The Purest of the Breed (The Community) by Tracy Tappan Read Free Book Online Page B

me this is something good,” he said grimly.
    “Yeah, I’m going after the scuzzbag. Thomal, give me your M16, my weapon’s shot to shit.” Dev hopped to the ground and caught the tossed weapon one-handed. “Gábor, you’re with me.”
    “Hoo-rah.” Gábor jumped off the rear end of the van.
    Sedge turned around, one arm hooked over the back of his seat. “Hell, let me go. I can already taste that guy in my teeth.”
    “I need someone who can see in the dark for this, Sedge, and, um”—Dev’s eyes darted toward Marissa—“and your NVGs are busted. You and Thomal just make sure the women get back to Ţărână safely.”
    “No sweat.”
    “You only have a little over an hour till sunrise,” Thomal said, strangely enough.
    “I got it.”
    Marissa watched Dev turn to go, and her chest clenched. She grasped his forearm. “Don’t leave,” she whispered around quivering lips, her stomach filling with a sudden, weird desperation. It might be just the slightest exaggeration to say that Dev Nichita was the only person in the world she’d ever felt wholly safe around. “Please, I-I don’t want you to.”
    “Hey,” he said in a gentle voice. “Don’t you worry about a thing, all right? My men are taking you someplace safe, and I’ll be there real soon.”
    “Y-you’re coming back? For sure?”
    His goatee parted in a gleaming smile. “I always do, sweetheart.” And then he was gone, he and Gábor disappearing into the darkness as easily as if they were made of the night.
    Thomal carefully stepped off the back bumper. “There still a first aid kit in the glove, Stănescu?”
    “Yeah, come on up. Not that there’s anywhere to sit .” Sedge was still craned around, looking at them. “Sorry, ladies, but we have to go no-vis now. The entrance into our compound is classified.” He flipped a switch and a thick screen descended from the roof just behind the front seat.
    Thomal closed the rear doors and locked them.
    Screen met floor, entombing them in the Dodge’s dark metal belly, then the screen’s motor shut off in an abrupt, unearthly quiet.
    Marissa crammed herself into a corner of the van and hugged her knees to her chest. Compound…? An extra special security unit…? Bad men called Mürk, Tëer, Videön, Tøllar, Krølan…? More questions than answers never felt good.
    The Dodge moved back onto the road, the steady drub-drub of rubber tires over asphalt the only noise. Taking them someplace safe…called Ţărână…

 
    Chapter Six
     
    Community of Ţărână, 6:11 p.m.
     
    Luvera Nichita shifted from foot to foot in the doorway, running her work apron through her fingers as the orchestral beauty of Bach floated softly around her from a hidden sound system. A grandfather clock lorded over the living room, keeping time with perfect Swiss accuracy, and the furniture and objets d’art on their étagère were all poised on the glossy parquet hardwood floor with Architectural Digest precision. Nothing but the best in the Nichita household. Nothing that ever felt like home, even though she’d lived here forever .
    “Are you going to speak, child?” Her mother was seated at a custom-made maple roll top desk, her posture as erect and precise as the surrounding furnishings.
    Pettrila Nichita had become an elder seven years ago, her appearance changing abruptly, as was the way of aging in their race—one day, young, the next day, old, like a snap of the fingers. Lines now creased Pettrila’s eyes, her body sagged a bit, although Pettrila would never allow herself to be anything but flawlessly slender, and gray hair fanned out from the temples of her short, styled black hair like skunky streaks.
    “Yes, um…” The strings of Luvera’s apron tangled in her fingers. “Jennilĩth has asked me to move in with her again.”
    Pettrila elegantly dipped the tip of her quill into a small antique ink-pot. A leather-bound cookbook was open in front of her. She must be hostessing the next bridge