by Debra Dunbar
“I thought spells just kept people from getting inside. Like a security system.” I knew so little about magic. Hell, two years ago I didn’t believe magic was real, even though I’d had my strange talents for as long as I could remember.
“Protection wards are the most commonly found spell around here,” Bishop said. “You see this kind of shielding magic used in burglaries. If someone’s going to steal a million-dollar painting, they don’t want the owner finding it with a location spell, or an electronic tracking device.”
“Or Bob,” I mused.
Bishop chuckled. “Or Bob.”
In two years of scavenging I’d never come across a magic wand, or amulet, but I wasn’t sure I’d recognize one if I saw it.
“But Nevarra could be inside?” I asked. “Bob can’t find her scent leaving. The building has some sort of non-detection spell on it. You’re thinking either she’s inside, or they managed to drive her out in a warded van?”
He nodded. “That’s what I’m assuming.”
“Do you know who owns this building?” I asked. I doubted the Fixers, although they’d clearly brought Nevarra here.
“Disciples,” Bishop spat the name out. “They move a lot of stolen product, and they’re known for putting non-detection spells on their warehouses. They snatched up this building a few years back and use it for temporary storage of goods.”
Then why the hell had the Fixers brought Nevarra here? Were they trading her to the Disciples? Did they intend to hide her among pallets of PlayStations and Rice Krispy Treats? Or were they meeting someone here who liked to buy preteen girls?
“Do you think she’s already been sold?” I could barely get the words out.
A muscle in Bishop’s jaw twitched. “I doubt it. A quick sale means lost money. She’ll bring them a lot more if they auction her off or if they can contact a few big-money buyers and start a bidding war.”
“She was taken by the Fixers. Why would they involve the Disciples?” I asked. “Why split the money when they could make more selling her off themselves?”
Bishop grunted. “Could be the Fixers don’t have the connections or organization to pull it off, where the Disciples might. Could be they don’t want to take the risk of the police catching wind of them trafficking a little girl.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Why would the police give a shit?”
He shrugged. “Some still do.”
When the demons had come, the police had done their best to control the situation, to limit the damage and keep people safe. I was no fan of the cops, but I saw some good ones doing good things during the riots and violence of those first few months. He was right, and for the first time in my life, I actually contemplated going to the police to report Nevarra’s kidnapping. There was a fifty-fifty chance they might turn me over to the tax collectors, but if they had detectives knowledgeable about how human trafficking worked in the city, it might be worth putting my neck on the line.
“What do you know about the Disciples?” I asked him, wondering where the hell Bob was and what was taking him so long.
He shrugged again. “Not much. They stay out of my way, and I don’t bother them.”
I didn’t reply since at that moment I saw movement over by some dumpsters. Bob slid from the shadows and trotted up to us, exchanging a long wordless communication with his master.
“Four people inside, but no kids,” Bishop told me. “Your girl’s scent goes in, then vanishes around the loading docks, so Tiny here thinks they took her out in a warded vehicle.”
Bob snarled at the new nickname.
“He said there’s lots of shit inside,” Bishop continued. “Electronics and weapons. No, I’m not grabbing you a laptop.”
I blinked in surprise, for a second thinking that Bishop was still talking to me. Was he talking to me? I couldn’t imagine what a dog would do with a laptop, even a weird dog like Bob.
He couldn’t be one of those shifters I’d heard about…could he? Weredog? I shot Bob a quick glance, then another at Bishop, wondering if he was one of them too.
It didn’t matter. I’d find Nevarra, then avoid these people like the plague. Well, after I paid them, that is.
“I’m going in,” I announced, removing my pistol from the holster and pulling the slide to chamber a bullet. Four people. I could take four. Maybe.
“She’s not in there,” Bishop reminded me.
“No, but they might know where she is.” Which meant I’d need to not kill them. Damn it. It would be hard enough to take down four people without getting killed myself. Now I needed to add keeping at least one of them alive to the scenario.
