by Lori Drake
“I’ll save the map on my phone, and he can lead us the rest of the way if we have trouble.”
“What if he doesn’t want us to find it?”
Joey shrugged. “As long as Eric’s dead and Roger’s not coming after us, I don’t really care. But even if he doesn’t cross over when all this is done, he won’t want to spend the rest of his afterlife out here. He’ll want to go back to Seattle, be closer to his family. Either we pick him up or he possesses someone, I guess. It’s really not important to figure out right now.”
They walked for a couple minutes in silence. Joey’s thoughts were weighty. They’d stopped to bury Roger’s can roughly halfway between Silver Springs and Eastgate, and turning around was basically the last thing she wanted to do.
“I have another idea,” she said.
“Hm?”
“What if we keep going? We could scout the area, get the lay of the land, maybe wait until dark and sneak in. What if we could steal them right out from under Madrigal’s nose?”
“You remember the whole powerful magic user thing, right?” Dean asked, glancing at her. “Their compound is probably warded out the wazoo. They probably know if so much as a rodent scurries across their border.”
“Maybe,” Joey said, but he was right. It was a bad idea, so she abandoned it. When they reached the bike, she climbed on wordlessly and let Dean turn it around and point them back toward Silver Springs.
They arrived back at the bar in the late afternoon, having killed several hours. The only cars still in the parking lot were Mike’s truck and a gray sedan, so it seemed that at least some of the pack had dispersed. Joey left Dean outside puttering with his bike—he swore it’d begun making an unusual noise on the ride back—and went inside.
“Hello?” she called into the empty bar.
Zoe poked her head out of the kitchen door. “We’re in here. Come on back.”
Joey started in that direction, but she’d barely gotten halfway across the room when Zoe came bolting out of the back and nearly bowled her over on her way to the front door.
“What the—”
“Dean’s in trouble,” Zoe said.
Joey blinked and followed her. They burst out into the sunlight just in time to see two men muscle a struggling Dean into the back of a white cargo van.
“Hey!” Joey ran forward. The van’s engine roared. It peeled out, spitting gravel, back doors swinging and its passengers nearly tumbling out the back. Joey surged forward in a burst of speed, giving chase.
The van swung out onto the road, barely missing an oncoming car as it turned left. Joey sprinted across the street and took off after the van while the men in back struggled to hold on to Dean and get the back doors shut before they all ended up tumbling out onto the asphalt. Joey was fast. If she could just catch up before it picked up too much speed…
The men in the back managed to slam one of the van’s doors shut, then the other. Joey was forced to slow as the van accelerated, leaving her behind, heart hammering and fists clenched at her sides. A horn blared behind her, and she flipped the driver the bird before sprinting back across the street to stand on the shoulder and catch her breath.
“Fuck!” Her mind scrambled to try and figure out what to do. She couldn’t go after Dean on his bike. Even if she knew how to ride it, which she didn’t, he had the keys, so it didn’t matter. But she couldn’t let them get away with him. First her mother, then Chris, now Dean? No way.
Joey started jogging back to the bar and spotted Zoe still standing by the front door. Zoe took her keys out of her pocket and made a beeline for the gray sedan, tossing Joey her keys when she was in range.
Joey slid behind the wheel. “Roger?” she guessed. It only made sense, unless the skeptical wolf had been concealing psychic ability.
Zoe nodded.
“Shit, couldn’t you have grabbed Mike? Zoe’s going to flip her shit when she finds out.”
Roger smiled, as if looking forward to it. “If you hurry, we can catch them.”
Joey slammed the car in reverse and backed out, then sped off in pursuit of the cargo van.
As soon as Roger slipped out of Zoe, presumably to check on Dean’s location, Joey knew it. Zoe stiffened beside her, her breath catching in her throat.
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” Zoe looked around in confusion. “What’s going on? How did I—”
“Really long story short: you were possessed. Dean’s been medium-napped, and one of his spirit friends is helping me catch up to them.”
