by Charley Case
The sound of ripping leather, accompanied by a sudden release of pressure, let her finally roll completely out of the way. She continued rolling until she was behind the car parked next to the sedan, then tucked herself up under the rear end so she wouldn’t be seen by the large man as he drove away.
She calmed her breathing when she heard the car’s engine rev and then the tires barking as he took off with a heavy foot. A few stones were kicked up and hit her in the head and shoulders, but she kept her mouth closed just in case he could hear her cry out in pain.
She waited until she couldn’t hear anything but the normal background noise of traffic on the freeway a block or two away before she rolled out from under the car and up on one knee, checking that he was gone, and not just sitting at the other end of the parking lot. She sighed with relief when she saw the coast was clear.
The thought of someone inside seeing her suddenly became her number one concern, and she glanced around to be sure no one else had come out, then sprinted to her car and jumped in.
Her heart was beating at twice its normal rate, but she felt giddy about what she had just done.
She patted herself down, checking that she was still in one piece, and found several pieces of gravel and twigs in her hair, as well as a sore spot where a large section of it had been pulled away when the car rolled over her, but she was otherwise unharmed.
Her jacket, on the other hand, had been torn all the way from armpit to hem, the leather white and stretched around the rip.
“Fuck. I really liked this jacket.”
She quickly felt around the back of her corset that Gram and the one remaining healing potion were intact. Once again, she breathed a sigh of relief when she felt both items tucked securely in their places.
She had to admit that the corset made a pretty good utility belt, and it was obviously more durable than her jacket.
She pulled the jacket off and tossed it into the backseat, looking up just in time to see the front door of the motorcycle shop get blown off its hinges by the flying body of an orc.
The orc was wearing a t-shirt with a pony shitting out a rainbow, which Mila though was an odd detail for her to pick up on, considering the situation.
She started the Hellcat with a rumbling roar and threw it into drive, figuring Finn would be out soon. She was right, but not in the manner she had anticipated.
He came flying out the door horizontally, over the railing, landing on the orc with the pony shirt. When he rolled to his feet, he sprinted her way at full speed. There was blood all over his face, and he had a swollen eye; she was slightly satisfied to see that his jacket was pretty torn up as well.
She hit the gas and met him halfway across the distance, sliding to a stop as he pulled the door open, but he didn't get in.
“What are you doing? Get in here!” Mila shouted.
She quickly realized what the problem was.
“Where’s Penny?”
“Right on my heels, but she wanted a little security that they couldn’t follow us.” His voice was tight with worry.
A flame bigger than any she had ever seen from the tiny dragon shot out of the front door, followed by another, then Penny’s sleek body came shooting out of the smoke and flame like the Millennium Falcon at the end of Return of the Jedi.
Mila shouted her approval much as Chewy had.
Finn jumped in the car but kept the door open. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Mila stepped on the gas, letting all seven hundred horses loose, and spun the tires before the traction control kicked in, and they rocketed across the lot.
Penny shot through Finn’s open door, splaying her wings to stop her momentum, filling the car with the smell of smoke. Finn pulled the door closed behind her, and Mila turned onto the road, the car sliding sideways before straightening out and chewing up the distance like it hadn’t been fed in years.
Mila looked in the rearview mirror and saw smoke coming from the back of the shrinking building.
“Did you set the place on fire?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“No, of course not,” Finn said like she was crazy. Then he looked down at Penny, who was guiltily not looking at either of them. “We didn’t, right?”
Penny crossed her arms and gave a shrug. “Sir chich.”
Finn pressed his lips together, looking down at the little dragon for a few seconds. He then looked at Mila. “Turns out we did, but it was only a little one.”
“How little?” Mila asked though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
That had been a legitimate business, after all.
“Well, she said it was little, but she is a fire-breathing dragon, so ‘little’ to her is...questionable.”
Penny turned on him, her eyes narrowed. She started squeaking and pointing her talon at him, shaking it like a mother scolding her child. Her tirade included several bursts of flame and smoke, making Mila roll the windows down so she could see where she was going.
Finn held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I get it. You did the right thing.”
Penny narrowed her eyes and pointed at Mila. “Squee.”
Finn frowned, then turned to Mila. “She wants me to tell you that we could have used your help in there. Sorry for not taking you with us.”
Mila looked at the blood streaming over his face and matting in his beard. She had never seen him quite this beat-up. “How many of them were there?”
“About a dozen or so.” He shrugged, finding some napkins in the glove box under the roll of tape. He began to wipe up the blood but ended up just pressing the wad to his face and leaning back. “Well, at first, there were a dozen. I probably could have handled them, but they had another ten or twenty in the back room that came running when the fight started.”
Mila balked at the number. “You were fighting thirty orcs, and you think I should have come in with you? Are you insane?”
“Chi squee shir.” Penny folded her arms and tapped her foot.
