“Excuse me, I’m sorry, but do you have a picture of your kid?” This was the part I hated, dealing with the parent. The father looked up, his face shell-shocked, short white blond hair sticking out in every direction.
“A picture?”
“Yes, we need to start circulating it immediately. And a name.” I had no doubt that the cops that were even now rushing to the hospital would find nothing. Whoever was taking the kids knew what they were doing.
The father fumbled with his back pocket and I resisted the urge to hurry him up. Sure we were on a crunch, but there was no way the kid would be more than a block or two away.
He handed me a worn picture of a little boy, looked about two years old, same white blond hair as his father.
“Johnny, his name is Johnny. We only stepped out of the room for a split second and he was gone . . . I don’t understand . . . .”
I reached for the kid, Tracking his threads, and sucked in a sharp breath. There was no way that was possible!
The kid was so far away I could barely feel him. Like he’d been somehow transported through space and time with the snap of a finger.
“Thanks,” I said, tucking the picture into my pocket. With a sharp tug on Alex’s leash, I snagged a small stuffed toy from Johnny’s bed, then stepped back out of the room and leaned against the wall. So far away, so quickly, how was that possible? The only person I knew who had capabilities in that range was Charlie. Could it be a brownie taking the kids? And if so, what the hell would they want with them?
Will moved up beside me and Alex crowded in close. “What are you picking up?”
“The kid is gone. Shit, whoever is taking them has some way to move them fast. Like as in some sort of . . .” I paused mid-sentence, not wanting to mention my other sudden suspicion, not yet at least. But there was another possibility. But no, no one would be that brassy. Would they?
Will’s eyes tightened around the edges, his accent deepening. “You’ve thought of something.”
“Any place to cross the Veil close by?”
He shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean there isn’t.” He frowned. “With buildings, it’s usually in the basement or lower levels that the Veil is torn, closest to the earth.”
“Then let’s see what we’ve got below,” I said, hanging onto Johnny’s threads, feeling him slip further away with each second. Will gave a sharp nod and put his hand on my lower back, guiding me. Like I was some sort of princess. I pushed his hand off my back. “Just lead, man, no need to get touchy feely.”
I wanted this case over so bad I could taste it. Berget was—I Tracked her—somewhere to the southeast. A distance for sure, but here in Europe, nonetheless.
We made our way down the stairwell, a flood of police officers going up as we went down. The fact that Will wasn’t all that worried about the rules was good. Even I knew that we should have waited there to find out what the next step was with the local police detachment.
“Here,” Will said, motioning at a door that, by the plaque, led into the boiler room. “This is the lowest room in the hospital.”
I took the leash off Alex and let him sniff the teddy bear. “You smell Johnny down here?”
The werewolf lifted his nose to the air first, and then sniffed around our feet. With his head still down, tail straight out in line with his spine, he lifted one paw and pointed at the closed door. “Yuppy doody.”
“He’s quite the ham, isn’t he?”
“You have no idea,” I muttered. Opening the door, the three of us slipped inside. The furnace was going full tilt, the orange glow through the grills flickering light across the room.
“Spooky,” I said.
Alex gave a shiver, rubbing his arms with his paws. “Spooky shit.”
Will choked back a laugh. Score for Alex, he’d won over another person.
There was a heavy scent of mold and rot in the room, even though the boiler was running full tilt. Alex sniffed a couple of times, and then pinched his nose. “No like. Yucky.”
I agreed. It was the kind of smell that clung to you, one of old graves and dead things; unpleasant was a freaking understatement. At least the room didn’t take long to search. I Tracked the kid, and his life threads were already thinning. “He’s going to die,” I said, my heart breaking at the thought of the little one not only dying, but dying in the hands of a stranger.
A sharp spike of fear came through my connection to him, and then it faded, as he fell asleep, most likely a spell or a drug to knock him out.
“We can get to him in time,” Will said, his determination admirable.
