Hammer Down: Children of the Undying: Book 2 Read Free Page A

Zel dragged his tablet out of his pocket and brought up the display. Concentrating on the glowing screen made it easier to ignore the way the sloping concrete walls seemed to close in on him as he walked. Fifty years ago, his office had been a security hub, a windowless, claustrophobic room buried in an underground maze. Fifty years before that, it had been dirt, the ground on which one of the country’s top hospitals stood.
    A hundred years ago a lot had been different.
    As he shoved through the double doors that led to the wider corridor, his tablet beeped, indicating a connection. “Lorenzo, you better be wearing pants, because we’re about to go topside.”
    There was no answer for a few moments, and Lorenzo laughed. “Okay, now I am.” He sounded a little winded, and a woman giggled in the background. “What’s going on, Zel?”
    “The truckers out of Nicollet freaked out in the middle of our meeting, started wiggling their fingers at each other in some sort of secret code and dropped out of the network.”
    “Hmm. If I believed in omens, I think I’d be concerned right about now.”
    “Unless you want me sending the people whose relatives are on that truck after you, I suggest you and your newfound concern meet me in the weapons locker.”
    A door chime echoed over the connection, and Lorenzo sighed. “I’m already on my way. We heading out to find them?”
    Zel reached the concrete stairs and took them two at a time. “She said they were two hours out, but I’m guessing she meant to get there early so she’d have a chance to scout. Trip’s tracking down their exact coordinates now.”
    “And she didn’t say what was happening?”
    “She didn’t seem the trusting type.”
    “Then what makes you think she won’t shoot us on sight if we show up, all in her business?”
    He’d gotten the distinct impression that Devi never shot without considering her actions and making a reasonable business decision…and if he admitted as much to Lorenzo, he’d have two jackasses ragging on him. “Good point. I’ll send you in first.”
    “As long as she’s got eyes, we should be reasonably safe, then.”
    The thought of Devi laying those big blue eyes on Lorenzo and liking what she saw brought jealousy to a low boil. Zel’s demon heritage afforded him an array of skills suited to killing, whereas Lorenzo’s demonic parentage had given him the preternatural ability to seduce damn near anyone. His friend’s cocky assertion was more fact than ego, and Zel didn’t like it.
    But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use it—or at least redirect it. “Forget about the leader. If you feel like charming someone, see if you can sweet-talk their techie into spilling some dirt. Trip said she’s got a black-market chip.”
    “You’re no fun.” The transmission cut out, and Lorenzo joined him as he rounded the corner. “Have I told you that lately? How you’ve lost every single bit of personality you used to have?”
    “Depends on your definition of lately.” Zel tucked his tablet back into his pocket as they bypassed a group of sleepy-looking women herding their toddlers toward the nursery. A little boy with corkscrew curls and eyes like cut emeralds broke free of his mother and charged at them on stocky legs, arms wide open and face full of glee.
    He pounced on Lorenzo, who swept the boy up and over his shoulder. “Oh, I caught him. That’s a good thirty pounds of kid, Zel. What do we do with him?”
    Zel’s joking retort died on his tongue as silence swept through the hallway. Too many eyes watched him, some set in faces made old from stress and some heartbreakingly young—and not just the kids. The little boy’s mother was barely more than a girl herself. Only a few years older than Zel’s niece, yet Kaya’s hand curled around the swell of another pregnancy and the green eyes she’d passed onto her son looked hard in her young face.
    So many fragile lives, all his responsibility now. And Lorenzo