His lips quirked up, putting a slight dimple in his cheek. How had I not noticed that before?
He pushed his face even closer to mine, a mere shiver away from touching. “You don’t?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t damn me all to hell and back, and my own reaction to him did that well enough.
The same officer who’d interrupted us before did so again. Thank the gods.
“You two, chill out.” His babyish features pegged him for the rookie he obviously was. That, and the way his hand never strayed from the butt of his gun.
O’Shea obediently slid back to his side of the seat, and I sucked in a large lungful of air. Moments later another officer joined the first and we were off to the police station. Or at least, that was what I thought. About ten minutes into the drive the silence broke.
The young officer turned to his partner. “Where’s our escort?”“ I thought we were going to be flanked by the FBI?”
In answer, the older cop shook his head. “Pull over.”
What was this? The young cop did as he was told, without question, putting the car in park. Not a good thing, even I knew that.
“Shit.” O’Shea mumbled under his breath. “Be ready.”
For what? I wanted to ask—
The older cop pulled his gun, placed it right against his partner’s head and pulled the trigger, the shot reverberating, shaking my eardrums. Blood and brain matter splattered the inside of the cop car in a macabre graffiti. I almost pulled my hands up to my ears, at the last second managing to keep them behind me, hiding the fact they were no longer cuffed.
The older cop’s image wavered, and then I stared at one of the ugliest trolls I’d ever seen. Not that any of them are particularly handsome, but he won the ‘nasty looks’ contest hands down. Orange and yellow spotted skin hung in folds off his body, the clothes he’d been wearing tore and revealed far too much for my taste. His four-fingered hand clutched at the gun and he waved it at us, one eye hanging from its socket, the other blinking rapidly as if to clear some unseen haze.
“Get out,” the troll commanded.
I knew there was a reason this would work out in our favor. “Can’t, no door handles inside. It’s a human thing you know.” I shrugged. “You want us out you need to get the door open for us.”
Grumbling, the troll smashed the side door to let himself out.
Now it was my turn to be pithy. “Be ready.”
“For …” O’Shea started to ask when the troll grabbed the door on my side and wrenched it off.
“Get out.”
Sliding carefully, slowly, across the seat, I wracked my brain for the best way to handle this. Trolls were sketchy at the best of times. One minute your friend, the next they were trying to eat you alive. This one didn’t look to be interested in making new friends. He (and yes it was a he by way his double genitalia hung nearly to his mid-thigh) glared at us and clicked his broken teeth together, bits of tooth flicking out around him. The only upside I could see was if we had something he wanted, he could be swayed to our side, momentarily at least. Trolls were fickle, and that could work in our favor.
I stepped out of the car. The six-foot tall troll stepped back, his hanging eye staring around as if seeing us for the first time. “You’re prettier than they said. Those witches were right; you will be a fun time.”
Ugh, that was not what I wanted to hear, not the part about the fun or the fact that he’d been sent by the black Coven. Both of his, um, members started to rise as his hanging eyeball roved up and down my body.
A long, split tongue licked his lips. “I could let you go if you do something nice for me,” the troll said, stepping forward.
“No,” O’Shea said, stepping around me, putting his body in the line of fire.
“This is not the time to get all white knight on me,” I said, keeping my voice low.
The troll snarled and lifted the gun, his finger twitching against the trigger.
Using my hip, I bumped O’Shea out of the way and walked closer to the troll, swaying my body as seductively as I could and batting my eyes, much to his delight, if the way his loose hanging eye lit up was any indication.
“You know, I always wondered what a double whammy would be like,” I said.
The troll puffed up his chest, his free hand stroking down the folds of skin that hung from his body to cup one of his overlong members.
I struggled to hold back the gag. That was not attractive in the least, but I kept moving forward, closer to the troll, and the gun he held leveled on O’Shea. Sure, it could backfire, it could explode, hell, it could do all sorts of weird things. But after seeing it blow out that young officer’s brains all over the inside of the car, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
There was only one weak spot I would be able to reach, and so even though I didn’t want to, I sidled up to his hanging bits.
With an exaggerated slowness, I lifted my hand and placed it on the troll’s upper chest, massaging my fingers into the loose skin. “Do you know who I am?”
“You’re that Tracker, who goes after kids,” he said, and I rubbed harder across his collarbone, inching closer to the dangling eye.
The troll rumbled under my hand, the skin vibrating to the point of making it ripple like a bowl of Jell-O that had been shook. He puffed out his chest which stretched the skin, making it taut, the rumbling in his chest now caused a sound reminiscent of a large bull frog’s mating call. Gross. I bit back the disgust filling me, making me want to pull away. But I had to get that gun away from him.
Like now.
I reached up and grabbed the eye, squeezing it just short of it popping like a grape in my fingers.
The troll howled and the gun swung toward my head. “Drop it!” I hung onto the eyeball, applying more pressure with one nail.
He screeched, and then a body, O’Shea’s to be exact, tackled the troll to the ground, the gun pinned between them. The connective tissue to the eye snapped, the troll screeched again, and I was left standing there with an eyeball in my hands while O’Shea handcuffed the screaming, writhing troll like it was something he did regularly.