But I knew what was coming.
I shook my head. “I’m not giving up, but I can feel how close he is to death. He must have been hooked up to a respirator or something that was keeping him going. At the most, the kid’s got five minutes. Maybe.”
Will stared at me. “Just like that, you sentence him to death?”
Anger whipped up through me. “Fuck you. You don’t know what I do, you can’t possibly understand! I can feel his heart giving out, feel each beat getting weaker as if my fingers were right over his pulse. I’ve done this enough times to be able to read what’s going to happen. He will die, and it won’t be in vain because we’re going to catch this son of a bitch who took him and make him pay. Got it?”
My yelling echoed through the small room. Will was visibly shaken and he took a half step back, lowering his eyes.
“Got it.”
“Now let’s find the threshold the bastard used to cross the Veil. That’s a good start.”
But no matter where we looked, there was nothing. No doorway, no break in the concrete. Running my fingers over the walls showed nothing. I even checked with my second sight—still nada. The walls were smooth and unblemished, regardless of how I looked at them. The furnace made the room almost unbearably hot, and sweat quickly slid down my face and arms. Fuck it all to hell and back!
“Now what?”
I didn’t answer him, my hands on my hips; frustration mounting, I stared at the floor. The toddler was fading fast, and I reluctantly let go of his threads, and stopped Tracking him. Feeling a child die is a horrible thing, one that can’t truly be described. I didn’t need that, not today. I thought about the Lighteater I’d killed while Tracking him. That had been almost as bad as feeling a child die. Almost, but not quite.
“Back to the police station, I guess,” I said quietly, knowing the next time I Tracked the toddler he’d be dead. Gods, this was an ugly world.
“Are you all right?”
Looking up, I caught his gaze as it softened with understanding.
“He’s gone?”
I nodded and clamped down on the urge to cry. Stupid as it was, it didn’t matter how many kids I’d Tracked, this hurt never lessened regardless of the times I felt it. Lots of them passed on before I had even begun to Track them. And yet when a child died during a salvage, I felt it the most, like a keen blade taking another piece of me. It hurt, and I hadn’t even met the kid.
Clearing my throat, I pointed at the door, “Let’s go.”
As we made our way back up the stairs, I thought about what O’Shea would do. Probably go and take a closer look at the files, see if there was some connection other than what the police had already found. Maybe find a motive. Damn him for opening my eyes. Life was a hell of a lot simpler when it was just about a salvage and not about the ‘why’ of a case.
Even though he wasn’t with me, O’Shea was still making my life difficult.
And that made me smile, even if just a little.
10
The police station looked old, as in ancient times before modern anything. Lit inside by wall sconces that had obviously been converted from gas to electric, it was apparently not the main police station, but instead an office set up for Interpol and Will’s division of SOCA. Will had filled me in on the way to the station. SOCA had a department set aside to deal with the supernatural, just like the FBI. A
nd just like the FBI, that division of SOCA didn’t truly exist in the hierarchy of things.
“Makes it hard to get things done, when you aren’t taken seriously,” Will said as we stood in the entryway of the station. “Not to mention the difficulty of working with humans who don’t really believe in the supernatural.”
“I can imagine that would be difficult,” I muttered.
Will gave a wry smile. “You’re about to find out just how difficult it can be. You’re about to be introduced to the ‘team’ assigned to this case.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but still I followed Will into the station, keeping Alex right with me. Even if this was the department for the supernatural goings on, I had no doubt that Alex would not be made welcome. Eyes followed us, none of them particularly friendly. Excellent.
“I see the welcoming party was laid out for me,” I said.
Will snorted. “You aren’t the only one they aren’t happy with.”
“Let me guess, you don’t play well with others, either?”
He laughed, and I had to smile. Us supernaturals, we did our best to blend in, but the humans almost always picked up on something. Energy, weird traits, odd sayings, maybe just the way we talked or moved. Things that we thought nothing of, but to the rest of the world, well, we would never be like the rest of them. Which was just fine by me.
