“Tamara,” Bryn warned.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, climbing out. I ran, my flip-flops popping off in the mud. I reached the road just in time. The truck made a U-turn to flee the scene. I stalked forward, took aim, and blew a hole in the front driver’s-side tire. The truck fishtailed and then jerked to a stop. I jumped in the back and checked through everything in the flatbed. If Vangie hadn’t been cut into little pieces, there was no way she’d have fit in the luggage or boxes in the back, but I opened everything and checked. No body. No bones. Thank goodness.
The couple who’d gotten out of the truck’s cab screamed obscenities at me and waved their guns menacingly. I figured if they’d planned to shoot me, they would’ve done it right off.
I climbed over the side of the truck and dropped to the ground. Where was she?
I looked through the broken window to check on Bryn. He and Beau were still talking, with a room separating them. Beau and his people seemed hesitant to attack, which made sense. I doubted they wanted Bryn to blast them with his heart-attack-inducing magic. If Bryn could keep them distracted for a few minutes, I could search for Vangie.
I rushed to a nearby car and leaned in its open window to turn on its headlights. They shined directly into the trailer across from it. My plan was simple. I’d check all the parked cars, trucks, and trailers. If I didn’t find Vangie, Bryn and I could drive to Dallas and search Oatha’s car and house.
I dug through luggage and overturned boxes in the next trailer and was just about finished when gunfire and magic exploded in the house. I jerked upright, raced to the end of the trailer, and jumped out.
The couple who’d been in the middle of changing their tire converged on the house at the same time I did. They opened fire on me. I dove behind a rusted car on cinder blocks. I returned fire, wondering how Bryn was faring in the house. He had a gun but was better armed with magic. It gusted like an icy wind.
“Chère, what are you doing out here?”
I jerked around to find Beau’s gun pointed square in my face. I knocked the gun to the side as I dropped. Most of the blast went by me, but a few pellets caught the side of my upper arm, making it burn with pain. I popped to one knee and shot Beau in the shoulder and the leg.
He howled and fell backward, landing hard on the ground. I rose, heart hammering, and felt blood stream down my arm. Even with my pulse pounding, the wound didn’t gush. Just a flesh wound. Thank goodness.
I stood over Beau. He screamed obscenities, clutching his leg.
“I got your thighbone, huh?” I asked, my voice low but agitated. “You shouldn’t have snuck up on me and pointed a gun in my face.” I lifted and lowered my throbbing shoulder. “And you shouldn’t have shot me. This sweatshirt’s not even mine.”
I bent forward and pointed the gun at the middle of his forehead. “Do you want to be put out of your misery?”
“No!” he yelled, gnashing his teeth.
“How about some pain medications? Want some of that?” I poked his leg with my toe, not hard enough to jar it, but hard enough for him to feel the threat. He grabbed my ankle and looked ready to try to knock me off balance. I steadied myself on one foot. “Go ahead,” I said in my best Clint Eastwood The Outlaw Josey Wales voice. “I bet I can put two bullets through your heart before I hit the ground.” I paused. “Well, that might be overconfident. Maybe just one will hit its mark.”
He snarled at me and let go of my leg. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he wiped it away.
“Dr. Suri, our local doctor, has morphine in his clinic. He can probably be here with it in twenty minutes once I call him. But I’m not calling anyone until you tell me where my friend is.”
He panted for breath. “She’s in the back of the red trailer by the woods.”
“And what about the Duvall ghosts? Where did your mother put them?”
He dropped his head back, cursing and gasping for breath. “Damn you. Goddamn you.”
“Ghosts?” I repeated.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. She didn’t call the dead. Why would she, you redheaded she-devil bitch?” Except he didn’t say bitch. He used a four-letter word I’ve never used in my life and never will.
I leaned forward and slapped his face. “Call me that again, and I’ll bust your other thighbone so you’ll have a matched set.”
