Oh, she was about to be very disappointed if this went badly because I was totally pantsing it.
Ashford paused and reached across the table, grasped the Seal, and lifted it for inspection. My chest seized, breath stopped, and I turned my toes to angle toward Pru—I’d have to grab her quickly.
Ashford’s thick dark brows pulled tight as he turned the Seal over. “Did you have much trouble locating it?”
“Well...you know...couple people died, but what are you gonna do.”
He didn’t seem to be listening to me and my attempt at lightening the mood wasn’t helping me feel better.
We have to get the fuck out of here... Two feet to the door behind me; Pru was four feet away.
“Where’s my daughter...” My breath caught as he slipped the ring on his right index finger.
Tension rippled through the room and even Pru was watching.
“Tell me something, Miss Talbot.” He looked over the ring, white light above cutting over the brass. His gaze lifted to meet mine, brows still pulled tight, odd light reflecting in his eyes. “Did you really think this counterfeit was going to fool me?”
30
Bluff Called
There was pretty much no acceptable answer I could give to that question.
Ashford pulled the ring off again and I could scarcely draw a breath, trying to watch him while keeping Pru in my peripheral vision.
“Where’s the Seal?” His voice was low, deceptively steady.
“That is the Seal,” I said simply.
He tightened his grip around the ring until his knuckles went white.
My shoulder shifted back, one foot inched to put me at an angle; I could pull a weapon or run if he so much as blinked funny at me.
“Do you have any concept of true captivity, Miss Talbot?” he asked calmly, his voice a stark contrast to the rage buzzing in the air around him.
“Well, I’ve had to watch Dora the Explorer for four hours straight on sick days—”
“Three thousand years of confinement is akin to death. Where is the Seal?”
Goddamn it, West... “That’s what I took from the cave. Check Dawson’s video—”
The ring bounced hard on the table as he threw it, rolled and spun out of sight. “It’s garbage. Useless.”
Stall, stall—how the fuck am I supposed to stall? I hoped Pru was ready to run. “Maybe you’re not using it right?”
He gave me a dark look and said nothing.
“I don’t—”
“Do. Not. Lie.”
Heat descended on the room, sweat slicking my skin under my coat and beading across my brow. For a moment I thought it was me, struggling to drag muggy air into my lungs, the atmosphere picking up a murky, swampy feel from my own fear, but sweat rolled down Ashford’s forehead as well.
A clump of black hair fell as he tipped his head down, leaving where it was carefully slicked back and cutting across his forehead. “You have made a very, very big mistake, Miss Talbot.”
I do not doubt that one bit.
Time slowed for an instant and then he moved; his closed fist slammed down on the tabletop and flames erupted.
For a moment I blinked, orange and yellow dancing, crackling, flames rising where his hand connected with the polished wood. Blackness singed, fire spread, and I snapped out of it, moving. My lips parted to shout at Pru as my hands flicked to my sides, reaching for my new pair of two-tone USP Match pistols.
I’d cleared them from their hip holsters, raised them, and already flames leapt high, obscuring Ashford from view. A great darkness rose behind him, black smoke stretching from his back, reaching toward the ceiling.
Wings.
The place was burning—I had guns out but no idea what to shoot, what to do, my brain slow to react because there was a fire in Kent House and I didn’t know where the fuck my daughter was.
Fire twisted past me, a ball of it shooting inches from my head, so close I felt the heat, the singing of my hair as it passed. I dropped, falling to a crouch behind the table, shooting blindly at him though it did no good. I burned through half of the eighteen rounds in each gun before dropping my arms again.
Pru was at my side, choking from the rising smoke with her hand up over her face, blinking furiously as water leaked from her eyes.
I leaned over. “Run for the door—I’ll cover you.” Getting Pru sent out was the first task—she could haul ass but was likely tired and the fire was disorienting. She’d need time.
Next was combing the place for Em—I’d crawl through the fire on my hands and knees if I had to.
