by Sarah Jaune
They were his weakness.
Dingus slowly sat up as his eyes narrowed. “You don’t walk like police.”
“That’s because I’m not,” Eli smirked as he stepped away. “I’m simply the son of a police officer, trained by him.”
The older man grunted as he rose fast, pulling a gun on Eli. “I don’t mess around.”
Eli had been in this position before, but that didn’t make this one any easier. He could flick the gun away, thus giving away his magic, but as Dingus would still be alive after this fight, he could tell that secret. Eli needed another way… then it came to him. He moved. He moved faster than a normal person could move, but not so fast that it couldn’t be dismissed.
Eli ducked under the gun and rammed Dingus in the gut with his shoulder. The gun arm went flying up, shooting off a single shot into the ceiling.
They both hit the floor, with Eli knocking the wind from the man. Dingus wasn’t done, though. He raised his hand up, ready to shoot Eli, but Eli grabbed his wrist and pushed it away. He reached over with his other hand, wrenched the weapon from his first and rolled off of Dingus, springing up to his feet.
He swung the gun around, and pointed it down at the man. “Can we stop the games now?”
Dingus glared up at him. “I’m not telling you nothing!”
“Then I have no use for you,” Eli explained, letting the meaning hang in the air. “I can go out and tell all your friends how I beat you, though. That will go over well for you. You’re the big man around these parts, feared by all. They’ll wonder if you’ve gone soft, getting beaten by me.”
The man’s jaw hardened. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
CHAPTER 15
PRISON BREAK
The door slammed open and Eli spun to see one of the men from the card game, rushing the room with a gun. Before he could react, Dingus grabbed Eli’s wrist and bit into it. Eli hollered as the intense pain drove into his skin. He backhanded Dingus harder than he meant to with the gun, and turned just as the new man slammed into him, attempting to pin him to the wall.
Eli stared into the dark face of a man that had to be twice his weight and decided he’d had enough. Without much effort, and with a throbbing right forearm, Eli shoved the guy off of him, sending him flying into the wall across the room.
He glanced towards Dingus, but saw an open, gushing wound at his temple. The man was clearly knocked out and wouldn’t be giving Eli any information that night. Furious, Eli pointed at the man across the room. His dark hair, which was cropped short, was almost the same color as his skin, but his eyes were so big that the pupils seemed to be gone.
“You’re…” he stuttered, trying to speak.
Eli shook his head, ignoring the gun that hung limply in the man’s hand. “I need information. You’re going to give it to me, and we’re going to keep this little incident to ourselves, right?”
Terror crept up the man’s face and something snapped in Eli. He took a step back and tossed the gun he still held on the floor, off to the side. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to calm himself. Breathing deeply, he turned back. “I’m trying to find a friend. That’s all I want.”
He waited, hoping the man would relax and tell him what he needed to know.
“You’re one of them,” the man finally said.
Eli shrugged. “I’m nothing but a guy trying to find a friend. That’s all.”
The man considered him for a long moment as his brown eyes narrowed. “What will you do if I don’t tell you anything?”
There were moments in Eli’s life that defined exactly who he was. If he pushed the man, demanding answers, then he was no better than his father. Still, though, he’d just knocked another man out cold because he wouldn’t cooperate. Did that make him better than Campbell Hunt? Eli’s father was ruthless in his pursuits of his goals. He would walk over anyone.
This man knew Eli had power, and he was used to being walked over.
“Nothing,” Eli said simply as the last of his anger slipped away. “I’ll keep looking elsewhere. If you tell me what I want to know,” he added quickly, “I have a gold coin that is yours.”
The man nodded, moved to the door and quietly closed it, even though Eli saw that no one was out at the card table any longer. He stared at Eli. “Ask.”
“Tell me about the Overseer here,” Eli said carefully.
The man snorted. “You think I’m suicidal? Why would I say anything about him?”
“I’m from a zone where the Overseer has driven the city into ruin,” Eli informed him bluntly. “What you say stays between us.”
He scrubbed at his face as worry lines etched themselves onto his forehead. “You want to get me killed.”
“I don’t understand this place,” Eli told him quickly. “It looks like downtown is open at all hours and doing a thriving business.”
“They are,” the man replied bitterly. “That’s the rich folks, the ones that the Overseer likes. They get money to spend. The ones who have businesses there are allowed to operate however they like. There are two sets of rules in New Orleans. If you’re wealthy, or well-connected, you can do as you please. If you aren’t, then you barely scrape by. It’s only one block, but the side you live on determines if you’re riding easy or struggling.”
Eli fought to hide his reaction. It was exactly what he’d feared. “Have you ever seen the Overseer or his family?”
The man shook his head and Eli believed him.
“Last question,” Eli said as he pulled the golden disk from his pocket. “My friend Thane came here, asking questions. I think he ran into Dingus. Where would he be now?”
