A switch flicked. The hot panic in his head that made his body feel heavy and unwieldy wasn’t helpful. So he turned it off. All that was left was hard logic and the scratch of that old, cold anger as it whispered, “See.” He might not remember why he was angry, or at whom, but the anger didn’t care.
“Like I said, I need the jet,” Took said as he stepped back from Pally. “If Madoc needs me, he knows where I’ll be.”
Pally frowned but let Took take his leave.
As the door closed behind him, Snack was still on the bed, purring her bloody breath into the dead child’s mouth.
Chapter Fourteen
QUICK WASslouched on a bench outside the airport, tapping assiduously at his computer when Madoc got there. A game probably. The Anakim all found something to flex their brains as they aged, like Madoc and the Biters. Quick was young, turned just a few decades before, but his sire had been old and senescent, so he feared it more than most.
Madoc jumped out of the Viper before it came to a full stop at the drop-off curb. The VINE driver behind the wheel blurted something that could have been “Good trip” or “Go to hell.” The doors slammed behind Madoc before he could catch the end of the sentiment. He stalked across the pavement toward the entrance.
Quick looked up from his game and cracked a grin as Madoc approached him. He pulled the earbuds out of his ear—a zap of weaponry and tinny insults squawked out of them—and opened his mouth to stay something.
He swallowed it as Madoc stalked past him without a break in his stride.
“Shit,” Quick muttered.
A minute later he loped up alongside Madoc, laptop tucked under his arm and bag slung over the opposite shoulder.
“Late night?” he asked. “You and Bennett finally get down to brass tacks, huh?”
Madoc stopped abruptly and grabbed Quick by the collar of his shirt to yank him back a step and up onto his toes. “You have something to say?” he asked.
Behind the horn-rimmed glasses he didn’t actually need, Quick blinked and then laughed.
“I just meant about the humorless bastard coming back,” he said. “But you and he actually gotdownto brass tacks and bare asses, huh? Good for you, boss.”
Madoc thinned his lips over his teeth, the prick of his fangs against the tender skin a reminder that he wasn’t some callow boy who flashed fang at neck every ten minutes.
“Wind in your tongue,” he warned. “I may be more lenient than some, but push me again, and I’ll remind you I was the one who made your sire piss himself.”
“And it did not go well,” Quick said with an agreeable nod. “Point taken. Lip zipped.”
He mimed a key-lock gesture in front of pursed lips instead and flicked the imaginary key away. It was the closest to good behavior Madoc would get from him. The attitude, as much as the horn-rimmed glasses and the hoodie that made him look slighter, was the defense he hid behind, much like Took’s need to demonstrate he was smarter than everyone else in the room.
“It’s not a good time for levity,” he warned as he let go of Quick’s collar. “Although you’re free to try it on Pally if you think it will charm.”
Quick had fed last night. Or this morning. Recently enough or well enough that he had enough blood in his system to bleed into his throat and over his cheekbones.
“Is he coming with us?”
“No, and if you can brief me before we reach the runway,” Madoc said, “you won’t have to either.”
Quick straightened his hoodie over his shoulders and preened. He smoothed one hand back over his sandy hair to tuck the collar-length strands behind his ears.
“You make it sound like a reward,” he said. “I’ll have you know I always planned to go to Cali one day. I mean, I’ll enjoy the sun a lot less now… but still.”
Madoc snorted and started to walk again. His heavy boots scuffed over the floor as he strode through the security check. He didn’t even need to flash his badge. The uniform and his face were enough. It shouldn’t be, but Madoc would make his opinion on that known once he was off the ground.
“We aren’t going to Cali,” Madoc said bluntly. “It’s Nevada. We’re going under The Salt. You can enjoy the heat there if you still want to come.”
The borrowed blood drained from Quick’s face, and he pulled his laptop out from under his elbow. He balanced it on his forearm and typed unsteadily away as he briskly worked his way through the annotated summary of what he’d found about the Aron-led missions.
Trips to Europe. Dead children. Squashed sexual-harassment complaints. A rotation of canons and embezzlement complaints.
Madoc would look over the files when he got on the jet, but so far it sounded like what he’d expect in the hacked records of a Proverbial church’s evangelical mission to Russia.
