by Chant, Zoe
A big, wild-haired and bearded, shambling guy of about thirty, wearing a faded basketball jersey and low-riding jeans, said, “I can be on the first team.”
Jameson looked at the guy’s height and breadth. “Have you had any training . . . ?”
“Elliot,” the guy said. “Nope. But ever since I was a kid, people think I’m scary.”
“I bet we could get Ralph down off the hill to help,” someone at the back said. “He did his stint in the army during Desert Storm. He’s got a rifle and his dad’s old Luger from World War II.”
“I’ll go get him, and take his place as a watcher,” a woman said, and vanished out the door.
In short order, Jameson had plenty of volunteers for the decoy team. He was not surprised to find that most of his decoy attackers were guys. Good. They’d make plenty of noise, which was what he wanted.
By the time they had shaken themselves out, a car pulled up in front, and a round, red-faced young man with a fluff of blond hair dashed in. “Is this true?” he said. “You’ll be using my dart guns on those skinheads?”
“Yes.” Jameson figured this little round guy had to be the vet, Neil Hochstetter.
Neil gulped in a breath, and said, “All right then. I had to be sure. You know it’s a professional responsibility, these guns, I can’t just release them to anyone for any purpose. But in this case, well, a dose meant to take down a young horse will drop a muscle-bound skinhead like a rock. Put him out of action for a good twelve hours.”
“Perfect,” Jameson said.
The vet ducked back through the door, muttering, “I’ll just get the dart guns out of my trunk.”
When he reappeared, he was carrying three in each hand. At once all the teen and college aged volunteers began shoving each other, yelling, “I want one!”
“Hold on,” Jameson said.
The vet stopped in his tracks, looking around in a way that reminded Jameson of a rabbit. His nose even twitched once or twice.
“The trank guns need to go to the best at stealth. The decoy team needs real firearms, though I hope someone has blanks, air guns or beebee pistols since no one has any training.”
The young guys began waving their hands again, so Jameson turned to Kate. “You know these people, right? Who would you pick?”
The others shut up.
Kate said slowly, “I’ll be one of the sneak team. And . . .” She named four people who didn’t look at all military to Jameson, then said, “And Kesley.”
Pain flared through Jameson. The urge to protect his . . . mate, yes, the word seemed so right. That urge was so strong it felt as if something feral would rip right out of his chest, like some monster from the movie Alien, but he kept a grip. Kesley had raised her hand, and he knew he had no right to keep her from volunteering like the rest of these middle-aged people, and teenagers, none of whom had a lick of experience.
So he nodded to accept Kate’s judgment, and said, “Now let’s talk details, and contingency plans.”
And they all fell silent, turning his way with painful expectancy that made it clear they were counting on him. He turned to Kesley. The trust in her eyes, the unspoken encouragement and readiness to follow him stiffened his spine. Whatever happened, he would keep her safe—and not let her down.
That much he knew. The rest—killer bikers, murdering brother, poison meds, and why any of it was happening—would come a step at a time.
Chapter Eleven
Kesley watched Jameson get everybody more or less organized. He explained how in twos and threes they could bring down even a big biker, as long as they worked together efficiently. And quietly.
He cleared an area, and showed them how to deflect, get an enemy off balance, then double-team to get him down. Even the rowdiest of the younger volunteers listened closely, and then practiced two or three falls under Jameson’s eye. If there was a bit more enthusiasm in tackling each other than was strictly necessary, Jameson didn’t say a word, except, “Do it just like that, and we’ve got a good chance of pulling this off.”
She watched how that simple praise heartened everybody.
She dearly loved her town, but she could see how nervous they were, and how close they came to their usual habit of everybody jumping in to air their opinion. And nothing ever getting decided. But Jameson projected a calm, sure air of authority that made it easy to follow his orders.
She was already tense enough about the huge shifter question that seemed to hover in the air above everyone’s heads.
Especially Jameson’s.
She wanted so badly to tell him, to have him understand, but she recognized that her main motivation was to be reassured—by Jameson, not Aunt Julia—that yes, he really was a shifter.
