Panicked, I thrashed and fought like a woman possessed, knowing that if I couldn’t fight off these three, it would soon be a whole army and all hope would be lost. I fumbled for the pack at my waist, taking the blows aimed at me as I dug for…ah ha, pepper spray! My Taser would have done just as well, but I was happy to take what I could get. I thumbed off the safety button and heaved to shift the weight on top of me enough to free that hand. I found my opening and sprayed indiscriminately around me.
Howls and hisses greeted me, drowning out the baying dogs, now close enough to split my head open with their triumphant sound. Bodies rolled away from me, and I got my own under me, bursting up from the ground for another dead run.
The dogs lunged for me. One caught something at my waistband and nearly pulled me over before it gave. I half whirled and let loose again with the pepper spray, feeling really badly about it. They were only doing their job. I liked dogs. But it was them or me.
I ran a mad dash, ignoring the closest building, heading for the hot spot. I’d lost the element of surprise. I was not going to lose out on possibly my one chance to find Uncle Christos. If they captured me, so be it. Maybe they’d throw us in the same pit and at least I’d have my answers. We could figure a way out together. Better still if we could fight our way free tonight. I wondered how many I could taze, spray or gorgon glare before they could take me down. Enough?
I couldn’t hear pursuit over the blood rushing in my own ears. Hopefully, I’d screwed up the dogs’ sense of smell with the pepper spray, but the cultists… I hadn’t gotten them all, not by a long shot.
I dodged behind a building, listening for pursuit before using it as cover to bolt for the next. Behind me, someone was calling for a building to building search.
If I ripped the door I wanted off the hinges, they’d know just where I was. I reached for my pack, for the lock picks I kept inside, only to find the pack gone. Suddenly, I knew what had given way beneath the guard dog’s razor-sharp teeth.
Zeus’s zits. I hit the door and thought fast, but I had no gods-given gifts that would help me out of here.
A zing of forewarning had me leaping back from the door a bare instant before it opened, covering me.
Two women came out arguing.
“But, Mother, people are getting sick, even dying.”
I recognized the voice—Sinestra-slash-Persephone. I was torn between my need to grab the door and my need to listen. With no time to decide, I did both, getting my fingers smashed by the door and leaving myself totally exposed should they look back.
“Only the weak,” her mother answered. Demeter. It had to be. “When planting, you toss aside the bad seeds; when reaping, you sort the wheat from the chaff.”
“These are people.”
“I believe people call it Darwinism. They post videos and give out awards in homage. Some will fall, but the rest…we will be the Latter-Day Olympians. A new breed, dedicated to the earth and free of the petty squabbles of the old guard. Already, Zeus and Poseidon have been taken out. By a mortal girl. All that’s left is for Hades to fall.”
“Yes,” Persephone said faintly.
Pounding feet and raised voices let me know the building-to-building search was close. I couldn’t waste any more time.
I ducked inside the building they’d just left and eased the door closed behind me, which left me in pitch darkness. I didn’t dare risk turning on a light, but I had to chance some kind of illumination or go in blind. The trouble was, I’d lost my pack and my flashlight with it. I felt along the wooden walls, giving myself a splinter in the process. I hissed in pain, but continued on until I hit a desk. Elated, I began opening drawers and rooting through them for a light. The detritus of an office nipped at my fingers—loose staples, paperclips, pens, pencils and paper. But finally something rolled away from my questing fingers, then back again. I closed my hand on something cylindrical and found the on switch, aiming it down at the floor. Success meant a faint light. Perfect.
I shone the light around the room. It didn’t go far, but I could see an old-fashioned projector sitting on the beat-up wooden desk I’d been exploring and a pull-down white screen against the opposite wall with rows of chairs facing it.
That was all there was to the room except for a hallway leading off of it. Too dark to make out any details. I’d have to check it out. Someone rattled the handle of the door through which I’d come, and this room offered nowhere to hide. I’d be found in an instant if I just ducked down behind the desk.
