by Bonnie Lamer
“Who else is there?” Liza demands curtly.
“Josh, Xandra and Kallen.”
“You’re done saving the universe?” Liza asks evenly.
“Um, not quite,” Eliana tells her. “We actually need Jadyn’s help.”
“Well, she’s a little busy being a cat at the moment.”
“What? Why?”
“Recon.”
“Is this a new case?” Josh asks.
“Yes. We got a tip about a trafficking route. We’re checking it out,” Liza confirms.
“What kind of trafficking?” I ask.
I can hear Liza’s scowl through the phone. “Human.” Before I can express my disgust, Liza growls, “Hold on.” We hear a hushed conversation on her end between several people, but we can’t quite make out what they are saying. Liza must be covering the phone with her hand. Okay, even I know that cell phones have mute buttons. Then again, she is in a pretty stressful situation at the moment. Or she may not know how to work Jadyn’s phone.
Finally returning her attention to us, Liza says into the phone, “We could really use your help.”
Eliana is torn. She knows how important it is for us to get back to the Phoenix problem, but this is her job. Her calling, really. Her mind is made up when Liza adds, “They have at least ten girls and we’re not sure how many boys. We believe they are all minors.”
Kallen has a confused look on his face. “What is human trafficking?” he asks. Ah, the innocence of other realms. Actually, other realms have their own different forms of atrocities. They’re not really innocent.
“People are kidnapped and sold for various purposes,” Josh explains with a grimace.
He doesn’t need to explain further. Kallen catches on pretty quickly to what some of those purposes could be. “Children?” he gasps. His face hardening, my fearsome husband growls, “We will help.” I love him so much right now. The universe may be hanging in the balance, but he will still take the time to save innocent children. We all will.
“Where are you?” Josh asks Liza. He curses under his breath when she gives her location. Glancing at us, he explains, “That’s a good hour and a half drive from here.”
I shake my head. “Too long. Liza, can you give a location on a map where I can safely teleport us?”
Liza takes a moment to confer with someone, then comes back on the line. “I’m texting you the coordinates now.”
“Thanks, we’ll be right there,” I assure her.
Eliana disconnects from Liza and pulls up her messages. She hands the phone to me. I did something similar to this in the mountains, but I was familiar with that area. With a sigh, I mutter, “I hope she directed us to an open space.” I’d hate to land someone in the middle of a tree.
“Are you certain you can do this?” Kallen asks with way too much concern in his voice.
“Yes,” I snap because I’m trying to convince myself as well as him.
“This is farm country, so there should be plenty of open space,” Eliana assures me. Her worry meter is much lower than my husband’s. I appreciate that. Then again, Kallen has seen more of what can happen if my magic goes wonky. Some of his concern is justified.
Thinking about the girls who need saving, I hold my arms out for the others to grab onto. Staring at the phone, I concentrate on the map, visualizing the space in my mind. In a flash, we are there.
“Yah! What the hell?” someone cries out. The woman then slaps a hand over her mouth because she is supposed to be in recon mode.
“Sorry, Roxy,” Eliana says to the shaken woman. “We needed to get here quickly.”
Shaking herself, the tall, dark skinned woman says in an awed voice, “Liza told us about it, but I didn’t believe it.”
With a grin, Josh teases, “How can you still be a non-believer with all you’ve seen?”
“True,” Roxy agrees. “You still scared the hell out of me just popping in out of thin air like that.”
Conversation comes to a halt when we notice a black cat bounding toward us through a field. Obviously, it’s Jadyn. Clawing to a halt in front of us, she pants in a little cat voice, “They are getting ready to move. Something spooked them.” Considering she is a talking black cat, which anyone who is the least bit superstitious would probably consider a double whammy in the bad luck department, I have to stop myself from asking if it was her.
But, she reads my mind. Or the expression on my face. “No, it was not me,” she says dryly. Even in a cat voice she can convey dry. Impressive.
