Then I was airborne again.
I crashed to the ground hard. Despite the fresh infusion of agony, I scrambled up as fast as I could, searching my pockets for the other knife. The wolf was a blur rushing toward me. I jumped aside, and it barreled past.
Something behind me grabbed my arm and twisted back and up. I let out a breathless shout as I was forced to my knees.
As the other werewolf whirled and came back toward me, sirens wailed through the air, and the night turned blue and red.
So that car had been the sheriff.
Another long howl rose from the mountain path. In response, the wolves trying to kill me snarled in disappointment. I was shoved to the ground, and they took off running.
Great. No way in hell could I explain this to the cops.
Somehow I managed to stand and take a single, stumbling step toward the silent heap that was Taeral, ten feet or so away from me. I knew we had to get out of here. At the same time, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Part of me was trying to decide whether to try the van or just drag Taeral and head for cover, even as I sank to the ground and hit my knees hard. I was still planning to grab him and run when I doubled over and coughed up a lot more blood than I’d ever seen coming out of a mouth.
The last thing I heard was tires crunching on gravel, squealing brakes, and slamming doors. Then blackness closed over me.
CHAPTER 16
Consciousness was reluctant to come back. Whatever waited beyond the haze, it wasn’t going to feel good—but something told me the potential pain wasn’t the worst of it. All I could remember was that things had gone horribly wrong.
And there had been werewolves involved.
That pulled me awake. Pain and dizziness surged through me when I opened my eyes, and I had to squeeze them shut again until breathing stopped hurting. I managed to figure out that I was lying on my back, and the firm, cold surface beneath me wasn’t the ground. Unfortunately, being inside didn’t seem like a good change.
This time I opened my eyes slowly. The bright blur above me gradually resolved into ceiling tiles done in industrial ugly. Just to the left, bars ran down from a metal beam bolted into the tiles. I was in a prison cell.
I tried to sit up. But I’d only managed a few inches when my left arm wrenched and I slammed back on the floor. Snarling in pain, I turned my head carefully to find my wrist cuffed to one of the bars.
Okay. This was bad.
I looked the other way. Across the small, bare cell, the bars on the opposite side formed the wall of the next cell. Taeral lay on the floor of it, his normal hand cuffed to the bars. He was bloody and bruised and not moving at all.
And Sadie’s pack had…kidnapped her?
That didn’t make any goddamned sense.
I gritted my teeth and started inching myself upright, sliding the cuff up the bar as I moved. Everything in me felt like brittle twigs, ready to snap with the slightest motion. The bloody furrows carved across my gut throbbed almost as bad as my head. Once I was sitting, I reached back gingerly with my free hand and touched the worst spot.
My fingers came back smeared red.
“Taeral.” Speaking made my throat clench and my eyes water. I took a slow, fortifying breath and tried again. “Taeral, wake up. Don’t be dead.”
Nothing.
“Taeral!” The shout spiked pain behind my eyes, and I winced hard. He had to be alive. Werewolves couldn’t kill Fae…could they? And besides, the sheriff wouldn’t have handcuffed a dead body inside a cell. “Taeral, please,” I said as loud as I dared. “We have a problem.”
“Just one?” he murmured without opening his eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. “Next time, answer me when I ask if you’re dead.”
“Technically, you did not ask.” He shifted slightly and hissed. “Do you know where we are?”
“Looks like the sheriff’s station.” I turned my attention to the rest of the place. Four of these box-like empty cells, really more like cages, along the back wall of a large room. The rest of the space contained two desks, a table littered with folders and loose paper, and a bunch of filing cabinets. The single door had a frosted glass window with the word HOLDING printed on it, backwards from this side.
A schoolroom-style clock on the wall read quarter to ten. So we’d been out for at least five hours. With no windows in this room, I couldn’t tell if it was a.m. or p.m.—but I really hoped we hadn’t lost most of a day.
One corner of Taeral’s blood-lined mouth lifted slightly. “Perhaps we should have killed her when we had the opportunity.”
