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 Good night, Mr. Jones.
She unfolded her arms, plucked the file out of his hand and closed the door
quietly but firmly in his face.
Eleven
 Son of a bitch, Fallon Jones said.
Zack cranked back in the chair, stacked his heels on the hassock and spoke
into the phone.  Look on the bright side. Her goal and ours are aligned, at
least for the moment. As long as that holds true, we ve got her cooperation.
 And if it turns out there s no connection between Quinn s disappearance and
Vella Tallentyre s death?
 Then I think you can pretty much forget the whole cooperation thing. Raine
has no fond feelings toward the Society and she doesn t trust J&J as far as
she could throw you and your office. She thinks Wilder Jones murdered her
father before he destroyed the lab.
 Son of a bitch, Fallon growled again.  Show her the damn file. It says that
the accident was just that.
 She s in her room, reading the file as we speak. Doubt that she ll believe
every word in it, though. I wouldn t if I were her.
 It s the truth, damn it.
 How do you know? You weren t running J&J when the Tallentyre situation went
down. We both know that good old Uncle Wilder wouldn t have blinked twice
about a little thing like shading the facts for the record. They didn t call
him Wild Wilder Jones for nothing.
 Huh.
They both contemplated that piece of family history in silence.
Wilder Jones had gone out the same way he lived, in a blaze of reckless glory.
He had been working for J&J s unnamed government agency client at the time. He
succeeded in taking down the bad guys and rescuing a number of people but it
cost him his life.
In a family studded with individuals who often got involved in high-risk
ventures, Wilder had been frowned upon for his penchant for taking outrageous
chances. He had been addicted to fast motorcycles, fast women and cigarettes.
There were those in the Jones clan who held that he had always been unstable.
Others maintained that, while it was true that he was born addicted to
adrenaline, he did not go over the edge until the last few months of his life.
That faction claimed that something dramatic happened to Wilder before he left
on what amounted to a suicide mission. Zack s mother had always maintained
that a woman was involved but that didn t ring true because everyone knew that
Wilder changed lovers almost as often as he changed his shirts. Legend had it
that he never looked back. Whatever the truth of the matter, Wilder took his
secret with him to his grave.
 Do whatever you have to do to keep Raine working with you, Fallon said
eventually.  I still think she s the key to this thing.
Zack didn t argue. There was no point. Everyone knew that Fallon s hunches had
an accuracy rating well over ninety percent.
Didn t mean that he was always right, though.
Twelve
Burn, witch, burn.
Burn the whole damn lab to the ground.
Punish her. Then destroy her with fire. Got to be sure.
Get those two out of here. Then destroy everything. Can t take any chances.
Got to be sure.
She came awake gasping for air, pulse pounding. Her nightgown was stuck to her
back with perspiration. She was suffocating under the quilt. She had to
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breathe.
She sat up suddenly, shoved the covers aside, scrambled out of bed and leaped
to her feet. For a couple of minutes she just stood there, trembling, trying
to regain control.
She had known there would be nightmares. There always were when she came in
contact with the sick psychic energy left by the freaks. She was used to
living with the voices in her dreams for a few nights afterward.
But tonight there had been another voice interwoven with that of the freak, a
dark voice from the Night of Fire and Tears. Get those two out of here. Then
destroy everything.
She sank down on the side of the bed and looked at the clock. One-fifteen. She
had stayed up until midnight, reading the file and learning just how notorious
the Tallentyre name was within the highest circles of the Arcane Society. As
far as the Master and the Council were concerned, she was the daughter of a
man who had tried to create psychic vampires.
Screw them.
She did not hear the footsteps in the hall. The quiet knock on the door, when
it came, made her jump. Edgy energy flickered through her. Briefly she
considered pretending she had not heard the soft sound. But she knew him well
enough after only a few hours to realize that he would not go away.
She went to the closet and took out the dark blue silk travel robe she had
packed. She put it on and tied the sash around her waist. On the way to the
door she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears.
She checked the peephole first. Zack stood in the hall. He was wearing the
black leather jacket again but this time he had on only a black T-shirt
underneath. The shadow of what would become his morning beard darkened his
face. One hand was flattened against the doorjamb, just outside her narrow
range of vision.
The sight of him had a very strange effect on her senses. All the unpleasant,
nervy tension that had accompanied the nightmare seemed to convert into
another kind of energy. Adrenaline made her shiver. Anticipation twisted
inside her. She was aware of her pulse again but this time it was skittering
with excitement.
She opened the door. The first thing she noticed was that Zack was barefoot.
For some reason the sight of him standing there without any shoes on struck
her as incredibly erotic. He had very nice, very strong feet. She had never
noticed a man s feet before.
With an effort she raised her gaze to his face.
 Hi, she said, unable to think of anything more intelligent.
Zack regarded her with a knowing expression.
 How bad is it? he asked, keeping his voice pitched to a low level that would
not carry to the room across the hall.
No explanations were needed with him, she thought. A deep sense of longing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]