In less than a blink he was back in her face, looming over her with nostrils flaring, eyes blazing. "Goddamn it, I'm not going to hurt you."
She didn't dare believe him. Nor did she wait to find out if she could. The instant she felt his fingers come to rest on her arm, she pulled back her other one and let her fist fly - connecting with a bone-jarring crack on the underside of his jaw.
To her complete amazement, he went down with the impact. His harsh curse as he staggered onto his knees rattled the broken glass of the crudely barred window behind them.
Tavia didn't hang around to go another round with him. As he tried to shake off the blow, she leapt around him. She tore out of the bedroom and through the large brownstone, across the inlaid marble foyer and out the front door to the morning bustle of the Back Bay residential area. She heard him bellow behind her, but only dared a fleeting glance in his direction as her feet flew over the snow-dusted sidewalk. He stood in the open doorway, his arm raised up to shield his eyes.
He stayed there, hanging back, watching her from within the shadowed shelter as she dashed into the street and frantically hailed a passing taxi. The yellow cab slowed to a halt and she climbed in, giving the driver her address in a breathless rush.
The car lurched back into traffic, belching a cloud of opaque steam and exhaust that billowed up like a veil, blotting out the brownstone and the man Tavia hoped to never see again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SENATOR BOBBY CLARENCE had been a good Catholic apparently, but an even better politician. The church he'd shrewdly joined fresh off the bus from Bangor as a first-year law student at Harvard was only the largest, most prestigious in Boston. Some fifty years ago, this same church had mourned a parishioner who was more famously a beloved fallen human president, a fact that Dragos guessed had played a role in the ambitious young Clarence's decision to join its flock. Although the bachelor senator had no immediate family, outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross that cold early afternoon, police were directing traffic to accommodate the crowd of funeral attendees waiting to get one of the two thousand seats at his service. The line of mourners stretched from the pair of red double doors at the entrance, out to the bricked sidewalk and around the large corner lot on which the massive neo-Gothic cathedral sat.
Dragos sat inside his idling, chauffeured sedan about a block down the street, impatient for the service to begin. He was risking a great deal, venturing out during daylight hours. Even with the precautions he'd taken - UV-blocking wraparound sunglasses, a brimmed hat made of dense, boiled wool, and a generous length of knit scarf to shield his neck and head - his nearly pure Breed genes were a liability here. Being second generation of his kind, he could withstand less than a half hour in direct sunlight before his solarsensitive skin began to cook.
But some risks were to be expected.
Some things, he supposed, were worth a little pain.
He'd endured his share already, thanks to the Order. The killing of his Minion senator so soon after Dragos had turned him had been inconvenient to say the least. It still grated to have lost the human before his full potential could have been realized. But then again, Dragos's plans wouldn't have waited the handful of years it might have taken Bobby Clarence's political star to complete its natural, some might say inevitable, ascent to the White House.
Dragos certainly had intended to help clear the way by any means necessary.
But f**k that. Bobby Clarence would soon be dust, and Dragos had better options to pursue.
Assuming those options played into his hands as he expected.
"What time do you have?" Dragos asked his Minion driver for what hadn't been the first time.
"Ten minutes before two, Master."
Dragos hissed a curse against the dark-tinted glass of his backseat window. "He's late. The service will be starting soon. Any sign of a Secret Service motorcade up ahead? Any federal vehicles anywhere at all yet?"
"No, Master. Shall I drive around the cathedral to have a better look?"
Dragos dismissed the suggestion with a curt wave of his gloved hand. "Forget it. He may already be inside. I need to go in before it gets any later. Drive toward the rear of the place, away from all the commotion and prying eyes. I'll find a way in through the back."
"Of course, Master."
The Minion eased the sedan around the corner to inspect the perimeter of the cathedral. As Dragos had hoped, there was an unimportant little nook that provided service and staff access to the monstrous building. The waist-high wrought-iron gate stood open, nothing but a couple of small Dumpsters and a parked car sitting on the poorly patched asphalt. Two red doors provided a couple of choices in terms of entry.
"Over there." Dragos pointed to the one farthest back, where the afternoon shadows and a peaked eave provided a pocket of shade amid the glare of the afternoon sun. The Minion brought him in front of the door. Organ music vibrated from all around the building, a holy place unaware it was about to usher in the launch of Dragos's unholy war. He stepped out of the car. "Wait at the curb until I summon you. This shouldn't take long."
The Minion gave him an obedient nod. "Yes, Master."
TAVIA RACED INTO THE HOUSE, leaving Aunt Sarah out at the curb taking care of the cab fare, since her own money - like her medicine - was left behind in her pocketbook the other night at the hotel. She felt on the verge of relieved collapse as the familiarity of home greeted her. All of Aunt Sarah's soft, ruffle-edged furniture and assorted knickknacks on every available surface, the very things that had long ago begun to make Tavia yearn for a place of her own, with her own belongings arranged to her own taste, now felt as comfortable and welcome as the cocooning warmth of a fleece blanket.