Shade Chaser (City of Crows 2)

by Clara Coulson

  Her hand slips off the wheel, and we flip.

  The world morphs into static. White fills every window. Wooden chips bite at my skin. Deafening screams surround me. My stomach does a U-turn as we roll three-sixty, back onto our tires, and then over again onto the roof. Upside down, the SUV coasts across the snow, until we crash headlong into a light pole that overturns on impact. The pole careens into the display window of a closed department store, and I swat splinters away from my eyes just in time to see the glass shatter inward, ruining thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise.

  The SUV, slowed by the impact, jolts to a stop as one of the bent front tires bumps into the brick wall next to the store window. We come to rest with the back end of the vehicle sitting high up on a snow bank created by a recent plow pass, the front of the SUV tilted downward at an awkwardly sharp angle. The clock splinters that didn’t stick in skin flutter down to the ceiling, while us lucky souls with our seatbelts dangle painfully, pinned in place.

  When everything in the SUV finally stops moving, there’s a long, shocked moment of silence.

  Ella is the first to react. She braces her feet and one hand in strategic positions, releases her belt, and drops gracefully to the ceiling in a practiced crouch. Then she unfastens one of her holsters and pulls out her handgun, thumbing off the safety. Peering out the tinted windows, she scans the snowy world around us for three seconds only and leaps into full-on battle mode before anybody else can get a word out. “That wasn’t an accident. We’re under attack. There are two more trucks pulling up along with the first. We need to get out of the vehicle and into defensive positions now.”

  Seatbelt tight against my chest, I reply with a strangled, “Yes, ma’am.” I unclip my belt and drop to the ceiling with much less grace than Ella, but I can worry about bruised knees later. As soon as I grab my own gun, Ella pops a panel below the door handle and flips the red switch underneath. The window on her side of the vehicle blasts off into the snow bank.

  Ella grabs the window frame, then hauls herself out into the blizzard like she’s done this a hundred times before. Mimicking her, I clamber around the seats and drag my bloodied, sore body out into the snow world beyond.

  Behind me, I hear Amy, whose arm must have been busted by the laptop, swearing as she struggles to disentangle herself from her seatbelt. Liam, on the other hand, makes no sound at all. Ella notices this at the same time I do. So as we’re sliding down the snow bank toward the front end of the SUV, we both glance at the passenger seat.

  Liam is slumped against the window, unconscious. His face is drenched in blood. He must have slammed his head into the dashboard or the console during the crash. He’s down for the count.

  “Damn it,” Ella mumbles. “Cal, you’ll have to be my sole support until Amy gets free. Don’t use your beggar rings unless you have to, okay? I don’t want them to backfire on you again. But if push comes to shove, use those electricity attacks like you did against Charun.”

  “Got it.” I unclip the pouch on my belt containing the rings and quickly slip them on. “I can usually get a few good shots off before they break. I’ll try to be as strategic as possible. Where do you want me?”

  She raises her free hand and points past the front of the SUV, to a blue USPS drop-off box sitting next to a stubby tree. “Take cover there. I’ll shoot first to scramble them, break down any formation they might have. When you see a good shot, take it. Center mass. Do not hesitate. Under—”

  Buckshot pings off the underside of the SUV above our heads and bounces off into the ruined department store behind us. We drop low. Through the gap between the hood and the snow bank beneath, I glimpse three trucks lined up in a row. The one that hit us is in the middle, its front end crumpled like aluminum foil.

  The man who took a shot at us stands next to the damaged truck, his shotgun dangling at his side, his top half out of sight, too high for me to see with the hood in the way.

  As I observe the scene, several more people emerge from all three vehicles, and…they’re not wearing clothes?

  “Uh, Ella, do you see what I see?” I whisper.

  She’s crouching next to me, watching our enemies as well. Her mouth stretches into a thin line. “Yes, I do. They’re nude. Which can only mean one thing.”

  “Clothes would get in the way during a fight.” I grip my gun tighter in my gloved hand. “Wolves.”

  “Precisely,” she spits. “It’s a damn ambush.”

