And I'm afraid it's going to have to be you. Open the window."

"I don't even know if it opens." Topaz checked and found that it did, then fumbled the safety grate away and dragged it into the room. Then she turned to find that her mother had pulled herself to her feet and was making her way weakly across the room. She had torn her skirt off at midthigh, to give herself more freedom of movement.

"Turn around, hon," Mirabella instructed. "You're going to have to carry me." "I don't know if we can do this."

"What's the worst that can happen?"

Topaz shuddered to think. But she turned. Mirabella wrapped her arms around Topaz's neck, her legs around her waist. And then Topaz climbed out the window, hung by her hands from the edge, eyed the next ledge below her and let go. They plummeted, but she kept her hands touching the building's side, and when she felt the next ledge, she gripped it for all she was worth. And somehow she caught it and held on. She dangled there, terrified and yet exhilarated.

"We did it! It worked." She smiled in spite of herself. "We can do this. Just drop from ledge to ledge until we're close enough to jump to the ground. Hold on, here we go."

She released her hold on the second ledge, and again they fell. But this time, when her fingers. .h.i.t the next ledge down and she tried to grip it, the cement crumbled in her hands and they kept right on falling.

16.

They piled into the van, all of them, their plan in place. Jack's one goal was to ensure that Topaz got out of this mess alive. His own safety didn't matter as much to him, though he would give ten years of his undead life for one more night holding her in his arms. He didn't know why the h.e.l.l it had taken him so long to realize that his feelings for her were real and not just part of a con game too convincingly played. It rea.s.sured him to know that Reaper would tell her the truth, if worse came to worst. But he would much prefer to be able to do it himself. And not just tell her, but show her, convince her, love her until she could never doubt his feelings again.

The h.e.l.l of it was, he might never get that chance. The suit-monkeys were going to be pretty p.i.s.sed off once they realized they'd been played.

Roxy pulled the van to a stop on the shoulder of an abandoned stretch of desert and turned around in her seat. "This is it. The GPS says the drop's a mile, due east, straight into the desert."

Jack drew a breath. "Well, grab the body bag and let's go, then."

He gripped the side door, started to open it, but Reaper stopped him with a hand on his arm. "They could be watching and you're-I'm supposed to be drugged and inside the bag at this point. We don't want to tip them off too soon. Not until we get Topaz and her mother safely out of harm's way."

Sighing, Jack released his grip on the door. "So you're gonna haul my a.s.s all the way out there in a body bag?"

"I have to stay out of sight. Seth, Rhiannon, you take him out there. It'll take both of you to bring the women back here. And the way they've set this up, there's barely time to do it and get home before sunrise, so you'll have to be fast."

It was far from a perfect plan, but they had precautions in place. Jack picked up the body bag and handed it to Seth. "Sorry about this, kid."

"It'll be worth it if it works." Seth opened the side door and took the body bag out, then unfolded it on the ground and unzipped it.

Jack sat down on the van's floor with his back to the door. Seth gripped him under the arms and tugged him out as Jack let his head fall forward, feigning unconsciousness. He let Seth do all the work, lifting him, positioning his body in the open bag and closing the zipper completely. He was careful, tugging it tight to be sure no sunlight could leak through.

Freaking cowards, afraid to face him by night, Jack thought. He felt frustrated and murderous. Every cell in his body rebelled against lying still, and in a far different way from anything he'd ever felt before. It must be part of the drug's effects. He felt himself lifted, bag and all, then tossed over Seth's shoulder and carried into the desert to meet his fate.

A short while later, Seth lowered him to the desert floor. Jack listened to the conversation going on around him and fought with himself the entire time in his effort to remain perfectly still while everything in him was straining to move, to act, to fight.

"Where are they?" Rhiannon asked. "I don't see any other body bags lying here waiting, as promised."

Jack tensed, waiting, wanting to tear through the bag and find Topaz himself.

"There's a note," Seth said. "There, pinned to that cactus."

Jack heard the paper rattle and tear a bit as Seth read aloud. "You'll find your women three miles further, due east. Good luck beating the sun."

"d.a.m.n them for this," Rhiannon muttered. "If you're out there watching, you men should get your affairs in order-soon!"

Sorry, pal, but we've gotta run, Seth told Jack mentally.

Go. Just get them back safely. That's all that matters.

