Wulfe leaned forward in his chair. But Tighes clone developed a will to survive.
Hawke nodded. Maybe more than that. Those clones should have been the same. They were made at the same time with the same magic by the same witch. The only differences were the souls used. And the draden.
The draden, Lyon murmured. What if she accidentally caught one of the old ones in her net?
Thats what Im thinking. Hawkes palms flattened on the table in front of him. The oldest ones were once Daemons. Though the souls were stripped and imprisoned in the Daemon blade, its conceivable a bit of the Daemons consciousness survived in the draden all that time.
Tighe scowled. And now that hes been reanimated, he possesses the drive of a Daemon. Hes acting like one, thats for damned sure.
Lyon turned to Hawke. Does that mean what Im afraid it does?
Hawkes jaw clenched as he nodded. His ultimate goal is bound to be freeing Satanan. And with that bit of Daemon consciousness, he may know things, ways to accomplish that that even the Mage and Therians have never known. At the moment, he doesnt seem to be doing anything but feeding. And maybe thats all he is doing, but its clear hes evolving. Survival comes first, and sooner or later hes going to realize, if he hasnt already, that his survival hinges on you, Tighe.
He cant live if I die. At least thats what your clone told Kara.
I believe that was right initially. Before the clones were fully evolved. But Im not sure thats true any longer.
So what exactly are you saying, Wings? Tighe asked warily.
Im saying, watch your back, buddy. I dont think killing you is going to automatically give him your half of the soul, but there may be other ways. He was born of magic. A magic Ive seen evidence he may still possess.
Explain, Lyon said.
Kougar and I had him cornered. He slipped into a group of humans and disappeared. Were not sure how, but when we combed the group for him, he was gone. And he should not have been able to get away.
Could he have acquired Tighes ability to shift? Foxx asked.
Tighe frowned. My animal cant be split like that.
Hawke shook his head. We dont know what abilities hes acquired. They could be anything.
How are we going to catch him? Lyon demanded.
Daemon traps. Kougar pulled at his goatee. If we can unearth some of those old spells.
Hawke groaned, shaking his head. They havent been used in five millennia. What are the chances?
Get on it. Lyon turned to Tighe. Have you had more visions?
Tighe quit pacing and faced his chief. The lady Fed is getting them now instead of me, but when I touch her as shes having one, I see them clearly. I know right where he is.
Lyon met his gaze, his amber eyes thoughtful. Hawke told me what happened. That you werent able to take her memories.
Not yet. Im working on it.
Where is she now?
Tighe shook his head. I dont know. Ill find her.
Lyons hands fisted on the table in front of him. I dont like that you dont have control of her mind.
Tighes teeth ground together, his temper sparking. I said, Im working on it.
I dont have to tell you how dangerous it is to have an FBI agent searching for us, knowing what we are.
She doesnt have a clue what we are.
Maybe not, yet. But shes an investigator. And I have to believe shes already seen things that have her questioning who you are. What you are. Am I wrong?
No. Youre not wrong.
Contain this threat, Stripes. However you have to do it. If you cant, we will.
Tighe heard the promise in his chiefs words. The threat. Because there was only one way anyone else could contain this.
By killing Delaney Randall.
Deep inside, the tiger raised its head and growled.
Whatever we do, we have to do it fast, Hawke said. I called the Shaman and talked to him about those streaks in your eyes, Tighe.
Tighe lifted a brow. And?
Hawkes jaw clenched, his expression grim. Your souls beginning to disintegrate. Once your eyes are fully black, there wont be anything left of you in either body. Until then, theres still hope we can put you back together again.
But his time was running out.
Delaney sat on the edge of the bed while the blood-pressure cuff contracted around her arm.
How do you feel? Dr. Jensen asked for the fiftieth time. The doctor was a short, round woman with a tight cap of salt-and-pepper hair and shrewd blue eyes.
Fine. Like her heart had been ripped out of her chest.
Good. All your vital signs are normal. The doctor removed the cuff. Well have the lab results back in the morning. Id offer you something to help you sleep tonight, but until we know if they drugged you, I dont dare give you anything.
