“Here,” Kirsten said, unbuttoning the floral shirt, “take this.”
I thanked her and pushed it down hard onto the bullet hole, leaning into it.
“Ow,” he protested weakly.
“Shut up,” I said. “What were you thinking, charging in here with no weapon? You could have been killed!”
“I brought a weapon,” he argued, looking pointedly at Kirsten. “She kicked ass, too.”
“Thank you, Eli,” Kirsten said, smiling. She looked pale and tired. “I’m not usually a combat kind of witch, so I appreciate it.”
“And how did you get here?” I asked her. “I thought you were going to Santa Barbara tonight. Or did he make that up?”
“No, I was there. But Eli knows one of the witches, who knew someone with Paul’s cell phone number, and we left the reception. Then it was just a matter of the tracking spell.”
“What’d you use?” I asked, my attention still focused on Eli’s back. I almost missed the glance the two of them exchanged before Eli answered.
“I had a T-shirt you left at my place once.”
I didn’t remember doing that, but I didn’t care, either. I gently eased Eli onto his side so I could check his chest. “Okay, I’m not a doctor, but I know it didn’t go through, which means the bullet is still in there. And it’s silver. I can’t go after him until we get it out.”
“You shouldn’t go after him at all—” Eli began.
“Shut up. Concentrate on your bleeding,” I told him firmly. I looked at Kirsten. “We have to get the bullet out. Once it’s gone, I can move away, and he’ll heal fast, but it has to come out first, or the silver will poison him.”
“We can try to get it out the old-fashioned way. Hang on.” She scuttled over to Jared Hess’s workbench, and I heard tools rattling around. When she came back, she had what looked like an enormous pair of iron tweezers. “Do you want to do it?” she asked me.
I shook my head, suddenly afraid.
“Okay. Eli, this is gonna be messy and hurt like hell, but it should get the job done. Ready?”
He looked at me and reached toward me with his good arm. Seeing what he wanted, I dropped down to my side and scooted against him, chest to chest. I wrapped one arm carefully around his back above the bullet hole to hold him still.
“I’m ready,” he said to Kirsten, but his eyes never left mine.
The next few minutes were some of the worst of my life, much less Eli’s. Apologizing like crazy, Kirsten dug in with the forceps, while Eli made very human whimpering noises right beside me.
“Should we be worrying about infection?” she muttered to me.
I bit my lip. “I don’t think so. The wolves never get sick; I don’t think they can get infected. I think, when I move away, he should be fine.”
Eli snarled at a particularly painful dig, burying his face in my neck, and a second later, Kirsten pulled back the forceps with a little smushed bullet pinioned in between them.
“I got it,” she said shakily, then stood up. “Excuse me a minute.” She sprinted over to the bottom of the stairs, where I heard her start to retch.
As soon as she moved, I started to get up myself, intending to get as far away as possible so Eli could heal. But he lifted a weak hand to snag my arm before I could fully stand. “Wait,” he said, and I crouched back down. “I want to go with you,” he said soberly. “You can’t face that guy and Dashiell alone. Just give me a minute to heal and—”
“No fucking way,” I told him, tears in my throat. “You got shot, Eli. With silver. And he’s got a ton more silver ammo. I can’t let you come.”
“But—”
“No,” I said, my voice rising. “I can’t do it.”
He paused and looked at me. “Can’t do what?”
“I can’t...I can’t be responsible for anyone else getting hurt. Not today.” In an attempt to ward off tears, I smiled. “And right now, I think I can even outrun you.”
He opened his mouth to protest again, but I leaned down and kissed him, not very gently. His good arm rose to touch my face, and when I finally broke the kiss, he was smiling at me.
“I’ll accept that as your surrender,” I told him.
I let go of his hand and stood up, brushing off my jeans. “Where are we?” I asked Kirsten, who was sitting on the stairs now.
“A little ranch house in Burbank, just off the 101.”
“Did you guys drive separately?”
She nodded, and I squatted back down to dig Eli’s keys out of his pants pocket.
