by Debra Dunbar
The clock was ticking. Bishop had bought me two hours, and I’d eaten up almost an hour of that getting here. I paused in front of the address Desiree had given me. Eyed the garage and the gate, and made a decision.
The car turned a corner. I pulled the anti-magic gun from my pocket and shot a bullet at the gate. Blue paint splattered across the handle and the latch and dripped down. Three regular gunshots took out the light, the camera mounted to the garage, and the security device on the gate.
I kicked it open and went through, ducking down behind a bush as I took in the scene.
Lights were on upstairs in the house and toward the back—probably where the kitchen was. There was also a porch light that spilled a gentle golden glow across the lawn. Boxy devices up along the roofline were most likely additional cameras and probably motion control lighting. A faint beeping noise announced that the security system was offline. If the driver hadn’t called their militia, then this alarm would absolutely bring them.
I was willing to bet a pedophile wouldn’t have actual guards to witness his activities, pass judgement, and possibly blackmail him. There’d be a perimeter alarm, that I already triggered, multiple locks on all doors and windows, cameras, and possibly magic. Durft? No. The neighbors were too close and a Durft would bring unwanted attention and bring the association complaining.
With time running out, I made a decision and ran for the house. On the way, I knocked over a ceramic bird feeder, grabbed the base, and hurtled it through the largest of the front windows. I was sure people two blocks away could hear the shattering of glass and the shriek of a second alarm. The floodlights illuminated the lawn and me as I dove through the broken window—and crashed into an invisible force field.
My shoulder went numb from the contact.
I slid to the ground, groping for the anti-magic gun. The blue paintball splattered across the magic barrier, then abruptly dripped to the ground as the magic fizzled. Just to check I stuck my hand through the broken window, then climbed through, tearing a gash in my pants on my way in.
With my 43 in one hand and the anti-magic gun in the other, I cleared the first floor, checking in pantries and cabinets as well as behind bookshelves for any secret areas. Was the guy home? What other security shit would he have? I needed to be careful, but I had no time to be careful.
Upstairs I found three bedrooms, two full baths, several closets, and no hint of either Nevarra or the home’s owner. One bedroom looked as if someone actually occupied it, but the only sketchy thing I found was a large assortment of tweed jackets with suede elbow patches and collars.
The noise of the alarms was driving me crazy. I couldn’t think with all that racket going on. I also couldn’t hear if someone was approaching, or even if someone was screaming for help. Heading back downstairs, I shot the alarm panel beside the door until it shut up. That left the more manageable noise of the perimeter alarm.
Think. Where would he have hidden her? I refused to believe that the demon had lied, so where was she? With more care, I went back to the kitchen, checking the fridge and the cabinets once more. Fruit Loops. Juice boxes. A bag of gummies next to a box of chocolate chip cookies. Maybe the guy had a sweet tooth, but I couldn’t imagine a grown man with a house like this drinking a juice box.
Tears of frustration stung my eyes as I made my way back to the foyer, once more checking in the coat closet built into the space below the stairs. Who the fuck needed this many coats in Southern California? And snow boots? I kicked them aside, frowning as something on the floor caught the hallway light. It was a tiny barrette in the shape of a heart, covered in little rhinestones.
Shoving the anti-magic gun in my waistband, I yanked the coats out of the closet, throwing them on the floor. There, behind the boots and shoes, was a narrow set of wooden stairs leading downward.
A basement? I’d lived my whole life here in Los Angeles, and I’d never seen a house with a basement before.
There was a light switch against the back wall of the closet next to the steps. I clicked it on and off a few times, but got nothing. Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, I turned the flashlight app on, and held it with my left hand, high and slightly behind my head. This was going to suck. I’d be illuminated and an easy shot for anyone down in the basement, but stumbling down these stairs in the dark wouldn’t be any better. Ducking under the closet pole, I put one foot on the top step and hesitated.
