“…but the timing sucks,” Lily was saying. “Can you get to him and…No, you’re right, it’s not worth the risk. Damn. Well, stay with him and see if he does board. It’s always possible the booking is a red herring.”
“That’s Tony?” Rule said, suddenly paying attention.
“Yeah. He found Hugo.”
THIRTY-ONE
“I’M not easy about this,” Lily said as she shrugged into her jacket.
Rule cocked one eyebrow at her. “Wanting to stay close to protect me?”
“No—yes, I guess I am. But if that elf’s around and pulling mind-magic crap, I’m the only one guaranteed not to be affected.”
“The charms will protect Cullen and me and possibly the others.”
“Yes, but—”
“You can change your mind. I’m not sure why you think Hugo is so important, not now that we’ve got Jasper’s input. But if you do—”
“I don’t know why, either. It’s a hunch.” Clearly frustrated, she grabbed his face in her hands, pulled it to hers, and gave him a quick kiss. She kept her hands on his face to say fiercely, “There’s a reason Friar set this up at a middle school.”
Yes. Friar didn’t care if children were harmed. They did. “It’s approaching midnight. There won’t be any children at the school.”
“Don’t assume.” With that last instruction, she turned and left.
Mike and Todd were already in the hall. They’d go with her, so Rule was reasonably satisfied with her protection. Jeffrey and Patrick would stay here—Patrick with the two Laban guarding Beth, Jeffrey to watch the suite. Jeffrey wasn’t happy about that, but he was the youngest, barely trained and still unblooded. The rest of the men would go with Rule and Cullen.
“Kudos,” Cullen said. “That was as masterful a bit of manipulation as any I’ve seen your father pull off. I especially liked the part where you encouraged her to reconsider.”
Rule’s mouth crooked up. If anyone actually noticed his father manipulating others, Isen was having an off day. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Keep telling yourself that if you like, but don’t try telling it to Lily once she realizes what you did.”
True. “I hope Hugo turns out to be as important as she thinks. She’ll forgive me faster.”
Somehow Tony had tracked Hugo to a bar in the port area. The window for getting their hands on him was closing fast, though—he’d booked passage on a ship that left port in just over an hour. Lily had briefly considered sending Bureau people to pick Hugo up, but that might be problematic, given that he had some kind of Gift. And due to intuition or sheer stubbornness, she was determined to get hold of him.
It made sense to split up. Rule was pleased by how logically it all worked out…and gave him what he wanted. What most of him wanted, anyway. His wolf didn’t like it. The wolf wanted Lily close by, and never mind that close by meant heading into extreme danger. As far as the wolf was concerned, they should always act as a team, and Lily was always safer if they did.
But the man was in charge this time, and the man was relieved. About Lily, anyway. Jasper hadn’t called, and the alarm he’d set would go off in—
His phone vibrated. It was Jasper. Rule listened, responded briefly, and disconnected. “Let’s go.”
THE Joyce K. Hammond Middle School was one of those staunch redbrick buildings erected soon after the great earthquake. Three stories rose in impeccable symmetry above the street, their multipaned windows designed to admit both light and breezes. The school’s gymnasium was more recent, though they’d done a good job of blending it visually with the existing structure. On the inside, that gym looked like thousands of others—a glossy wooden floor, bleachers, basketball hoops.
Jasper sat on a folding metal chair in the middle of that shiny floor with his hands tied behind his back. He’d come here knowing it was a trap. He’d expected to see Friar holding a gun at Adam’s head to force Jasper to obey, and he’d been ready to do just that. Ready to trust—however desperately—that his newly found brother would somehow save them both.
Adam wasn’t here. Five young girls were.
The girls hadn’t been given chairs. They sat motionless on the floor a few feet from him. Two movie-extra thugs complete with black ski masks held automatic weapons on them. The thugs were both white. The girls they aimed at were more varied—one black, two white, two Hispanic. An admirably diverse assortment of hostages, Friar had pointed out, save for the uniformity of gender. They were dressed alike, too, or mostly so. Their tops varied, but they all wore jeans and athletic shoes and duct tape on their wrists and mouths. Above the duct tape their eyes were glassy.
The girls were alike in one more way. They glowed.
Not very much, and only when Jasper concentrated hard on using that kind of seeing. Robert Friar was a lot brighter, bright enough that Jasper didn’t have to work much to see the magic that wrapped him. Spells are always dimmer than the one who casts them.
This spell supposedly lodged them in the immediate moment. They had less short-term memory at the moment than an ant, Friar had told him cheerfully. They wouldn’t remember a thing about tonight. Death would provide the same result, he’d added, but they were all trying to avoid that particular outcome, weren’t they? For different reasons, but that was the point. The spell would encourage Jasper and his brother and his brother’s lovely fiancée to have confidence in Friar’s word. Once Friar had what he wanted, he promised that the girls would be set free, unharmed. The spell would wear off, and they wouldn’t remember anything, so turning them loose was easier than killing them. No bodies to dispose of, no police involvement.
Jasper didn’t take anything Friar said at face value, but the spell did keep them calm—almost comatose, in fact, but surely that was better than terrified. Maybe the rest of what Friar said about it was true, too. Jasper had to act as if it was. He had to act as if the girls could be saved. Somehow.
Friar stood beside Jasper’s chair. He was a middle-size, middle-aged man, slim and healthy, so deeply tanned he looked Hispanic, though he wasn’t. He was a good-looking man who had aged well, even to the silver streaks in his dark hair. His clothes—pressed khakis, loafers, a royal blue cotton shirt—were expensive but not ostentatious. He wore a Rolex on one wrist and an earbud in one ear. He would blend in most places, dressed like that.
Had he come to Hammond Middle School in those clothes to choose his victims? The school was in a prosperous neighborhood. He would have looked like any other parent. Older than some, but not enough to stand out.
Jasper searched the gym with his eyes yet again. It was two stories high with a bank of windows set along one wall just under the roof. The bottom of those windows was about eight feet from the top of the bleachers—a distance he could leap. He could get out that way…if he broke the window first. If he weren’t tied up. If the gun-wielding thugs would both decide to go take a piss at the same time.
Aside from the less-than-useful windows, there were three exits. Two led to locker rooms—one for boys, one for girls. One led to the rest of the school. All three were impossibly distant from where Jasper and the girls sat in their respective spots in the middle of the shiny wooden floor.
Lupi were fast. Jasper had some idea of how fast. He’d barely gotten away from them last night in spite of everything he could do to stop or slow them. For several terrible seconds he’d thought they were going to catch up with his damn motorcycle. But no one was fast enough. No one could cross that floor faster than the thugs could spray those girls with bullets.