Crimson Covenant (Onyx Assassins 1)

She nodded.

We walked to the front of the Escalade, and my heart lunged forward like it was willing to break out of my chest to be closer to Lyric. “Benedict, take the guard at the north. Hawke, the south. Where is the easiest entry point?” I aimed that last question at Valor.

“There.” She pointed to the door at the south end. “Hold on.” She turned to the car, Lachlan on her heels every step of the way, and returned with her coat, zipping it up over the vest. “You’ll have to keep out of the camera while I put in the code, or they’ll kill her before we can even get inside.”

I nodded once, the killing rage already taking over, honing my senses and stripping away any ounce of civility I’d cultivated over the last four hundred years and leaving only the lethal predator our kind was designed to be.

“Go now.”

Both Benedict and Hawke disappeared and materialized a hundred yards away, both soundlessly snapping the necks of their prey. A second later, we wended with our weapons drawn, Lachlan releasing his grip on the back of Valor’s neck as we arrived in the shadows to the side of the south door.

Valor stepped into the doorway and punched in the code. A beep later, the door opened.

“See?” she said without looking over her shoulder. “If I’d warned them, the code wouldn’t work.”

With supernatural speed, we raced into the building, nothing but four blurs to any camera that might be watching. Not that we needed to worry about setting off any alarms when there were already four guards in tactical gear leaning against the walls in various locations down the wide hallway.

They were dead before any of them could lift a radio or call out.

“Four,” Benedict whispered, his silencer-equipped nine-mil still raised.

“We’re not keeping score,” Hawk muttered, scanning the rest of the hallway as we moved slowly.

“Because you’re afraid you’ll lose,” Benedict answered, peeking into the first room and clearing it. “Nothing.”

“I can feel her, but it’s not clear,” I said quietly as Hawke cleared the next two rooms. The air felt thick and heavy, dulling not only my senses but my speed. Steel. That was okay. We didn’t need supernatural speed to pick off the humans. Besides, there was only enough metal in these walls to annoy an ancient like me.

But it would cripple an immortal as young as Lyric.

“They might have her in the containment area,” Valor noted quietly. “It’s around the corner.”

Containment. The word alone was enough to turn my vision red. We cleared the four small rooms in the hallway, our footsteps silent on the quickly reddening linoleum, and headed for what looked to be a reception desk.

A man in a lab coat came around the corner and managed to scream before Hawke put a bullet between his eyes.

An alarm sounded through the speakers that lined the ceiling, and four rotating lights flashed red.

“Shit,” Benedict cursed as we picked up the pace.

“It’s about to get sporty,” Hawke said with a sinister grin, gripping a Glock in each hand.

Guns raised, we turned the corner into another fluorescently lit hallway as humans ran from rooms on either side. We took out the ones in tactical gear first.

“We need some alive for questioning,” I growled.

“Fine,” Hawke grumbled, winging a guy in a lab coat.

A bullet whizzed past us with a hiss. Lachlan shoved Valor behind him with one arm and shot the guard with the gun in his left hand.

“She’ll be at the end of the hallway,” Valor said, trying to push away from Lachlan’s back and failing. “For fuck’s sake, get out of my way.”

“No.” He didn’t even bother giving a reason.

The door at the end of the hall was steel everywhere but the glass panel, and even that had metal lattice-work running through it.

“Please don’t kill me,” the lab-coat guy begged, shoving himself into a sitting position against the wall as Benedict stepped over his legs.

“Where is she?” I asked, leveling my aim at his one healthy shoulder.

His hand shook as he pointed toward the door.

“We’re missing a dozen men if Valor’s estimates are right,” Lachlan stated.

Right on cue, the door opened, and bullets whizzed past as men poured out of the small space. My chest expanded as the bond flared bright without the steel barrier between us. Lyric was back there somewhere, but where?

“Only shoot if the shot is clear!” I didn’t need to explain why. With both clips empty, I stepped into a side room to reload, just as Hawke had a second earlier. New clips in place, I lunged back into the fray just in time to hear Benedict curse.

“That was close, you asshole.” Another shot. Another body dropped.

Bullet holes peppered the walls of the hallway, but so far, none of us had been hit, to include Lachlan who was managing the whole thing one-handed.