Angel's Pain

When she woke at sundown, Briar rose instantly. She’d never been one to linger in bed. When the sun sank and the power of the day sleep vanished, it happened, for her, all at once. Her eyes opened wide, her mind came sharply alert and her senses automatically scanned her immediate surroundings for any hint of a threat.

She found none and sat up, flipped back the covers, got out of the bed and listened. But the house remained quiet. The others were likely a bit slower to rouse than she was. And as for the mortals, Roxy and Ilyana, they must be napping or in some other part of the mansion.

There was no reason to hurry, but Briar always felt as if there was, always felt in a rush to do whatever there was to be done, always felt a vague sense that if she slowed down or relaxed at all, something would catch up with her. Something bad. She never bothered to analyze that feeling. It was just the way she was.

Besides, there were things to be done. Important things. Roxy and Ilyana had planned to spend some time on the Internet during the daylight hours, scanning the news for any signs of where Gregor might be. Locating him was her only goal right now, and she was entirely focused on it.

The sooner she knew where he was, the sooner she would be able to go after him. Alone, without this gang of white-hats weighing her down, probing her psyche, trying to find some kind of redeeming quality in her soul.

They never would. She didn’t even have a soul.

Briar chose clothes from the duffel bag she hadn’t bothered to unpack, seeing as she didn’t intend to be here that long. Then she headed into the bathroom to clean up and dress and run a brush through her hair. By the time she finished, she sensed that the others were up and active. They were gathering now in one of the rooms below. She could feel their energy there. There was a sense of excitement that perked her attention. Roxy must have found something, then.

Briar hurried from her bedroom, then stopped in the living area of the suite, her attention drawn to the closed door. She wasn’t sensing Crisa. Could she be sleeping? The thought that she might have expired during her rest niggled at the back of Briar’s brain like claws scratching at her mind, drawing blood. Swallowing hard, she faced the door, lifted her chin and strode forward to fling it open.

Crisa’s bed was empty, the covers rumpled and tossed. Her backpack was open, clothes strewn everywhere around it on the floor, including the ones she’d been wearing when she’d gone to sleep.

A breeze touched Briar’s face, and she turned toward the window. It stood wide open, sheer white curtains dancing like ghosts.

An unfamiliar rush of panic drove her across the room to the windowsill, and she leaned out, staring down, half expecting to see Crisa’s broken body lying below.

But there was no sign of the troubled girl.

“Dammit. Where the hell are you, Crisa?”

As she honed her senses, Briar felt something. Something dark and compelling. And then it over-whelmed her completely as she somehow melded with Crisa’s mind, felt what she felt, saw what she saw.

When she opened her eyes, Briar saw trees and bushes all around her, and sensed the steady, powerful but uneven movement of her legs, plodding, setting her feet down one after the other as she moved through the brush. Branches smacked her face, stinging her, but she ignored those, driven forward. Ever forward.

Crisa! Briar cried out to her mentally. Crisa, where are you? Where are you going? Why didn’t you wait for me?

The reply came in a rush, in a mental voice that was nothing like the girl Briar had known. There was no innocent adoration; this was no naive child who didn’t understand the ways of the Undead or of the world in general. Instead, this response was dark, deep, angry and determined.

Leave me alone!

Crisa, listen to me!

No!

And just like that, the door to Crisa’s mind slammed and Briar landed back in her own body with such a jolt that she nearly fell over. She had to grip the nearby bedpost to keep her balance. She wouldn’t have believed Crisa even knew how to block her thoughts that way. And yet, she just had.

Something unfamiliar twisted in Briar’s gut. And then she released the bedpost and turned for the door, running, not walking, intent on reaching the group below, Reaper in particular.

And she kept on running, her mind racing, until she was downstairs and bursting into the room where they all stood.

And then she paused and took stock. Since when was her first instinct in times of trouble to run to them? To run to him?

