Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) (6 page)

His grin faded. “I was hoping you’d feel a little gratitude for getting you started in the business, and lending you that money last year.”

“Oh, fuck you! You didn’t
lend
me anything. Riddick had to beat that money out of you, and it was money you owed me, anyway.”

His jaw tightened visibly. “So, you’re saying there’s nothing I can do to convince you to help me.”

“No,” she said, more emphatic than she’d ever been in her life. “There’s nothing you can do to convince me to endanger myself and Riddick in an attempt to save you from a mess you created all on your own.”

He glanced away and sighed, and when his eyes met hers again, the desperation she’d seen earlier was back, plus…a little something different. Something colder.

He pulled a syringe out of his back pocket.

A chill skated down her spine. “What are you doing, Romeo? What’s that?”

Romeo held up the syringe and flicked it a few times with his index finger. “What do you know about the cleaners who worked for Sentry?”

Harper’s mind raced. What the hell did Sentry cleaners have to do with the paranormal mafia?

“Not much,” she answered carefully. “I know they came in after seers and slayers left and removed the bodies. Destroyed evidence. Wiped the minds of witnesses.”

And they were badasses, she didn’t bother to add. Scary, too. They were cold, robotic, and ruthless. They saw the worst of the worst, and it didn’t seem to bother them in any way. When cleaners walked the halls at Sentry headquarters, people tended to change direction to avoid them.

Romeo nodded, still eyeballing the syringe. “When it became clear that Sentry would be forced to close its doors, leadership decided all the cleaners had to die.”

Harper felt her brow furrow. “Why?”

“Every single one of them was half a bubble off plumb. Loose cannons. No one could predict what they would’ve done without Sentry keeping them in line, giving them orders.”

Yeah, that sounded about like Sentry. Proactive and judgmental and destructive to a fault. “So what’s that got to do with the syringe you seem to be threatening me with?”

He held it up a little closer for her inspection. “They wanted the cleaners dead, but they didn’t want them dead immediately. They ordered them all out on their final missions to wipe out your boy Riddick and anyone known or suspected to be a natural. They gave them a week to get the job done.” He flicked the syringe again. “After they gave them a shot of this.”

Harper’s mouth went dry. Apparently Romeo was more desperate than she thought. “What’s in the syringe, Romeo?” she asked quietly.

“It’s a little cocktail the biochemists at Sentry cooked up. Think of it as a very slow-working cyanide. The cleaners finished their missions, then went gently into that good night.”

He was bluffing. He had to be. This was Romeo, after all. He was an asshole, sure. But a murderer? No way. “How did you even get that?”

“The biochemists back in the Sentry days were all noble and holier than thou. They thought they were better than us lowly slayers. But nowadays?” He snorted. “Shit, they can be bought for a song.”

That sounded disturbingly possible. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t kill me.”

He shook his head sadly. “Look, I spent months and months cleaning myself up, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna die after what I went through. So, I certainly don’t want to hurt you, hon. But you’re not giving me much of a choice.” He held the syringe in front of her face. “
You
get a choice, though. Livin’ or dyin’ is entirely up to you. You can agree to help me with no shot, or I can give you this as an…incentive to convince Riddick to help me. And once I’m free and clear of my debt to the Vrykolakas, I’ll give you the antidote and we’ll go our separate ways.”

She narrowed her eyes on him. “Riddick is going to kill you. Slowly. Painfully.”

He paled, but held his ground. “You better hope he does it before I give you this shot. Because if I die
after
you’ve had the shot? Well, you’ll never know where to find the antidote. I’ve got it stashed where it will never be found.”

“I’ll just find one of these biochemists you claim can be bought for a song and have him manufacture one for me.”

Her fingers itched to slap the smug smirk off his stupid face. “Good luck finding one in time. Once you’ve had this? You’ll only have about a week and a half. Which, lucky for me, is plenty of time for Riddick to win in the Arena and get me out of this mess.”

“
Assuming
I can talk the Vrykolakas into not killing you on sight.”

His smile warmed up a bit. “Sure, there’s that. But what are the odds of anyone saying no to you?”

