Dangerous Calling (The Shadowminds) (19 page)

“Shit.” I ran through possibilities. Hotwire a car, steal a car, hide in the azalea bushes—

“It’s okay,” Diana said. “He’s on his way, he’s coming.”

“Who’s coming?”

“Shane. On his way. Almost here. Saw it, just now.” She was panting.

“You’re sure?”

She cast me a withering look.

“Okay, okay. Come on—this way.” I headed for the Zen garden house at the other end of the subdivision. A woman out walking a half-dozen dogs stared at us.

I dragged Diana to the back of the house just as I heard the soft sound of brakes on the street. We crouched behind the minimalist water feature. A car door opened.

“Miss? Miss!” Footsteps, jogging.

Shit. I crept to the corner of the house and peered around it to the street.

The SUV was still running in the middle of the road, the driver’s side door open. Jeremy was talking to the dog-walker.

“Have you seen two women come this way?”

She stopped and looked at him. The dogs whined and shook and pranced. I held my breath while she looked him over and nodded—and pointed in the opposite direction.

Jeremy ran back to the car and took off in the direction she’d pointed. She watched him go, glaring, then walked to the edge of the garden, looking for us.

“Y’all all right?”

I risked standing up. “Thank you,” I said, and scrambled to come up with an explanation. “He’s—”

“Oh, I know his type.” Her gaze lingered on Diana, and I realized the bruise on her face was still visible. “You oughta call the cops, honey. Don’t let him get away with it.”

“She’s—scared,” I said.

“Humph. Ain’t no man ever gonna do that to me and live.” She untangled herself from the dogs, who’d wrapped their leashes around her legs.

“Uh, thanks again.”

She went on her way, still frowning and shaking her head.

“Come on!” I pulled Diana to the wall and looked up.

The last time I’d done this, I’d levitated myself without blinking. Ten feet seemed like a lot more of a challenge without telekinesis. It might as well have been a hundred. I pressed my palms to my temples and groaned softly. How were we going to get over? Whoever owned this overpriced monstrosity was going to come home eventually.

The clang of metal made me lift my head. Diana had found a ladder and leaned it against the wall.

“Brilliant,” I said, but she was already halfway up the side. I followed.

Diana landed on the other side of the wall with a
thunk
and a grunt of pain. I followed, kicking the ladder over when I reached the top. It landed on the stone Buddha statue. I hung from the side of the wall to get as close as I could to the ground and rolled when I landed.

“Where is he?” I asked Diana, standing up and dusting myself off. Nothing felt broken.

She pointed, and we ran up the street. I rounded the corner to the block where we’d parked before, and there he was.

I’d never been so happy to see Shane, and that was saying something. He’d rented a sports car, and I knew it wasn’t vanity. He saw us, revved the engine, and made it down the block in seconds. Diana and I tumbled into the back seat.

“Cass, what the hell happened?” He craned his body into the back seat, full of concern.

“No time for that.” I put on my seatbelt. “Drive.”

Chapter Nineteen

Shane took a complicated route out of Uptown, making sure no one was following. Once we felt safe, I directed him to the spot where I’d left the rental. I said a sincere prayer of thanks when I saw that it was still there.

We had to split up for the drive back to the motel, and Diana chose to ride with me.

“She didn’t hurt you, did she?” I asked once we’d left the city behind. I’d been afraid there would be punishment, some kind of horrible torture. Annette didn’t strike me as the type to forgive. But Diana shook her head.

“She didn’t hurt me. She even fixed my arm.”

I remembered now that she’d been hurt when we’d crashed the car. “She can do that?” I’d seen how she’d healed her victim in Diana’s memory, but I had no idea how it worked.

“Only for little things. She doesn’t want to risk turning me.”

“But last time...” I gestured toward the bruise on her cheek. I’d assumed it had been from Annette.

“I got those bruises running away. Some guy tried to grab me and he hit me in the face.” She paused, her expression clouding. “But she left it. She said it would be a good reminder.”

“Oh my God.” I’d been so focused on supernatural terrors, I’d forgotten about the normal ones. “Did he...try anything?” And did Diana even know the kinds of horrible things he might have tried?

“I got away. I kicked him in the balls. That’s what Annette always said I should do.”

I couldn’t help smiling in spite of it all.

“How did you convince her you wanted to come back? It couldn’t have been easy.” I remembered the shock and betrayal in Annette’s eyes back at the police station.

“She loves me.”

The simple statement caught me off guard. I didn’t respond right away, and Diana went on.

“I know you think she’s a monster, but she cares about me. She wanted to believe you’d coerced me or something.” She looked out the window. “It was easy.”

“I’m sorry.”

There wasn’t much else to say after that. By the time we met Shane in the motel parking lot, the sun was going down. I stared at the blue-painted door to our room.

“Did the manager call the cops?” We were well past our deadline.

“Ian has him tied up in the bathroom,” he said.

“Perfect.” I walked inside.

As promised, Ian was standing in front of the bathroom door, looking like the world’s scariest bouncer. “What happened?” he said. Then he noticed Diana and raised a single eyebrow.