“No. She’s just doing her job,” I said. “Besides, she probably saved our lives showing up when she did. Those wolves were going to kill us.”
He grunted. “They’d have tried.”
“Well, it sure as hell seemed like they were succeeding.”
Just then the door to the holding room opened. Sheriff Gormann walked in and strode toward the cells, one hand resting lightly on her gun. “If you need medical attention, you’ll have to wait,” she said. “I know your friend wasn’t Michelle Laurent, and I know what she is. Are you one of them?”
I decided to play dumb on the off chance she meant some other family. As a rule, people didn’t generally believe in werewolves. “One of who?”
She pulled the gun. “This is loaded with silver bullets. Don’t think I won’t use it.”
Okay, so Sheriff Gormann was the exception. “No, I’m not one of them. Neither is he.” I sighed and shifted so I wasn’t leaning on the bars. “Look, Sheriff. We’ve obviously been assaulted. Usually the law locks up the violent criminals, not the victims. What’s the deal?”
“The deal, Mr. Black, is that I searched your van. And what I found was a lot of weapons and a couple of beds. One of them with restraints. This leads me to believe that you may be involved with the disappearances.”
Her tone suggested that by ‘may be involved,’ she meant ‘you’re definitely the perps.’
I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to explain that the bed with restraints was for dead people. “All of that is legal,” I said—which was mostly the truth, except for the guns. “I’m a contractor for the NYPD. Get in touch with Captain Abraham Strauss out of the twenty-first precinct. He’ll verify it.” At least, I hoped he would. Abe usually went along with my crazy schemes, but this might be a little too much for him.
“Really,” she said. “And I suppose the bloody knife I found at the scene was police issue? I’m pretty sure the NYPD doesn’t hand out big, curved daggers.”
That got Taeral’s attention. He struggled to haul himself up, gasping with every motion. “Where is the weapon?” he grated.
“So it’s yours, then,” she said. “Please don’t bother trying to tell me you’re a police contractor.”
I gritted my teeth and thought really hard at Taeral to stay out of this. He was making it worse. “He’s my brother,” I said, and kept right on talking over her skeptical glare. “Look, just call Abe. He’ll vouch for us. I’d give you the number, but you probably have my phone. It was in the van.”
The sheriff shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you,” she said. “You have no paperwork, nothing to even suggest that your story is true—and you’ve already lied to me. If you want someone to contact your alleged superior, you can take it up with the FBI agent.”
“FBI agent?” That did not sound good.
“Yes. Agent Reese has been around for a week or so, helping with the missing persons cases,” she said. “He’s here at the station now. Showed up a few hours after we brought you in, and he’s been waiting to talk to you people, so I’m going to let him know you’re awake.” She shook her head. “Now him, I believe.”
“Sheriff, wait.” I tried to face her fully, but the handcuffs snapped me short. No way was I buying the FBI thing. I’d worked with Abe long enough to know the Feds didn’t actually operate the way they were shown in movies. “Did you call this guy, or did he rea
lly just show up after we did?”
“No, I didn’t call him,” she said. “Why does it matter?”
“Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious? He just knows you have new suspects? Which, by the way, you’re wrong about. We didn’t kidnap anyone.” I sure as hell found it questionable. In fact, I was willing to bet this so-called agent had never set foot in a Federal Bureau of Investigations office, and had an interesting tattoo somewhere on him. A blue ankh and sword.
They didn’t have time to infiltrate the local police, but I suspected Milus Dei would have no problem impersonating the feds.
Sheriff Gormann frowned severely. For a few seconds it looked like she might be considering, but then she said, “Look, it’s a small town. Word spreads fast. Besides, Agent Reese checks out—and I highly suggest you cooperate with him. I want my people back.”
Damn. I couldn’t blame her for what she was doing. Just like Abe, she was one of the good guys. I knew she was mostly pissed off about letting us go the first time, when the evidence she had now strongly pointed to guilty. But she wasn’t working with all the facts. “All right,” I said. “Do me a favor, though. Ask Agent Reese if he has any tattoos.”
