We had thirty minutes to cruise the grounds and move into lynch mob position. It appeared safe for Adam to go one way, Ronan and I another. We decided to split up to keep Adam from being detected if Ronan and I were followed. Adam’s screwed aura would send bio-energy tools through the nearest stargate, shifting any focus off him. Enough people milled around the campus to clue Ian and potential crew into thinking they were picking up random paranormal footprints.
Ronan and I moved within the shadows of the buildings. We dashed from one structure to another, ducking behind bushes, trees, and garbage cans, evading as much security camera detection, human and droid contact as possible.
The narrow silhouette of a one-story building hid us as an under eaves camera made its sweep. Unused to this cloak and dagger routine, my heart raced. February’s humidity seeped through my clothes. I rubbed my hands together, now wishing for those elusive gloves.
Tightness rolled down Ronan’s back as he leaned into me. “They’re not motion activated,” he murmured. He took my hand and we resumed the mission impossible.
Adrenaline blazed through me, a rampant wildfire I hadn’t experienced since…ever. I had a difficult time deciphering whether it stemmed from danger or something even more sinister, such as desire. Whatever. I bottled up my spineless jelly senses to focus on the meet and greet.
The whirl of a droid’s wheels hissed behind us. Ronan towed me between two brick buildings. As the security droid rolled closer, my heart began to drum a rock solo. A cool breeze kicked up, swaying tree branches in a frenzied dance. It swept the spike of warmth out of me and my teeth chattered anew. I had a hard time concentrating on keeping my electromagnetic energy on an even keel.
The droid skated past us intent on an abandoned backpack dumped on a bench ten yards away bordering a lawn area. Its monotone voice called in a report, and the click of a camera eye filled the quiet night with a sense of normalcy. Oops. A ditzy blonde cell must’ve escaped, since normal had pulled a one-eighty on me.
“You still have magic?” Ronan asked.
“Yes. Guess it’s not a dead zone.”
Ronan went all frowny. “What little magic I had is dead. I can’t feel anything here.”
“Maybe your pops was wrong. He’s not the Master of Wikipedia, is he?”
Ronan hooted. “He wishes.”
“Hey.” I fisted my hand in my pocket until my arm hurt. “What did you feel at the Rift?”
Once we escaped the droid’s sensory range, we continued on our way. Automatic landscape lights flashed on, providing more illumination than we wanted. We passed an overflowing garbage compactor, and the stench of rotting bananas barraged my nose. Thanks, but I already popped my daily dose of potassium.
“When I went to the park the first time with my father, I felt like I was being eaten alive from the inside out.”
I eased closer to Ronan’s side, shivering from his download as much from the night in wintry Iceland. All of a sudden, he wrapped his arm around me, tugging us behind a palm tree. Dry papery fronds rasped together. Two college-aged guys skulked by, gazes darting left to right, silent, treacherous. My heart began that incessant pounding again. I leaned into Ronan, my power boiling to the surface. A low throb in my jaw radiated to my temples.
“There it is,” the taller of the two guys said and streaked toward the droid rifling through the backpack on the bench.
I kept tabs on my power, despite the false alarm. It cost me a dull headache whenever I forcibly focused too often on holding in brain waves that tried to escape. Or when unlucky thirteen wanted to walk all over me.
Ronan dipped his head and whispered in my ear, “That was further proof the Rift was already leaking from the earthquakes. Magic existed before I’d done a thing.”
A breeze carried the smell of dampness and mold, adding the flavor of distaste to Ronan’s tale. I froze in the elongated shadow of a three-story building. Despite the temperature, my palms sweated. “What would you feel if the Rift was fully open?”
“According to the Illuminaria, intense energy. More extreme than the energy the three of us whip up together.” The silver moon highlighted the flecks of charcoal in Ronan’s eyes brighter than the stars twinkling in the indigo sky. “When my father forced me to invoke the spell to open it, magic wrenched on me, trickled into me. It belonged inside me in every sense.” He cupped a hand around my neck and the heat of his fingers lingered in a wash of pained pleasure. “Like thousands of bodies and minds had invaded me and wanted to hijack my body.”
When I absorbed energy from around me, I hardly noticed it any longer. It totally belonged inside me or as part of my aura. I pressed my neck into his hand. Revulsion kicked off a rave in my stomach, but I forced it into a tea party. “Now?”