Instead I crept into the hallway, quickly but as quietly as possible and tried the first door I came to—locked. The second—locked.
The outer door opened, and I raced to the third—unlocked! I ducked in just as voices filled the room. I found myself in a closet. A teeny, tiny little cubbyhole filled with a mop, a broom, rags, eco-friendly cleaning supplies and no lock on the door. None.
I started to panic and then to contemplate fighting my way out, but the voices hadn’t yet come any closer.
“Demi and Sinestra were just here,” someone was saying. “They said no one had come this way.”
“We’ve checked everywhere else,” someone answered.
“Every inch of field?” the first woman asked.
“Any sane person would be long gone.”
“Check anyway, just to be sure. Leave no door unopened,” said that first voice again. I heard two respond. I was dealing with at least three then. I didn’t like the odds.
“Meanwhile, I’m going to go through this pack and see if there’s anything to tell us who we’re dealing with.”
Crap.
I heard one of the hallway doors unlock and the door swing open as the other two resumed their search. My heart was pounding. I didn’t need my precognition to tell me I was in trouble.
“Cell phone,” the first woman announced. I heard the second door go. I readied my pepper spray and prepared for a fight. “Let’s find out about the last number dialed.” I couldn’t hear her doing it, but I tried to remember who I’d last called—Armani, Jesus, Christie?
The knob on the closet door started to turn when a voice rang out—strong, annoyed and the kind of loud that comes from a phone on speaker mode. “Agent Rosen. This had better be good, Karacis.”
The knob stopped moving, as the search party froze at the voice.
“Shit,” someone cursed. “Whoever this Karacis is, she’s certainly well-connected.”
“We’d better let Dionysus know right away,” said the first voice I’d heard, who seemed to be the boss. “Star, Kestrel, you go. I’m going to finish going through this stuff.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. Star and Kestrel had to be the women conducting the search, because I heard their steps suddenly retreat. I breathed a silent sigh of relief that I was free from discovery…for the moment anyway. There was no telling how soon the search might resume or the guard dogs might regain their senses of smell and alert to me.
Now was my chance. There was just one woman left, as far as I could tell. I could freeze her, grab my gear and make my escape. I’d no sooner started to turn the knob than the building flooded with more people checking in. I was trapped. There was no way I could pepper spray or freeze enough people to get out.
But I’d missed a check-in while I was playing at escape. Now it was up to Christie to rally the troops. And I’d thought she was being silly.
Chapter Twelve
I woke with a start and fell forward, conking my head on something that resounded with a wooden thunk. Totally in the dark, closed in on all sides. I had a panicked moment thinking I’d been buried alive and come to in a coffin. Then I realized that I’d somehow fallen asleep standing in that closet praying for my life. And what a weird one it was when waking in a coffin seemed a perfectly plausible explanation of my condition.
The thunk would have given me away, except that there was a much bigger commotion going on outside. Huge. A distraction worthy of a true drama queen, which, unless I missed
my guess, was exactly what we were dealing with.
Christie had sure enough called in reinforcements, and Jesus had arrived with both guns blazing.
“Where is my sister?” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He then let out a string of rapid-fire Spanish of which his real sister, I was pretty certain, would never approve. “I know you have her!” he concluded.
It was impossible to ignore Jesus in a hissy fit. Gods knew I’d tried.
I smiled to myself and risked a peek out of the closet. As far as I could tell, the guard house or whatever I was in was deserted. I slipped out, listening as I went. I was a little shaky after all the action yesterday, the pummeling I’d taken and then being on my feet all night. I needed breakfast or ambrosia—or a breakfast of ambrosia. Stat. Oh, and caffeine, a shower, and a couple or three aspirin. But all that, obviously, had to wait. First and foremost, I needed to get out of here and let Jesus know he could do the same.
Quickly, I crossed to the desk and rifled through it for my cell phone and belongings.
