I tucked the weapon into the back of my jeans and frisked the cop. I took a baton off him, and his radio which I clipped to my shirt and it immediately crackled and blipped off. Shit. I yanked it off and threw it on the ground where it bounced once and then came back to life with a click. Piece of shit technology. I found one more magazine of ammo on the cop, and tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.
I flipped him over and used his handcuffs on him, and a piece of his shirt to gag him. He was out cold at the moment, but that could change. I dragged him away from the stairwell and stuffed him into a large hydrangea bush that grew high above my head. Yes, I knew what kind of flowering bush it was, because it was a memory of Faris’s that gave me the species. I shook my head and went down the stairwell. Behind me the radio came to life. “Bartlett. Status? Any sign of Mai or the kid?”
I broke off a branch from the bush and walked over to the radio. I managed to depress the call button, stretched as far from it as I could be. “Negative.”
The radio squelched and then came back to life. “What the fuck, Bart, you get a cold?”
“Frog in my throat,” I growled.
The radio went quiet and my ears perked at the sound of feet coming around the corner of the building. Fucking lady luck was not on my side, the fickle bitch.
I flattened my back against the door and drew a slow breath, calming my heart as I kept the gun steady in my right hand. Left, I was a lefty. But Faris was right-handed. I switched hands and waited, irritation flowing through me. There was an intake of breath and I leaned out to see another cop peering into the hydrangea bush. The cop I’d stuffed in there had wiggled out a single leg in the short time. Which was going to work in my favor, since he kept his buddy distracted.
“Fuck, Bartlett, what happened?”
He bent over his buddy and I slipped up behind him. I tucked the gun away and pulled the baton out. I slid it in front his neck and pulled back with a sharp yank. With a scrambled squawk, he fought the baton, but I held it easily. These cops might have guns that could work against me. But the shits didn’t have a chance against my speed and strength even if my wolf was currently ignoring me.
Slowly he relaxed, maybe slumped is a better word, and I let him go before his heart stopped. I didn’t really want to kill them. I’d been one of them not so long ago, and I couldn’t help myself in wanting to believe they could change for the better. I dropped him next to Bartlett and didn’t bother to tie him up. I did, however, take his gun and extra ammo, along with the flak jacket he wore, which I slipped on over my torn-up shirt. Things were going downhill, I might as well try and be as prepared as I could.
I ran to the door, and didn’t slow. I slammed my foot onto the door handle and the steel door gave way with a groan. So much for stealthy and quiet.
Inside the stairwell, I did a quick sweep, holding both guns out. I didn’t want to admit it, but having a gun in both hands felt more natural than any sword, any crossbow. This was how I’d been trained to deal with the bad guys.
The radio squawked to life again behind me on the grass. “What the fuck are you boys doing back there?”
I looked over my shoulder, and then approached the radio. Using the baton, I pressed the call button. “In pursuit of suspects. North end of Heritage.”
“Affirmative. Backup on its way.”
Bingo. I’d sent them on a goose chase, but the radio would only take me so far.
I swept up the stairs, guns held at the ready, fully expecting a herd of ogres to rush me. I made it all the way to the fourth floor before I heard any sound of pursuit.
“Where’d he go?”
“Only way to go is up, you dumb shit.”
The two voices echoed up to me from the bottom of the stairwell as I slipped through the door that led onto Mai’s level.
The two voices sounded like Bartlett and his friend. So the boys were awake, then. Not that I was much worried about them. They would be easily dealt with again, if needed.
I looked down one length of the hall, then the other. No ogres here, but there was a faint scent of Mai and Levi which made me perk up. I followed my quarry down to room 456, which according to the paper from Alena was Mai’s apartment. I knocked on the door with the back of one hand and lowered my voice. “Mai. It’s Liam.”
There was no answer. I took a few steps, considering breaking the door down, but decided against it. I drew in a breath, picking up on their scents and working backward to the elevators. There it was, they’d backtracked in order to throw the other ogres off. But my nose wouldn’t be fooled. I wonder if she knew that?
I pressed the call button on the elevator. They would have gone up, away from the ogres searching them out. I pulled both guns and trained them on the elevator as the doors slid open. Just in case.
My caution was not needed this time, though. The elevator dinged open, empty, but still I hesitated for a brief moment before getting on. I had to believe it wouldn’t fall out from under me. Even if it felt totally unnatural to ride the elevator, it was only because of what technology could, and most often would, do around me. Then again, the stairwell was likely flooding with ogres. They wouldn’t expect me to take the lift.
The door slid shut and soft music piped through the vents. I held still in the middle of the elevator, legs braced apart and guns still in my hands. I hit all the buttons on the elevator above me, all seven. Each floor opened up and I peered out, taking a breath of air. No Mai or Levi on the floor above. Or the next. But on the seventh floor, Levi’s scent tugged at me.
“What the hell are you two nincompoops doing splitting up?” I growled, pissed that I had to go after him first. Much as I didn’t want the kid to get hurt, I needed to get Mai back to Rylee. If I had to leave Levi behind and come back to Seattle to get him, I would. Yet the wolf in me drove me forward, forcing me to get the kid, too.
