The Problem with Promises (37 page)

I struck the head.

*   *   *

I couldn’t control my trembling, though I wished I could because it made my whole frame shudder.
Heroes don’t quake.
Smoke roiled, dark and oily, over the hood of Brenda’s car. Blinding me. Making my lungs hurt, making me want to cough. And worse, the screen of flames was spreading.
Hurry, hurry.
I could hear them licking the side of the garage walls, imagined the orange-red river bubbling over the ceiling.

It took me back.

To when I was twelve, and little for my age. Small enough to crouch on my heels inside a cramped cupboard. Old enough to understand that the fire that consumed my family’s home had a terrible hunger. And that it would soon eat me. Unless I got out.

But now—with this fire—I had to stay. I had to be strong and wait, straining my ears to track the sound of the motorcycles. They were getting closer: I could hear the rumble of their twin-stroke engines over the fire’s pops and crackles

With all my heart, I hoped the bikers took the bait. A scant forty seconds ago, Biggs had gunned Rachel’s truck and burst out of the garage. He’d driven like a wolf possessed, barrelling down the rutted lane, then taking a hard right at the end of the drive. The truck’s back tires had caught in the soft verge and spun up a cloud of dust and gravel; evidence that Biggs had fulfilled one promise in a useless attempt to make up for so many broken ones.

I’d demanded a dirt trail, and he’d given us one.

Let the bikers see it. Let them follow it and Biggs down the back roads.

My hands tightened on the wheel as I listened to the bikers’ engines slow down.

Don’t stop.… Take the freakin bait.…

Suddenly, with a sudden collective roar, their engines throttled back into gear. Relief bathed me—the fleeing
ah
before the roller coaster’s next dip.
Hold.
I waited, blinking against the smoke, trying to ignore my shaking knees, slowly and methodically counting to twenty. When I reached twenty-one, I hit the accelerator hard.

Brenda’s ancient Subaru surged forward, and me and the sedan shot through the smoke and out of the garage. The first fifteen feet were driven in a state of mechanical horror. Had Liam’s gang left a biker or two at the bottom of the drive? Perhaps a welcome party for Hedi and company? I couldn’t tell—tears blurred my vision.

I swiped my eyes with the back of my arm.

Another
ah
, just as fleeting as the first. The road was clear, empty of Harleys and men who wore shit kickers.

Keep going. Put some distance between yourself and the garage.

I drove, not like a madman, but like a girl pursued by one. The Subaru made it three-quarters down the drive—all the way to the stand of tired poplars—before Liam swooped down from the sky.

Escape had been prepared with the knowledge that Liam the raven still cruised high over the house—he was, after all, the bikers’ eyes in the sky. If all had gone to the original plan, he’d have followed Biggs’s vehicle when it had torn down the road. But all the cursed bird did was wing his way to a higher elevation to get a longer-range view. Even with a brain the size of a wizened walnut, the raven thought like the mean-spirited evildoer that he really was.

Now the bird of prey plunged from the sky, beady eyes intent on his prize.

Shit. I hunched over the wheel.

A sudden, frightening blur of black wings, a glimpse of horned legs tipped with three curved talons. Thud. The car dipped as the bird of prey landed on its hood with a rending scrape of claw on steel.

Go away!
I hit the gas harder and the car coughed, then lurched forward.

I’d hoped to hit him—to make him insensible or better yet, the carrion equivalent of bug guts. But a hooked talon slid into the vents, and another wrapped itself around the wipers. And for a horrifying second, a yellow eye—small, beady, angry, evil—stared at me through the glass.

Impossible to see past him.

“Get off,” I shouted.

I hit the windshield wipers. One blade swept, and windscreen fluid jetted. Liam ignored his bath, continuing to flap and caw and jab his yellow beak at the shatterproof glass
(oh, please be shatterproof).

His wicked eyes gleamed. “Got you, bitch.”

Feather-off, dickhead.

I jerked the wheel to the left, taking the car off the drive and onto the quarter acre of field. The ground was rutted and softer than the drive. The wheel bucked in my grip, the mirror vibrated, and the change in the cup holder chattered.

I was losing traction and speed.

