by Holley Trent
He stumbled backward, slapping a hand over the bleeding wound, and grinned. “Oh, it hurts so nice,” he said in that seductive voice he’d cooed into the microphone at the strip club so many times.
She fired again, this time into the other shoulder.
He laughed before he fell to his knees. “What, you really thought we only handle weirdoes? No, human flesh is pretty fun to trade in, too. I liked that gig. That was a reward for me from Jacques. Gave me something of my own to run, and you had a part in fucking it up, right? Makes sense now, why the FBI didn’t haul your ass off with the rest of ’em.”
“How would you know? The moment they stormed in, your cowardly ass disappeared. You shifted, didn’t you? So they didn’t spot you?”
Oh, he deserves killin’.
But, it wouldn’t be at her hands. It wasn’t just the Shrew code of ethics that kept her from putting a bullet in his brain, but her personal one as well.
Only kill in self-defense.
He hadn’t pushed her there yet.
She aimed her barrel at his left kneecap, and squeezed her index finger on the trigger, but didn’t pull just yet. Shoulders were one thing. Visa or not, knees would put this guy out of commission for a long while. If he was going to spend the rest of his life locked up somewhere, she wanted it to be with him standing on his own two feet, and not being pushed around in a wheelchair…like that one girl he’d pushed down the stairs at the club.
The one who hadn’t earned enough tips for him.
“You’re a despicable human being.” She took several large steps back to quell her impulse to push him again—kick him again—anything to cause him white-hot pain, at least for a moment.
There was a third roar, and it was close.
Sarah turned her head to find two large Bears hurtling toward her with the familiar big cat at their heels.
But, why were they running toward her instead of the alley?
The reason became clear when the smaller of the Bears leapt at the Visa, sinking its fangs into his throat and dragging him to the ground.
Finally, he screamed.
The Bear frightened him in a way Sarah hadn’t managed, and he tried to shift—to gain some advantage, but he seemed weak from having lost so much blood. He couldn’t manage it.
Sarah was content to let the Bear have its way. It’d save her some work and a lot of guilt, but the Visa’s saving grace came in the form of a Were-mountain lion knocking the Bear away.
Patrick swatted the angry Bear with one heavy paw, and pushed the creature with his forehead toward the alley. The Bear made an indignant-sounding roar, but it went all the same.
The larger bear waited nearby for it.
“No!” the Visa shouted, struggling to his feet. “Not her! That one’s mine!”
Just enough stupidity for the larger Bear—the male Bear, Sarah determined—to stand on his hind legs and come down on the Visa with all his weight.
With the Visa pinned to the ground, crying out in pain, Jacques’ RV door swung open and the ringmaster came out with a semi-automatic rifle.
Nothing fancy. Sarah had been behind the scope of much more deadly weapons, but a bullet was a bullet, and a bullet would hurt.
Mr. Tolvaj appeared, ashen-faced behind him.
Dana crept around from the RV’s back, her own gun at the ready. She pointed it toward the Visa, then to Jacques, who hadn’t seen her yet.
Jacques fired off a shot at the Bear on his valued employee.
He missed, but it was close enough to light a fire in the big Bear’s ass.
He let the Visa up, and looked to Sarah with a stare far too intelligent for an animal.
She bobbed her head toward the alley. “Get the hell out of here. Get your revenge later. It’s my turn now.”
And he ran, shifting back into human form as he went so Sarah could see his broad shoulders, black hair, and tan backside as he disappeared around the corner.
“Bryan,” she mused. He was one of Gene’s enforcers. She hoped Bryan remembered the parties responsible for his rescue when he got home.
Now Sarah, with her attention half on the supine Visa and half on Jacques, waited for an opportunity.
Where was Felipe?
The little dog had gone quiet, and the old woman cowered in the shadows, seemingly afraid to move.
Was he there? She hoped so for his sake. He’d be less likely to catch a stray bullet there.
“Drop your fucking gun,” Dana shouted at Jacques.