Bishop sighed, then looked down at Bob. “Shut up.”
I didn’t know what that was about and I wasn’t going to ask.
“Just show us how you got in,” Bishop told the dog.
We followed Bob around past the dumpsters to where a loading dock door was cracked open a foot from the ground.
“Security?” I asked Bishop. There was an alarm box by the bay doors, but it wasn’t set.
“The only magic is the non-detection wards,” he said. “If they have security spells, they’re not activated right now.”
Good. That meant if we were quiet, we’d have the element of surprise on our side.
Bob shimmied under the loading dock door without a sound, so fluid it seemed as if he were boneless. I knelt down to do the same, but hesitated when Bishop put a hand on my shoulder.
That same electricity zinged through me as it had in his bar. Damn it, the guy might be a weredog like Bob, but even that suspicion didn’t keep me from wanting him.
“I won’t fit,” he whispered. “I’ll need to open the garage door, and it’ll make noise. Use the distraction. I’ll wait thirty seconds before I push it up.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, then slid under the door with far less grace and silence than Bob had.
Although the building appeared to be several stories, it was one big open space with filthy windows stacked above each other three stories high. Inside, huge metal racks were lined up in neat aisles, each one of them loaded with pallets full of boxes. Was there even a market for all this shit anymore? Maybe the Disciples had found a way to ship all this over the border to sell to those who hadn’t been abandoned by their country.
Bob was nowhere to be seen, and I wasn’t sure exactly where in this huge place the four people were, so I ducked down a row, trying to keep behind the boxes as I scoped the place out. Thirty seconds wasn’t very long. I hid behind a pallet full of boxes labeled coffee filters and waited, deciding my best plan of action would be to wait for Bishop to cause the distraction and let the bad guys come to me.
The garage door didn’t just squawk when Bishop opened it, it shrieked. The sound was like a knife in my ears, and I wondered if he’d opened the door or ripped it clear off the track.
The noise was loud enough to cover up any shouts of alarm from the bad guys, so I ended up without the slightest idea which direction they might be coming from. Wedging myself between the crate of coffee filters and the one of paper towels next to it, I waited.
These guys were no fools. A few faint footsteps were all that clued me in as to their whereabouts. A man in dark clothes, his pistol sweeping the area before him, came into my line of sight. I held still, wanting to wait until he was past me before I did anything, but a noise in the aisle behind me had him swinging around.
And staring right at me. I scrambled backward, tripping over a piece of wood jutting out from the pallet and falling into the next aisle. Two bullets clanged against the metal shelving right where my head would have been a split second before. Firing back, I rolled behind the cases of paper towels, jumped to my feet, and ran.
Cardboard, bits of paper towels and coffee filters flew through the air right behind me as I raced down the aisle. Ducking down behind a crate, I waited until the shooting stopped, swung into view and popped off two rounds.
I was pretty sure I’
d hit him, but from the return fire and his shout, it must not have penetrated anything vital. When the shooting stopped, I scooted between the crates to peer down the other aisle. There was blood on the floor, but the bad guy was nowhere to be seen, so I eased out from between the pallets, checked the aisle again and dashed across. There was no way anyone had missed hearing the gunshots. They’d all be converging here soon, and I needed to not be caught where I couldn’t easily escape.
Another bullet pinged off the metal shelving.
I ducked down, trying to pivot around so I could make sure I wasn’t about to run head-first into the barrel of a pistol.
The coast was clear, and I made a dash for it, weaving and ducking. I heard a few shots, but nothing came close. Where the fuck were Bob and Bishop? I was getting the feeling I was in here alone facing these four dudes. Flattening myself against a crate of canned chili, I spun around the corner with my gun at the ready and saw a body on the floor. The man’s arm was partially detached from his body, and as I dashed by, I saw his throat had been ripped out.
Well at least Bob was helping out. At least, I assumed it was Bob since I couldn’t imagine doing that sort of thing with human teeth.