“If he’s not dead?” the man questioned more flippantly than Eli would have liked.
“Assuming that, yeah,” Eli retorted.
The man stared across the room to the shabby painting of a boat that hung crookedly on the wall. “Dingus gets money from the police for turning in troublemakers. He’s probably in jail.”
Eli walked over and dropped the coin in the man’s outstretched hand. “This never happened.”
“Fine by me,” the man agreed readily as he pocketed the coin.
He left Ginny’s bar and found a crowd milling around outside, all staring at him. He kept walking, not looking back once. Eli thought, for a moment, someone might try to stop him, but they parted for him, keeping their distance.
The moment he hit the bridge, Eli broke into a run and sped back towards the jeep. Ivy was still awake when he arrived back, but Claire was asleep, sprawled out in the back seat.
Ivy handed him a sandwich silently as she watched him work to catch his breath. “What happened?”
“Dingus bit me,” Eli held up his arm and laughed at her expression of horror. “It’s fine. It hurts some, but I’ll be okay. The only lead I have is that Thane might be at the jail, but I’m not sure why he’d still be there. He could get out easily.”
“Not without giving himself away,” Ivy said as she mulled this over. “It does seem like if he were in jail he’d figure out how to get out, though.”
Privately, Eli agreed with that and sincerely hoped that didn’t mean that Thane was dead. “We’ll check around tomorrow.”
“Maybe I should clean out that wound,” Ivy said as she took his arm to examine the bite. “We have no idea what diseases he might have.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. Eli gently squeezed her hand, then pulled his arm away. “Forget it. Let’s get some sleep.”
Sleep, however, was miserable for Eli. He dreamed first that he was staring down into a huge, earthen pit, almost like a well, and at the bottom lay Thane. At least, Eli thought it was Thane, but the kid was curled into a ball, and Eli couldn’t get a good look.
Then his father was behind him, asking him to go out on his boat. Eli followed in his father’s footsteps down to the shore, all the while shrinking back to a child as his father grew monstrously huge.
“Someday,” his father said to him as he watched Eli strug
gle to climb up the boat’s gangplank, “this world will be yours, but only if you do what I want you to do. Do you understand, Elijah?”
Tiny Eli nodded as he stood off to the side and the crew set the ship to sail. Fifty feet from shore his father picked him up and dumped him off the side of the boat.
Spluttering, Eli struggled to keep his head above the frigid water. “Father!”
“Swim back to shore, Elijah,” Campbell Hunt commanded his son. “This is your first test to prove your worth.”
A mouthful of water filled Eli’s lungs and he awoke, coughing and spluttering.
A soft hand clapped over his mouth and he turned to find Ivy’s finger to her lips, reminding him to be quiet and not wake Claire. “Are you okay?” she whispered as she pulled her hand back.
“When I was five,” Eli said as he closed his eyes and relived that memory again, “my dad threw me off a boat to see if I would sink or swim.”
There was a long pause, before Ivy said, “Oh, Eli… I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “You’ve dealt with a lot of the same craziness.”
“I know, but still,” she patted his arm soothingly. “It doesn’t help it hurt less. My mom had a lot of moments where she was a normal mother, at least when I was really small. She didn’t go totally off the deep end until I was maybe three or four.”
That was close to about the time that Eli’s father went from mean to violent. It was a bad, bad time in their mansion. He didn’t want to think about it, though. They had work to do the next morning. He glanced around to see Claire still fast asleep. She was counting on them to find her last family member who cared enough about her to protect her. If they failed Thane, they failed Claire. Eli wasn’t going to let that happen. “Let’s get some more sleep.”
Finding the jail the next morning was relatively easy. It was housed on the poorer side of town, but close to the dividing line with the wealthy section. It felt almost like the town was saying that getting too close to crossing the line might land a person in jail.
As far as prisons went, this one was more elaborate that the ones Eli was used to. The police station in Redmond Township was a one-story brick building with only two holding cells. This one looked to house around ten or more. It was two stories, concrete, and surrounded by a tall fence that formed the perimeter around a large, mostly yellow, lawn.
“What should we do?” Eli asked as they observed the building from an alley across the street.
“I have an idea,” Ivy told him slowly. “But you’re not going to like it.”
He didn’t like it, but he did have to admit it was a good idea.
Eli watched Ivy and Claire disappear around the front of the building, into the main entrance that wasn’t gated in. He waited for ten minutes before he began to pace. At twenty minutes he had serious thoughts of storming the building. At thirty minutes, Eli was ready to gnaw his own arm off rather than stand still and do nothing.
Just as he’d decided to go in after them, Ivy and Claire appeared again, walking back towards the alley where he waited. The second they were close enough, Eli demanded, “Well?”
