Nightfall: The Unnaturals Series, #4

By Jessica Meigs

Ashton Miller is one of the best covert operatives in the United States' employ.

 

Zachariah Lawrence is a newer field agent out to impress his superiors and earn a promotion.

 

When the two men are assigned to work together, Ashton is less than thrilled. The last thing he wants to do is oversee a rookie, especially one as stubborn and reckless as Zachariah.

 

But when Zachariah goes missing on an undercover assignment in Bolivia and is written off as a lost asset, Ashton is compelled to go on an unauthorized one-man mission to rescue him from the clutches of Nathan Chambers, an arms dealer and drug lord who leaves a trail of bodies wherever he goes.

 

There's a reason why Chambers is so dangerous, and the two men find out why when they end up on the wrong side of supernatural creatures they never knew existed. And now, the wolves are out for their blood.

 

This book takes place prior to the first book in the series, The Unnaturals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Meigs
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393661092

Book preview

Prologue

Damon Hartley was in deep shit.

The thought crossed his mind as he sat in his leather desk chair, staring at a handwritten note that had been slipped under the front door of his modest, two-story D.C. home. It had been a long time since he’d felt the delicious burn of sheer terror in his gut, a feeling that only served to amp up his adrenaline levels as if he were facing down a vicious attacker and not just sitting in his home office, staring at the hurried scribble from Tobias Ismay, his deputy director at a government group known only as the Agency. His nerves felt like they were vibrating under his skin, and he could swear there was a curious buzzing in his ears.

He read the note again, still not quite comprehending what it said.

"Nathan Chambers spotted in D.C.

Meet with me, The Grindhouse, 11pm.

—T.I."

Son of a bitch, Damon murmured. He set the note on his desk, carefully centering it on his otherwise empty desktop, then sat back in his chair, letting it rock back on its hydraulics, and rubbed a hand over his mouth.

Whenever the Chambers family got involved in anything, people around them tended to die, usually in incredibly brutal, messy ways. Damon had been after the leader of the Chambers pack, Nathan, for five years now, had crossed paths with him multiple times, and every time they’d had a run-in, Nathan had walked away and Damon had barely crawled.

His trigger finger itched to put a bullet in Chambers’ skull.

Damon pushed the sleeve of his suit jacket back to check his watch, a pricey gold designer piece that he hated, but it helped him maintain appearances as a run-of-the-mill successful businessman. It was already a quarter after ten. The Grindhouse was thirty minutes away; if he expected to make it to his meeting with Ismay on time, he was going to have to get moving.

Thirty-two minutes later, Damon parked his sedan in a space at the Agency’s headquarters building. The coffeehouse sat at a corner across the street and was a popular meeting place for Agency higher-ups that needed a few minutes away from the building’s potentially bugged interior. He made sure his car was locked then crossed the parking lot to the edge of the street. He could see Tobias already sitting in the coffeehouse, swirling a coffee stirrer through liquid in a paper cup with his left hand, his cell phone in his right. He hesitated at the curb before shaking his head and crossing the street.

The Grindhouse smelled heavenly, a mixture of cinnamon and coffee and mocha and every other delicious scent that tweaked the pleasure receptors in Damon’s brain. Before going to Tobias’s table, he stepped up to the counter and put in an order for a mocha latte heavy on the espresso. As they made his drink, he wandered to the table with as much casualness as he could muster, sliding into an empty chair with a smile, as if he were just there to meet up with a friend.

Tobias looked up from his phone and returned the smile, tucking the device into the breast pocket of his coat before leaning forward. Damon, so good to see you, he greeted, and Damon remembered it’d been a few days since they’d had the opportunity to talk. I take it you got my note.

Would I be here if I hadn’t? Damon countered.

Immediate thoughts?

How are you so certain that Chambers is here in D.C.? he asked.

Tobias waited until the barista brought Damon his coffee before answering. One of my people saw Nathan here in D.C. this afternoon.

Is he sure it was actually Chambers and not someone who just looked like him? Damon asked. He picked up his coffee and gently blew across it before taking a sip. Perfect.

It was Chambers, Tobias said. He was sure of it.

You got anything to back any of this up?