“Hey!” he said.
“I’m taking your phone, too. I’ll bring it back later,” I told him. I headed for the stairs before he could answer, feeling the tug as he slid out of my radius. The second he was out, he gave a surprised gasp, and I looked back to see color already returning to his face. Good. I went over to Kirsten and crouched to hug her. “Thank you,” I said sincerely.
She gave a shaky laugh. “For the magic, anytime. But no more surgery, please.”
“Deal.” I ran up the stairs.
Corry.
By the time I got to Eli’s truck, I realized I had no idea where to go. Corry and her family were staying at a Holiday Inn, but I didn’t know which one. And Hess had a head start, too. I called Will, updated him on Eli, and asked for Corry’s phone number, which was still in my cell phone back at Kirsten’s. Then I called Corry’s cell, which at least rang this time. When it went to voice mail, I punched End and immediately redialed. This time she answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” Her voice was cautious and hushed, probably trying not to wake her family.
“It’s Scarlett. Where are you?” I said abruptly.
“Hi! Um, I thought I wasn’t supposed to tell you where—”
“Corry, he got away. I tried to stop him, but he figured out what was going on, and he’s coming for you. He knows where you are, do you understand? Tell me and I’ll come get you.”
“Oh God. It’s the Holiday Inn in Burbank, off Colorado Boulevard.”
I cursed and started the truck’s engine, pulling away from the little house. Dumb fucking luck. If I was in Glendale, that was five minutes away. How long had it taken Kirsten to get the bullet out of Eli’s shoulder?
More than five minutes.
“Corry, listen to me. He’s gonna be there any second. Get your family up and take them to the lobby, somewhere with a lot of people, okay? Go now.”
Before she could answer me, I heard a pounding on her end of the phone, and she gave a surprised little yelp. “Scarlett, he’s here. He’s trying to get in. Oh, God help us—”
“Corry? Corry!” I yelled into the phone, feeling helpless. Then the sounds stopped, and I checked the screen. Disconnected. I called 911 and directed the operator to the Holiday Inn, hanging up when she tried to ask questions. The police would be too late. And Corry and her family would be no match for Jared Hess when he was loaded for bear like that.
I picked a direction and stayed with it until I hit a major street. At a stoplight, I closed my eyes and conjured up my mental map of Los Angeles. I found the freeway and took the east exit toward Pasadena.
Then I called Jesse.
Chapter 31
After about four seconds, Jesse had realized that it wasn’t as simple as storming over to Sanderson’s bait shop and arresting him. First, he didn’t even know whether Sanderson—Hess, he corrected—actually had Scarlett or whether he’d be in a position to kill her if Jesse sent in the cavalry. He’d already asked a police cruiser that had been in the area to drive past the bait shop, and they’d reported that the lights were all out and there were no parked cars in the lot or on the street in front of the building. It was likely that Hess was working from somewhere else, anyway. Jesse knew he had to slow down and think it through, that this was the moment when cops who were emotionally invested made serious mistakes, but he couldn’t help the panic.
Think like a cop, he told himself. Even if he did get Hess, what then? Jesse di
dn’t have a speck of evidence linking him to the La Brea Park case. If he really did have Scarlett, then Jesse might be able to get him on kidnapping charges, but that was assuming he could find them. He needed to bring the bad guy to the cops, and he needed Dashiell to know they had the right man in custody.
At eleven, he got sick of waiting and hopped in his car, heading toward the bait shop. On the way, he stopped at an all-night drugstore and bought a new car charger for the cell phone. When the phone booted up, he looked for messages, but there was nothing. He called Scarlett’s phone again, but it was still turned off.
