20
The processing took about three minutes tops. O’Shea was cuffed and flung into the back of a police cruiser, and I was hauled out to the back of the Jeep for questioning, my hand never leaving Alex’s collar. If it came off, everyone would see him for what he was, which would create a shit storm of problems we did not need.
From what picked up in the scattered radio squawks I could hear, there was an anonymous tip that O’Shea was with me and we were headed to Giselle’s. My gut was telling me that it was the black Coven getting inventive with ways to slow me down. I couldn’t prove my theory, but it was the only thing that made sense.
Alex pressed hard against my leg, his teeth chattering, but he had enough understanding of the situation not to say anything. I tried my best to focus on what the officer in front of me said.
“So, you’re telling me that Agent Liam O’Shea tracked you down and forced you to drive him . . . here?” The disbelief in the officer’s voice told me everything I needed to know. I was about to go down with O’Shea. Two birds, one big nasty, lying stone. There was no way I would be walking away from this.
I let Alex’s collar slip through my fingers. “Find Milly.” He lifted his big dark eyes to mine and nodded, then took off like a shot into the overgrown and junk-filled alley that ran alongside Giselle’s home, much to the dismay of the officers around us. Even though we were at odds, she would look out for Alex, would maybe even come to pull my ass out of this fire. Maybe.
“Oops,” I said. “Fingers slipped.” The officer glared at me, his face darkening to a shade that, in the light of the sirens, looked a distressing shade of purple.
Unable to help myself, I asked, “Do you have high blood pressure? You look like a plum that’s about to explode.”
Without further ado, I was spun, frisked and handcuffed with my hands behind my back, then shoved inside the same police cruiser as O’Shea. Or Liam, I suppose.
My hip bumped against his; he glanced over at me, but said nothing. All that spark and humour I’d seen earlier was gone, wiped out. Back were the cold, distant dark eyes I’d grown used to seeing glare at me out of his sharp angled face. There were no handles inside, nothing to even rattle in an attempt to get out. But I wasn’t panicking, at least not yet.
Leaning back into the pleather seats I stared up at the battered ceiling of the cruiser. It looked as though more than one set of feet had been smashed into it. “You never told me your name was Liam.”
He said nothing, so I kept talking. “It suits you.” I shifted down a little further and put my feet on the ceiling, setting them inside the prints of the previous passenger. “He had big feet. At least a size fourteen or fifteen. Maybe he was a Big Foot.” That got his attention.
“They aren’t real.” No one was in the cruiser with us yet, so I leaned toward him and put my lips to his ear.
“You sure about that?”
He shivered and a flash from a camera went off behind us. A picture of me snuggling up to the agent who’d shot his partner while hunting me. Oh, that was not going to help us any.
An officer got in the car, flipped the lights off, and stared at us through the metal bars that kept us from climbing out. “Was she worth it?”
O’Shea glanced over at me, and I smiled up at him and gave him a wink. “Go ahead, tell him the truth.” Something in me wanted O’Shea—Liam—to smile again.
There it was; a flicker of devilry in those dark eyes. “I don’t know. Yet.”
Heat, intense, searing heat flared between us. I couldn’t look away—the promise of that one, single, simple word was all it took to spin my mind back to a very tight cramped bathroom and the feel of his chest under my fingertips. The taste of his lips and tongue against mine. I swallowed hard, my heart pounding, blood rushing to places I’d ignored for a long time.
“You’re a disgrace, piece of shit cop killer,” the officer said, breaking the spell between us.
I looked out my window, feeling the distance between O’Shea and I seemingly shrink. His side pressed up against mine, and I knew my mind hadn’t been playing tricks on me.
His hand stole around my back, hampered by his handcuffs, but undeterred. Even if I’d wanted to pull away from him, I couldn’t, there was nowhere for me to go. Fingers linking with mine, he leaned into me harder. I stared at his mouth, only inches away from my face, and tried to form a cohesive thought other than how good he tasted.
