Eternal Flame (Night Watch 3)

He ignored the jibe.

“So I figured if I shook some cages—”

“You mean started some fires.”

“-that I’d get somebody to talk.” She frowned at him. “And I did. A demon named Morris. The bastard with the scar who turned tail and ran when the fight got hot.”

Excitement had his heart pounding faster. “He gave you a contact?”

“No, I got him to call his contact. I told ‘em if they wanted me, they could find me at the burning den.”

“Fuck. The fire was your beacon?” Not real subtle, but then, she wasn’t exactly a subtle kind of woman.

She smiled at him. And it was … a real smile. Warm. Her dimple winked, and he swallowed.

“No, Zane,” she said, “the fire was for you.”

“What?” She could always surprise him.

“I didn’t like the way the demons ganged up on you. I wanted to send a message, and I did.”

“I don’t need you fighting my battles.” He could handle any demon, any day of the week. But … she’d gone back to avenge him? That was … sweet, in a Jana way. Maybe some girlfriends would cook a guy dinner.

Jana cooked his enemies.

Wait-girlfriend? What the hell am I thinking?

Her hand lifted and slid over the stubble on his cheek. “You’re welcome.”

What?

Her hand dropped. “I was waiting for those bastards from Perseus to show up, but the FBI got there first.” Her lips tightened. “Actually, you got there first.” She waited a beat then said, “Bait, huh?” She didn’t seem angry. Just curious.

Bait. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“Guess you realized there were bigger fish than me out there, right? What, does Night Watch have a hard-on for Perseus now?”

“You could say that.” And a hell of a lot more. “We lost five agents in that fire. We don’t take kindly to losing our own.”

Her gaze searched his. “What are you going to do? Do you really think you can take Perseus down?”

“Yeah, baby, I do. And you’re gonna help me blow the bastards to hell.”

He ditched the truck. Jude would want to rip him apart when he found out, but Zane had to abandon the shifter’s ride. Someone would have seen it at Dusk, and there was no point in continuing to advertise their presence.

It wasn’t hard to find another vehicle. It wasn’t legal, either. But he’d learned long ago that you sometimes had to go outside the law in order to get a job done.

“The Feds and the cops are going to be looking for us,” Jana said, turning to glance at him. They were in an older model Ford. Nothing flashy, nothing fancy. The kind of car you forgot two minutes after you saw it. He’d switched tags twice, just as a precaution.

“They’re not going to find us.” They had about thirty more minutes to go before they made it to New Orleans, and Zane damn sure wasn’t planning to stop for highway patrol.

“The FBI will have splashed our pictures all over the news. Every cop in the area probably has our descriptions.” Her voice was flat. Just stating the facts.

“Baby, every cop in the area got your description days ago. Hell, those in New Orleans had it years ago, and you’re still not inside of a jail.”

“I’m good at hiding.”

Yeah, he’d figured that.

“And when I was working for Project Perseus, they made sure the cops stayed off my back.”

The car almost swerved off the road. “You worked for them?” What the hell?

“It was either go after their kills or find my ass inside of the jail you just mentioned.”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Her attention seemed to be on the blur of pine trees.

“I didn’t want to go back to jail,” she said quietly.

Then why did you kill?

Her head turned toward him. “Things aren’t black and white.”

He frowned.

“Maybe they are for you.” A mocking laugh. “Not for me. They’ve never been that way for me. So when Perseus told me that I’d be doing the world a favor, that I’d be taking out monsters who hurt women and children, hell, yeah, I was tempted.”

Her nails scored across the seat, and the grinding noise seemed too loud in the car. “They gave me dossiers. Told me when and where to strike, and they paid me well. I’d never had much, but suddenly, I had a chance for everything. And all I had to do was light a few fires.”

Zane realized he was hitting ninety, and he forced his foot to ease off the gas pedal. “The ones you went after … were they killers?” She’d taken out vamps in Baton Rouge. Vamps were known to be—

“Does it matter?” She paused. “Will you think better of me if I say that everyone I killed while working for Perseus was evil? That they were all murderers who needed to be put down?”

“Were they killers?” he asked again, refusing to let her rile the beast.

“Some were. At first, they all were.” She blew out a breath. “But then Perseus started thinking there wasn’t any such beast as a good supernatural. Hell, to them, the only good supernatural was a dead supernatural. Vamps, shifters-they needed to be put down. All of them.”

“You’re a supernatural.” Was that why they were trying to put her down, too? His gaze darted to the rearview mirror.

“I’m a human first. A human with a psychic skill… that means I’m a tool for them. Not good enough to ever invite over for dinner, but good enough to use. They like to use enhanced humans-Ignitors, charmers-my handler told me that sometimes monsters had to kill monsters.”

“Your handler?” Now they were getting someplace.

And that black SUV that had been following them for the last ten minutes was getting closer. He could see the other vehicle so well in the rearview mirror.

“My handler was a real sweetheart named Beth Parker. Human to the core, and a woman who got off on death more than anyone I’ve ever seen.” Disgust tinged her words. “She didn’t take so kindly to me wanting to leave the fold.”

“Oh?”

“So I made sure I gave her one hell of a kiss good-bye.”

“What?”

“She was with those ass**le scientists who held me at the end in New Orleans. Since I didn’t want to play ball with them anymore, they decided to cage me. Then when they couldn’t change my mind … they decided I was expendable.”