



After another five minutes, I had my wish and the nightclub plunged into darkness. I switched to infrared, slipped off my heels, then rose. Given that everyone else was basically staying still - except for those caught in the middle of sex - I didn't want the sound of my heels clicking giving me away or attracting attention. I pulled the shadows around me, just to be doubly sure I wasn't seen, then headed for the security door.



It was unlocked, as Rhoan had said it would be. Knowing the guard would be at - or near - the door I opened it quickly, and stepped inside. He was fast, I had to give him that, one hand going for his gun while the other reached for the alarm button on the wall. He never completed either move, simply because I stormed into his mind and stopped both.



The alarm, I discovered, wasn't affected by the power cut, because it was on the backup system. I shuffled through his thoughts, and discovered that the downstairs area - the area we needed to get into if we wanted to sniff out more of what was going on in this place - was also connected to the backup generators.



The one good bit of news was the fact that the room behind us wasn't being used. Though it would be tonight. Some ripe for the picking - or should that be right for the taping? - minor politician had been invited in for a drink and a game.



Which I found truly amazing. Granted, being caught in compromising positions wasn't something new when it came to politicians of any caliber - but with technology getting ever smaller, and ever cleverer, you'd think they'd learn to keep their pants zipped. Or, at the very least, learn to keep themselves away from compromising situations.



The door behind me opened again, and a familiar shadow moved stealthily inside.



"How'd you cut the power?" I asked.



"Found a screwdriver behind the bar and shoved it into a couple of power sockets."



I stared at Rhoan. "You're kidding, right?"



"No."



"You could have been killed doing something like that!"



"I'm not stupid. The handle was insulated."



I shook my head, unable to believe he'd taken such a risk. "Next time you feel the urge to do something that dumb, let me know. I'll hit you over the head and maybe knock some sense back into it."



"Look," he said, a touch impatiently, "it was the only way to blow the system without making them suspicious. And if they have power-surge cutoffs installed, we haven't got a whole lot of time to waste arguing before the system is back up again."



"I think the fact everything went off means they haven't got surge cutoffs installed."



"Riley, just shut the fuck up and concentrate on the matter at hand."



"Forgive me for not wanting a dead brother," I muttered, and rifled through the guard's thoughts again. "Seems they've got a largish contingent of guards on standby downstairs."



"How large is large?"



"Ten on standby, fourteen all together." I hesitated. "They're all nonhumans. Weres, shifters, and vamps."



He raised his eyebrows. "That's a rather big force to have considering they've had no trouble here, isn't it?"



"Maybe they have no trouble because they do have so many guards. Given the crowds they get, it'd certainly be worth having a decent security force ready to go when needed."



"I guess that's true. You want to get us inside the room?"



I mentally ordered the guard to open the door into the smaller room. Once we were safely inside, I carefully erased my tracks and all but released him - though like before, I kept a mental eye on him, just in case he heard us and went to sound the alarm again.



"Okay," I said softly, after scanning the room. "The wall to our right is a false one, and we should be able to step right through it. But they've set some sort of magical barrier that raises the alarm. And if it's electrically enhanced, it's probably going to be one of the systems connected to the backup generators."



"Do we need to go through it?"



"The basement, storage areas, and probably the main offices are accessible through the stairs in that half of the room." I paused, and reached into the guard's mind again, trying to get some idea of the floor plan. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell me much. Guards like him - employed to guard certain rooms, nothing more - rarely ventured beyond the staff rooms on the lower levels. "There are probably other stairs down, but we'd waste too much time trying to find them."



And this particular guard always took the elevator I'd seen in the hall earlier.



Rhoan flexed his fingers, his knuckles cracking lightly, then waved his hand at the wall. "So lead the way."



I did. Energy caressed my body as I went through the wall, once again making my skin tingle and my hair stand on end. The room beyond was unchanged, the cameras still on the tables, still pointed at the false wall. Ready for the action being planned for tonight, no doubt.