He bent his head to my ear again, his warm breath fanning my lobe. “Since I met you, the feelings have caved. I feel alive again, like I’ve found salvation.”
Tremors traveled up from the hollow of my back, and I realized it was Ronan’s arm trembling around my waist. The weight of his gaze weakened my knees. Shock struck me and my heart lurched madly. A slender, delicate thread formed between us and I sensed his vulnerability. I clutched his leather jacket in my freezing fists. The warmth of his body offered me no comfort as our auras spun in an unpleasant mix of dread and sorrow.
He gathered me closer. “You want to open the Rift now, Aria?” he whispered, his voice soft, dangerous.
Chapter 10
I registered Ronan’s words, losing the ability to breathe for a moment. Did I want to toy with the Rift in any way, shape or form? Was the energy there different from what I already attracted and absorbed? Would I be able to fight off my unluck the way I can when I know it’s coming? Can I trade this assignment for the one behind door number 7?
We rounded a bend and the church rolled into view, dark and ominous under a slash of pale moonlight. According to Ian, the tower doors would be unlocked, the church undergoing remodeling. We cased the perimeter. No foreign magic intruded upon my senses outside my aura shield. “Aura shield” was just my snazzy tag for jumbling my energy and the energy I absorbed from around me into a force field of indeterminate energy, or magic I guess. Usually, I blocked my telekinetic footprint if other ESPs sniffed around me as if I was a catnip-scented mouse to a fat cat. This happened more often than I cared to admit. So much for the Abolishment. So much for a fake dead zone too. My magic was doing a little smirking inside me, wanting to go bat-shit crazy on kidnapper Ian.
A window halfway up the tower reflected a wedge of moonlight, liquid illumination dripping into the tower and chasing away the bogeyman shadows to reveal the menacing double doors. I flicked the safety on and off my stun gun with one hand, clasped the other around my lucky charm. The electricity buzzing within me couldn’t dial down my erratic heartbeat. My muscles tensed as I prepared for bounty hunters to attack.
Ronan drew me into the undulating shadows of winter-bare trees. “Do you feel energy from anyone else? I still don’t sense a thing.” He sent out a jagged feeler of energy that sputtered at our feet.
“Just your faulty aura,” I whispered, wishing I could bolster him with my powers.
He slicked his hair off his forehead, winced as he hugged his bad arm to his side. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” My fingernails dug trenches in my palm. I loosened my clench around my pendant. “If this is a dead zone, I’d know it by now.” A white owl ruffled a palm tree and screeched off into the night. I nearly lurched out of my thong.
The grunting of an injured man carried to us from inside the bell tower. Obviously, he wasn’t trying to hide the racket. Ronan hefted his gun and motioned me out of the way. I drew my stun gun and hopped safely behind him. Stupid wasn’t my middle name. He was bigger and badder than me. I mentally readied a knockout spell for blastoff. The Aria Special was just for bad luck backup.
The grunting evolved into drawn out groans. The cool, prickly air carried a soft thumping, like someone dragging a
sack of body parts across gravestones.
Ronan motioned for me to hang back while he snuck around the tower. My heart pulsed into turbo mode. It wasn’t every day I became embroiled in a high stakes illegal paranormal revolution. Like you hadn’t already been hit with a cluestick.
I peeked around the adobe wall. Ronan’s silhouette disappeared through the doors. A bird whistle rang to my left, and Adam’s aura grazed my cheeks like sandpaper. Suddenly, his firm chest pressed against my back, boosting my armor a smidge. I knew I shouldn’t need it, but, hello, my comfort zone was far, far away.
“Coast is clear, security and a few kids. What’s going on?” He spoke low in my ear.
A gargled yell echoed inside the bell tower followed by a thud against the interior walls. The clatter of metal scraping a wall resonated through my skull and prodded us into action. Adam lunged for the door. I ran fast on his heels, clamping a restraint on my seething power. My pounding head screamed for release. With Ronan and Adam’s intoxicating, rabid energy assaulting me, it was increasingly difficult to control my own. I didn’t usually live by the saying, “payback’s a bitch,” but kidnapper Ian would live to regret that night.
