"A horrible thing," said another detached voice in the crowd, shrill with panic. "First the Tomses, now Big Dave and Lanny. I wanna know what Officer Tucker plans to do about this!" Kade strode beside Alex as she marched toward Zach, who stood near the entrance of the clinic, his cell phone pressed to his ear. He acknowledged her with barely a glance, continuing to bark grave orders to someone on the other end of the line.
"Zach," she said, "I need to speak with you--"
"Kinda busy," he snapped.
"But, Zach--"
"Not now, goddamn it! I've got one man dead and another bleeding out in there and the whole f**king town is going apeshit around me!"
Kade could hardly contain the protective snarl that curled at the back of his throat at the human's outburst. His own anger spiked dangerously, muscles tensed and ready for a fight he realized he was more than eager to initiate. Instead, he subtly took Alex by the arm and placed himself between her and the other male. "Come on," he said to her, guiding her away from the trooper and his meltdown in progress. "Let's go somewhere else until things settle down."
"No," she said. "I can't go. I need to see Big Dave. I need to be sure--" She broke away from him and dashed up the concrete steps and into the clinic, with Kade fast on her heels. The place was quiet inside, only the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights that tracked from the vacant reception area down the hallway toward the examination rooms. From the sparse look of the clinic and its lack of equipment, it didn't appear that it was set up for dealing with much more than the occasional abrasion or vaccination.
Alex headed down the hall at a determined, brisk pace.
"Where's Fran Littlejohn? She never keeps it this cold in here," she murmured, at just about the same time that Kade was noticing the temperature, as well.
An arctic chill, blowing up the hallway from one of the rooms in back. The only one with the door closed.
Alex put her hand on the knob. It didn't budge. "That's odd. It's locked." Kade's warrior instincts lit up like firecrackers. "Get back." He was already standing in front of her, moving faster than her eyes could possibly track him. He gripped the doorknob and gave it a hard twist. The lock snapped, mechanisms were crushed to powder in an instant.
Kade pushed the door open ... and found himself staring into the cold dead eyes of a Minion.
"Skeeter?" Alex's voice was sharp with surprise, and well-placed suspicion. "What the hell are you doing in here?"
The Minion's business was potently clear to Kade. On the floor next to Big Dave's bed lay a large, middle-age woman--the clinic technician, no doubt. Unconscious, but she was still breathing, which was better than he could say for her patient on the bed.
"Fran!" Alex cried, racing to the unresponsive woman's side. Kade's focus was centered elsewhere. The room reeked with the overpowering stench of human blood. Had it been fresh, Kade's physiological response would have been impossible to hide, but the odor was stale, the cells no longer living. Nor was Big Dave, who lay on the bed, virtually unrecognizable for the severity of his injuries. All Kade needed was one whiff of the spilled, coagulating hemoglobin to know that the man was several minutes dead already.
"My Master was displeased to hear about the attack today," the Minion said, his thin face pale and emotionless. Behind him was an open window, his obvious means of entry into the room. And in his hand was a bloodied pair of suture scissors that had been used to speed the consequences of Big Dave's lifethreatening wounds.
"Kade ... what's he talking about?"
Skeeter smiled at Alex, a deviant, rictus grin. "My Master hasn't been too pleased to hear about you, either. Witnesses are a problem in general, you understand."
"Oh, my God," Alex murmured. "Skeeter, what are you saying? What have you done!"
"You son of a bitch," Kade hissed, launching himself at the Minion. He took Skeeter down to the floor in a bone-crushing assault. "Who made you? Answer me!"
But the human mind slave only stared up at him and sneered, despite the punishing blows Kade delivered on him.
"Who the f**k is your Master?" He hit Skeeter again. And again. "Talk, you goddamn piece of shit." Answers eluded him. Some irrational part of him cast about and latched on to Seth's name, but that was an impossibility. Although Kade and his twin were Breed, their bloodline wasn't old enough or pure enough for either of them to create a Minion. Only the earliest generations of the vampire race had the power to drain a human to the brink of death, then take command of its mind.
"What are your orders?" He pounded the Minion's grinning, bleeding, soulless face. "What have you told your Master about Alex?"
Behind him now, her voice broke through the violence raging in him. "Kade, please ... stop. You're scaring me. Stop this now and let him go."
But he couldn't stop. He couldn't let the human who had been Skeeter Arnold go, not now. Not knowing what he was. Not knowing what he might be commanded to do to Alex if he was turned loose to carry out his Master's wishes again.
"Kade, please ..."
With a guttural roar, he grasped the Minion's head in his hands and gave it a savage twist. There was a crunch of bone and sinew, then a hard thump as he let the lifeless bulk fall onto the floor. He heard Alex's sharp intake of breath at his back. He thought she might scream, but she went utterly silent. When Kade pivoted his head to look up at her, it wasn't difficult to read the confusion--the complete shock--in her wide brown eyes.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said quietly, feebly. "It couldn't be helped, Alex."