The cruiser had been right about the cars—not only was the strip mall’s small lot empty, but the street on either side of it as well. Jesse parked in front of the bait shop—screw subtlety—and went right up and knocked on the door. He cupped his hands around his eyes to peer into the shop. Darkness. In the red glow of the emergency exit light, he could barely make out the different stands of merchandise, but that was about it. No lights under closed doors, no signs of life at all. Jesse thought back to his and Scarlett’s visit to the shop. There had been only one back door, which led through the fireproof door to the little hallway. The office had been the only other door on the hallway, and then it had led straight to an exit. Jesse got into his car and circled around the building. He found the emergency exit door and checked for lights underneath. Nothing.
Jesse had just gotten back into his car when the phone rang, still plugged into the car charger. He grabbed too fast, fumbled it, and had to rescue it from the floor of the car.
“Cruz,” he barked, breathless.
“Jesse, it’s me.”
He sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God. Where the hell have you been? Listen, I know who did it. Jared Hess became—”
“Aaron Sanderson, I know.” Scarlett filled him in on the kidnapping, including her rescue and Jared Hess’s plans for Beatrice.
“You’re okay, though? Is Eli going to be okay?” Although they both seemed to like the same girl, Jesse didn’t want to wish the guy any actual harm. Even with the whole I can’t involve you bit.
“I am, and he will be.”
“I can have the cops at Dashiell’s in five minutes,” he said.
“No! The police can’t handle this, Jesse. You should know that by now. Even if we could get Jared Hess out of there, we can never take him to the cops to talk about the Old World. Most of them will think he’s crazy, but a few will start to wonder.”
He gestured helplessly with his free hand. “But we can’t just—”
“Come on. You know Dash will never let that happen.”
Just like that, Jesse saw his dreams of arresting the La Brea Park killer vanish. He rubbed his head, frustrated beyond words. The murders couldn’t go unsolved. It would just terrify everyone—
“Jesse!” Scarlett yelled. “Are you listening?”
“Sorry, what?”
“I need you to meet me in Pasadena. Tell me you’re somewhere close, please.”
Jesse looked up at the bait shop. It was fifteen minutes on the freeway, tops. Less with the siren. “I’m a little closer than usual.”
“Good. Bring your gun. We’ve got to go get Corry.”
“Who’s Corry?”
“The other null.” Her voice grew agitated. “Hess took her, Jesse. She’s only fifteen.”
Pieces fell into place in his mind. “This is why you didn’t want to tell me about her?”
“Yes.”
“You could have trusted me, you know.” She said nothing, and he put it aside for the moment. “Where should I meet you?”
“Dashiell’s.”
Jesse sort of remembered how to get there, but he still scribbled down the directions. The second he hung up, he threw the car into drive and put the siren in the window.
Chapter 32
I picked up Jesse at the bottom of Dashiell’s long driveway and cruised toward the house with the headlights off, navigating mostly by memory. When I finally parked and turned off the van, I had the door open and one foot outside before Jesse managed to grab my arm.
“Wait,” he said. “We need a plan.”
After meeting Jared Hess, I was not in the mood for casual touching. “Let go of my arm. Now.”
He released me. “What’s your plan, Scarlett? You’re going to run in there, unarmed, and demand the release of your teenage friend who happens to be co-responsible for the murder that’s ruining Dashiell’s non-life?”
“I admit that it lacks a certain finesse, but—”
“Stop,” Jesse told me, and I closed my mouth, glaring at him. “Okay, look. Where would they be? What’s the most likely place where Hess would confront them?”
I thought about it. “Either Dash’s office or the patio. That’s where Dashiell and Beatrice would have been, if Hess surprised them, and where they would receive guests, if he knocked on the door politely.”
“What’s the best way to get to those two areas?”
I quickly outlined the interior of the mansion: front door leading to foyer, foyer branching into hallway, hallway leading down to living room, which contained doors to patio area.
“And the office?”
“On the other side of the foyer.”
“So basically, we pick left or right the second we get in the door?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Jesse reached behind himself and took something that had been clipped to his belt. “Do you know how to use this?”
A Taser! I almost did a dance. “Yes, absolutely.” He handed it over. It was a slightly more advanced model than my own, but the basics were the same. I should have three crippling jolts before it ran out of power. I felt better.
