Mile High with a Vampire by Lynsay Sands

Six

“What the hell do you mean you don’t have a phone? Everyone has a damned cell phone nowadays. Why don’t any of you?”

Jet blinked his eyes open at that roar, wincing even as he did. His head was pounding like a bass drum. He’d think he was suffering from one hell of a hangover if his memories weren’t intact. Unfortunately, his memory was just fine and the last thing he recalled was hanging down Quinn’s back, nausea roiling up in him and pain beginning to thump in his head as she ran through the woods, leaping over logs and swerving around trees in her path as she raced desperately to save him, and presumably the six—no, seven—people now facing her across the room with a combination of concern for her bloody and disheveled state, and apparent irritation at her bellowing.

“Ma’am, you need to calm down and tell us what happened,” the darker haired of the two men among the seven people said soothingly. “Obviously you’ve been through something horrible, but you’re safe now and—”

“I’m not safe!” Quinn snapped, and then shifted impatiently and added, “Well, I am, but you people and Jet aren’t and—” Her voice broke off as she glanced his way and saw that he was awake. “Oh, Jet,” she breathed, rushing to where he was pushing himself up to a sitting position on the large leather couch he’d been lying on. “You’re awake. How do you feel? You fainted.”

“I didn’t faint,” he growled, reaching up to rub the knot on the back of his head where most of the drumming seemed to be going on. Noting her expression, he grimaced and admitted, “All right, so I fainted. It was the blood rushing to my head and all the swaying and banging around I was doing against your butt as you carried me through the woods. Damn, woman, you have a bony ass,” he complained. “We really need to feed you something besides alfalfa sprouts and kale. For real,” he added, since she’d eaten fries in their shared dream.

A choked sound from Quinn drew his gaze to her face to see that she’d flushed bright red and looked like she’d swallowed her tongue, and then Jet realized what he’d said and closed his eyes on a sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Well, I sort of did. Your behind is all bone and it hurt hitting my head against it over and over again, but I’d never say that if my head didn’t hurt so much. I appreciate—” His attempt to thank her for saving his life died in his throat when a glass of water appeared before his eyes.

“This might help,” a husky voice said as he blinked at the glass.

Jet followed the hand holding the glass up an arm to a beautiful face with long red hair around it, and two huge breasts under it. There was no neck, he noted with alarm and then realized that was because the woman was bent over, offering him the glass. Jet couldn’t help shifting his gaze from her face to her breasts and back as he thought with dismay, Dear God, the poor girl probably got terrible backaches carrying those monsters around.

A small sound rather like a growl made him glance to Quinn then. Much to his amazement—and, all right, a little pleasure—Quinn was staring at the redhead like she wanted to rip off her head. She was jealous, he thought, and smiled at the idea until Quinn turned her furious gaze on him. Hiding his smile behind a frown, he took the glass from the redhead and stood up abruptly.

“Where are we n—oh,” he finished weakly as the room did a little dance around him.

Quinn caught the glass as it slipped from his hand, and took his arm to steady him. She urged him to sit back down as she answered the question he hadn’t finished. “We’re at a private fly-in fishing lodge. One hundred and sixty miles from civilization and apparently without a phone or a car to make our way out of here.”

“I told you,” a tall, blond male who looked to be Jet’s own age said testily. “A car wouldn’t do any good. There are no roads out here. People and goods have to be flown in and out.”

Quinn scowled at the man and then told Jet, “I heard the plane fly out while I was still about fifteen minutes away. It had just dropped these guys off to open the lodge. Apparently, this place is only open eight weeks of the year and has been closed since the end of last August. The plane won’t come back for two days when the first guests are scheduled to fly in.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Jet said grimly, and then frowned. “If they didn’t get here until today, then what were the lights Kira saw last night?”

“Brittany and I got in yesterday,” the blond male admitted reluctantly. “The plane your friend heard was leaving after dropping off the rest of our crew today.”

Jet nodded, and then took the glass of water Quinn was holding out and quickly gulped the cool liquid down. Surprisingly enough, it actually helped a bit. At least the pounding in his head seemed to be easing a little by the time he finished.

Murmuring a polite, “Thank you,” Jet handed the glass to the redhead who had given it to him and then turned back to Quinn as she addressed the guy who was apparently in charge. “You must have some way to contact the outside world in case of an emergency. A CB radio or something?”

