Tempting the Light: Legends and Myths Police Squad (L.A.M.P.S. Book 1) (18 page)

She dialed Pepper’s phone number one more time. Still no answer. After texting Pepper what had happened, she set out in the direction of her home. Not only would this rank up there with her worst night ever, but it could end up being her last night alive.

Chapter 26

River spent most of the day going through surveillance footage.

He looked at his watch and decided to head over to Pepper’s house. Tonight he would stay there while Ottar went out hunting. The burning sensation in his gut and intuition told him tonight they would get their big break. Intuition was a strong factor in his superior hunting abilities, and he’d learned to trust those feelings.

Ottar stepped into the police station. “Hey, did you learn anything new today? Because I found ziltch.”

“I had some interesting discoveries.” River straightened some of the papers on his desk.

“Oh yeah? What kind?”

“The widow returned. It looks like she went on a shopping spree. She purchased a new Cadillac and carried a shitload of designer packages into her house.”

River pulled up the surveillance footage on the laptop and played it for Ottar.

Ottar rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Hmm. You have any idea where she got the money?”

“I looked into it. She deposited a nice sum of money in her account. Headquarters is checking into where the fortune originated.”

Ottar blinked, and gave a firm nod. “That could take a while.”

“True, but it’s a solid lead, and I’m investigating everyone who looks remotely suspicious.” River massaged his temple.

“How about Thomas? Any word on him?”

“Just the usual mowing of the lawn and picking up groceries. He’s pretty quiet.”

“I’m going to head over to Pepper’s house.” Ottar’s tone was a flat out statement not to be argued.

River rose to challenge his boss, and his chair slid back a foot. “Tonight is my night.”

“I’ve been combing the forest all day and need a change of scenery. Oh, and I’m taking Hercules tonight, too.” Ottar fired out the words so fast there was no mistaking it as an order. He rose from his seat, hands still palms down on the table, and leaned toward River. “You got a problem with that? Mate?”

“Fine, let me get my backpack, but I need to tell Abby I’m not coming over tonight. I hate when you pull that superior commander crap on me.” He pushed back his sleeves and tilted his head with amused curiosity. A smile taunted his lips. “You and Pepper hooking up or something?”

Ottar responded to his comment with a sneer and held his arm out in a sweeping motion for him to pass. Shit. He hated when Ottar played the boss card. He had no choice.

He needed to find Abby.

Abby walked up the road at a brisk pace. She darted into the forest to hide every time she heard a car. Ten minutes had gone by and she wasn’t even half way home. She would never arrive home in time.

She tried Pepper’s number a few more times and decided to give up and concentrate on getting home as fast as possible. Why couldn’t her period have waited one more day?

Being a Jersey Devil sucked. Not remembering what she did as the Jersey Devil tore her to pieces.

Maybe if she concentrated on something before she turned she would remember after she changed? Her goal would be to stay high up in the trees, and she planned to attack the Gnome if he showed his ugly face again. She had superpowers as the flying devil and might as well use them for good, right?

Right.

At least she hoped she had superpowers. She had no idea what she could do as the flying beast.

Maybe she had stupid-powers?

She should have rushed the couple out of the store and told them to come back tomorrow. But that would mean the puppy might not get adopted and she certainly didn’t want to be the cause of that.

This was just her luck to have her car not start and have to walk home. Plus, it gave her time to think about River, which she really didn’t want to do, but couldn’t help herself.

She kicked a rock and stormed down the road.

When River came in the store carrying donuts and coffee this morning her heart leapt onto a cloud, then crashed into hell when she thought about what she couldn’t have. Who she couldn’t have.

The one man whose touch lit her into a raging inferno and sent her pleasures on a rollercoaster ride of flat out adrenalin. His smile alone ignited the kindling to get her going. The way he cared for Hercules and wanted to protect her was just downright sexy. River was the real deal. The full picture of everything she desired in a man. She didn’t want to think about what she couldn’t have anymore.

