For a heartbeat, Harris eyed him, and when he spoke again, she could almost hear the cop in his voice. “Why?”
“No reason.”
Harris paused, and then dropped his hand from the door handle. His brow furrowing, he circled around the front of the vehicle, nothing in his demeanor to indicate any awareness he was blocking Mud’s exit.
“What’s going on, buddy?” Harris asked, his tone concerned. “You don’t tell me what’s up, I can’t help.”
Mud hesitated and then glanced around furtively. “Okay, look,” he confessed. “That guy? Two problems. One, if he’s here, it means the good ol’ bloody queen probably is as well. And two, he’s supposed to be dead. Brogan promised me after I tipped him off about that train station where he and his little ‘Hunters’ were hiding that he’d have his people kill them all.”
“Oh, that son of a…” Samson snarled under his breath, his hand tightening on his gun.
“Really?” Harris asked, sounding worried. “Well, I’m not sure it’s the same–”
“I’m not going to find out,” Mud interrupted, ignoring the other man’s motion to get in the car. “The guy’s a cold-blooded killer, Detective. His whole group are. And that bitch girlfriend of his…”
He gave an exaggerated shudder and started back for the street.
“Wait,” Harris protested, keeping himself between the man and the exit. “We still need to check before telling Brogan.”
“You check,” Mud snapped, trying to shuffle around the detective.
Elias glanced to the others. “Move!”
She fled the stench of the dumpsters on the heels of Nathaniel, with Spider and Samson barely a heartbeat behind. At the sound of their footsteps, Mud looked back, his beady eyes going wide, and then he spun faster than she’d have imagined the little man could move. Reacting quickly, Harris darted between him and the street again, his hands raised to stop Mud from escaping.
A gun appeared in Mud’s hand like a conjuring trick and Harris barely had time to tense.
Fire left her, charring the man’s fist and knocking the gun wide. Bullets struck the brick wall as the weapon went flying and Mud collapsed to the ground, clutching his hand and howling.
Nathaniel strode up to Mud and hauled him from the concrete to slam him into the brick wall. Moving past them, Elias headed for the alley entrance to check the street, while Spider and Samson watched the little man as though waiting for the moment when the wizards would be done with him. To one side, Cole scanned the ground for the gun, and then scowled when he realized it’d fallen through a grate to the sewers.
Harris just stared at her.
Uncomfortably, she avoided his stunned gaze as she came up behind Nathaniel.
“You… you…” Mud panted. “She–”
“How do we get inside the prison?” Nathaniel demanded.
“She burned my hand!” Mud shrieked into the wizard’s face.
Nathaniel grimaced at the man’s breath and then pressed him harder into the wall. “I won’t ask again.”
Mud just choked, his focus returning to his blackened skin. Nathaniel growled in annoyance, casting a glance to Elias.
“Switch,” Elias said, jerking his head at the street.
Nathaniel waited for the wizard to join him and then promptly dropped Mud to the ground. Ignoring the cry of pained alarm behind him, Nathaniel headed for the alley entrance.
Disgust tingeing his expression, Elias crouched down in front of Mud. “You have a choice,” he told the whimpering man. “You help us, and maybe we’ll heal your hand. Or you don’t help us,” he glanced over his shoulder, “and we leave you with them.”
Mud’s beady gaze went to Spider and Samson.
“What’s it going to be?” Elias asked.
Contempt twisted through the pain on Mud’s face. “I’m not afraid of them.”
Expressionless, Spider drew her gun, letting it hang by her side, and instantly, the little man went pale, his scorn melting.
“Uh-huh,” Elias agreed. “I can see that.” He sighed, pushing back to his feet. “Guess we’re done, then.”
He motioned to Spider and Samson as he started to turn away, only to stop at an inarticulate gurgle from Mud. Elias glanced back.
“W-what do you want to know?” Mud asked, his eyes locked on Spider and the gun.
“How do we reach the prisoners?”