“A CB wouldn’t do us any good out here,” the man said, rolling his eyes as if her suggesting it was ridiculous. “We’re too far from anywhere for that. We have a satellite phone in the office that—”

“Take me to it,” Jet interrupted.

When the man hesitated, looking like he was going to refuse, Jet turned to Quinn and said, “Control him and make him.”

Quinn looked surprised at the suggestion and then bit her lip and admitted, “I don’t know how to do that.”

Jet’s eyes widened in shock. “What? But you were turned four years ago. Didn’t Marguerite . . .” His voice trailed away as he recalled their earlier conversation. Shared dreams obviously weren’t the only thing she hadn’t learned about.

Cursing, he turned to survey the group of seven around them. Two of them were around his age, the redheaded woman and the blond man. They seemed to be the ones in charge if he were to guess by the fact that they were wearing name tags that read Jason (Manager) and Brittany (Asst. Manager) on their dark blue polo shirts. The rest of the group around them merely had names on the nametags on their baby-blue polo shirts. The people in baby blue were made up of four young women and one young man who all looked to be between eighteen and twenty. The men in this group were attractive and well-built, and the females were all pretty and well-endowed.

Either the lodge catered to rich old perverts who liked having large-breasted women around, or the guy in charge of hiring did, Jet thought. He’d always preferred smaller, well-shaped ones himself. Like Quinn’s, he acknowledged as his gaze slid around the expensive trappings of the room they were in. It looked like a large living room with log walls, cathedral ceilings, and big leather furniture everywhere. Everything was layered with a coat of dust that supported the story that it had been closed for ten months.

“The satellite phone is only for business calls or emergencies.”

That announcement from Jason, the manager, drew Jet’s gaze and attention back to the matter at hand and he scowled at the guy. “This is an emergency, or did you miss the fact that I was unconscious when she carried me in, and she has blood all over her shirt?”

A lot of the starch went out of the guy at once and he glanced from Jet to Quinn, concern beginning to pluck at the corners of his mouth as he muttered, “No, of course I didn’t miss that, but she won’t tell us what’s happening.”

“Our plane crashed, three of my passengers were injured, and a fourth was attacked by a bear as we were trying to make our way to help,” Jet spat out, but hesitated briefly, before adding, “And the bear chased us here. It’s a big crazy bastard. Rabid, I think, and if it gets here before we get help it’ll probably kill us all.”

Bad choice, he decided when the guy’s concern gave way to suspicion and he asked, “You want me to believe that this little girl outran a bear to get here? No one can outrun a bear,” he said with disgust. “And she was carrying you, for heaven’s sake.”

“Jet, we don’t have time for this,” Quinn said grimly, her gaze moving to the door and back. “They weren’t that far behind us when I checked from the tree.”

“How far?” Jet asked with concern.

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe fifteen minutes if we’re lucky.”

“Who weren’t far behind you?” Jason the manager asked, his eyes narrowed.

This time it was Quinn who answered, coming up with a brilliant lie. At least it seemed pretty brilliant to him when she held out her hand and said, “I’m Dr. Quinn Peters from Albany, New York.”

The man took her hand automatically, a little respect entering his expression at the word doctor. Quinn’s suddenly take-charge, professional voice probably helped too.

“Of course you’re right, and it isn’t a bear we’re worried about,” she admitted, and then her gaze flickered briefly to Jet, before returning to Jason as she explained, “We were flying back from Europe and our plane did crash. Mr. Lassiter was the copilot. We lost the pilot in the crash, but who we were running from are the patients we were transporting. They got out of the plane, and they’re dangerous.” She glanced at Jet again and then announced, “They were mental patients.”

“Mental patients?” the redheaded Brittany destined for back issues gasped with dismay. “Oh, the poor dears.”

Quinn grimaced at the words, but said, “No, you don’t understand. They aren’t—They—”

“Look,” Jet said, picking up the tale when Quinn faltered in the face of the young girl’s sympathy. “These aren’t your garden variety mental patients. There are four of them,” he added, and hoped that was true, but knew it was possible that Liliya had got hurt trying to slow the others down and might now be suffering blood lust as well. Pushing that worry away for now, he continued, “And they’re some of the most dangerous individuals you’ll ever encounter. Think Hannibal Lecter, Leatherface, Michael Myers, and Norman Bates,” he suggested, listing the first four horror-movie psychos that came to mind. “They’re dangerous and out for blood, and we’re directly in their path.”