Thirteen steps down. Cement floor. Block wall about eight feet across from where the stairs ended. From the house layout, the basement should extend approximately twenty feet to both my left and my right, and another twenty feet behind me. That was a lot of space to cover—and a lot of time I didn’t want to be an easy target.
Clicking the light off, I eased the closet door shut behind me, plunging the world into darkness. Slowly I eased down the stairs, alert to sounds or any movement in the dark. Thirteen steps later, I crouched on the cement floor. No windows. I couldn’t see a damned thing. Carefully I raised the cell phone up and to the left, clicking the light on for a quick second before clicking it off.
The brief flash of light showed me the back of the basement had been made into a room—a child’s room with plush carpets, pink furniture, and pictures of kittens on the wall. In the middle of all this crouched a man with a pistol.
I’d already clicked the light off and had begun to roll as I heard the sound of three shots in rapid succession. The muzzle flare gave me a good indication of his location, but I was too afraid to return fire in case Nevarra was there behind him. With the echo of the shots ringing in my ears, I took advantage and moved at a diagonal toward where I’d last seen the man. My foot hit the edge of the carpet, and I sprang forward, hoping the guy hadn’t moved. In the unfamiliar and dark basement, I must have misjudged because instead of slamming into a body, I hit what felt like a bookcase, toppling it over and knocking the contents to the floor with a crash.
Shots rang out again and I rolled, feeling something burn along the back of my calf. Clicking the cell phone light on once more, I slid it across the floor. The light strobed around the basement, giving me a split-second glimpse of the man before the phone hit a fallen book and flipped over, leaving us once more in darkness.
I grabbed something hard and round from the ground and pitched it, hearing a grunt of pain as the projectile hit my target. The man fired again, one quick shot then a click.
Empty.
I jumped to my feet, grabbing the phone on my way up. The beam of light arced up from the ground, illuminating the man fumbling with the pistol. I kicked him in the face and dropped down on top of him, my knees pinning his arms to the ground.
“Where is she?” I asked, pointing the muzzle of my gun in his face.
He tried to hit me with his pistol, but could only manage to smack it against my ass. “The safe is upstairs. Take everything in it, just don’t shoot me.”
With the light from my cell phone I could finally see the guy clearly. He was in his late forties, or early fifties, with either gray or blond hair and a softness around his jawline and chin that told me he wasn’t likely to be throwing me off with any badass MMA moves. A glossy coating of sweat covered his forehead and made dark patches in the armpits of his shirt. His thin lips trembled, then pressed tightly together as his gaze nervously darted to my pistol.
“I don’t want money. I want the girl. Where is she?” I repeated.
“There is no girl. I’ve got money. Just take the mon—”
I placed the muzzle of my pistol against his forehead, propped the phone against a fallen shelf, then shifted my weight until I heard the gun drop from his hand.
“This is the last time I’m gonna ask: where is she?”
He licked his lips, eyes darting to the left of me, then to the right. “You kill me, and you’ll never find her.”
I shrugged. “You tell me, and we’ll leave. I’ll take the girl, and we’ll walk right out of here. You don’t tell me, then I’ll kill you and bring i
n a dog to track her by her scent.”
He glanced to the left again, a small involuntary movement that I might have missed if I hadn’t been watching him so closely.
“If I tell you where she is, you’ll let me go? Alive? Unharmed? And not come after me?”
I fucking hated making deals with this slime, but time was running out. “I’ll let you go, but only if she’s alive.”
Again, there was that telltale glimpse to the left. I could take my chances. I could shoot the guy, and hope that Nevarra was over to the left under the bed, or behind the dresser, or in a secret room somewhere, but I didn’t want to risk that this asshole was eyeing a weapon he was going to make a grab for and not stupidly clueing me in to my sister’s whereabouts.
“Swear it. Swear on all the souls you Own that if I tell you where she is, that you and she leave here and not come back, that you won’t kill or harm me now or in the future.”
What the hell was that about? This dude didn’t strike me as particularly religious, but whatever. I’d play along.