There was no immediate response. When Joey glanced at her, Zoe was staring with her mouth hanging open. It was preferable to a torrent of questions or profanity. Joey would take it.
“It would really help if you could just go along with this for now and freak out later,” Joey said. “Help me keep an eye out for cops?”
Joey whipped around a corner and opened up the throttle. The little car shot forward with a surprising amount of pep. She didn’t even have it in sport mode yet.
Roger slipped in and out of Zoe again, playing navigator. Soon they were on the highway, heading out of town. Joey spotted the van ahead, but there were a few cars in between them. Gunning the engine, she weaved left and right, passing the cars. Beside her, Zoe fastened her seatbelt. Joey was afraid to take her hands off the wheel to fasten her own. She was pushing eighty miles per hour as she came up behind the speeding van.
“Do you have full coverage on this car?” Joey asked.
“Yeah. Um, why?”
“Hold on to something. I’ve only seen this on TV.”
“What happened?”
“Too much, too soon. He’s very strong.”
“I warned you, master.”
“He’ll recover. Bring him to me again after dinner.”
“Yes, master.”
Chris opened his eyes after lying there half-conscious for an indeterminate amount of time and blinked at an unfamiliar ceiling. He never thought he’d long for his water-stained ceiling back home. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up and learn this had all been a bad dream?
“There you are. Welcome back.”
Turning his head, Chris looked toward the familiar voice. Karina folded down a corner of the book in her hands and closed it, offering him a warm smile.
“You gave us a bit of a scare,” she said.
Chris looked at the ceiling again. The last thing he remembered clearly was trying to escape. The rest was a jumbled mess. His head felt like it was full of applesauce, but it didn’t hurt. Not exactly. He sat up and looked around, finding himself in the infirmary. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
Chris shook his head.
Karina frowned and set her book aside, scooting onto the edge of her chair and reaching for him. He flinched, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Let me help. Give me your hand.”
“Why should I? You’ve been messing with my head. I don’t know how, but…” He winced. It was hard to form a coherent thought amongst the sludge.
“Let me help you order your thoughts, and then I’ll explain things.”
She held out her hand, and he reluctantly placed his in it. In the blink of an eye, they were no longer in the infirmary. They were in his hotel room, the one from his dreams. Chris blinked and looked around, but his head did feel clearer. He remembered what had happened now. Being dragged to Marc’s office, having his hearing restored by Marc’s magic, that sensation of warmth, peace, and adoration that filled him when Marc’s magic flowed through him.
Chris gave Karina a long look. “What is this? What’s going on? Where are we?”
Karina tapped his temple. “In there.”
“In my head? How?”
“It’s my gift. It’s easier when you’re asleep. I don’t need to touch you then. I just have to be nearby.”
“You’re psychic?” He sank onto the edge of the bed.
“Something like that.” She sat beside him. �
��My master was impatient to meet you. He thought if we reached out to you before you arrived, it might ease your transition.”
“My transition to what, exactly? His slave?”
Karina wrinkled her nose. “Is that what you think we are? Slaves?”
“What would you call it? You’re locked up on his compound the same as I am, unable to leave.” Caged. His wolf objected to the notion, stirring restlessly within him. It’d been strangely quiet since he arrived.
“This is where I want to be. I’m not a prisoner. Besides, I left to bring you here, didn’t I?”
“Because he ordered you to. You do his bidding. You call him ‘master.’”
“He’s my master. What else should I call him?” Karina shrugged, earnest eyes holding his. Just as in his dreams, they shifted between green and blue, rather than one of each. “But no, I am not a slave. I am his acolyte. His student. As you could be.”
Chris shook his head, forcing his eyes away from hers before he fell into them. “I don’t want to be his anything. I want to go home. I have a life, a family, responsibilities I can’t just walk away from.”
“You think you have all these things, but they’re only holding you back, preventing you from reaching your true potential.”
“You’re wrong.”