“Oh God. I knew I should have taken that job at the Krispy Chicken in town,” one of the girls moaned unhappily. “The pay might not have been as good, but at least in town you don’t get old men hitting on you, and psychos trying to kill you.”

“Shut up, Jeanette,” Jason snapped, but he was looking from Quinn to Jet, obviously trying to decide if they were telling the truth.

Fortunately, in the brief silence that followed, a high shriek sounded from somewhere outside. The chilling sound drifted to them through an open window next to the entrance, and sounded as mad and terrifying as the last time Jet had heard it. The Russians were unhinged with need and they were coming. They didn’t sound like they were fifteen minutes away.

“What was that?” Jeanette gasped as she and the other younger females cowered together.

“I’m sure it was just a loon or something,” Jason muttered, but he moved over to reach through the bars over the open window and slammed it closed. He then quickly barred the door. “Jeanette, you and the others go around and make sure the bars on all the windows and doors are locked in place. I’ll take Mr. Lassiter to the satellite phone.”

“Oh my God, we’re gonna die,” one of the girls moaned as Jet followed the manager from the room and down a long hall to an office.

Quinn watched the men go, and then glanced around at the staff rushing away. Most of them fled the room, presumably to check windows and doors in other rooms, but the busty Brittany, who had been fawning over Jet, remained to double-check the bars on the other windows in this room. Quinn watched her and then asked, “Are there bars on the windows upstairs?”

The structure was a large two-story building with lots of windows on both floors. She’d noticed that as she’d hurried across the manicured lawn with Jet over her shoulder. Fortunately, not expecting anyone, none of the staff members had been looking out the windows to see her whiz across the yard from the woods at immortal speed. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d interrupted a staff meeting and startled a good ten years off of every one of the young people’s lives when she’d rushed inside with Jet over her shoulder and slammed the door behind her.

“Yes. Every window has bars. We hadn’t started removing them yet, but we did open a couple of windows before the others got here. It’s good the girls are checking. They’ll close them,” Brittany assured her, and then babbled a bit nervously, “The bars are to make sure no one breaks in while the lodge is closed. Ten months is a long time, and there are some old crazies wandering the wilds up here. And, of course, everything in the lodge is top of the line and expensive. The owners wanted to be sure no one broke in during off-season and set the place on fire or something, so had the bars installed.”

Quinn didn’t comment. She suspected the woman was just speaking out of anxiety anyway.

“It’ll be fine, right?” Brittany asked. “They can’t get through the bars. I mean, of course they can’t.” She tittered nervously and then added, “It’s not like they have chain saws and stuff like Leatherface or something . . . Right?”

Quinn stepped up to the nearest window, grasped two of the bars and pulled each to a side. Her breath left her on a sigh of disappointment when the bars began to bend away from each other. She’d been hoping they were strong enough to help keep the immortals out, but if she could bend them—

“Oh my God!” Brittany gasped with dismay. “The bars are broken.”

“I didn’t break them,” Quinn said quickly. “I just bent them a little. See. I’m bending them back.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be able to,” Brittany squawked. “They’re supposed to be steel. They’re obviously defective.”

“Oh.” Quinn stepped back from the window and then asked with a frown. “Do you have a safe room or something here?”

“No.” Brittany bit her lip unhappily, and then offered, “The best we have is the booze box.”

“Booze box?” Quinn echoed with bewilderment.

“A steel cage down in the basement where the expensive alcohol and stuff are kept,” Brittany explained. “We call it the booze box.”

“How big is it?” Quinn asked at once. “Can you all fit into it?”

“Maybe,” Brittany said slowly.

“Show me,” Quinn said, moving toward her and following when Brittany turned and hurried from the room.

The redhead led her along the hall Jet and Jason had disappeared down moments ago, and Quinn listened as she followed the woman. She came to an abrupt halt outside a door marked Manager and reached for the doorknob when she heard Jet’s voice from inside.