He surprised me by laughing. “You should kill me, chère. Otherwise, one day you’re going to find yourself naked and tied down and I’m going to—”
The rest of what he threatened to do made me want to shoot him in the groin. Then he grabbed for his gun. So I did.
He screamed, cursing me, God, and the devil, apparently undecided about who deserved the most blame.
“Yeah, I know. Look what you made me do,” I snapped, shaking my head and kicking his gun farther out of reach.
He continued to wail in pain, and I knew there was no use trying to talk to him about anything. As I walked away, he yelled that I’d shot him in his left testicle.
“You’re lucky. If I could’ve seen what I was aiming at, I would have shot the part you don’t have a spare for,” I called back.
Despite my tough talk, I felt a little shaky as I stalked away. Threatening to rape me wasn’t the same as doing it, and his broken leg meant he hadn’t stood much chance of getting the upper hand, so technically I hadn’t been forced to shoot him. I could’ve kicked his gun out of reach. I saw that now.
But I reasoned, from the way he talked, that there were women who hadn’t escaped him in the past. They’d needed an avenger. Also, he’d kind of been asking to get shot in the testicle, really. Why use rape threats to goad an armed woman who’s already shot you twice unless you’re looking for trouble? Yeah, I rationalized, it was partly his fault. Forty, maybe fifty-seven percent his fault.
I checked my shoulder. It throbbed, but didn’t seem to be bleeding.
I held pressure and rubbed it as I hurried to the red trailer. I heard Vangie thrashing inside. “I’m coming, Vangie. Just gimme a minute.” I shot the lock open.
It took some muscle to get the rusted lever up. I jerked the door open and there was just enough light to see the snapping jaws that lurched forward.
25
IN HINDSIGHT, I should’ve anticipated that Beau might try to trick me. And if I hadn’t just shot him in the balls, I might’ve been clearheaded enough to realize that I should be a little careful when I opened the back of a trailer in whose direction he’d pointed me.
I’m pretty fast and I did get off two shots, but it turns out alligators are fast, too.
Really fast.
The gator was about thirteen feet long and a thousand pounds. He came out of the trailer like a claustrophobic who’d been trapped in a box for days. I jumped back, but when those jaws closed, he had me.
I was lucky that he hadn’t had them fully open and snapped them shut or he’d surely have cracked the bone in my leg. Instead his momentum had been focused on escaping the trailer as he pursued me, and his head had jerked sideways when I shot his right eye out.
Still, once he clamped down and some of those teeth drove into my flesh, I screamed and lost my mind. I thrashed and clawed at the ground with my free hand, but that’s just what a gator expects its dinner to do, and once a gator has a grip, it doesn’t let go.
At first, pain and panic made me insensible, but then I realized he was dragging me. His massive tail thwacked the ground as he backed up and a spray of brackish water dotted my exposed body. He had most of my left leg between his jaws, and even trying to stop him from pulling me was excruciating since it tore my flesh.
I’d watched enough Nature Channel to know what he had planned. Alligators get their prey in a death grip, drag it underwater, and roll over and over until the prey drowns. Then they stuff their booty under a log or rock to let the swamp tenderize it. Even knowing I’d be dead when it happened, I couldn’t stand the idea of a reptile eating the decaying flesh from my bones.
&
nbsp; “No, no, no!” I screeched as water splashed over my kicking right leg and lapped up my side.
With a sharp yank, I was dragged in, my butt and belly submerged. My free leg kicked, hitting nothing but water. I could feel the current and knew we were heading into the creek. In another few seconds, he’d have me in deep enough water to roll and that would be the end of me.
I sucked in a breath and tightened my abdominal muscles. I levered myself to a sitting position and for a second locked eyes with his one good eye. I thrust the muzzle of the gun into his empty socket and unloaded.
The bang, bang, bang was followed by an empty click, click, click. The jaws tightened in one sharp bite and the gator slid backward, pulling me underwater. I felt the gator’s body go limp, but he was by no means slack-jawed. I wondered if shooting him in the brain had caused him to go into rigor mortis around my leg.
