“Watch and learn, young grasshopper,” I said as we stepped onto the main road that led through the suburb. We walked past more than half the houses on the street before I stopped and turned toward the domicile on our left. A house like all the others, painted blue with white shutters, a closed-in garage, gardens laid out along the edges. Very pretty, very suburban. Very quiet.
Cowboy kept up easily with his long legs and Ruby dropped to my side. I went to the back of the house and found what I was looking for. A small window at ground level. I gave it a kick, shattering it, then booted out the rest of the glass shards, making the opening clean and clear. I dropped the bags, took Diego off my back and handed him to Cowboy. “When you hear the car start up, come on around.”
The light of the morning was changing, the early summer sun making itself known. We needed to be out of here before the rest of the suburbanites were awake and caffeinated enough to notice their neighbor’s car being driven by a stranger.
I grabbed the top edge of the window and slid through, dropping silently to the floor. The stairs were right across from me and I jogged up them, not bothering to pull Dinah. There was no smell of abnormals here, and there was no way a powerful abnormal would live here. Well, unless they were a Hider like Carlos and Anita, in which case I wouldn’t mind saying hello and having breakfast. But I doubted my luck was good enough for me to find another pair of Hiders so close to Carlos and Anita.
At the top of the stairs, I pushed the door open and slid through into the stale air of the rest of the house. Pamphlets lay all over the counter, and the helpful itinerary on the fridge informed me that Bob and Don wouldn’t be back from their honeymoon until next week. They’d thanked Janice for taking care of their two cats.
Speaking of.
A sleek black cat with brilliant green eyes flounced into the room and flopped itself in front of me, stretching its legs out and pretty much pointing at the empty food dish, pushing it toward me with one paw. “Sorry, cat.” I glanced at the list of instructions and found the black cat’s name. Apparently she had a penchant for getting herself into trouble and the cat-sitter was to watch for that. “Zam. Pardon me, but I’m not the one feeding you.”
A second cat, tawny with black points, strolled in, giving me a blue-eyed stare that said it all as it sat next to the first.
Feed us, slave.
“Fine. Be glad I left Ruby outside.” I rummaged around, found their dry kibble, and topped up the dish.
“Happy?”
The black cat seemed to give me a wink and the tawny one bobbed his head. Cats. I’d never understand them. And these two were far too human for my liking.
I made my way into the bedroom and dug through the clothes until I found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that looked to be close to Cowboy’s size and threw the clothing over my arm.
Back in the kitchen, a set of keys hung from a brightly colored rainbow key hanger, and I scooped them off, heading for what would be the garage. The car waiting for me was a small import, dark blue with a leather interior and stick shift.
“Cute,” I muttered. But it would do. I locked the garage door behind me and jammed it closed with a piece of pipe lying on the floor. Just in case Janice the house-sitter wanted to take their car for a spin. The longer we had without anyone noticing the car was missing, the better.
I slid into the driver’s side and hit the button on the visor, opening the garage door. The engine started with no problem and I backed it out. Cowboy slung the three bags into the backseat of the car, and Ruby jumped on top of them, then rested her head on my shoulder from there.
Yeah, she was a good one. I hit the button, closing the garage as we pulled away. I tossed the clothes at Cowboy when he opened the door. “Change.”
He slid into the passenger seat and managed to be quiet for all of three minutes as he wiggled out of his jeans and into the new clean ones. Brand name, no less.
We weren’t out of the suburbs before he blurted out his question.
“How did you know to pick that place?” he asked. “How could you possibly know that was the best place to take a vehicle?”
I kept my eyes on the road, watching for any signs of pursuit as I worked my way back to the interstate and headed north again. I opened my mouth but then promptly snapped it shut on the answer.
“Hang on. We’ve got company.”
15
The massive army trucks were coming up fast behind us on the highway, a row of them that was easily three deep. No flashing lights, but they didn’t need them, not with the rumble of a half-dozen engines and the sheer size of them as they motored along.