One down, three to go. The warehouse was eerily silent once more so I walked along the jutting wood of the pallets, listening and briefly glancing around each corner before I ran across the aisle. Three rows back, I saw a few spots of blood and smiled. At least I knew where one of them was headed, although I wasn’t about to assume this guy wasn’t a threat. He might be injured and bleeding, but one stupid move on my part, and he could still blow my head off.
I followed the trail, carefully checking to make sure none of the others were flanking me or coming around from behind. A shout and rapid gunfire came from a few rows up. I ducked low and ran, rounding the corner to see Bob grappling with my injured guy. They were on the ground, and Bob was savaging the man’s arm, trying to get to his neck. The man reached out, grabbing his gun from the floor and bringing it upward. I shot, and this time my aim was true. The man’s head rocked backward, the gun and his arm falling to the floor.
I spared a second to wonder if the blood on Bob wasn’t solely from the bad guy before another man rounded the corner.
Two left.
I ducked back, and Bob vanished between the crates. The guy must have thought I was the more serious threat because he started shooting in my direction. I ran, weaving through the aisles as he chased me, bullets pinging off the shelves and tearing through boxes. I managed to get far enough ahead that he was no longer shooting at me, then squeezed between more pallets of industrial-sized canned chili—who the fuck needed this much canned chili?—and tried to quiet my ragged breathing. My hands shook from the adrenaline and my ears rang from the sound of gunshots in this echo chamber of a warehouse. That’s probably why I didn’t hear the second guy behind me until his gun was pressed against my temple.
“Gun down. Ease out slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.” His voice was breathy as he tapped the muzzle against the back of my head, punctuating his command.
He was scared. And he had reason to be. I placed my Glock carefully on the floor, then raised my hands and scooted slowly backward, hoping the other guy didn’t get here in the next five seconds.
Once I was out from between the pallets of chili, he backed the gun off my head. “Stand up slowly, and—”
I spun before the guy could get the rest out of his mouth and leapt forward in a crouch. He yelped and shot wildly before I grabbed his leg and sent electricity sizzling through his body.
This was the second time I’d used this superpower today, and I wasn’t sure it would even work a second time. Or how powerful the electric shock would be. I was like a human Taser, but without any control over whether I was delivering the equivalent of a static shock or something a whole lot more than a stun gun. I could numb someone’s arm. I could drop them to the ground where they’d twitch for a few seconds then lay there for at least a couple of minutes. I could knock them out.
I could kill them.
It was like a game of Russian roulette which was going to come out of me, which is one of the reasons I chose not to use it unless I had to. It would really suck if I’d intended to interrogate someone, after just giving them a warning zap, and they ended up dead and smoking on the ground.
Like this dude.
Good thing there was one more guy roaming around the warehouse alive. At least I hoped so. I was going to be really pissed if Bob had killed him, leaving me no one to interrogate.
And where the fuck was Bishop?
Idiot should have just shot me, I thought, giving the body a kick. No doubt he’d intended to interrogate me as well, to figure out which gang I was with and what they were planning before putting a bullet through my head. Joke was on him. I was just as much of a killer without my gun as I was with it.
A scraping sound had me jerking my head up and diving for my gun. I stopped mid-reach because it was Bishop, coming down the aisle and dragging the other guy behind him by the back of his shirt.
“Fuck! Tell me you didn’t kill him?” I shoved my pistol in my shoulder holster before jogging over to meet him.
“He’s alive.” Bishop dropped him like a wet sack of flour on the floor, then motioned toward the guy as if he were that woman on a television game showcasing a particularly lavish prize. Vanna something or another I think her name was.
I snapped my gun into the holster to make sure it would be difficult for the guy to grab and use on me. Of course, that meant I’d be relying on Bishop to help if the dude was faking the extent of his injuries and attacked me. I didn’t want to zap him and end up with no bad guy left to question.
