The way she looked at it, she had two choices: She could lock herself back in and bide her time, which was dicey. Or she could jump out the window, take out a guard fast and run like hell was after her. Extremely dicey.
She had no defenses or options if she stayed. She would be at the Fae King’s mercy and the story she had spun had its own built-in time bombs. And she didn’t dare come under any closer scrutiny. She couldn’t bear to think what would happen if he discovered she was pregnant with Dragos’s child.
So, in reality, she had no choice at all.
She watched the guards rotate again. Which one looked the sleepiest, the slowest, the most incompetent? Damn, they all looked good.
Well, dying just wasn’t an option. She was fighting for two now. “Hang on, peanut,” she whispered, bracing her foot on the windowsill.
As the next guard walked by, she pushed open the metal grill and leaped out. The thud as she hit the ground had the guard raising his crossbow even as he turned around.
He was fast.
She was faster.
She spun and used every ounce of centrifugal force she could muster as she lashed at him with the chain. She could tell by how it struck him in the temple that he was dead as he hit the ground.
She felt nothing, no mercy, no remorse, as she watched his body crumple. Huh. So this is what a killer instinct feels like.
Alrighty.
She snatched up his crossbow and assessed it at a glance. It was already loaded, a modern compound bow, light and sleek, with a telescopic sight and a quiver mounted to the main arm that held half a dozen bolts. She knew this weapon.
Hey.
Heart pounding, she sprinted for the corner of the house where the next guard would appear in just a few seconds. She pressed her back against the wall, took a deep breath and waited with the crossbow up.
She came face-to-face with the next Fae guard as he rounded the corner. His eyes went wide. She shot him point-blank and peeked fast around the corner.
From the glimpse she had of that section of the house it was longer, and there was part of another building visible nearby. Perhaps that was a stable? Where would they keep those dragonfly thingies, inside a building or outside?
She pulled back, reloaded the crossbow and counted.
Four ten thousand, three ten thousand, two ten thousand . . .
She couldn’t hear him but the guard had to be there. She rolled around the corner, shot him and yanked his body around, piling it on top of the other guard. She reloaded and counted.
She couldn’t believe it when the last guard dropped. She stared at his body, grateful that she was still numb. She had just killed four people in as many minutes, all so she could get more than just a few seconds’ head start.
Better make their lives count for something.
She dropped her bow, snatched up the last dead guard’s crossbow with a full load of ammunition and ran.
NINETEEN
A half hour had passed since Dragos had lost the connection with Pia through the tracking spell. Then he and his sentinels arrived at the junction of Highway 17 and Averill Avenue. They found police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck surrounding a black Dodge Ram pickup. He sent Tiago, Rune and Grym winging southeast into the Harriman State Park to look for a gray Lexus.
At almost forty seven thousand acres in size, the park was the second largest in New York and had over thirty lakes and a couple hundred miles of hiking trails. It also had a passageway to a large area of Other land.
Still shielding their presence from human sight, Dragos arrowed to the ground, followed by Graydon, Bayne and Constantine. After shifting, he raced toward the emergency response vehicles, flanked by the gryphons.
Graydon walked up to a policewoman and introduced himself. “What happened?”
“There was a shooting,” said the woman, glancing from Dragos to the gryphons with wide eyes. “The victim’s a middle-aged guy who was gunned down in the street. Couple kids found him—”
Dragos ignored the rest. He strode past the truck. There was one pool of blood. Bayne stopped to inspect the spot. The ambulance doors were open. He looked inside. Two EMTs were working over a man.
“He conscious?” he asked one of the EMTs.
“You can’t be here right now,” said the man, without looking up.
He reached inside, grabbed the man and threw him out of the ambulance. He said to the other EMT, “This man conscious?”
He nodded, eyes wide. “We’re working to stabilize him. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”
Dragos climbed in and crouched by the stretcher. The victim’s eyes were glazed with shock. Dragos pulled the oxygen mask down. He demanded, “Was she alive when they took her?”
The man’s mouth worked. He was panting in short, shallow breaths and his color wasn’t good. “What . . .”
Dragos leaned closer. “The woman who was kidnapped. Was she alive when they took her?”
“Y-yes, I think so . . .” managed the man between gasps. “Shot her . . . shot her—”