“I swear on whoever the fuck my mother was that if you tell me where Nevarra is, and I find her alive, I won’t kill you. Or hurt you. Now or in the future.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your mother. Swear on the souls you Own,” he demanded.
This guy was fucking nuts. “Souls I own? Like slaves? I don’t own any people. I don’t even have a pet fish.”
“Swear on the souls you Own, or she’ll die before you find her,” he babbled. “Do it or I won’t tell you, no matter how much you torture me.”
This man was truly nuts. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your dick in a knot. I swear on the souls I Own that I won’t hurt you or kill you now or in the future if you tell me where Nevarra is, and if I find her alive and well. There. Does that cover it? Do I need to pinky promise, too?”
“Let me up.” He squirmed. “Let me up, so I can show you.”
This wasn’t my first rodeo. I kept my weight on the guy’s arms as I scooped up his empty pistol and shoved it into my rear waistband. Then using my knees for leverage, I rose to my feet, keeping my gun trained on him the entire time.
He scrambled up, then backed over to where the dresser stood against the wall. Reaching around to the side, he pushed a button and the entire front of the dresser unlocked.
“Stop,” I ordered, not sure if he’d swing the door open and grab a weapon. “Sit here, right here. And don’t move.”
Keeping my eye on the man, I edged forward and swung open the false front of the dresser. A girl was inside, bound and gagged. She was wearing a frilly white dress, her hair smoothed into a series of neat braids with white bows at the ends. Frightened eyes met mine, and then filled with tears.
“Nevarra. Oh God, Nevarra.” I reached in and tried to untie the gag, only to realize I couldn’t manage to free her while I was watching her captor.
Pulling a knife from my pocket, I pushed the blade out and began to saw at the fabric tying her hands. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and spun around too late. Something hard hit my arm, knocking me to the side. The knife fell from my hand, and the shot I instinctively fired going into the back of the staircase.
The man kicked me and hit me again with the bookshelf, whacking the gun from my hand. I reached for it, only to see him kick the gun away.
I scooted backward as the man kept coming, trying to evade both the blows from the shelf and the kicks from his feet, and not succeeding with either. I kicked back, rolled, tried to grab the man’s ankle or anything I could use to defend myself. The wood cracked and splintered, but he kept coming at me. Desperate, I grabbed at the shelf and pulled. My hands slid, but I held on long enough to yank the man off balance. A quick kick had him stumbling back and giving me a second to scramble to my feet and yank another pistol from my pants pocket.
A shot rang out before I could rack the slide, and everything seemed to move forward in slow motion.
The man and I stared at each other in confusion. I glanced down, half expecting to see blood spreading across my chest.
Then I looked back up just as the man dropped to his knees.
Two more shots and he fell facedown to the floor. Behind him stood Nevarra holding my Glock. Her hands trembled, and she slowly lowered the pistol, setting it to the side before she rushed toward me and fell into my arms.
I wrapped my arms around her, rocking her a bit as she sobbed, still keeping watch on the dead guy, just in case. The last few days had been weird as fuck. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if the man jumped up and came at me like an extra from a zombie film.
He didn’t move. The light from my cell phone dimmed, and I realized if I wanted the pair of us to get out of here safely, we needed to get going.
I pulled away and held Nevarra’s shoulders as I looked down at her. Her wrists were bloody, and part of her gag was still tangled up in one of her braids. She didn’t seem badly wounded, but I knew that the worst of her injuries wouldn’t be physical.
“We need to go.” I smoothed a hand along her braids, plucking out the fabric of the gag from her hair and tossing it to the floor. “My bike is down the street. There’s a good chance whatever militia covers this area is coming, along with whatever security guys this asshole may have privately hired.”
We were probably about to have a pack of demons descending on us as well. Or perhaps just Desiree, which might be worse than a pack of demons.
She nodded, then stepped out of my arms to cross the basement and flick a switch on the far wall. Light flooded the room. I picked up the Glock then gave the dead guy a parting kick in the head before leading Nevarra up the stairs.
“I wish I could change first, but the only clothes here are his and these stupid dresses,” she whispered.