“Prisoners?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Elias said, motioning to Spider and Samson again.
“No!” Mud protested. “I mean… you want the Taliesin? They’re down the street. In the building down the street. Um, it’s the–”
“We know which one it is.”
“Oh. Uh…” Mud looked between the wizard and the cripples. “Can you just have them–”
“No,” Elias replied. “What can you tell us about the security?”
Mud swallowed hard, his eyes darting around the alley. “They, uh… if they know I…”
Spider shifted position slightly.
“Oh-two-seven-eight-three,” Mud said, the words tripping over each other to come out. “Code for the door. Access pad’s behind the third brick left of the handle. The code is oh-two–”
“Fine,” Elias cut in. “What other defenses are there?”
The little man looked desperate, his eyes twitching from Spider to the wizard and back. “Uh, guards?” he offered. “Four of them. Security cameras too. Three outside the building, two watching the side streets, and six inside.”
“Are the cameras connected to anything at Chaunessy Tower?”
Mud shook his head. “Just the monitors inside the prison. They’ve got an alarm, though. If the guards trigger it, it goes off at the main building.”
“Magical defenses the same?”
Mud nodded.
“What about guards on the surrounding buildings? Anyone watching for an attack?”
The man scoffed desperately. “They didn’t think you’d come for the Taliesin. They thought your plan was to go after the kid.”
Mud stared at him as though questioning why the wizards weren’t doing that anyway.
Elias ignored the expression. Stepping away from the little man, he glanced briefly to Nathaniel and then drew out his phone. Dialing quickly, he kept an eye to Mud as he waited for the call to go through.
She turned away, her stomach beginning to churn again.
“Four guards,” Elias said succinctly when Cornelius picked up the phone. “Eleven cameras. And we have the door code.”
“Ashe,” Spider said.
She hesitated, and then looked over. Behind her, Elias continued to relay the information Mud had given them.
“The plan?” the girl pressed.
Ashe’s mouth tightened.
“Nathaniel’s going in,” Cole supplied. “They set it all up on the way here.”
Spider looked between them. “He’s a wizard,” she said, as if uncertain why they weren’t seeing the obvious. “The guards’ll spot him a mile away and call the Blood.”
Cole grimaced. “She’s going to take his magic.”
Spider’s brow climbed.
“Bound wizards aren’t visible the same as unbound ones,” Ashe explained quietly. “Not as much, anyway. And he just needs to make Mud get him to the door. Once the defenses are dropped, Elias’ll open a portal and we’ll head in.”
Spider watched her for a moment. “And if they do spot him?”
She didn’t answer.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Screw that.” Turning sharply, she looked to Mud. “Hey, scumbag. Layout of the inside.”
“Huh?” Mud sputtered.
“Spider, what are you–” Ashe started.
“Guards, moron. Alarms.” Spider continued, ignoring her. “Where are they?”
Across the alley, Elias cut off the phone conversation, his brow drawing down.
“I– uh,” Mud tried.
“What are you doing?” Elias asked, covering the cell with
one hand as he came closer.
“There’s no way the guards’ll buy that weasel capturing your friend on his own,” Spider told him. “So we’re changing the plan. I’m going.”
Mud blanched.
“No, you’re not,” Ashe retorted incredulously.
“Spider,” Samson said.
“Miss, you aren’t–” Elias began.
“This isn’t a debate,” Spider said over the protests. “You need somebody they won’t suspect, and I’m sorry, but your guy there isn’t it.” She looked to Elias. “You just make sure you get that portal open without hitting me and–”
“I’ll do it.”
Spider turned at the sound of Harris’ voice. “Excuse me?”
The detective looked between them with varying degrees of discomfort. “I said I’ll do it. I’ll get the door open.”
Spider scoffed. “No way. No offense, but we’ve known you for five minutes. And you tried to kill her. So you’re staying.”