I dropped the useless gun and grabbed the top of the alligator’s jaw with both hands. I felt a splash next to me and wondered if it was a snake or something else coming to eat me. With my heart slamming in my chest and my lungs wailing for air, I pulled up with all my might.
I had to heave a few times before the top jaw loosened. Adrenaline drove my muscles and I contracted my hip and lifted my left leg, tugging it loose from the teeth that had been embedded within it.
I rolled free, got my feet under me, and kicked until my head splashed out of the water. I sucked air for several long seconds with every one of my muscles burning like I’d run a marathon. The rushing sound in my ears made it impossible for me to hear anything else, but I felt something slick against my arm and jerked.
It was Mercutio’s head, and he meowed. I grabbed a clump of vegetation with one hand and the root of a fallen tree with another.
“Hang on,” I said as Mercutio pushed against me. He wanted me out of that water. I was all for that plan, but my arms shook and it took me several tries to haul myself up onto the bank.
“Did you see him?” I said, panting. “A granddaddy alligator got me. He ate about a third of me in one bite.” I sat on the bank, shaking. “Alligators don’t play,” I said through chattering teeth.
Something slithered toward me, and Mercutio rounded and chomped down. A water moccasin had come out of the creek, but Merc’s as fast as a snake. He bit through its neck and shook it back and forth until the snake went limp and quit trying to bite us. Mercutio spit the snake out with a hiss.
“Yeah, I know, Merc,” I said, falling back onto the muddy grass, staring up at the black sky and trying to catch my breath. “You don’t play either.”
A shotgun blast somewhere over my right shoulder made me wince. “Oh, for pete’s sake,” I mumbled. “I forgot we’re in the middle of a gunfight.” I sucked in a breath and rolled onto my side, making everything hurt. “The trouble is, Merc, I’m fresh out of guns.”
As expected, Mercutio didn’t see this as a significant obstacle. He waited for me to get to my feet and then padded along with me as I sneaked across the property toward the rusted car on blocks.
Beau’s shotgun and whatever shells he had left seemed like a good place to start if re-arming myself was the plan, which it was. I found him only half conscious.
“Who’s there?” he murmured.
I didn’t answer. I picked up his gun and rifled through his clothes till I found a box of shells.
“No!” he said, realizing it was me. “I heard you screaming and that big old gator’s thrashing tail hit the water. He got you.”
“He did.”
“He got you!” he repeated like I hadn’t agreed with him. “You’re at the bottom of the creek.”
“Okay,” I agreed amiably. The fight had gone out of Beau, and entering into a battle of wits with someone who’s unarmed wasn’t very sporting.
“You a ghost, chère?” he asked, his voice a soft rasp.
“Yeah. Where are the rest of the Duvall ghosts? I need to meet up with them.”
“Gone.”
“I know. Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your momma take them back to Dallas with her?”
His head lolled to one side and I thought he’d passed out, but he answered in a tired whisper. “No, nor that crazy bitch stepsister of mine either. We’ve been looking for her for days. Momma thinks she’s got a charm to conceal herself from us. We thought you were helping her stay hidden.”
Was that why they kept attacking me? And if Oatha didn’t have the ghosts or Vangie then where in the world were they?
“All right, Beau, lie on down and rest so you don’t give up your ghost, too.”
His eyes shut, and Mercutio and I crept around the house, stealthy as spies. When we shoved our way into the house, however, there were only two men left standing. Mercutio bit the leg of one, which caused the guy to fall down. I stepped on his forearm to keep him from raising the gun, and I shoved my shotgun between the shoulder blades of his cousin.
The cousin who bled from several nasty lacerations lowered his gun.
Bryn had his back to the wall, which sported dozens of large holes, but his own injuries looked minor.
“Hey,” I said.
