Dangerous Calling (The Shadowminds)

by AJ Larrieu

  But I couldn’t stop.

  The oxygen in every breath seemed to light me up on the inside, starting with my chest and expanding to my extremities. It burned like a gulp of cold air after running hard, and I needed it just as much. I opened my eyes, and everything around me looked watery and too bright.

  “Cass?” Ian tilted his head and reached for me. I could barely hear him. He grabbed my hand.

  “Don’t let it get hold of you. Come on—snap out of it.” He shook me. “Cass!”

  The edge in his voice finally got through to me. I cut off the pull, and I was certain I was vibrating.

  “Now. It has to be now.” The duty guard was about to come glance in the window. I felt his intention, and the intentions of every other person in the jail. There were so many foreign thoughts in my head I should have been twitching on the floor, but for some reason I could handle them. They felt...tame.

  “I’m ready.” He didn’t even know what I was going to do.

  I pulled him close, wrapped him in a bear hug. He stiffened. I’d explain later. “Hold your breath,” I said, and I jumped us out.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was fast. The first time I’d teleported with a passenger, I hadn’t known quite where I was going, and I hadn’t had quite enough power for the trip. That jump had taken too long, and I’d ended up miles away from my target. It had been easier with Diana—more power, more control. We’d come through perfectly, but the jump had still affected me.

  This time was different. I barely had time to register the airless cold before we were through, breathing rain-fresh air.

  “Cassie,” Shane ran forward and caught me as I staggered. We were in the middle of a stand of pine trees next to a highway northwest of Baton Rouge. Close enough to keep Ian healthy, I hoped.

  I leaned my forehead on Shane’s chest and waited for the buzz of the pull to subside. It only burned hotter.

  “You okay?” He said it low enough so Ian couldn’t hear.

  I didn’t want to answer. “Let’s get him out of sight. You got a room?”

  Ian was on all fours, retching. His wings flashed into view and faded out again.

  Shane looked through the trees to the motel. “This place isn’t exactly booked up.”

  Good thing. The fewer people who saw Ian, wings or no wings, the better.

  We staggered out of the trees into the parking lot, where a man with wire-frame glasses and a comb-over gave us a dubious look. I scanned his mind for any flares of recognition, but his thoughts tended more toward imagining we’d been conducting a drug deal. Fine by me.

  The motel wasn’t much better than the one we’d left behind, but it had the advantage of being a place I knew. I hadn’t wanted to jump to a place I’d never seen before, and we’d stayed here once after coming to a football game. We got Ian into the room without encountering any more suspicious onlookers, and he collapsed on one of the double beds.

  “Is he going to make it?”

  I dipped into Ian’s mind and found quiet. Occasionally, weird images flared. Dreams. He felt normal, if exhausted. “I think he’s just worn out.” I gave Shane an image of Ian as I’d seen him in the interview room, exhausted and shedding feathers.

  “They’re going to be pretty confused over there.”

  “No doubt.” I sat down heavily on the bed Ian wasn’t occupying. Shane sat down beside me.

  “I called Mina.”

  It hurt to hear him say even that. I didn’t want to think about my own pain, so I thought about hers. Alone in San Francisco, getting news like this. “Is she okay?”

  “Not really. She headed right out to the airport. She should be in New Orleans tonight.”

  “Not at the B&B, though, right?”

  “I warned her. She’s going to stay with some friends out in Metairie. But at least she’ll be able to handle the body. Call Bruce.” His voice was flat and controlled, but underneath, he was bleeding. We both knew the last words they’d said to each other had been in anger. The unfairness of it, the brutal, unfixable pain, was too bright-hot to look at.

  “She was angry,” Shane said, and I nodded, understanding. I’d pushed it all aside while I was getting Ian out, but now the grief rose up again, crowding out everything else, like a balloon inflating painfully in my skull. My mind focused relentlessly on the image of Lionel dead in the middle of the road. I couldn’t get it out of my head, like an afterimage of the sun. But I was going to fix it. I was going to kill Annette, and that was going to make this feeling, this raw and open hole, go away.

