Page 19 of Cherished by the Sinners (Sinners Never Die #4)

Magnus

M agnus sat in the rear passenger seat of Baz’s taxicab, his hands clenched tight. If he relaxed, even for a second, he’d do something stupid like put his fist through the car door.

All he could think about was Darlene in the hands of a vampire who’d probably descended into madness. Madmen were capable of any number of horrendous crimes, and Darlene was human. Breakable. His .

“Hey,” Baz said, raising his voice. “Did you hear what I said?”

“No.” Magnus didn’t see the point in lying. He didn’t have the mental bandwidth to come up with something reassuring.

His cousin sighed. “Listen closely, we’re not far away now. I’m going to park the car right in front of the building, across the street from Homeland Security and pound on the door.”

“A distraction?”

“Yeah. You and Mason are going in through a window or something. Hopefully me acting like an ass in public will be enough of a distraction that you can get Darlene away.” He paused, then added, “Without starting World War Three or committing a mass murder. Okay?”

Magnus managed to force one word through clenched teeth. “Fine.”

“I’m serious,” Baz said. “Try not to kill anybody.”

Magnus turned to look at his cousin. “If they have hurt her, my brother and I will kill them all.”

Baz glanced at him. “Fuck, you’re supposed to be the logical one.”

Magnus laughed, and even to himself he sounded like a maniac. “Like you were logical when you killed every man who’d taken Nika?” He had. With his bare hands. He’d left an apartment full of bodies, and the police were still trying to figure out what happened and which head went with what body.

“Shit,” Baz muttered. “I should have Anna prep a cleanup crew.”

“Buy the damn building,” Magnus said. “So we can burn it.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

Magnus leaned forward a little as Baz pulled the cab over on the street behind the warehouse, parking right behind Nika’s car. Mason got out of her car at the same time Magnus got out of the cab.

Nika got out too and came over to talk to Baz. They spoke softly for several moments, and when Nika went back to her car, she didn’t look happy.

“She wants to go in with us,” Mason told Magnus.

“Bad idea.”

“That’s what I told her. Hopefully Baz convinced her to wait until the threats are no longer so... threatening.”

Magnus snorted. “She’s as stubborn as Baz is.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t stupid. She knows she’s his biggest weakness.”

“Just like Darlene is ours?”

Mason paused for a moment. “Yes.”

Magnus let the idea sit with him for a few seconds. “She’s also our greatest strength. Without her, I think we would be lost to the madness our lives bring to us.”

“Like the British?”

He nodded. “And the Italians.”

Magnus and Mason looked at each other. “This is what the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians are trying to prevent,” Magnus said to Mason.

“At the very least,” Mason said. “But I think they all have a list of issues they don’t know how to solve.”

Nika pulled away from the curb and drove off.

Baz stuck his head out the window of his car. “Ten minutes.” He rolled his window up and followed Nika.

Magnus and Mason walked over to the entrance to the back alley and strode down it. Garbage had collected along the edges and it smelled like an open sewer. The back of the warehouse was no cleaner, despite there being only a narrow four-foot gap between their target building and the one behind it.

They surveyed the wall, noting that the windows didn’t start until the height of the second floor. The building was built of brick, but the edges of the bricks had worn down leaving little in the way of hand or footholds.

Magnus crouched and laced his hands together, offering them as a landing pad for a foot so he could toss Mason up high enough to reach the window.

Mason consulted the tracking device on his wrist, which had finally locked onto the signal from the watch Darlene was wearing. They were in the right place. Darlene was only a few feet away.

He put his foot on his brother’s hands. Magnus lifted with all his strength, pushing his brother up into the air.

Mason grabbed the edge of the window and pulled himself up. He looked in the window, just as a fire alarm began ringing inside the building.

Mason waited for a moment, then smashed the glass out of the window with his elbow. He looked inside, scanning from one direction to the other, then waved at Magnus to join him.

Magnus backed up a few steps, took a running start, and leaped up to grab Mason’s hand.

Mason hauled him up until he could grab the window sill. Mason went in first, dropping down into a mostly dark building. The window had been painted black, but without the glass, it now provided a meagre amount of light.

The warehouse appeared empty under the window, only bare concrete and shadows.

