Phaze Fantasies Volume 4 Read online

  Blood spurted from the fresh wound, and Scott fell to one knee. Though his back was to Ryan, the string of obscenities that came from his mouth revealed his anger and frustration. He reached inside his jacket, the fabric straining across his back.

  Tala was still turned away. She didn't see Scott reaching for what Ryan was sure was another weapon.

  Ryan lunged at Scott's back, knocking him forward. The blood on the floor made him skid, and he fell across Scott's calves, trapping him from moving further out of the way. The second knife Scott barely had his fingers around went flying.

  "You son of a bitch,” Tala muttered.

  Ryan saw her too late.

  She buried the switchblade in the center of Scott's back, twisting it with a hard yank before pulling it back out again. Scott twitched once, and then slumped onto the floor.

  Ryan scrambled away. His throat burned from the bile rising to sear it, and his gaze flew to Tala's pale face. “You killed him. My god, Tala, you actually killed him."

  She turned away from him, but not before he saw the shine of unshed tears in her eyes. “He would have killed both of us,” she said. Her voice was smooth, with no evidence at all of what she'd just done. “And he let the vampires kill Katsu and the girl last night in order to save himself. I did what I had to do."

  Slowly, Ryan stood up. His knees were shaking, his hands even more so. He had killed a lot of vampires in the past decade, and he had seen a lot of people get killed at the hand of the same, but he had never been so involved in a human death before, even one that he couldn't argue was probably necessary. This was going to have consequences. The cops in the terminal would suspect him and Tala as soon as Scott's body was found. None of his information was on file, but that didn't mean he wasn't still terrified about being caught.

  "Go now."

  At some point in his ruminations, Tala had come around Scott to stand right in front of Ryan. He looked down at her hands, and while there was still fresh blood on them, the knife she'd used was gone.

  "Go back to your hotel,” Tala repeated. “This isn't your problem, Ryan. I'll take care of everything."

  He shook his head automatically. “I can't just leave you here like this."

  "You stay, and you'll be questioned."

  "Maybe.” He looked over her shoulder at the corpse again. “He said you sold me out. Was he lying, Tala?"

  When he looked back at her, the shine in her eyes was gone. The tears were now slipping down her cheeks, though she did nothing to acknowledge them. “I let him think that I was doing that,” she said. “I knew you'd come here. And I needed him to trust me so that I could get close enough to stop him."

  That was it. No apology. Ryan didn't doubt for a second she would do it all over again, given the chance.

  "I'm assuming you know a back way out of here,” he said.

  "Of course,” she replied softly.

  As he followed her down the corridor, it took everything he had not to look back over his shoulder. He had Tala in front of him. That made it easier.

  * * * *

  He should have been packing. He should have been sitting at LaGuardia, waiting to board a plane to take him home. He shouldn't have been obsessively monitoring the Grand Central Station network for updates about what had happened to Scott, and he most definitely shouldn't have been debating going back to find Tala.

  But he was. And with each passing minute, Ryan was that much closer to saying to hell with it.

  The knock on his door made him jump.

  Ryan disconnected and snapped his laptop shut. Another knock, a little more insistent, sent fire ants marching down his spine, and he slowly rose from the chair to answer it. Nobody had found Scott's body, or at least, nothing had been said about it in e-mails or security logs at Grand Central Station yet. But maybe the police were being more discreet about their investigation this time. Nobody else knew Ryan was here. He should have left when he had the chance.

  He gripped the door knob more tightly than usual to stifle the shaking in his fingers. His heart leapt into his throat when he opened it, but not because it was the police, ready to arrest him on the other side.

  Because it was Tala.

  "I am beginning to think you're predictable in your unpredictability,” she said softly.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I could ask the same of you.” She glanced past him into the room. “May I come in?"

  Ryan stepped back automatically, giving her room to enter. Some time since he'd left her at Grand Central Station, she'd changed her clothes, wearing jeans and a fresh t-shirt that molded over her upper body. A backpack slung over her shoulder made her look like a student, and when she turned to face him, her eyes were clear and dark again. Any trace of her earlier tears was gone.

  "I owe you a thank you,” she said.

  He frowned. “For what? I didn't do anything."

  "No, you were just yourself. As it turns out, that was exactly what I needed.” She slid her pack from her shoulder and set it on the bed, unzipping the outside pocket and pulling out an envelope. Without a word, she held it out to Ryan.

  He took it and pulled open the flap. His brows shot up at the contents.

  "You have a passport, right?” Tala asked.

  "Of course,” he replied. “But what makes you think I'd want to go to Manila? I'm assuming with you."

  The directness of his tone did nothing to sway her. “Because distance from this debacle with the vampires and Scott's treason will only be good for you. Because you go where you're needed, where you can do good, and there are just as many vampires in the Philippines as there in Arizona.” She took a step closer, and her voice softened. “Because I would like you to."

  "You were trying very hard to get rid of me this morning."

  Tala shook her head. “I was trying to clean up the mess that I was partially responsible for. You can't hold that against me."