Her mouth firmed. “Why would I do that?”
“To see how he reacts,” I said. “Humor me.”
Something in her expression shifted, and I thought maybe she’d try it. But then her features hardened. “I don’t have time for this,” she said, spinning on a heel to stalk toward the door. She opened it, stepped through and slammed it shut.
“Fantastic,” Taeral said when the sheriff was gone. “Now what?”
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. “Now…I guess we do things the hard way.”
CHAPTER 17
So all we had to do was break out of the cells before the sheriff came back with Agent What-a-Coincidence Reese, escape the police station unnoticed, and somehow find a secret werewolf bunker that was somewhere on a mountain, with no transportation and no gear. Oh, and hope that Sadie had convinced her family not to kill us.
No problem.
I’d just take things one step at a time. Step one, get out of the cuffs.
I didn’t have a spare set of handcuff keys on me. But I remembered when we got Daoin out of Milus Dei headquarters, Taeral had used some kind of spell to unlock his chains. I couldn’t recall the exact word, but a few times I’d been able to sort of translate words or phrases into Fae, if I didn’t think about it too hard.
I’d just have to hope I had some magic. Still wasn’t sure how it all worked.
I curled my fingers around the cuffs, thought about unlocking them, and spoke the word that floated into my mind. “Oscaihl.”
The handcuffs clicked.
Taeral twisted to look at me. “Going somewhere, brother?”
“Yeah. The hell out of here.” I wrenched my wrist free and used the bars to pull myself to my feet—then I had to lean on them to catch my breath. Damn. I was in a lot worse shape than I’d thought. “Be there in a second,” I called to Taeral. “Feel free to unlock those cuffs any time.”
He laughed. It was not a happy sound. “After the werewolves, I’ve no spark left,” he said. “Though I should not have bothered using magic against them.”
“Why not?”
“Werewolves draw their abilities from the moon as well,” he said. “Fae magic cannot directly affect a fully transformed were.”
I frowned. “Well, that shield thing worked.”
“Aye. The shield affects the air. Not the wolf.”
“I guess that’s good to know,” I said. “But spark or not, we still need to get out of here. And we have to move fast.”
Taeral grimaced. “I’m not certain I can move at all, let alone fast.”
“Fine. I’ll drag you out, then.” I took another minute to hope my legs would stop shaking, and then started across the cell toward him. “It’s a small town. They can’t have that many people working full-time here,” I said. “Should be able to avoid them. I’ll just keep unlocking things until we find the exit.”
He was already shaking his head. “You’ll not make it, if you try to bring me.”
“Like I’m going to leave you here. You know this agent guy is probably Milus Dei, right?”
“Aye,” he said. “And that is why you must go alone. They cannot take you.”
“Don’t even—”
The door opened, cutting off my angry rant and reducing our options to bad, or worse.
“You’re loose.” The man who walked in wore an expensive suit that was way above government agent pay grade. He stopped facing us between the two cells, and casually moved his jacket aside to show off his gun. “Interesting. You’ll tell me how you did that eventually. Meanwhile, I have a few questions for you,” he said. “Answer them right, and you’re free to go.”
“Yeah, right. Do I win a new car and a trip to Cancun, too?”
After a brief pause, he said, “I can tell you’re going to need incentive. Unfortunately, the FBI doesn’t bargain with—”
“Cut the crap,” I said, trying to shuffle closer to Taeral. Maybe I could spring his cuffs, at least. I’d figure out the rest from there. “If you’re an FBI agent, then I’m the goddamned President.”
The man gave a chilling smile. “Fine. We’ll skip the pleasantries and get down to business,” he said. “First, I’ll just mention that I know what you two are. We were only expecting the werewolf…but a couple of Fae? Quite the bonus.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean, expecting?”