I thought you’d never ask. Tobias took a gulp out of his coffee cup and leaned over, opening the bag beside his chair and pulling out a file folder. He set it on the table between them, as if he were offering up a sacrifice to the covert operative gods, then flipped the cover open. I started doing some digging, checking police reports for things that might not normally roll in through the Agency’s typical channels. A little poking around and I found these. He offered Damon two summary reports from a police investigation.

Damon glanced at the dates on the forms; one was dated three days ago, the other two. Skimming the text quickly, he discovered they were murder reports, the crime scenes located within five blocks of each other. So two dead bodies were found in D.C., he said. That isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

It is when both of the bodies were not only ravaged, but their hearts were missing, Tobias said.

His blood felt like it ran cold in his veins at that revelation. Are you sure?

The M.E. reports say the same thing, he said. The hearts were missing. He paused as Damon stared at the reports, his adrenaline fading into chills, and added, You know what that means. You know what we’re dealing with. You, of all people.

I know, he said quietly. I just don’t have a plan in place for it yet.

I have a suggestion or two, Tobias said. He gathered the folder and packed it into his bag before removing a second folder and offering it to Damon wordlessly.

Damon flipped it open, propped it against his left hand, and read the sheet inside. He took a swig of his coffee and raised his eyebrows. This could be doable, he said. It’s certainly…unexpected.

I thought you’d like that, Tobias said. You seem to be a fan of the unexpected.

We’ll have to manipulate it to look like an accident, though, he added. If they suspect that we set them up to meet intentionally just to get them in line to deal with this problem of ours…

"They’d probably try to kill us," Tobias half joked.

No ‘probably’ about it, he said. Ashton is…willful, to say the least. He has very firm ideas about how the Agency works and how closely he’s meant to stick to the rules. I think he’d benefit from a little mental shake-up.

And the other one?

He could benefit from the additional training he’s bound to get under Ashton’s supervision, Damon said.

And once they’re indoctrinated, we could sure use the help, Tobias admitted. All of this is starting to get ahead of the four of us. We’re getting too old for this shit.

Indeed, we are. Damon took the paper out of the folder, carefully creased it into a small square, and stuck it in his pocket. I’ll get started on this tonight. We have a lot of planning to do before we can get everything in place to our benefit.

One

Zachariah Lawrence was kneeling on the rooftop of an office building in Prague, a sniper’s rifle in his hands, gazing through the scope mounted on the top at the building across the street, when he first saw Ashton Miller. It took him several seconds to realize what he was looking at as he studied the darkened, window-lined hallway that stretched across the entirety of the apartment’s outer perimeter: a form slinking down the hallway, pressed close to the wall to stay in the shadows. He wrinkled his nose and adjusted the focus on his scope, trying to get a better look at the figure.

It was male; that Zachariah could discern easily, despite the black mask covering the figure’s face. He held a pistol in his right hand—Zachariah couldn’t make out what kind, even through the scope—with the distinctive shape of a suppressor attached to the end of the barrel. Other than the pistol, the man wore nothing identifiable: tight shirt, paramilitary-style utility pants, combat boots, tactical vest, gloves, mask, all plain black.

But the way he moved? It was incredible. Zachariah had worked for the Agency for only four years, and he’d never seen anyone move so smoothly and gracefully and, presumably, silently as the man inside the apartment he watched. He was clearly trained, well trained if the way he moved was any indicator, and he headed straight toward the door at the end of the hall, right for the bedroom of the arms dealer Zachariah had been sent to kill.

Shit, he hissed as he realized the man had been sent after the same target as he’d been. If he didn’t successfully complete this assignment, he wouldn’t get his two-million-dollar payday—or the promotion to level four field agent that he’d been promised. His scowl deepened, and he swept the rifle away from the unknown intruder and back to his target.

The target—Donald Tesla, an American arms dealer who’d spent several years selling weapons to terrorists killing American soldiers in the Middle East—was in bed, still fucking the blond-haired mistress that Zachariah’s research had said he’d been with for nearly a year. He rolled his eyes. Tesla had been ramming the girl for nearly an hour—a surprising amount of stamina that was probably chemically enhanced—and even the woman looked bored with his unrelenting performance. Zachariah had been waiting for her to leave; he never liked dealing with witnesses when taking down a target, even if said witness had been complicit in the crimes of the main objective. With the stealthy advance of the unknown man in the hallway, though, his hesitation would cost him dearly. The man was going to beat him to his goal, unless he sucked it up and made his move.

