hesitating, I dove into the room and leapt behind a tall set of crates off to one side. Gunfire filled the air, lighting up the black room. Barrett scampered after me and settled behind the boxes. Bullets chipped away at the wooden crates and pinged off the concrete walls near us. We were pinned down, but that would only last for so long. It was only a matter of time before they started their approach and took aim from a significantly shorter distance.
“If I draw their fire,” I said to Barrett, “can you get behind them?”
The wolf nuzzled my arm for a second before turning in the opposite direction to poke his nose out from behind the box. He was ready for me to draw their fire.
Pushing my back away from the crates, I rolled my shoulders and closed my eyes for a second as I summoned my wings. They sprouted from my back, tearing through the soft material of my shirt. The thick blackness of the wings blended with the darkness of the room, allowing me to stretch them to their full length before drawing them in again. Climbing carefully to the top of the stack of crates, I slithered across on my belly, then balanced on the edge with my wings extended. The ceiling was just high enough to allow me to glide a short distance. Unfortunately, I would reach the ground a few feet directly in front of them. Barrett only had one shot to get at them before I was torn to shreds by their weapons.
Clenching my teeth, I launched myself off the crate and glided across the room. I threw three knives down on them before they even took notice at the attack from above. Screams of horror went up and they moved their weapons so they were now pointed at me. Just before reaching the ground, I jerked my wings in and tucked my body into a ball so I rolled forward, making myself a smaller target.
Luckily, more screams went up, accompanied by a low growl as Barrett struck. To lend him a hand, I rolled back to my feet and jumped over the table the men who took refuge in the room had been hiding behind. With my knives slashing with frightening speed, I dispatched the last of them, while Barrett tore another man apart with his teeth.
The lights suddenly flicked on as we finished with the bloody work. I raised one hand to shield my eyes from the overwhelming glare, blood dripping on my nose and running down my cheek. I blinked a couple times and twisted around toward the entrance to find Rowe standing in the doorway, looking a little bloodier than he had been only a few moments earlier.
“Finished in here?” he inquired in a light voice.
My wings settled around my shoulders as I looked around at the carnage. An array of black and lethal-looking weapons was spread out on the table I’d leapt over. The four men in the room had been hacked to pieces in a matter of seconds and were now lying in pools of their own blood. “Just finished,” I replied.
“I took a peek around the place,” Rowe said, keeping his eyes on me as Barrett wandered off to a corner to change back into human form. “There are three locked doors. Two with lycans behind them and one with a human.”
“The human has to be Daniel,” Barrett said in a low, rough voice, just barely back in human form.
“What do we do about the other lycans? Are they prisoners as well?” I asked as we headed toward the door Rowe was holding open for us.
“Doesn’t matter,” Barrett said with a shake of his head. “They betrayed their people. They could have taken their secrets to their grave and they didn’t. They deserve death. But right now my main concern is getting to Daniel. We need to reach him before the fire department arrives and this place caves in around us.”
Rowe silently led us to the room that held the presence of a human. One well-placed kick near the doorknob sent the door flying open and banging against the wall behind it. In the center of the empty room a haggard, beaten man was taped to a metal folding chair. He was slumped over, looking as if he were barely holding onto life.
“Daniel!” Barrett cried, rushing over and kneeling beside the man. Rowe and I quickly set to work cutting the thick silver tape that bound him to the chair. He reeked of urine, sweat, and dried blood. He might have been held captive for only a couple days, but it appeared that he had spent most of that time being beaten into a bruised and bloody pulp.
“Barrett?” Daniel said in a dazed and rough voice as he tried to lift his head to look around.
“Yes, it’s me. I came to take you home.”
“How did you know?” Daniel asked, his voice cracking.
“You haven’t contacted us in days. I promised that we would come after you.”
“I didn’t tell them anything, I swear. I didn’t say anything,” he continued. Tears started to stream down his face, and I was forced to look away, focusing on the last bit of tape at his ankles.
“I know you didn’t say anything,” Barrett said, squeezing both of Daniel’s shoulders. “You would never betray us. What about the other lycans?”
“I never saw them, but I could hear them being tortured.” Daniel gave a shudder before falling forward to lean heavily on Barrett. “I could hear the screaming through the walls next to me. I think they’re from Charleston. They’re not from Savannah.”
“We’ll take care of them before we leave.”
“I’ve got it,” Rowe said, snapping my head up. The naturi disappeared from the room without a whisper of noise. We didn’t move as we listened to him kick in each door and quickly dispatch the other two lycanthropes quickly and mercifully.
“Let’s get out of here,” he commanded, sticking his head back in the doorway. “Smoke is starting to fill the hallways. The first floor may be impassible now.”
“This used to be a parking garage,” Daniel said. “They took me out a back underground entrance one night. We can use that.”
Putting one of his arms over my shoulder while Barrett took the other, we helped Daniel back to his feet. We moved as quickly as we possibly could, but he stopped us once again as we passed the room where the men had been working at the blue glowing screens.
“The computers! We need the computers!” he shouted.
“There isn’t time,” Barrett argued.
“It’s full of information on everyone,” Daniel pressed. “We need it. We need to know what they know. Otherwise, this whole mission was for nothing.”
Barrett looked over at me and Rowe for a moment in indecision. “I’ve got him,” I said. Rowe and the shifter didn’t hesitate to dart into the room. I watched as they pulled cords out of two metal containers and hefted them up on their shoulders. I didn’t know what kind of information resided with these computers, but apparently it was important enough to risk everyone’s life.
We paused one last time so Barrett could run back and grab his pants before Daniel directed us to the enclosure where Barrett and I had encountered the last group of Daylight Coalition members. At the rear, we saw a plain white van. We loaded Daniel into the back while Barrett worked on getting the van started. Rowe pushed open the gate and I slammed the back doors shut when it growled to life. Then Rowe hopped inside as Barrett idled by the gate.
In the parking lot, Barrett stopped next to the car he’d driven up to Atlanta. Rowe hopped out with instructions to follow us back to Savannah. We were pulling out of the business complex just as giant red trucks pulled in with sirens blaring and red lights flashing. I took one last look out the back window of the van to see flames poking out of the windows of both the first and second floor. The rain had stopped but the clouds still hung black and heavy in the sky.
We’d succeeded in our rescue mission, but I had the distinct feeling that we hadn’t heard the last of the Daylight Coalition. We had merely slowed them down a bit.
Twenty-two
During the next four hours, Daniel hovered between consciousness and uneasy sleep in the back of the car. We threw an old cloth tarp we found over the floor for him to lie on. It didn’t provide any cushion, but after everything he had been through, he didn’t appear to notice the hardness of the car floor.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Barrett said after we rode for more than an hour in complete silence. “I know that neither you nor Rowe wanted to help, but I am grateful that you did. Daniel would not have survived much longer in their hands.”
