Sunfall Read online

  As I approached the corpse, my hunger ascended, clawing its way up to supplant human reason. A film of red slid over my vision and I surrendered to my feline instincts, cleaving flesh from bone, knowing Valentine would protect me as I fed.

  Finally, the urgency ebbed. As my human consciousness returned, I looked to Val who was inspecting her new weapons. Not so very long ago, I would have been ashamed to have her see me in a feeding frenzy. But we knew every aspect of each other fully now—the tender and the violent, the cutthroat and the compassionate, the dark and the light. She was my mate. I felt her in my soul and claimed a place in her body’s every cell.

  “If those guards weren’t alone, we’ll have company,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Alexa, are you okay to go on?”

  My right leg was stiff and sore, but the flow of blood had stopped and I dipped my head in assent. If I shifted back and forth again, I would be healed but dangerously weak. It was better to carry on, but I let Malcolm and Constantine share the lead as we moved forward.

  Ahead, the corridor ended in a T. The silence was oppressive. Every other time I’d visited this floor, the distant beeping of heart monitors and the hustle and bustle of human orderlies had filled the air. Were there no patients in the infirmary, or had they been evacuated? Or worse…

  Suddenly, the walls themselves seemed to sigh in a low hissing noise that came from somewhere to our left. I froze, every sense extended. The sound didn’t repeat itself, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it. Constantine and Malcolm quivered beside me, hackles raised. If Val’s reflexes hadn’t been so sharp, she would have crashed into them. The question in her eyes was obvious, but she didn’t speak and her finger hovered just above the trigger of her firearm.

  I began to move forward, but her hand on my flank made me pause. She shook her head once before flattening herself against the wall at the edge of the intersection. I let her go. Now that she was armed, she could lay down cover fire for us if necessary.

  In one fluid movement, she spun into the open, gripping her weapon with both hands. When her shoulders dropped infinitesimally, I knew we were clear to join her. She set a quick pace down the hall, which ended in a sliding door. I had never been inside the laboratory, but if its door was pressurized, that could have been the source of the mysterious sound. Still, that meant someone had opened or closed it—someone who would doubtless be waiting for us. As we approached, Constantine and Malcolm fanned out to flank Valentine, leaving me to guard her back. Exactly where I wanted to be.

  Without any warning, Val broke into a run. After a split second of confusion, we leapt into motion behind her. As she triggered the door, she dropped into a slide along the slick tiles. Gunfire erupted from the threshold, but the bullets passed above us. I heard the sharp report of her weapon and then the gunman slumped to the floor, a quarter-sized hole in the center of his forehead.

  Valentine never stopped moving, instead using her momentum to propel herself back onto her feet. But just as she regained her balance, another human figure stepped out of concealment behind the door. He was too close to fire, but he swung viciously at her head with the butt of his assault rifle. Faster than I could follow, Val dodged the blow just far enough so that it caught her in the shoulder. The coppery scent of her blood filled the air as she staggered and crashed into the wall.

  Rage welled up in me, eclipsing the pain of my injury. But even as I raced to Val’s defense, two wolves emerged from the shadows behind the door. Constantine and Malcolm rushed forward to meet them, and the air filled with the sounds of snapping and snarling. For a moment, it seemed as though Val’s assailant would land another strike with his weapon, but she ducked his next blow and delivered a powerful uppercut that snapped his head back. By the time I’d arrived at her feet, she had lunged to the side, raised her gun, and dispatched him.

  Despite the blood streaming down her arm, Val didn’t so much as pause to catch her breath. Swiftly, she swung the bag down from her shoulders and began to set the explosive charge. As she worked, I rejoined Malcolm and Constantine, who were licking minor wounds after their most recent fight.

  And then, over the antiseptic flavor of the air and the pungent musk of Were sweat and the metallic odor of blood, I caught his scent. Balthasar Brenner. I would have recognized it anywhere, and though my human brain flooded over with remembered fear and anxiety, my animal instincts knew only rage.