“Are you coming?”

Brittany had stopped next to another door farther down and Quinn let her hand drop from the knob to follow the woman. She could find out what Jet had learned after she checked out the cage. It probably wouldn’t be much stronger than the bars over the windows, but they only had to slow the women down long enough for help to get to them. The problem was she wasn’t at all sure they could manage that.

“They reached the plane half an hour ago. They’ve already retrieved Jeff Miller’s body and are tending to Annika.”

Jet lowered his head at Bastien Argeneau’s words. He hadn’t been sure who to call once he’d got his hands on the satellite phone. Lucian Argeneau had hired Jet, but the man’s nephew, Bastien, was the president of Argeneau Enterprises and the guy who signed his checks, so he’d called him. But Bastien had linked the call into Lucian even as he’d told him that his uncle was leading the rescue effort that had headed out to search for the plane when it hadn’t arrived in Toronto and it had become apparent that the plane had gone down.

Unfortunately, it had taken some time to locate the plane. There was a lot of cloud coverage north of the lodge where Jet and Quinn now were. The ceiling around the plane had ranged from five hundred feet and a one-mile visibility to a zero-foot ceiling and one-eighth-of-a-mile visibility, he was told, and the helicopters had had to circle, cross, and circle the area over and over again to pinpoint where the ELT was coming from. But they’d finally located the plane.

“I’m sorry about Miller, Jet,” Bastien said now. “I know he was a good friend.”

“Yeah,” Jet murmured, swallowing thickly, and then his hand tightened on the phone and his head came up slightly. “Did you say they’re tending to Annika? She hadn’t escaped her seat and got away from the area?”

“No.” Lucian was the one to answer, his voice grim. “She was too badly hurt to get out of her seat. Her neck and back—hell, every bone in her body—looks to have been broken, and the armrests of her chair were crushed around her body. She didn’t have enough blood in her to heal half of her injuries and couldn’t get out of her chair.”

Jet thought that was the longest speech he’d ever heard Lucian Argeneau give. He suspected that meant the man had been horrified by the state Annika had been in when they’d found her. Jet understood that, but found himself grateful for it. It meant one less loco immortal in the throes of blood lust to fight off if their rescuers didn’t get here in time.

“How long until we can expect you here?” Jet asked now.

“Where are you?” Lucian asked abruptly.

“A fly-in wildlife lodge called—”

“I know the name of the lodge,” Lucian said dryly. “You mentioned it earlier. But where the hell is it? I need coordinates.”

“Oh.” Jet turned to Jason, who was hovering next to him. “They need—Here, just tell him how to find us,” he said, and passed the phone to the man. It seemed more expedient than Jason giving Jet instructions and his passing them on. He suspected every second would count here. The shrieks from outside were growing nearer and becoming more fevered. It was like the women knew they were closing in on their quarry.

With that thought in mind, while Jason spoke on the phone Jet moved to the window and peered out. There were no crazed immortals rushing toward the building. They were still in the woods, making their way here. Thank God, he thought, and then held his breath as he listened to the mournful sounds from outside, trying to sort out if the shrieks were coming from just one woman or three or four. Had Liliya joined the pack, or was she okay? Maybe she was fine and had managed to keep at least Kira away and they’d only have two immortals to deal with.

“He wants to talk to you.”

Jet gave up his position by the window and moved back to take the phone.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“That long?” Jet squawked with alarm.

“We are in a helicopter not a fighter jet,” Lucian snapped. “And you are a good fifty miles from where the plane crashed. Speaking of which, how did you manage that in fourteen hours over rough terrain?” he asked.

Had it really only been fourteen hours? Jet wondered with amazement even as he answered, “Quinn carried me.”

“Then what the hell took so long?” Lucian barked now. “She should have been able to cover that in—”

“She got hurt in the rapids and we had to stop for a while,” Jet interrupted, not willing to listen to criticism of the woman who had saved his life.

A long silence rang in his ears and then Lucian asked, “And she is there with you? Is she safe to be around?”

“Yes. I gave her . . .” Jet paused to glance at Jason and then muttered, “Medicine.”

Lucian understood and grunted at that news. “Tell her we are on our way, but to do her best to hold them off until we arrive.”