Behind us, Liza steps out of a surveillance van with Alonzo. She heard what Jadyn said. Not surprising since Jadyn seems to have a little microphone attached to a collar around her neck. Clever.
“Are you positive?” Liza demands. When Jadyn nods her little cat head, Liza asks, “How long do we have?” I wonder how long it took her to get comfortable having conversations with animals? It had to be a shock to her system initially.
“They’re mobilizing now, so a matter of minutes,” Jadyn tells her.
Liza lets out an impressive string of curses that even Dagda would be proud of. I’ll have to share a few of her phrases with him. He needs to update his repertoire. It’s dated. Turning to Eliana, Liza asks, “Suggestions?”
Eliana looks at me, then turns back to her boss. “Since time is of the essence for all of us, you guys stay here.”
Alonzo shakes his head. “You need backup.”
“She has backup,” Kallen growls.
Before the two of them can determine who really does have the most testosterone in their veins, my money is on Kallen, Eliana shuts Alonzo down. “We need to stop them before they move out. If we ambush them with weapons and technology, we put the kids in danger. We,” she nods at Kallen and me, “can do things differently. You guys will need plausible deniability on this one.”
“Damn,” Roxy hisses. “I would hate to be those bastards if these two can do even half of what you can do.”
“We have different but just as powerful skills,” Kallen assures her.
Growing impatient with having to convince the others, I step toward my friend. “Let’s do this.”
“Do you want me to come along?” Josh asks. I know what he is really asking. Will Eliana need him to calm her down when she confronts the bad guys capable of trafficking children so she doesn’t rip their bodies in two with her bare hands and burn the stubs to ash.
Eliana seriously considers his question. For about half a second. “Yes.”
Good call, because that ripping the bad guys in two and burning them to ash thing sounds really good to me, too. Unlike Eliana, I would need to use some heavy duty magic for both, but I’m sure I could come up with a spell that would do the trick. From the disgusted look on my husband’s face, I don’t think he’d try to stop me this time. In fact, he might beat me to it. I sure hope Josh is thinking clearer than the rest of us. We may all need to be talked down.
21 Chapter
“The first thing we need to do is make sure the kids are safe.” Eliana’s words are spoken evenly, but the fire in her eyes tells me that she is anything but calm on the inside.
“Agreed,” Josh nods. “Jadyn, can you get closer and let us know if all of the children are out of the house?”
Jadyn was not about to be left behind when the four of us moved closer to the old farmhouse where the bad guys are holding the kids. Not when she has such useful talents. What Cowan would expect he was being spied on by a cat? “No problem,” Jadyn says. “I’m heading for the third window from the front on this side of the house. It gives me the best view of the room where they are being held. When I start twitching my tail, that means all of them are out.” Jadyn trots off toward the house like she is just a curious cat. When she gets close to the van, one of the guys dragging a child around the age of twelve out of the house kicks at her. Obviously, not a cat lover. Jadyn arches her back and hisses like a real cat would. She’s good at this. She turns with her tail in the air and heads for the window.
>
The traffickers must be pretty efficient because Jadyn’s tail starts twitching back and forth rapidly as soon as she lands on the window sill. I shudder in disgust as I think of how they became so efficient. Lots of practice. My disgust gets pushed aside now by my fury.
Watching the scene before us, Kallen’s expression is hard but there’s a touch of proud there as the twelve-year-old struggles against her captor. “She’s a fighter.”
He’s right. Twisting in the guy’s arms, the girl is able to bring her knee up. Right into his groin. We can hear his groan of pain from here. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to bring the guy down. His face twists into a cruel mask and he brings his arm back, ready to strike the girl.