Plus, I didn’t want Bishop to know what I could do. Some secrets best remain secrets.
I hauled the guy up to his knees, where thankfully he managed to stay. One of my shots had grazed his torso, tearing his shirt and leaving a deep, bloody gash. That seemed to be his only wound.
His eyes flickered with recognition, and he spat at my feet. “You’re dead, you fucking bitch. If the tax collectors don’t kill you, then the one of us will. Or maybe the Disciples will kill you, since you shot up their warehouse.”
Oh please. The Disciples weren’t going to hunt us down for wrecking a few cases of paper products, and the Fixers weren’t organized enough to bother avenging a few dead members. But the rest of his threat rang true. I needed to make sure I stayed clear of the tax collectors until I could either get their money or their bullets from that cop. If I continued to elude their mercenaries long enough, they might send a demon to get me. Then none of my nifty magic tricks would be able to save me.
I eyed the screwdriver tattoo on his neck, and tried to keep from ripping this guy’s head off. This was one of the guys who’d broken into my house, beat up my foster mother, shot Sadie and taken Nevarra. I’d enjoy killing him.
“Where’s the girl?” I demanded.
He grinned up at me. “Gone.”
I started to reach out to grab him, but felt the tingle of sparks along my fingers and decided against it. I couldn’t trust myself right now, and I needed to know where they’d taken Nevarra.
So instead I unsnapped my pistol and drew it. “Where? Who has her?”
“Fuck you.” He spat at my feet once more.
I shot him in the knee.
He toppled over, clutching his leg and swearing. I waited a few seconds for him to get ahold of himself. Then I asked my questions once more.
“You’ll never find her.” He sneered.
I contemplated shooting his other knee, but didn’t want to risk him bleeding out…yet. So instead I kicked his injured leg.
“Did you guys sell her to the Disciples? Who in the Disciples handles their human trafficking deals? Where did they take her?”
“Fuck you,” he gasped, his eyes meeting mine.
This guy wasn’t going to tell me anything. No matter what I did. He knew he’d die either way
, and preferred to go out with the upper hand. I took a step back, clenching my fist in frustration as I tried to think of what I could do to torture additional information out of this guy.
“Let me.” Bishop’s deep voice washed over me.
I turned to see him watching me with an impassive expression on his face, Bob at his side. Bob’s expression was far from impassive. The dog was totally judging me.
As if he could do any better.
The Fixer also seemed to have forgotten about Bishop’s presence. He glanced at the other man, and terror creeping into his eyes. Damn it, I was the one with the gun, and here he was practically wetting his pants at an unarmed surfer dude. Although to be honest, Bishop was pretty scary for a jacked-up guy with blond hair, blue eyes, and a beach boy tan.
Bishop walked over to the man and took his shirt in a fist. “Look at me.”
The Fixer’s eyes were everywhere but on Bishop, but at the man’s command, his gaze slowly dragged upward.
“Where is the girl?” The words were soft, and seductively smooth.
My legs felt weak. I wanted to answer the man, and I had no idea where Nevarra was.
“I…I don’t know. I don’t know where they took her.” The man’s eyes never left Bishop’s. A thin line of drool rolled down his chin. “She’s worth a lot—worth more than some used-up runaway from the streets. She’s young. She’s the perfect age. And she’s clean, cared for. She’ll bring a lot of money but we don’t have the contacts to get her to the buyers, so we made a deal with the Disciples.”
“What sort of deal?” Bishop’s one hand tightened in the man’s shirt.
“Finder’s fee, then five percent of the sale.” The man licked his lips. “They’ll probably auction her off to get the best price, so we won’t get paid for another few days, or maybe a week depending on how hot the bidding is.”
I tried to steady my breathing trying not to think of what Nevarra was going through, but I couldn’t help but ask. “Is she unharmed? She’s still…no one touched her?”
Bishop jerked the man. “Answer her.”