I headed right, following the faint breeze that stirred the air. The door was hidden in the shadows, but light seeped out from underneath it. It wasn't bright, but any light was a pain. It made our ability to shadow virtually useless.



"Emergency lighting," Rhoan commented. "That's unfortunate."



"And that's an understatement if I've ever heard one."



He walked past me and pressed an ear to the door. "I can't hear any noise close by, but we'd better be ready for trouble anyway." He glanced at me. "You did bring your gun, didn't you?"



"Yes, I brought it. I'd be stupid not to carry after the near miss with the silver-bullet-bearing rooftop assassin." Of course, I was also still carrying my shoes, which made better weapons for close-in fighting than a laser did - in my opinion at least.



I could - and would - use the laser if I had to, but only if it was absolutely necessary. I might feel safer with the weight of it in my hand, but I wasn't so blindly down the guardian track that I'd shoot on instinct. Not yet, anyway.



"You've been shot at before and it hasn't prompted any great need to carry a weapon," he said mildly. "Just thought I'd check."



I didn't bother responding. He turned the handle and cautiously opened the door. Pale yellow light splashed across his feet and seeped into the room.



Definitely emergency lighting - it wasn't bright enough to be anything else.



The air stirring past my nose carried the warmth of the morning, along with hints of diesel and oil. Perhaps the stair went down to some sort of maintenance area.



Rhoan slipped through the door and began to ease his way down the concrete steps, After ensuring the door closed quietly, I followed. Our journey downward was slow and filled with tension. We were far too visible on this stairwell, and that made for easy targets.



Though why I thought they'd risk shooting us I didn't even want to think about. And I just hoped it was fear of the unknown rather than pesky clairvoyance stepping in with some cheerful news.



Thankfully, we made it all the way down the stairs without discovery. The door at the bottom was unlocked, and there seemed to be nothing but silence beyond it.



Rhoan opened it carefully. A warm wind rushed in to greet us, and the scents of oil and diesel were heavier on the air. But underneath them ran the tangy scent of males. Human males.



The scents weren't sharp, weren't defined, meaning there was some distance between us and them, but it was a warning that we had to proceed carefully.



"Loading bay," he said softly, "The main door is only half down."



I slipped through the doorway and stopped beside him. Sunlight filtered through the gap between the floor and the top of the roller door, highlighting the oil stains splattered all over the concrete. The loading bay itself was empty of vehicles, but not of boxes. Most of them were alcohol filled, if the writing on the side was anything to go by.



Rhoan glanced at me and nodded toward the right. He headed left. The bright sunlight streaming in through the half-open doorway left little in the way of shadows, and I could only hope that whoever was doing the talking didn't suddenly decide to come out into the loading bay. We'd be sitting ducks. Or dogs, as the case may be.



I ran lightly up the stairs and walked along the wall, stepping past the boxes before edging my way to the door. Rhoan, pressed against the wall on the other side, raised three fingers, and began counting down. When there were no fingers left, I reached out, grabbed the door handle, and pulled it open. Rhoan was little more than a deadly blur that flowed inside. I could barely see him, so the humans inside had little hope. The talking stopped abruptly, but there was few other sound. With Gautier gone, Rhoan was now the top guardian at the Directorate, and what he did better than anyone was killing. Not that he killed the two men - just knocked them out cold.



I stepped over their collapsed forms. The room was small, and filled with various machine parts, though there were tools and oils and other stuff scattered about the shelves.



I looked down at the two men. "We can't leave them here. Someone will trip over them coming through the door."



He raised an eyebrow, amusement glinting in his gray eyes. "Safety concerns for possible assassins? How sweet."



I slapped his arm. "No, asshole. I'm worried about them being tripped over and found. Let's not make it too easy."



"I wasn't intending to." He motioned to the door on the other side of the room. "Go check that. I'll move these two into the shadows."