  None of this made sense. He understood Tala's need to take control, and he appreciated that she felt responsible, but this added step in purchasing him a plane ticket out of the country left him perplexed. He had said so out loud before he could think not to.

  "I came to New York, ready for this to be it,” she said. “I was so tired of it all. Tired of the responsibility, and tired of not being able to have anything for myself. And then I saw you. I saw how much passion you still have, how much dedication. The way you treated me last night...” She closed the distance and touched his mouth with her fingertips. The soft gesture made his heart thud. “You're an amazing man, Ryan Nixon. And you've changed my life by coming into it."

  He had thought those words so often in conjunction with Tala that it sounded weird hearing her say the same thing about him. But I'm nobody, he wanted to say to her. You're the amazing one. He didn't, though. He couldn't. Because there was no doubting the sincerity in her touch or tone.

  Cupping her face, his thumbs stroked the hollow of her cheeks as he leaned down and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Everything I am is because of you.” Her mouth opened to protest and he silenced her with another kiss. “Why don't we compromise and say you get the finder's fee, okay?"

  "Does this mean you'll come with me to Manila?"

  How was he supposed to say no to her? It was impossible, and even more, it was unwanted. He wished to be with her, and she was offering him ... what, exactly?

  "Does this mean last night wasn't a one-time thing?” he asked carefully.

  Tala leaned into him, her breasts soft against his chest. “Only if you want it to be,” she replied. “But I would like the chance to find out if we could be even more."

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “So would I."

  Though she didn't smile, some of the tension in her face vanished, and a fresh light appeared in her weary eyes. “I look forward to hunting with you. I think my family will be very surprised."

  He smoothed her hair back off her face. “Just hunting?"

  "Well...” Hooking her fingers
into his waistband, Tala backed up toward the bed, pulling him slowly with her. “That is all that I will let my family witness. You don't have an exhibitionistic streak I should know about, do you?"

  Ryan laughed. This was the lightest he'd felt since landing in New York, even better than he'd felt after making love to Tala the night before. “I spend too much time already out in the open,” he replied. “The last thing I want is to share what little privacy I get with the world."

  "Me, too."

  Tala tugged, and Ryan fell onto her, propping himself up along her length as she smoothed her hands down his back. “I didn't know you meant you wanted to start now,” he teased.

  "And why not?” The power in her fingers eased the remainder of the knots in his back. “We were each one. Now we're two. I don't see a reason to wait."

  He bent and kissed her, harder this time, longer, tasting the sweet and salt of her mouth. “What about our flight?” he murmured.

  "Leaves after midnight."

  "So we have a few hours?"

  Tala gazed at him with dark eyes, large and luminous. “We have as long as you want. As long as you'll have me."

  Ryan smiled, and as he pressed against her, devouring her lips for what was thankfully not the last time, all he could think was, And now there are two of us.

  The next decade suddenly looked worlds brighter.

  Scorpion's Orchid

  by Eva Gale

  Also by Eva Gale

  101 Degrees Fahrenheit

  Fortune's Fool

  To Ann, whose eyes pointed out many holes. And to Selah. You asked for birth control, you got it. And to my husband, who explained the hormone precursors over and over again.

  Chapter One

  Dr. Martin Detweiller stared at the lab dish in front of him, wanting to shatter it on the wall. The liquid inside maintained its dark crimson color. He'd wanted—no, needed—a bubbling and color change to yellow. Without enough of the reactive agent, he wasn't going to get either result. He reached across the table, first seizing then crumpling the blood-purple petals and bulb of a Rhizanthella slateri, as his hand formed a tight fist.

  Martin raised his fist to slam the table but pulled back just short of hitting it, unwilling to waken the boy who slept in the corner cage. Instead he dropped the crushed orchid to the floor and ground it beneath his heel. He'd teased every drop of liquid from the damned flower, the last of his supply. And it still wasn't enough—not enough to test the new formula, and certainly not enough to produce enough serum for Xavier. Or the dozens more like him that transformed and died on the city streets every month.

  Doc pushed his aero goggles back on his head, scrubbed his face, and pulled his timepiece out of his vest pocket. He considered his options. While he didn't have another sample of the orchid, he had plans to get more. At a time in history where the private possession of any plant was a high felony, his attempts to buy the rare species had been thwarted by secrecy, higher bidders, and what appeared to be pure obstinacy on the part of the plant's seller. But this time, if Katerina Metrenko wouldn't sell the orchid to him—well, she'd learn just how desperate a buyer he'd become.

  Besides, how could she report the theft of a flower she couldn't legally own?

  This time he had been sure, completely positive, that it would work. He braced himself on the plank table and hung his head. The laboratory was silent except for the bubbles of the aquarium that held the squid, and the slight breathing of Canine.

  Scorpicos were starting to mutate faster, at younger ages, and his theory used to be that the squid phosphorescence injections would settle in the venom gland and, when placed behind the revealing panel, light up. If he could locate the gland before it matured there were hopes he could operate and remove it, stopping the final transmogrification.

  He bent down to stroke the Neapolitan Mastiff's slate fur and sighed.

