Gwen lifted her head. “Do you have delusions of supervillainy or what—He Who Must Not Be Named, lurking in the shadows?”
Mac winced, but the man’s voice stayed mild. Nothing of the sort to put chills down anyone’s back. “Close enough, for now.”
Gwen drew breath—Mac felt the suddenness of it, and closed a hand around her arm to stop her words. They were supposed to ask questions, make demands...that was their role here.
He was not inclined to fill it.
She subsided, and he turned the hold into one of reassurance.
After a few moments, he heard a disgruntled noise.
For damned sure an object came hurtling out of the darkness. Mac jerked Gwen aside, and her leap of fear funneled in through the blade, slicing along nerves that felt too much of its pleasure.
Far too much.
It didn’t used to be that way.
The object slammed to the pocked concrete beside them, and even as Mac recognized it as a suitcase, the man—disdainful, somewhat amused—said, “You should dress your girlfriend.”
He felt Gwen’s frown as surely as he’d felt her fear, but this time she kept her voice low. “What—”
“A suitcase. Your suitcase.”
“Wow,” she said, and this time she didn’t mutter it. “That is impressive. Supervillain-wise, I mean. Stealing suitcases.”
Mac couldn’t help a smile at that. So damned bold.
“I didn’t,” the man said. “But I did take it from the one who did. His fear was delicious.”
His fear was delicious.
Mac stepped away from Gwen, unconscious of it—took another step, all the while staring up at that dark corner. This man knew...
“I thought that might get your attention,” the man said.
“Who are you?”
Now he was playing by the man’s rules. Now the voice held satisfaction. “The proper question is, who are you? I had my reasons for coming here...you were not among them. Yet here you are.” A considering pause. “Perhaps drawn, much as I. Perhaps chance. Or perhaps it simply doesn’t matter. However, I have found you now.”
“And you think that’s a good thing?” Mac asked. “For you, I mean?”
“I expect it to be.” The dry voice could have been a warning.
Probably was. The blade spoke to him then—whispering a sudden song of terror and despair and confusion, infusing it with glee.
“Mac,” Gwen whispered, and he recognized it for the warning it was—her own instincts, crying out. He found his hand in his pocket, the knife settling instantly into his palm.
Never a good sign.
It flared blue-white light through the darkness, startling Gwen into a cry. A blade mutable, reshaping from stout pocketknife to arcing saber, the guard a graceful sweep enclosing his hand. A deadly beauty, gleaming in the darkness. Ready. Eager.
Overhead lights flickered on—one by one. Not quite slowly enough to keep Mac from wincing, but with more consideration than he would have expected. Until he realized it wasn’t for him.
It was because the other man, too, needed to take such care. This man knew...
A glance at that corner showed exactly why Mac hadn’t been able to penetrate those shadows—a thin fabric screen separated them. Thin enough so the man could see out but offering Mac little more than a hazy shadow as he spoke. “Pardon the dramatics,” he said. “I’m not ready to be seen, but blindfolding you wouldn’t serve my purpose.”
Mac asked what he was supposed to ask, even if he did it with a growl. “And that would be?”
“Getting your attention.” The voice held no menace—simply a confidence. An expectation that he would get from Mac what he wanted from Mac.
It set a growl in Mac’s throat, not quite voiced.
The two men from earlier marched into the vast room, paying no attention at all to its occupants. One removed the suitcase; the other simply was. When the first returned, they approached. Gwen made no protest at all when Mac put himself between them and moved to stay that way.
“’Ere now, she comes with us,” the cockney said, and the blade picked up on Gwen’s fear, too—a more familiar and poignant connection than the unknown surges in which it had already been basking. Not my feelings.
One of the men reached for Gwen.
“No,” Mac said, flatly standing ground—pushing back at the blade, even as he churned with the strength of what it threw at him, so much more intense than only a few days earlier. “She doesn’t.”
“Wasn’t a question,” the other man said. It was the first Mac had seen of his face, with skin so dark it seemed to hint of blue, features broad. His deep and lazy voice had grown impatient.
Grown stupid.
The man reached for Gwen, as if the mere presence of his boss in the shadows guaranteed his safety.
It didn’t.
The blade flashed.
It wanted him all. It fought to take him all, gulping in his first startled flash of reaction and grasping for the rest. Wanting the life-and-death struggle, wanting to feed on shock and terror and then flesh and blood itself. Mac fought it back—not wanting that needless death and not willing to leave Gwen vulnerable.
A stark frozen instant of time, that’s all it took. Then the man stumbled back, staring agape at his forearm—at the sight of bone peeking through the gash laid from the inside of his elbow to his wrist, the blood spurting.
The second man didn’t hesitate, leaving his comrade to flounder while he leaped back, hand darting for the gun in the cross-draw holster at his belt.
“Hold!” The command came in an inexorable shout, and as the man froze, as Mac regained his ready stance before Gwen, the puppet master from above took an audible breath, slow and deep. “Did I not tell you to treat them with care? See to Maitho. It will be to our new friend’s regret that the woman stays, but he has made his decision.”
Mac barely heard him; he took his cue from the other two men. Their change of body language, the emotions rippling through the blade—resentment shock pain frustration fear acceptance. And still the blade resisted, wanting to lay in—to bathe in—the destruction it could wrought. It took a grunt of effort, a step back...
Right into Gwen, who was probably pretty damned sorry she’d been crowding him at all.
“Further gone than I thought,” the man above said; the other two had found their exit, leaving the room bare again. “I don’t imagine the past twenty-four hours have been easy on you. Let me get right to the point, then.”
“Please,” Gwen said, but her bravado had a tremor in it.
“You have something I can use. You are something I can use. And you are unexpectedly ripe—pushed, perhaps, to a maturation that might have taken several months more. The wild road.”
Mac couldn’t help it. He jerked back into sudden focus, aiming glare and demand up at that screened corner. The wild road. His hand clenched so tightly around the saber hilt that his forearm shook with the tension of it. “What do you know of it?”
“Everything.” The man’s voice deepened further. “I have struck a bargain the likes of which would astonish you and the likes of which you will never quite see—there can only be one of us. But I can nonetheless guide you to fruition. I would find you useful, thus.”
“I find myself perfectly useful as I am,” Mac snapped back, as Gwen made a little vibrating noise in her throat. Warning, perhaps. Just plain creeped out, definitely.
But the improved lighting had finally given Mac what he needed—the way out. Just a glimpse of it, a plain old push door in the corner, half-hidden behind a sheltering entry wall. He nudged Gwen in that direction, waited for the glimmer of bright hope that would tell him she’d seen it.