Man and spirit bellowed in unison. There was no sign of the Hunters on the hill, which meant they were already a good distance away. Sweet gods, the Hunters had her. The Hunters had touched Torin and had then touched Ashlyn.
Sick to his stomach, he barreled toward the entertainment room. He removed the gloves and extra T-shirt along the way, dropping them on the floor wherever he happened to be.
'Towels?' Lucien asked when he spotted him. Obviously, he hadn't heard Maddox's cries for help. But he saw his friend's expression and frowned.
Maddox told the group what he'd discovered, the broken, panicked admission rushing from him. Each of them snapped to attention and clamored around him. Each of them paled.
'Did they breach our walls?' Paris demanded.
'Yes.' Maddox turned to Sabin with a snarl. 'Did you help them?'
The man held up his hands, the picture of aggravated innocence. 'I was being blown to bits, too, remember? And my goal has always been their destruction.'
'What of Danika?' Reyes asked roughly.
'Gone.'
Reyes's eyelids squeezed closed.
'Torin needs medical attention,' Paris said. 'How are we going to manage that?'
'He'll have to heal on his own. Gods, there's going to be a plague,' Lucien said grimly. 'We can't stop it now.'
Maddox's hands tightened into fists. 'I don't care if there's a plague or not. My woman is out there. I'll do whatever is necessary to save her.'
Strider stepped forward. 'Kane was in that cemetery with Torin. He might have followed him back. Did you see him?'
'Torin said there was a battle on the hill. Kane was taken.'
'Fuck,' Sabin snarled, slamming his fist into the wall.
How had a day so bright with promise combusted so quickly?
'I'll go into town with you,' Reyes said to him. He'd cleaned some of the soot from his face, but his feet were still charred and bare.
'I'll search the rest of the fortress.' There was a blazing fire in Lucien's mismatched eyes. Aeron had once claimed that Lucien possessed a temper darker than the most violent of storms. Maddox hadn't believed him then. He believed now. 'I'll make sure they aren't still here, hiding.'
After seeing that rappel wire, Maddox doubted it. 'Five minutes,' he said to Reyes before racing to his room and loading his body with weapons. Knives, guns, throwing stars.
Hunters were going to bleed tonight.
Reyes watched Maddox with shock.
They had stalked the streets of Budapest until finally stumbling upon a group of four Hunters. They were now in the forest, surrounded by trees and safe from the prying eyes of humans. Night had fallen and flaxen rays of moonlight slithered over nature, beast and human alike.
Maddox had attacked without warning.
He wore the veil of Violence, and it was no longer a mere shadow. It had taken over his face completely, a skeletal visage straight out of nightmares. Quickly he—it—killed two of the Hunters with a simple slash of his blade, their necks slit, just as had been done to Torin. They fell to the ground, instantly dead.
Reyes remained in place. He wasn't sure Maddox was aware of his surroundings, much less of who he fought. And if Reyes were to intervene, he suspected he would be slashed, as well.
His own rage was as fierce as Maddox's. For some reason, he felt responsible for Danika and was infuriated that she had been taken out from under him. So what that she was already marked for death?
'Where is your leader?' Maddox quietly asked as he stalked around the two Hunters still breathing.
'D-don't know,' one of them said with a whimper.
'Where are the women?'
'Don't know,' the other cried. 'Please. Please don't hurt us.'
Maddox showed no mercy. He fingered the bloody tip of his blade, running his tongue over his teeth. The blood splattered over that skeleton-face added all kinds of eerie. 'Where were they taken?'
'D—'
'Say it, and I'll cut out your tongue. You'll watch as I eat it,' Maddox warned.
Reyes didn't recognize that voice. It was lower, harsher, than Maddox had ever sounded before. He was all beast, no trace of man.
'I want to know where they are.'
'I do—'
The man didn't have a chance to finish his sentence. Maddox spun toward him, arm rising. He sliced down. One moment the man was alive. The next he was dead, blood pouring from his neck.
That's when the sole survivor whimpered. Coughed.
'I'm only going to ask once more,' Maddox said, and the Hunter coughed again. 'Where were they taken?'
'McIntosh didn't tell us,' was the trembling response. 'Just said we were to watch the city and radio if we saw one of the Lords: Except for Miss Darrow, there wasn't supposed to be a woman inside the fortress. Please. They just want the girl and the box. They planned to sneak inside, grab her and look for it. That's all.'
Reyes stomped over and grabbed the radio that was strapped to one of the corpses. He hooked it to the back of his belt, planning to listen and see what he could learn. Right now there was only silence.
Maddox peered at him and Reyes nodded. Without a word of warning, Maddox reached over and snapped the man's neck, letting him fall in a heap with his friends. They couldn't have allowed him to live. He was a Hunter. He was infected. And he'd played a part in Ashlyn's disappearance.
'What should we do next?' Reyes stared up at the heavens, part of him hoping the answer would fall from the stars.
'I do not know.' Maddox felt nearly mad with worry as he echoed the unfortunate Hunters' words. Violence had taken over and ruled him totally, but in the back of his mind, he was aware. If he didn't find Ashlyn soon, he would have to wait until morning, when he returned from the dead. And if he had to wait… if Ashlyn had to spend the night with Hunters…
He wanted to kill them all.
'Let's search the town one more time. There has to be a trace,' Reyes said. 'We have to have missed something.'
Side by side, they strode back into the city. Not many people were out, but those that were stayed clear of them. The bombing had probably ruined the illusion that they were angels. That and the fact that there was blood on Maddox's hands and splashed on his face.
When he and Reyes stood in an alley, a dirty, urine-scented place that closed in on him like a life-sized coffin, he stopped and looked toward the velvety heavens as Reyes had done. Helplessness bombarded him, a poor companion to the rage and dark urges he already felt.
Ashlyn was his reason for living.
He loved her. He had known it before, but he was sure of it now. She was gentleness and she was light. She was passion and she was calm. Hope and life. Innocence and… everything. She was his everything.
Now that he'd found her, he could not imagine his life without her. It was as if she were the missing link, the final element of his creation, the only thing that completed him.
He had promised her that he would always protect her.
He had failed.
Roaring, he punched the wall beside him. He felt shredded inside.
A newspaper danced at Reyes's ankles and the warrior bent down, grabbed it and crumbled it into a ball before tossing it aside. 'We're running out of time.'
'I know.'
