She licked her lips. Even on such a small screen, he could see the fear on her face.
“Bomb … house. Upstairs … Cook …”
Her image faded as the connection cut out. He swore and spun around, racing back to the dining room. “Stephan, get everyone out of this house. Now,” he added, as his brother opened his mouth to ask why. “We haven’t got much time.”
Stephan nodded and rose. Gabriel ran for the stairs. “Cook” had surely meant autocook. Though why the hell would she go in there? He took the stairs two at a time and headed down the upstairs hall. The room holding the autocook was locked. He quickly punched in the code, and the door clicked open.
She all but fell into his arms. “We have less than two minutes to get out of here.”
His gaze swept the room behind her. “That should be more than enough time to defuse a bomb.”
“Not this fucker.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the door. “It’s touch sensitive. We have to get out of here.”
He couldn’t ignore the plea in her eyes or the urgency in her voice. And she’d been with State long enough to have seen a bomb or two. He had no choice but to trust her judgment. Grabbing her hand, he ran for the front door.
As they exited the house, he saw Stephan and the others ahead of them, running for the front gate.
“Come on!” She tugged him forward, desperation evident in her every movement.
They were halfway to the gate when thunder rumbled ominously, a low sound that rapidly gained momentum. Then there was a flash and heat, terrible heat, as the world around them went momentarily red. The ground rose in a wave of grass and dirt, surging past their feet, chased by a wind that was fast and furious. He dove toward Sam, pushing her to the ground, covering her body with his.
The actual sound of the explosion hit last and was accompanied by the debris and dust, jettisoned through the air by the blast’s force. Bricks and glass and deathly sharp bits of wood became missiles that rained around them. He cocooned her against him, her body shuddering against his and her heart racing as fiercely as his own. Yet she didn’t make a sound, keeping the fear he could almost taste tightly leashed. Several large chunks of inner wall speared the ground, one so close to their heads it plunged several strands of Sam’s red-gold hair deep into the earth. Another shaved his calf muscle, drawing blood as it smacked into the earth near his feet.
Then silence fell. For a long moment, he didn’t move, wanting to be certain it was over, that it was safe. Then he rolled to one side and stared. Devastation lay behind them.
A crater lay where the mansion had once stood. Whoever had set the bomb had sure as hell wanted to be certain there was nothing left, not even bits for the bomb squad to find.
“Someone really hates your friend, don’t they?” she said quietly.
He glanced at her. Her cheek was grazed, a wound that contrasted starkly against her pale features. He felt a surge of protectiveness and reached out, gently brushing some dirt away from the weeping sore. But she flinched away from his touch, so he let his hand drop and glanced back to the ruins. “How did you find the bomb?”
“I was following Mary. I thought she went into the autocook room, but when I went in, it was empty.” She shrugged lightly. “Someone locked me in. Someone who’d vomited in that room only moments before.”
Mary was the only one to leave the room, the only one who had an opportunity to set a bomb and lock the door. And she’d certainly looked as if she’d been ill when she came back into the dining room. But why would she do such a thing? And why come back into the dining room if she had set the bomb? That amounted to suicide and simply didn’t make sense.
“How well do you know Mary?” she asked.
He shrugged. “We all grew up together.”
“But she’s a lot older than the rest of you.”
He nodded. “By about fourteen years. She was more a babysitter than a friend, at first.”
“How long has she been a vampire?”
He glanced at her sharply. “She’s not. She’s human. Martyn’s the only vampire in the group.”
She frowned, her blue eyes uncertain. “When I first walked into that room, I sensed a shapeshifter and a vampire. I thought Martyn looked like a bloodsucker, but it was Mary I sensed.”
Was the answer that simple? Was it Mary, one of the two people he would have sworn it couldn’t be? He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the approaching footsteps, knowing four people walked toward them but hearing the steps of only two. Vampires carried themselves lightly. Martyn and Mary weren’t making any sound.
And yet, as youngsters, they’d often teased Mary that her footsteps were heavy enough to register on the Richter scale. The change must have been recent; surely either he or Stephan would have noticed it otherwise. So who had she shared blood with? Who had performed the ceremony and supervised her first steps into the world of the night? If it had been a vampire aligned with the Federation, they would have heard about it.
And why would she want to kill Stephan? Had that been the price of becoming immortal?
It didn’t make sense. But none of this was making sense—not the attempt on Stephan’s life, nor the attempts on Sam’s.
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