Mirror of the Gods, page 18
Lifting her eyes took a good portion of effort, but dragging her head up took even more, so much so that it was almost painful.
It was too bright. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as they showered the space with white, clinical light.
People, she realized. Some fuzzy and out of her field of view, all wearing black. Two men stood before her, one with golden hair and cold, green eyes, the other with dark hair and eyes both. They looked familiar. Felt familiar.
Lucy wanted to whine or make a sound, but none would come out.
“Remove her gag, James,” the man commanded. James Foster. That was his name. Dr. Foster stepped forward immediately, impassively yanking something out of Lucy’s mouth.
She blinked tiredly, her throat dry and scratchy as she tried to speak. “W-Where am I?”
The other man tsked and glanced at James. “How much chloroform did they use?”
“I’m not sure.”
“No matter,” the man said, though he sounded annoyed. “Miss Sheridan, we met the other night. Do you remember?” He raised a flaxen brow at her.
Lucy frowned, straining to take in his face. Her head pounded, her stomach rolled.
Then it all clicked into place.
Her gray eyes widened into saucers. Yes, she did remember. Alastair. He was the Master of the Order. He wanted her, and her bracelets.
He’d tried to turn her against the Vanir.
Her mind slowly caught up. The book, the Order, their shared dance at the patrons’ dinner, his veiled threat, his attempt to break the trust she’d had in Dira.
Then a pair of dark, fathomless eyes, so inviting, and the feel of gentle hands flashed through her mind.
Ridder.
What if she never saw him again?
Her throat tightened, her eyes burned, and she felt her heart splinter.
“What do you want?” she asked, staring up at him.
“I want to offer you something, and you’d be a fool to refuse me. And you, Lucy, do not strike me as a foolish woman.” Alastair loomed above her, staring down his slightly hooked nose.
When Lucy didn’t speak, just glared up at him, he sighed. “Come work for me. Forsake the Vanir and their sanctimonious ideology, or I’ll rip everything you love from you, slowly and methodically, until you come to me on your own. I’m sure if I went looking for your family, they’d be easy to find. Perhaps I should send someone there now.” He shrugged.
Lucy gaped but felt something shift in her chest.
He didn’t know about the Gardiens du Savoir. He wasn’t aware that her family was being protected.
It took everything inside her muddled brain to keep from letting any sort of satisfaction creep onto her face. “No.”
Alastair’s eyes flared, lips pulling back from his teeth in a snarl. “You keep telling me no and I cannot fathom why. Perhaps you’re not as smart as I previously assumed.”
Lucy bit back a smirk, her eyes drooping a bit. “You know what they say about assuming, Al.”
Alastair made a huffing growl noise as he stepped away from her, fury flashing. “Miss Sheridan seems to be suffering from the after-effects of your ill-executed plan to use chloroform. Make her see reason before she gets to London this evening.”
He stepped farther back, almost fading into the shadows. “Use any means necessary.”
Fear crashed over her as he turned to walk away. Another man approached, dressed in all black.
Lucy barely had a moment to brace herself before his large, meaty fist connected with her jaw.
All she saw were stars.
***
The warehouse was located beside the Thames, in an almost abandoned industrial park that was as silent as a graveyard. Jeger told them that Alastair Duncan had left with two guards in one of the SUVs.
Ridder immediately asked if Lucy had been with him, and he deflated happily when she shook her head.
Kreager parked behind the building beside the warehouse where they were holding Lucy, and Ridder was the first one out. They stuck to the edges of the dilapidated building, creeping toward the side door. It was almost too easy. Dira frowned for a moment, just long enough for Clint to see.
He watched as Ridder pulled out his pistol from his hip holster, screwing a long silencer into the barrel of the gun.
His obsidian eyes met Clint’s and he gave a small grimace. “It’s not ideal, but it’s what needs to be done.”
Clint swallowed thickly and nodded, feeling his stomach roil. He’d never truly witnessed violence. Discounting any sort of brawl he’d gotten to in his youth, he’d never seen much blood. And he’d sure as hell never seen death.
Something in his bones, in the tension in the air, in the way the Vanir were standing, hovering just in front of the large, rusting industrial door, told him he was about to witness it firsthand.
“On three,” Dira commanded, reaching out to grip the handle of the metal door.
Silently she counted, holding up the fingers of her free hand, then yanked it open.
Ridder was inside first.
The first man they encountered barely had time to blink and turn toward the sound of the door opening.
Ridder made it quick, painless, his knife and body a blur before the man was slumping to the ground. Kreager was close behind him, moving along to the other guard, who was completely oblivious to the fact that his comrade had just been killed no more than fifteen feet behind him.
The dull, muffled clap of his suppressed gun echoed through the hallway, but it was quiet enough that no one would have heard it besides the five people now crowded inside. Jeger closed the door silently behind herself, slipping past Clint and Dira at the back to position herself between Kreager and Ridder for a moment.
“Four guards down. Two with Duncan, these two here. That leaves eleven in the vicinity with Lucy and James Foster.”
Clint’s anger flared bitter and hot. A man he’d considered a friend, his mentor, now held his star pupil—and a tentative friend—captive inside the room just beyond the corridor.