She spread her hands. “Think about it, Chris. Think about the weight of that yoke around your neck. Give yourself to him, and he will set you free.”
“No!” The word came out as a shout, and suddenly Chris was back in the infirmary. He jerked his hand from Karina’s, but the clarity of thought she’d given him stuck.
Karina offered him a gentle smile. “You’ll come around,” she said, collecting her book and rising.
“Wait,” Chris said. “You had to be close to me to enter my dreams, but he was here. How did he get there?”
Karina paused, tucking her book under her arm. “Magic,” she said with a wink, and walked away.
Chris sighed and rubbed his face, then rose from the bed and looked around. He found his shoes tucked under the foot of the bed and put them on, then headed for the door. Long strides carried him through the house to the front door, and outside. No one tried to stop him. On the porch, he gulped a few deep breaths and leaned on the railing.
All was quiet and calm until the sound of stone knocking against stone caught his attention. He searched for the source of the sound and found Rob standing at the foot of the steps with a wooden rod across his shoulders. A bucket dangled from each end of the rod. A line of cultists stretched across the yard in the direction of the field. One by one, they approached Rob, dropped a rock into one of the buckets, then walked away.
“Rob? What’s going on?” Chris asked. There was no answer.
“The penitent is not allowed to speak,” Shawna said from behind him.
Chris spun. Had his focus been so singular that he hadn’t noticed her there when he came outside? “Penitent?”
Shawna nodded in Rob’s direction. “That is his punishment for endangering you. It’s supposed to remind him of the weight of his responsibility as your Guide.”
Regret twisted Chris’s stomach in knots. “Endangering me? He didn’t endanger me. It wasn’t his fault I tried to escape. He did his job.” He turned back to watch as another cultist dropped a stone in a bucket. The buckets were over half-full, and Rob didn’t look like he’d make it much longer. Sweat beaded on the kid’s forehead as he stood there, shoulders shaking ever so slightly. He had an impressive goose egg on one temple where Chris had struck him with the shovel.
“That’s just cruel,” Chris said.
Shawna snorted. “That’s nothing. My rod held four buckets.”
Shaking his head, Chris went down the steps and tried to remove the rod from Rob’s shoulders. The youth edged away from him, panic in his eyes.
“Don’t!” Rob said, his eyes pleading.
“This is ridiculous. You don’t have to do this, Rob. If anyone should be punished, it’s me.”
“Being your Guide is my responsibility. I should’ve warned you about the fence. I should’ve been more careful. I shouldn’t have—” He swallowed and looked down.
“Shouldn’t have what?”
Rob hesitated, then said quietly, “Shouldn’t have been so quick to trust you.”
Chris winced. Another stone went into the bucket. It was a big one, and Rob staggered but righted himself. Chris stepped behind him and grabbed the rod. Rob tried to pull away, but Chris was stronger. Much stronger. He held on to the rod and lifted it, bearing some of the burden so Rob didn’t have to shoulder it all. Rob sighed, but stopped fighting him.
Chris might be supernaturally strong, but it was hard work holding up two buckets that were quickly filling with stones. Still, as his muscles began to burn, he embraced the pain and accepted it as punishment for his own hubris. A flicker of movement in an upstairs window drew his eyes up, and he spotted Marc standing there, looking down with a smile.
That smile sent a shiver of pleasure through Chris, followed by a shudder of revulsion.
I need to get the fuck out of here before it’s too late.
17
Joey crept toward the center line, peering around the van to make sure oncoming traffic was clear.
“What do you mean you’ve only seen this on TV?” Zoe’s voice held a shrill note to it.
Joey did her best to tune it out as she accelerated, crossed the yellow line, then jerked the wheel to the right as the car started to pull up alongside the van, trying to make contact just in front of the van’s rear bumper. The van swerved and accelerated.
“Watch where you’re going!” Zoe shrieked.
Joey muttered a curse as she stomped on the gas, catching up easily. “Roger, a little help here?”
