Midnight Rising

She scoffed, too bold for her own good. "Why? So you can go after them too?"

Rio's mind switched into immediate reconnaissance mode. He threw a glance at her belongings and saw a messenger bag slung over the hotel chair. The bag looked like it probably contained a computer. He stalked over to it and withdrew a thin silver laptop.

He opened it and hit the power button, which must have given the woman an idea that she could make another break for the door. She bolted, but Rio cut her off at the pass. He stood in front of her, his back against the heavily locked panel, before she even had a chance to imagine freedom.

"Holy shit," she gasped, blinking at him in disbelief. "How did you get - ? You were all the way across the room - "

"Yes, I was. And now I'm not."

Rio stepped forward, away from the door, forcing her to retreat. She backed up as he kept advancing, obviously unsure what to make of him now.

"Sit down," he ordered her. "The sooner you cooperate, the sooner this will be over."

She took a seat on the edge of the bed, watching as he went back to her computer and fired up her Internet connection. Her e-mail was a revelation. Aside from the usual personal garbage and a recent airline ticket change, Rio found several messages in her Sent folder going out to some kind of news organization - a few of them complete with photos. He clicked one open and quickly scanned the contents.

"Ah, Christ. You've got to be kidding me," he muttered. He swung a glare at her over his shoulder. "You're a goddamn reporter?"

She didn't answer, just sat there biting her lip like she wasn't sure if a yes might get her killed faster than a no.

Rio put down the laptop and started pacing tightly.

He thought the situation had been bad before? Well, now he was faced with a nuclear-grade disaster. A reporter. A reporter with a camera and a computer and an Internet connection. No amount of mind-scrubbing was going to take care of that.

He needed an assist here, and he needed one pronto.

Rio grabbed her computer and called up the instant messaging software. He typed in a masked ID that would route to the Order's tech lab at the compound in Boston. The address was monitored 24/7 by Gideon, the warriors' resident computer genius. Rio entered a cryptic message using code that identified him, his location, and his need to contact.

The response came back from Gideon almost immediately. Whatever Rio needed, the Order would provide. Gideon was standing by for details.

"You got a cell phone?" he asked the reporter sitting mutely near him. When she shook her head, Rio snatched the desk phone and typed in the hotel's landline. "What room number is this? The number, damn it!"

"Uh, it's 310," she replied. "Why? Who are you calling? Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Damage control," he said, about a second before the telephone started ringing.

He picked up the receiver, knowing it was Gideon even before he heard the slight English accent on the other end. "I'm calling on a scrambled signal, Rio, so speak freely. What's up? More importantly, where the fuck have you been all this time? For crissake, it's been five months since you went off grid. You don't write, you don't call...don't you love me no more?"

God, it was good to hear a familiar voice. Rio might have smiled at the thought but things were too far south on his end. "I've got a situation here - it's not good, my friend."

Gideon's humor vanished and the warrior was all business. "Talk to me."

"I'm in Prague. There's a reporter here with me - a female. American. She's got pictures from the mountain, Gideon. Pictures of the hibernation chamber and the glyphs on the walls."

"Jesus. How did she get in there to take pictures? And when? That cave's been sealed up since you guys were there in February."

Ah, hell. No getting around it. He had to just spit the truth out. "The cave wasn't sealed. There were some delays...I didn't secure the damn thing until today. After the pictures were taken."

Gideon blew out a curse. "All right. I'm assuming you've scrubbed her, but what about the photos? Do you have them?"

"Yeah, I have them, but here's where it gets worse, Gid. She's not the only one who's seen them. They've already gone out via e-mail to the paper she works for and several other inpiduals. If I could've contained this by scrubbing her, I would have. Unfortunately, it's bigger than that, my friend."

Gideon was quiet for a long moment, no doubt calculating the endless ramifications of Rio's fuckup, even though he was too much of a diplomat to list them off. "First thing we need to do is get you out of there and somewhere secure. The woman too. Think you can hold her until I can arrange a pickup?"

"Anything you say. This is my mess, I'm sure as hell going to do whatever I need to in order to clean it up."

Rio heard the vague clatter of a keyboard in the background. "I'm contacting Andreas Reichen in Berlin." There was a few seconds' pause, then Gideon started talking on another phone line back in Boston. He came back to Rio in no time. "I've got pickup for you and transport to Reichen's Darkhaven, but it might take up to an hour for his contact to reach you."

"That's no problem."

"Confirming now," Gideon replied, deftly handling the logistics like hauling Rio's ass out of trouble was nothing but cake. "Okay, you're all set. I'll call again when the transport is in place."

"I'll be ready. Hey, Gideon...thank you."

"No problem at all. Good to have you back, Rio. We need you, man. Things don't feel right around here without you."

"I'll report in from Berlin," he said, thinking that now probably wasn't the time to tell Gideon that he wasn't coming back into the fold.

His date with death had been postponed, but as soon as he had this current situation under control, he was checking out for good.

Chapter Seven

Dylan sat quietly on the bed and watched as the dark stranger confiscated her computer and camera, then rifled through the rest of her belongings. She had little choice but to stay out of his way. Her slightest movement drew his attention every time, and after the mind-boggling, warp-speed maneuver he'd pulled when he blocked her from reaching the hotel room door, she hadn't found the nerve to attempt another escape.

She had no idea what to think of him.

He was dangerous, no question. Probably deadly when he wanted to be, although she didn't think murder was foremost on his mind at the moment. If he wanted to harm her, he'd had plenty of opportunity already. Like when she'd been trapped underneath him on the floor, very attuned to the fact that she'd had more than two hundred pounds of hard, muscular male on top of her and little to no hope of throwing him off. He could have wrapped those big hands around her throat and strangled her, right there on her hotel room floor.