  The shotgun disappears from my view, and a moment later, more buckshot rakes across the SUV.

  I murmur, “But why? What the hell do they want from us? We already sent Delarosa to talk with them.” The faint image of a bloody massacre starts to coalesce inside my head. “You don’t think…?”

  “No, I don’t,” she answers firmly. “Proceedings with the Wolves are always very slow. Delarosa probably left the community center minutes ago—if he’s not still there speaking with the Wolf rep and his inner circle about the murders. And since Wolves don’t move without their leader’s approval, then these guys are…”

  “From out of town?”

  “That or they’re a rogue splinter group we haven’t been informed about.”

  “Great.”

  Ella adjusts her grip on the gun. “When I say move, I want you to run as fast as you can to the USPS box, okay?”

  I nod and maneuver around her, getting into position to leap over the front end of the SUV and dash toward the drop box. Buckshot guy will mow me down if I hesitate, if I trip, if I’m a second too slow. My heart pounds in my chest. The cold air creeps down my throat and throbs in my lungs.

  This is the most dangerous situation I’ve been in since the Etruscan Incident, and a screw-up here will have the same consequences as my screw-ups there: pain, suffering, and imminent death. No pressure, Cal. Just do what you did with Charun and Tuchulcha. Except the losing part. Avoid that.

  Ella stiffens, both hands on her gun, and takes a deep breath. Then she springs up and fires off a volley of flawless shots. “Move!”

  I leap over the front tire, hit the packed snow on the other side, and barrel down the sidewalk. White flakes whipping through the air tug at my attention, but the only places I look are straight ahead at the drop box and to where the Wolves are scrambling for cover behind their own vehicles. Ten stark naked men and women, breasts and penises bouncing every which way, fleeing for safety as Ella fires again and again. If I wasn’t at risk of being murdered right now, I’d laugh at the sheer awkwardness of this scenario. Naked people streaking through the snow.

  As it is…

  I slide to a stop behind the drop box and then immediately peek around the edge as Ella continues her onslaught. One of her rounds catches a woman in the shoulder, and a spray of red paints the snow in midair. The woman shrieks, a savage sound, and staggers around the end of one of the trucks.

  A moment later, a man who’d run for cover storms out from behind the same truck, his face twisted in fury. It’s hard to gauge from the distance between us, with the snow partially blocking my vision, but I swear I see the telltale signs of a personal attack brimming in the Wolf’s angry eyes.

  The injured woman is someone important. Girlfriend? Wife? Sister?

  Whoever she is, her wound sets the man off. He throws his head back and honest-to-god howls into the blizzard. At first, the wind swallows the sound, frail and human as it is. But then, out of nowhere, the sound transforms from a weak human cry to something feral and haunting. Animalistic. The man’s head snaps down, feverish gaze trained on Ella, who’s busy replacing her magazine, and the moment she dares to make eye contact—he charges.

  I swing my gun toward him, but it’s too late.

  He leaps into the air a man and lands on the snow as a massive brown Wolf. Then he lunges toward the overturned SUV, teeth bared, jaws ready to rip Ella’s head right off her shoulders. She clips her magazine into place and lifts her gun, but the Wolf is moving too fast for a bullet to stop.

  And it
isn’t a bullet that stops him.

  The driver’s side window of the SUV blasts outward, ramming into the Wolf’s chest. He tumbles away into the snow, then scrambles to get back on his feet. But the snow is so deep and fine that he sinks, and by the time he finally rights himself, the fury of a DSI elite is raining down upon him.

  Amy Sugawara barrels out of the SUV with a fistful of fire. She throws a punch at the Wolf’s face, screaming, “Don’t touch my teammate, you bitch!” The instant before her fist makes contact, she releases the full charge of the fire ring on her index finger.

  An enormous ball of flame bursts out of the ring, swallows the Wolf, and flings all four hundred pounds of him ten feet through the air. He brutally bounces off the snow twice and then careens into the side of one of the pickup trucks. With so much force the vehicle slides backward across the intersection.

  The Wolf doesn’t get up. His singed, smoking form spasms, and then his transformation reverses. Lying in the animal’s place is a nude man with horrific third-degree burns.

