by Leigh Evans
Biggs’s gaze bounced from Liam to me, then he said numbly, “I don’t know anything about Knox’s stuff.”
Liam shrugged and lifted the crossbow. “I’m very good with this. I can start with the transvestite’s knees, then move on to the kid’s.”
I opened my mouth but Biggs beat me to it. “It’s in the backpack,” he said. “In the front pocket.”
“See how easy that was?” Liam murmured, moving to the bag. He carried it to the table. Tunelessly whistling, he placed the crossbow down to work the zipper. “Watch them,” he told Ryan.
“You knew where Brenda Pritty was all this time?” I stared at Biggs in utter disbelief. “Last night when your Alpha said ‘We need to find Brenda Pritty,’ you just sat there and pretended—”
“I didn’t recognize the name!” Biggs shouted, his guilt exploding. “We hung out for an entire summer two years ago and she would never give me her real fucking name—”
“Oh, spare me from that stinking pile of twaddle.” Cordelia’s voice as a low growl. “Harry’s dead, you stupid, stupid—”
“Stop it!” I sucked in an unsteady breath, then swallowed. “You’ve known all this time where to find her. You told her where to find us. Did you call her and tell her that we were here? Knowing that she’d tell them and—”
“He texted her,” Liam answered. Having extracted the clear plastic bag filled with Knox’s things, he dropped the backpack to the floor. He rolled the bag into a cylinder and tucked it into his waistband. “Three times. Using Knox’s phone.”
There were no words for what I felt at that moment. I watched Biggs’s eyes fill, and felt nothing but detachment.
“She was mixed up with Knox. You saw what Trowbridge did to Fatso,” he said brokenly. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I needed time to think things through. I never thought anyone was going to get hurt.”
“Tell that to Harry,” I heard myself say. Biggs recoiled like I’d whipped him. I wished with all my heart I truly had.
“You don’t understand,” Biggs said.
“No. I don’t. Make me.”
“No time for that. We have to make tracks,” Liam said, casually lifting his bow. “Ferris?”
The medic turned.
Liam’s bolt flew. Ferris didn’t even gasp, he simply folded; a victim to a William Tell experience gone wrong.
Anu gasped.
“Shhh,” I said automatically. But I didn’t turn to console her. I stared blankly at Ferris’s body, my hand resting on Trowbridge’s hip. He was warmer than he’d been minutes earlier.
Hurry back.
“Only way to kill them,” I heard Liam say. Then he clicked his teeth, the way you do when you want a mare to break into a trot. “Up you get. It’s time to go.”
I lifted my gaze. Liam smiled again—slow and confident.
He nodded to Ryan. “Put the wolf in my trunk.”
Peanut, the mortal biker who’d checked out the backyard, returned. “All clear.” He had a gun—we’re freaking Canadians, what is it with all the guns?—which he waved at Cordelia and Biggs. “What about them?”
“Kill them, then set fire to the place,” Liam said.
No. No more loss.
“What about this girl?” The biker reached for Anu.
In a smooth, almost amused tone, the devil said, “Bring her. She might prove entertaining.”
That’s when fear turned to bitter rage.
Chapter Thirteen
Merry worked tirelessly to guard me against the shivers, using her inner heat to warm the base of my throat. But still, I was cold beyond cold. The type of chill that goes to the bone. Being this close to a man carrying iron robbed me of energy and sapped the warmth right out of me. And yet the heater was on, the dial turned to the right, the digital readout set for 17 degrees Celsius. Colder for comfort for most drivers, but the man behind the wheel was wearing leather. Ryan drove with one wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel.
Harry’s dead. Cordelia. Biggs.
The devil walker lolled in the front passenger seat, his body half turned toward me. He was polishing his crossbow with a strip of yellow cloth. He didn’t lift his gaze from the task when he said in a casual tone, “How are the hands?”
Ryan had zip-tied my paws. Then, as final precaution, he stripped a pillow of its case and used that to sheathe my fists, securing it around my wrists with another zip tie.
My wrists hurt.