The moon was rising.

Right now, her main goal tonight was to stay alive.

The sun sank lower into the trees, and something twitched under her skin. “Time to man up, or should I say woman-up.”

Abby ground into a halt for just a moment when she caught a glimpse of River’s squad car.
Damn.

She turned off the road, and raced at full speed into the forest.

Chapter 27

River drove around the corner to see Abby walking toward the forest up ahead. His cheek ticked with anger at the thought she would endanger her life yet again. He had warned her to stay inside during nighttime hours, and here she was going out for a stroll at dusk.

He sped up and pulled over where she disappeared into the pinewoods. “Abby?”

Silence screamed back at him. Even the birds and crickets weren’t making noise tonight. Not a good sign.

He ran deeper into the woods and called out for her again. “Abby.”

A glimpse of a pink T-shirt shifted behind a tree. He bolted to her, slipped around a cedar tree, and wrapped his fingers around her lithe arm.

“What do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy? You’re going to get yourself killed out here. I thought I made myself clear.” His voice came out angrier than planned. He wanted to shake her and rattle some sense into her thick pretty head.

She jerked back, and twisted to pull out of his grasp. “I need to go. Please let me go.” A frantic fright flew from her tone. He ducked away from her flinging arms.

“It’s not safe.” River lowered his voice. With his hand clamped around her wrist, he pulled her back toward the road. He didn’t care if she clawed and fought to get away from him. “I’m not going to leave you out here in the woods to get hurt. If I have to, I’ll handcuff you.”

“Let me go. I need to go. Please.” Her voice was somewhat calmer now, but not much.

Tears dripped from her big brown eyes and down her cheeks.

Those tears were like a poison dart straight to his heart. What could be so important that she would risk her life for? Did she hate him that much?

“Look I’m so sorry about the camera. Even if you hate me right now, I can’t let you go back into the forest. It’s too dangerous.” He tugged on her arm through the overgrown brush in the direction of the squad car.

“I don’t hate you, but if you don’t let me go you’ll wish you had.” She struggled and put up a good fight like a pissed off Sasquatch.

He grabbed both of her arms and tried to brace her against his chest. He looked into her eyes, only they weren’t her normal eyes. These eyes held terror, not just fear. “Get into the car.” His firm voice waged war with her hysterics.

“No.” She whipped and turned and thrashed.

He held her tight until he shoved her into the front seat of the patrol car. Without thinking, he hit the lock button on the passenger door and all the buttons snapped down.

“Shit.”

He ran around the driver’s side and tried to open the door but it too was locked. River spied the keys he’d left on the front seat when he rushed into the woods to chase her. He slammed his palm on the roof.

He looked inside to see Abby unresponsive to him, her body shaking. Convulsing.

He pummeled the window with both fists. “Unlock the door, Abby! Unlock the door!” He pulled on the handles, but couldn’t open any of them.

As a Cryptid hunter, River thought he’d seen everything he could possibly see in his lifetime. Up until that very moment.

Abby’s eyes flashed a red blaring glow. Her arms twisted and curled into birdlike talons. Her leg crashed through the passenger window, hairy with a hoof for a foot. The other leg caught and ripped the steering wheel off the console. Her face no longer wore her cute button type nose, but instead grew long and wide, resembling the equine muzzle of a horse.

River’s intestines knotted and squiggled around his empty stomach. His heart dive-bombed and slammed hard enough to break through his ribs.

Shit.

Abby’s the Jersey Devil.

As soon as the thought pinked in his brain, a hoof shot through the windshield, blasting shatterproof glass all over the woods. Its mate followed. Her large horned head poked through with wild determined red eyes, a beacon of terror, followed by two dark leathery wings. She broke free from the squad car and clawed her way onto the hood, then flew off into the shadowy forest.

The air became thinner and the shout of silence rung through his ears.

“Abby?” He tried for a yell, but it came out like a whisper. The gentle woman who captured his heart—was the same creature he was sent to destroy.

