Lock & Key Page 3

  Now she was zipping along at the dented car’s top cruising speed of fifty-eight miles per hour, her magically enhanced eyes darting back and forth, cataloguing every detail of her remarkably clear surroundings. Physical abilities, Kat knew now, were the easiest ones to conjure up using the corrupted DNA that haunted her cells. The magical DNA. The inhuman DNA, it must’ve been. Because magicians’ spells, she’d learned, affected the body through the use of mediums. The magic was internal, in the soul, but the effects were external, and so to alter the body, they had to redirect the magic back inside themselves. A sort of loop.

  Kat’s powers, on the other hand…they didn’t work that way. They affected her body first, and the external world second. They changed her.

  Into the sort of perverted creature Advent 9 wanted to create en masse for…what? What were their goals? Kat never found out while she was stuck in that cell in the Georgia complex. And really, she didn’t want to know. No organization willing to kill and discard lives the way A9 did could be up to any good. They were playing a dangerous game, she was sure. Plotting global domination, or a deadly war, or a holocaust.

  And Kat King would happily throw herself off a cliff before she allowed A9 to use her for their wicked ends.

  So she drove, pedal to the floor, blue compact chugging along, straining with each mile, as it dragged her closer to another large city where she could hide. Philadelphia was a good place to disappear, she’d found out from a few shady characters in a bar in Norfolk, Virginia. There were forgers there, good ones—driver’s licenses, passports, national IDs, the whole deal—and Kat had the address of the man who came most recommended.

  If she could reach his place, change her appearance, and get solid papers forged, she might be able to flee the country and shake A9 off her tail for good. That was the dream, her only dream, a world where she didn’t have to run and hide, check every shadow in every alley, look over her shoulder each time she took a walk. Life in a little European village, off the map, that’d be ideal. Kat didn’t care if it was boring. Kat didn’t care if it was slow. Kat wanted to be safe. Kat wanted to stay free.

  I won’t go back, she reassured herself again, when, as expected, headlights appeared behind her on what had been a darkened road. I won’t go back to the cell. I won’t go back to the tests. And I won’t become whatever slave they want me to be for their cause. No. I’ll die first, and I’ll run to the gates of hell myself.

  Kat gripped the steering wheel, glancing from the road in front of her to the reflection in the rearview mirror. The glare of the headlights was harsh, especially with her eyesight jacked up to eleven by her powers, but she glimpsed the white paint of the van, and noticed also that it was drawing closer. Fast.

  The last time they caught up to her, in Raleigh, a virtual army had chased her through a farmers’ market. Men and women dressed in black, armed with automatic weapons. They’d injured at least ten innocent bystanders, and she thought one of those poor people had died. (An A9 grunt beat the man in the head with a rifle.) But unfortunately, no news story about the attack ever surfaced on the internet, or on TV, so Kat couldn’t confirm the casualty count. For all she knew, the A9 army rounded back after they lost her and slaughtered the entire market. The organization had enough pull to turn cops, FBI agents, and even doctors against her. Anyone who worked for the government could be an A9 plant.

  Not that A9 needed to pull their strings.

  All they had to do was keep sending larger groups of lackeys each time they tried to capture her. Kat could only defeat so many herself, especially with how little control she had over her new abilities.

  How many did they send today? she wondered. Those vans look big enough for maybe ten. And there were three vans at the intersection. So…thirty?

  If it was that many, Kat was in trouble.

  She jammed her foot hard against the accelerator, but the compact car only groaned and sputtered. Kat cursed. She should’ve picked a good ride instead of an easy one to steal. She’d remember that lesson next time, if she didn’t die horribly tonight.

  The van crept closer and closer to the back bumper of the car, and Kat frantically checked her GPS. She was still a hundred forty miles from Philadelphia, so there was no way she could make it on foot, and her past attempts at magical teleportation had only taken her twenty miles max. She tapped the GPS screen, zooming out to the full map view. Most of the surrounding area was undeveloped, dotted with a few tiny towns Kat wouldn’t be able to hide in. She rapped her fingers on the screen, searching for any viable options and…there was one possibility, twenty-five miles from her current location, right on the Pennsylvania border. A small city labeled Salem’s Gate.