“I will,” Jet muttered, but he was speaking to dead air. Sighing, he dropped the phone on the desk and stood up.

“How long did he say it would take for them to get here?” Jason asked anxiously, following him to the door.

“Fifteen minutes,” Jet said grimly.

“But that’s how far away your friend thought those mental patients were, and that was five minutes ago,” Jason pointed out worriedly.

“Yeah,” Jet sighed. “I guess we’d better look for weapons.”

“Weapons?” Jason echoed with amazement, either shocked that Jet was bringing it up, or shocked that he hadn’t thought of it himself.

“Yeah, weapons,” Jet said grimly. “I’d ask for garlic and crosses but those won’t work unfortunately.”

Jason looked confused by his comment, but said, “We have a shotgun.”

Jet pursed his lips. “A flamethrower would be more useful, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Here it is.”

Quinn halted beside Brittany, her eyes moving with interest over the steel cage in the very back room of the lodge basement. She’d expected one of those human-sized gerbil cages with thin lines of steel making up one-inch squares from top to bottom, but this cage looked more like a jail cell. It had steel bars an inch in diameter running up and down and side to side about every eight inches in both directions. But it was also little more than six feet wide and about the same deep. Not ideal to hold nine people.

“It might be tight, but I think we can all fit in,” Brittany said, and Quinn looked at her with disbelief. Seeing her expression, Brittany pulled briefly on her lower lip and then muttered, “Well, I said it would be tight.”

Sighing, Quinn turned a grim expression to the cage, wondering who would be dragged through one of those eight-inch squares first . . . and if they’d survive it. Because they might all manage to squeeze in there—if they moved everything presently in the cage out of it—but they wouldn’t be able to get away from the sides. They’d be like fish in a barrel, waiting to be snatched and dragged out by one of the immortal women.

“Brittany?”

Both women turned toward the dark-haired young man entering the room. His name tag read Shawn, Quinn noted as he joined them.

“Jason and that other guy are done with the call and looking for the two of you.”

“Thanks, Shawn,” Brittany said, patting his shoulder as she moved past him, and then she paused and swung back to hand him a set of keys. “Can you move all the boxes out of the booze box?”

“All of them?” he asked, turning to stare at the cache of stacked boxes in the cage.

“Yes,” Brittany said, and then frowned at Quinn sharply when she said, “No.”

Ignoring her, Quinn said, “Stack a layer of boxes along the cage walls inside, top to bottom, and remove the rest.”

“There is no way nine of us are going to fit in there with a layer of boxes making it even smaller,” Brittany protested.

“You’ll have to manage it,” Quinn said firmly. “You really need those boxes between you and the . . . mental patients,” she finished grimly, and then turned to lead the way to the door, adding, “Besides, there will only be eight of you.”

“Even eight won’t fit with the boxes lining the inside.”

“You’ll just have to hold your breaths and get really friendly,” Quinn said firmly, noting that the woman hadn’t asked who wasn’t going to be inside the cage.

Brittany started to follow her out of the room, but then paused to say, “Work fast, Shawn. I’ll send the girls down to help you.”

“Thanks, Britt,” the young man said with relief. He was already inside the cage, beginning to shift the crates around.

“There you are.”

Quinn stopped just inside the door to the front room, her gaze moving to the shotgun Jet was carrying as he turned from watching out the window and rushed toward her.

“A last resort. It might slow them down a little,” he said, his gaze following her to the gun he carried. But then he raised his head and announced, “Lucian Argeneau is on his way here with help. They already found the plane.”

“How long until they can get here?” Quinn asked at once.

“He said fifteen minutes,” Jet admitted with a grimace. “But they had good news too.”

“What’s that?” Quinn asked, not sure what news could be good news at this point.

“They have Annika. She never made it out of her seat. She was too badly injured to manage to free herself.”

“Oh,” Quinn murmured. It actually was good news of a sort. At least it would be one less blood-crazed immortal to deal with, she supposed, and then asked, “Did they mention seeing Kira and Liliya?”

Jet shook his head solemnly and Quinn sighed. So, they would either have two or four immortals to contend with. Or maybe three if Liliya hadn’t been too badly hurt while trying to slow down the others. Good Lord, she wished she knew which it would be.