Weaving our way through the room, Alex got his share of wide-eyed glances too. But it wasn’t until a heavyset older woman in a too tight bright red dress suit squealed and pointed that I thought we might have a problem.
“You can’t bring a dog in here! People have allergies to dogs,” she screeched, her accent so strong I struggled to understand her.
Alex lifted his one paw up and opened his mouth to speak. I could just hear him now. “Not dog, werewolf!”
I clamped a hand over his muzzle, stopping the flow of words that was coming. “He’s a sniffer dog. And he’s on the case, so shut your fat mouth.” That last was directed at both the woman and Alex as my fingers tightened incrementally. He blinked up at me, winked in a big, slow comical blink of one eyelid, and I snickered, the laughter squeaking out past my clamped lips.
Will lifted an eyebrow and tipped his head toward the woman, whose face was almost as red as her suit. Ooops.
Sputtering, spit visibly flying from her lips, she said, “How dare you speak to me that way!”
Full-on laughing now, I managed to say, “Oh piss off.” Then I adjusted my grip on the leash and motioned for Will to continue leading the way. She wasn’t my boss; if anyone wanted to make an attempt to bully me it would have to be Agent Valley.
Will did as I asked, I followed and we left the bright red woman shaking with rage behind. At least that was a positive.
He led us to a mid-sized office, big enough for ten or so people. Of which it had almost double already. They all turned as we stepped inside the doorway, all those eyes taking us in. I met those eyes that I could, not willing to show weakness of any sort in front of this many suits.
Alex gave a low whimper and pressed into my side. Under his breath, so low I could barely hear him, he said, “Werewolf.”
Ah, fuck, that would not be helpful. Of course, Valley would know that there was another werewolf involved in the investigation, wouldn’t he?
I scanned the room, taking in the predominantly male, old, grumpy faces. Yup, my day just got that much harder. Will introduced me and my ‘working’ dog. I nodded my head, found Agent Valley and made my way over to him. This many people in such a tight space was too much, and I wasn’t even claustrophobic.
A tall, thin, balding man rapped his knuckles on the small table in the middle of the room. “As most of you are aware, there was another kidnapping this morning. Officer Gossard was on scene. Can you fill us in on anything?” The tone implied that Will should have captured the criminal with one hand tied behind his back. These fucking humans, they just didn’t understand what it meant to deal with a supernatural who stole children. There were no hard and fast rules when it came to magic and the world we lived in.
While Will spoke about what we’d done to try and track the kidnapper, I leaned down to Agent Valley.
“How much do they know about me?”
His lips barely moved. “Everything.”
I closed my eyes and stood back up.
“Ms. Adamson?” My eyes opened, and I forced them to do so slowly. No need to let them get the upper hand.
“Hmm.” I arched one eyebrow and lifted my hand in the air. “Present.”
A low snicker went around the room.
“Would you care to share your particular findings?”
I shrugged and took a step forward like I would if I were called on in school, tucking my hands against my lower spine. “I Tracked the kid, Johnny, until he died. Everything else that happened, Officer Gossard already told you.”
Silence met my words. Perhaps that wasn’t the best way to pass on the info, but what the hell, I wasn’t one of them, never would be.
The man licked his lips, frowning. “The child is dead?”
I didn’t get a chance to answer. Alex did it for me, being helpful, as usual.
“Yesssirrrreee.” He let the word end in a light howl, then his eyes flew to mine and he clamped his paws over his muzzle. “Sorry, Rylee. Alex forgets.”
If I thought the room had been silent before, it was nothing to the emptiness that filled it after Alex spoke. I could almost feel the panic swirling into the air.
“Ah, fuck it. Someone else in here’s a werewolf too, so don’t get your panties in a twist that I brought one in,” I said, motioning at the rest of the room with a broad sweep of my hand.
