Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

“One and two would be good,” I said. “We haven’t got time for the third.”

“Then I shall run ahead and get them ready.” He paused, his gaze falling on the disks I still clenched in my hands. “They for me?”

I nodded. “I need them copied quickly so I can return them before they’re missed.” And before I was missed. Rhoan might have said he’d given up resisting the inevitable, but I suspected that wasn’t entirely true—not when it came to my chasing down leads without his input.

Stane took the disks and gave them the once-over. “You’re lucky I never throw anything out. They stopped production of these disks at least ten years ago.”

“Not surprised. I just hope they’re okay—they’ve been stored in a shed for a while.”

“As long as the container was airtight and out of direct sunlight, they should be all right. They have a long life span.” He pushed to his feet. “I’ll see you both up there.”

I watched him bound back up the stairs and wished I had half his energy.

“You could,” Azriel commented, “if you didn’t push yourself so much.”

I gave him a somewhat wry look. “The lack of sleep isn’t entirely my fault, buddy boy.”

He nodded in agreement. “But I was not aware it would affect you so. Next time I shall be more cautious.”

I raised my eyebrows and tried to ignore the sudden jump in my pulse rate. “I thought you said there would be no next time.”

He studied me, his face giving as little away as usual. “It was merely a figure of speech, not an indication of intent.”

In other words, what he wanted and what he intended were two totally different things.

He rose, the movement abrupt. “Do you want help to get up?”

I put my hand in his and let him haul me upright. For several seconds the room did a drunken dance around me, and it was only his grip that kept me upright. Eventually, the pain and dizziness eased. I took a deep, somewhat shaky breath, and glanced down. My clothes, as usual, hadn’t exactly come through the Aedh shift in one piece.

My jeans had fared the best, with only a couple of small holes dotting the calf area. The dust from the missing patches clung to the skin visible underneath, giving my leg a weird blue sheen. My tank top was rather ragged around the edges and now had ventilation across my belly button, but it was at least still wearable. The same could not be said about my panties, which were little more than annoying bits caught in unmentionable places. One of these days I was going to learn to keep a change of clothes in my purse—although it wouldn’t have done me any good in this instance, because my purse was back in the shed.

“Ready to move?” Azriel asked.

I took another deep breath, then nodded and walked forward carefully. The needles in my head reacted, but not as fiercely as before, and by the time we reached the top of the stairs, I felt a little more normal. Or at least as normal as I ever got lately.

Stepping into Stane’s inner sanctum was like stepping into another world—a world that was clean, shiny, and filled with the latest in computer technology. In fact, Stane’s system dominated the main living area and wouldn’t have looked out of place on a spaceship. There was a bathroom to our immediate left, and a bedroom farther down, although I doubt he used it much—he seemed to spend much of his life stationed at his bridge.

I grabbed one of the spare chairs near the computer and plunked down rather inelegantly. Stane came out of the kitchen area in the living room and handed me some painkillers and an open can of Coke.

“Thanks.” I quickly downed both the pills and several large mouthfuls of fizzy soda, then swallowed a burp and added, “How long will the transfer take?”

He shrugged. “A couple of minutes. What are we looking for?”

“These disks came from the man who photographed Nadler’s wedding. We’re hoping that if we have a youngish picture of Mr. Elusive, we might be able to figure out what he should look like these days.”

“Clever thinking.” Stane pressed several buttons on the left console screen. On the right, thumbnail images flashed up. “And there’s no maybe about it. I have a program that can age any facial image fed into it.”

“Excellent.” I wheeled the chair closer and indicated the thumbnails on the screen. “They from the first disk?”

“First and second,” Stane confirmed. “How are we going to know which one is Nadler?”

“I was talking to his wife yesterday. It should be easy enough to pick her out.” I leaned forward a little, scanning the images that were loaded onto the screen. “None of these is her.”

He grunted and scrolled the screen over to the next page. “These are the third and fourth disks.”

The first lot of images was a continuation of the previous ones, but a buxom blonde began appearing in the latter half. “That’s Jacinta Nadler,” I said, pointing.

“And a rather well-endowed lass she is,” Stane said as he enlarged one of the pics. “Let me guess—she’s a stripper or works as a topless waitress in a strip club.”