Magnus joined his brother, crouched on the floor, but aside from the fire alarm, there was no evidence that anyone or anything was inside.

They moved away from the small shaft of light the window made on the floor and discovered room dividing walls made of fabric separating the space.

They stopped next to one of the dividers, pausing to ascertain where the occupants of the warehouse might be. With all the noise from the alarm, they couldn’t make out any other sounds, but the smell of fresh blood and the beginning of decomposition told Magnus that someone had died.

The fire alarm stopped blaring, thrusting the space into a traumatized silence.

It only lasted for a moment.

“Eli, who was that? What happened?” a masculine voice asked in a British accent.

“Bazyli Breznik,” another man answered. “He broke the lock on the front door, pulled the fire alarm, then waited. As soon as he saw me, he gave me the finger and ran out the door.”

“And?” the second man asked in a hostile, impatient tone.

“And he was laughing. Outside, there was a police car, and Homeland Security is across the street. I had to cut the connection to the fire alarm, or we would have had firemen and more police arrive.” The speaker sighed. “And this is obviously a murder scene.”

They’d already killed someone? Magnus forced himself to remain still and quiet. He could not allow his rage to overtake him until he knew if Darlene was safe or not.

Next to him, Mason shifted, preparing to move, and Magnus grabbed his arm.

Someone snarled. “He’s playing games with us, or he thinks he is. That pickled moron.”

Loud banging echoed through the building.

“Go tell him I’ll kill the woman if he doesn’t stop his stupidity. I will not negotiate until our public meeting.”

“What if he wants proof of life?”

“Tell him whatever he needs to hear to make him go away.”

Footsteps echoed, growing softer and softer.

“I do not understand why the Brezniks care about you.”

“Neither do I,” a calm female voice said. Darlene .

She was alive and well enough to talk without stress in her voice.

“You’re just a dirty prostitute.”

“I’m a housekeeper now.” No, not calm. Dull. Lifeless. What the fuck had he done to her?

“A servant,” he sneered. “A nobody.”

How were they going to get Darlene out of there before the British bastard could harm her any more than he already had? Baz’s commotion at the front of the building only succeeded in getting one of the vampires away from her.

“I should drink you dry.” He said it with an eerie giggle.

Darlene didn’t respond.

“Or maybe I’ll just slit your throat and let them find your body.” Again with the giggling.

“That seems like a waste of blood.” Darlene’s voice was oddly inflectionless. Distant. Cold.

“Not if I wait a few hours for the alcohol to leave your system. Then I can drink your blood down to the last drop.”

Something crashed against concrete. It echoed through the building with a metallic boom that reverberated around the space.

Baz was putting in more of an effort to get Sebastien’s attention. Good .

“Eli,” the British vampire roared. “End the noise.”

No one answered him, but there was another massive crash. And then Baz laughed, and he sounded like he’d gotten drunk again. Either that or he was planning to audition for the next production of Nosferatu.

Sebastien snarled and ran toward the noise, his footsteps quickly disappearing as he got farther away.

Magnus let go of his brother and they burst through the fabric room divider.

Darlene was sitting on a recliner, covered in blood. Her eyes were wide, but sightless. Her face frozen, flat, and faded.

Magnus had seen people with that exact lack of expression on their face before. In men fresh from a battlefield, and traumatized victims of violence.

Mason moved so fast he was a blur as he grabbed her and pulled her up, his intent to carry her clear.

She gasped as her arm nearly jerked her out of Mason’s hold, and made a small, pained sound.

Mason stopped, his face full of horror. “Darlene?”

The British bastards had handcuffed her to the chair.

“Get her out,” Magnus snarled. “He’s coming back.” He spun, letting his brother take care of Darlene, as the British vampire charged him.

The idiot shouted and snarled and howled, and none of his noise contained words.

Magnus drew his long knife concealed in a sheath along his spine. Shorter than a sword, but longer than most knives, the attacking vampire didn’t even try to dodge. He ran straight onto Magnus’s blade.

Not that that would kill him, or even slow him down much. For that Magnus needed to remove his head.

Magnus pulled his knife out and stabbed the other man through his temple with it. “Get her out of here,” he growled at his brother. He wasn’t going to end this bastard while Darlene could see him do it. She had enough nightmares in her head.