I walked across the room and pressed an ear against the door. The mechanical sounds we'd been hearing seemed to come from here. Certainly they were stronger - so much so it was almost impossible to hear anything else over them.



I glanced at Rhoan to make sure he was ready, then gripped the handle and carefully opened the door.



It slammed right back into my face and sent me reeling backward. I barely had time to swear before it was opened again and two wolves in human form were lunging toward me. I hadn't even scented them - but they'd obviously smelled me.



I scrambled backward, trying to collect my wits, trying to keep out of their reach. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rhoan move, and realized my attackers hadn't grasped the fact I wasn't alone. So I stopped moving, letting them get close, moving just fast enough to avoid their blows, then dropped my shoes and released a quick one-two jab of my own, hitting one in the gut, the other across the chin.



Chin boy reeled backward - straight into Rhoan's waiting arms. I grabbed the other, spun him around, and threw him backward. He hit the concrete wall hard, his head smashing into it with a crunch that made me wince. As he slid unconscious to the ground, I spun to see if my brother needed help. I shouldn't have bothered.



"How's your nose?" he said, not looking at me as he stepped over the body of the man to the still-open door.



"I'll live." The door had squashed my nose back against my face, but it wasn't broken and wasn't even really bleeding. Not much anyway. "What's beyond?"



"Machine room." He paused, cocking his head slightly. "I can hear distant footsteps. I can't tell where exactly they're coming from."



"The office areas won't be near the machine room, I wouldn't think."



"No." He glanced at me. "Ready to move on?"



I nodded. He slipped out the door and, after picking up my shoes, I followed. The room beyond was lit by globes high in the ceiling, but there were enough shadows to provide some cover should we need it.



We walked down a set of metal stairs, the sound of our footsteps seeming to echo across the silence. The room below wasn't actually full of machines. Sure, there were generators and water pumps, but there was also a vast array of switchboards, electrical stuff, computer stuff, metal boxes of various shapes and sizes, and God knows what else. Calling it a junk room would have been more appropriate.



We reached the floor and ran across to the nearest machine, keeping close to the various bits and pieces as we made our way through the room.



The sounds of nearing footsteps were becoming evident, but it was still hard to pinpoint a location. At times, they seemed to be all around us, though if that were the case, we surely would have seen them as we ran from the cover of one machine to the other. Only the dead could move fast enough to confuse a werewolf's sight - and we weren't normal werewolves. And even if we had been, we surely would have smelled them. Most vampires tended to be smelly beasts at the best of times.



We were nearing the far end of the machinery room when goose bumps began to scamper across my skin. I scanned the immediate area, then what walls were visible beyond it, seeing nothing out of place. Yet I couldn't escape the sensation we were about to walk into danger.



I stopped.



It was then I smelled him.



A vampire, stepping up behind me.



I spun and lashed out with a stiffened hand. He caught it hard and fast, amusement flashing across his thin lips. Or maybe that was contempt. Hard to tell sometimes with suckers.



I twisted and slashed out with the heel of my shoe. The wooden stiletto scraped across his face, and sparks flickered as the smell of burned flesh bloomed.



The vampire swore and began to crush my fingers, as if hoping to restrict my movements by sheer force of pain alone. At the same time, a tingling began to buzz around the edges of my thoughts. He was trying to get a mind-lock on me. Like that was ever going to happen.



"There's more," Rhoan said, his voice harsh as the sound of flesh hitting flesh joined the scent of burning in the air.



I didn't reply, just wrenched my hand away from the vamp. Surprise flickered in his eyes, but I didn't give him enough time to wonder why a mere wolf could free herself so easily from his grip. Just hit him as hard as I could, my fist flattening his nose and sending him flying backward. He hit the side of a generator with a grunt and slid to the floor, blood gushing from his nose and filling the air with its thick scent.