I turned my head and looked out the window again, my gaze following the gray steel road divider. In my mind’s eye, I played the same segment of awful. The sight of the shack as we pulled out of the driveway. Flames, yellow tongues of fire, licking the side of the house. He’d set fire to the house. With Biggs and Cordelia still inside it.
“I know you’re Hedi,” I heard Liam say. “But I don’t know who the other girl is. What’s her name?”
“Katrina,” I said, thinking of devastation. “She’s called Katrina.” I flicked a covert glance toward Anu. She turned her head sharply toward me, perhaps waiting for just such an exchange.
What could I say? With just my eyes? Wait for an opportunity. That’s the message I hoped my gaze conveyed. Though I’m not sure if it did, because her gaze fell, and she went back to contemplating the tape around her wrists.
I had to get her out, if nothing else. I would see her safe.
And then I could be done. I could shut my weary eyes and go to sleep. Right after I killed them: the one called Liam; Ryan behind the wheel; and two other patch-wearing bastards who’d stayed to clean up the crime scene.
Merry had subtly changed her aspect during the drive, sharpening each tip of her leaves until it was piercingly uncomfortable. All her movements were covert, amounting to little more than shifts of her slight weight, but it was enough; her prickling needle nips had kept me from falling into a iron-induced doze.
As long as Liam was here, sitting this close to me, exhaustion was near smothering me. I wanted to sleep, and I wanted to kill. Too bad you can’t kill in your sleep.
My Fae was quiet, too quiet. Did she think she could bury herself so deep inside me that the cold poison hidden on Liam could not touch her?
That’s not how it works.
“Tell me,” said Liam, tapping a bolt against his bent knee. “Were you the one who killed Itchy and Gerry?”
It took effort to turn my head. “Do you really care who did it?”
He thought about that, and lifted one shoulder. “Not really. Just curious.”
Yes. I will kill them all. Because those I loved were not dead when Liam set fire to the little shack behind the general store. My inner-bitch said nothing, but inside me, I could feel her bristling fur. The predator, wary of danger, but determined to attack.
Given time, we would kill them all.
And then we’d go find my twin.
* * *
The driver put on his indicator. Up ahead, a familiar landmark loomed—a giant thirty-foot peach, topped by a jaunty green leaf, sitting on the roadside edge of a commercial property that sat a jowl to an acre of unplowed field. The Peach Pit: part roadside oddity, part bakery and restaurant. A huge billboard announced its name and exit number, while another sign, quite a bit smaller, informed the world that they’d baked over three million pies. Though, judging from the information collected by my olfactory senses, I’d say the greater balance sold were apple, not peach.
So said my wolf, anyhow. She’d moved into the empty hollow left by my Fae.
I was sitting straighter, feeling stronger, which could have been the result of my wolf’s presence, or the fact Liam was in the front passenger seat and I was lolling in the back behind the driver. A fortuitous arrangement, because it put a modicum of distance between me and the iron cross. I didn’t want to puke, though I wasn’t up to handsprings either. Let’s face it, an SUV is a closed environment. Liam still wore his iron cross, and it still streamed polar air. Bit by bit the temperature inside the Toyota had fallen—pe
rhaps the vehicle’s sensor hadn’t recorded it yet, but I could sense it, even if the front passengers couldn’t. I was about as comfortable as a model doing a swimsuit spread on an ice floe with a bunch of penguins. Chilled. In my case, inside and out. Skin goosefleshed, emotions suspended in a block of frozen water.
Though every time Anu shivered, I wanted to kill things.
A lot of things.
If Trowbridge had felt any measure of this implacable need to destroy something when faced by Ken Newland, then I owed him an apology. He’d pulled back from finishing off Fatso. If I got the opportunity to kill Liam, or Whitlock … I’m not sure I could.
Ryan got out of the SUV to open the gate. Simon yawned.
I bit the inside of my mouth again. It kept me awake.
I needed to be alert, not dopey.
Gate dealt with, Ryan slid back behind the RAV4’s wheel. The private drive was long, flanked on either side by a line of scrubby swamp cedars. Signs bristled along the rutted road. Beyond the restaurant, thirty-foot peach, and bakery, the place had a near-empty petting zoo (MEET DUSTY OUR NEW ALPACA!), a mini-golf, and a miniature train (FUN FOR THE KIDS!).
