“We need to follow those wood elves, so abbreviated lesson for now. If you’re like the rest of us, you simply wish it so. Try it now. Wish to not be seen.”
I don’t want to be seen, she thought, and her body hummed for a moment, then returned to normal. “Did I do it?” That seemed ridiculously easy. She must have done it wrong.
“Test it. See if humans interact with you.”
She approached a man speaking on his phone at the corner. “Excuse me,” she said. The man did not acknowledge her. “Hello!” she shouted, waving her arms in front of him. Still no response.
“It appears you are successful,” Nik said. “Let’s go.” The three wood elves had taken off and were about to turn the next corner.
She broke into a run to keep up with his long strides. It turned out that the creeps shot the block, and blocks in NYC were big. As they followed them around to the street that ran in front of the luthier shop, one of them looked back and met her eye to eye. Shit.
“Slayer,” he called to the other two. One pulled a sword out from under his full-length jacket. The blade was much smaller than Nikolai’s but equally ornate.
“Shoot him,” the one with the sword ordered. Nik pulled a dagger out of his boot and shoved Elena behind him. To her horror, the man pulled a gun out of his coat pocket, but before he could raise the muzzle, he was sporting Nik’s dagger in the middle of his chest.
An old man walked out of the luthier shop, and the elf with the sword went blurry for a moment, then solidified.
“Fuck. He lifted the Veil.” Nik bolted toward them, but got there too late to save the poor human, whose head separated from his body with one quick slice from the elf.
The elf handed the sword to his companion and shouted, “Kill them both, and then find the cello,” and sprinted away down the street at full speed.
Nik withdrew his sword, and before Elena knew what had happened, he freed the remaining elf’s head from its body in a black, sticky mess.
Nik leaned down to retrieve his dagger from the first elf’s chest right as his body disintegrated. He picked it up, and it was clean of the black blood. So was the sidewalk. In fact, there was no trace of the elves anywhere.
The poor human was another story. A crimson pool crept across the pavement from the headless body and oozed into the street. People screamed and shrieked all around. And then a woman came out of the shop. A young woman about Elena’s age, wearing an apron, clutching a violin.
“No! Uncle Frank!” The young woman shifted her weight foot-to-foot, anguish filling her cries. “Not you, too. No, no…” She threw her body over his, violin crashing to the pavement and splintering into pieces.
“Take us to the Time Folder, please, Elena,” Nik said, pulling her several feet away. He placed the wood elf’s smaller sword in her hand. “We need to get there quickly, and you can teleport us much faster since I used so much energy getting us here. They saw us, and others will arrive right away.”
She pried her eyes from the gruesome scene, took his hand, and pictured Stefan’s living room.
Nik sighed with relief when he reformed in the Time Folder’s place, holding Elena’s hand. They had made it out safely. He knew he should have called first, but had they waited, the elves certainly would have come with reinforcements. Darvaak emerged from the bedroom wearing rumpled clothes and a furious expression.
“It’s a bad time, Slayer. Zap out now,” he ordered.
“We can’t,” Nik replied. “The wood elves just executed a human on a busy New York City street. Elena was seen. They will hunt her now.”
“They are hunting her anyway,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward his bedroom.
Nik’s radar immediately blipped. Something was wrong here. Darvaak continued to talk quickly. “Fydor has activated troops all over the planet. There’s a huge bounty on Elena’s head. Big enough to tempt even me, so get the fuck out of my house.”
He’d never seen a Time Folder rattled before. “What’s going on?” he asked, concerned that perhaps an enemy was in his bedroom. Hell, he could even be a hostage, as weird as things had gotten. “Who’s here?”
“Stefan?” A woman’s voice called from his bedroom. “What’s up?”
He ran his hands through his gold hair and took a deep breath. “Put the swords away. She’s frightened enough.”
“Stefan?” the voice called again.
“Some friends are here. I would love you to meet them if you are so inclined.” He shot a warning glare at Nik.
Elena, sword still in hand, lowered it to her side. He held out his hands, and she relinquished it to him right as a drop-dead beautiful woman wearing tattered clothes and way too much eyeliner appeared in the bedroom doorway. Nik knew immediately who it was. It was the Time Folder’s mate.