“We need to go get Gabe,” Sebastian broke the quiet after a moment. “We can’t just sit here and wait. They could be doing anything to him in there.”
Kai sighed. “Do you know which room he’s in? Do you know if he’s being held at gunpoint right now? I’d guess that as far as David and Olivia know Gabe is still unaware of our world. They’d threaten him with words, then fists, then weapons, which means we can’t just crash our way in there in case one of them is jumpy and likely to shoot first. We’re not bulletproof, Seb. Add to that the fact that this isn’t a movie. This is a populated area, full of humans, where one wrong step could get us arrested instead of them. Until we know more about what’s going on, we have to wait.”
Sebastian growled, but he had to admit that Kai had a point.
“Well what do you suggest we do then?” Sebastian needed to move. He needed to do something.
“You know perfectly well that I’d suggest again that we call the police, but I don’t know how they’ll actually respond if I tell them that someone’s been kidnapped and is in this specific room here, and I don’t know how long it would take them to get here anyway.” Kai sighed and stared at the beige building. Pinkish brown doors stood in pairs waiting for some traveler to enter for a night’s rest or shielding them from public view. The railings on the second level and the columns stretching from ground to roof were painted the same shade, and somehow the effect was industrial cookie-cutter rather than uniquely interesting, but it somehow managed to fit in with the landscape.
“I guess I’d say that we should probably wait and keep watch. See if they come out of the room, or maybe if we’re lucky, Gabe comes out. If they leave him there alone we could go in and get him out safely,” Kai said. His eyebrows pinched together and he looked like he was thinking hard about something.
“I want to call home and have them spread an alert. Keep the kids in for a little bit until we know more about what’s going on. I don’t like this.” Kai reached for his phone and started texting.
“Fine, but I’m going to get close and see if I can learn anything.” Sebastian opened the door just a bit and let it settle back, not latched, but not wide open. Kai reached up and flicked off the dome light and Sebastian unclipped his seatbelt. His fox body was more than strong enough to push the door far enough open to slip out onto the gravel strewn blacktop. The door thudded closed behind him as Kai pulled it shut. Sebastian sniffed at the air, but the stench of diesel and freeway fumes sat too heavy, and the dust from all the wheels finished the job of masking any useful scents.
He knew Kai watched him as he slunk across the parking area until he was hidden by the giant wheel he ducked behind. The place wasn’t too busy, it was almost ten at night now, after all, but he was still wary of being seen and chased. Not everyone found wild animals cute, especially wild animals that were known to hunt. And of course, there was the possibility of David or Olivia seeing him and realizing that he wasn’t a natural fox.
He made a full circuit of the building, first heading around the end with the front desk. The lights in the office were bright and there was a bored looking older man leaning on the counter, flipping the page of some magazine. On the freeway a truck rumbled past noisily, and around the back of the motel the sound was amplified from bouncing off the blank, industrial looking, featureless white wall. Bare dirt sifted under his paws and Sebastian flicked an ear at the sound of a small creature scurrying away from him under a tiny bush that pretended to separate the motel from the freeway. Rounding the next corner he found more of the same, and he guessed the blank wall was intended to keep the traffic noises out of the rooms, and he wondered if it worked.
Just around the last corner was the room he wanted, the one at the end. He managed to creep very close to the room indicated by his foxfire, which shimmered in his vision but invisible to anyone else. It lay flat on the cement pavement in front of a motel door, marking the room they’d carried Gabe into. For all the caution the hunters were using to protect themselves against magic, they seemed remarkably careless. The door was propped open slightly for air to flow into the room, though why they’d prefer the dusty, exhaust-choked outside air to the air-conditioned alternative he wasn’t sure.
Still, he was glad of it since the small opening allowed him to clearly hear into the room. He could even see a tiny sliver of the space from where he crouched behind the front wheel of the hunters’ own SUV. Davids’s muttering voice poured out into the night and Sebastian settled down to eavesdrop.