Liam tapped on his passenger window toward a parking slot behind the restaurant. “Over there.”
“Holy shit,” Ryan murmured.
In an area that boasted no natural scenic attractions other than a stagnant pond, the owner had spread concrete. Any place where a path could be poured, had been. What made it weird was the proliferation of statues. I couldn’t help but think of Narnia. The place was full of frozen animals—beavers, squirrels, and bears. Wherever he could reasonably plunk one statue, he’d squeezed in two. All of them oversized and none of them to scale.
Also—in a piece of irony that did not escape me—a grouping of wolves had been staged inside the miniature train track’s path. I counted six. Five with snouts lifted for group howl. One set in a playful pose, head slightly cocked. Its gaze forever fixed unseeingly on the frost-fence that enclosed his pack.
Nice touch.
“That’s weird,” said Ryan, his gaze fixed on the wolves.
I scanned the area, hoping for a tombstone repeat. Forget the statues, the wolves were the size of one of the bikers’ Harleys. Everything else that could have served as a useful projectile—picnic tables, litter cans—had been bolted down.
Not very trusting people, these Peach Pitters.
My gaze roamed. I could toss bunnies at them. The place was alive with free-roaming rabbits. They nibbled grass, both lazy and indifferent, until the wind shifted. Little pink noses lifted, a twitch of whiskers, and then stupid with fear, they darted for undergrowth and disappeared. I could hear their little hearts, under the sound of the vehicle’s engine. Tiny little hip-hops of terror, pinpointing their exact location.
Their own hearts betrayed them.
An uncomfortable topic, betrayal. Biggs had done so—I knew that in theory, though I couldn’t explain how his texts to his girlfriend, Brenda Pritty, had led to Trowbridge being sealed in the trunk and me being brought to the Peach Pit.
Why?
What was so important about Knox’s things? It couldn’t be the phone. From what Liam had said, Brenda had shared the contents of her texts with Whitlock. If he was privy to those, he’d likely received a copy of the video Knox had taken and sent to Brenda.
If the NAW had wanted evidence to bring to the Great Council, he already had it. He didn’t need Knox’s phone.
It would help if I knew what Whitlock wanted. He’d sent Itchy and Gerry to kidnap me. That suggested he didn’t want to outright kill me, but it didn’t preclude the possibility that my body would have eventually been found somewhere other than Creemore after he’d extracted whatever he wanted from me.
But now I’m here. Alive at the Peach Pit. I glanced at the clock. At four in the morning. With a wolf behind the wheel, my niece trembling beside me, and Trowbridge … Goddess, please come back.
“What does he want?” I asked out loud.
Liam leaned on his hip to twist around. I returned his gaze, hoping that he was seeing something that few save a dead Were called Dawn had ever seen. Hatred, of the coldest type.
That amused him. “What’s it like? To have that magic inside you?”
“Busy.”
“Even now? It’s not…” He paused to choose a word. “Sick?”
“It’s getting angry,” I replied.
“And what will it do when it gets really angry?”
“It likes to kill things.”
Liam gave me a smile, before swiveling back in his seat.
Another pair of lights turned into the parking lot. “There’s Whitlock,” said Ryan.
* * *
The leader of the NAW didn’t fulfill my private expectations at all. Yes, Whitlock drove the obligatory Navigator. Check: it was black and had tinted windows. But he came alone, not with a bevy of fawning wolves. And I’d envisioned someone old like Mannus, but the head of the NAW was a spare, lightly muscled, blond man of indeterminate age. He had a flat mouth, bracketed by deep grooves that went all the way down to his stubborn chin.
I had to give the wolf one thing: he had presence. It was there in his body language and his scent. Thick as newly churned earth, his personal signature grazed my throat and touched my hair. “I will be King,” it said. “I shall be obeyed.” Anu must have felt the impact of his dominance too—she flinched and sucked in a sharp breath.
Smiling hopefully, Ryan got out to greet Whitlock. His Alpha gave him a terse nod as he approached, but his focus was on me and Anu.
“Why are there two girls?” he demanded.