No, no.

Ahead, the field dipped sharply. I could avoid it by hanging a right (
but I’d lose speed!
) or I could think rocket. I opted for propulsion.
Fly, Subaru. Fly.
Just before liftoff, I gunned the car and hit the windshield wipers one more time. Blue fluid jetted over bird and glass, and I went airborne in my seat. The Subaru’s flight was brief.
Bam!
We hit earth with a spine-wincing jolt. The car’s front end dipped, and—
thank you, Goddess
—the outraged raven slid off the slick hood in a flurry of wings.

Visibility won, I jammed the pedal back to the floor. Dirt spun up behind me. The tires bit, grudgingly found traction, and then me and Mr. Subaru were moving again. Once more, I hunched over the wheel, my gaze darting from the line of razor wire the farmer had strung across the boundary line to my rear-view mirror.

Suddenly, Liam filled my rear view. He was approaching low, wings flapping, body a long jet torpedo.

Wait. Don’t do anything until you see the yellow of his beady eyes.…

Closer. Closer.

Now!
I wrenched the steering to the left and slammed on the brakes.

A thud. Followed by a long rending scrape of hooked claws on paint.

I checked my mirror and gulped. The rear window’s glass was crazed. In the center of the depression, a big, wet, remarkably ugly smear of blood. Where was he? Did I get him? I checked the side mirrors, then the back again. I listened for the flap-flap of his wings. Then, swallowing hard, I put the car into neutral and cracked open the door.

Please be dead.

I was hoping for roadkill.

But Liam had done what shifters do when one body was compromised and the other was in fine form. He’d transformed. My stomach dropped at the sight of the man crouched behind the back bumper, one knuckle braced on the ground. Feathers and goo clung to Liam’s naked flesh, and stuff oozed from the gash on his hip. Looked red, smelled like blood, but I wasn’t taking anything for granted. For all I knew the guy ran on motor oil.

Liam stood, favoring one leg. “You sacrificed them?” he said, jerking his head toward the car’s empty passenger seats. “Or did you send them off with the decoys?”

“Let’s make a deal,” I said, backing away from him and the car.

“No deals,” he said, limping after me. “Just play.”

That’s what I thought. I took to my heels, haring for the questionable safety of the pine, the cedar, and the clump of white birch.

“Run,” he called after me. “I like it better that way.”

I looked over my shoulder. Hands loose at his sides, he watched, letting me gain some distance. He was staring at me from under those wicked brows, and I knew, in another breath, he’d smile and come after me, bad leg and all.

What the heck. I skidded to a stop.

He cocked his head, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Chicken?”

“Nope. Coyote.”

If he’d turned around, he’d have seen Cordelia creeping out of the garage. But he didn’t—just as I’d gambled, he’d be too obsessed with the promise of hurting me to notice peripheral action.

Cordelia’s rifle cracked, and his chest exploded. It was as simple and wonderful as that. “You got him!” I shouted as he slowly sank to his knees
. Don’t you get back up, Liam. Don’t change into a bird again.

He fell sideways, mouth open, plucking at his chest.

I slipped the gun out of my waistband. His eyes were struggling to change from a human’s to a bird’s. “You should have asked me what type of coyote I was.” The end of the revolver fit nicely in the spot between those wicked dark brows. “Say good-bye to the Wile E. Coyote, Liam.”

I pulled the trigger.

Chapter Twenty-One

The hotel was located near Union Station, a vast train depot that handles everything from the national rail lines to local trains. At any given time of the day, Front Street is jammed with cabs and commuters.

Cordelia pulled up as close as she could get, maneuvering in behind a minivan with a peeling bumper sticker. The corners of her mouth pulled down as she stared at the hotel’s entrance. “Let me come with you.”

I shook my head, absolutely firm. “We’ve gone through this.”

“This is a hasty decision.”

“No. I’ve thought it through to the end.” Driving to Toronto had taken more than a frustrating hour. I’d used the time to look into the future and consider the ripple effect of those possible outcomes on the people I loved.

The “mines” in my life were slipping through my fingers fast as the sand slithering through the hourglass back at Brenda’s house. Near the entrance to the highway, we’d come across Rachel’s abandoned truck, parked on the verge, keys still in the ignition.

