Ilona Andrews - White Hot

“Get up or I’m dying here with you. I’ll lie down right here on the floor.”

“Get out of here!” He tried to sit up. His eyes rolled back in his head. I grabbed him before he hit the floor. He was heavy. So heavy. He slumped over me, limp.

Tears wet my cheeks. “Connor, please. Please. I can’t carry you. Please wake up. I love you. Don’t leave me.”

His skin was cold. He stopped breathing. Oh God. Panic slapped me. I pushed him back and put my head on his chest and heard the beating of his heart, distant and weak, but steady. I pressed my cheek against his nose. A faint flutter of air escaping warmed my skin. Still alive. I straightened. He wasn’t waking up. Think. Think . . .

David didn’t teleport here, which meant he had to have clothes. I got up and stumbled about looking for clothes, a bag, anything.

The cistern tore in front of me, the concrete columns vanished, and jungle breathed into my face, bright violent green. I fought it with everything I had. This isn’t real. The hazy concrete columns swung into view. I forced myself to move. There! A duffel bag by one of the columns.

Something was coming for me. I could hear it moving through the vivid growth. Something with long needle teeth, with a bite that burned like ice and turned your skin blue and black with necrosis. It was close. I had to hide.

Bag. Stay with the bag. Bag. Bag. Bag.

I reached it and dropped on my knees. Clothes—T-shirt, underwear, jeans, windbreaker—car keys, a gun, phone. Yes! I swiped the screen. Password locked.

I was out in the open and the thing with needled teeth was staring at my back. Its gaze bore into me. I had to get out. I had to hide.

I tapped Emergency Call. No signal.

The thing was coming for me. Rogan was lying in the open, in the middle of a clearing. I had to get him out before it found him.

I grabbed the bag, slung it over my shoulder, and staggered to Rogan. I pulled out and tied the windbreaker over his hips. It would make him easier to drag.

The jungle wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I hooked my arms under his armpits and heaved. My feet slid on the frost and I fell on my ass. Why was this happening? I just want out. Help me, somebody, I want out of this nightmare. I just want for this to end. I could shoot myself. Just finish it. I had a gun.

If I killed myself, who would walk them out of the jungle?

I clawed my way through the visions flooding my brain. At the right wall, thirty-five yards away, a door broke the uniform concrete. I had to get us to that door. I crawled back up and heaved his huge body to me. He moved an inch. I would take an inch. An inch was closer to the door than before.

I was warm. Dear God, I was warm. That meant I was dying.

There were stairs.

I couldn’t do stairs. He was too heavy.

Daniela would fix him. Daniela fixed everyone and everything, except a bullet to the head.

The mage hunters were coming. I could hear them breathing. I got my gun and waited.

Get to higher ground. Radio for pickup.

Jimenez was waiting upstairs with his knife. His face swam before me, hazy, his eyes two bottomless pools of darkness. “It’s not him. He would have broken by now. This is a career officer. Take him to the back and shoot him.”

I still had six rounds left.

Get to higher ground.

They were coming for me. Their voices floated down to me.

No. No, I didn’t come all this way for them to kill us now.

Something bit me. My body gave out. I crashed down. The mage hound’s maw loomed over me, all slimy serpentine tongue and thin sharp teeth, and swallowed me whole.

The sheets were so soft and warm it was like being wrapped in a heated cloud.

I was alive. I smiled.

Rogan!

I sat straight up in bed. I was in a large room with a single hospital bed.

“Hello? Is anybody there?”

The door swung open and Dr. Arias strode into the room. About forty, over six feet tall, Daniela Arias was huge: broad shoulders, powerful legs, and muscular arms. Her features, large and attractive, were handsome rather than pretty, but right now her face was a cool professional mask. I’d met her before. She was Rogan’s private physician.

“Is Rogan alive?”

“In better shape than you.”

Relief washed through me. I slumped back on the pillow. He lived. We both lived.

“What happened?”

She pulled up a chair. “You dragged him out. Somehow, you managed to pull him thirty yards across the floor and up two flights of stairs. His back and ass are one long bruise with a helping of concrete road rash, so his dreams of being a nude model are shattered for a while.”

I’d laugh, but her face told me it wasn’t a good idea.

“The reservoir’s door had an excellent waterproof seal, which is what saved you. The air outside of it was at a normal temperature. You got up to the second landing, where you got a signal and you called 911 and told them that you needed a pickup because Cazadores were coming. They thought you were delusional, but we were monitoring the 911 calls.”

“How?”

“Your cousin and Bug, from what I understand. After Rogan and you disappeared and his tracking went dead, they snapped to it. Rivera’s team was dispatched Downtown, to mop up, and my team sat, waiting for any sign of you. As soon as we caught your call, we went to you. We’ve dealt with Rogan falling unconscious before, so we knew what to expect. You had a gun, so we tasered you, and then we did all the things you normally do when you’re trying to save someone’s life. Here we are, almost twenty hours later. You have two broken ribs. Howling did a number on your face, so you won’t be modeling in the near future either. I’ve notified your family that you’re safe but otherwise occupied. I figured you needed some downtime. Your cousin is fine. Melosa got him out. The summon disappeared after you teleported out, so Houston is fine as well.”

“Rogan’s cousin? She walked children onto the street to block our way. That’s why we crashed.”

She shook her head. “She disappeared.”

Of course, she did.

Daniela handed me a mirror. Bruises covered the right side of my face. A lump swelled on my right shoulder. I looked like a boxer at the end of a final round of a hard title match.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I told her.

“Oh, it will,” she said. “Once the painkillers wear off.”

“Where is Rogan?”

“He decided to give you some space.”

That wasn’t an answer. I reached for my blanket.

“I understand that your first instinct is to dramatically jump out of bed and rush over there,” Daniela said. “It’s a good plan, except you’re so medicated you’ll have trouble making it to the bathroom, let alone driving. Why don’t we sit here and chat a bit?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Her eyes were hard. “Not really.”

“Okay.”

Daniela cleared her throat. “I have a nephew. Sweet kid. Martin’s twenty-four now. He did his four years in the army, earned his college tuition, and enrolled in UNC. He wants to be a geologist. He says he likes rocks because they don’t shoot back at you.”

It sounded like a joke, but again she didn’t smile.

“He got himself expelled a month ago. You know that horror movie where the guy in a pig mask chases kids across college campus. Screamer-something.”

“Screamer-Dreamer.” Living in a household with three teenagers made me a horror movie expert. It was a stupid cheap flick, but for some reason it had caught on and there were memes of Piggy, the killer, all over the Internet with witty sayings plastered over them.

“A campus radio station was pranking people live on the air. They had a guy dressed in a pig mask and some sort of black shroud. He’d hide behind something, burst out with a big plastic knife, and chase people around. They were filming it for YouTube.”