The ceiling had caught fire, flames eating through paint and plaster and blackening wood above. A glance under the table and I could no longer see where Ashford stood—if Ashford stood—and soon there wouldn’t be a room left.
A low, steady growl thrummed the floor below me, noise rising over the hiss and crackle of fire. Chills rolled through me, flooding my system with more fear.
We have to get out.
I have to find Em.
First, Pru. “Run!” I nudged her, half rose, fired randomly in the direction Ashford had been standing. I squinted against the brightness, coughed as smoke filled my lungs—I couldn’t make anything out, and if it wasn’t for the table in front of me, I’d have no point of reference for where we stood.
I moved back, stumbled—the guns were useless, nothing to aim at, and I slipped them back into their holsters. Smoke rose above us as we crawled toward the door. The same growl was rising, shaking the floor beneath me, and the room seemed to take a collective breath in, stillness settling even among the fire.
Whatever was next was going to be bad, I knew it.
Pru hissed as she reached up and fumbled with the knob then the door swung wide. I pushed her ahead of me out into the hall, still on our hands and knees—no flames had reached this far but it wouldn’t be long before the entire place went down. Smoke rolled out after us and flames licked my boots, the hem of my long coat. A deep cough burst from my chest again and my eyes still watered.
The rumbling below us went still; what should have been a relief made my stomach bottom out and I tensed from head to toe. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. “What room is she—”
Something thumped the floor again, closer this time; I barely looked up when hands were jerking me to my feet. I blinked into the face of Thomas.
Past him was West.
I hadn’t time to sputter accusations or rant—he pushed the door closed, got Pru on her feet, and locked his hand on her shoulder. “Move!”
Jesus Christ, he’s going to push her on her face. “She can’t, she—”
He didn’t spare me a glance, just lifted her easily, one arm under her back the other under knees like she weighed nothing, and started down the stairs.
She’d be safe—of little else concerning West could I be sure.
Now I had to find Em.
I glanced at the row of closed doors and started for the first one when Thomas grabbed me around the waist and started after West.
The breath I’d felt the room taking suddenly expelled.
Fire and smoke blasted the door and it burst, chunks of wood flying, hinges swinging. Warm air hit my face and I turned my head to the side, burying my eyes against Thomas’s shoulder. A bellow hit the air, digging into my brain, something inhuman and terrifying. More flames shot out, grasping and eating away at the corridor as it receded.
Em.
Immediately I twisted, landed an elbow in his ribs, screamed at him—he dragged me farther, ignoring my fighting, absorbing the hits and maybe being twice the size of me he really didn’t feel anything. Down the hall, farther away from the rooms that could—
“Put me down! Em! Em!” I hollered until my throat hurt, scratched raw and weak from smoke inhalation.
We were on the stairs, starting downward; something cracked in the distance, perhaps the building starting to collapse. Panic burst more adrenaline in my veins and I didn’t see, di
dn’t heard, didn’t feel, turning part animal as I fought and screamed.
“She’s not here!”
I twisted, met Pru’s gaze as she looked over West’s shoulder, bobbing as he ran down the stairs with her.
Not here.
Pru shook her head, like she knew what I was asking without speaking.
Not here.
Where the fuck is she?
I couldn’t linger, couldn’t worry—could only trust Pru, trust that if Emaleth was somewhere in this building she’d die trying to find her as well. My fight against Thomas ceased and he seemed to sense it, too; when we reached the bottom of the stairs, he left me on my own feet and let me stumble after West.
We skipped the front door, instead cutting through one of the archways. “Hey, my car’s parked—”
“Not there anymore,” West threw over his shoulder.
Thomas’s hand hit my lower back, urging me along. Fire licked at the stairs already, growing at an unnatural pace. Instincts warred, wanting to push me on my own path, but West had Pru still so I kept up.