Reaper looked up when Briar burst into the den where they had all gathered upon waking. Roxy had called them there, and was, even at that moment, leaning over a laptop computer, punching up news stories. Ilyana was at her side, a good six inches taller and painfully lean where Roxy was lush and curvy.

“There were four incidents, all the same, each in a different state, and all apparently took place overnight,” Roxy said.

“It had to be Gregor,” Ilyana added. “Somehow, he’s responsible for every one of them.”

“Even a vampire couldn’t have been in four states at once,” Seth was saying.

Reaper ignored them, his eyes focused on Briar’s face, and a second later he was beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder to snap her out of wherever she’d gone inside her mind.

“What is it, Briar? What’s happened? Is Crisa all right?”

Her eyes shifted into focus again, met his. “She’s gone.”

“Gone?” He was blank for a moment, before the meaning grew clear to his mind. “Crisa’s gone?”

Briar nodded hard. Her eyes seemed strained with worry, and her jaw was tight. “Her bedroom window’s open. She changed clothes before she left.” Blinking twice, looking down but clearly not seeing, he thought, she went on. “We have to find her.”

“We will.” Reaper turned to face the others, who had fallen silent one by one at Briar’s entrance. “We’ll split up into teams and head out in different directions. Everyone try to home in on her and—”

“I don’t think so, Reaper.” The declaration came quietly, but in a firm, determined tone, from the mortal Ilyana. She’d straightened away from the computer and squared her shoulders. When he shot her a look of disbelief, she pushed a hand through her short platinum hair, a slightly nervous gesture. And yet she went on firmly, saying, “We just got our first solid leads on Gregor. Finding him is our mission, or am I mistaken about that?”

Reaper held her gaze and he didn’t bother making his voice gentle. “My mission is to find him.”

“It may be your mission,” she said, her tone softer now, “but it’s my goal in life. There’s nothing more important to me right now.”

She was afraid of them, he thought. All of them, and Briar in particular. That she was showing enough courage now to disagree with him instigated a surge of admiration for her guts, in spite of the irritation that came with it. “And yet you’ve never told us why,” he said.

“I don’t freaking give a damn why!” Briar let the words burst from her in a rush, fueled by emotion he’d rarely seen in her. “Look, mortal, it was my goal in life, too. But now Crisa’s missing, and you know she can’t take care of herself. Finding her takes precedence.”

“This from someone who pretends not to care about her,” Roxy muttered. “I knew better the whole time, of course, but—”

“Can it, Roxy.” Briar swung her gaze around the room, letting it land on the others. Seth and Vixen, Jack and Topaz, Mirabella. “No one among you wants to get Gregor more than I do, believe me. But this is Crisa we’re talking about.”

“She’s one of us,” Vixen said. “She’s more important than any mission.”

“She’s not more important than mine,” Ilyana said softly. She shared a look with Roxy, who nodded her agreement.

“Why?” Reaper demanded.

Ilyana looked at him, then lowered her head and shook it slowly.

“Oh, for the love of God, Ilyana, just tell them, will you, so we can get on with this?” Briar snapped. When Ilyana turned her wide eyes toward her, Briar rolled her own in return, then turned and paced away. “I don’t have time to fuck with you and your secrets while Crisa’s out there in danger.” She turned again, facing them. “She had a kid with him. With Gregor.”

Reaper hadn’t thought much could surprise him, but this certainly did. He looked from Briar to Ilyana in disbelief.

“She and Gregor were together and had a son, then Gregor took the kid. He still has him, as far as she knows,” Briar explained. “That’s why she wants to find him so bad. To get her kid back.”

“How do you—” Reaper began.

“I overheard her telling Roxy. And for what it’s worth, Ilyana, I totally get it. And I’ve got no problem with you going after him, and I’ll probably even help you by fulfilling my own need to slit the bastard’s throat and watch him bleed out. Slowly, I hope. But nobody is going anywhere until we find Crisa.”