  So many adolescents were turning, and it was killing the ones who couldn't finish the change. He'd come across bodies that were half spider or scorpion, with random appendages, and the human half of them looking as if it had exploded, with bits of eviscera lying in globs around the body.

  Derwold, his investigator and assistant, watched the city for him, collecting bodies when he could for study. It was a gruesome task, and they always buried the corpses after their investigations, hoping that it gave the dead youths a measure of peace. Derwold collected another for tonight, and by what he'd heard, tonight's body should be more intact than previous ones, which meant there would be more to dissect.

  He was so close. He knew he was. In the last body he'd found what he thought to be a segment of the venom pouch, and tucked behind that was a small pea-sized gland. At first he thought it was just a nodule of fatty tissue, but after he preformed the biopsy, he discovered it contained a high amount of hormone. Something like a pituitary gland, but this hormone was more time released according to age.

  That finding brought about a whole avenue of thought he'd never considered.

  Seeds of knowledge were harvested from different places. One was from the old texts. Late one night while he was up reading he thought of the idea for a hormone precursor. A simple blood draw would show him where in the chain of hormones the youth was, and by locating the Scorpicos’ hormone precursor, he could then know if the adolescent had the disease, and use the orchid compound he was working on as a vaccination. He could administer the serum to all adolescents, but if the youth didn't have Scorpicos, he would die from poisoning. If he did have it, Doc could save him. The other problem was that the hormone peak was different in every person. Some would change at sixteen, some at twenty.

  Most days the responsibility was overwhelming. The heavy weight of finding a cure sat on his shoulders day and night, and in the meantime more youths died

  A rasp sounded from behind the blanket that was tucked in an alcove.

  "Xavier, are you awake?” Doc set the aero-goggles down on top of a pile of chipped plates and walked back to the iron cage. Realizing Xavier was awake, he threw back the blanket he used to cover the cage.

  Xavier's cage was a foot taller than Doc and reinforced with double rivets. Doc reached in and checked Xavier's pulse, making sure he was calm before he unbolted the cage.

  "How long was I out this time?"

  His voice sounded scratched and rough. Doc would have Mathilde make him some tea.

  "Three days."

  Xavier closed his eyes and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I'm sorry."

  "No, I'm sorry.” Doc took the hammered ring off the peg on the wall, the skeleton keys clanging, making Xavier wince. “I should have been able to make a more long lasting solution by now."

  "You can't get it right all the time."

  "I don't have a choice."

  Xavier would never be saved unless Doc found a cure. But a vaccination was a start. The boy didn't understand the magnitude of what was going on and what it meant. But he was only nineteen, and who thought about the plight of humankind when they were nineteen? Xavier was supposed to be out dating, having fun, and planning his future. Not sitting in a cell at least twice a week as Doc injected him with a stabilizer made from another orchid that one day wouldn't work. Doc dreaded that day. As it was, Xavier used to get the shot every day, at the exact time, and now Doc noted that the time between shots was getting closer and closer. The slight ticks Xavier got beforehand started happening two to three hours earlier each week.

  Time was running out.

  He would do what he could to keep Xavier from turning completely, but Doc didn't have that much serum left. It was a fluke that no matter how he tried, he couldn't duplicate. His only hope now lay in the orchid shipment Katerina Metrenko would be making out of Grand Central Station later tonight.

  Xavier tried to stand up and wobbled, grasping onto the iron bars to steady himself.

  "Do you remember what happened when you started to change?” Doc stepped into the cage to brace him.

  "No, I just remember b
eing mad."

  Xavier's skin was clammy and he blanched as he stood straight.

  "At least you were able to get to the lab before the change completed.” Doc led him out and held him up until Xavier's feet became steadier. He sat him down and went to the wall to pull the bell string, telling Mathilde to come up.

  Xavier ran his hands down his arms and legs. Doc knew why. He checked to make sure there were no spider appendages or hairs left. That the total sum of him was Xavier.

  "Doc, why was I out so long this time?"

  His voice was shaking and thin. Piercing blue eyes and shaggy black hair studied his face. He couldn't lie, but he wanted to.

  "The serum isn't working as well. We need to find the venom gland and remove it. Until then...” He scrubbed at his short hair. “Katerina has a shipment going out of Grand Central tonight. Derwold and I will go get the Rhizanthella slateri. I want you to stay here."

  "But—"

  "No. You will stay here.” Doc glared at him. “Under no circumstances will you leave. Do you understand?"

  Xavier hung his head. “Yes."

  A soft knock came before the massive oak door opened. “Yes, sir?"

  Mathilde stood in the doorway, her white bun hanging on the side of her head. Although she was slight, her heart was enormous and Doc considered her his mother. “Mathilde, Xavier has awakened. Do you have any of your soup?"

  Mathilde's eyes brightened. “Why, surely I do. I was just making some in hopes that he would wake up.” She glanced at Xavier protectively and gave Doc the once over. “And you look like you could use a bath and some food yourself.” She shook her head, “Tsk, look at the state of this room. I have no idea how you work in this disorganization."

  Her apron pocket sagged and she reached in, taking out a handful of paper wrapped candies. She put then in the bowl that always sat on the edge of the table. The door closed with a soft click behind her.