He jumped, finally noticing her standing there, but didn’t do as she said. In fact, he recovered enough to laugh. “You think this is it? One guard?”
He put two fingers in his mouth in the way Dana so often did, and blew out a loud, shrill whistle.
“Fuck,” Sarah mutterer, turning in a slow half-circle with her gun.
Four more men filled into the open central area.
They mobilized quickly, though ignored Dana. Perhaps they had Sarah pinned, but Dana was untended.
They must have assumed Mr. Tolvaj was watching her.
“Drop your weapons,” a blond man, whom Sarah could now easily peg as a Visa, said as they crowded her.
“Sure thing.”
She bent, winking as she knelt, knowing Dana with her enhanced vision could see it.
Instead of setting down her gun, she drew her other one too, and fired a shot into the two Visas obscured from Dana’s view.
Almost simultaneously, Dana neatly tagged the third Visa in the knee, being nowhere near as kind as her employee.
Before Dana could pick off number four, number four drew his own gun and pointed it at Sarah.
From there, things happened in a blur.
Jacques set his sights on Dana, who dodged around the corner of his RV before he could pull the trigger.
Mr. Tolvaj delivered a stunning blow to Jacques’ nose the moment he fired, and Sarah saw the shadow looming behind her.
She’d taken her eye from the strip club Visa and hadn’t noticed him scrambling to his feet.
Should have minced his fucking knees when I had the chance.
She turned just in time to see him kicking the now-open box away. From it, he’d taken a large, full syringe, which he aimed it at her.
Damn.
She knew instinctively what was in that syringe. It was filled with the same shit he’d pumped into so many non-compliant strippers.
“No!” Mr. Tolvaj yelled. He ran down the stairs with his hands held up in a peacemaking gesture. “They are good people!”
“Brother, you are a traitor,” the man with the gun said, and he swung his weapon around and fired a slug directly into the right side of Mr. Tolvaj’s chest.
Sarah watching helplessly. As fast as she was with her Shrew reflexes, she couldn’t have predicted that betrayal.
“No!” she shrieked, falling to her knees, with one landing hard on something firm and ridged.
That fucking collateral damage. And she wasn’t the only one angry. The fortuneteller ran over, firefight be damned, and laid her body over Mr. Tolvaj’s, weeping.
Sarah patted the ground beneath her knee and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal oval. A caress of her thumb revealed a smooth back, and on the front, a relief of a man. A familiar shape. A saint.
Felipe.
She squeezed the medallion hard in her palm and made a quick circular scan of the lot. Where was her lover? Had he left that there for her? Or had it been taken from him?
Jacques laughed, carelessly dangling his gun from his forefinger.
If he accidentally shot himself, he’d be doing them all a favor.
“Come out, Castillo. I know you’re lurking here somewhere. Well, guess what?” He took a step down and scanned the area as if he genuinely believed Felipe would come out just because he’d asked. “Just like your father, huh? Are you going to hide the rest of your life? Go ahead. Make it easy for me. Stay in the shadows and fade away to miserable nothingness.”
His fath
er?
She’d thought the Castillos’ father was dead. Had Felipe misled her, or had he really believed he was dead?
“Just shut up!” the fortuneteller yelled, still sobbing. “Shut up! Enough of this. Somebody, please, call an ambulance. Just this once, call the ambulance. Just pack up and go. We won’t say anything!”
Jacques didn’t even look at her. He ignored her as if she were inconsequential—as if she were no more important than any other disposable thing he kept on hand for convenience.
An object.
Of course. Like his perverted employee, he probably didn’t consider those he harmed to be people. Just things he could buy, sell, and trade for personal gain.
Sick bastard.
“Come, on Felipe.” Jacques chuckled and propped his hands on his hips. “It’ll be just like old times. Police in Spain still think Papa Castillo killed his wife, huh? The meddling bitch.”
“Rat bastard,” Sarah mumbled.
The Visa with the syringe used her distractedness to his advantage. He pulled her close and pressed the tip of the needle against her neck.