  I took a shaky breath. “Has Diana gotten in touch?”

  He shook his head. “No way to know where he took her.”

  “I think I should go back to New Orleans. Drive by the house and see if she’s there. If Annette’s really gone—”

  “And if she is there?”

  “I’ll come back. Regroup. But if it’s just Nick the Drunk Asshole guarding her, we’d have a chance to get her out without a fight. Well. Without much of a fight.”

  “It’s a risk,” Shane said.

  “It might be worth it.”

  He sighed. “Let’s get through the night alive. If we make it, we’ll take things from there.”

  The sun went down and the shadows in the parking lot grew long, then merged with the dark. We locked the deadbolt and the safety chain and moved the dresser in front of the window. I doubted it would stop Annette, but maybe it would slow her down. Ian slept on.

  “I’ll take the first shift,” I said.

  Shane shook his head. “You’ve exerted yourself enough today. Get some rest.”

  I agreed, but I didn’t trust him to wake me. I set the motel alarm clock for four hours later, and when it went off, I found him standing in front of the door, awake, but barely.

  “Go to bed,” I said, and pushed him toward the mattress. “You need sleep too.”

  It was a mark of how tired he was that he didn’t protest. He fell onto the flat pillows and went out almost immediately.

  I stood in front of the barricaded door. The rest had done me good, but I was still sleepy enough that I didn’t dare sit down. For a little while, I paced the thinning carpet, but the weak spots on the floor creaked as I crossed them, so I stood and stared at the empty parking lot.

  There it was again. The wanting.

  Ian was asleep, almost insensible. He’d never know. Just a little sip, in case Annette came back. It was only logical. Necessary, even.

  I’d actually made it to the side of his bed before I caught myself.

  I backed away so fast I hit the dresser and made it rattle. Ian stirred in his sleep, and my heart went still. Had he sensed my intentions? But he only rolled over. I stared at the rise and fall of his chest.

  No.

  I closed my eyes and turned to face our makeshift barricade and wrapped my hands through the cheap metal drawer pulls.

  By the time the sun broke over the motel parking lot, I was covered in sweat. The light started out pale orange and brightened to pure, sunlight-white. As soon as I could see the sun reflecting off the windshields of the parked cars, I shoved the cabinet aside and ran from the room.

  * * *

  A few years back, I’d had a sedatives habit. Not quite an addiction. Drugs that mess with the mind work differently on shadowminds, so I’d never sunk to a full-blown addiction the way a normal might’ve. But I’d still had a longing for the pills when I didn’t get them, and it had taken me a long time to stop reaching for the bottle every night.

  This was not the same.

  This was undiluted need. This was unshakable physical craving. This was a major, major problem.

  The far end of the parking lot wasn’t far enough. There were people in every direction, dozens of them. I could feel their heartbeats and t
heir breath and their secret longings and their everyday frustrations and all of it was right there. Waiting for me to take it.

  On one side of the motel was a strip mall with a coffee shop and a short-term loan place. Half a dozen people were there, and I felt every single one of them like a hot, bright light on my skin. Too risky. I turned in the other direction, toward the swath of unmanicured green space where I’d landed with Ian. Pine trees and uncut grass. I walked toward it.

  It got a little easier the farther away I went. Fewer people. I wiped sweat from the back of my neck and flexed my fingers. I stepped over the low concrete barrier at the edge of the parking lot and into the dewy grass. The canvas of my shoes got soaked. I kept walking until I hit the stand of pines, put my palms flat on the first one I encountered, and pulled.