Another guard came at me. I ducked his blow, dropping to the ground and spinning around with an extended leg, sweeping him off his feet. He hit the ground with enough force to bruise his spine, but he didn't even grunt, just sprung back to his feet and leapt toward me.



I whacked out with a shoe, the spiked heel spearing through his hand. Fire flickered as his flesh began to burn, and he made a gargling sound. I ducked his punches, then thrust up, hitting him hard under the chin and sending him flying backward, my shoe still stuck in his paw.



Rhoan suddenly appeared beside me. He hurled away another wolf, then grabbed my arm. "Let's get out of here. The four remaining guards are undoubtedly on the way."



"We can beat four."



I twisted away from the blows of the vampire with the bloody nose, then kicked him in the nuts, as hard as I could. He went down with an oomph and didn't get up.



"Not without killing the other six." Rhoan disappeared from my sight for a moment then reappeared, the smell of blood thick on his skin.



"There are other options to killing. Like, calling in help." Hey, the things in our ears were there for that very purpose.



"Right now, they might think we're just thieves. The minute they know the Directorate is onto them, they'll pack up and leave. That's what happened in England after the seventeen kills there."



I ducked another blow then punched upward, aiming for the vamp's chin. He dodged, the bastard, and lashed out at me with a booted foot. The blow caught me in my still-healing thigh and pain flared. I hissed and whacked him with my remaining shoe. "Seventeen? I thought it was only a dozen or so?"



"There were four other similar kills the police couldn't connect to the club." He shrugged. "I did a little investigating after you went to bed."



"You didn't tell me that."



"Slipped my mind," He paused, then added, "The other men just entered the room. We need to get out now."



"Then go. I'll follow."



"Like hell. Sisters first."



He shoved me forward. I staggered a few steps, caught my balance, then ran like hell back through the machine room, heading for the loading bay and the half-open door. Hoping, of course, that it wasn't now closed. Although the lasers would soon take care of that.



Rhoan grabbed my arm, his grip tight, bruising. "Faster."



We pounded through the shadows, ducking and weaving as the remaining guards came at us, shoving them out of the way more than fighting them.



We reached the steps and pounded up them. I thrust open the door and ran inside. We'd gained precious seconds on our pursuers. Part of me wondered if it was going to be enough, simply because we had no idea what waited in the loading bay. I certainly didn't trust the silence coming from that room, that was for sure.



"Push the shelving unit down," Rhoan said, pointing to the unit on the left while he headed right.



I moved quickly to one side and shoved it with all my might. The unit made an odd sort of groan then slowly began to topple. Machinery bits and tools scattered, clanging across the floor and making enough noise to raise the dead. Or another alarm. Though I guess that was a pretty pointless worry when they were obviously more than a little aware of the fact they had uninvited guests.



Rhoan shoved a heavy-looking desk in front of the shelves. "That'll hold them for a few seconds."



I restrained the impulse to point out we'd actually wasted seconds creating the block, and just headed for the other door. There was still no sound coming from the loading bay, but awareness tingled across my skin as I gripped the door handle.



I glanced at my brother, saw him nod, then thrust the door open. Rhoan flowed through it, a shadow rilled with deadly intent. The man on the other side didn't have a chance.



I leapt over his body and followed my brother's fleeing form, my gaze on that bright patch of sunshine and the freedom it represented.



From the corner of my eye I caught the hint of movement. I risked a glance and saw the man with the gun.



"He's armed," I yelled, reaching for my own weapon.



But I was too slow. Far too slow.



Something hit my shoulder and spun me around. Somehow, I retained my balance and kept running. That batch of sunshine was close, so close.



Ahead, Rhoan stumbled, his fingers brushing the concrete as he balanced and went on. Something silver glittered in his shoulder. Fear hit me. I reached back, feeling my own shoulder. Felt something small and metallic sticking out from it. I pulled it free.



A dart.



He'd goddamn darted us.



Oh, fuck...



It was my last conscious thought as the concrete rushed up to meet me.