Delaney shook her head. I dont need it. The last thing she wanted was to be in a deep, unnatural sleep if one of Tighes men found a way to track her.
Just the thought of Tighe made her jaw tighten with anger. Her eyes began to grow hot, stinging with unshed tears. He shouldnt have run. He shouldnt have died.
God, what an idiot she was to care.
Dr. Jensen said good night and closed the bedroom door behind her, leaving Delaney alone in the master suite of the FBI safe house. Phil had arranged for her to stay under a doctors supervision until they figured out if she had, indeed, been drugged. In addition to Dr. Jensen, there were two highly trained guards inside with her and another two outside in case Tighes brother, or others in his organization, came after her.
Until they understood what shed stumbled into, they werent taking any chances.
The only one she knew wouldnt come for her was Tighe himself.
She pressed the heel of her hand tight against her chest, trying to ease the awful ache. The tears shed held at bay all day finally got the better of her, and she sank onto the bed, letting them go. Her tears turned to sobs as she cried, grieving for a man shed never understood and barely even known. She couldnt regret her own actions, because shed done what she had to do, but she couldand didregret the outcome. She hated that Tighe had been so involved in illegal activities that hed sacrificed his life rather than be taken in for questioning.
Lying back, tears rolling, she ached with loss. In some inexplicable way, theyd connected. Shed sensed a goodness in him, seen it in the man whod been so intent on rescuing a little girl, hed stumbled into the FBIs trap. And hed understood her, maybe better than she understood herself. Hed claimed she sought the killers out of revenge. And she did. She absolutely did. But it was more than that, she could see that now. Somewhere in the back of her head was a belief held from childhood that if she could just catch the man whod killed her mom, she could make it all right again. She could get rid of the ache shed lived with all these years once and for all.
But that ache was so much more than righteous retribution. It was loss and grief. Betrayal.
Loneliness.
Once the tears started, tears she hadnt shed in years, she couldnt stop them. She cried for Tighe, and for the mother she still missed, and for the children whose own mothers had been stolen from them by a man Delaney couldnt catch. But mostly she cried for herself, for the loneliness that pressed in harder every day. A loneliness she hadnt even known she felt until a handsome, mercurial, strangely gentle man made it disappear.
A man who would never touch her again.
She didnt realize shed fallen asleep until pain tore through her head with the force of a sledgehammer, slamming her awake with a breath-stealing gasp. She needed to call for Dr. Jensen. But before she could utter a sound, the darkness rushed up to envelop her. As the dark fog of agony stole her away, a single name screamed through her mind.
Tighe!
As Tighe stood in the war room, Delaneys cry tore through his head. He froze.
Stripes! Whats happening? Another vision?
Yes. He grabbed for the wall as blackness stole his sight. He saw Delaney lying on a bed, still and silent, her cheeks streaked with tears. His heart clenched, that warmth in his mind that connected with her throbbed with pain. Terrible pain.
Tighe! He felt the fog circling her, swirls of black threatening her.
He reached out to her, but the suffocating darkness had her in its grasp, pulling her down.
Tighe!
Her voice was smaller, more distant. And filled with such fear. Such pain.
Delaney.
He reached for her through his mind, but she slipped through his grasp, disappearing into the dark, perilous fog.
And then she was gone.
Tighe? Karas voice broke through the fog.
The vision dissipated. He shook his head, clearing his sight as he blinked, trying to understand what hed just seen, even as desperation to find her leaped inside him, rising side by side with a terror not his own.
Delaneys.
What had happened? Someone was hurting her. Or some thing.
He stilled. It had almost felt as if the vision itself had turned on her.
Goddess, yes, that was exactly what had happened. The visions had been growing too much for her human mind. Too strong. Shed finally broken beneath the weight of this one and fallen into that dark for good.
Deep in his heart he feared she wouldnt break free of it on her own.
He started for the door.
What happened? Lyon demanded.