“There were complications,” I said.

He met my eyes, and I knew he could tell I meant more than the delay, more than retrieving Diana. But he didn’t press me further. “Is she still alive?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But we weren’t followed. What’s up with Sleazebag?”

“He’s under control.”

Ian stepped aside to let me pass, and I peered into the bathroom. The manager was tied up in the bathtub. Diana peeked around the corner, saw the whole scene and went to sit on the bed.

“I’d really like to use the bathroom,” she said.

“Give us a minute.” I turned back to face the bathtub.

The manager made a strangled sort of grunt through the hand towel Ian had used as a gag. I took the ten grand I’d wrapped up in a grocery bag and dropped it on his chest. Diana had counted out our bundled stacks while we’d made the drive. It had taken a long time, and the novelty of having a car full of cash wore off fast.

“There’s your money.” He looked at it, lifting his head as much as he could. “Satisfied?”

He cast his eyes back up at me. He nodded.

I walked out of the bathroom while Ian untied him. He left quickly, rubbing his wrists and throwing glances over his shoulder.

“We should probably leave,” Shane said after he’d gone. “We can’t really trust him.”

“I don’t think he’ll talk. But you’re right, we shouldn’t stay anywhere too long.” I explained about Janine, watching his face go grim.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have much to pack, then.”

We didn’t bother checking out. For ten grand, the manager could figure it out. Before we left, we stashed everything we could afford to leave behind in the heating vent in the ceiling above the sink. Toothbrushes, dirty clothes, used towels. Diana even left a collection of hair ties tangled with hair. It might be enough to throw Janine off our trail.

There was a used car lot half a mile down the road and we paid cash for the cheapest beater on the lot. It made whirring noises when we turned left and it didn’t have AC, but it also didn’t put too much of a dent in our supplies, and the salesman didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t even meet our eyes. My powers hadn’t quite returned, but I was able to catch snatches of his thoughts.
—not gonna ask—not gonna ask—just take the money and keep quiet—

Thank God for unscrupulous people.

We returned the rentals, piled into our new car and went in search of our next hotel.

Shane drove southwest, toward Baton Rouge. We paused at a truck stop on the outskirts of the city, where I bought fresh clothes for all of us and a baseball cap and sunglasses for Ian. His hair was too short to dye, but we had to do something to conceal his identity. I also picked up microwaveable burritos, snacks and cold drinks, hoping it would be enough to get us through.

Shane got out to stretch his legs while I paid, and he met me halfway to help with the bags.

“Where to next?” he asked, looking toward the car. Ian was hunched in the back seat, and Diana was staring at the video poker machine advertisements with a mixture of wonder and confusion.

“I think we should be in the city itself. He needs to recover his strength.”

“Do you think we can risk it?”

“He’s just as likely to be recognized out of the city as in it,” I said. “We have proof of that already.”

“Good point.” He looked in the bag. “They didn’t have salt and vinegar?”

“Buy your own poison. But I did get hot chocolate for Diana.” I smirked at him.

He laughed and led me to the car. We got back on the road, and Shane took the on ramp onto the interstate, into the heart of the city. Ian looked more alert the farther we drove. As we crossed the Mississippi River, I could almost feel him straighten, strengthen.

My powers, waking up from the suppression of the drugs, felt it too.

I looked out the window and focused on the muddy brown water. The drugs were going to wear off eventually, and I was going to be trapped in this tiny car with Ian. Nowhere to go. No convenient pine forest to pull from. I silently willed Shane to drive faster. He reached over the gearshift and squeezed my hand.

I wasn’t recovered enough to mindspeak, but I knew he could hear me.
Find a place.
Anywhere.

He squeezed again.

A few minutes later, we’d checked into a surprisingly nice hotel—one of the national chains. We got three adjacent rooms, and Ian’s wings flickered into view as soon as he entered his. He seemed taller somehow, as though he took up more space.

“Better?” I asked him.

He flared his wings and stretched them. Even their colors seemed brighter.

“Much,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

I remembered what Susannah had said, how Ian was too new to handle a vampire as old as Annette. “I think we need to find a way to weaken her first.”

“What if we find out where she spends her days?” I said. “Diana?”

“Even I don’t know that.” Diana was in the corner, reading the preparation instructions on a packet of hot chocolate. “Sometimes she’s awake and at the house, but when she’s not there, she doesn’t tell anyone where she goes.”

“What if we got Janine back?” I said. “We could get her to search.”

Shane shook his head. “She won’t help us. You know she won’t.”

He was right, but I didn’t like our odds for surviving an open assault. “We could—”

Shane caught my half-formed thoughts before I spoke them. “Break Ryan out? Don’t even think about it.”

“What other option do we have?” I hadn’t been committed to the idea myself, but his immediate dismissal made me angry.

“After what you went through—”

“He’s harmless now. He can’t hurt anyone—”

“Like hell!”

“Stop.” Diana. She didn’t yell, but something in her tone made us both go quiet. “I’ll find out what we’re supposed to do.”