Heart curiously numb, I’d done a quick tour around the vehicle. There were no skid marks to indicate forced evacuation. No bullet holes either. I’d peered into the car, half frightened that I’d find their bodies in the backseat. But the interior was empty and the bag I’d tossed into Brenda’s lap at the last minute was gone too.

I’d tested one door, then another. They were locked.

So, they’d made it to the highway. Biggs had slung the backpack weighted with twelve bottles of sun potion over his shoulder and Brenda had put out her thumb. Together, they’d hitchhiked into anonymity.

For the next few miles, I’d thought about ties and lies.

I hoped they got another year together. A lot of memories can be stored up in twelve months. Even longer if you’re smart enough to spend summers in the Arctic where the sun shines for twenty-four hours a day. There had to be a reason it’s called sun potion.

Be smart, Biggs.

Suddenly, a wave of commuters poured out of the train station. A few of the more foolhardy disdained the lights, instead threading their way through the cars driven by impatient drivers. The train that spat them out must have been one of the last covering rush hour.

It was 9:50
A.M.

Another thing I’d done during the long drive into town was to use spit and the car’s upholstery to remove all visible traces of blood and gore from my arms and hands. Now, I flipped the sun visor down to check my hair.
What a wreck.
I finger-combed as best I could, then wet the tail of my T-shirt to deal with the grime my tears had missed.

The ferret chittered, and my niece—who’d done a terrific impersonation of a statue ever since our tête-à-tête—turned her head. A pair of green eyes studied my reflection. Pale as my own, but shaped like my twin’s. I offered her a tepid smile. Anu pulled the ferret higher in her arms and returned to staring out the window. So, the reserve that had begun to melt was icing over once more.
Fool, “Trowbridge” and “Lexi” were the only two words she understood in that epic fail to bond.

I snapped the visor closed.

It’s probably better that way.

I reached for the iPad by my feet, wishing I could steal one of the backpacks bobbing past me. Even wrestling one of those all weather jackets from a commuter had its attractions. I was cold again. So was Merry.

One more glance at the dashboard. It read 9:52
A.M.

“Can you reach that scarf?” I asked Cordelia.

“What do you want with it?’

“I need to protect the tablet from my hands. Too much Fae woo-woo contact can fry the circuits.”

“This is absurd.” Cordie grunted, her body twisted as she stretched for the baby-blue knitted scarf lying on the seat beside Anu. “The council will have armed guards. You can’t simply stroll in, unarmed and uninvited. Let me come as your witness.”

“No.” I started wrapping the device with the scarf. The pattern was complicated and perhaps too ambitious for the novice knitter. The bobbles were too loose, almost flattened.

“You need me.”

“What I need,” I said in hard voice, “is for you to fulfill a promise I can’t.” My fingers stilled, holding the swaddled iPad stable on my knee.
There. I’ve said it.
Time to do the thing I had turned in my mind ever since I’d watched Anu stretch to put Merry in the birch tree.

Her head turned. “What promise?”

I felt my mouth curve into a bleak smile. “One I made to my brother about his daughter.” Commuters were pooling at the red light. Everyone carrying a burden. A briefcase, an overlarge purse, a backpack, or a shopping bag. They stood, shifting their weight on their feet, watching the red, anticipating the release of the green.

Like the pack before the moon.

Do it fast.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think during this endless night of drives. About brothers and promises. Alphas and councils. Bitches and bastards.” I dug deep between the seats to excavate the plastic bag Brenda had shoved between them. “How I never want to see the 400 Highway again.” I snorted, shaking out the crumpled bag. “I might get that wish. We’ve got evidence, but they might overturn it.”

“Once they listen to you and see what you have to say, they’ll know what questions to ask Whitlock. And if he tries to lie—”

“They’ll smell it. I thought about that. But then it hit me—even if I manage to convince those old geezers that Trowbridge and I are completely innocent of any trade with the Fae, we’re going to end up at war with the council. It’s inevitable. My mate needs to rule without any interference. And he won’t get that. Not after this. The council will be breathing down his neck, questioning his every move.”