Had they come searching for Bron?
She couldn't imagine how they'd know where to look. Besides, there had been surprise in the enemys' faces. No, it was all just a coincidence.
Something that her mother used to say came to mind. If you play games of chance, chance will betray you in the end. That's what had happened. Each time she'd ever gone to the city, it was a game of chance, and now it had caught up with her.
Yet even if she'd bumped into the Draghouls by coincidence, she worried that this sighting would get reported, and the Draghouls' attention would be drawn to this area.
She found herself struggling for breath, as if a garrote was tightening around her throat.
"Are they some kind of cult?" Bron asked. "Are they polygamists?"
Olivia considered the mating habits of Draghoul males. She couldn't explain the truth—not here, not now, so she said, "A cult? Yes—something like that."
Chapter 5
Gunfire
"I discovered too early in life that the only thrill greater than that of the hunt, comes from being the hunted."
Blair Kardashian shook with excitement as he punched the numbers into his cell phone. It had only been a few minutes since his encounter in Best Buy, and he had to report a sighting of two masaaks. Humans outnumbered the masaaks by well over 200,000 to one. To spot a masaak every five years was not uncommon. To spot two in a day was nearly unprecedented. It had been a good forty years since he'd last collected two masaaks at once.
In the back seat, Riley said, "I've got a bad feeling about this. That really looks like Bron. Maybe he's been captured. Maybe he's possessed."
Blair glanced at Riley, then pressed the Send button, and sat staring at the door of the Best Buy, in case the masaaks tried to escape.
Inside the store, Olivia pulled a Kleenex from her purse and wiped her fingerprints from the Toshiba, rubbing frantically.
Bron stared in surprise. "What are you doing?"
She handed him the items they had already picked out—the cell phone and iPod. "Go put those back. We can't buy anything here today."
Bron thought he knew why, but he couldn't believe that she would be that afraid. "Why not?"
"We don't want to leave an electronic signature leading them back to our house," she said. She pleaded. "You don't know who those people are.... Bron, they'll be waiting for us outside. They're probably already contacting their superiors...."
Bron felt stunned. "I don't get it. What's going on?"
Olivia shook her head roughly. "There's no time to explain. Just come with me!" She grabbed the two items, dusted off her fingerprints from the packaging, and tossed them behind a computer. She took Bron's hand and pulled him toward the door, racing as fast as she could.
Bron wasn't sure if he should follow. He's never been around anyone more paranoid than Melvina Stillman, but he thought, Man this chick is out there!
Olivia hit the front door at a near run, and they exited into the stabbing daylight....
The phone beeped three times before Blair's contact picked up. For security reasons, Blair didn't know the man's name. The contact asked, "Blair?"
At that instant, the two masaaks hurried from the store. Blair prodded a young acolyte, who raised his own cell phone and began snapping pictures.
"We may have a situation," Blair reported. "I've spotted two masaaks in an electronics shop in Saint George, Utah. One is an adult female—of feral heritage. The other is obviously of superior breeding, a young man."
Every instinct told Blair that he should accost these two, capture them before they had a chance to escape, but he dared not attack, lest the young man be a Draghoul lord. Blair couldn't even stop them as they hopped into a Honda CRY.
The contact pondered for a long moment. Blair almost worried that he'd left the phone, but Blair could hear steady breathing and fingers clacking on a computer's keyboard....
Bron slid into his seat.
"Fasten your seatbelt," Olivia warned as she turned the key. Bron was still buckling in when she urged, "Open the glove compartment. Hand me the gun."
"What?" he yelped.
"Give me the gun—" Olivia urged. "And the spare clip!"
Bron hit the latch. The glove compartment dropped open. Sure enough, he found a pistol there, on top of two paper bags. He took it carefully, afraid it might discharge. He'd never touched a handgun before. "Is this thing loaded?"
"It wouldn't be any use if it wasn't," Olivia said. Her face was pale, drawn into a frown. She grabbed the gun and set it in her lap. Her hands shook. "Get me the spare clip."
"What are you doing with a gun?"
"Mike bought it for me, to shoot at coyotes or intruders."
Bron pawed around in the glove compartment, but didn't see a spare clip.
"It's not here," he said. His heart pounded. He'd thought that Olivia was such a nice woman, and now he wondered if she was even sane.
"Damn," she whispered, "I wish that Mike would put things back where they belong!" Olivia threw the car into gear and backed out of her parking stall. She shoved the car into drive, hit the gas, and went speeding toward the exit onto the street.
Blair was waiting on the phone as his quarry left their parking stall. Over the phone, he could still hear keys clacking.
He didn't dare just let the masaaks wander off, so he put his own car into gear and followed discreetly. The quarry turned onto the main boulevard before his master finally said, "I don't believe that we have any operatives in that area. You think that a feral has what... co-opted one of our own?"
Blair's heart thrilled as adrenaline flooded his system. This was going to turn into a hunt!
"Yes—a young man, just a little older than a songbird."
Blair's superior breathed heavily as he considered. After a moment he said, "You're training your apprentices as hunters, are you not? Let the hunt begin."
"Let me verify: we have authorization to apprehend these two?"
"Absolutely. Do so immediately."
"And once we have them? What would you have done?"
The voice on the other end went cold. "I'll have the Dread Knights take it from there."
Olivia gripped the steering wheel. Her knuckles went white as she slid down West State, until she hit the red light at Telegraph Road. To the right was the underpass and ramp to the freeway. To the left were the guts of the city.
She took a heavy breath, as if she might hyperventilate.
"You aren't going to shoot anyone, are you?" Bron asked.
"Not if I don't have to," Olivia said.
"There's no reason for that!" Bron said, heart hammering.
Olivia glanced into the rearview mirror. "They're coming for us."
Bron glanced back. A black Mercedes Benz S600 sedan with tinted windows had pulled up behind them. Bron once had a friend who was a car geek, and Bron had learned a lot more than he wanted to know about such vehicles.
In the Mercedes, the elderly man was just pocketing his cell phone. Bron could see determination in his cold eyes.
Olivia stopped at a red light, and behind them the Mercedes lurched to a halt. Instantly, all four teens lunged out their doors, rushing toward Olivia's car.