“She was coming here,” Jesus insisted loudly to whoever was trying to calm him down. “She left behind her two-year-old baby, and my brother-in-law. He is not to be consoled. If you don’t bring her to me, I will bring the police!”
No cell phone. I found and pocketed my Taser, but everything else seemed to be AWOL, and I was running out of the time Jesus had bought me. Someone else could be back at any second. I had no more time to search.
I opened the outer door a crack. Everyone was focused on the action in the middle of the courtyard where Jesus ranted and raved in front of a red rental car, just the sort you’d drive if you were looking to draw attention. I didn’t sneak. Sneaking only makes a person more obtrusive, not less. I simply walked out. No sudden or furtive moves. I slipped around the side of the building. As I did, I saw Jesus turn his head my way and quickly back, setting up a wail of “Dios Mio. What will madre say? She will have to be told. And her heart—”
He fell back against the car, clutching his own chest in demonstration, and I started to run. Now that I was out of sight of the gathered crowd, I bolted for the orchard and escape, not worried about the alarm bells. I could get up and over the fence easily enough, and then I’d be home free. I heard Jesus’s holler that he’d be back with the authorities, and then his car started up. It was perfect timing to coincide with my leap for the fence. I was up and over, dropping to the other side in what was probably a land-speed record.
Well, that was easy, I thought. I silently blessed Jesus and his hissy fits, even though I suspected I’d be paying for this one for some time. He’d saved me; he’d never let me forget it.
I tore through the trees, angling in the direction I thought led to my car and freedom. My footsteps slowed as I got close. There were red and blue strobing lights penetrating into the tree line from about where my Camaro should be. I approached the edge of the orchard slowly, that sixth sense of mine flashing louder than the lights. That meant this was something more than an abandoned vehicle check. When I looked out and saw the ambulance, my heart sank to my toes.
Too fearful for caution, I burst out of the woods, running for my car as I saw the gurney beside it, a white-sheeted figure on top. I couldn’t imagine who it could be—Christie? Uncle Christos? I thought my heart would explode with the pounding. I had to see who was hurt.
An officer came out of nowhere to stop me, catching my upper arms in an iron grip.
“I’m sorry, miss, you’ll have to stay back. This is a crime scene.”
“But that’s my—” I swallowed hard. “Who is it? Who do you have there?”
The cop’s grip on me tightened painfully. “Your car?” he asked. “Is that what you were going to say? Are you Tori Karacis?”
Sure, my name would have been on the papers in the glove compartment.
I nodded, unable to take my eyes off the sheeted figure.
“Mizz Karacis, you’re under arrest for the kidnapping and assault of Christos Karacis. You have the right to remain silent—”
My legs went out from under me, but the grip on my arms held me in place.
“Assault, not murder?” I asked with relief, hardly able to believe I’d found him…well, they’d found him. But still, he’d been found.
“Yes, he’s still alive. He’ll be able to testify against you.”
And that was when the rest of it sank in. I was under arrest. They thought I—
“But I’ve been looking for him,” I protested as the officer whipped my arms around my back and slapped on the cuffs. He frisked me, finding the Taser in my pocket and waving another officer over to bag it for evidence.
“Looks like you found him,” the cop said grimly.
“Could I just see him? I need to know he’s okay,” I said desperately.
“I think you’ve done enough,” he answered.
The paramedics had finished securing the straps and started to wheel Uncle Christos away.
“No,” I cried, “just let me see him!”
But the cops held me fast and wouldn’t let me go anywhere but the back of their cruiser, where they tucked me none too gently, letting my forehead hit the doorframe on the way down.
I wondered if Jesus had seen any of it or if he’d already been gone before the police jumped me. I’d been on foot and he in a car. He would have turned in the other direction—away—to head back to San Fran. Even if he’d seen the flashing lights in his rearview mirror, he had no way of knowing they applied to me.