Shit, Zachariah breathed out. He slid lower, flattening himself on the rooftop, and took careful aim with his rifle. Drawing in a slow breath to steady his nerves, he squeezed the trigger.

Tesla’s slender blond mistress went suddenly limp against the bed. Tesla grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her; she flopped on the bed, her muscles slack with death. He released her and started yelling, looking around wildly, searching for the source of the shot. Zachariah took aim.

Before he could squeeze the trigger, Tesla rolled off the bed and tumbled out of sight.

Zachariah couldn’t contain his anger. "Son of a bitch," he snarled, jerking his head back from the scope to glare at the building. He was going to lose his money—which meant no nice new house he’d planned to purchase for his parents and update with the latest security features so they’d have a nicer place to live. The other assassin had sped up, was gaining fast ground on the bedroom door, presumably thanks to the noise Tesla had made when Zachariah had shot the woman.

He was going to lose his house to a son of a bitch who wasn’t even supposed to be there.

He swung his am to the man presently picking open Tesla’s bedroom door. Almost blinded by his anger, he fired two shots at the black-clad intruder in rapid succession. Both of them missed, embedding into the wall just above the man’s head. Sloppy, sloppy, he cursed himself.

He swore out loud when the masked man, seemingly unfazed by the shots he’d just fired, gained entry into the bedroom and circled the bed, aiming his pistol toward the floor. He couldn’t hear the gunfire, but he could see the rhythm of the man’s arm as it jerked with the kickback of each shot, once, twice, three times. Then he turned and looked in Zachariah’s direction.

Zachariah had the unsettled feeling that the man was looking right at him.

As he tried to decide what to do—the money was lost, the mission a failure, and his dreams of buying his parents a house now a puff in the wind—the man raised his hand in a solitary salute and seemed to melt away, slipping back into the shadows where Zachariah could no longer see him through his scope.

Zachariah scowled, and his previous anger flamed up once again. He rocked back against his heels and broke down his rifle with a rapidity long practiced and almost reflexive at this point. Once the rifle had been disassembled and the parts slipped into their appropriate pockets of the rifle’s soft leather case, he folded it closed, buckled it, and shoved it into his backpack. After policing his brass, he was on his feet, his boots pounding against the roof as he sprinted back to the fire escape ladder he’d used to ascend to his perch. The top of the ladder arched out over the top of the building providing handholds for those utilizing the ladder. Zachariah grabbed one and swung himself around, grasping the ladder and planting his boots on either side of the metal. Then he descended the ladder, sliding down with only his hands to keep his speed steady, plummeting five stories to the sidewalk below.

As his boots struck the concrete, Zachariah immediately headed for the building across the street, hoping to intercept the bastard that had ruined his plans so easily. After a quick scan of his surroundings, he slipped into the narrow alley that ran between the target’s building and its neighbor. It was almost pitch black in the space, and he could barely make out anything ahead of him as his eyes adjusted. But he’d staked the alley out before, and he knew where the fire escape ladder was. It was just a matter of getting to it and climbing the ladder to the appropriate floor. Then he’d track down the intruder and take care of him before figuring out if anything was salvageable enough to extract at least a partial payment from the Agency.

Before he located the fire escape ladder, though, the bright blue flash of an LED light struck him in the eyes. He staggered backward, blinded, and threw a hand up to shield his eyes, even as he reached for the pistol holstered on his thigh. Just as his fingers closed around the grip and he started to pull it free, something slammed into his solar plexus hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and send him reeling. As he tumbled to the pavement, he had the presence of mind to lash out with a foot, catching his attacker behind the knee and spilling him to the ground in retaliation. The flashlight tumbled to the ground, spinning several feet away, the light strobing before coming to a stop.

Zachariah rolled sideways, coming up onto a knee and freeing his pistol from its holster, only to have it promptly kicked from his grasp. He grimaced and went for another weapon but halted the action in favor of grabbing the pistol that had been shoved in his face. Curling his fingers around the barrel, he twisted, wrenching it free from his attacker’s grasp.

