Chapter Sixteen
Chunks of asphalt, bricks of packed earth, and rocks of every size went spraying outward in a deadly fountain. Helena’s instincts kicked in, and she turned, raising her arms up over her head to deflect the impact from stray chunks.
She heard footsteps running, but to her credit, she didn’t pull her weapon and begin firing. Instead, she trusted the instincts that told her it was one of the men in front of her trying to help her rather than harm her.
She braced herself for inevitable impact when he wrapped his arms around her and took her to the ground. But her body never met the earth. Her savior shielded her completely with his own, and his arms acted as a barrier between her and the asphalt beneath her.
She could then feel a dull reverberation as large pieces of the ground cascaded into him, battering him from behind. He protected her from all of them, and Helena realized her instincts were right. If he’d wanted her dead, he certainly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of protecting her, especially at the risk of damaging himself.
As to why he and his companions had been sitting invisible in her car, she had no idea, and it didn’t look like she was going to get answers any time soon. At once, her would-be protector was on his feet again, and Helena scrambled to get her boots beneath her as she looked up at him.
For the first time in Helena’s life as a warden, she was caught off-guard. She couldn’t believe she was having the reaction she was having. She was better than this… but there was something about the way he stood there, or maybe the expression on his face. Or perhaps his eyes.
He was the one who’d introduced himself as Will. He was incredibly tall, to the point that she knew he had almost a good foot on her, and he was proportioned like a Greek god. His features were entirely disarming, handsome beyond measure, with a furrowed brow that spoke of concern and kindness, but a glint in the eye that hinted at the close and personal knowledge of cruelty. He had to bend to offer her his hand, and that hand was strong. Short nails, calluses, bruises across the knuckles.
Just like hers.
Now was not the time to be indecisive, so she mentally kicked herself up and down and sideways as she took that hand and regained her footing, once more pulling her weapon.
They turned to face the commotion together, he with his own weapon drawn and raised. She noticed he held it the right way, both hands wrapped tightly around the grip, left thumb over the right, one arm slightly bent, feet firmly planted shoulder-width apart, finger lightly on the trigger. Again, just like her.
Up ahead, in the floating dust cloud that remained of the explosion, shapes began to emerge.
“You got anything else in there?” came a hollered question from behind her. She glanced hastily over her shoulder to find the one who had introduced himself as Liam had also pulled a weapon. But she knew what he meant, and as it just so happened, she did have more in there.
“Check the trunk!” she said. With that, she concentrated, popping the trunk open with her mind so he could easily access the metal Taylor box she had stashed inside while reconstructing and refurbishing the Shelby. She popped that open too, because he would otherwise have needed a key to get inside it.
The box held everything she needed to properly do her job as warden, from spell components to extra weapons to a first aid kit that she’d made actually viable by adding prescription pain killers, caffeine pills, and sedatives.
A mere few seconds passed between the time she’d unlocked both for Liam and he and his warlock friend were suddenly standing beside her and Will. Liam hastily shoved one of her daggers into the inside pocket of his jacket, along with a few spell components like charms and spice bundles.
“Do you even know what those do?” she asked him off-handedly, her weapon still aimed at the commotion in front of them. The components weren’t exactly labeled, and every one was used for a different spell.
He just shrugged. “I’m guessing they snuff bad guys,” he said before pulling something very special from the nook at the small of his back. “I’m also guessing this beauty snuffs special bad guys.” He held it grip-out to her.
It was her gun. Her real gun. It was the .357 Magnum her father had given her when she was seven, just before he’d eaten the dust offered up by the monster he’d been battling. It was the last thing he’d ever given her, and it was the most important. It was old; Smith and Wesson had stopped making this model forty years ago. But more than that, it was strong, it had a hell of a kick, and Liam Slate was right. It was special. It was special because of the blood it had been unwittingly baptized in, and the pain that had seeped into the steel, both cursing and blessing it from the inside out.
She looked at it for half a second, then took it from his hand. “You could say that,” she told him as she shoved her Colt back into its holster and raised the Magnum, aiming down the barrel at the mess in front of them.
Figures emerged from the dust created by the explosion. There were seven of them, seven tall men. Or silhouettes that hinted at tall men, anyway. But of course they weren’t really men. Helena let her mental feelers creep out toward them, and almost at once, they recoiled. The figures weren’t even vaguely human. She had no idea what they were though; the sensation was foreign to her.
She glanced at Darryl the undead warlock. “Friends of yours?” she asked. Rumor had it all kinds of frightening creatures worked for Darryl Maelstrom.
He opened his mouth to reply, but someone else beat him to it.
“No,” said Will. “They’re friends of his.”
Helena glanced over. The silhouette of an eighth man stood alone and still in the moonlit darkness beside the road to their right. He was bathed in shadow but for his eyes, which were two stark rings of hot burning blue.
She knew those eyes.
Fear engulfed her, freezing her in place. Fortunately, she was frozen with her gun raised.
Helena watched as Will trained his weapon on the newcomer, and the others stood their grounds. She found herself grateful that the men with her seemed to know how to handle being flanked, especially when she heard more footsteps approaching from behind the car.
Again she lucked out because Liam spun and trained his own weapon in that direction. Helena had never felt more grateful. But she was also beginning to feel overwhelmed. They were surrounded.
Will suddenly lifted his gun with his right hand and clutched his head with his left. Helena could see that he was gritting his teeth in pain, even though he made no sound.
“Will?” Liam glanced at him worriedly, keeping his weapon trained, but his attention was clearly re-focused. “You okay?” he demanded in a deep, but worried and admittedly panicked voice.
Will didn’t answer. Either he couldn’t, or he didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t okay.
Helena assessed the situation. It was something she’d learned to do very fast from a very young age out of necessity. But she didn’t have to be a strategic genius to tell that any control she’d ever had over this particular night was good and gone. There had been invisible strangers in her car, for crying out loud. And for who knew how long, too? She was surrounded by strangers, in fact. Even if some of them were truly on her side, they were surrounded as well.
Then there was the man in the darkness with the blue eyes. He was… uncomfortably familiar. His eyes terrified her. He didn’t seem fully there, more shadow than man, but his presence was strong enough to abrade her senses and make her feel helpless.
She was outnumbered by negative possible outcomes, and she didn’t like it one bit. It was time to break out the big guns. She would pay for it, she knew. But she’d heard of the Slate cousins and truly hoped they were on her side and were smart enough to act quickly. If they did, her suffering could be kept down to a minimum.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she licked her lips and spoke a word.
“Stop.”
It was one word. One simple, colossally powerful word.
And the world stopped turning.