Gun secured, O’Shea stood.
I just stared at him. “I had it under control you know.”
“I couldn’t watch you fondle that thing anymore,” he snapped.
My jaw dropped, and I was about to tell him just where he could stick his meddling when a wave of fear hit me that was not my own.
India.
I froze and focused on her. She was terrified and her life force wavered. Shit, shit, shit.
“We’ve gotta go,” I said. “India’s in trouble.”
O’Shea glared at me. “You say that like it’s something new. Like she wasn’t in trouble before.”
I wasn’t about to explain my ability to sense people, certainly not to him. “Get in the car, we’ve got to get weapons and get back out to the mine shaft. Now.”
He started to go around to the driver’s side.
“I’m driving,” I said, jogging to catch up to him.
Hoisting the body of the young cop out of the seat, O’Shea let out a sharp breath. “Here, just let me move this for you.”
The cop’s head rolled, exposing what was left of his brains inside the gaping black hole that had blown out the side of his head. Much as I didn’t want to admit that it was affecting me, the sight was almost too much. Muscles tensing, I fought against the emotions rising in me. Sorrow for his family, grief for him, and an unmistakable sense of regret that was not my own, but O’Shea’s. Damn. I clamped down, forcing the feelings back, and behind that came a bolt of terror that was pure child. India was panicking and that was not a good sign. She had to be the number one priority. I’d thought I had time to prep, but it was obvious that wasn’t going to be the case, which meant we were going to go barreling in there with next to nothing.
We slid into the cop car. The blood on the back of my seat, trailing down my left side, was cool,
but not yet starting to dry. I put my hands on the wheel, jumping as the radio came to life, the voice static-filled, but still loud.
“Bravo Echo thirty-nine, come in. Over.” I turned to look at O’Shea.
“You’d better answer this one, Agent.”
He picked up the receiver and answered back. “Bravo Echo thirty-nine. Here. Over.”
The response was surprising.
“Please disregard the instructions to bring the prisoners to the main jail; an unmarked will be intersecting with you to take over their transport.” The radio clicked off and I shared a look with O’Shea while he answered again in the affirmative before turning off the radio.
“That can’t be good,” I said. “Why wouldn’t they just allow the transport to continue as is?”
“Could be FBI. Could be one of your uglies has taken over.”
“Hey!”“ They aren’t my uglies.”
O’Shea blew out a sharp breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Whatever it is, it won’t be good for us, and certainly not for India.”
For once, we were in agreement, though it came a little too late.
I started the police cruiser as two black vans screeched to a halt, pinning us down. I held my breath, expecting more trolls or maybe a golem, but all that poured out of the nondescript vans were humans.
FBI agents covered in riot gear pointed guns and tazers at us, but other than that, I let out a breath. This could be handled.
“They aren’t going to let us go after her,” O’Shea said, stating what I thought was rather obvious.
“Yup. So you ready to kick some ass and break the law to rescue a little girl?”
He turned his head, his dark eyes holding mine for a brief moment. He didn’t say anything. From outside, they shouted at us to get out of the car with our hands up. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
I placed my foot lightly on the gas pedal, ready to go the second O’Shea gave me the nod. Because I wasn’t taking him with me if he wasn’t in one hundred percent. I didn’t need dead weight and worries about the law dragging me down when it came to getting India out alive.
“I’m crossing to the dark side I guess,” he said, and that was all I needed.
The car was made for ramming, and even in the tight space between us and the two vans, it did its job.
With my foot hard on the gas pedal, we smashed into the van in front of us first. I shoved it almost out of the way before being forced to throw the car into reverse, but it gave us enough room to spin backwards, do a one eighty and peel away from the underpass.
Bullets ricocheted off the back of the car, and I ducked instinctively.
“Ever lose a tail before?” O’Shea asked.
“Once, but I wasn’t in a police car. This isn’t exactly a car that’s going to blend in you know.”
He grunted. “Move over.”
“What?”
He was already shifting, sliding across the seats to take my place and forcing me into the passenger seat. My ass rubbed across his upper thighs, and he let out a sharp hiss of air that, in any other circumstance, would have made me think I’d hurt him. Not so much here.
He flipped on the lights and sirens and headed for the freeway. A glance behind showed the two vans were already on us, only a few hundred feet behind. I clicked my seatbelt into place, the possibility of falling out extremely high due to the passenger door hanging by only a half a bolt.
“We need gear, climbing gear.” But where the hell were we going to get that kind of stuff now?
“They’ll have it in the vans,” O’Shea said, cranking the wheel and dodging around a slow moving car.
“You mean in the vans behind us?”
“Yes, along with lights, weapons and body armor. Those vans are always fully loaded, prepped for anything that might cross their path.”
A thought hit me. “Don’t lose them. We need what they have.”
He barked out a laugh. “Shit, they’re exactly what we need.”
“I think we have the diversion we need to get past the Harpy and our rigging all in one shot.” I stared out the back window as O’Shea dodged in and out of traffic.
