Wiretaps & Whiskers (The Faerie Files Book 1)

by Emigh Cannaday

  Four cases of Fanta. Four!

  “Where did this come from?” I squealed, ripping a hole in the cardboard container. I pulled out a can and popped it open.

  “Huh? Oh . . . ” He was still sulking, but now he looked a little sheepish too. “I found that at the Piggly Wiggly when we were in Scruggsville. It was after you fainted.”

  “Oh honey, you remembered!” I gushed, then took a huge chug. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until I drank half the can in one shot. I didn’t give two shits that it wasn’t cold. Sitting in Sylvia’s dusty house without a drop to drink had left me parched.

  “Yeah, well . . . surprise.” He frowned until his bottom lip puckered just the tiniest bit. The little furrow in his brow had returned full force.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, you know. Just losing my goddamn mind. That’s what’s wrong. I joined the bureau to go after terrorists and criminal masterminds. I didn’t sign up for some megalomaniac faerie queen recruiting a demon from hell to kidnap kids for a mass child sacrifice. What the actual fuck? Don’t you think it’s all a bit far-fetched? I mean, yeah, I want to believe Sylvia. Really I do. She’s a sweet lady, but come on.”

  “I’m sorry, Logan, but this is what we’re dealing with.”

  We sat in silence, still parked in the driveway with the windows rolled down. I polished off the Fanta and reached in the case for another one.

  “And how can you just sit there and chug your soda like this is just another job?” he demanded.

  “Because it’s just another job to me.” I stifled a burp and slid my Fanta in the nearest cupholder. “Look. This is just one job. Next week or next month there’ll be another one and it’ll be just as fucked up. You can’t let it get to you or you will lose your goddamn mind. I’m sorry your first case in the OCD had to be kids. It’s not like I don’t care. Not when I saw my mom get murdered and grew up in foster care. Anyone who hurts animals or children deserves total annihilation.”

  Leaning back against the headrest, Logan stared up the long driveway through the trees towards the road. I watched as his shoulders began to relax.

  “So . . . this is just another day at the office for us?”

  “Yep. You better get used to it.” I pulled my seatbelt across my body and clicked it into place, careful to not touch the metal. “Maybe for our next assignment we’ll get some nice terrorists who just happen to be poltergeists. Those cases are actually kind of fun.”

  “I need a fucking beer,” he grumbled, twisting the key in the ignition. “Or ten.”

  24

  Logan

  “Power,” I muttered as I started down Sylvia’s driveway. “That’s the whole point of all of this. Queen Solana wants power.”

  I heard a sarcastic snort from the passenger seat.

  “Isn’t that the point of everything? Fame and fortune and sex is just another name for power.”

  Elena was right, but it still felt hard to grasp. Killing all those innocent children and sacrificing them to a demon? How could anyone do such a thing? And for power? It wasn’t something I could wrap my head around.

  “You okay?” asked Elena from the passenger seat.

  She was staring at her phone, looking at the picture of Moloch’s sigil again.

  “Honestly? No. I can’t get that image out of my mind, of all the missing kids thrown into a pit like a bunch of rats. Fuck. We don’t even do that to rats.”

  My stomach clenched tight. The whole situation sickened me.

  Elena lowered her phone and rested a gentle hand on my arm.

  “You’ll be okay. The fact that you care so much means you’ll do everything you can to save them. I’m finally starting to see why Chief Harris made us partners.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Yeah. And maybe I’m being a bit optimistic, but deep down I think we can save the kids. If Solana’s waiting for the right moment to carry out her ceremony, that means we still have time.”

  “I suppose,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tight. “But the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “You want a Fanta? Nothing washes away the taste of human sacrifice like high fructose corn syrup and yellow number six.”

  I let out a bitter laugh, finding a strange comfort in her brand of dark humor.

  “Sure, if you open it for me.” I had my hands full navigating as the car bumped along the rocky dirt road. “How long is this driveway? Feels never ending.”

  “Sylvia definitely lives off the beaten path.”

  “In more ways than one.”

  We crawled along, our bodies rocking from side to side each time a wheel hit a rock or crevice in the road. Every few yards, a cat would dart out from the bushes or worse, decide to take a nap right in front of the car. Honking at them didn’t work. The only effective way of moving them was for Elena to get out and shoo them away. One of them refused, holding his ground until she dragged it to its feet and plopped it down on the side of the road.

  “Fucking cats!”

  “And here I thought you were starting to like them,” Elena laughed.

  “Like them? They fucking ruined my suit!”

  “You let Lafayette sit in your lap. I saw you petting him!”

  “No, what you saw was me being nice to him so he wouldn’t shred my nuts with his murder mittens.”

  Elena laughed so hard she snorted.

  “That’s basically the definition of cat ownership.”

  “I never want to see their evil little faces again. Look at these assholes over here.”

  I pointed at a gang of three tabbies traipsing down the side of the road.

  “I bet they have a full day planned of terrorizing wild birds and shitting in people’s yards. They act like they own the whole town.”

  “Well, they own part of it,” said Elena.