Dira nudged Clint’s shoulder with her own, drawing his attention. Silently, she held out a black Glock 19. He took it, the burden of it hanging over him.
“Only if it’s absolutely necessary,” she whispered, her blue eyes firm.
He nodded, unable to speak.
Silently, they began moving down the hallway. It was time to get Lucy back.
***
Everything hurt. Every inch of her skin. Her lungs, her throat, her head. All of it.
Even her hair hurt.
Something in her face was fractured, she was sure of it. She knew at least one rib was broken. The sharp pain every time she took a shallow inhale was extremely telling.
They’d spent the past twenty minutes delivering blows to her stomach and her face. Then they untied her legs.
The first chance Lucy got, she headbutted the man hauling her to her feet. She made it three steps before stumbling. Her body was heavy and sluggish, still half drugged, and in immense pain.
Then, the Order soldiers had delivered a series of kicks to her ribs.
Her breath stuttered out of her, a strangled sob bubbling past her lips as she lay on her side.
Swallowing thickly, all she could taste was blood. She couldn’t think, couldn’t fight. Couldn’t do anything but lie there.
Lucy prayed silently.
All she wanted was her family safe, and to see Ridder again. But with every passing moment, her hope faded.
“Alright, enough toying with the woman,” Dr. Foster said, uninterested. “Let’s see if this has been enough to change her mind.” He stared down at her bloody and wheezing form crumpled on the ground. “Miss Sheridan, are you able to speak?”
It took her a moment, but she nodded. Lucy licked her chapped lips, tasting more blood.
“Good. Now, Alastair is a powerful and dangerous man. This is only the tip of the iceberg, my dear. Have you thought better about being stubborn?” He crouched down to peer at her as she moaned.
Rolling onto her back, Lucy stared up at James with wide, pain-filled eyes.
“All you need to do is agree, and all of this stops,” he crooned with faux sympathy.
The pain in her eyes morphed to fury as she stared at him unflinchingly, and with all the strength she had left, she pursed her lips and spat in his face. “Go to hell.”
“How dare you!” James reared back, swiping at his face, fingers coming away from his skin with blood.
Lucy braced herself for the coming kick, the punch, anything.
And felt her heart stop at the sound of a gun cocking. The deafening click. James loomed above her, his gun aimed at her leg.
He sneered down at her. “Let’s see how tough you are with a hole in your leg.”
She closed her eyes, braced herself, and prayed one more time to anyone listening. Praying for someone to help her, to allow her to see her family one more time. To be far, far away from that dark and damp warehouse.
“This is all on you, Miss Sheridan,” James told her flatly.
Then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Everything was a red haze. His body pulsed, his blood roaring. In his five hundred years of life, Ridder had never felt this much fury.
It was like a blazing fire that had been sparked and then banked as they planned, talked, and strategized, and it burned white-hot in his gut.
Then they’d burst through the doors and the first thing Ridder laid his eyes on was Lucy, curled up on the blood-spattered ground, her back to him. With Dr. Foster above her, aiming a gun at her leg.
A gunshot rang out, and the entire world narrowed.
Kreager’s raised gun smoked, still aimed at the guard who’d been standing by the door but now slumped to the ground, a bullet hole through the center of his forehead.
James turned his gun on Ridder, who was barreling toward him. One shot hit the Vanir in the center of his chest, but he didn’t even flinch, simply kept pushing toward them. James scrambled back, then was yanked behind a larger merc, pushing him out of the line of danger. Gunfire rained through the building within an instant.
Crouching down beside Lucy, Ridder brushed a hand over her shoulder. She flinched, and the movement jerked her. A silent scream etched its way onto her face as he rolled her to her back. Ridder’s heart shattered into a million pieces. His soul felt as though she’d wrenched it violently away. Her pale skin was already darkening from numerous bruises and blood dripped down her chin. Her cheek was swollen, a large cut across her cheekbone still bleeding, and there was already a nasty-looking black bruise forming on her jaw.
“Lucy! No, no, don’t move. Please, mi dulce,” he murmured. Ridder smoothed a hand over her hair as gently as he could, brushing it away from her forehead. Blood from a large slash on her right temple matted her dark hair to her cheek.
Ridder could see the moment his voice registered through the popping of guns and grunts of violence, she stopped, her eyes shooting up to him.
***
It took her three slow, painful heartbeats to truly understand that he was there, in front of her, and not just a desperate hallucination.
“You’re here,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears that spilled and splashed over, mixing with the blood from the cut on her cheek.
“I’m here, love. Let me cut you loose.” Ridder pulled a large knife from a sheath on his leg. Her eyes flashed, body jerking.
“Behind you!” she gasped. He whirled around. A man nearly as big as Kreager barreled into Ridder, knocking him to the side and sending them both sprawling. Lucy hissed as she lifted herself up, crunching her upper body to a sitting position.
When he was tackled, Ridder had dropped his knife and his gun. Lucy made a grab for the knife, twisting it in her hands to try and cut the rope wound tightly around her wrists.
