Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [625]
“Faith, honor, courage, and sacrifice,” Nikolai said, recalling the words he’d seen on the blades Renata seemed to treasure so much.
“She told you about the blades?”
Niko shrugged. “I’ve seen her use them. They mean a lot to her, Jack.”
“I didn’t know,” he replied. “I was surprised that she accepted them in the first place, but I didn’t think she’d still keep them after all this time.” He blinked quickly, then busied himself with the box he’d pulled out of the file cabinet. He opened the lid and Niko caught the glint of dark metal resting inside the felt-lined case. Jack cleared his throat. “Listen, like I said before, I’m not going to press for details about what the two of you are involved in. It’s clear enough that you’re in some pretty big trouble. You can stay here as long as you need to, and when you’re ready to go, just know that you don’t have to leave here empty-handed.”
He set the open box down on the floor in front of him and gave it a little push in Nikolai’s direction. Inside were two pristine semiautomatic pistols and a box of rounds.
“They’re yours if you want them, no questions asked.”
Niko picked up one of the .45s and inspected it with an appreciative eye. It was a beautiful, well-tended Colt M1911. Probably military-issued weapons from his service time in Vietnam. “Thank you, Jack.”
The old human warrior gave him a brief nod. “Just take care of her. Keep her safe.”
Nikolai held that steady stare. “I will.”
“Okay,” Jack murmured. “Okay then.”
As he started to get up, someone shouted his name from outside in driveway. A second later, footsteps were pounding up the wooden stairs to the garage apartment.
Niko shot Jack a sharp look. “Does anyone know we’re in here?”
“Nope. Anyway, that’s just Curtis, one of my newer kids. He’s fixing my dinosaur of a computer. Damn virus attack again.” Jack went over to the door. “He thinks I’m looking for a boot disk in here. I’ll get rid of him. Meantime, if you think of anything else you two might need, you just ask.”
“How about a phone?” Niko asked, replacing the pistol next to its mate.
Jack reached into his front pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He tossed it to Nikolai. “It should have a few hours of battery time. It’s all yours.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll check in with you again later.” Jack grabbed the doorknob and Nikolai backed into the shadows, as much a reflex because of the daylight outside as it was an effort to stay out of sight from the unwanted visitor who’d arrived at the top of the stairs. “Well, I was mistaken, Curtis. I checked everywhere and there’s no disk in any of my boxes up here.”
Niko saw the other human’s head trying to peer around the edge of the door as Jack closed it firmly behind him. There was a clopping shuffle of feet on the steps as Jack escorted the other human away.
Once he was certain they were gone, Nikolai dialed a remote access number that was maintained by the Order’s Boston headquarters. He typed in Jack’s cell phone number and a code that would identify him to Gideon, then waited for the callback.
Midday in a compound that housed a bunch of vampires was generally a dead zone of inactivity, but none of the seven warriors gathered in the weapons room of the Order’s subterranean headquarters seemed to notice the time, not even the handful of them blessed enough to have loving Breedmates warming their beds. Since regrouping at the compound before daybreak, the warriors had kept themselves busy reviewing current mission statuses and laying out objectives for the night to come. Hashing out Order business for hours on end was nothing new, but this time there had been none of the usual good-natured smacktalk or joking squabbles over who was grabbing up the best assignments.
Now, a few yards away, at the area used for target practice, a quintet of pistols were being fired one after the other, paper bull’s-eyes at the other end shredded into minuscule confetti. The compound’s shooting range was used more for entertainment than necessity, since all of the warriors had dead-on aim. Even so, that never