“Fuck, what do we do?” Cowboy’s hands gripped at Diego.
I put a hand over his. “First of all, point Diego the other way. If you squeeze the trigger, he’ll have no choice but to shoot me, and at this close range, he won’t miss.”
The tension didn’t leave him, but he did as I said and turned the big gun around. “Sorry.”
“We’re going to pull over,” I said. “They aren’t looking for us.”
“Are you crazy? Of course they’re looking for us!”
I shot him a look that had made men twice his size wet their pants and pulled over to the side of the road. The six army trucks shot by with barely a look at us.
For just a moment, I felt the brush of Eligor against my mind, but it was there and gone in a flash. Even so, the sweat started to roll down my spine. He could turn those trucks around and we’d be right back in deep shit.
But there was no slamming of brakes, no blowing of horns. They were after Peter and Carlos, just like we’d planned. “I hope Peter didn’t pull over for a piss,” I said.
We followed the trucks for a couple hours, and in all that time, Cowboy barely moved a muscle, fear radiating off him. I flicked on the radio, skimming through the channels for a news station. I finally found one, but there was nothing I needed from it. Just the weather, the upcoming events for the weekend, and how the local baseball team was doing in their first games. I left it on in the hope that something useful would come through.
“They were on their honeymoon,” I said. “That’s how I knew.”
Cowboy shot a look at me. “What?”
“The house. There was a sign stabbed into the lawn that said, ‘Honeymoon Happiness.’ So there was a high chance they were on their honeymoon. Most couples have two cars, so I figured they would have driven one to the airport and left the other behind.”
He twisted in his seat. “What are the chances of finding that, though? I mean when you need a vehicle?”
I shrugged. “Not always a honeymoon, but in a suburb like that, there’s always someone who’s away. Different reasons, you just have to look for them. Vacations and death are the two most popular to leave a house empty for an extended period of time.”
The trucks took the next exit that would circle them around to the west, which meant Peter and Carlos were doing what I’d told them to. I frowned. “They found the car very fast. Too fast. Even knowing exactly what they were looking for, there have been no drones, no helicopters. Which means they were already looking for us on the road.”
Cowboy nodded. “Can Carlos hide them if they get too close?”
I squeezed the steering wheel. “Yes, but they’ll know what both of his vehicles look like.” Fuck. They might already be on Anita too.
My guts twisted. She was my ace in this plan, the one reason I could look away from Bear and face these fallen bastards.
The kid gave a low whistle. “Shoot, it’s not like this in Texas. Not at all.”
“Everyone gets along?” I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. “I have to call bullshit.”
He snorted. “Of course not, but it’s not so outright, you know? It’s more . . .”
“Human,” I said. “Not so vicious.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so. We fight about stuff, but we wouldn’t throw each other under the bus.”
That did draw a laugh from me. “Yeah, and
how do you think you got caught this far into the purge?”
“I had been out in the mountains for most of the spring and winter, staying on the range like I said,” he said thoughtfully, “working the cattle, keeping them safe from wolves. I can do it without shooting anything so everyone is happy.” He looked at his lap. “I came back into town, went to my cousin’s place where I stay in between cattle drives, showered, went out for drinks, then came back home and fell asleep. That’s been my routine since this all started.”
“With your clothes on?” I gave a pointed look at his torn-up jeans on the floor at his feet and the cowboy boots that had earned him his nickname. He grinned.
“I might have had a bit too much to drink. But those people are my friends. They wouldn’t have turned me over. They knew I was keeping a low profile.”
He was so naïve, it hurt my brain just to try to explain it to him. “Yeah, and how many abnormals did you see in the bar that night?”
“Just the bartender. Jax. He had a new truck he was telling me about, all decked out with extras.” He sucked in a sharp breath and I gave him a tight smile.
“What do you want to bet he’s being paid to alert them—the ones who took you and me—to abnormals? Just like Peter was,” I said. “They’ll use him, and he’ll think he’s safe, and then . . .”