Chapter 28

Pepper finished up her last phone call and glanced at the clock.
Holy flaming horse poopies! Where did the afternoon go?
The sun would set at any moment. She glanced at the text message Abby sent fifteen minutes ago.
Help. My car won’t start. I’m walking home.

Shoot.

She didn’t know if she should try to find her or stick with the original plan. She decided not to detour from what they discussed.

Pepper peeked out of the kitchen window to see Ottar poking at the flaring flames in the fire pit with a long stick. His bare bronzed back displayed a magnificent turquoise and scarlet dragon tattoo. The muscles of his powerful body waved gracefully when he moved, like the tide rolling across the sea. She nibbled on her bottom lip.
If only he wasn’t such a savage.

She stepped outside. “Hey. When are you going to fix my dino—” She ground her body to a stop.

The air lingered with the smell of cooked meat. She looked more closely at the Aussie and what he was up too.

He didn’t.

“What the heck are you doing? Oh God, what is that?” She stampeded toward the campfire. A homemade rotisserie straddled the coals, with a skinless animal skewered through the middle of the steel rod. Ottar had tied its little bare legs with twine to the rotating spindle, its stomach revealed a thorough gutting.

He turned the handle nonchalantly, adjusted the meat to a sear above the glowing coals. “I’m cooking my dinner.”

“What are you? A caveman?” She pointed to his homemade meal. “What is that? And
where
did you kill it?”

Ottar smiled a full-blown good-day smile, and she might have melted at the sight of it, if he wasn’t being a complete douchebag.

“Oh, ey? I caught this poor sook raiding some of those greenies over there.” He gestured to Pepper’s veggie garden. The garden she had planted just for her fluffy bunnies and their furry friends. “Do you want some?”

“You ass. That’s the wildlife’s garden. Is that? Oh my gosh! You’re going to eat Floppy!”

Ottar looked completely surprised. “You named your vermin? Oi, that’s right. You’re a veggo.” He curled his lip up like a shoddy Elvis impersonator.

Pepper kicked the dirt onto the campfire, pelting the poor dead rabbit’s body with debris. “You need to leave right now. Get off my property, you barbarian.” She gave his shoulder a shove but he didn’t budge. “This isn’t the bush. Leave. Now.”

He shook his head and tsk’d. “I can’t do that. You know those beasties are out there. River said I needed to stay here to protect you.” He gave Pepper a look she couldn’t quite decipher.

A chill ran across her bare shoulders reminding her of Abby.

Poor Abby.
She’d counted on me.

Pepper jogged to the barn and picked up her Arabian’s soft brown saddle. With gentle but quick hands, she placed it on the enormous gray stallion’s back and fastened it tight around his belly.

“Stupid, dumb Aussie thinks he’ll eat my bunnies,” she mumbled under her breath to the gray horse in the stall. When Abby asked her to distract the guys, she had absolutely no idea what to do. But when she’d found Ottar by the fire, it occurred to her. Abby was gonna owe her big time.

She pulled her tank top over her head and stripped down to her birthday suit. She would keep Ottar busy, all right. A wicked smirk graced her lips.

She pulled out a clean towel and placed it on the saddle—because riding with no panties was just . . . ew—and climbed up on the magnificent creature’s back and gave him a double nudge with her bare heels to his side. They shot out of the barn past Wilma, the other horse, and galloped past a big eyed, open-mouthed, dumbfounded Ottar.

River dug his phone from his pants pocket with fumbling fingers and dialed Ottar.

“Ey, Ottar here,” The Aussie’s voice burst out over the phone loud and hurried.

“We have a
situation
here,” River blurted out, edging forward, away from the destroyed patrol car and into the darkening woods. His temples pulsed with adrenalin, making the ground seem like it was tilting to-and-fro.

“So do we,” Ottar said.

“Abby just changed into the Jersey Devil right before my eyes. She’s out flying around in the damn forest. She’s one of
them
.”

