Air of Darkness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright © 2018

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author's note

  Air of Darkness

  By Rose O’Brien

  Copyright © 2018 Esther Robards-Forbes

  All rights reserved.

  To my mother. Thank you for being my biggest cheerleader.

  And to my husband. Thank you for the gift of time.

  Chapter 1

  This must be what hell feels like.

  Agent Alex Martinez tried not to cringe as a drop of sweat slid down his spine beneath his black T-shirt. The humid press of scantily clad bodies on the nightclub’s packed dance floor had outpaced the air conditioning about an hour ago. The air was like a locker room, thick, hot, and pungent. Taking off his black leather jacket would have helped, but that would mean flashing the 9mm holstered under his arm. Not an option for an FBI agent who’d gone rogue and was tracking a case that was very far outside his jurisdiction.

  A throbbing headache had taken up residence behind his left eye. The sleep deprivation had started dragging on him, too.

  In short, he was miserable, pissed off, and kicking himself for being stupid enough to come here. But grief could make a man do stupid things. Reckless things.

  Grinding his teeth in frustration, he scanned the undulating crowd for what felt like the hundredth time that night, searching for one face. Nick Salvadin was a low-level flunky who worked the clubs up and down Sixth Street. On paper, he didn’t seem like much, but he was probably the only person who could shed any light on who’d killed Blanca.

  Overhead, lights pulsed in a dazzling array of colors that danced over the fake stonework and stained glass that made the club, Revelations, look vaguely reminiscent of a Gothic church. There were even gargoyles leering from the corners. Weaving through the edges of the crowd, he worked his way closer to the bar. He tried to relax his notoriously military-straight posture into a more casual stance and let his features drop into something other than the ridged mask he’d been wearing since his friend had been murdered. Just blend in. That was difficult, considering his clothes included zero chains or PVC and his jet-black hair was free of dye. Revelations was a club that catered to the extreme. The music was extremely loud. The patrons were covered in an extreme amount of tattoos and piercings, and hair color tended to extreme hues not found in nature.

  It was definitely not his scene. Up until she’d turned up dead, he would have said this wasn’t Blanca’s scene either, but this was the last place she’d been seen alive. Blanca Rodriguez had been like a sister to him, and he thought he knew what she was into. Clearly he’d been wrong. In the two weeks since she’d died he’d been tearing himself up about that.

  They’d been through a war together. She’d saved his life more than a few times and in more than a few ways. He hadn’t been able to return the favor this time, and it was ripping him apart. Blanca had survived two tours in Afghanistan only to come home and die at the hands of some psychopath, butchered and left under a bridge. An objective part of Alex’s brain knew he was grieving and this probably wasn’t the best time to undertake an off-the-books investigation while simultaneously bent on vengeance, but focusing on this was the only thing keeping him sane right now.

  When there had been no movement on the case, Alex had started digging, calling in every favor he was owed and tapping every connection to get his hands on the case files. Austin Police had interviewed Salvadin because he’d been working that night and his vehicle had shown up on security footage leaving the club. The cops had written him off as a person of interest, but something didn’t sit right in Alex’s gut. His gut had saved him more than a few times in that war zone. It had served him well as an agent. He trusted it.

  His gut said Salvadin knew more than he was saying and Alex was going to find out, even if he had to break a few fingers.

  He pushed his way through the crowd again, angling for the stairs so he could do another pass through the upper balcony that wrapped around the second story of the building. Shoulders, arms, and boobs pressed against him, and he tried not to cringe again. A woman stepped on his foot and splashed her drink on his jeans.

  Everything felt raw. Too loud. Too bright. What he wanted was to hide in a dark hole and get his head under control. But he wanted to find the people who had hurt Blanca more. The need for vengeance was a dark, clawed thing that huddled in his chest, scratching to get out.

  As he made it to the stairs and took the first couple of steps, movement caught his eye. Greasy dark hair, worn shaggy and long. Too-pale skin from nothing but nightshifts. Dark eyes that darted around, landing on nothing, but seeing everything at once. The man slunk through the crowd with furtive movements that reminded Alex of a rat. The pointed chin and nose added to the impression.

  Nick Salvadin had put in an appearance. Alex tracked him from the corner of his eye as the man moved through the crowd. The weasel slipped into one of the booths along the back wall, sitting opposite a woman. She had alabaster skin, black hair cut in a bob and worn pin straight. Harsh red lipstick was a like a bloody slash across her face. Those lips were turned down in a severe frown as Nick started talking animatedly, his hands moving frantically and his eyes wide. The woman pointed an accusing finger at him and locked narrow eyes on the man. Someone was in trouble.

  Alex glanced away, trying to keep from staring. He didn’t want to get clocked as an agent. Nick needed to be oblivious if Alex was going to take him singlehandedly. He had a lot of questions for Nick. And if Nick didn’t want to answer, he had an extensive knowledge of human anatomy and pain thresholds to draw on.

  As his eyes drifted from the table, a flash of red in the crowd drew his attention.