“They’ll take him when they think they’ve got us all,” Cowboy finished for me. “Shit. I never would have thought it of him.”
“Greed and fear make people do stupid things. They make them agree to do things that normally they would never even consider.”
On my shoulder, Ruby gave a low sigh and a soft snort right into my ear. I reached up and touched her head. “The good thing is, they drove right by us. Which means the trackers in our bodies aren’t working and there is nothing in the bags that could trace to us.”
I found my hand drifting to the tablet I’d stuffed under my shirt. Maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but until I turned the thing on, we were safe.
Opening the tablet would prove tricky. But I knew someone who might be able to help us.
Assuming he wasn’t already missing.
Eligor sat quietly in the back of the sixth army vehicle as they shot down the highway, following the direction of the handler who’d connected as best she could with the Magelore. It wasn’t much, but she kept them apprised of where he was at the least.
“We’ll be on top of them in two hours at this pace,” the driver of the truck said. Across from him sat Easter. Her heels drummed into the floorboard, a nervous tic Eligor had seen more than once with Susan.
“Excellent. I’d like to have this wrapped up by the end of the day,” she said, only it wasn’t Easter. It was Susan, irritated that she was having to do this at all.
As they raced down the highway, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally. He couldn’t let her see he knew something she didn’t. That one glimpse of Phoenix had proven to him that they were still tied. But he’d cut her off, or he thought he had. What he thought it meant was that she’d somehow tied herself to him on her own, something he would have thought impossible. He wasn’t sure whether she’d meant to do it, although he didn’t know why she would want to still be linked to him.
Then they drove right by Phoenix, although he shut down that thought as quickly as it came. Just in case someone was watching him.
It boggled his mind why he’d want to protect her, but she’d tried to save him. And she’d nurtured the greenhorns at the facility. She cared about helping others more than she would’ve liked.
“She killed a demon, once.” Easter turned in her seat and looked him straight in the eye.
As if she knew what he was thinking. Or who he was thinking about.
“Who is that?” He pushed his glasses up, feeling the sweat gather along the bridge of his nose.
She smiled. “Your girl, Phoenix. She’s a powerhouse. It’ll be a coup for me to take her down. Mad props for me across the board.”
He swallowed hard. “I imagine. I’ve seen her charts.”
“Her charts probably only got half of it.” Easter laughed. “But if you want, I can tell you how she faced down the desert demon, or how she killed the most powerful Magelore the abnormal world has ever seen, or how she shut down the myst that nearly wiped out the population.”
He just nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and Easter proceeded to tell him about Phoenix’s life. How she’d been tortured and trained, how she’d been molded into an assassin. She’d tried to run from it, not once, but twice, and both times her new life had been stolen from her. He bowed his head as she spoke.
“Are you crying? This is not a crying story.” Easter laughed at him, and he kept his eyes down. He was crying. So much pain in one life, so much loss, betrayal, and heartache. So much death. It was no wonder Phoenix was as dark as she was and yet he could not deny that her soul was brighter than any soul that would be lost.
Easter kept on talking, kept on whispering about the things Phoenix had survived. The flames of Hell had tried to consume her, but she’d fought them for her son.
“Stop!” he yelled at last, putting his hands over his ears. “Enough. I can’t hear these things. It’s not possible for one person to have been through so much and still have a mind intact!” He struggled to swallow around the emotions that threatened to drown him.
“Why should I stop? You want to understand who she is, and why she does what she does, don’t you?” Easter had gotten out of her seat and she jammed the tip of her previously broken wand into the soft underside of his chin, forcing his head up. “And in a few hours, you’ll get to look her in the face and see her for what she truly is under all that. She’s a killer, Eligor. A killer. And she fooled you. She’ll kill you too, if you get in her way.”
When he stared into her eyes, he saw Susan staring back. “I know that, Susan. You don’t have to keep reminding me of my mistakes. I’m acutely aware of what I did wrong.”
