Slayers: Friends and Traitors (27 page)

Ryker was a small price to pay for that.

CHAPTER 26

Tori clung tightly to the golden angel statue. She was numb from the cold. Her fingers were stiff, and she was developing what she was sure would be a lifelong aversion to the color gold. The parking lot off to the side of the building was half full of cars. Every once in a while people came out of the temple. She thought about calling to them for help, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. What would happen if the news media showed up here? Exactly how would she explain her apparent angel fetish to the police, her parents, and the angry church people whose statue she was desecrating?

Yeah, if her parents were upset about her dodecahedron post going viral, wait until this story broke.

Tori’s cell phone was in her pocket. She might have even been able to retrieve it without plunging to her death, but who could she call? She had to just hope that Jesse and Dr. B followed her watch’s signal here.

She realized, with a shot of hope, that she hadn’t ended her three-way phone call with Jesse and Dr. B. They might still be connected.

Tori lifted her leg as much as she could and yelled her location at her boot. Then she waited, ignoring the fact that raising her leg probably didn’t make this scene look better from the ground.

She was barely able to hear Dr. B’s faint answer. “Tori—thank heavens—are you all right?”

Well, that depended on his definition of all right. She was hundreds of feet above the ground, dangling from an angel statue. “I’m stuck on the top of a temple!” she yelled.

“We can’t understand you,” Dr. B yelled back. “Hang on. I’ve got a fix on your coordinates. Jesse is nearly there.”

Hang on. Good advice.

“Is Dirk nearby?” he asked.

“No!” she yelled.

He understood that. He let out a groan of disappointment, then a moment later tried to soften it. “That’s unfortunate. However, your safety is more important. You did the right thing to let him go.”

Actually, she didn’t let him go. She’d been holding on to him tightly until he tossed her at the angel. Tori sighed. Dr. B was not going to be happy when he heard the details of what happened. She was undoubtedly in for a really long lecture about all of this.

“Jesse has had trouble spotting you all night,” Dr. B went on. “Do something to help him find you. Wave your hands or jump up and down.”

“Or,” Jesse’s voice came over the phone, “you could wave your cape from the top of a temple spire. Good work, Tori. Hard to miss you up there.”

At that moment, Tori took back everything she’d said about the cape. Capes were great.

A minute later Jesse flew up to her side. He took hold of her waist, easing her away from the statue. “Found a new guy already? You don’t wait around long, do you?”

He was trying to make her smile. She couldn’t, though. “Dirk put me here.” She peeled her hands off the statue’s neck and sunk into Jesse’s arms.

He held her in an embrace. Neither of them moved for a moment. Flying was fastest when you did it horizontally or at least at an angle. Tori knew she needed to turn and face forward, but she didn’t move and Jesse didn’t twist her around. He held her and flew upward, away from the temple lights. It was dark enough now, no one would see them blending into the sky.

Tori couldn’t stop shaking from the cold, even with Jesse’s arms wrapped around her. She shut her eyes and leaned her face against his neck for warmth. He smelled the same as he had last summer.

“Are you all right?” Jesse asked again.

“Yes,” she said.

“Where is your watch?”

“In my boot.”

“Your boot?” he repeated, like she’d put it there on a whim. She hadn’t noticed how worried he sounded until then. His voice grew low, turned into a ragged whisper. “You didn’t answer when we called your name, and then we heard you scream. I thought you died.”

“I’m sorry.” She knew he deserved a better explanation, even if she didn’t want to admit what had happened. “Dirk ripped my watch off my wrist and I didn’t want to lose it, so I put it in my boot. I screamed because I was up in the air when my powers left. I sort of … plunged downward really fast.”

“You fell?”

“Yeah. Dirk saved me.”

Jesse’s voice turned sharp with bitterness. “That was generous of him.”

“He’s not all bad.” Tori didn’t say anything else, couldn’t defend Dirk more than that.

“I never said he was.” Jesse turned her around then, keeping his arms wrapped across her stomach so she didn’t fall. “But he still betrayed us.” Jesse leaned forward and went faster. They soared off toward Dr. B’s van, keeping high enough off the road that no one would notice them. The cars were lined up below, a slow stream of headlights inching along the beltway. “Dr. B is driving toward us. We’ll be there soon.”