He headed straight for the conservatory we’d first met in, where glass walls and ceiling exposed the near-black storm clouds above and the cold, wet, drab day waiting outside. No door that I could see—he was running straight for one of the glass walls.
West’s pace slowed and he met my gaze over Pru’s head.
I bolted forward, raising my guns, squeezing the triggers one after the other until I’d peppered a dozen holes in one sheet of glass. Spidery cracks wove along the pane. West twisted, shoulder first, brought his arm up to cover Pru’s head, and ran through. Glass shattered with a high-pitched tinkling, and then crunched underfoot.
I stepped out after him, jagged shards in the frame scraping my pants and catching my coat, and I holstered the guns again. Heavy rain fell, beating cold over my battered skin and welcome after the heat. Muddy grass was slippery underfoot and I braced to keep from falling.
Blinking against rain, I glanced around; we stood in a garden where tree branches went spindly under missing leaves and flowers had withered. West still carried Pru and trekked ahead, along the side of the house. A waist-high black iron fence ran around the property; his steps sped and three feet away he leapt. Pru tensed, ducked, but he cleared the fence easily and landed safely on the other side.
I ran hard but couldn’t make such a jump. Instead I grasped the edge of the fence and vaulted over. Thomas followed and we chased after West as he turned down a narrow path next to the neighboring brownstone.
“Any sign?” he called over his shoulder.
“No,” Thomas said before I could.
I glanced at Kent House where smoke billowed and flames ate at the old manor and the priceless art within.
I could’ve given him the real ring but without Em here, would this have ended any differently?
I shoved thoughts of it from my head and struggled to keep up. Adrenaline kept at bay the flare of pain from any injuries but I expected once I had time to assess them, I’d be in for a whole lot of hurt. We beat down the cobblestone path and I recognized my car waiting there, on an entirely different street from where I’d parked it. I wasn’t surprised to get up close and see Pulaski past the rain rolling down the driver’s side window.
West didn’t put down Pru until he was right outside the rear door, and even then he all but put her in himself. He gripped the back of my head cop-style and got me in next, then Thomas crowded me before West leapt over the vehicle to get in the passenger side. Pulaski had the car in motion before the doors were even shut, peeling down the damp street in seconds.
I twisted, difficult to move with Thomas practically sitting on my lap, and glanced back at the burning house. “Where’s Em?”
Pru gave a wracking cough beside me. “I don’t know. Not here. He left her at the other place.”
Shit.
“You didn’t give him the Seal?” West sat in the front seat, staring at me with blue eyes under soaked black hair.
I shot him a glare. “You sent a fake with the guns—I assumed you had a fucking plan.”
“It...didn’t involve that,” he said mildly.
I could shoot him in the back of the head but I hadn’t looked to see if I still had a round in either chamber. I sat back and pulled out each gun to reload in case I needed a few bullets to take him down.
The matching pistols could’ve been mistaken for my own at first glance—he even installed a Jet Funnel on each for fast reloading—though these were two-toned, the base black and the slide nickel. At least four or five hundred more a pop for that. The Match pistols were worth every penny, though, with a long barrel weighted for accuracy.
Presents or no, I was still pissed off at him.
“Did he call?” West asked, and I glanced up but he was addressing Pulaski.
The bulldog shook his head. “Nope. Will he be here in time to...”
“I can’t find him—probably not.”
“Shit.”
I leaned forward. “Who?”
They ignored me.
For fuck’s sake. I went back to worrying about my weapons. I replaced the empty mags with new ones, stowed the old ones away, and waited with the guns crossed on my lap. Pulaski wheeled the vehicle through the city streets, putting more and more space between us and Kent House. Though early afternoon, it might as well have been evening with the blanket of clouds overhead. A handful of people with umbrellas milled through the streets, otherwise it was all cars sloshing through rising puddles.
I turned to Pru now that adrenaline had settled, my heart slowed to normal and my brain working again. “Are you okay?”