Another shriek came from outside and Quinn frowned at how close it sounded. They’d be here soon if they weren’t already.

“Jet?” Jason said suddenly.

He glanced around in question. “Yeah?”

“A woman just came out of the woods and—Jesus, how is she running so fast?” Jason gasped.

Quinn was moving before the man finished speaking. She’d barely reached him when the window shattered, fingers—bent clawlike—bursting through on long bony arms, reaching for him and missing by a hair’s breadth as Quinn just managed to tug Jason out of reach.

“My God, what is that?” Brittany gasped with horror.

Quinn was asking herself the same question. She’d never seen such an emaciated figure in her life. It was like the nanos had eaten away more than just blood. Or perhaps there was just so much blood in a body that once it was all taken away—really removed from veins, organs, and tissue—there was little left. The fingers, hands, and arms looked like bones with dried-out gray skin stretched over them, she noted, and then the arms withdrew and an equally emaciated and badly scarred face pressed against the bars. At first Quinn thought it might be Kira. Her face had been clawed by the bear, after all. But then she realized that this woman’s hair was darker and she decided it must be Nika. Apparently, like Annika, Nika had taken a lot of damage too. Aside from the crisscross scars on her face, her neck was twisted slightly at an odd angle, as was one of her arms. Her body hadn’t been able to fully repair itself.

The sound of another window breaking somewhere in the house made Quinn glance worriedly around, and then Nika said, “Jee-ot. Cooome, Jee-ot.”

It sounded like the woman was trying to talk around broken glass, Quinn thought, and then noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned just in time to see with some shock that Jet was moving toward the woman in the window, his face blank.

“No!” she screamed, leaping forward and catching his arm to pull him back before he could reach the window. Cursing then, she shoved him toward the hallway, barking, “Out of the room! Now! All of you!”

The other women had returned from their tasks and joined them in the room, she saw as they all stampeded for the hall, the staff members nearly mowing each other down in their desperation to get out of the front room. Quinn couldn’t blame them. She was an immortal herself, but she’d never seen or expected to see something like this. Nika looked like a monster. A cross between a zombie and the vampire of myth. That was bad enough, but the immortal had also made Quinn aware of a problem she hadn’t considered. She might not have been sensible enough to learn how to read and control mortals, but every one of the women about to try to claw their way into the building had. She didn’t just have to protect Jet and the others from the women; she had to protect them from themselves too, or at least their inability to keep from being controlled by the women laying siege to the place.

“Block the door,” she barked as she pushed Jet into the hall. Leaving the others to tend to it, she urged Jet to a chair outside the manager’s office, and then eyed him worriedly. When she saw the blankness lifting now that he was no longer in Nika’s view, so no longer in her control, Quinn sighed and released him. She then turned to see how the others were doing at blocking the door to the hall. Quinn shook her head with dismay when she saw that all they’d done was jam a chair under it.

“That won’t do,” Jet said suddenly, standing up beside her.

“I know,” she said wearily. “We need something heavy. Or several somethings heavy.”

“Why don’t we just go down to the cage?” Brittany said anxiously, already sidling toward the basement door.

“Because we need to slow them down long enough for help to get here,” Quinn said quietly. “If we just head down to the cage without putting obstacles in their way, help might not reach us in time.”

“There were filing cabinets in the manager’s office,” Jet said suddenly.

“You’ll never move those,” Jason said with dismay. “They’re chock-full of paper and weigh a ton.”

“Perfect,” Quinn said grimly.

Moments later she and Jet had moved all three filing cabinets from the manager’s office to stack them in front of the door. Quinn could have moved them herself, but as Jet had pointed out, a display of strength like that might have freaked out their hosts and they were already freaked out enough from seeing Nika in the shape she was presently in.

Quinn didn’t want them scared of her too, so he took one end and she the other and they shifted them. She wasn’t foolish enough to think the filing cabinets would stop Nika and the others from getting through the door, but it might slow them down a little. Hopefully, enough to allow Lucian Argeneau and the others enough time to get here. It was their only chance.

“I don’t hear anything out there anymore,” Jet muttered.

Quinn glanced across the filing cabinet they’d just set down, and then straightened and listened. She didn’t hear Nika out front anymore either, she realized, and shared a concerned glance with him. “Maybe she’s trying another way in.”