Reaper waited as the sun got closer to rising. He'd taken precautions of his own, precautions none of the others were aware of.

He'd slipped that little black pouch of Rhiannon's into a pocket when no one was looking, and he had a syringe full of the drug prepared and ready. He did not intend to sleep through this while his friends risked their lives.

"They're taking longer than they should have," Roxy said. They had all gathered beside the van, except for Ilyana, who stayed in the front seat, and Reaper. He remained in the back, staring through the side window toward the paling sky above the desert.

"Roxy," he said, "open the hidden compartment in the back. We need to get everyone into shelter. We can't wait any longer, and we're clearly not going to make it back to the bungalows before dawn."

Roxy reached into the van and hit a b.u.t.ton. The rear seat folded back as the floor slid open, revealing a comfortably padded bed hidden beneath it. As soon as it was open, Briar ran around to the rear and opened the back doors.

"Good," Reaper said from the front seat. "Briar, you, Crisa and Vixen get in."

"What about the rest of you?" Vixen asked. "There's not room for five of you to rest up there." She voiced her concern even as she obeyed Reaper's orders, climbing under the floor and crowding as far to one side of the hidden bed as she possibly could.

"We can fit. We won't be able to lie down, but we can fit."

"But the sun-"

"Show her, Roxy."

Roxy hit another b.u.t.ton, and a black barrier slid upward, separating the front seats from the rest of the van. Other screens slid upward, as well, blocking the side and rear windows. Then she got out of the van, walked around to the back and joined the others.

"You see?" she said with a smile. "Once we close these doors, the entire back of the van is completely safe. Everyone will be fine." Worriedly, she looked again at the sky and added, "If they hurry up and get their a.s.ses back here, that is."

"Leave the back doors open, Roxy." Mentally, Reaper called out to his friends. Seth, Rhiannon. Where the h.e.l.l are you? The sun's about to rise! They left the women farther away, Reap, Seth replied. We've got them, and we're running for all we're worth, man, but- Are they all right? Reaper interrupted.

Drugged, I think. We didn't have time to check, had to grab them and run. I don't know if we're going to make it, Reap.

We'll make it, Rhiannon put in. Just have some d.a.m.ned shelter waiting when we get there.

Dive into the van. The back doors will be open and waiting. And hurry, dammit.

Thanks so much for that bit of wisdom, my friend. Rhiannon's tone dripped with sarcasm. And here I was thinking of taking my sweet time.

"The sun," Roxy said. She was pointing, and Reaper could see its orange rays beginning to paint the sky far on the eastern horizon.

"Briar, Crisa, get in there," he commanded. "There's no more time."

Briar climbed in, but Crisa backed away. "I'm afraid!"

Reaching for her hand, Briar said, "It'll be okay. You'll be right beside me. I promise, it'll be okay. We'll...we'll talk until the sleep takes us. Come on, Crisa. Trust me."

Reaper blinked, shocked at the warmth in her tone-something he'd never heard coming from Briar in the time he'd known her.

He a.s.sumed it was false, put there to soothe Crisa so she didn't get them all killed. Then again, Briar had shared blood with the childlike vampiress. Perhaps the bond it had created had softened Briar's icy heart.

He pretended to pace away in worry, but in truth he only needed a private moment. Taking the needle from his pocket, he quickly injected himself, then pulled his sleeve down over the site and tossed the spent hypodermic into some desert sage before returning to the van.

Crisa took Briar's hand, then climbed in on the makeshift bed, sitting upright.

"Good," Briar said. "Now just lie back."

Roxy was already racing around to the front of the van, and the moment Briar said, "Close it up, Roxy," she hit the b.u.t.ton and the floor slid slowly closed over the three women. He could hear Crisa sniffling as it did, and he could also hear Briar's voice, soothing and soft, as she tried to comfort her.

Then Roxy was beside him again. "Get in. Get as far toward the front as you can. I'll wait here and close the doors as soon as the others are inside."

"Not a minute before, Roxy," he said. "If they roast, I roast with them. Understood?"

She held his eyes.

"And if that happens," he went on, "remember that Topaz and Mirabella should still be safe, in those body bags. It'll be up to you and Ilyana to get them back to safety on your own."

"I understand," she told him.

He climbed in, but he didn't move away from the doors.

"Dammit," Roxy said, looking skyward again. "The sun is cresting the-" "Faster, dammit!" Rhiannon's voice boomed.