22
The sounds of the freeway were muted here, blocked by the building and muffled by the small amount of distance. The parking lot smells of heat and exhaust and disinterested relief at stopping on a long trip were beginning to settle into the cooler scents of nighttime and sleeping travelers and resting engines. The stripe of light that spilled from the cracked-open door stretched across the sidewalk and started fading out and blending into the ambient parking lighting as it spilled over the front of the SUV, just brushing against Sebastian’s fur.
From inside the room, the odors of industrial cleaners and stale air-conditioner poured out into the evening to join the rest of the parking lot scents, but also, faintly, Sebastian could pick up David’s own stale leather smell and Gabe’s fresher pine-and-earth that was now always overlaid by the Apothecary’s herbal perfume. Olivia’s presence was very faint, almost undetectable through the rest of the information trickling past Sebastian’s fox nose, and he wondered if she was maybe in the shower.
There was rustling inside, glass bottles or something similar clinking together and jostling. Probably someone digging through a bag. Cloth against cloth, and the thud of something heavy but soft on a bed.
“Here, now. This is going to get us what we need. Drink up, kid,” David muttered. Sebastian snarled silently, feeling helpless to stop whatever was going on inside. It couldn’t be good, if the spluttered choking noises were anything to go by. Why was Kai being so hesitant? He could just storm in there and take Gabe, then call the police if he still felt it was necessary. Why wait?
“Now then, boy. You tell me what you see,” David said, speaking clearly, like he was having a normal conversation with someone. Gabe was still coughing and for a moment that was all the noise there was escaping from the orange room.
“Wake up now, and answer my questions, boy,” David growled. Gabe’s breath came in wheezing pants and when he spoke Sebastian heard the fear and the illness in it. He’d seen something, that much Sebastian was certain of. What surprised him, however, was the strength in Gabe’s voice, and the lack of the toneless, robotic speech that indicated an answer from a vision.
“No. I don’t want to tell you what I saw. I don’t want to answer any of your questions, you kidnapping psycho,” Gabe said. There was a crack of flesh on flesh and Gabe whimpered. Sebastian’s silent snarl turned into a growl.
“You’d better do what I tell you to, boy, or your life is going to get very unpleasant. We’ve got you here now, and here is where you’re going to stay while you answer questions for us,” David said. His voice had smoothed slightly. He was certain of his victory.
“My friends were expecting me. They’ll know something’s wrong and call the police. They know who you and Olivia are, and can give the cops descriptions. You’re not going to get out of this without facing the consequences.” Gabe shot back.
“What friends? You don’t have any friends. You have people who see an opportunity for cheap labor. Nobody’s coming to save you.” The sneer in David’s voice was so clear Sebastian could see it, even with the man himself hidden by the door. “You’re a homeless runaway kid. Nobody’s going to miss you, let alone look for you. Even if the cops did go look at your little cave camp, all they’d do is clean it out and toss your crap into the garbage.”
“Think whatever you want. Keep me tied up if you really think it will help you. You can even force feed me that witch’s potion garbage. It won’t get you what you want.”
“Is
that what you’ve seen? You’ve seen us fail?” David asked.
There was a moment of silence and when he spoke again, there was a satisfied smile in Gabe’s voice. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sebastian wished like hell that he could see more than a sliver of the bright orange motel room wall and the corner of a bed.
“I would, in fact. And you are going to tell me whether you want to or not. I’m kinda impressed that you’re not talking already. Every time we’ve done this before you started spilling your vision immediately. You must be building up an immunity to the potion or something,” David said. “Just means that you need a second dose this time. I’ll call the witch later and see if she can’t make it stronger next time.”
Gabe hissed in pain then spluttered and choked before finally gasping for breath and coughing wetly.
“There, that should do it,” David said. Something landed on the bed with a quiet thump. “Now then. We’ll start with an easy question. Was my cousin’s target the reason she’s in prison?”