Finn chuckled, then groaned when his nose smacked into his hand as Mila hit a bump turning onto the main road. “She said that if you were there, the orcs might not have attacked since you’re a better talker than me. For the record, I would like to say that she was against you coming when we were walking in.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Mila said excitedly. “I think I got us a lead while you were getting your ass kicked.”
“Hey! I did not get my ass kicked. I was overwhelmed and sucker-punched. Tell the ten guys who won’t be able to eat without straws how they kicked my ass, and they’ll call you a liar,” Finn said defensively.
“Well, then I think I got us a lead while you were kicking ass,” Mila amended. “Did you see a guy in a hooded trench coat in there?”
“Yeah, I think he works for the Dark Star. Why? What did you do?” Finn gave her a sidelong glance, an effect that was ruined by the bloody napkin pressed to his face.
She gave him a shit-eating grin. “I put a tracker on his car.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Where did you get a tracker?” Finn was having a hard time focusing due to the throbbing in his nose, and the burning of at least one broken rib if he breathed in too deep.
Mila handed her phone to Penny after opening it with her thumbprint. “See the new app at the bottom? Open it up.”
Penny complied, holding the phone so that both she and Finn could see it. “Phone Finder” was splayed across the screen. When the app fully opened, they could see the device name of the assassin’s phone listed.
“That’s the one. Select it,” Mila instructed, pulling into a gas station after checking that they weren’t being followed by a pissed off motorcycle gang.
Penny hit the button, and the app showed a map with a red dot moving along 85, back into town.
“Chi?”
“I paired it with the assassin’s phone so I could track it, then taped it to the bottom of his car.” Mila glowed with pride as she put the car in park and turned to face th
em.
“Damn. That was Penny levels of clever.” Penny nodded in agreement with two thumbs up.
Mila frowned, looking at Finn’s face.
“Hang on. I’ll be right back.” She got out of the car and walked into the convenience store.
Finn watched her go, noticing for the first time that she wasn’t wearing her jacket and had the corset on full display. He had to admit that it fit her well.
He glanced into the back seat while Penny played with the settings on the tracking app. He reached back and pulled Mila’s torn jacket to the front seat.
“Shir?” Penny asked, touching the jacket where it was torn down the side.
“Yeah, I think she left a little something out of that story.” He tossed the ruined jacket into the back and squinted down at the screen. “Where’s he going?”
Penny shrugged, zooming out to reveal most of the city as if to say “Anywhere.”
The door opened, and Mila climbed back into the driver’s seat, holding a white plastic bag. She pulled out a wad of napkins and a bottle of water. She cracked the bottle open with a twist of the plastic cap and proceeded to soak a couple of napkins before leaning over and gently pulling Finn’s hand away from his face.
“Let me help you.” She shook her head, her expression serious as she began blotting the blood in his beard and on his cheeks. “You’re a mess.”
At least the bleeding from his nose had stopped, but he could still taste copper in the back of his throat.
She was gentle around his nose and eye but got in deep when it came to his beard, trying to get the blood out before it dried. She had to change out the napkins several times before they started coming away relatively clean.
She gave him an odd look. “Have you not taken a healing potion?”
Finn shook his head. “I don’t have any left. Penny took one to give to you at the garage, and the other was broken in the fight.”
“How did it break if it was in your holster?”
“Well, my holster is just leather. I mean, it’s tough leather, but when a tire iron slams into it with an orc’s strength behind it, it just can’t hold up. The vial shattered in its pocket.” He leaned back so she could get a better angle.
“Here,” she reached around and pulled her potion out to hand it to him. “Take mine. I’m pretty sure your nose is broken.”
He pushed it away. “No. You hang onto it. I’ll be fine. I can take one later when we get home. I don’t want us to end up needing the potion, and not having it because of this. I’m not in any danger of dying. It’s just going to suck for a little bit. Put it away. That’s our last one, and it’s only lunchtime.”
She obviously didn’t like the solution, but she nodded and slipped the potion back into the pocket of her corset. “Okay, but you take one as soon as we get home.”
He smiled. “Yes, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes and checked him over one more time. “Okay, you still look like an undercooked ham, but at least you’re not covered in blood anymore. How’s our tracker doing, Penny?”
“Chi chi.” Penny held up the phone, and they could see that the other car was now on 25 South and was making pretty good time.
“Okay, let’s go. Maybe we can finally figure out who the fuck has these hounds.” Mila started the car and pulled back onto the main road, heading for 85 South.
Within minutes, they were cruising down the freeway, the car they were following leading by a good ten or fifteen minutes. That gap was closing, thanks to Mila’s lead foot.
“Hey, I want to give Anita a call,” Finn said, thinking about the orcs that had been attacked.
“Sure. The phone is already connected to the car’s Bluetooth. Penny, open the recent calls, and she should be at the top.”
After a couple of seconds, they could hear the sound of the phone connecting through the speakers.