“Wait. What?” Clip clopping rushed across the airwaves, and River raised his brows. He held the phone away from his head and stared at it, then pressed it back to his ear.

“She changed. Inside my car. Or what’s left of it. She smashed the whole damn squad into pieces from the inside out. How could she have kept such a thing from me?”

Several heavy breaths blasted the phone. “Didn’t she have control over her shift?”

River pulled the phone away from his ear again, then corrected, and said, “Apparently not.” Well, she did try to get out of the car but he had locked her inside. “I’m going to go into the woods to look for her. What’s going on over there, boss?”

“Pepper took off on her horse. I’m chasing her now. The crazy chick is riding with her white pointers guiding the way.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“She’s naked, bloke. Stark raving let-them-bubblies-bounce-about naked.” He let loose the laugh of a man enjoying the hell out of his mission.

“You’re chasing her on horseback?”

“That’s what I said, mate. Did you hit your head?”

“Are you going to chase her or help me capture Abby?”

“Crikey. That’s a tough one. Track a flying devil beast or pursue a hot blonde nudie that may be in danger? Let me see . . . I’ll take the hot blonde for now. Go catch your sweetheart, River.” His obnoxious taunting laughter brought River’s blood five degrees short of a boil. The Aussie was out there goofing around chasing Pepper while he needed his help capturing Abby—or rather the Cryptid she’d morphed into.

I bet those two orchestrated this whole hootenanny.
Pepper probably counted on Ottar running after her to distract him from the Jersey Devil.

Were they involved with the Gnome, too?

He jammed his phone into his pocket and leaned his stomach across the mangled hood of his car. He reached through the broken windshield, careful not to cut his hand on the shattered glass, and grabbed his beat up, smashed backpack from the front seat.

Tossing the pack from the hood, he jumped to the street and pulled out his equipment to check for damage. Going into the woods without gear when Cryptids were about meant suicide. He inspected the heat sensitive camera and his night vision goggles. Both seemed to function properly, except for the jagged crack across one of the lenses of the goggles.

At least he could scan the woods with the heat sensor. The camera picked up all heat signatures and displayed them with red and orange visuals. If Abby’s blood was reptilian, he was screwed. She would blend in with the rest of the background. He headed into the forest.

Darkness flooded down from the sky, saturating the thick stale air. Twisted pines entangled their branches performing a gothic melodramatic rave. Sticks crackled in the distance mocking scornfully at River’s hastened steps.

He couldn’t believe Abby would keep a secret this important from him. Okay, yes he could. She seemed very interested in what occurred after they captured the Cryptids and asked a lot of questions. He’d probably scared her to death. Was this his fault?

After traipsing through the thick shadowy forest for over an hour, his phone vibrated. He snatched it out of his pocket.

“I’ve got Pepper with me.” Ottar’s cold dry tone revealed she’d given him a nice run around. River would have laughed if he wasn’t so pissed off at the two women right now.

“What’s your location?”

“Hang on she’s . . . Wait.” River heard ruckus and arguing in the background.

“Don’t hurt Abby.” Pepper’s voice faded away with the word Abby.

“Oi. Sorry. She grabbed the phone from me.” Ottar’s voice came back on.

“Let me talk to Pepper. Now.” He wanted to know more about Abby’s situation and his instincts told him Pepper knew everything.

“Yes. River, please don’t kill her.” Pepper’s tone had hysterics shouting out with each word.

“I’m not planning on it. How come you didn’t tell me?” He lowered his brows and scanned the woods with his heat detector.

Pepper exhaled and hesitated as if she wasn’t sure if she could trust him. “It wasn’t my secret to blab.”

“Do you think she’ll head home?” He hoped she would.

“I have no idea. This is only the second time she’s changed since she was cursed by that damn genie, and she didn’t remember what she did the last time. Please don’t torture her. She’s terrified!”

