Releasing the Hunter (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Anna, Vivi

  “Can you hot-wire this thing?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah, no problem. It’s a lot easier to hot-wire old cars compared to new ones. All I need is a screwdriver.”

  She moved along one of the workbenches, searching the surface for tools. She found what he needed, picked it up and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed as he took it. There was an electric jolt between them.

  Ronan’s eyes came up and locked on hers. “Ivy, maybe we should—”

  “No need to talk about it.” She went to leave, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

  “Last night was more than just sex.”

  She didn’t deny it, just stared into his eyes.

  “I think we should talk about it.”

  She shrugged. “Why? What does it matter? Does it change our plans?”

  “No.”

  “Then why can’t we just leave it be?”

  “Because it matters.” He tugged her closer to him. “You matter. I want you to know that in case, you know, anything happens.”

  “Fine. I know it. Thank you.”

  He wanted to shake her. She was so exasperating. He leaned down and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her hard, snaking his tongue between her lips, tasting her, possessing her.

  She moaned into him, fisting her hands into his shirt. She gave just as good as he did. Trading stroke for stroke, nibble for nibble. They kissed until they were both breathless.

  Ronan pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

  She was silent for a moment, but he could tell she was thinking, considering her next words. She sighed, and then said, “Fine. You matter to me, too. There, are you happy now?”

  He pulled back and smiled, then chucked her chin. “Yup.”

  She shook her head at him. “Great. Now get this car running and I’ll go get our gear. I want to be out of here in the next ten minutes.”

  He saluted her. “Yes, sir.”

  She turned on her heel to leave, but he saw her grin before she exited the barn.

  Chapter 18

  True to Ivy’s command, they were back on the road within ten minutes. Ronan had easily hot-wired the old T-Bird and they were cruising down the main road in the baby-blue car. Ronan was grinning the whole time, clearly enjoying the fact that he was driving the classic car.

  She couldn’t care less. It was a vehicle and it would get them from point A to point B. Point B being, hopefully, where Quinn was located. She almost felt frantic now that she was so close. This was the best lead she’d had on his location in the past three years. Everything else had been rumors or mistaken identity.

  She was still trying to decide the first thing she was going to do when she saw Quinn again. Either hug him or punch him in his pointy chin. Right now she was still fifty-one, forty-nine, the former being the punch.

  If only it was that easy with another man.

  She glanced briefly at Ronan. He’d made her admit something she wasn’t quite ready to cop to. But his kiss had been fierce and it had pulled at something inside her. It had been more than a lusty punch in the gut; it had tugged at her heart. Just a little, mind you. But it was enough that she couldn’t ignore it.

  And the feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. Especially since she was still saddled with the cambion for another few days at least. Once they found Quinn, then what? Would he go his own way? She hoped so. Then she could shake him from her psyche.

  Until then, he was firmly planted there. It was an inconvenient truth, but she had to deal with it.

  After another couple of hours, they drove through Salem, stopping for lunch and much-needed coffee. They grabbed a couple of burgers and got back onto the highway. Another few hours and they would hit Washington, then the small town of Sumner, where supposedly her brother was holed up.

  It seemed like a really odd place for him to be. But knowing Quinn, he had his reasons. Strange they might be, but he had them. He was always like that. Doing things unconventionally, but when he explained why, it would all make perfect sense.

  Ivy missed him a lot. He’d always been her strength and her direction. Living without his leadership had been hard. But she’d done it. Thrived even. Maybe that had been his whole point.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She turned and looked at Ronan.

  “Your brow is creased. Looks like you’re thinking about killing someone.”

  “Quinn. When I see him.”

  He chuckled. “Ah. I thought maybe it was me.”

  “Well, not right now.” She smirked. “Who’s going to drive this junker?”

  “Good point.”

  For the next few hours, they didn’t speak, which Ivy appreciated. The silence was surprisingly comfortable. As if they’d known each other for years instead of days. That was just another thing she liked about him. He knew when she needed the quiet. When she needed to be left to her thoughts.

  It was late afternoon when they drove into Washington state. Only three more hours before they hit the town of Sumner. Ivy wasn’t sure what she expected when they arrived. Would Quinn still be there, or would he have moved on? For some reason she sensed the former. That he was still there. The closer they got, the more on edge she felt. Something was definitely going on in the small town of Sumner.

  She’d looked up the place on the internet before they left. There was nothing remarkable about the town. It was like any other sleepy picturesque American town. The council met every Wednesday night, and the Thanksgiving parade promised a giant turkey and more pumpkin pie than the average person could eat. There was nothing supernatural about the place.

  After another hour, Ivy’s head started to pound. She’d had plenty of headaches before, some self-induced, but this one was different. It came on like gangbusters and wouldn’t relent. It was as if some tiny person with a chisel and a hammer had crouched up inside her skull and was chipping away at her brain.