  When his scent grew stronger, I realized he was approaching from the corridor intersecting this hallway just a few feet ahead of us. Val was oblivious, and I had no time to make her understand. I charged into her, throwing her off-balance and sending her skidding toward the right-hand alcove just inside the door. She grunted in pain, but I turned away, paws scrabbling at the tile as I tried to build up momentum. Before I could gain purchase on the floor, Malcolm shot past me. He reached the corner just as Brenner stepped around it. The world slowed as Malcolm bowled into his nemesis, claws extended. Gunfire echoed between the walls and blood spattered across the gleaming floor, a crimson Rorschach blot.

  A hush fell over the corridor. Malcolm’s back legs twitched, but otherwise, there was no sign of movement. I edged closer, my senses straining. Had Malcolm triumphed, only to be struck down himself? Was Brenner still alive?

  Suddenly, Malcolm flopped onto his side. I had only a second to realize my mistake before I flattened myself into the alcove across from Valentine, barely evading the barrage of bullets that sprayed into the hall. Brenner was manipulating Malcolm’s injured body—using him as a shield. There was nothing I could do to get to him, short of putting myself in the line of fire. Val caught my eye and shook her head, then hefted her rifle. I understood; she would try to keep Brenner distracted. Perhaps she would even get lucky.

  But as she began to return fire, it quickly became clear that Brenner had the superior tactical position. Val had to take care with her shots so as not to further injure Malcolm, whose back legs continued to scrape weakly against the floor. He seemed to have lost all control of his front legs, and Brenner could easily have put him out of his misery. Doubtless, he realized we’d be less aggressive if he allowed Malcolm to live.

  Each time I tried to take advantage of Val’s cover fire, Brenner managed to force me back into the shadows. When I turned to catch a glimpse of Constantine, I found him trapped just outside the lab. His weight held the door open, but whenever he tried to make his way toward me, Brenner sprayed the corridor with bullets.

  At first, I thought the roaring in my ears was the sound of my own frustrated growls. But then the rumble grew louder, punctuated by a rhythmic throbbing more felt than heard. When the very walls began to pulse, I finally recognized the source. Rotor blades. Someone was flying a helicopter very close to this building.

  Suddenly, Brenner was racing down the corridor away from us, toward the window at its far end. He kept his rifle pointed backward, providing his own cover as he ran. Val’s curses echoed in my ears as I waited for him to lower his weapon. Just a few seconds—I could reach him in just a few seconds. Muscles taut, I waited for my opening.

  It came moments later, when he swung his rifle across the front of his body, finger still pressed to the trigger. The window exploded outward, glass splinters gleaming prismatically in the influx of sunlight. I bounded toward him, leaping over Malcolm, milking every ounce of energy from my wounded body. Valentine’s bullets whistled above me, and I saw Brenner jerk as one of them struck him below his left shoulder blade.

  Too little, too late. He leapt for the window, body corkscrewing into open space as his momentum punched him through the remaining glass shards. The dark and tangy scent of his blood bloomed on the air, and screams from passersby below rose up to us like a descant. I skidded to a halt at the far wall and braced my paws on the sill, craning my neck for a glimpse.

  Had I been human, I would have gasped. Brenner clung to one of the helicopter’s landing skids, tilting it precariously as it struggled to clear the roof of the high-rise acros
s the street. In the next second, Val was beside me. She raised her gun and sighted along the barrel, jaw clenched in concentration. Helpless, I prayed she would find her mark…but as she squeezed the trigger, the chopper accelerated sharply upward. Val’s shot hit the skid just past Brenner’s grip, inciting more screams from the spectators below.

  “Fuck!” Val hurled her weapon to the floor as she watched Brenner escape into the darkening sky.

  I let my panther’s bewildered rage incite my transformation. As the bone-jarring pain of my shift subsided, I released a long breath and returned my attention to Val, who was speaking tersely into her phone.

  “You heard me—gone. Call in all the favors you have left to hold off the police. We’re going to try to figure out what Brenner was looking for here in the first place.”