Now the panic let loose, grown men scrambling to get out of the room until it was the tall man, Agent Valley, Will, and one other Officer left with me and Alex.
Agent Valley shrugged. “I told you she was difficult, and you wanted all your Officers to get a good look at the supernatural Tracker. Well, now you did. Are you happy?”
Was he standing up for me? Booyah!
The tall thin man shook his head. “We can’t have her going rogue on us, not after Feen. We have rules—we expect them to be followed.”
Much as I wanted to tell him to take his rules and shove them up his ass, I thought I’d let Agent Valley speak up for me.
Which he did, in spades. I liked the short ugly man who wanted to be my boss better and better.
“She has a higher success rate than all of your officers and my agents combined. I’m inclined to let her do as she wishes” —he gave me a look that told me he wasn’t really giving me free rein at all— “within reason.”
Will stepped forward. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I can partner with her while she works the case.”
Alex clapped his paws and his tail thumped. Out the side of his mouth he did a stage whisper. “I like the kitty.”
The other man—the one sitting in the corner—stood up, anger darkening his features. His head was shaved to the wick and his eyes were hooded, hiding the colour from me, but I’d have laid money at that moment they were a tawny yellow. “You bitch, who do you think you are collaring a werewolf?”
He stalked toward me and my normally submissive Alex stiffened against my leg, his body inching forward. “No mean to Rylee!”
“Smith, ease down,” the tall man said, motioning for the werewolf, Smith, to sit.
Surprisingly enough, he did. Good to know. Perhaps he wasn’t a true Alpha?
“Alex, enough,” I said, lowering hand to the top of his head.
“Boss said take care of you. Keep Rylee safe,” he said, scratching at his ear with a back foot, the ‘almost’ confrontation already forgotten.
My heart squeezed. O’Shea, he meant O’Shea had told him to look out for me.
The other men were talking and I overheard Agent Valley call the tall man Denning.
I grabbed a chair and slumped into it, Alex sitting beside me with his head on my knee. Smit
h glared at me from across the room and I stuck my tongue out at him.
Alex mimicked me, then proceeded to make progressively worse faces until Smith looked away with a glower. Chuckling to myself, I put a hand on Alex’s head, rubbing him behind his ears.
Will pulled a chair up beside me. “What do you think we should do next?”
“It would be nice if we could figure out what kind of supernatural is taking the kids.”
“Are you so sure it isn’t a human?”
I snorted. “What human is going to know about crossing the Veil, and not just crossing it, but using it as a means to travel? And has the ability to hide the entrance to the Veil so well that in a ten by twelve room the two of us couldn’t find it?”
He was silent.
“Besides,” I said, “they wouldn’t have brought me in for a serial kidnapper unless there was a supernatural element.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
I thought for a moment about the group of men that had been in the room to gawk at me. No doubt Jack Feen would never have stood for that kind of reception. As if reading my mind, Will spoke.
“Jack was a little more low key than you. He only had a few contacts within the agency. Worked with me for the most part and didn’t like Denning all that much. And he never came into the office. Ever.”
Glancing over at the verbally sparring men, I could see why. Denning was arguing that I had to be on a short leash, controlled like the wild card I was. Agent Valley was arguing for me to do what I had to and worry about the consequences later. Maybe O’Shea had been wrong about his boss, or maybe he’d changed since losing his number one agent to the world of the supernatural.
I leaned my head back against the wall behind me and closed my eyes. Jet lag was finally kicking in and it looked like it was going to be a bitch.
Welcome to London, Rylee.
*-*-*-*
Milly crooked her finger, and O’Shea stepped forward, his innards twisting with fury. But all that moved was a subtle twitch over his right eye. She’d commanded him to get into her car, and drove deep into the badlands to the old mining shaft where Rylee and he had crossed the Veil, looking for India in what seemed like forever ago.
Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel (Book 3) Page 8