Warrior

by Karen Lynch

  Peter cut in before I could point out just how unsafe her place was. “Um, guys, can we just figure out where we’re going? Bleeding here.”

  Shaking my head, I called Chris to tell him to meet us at Sara’s place. Then I followed her to the cars.

  She pointed at the boy still sitting in the Mustang. “What are we going to do about Scott? We can’t leave him here like this.”

  “Don’t worry about him. Once we get you safely to your fortress of an apartment, we will take care of your friend.” She was my only priority, and the boy would have to wait.

  Her lips pressed together. “Those guys are looking for a red Mustang. We can’t take a chance of them finding Scott before you come back. Besides, I think he needs a doctor.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that if the Hale witch had gotten into her friend’s head, there wasn’t much anyone could do for him. I went to him and checked his pupils and pulse. He mumbled a few words and managed to focus his eyes for a second. Lucky bastard.

  I pulled out the gunna paste I had started carrying on me since the night of the crocotta attack and made him eat some. He made a face, but he obediently swallowed the medicine.

  I stood and faced Sara and Roland. “I think he’ll be okay in a few hours. If he’d been permanently damaged, he’d be catatonic. I gave him something to speed healing. By tomorrow, he won’t remember any of it and he’ll feel like he has a bad hangover.”

  Relief showed on her face. “How will he get home?”

  I sighed and called Chris again to tell him to come to the church instead. I handed the phone to Roland so he could give Chris directions to the other boy’s house. Then he and I helped Peter into the back seat of the other car. Sara and Roland got in the car, and I drove behind them the short distance to her apartment.

  I moved to help Peter up the stairs into the apartment, but Sara stubbornly insisted on doing it. Following them, I secured the door while they took Peter up to the third floor. Then I began walking through the apartment, which had too many entry points for my comfort. Did she really think she’d be safe here if someone tried to get in?

  “I told you this place is safe. I warded it myself.” She walked past me in the hallway and pulled a carton of orange juice from the fridge. “Anyone thirsty?”

  I held back a laugh. “You warded it?”

  “Don’t look so shocked,” she retorted smugly. “I told you before I’m not helpless. And I got away from those guys, didn’t I?”

  Roland took the carton of juice she offered him. “I’d believe her if I was you. Sara knows things, and if she says we’re safe here, then we –”

  The troll appeared out of nowhere between me and the kitchen, and it immediately crouched aggressively, showing its sharp teeth. Roland shouted, and the troll’s shaggy head swung toward him and Sara.

  Cold spread through my limbs, and I prayed the creature was as young as it looked. I had fought many things, but even I couldn’t win against a fully grown troll.

  “Keep her there,” I yelled at Roland, trying to draw the troll’s attention to me. “I’ll take care of it. Damn it, I knew this place wasn’t safe.”

  I reached inside my jacket for a knife, knowing I’d only get one chance before the troll attacked. I hoped Roland kept his head enough to get Sara out of here while the troll was focused on me.

  “No!”

  Sara’s scream pierced the air, and the troll snarled ferociously in response. In the next instant, my heart leapt into my throat when she ran from the kitchen and threw herself in front of the creature.

  Chapter 10

  “Khristu!” What in God’s name was she doing? I stared at her face, which was devoid of fear even though she stood inches from one of the deadliest creatures on the planet. A new chilling thought hit me. What if she hadn’t come away from the Hale witch attack unscathed after all? Why else would she do something so suicidal?

  Worry about that later. My only concern now was getting her out of here alive. If we survived this, I’d find her the best healers in the world.

  Roland ran from the kitchen. “Sara, are you insane? Do you know what that is?”

  She took a defensive stance in front of the troll, raising her hands to ward us off. “He’s my friend! His name is Remy.”

  I jerked to a stop mid-stride, and my jaw fell.

  “That is Remy?” Roland’s shock echoed mine.

  “Yes. Now back off, both of you,” she yelled as fiercely as a mother bear protecting its cub.

  If the archangel Michael himself had appeared in front of me, I could not have been more dumbfounded. My hands fell limply to my sides as I watched Sara turn to the troll and take its hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked tenderly as if she expected it to answer her.

  The troll immediately stopped snarling, and it wrapped its long fingers around hers.

  Roland recovered first. “Is he okay?” He looked at me. “I nearly had a heart attack and she’s worried about a troll. A goddamn troll!”

  “Roland, shut up,” Sara snapped, still facing the creature. “Remy, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”

  The troll looked at her, and I could have sworn I saw fear in its eyes. “Minka gone. Creah and Sinah, too,” it replied, sending me reeling again. A troll speaking English?

  “Gone? What do you mean gone?” she asked fearfully.

  “Humans take them.”

  She gasped. “We’ll find them. We’ll get them back.”

  A dull throbbing started in my head, and I rubbed my temples wearily. I wondered vaguely when I’d last had a headache, and decided it had to be that time Chris and I battled a thirty-foot rageon demon in Nebraska in nineteen seventy-three. The serpentine demon had slammed me into the ground so hard my ears had buzzed for an hour after we’d finally killed the beast. After taking on a rageon demon, I knew there was nothing I couldn’t handle.