“You mean—”

“I can’t concentrate like this. Go away.”

When the woman who could see the future told you to go away so she could concentrate, you went.

Shane and I walked out and let ourselves into the room next door. It was identical, right down to the paintings of flower arrangements above the bed. I lay down on one of the mattresses and closed my eyes.

I hadn’t told him yet what Annette had told me. Part of me resisted. I wasn’t sure if it was true. It could be part of her long game, some trick to put us in more danger. But either way, he had to know.

He let me shower first, and I waited cross-legged on one of the beds while he took his turn, listening to the rhythm of falling water. He hummed every now and then, a song I didn’t know. When he got out, warm from the shower and wearing only drawstring pajama pants, my heart constricted.

“What?” He froze in the process of drying his head. “What is it?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Okay...” He sat down next to me.

He wasn’t expecting it. I had enough telepathy back to feel that much. He thought I’d been hurt, that something worse than I’d already told him had happened while Annette had me. He didn’t know how right he was.

“It’s about you,” I said.

“I already know she wants me dead. How much worse could it be?”

I shook my head. “Don’t say that.”

“Cassie, tell me.” He was finally worried.

“You’re a potential guardian.”

He cocked his head at me and furrowed his brow. “What, like Ian? No.” He laughed.

“It’s why she wants you dead. She told me.”

“She’s lying.” He was completely, utterly certain.

I shook my head. “I don’t think she was. I wouldn’t put it past her, but I don’t think she was lying about this.” I shifted on the bed, putting my hands up and raising one finger. “We know Diana saw something about you, and it was important enough that Annette worked her mind magic or whatever to keep her from telling anyone.” I raised another finger. “We know that it takes a guardian—and a full-strength one—to kill a vampire.” I held up a third finger. “And, we know she’s put down roots in New Orleans. She bought that house. She’s started her own business or whatever. She clearly wants to stay.”

“It’s all circumstantial,” Shane said, but he wasn’t so certain anymore.

“But it all makes sense.”

“Lionel never said—he would’ve said—”

“Not if he didn’t know. I don’t know how people get chosen, but I’m pretty sure you’re not born with a wing-shaped birthmark or anything that easy. And the city’s been without one for so long...who knows how many potentials lived and died without knowing?”

“Or lived and were murdered.” Shane stopped and faced me, hands pressed to his head. “How many others has she killed?”

“I don’t know. We may not ever know, if she’s stopping Diana from talking about it.”

Shane went back to pacing, chewing on his bottom lip. I watched him make a dozen laps in front of the television before I spoke.

“What are you going to do?”

He stopped. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you going to do it? I know how you feel about them.”

“Of course I’m going to do it.” He came close to me and cradled my face with his hands. “I have to. If it’s true, you know I have to.” His uncle was in his mind, so many memories. The way he’d taken me in without a second thought, the way he’d fought to keep Shane and Mina out of the foster system when their mother died. The way he’d given Bruce’s laid-off friend a place to stay for weeks.

All of that was in Shane, too, and it always had been. It was a wonder none of us had seen it before.

“You’ve seen what it does to people.” I thought of Susannah, of the first time we’d met her. How alien she could seem. I thought of the prison where Ryan was held. I couldn’t bear to see Shane go so cold.

“I’ll still be me,” he said, and there was fierceness in his voice. “I’ll make sure if it.”

I leaned my head onto his shoulder so he couldn’t see my face. “I know you will.”

The city couldn’t have a better guardian. But I was going to have to leave.

It was becoming more and more of a struggle to control my powers around Ian. How much worse would it be with Shane? I felt the subconscious link between us and knew it would be much, much worse. I’d end up draining him and the city to death. I could already see it.

“We’ll find out more from Susannah,” I said.

“After this is over.”

“Yes.” I rested my head on his collarbone and didn’t say,
If we survive.

“
We will.
”

And afterward, I’d be gone.

I shoved the thought as deep as I could, covered it with darkness. This wasn’t a night to waste on false assurances. The decisions were already made for both of us, but we weren’t gone yet.

I ran a hand from the top of Shane’s shoulder to his left pectoral and traced the lower curve of the muscle. He tensed and took a quick breath, but he didn’t move. I fastened my mouth to the spot and swirled my tongue over his skin. Soap. Warmth. Shane.

He tipped his head back and let me taste him. I moved to his throat and he grabbed the hem of my shirt and tugged it off. I could only see pieces of him, only close-up windows. Neck, biceps, hip. I got on my knees in front of him.

“Cassie...”

I snaked a hand to his lips and silenced him. He drew in my finger and sucked, and I sagged, resting my forehead against the taut muscle of his belly. The bulge in his pants was right in front of my eyes.

I used my free hand to struggle with the drawstring closure. A moan escaped me when I freed his erection, and he threaded his fingers gently though my hair. I took him in until I almost gagged and pulled back. He stroked his thumb against my scalp in time with my movements, and I felt his breath quicken and his muscles tense.

“
Cassie.
” He pulled me up by my arms. “
Not like this.
Not this time.
”