  She brought a hand up to her temples and started to rub them hard, wincing the whole time.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My head hurts.”

  Frowning, he reached over the seat and touched her shoulder. “Did it just come on?”

  She nodded, her tongue too thick to talk.

  “I’m pulling over.” He swerved to the shoulder and came to a stop. Once parked, he turned toward her. “Let me see.”

  She turned to him. He pushed her hands away from her temples and wrapped both his hands around her head, his fingers splayed wide. She could feel the pressure of his fingers on her skull and she wanted to pry them off, but she knew he was trying to take the pain away. After a few more minutes, the screaming agony in her head abated. She sighed and felt herself go lax. Ronan removed his hands from her head and set them on her shoulders.

  She looked him in the eyes. “I have a feeling this means something.”

  He nodded. “I can feel it in my head, too. It doesn’t hurt me as much, though.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means we’re going to be walking into a shit storm.”

  “Demons?”

  He nodded again. “I fear there’s more going on in Sumner than just Quinn hiding away.”

  “How long until we get there?”

  “Two hours max.”

  “I suggest we arm ourselves, then, before we hit town.”

  “Agreed.”

  Twenty minutes later, they both had their knives strapped to their bodies with varying harnesses. Ronan had his shotgun laid across his lap, loaded with blessed rock salt and silver shots. Ivy outfitted herself with several holy-water ampuls and a liquid-silver spray. She’d put it together like a can of mace. Effectively, it was used in the same way. A silver shot to a demon
’s eyes was enough to blind.

  The silence was palpable as they drove down the highway toward town. Ivy could feel Ronan’s edginess as well as her own. His gaze darted everywhere at once, looking for something, anything to be out of place.

  She just kept her eyes on the road ahead. In the distance, large rolling black clouds gathered. It looked like they were waiting for them to drive right into their dark folds. They had that ominous quality reserved for black magic and demons.

  Usually she wasn’t afraid when she went on a hunt. It was a job, a job she was good at and had trained for, for many years. Sometimes it was a cakewalk to take out the hellspawn. This all felt different. Something major was happening. And she wasn’t confident that she was prepared enough to handle it.

  For the next hour and a half, Ronan drove in silence, his gaze fierce and alert. She glanced out the side window every now and then, but for the most part watched the road in front of them. One thing she did notice was there was virtually no traffic on the highway. No cars in front of them, nothing behind them and no vehicles in the opposite lanes. Which was odd even for an untraveled highway.

  As they took the ramp off I-5 and closed in on the town, evidence to confirm her paranoia started to show. At the sign welcoming them to Sumner, there were two cars in the ditch, the doors flung open but no sign of the occupants. Ronan slowed a little as Ivy peered into the empty vehicles.

  “Do you see anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  They continued on, driving slowly down the street that headed into the main town square. They passed a few old houses along the way, cars in drives, but no one in the yards. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dark clouds did swirl overhead threateningly. Residents might be hunkering down inside waiting for the storm to pass.

  But Ivy had a feeling this storm wasn’t going to move on anytime soon.

  After another five minutes, Ronan drove the car into downtown Sumner. But it was like no downtown she’d ever seen. There were cars parked here and there, haphazardly, clearly not obeying any of the parking laws. One SUV was overturned on its side, all its windows bashed in.

  Some of the storefront windows were also smashed in. Parts of the sidewalks were littered with broken glass. And if her eyes didn’t deceive her, she spotted blood splatters here and there on the cement and on the brick store walls.

  But as they made a pass down the main street, they didn’t spy one person on the street, in their cars, or in the open store doors. It looked like a ghost town. Most recently deceased.

  “Looks like a war zone,” Ronan muttered as they turned onto another street and off the main drag.

  “Yeah, but a war between who?”

  And that’s when a large something smashed on top of their car, denting in the roof.

  Chapter 19

  Ronan lost control of the steering wheel and veered off to the right, bumping up onto the curb and sidewalk. “Jesus! What was that?”

  That answer came when a body rolled down the windshield and over the hood to land in a heap in front of the car.

  He glanced at Ivy, who had two knives unsheathed and was staring out the front window. “Do you think he was thrown or did he jump?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think we should stick around to find out.” He put the car in Reverse and backed up off the curb and onto the street.

  The body that had “fallen” onto the roof of their car struggled to his feet. He looked like an average guy, average height and weight, wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and runners. But when he turned toward the car and grinned at them, blood dripping down his chin from what looked like a busted nose and some missing teeth, Ronan knew there wasn’t anything average about this guy.

  “Welcome to Sumner, bitches!” The guy lurched ahead, reaching for the car.

  “Jesus, the bastard’s possessed,” Ivy hissed. “I wonder how many others are, as well.”