  Of course, a monstrous demon with diamond-hard scales, ten-inch claws and paralyzing venom had nothing on Sara Grey.

  I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “Does your uncle have any alcohol here?”

  Sara turned her head to stare at me. “How will that help us?”

  “It won’t. I need a drink.” Or twenty.

  Roland looked as wrung out as I felt. “I’ll help you look.”

  She glared at us, still holding the troll’s hand. “You guys are not helping the situation. Remy’s little cousins are in a lot of danger, and we have to find them.”

  I leaned against the wall as the pounding in my head grew worse. “We have enough problems to deal with without going out looking for missing trolls. Have you forgotten your own considerable troubles?”

  Her eyes took on a haunted look. “But this is my fault. I have to help them.”

  The troll spoke up. “Is our fault. Sara warn me it dangerous but I not believe it. I need medicine for boggie.”

  “What on Earth is he talking about?” Roland asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Sara chewed her lower lip. Any other time, I’d find that endearing. In our current situation, it filled me with misgiving.

  “Remy has this boggie friend who was sick, and they needed a special medicine that you can’t get here,” she said. “It only comes from Africa, and it’s very hard to find – and really expensive. I found someone to get it for us, but we needed it as soon as possible so Remy gave me something to trade for it…something very hard to find.”

  Oh, hell no. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  She shook her head.

  “Sukin syn!” I bit out, followed by some choice words I rarely used. If we survived the night, it would be a bloody miracle.

  Roland frowned. “What? What am I missing?”

  I paced the short hallway. “Iisus Khristos! You used troll bile to buy the medicine? What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Oh, Sara, you didn’t,” Roland croaked.

  “I was careful,” she said. “I went through a guy I used a few times bef
ore for other things, and he’s always careful. He said he went through a middle man with an overseas buyer and there was no way to trace it back to me. But a few weeks later I found out that someone was posting on some of the message boards, asking about troll bile, and I got worried. I never believed they would find us, let alone be brave enough to do something like this.”

  “Not brave, incredibly stupid.” Whoever had taken those young trolls had just signed their own death warrant, and possibly ours as well.

  Her shoulders slumped miserably, but there was no time to comfort her. I had no idea how long the trolls had been missing or when the clan would retaliate. It might already be too late to get Sara out of here.

  I turned to the troll. “How long do we have?”

  “Elders meet now. I come find Sara to see if we find little ones before.”

  Roland looked at us in confusion. “Before what?”

  Sara’s voice was barely a whisper. “A rampage. The elders are going to rampage.”

  Roland turned to me. “That does not sound good.”

  I laughed harshly. “There is a reason why no one – not even a vampire – tangles with trolls. If you mess with one troll, you get the whole clan, and if you harm one of their young, you die. And if a young troll goes missing, the clan rises up to find them – or who took them. Trolls are even better trackers than crocotta, and once they are worked up into a rage, they will kill anyone who has come into contact with their missing children. And during a rampage, trolls do not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.”

  Sara and Roland paled. Even the troll looked scared, which didn’t bode well for us.

  When the doorbell rang, I answered it, knowing it had to be Chris. “Just in time for the real fun,” I quipped as he stepped inside.

  “Fun?” He grinned and walked past me.

  And then he saw the troll.

  “What…what…?” he uttered, his face draining of color.

  “Here, you need this more than I do.” Roland handed Chris a glass of whiskey, which Chris downed in one gulp.

  “Nikolas, why is there a troll here?” Chris asked without taking his eyes off Sara’s friend.

  “Chris, meet Remy, Sara’s partner in crime,” I said wryly.

  “Huh?”

  I filled him in on Sara’s troll friend and what the two of them had been up to. Before he could recover from his shock, I brought him up to speed on everything else that had happened in the last hour.

  “This is some kind of joke, right?”

  “God, I wish it was.” We followed the others into the living room, and I went to stand by the window. I would not have been surprised to see a hoard of trolls descending upon us.

  Chris sat on the couch and smirked at me. “Your little orphan is just full of surprises. Never a dull moment.”

  “I’m nobody’s little orphan,” retorted Sara, who sat near the fireplace with the troll beside her. No matter how many times I saw them together, I still couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Chris chuckled. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We’ve got to find them,” Sara answered.

  No one spoke, and her eyes misted. I could handle anything but her tears.

  “They’re only babies,” she said. “God knows what those people will do to them.”

  “Can’t he track them?” Roland asked, pointing at the troll, who shook his head sadly.

  “Only elders know tracking. If I close, I find them.”

  That was all well and good, but we had to get close to them first. I didn’t want to bring up the fact that those trolls could be in the next state by now. Anyone who would risk their lives to steal young trolls was not going to stay around their territory. If it were me, I’d be on a plane to some place on the far side of the planet.

  “I’m calling Malloy.” Sara pulled out her phone. “If anyone has heard about this, it’s him.”

  “Who is Malloy?” How many damn people were messed up in this?

  Sara ignored me, so Roland answered. “Buyer.”

  Buyer? I frowned at him, and he made a face. “Don’t ask.”