“I’ll ask the questions, Fae.” He unholstered the gun with a quick motion. “And you’ll answer. Or your friend here dies.”
He pulled the trigger.
The report thundered through the room. Taeral jerked and cried out, slumping against the bars as a wet stain spread rapidly from the center of his black shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” I snarled, dropping beside him to put a hand on the cuffs. His arm had twisted unnaturally when he fell, and his attempts to shift his position were failing. “Oscaihl,” I said.
There was a click, and I pulled the handcuff loose from the bar.
“So that’s how you did it. Nice trick,” the man who wasn’t an agent said. “But it’s not going to save your friend. That bullet is cold iron, treated with a little something extra.”
I shivered. “What…”
“Mandrake,” Taeral gasped sharply, curling in on himself.
“Your friend knows his poisons.” Not-Agent Reese gestured with the gun. “I’ve got four more full clips of those. You don’t talk, I’ll keep shooting. We’ll find out how many it takes to kill him,” he said. “Let’s start with this. What were you doing with the werewolf?”
My jaw felt like it hit the floor. He should’ve known damned well what we were doing with Sadie. “You are Milus Dei, aren’t you?”
“Do you think I’m kidding?” he shouted. “I will kill him. Answer the question.”
Before I could, the holding room door burst open and six feet of angry sheriff bolted through, weapon drawn. Her rush slowed as she took in the situation. “What the hell happened?” she said. “I heard gunfire—”
Her eyes widened when they landed on Taeral and the spreading pool of blood beneath him. “Agent Reese, did you shoot my prisoner?”
“This is a federal investigation now,” the man said tightly.
She glared at him. “The hell it is. If they’re abducting my townspeople, it’s my business,” she spat. “I want you out of here, while I contact the Bureau and get someone in here to treat that man. If he’s not dead.” She turned and headed for one of the desks.
“I don’t have time for this,” Reese muttered under his breath. And aimed his gun at the sheriff.
“Sheriff, look out!” I shouted.
To her credit, she didn’t even glance back. She dove under the desk, just in time for the bullet to whiz through the space she’d been seconds ago. But as she shimmied toward the other side,
Reese crouched for a low shot.
He wouldn’t miss this time.
I grabbed the door of the cell with both hands and whispered, “Oscaihl.” There was a click, and as the bars swung outward, I lunged for Reese and knocked him flat on the floor just when he pulled the trigger.
The bullet sheared off a wooden desk leg, and the sheriff swore loudly. The desk tilted and crashed.
I tried for the gun, but Reese threw me off and scrambled up, kicking me back down before I could do the same. Another report split the air.
That one came from the sheriff.
Reese let out a garbled shout. His gun clattered to the floor, and he clutched his bloodied hand to his stomach.
“Don’t move,” the sheriff breathed from behind the ruined desk. She started to get up.
And Reese moved, whirling on a heel to bolt for the door.
“Goddamn it!” Sheriff Gormann fired a parting shot that punched a hole through the lower wooden panel of the door before Reese shoved it open and darted through. She grabbed a walkie from her belt and spoke into it. “Unit two, unit five, we have a runner. Take him down. Use necessary force. And get an ambulance here.”
I coughed loudly. “Sheriff…”
She turned a heated stare on me. “Thanks. It looks like you saved my life,” she said—and then raised her gun at me. “Now explain what the hell’s going on, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
CHAPTER 18
I let out a breath. “What’s that saying about no good deed?” I muttered.
Sheriff Gormann didn’t waver. “Good guys don’t know how to pick locks. Especially handcuff and cell door locks.”
Well, at least she didn’t say I was magic. “That’s kind of a long story,” I said. “Can we—”
“I’ve got time.”
“Yeah, well my brother doesn’t!”
“Shit. He’s alive?” Her face paled, and she grabbed for the CB again. “All units, I need that ambulance. Now.”
The walkie crackled. “Called ’em, Sheriff,” a male voice said. “But your runner…did you mean that FBI guy?”
Fields of Blood (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 2) Page 8