Unruffled, Liam took time for a stretch and a yawn before he replied diffidently, “I may keep the younger one.”
No you won’t.
“That’s not part of our agreement,” snapped Whitlock. “I said total containment. No witnesses left, everything tidied up. Every single detail’s got to be tied down before I meet with the Great Council tomorrow.” He tested the air. “Where’s Robson Trowbridge?”
“In the trunk.”
“Dead?” said Whitlock sharply.
“No,” Liam replied. “But he took a few hits from Ferris’s semiautomatic. I didn’t want him bleeding all over the upholstery.”
Whitlock’s mouth tightened. “Have you got it?”
Liam leaned on one hip to extract the bag he’d tucked inside his waistband. He passed it to Whitlock. “All of Knox’s crap. Phone, wallet, watch, and the bottle you wanted.”
The blond man bent to study the contents under the glare of the headlights. “This has been a nightmare,” he said, breaking the seal. Gingerly, he removed everything except the bottle, placing each thing on the hood. He opened the wallet, riffled through it, then tucked it into his back pocket. The keys didn’t interest him—he pitched those into the garbage.
Knox’s cell worked a growl loose from him. Mouth turned down, he keyed it to life, then quickly worked his way through the menu. “This night has been a total clusterfuck,” he said. “We’ve lost Brenda.”
“I thought your people had picked her up.”
His thumb stilled. “They had. She managed to escape.”
“You want us to find her?”
He shook his head in irritation, never lifting his attention from the glowing screen. “You trying to hint that your bikers can find her faster than my wolves, Liam?”
Liam chose not to reply.
“She’ll show up,” said Whitlock. “She’s got nothing. No money, no credit cards. She’ll head for the meeting place and wait there.” His lips moved as he read the messages on Knox’s cell. “Nothing new here, except messages from me and the texts between Brenda and Biggs.” Whitlock’s mouth curled. “What is this shit? It’s all abbreviations and cutesy emoticons … C u last place we partied. Bring coin.”
He shrugged. “Well, she’s broke and shit out of luck. Biggs won’t be coming. She’ll wait for a while, then bolt again. We’ll find her once she does.
She’ll need money, and we know her friends.”
“What now?” asked Liam.
Whitlock pocketed the phone, then opened my door. He studied me for a beat, his lids lowered in calculation. “Get out,” he told me.
When I didn’t leap out, he said, “I’m on my last nerve, Fae, so don’t piss me off.”
“You’ve been trying to kill me all night.” I drooped, shoulders rolling forward, head sinking so that my hair fell in a curtain around my face. The iron had sapped me. The night had drained me. “If you want me standing, tell him to ditch the cross.”
“I haven’t been trying to kill you,” he muttered, reaching for my upper arm. “But I could change my mind.” One haul, and I was out, standing on unsteady feet.
“I’m going to puke,” I warned him.
“She’s no good to me like this,” Whitlock told the biker. “Take that thing off. Put it in the glove compartment.”
“Not a good idea,” replied Liam.
“Do it,” snapped Whitlock. Before I got my sea legs, he half dragged, half carried me to the rear of the Toyota. “You’ve caused me a lot of problems. You’re going to make things right.”
He banged his fist on the rear hatch. “Pop it.”
Ryan jumped to obey.
Be okay, Trowbridge.
Whitlock lifted the lid. Impotent fury roiled in me as I realized Liam had lined the inside of his trunk with a blue plastic tarp prior to tipping my mate into the hold. Trowbridge was folded up inside it, partially covered. His long legs were drawn up close to his chest and one arm covered his face.
Don’t puke.
“At least he’s subdued,” Whitlock said.
Liam let out a low whistle. “You guys heal fast. His body’s already getting rid of the slugs.” He reached for a flattened bullet by Trowbridge’s hip. “If I had more Weres in my club, we’d wipe out the competition.” His eyebrow rose as he silently counted the pieces of metal. “He’s pushed out three, looks like he’s got another three to expel.”
Wake up. Please. Wake up.
“Bring him out,” said Whitlock with a jerk of his head.
They extracted Trowbridge with the tarp and deposited him by our feet. I watched his chest and felt bittersweet happiness when it rose, slow and shallow.