His attacker promptly kicked that one out of his hand, too. It clattered across the pavement in the direction of the dumpster and disappeared from sight.

Zachariah was clearly outmatched, and he knew it. That didn’t stop him from grabbing for the pistol at the back of his belt, just underneath the low-profile backpack he wore.

His attacker seemed to think better of letting him do so. He slammed a fist into Zachariah’s jaw, sending him sprawling sideways onto the pavement. He caught himself on one hand, skinning his palm, but before he could recover, the other man was on him, shoving him backward onto the pavement and straddling him. Zachariah tried to buck him off, even as he pulled free the knife on his belt, practically ripping it free of its sheath. He lifted it, going for the man’s throat, as the man went for his.

And then they were at a standstill, identical black-bladed knives pressed against each other’s throats. The man had his free hand braced against Zachariah’s chest, his blade pressed to his throat. Zachariah, in turn, had his own free hand shoved against the man’s shoulder, holding him at bay as he rested his own knife against the man’s skin. He struggled to ignore the painful lump under his back from the sniper rifle inside his backpack and scowled at the man on top of him.

All he could see was the man’s eyes: ice cold blue and fringed by thick black lashes. The little skin he could see indicated the man was pale, Caucasian, and maybe around Zachariah’s age, judging by the lack of creases around his eyes.

Who the fuck are you? Zachariah snarled, remaining as still as he could so as not to tempt fate or the man’s hand into slipping.

I could ask you the same question. The man’s voice was low, muffled a little by the cloth he’d tied around the lower half of his face. There was no easily identifiable accent to his voice, either, so Zachariah couldn’t use that to place where he was from. What are you doing here interfering with my assignment?

"Your assignment? Zachariah repeated. It’s mine, asshole." Then, not waiting for the man to utter a retort, he brought his leg up sharply, slamming it into the other man’s groin. The man grunted, and the impact of Zachariah’s leg threw him off balance enough that he was able to shove him off and scramble to his feet. He turned to look at the man, who was trying to get to his own feet, hunched over a bit from the solid kick that he’d delivered.

Zachariah wavered momentarily as he watched the man recover. He had two options: he could kill the man and get out of there, or he could just get out of there. The second option looked far more appealing than the first; the man was clearly better trained than he was. He didn’t know who the man worked for, but he probably didn’t stand a real chance against him. Still gripping his knife, he took a step back, ready to turn around and run.

The man looked up at him then, his bright blue eyes narrowing, and he lifted a small, compact pistol and aimed it right at Zachariah.

Aw, fuck, Zachariah said, right before the man squeezed the trigger.

The bullet struck him in the right bicep and sent him staggering backward, eyes watering in pain. That was enough to make up his mind for him. Clapping a hand over the wound in his bicep, he whirled on his heel and sprinted down the street, intending to get away from the man and his gun as quickly as possible.

---

Ashton Miller lowered his pistol as he watched the unknown man race into the darkness, running full tilt toward where he’d been holed up since entering Prague. He knew exactly where the man had been staying: a hotel in a somewhat dingy neighborhood whose residents wouldn’t think twice if he showed up with blood on his clothes. He’d taken out a room at a similar place himself to use as his base of operations; it wouldn’t do to get a room at a five-star hotel and draw unnecessary attention to himself by walking through the lobby in his work clothes.

Ashton had arrived in Prague only three days before and had gotten busy with his job immediately. It had taken him only a handful of hours to suss out the fact that there was someone else on the same job he’d been on. He’d been in the process of trailing his target, trying to establish his most recent habits and patterns, searching for gaps in his security, looking for weak spots to exploit, when he’d spotted another man who appeared to be doing the same thing. At first, Ashton had thought nothing of him; walking down any given street in Prague were dozens of young men just like him, dressed in jeans and vintage band t-shirts, distracted by their cell phones even while they deftly dodged around each other, barely acknowledging others’ presences—though maybe not quite so many as attractive as this one.

If he hadn’t seen the man again only a few hours later, several streets away outside of a restaurant his target had gone into, he’d never have thought of him again. But there he’d been, strolling down the street casually, a phone in his hand and headphones in his ears. Something about the man’s mannerisms had made Ashton suspect that he wasn’t actually listening to music and wasn’t just a random passerby. Since then, he’d started tracking the man, spotting him in the most unexpected places, obviously following either Ashton or his target—or maybe even both.