“Of everyone here, I’m the least likely to raise their suspicion,” Harris countered. “If for no other reasons than the ones you just named. And I’m not a wizard or a cripple, so it’s not even going to cross their minds that I could be a threat.” He paused. “It never does.”
Spider’s eyes narrowed, but Elias cut in before she could speak. “You said they wouldn’t believe it if you just showed up there,” the councilman argued.
“Alone, no,” Harris allowed with a grimace. “But with Mud…”
Elias shook his head. “No,” he stated. “For exactly the reasons she just named. We’re doing this the way we planned. Nathaniel still has the best chance–”
“The hell he does,” Samson interrupted.
“What?” Elias snapped.
Samson strode past him to Mud, and snagged the man by the collar when he tried to flee. “The Taliesin need to see a prisoner. But not your attack dog there; he’ll just get you killed. Even if they buy the cop and that idiot capturing him, you’re still risking everything on the hope your queen’s infallible and the guards won’t just see through whatever the hell she’s planning to do.
“Now, normally,” he added, “I wouldn’t give a shit. But there’s still a chance that king’ll be able to hurt my people just because we’ve talked to you, so we really need to keep you lot alive till we can throw Bloody Queen Ashe at him and let them kill each other.”
He hauled Mud up from the ground, ignoring the man’s indignant squawk. “You told him you needed his help with someone connected to the queen,” he continued to Harris, “and my guess is the twerp here shared that around before leaving. They won’t believe for a minute that he’d bring you with him for no reason, but I doubt they’ll buy him being tough enough to drag anyone in on his own either. So let’s get this over with already. Escort your prisoner back.”
“Sam,” Spider protested.
He glanced to her. “Shoot the bastards if they try anything.”
She paused, and Ashe couldn’t tell if she was breathing. But after a heartbeat, the girl just nodded, whatever she’d been about to say vanishing as though it’d never been.
“Gladly,” she answered.
“You are not deciding this–” Elias started, looking between the two of them.
With a shove, Samson sent Mud stumbling past Nathaniel into the street. Spider’s gun rose instantly, tracking the little man.
“Sorry, wizard,” he replied coldly. He looked to Harris. “Coming?”
Alarm in his eyes, Harris hesitated before nodding. Crossing the distance between them, he took Samson’s arms, pinning them back as though handcuffed, and then led him after Mud.
“This is–” Elias started.
“Elias,” Ashe interrupted tightly. “Just… get ready, okay?”
Incredulity showed in his eyes, but he buried it swiftly and looked to Nathaniel. “Tell me when they get close,” he said, traces of disbelief still in his voice. He raised the phone to his ear again. “Never mind. Get ready to move on our signal.”
He hung up and headed for the door near the end of the alley.
Ashe followed Spider to the entrance. Ignoring Nathaniel’s dark glare, the girl sank down by the edge of the wall, her eyes trained on the men making their way down the street and her fingers playing over the grip of her gun.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said to Spider quietly, keeping out of sight against the brick wall. “Either of you.”
Spider didn’t answer.
Ashe looked back to the alley. Halfway between her and Elias, Cole was watching them as though he didn’t even know where to begin with all the things that’d potentially just gone wrong.
“No one’s better with portals than Elias,” she told Spider. “It’ll be fine.”
“It better be,” the girl answered without looking away from the street, and Ashe couldn’t tell if the threat in her voice was for the wizards or Samson.
Or both.
Ashe closed her eyes briefly and then turned away. Heading toward the door, she stopped a few feet from Elias, waiting.
Silence settled over the alley, undercut by the distant sound of traffic and a tension so thick, she could barely breathe. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if gunfire came from down the street, though probably, that wouldn’t be her first indication something had gone wrong. Her gaze slid back to Spider, watching the girl for any sign of change, while Elias stood nearby, one hand on the doorframe and his eyes locked on Nathaniel for much the same reason.