  She was tall, maybe six feet, with long platinum hair cascading down her shoulders and back. Black leather pants tucked into knee high black boots hugged impressive curves. The red silk of her top fluttered as she moved. Her back and neck were arched as her hips gyrated in time with the beat.

  The air stopped moving in his lungs as he watched her, riveted in a moment of blistering arousal.

  Her arms lifted over her head as she moved with the music, not dancing with anyone but herself. The lights caught in her hair, sparking in a dozen different colors. As she danced, she slipped through the crowd, seemingly unnoticed by the other dancers.

  He was staring, and he couldn’t help it, didn’t even care. Even when she met his eyes and gave him a caught-you-looking half smile, his gaze stayed on her. His heart kicked hard against his ribs as something electric passed between them in that moment.

  Dropping her gaze, she kept dancing, moving through a couple of turns and throwing a little shimmy in her hips. Had that been for him?

  It just figured that the first woman to catch his attention in years would have to show up in the middle of a rogue op. It wasn’t like he could walk up and give her his number. Besides, she was a distraction from…

  Shit. Alex’s head snapped around, but Salvadin was gone. He scanned the booths and didn’t spot the little weasel. He quickly scanned the rest of the clu
b, trying to keep the frantic look off his face and hoping that his movements looked smooth and not hurried and jerky.

  Salvadin wasn’t in the club, not that he could see. Damn it all to hell!

  Turning his attention back to the dance floor, he ran a nervous hand through his hair. Think!

  That’s when he noticed that the wet-dream blonde had disappeared too. He resumed scanning just in time to see the door of the emergency exit into the alley slide shut.

  Darting through the crowd, Alex made his way to the door without drawing too much attention to himself. He slammed the bar release on the door and stumbled into the alley and into something straight out of a nightmare.

  Salvadin had his back to Alex and had Blondie pushed up against the brick wall of the alley, his hands locked around her throat while she clawed at his fingers. Alex rushed forward to help as Salvadin took one hand off her neck and cocked his fist back to swing at her face. She managed to leverage her arm against the hand at her throat and threw her head to the side. Salvadin’s fist turned the first few inches of brick to powder.

  Alex stopped short, his brain stuttering as it tried to process what he was seeing.

  While Salvadin was thrown off balance by the missed punch, the blonde brought her free hand up in a devastating uppercut that snapped Salvadin’s teeth together and sent him reeling, releasing her.

  “That was rude, Nicky,” the blonde said, rubbing her throat and drawing herself to her full height. Up close, Alex could see that she wasn’t just a curvy girl, she was built like a fighter.

  “I told you I just wanted to talk,” she continued. “And you decide to be a dick about it.”

  Salvadin growled at her, a low, hungry sound. Alex shrank back into the shadows by the door, drew his gun, and waited for Salvadin to make the next move.

  The two circled each other, he with quick furtive movements, in a low stance, she with cat-like grace in a slow and easy pace. She bent and slid a slender black rod from her boot, never taking her eyes off the circling Salvadin.

  Salvadin made his move, coming in low and impossibly fast, going for her knees. He realized his mistake too late, as the blonde caught the back of his head and slammed her knee into his face. Before he could bring his hands up to block, she brought the black rod across his face, drawing a trickle of blood from his mouth.

  She grabbed a handful of his greasy hair and knocked Salvadin to his knees.

  “You can make this so much easier on yourself if you just tell me what I want to know, Nicky,” the blonde cooed as she leaned over the bleeding man.

  He spit bloody mucus in her face and said, “Suck my dick, bitch.”

  She didn’t make a move to wipe the disgusting stuff of her face, but flicked her thumb along the black rod. A wicked blade emerged from a ball-shaped cap at the end, quick as a switchblade, gleaming in the dim yellow glow of the street lights filtering into the alley.

  Bringing the tip of her blade to the man’s throat, she said, “Nicky, I’m tired of finding dead people in my city, and I need you to tell me everything you know about that.”

  That got Alex’s attention. She certainly didn’t look like an investigator or a cop. She wasn’t FBI. APD had already questioned Salvadin. Who the hell was she? She moved like a well-trained fighter, she talked like she was looking for answers, and she was faster and stronger than anything he’d seen. Come to think of it, so was Salvadin. Something was really off here, and Alex’s solution to that problem was usually the same.

  He raised his 9mm in a smooth motion and shouted, “FBI, freeze! Both of you!”

  The distraction was all Salvadin needed. He swept the blade aside and brought an elbow strike against the inside of her knee, knocking her leg out from under her and forcing her to release his hair.

  Salvadin scrambled to his feet and made a move towards the mouth of the alley. Alex moved quickly to block his way, his gun held in a shooter’s stance in front of him. As Salvadin came closer, details started to register in Alex’s brain.

  He was moving too fast. His eyes were too red, like vessels had burst in his eyes, flooding the whites with crimson. His pupils were large black orbs in a sea of gleaming crimson. Blood trickled down his pale chin.

  Right next to the long fangs that protruded over Salvadin’s lower lip.