  “Hmmm . . . ” I grumbled, edging the car around the little gang of whiskered hellions who barely glanced up in acknowledgment as we passed.

  “Would you look at that?” I moaned at them. “Didn’t even budge an inch. What a bunch of dicks!”

  Elena raised her eyebrows at me and pursed her lips.

  “Wow, you really do need a beer.”

  At last, the end of the driveway was visible and the main road came into view. As soon as the car rolled onto the smooth asphalt of the two-lane county highway, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Thank fuck for that. Are you okay with having lunch at the Drunk Chicken?”

  “As long as you don’t give me shit about putting honey on my French fries, sure.”

  The drive back into the main strip of Yarbrough was short, but with the area being so hilly and sparsely populated, it felt like we were driving through the wilderness. It was rare to see another vehicle on the road, unless it was one of Sheriff McKinney’s officers or frantic people driving to the latest search site.

  That was why it was even more noticeable when a large pickup truck pulled out of an almost invisible side road and crept up behind us.

  “Would you look at that piece of shit?” I laughed as I adjusted the rear view mirror. “You ever seen a rust bucket like that?”

  Elena turned round in her seat and stared out the back window at it.

  “Looks like it came right out of a demolition derby. Especially with the lift kit. Do you hear it? Sounds like the muffler fell off about ten years ago.”

  I tried to ignore it and focus on the winding road, but it was impossible to not hear the growling of its engine. I kept flicking my eyes up to the mirror, and I noticed there was barely a panel on the truck that wasn’t dented or rusted. What was left of the red paint had chipped and rusted to a miserable brown, and the windows were so filthy they looked like they’d been smeared with mud. At least that’s what I thought at first. It wasn’t until I took a closer look that I realized the windows weren’t just dirty, they were blacked out with tint.

  “Elena? What do you make of those windows?”

&nbs
p; “They’re . . . ” she squinted and leaned further out of her seat. “They’re tinted.”

  “That’s weird, right?”

  “Yeah. Windows like that don’t belong on piece of shit mudding trucks like that, do they? They’d cost more than the damn thing’s even worth.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I picked up speed, eager to put a little distance between us and the driver. Not being able to see the driver’s face put me on edge, and the way it was driving wasn’t suspicious as such, just . . . peculiar. It kept trying to tailgate us, then backed off, only to do it again. I could detect some kind of road rage from the driver. Whatever had pissed them off, they had an intent to do something.

  “What you thinking?” asked Elena.

  “I dunno. Just . . . seems weird.”

  “I’m going to get a picture of the license plate.”

  “Good idea.”

  Reaching her phone out behind her, she snapped a picture through the back window of the Navigator.

  “Got it?”

  “Ugh. Yeah, but the thing’s so dirty I can’t make out the numbers.”

  She zoomed in on her screen to see better, but couldn’t make out anything more than a brown blur.

  “Should we ignore it?” she asked.

  “Suppose so. It’s not as if they’re doing anything. I just had a hunch, that’s all.”

  “Always trust your gut,” she said. “That feeling is more powerful than you could ever believe.”

  I drove on, focusing ahead where I could see the first few houses of the town come into view.

  “Do I turn right or left to get to the Drunk Chicken?” I asked.

  “Left, I think.”

  Elena pointed to a road that looked like nothing more than a bicycle path snaking into the middle of nowhere.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. McKinney said it was the first right before town, and since we’re coming from the opposite direction, we should take a left.”

  It didn’t feel right, but trusting Elena’s judgment, I swung left and once again felt the asphalt give way to rocky terrain full of potholes and bumps.

  Goodbye coccyx, I thought as the wheels hit the first hole in the road. The suspension on the Navigator was pretty impressive, given the state of the road. There was no way that rusty piece of shit truck would be headed in the same direction as us.

  Or so I thought.

  To my surprise, it swung in close behind us, driving way too fast for my liking.

  “What the hell?” asked Elena, turning back round to look at it. “They’re right on our ass!”

  “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “Speed up.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can around here! It’s like driving on the fucking surface of the moon—with speed bumps and switchbacks!”

  I hit the gas and we zoomed down the road a little further, but the truck behind us was only a couple of feet away from plowing into us.

  “Are they speeding up?” I asked, looking in the mirror. “They are! Shit, what’s their problem?”

  I hit the gas again, moving perilously fast around the bend. If we’d been somewhere with wide open plains, I would’ve pulled onto the shoulder or driven into a cornfield. But we were in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, where unpredictable fog and steep slopes kept that option off the table. Hoping that nobody was coming in the opposite direction, I pulled over to the other side of the dirt road to let the dickhead behind us pass.

  It didn’t work.

  “What the fuck are they doing?” I yelled. “We’re federal fucking agents!”

  “What are you gonna do, Logan? Stop the car and show them your badge? The driver’s probably tweaked out on meth! They’ll run you over!”

  “Fuck, they’re speeding up again. They’re gonna hit us!”

  “Hit the gas!”

  “I am!”

  “Go faster!” cried Elena.

  “I’m trying not to drive us off a goddamn cliff!”

  “I swear if they come any closer, I’m firing!”