  It was all I could do not to tip my head back and moan. The life in the tree went out cell by cell. I looked up and watched the pine needles turn russet brown in a wave, then I collapsed against the trunk, panting. This was going to pass. I just needed time. Once we’d taken care of Annette, I could lock myself in a room until this feeling went away and go back to living a normal life. I closed my eyes and slid to the bed of damp pine needles at the base of the tree, letting the bark scrape my skin.

  “Does he know?”

  I scrambled back to my feet. Ian stood a few feet in front of me. He hadn’t bothered to hide his wings. I glanced around to make sure no one was in sight, but we were hidden by the underbrush.

  “Does he know what?”

  “You know what I mean.” He folded his wings neatly behind him and stalked toward me, grabbed my hand and laid it on his shoulder. “Take what you need. You can dry out once we get through this mess.”

  I took a steadying breath. No one would have to know. “How do you know this is what I need?”

  “Takes one to know one, honey.” He raised his left arm and pulled back the sleeve of his henley, showing me the row of simple black marks I’d noticed before. “Six years sober before those bastards killed Emily. I can feel it when you pull.” He held my gaze. “The wanting.”

  Yes. That is it exactly. I closed my eyes.

  “Not now,” I said. “I just needed something to take the edge off.” I looked up at the pine tree, its needles all brown.

  “If you say so.” He stepped back, and something deep in my chest roared in protest. “You need me to take her down. That’s why you broke me out.” It wasn’t a question.

  I nodded. I wasn’t strong enough. I could weaken her, but I couldn’t kill her, not without an infusion of power. And that meant pulling. In the parking lot, someone got into a windowless white van. Ian’s wings shimmered out of view, but he kept his eyes on me.

  “That bitch tried to kill me twice now. If that’s what it takes, then shit, that’s what it takes.”

  “I don’t know how much I’ll need to take. It might be...a lot.” Not enough to kill him. I hoped.

  He gave me that same expressionless look he always did, but when he spoke, his voice was as quiet as I’d ever heard it. “I figure I’m on borrowed time, anyway.” The face of the girl was in his mind again.

  “It won’t come to that.”

  He shrugged. Emily’s face fled and was replaced with his characteristic wall of silence.

  “We should get back,” I said finally.

  He didn’t agree, but he followed me when I started walking. Even though I couldn’t see his wings, I could see the paths they dragged in the fallen pine needles. I hadn’t known that was how it worked. It was a good thing he’d hidden them—the motel was waking up, and we passed another handful of people getting into their cars. Shane woke up as we shut the door behind us.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine.” I didn’t look at Ian.

  Shane narrowed his eyes, and I wondered if he could tell I’d just gotten a power surge from a pine tree. If he could, he let it slide. “We should talk about what we’re going to do next.”

  “Yeah.”

  Someone banged on the door. My whole body tensed.

  We’d moved the barricade. Annette could probably blow the door down. I went through a dozen fatal possibilities before I remembered it was broad daylight and Annette couldn’t be out there. I walked forward and peered through the peephole.

  It was the guy with the glasses and the comb-over, the one who’d seen us walk out of the trees when I’d come through with Ian.

  This probably wasn’t good.

  “What do we do?” I sent to Shane.

  “Well, we definitely don’t open the door.”

  He knocked again. We all stepped back, and the door opened and swung wide.

  The guy was holding a key. He waved it at us like a kid with a toy another kid wants. Behind me, Ian’s wings winked out. I hoped it was in time.

  “Can I help you?” I said. Ian and Shane peered over my shoulders.

  The man came in and shut the door. He had on a nametag that said John, Manager.

  I realized too late that his head was full of last night’s ten o’clock news, which was, of course, full of a story about how the hunt for Ian West continued. Ian’s face was on-screen over the number for the tip line. Reward! flashed below it in red letters.

  “I know who you are.” He pointed at Ian. “You’re that cop who killed two men in Baton Rouge.”

  For a man confronting a suspected murderer he was showing remarkably little fear.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” Ian grunted.

  John the Manager was not convinced. “I want ten thousand dollars cash, or I’m calling the cops. They’re offering a reward.”