  Twenty-five miles. It’d be a stretch. And Kat needed to memorize the appearance of at least one of the city’s unique landmarks in order to ensure she teleported to the right place. (The first time she jumped, she didn’t know that, and she ended up in the middle of a bog. A bog.)

  She glanced at the rearview mirror—and nearly had a heart attack. The van was mere feet from the back end of the car, set up to ram her right off the road.

  Kat jammed a finger on the map point for Salem’s Gate, and the city profile popped up. She moved to select the image gallery, and—

  The van collided with the back of her car, and she fishtailed, almost flying off into the dense woods on the right side of the road. She grabbed the wheel with both hands, jerking left, then right, to correct the car without throwing herself off the asphalt. The car steadied itself in the middle of the road, but the van growled loudly as it accelerated to attack her again. From this short distance, she could see the bastard in the driver’s seat. It was Reagan, one of the two suits who coordinated and led all the combat units sent to recapture the crafty “Subject 91.” His buddy Kline must’ve been driving one of the other vans.

  Kat ripped her eyes off the mirror and focused on the road ahead. Her enhanced sight caught movement, another vehicle emerging from a narrow road a hundred feet ahead, the intersection mostly hidden by thick evergreens. A white vehicle. Another A9 van.

  Shit, they’ve cut me off.

  The second white van didn’t turn, creating a blockade across both lanes. And the ditches on either side of the road weren’t wide enough for a vehicle to pass. The trees were too close. If she tried to round the van, she’d clip a tree and probably flip herself, if she didn’t ram straight into a trunk and total the car in an instant.

  One van behind her. Another ahead. And a third waiting in the wings, hosting a backup crew. That was more personnel than they’d ever sent before.

  They weren’t taking chances this time. They wanted her, and they’d use all the resources they had to get her back.

  Motherfuckers. You can’t have me.

  Kat looked down at the GPS screen again. She must’ve accidentally clicked on the food options for Salem’s Gate when the van hit her, because there was a prominent image of a McDonald’s staring back at her. But it wasn’t a standard McDonald’s; it was one of the more customized franchises that had been popping up in the last few years (or so she’d read on the internet). The building design was distinct enough to use as an anchor for her teleportation. She quickly catalogued all its features, all its quirks, and burned the image into her brain, into a memory that was oddly perfect, inhumanly perfect, far more perfect than it was when Kat woke up in A9’s cell two years ago.

  And yet, she still had amnesia.

  Eyes on the rapidly approaching van blockade, she groped blindly at the front passenger seat until she found her backpack. She pulled it close and gripped the strap tightly, prodding at the rage now growling in the back of her mind. Forty feet to the blockade. Thirty. Twenty. Well, Ronald, here I come…

  Kat slammed on the brakes.

  The compact car shrieked as it skidded across the asphalt, coming to an abrupt stop a mere foot from the side of the white van.

  Kat sucked in a deep breath, fueling her rage into that furnace in her chest that grew h
ot whenever she flared her magic. She fixed the image of the McDonald’s in her mind. She closed her eyes, just as the back doors of the van in front of her swung open. She parted her lips, if only to whisper, “Go,” because she knew no magic spells at all. She felt the energy envelop her like a cloak, falling across her skin and clothes, extending to the backpack in her hand. First, it felt like light silk. And then like coarse wool, constricting around her form. The magic built. And built. And—

  A hand burst through the driver’s side window, and the magic energy evaporated instantly as Kat’s concentration shattered. Bare fingers wrapped around her throat, slim fingers, feminine fingers, and squeezed so hard that air couldn’t pass. Kat’s eyes snapped open, her own hands flying up to grab at the vice around her neck, and she looked to the left to find her attacker was…Marta.

