Ticked, she reached for a ley line, her eyes widening when she realized the cuffs were made of charmed silver. It was probably standard practice in a big city where it was easier to treat everyone as a witch, vampire, or Were until proven otherwise—whether the humans on the force knew it or not. “We haven’t done anything wrong,” she said as an officer patted her down.
A thin man with a hint of a mustache looked up from where he stood at a car, a radio in his hand. “You’re breaking curfew,” he said. Though not the oldest cop out here, he was clearly in charge, his soft wrinkles falling into themselves as he tossed the radio into the car and came over.
Immediately she recognized him as a witch, his long fingers made dexterous from spell casting and a faint scent of redwood emanating from him. His close-cut salt-and-pepper hair gave him a distinguished air, but his lumpy nose ruined it, and feeling an unexpected connection, Trisk fought a lifetime of conditioning to not blurt out that she was an elf.
“We didn’t know about the curfew,” Daniel said over his shoulder. “We just got here.”
The captain hesitated a good eight feet back. It was telling, and her unease tightened into a hard knot. If you were fast, eight feet was enough time to react to a magic assault as well as a vampire attack. “And how would you have done that?” the man said as he looked down at a sheaf of papers one of his men handed him, the wrinkles about his eyes bunching up. “The roads are barricaded.”
“We came by train,” Trisk said, and then upon seeing his doubt, added, “Freight train.”
The man beside him fidgeted. “Captain Pelhan, we’ve been asked to investigate a fire in the train yard,” he said, and his eyebrows high, Pelhan waited for an explanation.
“Ah,” Daniel said, eyes darting to Trisk as he turned to put his back to the wall. “That was us. We set fire to one of the cars to contain any sickness we might have brought.”
The officer, Trisk realized, was a witch as well, and in a sudden flash of hope, she decided everyone out here was either a witch or Were. They were probably the only ones on the police force that were reporting for duty. But no vampires, she mused, thinking that odd, as living vampires were drawn to the power that came with a badge. Not to mention being on the force made it easier to cover up a master’s mistake in taking a lost human.
“It was me,” she said, knowing they’d go out and find the bodies. “I wasn’t going to walk away and leave them to putrefy. The fire won’t spread. I made sure of it.”
It was all she could do to not openly say she was an elf, but Captain Pelhan’s brow rose in understanding when she made a small finger motion as if making a spell.
Hesitating, Pelhan tapped his papers against his hand. Behind him, his men came back from searching the nearby area. “The government is asking everyone to hunker down,” he said. His voice was softer, holding the hint of understanding.
“We really need to get to a phone,” she tried again, not liking the feel of the cuffs around her wrists. “We were trying to get to Detroit and ended up here. Sa’han Ulbrine is waiting for me. We might know how to stop this. I have to talk to him.”
The captain’s eye twitched at the openly Inderland term, his gaze going to Daniel, then to her. “No one can stop this.” He took a slow breath, as if divorcing himself from what was to come. “He’s not sick!” he said loudly to his men. “Tom, take him to the stadium.”
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Daniel exclaimed when they began to pull him away. Trisk stiffened in protest, and the man beside her put a heavy hand on her shoulder in warning.
“He’s with me,” she said, but she wasn’t sure if that was going to help him or not. If she wasn’t going to the stadium, where was she going? “Daniel!”
Captain Pelhan came forward to take her arm, the tingle of a ley line, promising hurt if she should try anything. “All humans breaking curfew go to either the hospital or containment centers. Everyone else goes to jail.”
Humans? she wondered, but he had said it softly enough that only the nearest officers could hear. At least they knew she wasn’t one. “He’s a scientist, like me,” she said, stumbling as she looked over her shoulder at Daniel as they were led to different cars. “I need his help. It’s the tomatoes, the T4 Angel tomato. That’s where the toxin is. Even stuff that’s been on the shelf for a year.”
Pelhan stopped at the car, waiting as one of his officers opened the back door. “The fuzzy tomato?” the younger man asked, and the captain gave him a look to shut up.
“That’s the one,” Trisk said, breathless, glad someone was listening. “The virus is using it as a host, condensing the levels into toxic range. I need to get to a phone. If I can convince Sa’han Ulbrine, he can get the word out, and we can stop this.”
Pelhan chewed his lip, thinking that over. Beyond him, Daniel was shoved into a car, but it didn’t drive away, and she waited, heart pounding.