  Amy comes to a stop halfway between our SUV and their trucks, huffing and puffing. Her ring backfired into her hand, and her burnt fingers drip blood onto the snow. Through heavy breaths, she declares, “I already lost one friend this year. I’m not losing another.”

  A flicker of sadness crosses Ella’s face at the mention of Norman Bishop, but she doesn’t let it linger. Steeling herself, she clambers over the SUV and hops off the front tire, landing next to Amy on the battlefield. “Damn straight,” she says. “Let’s take these assholes down.”

  The Wolves regroup. Several of them emerge from behind the trucks already transformed, many enraged at the sight of their fallen comrade, burned black and motionless on the snow. Possibly dead. (Possibly not. It’s extremely hard to kill Wolves unless you’re packing silver. And we, unfortunately, aren’t. Most of these bastards will recover from their wounds, in a fraction of the time a human would.)

  Amy whips her gun out of her holster with her burnt hand, unfazed by the pain. “Bring it on!” she shouts at the Wolves. “You come at us, you’re not getting out of here in one piece.”

  She’s true to her word.

  Five Wolves charge. All go down.

  Amy pops off shots more accurate than the average sniper’s. One Wolf takes a bullet to the face, collapsing mid-stride. Another gets nailed in the side and starts bleeding out. A third gets a few paces closer before Amy shoots his leg out from under him, and he’s going so fast that he can’t stop himself before he rams into the side of the overturned SUV. His skull breaks wide open with a sickening crack.

  Ella’s no lightweight either. The fourth and fifth Wolves attack her simultaneously from two different directions, but a bullet to the chest brings one down. The other is blown away when Ella charges her own beggar rings and releases the most powerful force blast you can possibly use. The force wave smacks the Wolf in the head, knocking teeth out of his mouth, smashing his jaw to pieces, nearly ripping his eyes from their sockets. He flies sideways into a snow bank and doesn’t recover.

  The whole time this is happening, I’m cowering behind the USPS box with my mouth hanging open. I thought I was at least a minor badass for zapping Charun that one time in Holden Park. But here are Amy and Ella absolutely dominating an entire pack of Wolves by themselves. Holy hell. Is this what years of experience gets you at DSI? Can’t believe that—

  Movement. I turn my attention to the damaged Ford pickup. The guy with the shotgun, still in human form, is peeking out from behind the tailgate, gun aimed at the two women wiping the snowy streets with his companions. He narrows his eyes and tightens his grip on the trigger.

  Yeah, screw that.

  I raise my gun and left off two shots. One goes wide but throws off his concentration. The other cuts a chunk out of his shoulder. Swearing, he scurries back behind his truck.

  I keep my gun trained on his position in case he gets the same idea again. Don’t want any cheap shots hurting my awesome teammates when…

  A shadow falls over me.

  I look up just in time to see two Wolves lope off the roof of the department store behind me. I act on impulse. Bring up my right hand. Charge my rings. Shoot a burst of electricity at the oncoming Wolves.

  But the first one takes the brunt of the blast intentionally and spirals away, slamming into the sidewalk. While the second one plows into my chest.

  It’s like a bullet train hitting a smart car at full speed.

  I fly back into the drop box. My head cracks against the metal. White static fills my vision, and I lose control of my limbs.

  Distorted chaos beats against my eardrums. I hear my name shouted several times. I hear the shattering of glass. I hear screams. I hear sirens. I hear gunshots. I hear howls. All of it mashed together into an unintelligible muck.

  Then someone grabs me by the arm and hauls me up. My vision is still swimming, so I don’t know if they’re friend or foe. Whoever it is slings me over their shoulder and takes off running for god knows where.

  A minute later, I’m tossed like a ragdoll into the back seat of a vehicle. And someone else is then thrown carelessly on top of me. Someone who’s bleeding from a nasty head wound.

  I finally put it together: the Wolves have kidnapped me and Liam Calvary.

  And with that in mind, I faint.