Pack, the kid was part of my pack now, and you didn’t leave pack members behind. Even when they were being idiots.
I stepped off the elevator and hurried down the hall, following the growing smell of the kid until I stopped in front of a cleaning cabinet. I tucked one gun into my belt and jerked the door open. Levi stood there, hands out, water dripping from them.
“Shit. Liam, you found me!” he gasped and lowered his hands.
“Wasn’t a game of hide and seek, kid.” I grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him out. “Where is Mai?”
“I don’t know. She pushed me out here and told me to hide.”
I tipped my head for him to follow me and we hurried back to the elevator. I hit the call button.
The problem with elevators in my estimation was that when they weren’t slow, they were often full and you couldn’t take them. In this particular case, I wished the damn thing had only been slow and not full of three seriously pissed off, bloodthirsty ogres.
CHAPTER 6
WHAT I DIDN’T expect was Levi stepping in front of me, his hands outstretched, water dripping from them. The ogres laughed, and I fully admit I almost did too. Until the water shot so hard from the kid that he slammed backward into me with the force of it. I held him as water flooded the elevator, like a tiny aquarium filled with floating ogres that apparently hadn’t thought the kid was a threat. Hell, I hadn’t thought the kid was a threat.
They swam forward as if they were going to get out, but they couldn’t break through the water. Levi held his hands out, his arms shaking. “I don’t know how long I can hold them.”
I lifted my gun that I still gripped in my right hand and squeezed off three quick rounds, taking them each in the head. Red flowering blooms filled the water, quickly darkening the space.
“Why did you do that? I had them,” Levi asked, immediately contradicting himself. I lowered the gun, thinking only of the innocence I’d had to take from Pamela so young. Asking her to kill me, to give Rylee time to give birth to Marcella in safety. Asking Pamela to fight at our sides when she was still only a child, when she should have been thinking
about going to prom and dreaming about having a pony. Not thinking about how to kill her enemies, how to train so that she could help us stop demons, or what was the best way to fend off those who wanted to manipulate and use her for her incredible strength.
“Trust me, you don’t want to have lives on your conscience any sooner than you have to. Because the day will come that you will have to. I just hope it isn’t today.” I strode forward, reached into the elevator and hit the full stop button. The door slid shut as I stepped away. “That’s only going to buy us a little time.”
“I think she went up further.”
I didn’t roll my eyes at Levi spitting out the obvious. There was no experience in him, and he was getting a crash course. “How did you figure out the water?” It was my turn for a question or two. “And what happened that you two split up?”
“The ogres followed us, and we got off at the next bus stop because Mai said she had a place we could hide for a bit. From what she told me, she’s been hiding out from them for longer than just a few days. A few months at least. They caught her and her son a few weeks ago. He wasn’t very old, Liam.”
I pushed away the sympathetic grief that came from those words. No time for feelings, no time for emotions.
I nodded, and he went on. “The thing was, there was an ogre waiting for us at the hiding place. He didn’t seem all that mean, though, seeing as Mai kissed him. And he told her to get to her apartment. He said he had been able to convince the council that she wasn’t in the city, but he was sure Pic knew he was lying. And then he told her that she needed to get out of town, to get as far away as she could.”
“So she has one person on her side.”
He nodded. “I think so. He gave her a set of keys and we took his truck here. But there were already ogres on the front door so we slipped in the back. They hadn’t covered it yet.”
That made sense. Cops were always late to the game when it wasn’t urgent. “And then?”
“We went to her apartment and she got her amulet, she said she had her son’s ashes put into the amber, and she grabbed a small bag of things. That’s when we heard the other ogres. Or she did, to be fair.” He shrugged his thin shoulders and I gestured for him to get behind me. We were at the door to the stairwell. I pressed my ear against it, and nothing came back, no echo of feet or heartbeats. I put a finger to my lips and eased the door open. The smell of ogre was thick like smoke, but there weren’t any actually in the stairwell. Though, it hadn’t been long since they’d been there. I slid in and Levi followed.
The door slammed behind him and I whipped around, glaring at him. He mouthed “sorry,” and I had to restrain myself from shaking him. A good shake might have sent him to his knees, and we didn’t have time for me to try and make right any impulsive behavior.
Time to hurry, not time to discipline.
I ran up the stairs, light on my feet, not a sound from the steps. Levi clomped up behind me, breathing hard. I struggled not to growl at him. That bothered my wolf more than me asking for a shift in form. The wolf in me wanted me to show patience to a pup, to show him how to hunt and lead. Again, this was not the time for that. Later, if we made it out of this alive.
Because I wasn’t so sure that was going to be a possibility with the way things were going so far.
I opened the door on the eighth floor. No scent of Mai. I shook my head, knowing we were wasting time. Where would I go if I were being driven through the building? High, I’d go for high ground.
“We’re going to the roof,” I said.
“How do you know she’s there?” Levi asked, and at least this time he kept his voice down.
“I don’t. But it’s where I would go. She might be able to scale down a side they aren’t watching, or if the buildings are close enough, she might be able to jump between them.”
“The buildings are way too far apart,” Levi said. “There’s no way she could jump them.”