Yet he seemed to have no idea that such people existed.
“ . . . last thing, we’ll need to keep in contact some way. Someone in the stealth team needs to take their phone so we can text in emergencies.”
The stealth team volunteers—all of whom had paws or bird feet in their shifter shapes—looked Kesley’s way, and she said, “I’ll do that.”
And saw her words impact Jameson. The tension in his face was easily read: why her? She couldn’t explain that her raccoon was the only shifter among the stealth team that had hands.
But her mate had the respect to accept her volunteering. Despite her fear and her hammering heart, a flare of warmth kindled inside her as he gave her a short nod, then said to the group, “All right. Let’s go. Uh, also, we need to park at least a mile away, and cover the remainder of the ground without being caught by lookouts.”
“We’ll get there,” Dwayne said to Jameson. “Don’t worry about us.”
“We all know the hills real well,” Kesley’s dad spoke up.
“We can meet right above Macadoo Hairpin.” Kate gave the hairy eyeball to both Dwayne Senior and Kesley’s dad. “And you two are not going to try to out-Rambo each other, like back in our high school days.”
McKenzi, standing next to their dad, poked him in the side. “I’ll be with them.”
Kesley saw her dad sigh, and Chick lecturing his own dad as they vanished from the open window, followed by the others crowded there.
“I’ll drive you,” Kesley said to Jameson. “We’ve got the VW right outside where we left it.” She pointed, saw her finger trembling, and clutched her hands into fists at her side. “And if we see that limo, you can duck down.”
And soon they shut the doors of the old car, closing themselves within it. But the sense of intimacy—of shutting out the rest of the world—was false. They couldn’t shut out the threat hanging over them.
“You really think this will work?” Kesley said worriedly as she started up the car.
He turned to her. “If everyone does their part. We’ll have surprise, and organization. Those guys didn’t give any impression of discipline or teamwork.”
“I think they will,” she said, trying to hide her nerves. “Though I don’t think we’ve ever been invaded by bikers before, I’ve grown up helping in various town projects, and our parents did before us. Grandparents, too. We’re used to teamwork, at least.”
“I’m impressed as hell with the people here. They seem like a good bunch,” he said slowly—as if he was leading to something else. Then said, “I get the impression that there are some, oh, I don’t want to use the word secrets, because that can sound wrong. But shared past.”
“Well, yeah,” she said, squirming a little as she downshifted. Then she took a deep breath. “And we’ll talk about that. After. Okay?”
“Only if you want to.” He laid his warm hand over hers on the gear shift.
That was another thing she loved about him, she thought, her eyes burning a little as she drove the familiar winding cliffs above the sea. His acceptance. His shifter shape might turn out to be a mouse or a garden snake, but he was still a natural leader.
She turned off the frontage road to Pacific Coast highway. To the left, the ocean extended to the horizon, va
st and deceptively serene under an intense blue sky scattered with cotton-wisp clouds. To the right, the palisades rose, warm brown towers blurred by ancient high tides.
Kesley wished this was over—that she and Jameson were high on one of those palisades with a blanket, a picnic basket, and each other. They had so much to talk about—so much to learn about each other . . .
She thought she was controlling herself, but his hand gently squeezed hers on top of her hand on the gear shift. He didn’t say anything, but the tenderness of the gesture reassured her, and made her eyes prickle with tears.
All too soon they reached Macadoo Hairpin. “This is it,” she said, cutting the engine. The quiet that enveloped the car seemed sinister.
“I’ll drive alone from here,” he said. “I’ll wait twenty minutes.” He touched the watch that Kesley’s dad had said was so expensive. “When you hear the engine, you’ll know I’m on the way. Stay in constant communication with the decoy team, okay? They know the hand signals I’ll use, and they can signal to get ready.”
They’d gone over this several times, but it was reassuring to hear it again. Kesley nodded, afraid to speak, and Jameson reached for her. She framed his face with her hands and they melted into each other for a fierce, scorching kiss.