  “Foster?” I asked when Val vehemently disconnected the call.

  She nodded, then reached out a hand to me. Her fingers were trembling with suppressed rage, but her touch on my face was exquisitely gentle. “How are you feeling?”

  I managed a thin smile. “Good as new. Though I could eat a horse.”

  “Alexa!”

  At Constantine’s strangled shout, I spun to face him. He was standing over Malcolm, and at first, I feared the worst. But then I registered the haze surrounding him as his massive body began to blur. After weeks spent trapped in his lion, Malcolm was finally shifting back into human form.

  We had lost Brenner, but regained our general.

  Chapter Seven

  Where the massive lion had lain half-paralyzed, a broad-shouldered man now knelt taking deep, shuddering breaths. Malcolm’s golden brown hair, shot through with white at his temples, was matted with sweat. He stared straight ahead as though blind, unable or unwilling to respond to his surroundings. When Constantine crouched and tentatively touched his shoulder, a shiver wracked his frame.

  “Malcolm?”

  He blinked, then sat back on his heels as his dark, solemn eyes flared with recognition. “Constantine.”

  “That’s right.” Constantine’s voice was thick with joy and relief. “You’ve returned to us.”

  “Welcome back,” I said, leaning into Val as she rested one hand between my shoulder blades.

  “Alexa.” When his gaze settled on Valentine, he frowned in confusion. And no wonder—the last time Malcolm had seen me, just before he was shot, Val had been my nemesis and not my lover.

  “I’ll find something for you all to wear,” she whispered before ducking into the corridor.

  Malcolm watched her walk away, then looked around the hallway, clearly confused. “Balthasar. Was he here, or did I imagine it?”

  “He was here.” Constantine’s jaw clenched around the syllables.

  “You fought him,” I said. “But he escaped.”

  Malcolm snarled beneath his breath, and despite my exhaustion, my panther leapt to his call. I held her back, soothing her, reminding her that right now there was nothing we could do. We needed to bide our time and rest for the next hunt.

  “What else do you remember?” said Constantine.

  Malcolm stood, a little unsteadily, and walked to the broken window. “I can recall meeting at your home to discuss Balthasar’s recent movements,” he said. “Everything afterward is fragmented—like a dream.”

  His anxiety was plain. “And that’s not normal for you?” I asked. “Not usually the way you perceive your lion’s memories?”

  “No.”

  Constantine and I exchanged a glance, and after a moment, I nodded. Malcolm was looking stronger by the second, and he needed to know what had happened to him.

  “You were shot in the head outside my brownstone,” Constantine said.

  Malcolm didn’t turn around. “How long ago?”

  “Just over a month,” I said. “You were in a coma for a week, and then you shifted. But you showed no sign of returning to human form until…now.”

  At that moment, Val returning holding a pile of light blue clothing in her arms. “I found some scrubs.”

  I sifted through the pile until I found a pair that looked to be the right size. As I pulled them on, Val’s phone rang again. She answered, then mouthed “Foster” to us.

  “Before you finalize any plans,” she said after a few moments, “you should know that Malcolm has made a full recovery. He’s with us in human form. He might know something about Brenner’s motives.”

  Within seconds, she was returning the phone to her pocket. “Summers and Foster will be back in touch as soon as they’ve made sure the rest of the building is secure.” She looked to Malcolm, who was just pulling on one of the scrub shirts. “Do you have any idea why Brenner would come straight to this lab instead of attempting to take over the War Room, as we expected?”

  “Our medical and experimental data is housed in this wing,” said Malcolm. “But the records room is inaccessible to everyone except Helen and myself.”

  I looked from Val to Constantine, dread spiraling in my stomach. “Does the security mechanism use biometrics?”

  Malcolm nodded. “A DNA match to open the door, and a thumb scan to access the computer console inside.”

  Constantine cursed under his breath. “Brenner got to Helen. We can assume he was able to pull whatever data he wanted.”