“Okay, what’s your gut instinct? Patio or office?”
“Patio,” I said immediately, before I could overthink it.
“All right. Stay close to me, be as quiet as you can, and let’s go.”
We snuck around the house via the little sidewalk path, and Jesse eased the front door open. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have a chance in hell of keeping our approach from the vampires, but I was hoping that all the vamps in the house were close enough to Corry to be human at the moment. Jesse stuck his head through the door into the dim interior, then looked back at me and inclined his head in the universal symbol for Let’s go. I nodded.
As soon as we were inside, Jesse gently swung the door closed and motioned that I should lead. In the foyer, I turned right, heading down the long hallway toward the living room. Bizarrely, sneaking around the vampire’s lair made me feel like a little kid again, staying up past my bedtime to play Capture the Flag with Jack and the other kids in our neighborhood. I felt the same rush of fear and excitement, and the sense that I was getting away with something.
Until I heard the gunshot.
Jesse and I exchanged a look, and I darted forward into the house, ignoring caution in favor of speed. The second we reached the doorway to the dark living room, however, I felt a gun barrel press against my temple.
“Stop right there,” a familiar voice said very softly. In the silence, I could dimly hear muted voices coming from the patio, but I was at the wrong angle to see out the doors.
“Albert?” I ventured.
“Yeah.”
“Who is he?” Jesse asked, hand frozen on his own gun.
“Albert is one of Dashiell’s men. He’s one of the guys who kidnapped me yesterday.” Up close, I had the nagging feeling again that I had seen Albert before that. “But I know you from somewhere else, don’t I?”
“Shut up.”
I snapped my fingers. “The hospital. You were at the hospital visiting Olivia.” Why would a vampire visit a dying null?
Next to my head, the sound of the gun’s hammer being cocked sounded deafening. “I said,” he spat, “shut the hell up.”
My knees threatened to collapse. I shut up.
“First he hands me his gun. Then we can have a nice chat.”
I was afraid to turn my head
to look at Jesse, but at the edge of my vision, I saw him hand over his weapon.
“Okay, turn around,” Albert ordered. I did. His small face looked tired and tense, and his rumpled suit looked as if it had seen better days. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“We’re here to help Dashiell.”
Albert snorted, a very human sound. “Like hell. Isn’t Dash planning to kill you in a few hours?”
“That’s in a few hours. Did you see the girl?” I asked bluntly. “The teenager?”
A look of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Yeah, so?”
“Well, she’s with me. And if the guy holding her hostage is trying to kill Dashiell, then I’m all about helping him.”
“Sort of an ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ kind of thing,” Jesse offered.
Albert considered this for a moment. “Then why were you trying to sneak in the door right behind Dashiell, where he couldn’t see you coming?” He shook his head. “No, I think you’re working with that asshole.” He lifted the gun, which had drifted down a few inches. Those things are heavy when you’re stuck as a human.
“Wait,” I said, confused. “Is there another way onto the patio?”
“Yeah, of course. You think Dashiell would build a patio with only one exit? It’s the servants’ door, behind the big guy and the little girl.”
“May I?” I said, inclining my head toward the patio doors.
He hesitated. “Fine. But he goes, too. Take more than three steps and you’re done.”
Jesse stuck to my side as I took a few steps into the living room to get a better view of the patio doors. Albert stayed in the doorway, pivoting the gun so it stayed on the two of us as we crept into the room. The living room was dark and the patio was bright with torches, so I wasn’t too worried about being spotted. I took the allowed three steps and was able to see the scene outside. Sure enough, Dashiell and Beatrice were closest to the patio doors, with their backs to it. Hugo was on Beatrice’s right. I saw Hess and Corry were standing up at the head of the table—and on their left, Ariadne and two men I didn’t know were sitting opposite Dash and his people. The guy next to her was short and squat, with Hispanic features and a permanent frown. He wore an expensive black suit with no tie, but didn’t wear it well. Next to him, across from Hugo, was a tall, lean man in black jeans and a cowboy hat.
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