  Ian’s eyes narrowed to slits. He advanced on the manager, who took shaking steps back until he came up hard against the wall. “If you’re so sure I’m a murderer, how do you know I won’t kill you right here?” His voice was so low with threat, even I trembled.

  The manager held his ground. “You won’t. I can tell you won’t.”

  “You sound very certain for a dead man.”

  “Ten thousand,” he said. I had to give him credit for guts. He held Ian’s gaze even though his voice was shaking.

  Ian looked back at me, asking for an answer. We could tie this guy up until we figured out what to do, but then we’d still have a problem. We could run—this was hardly the only motel in the area. From the look Ian gave me, he hadn’t ruled out killing the guy. Or, we could pay him.

  “We could leave,” Shane said. “Tie him up. Someone’ll find him eventually.”

  “He has your name, your credit card number. If he goes to the cops, they’ll have both of us—they’ll know I broke Ian out. We’ll all be wanted.”

  “He could turn us in anyway.”

  “We have the money.” I thought of Ryan’s cash. “It’s the simplest thing. And I can go and check on Diana. Two birds with one stone.”

  Shane looked doubtful, but he sent me a mental grunt of assent.

  “Fine,” I said. Ian looked shocked. “Ten thousand, by this evening. Not a penny more. Ian, let him go.”

  “You trust this piece of shit?”

  “I trust his greed. Right?” I looked him in the eyes. “And if that fails, I trust him to know that you won’t have to kill him, because I will.”

  Ian stepped back. The manager straightened his collar. “If you wanna work off part of the bill, sweetheart, that’s just fine by me.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  I almost didn’t see Shane move, it happened so fast. A jolt of telekinetic force hit the guy in the stomach, making him double over, and then Shane was on him, hands twisted in his shirt, lifting him and slamming him to the wall.

  “Apologize.”

  “Hey, man, I’m just trying to get you a little discount—”

  Shane pressed his forearm into the guy
’s throat. “One more chance.” He ground out the words. I held my breath. He was close to snapping, his tide of grief dammed up and ready to drown whatever convenient thing was foolish enough to break the floodwall.

  “Sorry.” The manager’s voice was hoarse. “I guess I got the wrong idea.”

  “You’ll get your goddamn money. Until then I don’t want to see you anywhere near her.”

  “Yeah, man, sure.”

  Shane threw him, actually threw him, out the door, and slammed it. “You okay?” he said.

  “Are you okay?”

  Ian rolled his eyes.

  “I’d better go,” I said. “If I want to get there and back before dark—”

  “You’re not going alone.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll go to the B&B for cash and then I’ll swing by the house and see if she’s there. For all we know, the jump killed her and we’re hiding in this place for no reason. And we need to know if Diana is okay.” I’d barely had time to worry about her.

  “It’s a risk.”

  “It’s more of a risk if you come with me.”

  “Cass—”

  “It’s you she wants dead. Every time she sees you, she goes right for your throat. We’re not going to just deliver you to her.” I met his eyes and let him see how scared I was for him.

  “Bring Ian, then.”

  I glanced at the guardian. He still looked gray, as though the effort of hiding his wings for even that short amount of time had drained what resources he had. “He still needs to recover. I’ll be careful. You know it’s better this way.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Stay here,” I said. “And stay alive.”

  * * *

  It was midday when I made it to the city. I drove Uptown and parked my rental in what I’d come to think of as our usual spot outside Annette’s gated subdivision. I leaned against the wall and tried to look casual, then levitated myself into the Zen garden. I headed for Annette’s house.

  The noon heat made everything heavy and still. Anyone with any sense was inside where it was air-conditioned, and the whole subdivision felt eerily abandoned, like a fabulously wealthy ghost town. It was a relief to see a woman in a Jenny’s Maids T-shirt getting out of a minivan and going into the house next to Annette’s.