The words had barely left her mouth when the sound of breaking glass brought small yelps from a couple of the women cowering farther up the hall.

“That came from my office,” Jason said anxiously.

“There’s a cell made up of steel bars downstairs,” Quinn told Jet solemnly. “They call it the booze box because it’s where they keep the booze and other expensive items. I think the cross bars might make it strong enough to keep Nika and the others out, or at least slow them down. How much time is left on the fifteen minutes until help gets here?”

Jet glanced at his wristwatch, and then frowned and tapped the watch face before letting his wrist drop with a sigh. “The dip in the river must have killed it. That or it got banged around at some point since the crash. It’s reading the same time as it did when I finished the call. But I’d guess we probably have at least another five to ten minutes.”

“Jee-ot. Hee-elp mee, Jee-ot.”

Quinn shuddered as Nika’s garbled cry reached them muffled from the manager’s office, but then turned with concern to the young women cowering together up the hall when a couple of them burst into tears.

“Downstairs,” Jet said firmly. Picking up the shotgun he’d set aside while they’d moved the filing cabinets, he took Quinn’s arm to urge her away from the door they’d just blockaded. They had to pass the office door to get to the others, and Quinn eyed it warily as they hurried by, quite sure the door would crash open any moment and they’d be under attack.

“Move, people,” Jet growled once they’d made it past the door to the manager’s office and were approaching the group. “Downstairs now.”

“But we’ll be trapped down there!” That tearful protest came from the girl Jason had called Jeanette earlier, but several of the others nodded and seemed reluctant to move.

“We’re getting in the booze box,” Brittany announced reassuringly, giving a couple of the girls a push to get them moving. “We’ll be safe in there.”

“We won’t all fit,” another girl worried even as she stumbled toward the door to the basement.

“Yes, we will. Shawn is moving the booze crates out,” Brittany said, and then glanced back to Quinn with dismay. “I was supposed to send some girls down to help.” She didn’t wait for a response from her, but then began hustling the girls under her charge along more swiftly, saying, “Come on. Hurry. He might need help. We have to get the crates out to make room. We’ll be safe in there.”

Much to Quinn’s relief, that seemed to calm the other girls and get them moving more quickly. Even Jason abandoned Quinn and Jet and ran to catch up to them as they hustled to the door to the basement and rushed down.

“Go make sure they leave a line of crates around the walls of the cell,” Quinn suggested, slowing to a stop at the door to the basement. “It’ll mean you guys will most likely be standing on top of each other, but you’ll need them in place to keep Nika and the others from being able to grab you and try to pull you out through the bars.”

Jet nodded, but then arched an eyebrow. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll try to slow them down up here if they get inside,” she said quietly.

“Oh, hell, no,” Jet said grimly, urging her forward again.

“We won’t all fit in the cell, Jet. And if I can slow them down—”

“Then you can slow them down outside the cell,” he countered grimly. “I want you where I can see you. I don’t want to be downstairs worrying that they’ve ripped your head off or something.”

Quinn didn’t protest again. She supposed she could stand guard outside the cell as well as upstairs. Besides, she wasn’t that eager to do it at all. It was just that someone had to, and as the only immortal present she had the best chance of surviving an attack by the women.

“No, no. Leave the crates Shawn has stacked against the bars,” Brittany was saying when Quinn led Jet into the very back room in the basement where the booze box was. It seemed the assistant manager had changed her mind on their being necessary now that she’d seen what they were contending with. Quinn supposed she was imagining Nika’s gray, snakelike arms and clawed fingers reaching through the bars to grab and tear at them.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Brittany. There won’t be enough room for all of us with the crates,” Jason said impatiently.

“There will have to be,” Brittany said sharply. “We can sit on each other’s laps if necessary, but those crates need to stay . . . Or do you want to be the one on the outside of the group with nothing stopping that . . . thing upstairs from reaching through the bars and clawing at you?”

It was all she had to say. Mouth thinning, Jason and the others set down the crates they’d started to remove and turned their attention to the ones in the center instead. With all of them working, it took less than a moment to remove the remaining crates, and then the small group began to crowd into the center of the cage.

“You too,” Quinn said when Jet remained by the door where he’d taken up position to watch the basement hall for their pursuers’ approach.