And the seconds dragged on.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gripping the young man’s arm, Harris made himself walk down the sidewalk as though he couldn’t feel the gun aimed at his back or the cameras aimed at his front.
For all intents and purposes, he should have died five minutes ago, and the knowledge was disturbing to say the least. It wasn’t really the gunshots or the near miss; those were upsetting, but he’d been shot at before, though never at that close of range. It was the circumstances around it, and the reason it hadn’t gone the way Mud planned.
Ashley’d just saved his life.
He drew a breath, scanning the street and the intersection ahead as cars sped along both. Of course, she could have just reacted to the sight of the gun. Operated on instinct, as it were. That’d be a perfectly plausible explanation, given how tightly wound she obviously was right now.
Except Mud hadn’t been aiming at her. And wizards weren’t threatened by guns anyway. Not when they saw the weapon coming and could block the bullets, to hell with the ricochet.
He’d learned that after he shot her a month ago.
His shoulders twitched involuntarily beneath his jacket. At the motion, the young man glanced over, a question and a glare sharing space in his dark eyes.
Harris grimaced and returned to his surveillance of the street.
She wasn’t a kid. She’d never been a kid, no matter what she tried to pretend. And there wasn’t any way to prove that what she said was true. Blaming the opposition was the oldest trick in the book. She still could have killed her family, and the man at the boathouse could have been her victim, along with all the other bodies that’d littered the floor. For that matter, her cripple allies gave him the impression that, if he ran their prints through state or federal databases, they’d probably have more than a few unsolved murders of their own to their names. And Cole’s faith she hadn’t been behind any of it could simply be a wishful extrapolation from the fact that she did, at least, seem to care about the little girl.
Then again, he had to wonder how much more he was willing to chalk up to Cole just being confused. And that didn’t bring into it the look on her face at the news Malden was alive.
He scowled. She could have been acting. They could have planned it, her and Cole, to allay his suspicions.
And this really was all about him.
He fought off another twitch, cursing himself for being so distracted when there was a gun pointing at his back. Most people, even a fai
r amount of cops, probably couldn’t have hit him at his current distance from the alley. But there was something in the way the young man’s girlfriend had taken the order to shoot him so dispassionately that left him reluctant to trust she fell into that group.
Besides, anyone could get a lucky shot. He almost had.
Letting out a breath, he pushed the thought away as he glanced to the young man. Everything else aside, ‘allies’ might have been a strong word, at least where this guy was concerned. Anger still etched his face, nearly unchanged since his abrupt resolution to the standoff in the alley, and if his words a few minutes before were any indication, he seemed only a half-step shy of shooting the Merlin queen himself. Given everything she might have done – things Cole swore she hadn’t done – it raised more than a few questions.
And meant he possibly wasn’t as mistaken in this as he was really starting to fear.
“You’re one of the guys who helped Ashley back in Monfort,” he said, keeping his voice neutral for all that he couldn’t quite make his pulse slow down.
The young man ignored him.
“You’re one of her supporters?”
A muscle of the guy’s jaw jumped, but any answer was forestalled by a snort from Mud.
“Weasel,” the young man snapped. “Shut up and hide your hand already.”
A surly expression twisted Mud’s face as he glanced back, but he tucked his burned hand into his coat nonetheless.
“Your name’s Sam?” Harris pressed.
Briefly, the young man pinned him with a glare. “No.”
Mud looked back with a smirk. “It’s Samson.”
The young man’s eyes took on a strong tinge of threat, and Mud swiftly turned away.
“Okay,” Harris continued carefully. “Well, Samson, I just ask because, for someone who helped Ashley escape the police, you don’t sound like you care for her that much.”
He let the implicit question hang in the air.
“I never have,” Samson said finally, his voice low as his eyes flicked over the open apartment windows above them. “I’m just here to keep my people from dying. Now shut it. The wizards might have spies in the buildings.”
Harris glanced to him. “But you don’t believe she was behind all those deaths earlier this year?”
Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Page 31