“How?” Zoe asked, suddenly cool as a cucumber. Roger was back in the saddle.
“That,” Joey said through gritted teeth. “Keep her quiet so I can concentrate.”
Joey swerved toward the van again, this time making contact, but it either wasn’t enough force or the angle was wrong. Both vehicles shuddered as they impacted, but the van barreled ahead. Cursing again, she braked and slid back behind the van to avoid an oncoming car.
“This doesn’t seem to be working,” Roger said.
Joey shot him a glare. “Got a better idea?”
He didn’t. Once the way was clear, she broke left again and accelerated. She brought the car a little farther forward this time, then swung right. If she could manage to hit it just right, it would spin out, but she wasn’t sure how far forward she needed to go. The car’s bumper impacted just behind the van’s wheel well. The van started to fishtail, but straightened, forcing the car to the left. Joey braked, and something went flying off the front of the car with a noisy crunch. The van’s rear bumper had apparently gotten hooked on the car’s front one in the impact.
“Shit!” Joey swung back behind the van, glancing in the rearview mirror to see the front bumper panel slide across the road to rest half on the shoulder. Zoe was going to kill her.
In for a penny, in for a pound…
Clutching the steering wheel in a viselike grip, Joey punched the gas again and swung into the left lane.
“Are you sure you want to—”
“Third time’s the charm, right?”
Joey yanked the wheel abruptly to the right as the nose of the car drew even with the rear panel. Rubber squealed noisily as the van fishtailed. This time, the driver lost control and the van spun out. Joey swung to the right to get out of the way and slammed on the brakes, bracing herself so she didn’t become one with the dashboard.
Once the car stopped, Joey flung herself from it and ran for the van. It was facing her, rolling a little but not accelerating. She raced for it while the driver was disoriented, yanked the front door open, and dragged the startled fellow out by his shirt collar. She rammed a knee into his stomach as he tumbled out, relishing the whoosh of his breath leaving him, and threw him to the ground.
>
There was no one else in the front of the van, so she hopped in, stomped on the parking brake to stop it from rolling, then climbed between the seats. The men in back were a tangled pile of limbs, but they were swiftly sorting themselves out.
“Dean! Are you okay?” She tried, and failed, to keep the worry from her voice.
Dean managed to pull the bag off his head. They’d gotten his wrists zip-tied, but that was the extent of it. “Yeah. What the hell just happened?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
Joey climbed fully into the back and slammed one of the would-be-kidnappers against the wall with enough force that the whole van rocked. The other assailant, wide-eyed, scrambled for the door. Dean threw himself at the man, knocking him down.
Joey’s wolf howled, but she kept her rage in check. “Who sent you? Was it Madrigal?” she said through gritted teeth.
“You might as well kill me,” the man said. He had a reedy, thin voice and sneered at her seemingly without fear. “I’ll never betray the master.”
Joey decked him. Hard. He slumped against the wall, limp in her one-handed grip. She let him go and went to help Dean secure the other one. Within minutes, she had three trussed-up cultists in the back of the van.
“Now what?” Dean asked, rubbing his wrists.
Joey closed the back doors and glanced down the road toward town. Fortunately, they were stopped on a fairly desolate stretch of highway, so there hadn’t been any rubberneckers yet. “We find somewhere to stash them for the night, and tomorrow we offer an exchange.”
“Two of ours for three of theirs? Seems more than fair,” Dean said, but his eyes were on Zoe’s car. It remained where Joey had left it, with Zoe still in the passenger seat.
“I thought so. What I want to know is why they grabbed you.”
“Easier to grab us one at a time than together?”
“Maybe.” Joey flexed her fingers. Her knuckles ached from their contact with Tweedledum’s face, but at least the skin hadn’t split. “We need to get off this road. I’ll be right back.”
Dean nodded and hung back while Joey walked over to Zoe’s car and surveyed the damage. It wasn’t pretty, but there weren’t any fluids leaking. She walked around to the passenger’s side. Zoe rolled down the window.