  She’d known A9 would send Marta again. The woman was a magician. A highly trained one. And the only reason Kat had escaped her last time they met, in Tennessee, was because Kat’s powers spun out of control and set an entire hotel on fire. Marta had been forced to jump out a third-story window in order to avoid the inferno’s wrath, and Kat herself had barely teleported away before the smoking roof came crashing down on top of her. If it hadn’t been for Kat’s magic instability rearing its head at an opportune moment, Marta would’ve captured her easily. Kat’s powers were strong, but she had no formal magic training. Marta had clearly been in the magic fold all her life. The gulf between their skill levels was vast.

  “Well hey, little kitty,” Marta hissed, squeezing tighter. “What a coincidence, running into you in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

  Kat choked as Marta’s nails bit into the skin of her neck, gripping so hard she was surprised her trachea didn’t collapse. Then, like it was effortless, Marta’s magic-fueled muscles hauled Kat’s skinny butt out the window and threw her twenty feet through the cold night air. Kat tumbled away, a shriek caught in her throat as she arced downward, seconds from slamming headfirst into the ground. Flailing, she mentally grasped at the rage, which had shied away after being disturbed by Marta. I need you. I need you now. Save me!

  The rage flared, lukewarm. But it was enough to buffet Kat’s fall with a sudden gust of wind. It gathered under her falling body, slowing her descent enough to stop her bones from cracking on impact. She landed with a thud on her hip, painfully bruising everything from her ribs to her knees, but the damage was minimal compared to what Marta had done to her last time. So Kat used the leftover momentum to roll into a shoddy somersault and spring back up to face the road. Marta was already storming toward her.

  The magician had orders to capture Kat alive, not unharmed. As she’d demonstrated in Tennessee, when she flayed the skin off Kat’s left arm, wrist to elbow.

  Kat shuddered at the memory. If she didn’t heal a lot faster than a normal human being, she’d have been shit out of luck that day.

  And she’d be shit out of luck now if she didn’t teleport out of here in the next twenty seconds.

  Picture the McDonald’s, King. That’s all you have to do. Picture it, and fucking go!

  It should’ve been simple. She’d teleported a dozen times now. But watching Marta stalk toward her, the woman’s hands glowing with an ominous orange aura, Kat could barely remember what the stupid restaurant looked like, and even the name of the city it was in kept escaping her. And it only got worse when the A9 combat units started spilling out of the white vans, armed to the teeth. Reagan and Kline slid out of their respective driver’s seats as well, both of them muttering into the mics attached to their sleek silver headsets as they trailed the combat agents. The whole A9 group was moving to encircle Kat, to trap her, give her nowhere to run or hide, force her to surrender or…No. There was no or. They wouldn’t take her back dead. They had orders. She’d either give up on her own terms, or be subdued.

  The image of the cell assaulted her mind, front and center. That little cell with the bright light. Where they’d kept her like a lab rat in a cage. That was where she’d end up again, if she let them take her here.

  “Come on, little kitty,” Marta teased as she stalked ever closer, her aura now enveloping her entire body, lighting up the night. “Don’t tell me that’s all the fight you’ve got in you. I was looking forward to a fair rematch after that shit you pulled in…”

  “Marta,” warned Kline, “don’t push it. Bag her, and wrap it up.”

  Marta tucked a lock of her red bob behind her ear, subtly flipping Kline off as she did so. “Yes, honey.” She rolled her eyes and smiled broadly at Kat. “Well? We done or what?”

  The cell.

  The cell.

  The cell.

  Kat breathed in, then out. The fear eroded to dust.

  “Kiss my ass, bitch,” Kat King spat, “and catch me if you can.”

  The image of the McDonald’s in Salem’s Gate solidified in an instant. The magic burst forth from her chest and clamped around her, less like a veil and more like the snapping jaws of a crocodile, spurred by Kat’s demand for a speedy retreat. And just as Marta darted forward with inhuman speed, a snarl on her blood-red lips, a powerful spell building around her palms, Kat whispered, “Go.” And then she was gone.

