Ganriel Read online

  Wait a minute. Was that what was bothering him? Was he embar­rassed because instinct had taken over while fighting for his life? For her life? Hell, she wanted to cheer for what he’d done. He’d gotten them both away, hadn’t he? What more did he expect?

  She had a sudden terrible thought.

  “Are you okay, Gabriel? You’re not bleeding to death or something, are you?”

  When he turned to look at her, she almost wished she hadn’t said anything. His eyes were dead, his gaze filled with despair. It was the face of a man who’d lost all hope. “I am uninjured,” he said quietly, then turned to stare out the window again.

  Hana wanted to weep. Instead, she did what she’d always done when life broke her heart. She fell back on a lifetime of discipline and training and considered their next steps. Ditch the car, get to the house, clean up, get food. And then she’d find out what was wrong with Gabriel, if she had to sit on his chest until he talked. He was hers, damn it. And he was going to learn what that meant, even if it killed him.

  “BREAK THIS UP AS much as you can. I don’t expect super-hero strength, just break it down to its parts and toss them out the window, one piece at a time, like you did the phone.”

  Gabriel took the gun she offered him. “Do we do the same to the other guns? Even the ones we didn’t use?”

  She nodded. “I’m worried my condo may have been compromised. I don’t want anything that links us to it.”

  As she finished speaking, she turned slowly, her gaze trained on one of the storefronts they were passing. Without warning, she made a sharp turn and came around the block, pulling to a stop in front of a small establishment. Gabriel’s ability to read Japanese was far from perfect, but he recognized this as a bath house for women only.

  “I’m going in there,” she said, nodding at the bathhouse.

  He started to get out, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You can’t go with me.” She must have read the stubborn look on his face, because her fingers tightened and she said, “You’re covered in blood, and besides, it’s a women’s bath.”

  “Why this place?” he asked, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t like the idea of her going in there alone, but she wouldn’t risk herself without reason. That didn’t mean he’d go along with it, but he’d listen.

  “I told you I think the condo was compromised, but no matter how much I worry about it, I can’t understand how they’d link it to me. I’m not saying it’s impossible. It’s simply damn unlikely. So, if it wasn’t the condo itself, then it had to be something about one of us. Not you, because no one except Grandfather and me even knew about you. And then I thought about what you said, about how they wanted me for me, for my personal sorcery.” Her fingers dug into his arm again. “What if there was a traitor working for Grandfather? Not one of his men. They were vetted to within an inch of their lives, most of them third or fourth generation retainers with my family. But it wouldn’t have to be one of them. In fact, a maid or a cook, any of the household staff living on the estate would work better. They’re nearly invisible.” She met his eyes in question, and he nodded to indicate he was following her reasoning.

  “Okay, so what if the tracker wasn’t at the condo? I’ve already dumped my phone, but what if it was on me personally? In my clothes, my jewelry, my shoes. Or even on my skin?” She shuddered and opened her car door.

  “If what you say is right,” he said quietly, “what’s to stop them from ambushing you inside, while I sit here like a useless ornament? And where will you get fresh clothes?”

  “I’ll be fast, and you can keep watch.”

  “Hana—”

  “You’ll see anyone who tries to come in after me.”

  “And the back?”

  “That’s why I picked this place. They blocked the back door more than a year ago, in order to maximize bath space. It’s a building violation, but they pay off the right people.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Whom do you think they paid their bribes to?”

  He nodded. “I’ll guard the front, but my patience is in short supply.”

  She grinned. “If something happens, I’ll scream really loud.” When he gave her a flat stare, she sighed and said, “I’ll be fast.”

  Gabriel slumped in the seat, trying to look less obvious as he systematically tore apart their weapons, one gun at a time, varying his attention from the gun to the street in both directions, and then back again. It wasn’t a busy street. The sun was already sinking low, and with no streetlights, most of the stores were already shuttered for the day. He hadn’t seen any new patrons enter the baths since Hana had gone in, though five women had exited—two together, and then a group of three. He had a pile of gun parts at his feet, and it had occurred to him that the trash bins behind these stores were likely to be unmonitored. None of these businesses seemed prosperous enough to have much worth stealing. He could drop a single piece in a few of the bins—not each one, that would be too obvious. But he wasn’t willing to leave his guard post, so it hardly mattered.

  A moment later, Hana appeared in the doorway, her head turned, as if speaking to someone behind her. She gave a small bow, then turned and hurried toward the car, carrying what looked like a pile of folded towels. He was trying to figure out why, when she opened the car door and draped the fresh-smelling towels over the seat, which, he noticed belatedly, was streaked with blood. He glanced down at himself and knew, without having to check, that she’d need a hell of a lot more towels to soak up the blood on his seat.

  Giving him a smile, she slid behind the wheel, using yet another towel to wipe off the steering wheel as he studied her. Her hair was wet, and she was wearing nothing but an embroidered robe and paper slippers. Nothing. He had enough experience to know when a woman was naked beneath a robe. She caught his frown.

  “I couldn’t trust any of my clothes,” she said, not even bothering to look before pulling back onto the street. “Did you finish breaking down those guns?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ll dump a few pieces behind these stores. Most of them don’t have any security, and the ones who do, have it inside.”

