Page 71 of Red Rooster

“Whatcan?” Lanny was starting to feel panicked.

“Enchantment,” Alexei explained. “Rasputin could enchant others, which is why I can, and why Nikita can.”

“You can too,” Nikita said, clicking away on the keyboard. “Ah, here we go.”

“But…I don’twantto.”

“I’ll teach you how,” Alexei said with a wink. “You might like it.”

“What? Ew, no–”

“Hand me the flash drive,” Nikita said, snapping his damn fingers again. “Quickly.”

“Bite me,” Lanny said as he handed it over, then chuckled. “Shit, you probably will. God, what is my life now?”

Alexei grinned.

Nikita turned around slowly; the chair squeaked as it spun. His gaze was downright hateful. “Sasha,” he said, forcing the enunciation, “is locked up somewhere having God knows what done to him. You twoidiotscan crack jokes about your horrible lives on your own time. We need to find him.Now.”

Unless the teller was his ma, his captain, or Trina, Lanny didn’t, as a general rule, like to be told what to do. But beneath the harsh mask Nikita wore, abject terror flickered in his pale eyes. Whatever panic Lanny might have felt about his theoretical brainwashing abilities, Nikita was feeling ten times that – because his best friend, probably his only friend in the world, who he probably loved more than regular people ever loved their friends, had been kidnapped. And, okay, yeah: Lanny got that.

He schooled his features and nodded. “Yeah. Alright.” He jerked his chin toward the screen. “What’d you find?”

Nikita closed his eyes a moment, took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. “I don’t smell him.” Just a whisper. “He’s not here.”

Lanny hadn’t smelled him either, but hadn’t wanted to say anything. “What does the computer say?” he pressed.

Nikita lingered a moment, eyes shut, like he could will the horror away. Then he turned back to the screen. “Um.” It was the first time Lanny had heard him utter that syllable; it was rattling to hear. Fearless leaders didn’t show hesitation. “This is a schedule. A shipping one. Lots of dates here – including this afternoon. ‘Live specimen’ it says. I think…” He took a rattling breath. “I think they sent him to Virginia.”

“Okay. What’s the address?”

“It’s a post office box. It isn’t…there’s not…” He was hyperventilating.

“Hey.” Lanny rested a hand on his shoulder and felt the hardness of muscle clenched tight as bone. Nikita was strung so tight it was a wonder he didn’t crack apart like marble. “We’ll find him. You’ve got two cops and some serious freaky weirdos on your side.”

Nikita snorted.

“So we’ll find him. Save all that to the drive and then we’ll sniff around a little more – literally. If we can’t find anything, we’ll hook back up with Trina, have another meeting, and go from there.”

“Yeah. I…okay. Yeah.” The last just a murmur, quiet and scared.

That was when Lanny understood: this wasn’t about a job, or about preserving the life he’d had before. He was in this now. This world he hadn’t known existed. Hell, he wasrelatedto it. He’d been dying, and now he wasn’t; now he had an obligation to the family of the woman he loved.

“Alex and I are gonna go see what we can find,” he said, patting Nikita’s shoulder.

“Alex?” Alexei asked, scandalized. “Oh no. I don’t like that.”

“You turned me into a vampire; I’ll call you whatever I want.” He stepped back. “Meet us out in front in fifteen,” he told Nikita.

“Yeah.”

Lanny peeled away and headed out the door.

Alexei followed.

Funny, he thought: the prince had always been just that – a prince. He’d never led, and wasn’t about to start now, no matter how bratty and entitled.

Mona stood at the end of the hall, so Lanny turned the other way, toward an EXIT sign and a stairwell. “If you were hiding a werewolf hostage, where would you keep him?” Lanny asked.