  Ronan glanced in his rearview mirror and saw three more people, two men and a young woman, coming up on their rear, grinning like fools. “I’m going to guess and say a bunch.” He shot it into Drive and stepped on the gas. “Hang on.”

  He raced down the street, then took another left to avoid going back down the main drag. As they zipped down the road, veering around two more abandoned vehicles in the middle of the street, Ronan noticed another car following behind.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Ivy glanced over her shoulder and through the back window. “He’s gaining on us.”

  “I can see that.”

  He cranked the wheel to the left, jumped the curb and drove half on, half off the sidewalk to avoid another car sitting in the street. Coming up on the next corner, he took it at top speed, skidding to the side, but he kept in control. A glance in the rearview mirror showed the other vehicle slagging off.

  He was about to smile when in his periphery he spied a truck coming at them from the side. “Hang on!” he yelled just as the truck slammed hard into the passenger side, barely missing the door.

  The impact sent them into a spin. Ronan could barely steer as the car careened off the road and slammed into a light post, crushing the front end like an accordion. He knocked his forehead against the steering wheel. Thankfully he’d been wearing a seat belt or else he would’ve gone through the windshield.

  He turned to his side to check on Ivy. She, too, had hit her head on the dashboard, but didn’t fare as well. She had a big gash above her right eye. Blood dribbled down her face, obscuring her vision. She wiped at it with the back of her hand.

  He reached over and touched her shoulder. “Are you—” His heart slammed in his chest. “Out of the car! Out! Now!” He pushed the release on her seat belt and, grabbing her hand, yanked her across the seat. He pushed open his door and slid out, pulling her with him.

  They both tumbled to the ground. But Ronan scrambled up, tugged his shotgun out of the car, and yanked Ivy to her feet. By now, she’d totally seen the truck roaring toward their smashed car and was already running full speed away from the scene.

  He caught up with her just as she jumped over a small white fence around some person’s front yard. They plowed across the green grass toward a side fence. Without stopping, Ronan kicked the wooden gate off its hinges and they raced alongside the bungalow and into the backyard. Thankfully there was no guard dog on duty.

  They crossed the yard to the back fence, which butted up to another yard. It was a six-foot wooden structure and not easily jumped. When Ronan got to it, he bent down and cupped his hands for Ivy. She stepped up into them, grabbed hold of the top and hefted herself over. Once she landed, he vaulted it in one leap.

  She sniffed at him. “Must be nice.”

  “It doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure.”

  “Now where?”

  “We can’t stop here. I suspect they’ll be looking for us.” He glanced to the side and down the row of houses. “I say we jump a couple more fences that way, then into a house. We need a minute to figure this out.”

  “Let’s not take too long, okay?”

  After they jumped three more fences, they found a house with an unlocked sliding-glass balcony door. They entered the house. No one was at home. But it looked like it had been vacated in a hurry. There were half-eaten meals on the table, and the TV was on in the living room. It appeared that the occupants had either jumped ship or been taken out.

  Ivy opened the refrigerator and found a couple of bottles of water. She tossed one to Ronan and uncapped the other, taking some greedy gulps. She finished half the bottle, then capped it again.

  “So what are we dealing with? An entire possessed town?”

  He drank some water, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. Never heard of anything like this, either.” He neared her,
and grabbing a dish towel, he splashed it with some water and dabbed at the cut on her forehead.

  It wasn’t bleeding freely anymore, which was good. He wiped at it and saw that it was sealing up. For good measure he pressed his thumb to it to help it along. After a solid minute he dropped his hand and took a step back.

  She nodded to him. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her, or at least hold her close. They’d nearly been hurt badly. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if she had been. His healing came with limits. He wasn’t able to mend everything. Serious wounds were beyond his scope. If she’d been crushed in the car, he doubted if he would have been able to save her.

  He didn’t want to think about it. It hurt too much to consider it. So he made his way into the living room to peer out the front window and assess their situation. Crouching, he pushed aside one part of the sunny-yellow drape and peered out to the street.

  A car rolled by, slowly making its way down the street. He imagined the occupant was looking for them. Then he saw three people walking down the sidewalk. It was the same three people he’d seen earlier, coming up behind their car. He ducked down as they passed the house.

  Ivy crawled to where he was situated. “What did you see?”

  “The three that passed were demons.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Positive. They weren’t hiding their red eyes.”

  “So we have a bunch of demons and possessed townspeople.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Where’s the resistance? I saw some bullet holes along the main street and some blood. There have to be people here fighting against them.”

  “Your brother among them?”

  She nodded. “Let’s hope so.”

  “Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if there is a resistance, they definitely would’ve been alerted to our presence. We did make a kind of splashy entrance.”

  Smiling, Ivy said, “Yeah, I’d say.”