She gave a cry as her bindings finally broke, peeling away from the raw flesh.
***
Across the warehouse, Jeger was sauntering toward a mercenary, her eyes flashing dangerously.
“Let’s dance,” she told him in a low voice.
His brows raised, taking in her form. “I don’t make it a habit of hitting girls.”
Jeger lunged. Her opponent wasn’t expecting her entire body to slip between his legs. Her hand wrapped around his ankle as she slid across the floor under him. Before he realized what was happening, Jeger was standing, using the momentum to yank his leg backward, sending him sprawling.
He rolled onto his back just in time to see her appear above him, straddling his waist as the cold metal pint of her knife pressed to his Adam’s apple. His hands came up, struggling to push Jeger’s away.
“I’m not a girl,” she said. “I’m a woman.”
Jeger raised a hand, slamming it down on the butt of her knife, plunging it down into his neck.
He sputtered, blood slipping past his lips, as the light faded from his eyes.
Jay took no pleasure in killing the man, but she refused to dwell on it as she pulled the knife from him, wiping the blood off on her thigh before moving on to the next target.
One down.
The hunt had officially begun.
***
Dira rolled out of the way of a bullet, popping up to her feet as she sprinted toward large pieces of scrap metal stacked together beside the wall. Clint was close behind.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted as the loud clang of a bullet hitting the metal shielding them rang through his ears.
“Stay here, Clint.”
“No! No way!”
Dira whirled, gripping the edge of his bulletproof vest so she could haul him closer. “You’re a liability right now. If I let you back out there, I’m going to worry about you, and then I won’t be focusing. Please. Stay. Here.”
Clint blinked wide eyes and couldn’t help the small grin that curled the corner of his mouth.
“Alright. But I hope you know you just admitted you like me,” he said smugly, watching as exasperation pinched her face and a tiny, almost minuscule, flash of fondness flitted through her eyes.
“I said no such thing,” she snapped.
She released his vest and slipped out from behind their safe haven before he could say anything else.
***
Kreager gave James Foster a serrated smile, his golden eyes glinting with malice as the perfectly dressed man shot at him with shaky hands. He slid his gun back into its holster, instead retrieving the large knife strapped to the back of his pants.
“Dr. Foster, if you wanted to get involved in a war, you should have spent less time with your books, and more time training,” Kreager drolled, lazily motioning with his hands, knife glinting menacingly.
***
Lucy’s arms burned as she pushed herself onto her knees, watching as Ridder rolled to straddle the man who’d tackled him. He held one large hand to the man’s throat, holding the other out to the side.
“Lucy!”
Lunging forward, she gave him the knife still clutched in her left hand.
The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, Ridder swung the knife up, burying it expertly between the man’s ribs and into his lungs.
Lucy watched in fascinated horror as the man she loved held the knife there until his enemy stopped twitching.
The sounds of fighting drifted away as Ridder ripped the bloodied knife out, dropping it to the floor. The Vanir had made quick work of the rest of the men in the warehouse, the fight over almost as quickly as it started.
Lucy didn’t hesitate to use the last of her strength to fling herself into his waiting arms. He stood, pulling her up with him as he crushed her to his chest.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again into her hair, cupping the back of her head.
She didn’t care if every nerve ending was screaming at her in pain, she couldn’t go another moment without telling him. “I love you.”
He pulled back, staring down into her battered face, her tear-filled eyes, and smiled. Leaning down, he rested his forehead against hers. “I love you,” he gasped.
He said it again, then claimed her mouth in an earth-shattering kiss.
“I almost lost you,” he whispered. “You’re the other half of my soul, and I almost lost you.”
A throat clearing beside them had the couple pulling apart.
Dira stood beside Jeger and Clint, both of whom were smiling at her.
“Good to see you, Sheridan.”
Lucy gave a soft breathy laugh, leaning heavily against Ridder as he kept her tucked dutifully to his side. “Thanks, Dr. McCain.”
“Lucy,” Dira started stepping toward her, her eyes filled with heartbreak. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Lucy said, a small smile on her face.
Dira looked at her brother, meeting his eyes. They communicated silently before Ridder nodded, eyes softening just a hair. They could put it behind them now.
Kreager appeared, dragging an unconscious James Foster and dropping him a few feet away.
Kreager’s hair was disheveled and falling free from the bun he usually kept it in, and droplets of blood sprayed across his neck and part of his face.
“Good to see you in ... relatively one piece, little sister,” he said.
She grinned. Her split lip pulled and made her wince but she couldn’t stop smiling. “Thanks for coming to get me,” she told them all.
“As if we would ever leave you behind,” Jeger said with a wink.
Kreager reached up, undoing his bun and letting his black hair tumble down his shoulders.
Lucy’s eyes surveyed the room, a small smile on her lips as the siblings began talking among themselves. For some reason, she felt like she’d been there before, been in that position. Not the pain, just the place.
With a small frown, she stepped away from them, limping, her hand pressed to her ribs as she tried to not breathe deeply. She hobbled toward a window, where pale afternoon light from a clouded sky drifted in. The feeling of déjà vu got stronger and stronger.