Well, that’s not going to happen. “We got this,” I tell Eliana before she runs out of our hiding place and blows our cover. Magic is already shooting forth from both Kallen and me. Mine creates a protective shield around the girl. Kallen’s hits the trafficker. Hard. With several strikes of magic, Kallen hits the guy in the face, the gut, and the groin. Blood spurts from his nose. Fortunately, my magical shield prevents it from spraying all over the girl, who is staring wide-eyed at her captor. The guy doubles over after the gut and groin shots, but Kallen is not finished with him. The guy screams loudly as his wrist and fingers bend back so far, even a contortionist would cringe. There’s no doubt that they are broken. He screams even louder when the same thing happens to his other hand.
I glance up at my husband. Unapologetic, he growls, “He will not be striking children ever again.” Not with those hands, he won’t. It would hurt him a heck of a lot more than whoever he hit.
It doesn’t take long for the bad guy’s partners to come running from the house. They take up defensive positions around the van and scan the area. The four of us duck farther back in the clump of trees we are hiding in. We don’t want them discovering us quite yet. They are too close to the kids and could try to use them as shields. Or just kill them to keep them from talking. My temper flares even higher at that thought. Kallen glances down at me as he feels my magic spike with my temper. The thought of trying to calm me down doesn’t even cross his mind.
After a brief conversation with his comrades, it becomes apparent that the injured man believes it was the girl in front of him who caused his injuries. His three partners laugh at first and shake their heads. After a heated argument, which includes a lot of yelling and swearing that we can clearly hear, the injured man finally convinces his buddies that it must have been the girl because there is no one else around.
“This could work in our favor,” I murmur to the others.
Surprised, Josh asks, “How?”
Eliana knows where I am going with this. Her grin is definitely on the malicious side. I like it. “Who better to kick their ass than the kids they kidnapped.”
Kallen’s brow furrows, and he nods toward the girl. “Will that not further traumatize the child?”
“To believe she rescued herself?” I shake my head. “If anything, it will help her heal.” I hope. I’m not a psychologist, but it should work that way, damn it.
My gorgeous husband is not convinced. His dark eyebrows furrow even closer together. If he’s not careful, the little hairs are going to get tangled and his face will be stuck like that. Unless we shave his eyebrows. I imagine him with no eyebrows and shudder. That is not a good look on anyone. “How will she explain her actions to the authorities?” Kallen asks, dragging me from my eye brow thoughts.
“Adrenaline rush,” Josh pipes in. “Happens all the time with humans in a traumatic situation.”
With a shrug, Kallen finally relents. “What is your plan?” he asks me.
Um. I thought up the first part. I was hoping the others could help with the rest. Realizing this, probably from the ‘I have no plan’ look on my face, Eliana grins and says, “Release your magic and watch this.”
Before my upper and lower eyelids can meet in a blink, Eliana is gone. I hurry to release my magical wall surrounding the girl, hoping I am doing the right thing. Staring across the field to where the traffickers are glaring warily at the girl in question, we watch in amazement. We can’t actually see her doing it, but Eliana is suddenly moving the girl. The surprise on the girl’s face would be humorous if the situation was different. Way different. Moving her with such speed that the bad guys can’t see Eliana, my friend stretches out the girl’s arm and suddenly one of the uninjured men is holding his nose. I really hope Eliana used her own fist to do that.
By the way the girl looks around, I know that Eliana has left her. After all, if she stops moving the guys will see her. I hurry and put my magic wall back up just in time to prevent the man who just got punched from being able to hit the girl back. I’m pretty sure he breaks his hand when his fist meets my magic. We can hear the bones crack, and he lets out a high-pitched shriek of pain. So much for his macho image. The fact that he was going to hit the young girl hard enough to break his own hand just pisses all of us off even more.
The guy begins to curse and dance around, holding his hand. I feel Kallen’s magic rush by and suddenly, the man who just broke his hand is lying on the ground because his legs are swept out from under him. His buddies look from him to the girl and back again. They didn’t see her move, but they are beginning to believe she is doing all of this. The last uninjured man takes a cautious step toward the girl.