The night air rushed against Tori’s face. Her eyes stung and watered from it. She was still shaking. Jesse adjusted his grip on her, held her tighter. “Do you want my jacket? I could probably get it off without dropping you.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.” She wasn’t fine and nothing was going to be okay. “The dragon eggs hatched,” she told him. “I’ve heard them since September. Dirk said he didn’t see anything. He said Overdrake was just playing more of his soundtracks.”

“The eggs hatched?” Jesse repeated. His muscles went taut like he’d been punched.

She knew how he felt. Dirk had put a hole through her, too. She’d been so angry at him before, she hadn’t walked to the edge of that hole and peered down inside it. Now she did. It was deep, gaping.

“Dirk is gone,” she said.

“I know.” The wind took Jesse’s words, took hers, flung them out into the night somewhere.

Dirk was wrong about her not crying. She broke down into tears then, sobbed really. Her powers came back when she got close enough to the simulator. She flew the last bit on her own, still crying until she and Jesse reached the van.

*   *   *

Dr. B had pulled over on a side street so that Tori and Jesse could land and get inside. Tori did her best to force away her emotions. It was time to start acting like a Slayer. All the Slayers were dressed in their black Kevlar mission suits. Kody had arrived at some point. He gave Tori a hug as soon as she got into the van. He was still all muscle in a cowboy-Hulk sort of way. His dark blond hair had been short cropped at camp. It was a little longer now. “Rough night?” he asked her in his Southern drawl.

“It’s not over yet,” Jesse said, climbing into the van behind her. He shut the door with a thud. “The eggs hatched in September.”

This comment brought forth several gasps, a few swearwords, and a barrage of questions from the other Slayers. While Dr. B guided the van back onto the road, he explained what had happened in September. He sounded so tired as he spoke, as though every word were exacting a price from him. He had trusted Dirk and it had cost them.

“What are we going to do?” Rosa asked when he was done.

“What can we do?” Jesse said. “We keep training.”

Dr. B glanced in the rearview mirror at Tori. “You and Jesse both need to take the batteries out of your watches.”

“Why?” Tori finally pulled hers out of her boot. “Do you think Overdrake can track them?”

“Probably not,” Dr. B said. “In order to get the decryption key, Dirk would have had to break into my cabin and hack into my laptop. It’s just a precaution.”

This wasn’t the most comforting thought. Dirk’s expertise was picking locks. Last summer he’d gotten into the girls’ locked cabin more than once to steal Bess’ stuff. That’s how they ended up frozen into ice blocks. Dr. B’s cabin wouldn’t be any harder for Dirk to break into.

As Tori took her battery out, she wondered how Dirk’s computer-hacking skills were.

“What about Alyssa?” Lilly asked. She sat next to Rosa in the middle seat, her gloved hands clenched. “We can’t just leave Alyssa with Overdrake.”

Bess grunted. “Well, we can’t walk into Overdrake’s trap, either.”

Jesse put his watch in one pocket, the battery in another. “Dirk said Overdrake won’t torture Alyssa. I’m not sure how much Dirk’s word means, though.”

While the group discussed their options, Tori took out her cell phone. She ignored the calls and texts from her parents and pushed speed dial five. Dirk’s number. “I’m calling him,” she announced to the van.

All gazes turned to her. “You have Dirk’s phone number?” Jesse asked incredulously.

She didn’t answer. Dirk had picked up.

“Hey, Tori,” he said in a casual manner. “What are you up to—the top of the spire?”

She ignored the question. “I know your name, your school, your license plate number, and where your father’s restaurant is. I probably could also find that land he owns. If you don’t give us Alyssa back right now, I’ll tell the police I saw you kidnap her.”

“Nice to hear from you, too.”

“Do you want the authorities poking around your house, looking through your dad’s records so they can search all his properties?”

“No need to threaten,” Dirk said. “If you want Alyssa, go to Tysons Corner. The parking lot by the theater. You’ll find her in her car. It’s a gray Hyundai.”

“Tysons Corner?” Tori repeated. It was a large mall in Virginia. Dr. B flipped on his turn signal, changing lanes to head that way.

Dirk’s voice became serious. “As soon as I’m done talking to you, I’m getting rid of this cell phone, but if you change your mind about things, post it online. I’ll check.”