Delaney needs me. Ive got to find her. How? She wouldnt have gone home. He was certain of that. He lunged from the room and strode down the hall toward the front door.
He heard her calling to him. Felt the pull of her through that accidental connection hed formed with her when hed tried to cloud her mind, and prayed it would be enough to follow.
Behind him, he heard Lyon barking orders. Hawke, Kougar, and Jag, go with him. Take two different sedans this time, in case the humans took note of the first ones.
Lyons voice receded as Tighe ran out the door. What if he couldnt find her? What if he did, and he couldnt reach her mind?
I have to save her.
Desperation and determination wove and twined inside him, fueled and fired by a rage that was all too real. The clone already threatened Tighes own life. He would not let him and these evil visions destroy Delaney, too.
If they hadnt already.
As Tighe ran for the nearest car, he feared it might be too late. Even if he managed to find her, would there be anything left of her mind to save?
CHAPTER 13
Darkness swallowed her, swallowed everything. Sight, sound, even her sense of touch. Delaney felt nothing but the distant echoes of pain.
She had a sense that she was standing. Perhaps even walking. But where? With her hand, she reached out and touched nothing. She lifted her hand to her head, and it wasnt there.
Panic welled up, and she shoved it down, forcing logic into the void. Not real. This isnt real.
Her body was still lying on the bed where Dr. Jensen had left her. It was only her mind that had taken off, swept away by a vision she hadnt seen, into a darkness she didnt know how to escape.
The last time shed glimpsed this darkness, Tighe had snatched her back before it could suck her in. But Tighe was dead.
Grief mixed with the panic that welled again, clawing at her mind. She struggled to escape, to find her way out of the dark, but it was as if she were trying to run with her feet set in concrete.
Lost. So lost.
Tears fell through the silent darkness as loneliness grew to gigantic proportions, a suffocating cold stamping out every thought.
The terror reared up, swallowing her whole as a single word screamed through her head again, shattering the choking silence.
Tighe!
Turn right.
You sure? Hawke asked.
Tighe growled, his fingernails clenched into the palms of his hands. Do it!
The car turned onto a residential street in an upscale Arlington neighborhood.
Expensive digs for an FBI agent, Jag drawled.
The house isnt hers, Tighe said. Ten bucks says its acting as an FBI safe house. Shes being guarded.
Well shift and knock them out, Hawke said. Jag, you stay with the car.
Jag muttered something under his breath. Tighe didnt need to hear it to know the warrior was railing against the fates for not giving him the ability to keep his clothes on when he shifted.
Which house? Hawke asked.
Ill tell you when I know. Tighes sense of Delaney had been growing steadily since they left Feral House, drawing him to her with a solid pull. His heart pounded as her terror weaved through his brain. Over and over, he heard her calling for him with a desperation, a hopelessness, that tore at his battered soul. She thought he was dead, yet knew he was her only hope.
She thought she was well and truly trapped.
Here! Tighe wasnt certain how he knew she was in the single upstairs bedroom with the light still on, but he knew.
Hawke continued to drive by the house, the nights darkness hiding the features of the men inside the car. Theyd left the second sedan two streets over. If the situation went south, theyd split up and meet again elsewhere.
When theyd turned the next corner, Hawke parked along the side of the road.
Shift, Tighe ordered, then called to the animal who lived inside him, pushing past the tiger, straight to the smaller form of house cat. As a younger Feral, hed had to go first to his full tiger form before he could downsize. A serious handicap hed quickly learned to overcome.
Jag, remaining in human form, opened the car door for him, and he leaped out onto the grass, Kougar behind him, Hawke soaring into the air.
As Tighe and Kougar ran toward the house on four feet, Hawke reported back.
Two guards patrolling the grounds outsideone in back, one watching the front from the bushes in the right front corner of the house. The fence is high and looks to be solid. Ill get the one in back.
Tighe replied. Ill cloud the mind of the one in front and get him to open the door. Kougar and Ill go in. Wings, you keep watch.
Will do.
Tighe ran through the yard, then slipped between the legs of the watching guard.