Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [1062]
Renata exhaled a resigned-sounding sigh.
She started to lower her gun …
As she did so, Jenna seized on every bit of speed she could summon from the tendons and sinews of her human limbs. She pivoted with blinding swiftness and snapped the wrist of the Minion holding her at gunpoint. He screamed in pain, throwing the whole room into a state of chaos.
In what seemed like slow motion to Jenna but probably played out in fractions of seconds, she leveled her pistol on the fallen Minion and put two bullets in his head. Renata meanwhile had shot one of the others behind the nun. As the second Minion spurted a bloody fountain from his chest and dropped to the floor, Sister Grace turned to dash for the hallway.
Jenna was on her before she could take even two steps.
She leapt over the Minion, heading her off in an instant. She thrust her hands out at the woman and shoved her backward, sending the gray-haired monster airborne. She crashed down onto the parlor floor as Renata plugged the last of the male Minions and left the body twitching and bleeding on Sister Grace’s heirloom rug.
Jenna stalked over to the scrabbling Minion nun and hauled her up onto the delicate silk-covered settee near the window. “Start talking, bitch. How long have you been serving Dragos? Did you already belong to him when you were working in his shelter?”
The Minion grinned through bloodstained teeth and shook her head. “You won’t get anything out of me. You don’t scare me. Death doesn’t scare me.”
As she spoke, a pair of heavy footsteps thundered up from somewhere below the house. Two more Minions, racing up from the cellar. The door off the hallway crashed open as they stormed out. Renata swung around and nailed each one dead center in the head, stopping them in their tracks.
Dylan let out a little whoop of triumph as the house went silent once again.
And then … the faintest sounds of voices coming from the cellar deep below.
Female voices.
More than a dozen different voices, all of them screaming and shouting, calling out to whoever could hear them.
“Holy shit,” Alex murmured.
Dylan’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think—”
“Let’s go find out,” Renata said. She turned to Jenna. “Will you be all right up here?”
Jenna nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. I can hold her until you get back. Just go.”
In the momentary inattention, Sister Grace fidgeted on the little sofa, digging around in her sweater pocket. Jenna looked back at her, just in time to see her stuff something small into her mouth. She swallowed quickly, gulping the object down. The tendons in her throat constricted. Her mouth started spewing thick white foam.
“Oh, shit!” Jenna cried. “She’s poisoning herself!”
“She’s dead. Forget the bitch,” Renata said. “Down here with us, Jenna!”
She turned away from the Minion, letting the convulsing body fall to the floor. Together she and the other women raced down the old stone steps that led into the dimly lit, enormous cellar, which looked to be carved out of the craggy rocks of the peninsula itself.
Deeper and deeper they went, the cries for help growing louder.
“We hear you!” Dylan called back to the terrified women. “It’s okay, we’ve found you!”
Jenna was not prepared for what awaited them as the cellar widened out ahead of them. Hollowed into the stone was a large cell, covered by an iron grid. Inside were upward of twenty women—filthy, unkempt, dressed in tattered laboratory gowns. Some of them were heavy with child. Others were waif thin and wan. They looked like the worst prisoners of war, neglected and forgotten, most of their faces drawn and expressionless.
They stared at their rescuers, some of them mute, some weeping quietly, while others sobbed openly in great, chest-racking heaves.
“Oh, Jesus,” someone whispered, maybe even Jenna herself.
“Let’s get them out of here,” Renata said, her voice wooden. “Look for a key somewhere that fits this goddamned grate.”
Dylan and Alex began searching the dark space. Jenna walked toward the far corner, peering into the deep shadows that seemed