“Don’t bother,” she said and hung up. While she relayed what Dirk had said, she turned off her cell phone and took out the battery. It felt good to rip something out.

Dr. B called out, “We’ll be at Tysons Corner in twenty minutes. Tori and Jesse, get on your bulletproof gear. We’ll have to be careful. This could be another trap.”

CHAPTER 27

Dr. B took “careful” very seriously. As he drove, he called Booker on the phone, discussing safety and strategy. Booker had a suspiciously in-depth knowledge of firearms and SWAT team tactics.

The two talked for a while about whether the Slayers should get Alyssa or whether it would be better to call the police or her parents. Finally, Dr. B decided that since Overdrake wouldn’t expect them to take chances, they probably could. Still, he sent Booker to the mall parking lot first to scope it out and cover for them.

It was six thirty when they got to Tysons Corner. They spent ten minutes scoping out the area with both infrared and high-powered binoculars. They didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but really, since so many people were coming and going to the mall and movie theaters, Overdrake’s people could have blended in with them.

Alyssa’s car was easy enough to spot. She sat in the driver’s seat, her eyes closed and her head lolling back as though asleep.

When Dr. B was satisfied that no one in the parking lot or the surrounding buildings seemed to be armed, wearing Kevlar, or surveying the area, he let the Slayers out of the van. Dr. B didn’t drive up to Alyssa’s car. He was afraid that Overdrake might have men hidden somewhere with missile launchers, waiting for a vehicle to pull up to hers. So Dr. B dropped off the Slayers several rows back. They were instructed to keep low and close to the parked cars until they reached Alyssa’s car. If their Slayer senses picked up any signs of danger, they were to retreat and take cover.

Up until that point, Tori had been pretty sure that the most humiliating part of the evening would be the time she’d spent clinging to an angel statue like a love-struck groupie, but no. At least when she had done that, no one was around to critique her performance. The same couldn’t be said for the parking lot.

This early in the evening, a constant stream of people were walking by. Tori was dressed in a black Kevlar suit, a black helmet, black boots, and black gloves—which might not have been so bad if she hadn’t also been crouching behind parked cars, surveying the area, and then darting to the nearest car.

Everyone who strolled past them stopped and stared. Many of the mall-goers felt the need to comment.

“Hey,” one teenage boy called to Tori, “I think you need to go back to ninja school. I can see you.”

“What a bunch of freaks,” his friend added, and they both laughed.

A little girl shuffled by holding her mother’s hand. “Mommy, what are those scary people doing?”

The mother glared at Tori and pulled her daughter closer. “Some Halloween thing. Ignore them and they’ll go away.”

Perfect. This was an awesome superhero moment: Tori in a mall parking lot, scaring children.

Jesse got to Alyssa’s car first. That was the cue for the others to stop, take a position, and cover him. An empty space sat next to Alyssa’s car. Tori dashed into that opening. She backed up to the next car and scanned the area around them. The Slayers had guns hidden in a slot of their boots. Tori put her hand on the butt of her gun, ready to pull it out. Jesse did a quick survey of the car, then tried to open Alyssa’s door. It was locked.

Jesse tapped on the window. Alyssa’s blonde hair was disheveled and she had a few mascara smudges on her cheeks. Her head flopped from one side to the other but she didn’t open her eyes. Drugged probably. Tori had expected as much, yet it still made her stomach drop. Unless Dr. B found a way to reverse the process, the Slayers were down one more member.

Jesse inserted a pick into the lock. It looked like a metal centipede. He pulled a pin from the end, then fidgeted with the centipede legs, turning them. “Alyssa,” he called. “Can you hear me?”

She didn’t answer.

When Jesse had the legs aligned where they were supposed to be, he twisted one end. Nothing happened. He went back to fiddling with the little metal legs. Dirk was the expert at lock picking. They had depended on him for it. And now … Tori didn’t let herself think of Dirk. She couldn’t.

After a few more attempts, Jesse gave up on the driver’s side lock and went around to the passenger side to work on that door. It remained locked. Jesse grunted and tried again.

A couple of middle-aged women walked by him. One of them paused and frowned at him. “Are you breaking into that car?” she demanded.