But he hadn't.

He hadn't acted on the other impulse that had so obviously occurred to him either. Dylan hadn't missed the way he'd looked at her, his eyes fixed intensely on her mouth. The very male response of his body as he'd straddled her had been swift, unmistakable, yet he hadn't laid a finger on her. In fact, he'd seemed about as alarmed by his arousal as she'd been. So, he apparently wasn't a cold-blooded psychopath or a rapist, regardless of the fact he'd stalked her all the way from Jicin to Prague.

So, what did that make him?

He moved too fast, was far too precise and agile, to be some kind of crazed survivalist or a garden variety vagrant. No, he wasn't either of those things. He might be filthy and ragged, one side of his face scarred from some horrific event she could only speculate on, but underneath all the grime he was something...else.

This man, whoever he truly was, was huge and strong, and dangerously alert. His keen eyes and ears missed nothing. His senses seemed to be tuned to a higher frequency than was humanly possible. Even if he was half insane, he carried himself like he was well aware of his own power and knew just how to use it.

"Are you military or something?" she asked, guessing aloud. "You talk like you could be. Act like it too. What are you, some kind of special forces? Ex-military, maybe. What were you doing on that mountain near Jicin?"

He shot her a glare as he stuffed her computer and camera back into her messenger bag, but he didn't answer.

"You know, you might as well fill me in on some of what's going on. I'm a journalist" - well, admittedly, that was a bit of a stretch - "but I am a reasonable person. If those pictures are sensitive or classified or a matter of national security, just say so. Why are you so concerned about people seeing what was in that cave?"

"You ask too many questions."

She shrugged. "Sorry. Hazard of the job, I guess."

"That's not the only hazard of your job," he said, slanting her a look of dark warning. "The less you know about this, the better."

"You mean, about the 'hibernation chamber'?" He stiffened visibly, but Dylan kept going. "That's what you called it, right? That's what you told your friend Gideon. Some kind of shit is about to hit the fan because I took pictures of this hibernation chamber thingy and the, uh, 'glyphs' as you called them."

"Jesus Christ," he hissed. "You shouldn't have been listening to any of that."

"It was kind of hard not to. When you're being held against your will and pretty damn certain you're going to be killed, you tend to pay attention."

"You're not going to be killed."

His cold, matter-of-fact tone wasn't exactly reassuring. "Sounded to me like you thought about it, though. Unless 'scrubbing' someone means something different to you than it does to everyone else who's ever seen a mafia movie."

He scoffed, giving a curt shake of his head.

"What was in that cave?"

"Forget it."

Not likely. Not when he seemed so protective of the information. As in, do-or-die protective. "What do all those weird symbols on the walls mean? Is it some kind of ancient language? Some kind of code? Just what are you so desperate to hide?"

He came at her so fast, she didn't even see him move. She blinked and suddenly he was bearing down on her, the broad bulk of his body towering over her, making her shrink back on the bed.

"Listen to me and hear me well, Dylan Alexander," he said tightly. The sound of her name rolling off his lips was jarring in its intimacy. "This is not a game. It's not a puzzle for you to piece together. And it sure as hell isn't a story that I'm going to permit you to tell. So do us both a favor and stop asking questions about something that doesn't concern you."

His eyes were livid, the topaz color of them flashing with anger. It was that hot, penetrating gaze that scared her the most - even more than the threat of his coiled strength or the terrible scars that stretched across the left side of his face and made him look so frightening.

But he was wrong when he said that the cave and whatever secrets it might contain did not concern her. She was personally invested in the story, and not just because it was beginning to feel like the kind of story that would not only save her so-called career, but quite possibly make it.

Dylan's interest in the cave and its strange wall art had gotten very personal from the moment she noticed the teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol that identically matched the birthmark she had on the back of her neck.

She considered that bizarre coincidence as the hotel phone began to ring. Her uninvited guest picked it up and carried on a short, confidential exchange. He hung up, slung her messenger bag over his shoulder then went over to grab the backpack containing the rest of her belongings. He took her pocketbook off the nightstand and tossed it to her.

"That's our ride," he said as she caught the small handbag. "Time to go."

"What do you mean, our ride?"

"We're leaving, right now."

A wave of dread roared up on her, but she tried to maintain a brave front. "Forget it. You really are crazy if you think I'm going anywhere with you."

"You don't have a choice."

He came toward her, and Dylan knew that she stood little chance of overpowering him or outrunning him. Not when she had to navigate three floors of the hotel in order to get away from him. But she could sure as hell scream for help - and would, the very second he dragged her into the hotel lobby.

Except he didn't bring her into the very public lobby so she could make her escape.

He didn't even open the door that led out into the hallway outside her room.

With that same speed and strength she couldn't help but be amazed by, he grabbed her at the wrist and pulled her to the window that overlooked a side street several dizzying yards below. He threw open the glass and climbed out onto the fire escape, still holding fast to her arm as he started to haul her outside with him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dylan dug in her heels, her eyes wide with fear. "Are you insane? You're going to break both our necks if you - "

He didn't give her a chance to finish the thought, let alone speak it.

Before Dylan realized what was happening, she was lifted out the window and over the solid bulk of his shoulder. She heard his boots clanking on the rattling iron of the fire escape. Then she felt her whole world shift as he incredibly - impossibly - vaulted over the railing with her.

They hit the dark pavement three stories below.

It wasn't the bone-breaking crash she anticipated, but a soft, almost graceful connection between his feet and the ground. She was still trying to process how that could be when suddenly she was pushed into the back of an open delivery truck that idled near the place they'd touched down.