I picked up the black leather folder and looked at the signed ticket. I owed Devin even more now.
When we were at the valet podium, Jessa mentioned that maybe we shouldn’t valet anymore. Maybe easy access to our cars might be a good strategy.
“Are you joking? I’m not letting some prick prevent me from using valet. That’s a quality of life issue.”
She rolled her eyes as we waited, but her point was noted.
As our cars were brought up, I tipped the guy and Myers climbed into the passenger seat like he owned it. Well, at least he had the confidence of a panther now.
I sped down the street. It was a quick jump on the highway from where we were. A rough black Bronco followed us.
“Is that Tucker?” I asked, as I tried to pay attention to traffic and study my rearview.
Myers turned around and focused his eyes. He was getting good at accessing his power. “No. Four big guys.”
“Really ugly?”
“Yeah.”
“Crap. Dial 4.”
Myers did as he was told and dug through the condensed version of my end of the world pack. When it started ringing, he handed it to me.
“Violet?” Tucker answered.
“I’ve got a tail.”
“Don’t we all?”
I snorted. “Funny, Mr. Briggs. But no. I mean that I’ve got a car following me with who I think might be the Rotties from the old pack.”
I think Tucker growled over the phone. “Can you find out for sure?”
“Give me two seconds.”
I changed lanes and lifted my foot off the accelerator. It set my car right next to the black Bronco before they could react. I love my speedy car.
I dropped my shields and pushed it toward them. Yep. Breed confirmed. The information echoed back to me. My buddies the Rotties. Last time I had seen them, they were running.
Once noted, I punched the gas and flew off down the highway. “Yep. We’ve got Rottweilers. What do you suggest, Riko?”
“How much horsepower does a Miata have?”
“Not enough. They’re still behind me.”
“Bring them here.”
My brain went blank with his stupidity.
Tucker repeated himself. “Bring them here to the shop, and we’ll take them.”
“I’m not driving you guys into a fight.”
“That’s all I’ve got. We’re here already.”
“How did you guys get there so fast?”
“We didn’t wait for valet.”
I huffed and hung up. Come on ideas. I knew this city. I was good at this planning thing.
“Circle around to through Woodall Rogers and you’ll loose them in the construction traffic,” Myer suggested.
“And then zip through Highland Park and hope that they get pulled over by the PD.” I looked over at my companion. “I like the way you think.”
I PARKED THE CAR in the lot next to the shop and walked around the back. It was weird that I always knew where my boys were now. I just followed the little golden threads in my heart to them. Maybe this was what Chaz’s power felt like.
The boys were waiting outside with Jessa, her arms wrapped tightly around and her heel tapping. “What took you so long?” she snapped.
“We were followed. Wound them through Highland Park and they got pulled over.”
“Thank you HPPD.”
Tucker pulled on a pair of gloves. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
I’d always wanted to know how to pick a lock. Tucker did it like a pro. Had the tool kit in his jacket pocket and everything. Three seconds and the knob and bolt were unlocked and the door swung open.
“Ladies first.” Tucker said.
I slipped in the door into the darkness. Drawing on my cat eyes, I could see the fine details of the destruction. I flipped on the light in the kitchen area in the back of the shop. The kitchen hadn’t been as demolished as what we saw in the mirror but it had seen better days.
I carefully walked through the kitchen and waited at the curtain.
Releasing my borders, I lapped up as many details as I could. Cristina’s hot wax scent was all over the place, as her sacred spot where she commonly accessed her power.
Mingled in, there was ozone. Carlisle was here. But wasn’t that a given by the type of the destruction.
The rest of the gang filled the room behind me.
“Carlisle,” Tucker said.
With my borders down, their powers surrounded me. It muddled any fine detail detective work.
I turned to face them. “I need a little space, guys. Tucker?”
He nodded and walked around me to sweep aside the curtain.
That’s when the real destruction hit us. As I stepped into her reading room, I had to step over crushed picture frames and broken candle holders. The heavy velvet drapes that blocked out any light had been torn from their hangers on the wall. Chunks of dry wall were missing from items begin ripped off their hooks.
There was a distinct circular pattern to the disaster.
“What are you sensing?” Tucker asked.
“There’s no blood,” I said softly. I knew that Tyler was waiting on the other side of the curtain, listening to everything I said.
“Yeah.”
I walked to her reading table. The high back chairs were still upright and still facing each other. Why weren’t they broken into a million pieces like the book shelf?
I pulled Cristina’s chair back and sat down. And closed my eyes. I let my awareness pour out around me.
Tucker was right. There was a residual magic here. Fear prickled down my spine, like cold needles taking there turn to prick down my back. But the fear wasn’t mine. Cristina had been terrified as she sat in this chair and it left a bit of her magic in its wake.
I opened my eyes and leaned down to smell the wood where her hands would have been. Sweat was all over the palm marks on the armchair that also smelled of incense.