The door of the garage was bolted, chained, and solid-looking. Opening it might have been a problem on a normal day. But today? Riddick used his freakish slayer strength and rage to rip it off the hinges with his bare hands.

Tossing the door aside, he entered the garage, pulling out his hunting knife with one hand and his SIG Sauer with the other. He hadn’t decided if he’d shoot Romeo before gutting him. Or maybe he’d hang the fucker from the ceiling by his own entrails. Then shoot him. A few times.

The mental image that came with that thought had him smiling grimly.

“That’s close enough, son.”

Riddick barely suppressed a growl as he caught sight of Romeo toward the back of the wide-open, empty garage. In front of him on a rickety folding chair, hands tied behind her back, was a very pissed-off Harper.

He took his first deep, steady breath in over an hour. She looked ready to rip Romeo apart with her bare hands, and if she was
visibly
pissed, she wasn’t badly hurt.

So maybe he’d only shoot Romeo once after hanging him from the ceiling by his own intestines. That would make him the bigger person, right?

Then he noticed the syringe Romeo had pointed at Harper’s jugular, and he gave up any hope of ever being the bigger person.

The wild thing within him paced the length of its chain, snarling, hair raised, anticipating the rush of blood on its tongue.

“You found us pretty quick, son,” Romeo said, his booming voice echoing in the empty garage. “You must be smarter than you look.”

“I’m not your son,” he said distractedly, eyes moving over Harper, silently cataloging possible injuries. When his gaze locked with hers, she gave him a nod to indicate she was OK.

He didn’t bother to address Romeo’s slam on his intelligence. Now that he knew Harper was OK, he could get down to the business at hand. He spun his knife around so that he had a better reverse grip (all the better for slitting the bastard’s throat) and aimed the SIG at Romeo’s head.

Romeo edged the syringe closer to Harper’s neck. “Talk to him, Harper,” he said to her in a low, urgent voice. “He’s losing it.”

She sighed. “Riddick, we need to talk about why Romeo brought me here.”

He nodded. “Sure. We can talk all you want after he’s dead.”

Harper glanced up at Romeo and frowned at him. “That’s the thing. You can’t kill him.”

Riddick pulled back the hammer on the SIG. “Sure I can. Watch.”

Romeo sucked in a sharp breath. “This isn’t going to work. He’s too far gone, and I don’t have the time for screwing around,” he muttered.

Then he shifted his hand away from her neck and jammed the syringe into her upper arm.

Harper screamed, then passed out as Romeo dove behind her chair, narrowly missing the shot Riddick took at his head.

That’s when everything went…red. Hazy. Riddick surrendered his self-control and let the beast slip its leash.

When Harper came to, she was lying on the floor of the garage with her head in Riddick’s lap. Well, she supposed, at least she wasn’t tied to a chair anymore.

“Christ,” she groaned, trying to sit up. “What the hell happened?”

He shoved her back down and leaned over her, examining her eyes. “How do you feel?”

She took one look at the sheer panic in his eyes and remembered exactly what had happened.

Her hand flew to the sore spot where Romeo had jammed the needle and she winced. “Goddamn you, Romeo.”

When he didn’t answer, she whipped her head around to see if he was still breathing, but Riddick grabbed her chin and forced her eyes back to his. “Answer me, damn it,” he growled. “How do you feel?”

She thought about it for a second. Other than the needle puncture on her arm, she felt really…good. Rested and full of energy, even. Her tequila hangover was gone, and hell, even the kink in her back was better. “I feel great,” she said honestly.

Riddick let out a breath. “Are you sure?”

Harper nodded and Riddick helped ease her off the floor. The second she was on her feet, he tugged her into his arms and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Jesus, Harper. I’m so damn sorry this happened.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed hard. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. None of this is your fault. It’s all because of that asshat…wait a minute.” She pulled back and met Riddick’s gaze. “Where is that asshat?”

He pointed up. Harper would’ve thought he meant the jerk was dead and in heaven if she hadn’t been sure Saint Peter would laugh his ass off at the thought of granting entrance to Romeo Jones.

Romeo was suspended from the ceiling by a thick length of chain that, Harper assumed, had once been used to pull engines out of cars. He was upside down, hanging by the ankles like a side of beef. Both eyes were swollen and blackening, his lip was split in a few places, and he was not moving a muscle. In fact, he was kind of unnaturally still.

