That’s right, lady. Don’t mess with a pissed-off blue-haired amethyst female Tracker.
A sense of urgency made my skin feel like ants were crawling over me. I flipped the phone open and called our Proctor, Rodán, who was also my mentor and former lover.
It didn’t take me long to explain everything to Rodán. He pinpointed my location by the cell phone signal and would send the Paranormal Task Force to clean up the mess and take care of Becky.
I would have called Adam, who was an NYPD detective, or Olivia, but both were human and couldn’t enter—or know about—the Paranorm Center. Chills prickled my arms. I didn’t even know if Adam was alive. Or Olivia for that matter. Had the Metamorphs gotten to my lover or my partner?
I pocketed the cell phone, scooped Carl’s gun up from the floor, then grabbed the elemental-magic-treated wrist and ankle cuffs. My eyes narrowed and my jaw set, I approached Becky.
“No!” Her high-pitched voice was a squeak. “Don’t hurt me!”
“Shut up.” I knelt in front of her, grabbed one of her wrists, and cuffed her to the handle on the door of the pantry. For good measure I cuffed her ankles, too. The PTF would be here in no time and take care of her.
I stepped over the dead doubles of Adam’s and Olivia’s bodies before rushing through the archway. Pictures had fallen off the walls, lamps had toppled from end tables, glass from broken picture frames had shattered on the carpet from my mini-earthquake.
From the looks of the place, the Metamorphs had taken over some human’s apartment. The front door of the small place was steps away. I tucked the handgun in my waistband and was out that door within seconds.
I jogged down a set of stairs and pushed my way through a pair of double doors. Cool winter air filled my lungs as I ran around the building until I reached a fairly busy street. Amsterdam, close to West Forty-second Street. Now I had to get to the Paranorm Center which was below the Alice in Wonderland unbirthday party sculptures in Central Park on the Upper East Side.
I pulled a glamour, making myself invisible to humans—who might freak at an amethyst woman with blue hair—and ran. As my bare feet met slush and snow, I wished desperately for my leather boots. Dark Elves generally don’t have a problem with cold, but having bare feet in polluted slush from melted snow was on the chilly side.
My air element helped push me faster than my already enhanced speed. I would have been a blur to humans if they could have seen me.
When I finally reached the unbirthday party sculptures, Angel was already there. She was walking the circumference of the sculpture counterclockwise, reciting the engraved nonsensical poem to open the door. “‘ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.’” I had no idea what the poem was supposed to mean, but it would open the door beneath the toadstool.
Angel was a beautiful blond Doppler with corkscrew curls and was a squirrel in her animal form. She looked like a bubbly cheerleader but had graduated from Harvard and had been an intern with NASA.
“Have any other Trackers made it here?” I asked when I came to a full stop.
“Not that I know of.” Angel was now at the back of the sculpture, and the door beneath the toadstool began to open. She scanned me with her brilliant blue eyes. “You look amazingly healthy considering your clothing is bloody rags. Kind of like you’ve been engaged in some one-on-one with a leopard and he got in a few good licks.”
“We have to hurry.” I didn’t have time to go into anything but what we were here for. “If the information I was given is correct, they’ve already replaced the council members, and that leaves us with two tasks.”
“Find the real council members,” Angel said.