“Well, there’s your honey pie,” Oliver said a little too gleefully.
I looked over my shoulder in time to see Andre slam his car door shut. If Andre tried to throw me over his shoulder again, then I only had a few short minutes.
Using that logic, I began running towards the Braaid. “Hey!” Oliver said. “Gabrielle, wait up!” Rather than listening, I ran fast. If Oliver could catch up to me, then Andre surely could.
In front of me the Braaid grew larger as I closed the distance between it and myself. The inside of the circle glowed brighter than its surroundings. A white shimmering form came into focus ahead of me. Leanne.
She’d been laid out in the shape of the cross in the middle of the field. In her white and gold costume she looked angelic—and possibly dead.
“Leanne!” I screamed. She didn’t move.
Footsteps pounded behind me in the distance, and I pushed my legs to run even faster than before.
It wasn’t fast enough.
Hands wrapped around my torso and lifted me off my feet.
“Let me go!” I thrashed against the man holding me.
“Gabrielle,” Andre said, his voice so much gentler than it had been a minute ago, “It’s a trap.”
I stopped fighting him. I knew the truth when I heard it, but I was still in denial. “No,” I said against his chest, where he pressed me to him.
Andre brushed my hair back. “It is. It’s not even a very brilliant one.”
“But what about Leanne?”
The shadows long Andre’s face seemed to deepen. “You’re going to have to let someone else get her.”
I slumped against Andre and bowed my head. “But they might die.”
He pulled me tighter against him. “That’s true.”
I laughed in spite of my dark mood. “Can’t you just lie to me about something like that?”
“Not to you, no.”
I glanced over at Leanne; from here I could hear the sluggish beat of her heart. The sound brought on a new wave of despair. “Why can’t I just grab her? I’m harder to kill than most other people here.”
“For the same reason that I won’t go in there to grab her. We may be hard to kill, but if we die, we’re going to hell.”
The pounding footfalls got louder as the supernatural officers closed the distance between us.
“Sheesh,” Oliver said, coming to a stop next to us. He bent over his legs, panting heavily. “Ever heard of waiting up, Gabrielle?” His gaze passed over the vampire holding me. “Hey Andre. Looking sexy, as usual.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw one of Andre’s sculpted eyebrows rise. He nodded, his eyes taking in Oliver’s costume. “Oliver, good to see you.” I thought it took a lot of self-restraint on Andre’s part to not mention Oliver’s costume.
The other officers fanned out around us. Among them I saw Caleb, who now sported a black eye. He grinned at me, though it wilted a little when he saw who held me. I reminded myself to thank him later for the back up.
Chief Constable Morgan pushed through the crowd. “Andre, Gabrielle, what . . .” His voice died away as his caught sight of Leanne. “Dear God.”
“Oh, that’s not the work of God,” Oliver said. I gave him a look that told him to be quiet.
“Is she dead?” one of the officers asked.
“Not dead, just unconscious,” Andre said. He stood up and pulled me to my feet.
The officers eyed the Braaid, probably noticing its strange properties.
“Okay officers, we need to retrieve the girl and get her medical attention,” the chief constable finally said. Even he sounded reluctant to cross the stone circle.
“If you value your life, I would advise against going in,” Andre said.
“You think I’m unaware of what’s at stake here?” Chief Constable Morgan said. The tension between the two men was palpable. “As officers it’s our duty to put the needs of the innocent before our own.”
I tensed as Andre went rigid next to me. Maybe Samhain did bring out the worst in Andre; this evening his temper was shorter than usual.
The ground began to quiver beneath my feet. At first the sensation was slight, as though the earth had shivered. But rather than ebbing away, the tremors built on themselves.
A shriek howled along the wind, the decibel increasing along with the quaking ground.
Andre grabbed my hand. “We need to leave. Now.”
I stood frozen, transfixed by the events unfolding. “I think it might be too late.” The devil knew I was here.
The howl built on itself until I could no longer tell whether the noise came from inside or outside my head.
The earth bucked underneath me, and my hand slipped from Andre’s as the ground threw me forward against one of the standing stones. I bit my lip as I hit the rock and winced at the metallic tang of blood.
“Gabrielle!” Andre choked on my name.
The boulder in front of me was smeared with my blood. I hoisted myself to my feet and glanced over at Andre. He stared at me, the expression he wore so unusual on him that it took me a moment to place it.