The brunette laughed, a loud, open-mouthed chortle that faded into an airless hiss. "Sorry, sweetie. No can do."
"You're with them, aren't you?" Gabrielle said, sick with the understanding. "You're with the Rogues. My God, Kendra, what have they done to you?"
"Hush," she said, her finger to her lip as she shook her head. "No more talking. We have to go now."
When the Minion reached for her, Gabrielle pulled away. She thought of the dagger in her purse, and wondered if she could retrieve the blade without Kendra's notice. If she could, would she be able to use it on her friend?
"Don't touch me," she said, inching her fingers under the leather flap of her bag. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Kendra bared her teeth, a terrible parody of a smile. "Oh, I think you should, Gabby. After all, Jamie's life depends on it."
Cold dread pierced her heart. "What?"
Kendra nodded her head toward the waiting sedan. A tinted window eased down, and there was Jamie, sitting in the backseat beside an enormous thug.
"Gabrielle?" Jamie called out, a panicked look in his eyes.
"Oh, no. Not Jamie. Kendra, please don't let anyone hurt him."
"That'll be entirely up to you," Kendra said politely. She grabbed Gabrielle's purse out of her hands. "You won't be needing anything in here."
She motioned for Gabrielle to walk ahead of her toward the idling car. "Shall we?"
Lucan set two bars of C4 under the huge water heaters in the asylum's boiler room. Crouched down behind the utility equipment, he flipped up the transmitter antennas, then spoke into his mic to report his progress.
"Boiler room is a check," he told Niko on the other end. "I've got three more units to set and then I'm out - "
He froze, hearing the scuff of footsteps outside the closed door.
"Lucan?"
"Shit. Company coming," he murmured quietly as he rose from his position and crept near the door to prepare to strike.
He wrapped his gloved hand around the hilt of a nasty serrated blade sheathed across his chest. He had a gun on him, too, but they'd all agreed no firearms on this mission. No need to alert the Rogues of their presence, and with Niko throwing the gas main outside, pumping fumes into the building, the spark of a bullet firing was liable to set the whole works off prematurely.
The latch on the boiler room door began to twist.
Lucan smelled the stench of a Rogue, and the unmistakable coppery scent of human blood. Muffled animal grunts mingled with wet smacking and the faint whine of a victim being bled dry. The door opened, letting in a huge gust of putrid air as the Rogue started to drag its dying plaything into the dark alcove.
Lucan waited to the side of the door until the Rogue's big head came into full view. The suckhead was too involved in its prey to notice the threat. Lucan brought his hand up, burying the blade in the Rogue's rib cage. It roared, huge jaws gaping, yellow eyes bulging as the titanium sped through its blood system.
The human fell to the floor in a slump, boneless, spasming in the throes of death while the Rogue who'd been feeding off of him began to sizzle and shake, blisters rising like it had been doused with acid.
No sooner did the Rogue collapse into swift decomposition than another came pounding up the corridor. Lucan leaped to meet the new attack, but before he could deliver the first blow, the suckhead came up short, yanked off its feet from behind by a black-clad arm.
A blade flashed, as crisp and quietly as lightning, across the Rogue's throat, severing the big head in one clean strike.
The huge body was dropped to the floor like rubbish. Tegan stood there, blade dripping gore, green eyes steady. He was a killing machine, and the grim set of his mouth seemed to reiterate his earlier promise to Lucan that if Bloodlust ever got the better of him, Tegan was going to make sure Lucan got his own taste of titanium fury.
Looking at the warrior now, Lucan had no doubt that if Tegan ever came for him, it would be over before he even knew the vampire was in the room.
He met that cool, lethal look and gave a nod of acknowledgment.
"Talk to me," Niko said over Lucan's earpiece. "You good in there?"
"Yeah. All clear." He cleaned his dagger on the human's shirt, then sheathed it. When he glanced up, Tegan was already gone, vanished like the specter of death that he was.
"Heading to the north entry points now to place the rest of these party cakes," he told Nikolai as he ducked out of the boiler room and crept down an empty stretch of corridor.