“He’s there,” Ivy informed him sadly. “They have him drugged.” Claire let out a small sob and Ivy put her arm around her shoulders. “That’s how they’re keeping him in. The police chief told me he’d nearly broken out twice, so they had to subdue him. He’s scheduled for trial next week on charges of stealing and assault. The good news,” she explained quickly, “is that he’s being held in that corner cell out back on the first floor. It will be easy for you to get him out.”
Eli wasn’t quite sure how, but he’d trust her. “They bought that Claire was looking for him?”
“Yep,” Ivy nodded. “It helped that she kept crying. I said I was her neighbor. Anyway, they did let us go back to see him just to make sure it was the right person. I don’t think he could have been trying to break out with magic, because all he’d have to do is bend the bars and he could have left. It wouldn’t have been difficult.”
“Well, we’re not screwing around this time,” Eli said darkly. “I’m using magic to get him out, and then we need to get to the Overseer’s kids. Let’s make a plan.”
They retreated back to the jeep, and Ivy told Eli every detail she could remember. They weren’t worried about security on Thane because he was kept sedated. That would have been a big issue if Eli weren’t incredibly strong. Still, it would be dangerous hauling him through the streets. “You’ll have to wait close by with the jeep.”
“That’s fine,” Ivy said as she drew the layout of the prison. “If you zip through the prison yard, the guards won’t see you.”
“Except for the fence,” Eli said as he thought about it.
“I had an idea about that,” Claire piped in, and the two of them turned to look at her. “The left side of the main door has a bush close by the fence. It’s a place where the guards might not see you duck under the fence. Then you can move fast back to his cell.”
Eli was impressed. “That’s a really good idea.”
The little girl beamed at him. “I think we’re going to make it.”
He really hoped so, too.
The plan, as it was, almost went off without a hitch. Eli walked casually around the jail, as though he was just going to another place. The darkness made it difficult to spot him in his black t-shirt and black jeans. He didn’t even have to wear a cap, because his hair blended into the night sky as well. He tried to keep his breathing and heartrate normal, but with every step closer to his goal, his nerves kicked up another notch. He spotted the bush and made it under the fence at the spot that Claire suggested without any trouble. If anyone noticed him diving under and forcing the fence up, they didn’t say anything. He waited a beat, to see if anyone came to investigate the long clang, but no one did.
Eli pulled in a lungful of air, bent down and took off as fast as he could, through the spotlights that wouldn’t be able to fully illuminate his shape. He moved around the building and towards the back corner, reaching it a mere four seconds after he’d started. Eli didn’t hesitate. The second he skidded to a stop, he pulled on the bars, slowly but steadily, until they came loose with another loud crash as they fell, shattering the glass of the window.
Eli only had seconds now. He moved his hands, towards the limp body on the bed across the room. Thane rose up, floated over to Eli, who tried to carefully guide him from the window.
Shouts rang out from inside the jail.
Eli grabbed Thane, who was as huge as everyone had said, and tried to throw him over his shoulder. It was nearly impossible to keep a grip on him, but as soon as he had him, Eli ran for the nearest fence. He moved as quickly as he could, holding onto the big guy, and flicked his hand out, throwing the fence up and out of his way so he could run under it. The fence crashed behind him a second later.
Shots rang out behind him as guards came running from the prison, but Eli was long gone before the bullets could hit either of them.
He ran, despite the exhaustion, continuing the brutal pace until he turned down the street where he knew Ivy was waiting for him. Eli spotted the jeep and the open, back hatch. He dumped Thane into the back, slammed the tailgate shut, and moved around to the passenger’s side door.
“Go!”
CHAPTER 16
THANE
Ivy hit the accelerator and the tires squealed for a moment until they caught traction and she pulled away.
“Don’t speed!” Eli warned her as he panted for breath. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Okay,” Ivy agreed as her hands flexed on the wheel. “Claire, sit please.”
“I’m checking him,” Claire explained as she leaned over the back seat to stare at her big brother. “He looks like he’s lost some weight.”
Eli laughed as he clutched at his side. “Good thing, too, or I might not have been able to carry him.”
“I wonder when he’ll wake up,” Ivy said as she turned down a
narrow street that would take them towards the main highway.
They’d already worked it out. They were leaving New Orleans for at least a day, maybe two. They needed to get out from under the police. Plus, several people knew Eli had been looking for Thane. A couple of them would know they had a car. They were well and truly skunked at this point, but if they could wait until Thane was better, they might be able to retrieve his car which wouldn’t stick out as much as their jeep.
Hopefully. It was all a guess at this point anyway.
First, though, they needed Thane to wake up.
Ivy drove for two hours, heading northeast out of the city. They crossed over the huge lake and didn’t stop until they were sure they’d passed into the Jackson Zone.