She brushed tangled dark curls from her damp forehead. Tears shone in her eyes and she sucked in a breath—she got that look like an emotional break was imminent. “Yes. Though I could use a nap.”
“Where did he have you?”
“Some kind of house?” She shook her head. “We were blindfolded for the drive. In a room with no windows overnight.”
Ashford had said his drawing room—it must be his house somewhere. “And Em’s okay?”
“She was when they took me this morning.” Her dark eyes remained with mine, bottom lip quivering. “He thinks when you were arrested yesterday, you agreed to help the police. We were insurance in case you double crossed him.”
I met West’s gaze immediately; he held it for a moment, a heavy weight to his expression, before he looked at Pru. “Did he mention me?”
“I don’t know who the hell you even are,” Pru snapped.
“Dale West,” I said. “Ashford’s enforcer. And thorn in his side, I gather.”
She shook her head. “Not that I recall but he wasn’t...chatty.” She crossed her arms, shoulders twitching in a shiver in her damp T-shirt, and glanced out the window.
“He’s gotta know something,” Pulaski said, eyes still on the road.
“I know.” West drummed his fingers on the dash. “But until I know how much...”
No one spoke, apparently some silent communication passing between them.
“Okay, what next?” I turned my attention to West and leaned forward. “Where does he have her? When do we get there?”
He turned back to face the windshield where wipers squeaked and sloshed through rain. “You’re going home.”
My hands tightened on my new guns. “Excuse me?”
“You’re compromised. He doesn’t trust you and now he’s pissed. I imagine he’ll call you tonight to extort the ring—”
“He has my kid,” I bit out. “Like hell I’m just going to go home and—”
“And you don’t have a fucking clue what you’re dealing with.”
“And whose fault is that? Who has decided to keep me in the dark? Who are you?”
He said nothing.
“I should’ve just given him the fucking ring in the first place.”
“That is why you’re not going.” He gestured ahead as we neared a set of lights and spoke next to Pulas
ki in a low voice. “Up here is fine.”
Oh no, oh no fucking way was he ditching me. As the car pulled over and West moved to get out, I darted forward, right gun raised. Thomas latched onto me immediately, one large hand locking onto my shoulder, but couldn’t reach my extended arm or the pistol in my hand.
West paused, half turned to face me with his hand on the door handle, not even acknowledging the barrel I had pointed at his forehead.
“Liv,” Pru said softly, but no amount of pleading was going to quell me.
My arm trembled, finger unsteady as it wrapped around the trigger. Emotion welled, threatening to break me apart, and my chest shook in a suppressed sob. The lines were blurring, Work Me and Mom Me no longer separate identities, and I knew—probably as well as West knew—that I would do anything in that moment that Ashford wanted, anything at all, if it meant he’d give me Emaleth back unharmed.
“What is he and where does he have her?” My voice dropped low, barely audible over the tapping of rain on the car roof and windows.
West’s grip tightened on the door handle then he relented with a sigh. “He’s an afreet.”
I blinked at him.
“A type of djinn.” As if I should’ve known what he was talking about.
“Genie in a bottle. Seriously?”
Another sigh and he shifted, muscles tense and ready to dart out of the vehicle. “You’re in the middle of something you shouldn’t be. And it’s my fault. But for now, all you need to know is that he can’t be killed. Your guns don’t work. Hitting him won’t work. Decapitating him won’t work. And the Seal of Solomon is the only leverage over him we have.”
We? I strongly doubted he meant him and me.
“Keep the ring while I try to get a hold of the person who can wield it. There’s a chance Ashford doesn’t yet realize I’m involved so I will get your daughter back and come up with Plan B. You will go home and wait, Olivia.”
My extended arm was starting to ache but I didn’t put the gun down. If anyone looked in the windows, past the rain, they’d think it some bizarre carjacking. “If you don’t come back with her, I will tell Ashford absolutely everything I know about you double crossing him. Whatever is going on, this is your fight, not mine, West.”
Solomon's Seal Page 26