“No. It was the other one.” Gabe’s voice had lost all emotion, robotic and cold. He was deep in his visions and Sebastian’s heart froze. There was no way to protect him now, and no way to stop it. Where the hell was Kai? If there was ever an emergency, this was it. They needed to stop David’s questioning or the Village’s secrets were going to be exposed to the hunters, and then everything would be over.
“The other one, huh? Well, we’ll take care of that guy, too, I guess, whatever he is. I wonder how many monsters there are?” David was clearly talking to himself, but Gabe answered his question anyway.
“Only two nearby,” he said.
“Nearby? How near?” David’s voice was sharp now.
“Very near, though only one is here. The other is farther away, but will be here soon,” Gabe answered.
“Excellent!” David was eager for the fight, and confident in his victory. “I can’t wait for this. It’s been months since we really hunted anything, now we get two at once!” The sound of David rummaging through his things, probably searching for weapons of some kind. “Damn, most of my gear is in the car. Didn’t need it for you. What do I need to fight them?”
“You will only fight with one of them tonight, but the other monster is the one that will defeat you. That one will defeat both of you.” Gabe’s voice was confident again, the flat tone starting to fade. Suddenly there was coughing and wetness and the sharp smell of vomit cut through the night.
“God, you little shit. Watch where you aim that mess! Why can’t you keep your nastiness to yourself? God, you never hear about seers puking everywhere in the old stories.” David’s stream of abuse and complaining went on for some time, accompanied by him crashing around and slamming in and out of the bathroom. Sebastian’s heart sank. Kai would no doubt defeat this arrogant hunter without any sort of fight, but to know that Gabe thought of them like that cut deeply.
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t tied me up like a damn pork roast I’d have made it to the toilet, jackass.” Gabe sputtered. His voice was raw and not very loud, but the words were clear and Sebastian felt a surge of pride in the kid. There was the loud slap of skin on skin again.
“What the hell do you mean that I won’t fight them tonight but I’ll lose to a monster anyway?” David demanded. Gabe groaned, then grunted a few times, like he was being shaken.
“Answer me!” David yelled, and Gabe gasped in pain again.
“No!” Gabe spat out. There was the sound of David landing another punch then a body landing on furniture, then the floor. Sebastian was crouched now, about to shoot out from under the car and slam into the room, Kai or no Kai. Like hell he was going to let this jerk beat on Gabe. He was sick, weak from his vision, and it sounded like he was tied up and helpless, not to mention too thin and not trained to fight. He took his first step into the open and froze when another sound finally made its way into his attention.
It was Olivia, walking across the parking lot after cutting across the small patch of grass that separated the motel’s space from a small building nearby and the access road. She was carrying a big fast food bag and a drink tray with three cups in it and was whistling quietly to herself. Sebastian crouched back down and slunk back. Damnit, he couldn’t face both of them down, no matter that he’d been about to try just that a moment ago. Of course she wasn’t hanging out in the bathroom for that whole time, she’d been down the road getting them food.
She pushed the door open with her hip and slid into the room.
“Hey you two, dinner is— what the hell is going on in here?” The door slowly closed back to rest on the makeshift doorstop, leaving only Olivia’s back in view, but she seemed shocked into immobility.
“I was getting answers, and you won’t believe what the brat told me before he got sick all over me. I can’t wait til we’re done with this kid,” David said. There was a crinkling of paper and Olivia jostled. David taking the food from her, Sebastian guessed.
“I was only gone for what, forty-five minutes? In that time he woke up, drank the potion, gave you some answers, and then what, you tied him back up? Why? And why is he on the floor? And what is that smell?” Olivia moved away from the door, and gasped after a few moments. “Good lord, David, what did you do to him? His eye is going to swell shut! I’m getting a washcloth and using the ice from your soda for this.”