Adam kicked the right side door open, an ebony gun a startling clash against his ashen hand. I scuttled to the closed side of the thick wooden doors.
“Damn it, Riley.” Ian’s husky Scottish burr tipped off his identity. “Leave off the force.”
I shoved past Adam into the square tower, my gaze zipping around the cluttered room. No redheaded firebrand met my frantic search among the construction debris. Ronan rested his booted foot on a burly man’s hip. Sporting thick chestnut hair, he looked in his early twenties. The dude flopped on his side on a spattered painter’s tarp. How much of the red splotches were blood versus paint? A wet stain darkened the left shoulder of Ian’s gray T-shirt. Blood flowed from his right thigh, staining his jeans a deep purple. Gunshots, I presumed. Both must have missed major arteries or organs since Mr. Scottish looked more alert than a whore on a crack diet.
“Where’s Zoe, you piece of shit?” I primed my stunner. “If you’ve hurt her, I’m gonna zap the life out of you.”
“Gone.” Ian began hacking up a lung. A crimson flush stole across the pain crinkling his handsome, whiskered face.
So help me thirteen, I wanted to yank those crinkles into ditches until I got answers. With all the frosty hatred I was able to muster on my face, I took a step toward him.
Ronan held out his hand. “Hold off.” His gaze impaled me with a warning.
He had one lousy minute before I got my spin at the Highlander prick.
Ronan shifted his boot off Ian’s hip. “Start talking and maybe we’ll call an ambulance.”
An expression of part evil and mostly pain consumed Ian’s feeble grin. Blood loss changed his skin to vampire white. An ambulance might be too late for him the longer we delayed medical treatment. I think he knew it by the look eating the arrogant satisfaction in his eyes. Still I didn’t trust him and wanted him tied up.
“Do you want a swift death or a crawling, tortuous one?” I nudged my foot into the blooming stain on his leg.
He roared bloody murder and grabbed my boot. His waning strength propelled me off balance, twirling me onto a sawhorse. Before I could say, “Hells bells,” I was tumbling to the floor. My head crashed into an aluminum ladder and my left hand struck a saw blade. The blade serrated my palm as my hand slid to the canvas covering the floor. Pain blazed up my arm and unconsciousness flirted with my mind.
Shouts and scuffles ensued. My aching back and thudding head beat me into submission. The four bells towering above me multiplied into a dozen. I closed my eyes to stop the spinning and ringing, the nauseating sinking of despair as fate tossed another bad luck wrench into my village square. If I died, who’d save Zoe?
Adam’s face floated above me. “Aria.” Concern pebbled his voice. “Where does it hurt?”
I opened my mouth to speak but my throat had gone Sahara dry. A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn’t think I was crying. Maybe my head was numb and leaking.
Adam’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “Talk to me, Blondie.”
I cracked open my eyes. “Blondie?” That cut past the desert in my throat. Zoe was the only one who had the nerve to call me Blondie. A tiny cheerleading squad tossed pompoms in the pit of my stomach. A lock of his translucent hair curled around my mess of short tresses. “You’re one to talk.” His relief trembled against me in his exhaled breath. Air wavered, and Adam’s aura surrounded me in warm and fuzzies, chased by flakes of cold taint.
I didn’t much care for this artificial reality if it was going to hurt so badly. “Other than a concussion, a sliced palm, and a twisted ankle, I’m okay.” I rolled onto my side, patted my hair into place.
Adam gently pulled me into a hug, cradling me against his six-pack abs beer companies would kill for. After they killed for Ronan’s tanned six-pack. I buried my face against his shoulder, inhaling his citrusy, amber cologne. Our magic generated waves of energy, sweeping the fog out of my brain until one measly thought blew away the mist.
“Let me at that scumbag!” Woozy, I wrestled out of Adam’s arms. He hoisted me up, balancing me on my feet. I waited for the dizziness to pass, steadying my legs. “Ian’s contribution to the population problem has just been accepted.”
Ronan found masking tape in the construction gear and tied Ian’s wrists behind his back and taped his ankles. He trained his gun at the goon’s head. Said goon slumped on his side, a parody of pleasure contorting his pallid face.
My inner cat wanted to scratch his pleasure into pain so bad, I had to fight to keep my claws dangling at my sides. “Where’s Zoe? Who did this to you? Why did you want to meet us here?”