The guy on the ground tries to get up. “I don’t think so,” Eliana mutters. She rejoined us when Kallen and I started using our magic so she didn’t interfere in what we were doing. She stares intently at the man on the ground. Suddenly, the guy’s pocket is on fire. I give Eliana a questioning look, and with a satisfied grin, she whispers, “Lighters have been known to self-combust every now and then.” I give her a doubtful look but let it go. Whatever she wants to do to these guys is fine by me. The uninjured man rushes to his comrade to try to put out the flames. He is unsuccessful since they are magical. Only Eliana can douse them.
While our attention is focused on that guy, we miss something important. My right ear drum, unaccustomed to the sound of a gun going off so close to it, begins to howl in pain. I put my hand over it and stare open-mouthed at Josh, who just blew our cover. My eyes follow the direction of his, and I understand why. A man we hadn’t seen before is lying near the door to the house cradling his arm, which is spurting blood. If he was smarter, he’s be putting pressure on that wound instead of cradling his arm. Apparently, he’s not. A gun is lying several feet away from him. Josh must have shot his gun arm to keep him from firing at the girl.
“I was coming to warn you about him,” an out-of-breath Jadyn pants. When the commotion started, she snuck inside the house to search it.
No one has a chance to respond. The other men are reaching for their guns. At least, those without broken hands are. The still uninjured one makes a move to grab the girl to either kill her, or use her as a human shield. Probably shield now, kill her later. Eliana is gone in a blur. The girl is whisked out of the man’s grasp, but not before she kicks him in the groin. I know it was Eliana’s foot that did it because the guy flies back about fifteen feet. He’s lucky my friend was holding back. I’m sure it was to keep the little girl from getting whiplash when she was moved so suddenly, not any regard for the bad guy’s injuries. I’m also sure that he will never be able to father children after that blow. Good. The realm doesn’t need any more people like him in it.
In our ears, we hear Liza’s voice. She gave us all coms before we made our way over here. “We’re moving in. The four of you stand down. Josh, wipe your prints.”
We would do as Liza tells us, but these human trafficking sleaze balls just don’t know when to quit. Apparently, their injuries aren’t great enough. The two who can shoot have their guns trained on the girl, and there is no doubt in any of our minds that they are going to fire on her.
Kallen wraps the girl in magic, and she is now safe from their bullets. But, that’s not enough for me. I will not let that li
ttle girl suffer the trauma of being shot at on top of what else has happened to her. After all, she doesn’t know that she’s surrounded by a bullet-proof wall of magic. Without any thought as to what is going to happen, I ram my magic into the ends of the trafficker’s guns as they pull back the triggers.
Apparently, what happens when magic is rammed into a firing gun is that the gas in the gun barrels explodes. This would probably have only hurt their hands if my magic didn’t force the explosion back toward them. I can’t see through the flames to see if they still have faces or not. A big part of me just doesn’t care. I never thought I would feel that way about another person. But, I’ve never come across human traffickers before, either.
“Eliana, we want information from them,” Josh says urgently.
I open my mouth to argue against saving them, but close it again. Yes, these men are trafficking children for illicit purposes. Even burning to death is too good for them. But, Josh is right. They may have vital information that could save many other children from this same fate. Not to mention, later on I would probably feel guilty about burning someone to death. Even if they are akin to monsters.
She doesn’t want to do it. That is obvious from her tight lipped expression. But, with only the slightest hesitation, Eliana nods curtly. Her power reaches out to the men, and the flames are extinguished. They are badly injured, but they are also cursing loudly. So, obviously they can still talk which is all we need. Liza and her team should be able to get some information from them. Preferably before getting them medical attention.
“I guess the order ‘stand down’ has a different meaning for you than it does for me,” Liza drawls from behind us. She has her gun drawn and trained on the men lying on the ground. The rest of her team moves around us. A couple of them secure the bad guys while the others make sure the children are okay.
“They were going to shoot her,” Josh explains. He turns his gun around and offers it to Liza.
Liza shakes her head. “Alonzo needs to get his prints on it.”