“We need to blockade this door first,” Jet muttered, pushing it closed.

Wondering why she hadn’t thought of that herself, Quinn nodded and glanced around. The only things in the room with any weight to them were the crates of alcohol that had been removed from the cell. She and Jet worked quickly, carting the crates over and stacking them in front of the door. She suspected it was a waste of energy and the crates wouldn’t slow them down for more than the second or two it would take to push the door open with the added weight, but it was better than nothing.

Worried about the Russians reaching them at any moment, Quinn didn’t bother hiding her strength, carting crates stacked four and more high compared to the two or three Jet could manage. She heard the murmurings that caused among the people crowded inside the cell who could see, but ignored it.

“That’s the last crate,” Jet said grimly as he set it down.

Quinn nodded. “You need to get in the cell with the others now.”

Jet frowned and hesitated, his gaze sliding from the door, to her, to the cell, and then he shook his head and hefted the shotgun he held. “I’ll stay out and help you.”

“You can’t help me, Jet,” she said solemnly. “They can control you.”

“But—”

“Look,” she interrupted, fear making her lose her temper. “I’m not some black belt fighter like my sister. I’ve never even been near a fight before this. It’s going to be tricky enough without my having to worry about keeping you from shooting me in the back or going to one of them while I’m fighting another. Just get in the damned cell and let me do what I can.”

Concern creasing the corners of his eyes, Jet nodded, handed her the shotgun, and started to turn toward the cell, but then paused and swung back. Much to her amazement he grabbed her by the upper arms, dragged her up against his chest, and bent to kiss her.

Quinn suspected he had meant it to be a very swift kiss, a peck, really. Meant to convey his gratitude, his worry, and every other emotion they were all experiencing. But they were life mates. Or at least they were something, Quinn acknowledged, because despite the situation and the terror of the moment, the second his lips touched hers, the world melted away and they were clinging and trying to devour each other right there between the frightened people in the cell and the blockaded door.

It was a crash from the floor above that finally had them breaking the kiss.

“They’re inside,” Quinn panted, her fingers tightening on the shotgun she held between them. Then she stepped back out of his hold. “You better get in the cell.”

Jet’s mouth thinned, but he didn’t argue this time and allowed her to urge him to the cell. The people inside were pretty much on top of each other already, but managed to make enough room for him to squeeze in. Quinn closed the door behind him and then frowned and glanced up at the people inside. “How do I lock this?”

“There’s a padlock on the shelf against the wall,” Shawn told her.

Quinn found it and quickly locked the cell door closed, trying to ignore the fact that the door was the only part of the cell not protected with a stack of crates . . . and Jet was pressed up against it.

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said quietly when she raised her distressed gaze to his. “Go on. I have faith in you.”

Quinn managed a crooked smile and turned to face the barricaded door to the room. She raised the shotgun to aim at the door, and then bit her lip. The door was a good fifteen feet away and she’d never used a shotgun before. She’d probably miss anyone coming through the door at this range, she thought unhappily, and moved closer, stopping ten feet from the door for a moment before moving another couple of feet toward it.

Deciding that was close enough, Quinn raised the gun again and aimed for the center of the door. She then held her breath and listened for any sound that could tell her where the Russians were. She heard movement upstairs. It sounded like running feet and then another mournful shriek reached them. It was followed by a loud scraping sound overhead.

“That’s the filing cabinets,” Jason said, his voice unnaturally high.

She heard Jet curse and someone else praying, and they listened to the thundering footsteps overhead move toward the back of the building more slowly than she expected. They were searching each room was her guess as she listened. It seemed like a decade had passed when she noticed that the noises were coming from somewhere outside the door of the room they were in, and then the crates began to shake and tremble as the door opened, pushing them across the floor. Quinn closed her eyes and pulled the trigger on the shotgun. The weapon jumped in her arms, jerking back sharply into her shoulder. Wincing at the pain, she opened her eyes and blinked when she found herself staring at Lucian Argeneau. The man wasn’t looking at her, though; he was staring down at the huge hole in his shoulder where she’d shot him.

Raising his head, he arched one eyebrow at her. “Somehow I expected you to be happier to see us.”

“Oh, shit,” Quinn breathed, and dropped the gun.