  Something twisted low and deep in Alex’s stomach, a primal fear that told him to throw his gun down and run screaming for his life, but his gun hand remained steady as Salvadin continued to advance.

  “I told you to freeze or I will put a bullet in you,” Alex said in voice that was surprisingly strong, given the fact that his heart was making a mad attempt to claw its way out of his chest and up through his mouth.

  At his words, Salvadin slowed to a cocky stroll and laughed, a grin on his face, and spread his arms wide in invitation. He kept coming.

  Alex pulled the trigger, putting one in the guy’s gut and one in his shoulder. Against his better judgment, he avoided the headshot because that would bring an avalanche of paperwork, and he needed the asshole alive to question. He might know something about what happened to Blanca.

  Salvadin barely flinched as the bullets ripped into his flesh, his long strides never faltering. Blood trickled, but didn’t pour from the wounds. Nothing was going right tonight.

  Salvadin cocked his fist near his hip and brought it up in a flying cross to the side of Alex’s head. He felt himself spinning before he slammed into a wall and slid down. Lights danced in front of his eyes and a sickening pain spread outward from where his skull had hit the wall. For just a moment, the old familiar panic gripped him.

  Not here. Not now. He could not lose it in the middle of a fight. The panic had cost him everything once. It would not cost him his life. With a deep breath, he tried to wrestle his injured, panicking body under control.

  Salvadin kept moving toward the mouth of the alley and the sounds and neon lights of Sixth Street. College kids and club goers were streaming by, completely unaware of the battle taking place a few dozen feet away.

  As Salvadin moved past Alex, a black sinuous length wrapped itself around his throat, yanking him back.

  The blonde had the other end of what Alex realized was a whip, which appeared to have emerged from the end of the rod she’d been holding earlier.

  Alex’s vision blurred and spun suddenly. The former combat medic in him ran the triage. Severe concussion, possible skull fracture. Fighting for consciousness. Miracle he hadn’t passed out yet. If he did, he might not survive. Without treatment, a subdural hematoma was probably going to end him.

  The blonde dragged Salvadin backward as he struggled, gasping as the whip choked him. With a sweep of her leg, she knocked his feet out from under him. With some slack in the whip, he began to fight again, throwing punches and kicks as she leaned over him.

  Her lips began to move quickly, forming whispered words that Alex couldn’t make out from where he lay. After several seconds and one punch to her jaw, a bolt of crackling electricity flew from her right hand and went skittering over Salvadin’s flesh. The fanged—man? creature?—slumped unconscious.

  This was some straight up science-fiction bullshit.

  The woman stood over the—God, could that really be a vampire?—and spoke into a mic at her sleeve. Alex struggled to move, to sit up, but he couldn’t seem to make his limbs work. He could only lift his head to watch as two figures moved into the light from the dead-end part of the alley.

  The two were dressed in black, one a dark-skinned man and the other an olive-skinned woman with brown hair. He recognized tactical gear hanging from their belts and from the man’s pack. Professionals then.

  The man moved to speak to the ass-kicking blonde.

  “Do you always have to beat them bloody, Commander?” He asked her.

  “No, just when they decide to be assholes,” she shot back. “At least we know he probably knows something. Otherwise, why would he run?”

  “Because you’re one scary bitch,” the other w
oman chimed in.

  The blonde nodded at the unconscious form on the pavement.

  “Lay down a glamour and load that piece of shit up. I want him in the interrogation room before the sun is up.”

  The man nodded at Alex. “What about him?”

  “No worries. I got this. Give Ellie and Burdock the all clear. Rendezvous at HQ.”

  The man nodded, spoke into a mic clipped on his ear, and he and the brunette started dragging Salvadin toward the mouth of the alley. Just before they reached it, they shimmered and disappeared.

  Shit. This was not happening. It was the concussion. That’s it; the head injury was causing him to see all this crazy stuff. Either that, or he’d finally gone completely off the deep end.

  The blonde walked slowly over to him, her boots clicking on the pavement, and squatted down in front of him. Even with a concussion, he still admired her impressive cleavage.

  “Well, cowboy, it looks like you’ve seen six impossible things before breakfast,” she said.

  He opened his mouth to answer her, but his tongue wouldn’t form words.

  She reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his ID. His hands moved to stop her, but flopped uselessly. Her eyes moved over the badge and ID card, her fingers running over the badge.

  “Agent Alex Martinez, FBI. I should have guessed. Had you pegged as local PD inside the club. Should have aimed a little higher it seems,” she said.

  Her hand moved over his forehead, brushing his hair back. A few whispered words moved past her lips. Her eyes closed for a moment before snapping back open, drilling him with her dark blue gaze.

  “That’s a nasty head injury you’ve got there. Let’s see what we can do about that,” she said, her soft voice moving over him, lulling him.

  She continued to whisper in a language he didn’t understand, her hand moving back over his skull to the area where he’d hit the wall. Warmth suffused the spot and spread down his neck. It felt like warm honey running over his scalp, and the pain began to ease.

  She stayed like that for several minutes, a frown creasing her beautiful face at times.