  Chapter Twelve

  Somebody shakes me awake. I wrench my eyes open, lids heavy like lead, and stare idly at the back of a car seat until my brain kicks into motion. Wolf attack. Kidnapping. Me. Liam. In danger.

  I’m slumped awkwardly in the truck’s back seat, and when I untangle my limbs and sit up, my head swims like a violent wave pool. I have to bite my tongue to stop bile from rising in my throat. My hand flies up to the back of my head—sticky and warm. Blood.

  Between the headache, the dizziness, and the nausea, I almost certainly have a concussion. But there’s nothing I can do about it right now. Because, according to the view of trees, trees, and more trees outside the window of the truck, I’m currently in the middle of nowhere.

  The two front doors of the truck are both open, the seats empty. Through the haze of fog on the windshield, I see the blurry forms of two nude men talking to a trio of clothed people. The Wolves who drove the getaway truck must have rendezvoused with whoever ordered the attack on our SUV. One of the people in the clothed group must be the ringleader. And for some reason, this leader decided to kidnap two Crows working the Jameson case.

  This bodes well…

  Sucking in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, I finally glance to my left. Liam is curled up on the opposite side of the truck, his face covered in half-dried blood. One of his eyes has swollen up like someone punched him, and there’s a tear in his bottom lip that’ll need stitches. He’s hugging himself tight with one arm, knees drawn up to his chin. His other arm is still hovering in the space between us, quivering uncontrollably, ready to shake me again in case I pass out.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper to Liam. Wolves have better hearing than humans, even when not in animal form. “How long were you out?” Liam was knocked unconscious during the SUV crash. If we’ve been driving out of town for five, ten minutes—or longer—and he woke up just before I did, his concussion is probably far worse than mine.

  Liam blinks at me slowly, and even in the dreary light, I can see his pupils aren’t reacting at the same rate. After a long moment of silence, he parts his lips to reply, but his words are so slurred I can’t even make out a coherent message.

  He needs immediate medical attention. Somehow, I have to get us out of this mess, fast. If the pressure in his brain stays too high for too long, it could cause irreparable brain damage. He could end up a vegetable, for fuck’s sake.

  Damn it. If only I hadn’t let those two Wolves sneak up on me. I should have been more conscious of my surroundings. But I was paying attention to Ella and Amy’s spectacular display, and—

  I bite my tongue until it hurts. Stay on task, Cal. Y
ou can lament your failures later. After you’re both safe.

  “Okay, Liam, here’s the rub,” I say, unsure if he can understand me in his condition. “I’m pretty sure these Wolves didn’t kidnap us as leverage—I think they want information on the Jameson case. The Wolf who died must have been one of their buddies, or subordinates, or maybe even a family member. They want to know what we know, see if we have any suspects for the killings. Traditionally, Wolves are the vengeful type, so these guys probably don’t want to follow proper justice channels. They want to punish the killer on their own terms. Does that make sense to you?”

  Liam opens his mouth, but then seems to remember he can’t quite speak. He nods instead.

  “Good. So, I’m thinking if we play this right, we can get out of here unscath—um, without collecting any more injuries than we already have.” I run a finger over the back of my left hand, and find that the Wolves remembered to remove my beggar rings. One of my guns, of course, got lost when that one Wolf tackled me after the roof jump. And I don’t even have to check to know they removed my other gun, plus my knives, at some point during this drive. Liam would have received the same treatment. So no weapons.

  All we have is diplomacy.

  Fantastic.

  I reach across the seat and squeeze Liam’s shoulder. “Let’s just play this one move at a time, okay? See what they want to know, answer as truthfully as we can without fatally compromising the Jameson case. I doubt these guys want the whole of DSI on their asses, so as long as we don’t rebuff them too hard, I think we’ll be all—”

  Somebody in the clothed group barks out a laugh, and then people start to move toward the truck. One of the nude Wolves comes over to my side and yanks the door open. When the cold winter air rolls over me, my clouded mind clears slightly, and I feel a spike of adrenaline in my veins. I’m in no condition to fight, especially someone inhuman, but I think I have enough strength left to hold a decent conversation. If only so Liam won’t have to.