She dropped the medallion in the shuffle, but didn’t dare to struggle.
She didn’t want what was in that syringe in her body—in her baby.
The Visa pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, “I did it. Me. Bashed her head in. Made it look like he pushed her from the high wire.” He laughed, and Sarah knew without a doubt this man had no soul. He couldn’t have. If he had any fear of Hell, he wouldn’t laugh.
If he had any respect for life, he wouldn’t laugh. He’d sob, just like Sarah had all those nights after leaving the club.
Bile foamed up her throat and she clamped her teeth, meditating on the things she had to look forward to. She’d persevere for those things.
Chauncey was safe. The Wolves were out. The Bears released. Patrick had an advantage. And Felipe…how long could Felipe hold that form?
“Oh, that stupid whore,” Jacques continued, now pacing the ground in front of the office.
The fourth Visa who’d been minding Sarah aimed his sights on Dana, now that Sarah was under duress of the syringe.
Jacques kept pacing. Kept posturing. “It was arranged from childhood. She was supposed to be mine!” His voice deepened, yet increased in volume at the end. It was the closest thing to a villain speech Sarah had ever heard, and it scared her. She couldn’t believe people like him existed in real life.
“Spawned you two freaks, just like your father. Maybe it was for the best she died so there wouldn’t be more.”
Keep your cool, Felipe.
Even as she thought it, she knew it was something that’d be damned near impossible if she’d been in his shoes. If that fool had called her mother a bitch, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to get the next word out. She might not even have cared if she would be the next to go down because of it.
Now, RV park residents—human or freak, Sarah couldn’t tell which—pressed hands and faces to the glass of their homes, peeking out, but probably too scared to assist.
Sarah couldn’t blame them, but she hoped at least one of them had the good sense to dial 9-1-1.
If Mr. Tolvaj could hold on just a bit longer…
“You’re never going to find him, Castillo. If he were a good man, he wouldn’t have left you two in the dust, huh? Maybe he’s dead by now, too. Oh well. He’ll never get found. And guess what? When I’m done with the two of you idiots, there’ll be nothing left of you to find, either.”
So, Fabian was alive. That was something for Felipe to cling to, even if Sarah wasn’t enough.
She swallowed, ever cognizant of the needle’s placement, and made good eye contact with Dana.
Dana closed both eyelids in a long blink.
At your leisure, she was saying.
She trusted Sarah to do what she needed to at the right time, even if it was reckless. They’d clean up the mess later.
“Hey, boss. Here’s his girlfriend,” the needle-wielding Visa yelled, now back in the original form he’d taken as a circus hand. It must have been his natural one. “Guess what? She’s the same bitch who fed info about the club to the FBI.”
“Oh. Good to know.” Jacques raised his gun, and though Sarah should have been concentrating on that, she couldn’t ignore the black smoke pouring out of the RV behind him.
A blur of fur streaked past in her periphery.
Patrick.
He darted between the trailers, and she kept still and quiet so as not to give him away. A quick glance at Dana, whose gaze tracked to the left briefly, indicated she’d seen her dirty cat as well.
A shot fired during Sarah’s moment of distraction, and she saw flames from the RV lick out the windows just before Felipe phased to his physical form in front of her.
The fiery pain in her side registered as she hit the ground with Felipe falling on top of her.
The Visa scrambled away ahead of her blood pooling near his feet.
She’d been shot?
“Felipe?” she croaked, trying to will her heart rate down, hoping it’d keep her blood loss to a minimum.
It was more important than ever she be whole. Healthy.
“Querida?”
“Just checking.” She closed her eyes on the pain, and there was darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sarah watched the hospital’s on-call surgeon quietly exit the room, and she blew out a deep breath, letting the events of the day fully settle in her brain. She felt like they’d failed their mission.
Jacques and his Visas got away at the first sound of sirens, and Felipe was no closer to locating his brother. But, the good news was the fire he’d started when Jacques was busy terrorizing them all destroyed many of the contracts binding the longtime performers to the troupe. They could leave and no court anywhere would tell them otherwise.
