Just like that, they were free. After a while, Fisher gave them the all-clear to come out from under the tarp.
“Same pack,” Woods called over his shoulder. “I guess humans have loyalties and bonds, too.”
When they reached The Fair Lady, Woods slowed the vehicle and Fisher opened the door. Hunter got out and did recon with one of Shogun’s lieutenants, who were hidden in the shadows. Sasha watched with her heart in her mouth as Hunter took Ethan’s establishment, which was crawling with cops. Rather than the direct approach, she saw Hunter and Chin-Hwa go into the adjacent building and come out on the roof. NOPD would be in the cellar, maybe going through the office records, as well as combing through the alley and the first floor, spending hours trying to figure out what looked like some type of dark ritual that ended in a possible shoot-out. All she could do was pray that Hunter and Chin-Hwa could find their target to lay the iron and witchwood bundles, and then get out.
Shogun took Finnegan’s Wake, which was the lesser evil of the two bars. It was still functioning, and Seelie Fae knew the deal. Sir Rodney’s guys had told them to give Shogun and Dak-Ho full access, even if NOPD was hanging around and asking questions. But when they went in with rowan, herbs, and iron bundles in duffel bags, Shogun and Dak-Ho cleared the joint. She had to remember to ask Sir Rodney’s advisors how to go in after the spell had been broken to remove the hazmat from the attics, or the establishments would be virtually worthless to the Seelie Fae.
“You ready to go in, Cap?” Woods asked, turning around in his seat.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, grabbing her duffel bag, checking that the coast was clear, and jumping down when Fisher opened the door. “You guys come back from the shadow lands in one piece,” she said to Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow, wishing like hell that she could have gone in their stead.
But there was no time to dwell on that now. Seung Kwon was waiting for her in the alley alongside the building, behind the Dumpster. Their eyes met and he gave her the sign that the coast was clear. The B &B was apparently locked up tight and hadn’t shown any signs of unusual activity. They must have assumed the shots fired came from the bar across the street, which was why NOPD had been in and out of this joint.
Good-at least something was going right. A lot of things were, actually, when she thought about it. And then reality smacked her upside the head-that couldn’t be a good sign.
Sasha watched the van pull off with a sinking feeling in her gut. What if Hunter got apprehended? What if Shogun got caught? There were no Fae in the building now to staff the establishment, leaving only oblivious human workers there, who had been told that the men in the attic were exterminators going in to look for rats and squirrels in the eaves… what a crock. And what if Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow ran into a serious problem in the shadow lands… or Clarissa’s soul got hijacked by dark forces while it was an astral projection. Sasha rubbed her palms down her face.
“Are you all right, Captain Trudeau?” Seung Kwon’s voice held a new level of respect, one that came from people who’d valiantly fought side-by-side.
“I’m good,” Sasha said. “It’s just the heat out here and the damned mosquitoes the size of quarters.”
He nodded and looked up at the building. “We can break in through the back door.”
She dug into her jeans’ pocket. “I was staying here, remember? How about we go right in the front like we’re a couple, using a key?”
Sir Rodney stared down at the cell phone. “They are done so fast? Have hit all three installations already?”
“It’s been ringing off the bleedin’ hook, milord. Almost as soon as I went to stand guard outside to wait,” a tall archer said, handing him the device. “I do not know how to work it, but she was clear that we should wait till it sounded, and then we’d start the Vampire raids.”
With no air-conditioning on and all the windows locked up tightly, the house was stifling. Drawn shades didn’t help; all they did was make the place seem like a death trap. Checking for intruders as they managed the stairs, their wolf instincts keen, Sasha and Seung Kwon climbed until they hit the top floor. Both pairs of eyes scanned the ceiling and stopped on the pull-down stairs to the crawl space.
“You pull,” Sasha said, removing the nine-millimeter from her waistband. “I’ll point and click.”
Seung nodded and leaped up, yanking the short cord that brought down the steps. Silence greeted them. Seung took the stairs in a crouch, brandishing iron railroad ties as he went up each step. Sasha moved forward and hiked the duffel bag up higher on her shoulder. It was amazingly quiet-too quiet.
They peered around the half-story space, disappointed that there was nothing there but dust and a few boxes.
“Maybe it is just not in this building,” Seung Kwon said, glancing around.
“Yeah, maybe not,” Sasha said, and then dropped her duffel bag on the floor. But as she did so and the dust moved in a plume, she remembered the ashes. “Get your iron ready,” she said, quickly going inside her duffel bag and yanking out rowan branches.
“What are you doing?”
“Sweeping the floor.” Sasha stooped and began walking backward toward the only natural light source, a tiny attic window that faced the street and Finnegan’s Wake. The moment the rowan touched a certain spot along the wood planks, the floor spit and sizzled. “Bingo, drop the iron, man!”
She left the rowan where the floor reacted and jumped back as Seung Kwon dropped a railroad tie over it. Immediately, the floor began to glow red in an ever-widening circle as the rowan branches burst into flames. Sasha skirted the inferno and backed up toward the pull-down stairs, mesmerized as the symbol bubbled up like crude oil and began to heat the iron until it became iron ore.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted as the heat fanned out, the eaves caught flame, and suddenly, blue-white entities fled out of the symbol’s center, bearing what looked suspiciously like demon teeth.
The creatures shut the crawl space stairs, tangled in her hair, and clawed at her and Seung Kwon’s faces. It was impossible to get a shot off while they were dragging him closer to the lava-like inferno, savaging him as he yelled and fought them.
Sasha picked up the duffel bag, noting that they stayed away from it and had flung it to the far side of the room by the strap. She snatched out more rowan as she elbowed the vicious little creatures off her back. The moment she held it in her first with a gun in the other, they fled to focus their full torment on Seung Kwon.
“Catch!” she hollered. “They can’t stand it!”
He grabbed a branch of rowan laden with berries, and when it touched three of the little beasties, they exploded into green guck. Sasha went to work on the trapdoor, trying to escape the flames. But the inferno was dying down. She and Seung Kwon stared at each other. The trapdoor fell open. The floor sealed back up. The railroad ties and rowan that covered the circle were gone. All that was left were a few berries that sparked and popped on the floor, then disappeared.
“I think we need to go across the street and make sure Shogun and your pack brothers are all right.”
CHAPTER 21
“It has to be up here,” Hunter said, pointing at the window. “It’s the only source of light.”
Chin-Hwa glanced around nervously, hanging close to the roof hatch they’d been able to open. He kept one hand on the ladder steps leading out, constantly glancing toward the crawl space’s drop-down entrance. “The authorities might have heard us-we have been back and forth here dozens of times, but nothing is to be seen… The Fae were wrong.”
“Look around, man!” Hunter said through his teeth, keeping his voice low. “There must be something!”
In frustration, Chin-Hwa flung down the branches he’d been holding, releasing berries that rolled across the floor. As soon as several hit the edges of the sunlight-bathed spot on the wood, it popped and sizzled and the symbol they sought instantly became visible.