Ashton hadn’t been surprised to spot the man on the roof across the street, barely noticeable unless one knew where to look—and Ashton was well trained enough to know where to look. He didn’t get to where he was today by ignoring seeming coincidences.

He tore his eyes away from the place where the man had stood and looked around the narrow alley where they’d fought. Retrieving his flashlight from where it’d fallen during the scuffle, he shined it across the pavement, searching for any evidence left behind. It took him a moment to gather up the weapons that were scattered across the ground, and once he’d figured out which were his and which belonged to the other man, he tucked them away, turned his flashlight on, and started out of the alley, already making plans for his next step.

He only hoped that next step involved ice for his groin, because damn, that other man could kick like a mule.

Two

The second time Zachariah saw Ashton Miller, it was in his hotel room. It had taken him over an hour to get back to the hotel he’d reserved a room at, following a meandering path to try to mask the way to his base of operations, even as blood oozed over his skin to soak his sleeve and seeped through his fingers to drip onto the sidewalk. By the time he’d slipped through a service entrance of the small, dingy hotel he was staying in, he was beginning to feel mildly queasy with loss of blood, and his head hurt enough that it made him dizzy. He dug the little gold key from his pocket and managed to shove it in his room’s lock, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, bolting it shut before slumping against it.

The room was dark and cool, the air conditioner humming gently from where it was positioned underneath the windows. The air felt soothing against his overheated face, and he closed his eyes, breathing in deeply as he tried to focus past the pain in his arm and figure out what he needed to do next. When he’d first arrived in Prague, he’d dumped his bag on the bed before promptly leaving. He’d only been back once to retrieve his sniper rifle, hidden in pieces among the folds of his clothing. He remembered the first aid kit he’d stuffed inside his suitcase at the last minute. He was definitely going to need it tonight.

He crossed the room to the table by the bed and fumbled for the lamp’s switch. The light flared on, illuminating the room in a pale yellow gleam. He sighed and tugged the band out of his hair, letting the dark locks fall free for the first time in two days. Then he ripped the Velcro on his vest loose, dropped the garment onto the bed, and tugged off his shirt, biting back a grunt of pain at the fresh agony that rolled through his bicep. There was a neat hole punched into the muscle, still oozing blood but not as badly as it had been when he’d first gotten shot. Moving his arm sent a sharp sting of pain through his bicep, but ultimately, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t tolerate. Thankfully, it looked to be mostly a flesh wound, or so prodding at it indicated; there didn’t seem to be any damage to the bone. He turned to pull his suitcase toward him, intending to dig out the first aid kit and tend to the wound, but movement in the shadows made him freeze in mid-reach.

The movement in the corner coalesced into the familiar figure of a man, the same one he’d fought with in the alley outside of Tesla’s home. This time, though, he wasn’t wearing a mask, and his face was clearly visible in the mellow lamplight. He was handsomer than Zachariah expected, probably one of the best-looking men he’d ever laid eyes on, far better looking than most he’d seen around the Agency; he was enough so that Zachariah wondered how in the world he’d been recruited—the Agency didn’t like it when their agents were too attractive, because they then drew too much attention. The man’s hair was dark, almost as dark as Zachariah’s, and his skin was pale, smooth, and unblemished. He still wore the same clothes he’d worn in the alley, and his hand clutched a pistol, though it wasn’t aimed at him.

What the fuck are you doing in my room? Zachariah asked, though there wasn’t any real animosity in his words. He was too tired and his arm ached too much for him to put any energy into being angry at the intrusion.

You’re an American, the man said, his voice as low and as curiously accent-less as it’d been in the alley an hour before. His eyes flickered to Zachariah’s arm before returning to his face. Zachariah could feel a trickle of blood oozing down his arm toward his elbow. He ignored it and kept his own eyes on the figure that stood on the other side of the bed.

That’s very observant of you, he said. What gave it away?

The way you said ‘asshole’ back there, the man said, sounding almost awkward as he repeated the swear. Sounds like you’re from the south, if I had to take a guess. Maybe…Texas?

Maybe, he hedged. He wasn’t willing to divulge much of anything to this man; he didn’t know who he was,