Felipe did find his birth records and passport, along with Fabian’s, and squirreled those out before lighting the match. He was thirty-four years old and born in Cataluna, Spain to Felipe and Jacqueline. That saint’s medallion had belonged to his father, he’d said, and he hoped to get it back. He hadn’t realized he dropped it.
The door swung open and a pale hand appeared on the divider curtain’s edge.
Sarah braced herself for yet another nurse or doctor coming in to poke or prod her, but no.
She let out a breath of relief. Her people.
Doc trailed Dana and Patrick, and bringing up the rear was an ashen-faced Felipe, who walked with a slight slump to his shoulders.
“Hi,” she said to them all. “Is everyone all right?”
Dana brushed some hair back from Sarah’s forehead and nodded. “Mr. Tolvaj is in critical condition, but stable. We put the fortuneteller and her sister up at Eric’s lodge until we can figure out something else. They’re watching over Chauncey. It’s a pity we couldn’t save more of them.”
The Visas had mobilized the remaining troupe members too quickly. They were gone before the Shrews had a chance to offer sanctuary to those who wanted it.
“Send Chauncey to my parents. I told him I’d get him a home, and they’ll be glad to take him”
“Okay.” Dana smiled, but it was a weak one. “I’ll do it in the morning. I think it’ll be good for him to get far away from here. Your parents have enough land out there in the boonies he can shift and run during the full moon without being spotted.” She gripped Sarah’s hand and squeezed hard. “Sorry, honey. That whole thing was a mess. We should have had more bodies there.”
Sarah tried to sit up, and cringed.
Hurt. Fucking hurt.
“No, don’t apologize. I’m the one who jumped in that van trying to play lone gun. If it weren’t for you and Patrick, I’d probably be toast.”
“It’s my fault,” Felipe said, his voice taut as a tightrope.
He moved closer to the bed and raked his fingers through his disheveled hair. “I thought I could confront him on my own, but everything by then had b
ecome so intertwined that we all had something at stake. I’m sorry it took me so long to come to you. I saw the needle, but I thought you—no, I knew you’d hold things down while I got the papers I needed. Still, it was stupid of me to leave you exposed.”
“You trusted me to hold them off?”
He shrugged and pulled his face into a grimace as he reached for his wound.
She’d been the one carried off in an ambulance, right behind Mr. Tolvaj. Felipe’s gunshot wound had yet to be tended. He’d, literally, disappeared when the cops arrived. Fortunately, the few non-weirdo residents of the campground couldn’t remember seeing him at all. They saw and heard some animals—one of which attacked Sarah, they claimed—and they saw a bunch of men with guns. It was no wonder they couldn’t be sure what they saw. It’d been dark enough that most of the sins of Jacques and the Visas weren’t witnessed.
“I’ve seen you work. Know you’re careful,” Felipe said.
“I wasn’t at my best. I was distracted by that pedophile, and I—”
“Hey.” Dana snapped her fingers, and when Sarah raised her gaze to the lead Shrew, she found her wagging her index finger at her. “Don’t go there. Yeah, you were tired and couldn’t react to the twelve million explosions going off around you. I felt like everything was happening in slow motion myself, and I’m nowhere near as tired as you. You did damned good given the circumstances. The past few months for you have been pretty shitty, and we’re going to fix that.”
Sarah cocked up a brow and opened her mouth to rebut, but before she could say anything, Felipe placed his hands on the sides of her face.
He stared into her eyes and seemed to assess her in a way he hadn’t before.
Dana backed away and joined Patrick at the door.
Doc busied herself with scanning Sarah’s chart.
“Querida.”
She stared into his pale eyes and found them tired. Probably just as tired as her. “Yeah?”
His thumbs skimmed along her jawline. “You’re…with me, huh?”
In some ways, she didn’t have a choice but to be.
In a lot of ways, she wanted to be. That was more important.
“I’m with you.”