Then he jabbed his key into my hands. Key? Blinking, I flicked my eyes up to his, which were almost laughing at me. My fingers curled around the key and I slid it into the handcuffs. A small “snick” of metal unlatching and I was free. In a manner of speaking.
“Now what?” Still crushed up against him, my voice was whisper soft.
“We give them a show, one that’ll make them pull over and try to separate us.”
“You just want another chance at my lips.” My whisper was just a tad too breathy. Damn I sounded eager. Maybe I shouldn’t have employed Milly’s tactics. They were certainly landing me in a whole different pot of hot water.
His lips quirked up, putting a slight dimple in his cheek. How had I not noticed that before?
He pushed his face even closer to mine, a mere shiver away from touching. “You don’t?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t damn me all to hell and back, and my own reaction to him did that well enough.
The same officer who’d interrupted us before did so again. Thank the gods.
“You two, chill out.” His babyish features pegged him for the rookie he obviously was. That, and the way his hand never strayed from the butt of his gun.
O’Shea obediently slid back to his side of the seat, and I sucked in a large lungful of air. Moments later another officer joined the first and we were off to the police station. Or at least, that was what I thought. About ten minutes into the drive the silence broke.
The young officer turned to his partner. “Where’s our escort?”“ I thought we were going to be flanked by the FBI?”
In answer, the older cop shook his head. “Pull over.”
What was this? The young cop did as he was told, without question, putting the car in park. Not a good thing, even I knew that.
“Shit.” O’Shea mumbled under his breath. “Be ready.”
For what? I wanted to ask—
The older cop pulled his gun, placed it right against his partner’s head and pulled the trigger, the shot reverberating, shaking my eardrums. Blood and brain matter splattered the inside of the cop car in a macabre graffiti. I almost pulled my hands up to my ears, at the last second managing to keep them behind me, hiding the fact they were no longer cuffed.
The older cop’s image wavered, and then I stared at one of the ugliest trolls I’d ever seen. Not that any of them are particularly handsome, but he won the “nasty looks” contest hands down. Orange and yellow spotted skin hung in folds off his body, the clothes he’d been wearing tore and revealed far too much for my taste. His four-fingered hand clutched at the gun and he waved it at us, one eye hanging from its socket, the other blinking rapidly as if to clear some unseen haze.
“Get out,” the troll commanded.
I knew there was a reason this would work out in our favour. “Can’t, no door handles inside. It’s a human thing you know.” I shrugged. “You want us out you need to get the door open for us.”
Grumbling, the troll smashed the side door to let himself out.
Now it was my turn to be pithy. “Be ready.”
“For . . .” O’Shea started to ask when the troll grabbed the door on my side and wrenched it off.
“Get out.”
Sliding carefully, slowly, across the seat, I wracked my brain for the best way to handle this. Trolls were sketchy at the best of times. One minute your friend, the next they were trying to eat you alive. This one didn’t look to be interested in making new friends. He (and yes it was a he by way his double genitalia hung nearly to his mid-thigh) glared at us and clicked his broken teeth together, bits of tooth flicking out around him. The only upside I could see was if we had something he wanted, he could be swayed to our side, momentarily at least. Trolls were fickle, and that could work in our favour.
I stepped out of the car. The six-foot tall troll stepped back, his hanging eye staring around as if seeing us for the first time. “You’re prettier than they said. Those witches were right; you will be a fun time.”
Ugh, that was not what I wanted to hear, not the part about the fun or the fact that he’d been sent by the black Coven. Both of his, um, members started to rise as his hanging eyeball roved up and down my body.
A long, split tongue licked his lips. “I could let you go if you do something nice for me,” the troll said, stepping forward.
“No,” O’Shea said, stepping around me, putting his body in the line of fire.
“This is not the time to get all white knight on me,” I said, keeping my voice low.
The troll snarled and lifted the gun, his finger twitching against the trigger.
Using my hip, I bumped O’Shea out of the way and walked closer to the troll, swaying my body as seductively as I could and batting my eyes, much to his delight, if the way his loose hanging eye lit up was any indication.