Ian’s mouth slackened and his eyes closed. He sagged onto his stomach, his body limp.
“No!” Outrage paralyzed me. Lightning strikes of luck filled my telekinetic receptors. Lucky for Ian, not me, as it ignited an excruciating fire in my battered body. I launched a wave of uplifting energy toward him. Air Drugs, one might call it. When I was twelve, I’d tried it on a neighbor’s cat after a car hit it. I kept the cat alive while I borrowed my neighbor’s motor scooter and zoomed to the vet who saved its eight other lives.
Ronan checked Ian’s neck pulse. “He’s alive.”
Ian’s eyelids fluttered up. “What’d you do to me?” His opaque gaze found a home on me.
“I can do more if you give it up.” My grip grew moist on my stun gun. Antsy as all get out, I danced from foot to sore foot.
“I didn’t hurt Zoe Marino. We have no need for her to die. I wanted you two, same as the other dozen trackers Riley sent.” His ragged breathing stabilized. “I was told this was a dead zone and a good place to make the trade without incurring your magic.”
Ronan cursed a blue streak under his breath. “Who took Zoe? Who told you this was a dead zone?”
Ian coughed, his body shaking hard. “Who do you think? We’re all fighting for the money. Thought I’d found an alliance. Said she had something to show me here. Instead, she betrayed me, set this up, and sicced your father’s dogs on me.” Another racking cough rattled him perilously close to comaland.
“Who?” Ronan growled out.
“Melisande—”
Ronan’s aura tickled mine, exploiting his hatred and fury toward the Botox hag. I gave Ian another boost of calming energy to keep him talking. It worked and didn’t cost me much since I was already in two worlds of hurt.
Ronan rose, stuffing his gun in his shoulder holster. “Someone betrayed her too. She’s dead.”
“Where’s Zoe?” I nudged my booted toes below the bloody trickle staining his pants. “Don’t make me ask again.”
Pain sunk the sides of Ian’s mouth and he gnashed his teeth. “Stop,” he cried. “I’m done with this shit. I didn’t sign up to die. Let me live, I’ll divert Riley away from you. I swear, man.”
Danger gleamed in Ronan’s eyes, a
nd a smile twitched up the corners of his mouth. “Who the hell took Zoe and shot you up?”
“Micah Duprey.” Ian’s torso spasmed. The prick laughed as if his sanity was leaking out his new air holes.
Ronan growled and beat a fist into the adobe walls.
“Who’s Micah?” I whispered over my shoulder.
“One of Riley’s enforcers,” Adam replied. “More than a bounty hunter. Riley’s sparing no one to hunt you down.”
Ronan’s anguish smothered the air, bogged me down. Why was Ronan’s father so formidable that he hired enforcers and bounty hunters? Fresh waves of pain stung my palm, and I raised my scraped hand to rub away my terror.
Ian coughed. “Here’s a tip for you. Get out now, they’re coming back for you, if they aren’t already circling the wagons.”
Adam grabbed my wrist from behind me. “He’s right. We’re wasting time.”
Just as Adam said the words, my magic dwindled, as if an electronic deadener was approaching. And fast. “They’re here.”
I bolted and stumbled on the doorsill, falling face forward to the ground, catching myself on my hands and knees. White-hot pokers of fire burned my palms. More dots of pain to connect. Adam tripped over me and took a header into a planter of mulch nuggets. Ronan jerked me up, his chest against my back. He half carried, half pushed me toward the walled rose garden.
“Damn it, Aria. Watch what you’re doing.” As soon as we approached the gate, he released me.
Ire shot through me, becoming a normal emotion renting space in my body. “Thanks for the tweet.” Knees now throbbing, I sprinted through the gate into the garden, leaving Ronan on the other side of the wall. A body thumped to the ground behind me in the dark. My heart scudded in my chest. “Ronan?” No response. I slipped my injured hand in my jacket pocket. Empty. Just once, I’d love to use my stun gun before I died.
Rose bushes provided a paltry waist-high shield. I couldn’t even rely upon a cloud covering. The crescent moon and the sky of twinkling diamonds ratted me out. Power festered in me, but I feared using a knockout spell in case I hit Ronan. Not that it mattered because I think he was out cold.
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