  “He got to Helen?” Alarm was written plainly on Malcolm’s face. “Is she still alive?”

  “She is, but badly wounded,” said Val. “As of this morning, she hadn’t regained consciousness.”

  “Can you find out what he accessed?” I asked. “We might be able to predict his next steps.”

  “Yes.” Malcolm gestured for us to follow as he moved down the side corridor. Val slipped her hand into mine as we trailed him.

  “How are you holding up? You must be exhausted. And starving.”

  “I’ll be okay for a little while longer.” I trailed the fingers of my free hand along her left forearm. “You’re the injured one. How’s your shoulder?”

  “Getting stiff.”

  Even that much of a confession was a clear indication that she was feeling more pain than she let on. “You need to feed, sweetheart.”

  “Not until you’ve eaten.”

  I would have protested, but Malcolm halted in front of a door on the left side of the hallway. He pressed one fingertip to a small black panel on the wall and I caught the faintest scent of blood. The DNA test.

  A moment later, the door slid open to reveal a large rectangular room resembling a bank’s safe deposit vault. Hundreds of small compartments had been built into the walls. Each bore an alphanumeric string in bold black letters, but none had any kind of physical locking mechanism. In the center of the room, a computer console rested on an otherwise empty desk.

  “The only way to access the data vault is to log into the computer,” Malcolm explained as he sat in the high-backed leather chair in front of the screen. When he slid his right thumb across a metallic strip on the keyboard, I couldn’t help but envision how Brenner had tricked the computer. For the first time in my life, I winced in sympathy for Helen.

  The screen lit up and Malcolm input a username and password. Once into the system, he typed a series of command-line prompts that immediately generated a long stream of data. As he scanned the information, his fingers once more flew over the keys.

  “According to the computer, the last person who logged in was Helen, barely half an hour ago.”

  “That was Brenner,” I said grimly. “What did he access?”

  After pressing a few more keys, Malcolm sat back in the chair, one knuckle pressed to his chin. “A box containing data from some of our research into the vampire parasite.”

  “What?” Val went rigid against me.

  “I’m not familiar with the project,” said Malcolm. “But this file lists the contents of the box as a flash drive and several frozen samples. We can see if he removed anything.”

  Seconds later, one of the panels near the bottom left corner of the room hissed open. We
crowded around the empty, stainless steel tube.

  “Whatever it was,” said Constantine, “he took it all.”

  “Helen will have more details. The project title is in the records.” Malcolm didn’t sound pleased with his ignorance.

  Val fished her phone from a pocket. “I’ll call Solana to see whether Helen’s in any shape to speak with us.”

  Malcolm’s gaze followed Valentine as she exited into the hallway, where she could get a clearer signal. He faced me as soon as she was gone.

  “Valentine is no longer a full vampire. How?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, “but thanks to Karma’s research, I was able to track down a rare herb with the ability to bring her back.”

  “Permanently?”

  I looked over my shoulder to where Val paced before the door as she spoke into the phone. “We don’t know for sure yet. She needs to run some tests.”

  “Still. Impressive.”

  “Speaking of miraculous recoveries,” Constantine said, “it may be wise for you to consult a physician as soon as possible.”

  Malcolm gave him a withering look, and I bit back a smile. Val returned before he could reply, and I could tell from her expression that Solana’s news wasn’t wholly positive.

  “Helen is still unconscious. She is being transported here as we speak. Solana has promised to let us all know the moment she wakes.”

  “Who is Solana?” Malcolm was sounding more on edge by the minute, and I sympathized with his frustration. He had been thrust back into his human mind and body at the precise moment when the Consortium—his life’s work—had reached a crisis point.

  “A former lover of Helen’s.” Constantine’s voice was carefully neutral. “From well over a century ago.”

  “With or without Helen, we will reconvene at midnight.” Despite being out of touch, Malcolm was clearly back in charge. He looked to each of us in turn. “In the War Room. Meanwhile, you should all rest. God only knows when we’ll next have an opportunity to catch our breath.”