“Why won’t anybody tell me what’s going on?” I asked my interrogators, frustrated. “At least tell me that he’s okay. The officer mentioned Uncle Christos had been assaulted, but that could mean anything. Is he conscious? He’ll tell you I didn’t hurt him. Just ask him.”
I was at my wits’ end. I didn’t know what kind of impression I was making, but I didn’t so much care. I knew I should, but it didn’t seem nearly as important as Christos being all right.
Neither the balding, blond gentleman playing good cop nor his hard-eyed, partner with the shaved head would tell me a damned thing.
Finally, they exchanged a glance and good cop said, “When he regains consciousness, I promise you, that’s the first thing we’ll do. For now, your uncle was found in the trunk of your car. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that we have questions that need to be answered, do you?”
“Does he have a concussion?” I asked. “Will he be all right? What do the doctors say?”
He looked at me steadily. “You tell us what we need to know, and we’ll see if we can get any of your questions answered.”
I tried to calm myself. I knew it was the best I was going to get. They’d already let me cool my heels alone in an interview room for an hour, softening me up for the interrogation. I supposed the world wouldn’t end if I had to wait another hour or more to find out about Uncle Christos. Knowing wouldn’t change the diagnosis. But the urgency to know didn’t go away just because logic suggested it should.
“Now, you say you’d been staking out the Back to Earth compound?” his partner asked. He was standing. Looming, really. Not coming down to my level. It was a power tactic.
“Yes, all night.” I didn’t tell him I’d actually broken in or that I’d been trapped in a broom closet for most of it. Neither did I say I hadn’t. If he interviewed the Back to Earthers and anyone had gotten a decent look at my face… Well, I didn’t want to be caught in a lie. I confined myself to the questions asked and didn’t volunteer anything.
I doubted, though, that anyone at Back to Earth would be providing me an alibi for last night. Given the body in my trunk, thankfully still breathing, I no longer thought it miraculous that I’d managed to escape. I thought it was design. Why catch and keep me when the cult could do away with two problems at once…me and Uncle Christos. I wondered if they’d expected Christos to live or if I was supposed to be on the hook for murder. The very thought made me ache for Christos and whatever he’d endured.
A fist
pounded on the interrogation room door, making me jump. Good cop slipped up and smiled privately at what he must have perceived as evidence of my guilty conscience.
“Come in,” his partner called.
A woman poked her head in, her sparse hair shellacked to her head and pulled back into an itty, bitty ponytail. She waved the detectives toward her, and they stepped into the hallway but didn’t entirely shut the door. I was still feeling shaky and sick, but there was nothing wrong with my hearing.
“There’s someone here with an alibi and bail for your suspect.”
“What?” one of the cops exploded—good cop, from the sound of it. “She hasn’t even been arraigned yet.”
“Want me to tell him to come back later?” she asked, a bite to it. “Along with his potentially exculpatory information.”
The cop blew out a breath, and I could almost imagine him rifling frustrated fingers through his hair…if he were the one with hair. “Fine, put him in interview room two. I’ll get to him in a minute.”
I thought quickly. It would help so much to know who had come to alibi me so that I had some idea of what he might say. Jesus? Apollo? Maybe Christie had even gotten through to Armani? What was I? Sister? Lover? Somebody’s cheap date?
I pretended calm I didn’t feel as the cops came back into the room.
“So, you were staking out the compound all night?” bad cop said, eyeing me as though waiting in interview room two was the final nail for my coffin rather than a potential alibi witness.
“I already told you that.”
“Alone?” he asked.
“I plead the fifth.”
“That’s for the stand.”
“Fine, then I plead ‘not without my lawyer’.”
“Have you got a lawyer?” he asked, looking around as though one might materialize.
“Have you got a phone for me to make my one call?”
He stalked to the door and yanked it open, startling the female officer on the other side—the same one from earlier, who was poised to knock…again.
Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) Page 16