“Why would you bother? We only need a few more answers anyway. We can get started again after we eat.” His voice was muffled. He seemed to be talking around his food.
“Started again? What… David, what are you talking about, the boy’s unconscious and you hit him! Several times, from what I can see. He’s not going to cooperate with us after all this! He’s never going to want to help us again!”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? We’ve got the potion and we’ll force the visions,” he said. There was a silence that sounded heavy and more than a little stunned before Olivia spoke again.
“David,” she said. “What have you done? You can’t treat human beings like this.”
Another moment of silence before David replied. “What human beings? All I see there is a cursed prophet. World will be better off without shit like that in it.”
23
“David, I know you’re more of a thug than anything else, but this is pretty beyond the pale, even for you,” Olivia’s voice escaped the door and Sebastian’s ears twitched, making sure he could catch every word, even if they whispered. Olivia sounded stunned, and her voice was just a little muffled. “I’m not going to play your game of good cop bad cop. You’re losing your grip.”
“We don’t have time for your soft, bleeding-heart plan to sweet talk him. We need answers and we need them now. My cousin’s lawyer is going to need information,” David’s voice was a calm rumbling counterpoint to Olivia’s tense irritation. “That is how we get information.”
“It’s not like what this kid says is exactly evidence, you idiot. What are you going to do, tell the court that it was self-defense because the kid cursed with visions told us that your cousin was fighting monsters? You’d be tossed into a psych ward so fast you’d never know what happened,” Olivia said. There were footsteps in the room and Olivia paced into view and out again.
“Of course not,” David answered. “But I can get the information I need to track the creature down in its nest and then capture it, or learn how to discredit it. That would go a long way to helping my cousin.”
“Your cousin pled guilty!” Olivia paced back into view for a few seconds.
“On the terrible advice of their shitty lawyer, because they didn’t have all the facts.” David was still calm.
“I hate to remind you, David, but your cousin knows perfectly well that ‘the so-called victim wasn’t human’ isn’t a legal defense. That’s one of the many reasons it’s drilled into us when we’re kids that getting caught by the police is the end of our career.”
When Olivia paced back into view the third time she turned and stopped, staring at
her partner. There was a rustling noise in the room, and Olivia’s eyes went wide.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“What we set out to do,” David answered again. Sebastian started to wonder if the hunter’s calm was entirely rational. It seemed that Olivia was beginning to wonder the same thing now. Her mouth fell open for a second at the sight of whatever David was doing.
“Stop, what are you— you can’t do that!” she stuttered, and stepped back out of view. There was a flurry of noise, and she fell back into view off balance and stumbling.
“Back off!” David growled now, his calm attitude turning dangerous.
“No! That boy is still unconscious! You can’t force feed him that potion!” Olivia recovered her balance and her movements were now more combative, less casual. She wasn’t standing in a room with her partner anymore, she was facing a potential opponent. Sebastian almost felt badly for her, facing down someone she’d considered a friend, or at least an ally. Almost.
“The best, most accurate visions he will have are the ones he dreams. He can’t dream if he’s awake. I’ve already done it once, if you’d paid attention, and he provided me with some very interesting facts. Back off, Olivia, I won’t tell you again.” David said. More sounds of moving. Cloth on cloth on leather on…
“Is that a gun?” Olivia’s eyes grew wide again. “When did— what are you doing? What is wrong with you?” She took a step back.
“Once he’s given me the information I need, he’s going to meet his end in an alley somewhere. Nobody’s going to miss some homeless kid who stumbled into the wrong side of town.”
Olivia’s jaw dropped again and Sebastian watched her struggle for her next words.
“David, he’s human. You can’t kill him, that’s murder!” she gaped at him, her eyes tracking the gun now, not the man. “Our job is to protect humans, not harm them. It’s not his fault he was cursed. He was a child when it happened! We should help him find a way to get free from this, not kill him in cold blood after all the help he’s given us!”
Finding Insight Page 14