I looked around the room and finally landed on Tucker standing perfectly still.
“Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,” he said. He’d pulled out a notebook at some point and held it before him.
“She was forced to do a reading,” I said. “Her cards box is usually locked but it’s over there opened,” I pointed. “I think that Carlisle came in, forced a reading and then took her.”
“Actually. She opened the door for Carlisle.”
Tucker motioned for me to follow him. Apparently, while I’d been on my sensing mode, he’d actually done the detecting part for me. We walked carefully into the front waiting room.
The door was perfectly intact. A path of tiles had been ripped up as they led into the back room and the frames on the walls were all now in piles of glass on the floor. This is the room that we had seen. There was a mirror carefully preserved on the couch.
“She opened the door and I think he attacked her, throwing her through into the back room,” he pointed to the beads on the floor from her separator scattered all around.
“Why would she even open the door?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t.” Tyler said from the doorway. “He probably blackmailed himself in.”
I could feel his anger; it tainted the air around us. I wanted to put my hand on his forearm, let my power soothe him, but I also understood the need to just feel angry for a while.
“So she lets him in and he takes her, but where? And can we get her back?”
“But why her?” Tucker asked. “Why not one of us?”
A painful thought crossed my head. I watched as Tucker and Tyler flinched and looked toward me.
“The book. I’d given her a grimoire of dark magic. Could he have been looking for that?” I would have been able to feel that evil book of doom, but I hadn’t.
Tyler’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t know.”
“She also knows everything about us,” Nash offered from the door. The rest of the crew had filtered into the house and were now in the waiting r
oom. “If he’s aiming for Violet, he’ll want to know our weaknesses.”
“She won’t betray us!” Tyler roared at him.
“Like she didn’t open the door?” Nash asked.
Tyler’s fist flew up and I was between the two men in a flash of green satin. Tyler’s eyes were wild and his anger burned hot against my skin.
I put my cool hand on his fist. “This is not our fault.”
“Might be yours.” His voice oozed from the base of his throat, more of a growl than a sentence.
“Then you come at me, not at your brothers.”
“Maybe I should.”
I felt the heaviness in my stare as my power rose to meet his. “Maybe you can try.”
I could taste the hurt in his power, feeling the helplessness and the confusion as his fist slowly lowered. I took his wrist as he finally lowered his eyes.
I spoke low as I enveloped him in an invisible hug. “I need your passion, Tyler. I just need it pointed in the right direction.”
He licked his lips. “Yes, Prima.”
“Hey, don’t get all formal on me.”
Tucker slipped his hand over his brother’s shoulder. “We’re going to find her.”
Nash put his hand on Tyler’s forearm. “Jessa and I might be able to cook up a plan to help.”
In that shared moment, I felt it. This Prima thing. I felt the warmth just below my breastbone that didn’t feel anything like heartburn. It felt like family.
Jessa slipped her cool hand on my bare shoulder. “Sorry to break the moment, but we are burning . . .”
I can only describe what happened next as lightening through my skull or being jabbed with a red-hot poker through my eye. Take your pick.
It threw me back and then I felt suspended.
A white hand flashed behind my eyelids.
The flash of a silver dagger.
And a red symbol.
The images repeated themselves three times before I felt the rest of the fall into Jessa’s arms. I rolled onto my side and curled my head into my arms. My brain pounded and seared at the images burned themselves into my brain.
And I smelled hot wax. “Cristina.”
The ringing of a cell phone pierced through my hypersensitive state.
Jessa, who hadn’t really caught me so much as made sure I didn’t hit the ground hard, stroked my hair. Her soothing raindrops pattered all along my skin, and I took in deep breathes of her rose scent.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. With my head pounding with the combined force of the Texas A&M drum line.
When I could, I sat up and looked into Jessa’s lavender eyes.
“What was that?”
“Cristina. I think she sent me a vision.”
I smacked my lips. They tasted like cherry lip balm. Was that what kept Cristina’s lips so red all the time?
Slowly, Jessa helped me up. The room spun and Myers caught my arm when I slipped on a magazine on top of the wreckage.
“Violet?”
“I don’t think she wants us to come after her.”
“What?” Tyler snapped.
Flashing lights flooded the front windows of the shop. A very specific pattern of blue and red flashing lights.
“Go,” Tucker ordered.
“What?”
“Go, I can handle this.”
Four of us ran out the back to Jessa’s BMW. I didn’t notice that Tyler wasn’t with us. He’d stayed with this brother.
“That’s not good,” Nash said as Jessa slammed the car into drive and squealed away from the scene of the crime.
“Why?” Myers asked from his cramped position in the seat behind me.
“This will be Tyler’s third strike.”
“Only if he’s convicted,” Myers said.
I held my head in my hands. The driving and the dodging in and out of traffic wasn’t helping the residual pounding. Cristina had said that her visions were painful. I would never doubt her again if there was an again to doubt. “If it comes to that, I don’t have the money to bail them out.”