His gaze traveled up and down me. The shredded hem of my dress’s skirt hung in tatters, clotted blood clung to my shoulder, and fresh blood and muddy water dripped off my injured leg onto my filthy feet, making brown puddles on the floor. I imagine I’d looked better. I reached down and put pressure on the couple of punctures that were oozing the most blood. I hoped my fae super healing would kick in soon because now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I felt a little woozy.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“All things considered, I can’t complain,” I said with a weak smile. “Better now that we’ve got things under control.”
Bryn opened his mouth, but the sound of sirens drowned him out.
“Oh sure,” I said wearily. “Now they show up.” I shook my head. “That’s just how I wanted to spend the rest of my night. Explaining myself to local law enforcement.”
“Tamara?”
“Yep?” I asked, lowering the shotgun to point it at the ground. I leaned against the wall for support.
“You know what I want you to say when you’re questioned?”
For a moment, I felt hopeful that Bryn would have the exact words to keep us out of trouble. He’s a brilliant lawyer, after all. “No, what should I say?”
“Not a word.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Oh good,” I said. “’Cause the police take it so well when people refuse to answer questions about a shootout.”
26
THE SHERIFF AND his deputies rounded up everybody who was left at the crumbling house and on the property. Apparently whoever had taken the bodies of the people who’d died earlier in the day had gotten away because there were no dead.
Everyone except Beau, his cousin with the cuts, and me was taken to the police station. Dr. Suri gave Beau a blood transfusion, a pain shot, a tetanus shot, and a shot of antibiotics. He shook his head, packed Beau’s bleeding wounds, and packaged him onto a stretcher for transport to a hospital in Dallas.
When Smitty, one of the Duvall deputies, asked who’d shot him, Beau claimed he didn’t know, saying it was too dark to see. He said it was probably an accident, just a misunderstanding. Even in shock and under the influence of morphine, he stuck to his statement. Then they put him in the ambulance and he closed his eyes. I don’t know if he knew I was alive or not.
I was next on Dr. Suri’s exam table. Smitty let out a strangled curse when he saw the teeth marks on my leg. He took pictures of my leg and of the shotgun wounds to my shoulder with a big police evidence camera.
Dr. Suri wasn’t happy. “Where is Mr. Bryn Lyons?” he demanded.
“He’s at the police station. Why?”
“What was this girl doing out of bed? She had a very bad head injury today. Very bad. And broken ribs.” Dr. Suri shook his head. “Miss Tamara Trask,” he said, pronouncing m
y first name with his accent so the first part almost disappeared and mara rhymed with star-uh. “What could you have been doing tonight? Staying in your bed, that’s what I was telling you to do.” He shined a bright light in my eyes and I blinked.
“Sorry, Dr. Suri.”
“Now what has happened to this leg? It looks like something bit it very hard.”
I smiled. I like Dr. Suri’s accent. He talks really cute. Also, he’d given me a good idea.
“It was the alligator that ate the horse.”
Both Smitty and Dr. Suri stared at me.
“Alligator?” Smitty scoffed.
Dr. Suri drew up a syringe of morphine, but I scooted away.
“No, no,” I said. I knew I couldn’t keep my wits about me if he gave me strong pain medicine.
“I have to clean these wounds. Without medicine, it will hurt very much,” he said sternly.
I pushed the syringe away. “It doesn’t hurt at all,” I lied. “The ibuprofen and the blood and fluid you gave me through the IV made me feel all better.” I clenched my fists to brace myself as he cleaned the wounds.
“What were you saying about an alligator?” Smitty asked, with his little spiral notebook and pen in hand.
“I don’t see how it thought it could eat me after that horse. But it had me thirty percent eaten—thirty, maybe thirty-three percent—when it gave up. He was driving the horse trailer.”
“Who was?”
“Or maybe he was the passenger.”
“Who?”
“The alligator. The horse was maybe the driver. Till he got ate.”
Dr. Suri had started cleaning the wounds, but that made him pause and shine the light in my eyes again.
“A bad head injury you say, Dr. Suri?”
“Very bad!” Dr. Suri confirmed. “She should be in bed.” Dr. Suri made a motion for Smitty to turn around as he tugged the hem of my dress higher.
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