“Hello? Who is this?” Anita’s tight voice answered.
“Anita, it’s Finn.”
“Oh.” Her voice lost its tightness and went straight to put-out. “What do you want?”
Finn frowned, and he and Mila made eye contact, both raising an eyebrow at her tone.
“Well, I had a question about the hellhounds, but if you’re busy…”
Anita cut him off. “I am busy, thanks to you. You fed my poor hound too much fucking meat, and she’s sick. If I can keep you from doing something like that again, then ask your question. Otherwise, I don’t really have the time.”
“Well,” Finn cleared his throat, feeling guilty about the meat. “I need to know if a hound can imprint on more than one person. And how it works. Do they follow your orders no matter what, or are there limitations to what you can get them to do?”
Anita sighed as if he were some sort of child. “Of course, a hound can’t imprint twice, that’s the whole point of imprinting; it’s for life. And no, a hound won’t do anything you tell it to. For example, it won’t jump off a cliff; it has a sense of self-preservation, after all.”
“How long does it take a hound to imprint?” he asked, trying to make the timing work in his head even before he heard the answer.
“They have to imprint right after birth. Maybe up to a week after, but any more than that, and the chances of it being permanent goes down quickly. I would say nine to ten days at most.” They could hear her fiddling with a set of keys in the background, then the sound of barking hounds nearly blew out the speakers. “Hang on, I’m going into my office.”
The barking was suddenly cut off.
“Is that all you needed?”
Finn frowned. Her attitude was not making him any less suspicious, but then again, she was upset at him about her sick hound, so he let it slide a little. “Actually, I have one more question. Let’s say you have some hounds you need to control, but they’re not imprinted to you. How would you control them?”
“Meat,” she said simply before taking a bite of something and chewing loudly.
“I’m talking about a little more than moving them from one cage to another.” Finn was getting sick and tired of her attitude. “How would you control them like they were bound to you? Could you use mind control through magic or an artifact of some kind?”
The line was filled with crunching. It went on so long that Finn thought she wasn’t going to answer the question.
He’d opened his mouth to ask if she was still there when she answered, “I suppose you could use some sort of mind control, but if you’re talking about controlling the whole litter, it would have to be one hell of a spell.” She took another bite but continued around the mouthful in a muffled voice. “I would say you could use an artifact, but again it would have to be something really powerful. Probably dwarven-made and powered by someone who knew what the hell they were doing. One slip and the hounds would turn on the user in an instant. Well, actually, it might stun them at first, but the hounds are smart. They would know they had been controlled and try to put a stop to it.”
“So, if it’s an artifact, and we can stop the user, what does that mean for the hounds? Will they have to be put down?” Finn didn’t like that idea. It wasn’t like they had chosen any of this.
Anita crunched through another bite before answering. “They would be a handful for a while, but eventually they would calm back down. Taking care of them will be a bitch, though. They’ll basically be wild animals at that point, but I could do it.” She seemed to be saying the last thought to herself more than to them.
“Thanks, Anita. That should be helpful. I’ll try not to kill the hounds, but no promises.” Finn hung up before he could hear her reply.
“I still can’t tell if she’s a part of this or not.” Mila shook her head in disbelief. “I hope she’s just got horrendous people skills and isn’t an accessory to murder. She seems to really like animals, maybe a little more than the people around them.”
“Yeah, I’ve known a few people like that,” Finn agreed, pulling up the tracking app again. “I’m hoping she’s innocent jus
t because we don’t have another hellhound expert on hand, but I’m not holding my breath.” He zoomed in on the map and squinted, his swollen eye making it hard to read the tiny road names. “Looks like he’s getting off the freeway. He’s turning north on South Colorado Boulevard.”
Mila put her turn signal on, making her way to the exit lane. “That’s the next exit. Looks like we caught up with him.”
“Don’t get too close,” Finn warned. “We don’t want him to spot us.”
“He’s still a few minutes ahead of us,” she said, pulling onto the exit ramp and slowing down for the light. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to get you into a fight any more than you want one.” She gave him a sad smile, looking at his face.
A few minutes later, the car turned off the main road and onto East Exposition Avenue. Mila was getting more and more agitated the further they went.
“Are you okay?” Finn raised an eyebrow at her obvious discomfort.
“I just have a pretty good idea where he’s going.”
“Really? Where?” he asked, squinting down at the map in Penny’s hands.
“Polo Club,” was all she said.
Finn had no idea what a Polo Club was until he noticed it was the name of the street the car pulled onto. He didn’t see what the big deal was until he noticed that the outlines of the house lots on the map were way too big. Like, ten times too big for a normal house. These were estates, not houses.
“Yeah, he’s turning down Polo Club Circle right now. I mean, they’re big houses, but what’s the big deal?”
She sighed. “Well, it’s a private neighborhood. They have their own security patrolling the roads. Not exactly a lot of street parking. If we stop, they’ll come and investigate.”