“I do,” Jessa said as she flew onto the highway.
“Well,” Nash said as he leaned back in the seat. “There is one good thing that came from this.”
“What?” I muttered. I rested my head on the car seat.
Myers ran his fingers through my hair and gently massaging my temples. The touch made my skin tighten and made my thoughts focus on something that wasn’t the pounding behind my eyes and the meaning behind that.
“They were actually acting like brothers again. Instead of fighting like . . .”
“Cats and Dogs?” I offered up.
“I guess we really do need to think of a new phrase, don’t we?” Nash joked.
It was a bad joke, but I took it anyway and laughed. The laughter and the feeling of Myers’s hands through my hair relaxed me enough to think of how Julius Caesar got off easy on that Ides of March.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WE WENT TO my house. It had wards and a coffee maker.
Jessa pulled into my very empty garage. As we walked into the patio, Shadow waited for us.
“It’s been a rough night, kid,” I said to him as I slid the door open.
We paraded in and I didn’t make it farther than my kitchen. I tossed my purse on the dinning room table and went straight for the coffee. I needed to think and the caffeine would keep the thoughts some what straight.
As I was pulling out the mugs, Jessa leaned against the counter next to me. “Let me do that. You need to change.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think even you could kick ass in that skirt.”
I laughed. I took a step toward her and rested my head on hers. “You can go, you know.”
“No, I can’t,” she laughed.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a part of you and you’re a part of them, so it makes this my fight too.”
I closed my eyes and felt that part we shared and knew that it was more than just the mystical connection that kept her with me right now.
“And when were you going to tell me that you got a dog?”
“I didn’t. That would be Shadow. He is the fourth in the pack, poisoned to stay in animal form.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Welcome to my world of weird.”
“When wasn’t your world weird?” Jessa asked. “Now it just all literal.”
I laughed and stood up straight. I rubbed my eyes and saw the vision again. “Can you manage a pot of coffee?”
“Maybe?”
I walked out to scour my bottom floor for a pen. Being a writer you’d think that I’d just have oodles of them lying around.
Being a former writer. God, this morning felt like a million years ago, and so petty considering what was at stake now. What was a silly writing job when a friend’s life was on the line?
I drew out the symbol that I had seen in my vision and handed it to Nash who was sitting on the couch next to Myers and Shadow. Just sitting there in the dark living room. It was a little creepy.
“Look familiar?” I clicked on the lamp over his shoulder.
Nash paled. If that was possible for a person who barely had any color in his skin to begin with.
“What?”
Nash licked his lips. “It’s the old language of the wanderers.”
I sat on the arm of the couch next to him. “And you can read the old language.”
Nash looked up at me and nodded his head.
My mouth fell open. “Seriously?”
He nodded again.
“Iris said that only the really powerful ones could.”
He simply shrugged.
“Did Haverty know?”
Nash shifted in his seat and shook his head. “It was too dangerous to let him know.”
“My brilliant boy. Cristina sent it to me. What does it mean?”
Nash looked at the symbol again. “Traitor.”
“As in I’m a traitor? As in sh
e’s a traitor?”
Nash shook his head as he handed the paper back to me.
I closed my eyes and saw the images again. There was no way I was going to sleep tonight.
Nash’s voice was soft. “You still think that she was trying to tell us not to follow her?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It felt like it, but if this means traitor, then I don’t know anymore.”
“What would Jade and Ever do?” Myers asked.
The suggestion came out of nowhere. I looked up at him. “This isn’t the time for TV, Myers.”
He adjusted on the couch to face me. “Step away. If this happened on one of your shows, what would be going on? How would you write it?”
Frowning, I went to sit in my big recliner and carefully curled my legs up underneath me. Maybe there was something in that. Stepping back. I really didn’t have too many other ideas to run with.
I could do this. I’ve lived and breathed sci fi my whole life. It’s why I’m meant to do this.
I closed my eyes and thought out loud. “Kidnapped girl. Trying to bring the good guys to the bad guys. Get them on their territory. What do the bad guys want?”
“The crown to the city,” Myers filled in.
“The power. But they want something that can’t be taken?”
“Do they know that the Legacy can’t be taken?” Nash asked.
I opened my eyes and held out the note card in my hand. The realization stabbed through my heart. “They do now.”
The three of us were silent when Jessa came out with a tray of coffee. “What did I miss?”
“Carlisle wants me to go into his lair and give up my power to set Cristina free so he can be the next Primo of Dallas.”
Jessa looked down at the tray in her hands and then back at me. “All that and no coffee? You’re getting better.”
I took a mug from her tray and stared down into the black liquid. She didn’t know how I took my coffee. Chaz did.
More than ever I wished I hadn’t seen him in flagrante with that blonde. The red head would have been better. I could almost have forgiven him for a red head.
Jessa set the tray down on the coffee table and I reached for the sugar. She took her mug and sat on the arm of my chair.
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