  He didn’t bother telling her he’d had the same thought. Instead, he picked up a handful of parts and climbed out of the car when she stopped at the mouth of the narrow back alley. It was barely a walkway, not nearly wide enough for the big sedan. “Leave the engine running. Lock the doors. If someone attacks, leave me behind.”

  She nodded, but the stubborn look on her face told him she wouldn’t leave him, even if it was the smart thing to do. For that matter, she should drive away and forget about him altogether. His gut rejected that possibility, however. He still believed she should forget about him, but not until she was safe, or he was dead. Either option was equal in his mind.

  He finished his trash bin deliveries, then loped back down the alley to join her in the car. He’d been right about the bloody seat, but since he was just as covered in blood, it didn’t matter.

  “We’ll drive around a bit more, get rid of the rest, and then park the car somewhere and dump it. It’s one of theirs,” she explained to his questioning look. “And it has a nav system.” She pointed at the colorful screen, which contained a map that changed as they drove. As with cell phones, he knew very little about these electronic devices. He might have enjoyed discovering how they worked, if for no other reason than because of the possibilities for their use in war, but he didn’t plan on being around long enough to learn. “That,” she continued, unaware of his internal dialogue, “makes this car trackable by someone who knows the right code. So, it has to go.”

  It was full dark by the time they “dumped” the car. Hana opened and searched the trunk, making a happy sound when she pulled out a large plastic container of some liquid. She then splashed the liquid all over the front seat
, all the time muttering about something called DNA, and how this probably wasn’t necessary, but better to err on the side of caution.

  Gabriel remained on guard while she worked, every sense on alert. When she finally finished, she held out the bloody towels for him to carry. He looked at them, then shook his head. “I won’t be much of a guard if my arms are full.”

  She scowled. “Who says you’re the guard? Maybe I’m guarding you.”

  “You’re not even wearing shoes.”

  “Hey, these feet are deadly weapons. You just don’t want to carry the towels.”

  He shrugged. “I want to get you inside a safe place.”

  She sighed and started walking. “The house is about a mile as the crow flies, longer for you and me.”

  They headed down dark streets of small, barely lit houses. The homes were close together and poorly constructed. When there was any light at all, it was a single dim glow, as if saving money was paramount. No dogs barked, no children cried. The area was as silent as possible in this modern era, as if the residents were afraid of the night. Or of the predators who roamed under its cover. Since he was probably the biggest predator around, that didn’t bother him. In fact, he would have welcomed a good fight, except that it would put Hana in danger.

  As it turned out, they didn’t run into anyone or thing. Hana clearly knew where she was going. She cut through tiny yards and between houses to reach the next narrow street. He figured they’d walked just over three miles by the time she opened a small gate in a high wooden fence. Slipping inside, she waited until he followed, then turned to lock the previously unlocked gate before continuing toward a house that appeared to be like all the others they’d passed.

  “This is it,” she said quietly, but didn’t enter the house right away. Instead, she walked over to a newer-looking brick oven and pointed at him. “Strip.”

  He eyed her doubtfully. “There are none of your trackers on me. You said yourself they couldn’t have known I existed.”

  “But you’re covered in blood, and I’m sick of the smell.”

  He remembered that stink. He’d been covered in blood for much of his life.

  “It’s not just you,” Hana hurried to add. “I stank, too. But I already bathed and changed. It’s your turn.”

  He nodded as he stripped to his skin, pausing only to remove his chest armor, while she opened the heavy metal door, turned a knob on the back of the oven, which was attached by a flexible tube to a small metal tank sitting halfway buried in the ground, and then struck a wooden match, and lit a flame. Gabriel didn’t question why she’d have a structure like this in her yard. He’d known Himura-san as an honorable man, but not one who obeyed other men’s rules. He’d been a warrior, not a clerk, and had lived by his own code. It stood to reason that Hana would have been taught the same.

  “Throw those in—” She turned, and even in the dim glow of the fire, he could see her flush of embarrassment. It took him a moment to remember that nakedness was not as casual in this society as it had been in his. He’d grown up in a warrior’s camp, had lived in the same—albeit it somewhat nicer—accommodations when he’d served Nicodemus. No one had worried overmuch about naked male flesh, and the only women had been those who were there to get naked with the men. But Hana certainly had no such intentions.

  He turned his back to her as he shoved the clothing in. “You can go inside,” he said quietly. “I’ll finish this.”

  “I’ll start the shower for you,” she said, walking to the back door. “It takes longer to heat up when I’ve been gone a while.”

  Gabriel nodded wordlessly, waiting until the door closed and the first lights came on inside the house before closing the oven door and securing it. Her neighbors had little enough. They didn’t need him setting fire to their neighborhood out of carelessness.