He cleared his throat. What would he do once he caught her? “Tell Ottar I’m going to track her down. You two stay at the house just in case she returns. And watch out for that Gnome.”

He pointed the camera in the trees ahead of him and checked in back. Every once in a while a small animal or squirrel would skitter off.

River shook his head over and over like the whole scene of Abby morphing into the devil would shake loose. It didn’t. Instead, his mind played it over several times etching the memory deep into his lobes.

Minds are tricksters. Not only did he see the horrific sight of the shift, the image would change over to her laughing on their cozy blanket during the picnic.

Leaning in to kiss him.

Over two hours passed, and still no sign of her. He refused to think about leaving. What if she came across the Gnome and tried to fight it as the Jersey Devil? Would she win? She seemed to do okay the last time in front of Mr. Livingston, but who knew what happened? Maybe she caught it off-guard?

A twig snapped behind him and he whipped around with the heat camera. An outline of a human appeared approximately a hundred yards back. With his other hand, he lifted the night goggles up to his eyes. Ottar waved to him and approached.

“I thought you were going to stay with Pepper?”

“She thought I would do more good here.” Hercules trotted up beside him.

River’s blood pumped overtime to his head and he thought it might explode with anger. “You brought my dog? I can’t believe it.”

Ottar looked down at the dog and shrugged like it was no big deal. “I thought he could help. Any sign of them?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anything. She could be in the next state by now.”

“I doubt it. Pepper said last time she stayed in the woods by the house.”

River nodded, indicating he’d heard him. Conversation was the last thing on his mind. He pointed for Ottar to spread out to the right. The more land explored the better. They had shared enough hunts to know the drill. His hand caught Ottar’s shirt collar. “Don’t kill her unless it’s completely necessary,” he whispered.

“Got ya.” Ottar took off noiseless into the obscure shadows of the pine trees.

Hercules padded next to him in silent mode.

Another hour passed and River found a small footprint pressed in the soft mud. He bent down and touched the damp doll-like print. The Gnome.

The print was dark, and deep. Its sharp edges looked recent.

He carried on his search and found another. Good, he was heading the right way. Ottar was about fifty yards to his left when River made a soft hoot noise.

Ottar swung up his night goggles and River held up two fingers and pointed ahead of him. His comrade would know what he found from the signal. Ottar moved in closer, but still stayed parallel to him about twenty-five yards out.

An eardrum-puncturing squeal sounded ahead of them, blowing apart the silence of the forest. Hercules pivoted; his ears perked, and looked to River for instruction. Like an arrow from a crossbow, both men and dog bolted to the noise.

The Jersey Devil swooped down with her massive wings kicking up dust and leaves, and then she flew back up to the treetops. She cocked her head as if to lock on a target and dove down again. A curdled scream blasted through the woods. A rotten ten-day-old-deathlike stench hit River like a blow to the nuts.

Abby had found the Gnome. The bastard clung to her leathery wings by his hooked claw. She made a high-pitched caw. He dangled wildly while she flew him upward to a branch.

River snatched his net from his pack, and flung it toward both Cryptids, catching the Gnome’s foot. But the Gnome jiggled free from his imprisonment, his grip still locked in tight to Abby’s wing.

She batted her immense wingspan, swinging the Gnome back, smacking his treacherous body against a nearby Pine. He adjusted his grip. He raised his claw on the other hand and punctured another hole in her wing, shredding the soft membrane. His long slime covered tongue slithered out of his mouth, and he slurped up blood dripping from her wound.

Hercules barked.

Abby bellowed.

River wiped wet palms on his pants.

The Gnome dropped off and hit the ground with a bounce.

Abby lunged from the branch in a dive-bomb. The nasty creature rolled out of her way and popped up to his feet, spring-boarding onto her back. He stabbed her with one sharp hooked nail. She shrieked.

“Abby!” he called out to the beast.

Abby didn’t acknowledge him. She barrel-rolled in the sky as if she were putting on an air show, still trying to dislodge the Gnome with no avail.