The wraith’s face was broken and bloodied, eyes sunken and turned, without vision until he could heal.
Keep moving, Adam commanded himself. He dropped to all fours, pipe grasped in both hands, his body tabled over Talia.
The wraith lanced out blindly and hit the building where Adam had been standing, raining stucco plaster down on his back.
Adam tightened his grip on the pipe, throwing his weight and twisting to spear the wraith in the gut. The metal pierced with a sickening slide and stuck in the wraith’s ribs.
The monster screeched again. He caught Adam at the belt and shirt collar and heaved him off Talia. The shirt ripped with Adam’s weight, the cloth searing against his throat as it gave. The belt held fast and the wraith sent him spinning cockeyed back into the wall, headfirst.
Blinding pain bolted down Adam’s neck and through his jaw. His ears roared and salty blood coated his mouth. But the pile he landed on was soft. Talia, again.
Adam braced against the building and kicked back with his leg. Knocked the wraith off balance.
Two loud shots echoed out into the night.
Custo. Finally.
Physically subduing a wraith was absurd. They were too strong, regenerated too quickly to kill. Adam had learned that the hard way with Jacob a long time ago. At least the bullets would stun him momentarily, though.
The wraith crashed back into two tall plastic garbage bins. He flailed, ripped a lid off, and sent the cover flying against the building in a warped ricochet.
“I’ll take her to the car,” Adam called. His head pounded. Thick, warm moisture dripped into his right eye.
Custo responded by plugging the wraith with two more shots. The monster still twitched.
Adam cradled Talia to his chest and rounded the bend of the building. A motley group of people stared into the mouth of the alley. More than one held a phone open. To call for help or catch the fight on video?
Adam couldn’t think about the implications of the widespread panic that would follow wraith exposure now. The only thing that mattered was Talia.
The car waited down the street, beyond the gawkers. Adam shouldered his way through and limped toward the vehicle. He shifted her weight to open the back door, then gently laid her inside.
“Stay out of the alley,” Custo shouted to the gathering crowd. He burst through the group as Adam crawled in the back over Talia—careful, now—and yanked the door shut.
Custo got in the driver’s seat, jammed the key in the ignition, and sped away from the intersection.
“How bad is she?” Custo asked.
Adam wiped the blood from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. Stung, but he didn’t care. “I don’t know. Wraith didn’t touch her, but she’s burning up. She’s got heatstroke at the very least.”
“Hospital?”
Adam found the flutter of Talia’s pulse at her neck. He regarded her blonde hair, matted to stringy dun, and her overly thin face, smudged with grime. She’d obviously been through hell and hadn’t trusted her troubles to law enforcement. She’d have had a reason. The woman was nothing if not ruled by reason.
Two months missing. Two months hunted, more likely.
In the rearview mirror, red and blue police lights skated across Custo’s face.
Much better—safer—to get her back to Segue. A gamble, of course, but she’d survived this long already, she’d just have to hold out a little longer.
“Airport,” Adam decided. “We’ll see what we can do for her there before takeoff. But we can’t take too long. That wraith won’t be alone.”
FOUR
TALIA woke to a blinding brightness. Unforgiving hands pushed her down into a cruel bathtub of water filled with invisible icy knives. She fought, but the hands would not release her, and the blades speared ever deeper into her muscles.
Shivers racked her body in mean waves, and her heart galloped like a runaway horse, tripping on her chest and beating her deeper into the water.
A face leaned over, the overhead light shining like a solar halo around his head.
“Dr. O’Brien,” a low, male voice said. “You have heatstroke. We’re trying to bring your body temperature down.”
Heatstroke? That was a lie. She was freezing.
She cowered back and squeezed her eyes shut, intensifying the throb in her skull. They can’t find you in the dark. She gritted her teeth, but they still rattled in her head. Please don’t let them find me.
Her body knotted, clenching in her calves and at the small of her back. Her clothes, heavy and twisted, seemed glued to her skin. A sound echoed out. A cry building to a scream. She bit her lips—no screams, no dark devil—and grasped at the arms that held her.
“Patty says she’ll be cramping up pretty bad. She says we need to massage her legs and calves,” another said.
“Then get in here and hold her, so that I can,” the first answered.
The shape of a man crept low next to her.
Her stomach spasmed; she choked, felt herself abruptly lifted, and then she vomited over the side of the tub.
“Damn,” the second man said under his breath.
They settled her back in the water. A hard bar of an arm fell across her chest while merciless hands stroked deep into the muscles of her calves. Hurt. Bruised. The hands moved up to her thighs.
Strange hands on her body. No! She kicked again. A backlash of water swamped her.
“Settle down, Dr. O’Brien. You’re going to be okay. You need to drink a little. Can you do that for me?” The first voice again.
Something skimmed her lips. A straw. Her tongue felt too big to work it right. A splash of sour, sweet fluid hit her mouth and mingled with the acid of her vomit. Made her choke and cough.
“That’s it. Just a little more.”
She tried, but her shakes were too bad.
“More,” the voice commanded, losing its kindness.
She wanted to cry, but she did as she was told. Took in a deep drink.
“Watch her temperature,” the other man said. “We don’t want it to drop too low too fast. That’s supposed to be bad.”
A hand pressed on her forehead. Lingered there long enough for her to sense a well of great strength within its bearer. Then it was gone. “Still feels hot to me, but the ice water screwed with my hands. Did Patty say how long to keep her in the tub?”
“Until her temp comes down.”
Another hand touched to her head, too light and brief for her to sense anything. “I think she’s better.”
“Okay. Let’s get her up and her clothes off. Go get me something to wrap around her. Nothing heavy. Pull the sheet off the bed.”
The first man took hold under her arms and hauled her out of the water to stand dripping on the floor. In her clothes. Strange. He knelt before her, working the button on her cut-off jeans, peeling them downward, and shifting her weight so she could step out. He paused at her panties, but then stripped those down, too.
Mortifying, but she shook too much to do anything about it. She glanced away from his ministrations and got a brief impression of a small bedroom, spare and utilitarian. Smelled like a garage.
“Scissors,” the man stripping her called.
A sudden sob escaped her. Her weight swayed forward and she dropped her hands to the man’s shoulders.
A warm arm went up around her waist to steady her. His hand, hot on her waist, branded her with a sense of his strength and purpose. Cued a sensory memory of that very same arm turning her in darkness so that her body was sandwiched—shielded—by his and the wall of a building. The monster not three paces away…