It nearly had.
By the time he went to find Tegan in the training facility at a few minutes to sundown, his skin was hot and prickling, too tight everywhere. He was antsy and itching for combat. His ears were ringing, the incessant buzz like a swarm of bees in his blood.
"You ready to roll, T?"
The tawny-haired Gen One warrior looked up from the Beretta he was loading and gave a cold smile as the clip snapped into place. "Let's do it."
Together they headed up the winding corridor of the compound to the elevator that would take them to the Order's fleet garage on street level.
As the doors closed, Dante's nostrils began to tickle with the acrid tang of smoke. He glanced at Tegan, but the other male seemed unaffected, his gem-green eyes fixed before him, characteristic in their unblinking, emotionless calm.
The elevator car began its silent climb upward. Dante felt an intense heat lapping at him from the ghost of a flame, just waiting for him to slow down enough that it could catch him. He knew what this was, of course. The death vision had been dogging him all day, but he'd managed to beat it back, refusing to give in to the sensory torture when he needed his head fully in the game tonight.
But now, as the elevator reached its destination, the precognition slammed into his head like a hammer. Dante went down on one knee, leveled by the force of the hit.
"Jesus," Tegan said from beside him as Dante felt the warrior take his arm to keep him from sprawling on the elevator floor. "What the hell? You all right?"
Dante couldn't answer. His sight filled with billowing black smoke shot with bright plumes of flame. Over the crackle and hiss of encroaching fire, he could hear someone talking--taunting him, it seemed-- the voice low, indistinct. This was new, a further detail in the elusive nightmare he'd come to know so well.
He blinked away some of the haze, struggling to stay present. To stay conscious. He caught a glimpse of Tegan's face in front of him. Shit, he must look bad, because the warrior who was known for his ruthless lack of feeling now suddenly flinched back, pulling his hand away from Dante's arm with a hiss. Behind his pained grimace, the tips of Tegan's fangs shone white. His light brows dropped down low over his narrowed emerald eyes.
"Can't... breathe... " Dante gasped, every panting breath he took dragging more phantom smoke into his lungs. Choking him. "Ah, God... dying... "
Tegan's eyes bored into him, flinty sharp. His gaze was unsympathetic but level with a strength Dante knew would keep him steady.
"You hang on," Tegan demanded. "It's a vision, it's not reality. Not yet, anyway. Now, stay in there, ride it out. Go back as far as you can, and absorb all of the detail."
Dante let the images swamp him once more, knowing Tegan was right. He had to open his mind to the pain and fear so he could look past it to the truth.
Panting, his skin searing from the heat of the inferno surging all around him, Dante forced himself to focus on his surroundings. To place himself deeper into the moment. He stretched his mind backward from the worst of the vision, halting the action, then sending it into reverse.
The flames shrank away. The smoke reduced from massive, roiling clouds of black ash to thin gray tendrils that crept in along the ceiling. Dante could breathe now, but fear still clogged his throat with the realization that these would be his last few minutes of life.
Someone was in the room with him. A male, judging from the scent of him. Dante was lying prone on something icy cold and slick while his captor yanked his hands behind his back, then bound him at the wrists with a length of wire cord. He should have been able to snap it like twine, but it wouldn't budge. His strength was useless. The captor bound Dante's feet next, then hog-tied him on his stomach, a slab of bare metal beneath him.
Loud crashes sounded from somewhere outside the room. He heard bansheelike shrieks, smelled the coppery stench of death nearby.
And then, a low taunt sounded near his ear: "You know, I thought killing you was going to be difficult. You've made it very easy for me."
The voice faded into a self-amused chuckle as Dante's captor came around to where his head hung over the edge of the metal platform that held him. Denim-clad legs bent at the knee, and slowly the torso of his would-be killer came into Dante's line of sight. Rough fingers grasped him by the hair, lifting his head up to face him in the instant before the vision started to fade away, as quickly as it had come...
Holy hell.
"Ben Sullivan." Dante spat the name out like ash on his tongue. Released from the clutches of the premonition, he dragged himself to a sitting position on the floor. Dante wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow as Tegan stared at him in grave acceptance. "Son of a bitch. It's the Crimson dealer, Ben Sullivan. I don't fucking believe it. That human--he's the one who's going to kill me."
Tegan gave a grim shake of his head. "Not if we make him dead first." Dante pushed himself up to his feet, planting one palm against the concrete wall next to the elevator while he tried to catch his breath. Beneath his fatigue, rage simmered, for Ben Sullivan and for former Agent Sterling Chase, who'd evidently taken it upon himself to let the bastard go.
"Let's get the hell out of here," he growled, already stalking across the cavernous garage, flipping one of his malebranche blades between his fingers.
Chapter Twenty-six
Ben's captors had let him sit forever by himself in an unlit, windowless, securely locked room. He kept waiting for the one they'd called Master to appear--the nameless, faceless inpidual who'd been covertly financing the development and distribution of Crimson. Time dragged, maybe a full twenty-four hours since he'd been picked up and taken here. No one had come for him yet, but they would. And in a dark corner of his mind, Ben understood that when they did, he wouldn't get out of the confrontation alive.
He got up off the floor and made his way across the bare concrete to the closed steel door on the other side of the room. His head was screaming from the beating he'd taken before he was dragged off the street to this place. His broken nose and neck wound were crusted over with dried blood, both injuries on fire with raw pain. Ben put his ear to the cold metal door and listened to movement getting louder on the other side. Heavy footsteps clopped nearer and nearer, the purposeful gaits of more than one man, punctuated by the metallic jangle of chains and weaponry.
Ben backed up, retreating as far as he could into the darkness of his holding cell. There was a snick of a key turning the lock, then the door swung open and the two huge guards who'd brought him here came inside.
"He's ready for you now," one of the thugs growled.