  Her hand moved down to the golden gun neatly holstered at her side. Since I’d met her I hadn’t seen her give it much thought, let alone draw it. I wondered if she thought she was too good for crude, human weapons, but now she was gripping it tightly with an incredulous glare pulling at her face.

  “I’m calling McKinney,” she said, but as she reached for her phone, a crunch sounded as the car behind us plowed into our bumper.

  “What the fuck!”

  Elena’s phone hit the floor on impact, dropping down to the floor mat. She reached down, fumbling for it, but before she could curl her fingers around it we were hit again. This time so hard that the Navigator jolted forward, the back wheels floating off the ground for a few seconds.

  “That motherfucker’s trying to run us off the road!”

  “No shit, Sherlock!”

  Part of me wanted to speed up and escape, but the bigger half of me wanted to screech to a halt and beat the living shit out of the driver. But this wasn’t la-di-da Dupont Circle or Georgetown. This was the backwoods of Tennessee. People around here loved their guns. The last thing I wanted was to confront a meth head with an AR-15.

  Behind us, the monster truck’s engine growled even louder. I heard another crunch as we shot forward. The steering wheel slipped between my fingers as I briefly lost control. My stomach was twisting as I grabbed the wheel and coaxed our car away from the edge of the road.

  “Call McKinney!” I shouted as I desperately tried to maintain control.

  I felt the shock of being smacked extra hard from behind. There was a millisecond of quiet, and then we were hit with a wall of sound as the Navigator made impact.

  Metal twisted and bent. Glass shattered. I could smell gasoline fumes and burnt rubber. Air was gushing around the side of my face, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  That’s weird. I don’t remember opening a window. What the fuck is happening?

  I was breathless, frantic, and confused. I tried to see where my partner was, but all I could see was the blurry whiteness of the deployed airbag.

  Is that blood? Why is it soaking through my shirt and pants?

  A sharp, searing pain entered my head and there was a weird, gritty, metallic taste in my mouth.

  Then everything went black.

  25

  Elena

  A shock wave tore through the entire car, shooting up through my body. Despite all the twisting in my seat, the safety belt had kept me from flying through the windshield. All I could feel was the stifling sensation of the airbag against the side of my face. It felt like I was being attacked by a giant marshmallow. Wrestling with it, I pushed it away from me and fumbled for the door handle.

  My fingers clenched themselves around it with a crunch as a dozen shooting pains stabbed my fingers.

  “Ow! Fuck!”

  I looked down at my hand and saw blood where tiny shards of glass had punctured my skin. I brushed my hand on my jeans, getting the bigger pieces out.

  “Logan?”

  Looking across at his seat, I expected to see him sitting beside me, but instead, I saw branches from a tree that had thrust itself through the windshield as we hit it. On the other side of it, I could just about make out his head cushioned by his inflated, bloody airbag.

  “Logan!”

  I pulled the door handle and fell about three feet onto the ground, landing on my face in a patch of wildflowers. Crawling on my hands and knees, I staggered into the middle of the road and saw the full impact of the damage to the car. There was a v-shaped dent in the trunk, but that wasn’t what made my stomach lurch. The Navigator had done a swan dive into a huge oak tree, which was the only thing that kept us from flying down the steep mountain slope. If we’d gone six inches to the left, we’d have rolled right down the mountain. If we’d gone six inches to the right, Logan would’ve been decapitated by the tree branch sticking through the windshield. It was sheer dumb luck that one
or both of us wasn’t dead.

  I jogged over to the driver’s side, my feet stepping on broken glass. Fortunately, that side of the car was tilted close enough to the ground so I could reach it. When I pried open the door I found Logan’s face pushed deep into the airbag.

  “Logan? Can you hear me?”

  I reached in and shook his arm. Nothing.

  “Logan?”

  I knew it was risky to move a person after a crash, but I wasn’t thinking straight. Panic had set in and adrenaline was coursing through me. Grabbing him by the shoulder, I shook him again.

  “Logan!”

  “Ugh . . . ”

  Inch by inch, he began to move as he grumbled and groaned.

  “You’re awake!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m awake,” he coughed, pushing himself away from the bloody airbag. “Why am I facing down?”

  “We were in an accident. The car’s stuck on a tree, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”

  “My head hurts a little,” he said, still disoriented from the unnatural position he was sitting in.

  Gradually, he came to grips with his surroundings, looking around like he’d passed out and woke up in a spaceship. He squinted as he stared at the smashed windshield, then the tree branch right next to his head. I watched as he started adding things up and let out a panicked garbled noise.

  “What the . . . What the fuuuuck?”

  “Logan, do you remember what happened?”

  “The last thing I remember was . . . That fucking truck!”

  “Yeah. It ran us off the road.”

  “Fucking asshole!”

  He craned his neck up at the road as though he hoped to somehow still see them.

  “They’re long gone,” I told him. “Nothing but birds and chipmunks out here. Are you sure nothing’s hurt?”

  He lifted his hand to his head, and when he pulled it away, it was covered in blood.

  “Shit, you’re bleeding pretty bad.”

  He looked down at me, slightly bewildered and a little afraid.