“You know, I always wondered what a double whammy would be like,” I said.
The troll puffed up his chest, his free hand stroking down the folds of skin that hung from his body to cup one of his overlong members.
I struggled to hold back the gag. That was not attractive in the least, but I kept moving forward, closer to the troll, and the gun he held leveled on O’Shea. Sure, it could backfire, it could explode, hell, it could do all sorts of weird things. But after seeing it blow out that young officer’s brains all over the inside of the car, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
There was only one weak spot I would be able to reach, and so even though I didn’t want to, I sidled up to his hanging bits.
With an exaggerated slowness, I lifted my hand and placed it on the troll’s upper chest, massaging my fingers into the loose skin. “Do you know who I am?”
“You’re that Tracker, who goes after kids,” he said, and I rubbed harder across his collarbone, inching closer to the dangling eye.
The troll rumbled under my hand, the skin vibrating to the point of making it ripple like a bowl of Jello that had been shook. He puffed out his chest which stretched the skin, making it taut, the rumbling in his chest now caused a sound reminiscent of a large bull frog’s mating call. Gross. I bit back the disgust filling me, making me want to pull away. But I had to get that gun away from him.
Like now.
I reached up and grabbed the eye, squeezing it just short of it popping like a grape in my fingers.
The troll howled and the gun swung toward my head. “Drop it!” I hung onto the eyeball, applying more pressure with one nail.
He screeched, and then a body, O’Shea’s to be exact, tackled the troll to the ground, the gun pinned between them. The connective tissue to the eye snapped, the troll screeched again, and I was left standing there with an eyeball in my hands while O’Shea handcuffed the screaming, writhing troll like it was something he did regularly.
Gun secured, O’Shea stood.
I just stared at him. “I had it under control you know.”
“I couldn’t watch you fondle that thing anymore,” he snapped.
My jaw dropped, and I was about to tell him just where he could stick his meddling when a wave of fear hit me that was not my own.
India.
I froze and focused on her. She was terrified and her life force wavered. Shit, shit, shit.
“We’ve gotta go,” I said. “India’s in trouble.”
O’Shea glared at me. “You say that like it’s something new. Like she wasn’t in trouble before.”
I wasn’t about to explain my ability to sense people, certainly not to him. “Get in the car, we’ve got to get weapons and get back out to the mine shaft. Now.”
He started to go around to the driver’s side.
“I’m driving,” I said, jogging to catch up to him.
Hoisting the body of the young cop out of the seat, O’Shea let out a sharp breath. “Here, just let me move this for you.”
The cop’s head rolled, exposing what was left of his brains inside the gaping black hole that had blown out the side of his head. Much as I didn’t want to admit that it was affecting me, the sight was almost too much. Muscles tensing, I fought against the emotions rising in me. Sorrow for his family, grief for him, and an unmistakable sense of regret that was not my own, but O’Shea’s. Damn. I clamped down, forcing the feelings back, and behind that came a bolt of terror that was pure child. India was panicking and that was not a good sign. She had to be the number one priority. I’d thought I had time to prep, but it was obvious that wasn’t going to be the case, which meant we were going to go barreling in there with next to nothing.
We slid into the cop car. The blood on the back of my seat, trailing down my left side, was cool, but not yet starting to dry. I put my hands on the wheel, jumping as the radio came to life, the voice static-filled, but still loud.
“Bravo Echo thirty-nine, come in. Over.” I turned to look at O’Shea.
“You’d better answer this one, Agent.”
He picked up the receiver and answered back. “Bravo Echo thirty-nine. Here. Over.”
The response was surprising.
“Please disregard the instructions to bring the prisoners to the main jail; an unmarked will be intersecting with you to take over their transport.” The radio clicked off and I shared a look with O’Shea while he answered again in the affirmative before turning off the radio.
“That can’t be good,” I said. “Why wouldn’t they just allow the transport to continue as is?”
“Could be FBI. Could be one of your uglies has taken over.”
“Hey!”“ They aren’t my uglies.”