“Is he breathing?” she asked.

Riddick scowled. “Yes.”

She certainly couldn’t see his chest moving. “How can you be sure?”

“If he was dead, I’d have a really happy feeling deep down in my soul,” he said dryly. “I don’t have that right now. He’s just unconscious.”

Possibly with some internal injuries, if she hadn’t missed her guess. “I’m guessing he told you about the cleaner drug he injected me with and the Arena.”

A muscle in Riddick’s jaw jumped, and she was pretty sure he was thinking about pulling Romeo down and beating on him some more. “Yeah.”

He looked like he was barely holding it together, so she tugged him into another hug. “Look, I don’t think there’s any reason to panic. Romeo is a douchebag for sure, but he’s no murderer. I know him, and there’s no way he’d let me die, no matter how desperate he is. He’s bluffing. This was all a ploy to get you to fight.”

Riddick pulled back as if she’d slapped him. “I won’t risk your life based on what you think you know about Romeo Jones. He’s a liar and a kidnapper who’s in debt up to his eyeballs to the fucking supernatural mafia!”

She bristled a little at the “you think you know” part of that statement. “Just calm down. Let’s think this through.”

He shoved his hands through his hair. “Jesus,
calm down
? That motherfucker injected you with something that will
kill
you in a week and you want me to
calm down
? We need to get you to the hospital or something.”

She somehow doubted the local hospital had an antidote for Sentry cleaner killer laying around, but since he looked like the top of his head might blow off at any minute, she kept her thoughts to herself.

Harper grabbed his arms and forced him to meet her gaze. “Riddick, I need you right now. Please calm down and help me think this through, OK?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and ran his hands restlessly up and down her arms. “OK, fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “Let’s
think
.”

Behind them, Romeo coughed, moaned, then spit blood on the floor. “Good luck with that, pal. I’m guessing that thinking isn’t your strong suit.”

Harper grabbed Riddick’s arm and pulled him back to her when he growled and moved toward Romeo, most likely to pummel him some more.

“Big talk for a guy hanging from the ceiling, fucknut,” she said, not bothering to glance at Romeo. He wasn’t worth their time right now.

Because if the look on Riddick’s face was any indication, they had bigger problems than the taunting of a half-dead, vampire-mafia-owing ex-slayer.

Riddick didn’t seem open to the idea of letting Romeo ride back to their hotel in the backseat—conscious, at least—so Romeo made the trip in the trunk of the rental car, unconscious, per Riddick’s preference.

Riddick had plucked him down from the ceiling, chains and all, punched him squarely in the jaw to knock him out, and shoved him in the trunk. It had been quite a sight.

Harper had said there was no way a man as large as Romeo would fit in the trunk of a Ford Fusion, but Riddick had gleefully proven her wrong.

Today’s life lesson: any car trunk can contain a dead—or half-dead—body with the proper amount of folding and shoving.

Who knew when
that
info might come in handy again?

Getting him into the hotel without having anyone call the police? Well, that had been a tad more difficult. But several bribed employees and one laundry cart later, here they were, in their room with Romeo chained to the toilet.

Which would probably be awkward as hell later when she had to pee.

Somewhere between the laundry cart and the toilet, Romeo roused from his Riddick-induced coma. “What do you expect to gain by keeping me chained up?” he asked her.

She smirked and leaned over to pat his cheek, probably a little too hard to be considered playful. At least she hoped so. “A warm feeling in my heart?”

He scowled at her, then groaned as the action no doubt hurt his busted lip. “We should be planning how you’re going to approach the boss.”

Harper sat down on the edge of the bathtub and leaned toward him. “What makes you think we’re approaching anyone? We could just torture the antidote out of you, you know.”

Riddick leaned against the doorjamb and cracked his knuckles. “Sounds good to me.”

Romeo’s beaten face paled a bit, but he held her gaze steadily, despite Riddick’s menacing presence behind him. “Do your worst. If you help me or if you don’t…” He shrugged. “I’m dead either way. I’ve got nothing to lose anymore.”