Then broke apart. His dark hair drifted down on his forehead, his eyes smoky with passion.
“Stay safe, Kesley,” he whispered. “I know it might be too soon—or sound wrong, but I love you.”
“I fell in love with you the first time we kissed,” she said quickly, fighting the gigantic thing tightening her throat. “You stay safe!”
She thumped the door spring, gathered up the grocery sack full of trank guns, and left the car quickly, before her watery knees could give out. Then she began scrambling up the hill to meet the others, as she gulped in a dry throat. It was better to occupy her mind with reviewing the signals—Jameson would push his hair back off his head if he thought he could negotiate the hostages’ freedom, but his fingers tapping twice on his thigh meant start the diversion.
Chick would text Kesley, they’d count one minute, then start in the back way.
She found the others at the top of the hill. They had shifted so as to get over the hill in the underbrush. Chick and his dad, whose chicken and hamster shapes did not move fast, had just arrived, panting. Birds and creatures popped back into human form, and the faster teens brought bags of clothing from where they’d been stashed behind one of the hills.
The only sound was the rustle of cloth as people dressed. Then Team Stealth each took a dart gun. Nobody spoke, but there were some knuckle-bumps among friends and a few surreptitious hugs between family members before the two groups looked at one another.
Chick, who had been watching the time, raised his hand.
In silence they formed a rough line and snaked over the hill from tree to tree. It turned out the bikers were too lazy, or too drunk, or something, to have posted what Jameson had called an outer perimeter—lookouts on hills overlooking the lower road. Kesley hoped that was a sign of what Jameson said was their lack of discipline and organization. Because twenty-two of them, with an arsenal of weapons, was scary enough.
When they spotted the roof of Dottie’s on the next ridge, the teams split up, and Kesley and the stealth team stuck to the thick brush as they worked their way around to the back of the motel.
They paused behind some scrubby bushes that the motel owners had never bothered to clear away, shed their clothes and hid them behind some thick bushes, then peered through the yellowed leaves at the place. It was a shabby old farmhouse with an addition sticking out sideways, divided into small rooms with a tiny window in each.
Tonio, as a crow, and Kate in her pigeon form had determined that at least one armed guy sat in each of those rooms. Then there was the big delivery door at the back, open now, except for the screen. Vague shapes could be seen moving around inside.
Finally, there was a single dormer window in the attic above the old farmhouse. Someone sat up there, too.
That top room had a chimney, luckily. Tonio and his brother climbed high up into an oak—higher than the motel roof—where Tonio shifted. His brother held the dart gun so that Tonio could grip it with his bird feet. Then he flew to the roof, dropping fast, as the dart gun weighed as much as he did, if not more. But he made it to the edge of the chimney, and vanished inside.
Kesley found she had been holding her breath. One by one the others began creeping or flying or slinking to their positions.
She couldn’t hear anything, but she knew somehow that Jameson was walking slowly toward the house. She could picture him so vividly, that taut, alert walk of his, hands maybe held away from his sides to demonstrate that he held no weapons.
He is a weapon, she thought. But one who defends, not attacks.
Her phone flashed, and Chick’s text appeared:
He just said, Here I am. Let them go.
Kesley held her breath.
Big guy, bleached buzz cut, has to be the leader, says, What’s the big hurry? I want to take a look at the guy worth five hundred grand dead. Why? Holy shit! Crap. Bandit that was me, not him.
Kesley was too scared to laugh at Chick’s style of reporting.
J. says, Do you know who paid you? Guy, They used a go-between, but I got my own sources. At the other end is some rich bitch outa Boston. Know her?
Kesley gasped, her entire body going cold: someone had hired these creeps to attack Jameson!
J. says, why do you want to know, and the guy says, because you might be able to offer more to stay alive. Hell, I could use a guy good with his hands. You put two of my boys out circulation. I admire a guy good with his hands.
Kesley saw glittery things on the edge of her vision, and remembered to breathe. But her entire body clenched with agony on Jameson’s behalf.
