“I’d kick your ass for this,” he said, “but I suspect Rick and Jan are going to beat me to it. Come on!” Before she could ask him how the hell he’d followed them, he dragged her around the back side of the house.
He chambered another round in the rifle. “Callie’s got two on the front side of the house she’s wrangling with. You go around the far side, I’ll go this way, and we’ll pen them in between us. Got it?”
She nodded, her adrenaline pumping and her body on automatic pilot. With a fireball in hand, she took off running around the far side of the house. By the time she rounded the corner, Callie was actually engaged in battle with a third cockatrice, who’d shifted, as well as two men who hadn’t.
“Hey, cluckhead!” Lina screamed at the shifted one. When it turned its feathered head to her, it had just enough time for its eyes to widen in shock before the fireball engulfed its head. Zack shot one of the men, and as the other turned to flee into the house, Callie kicked his feet out from under him and bashed his head in with a rock.
They all stood there, no noise except for the sound of the barn behind them engulfed in flames. Then, Zack started to laugh. Callie joined him.
Lina, not sure what was so funny, finally caught the giggle bug from them both and sat down, unable to stand she laughed so hard.
“Come on,” Zack said to Callie. “Help me pull them into the house.”
“Why?” Lina managed to ask as Callie stood to do it.
“Because,” Zack said, “you’re going to burn the house down.”
Ten minutes later, they were trudging back to the car with the sky behind them lit in a golden glow from the house burning. A motor scooter was parked behind the car.
“So that’s how you trailed us?” Lina asked.
“Duh. It belonged to one of the guys at the warehouse. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t keep tabs on you, sweet cheeks?”
Callie smiled. “I knew he was back there. I saw him tailing us.”
“And you didn’t say anything?” Lina asked.
She shrugged. “Why? What was there to say? ‘Hey, your Watcher is right behind us’? Duh, he’s your Watcher. It’s his job.”
Lina was going to say something when the shakes hit her as an adrenaline crash set in. She collapsed to the ground, trembling, then crying. Sobbing was more like it, and both Zack and Callie surrounded her and tried to comfort her. That’s where they were five minutes later when Jan, Rick, Kael, Brodey, Jocko, Andel, and Daniel pulled up in the rental van.
Her mates ran over to her. “What the hell’s going on?” Jan demanded. Other shifters also pulled up in different vehicles. “Lina, are you okay?”
She nodded and sobbed even harder as she collapsed into his arms. He and Rick took over the job of comforting her while Daniel eyed Callie.
“Anything you want to say, pet?” he sternly said to her.
She looked down. “Sorry, Sir?”
He started to shake his head. Then he laughed and opened his arms to her. She raced to him and he engulfed her in a huge hug.
“Okay, so what the fuck happened?” Kael said, pointing at the burning house across the field. “That’s the nest.”
“Not anymore,” Zack said. “We took care of it. Or, I should say, Callie and Lina took care of most of it. I just helped with the cleanup.” He winked at Lina.
She guessed he was going to leave out the part about him saving her bacon so as not to freak out Jan and Rick.
She winked back.
Later, back at the hotel, everyone reconvened in Lina’s room. “The bad news is,” Brodey said, “with the place burned to the ground, we lost any intel evidence they might have had.”
Daniel shot Callie a dark look. “It was Zack’s idea,” she said, pointing at him.
“The barn was already fully engulfed,” Zack said. “I figured it was only a matter of minutes before a fire brigade or someone showed up to investigate. Hell, you could see the fire from miles away.”
Andel nodded. “He has a valid point. Besides, we got plenty of evidence from the ones at the warehouse. This was only a small nest, and its sole purpose was running their drug operation in this area.”
“We still haven’t found Fat Boy,” Lina grumbled. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to produce any more visions of him. When she’d tried asking Baba Yaga, the matron had dismissed her with a smile and a wave of her hand.
Callie had tried to explain it to Lina. “She isn’t allowed to get in the way of free will.”
“I’m not asking her to deliver him to me. I just want his fucking name. Is that too much to ask?” She looked at Callie. “Can you find out his name?”
“Not the way you’re thinking. I don’t have the powers she does. I told you that. I’m as hamstrung as you are.”
“Why couldn’t he have been one of the assholes at the nest?” Lina griped. “That would have made life easy.”
“Because I don’t think he’s part of that nest anyway,” Kael softly said. They all looked at him. “He’s one of the three who killed my family. We know this because of Lina’s visions. The group we took out today were mostly younglings and half-breeds, but they were all cockatrice. Fat Boy, as she calls him, isn’t even a cockatrice. Cockatrice won’t let outsiders into their nests. They might have to work with outsiders, but their nests are sacrosanct. They’re too distrustful and closed off to allow any non-cockatrice in. Even humans they’re mated to.”
Lina looked at Callie. “What do you think he was?”
“I was too busy trying to keep us from getting arrested or run over to pay attention,” she said, “but no, he wasn’t a cockatrice. They have a distinct…aroma. Well, to me they do. I don’t know if you all can smell them the same way I can.”
Brodey smiled. “They smell like chicken to me,” he quipped.
Lina snorted with laughter. “Crispy?”
He gave her a high five. “You know it, girl. Definitely crispy. The crispier, the better.”
Chapter Seven
Before they returned to the States, Lina wanted one last talk, alone, with Uncle Andel. She met with him for coffee downstairs in the hotel restaurant before she and the others headed for the airport. Andel would head home from there by train.
He gave her a sad smile. “Seer, you have a specific question for me?”
“How could you tell?”
He shrugged. “I suspected.”
She looked down at the table, where she slowly turned her coffee mug around in her hand. Their coffee wasn’t as good as Baba Yaga’s.
The thought nearly made her laugh, but she clamped down on it.
“When we first met in Yellowstone,” she said, “I noticed this grey cloud sort of surrounded you. It’s still there.”
He nodded, a sad smile on his face. “Yes. It doesn’t surprise me.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“And?”
He let out a deep breath. “I’ve had a lot of good years on this earth, Lina. Seen a lot of things, had more than my fair share of love. I’m tired. And, unfortunately, I’m not immune to things.”
“Cancer?”
He nodded. “It’s in my bones. Metastasized. I’ve had it for a couple of decades now.”
“Decades?”
“Being a dragon, it’s slowed the progress of the disease. Being half human, however, left me vulnerable.”
“You can get treatment though!”
He snorted, amused. “I’m part dragon, Lina. I don’t intend to spend the remaining years of my life locked up and being experimented on, or in hiding.”
“But, don’t we have doctors or something who are one of us? Or who are at least shifter of some sort, who can help you?”