And then she was there, hurling the heavy body bag from her shoulder into the back of the van. Reaper grabbed it and pulled it as far in as he could, then reached for Rhiannon's hand. But she was turning, racing back the other way.

Reaper sprang from the van and followed. Seth came into view then, running full bore, but he wasn't nearly as strong or as fast as Rhiannon and Reaper were. Rhiannon yanked the body bag off his shoulder as his hair began to smoulder. Reaper grabbed the younger man and jerked him right off his feet, and then they raced for the van as he felt his skin beginning to blister.

At last they were there, hurling their cargo into the blessed darkness and clambering in behind them.

Roxy slammed the van's rear doors closed. Reaper fought off the pain of being seared by the first and weakest rays of the slowly rising sun, and wished he could count on the day sleep to alleviate it and heal him. But the day sleep wasn't coming. Not for him.

He watched as Seth, his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest, fell into slumber. Rhiannon sat near Reaper himself, leaning against his shoulder, body relaxed, eyes closed. And Reaper stayed awake, becoming more so with each moment that pa.s.sed.

As Roxy put the van into motion, he eased Rhiannon's weight from his shoulder, leaning her against the closed door, then moved on hands and knees to the two body bags that rested on the van's floor. He wanted to make sure the women were all right. He unzipped the first bag.

A dead man lay inside. Mortal, not vampire. A neat bullet hole marked the center of his forehead. His skin was blue-gray and cold to the touch. Swearing under his breath, Reaper yanked at the zipper of the second bag and found the very same thing.

Another dead male mortal lay inside.

"Roxy!" he bellowed.

Ilyana released an alarmed squeak as the van veered wildly. Then brakes squealed, and the van came to a b.u.mpy stop on the road's shoulder.

"Reaper?" Roxy called from the front seat. "What are you-how-h.e.l.l, you used that drug of Rhiannon's on yourself, didn't you?"

"Of course he did," Rhiannon replied, the sound of her voice making Reaper jump. "As did I."

He stared at her, blinking in shock. She'd been feigning her sleep! "Rhiannon, why would you...?"

"Because I know you very, very well, Reaper. And I wasn't about to let you face all this alone."

He shook his head slowly, processing their new situation. "Roxy," he said, "there are bodies in these bags. Human bodies. Men, both of them. Looks as if they were killed execution style. Single shot to the head. The CIA didn't keep their end of the bargain."

"Why am I not surprised?" Roxy said. "So what the h.e.l.l are we going to do now?"

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I know," Reaper said.

"Well, I do." Rhiannon closed the zippers on the two bags as she spoke. She probably didn't like looking at the dead men inside, he thought. "Turn the van around. Go back to the site by the desert. Find a place to park where we won't be readily seen,"

Rhiannon said. "We sit there, and we watch for those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to come for the body bag we left them. Then we follow them back to wherever it is they're holding Topaz and her mother."

"If it's not already too late," Reaper put in, even as Roxy turned the van around and floored it.

"It isn't," Rhiannon said. "The sun only just rose. They're too cowardly to risk facing you before daylight, in case you might not be tranquilized as promised. By daylight, as far as they know, there's no chance of you reviving and giving them what they so richly deserve. So they wouldn't have gone after you until dawn. And it'll take them a lot longer to walk that distance than it took us.

They'll still be there." She tapped the barrier between the back and front of the van. "As soon as they leave, follow them.

Carefully."

"You bet I will," Roxy promised.

An ambulance pulled up to the hospital just before dawn, and the attendants rolled two sheet-draped gurneys out the back and in through the automatic doors.

"Crying shame," one paramedic said, speaking in Spanish to his partner. "Even with their faces all busted up, you can tell they were beautiful, and so young. Sisters, it looks like. Why would they jump to their deaths like that?"

"No telling," his partner said. "I just wish we could've done...I don't know, something."

"You saw how broken they were," said the first. "h.e.l.l, they were already stone cold."

"I don't get that, either. The witnesses said they'd only seen 'em hit the ground a few minutes before we got there."

"It's a traumatic thing to witness. People get confused. Look, let's just get 'em inside. Shift was over ten minutes ago."

"Yeah."

They rolled the gurneys into the building, then took an elevator down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and the hospital morgue.

Jack managed to lie still, though keeping his body relaxed was an effort almost beyond endurance, the way he felt just then.