  Kat blinked to find herself looking up at the beautiful, clear night sky.

  She blinked again to find herself falling through the beautiful, clear night sky.

  And finally, she blinked a third time, a yelp on her tongue, as she collided ass first with a painfully handsome man, who was, for some reason, crouching beside the dumpster outside a McDonald’s in Salem’s Gate, Pennsylvania.

  3

  Liam

  The last time a woman fell on top of Liam, it was intentional—and not in the sexy way. A rather vicious vampire lady tried to rip his neck open after he insulted her while, predictably, drunk off his ass.

  This time, however, Liam collapsed under the weight of a woman flailing her way down from what was clearly a teleportation accident. He raised his arms in the nick of time, protecting his ribcage from cracking under the force, but he still lost his footing and fell flat on his back with an oomph. All the air rushed out of his lungs, and he hawked it from his throat. Pain blossomed where the back of his head smacked the asphalt, but the skin didn’t split. He’d be huffing and puffing, and he’d have a knot on his head for a few days, but other than that—well, he wouldn’t say he’d be fine.

  Because the woman he’d just caught and valiantly saved from significantly worse injuries was shrieking and writhing in his grasp. Her elbow came within an inch of his nose, and Liam was forced to release her. He dropped his arms, and the woman rolled off him and pushed herself into a standing position, backing away until she hit the side of the dumpster fence. Shocked, Liam lay still on the ground, observing her.

  Long, dark, disheveled hair down to her chest. Olive skin, mostly unmarred, except for her neck, which was decorated with fresh, weeping lacerations and forming bruises. Clothes that looked a bit big on her, baggy around the chest and thighs. Wide, scared eyes, vividly green, staring down at Liam in distant and half-parched anger. The slowly receding fear of a cornered animal who clawed her way to escape at the last possible second, Liam thought. Who is she?

  The woman’s eyes darted from Liam to the restaurant on her left, and she slightly relaxed, her shoulders sagging.

  Liam raised his hands in a placating manner; his dropped knife was now lying on the grass at the edge of the parking lot. He sat up as slowly as he could, trying his best not to frighten this woman who may have just escaped from the fight of her life. The woman eyed him hard, a warning, but Liam continued to rise, never letting his hands drop, so she could be sure he was unarmed. When he was standing again, he finally dropped the pose, used his hands instead to brush the dirt off his coat. He spied a tear near the cuff of his left sleeve and sighed.

  “You know,” he muttered to the woman, breaking the uncomfortable silence between them, “you just ruined my favorite coat.”

  The woma
n gave him a once-over. “Doesn’t look like an expensive coat,” she rasped. “I’m sure you can find another in the bargain bin.”

  Liam stared at her in disbelief. Now there’s an attitude for the books. He snorted. “I’m sorry, did I hit on you at a bar or something? Or is your natural state pissed off?”

  “My night hasn’t been that great.” She prodded the torn flesh around her neck and winced. “Like you couldn’t tell.”

  “Yeah, I got that when you dropped out of the sky. On top of me.”

  She blinked owlishly at him, then coughed. “Oh, about that…it was an accident. Sorry.” She pulled her overly large jacket tight around her torso. “But you’re all right, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Liam answered. “Could be the sue-happy type and take you to court for emotional damage.”

  She rolled those eerie green eyes. “Good luck with that. I’m not worth shit, and I don’t even have a national ID.”

  Liam stuffed his hands into his pockets, now eying the woman with curiosity. What sort of person didn’t have an ID these days? National IDs went mandatory shortly after the Unveiling, as part of a countrywide effort to track the real population of the United States, including all the vampires and faeries and shapeshifters who formerly preferred to stay off the rolls. Uncle Sam wanted his taxes, after all. That and the normal humans were desperate, back in the nineties, to know just how outmatched they were by supernaturals. (Badly was the answer.) So to not have an ID card these days meant you were either born off the grid…or taken off it.

  Hm.