“Turn the knob for me, then relax, like you’re still riding high on the drug,” he said. “We’ll get a lot farther a lot faster that way.”
I tucked the knife in my hand up the sleeve of the coat, then did as he asked and went slack in his arms. Silvio put his back into the door, pushed it open, and left the lab.
He stepped back out into the drug den. Some of the addicts perked up as Silvio walked past them, but when they realized that he wasn’t Benson with a fresh hit for them, they sank back down onto their pillows and slid deeper into their despair. Two guards had been posted at the bottom of the stairs, and they frowned as Silvio stopped in front of them.
“Where you are going with her?” one of the vamps asked.
“Upstairs to get her cleaned up. She threw up all over the lab,” Silvio said in a bland tone. “Boss’s orders. He has special plans for this one.”
Both of the men winced at the words special plans, but they stepped aside so we could pass. Silvio climbed the stairs, still holding me in his arms.
“I hope you had a nice, tall glass of blood for breakfast,” I said. “You’ll need the energy, what with all this lying and backstabbing you’re doing.”
“Giant’s blood, actually,” he replied. “Two big glasses. I like to plan ahead. I thought that I might need a bit of extra strength today.”
“Are you saying that my ass is heavy?” I drawled. “Why, Silvio, I think I’m insulted.”
He huffed, although it sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Silvio reached the top of the stairs, turned right, and started moving down a long hallway. We passed room after room, all of them furnished with white couches, chrome lamps, and glass tables. Everything was sleek, chic, and polished to a high gloss, but no photos, books, magazines, or knickknacks of any kind adorned the furniture. I’d been too drugged earlier to pay much attention to my surroundings, but the inside of Benson’s mansion was very much a reflection of his lab and his own personality—cold, clinical, sterile.
The drug den and the lab were in the center of the mansion, and shadows cloaked the interior like demons about to break free from the walls. Or maybe that was just more hallucinations brought on by Burn.
But the guards were very real.
Vampires were stationed at the end of every hallway, all of them armed with guns and cell phones. A few of them stopped Silvio long enough to ask where he was taking me, but he gave them the same cleanup answer as before, and they let us pass. But the farther Silvio walked and the more guards he spoke to, the faster his steps became, until his wing tips were bang-bang-banging like a drum on the floor.
“Slow down,” I hissed. “You’re practically running, and running makes people suspicious.”
“We’re on a tight timetable, Ms. Blanco,” Silvio snapped back. “In case you haven’t guessed.”
We glared at each other, but he did slow his steps enough to keep me from griping at him anymore.
Silvio turned into another hallway, and I spotted a set of patio doors at the far end that weren’t being guarded. Through the glass, I could see the green expanse of the lawn outside. My heart lifted.
Silvio let out a relieved sigh. “Almost there—”
“Hey, Silvio!” a high feminine voice called out behind us. “Wait up!”
His steps faltered. His mouth pinched into a frustrated frown, even as his eyes locked on the doors up ahead, debating whether or not to make a run for them. But he knew as well as I did that would send all the guards racing in our direction, so he stopped and turned around.
A vamp came jogging up the hallway to us.
“Yes, Joan?” Silvio asked.
Joan stopped and waved her phone in the air. “I just got a text message from the boss asking where she is.” She jerked her head at me. “Benson wants to know why the two of you aren’t in the lab. What are you doing all the way over here?”
Silvio stiffened. “Beau wanted me to get her cleaned up.”
“Yeah, but why didn’t you just dump her in one of the tubs in the bathroom close to the lab like usual?” Joan frowned. “What are you doing, Silvio? You’re not . . . actually . . . helping her—”
Before she could finish her thought, I palmed the knife hidden up the sleeve of my stolen lab coat and lashed out with it. I’d been hoping to catch the vamp in the throat, but she saw the glint of the weapon and jerked back at the last second. My knife only sliced across her breastbone, but that was more than enough to get her to stop asking questions.
Joan screamed and staggered back, clutching at the wound I’d opened up on her chest. Her head cracked against the wall, and she dropped to the floor, unconscious.
“Now you’ve done it,” Silvio muttered.
“What?” I sniped. “She was a second away from figuring it out anyway—”
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Joan’s scream must have been louder than I thought, or the vamps had better hearing, because footsteps started pounding in our direction. Silvio cursed, turned, and ran toward the doors.
But he wasn’t quite fast enough.
A vamp stepped out of one of the rooms at the end of the hallway, his gun already drawn. When he realized what Silvio was doing, he snapped the weapon up and took aim. I reached for my Stone magic, even though I didn’t have enough of it to harden my body, much less protect Silvio and me from the bullets that were going to start flying in our direction—
Pfft. Pfft.
The vampire dropped to the floor, blood leaking out of the two holes in the back of his skull. Silvio skidded to a stop.
Outside on the patio, a hand smashed through the rest of the glass on the door, reached through, unlocked, and opened it. A second later, a familiar figure appeared—one that could have almost been . . . me.
I blinked, but it wasn’t another hallucination.
She was dressed all in black, from her boots to her jeans to the long-sleeved T-shirt that she wore underneath her vest. Even her gun was black. So was the silencer attached to the barrel. She wasn’t wearing her detective’s badge, and the only bit of color on her was the silverstone primrose rune that glinted in the hollow of her throat.
Bria lowered her gun and smiled at me. “Hey, there, big sister.”
For a moment, I was stunned into silence. Then I found my voice again. “Bria? What are you doing here?”
Her grin dimmed. “Saving you. If it’s not already too late—”