O’Shea blew out a sharp breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Whatever it is, it won’t be good for us, and certainly not for India.”
For once, we were in agreement, though it came a little too late.
I started the police cruiser as two black vans screeched to a halt, pinning us down. I held my breath, expecting more trolls or maybe a golem, but all that poured out of the nondescript vans were humans.
FBI agents covered in riot gear pointed guns and tazers at us, but other than that, I let out a breath. This could be handled.
“They aren’t going to let us go after her,” O’Shea said, stating what I thought was rather obvious.
“Yup. So you ready to kick some ass and break the law to rescue a little girl?”
He turned his head, his dark eyes holding mine for a brief moment. He didn’t say anything. From outside, they shouted at us to get out of the car with our hands up. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
I placed my foot lightly on the gas pedal, ready to go the second O’Shea gave me the nod. Because I wasn’t taking him with me if he wasn’t in one hundred percent. I didn’t need dead weight and worries about the law dragging me down when it came to getting India out alive.
“I’m crossing to the dark side I guess,” he said, and that was all I needed.
The car was made for ramming, and even in the tight space between us and the two vans, it did its job.
With my foot hard on the gas pedal, we smashed into the van in front of us first. I shoved it almost out of the way before being forced to throw the car into reverse, but it gave us enough room to spin backwards, do a one eighty and peel away from the underpass.
Bullets ricocheted off the back of the car, and I ducked instinctively.
“Ever lose a tail before?” O’Shea asked.
“Once, but I wasn’t in a police car. This isn’t exactly a car that’s going to blend in you know.”
He grunted. “Move over.”
“What?”
He was already shifting, sliding across the seats to take my place and forcing me into the passenger seat. My ass rubbed across his upper thighs, and he let out a sharp hiss of air that, in any other circumstance, would have made me think I’d hurt him. Not so much here.
He flipped on the lights and sirens and headed for the freeway. A glance behind showed the two vans were already on us, only a few hundred feet behind. I clicked my seatbelt into place, the possibility of falling out extremely high due to the passenger door hanging by only a half a bolt.
“We need gear, climbing gear.” But where the hell were we going to get that kind of stuff now?
“They’ll have it in the vans,” O’Shea said, cranking the wheel and dodging around a slow moving car.
“You mean in the vans behind us?”
“Yes, along with lights, weapons and body armour. Those vans are always fully loaded, prepped for anything that might cross their path.”
A thought hit me. “Don’t lose them. We need what they have.”
He barked out a laugh. “Shit, they’re exactly what we need.”
“I think we have the diversion we need to get past the Harpy and our rigging all in one shot.” I stared out the back window as O’Shea dodged in and out of traffic.
The chase, if it could be called that, was pretty sedate in terms of what I was thinking would happen. There were no more gun shots, no car crashes and no squealing tires. We led, the black vans followed, and no other law enforcement showed up. That alone made me wonder. What if this was the mysterious Arcane Arts division of the FBI? A chill inserted itself into my middle. That would make the most sense, but it also had the biggest ramifications. O’Shea drove and I focused on India. She was alive, terrified, but still with us. As I connected with her, I felt a shard of pain rip through her psyche, one that rolled over into me, stealing my breath away.
“What?” ’The concern was evident in O’Shea even as he worked to lose the two vans.
“India, they’re hurting her,” I whispered, the pain making my throat close.
“Are you psychic?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I was too busy trying to stem the pain India was being forced to endure. It started as it always did when a supernatural had had enough of being patient. The Coven was trying to break her; make her pliable to their will.
While O’Shea drove, I fought hard to give India the strength she needed. “I’m here,” I whispered. “Just hang on a little longer.”
It didn’t take long for us to be back in the badlands, skidding down side roads and hitting the same bumps Alex had been so excited about earlier. The mineshaft came into view and, hovering above it, was the last Harpy. Eve; her eyes even at this distance glittered with hatred. We’d killed two of her sisters. She had every reason to want our guts on a platter.
The downside was we had no weapons, no spells, and no back up.
The upside? You got it, there wasn’t one.