  Oh, I’d ask all right. When this was over – if we made it out alive – Sara and I were going to a long and very overdue talk.

  I took out my own phone and called Erik. I gave him a brief overview and told him to recall his guys from Boston. Chris gave me a questioning look when I hung up.

  “I called in Erik’s team. It has to be a big player to risk the trolls’ wrath. I guess we know who sent the witch, too. It had to be someone with a lot of power and influence to get one of them.”

  A soft gasp drew my attention to Sara, who had suddenly gone pale. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry, Remy.”

  “It my fault, too,” he told her quietly.

  “I promise we’ll get them back.” She hugged him – and he hugged her back, making me question everything I’d ever heard about the notoriously hostile race. Before today, I’d never even seen a troll in person. Tristan had some dealings with them, but that was before my time. How the hell had Sara not only met one but befriended him as well? Watching them together, it was obvious they had been close friends a long time. Chris was right. My little orphan was full of surprises. Thank God, there was no way she could top this one.

  Movement in the hallway drew my attention. Peter entered the living room and came up short. “Am I delirious, or do I really see a troll over there?”

  “Pete, meet Remy,” Roland said. “He and Sara have been trading his bile for stuff on the black market. Someone tracked them down and kidnapped three of his little cousins, and unless we find them ASAP, we’re all going to be killed in a really horrible way by a mob of angry trolls.” He looked at me. “That sound right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Oh.” Peter lost some of the color he’d regained and sank down to sit on the floor.

  Chris came over to stand by me. “What’s the plan?” he asked in a low voice.

  “There’s nothing we can do to stop the trolls if they rampage,” I said. “If we don’t hear from Sara’s friend soon, we need to get her out of here. The trolls will only go after people who’ve been in direct contact with their young. It sounds like they know Sara, but I won’t risk it.”

  “She won’t go quietly.”

  I watched her talking to the troll. “I know, but it’s too dangerous for her here. Someone sent a damn Hale witch after her, Chris. I have no idea how she got away from him.”

  He followed my gaze to her. “You think she’s holding out on us?”

  “I hope not, but then I never expected to meet a troll today either.”

  Sara’s phone rang. She spoke to the caller for several minutes, and when she hung up, her eyes shone with excitement.

  “I got the address of a place in Portland where they might be keeping Minka, Creah, and Sinah. They’re planning to fly them out tomorrow on a private jet.”

  She jumped to her feet. “Come on, we have to go before it’s too late.”

  I stepped away from the window. “Chris and I will go. I think we can handle whatever kind of security they have in place.”

  “I’m coming, too,” she said. “I got them into this nightmare, and I’ll get them out.”

  “Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”

  There was no way I was taking Sara anywhere near that place after today. The thought of her facing another Hale witch, or something even worse, made my gut clench.

  She crossed her arms defiantly. “Stop telling me what to do. I’m going whether you like it or not.”

  “Like hell,” I shot back, letting my fear for her get the best of me. “I’ll tie your little ass to that chair over there if I have to.”

  Her face flushed angrily. “You can kiss my –”

  Chris grinned and put himself between us. “I don’t think this little debate is getting us anywhere. As entertaining as it promises to be.”

  My eyes stayed on Sara. “There is no debate. She stays here.”
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  I expected her to yell at me. She tried a new argument instead.

  “All right Mr. I-Know-Better-Than-Everyone-Else, what will you do when you find them? I bet they didn’t teach you in warrior school how to handle a bunch of frightened troll kids.”

  Nice try. “Your troll friend will come with us.”

  “And who will stay here with me while you guys are on your rescue mission?”

  “The werewolves should be able to keep you safe here for a few hours.” Once I called Maxwell, this place would be crawling with pack.

  “Really? And what happens if that witch finds us again?” she replied. “Wouldn’t I be safer with a bunch of warriors, two werewolves, and a troll?”

  The troll came up behind her and gave me a solemn look. “Sara come. I keep her safe.”

  My resolve wavered. The troll was better protection for her than all of Maxwell’s wolves together. He was clearly loyal to her, and the fierce promise in his eyes told me he would guard her with his life. I didn’t want to take her to Portland, but I didn’t want to leave her behind either. This way, I would keep her close by without driving myself insane worrying about her safety.

  “You do not leave his side.”

  “I won’t,” she promised happily.

  I exhaled sharply. “Let’s go.”

  Outside, Sara followed Roland and Peter to their car. She motioned for her troll friend to come with them, but he shook his head.

  “Oh, I forgot.” She glanced at Roland. “Trolls don’t like cars.”

  “How fast can he run?” Peter asked, eyeing the troll dubiously.

  Sara and the troll smiled as if sharing a private joke. “Don’t worry. He can keep up.” She hugged the troll and got into the back of the car.

  Chris walked to his bike. I moved toward mine, but changed my mind and tossed Chris my keys to grab my stuff. I wasn’t ready to let Sara out of my sight after what had happened earlier.

  The three of them looked surprised when I opened the door and got in, but no one said anything. Sara looked around expectantly, and I said, “Chris will follow us.”

  She nodded stiffly and turned away to look out the window, still upset with me for trying to make her stay.