The chase, if it could be called that, was pretty sedate in terms of what I was thinking would happen. There were no more gun shots, no car crashes and no squealing tires. We led, the black vans followed, and no other law enforcement showed up. That alone made me wonder. What if this was the mysterious Arcane Arts division of the FBI? A chill inserted itself into my middle. That would make the most sense, but it also had the biggest ramifications. O’Shea drove and I focused on India. She was alive, terrified, but still with us. As I connected with her, I felt a shard of pain rip through her psyche, one that rolled over into me, stealing my breath away.
“What?” ’The concern was evident in O’Shea even as he worked to lose the two vans.
“India, they’re hurting her,” I whispered, the pain making my throat close.
“Are you psychic?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I was too busy trying to stem the pain India was being forced to endure. It started as it always did when a supernatural had had enough of being patient. The Coven was trying to break her; make her pliable to their will.
While O’Shea drove, I fought hard to give India the strength she needed. “I’m here,” I whispered. “Just hang on a little longer.”
It didn’t take long for us to be back in the badlands, skidding down side roads and hitting the same bumps Alex had been so excited about earlier. The mineshaft came into view and, hovering above it, was the last Harpy. Eve; her eyes even at this distance glittered with hatred. We’d killed two of her sisters. She had every reason to want our guts on a platter.
The downside was we had no weapons, no spells, and no back up.
The upside? You got it, there wasn’t one.
Chapter Twenty-one
The vans were pretty much right on top of us when we spun to a stop. Eve rose into the air above us with a screech. She could have hidden herself from the other humans, but the fact that she didn’t told me a great deal about what was going to happen. She planned to kill us all. No witnesses, no need to hide.
I ran around the side of the car and ducked as Eve slammed into the hood, her claws swinging straight for me. Rolling, I dodged the razor-sharp talons, feeling them slice through my leather coat, the rip of the material far too close to the sound of flesh being pulled at for my liking. A hand yanked me back toward the mineshaft as the Harpy launched a second attack.
“Bitch, I’m going to pull you apart, one tendon at a time,” she screamed.
There was no doubt in my mind she could do just that, and I wasn’t sticking around to watch her try. If I could free her while I got India out from under the Coven’s ‘loving’ care, then I would, otherwise I’d have no choice but to kill her. One did not control a Harpy; not even the spell the Coven had on her would last forever.
O’Shea dragged me over to the mineshaft and we ducked down behind it.
A wave of India’s fear hit me hard, buckling my knees. If this kept up, I was going to have to block her completely and I didn’t want to do that. Right now, I had the feeling she was only hanging on because she could sense me.
The Harpy rose up in front of us and her body started to buck; puffs of feathers erupted out of her as arrows protruded from her body. Not that it would kill her, she needed a blow from a spelled weapon or another supernatural creature to actually kill her. But the men in the black vans didn’t know that.
It was my turn to pull O’Shea down as Eve streaked over the top of us and into the group of—I did a quick count—ten men.
Blood sprayed up in a fountain as an agent’s head was ripped off with a single pull from the Harpy’s powerful beak. A second followed suit, and then the real bloodbath began. O’Shea and I stood, open mouthed in horror, as the Harpy spelled the men, freezing them where they stood, then eviscerated each of them, letting them slump to the ground to die slow and p
ainful deaths. Her voice sung a lullaby that echoed across the badlands, and the pack of wolves in the distance picked up the harmony. Creepy, beautiful, deadly, and horrifying. There was a sense of loss in her song, the words unrecognizable, but the tune made me think of someone mourning.
O’Shea stumbled forward and I caught his arm. “Oh, no you don’t.” But it was as if he didn’t hear me. Again, he took a step, to go around me, and I put my body directly in his path. “O’Shea, stop!” He didn’t listen. I slapped him hard across the face, but there was no response.
“Liam,” I said, and he turned to face me, his eyes full of confusion. Taking a deep breath, I slid my hands up over his face. “You can’t go to her.”
“She’s hurting,” he whispered. “I don’t want her to hurt anymore.”
I glanced over at the Harpy; we didn’t have much time before she would finish the gore fest and turn her attention back to us. I wasn’t so sure calling her by name would be enough to stop her, no matter what her sister said.
I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him, and felt his arms wrap around me after a brief pause. I tried not to think about how good it felt to be held against a warm, hard male body, how much I missed just the simplicity of human contact, how much I didn’t really want to let go of him. His tongue explored the inside of my mouth, taking its time tasting me, and I returned the favor, finally pulling back to stare up into those midnight dark eyes. They were clear of her song; the hypnotic effect of her singing gone.
“Did you just save my life by kissing me?” He didn’t let go, but held me tighter still against him.
I wanted to believe it was some last remnant of the spell from the Coven, but the way my lower body tightened and my pulse sped up, I knew it was much simpler than that.
I wanted him.
“You know what they say, a kiss a day keeps the Harpy away.” I tried for humor, but my eyes slid to the bloodbath going on. If I’d thought we could have made a difference, I would’ve tried to stop her.
Priceless (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 1) Page 13