“You can change as soon as we’re home,” I promised her. “Then you can burn the dress in the backyard.”
“That would feel good.”
I led her through the kitchen and carefully unlocked the back door. The floodlights were still on, their white brilliance harsh in the night. This guy’s neighbors must hate him. Even with the fences and the hedges, they’d be treated to a flash of light every time a cat hit the motion control sensors.
“Here.” I handed Nevarra the Glock 43 and pulled Soprano’s Sig out of another pocket. We walked through the yard without incident, pausing at the gate beside the garage. I went high, and Nevarra went low as we swung the gate open and scanned the street. It was empty and eerily quiet. The gate closed behind us with a soft sound, shutting out most of the light. We held in position, eyes adjusting to the relative darkness of the moonlit night. A weird sensation crawled up my back, making the hair on my neck quiver with uneasy expectation. Something was wrong. It was too quiet, too still.
“Where’s your bike?” Nevarra whispered.
“Five blocks.” I caught her eyeroll and bit back a smile. “It’s not like I could roll on up to this guy’s front door with my beat-to-crap bike unnoticed. Hell, I’m surprised the militia aren’t breathing down our necks right now just from me walking down the sidewalk.”
“We running or walking?” Nevarra glanced down the street and shivered.
“Walking. Fast walking.” Two armed women running down a residential street in the middle of the night would draw notice. Two armed women fast walking down a residential street probably wouldn’t be much better, but I was going to pretend otherwise.
We moved to the sidewalk and headed toward where I’d parked my bike. I let Nevarra get half a step ahead so I could guard our rear. Halfway down the block Nevarra stopped so abruptly that I nearly ran into her.
“To the left. By the carport,” she whispered.
I looked in that direction and saw nothing. “Keep walking. Slowly,” I whispered back.
We took two steps, and I saw a flash of orange a few feet from where Nevarra had indicated. Eyes. It reminded me of catching an animal’s gaze in the beam of a flashlight, only these twin orange lights glowed w
ith their own illumination. The orange blinked in and out of sight, only to appear eight feet away.
“It’s not fireflies,” Nevarra murmured. “And unless it moves hella fast, it’s more than one animal.”
Fireflies were rare in Southern California, but I’d seen the occasional one down by the river. But these lights weren’t pairs of shockingly coordinated insects, they were eyes. I couldn’t see this neighborhood being home to rats, and the lights seemed to be at a height that belied that theory—unless these were rats the size of large dogs. Opossums? That was more likely. Could be the animals were climbing up a hedge or wall, or standing on top of a trash can in the shadows.
“Possums,” I told Nevarra, even though the fear skittering along my spine told me otherwise.
More eyes came to light to the left of us, and to the right, bouncing slightly as whatever the fuck these things were followed us.
“Slow,” I warned Nevarra, feeling very much like prey. The bike was three more blocks ahead. I could see it parked by the curb, the helmet still on the seat. We just needed to get there. I was sure we could outrun whatever was following us—if my bike started.
Please start, I prayed as the hedges swayed and rustled with movement.
A click of nails on pavement had me spinning around, but no one, and no thing, was behind me. The bike was two blocks away, then one, then fifty feet. I resisted the urge to break into a run.
“Put on the helmet quickly, get on, then cover me while I start the bike,” I whispered.
Nevarra nodded, swiping a hand down the frilly white dress before clasping the gun with both hands.
We were ten feet away when the air shimmered and a figure appeared. I pushed Nevarra behind me, grabbing the white muzzled gun with my left hand and pointing it and the Sig at a tall woman with golden-blonde hair and reptile eyes.
Desiree’s eyebrows rose. She tilted her head and eyed the anti-magic gun. “Smart girl. Of course, you’d need to hit me for either of those toys to work.”
“Not hard to hit someone at ten feet away.” I wasn’t worried about my aim, I was frantically trying to remember how many of the spelled paint ball bullets I’d shot and whether there were any remaining in the gun. If there weren’t, we were totally screwed.