Only then did I push him upward and let him breathe air rather than water.
He took several long, shuddering gasps, then somehow said, “Bitch.”
“Totally. And right now, you’re relying on this bitch to survive.”
He shuddered and wiped a hand across his red, splotchy features. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the security at Drumnadrochit.”
“It’s been upgraded since your escape. A bird can’t fart now without security knowing about it.”
“What about the loch?”
“Sensors along the shoreline.”
“The whole shoreline?”
He hesitated. “Most of it.”
He was lying. The loch was too big, too wild, for such thoroughness. They’d probably only done the area near my mother’s lands. “Infrared sensors?”
He nodded. “And movement sensors.”
“What about the security codes—do you know them?”
“It’s all handprint-coded now. Everyone working there is registered with the computer. No one else gets in without clearance from the big man himself.”
Which meant we’d been doing nothing but wasting time here in Florence. Even if we’d managed to raid the old lady’s house successfully, it wouldn’t have mattered a damn. We couldn’t slide in a new password because Marsten would have final approval, and we couldn’t use someone else’s because of the whole handprint deal.
God, we should have figured something like this would happen, but I guess Egan and I had been working blind. We weren’t security experts—even if Egan had trained in the family “business” of stealing. Security equipment had probably zoomed ahead in leaps and bounds in the ten years he’d been locked up.
“So the security net around the research center is tight? There are no gaps anywhere at all in the system?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
Crap. Of course, he could be lying his pants off, but part of me doubted it. Fear lurked in his eyes, and I really didn’t think his loyalty to the scientists ran that deep. “Tell me how you’ve been finding us so successfully.”
“Tracker.”
“Where?”
He hesitated, then said, somewhat reluctantly, “In your foot.”
“Which we pulled out last night and destroyed. So how did you find us at the hotel?”
“Luck,” he muttered.
But his eyes did a shifty little sideways flicker, telling me he was lying. Or at least, not admitting the entire truth. “I know there’s another tracker, so just tell me where.”
He didn’t say anything. I raised my fingers, entangling the full power of the ocean once again, letting it tug lightly at his feet and twist him around. Fear flashed across his sullen features.
“Okay, okay, there is another one.”
“Where?”
“In your mouth, in one of the fillings. It’s short-range microchip.”
Oh, just great. And here was me with no time and no cash to visit a dentist. Though how on earth would I explain having a tracker in my mouth? “Which tooth?”
He just smiled. “Take me back to the shore and I’ll tell you.”
“Yeah, right.” If I took him back to shore, he’d either immediately create a fuss that’d attract unwanted attention, or one of the idiots who’d been in the car with him would take a second shot at me. And this time, they might not just get a shoulder.
“You need to get help for that shoulder, you know,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll bleed to death.”
“The sea will heal it.”
He snorted. “Yeah. The sea is all powerful, all healing. That’s why I was able to catch you so easily the first time.”
The sea had nothing to do with that because I was near the loch rather than the ocean. Besides, he’d caught me so easily because I was a fool. I’d naively believed him when he said he could get me inside the research center and help me rescue my mom.
Of course, he’d kept half his word. He’d gotten me into the compound all right—and led me straight into the trap the scientists had waiting. I’d called the loch for help, but the loch was freshwater, not sea, and while waters as ancient as the loch did contain a powerful energy, it didn’t have the same sort of magic as the sea. Not for me as a half breed, anyway. She’d answered, but nowhere near quick enough. The scientists had knocked me out very quickly, and I doubted they would have even noticed a brief rise of water up the shoreline.
“Tell me the range of the microchip.”
He hesitated, then muttered, “Five hundred feet.”
“That’s not very far.”
“The other one was GPS technology. The tooth was just meant as a backup, and designed mainly for around the lab. If you got out of your cell, it was easier for them to use the short-range stuff than haul out the GPS.”
He was beginning to shiver now, his bottom lip quivering and his skin turning a paler shade. He was treading water rather than simply floating, and therefore using more body heat than necessary. He was also an air dragon, and they didn’t do well in cold conditions. Not for very long periods, anyway.
Distant vibrations of power began to lap at my skin, and the sea began whispering of an approaching powerboat. I looked over my shoulder, scanning the horizon and seeing a distant dot. Maybe someone had seen this man being dragged out.
Which meant the time for a decision was coming. I spread my fingers in the water, calling to the power, letting it play lazily around me.
“What other safety measures have been employed since we got out?”
“I’ve been here, chasing after you, so who knows?”
“How many of you are here in America?”
“Six.”
But again his eyes did that shifty little flick. I raised a hand, let the sea swirl around him a little stronger.
“Okay, okay,” he said quickly. “There’s nine.”
One had been killed in the car explosion, and I’d killed one last night. Trae had gotten rid of two others, so that left five. Four if I got rid of this one. Better odds by far, even if the thought of drowning him had a bitter taste rising in my mouth.
“And who is holding the device that tracks the microchip signal?”
“Take me to shore and I might tell you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe that?”
“Then what do you intend to do?”
“What do you think I intend to do?”
He flung fire at me. This time, I stopped it with the waves. He didn’t say anything, but the fear that had stayed mostly in the background until now was etched all over his face.
The vibrations in the water were becoming stronger. I looked over my shoulder, saw the boat becoming visible on the horizon.
“Hoy!” he shouted, waving his hand wildly. “Over here!”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said mildly, gathering the lazy net of energy.
“If that boat is ours,” he said, “you’re in deep shit. And I intend to make you pay—”
I didn’t wait for the rest of the threat, just flipped underwater and finally unleashed the dragon within.
Energy ran across my limbs—energy that twisted and changed my form, until what floated under the water was long and slender, with scales that ran from the deepest green to the brightest blue. In looks, we were very close to the traditional depictions of Chinese dragons, but there were still some similarities to our winged cousins. The spiked tail and deadly claws, for instance.
With my sea body reclaimed, I unleashed the net of energy I’d been gathering and snagged his legs, dragging him deep down, past the twilight layers and into the dark and gloomy waters that never saw sunshine or surface-dwelling sea life. Down to where the worms, crustaceans, and rattail fish played. Down to where the pressure was beyond even fire dragon endurance and the air in his bloodstream expanded to the point that it blocked the flow of blood to brain and limbs. Death after that was almost instantaneous. If I had to kill, then I would kill quickly. Not that this type of death was in any way easy.
I released the energy of the sea and let his body float away on the current. The rattails would have a good feed for the next few weeks.