I shook my head and kept my mouth shut. Levi was about to be fully inducted into the world of the supernatural. It was better he saw things rather than only be told. Most of what our world offered was hard to believe on a good day, never mind on a day when you’d been shot at, chased, and learned you could shoot water out of the palms of your hands.
Not normal, not easy to take in, but life just the same.
I raced up the stairs, letting Levi come at his own pace, leaving him behind.
Which was a mistake.
He was a floor below me when the ogres burst out right behind him. “Liam!”
I spun and saw the ogres as they launched toward him. I lifted my gun and squeezed off a round, nailing the ogre closest to Levi in the shoulder. The big brute spun backward and took out the ogres behind him like a big fat set of dominos.
“Hurry your ass up, kid.”
Suddenly, Levi was beside me, step for step. Mind you, his face was white as a new sheet of paper and his breathing was ragged enough that I figured if he hyperventilated much more, he’d pass out. We reached the top floor just as his legs wobbled and his eyes rolled back in his head. I caught him around the waist and helped him through the door. I set him off to one side, turned, and threw the deadbolt lock on the door. Beside Levi was a large concrete planter. I tucked my gun behind my belt and grabbed the edges of the planter. Maybe it would give us an extra few minutes if we were lucky. One could hope.
As I grasped the edge of the planter, I noticed a handprint on it, bright red and wet. The scent of Mai hit me along with the smell of blood. That was not good. She was injured and stumbling. I could almost see her fall out of the door and use the planter to right herself before hurrying onward.
The gravel shrieked as I dragged the concrete planter across it. I got it against the door just as the first blow hit the steel. I grabbed Levi’s arm and hauled him up.
“Time to find Mai and get the fuck out of here.”
He said nothing as I pulled him along behind me. After a few steps, he got his feet under himself and he shook me off. “I’m good. I’m good.”
I said nothing, only kept my attention on the smell of a wounded Mai. “Mai!”
There was no answer, of course not. Her scent trail led to the edge of the roof. I looked over the edge, searching for more bloody handprints.
“Did she jump?” Levi asked.
There were no prints that showed her scaling down the building.
“Not like you’re thinking.” I pointed to the building across from us. It was about four floors lower than the one we stood on, and easily forty feet away. Forty. There was a scuff in the roof that looked like hands and feet imprints to me. “She jumped across there, and we have to follow her.”
“Are you crazy?”
I glanced at him. “No. I’m not. But I can’t leave you here because those assholes know you’re with me and Mai now. And that does not bode well for you.”
“I can hide,” he said. “I’m good at hiding.”
“This isn’t like your dad, Levi. Hiding won’t work. They’ve got your scent.” I shook my head.
He swallowed hard. “Then how are we going to get across there?”
I grinned at him, the wolf in me surfacing a little, liking that what I was going to say would make him squirm.
“Remember the zoo fence?” I asked.
He groaned. “Are you serious?”
I pointed at the far building. “I’m going to boost you. Get back there, close to the door, and then run at me with all you’ve got. I can throw you across, but only if you’re going full speed.”
“You’re serious?” he squeaked again, and behind him the door echoed his sentiment.
“No time to argue. You’ve got elemental blood in you. You’re tougher than you look, so this is not going to hurt like you think. Trust me.” In other words, hurry your ass up, kid. I need you to trust me or we’re both going to die, and I can’t leave you here and just save myself. A pack doesn’t work like that.
He backed away about twenty feet and I crouche
d at the edge of the roof. “Get your foot on my leg here, where my hands are. We’ve got one shot at this.”
Levi’s jaw tightened, and a wave of determination seemed to roll over him. He bolted toward me, timing his step and jump just right.
As his foot touched down on my leg and cupped hands, I stood, using the strength in my limbs to vault him over my head. I didn’t even look to see if he made it; he was free flying now. I turned and backed up, prepping my own run. The door behind me burst open and the ogres spilled onto the roof like a disturbed ant nest as they hurried to get around me. Fuck, I couldn’t even count how many there were. But Pic was there at the front of the group. “I thought we killed you.”
“Surprise.” I flipped them off and ran for the ledge of the building. I got my foot on the edge and pushed off as hard as I could, arms pinwheeling as if that would somehow help me across the distance.
The sound of guns going off popped through the air. I was hit twice in the back and spun sideways as I fell. Grateful for the flak jacket, I knew it wasn’t going to help me if I hit the ground from this height. Survive I might, but badly injured I would be. And then I’d be at the mercy of the ogres who wouldn’t just throw me in a Dumpster this time. I knew that much.
This all went through my head in the split second I spun and fell toward the far building. I saw a flash of Levi’s big eyes as I missed the roof of the building he stood on. Calm flowed through me. I wasn’t done yet.
I reached out and caught the window ledge as it whipped by me. My body snapped hard with the sudden stop, yanking my shoulder from its socket, pulling at muscles and tendons, tearing through several. But I stopped myself. Actually, I slammed into the brick building so hard, the blow knocked the wind out of me. More gunshots rattled off the building around me, the impacts spraying concrete and dust as the bullets bit into the wall.
LIAM (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 2) Page 8