  He could sense the distance growing between him and Hana. It was painful, even though necessary. After all the years of her voice being the only thing giving him hope, and then the easy affection of their initial escape, it was twice as difficult for him to maintain this new stiff formality. He knew Hana didn’t understand, but it was necessary to put some distance between them. He was not a fit companion for her, much less a lover. He couldn’t have her thinking otherwise. It would only hurt more in the end, when he’d have to leave her. For her own benefit. He wouldn’t go until she was safe, of course, but the problem was that her continued safety depended on his absence from her life. He was a monster, a vampire and a berserker both. The afternoon’s bloody battle had proven just how little control he had over his deadly impulses. And what if, in his hunger, he attacked her? It was his worst nightmare.

  But apart from the question of his control, why would a woman like Hana want anything to do with a vampire? What could he offer her? She deserved a proper mate and a family. A man who could live a full life by her side, not creep around in the dark sucking other people’s blood. Granted, thus far Nico’s spell had held back that much of his monstrous nature, at least. He hadn’t felt any need, since his waking, to collapse with the sunrise. But who was to say the situation would last? He was already nearly overcome by the need for blood. Could an aversion to sunlight be far behind?

  He almost wished he’d never been freed, that Himura-san was still alive and well, and that Hana’s only contact with him was her visits to his garden, so she could read to him. He wished he could rid the earth of himself as easily as he did the bloody clothes burning in the brick oven.

  But not yet. He was honor bound to both Hana and her grandfather to see her to safety. Once that duty was completed and honor fulfilled, then he could end his life. As it should have ended thousands of years ago.

  He leaned back and stared at the night sky, with its crescent edge of a new moon and a few twinkling stars. The sky had been brighter in the years of his youth, and later, too, with Nico. Back then, a blanket of stars had swept across the dark sky. He wondered what had happened to the stars and didn’t recall that being covered in any of the stories read to him by Hana or Himura-san. He sighed and shook his head. He should have died under those long-ago stars. He wished that damned Sotiris had simply killed him. But then, that would have been too easy for the vicious sorcerer. He hadn’t wanted Gabriel and his brothers dead. He’d wanted them to suffer. Gabriel wondered if Sotiris was aware how suc­cessful he’d been in that, or if he’d forgotten all about the four warriors the moment after his spell was cast.

  “Gabriel?” It was Hana calling his name so softly that no one else would have heard.

  “I’m here,” he said, just as quietly. Picking up his chest armor— which had probably saved his life, more’s the pity—he opened the door and stepped into an unlit vestibule. Aware of his nakedness, he nonetheless made sure the door was locked behind him, then scanned what he could see of the house. The first room was divided equally into a small kitchen, where Hana was currently cooking something, and a sitting room just big enough for a short sofa and one chair, with a narrow table in front of them. On the other side of the room was a half-open door to a bathroom. He knew this because the lights were on, and he could hear the water running.

  “I installed a bigger water tank than usual, but if you want a hot shower, you better get in there,” she said, still not looking at him, her attention on her food preparation.

  “Yes.” Dropping his armor by the back door, he crossed the room in three long strides, pushed into the bathroom, and closed the door.

  HANA LISTENED TO Gabriel’s heavy footsteps, sighing as the bathroom door closed. She had debated turning around. She hadn’t wanted him to feel as though she was shutting him out, but he’d seemed bothered by her reaction to his nudity in the yard. And she hadn’t wanted him to feel as though she was ogling him, either. She hadn’t been able to control her blush when he’d taken his clothes off. She’d been half in love with him for years, even before she’d kno
wn what adult love meant. He’d been a constant in her life, the one person she could always go to when the trauma of being a teenager was just too much. She’d leaned against his strong thighs and told him secrets that to this day, she’d never shared with anyone else. And when she got older—old enough to see him as a handsome, strong man, she’d daydreamed about the day he’d finally be free to step down off that stone pedestal, to shed his armor and touch her skin to skin. The memory of her daydreams about him still had the power to make her blush. And now, seeing his body for the first time, so beautifully built and fit, with a broad chest and shoulders, narrow hips and firm thighs, and . . . she almost chopped a finger off when she thought about his penis, so long and thick and. . . . Oh, fuck, she was blushing all over again.

  “Silly. Getting all worked up over a man’s dick,” she muttered to herself. She closed her eyes for a moment to block out the image, but that only made it worse. So, she opened her eyes again and concentrated on making some food. All those gorgeous muscles needed protein. Probably more than usual, since he’d been trapped for so long. She frowned. Maybe that was why he’d become withdrawn so suddenly. Maybe it was part of the curse, that once it was lifted, all those years piled up on him at once. Maybe he was feeling his age. The thought terrified her. That she could lose him so soon after finding him.

  “No,” she said, speaking to herself. She wasn’t going to let that happen. She’d make him strong again, no matter what it took.

  She doubled the amount of meat she was slicing. Normally, she followed the typical Japanese diet, eating more fish than meat. But she’d never liked the taste or texture of frozen fish, so the food she kept on hand in her various safe houses leaned more toward meat. Very good meat, to be sure, despite the outrageous price she had to pay. She was glad for that now, since Gabriel needed red meat to restock his body. Fresh vegetables would have been nice, but she hadn’t visited this house in a while, so the best she could offer was frozen, sliced peppers, which she was combining with the steak into a stir fry, along with rice, of course. She considered herself a decent cook, albeit not one with a wide variety of skills. But anyone could do stir fry.