She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. “Why did you call me Susan?”
“That’s the name of your handler,” he said. “Just as I was Nix’s handler.” He used her nickname, feeling as if he’d earned it after being inside her head for a year.
Easter’s face twisted, rage flickering in those green eyes. “No one is in my head anymore, that was the deal.”
“Of course, my mistake,” he said softly. She stood and stalked back to her seat. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about Phoenix, or about the strange desire he had to leap off the truck and run straight to her.
16
The sight of the glowing New York skyline did something strange to my heart. This was where I’d grown up, where my family had been, and where most of my hunting of abnormals had happened. This was not home, but it was, in a weird way, my life.
Cowboy was asleep in the passenger seat as I navigated the still-busy streets of the Financial District, working my way in and out of traffic like a pro. I managed to find a place to park in Chinatown, which was close enough to my end destination.
Part of me wanted to walk the streets I knew.
I wondered if they would feel the same. The thing was, with my current blond hair, I doubted many would recognize me. “Cowboy, wake up.” I shoved his shoulder and he startled awake, gripping at Diego.
“Easy,” the gun grumbled. “I was sleeping too.”
“They sleep?” Cowboy shook his head. “Really?”
“Yanking your chain, man.” Diego laughed.
Reaching into one of the bags in the backseat, I pulled out a proper shoulder holster for Dinah. I slid it on, grabbed another handgun—non-speaking—and tucked it in the other side.
“Here.” I handed Cowboy a handgun and a waist holster. He slid it on with minimal difficulty.
I rolled down the windows, then took Diego and strapped him onto my back. “Ruby, guard,” I said as I stepped out of the car.
She gave a woof and put her head on the shoulder of my seat, watching.
As people went by, she gave a growl that made them scurry on their way a little faster.
“We won’t be long.” I slid out of the seat, grabbed a button-down shirt from our stash and threw it on to cover the weapons, then started down the street that would lead us to the church I wanted. Cowboy strode along next to me, the heels of his boots hitting the ground with a steady cadence.
“So . . . is this like a haunted church or something?”
“Yes and no. It’s got a resident demon, but he’s not strong enough to cause us any damage, so he’s been left where he is, mostly undisturbed and unknown.” My jaw ticked. “He’s kind of an ass—he has little man syndrome which makes it difficult to deal with him.”
Dinah shivered in her holster. “Because a difficult demon is a rare thing?”
I slapped a hand over her, and she muffled an ouch, which was ridiculous, but Cowboy’s eyes went wide. “She can’t feel it, Cowboy.”
“Oh.”
Dinah laughed. “Let me have my fun. He’s so green, he glows neon with it.”
“I didn’t tell you to stop,” I said as we made our way up the street, crossed under an overpass and continued on. I could see the spires of the church up ahead, and already the air tightened around me.
Most people didn’t realize that it was possible for a demon to live within the sanctified walls of a church. Then again, look at the fallen angels—they were hardly on the good side of the scale, yet most people would think them preferable to demons.
I was not most people.
The wrought-iron fence surrounded the cemetery, and I ran my fingers along the rails as if they were a poorly made harp, the sound strumming through the air.
“Waking the dead?” Cowboy asked, and I nodded.
“In a matter of speaking. I don’t like sneaking up on this particular demon,” I said.
“To be fair,” Dinah drawled, “we haven’t talked to him since you were still in your father’s employ. You think he’ll be mad that you’ve stayed away?”
That depended on what mood he was in, but I didn’t see any point in saying so. The last time I’d spoken to him, I was hunting for an abnormal with an affinity for the dead. My hunt had led me to the church we were approaching and the demon—who at the time I’d thought was a new-to-me abnormal—had given me a tip, though I suspected he’d done it unintentionally. I hadn’t been back since. Not since I realized exactly what he was.
A Savage Spell (The Nix Series Book 4) Page 14
