Crap. Kevin had been turned. Or was he ever on our side? He’d left me a note after Vicki died that said he’d “be back for me.” Was I one of his “hard targets”? As a sleeper agent, he could keep tabs on me and now he was going to kill me. I couldn’t decide whether I was more angry or hurt that he was doing this. Probably an equal mix of both.
I pressed on the door with everything I had.
I’d thought I was strong, but I was not as strong as a big, motivated werewolf. He shoved the door back like it was nothing. I dived out of the way, throwing myself between the bed and the window, and firing as I went.
I hit him. Square in the chest and hard enough to send him back a pace. But the bullet didn’t do more than piss him off. He had to be wearing a Kevlar vest.
The ghost in the room tried to help. Everything that wasn’t held down flew at Kevin’s face. He batted it all away as I scrambled to my feet and turned to flee out the hotel window.
I’d climbed onto the heater/AC unit when he grabbed me by the leg and threw me onto the glass-strewn carpet. I tried to turn my gun on him, but he had my hand in an instant. My God, the strength of him. He pinned me with his body and his arms and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. God knows I tried, squirming, fighting, and screaming for all I was worth. I bit him with the fangs, but he healed almost before I could pull them out. I was careful not to swallow, though I wanted to.
But nothing made any difference. I struggled helplessly as Warren, the man I trusted more than anyone else—even more than Bruno—strode into the room. He pulled a dart gun from his pocket and shot me. The same way he’d shot Baker.
Damn.
I couldn’t move. I tried. My body simply wouldn’t respond. I could feel my skin resting against smooth leather upholstery, could feel the movement of a car, but I couldn’t even lift an eyelid. I panicked then, because even though the adrenaline rushing through my system made my heart race until I could hear my pulse pound like a kettledrum in my ears, my body remained sullenly unresponsive.
“Please don’t struggle. You’ll only hurt yourself.” Warren’s voice was a disembodied and slightly mechanical whisper in my left ear. “I combined a curse with the drug in the dart. You won’t be able to move a single voluntary muscle until Kevin says the word that releases you.”
I felt a wave of pure unadulterated rage fueled by the pain of complete betrayal. These were two of the people I held dearest in the world. I would have given my life to defend them and they do this?
Warren’s voice sounded in my ear again. Now that I thought about it, I could feel the headset attached to my ear. “I’m so sorry, Celia. I can only imagine how angry you are right now. But we had no choice. Irene contacted Kevin through his employer. She swore she would feed Emma, body and soul, to the demon unless we turned you over to her.” He paused. “I can’t let that happen. I can’t.” He sighed. “But I won’t turn you over to that fate, either. So we’ve arranged a rescue.”
My mouth wasn’t working thanks to the curse. But I was thinking some pretty choice things about Warren, his son, and the fact that they hadn’t seen fit to include me in the planning. Did they think I wouldn’t have helped save Emma? Did they really believe I’d let her not only die but also be tortured to death and for freaking eternity? Because if that’s what they thought, they didn’t know me at all.
“They’re using magic to watch us, so Kevin doesn’t dare let on you’re conscious. When the car stops, he’ll unstrap you from the seat and take off the Bluetooth. There isn’t much time, so you have to listen carefully.”
It was a simple plan. They had betrayed me, drugged me, and stuffed me in my own car. I was now being delivered, like a sacrificial lamb, to a warehouse on the desert edge of Santa Maria. Eirene would be waiting there, with the demon and about half a dozen mercenaries. Warren didn’t say how he knew about the mercenaries. My guess was that he had hired a clairvoyant—or maybe some of Kevin’s coworkers had done manual surveillance. I’d once met one who had the ability to practically vanish—a more extreme version of the illusion that Bruno and Ivan had used. However they’d managed it, Warren was certain of the number and was confident in their abilities.
I was the bait. Kevin would bring me in for the exchange and get back Emma. At which point the nice folks at “the firm” would swoop in. Under the cover of the resulting chaos, I would escape and get Emma the hell out of there. Kevin was bringing me in the Miata so that I would have a getaway car.
It was a desperate plan, with every chance of failure. Still, it had the advantage of being simple, elegant, with success mostly dependent upon superior firepower. Of course I wasn’t getting any firepower. The assumption was that we’d all be searched when they brought me in, so I was weaponless.
Can I say how much I thought that sucked?
“What the fuck?” Kevin didn’t bother to keep the frustration and rage from his voice. The car began to slow. Terrific. We hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet and something was going wrong with the plan.
I felt the car come to a halt and heard the whir of the window going down.
The man’s voice was a Darth Vader imitation. He was using a voice synthesizer so he couldn’t be recognized. That meant it was either someone I knew or someone Kevin did. “Cut the engine and step out of the car.”
“Hello, gentlemen. What’s up?” Kevin was trying to keep cool, but I could sense his emotions. He was lividly angry and scared. I didn’t like it. He was the person everybody else feared. After a second or two of silence he turned off the car, apparently instructed by hand motions. He spoke one more sentence before the door handle jiggled from the outside: “What’s the problem?”
A wave of power hit me like a sledgehammer as soon as the word “problem” left his mouth. The magic holding me back was released so suddenly it was all I could do not to give the game away by gasping or opening my eyes.
The Darth Vader voice spoke again: “Out. Get out. Now.”
I heard the car door open, felt it shift as Kevin climbed out. I wanted so badly to move, to do something. But my one advantage right now was the fact that they thought I was unconscious. I had to bide my time and wait for the right moment. The truth was that I wasn’t positive I could move yet. My hands and feet were bound. My seat belt was on. And the drugs hadn’t worked their way out of my system.
Warren’s voice in my ear, sounding afraid: “Celia. What’s happening? I heard Kevin release you. What’s wrong?”
I cracked open my eyes a bare slit. An armed guard was watching me through the window. So I didn’t dare answer. Not out loud at any rate.
“Hands against the car.” I felt the car shift as Kevin put his weight on his hands against the hood. “Feet spread and back.” They were frisking him and the search was apparently pretty damn fruitful.
Warren. I still wasn’t very good at talking mind-to-mind, but I’d learned enough during my brief stay with the sirens to manage it. I tried to picture El Jefe’s face, tried to think of my words being written on paper and stuffed in his ear canal. I just hoped Eirene wasn’t listening, or things were going to go even further south than they already had. They had a roadblock set up. They’re frisking Kevin now. I’m faking still being unconscious.