J. says—wow he’s cool, I sure wouldn’t be—he says, Let the woman and the kid go, and we’ll talk. Uh oh—get ready—his hands are hanging at his sides.
Kesley checked around. The stealth team were all out of sight, hopefully in position, but she couldn’t know that for sure.
Guy says, Well, now, I respect a man like you enough to be careful. You and me, we come to an agreement, and they go. But maybe I oughta kneecap you first, just to prove I’m serious. Besides, my boys want paybacks—what kind of chief would I be, if I let someone trash my people without —Bandit he did the signal!
Kesley had not finished reading the last two words before all hell broke out. Being at the back of the motel, she couldn’t see a thing, but the sound of gunfire erupted from the front, echoing back from the nearby hills. Every rifle and pistol in town had been scavenged, some of them pretty old, for the decoy team to use.
At once an even louder hail of gunfire erupted, the stutter of automatic weapons. Even from the back, Kesley could see chips flying high from shredded shrubs and trees as the bad guys fired back.
She waved at her unseen team—unneeded, she thought, shocked by how loud the noise was.
She wasn’t supposed to move from her spot, but she had one of the six dart guns, so she edged forward toward the screen door. No one noticed her. Closer and closer she got, until she touched the door, then peered inside.
She made out a bulky form lying on the floor. She eased the heavy screen door and found Kate standing over three snoring bikers, her empty dart gun dangling from her hand.
“Let’s find the hostages.” Kesley mouthed the words, knowing Kate couldn’t hear her over the noise from the front of the motel.
A single nod, as Kesley passed two of her three darts to Kate, then together they started up the rickety back stairs, the place smelling like unwashed laundry, spilled beer, and mildew.
They paused on the landing, then Kate laid down her dart gun and shifted to her pigeon form. She fluttered up high, peered around the corner, then swooped back down and shifted back to human. She jerked her chin over her shoulder, picked up her dart gun, and led the way out to t
he second floor. Here they found each of the Ryans standing in the doorway of the front rooms.
Before anyone could start up the next flight of stairs to the attic, the gunfire ceased.
Then the leader’s sharp voice rose from the front: “Take the fucker!”
And three gunshots rang out.
“Noooo!” Kesley yelled, dashing back along the hall toward the front stairs. “No, no, no!” She hurried halfway down the stairs, then froze when a bunch of leather-clad bikers stared up at her, the air heavy with the stink of male sweat and the sharp smell of fired weapons.
“Well, now, who’s this?” the leader sauntered back from the lobby, dots of sweat gleaming in his platinum blond buzz cut.
Kesley realized she was standing there nude. With a dart gun containing one shot.
She was too distraught to care. She looked past the bikers toward the front, dreading the sight of Jameson’s lifeless body—then a stair creaked and a big guy with a tire iron started up toward her, an ugly expression in his face, followed by two more side by side, both carrying machetes.
She raised the dart gun and shot the front one square in the chest.
His eyes rolled up and he fell back, crashing in an immensely satisfying manner on top of one of the machete pair. Kesley fought the instinct to shift to her raccoon, and leaped past the Machete Twins, one tangled with the dead weight of his unconscious buddy, the other yelling curses.
And she stopped dead when she saw Jameson standing just inside the front door of the lobby, streaming with blood.
Then a bunch of gun-toting uglies advanced on her from the adjacent office and a hall. She whirled and fled, ducking inside of what turned out to be a kitchen. Her desperate plan was to shift there and fight her way back to Jameson’s side. But she found three more bikers lounging around the big stove. They swiveled and three pairs of eyes raked down her body, stopping at points north and south in a disgusting way that made her feel naked, instead of merely nude.
Then both fell, one clutching at his neck and the other his gut. Those were Kate’s last shots, and now neither of them had any. Kesley dashed past an old, scarred prep table, grabbed an oven mitt, and yanked a huge soup tureen off the stove. A white tide of steaming clam chowder splashed behind her, causing a couple of chasing thugs to slip most satisfactorily—but then a hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind.