Evalle felt eyes on her as she maneuvered her Suzuki GSX-R motorcycle slowly through a dark, wooded area off a paved road. Her crotch rocket hadn’t been designed for off-road riding, but she’d taken it through worse places.
The last town she’d noted as she’d cruised southwest of Atlanta had been Whitesburg.
Dead-quiet streets. Not that surprising for a Saturday night before Memorial Day. Some schools were out for the summer and families had headed to the beach. Might be a bit chilly down on the Gulf Coast, though, with this late cool front rolling through the southeast.
She doubted anything preternatural was going on out here in the country and so far from Hotlanta, some days known as demon central. But she had no complaint about a relaxing bike ride down back roads with temps in the low fifties.
Dry skies would be nice. Can’t have everything.
If a demon or some other predatory supernatural being really was out here harming innocents, she’d introduce it to her spelled blade. That would kick her holiday off.
Rain continued to drizzle, unable to make up its mind to get serious or quit falling.
She parked and fished a flat aluminum disc the size of her hand from her tank bag, then dismounted. The disc prevented her kickstand from sinking into the wet ground. Her black bike jacket kept her top half dry and her boots were waterproofed, but her jeans were soaked. She replaced her helmet with a black ball cap and pushed her soaked ponytail over her shoulder.
Hairs tingled on her neck again.
That feeling had stayed with her since leaving Atlanta a half hour ago.
Did she have her own private stalker?
Does he, she or it think I’m vulnerable right now?
That brought a smile to her lips.
Darkness encroached from every direction, but the moon kept slipping out from behind the scattered clouds to offer a dusting of light before hiding again.
She pulled off her special sunglasses, which protected her uber-sensitive eyes from bright lights. Her natural night vision was a benefit of being a half-breed Belador, better known among other preternaturals as an Alterant.
The low rumble of a high-performance engine approached.
Evalle stilled. If she turned, the headlights washing past her body now would blind her.
The engine silenced and the lights disappeared.
She spun around as the female driver stepped out and closed the door to her badass black car that looked capable of doing a million miles an hour.
Adrianna Lafontaine wore a denim jacket and black jeans like a runway statement. Her long blond hair had been pulled back into a single braid and covered with a black cap.
Closing the car door, she said, “I thought I was meeting Tristan. How’d you get stuck with this gig?”
Evalle grumbled, “He guilted me into it. Said his girlfriend was back in town and started pointing out that I get to see Storm every night, blah, blah, blah, whine, whine. I finally told him I’d take this VIPER assignment just to shut him up.” Giving the hot car a second look, Evalle asked, “What are you driving?”
“McLaren 720 S.” Stepping past the front of her car, Adrianna said, “I’ve been meaning to ask Daegan why we’re supporting VIPER again after they turned their backs on the Beladors last month.”
Evalle had wondered the same thing when Daegan announced that the Beladors would resume handling assignments from VIPER, a coalition of preternatural beings tasked with protecting humans from their kind. Those same humans were unaware they received this security, or that it was needed, since only a very small number of them knew Evalle and others like her existed.
Sitting back on the seat of her Gixxer, she explained, “Daegan thinks the bounty hunters VIPER hired to replace us when we pulled back to protect our people could end up being a threat to Beladors and our allies if we don’t step back in to hold a position within the organization.” That made sense and Evalle was glad for allies like Adrianna, a Sterling witch who wielded an ancient majik.
Evalle trusted Daegan the way she’d never trusted their last leader, a self-serving goddess.
As a two-thousand-year-old dragon shifter, Daegan had proven his ability to preside over and protect the Beladors.
“I can see his point,” Adrianna said. “Okay, what are we looking for tonight? The voice mail I got only said to meet at this coordinate to investigate a disturbance reported by a troll.”
“Right. That troll is a friend of Tristan’s who stays out of preternatural politics, but evidently is well connected inside the Atlanta troll community and beyond. He didn’t want to give the name of his informant, but said if we walk a hundred feet northwest of this location, the informant would find us.”
“That sounds like a trap.”
Evalle had echoed the same thought earlier. “I’d agree, but Tristan trusts his friend and vouched for this not being a setup.”
The witch shrugged. “Fair enough. Tristan wouldn’t make the assertion knowing he’d have to face Storm if anything happened to you.”
Evalle chuckled. She could handle herself in battle and shifted into a ten-foot-tall gryphon, but she liked knowing her sexy Skinwalker mate had her back. He’d had her back ... and her front ... in the long shower they’d taken before she left.
Adrianna snapped her fingers. “Mind back on task. What kind of disturbance is it?”
Ready to get this done and go home, Evalle got serious. “Not sure, only that the informant said it sounds like something wild in the woods and believes it’s unnatural because it doesn’t sound like any animal he’s ever heard. Being that the informant is very likely a troll as well, we have to accept that he should know.”
“Lovely.” Adrianna had been standing with her body loose, but she became very still and slowly gazed right then left. She whispered, “Do you sense anything?”
Nodding, Evalle kept her voice down. “I’ve felt eyes on me since I left the city. Somebody must feel the need to get their butt kicked tonight.” She lifted her sunglasses and slipped them in place. “Ready?”
Adrianna opened her hand where a tiny ball of light spun above the palm. “Some of us need a little light.”
“That’s the smallest I’ve seen you contain your Witchlock power. Are you gaining better control?”
“I think so. I haven’t had any way to test it recently.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to tonight.”
“Agreed.”
Leading the way, Evalle pushed past branches and weeds to find a narrow footpath beaten down.
That had to be encouraging, right?
She opened her empathic senses to search for anything beyond herself and Adrianna, which the witch would be doing, too. Her mate, Storm, was a powerful empath. He’d been training her to better utilize her gift.
After a moment, she picked up on a preternatural presence nearby. While also trying not to catch a tree root with her toe and fall on her face, she focused hard and pinpointed the presence as being off to her left and behind her.
Not exactly correct. It felt as if the presence was above her.
Was it in the trees?
She didn’t hear branches rattling, but then she didn’t hear any other sound besides her, Adrianna and the rain.
That was probably the informant, right?
When they reached approximately one hundred feet, Evalle stopped to search the area. Through the trees, she saw an opening and headed that way. When she stepped out of the thick tree cover, she stood in front of a pile of boulders fifteen feet high.
Nothing about that seemed natural since they weren’t in the mountains and these were the only big rocks she’d seen since arriving.
It was as if some giant baby had been stacking them like alphabet blocks.
She crossed her arms and remained thirty feet back to allow herself a good view of the area, but kept sending an occasional glance at the pinnacle of the rock pile.
Adrianna stepped up next to her.
They made an odd-looking pair with Evalle so tall and Adrianna barely over five feet.
She didn’t care what they looked like to anyone else. She and Adrianna had started off on the wrong foot when they first met, but this witch had fought beside her in many battles.
Adrianna whispered, “Think that’s him?”
Evalle followed Adrianna’s gaze to the top of the boulders, where a three-foot-tall figure now stood. If she had to guess, she’d say he was a cross between a garden gnome and a lizard troll because of his bushy beard, short tusks poking through that beard, pointy ears and gray-green skin on arms sticking out of overalls.
Rain seemed to avoid him.
She murmured, “Looks like a farmer gnome.”
“Not gnome,” he corrected in a rich baritone, which didn’t fit the image.
Adrianna murmured, “Maybe a miniature troll?”
He snapped, “Not troll!” His gaze switched from Adrianna to Evalle. “Which one Tristan?”
Evalle started explaining, “He’s not here, but I’m—”
The little guy’s eyes got wide. He took a step back and pulled a tiny sword out of somewhere on that outfit and pointed it at her. “Is trap!”
That sword might be little, but Evalle knew better than to discount any weapon in the hands of a supernatural being.
Holding up her hands with palms out in a nonthreatening way, she said, “Not a trap. Please, wait. We’re Tristan’s friends. He couldn’t come and asked us to help.”
Adrianna hadn’t moved a muscle and Evalle now realized the witch had doused the Witchlock power ball at some point. Good thing or the little guy would be freaking out over that, too.
He moved another tiny step back. Skittish, but at his size she might be just as wary.
What could she say to convince him not to run? “Otto will vouch for me.” She had no idea if Tristan’s troll friend would do such a thing, but bluffing was all she had.
The little guy kept a grim expression parked on his face and gave her a long look.
She was not the people person of the two and gave Adrianna a how-about-a-little-help glare.
Offering the irritating little guy one of her signature sexy smiles, Adrianna asked, “What’s your name?”
“Why?”
Evalle almost laughed at the grumpy reply instead of the tongue-dropping male reaction the witch usually received.
Undaunted, Adrianna said, “I like to know who I work with on a job. My name is Adrianna and this is Evalle.”
“Otto vouch you, too?”
Evalle held her breath, but Adrianna said, “Of course. Think about it? How would we have found you if Otto had not shared this location?”
The not-a-gnome scratched his gray beard. He made the sound of a quick inhale and stared at them as if he’d replied.
Was she supposed to infer his reply from any of that? Evalle asked, “What does that mean?”
He sighed and shook his head, muttering something, then said, “Ja. I said ja.”
When had he spoken the word ja?
Adrianna offered, “His intake of breath is how they sometimes say yes. It’s ingressive phonetic speech.”
He nodded with another quick inhale.
Unbelievable. Evalle mentally cursed Tristan. Was she supposed to interpret miscellaneous sounds as words? Getting tired of staring up in this drizzle, she tried to be conversational in hopes of getting him to talk.
“I’ll make a wild guess that you’re from Sweden.”
He nodded this time. Was he running out of air for his ingressive whatever?
Done with meet and greet, Evalle suggested, “Why don’t you tell us what the problem is so we can take care of it and move on?”
“Much screaming. Three nights. Not natural.”
“Where?”
Using his thumb, he pointed behind him, which could be on the other side of the rocks or ten miles in that direction.
“Have you gotten close enough to see anything that would help us determine what it is?”
“Why I do that?” He pointed at his chest. “Not VIPER agent. Not killer. Your job. I pass word to troll. He tell Otto. He tell your kind. Is enough.”
“Our kind?” Evalle asked in disbelief. As if he was any more human than her? At least she looked human.
Irritated at being labeled unfairly, she straightened him out. “If you mean Beladors, we’re not killers.” Her mind was jumping around with frustration, which caused her to drag up a bad memory of trolls and Sweden. “We only kill to protect others, not like those cold-blooded assassin Svart Trolls who came to Atlanta from your country.”
His face registered shock when she mentioned the Svart Trolls. Huh.
She asked, “Hey, is that Svart bunch friends of yours?” She seriously doubted it since he was adamant about not being a troll, but she wanted to push a button that might result in more than choppy and vague answers.
He lifted his little hands and grabbed his head as if this whole line of discussion was giving him a migraine. Growling as he answered, he said, “Not friends. I hide and travel here with them. Nothing more.”
She hadn’t seen that coming. “Let me get this straight. You’re not a troll, but you traveled with that bunch of assassin trolls. Why would you associate with them?”
Frowning, Adrianna asked, “What does it matter?”
“Because he could be setting us up for some trap. Tristan trusts Otto and Otto must have trusted the troll this guy talked to, but that could mean Otto might not even know about this guy.”
“You’ve got a point.” Adrianna arched a no-longer-friendly look up the tower of rocks at the informant. “Enough of this dancing around. What’s your name and why should we believe you?”
Crossing his little arms, he sent an equally stubborn look right back. “No name. I give message. Is enough.”
“Fine.” Evalle shrugged. “Good luck with whatever is terrorizing the woods here and finding anyone else to help you once we leave. The minute I get back, I’m informing my people there’s a Svart Troll supporter in these woods.”
“No!”
She gave it a moment then said, “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“I have family. Is why I need beast killed.”
There were more not-gnomes?
Keeping her voice calm, but full of warning, Evalle said, “I have family, too. Svart Trolls tried to kill me and people important to me.” Rain slid over the brim of her cap and down her face in a stream. She didn’t want to leave a beast of some kind running loose in these woods, but neither would she let this little guy off the hook without finding out his tie to the Svart Trolls.
He muttered something, shaking his head and kicking at a tiny bit of gravel. Finally he said, “I am born to troll father and nisse mother.”
“What’s a nisse?” Adrianna questioned in a gentle voice while flashing a cut-him-some-slack glance at Evalle.
“Is small people in same homeland as Svart. Live in secret on farms.” He raised his chin and pushed his chest out. “Help good humans many generations.”
“Small people like you?”
Now he looked insulted by Adrianna’s question. “Me big. Like father.”
Evalle rolled her eyes. Men.
That explained the tusks and leathery skin of a troll, though. She said, “I’m still confused. You have troll blood, but you claim to not be friends with the Svart.”
“No.” His voice turned sad. “Trolls hate me. Father’s family try to kill me many times. I find nisse wife and we leave.”
Adrianna pointed out, “You still haven’t given us your name.”
He strutted back and forth, clearly deliberating then turned to them. “Only if swear to keep secret.”
Evalle arched an eyebrow at him. “I am not swearing anything to a nisse-troll.”
“Not troll! Must keep name secret.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” she snapped. “I give you my word that if you harm no humans and none of our kind who don’t first threaten your life, that I won’t share your name. That’s it.”
Adrianna gave the same agreement and added, “We keep secrets all the time. We have no reason to share yours unless you give us reason to do so. What’s your name?”
He studied his hands, muttering again, then raised eyes ringed in misery. “Misstag.”
“Huh?” Evalle looked at Adrianna who hadn’t gotten it either.
“Is name,” he whispered, sounding embarrassed. “Mean mistake. I am mistake. Not nisse. Not troll.”
Well, hell. Evalle had a soft place for outcasts, having been one since birth. She groaned out a sigh and glanced at Adrianna.
The witch cut her eyes at Evalle. “Sounds believable, but a good lie always does.”
“No lie,” he argued. “Why lie? You send more killers.”
“We’re not killers, dammit,” Evalle snarled.
He did that whole raise his arms in exasperation thing and stomped around. This time he spoke more clearly in what Evalle guessed to be Swedish.
Probably cursing.
Evalle just had to be the nice person and take Tristan’s place tonight. “Never mind, Misstag. Just please get to the point. Tell us everything you know, such as the exact location where you heard this screaming. Anything that would help us.”
He scrunched up his wrinkled little face at her. “Is long walk that way.” He pointed over his shoulder again. “Rip deer in pieces. Rip us or human next.”
Showing more patience than Evalle felt, Adrianna pecked away at their informant. “What makes you sure it’s not natural?”
“Smell scent. Not human. Not animal.”
Evalle perked up at some decent intel. “Demon?”
“No. Smell odd.”
And she was back to getting better answers out of a toadstool.
Misstag ordered, “Call Tristan. More men. Not good for you.”
Evalle started to argue that only minutes ago he’d called her kind killers. She quipped in Adrianna’s direction, “Listen to that. He’s worried about us and thinks we should call in some great big men to back up us women. What do you think?”
Adrianna met Evalle’s gaze for a brief moment before they started laughing.
The witch said, “Oh, yes. That’ll be the day when you and I call in reinforcements to investigate something like this.” Wiping her eyes, she told Misstag, “We’ve got this. Show us the way and you can go back to wherever you live.”
He vanished without a word.
“Are you kidding me?” Evalle shouted.
Misstag stepped from behind the stack of boulders, but on the same level with them. He had his hands over his ears. “Too much mouth.”
Adrianna found that hilarious.
Misstag took off, not allowing Evalle a chance to counter his insult. She caught him immediately, “Slow down so Adrianna can keep up.”
That made him happy.
Whatever stroked his ego for the moment.
They trudged through trees, over a creek, up a hill, down a hill and back through more trees, then stopped at the edge of the tree line. A wide space of gently rolling ground spread beyond this point. With a little grooming, it would be a pasture.
Wasn’t this area near the Chattahoochee Bend State Park?
“See?” Misstag said, stepping to the side then pointing at the ground.
Evalle told him, “No, I’m not Superman with x-ray vision. I can’t see through dirt and rock.”
She got a pint-sized glare for that. He pointed harder and ordered, “Look.”
Giving in, Evalle and Adrianna moved closer to Misstag, who pulled out his sword and made a circular motion with it above the ground.
A circle of light an inch tall glowed around a two-foot diameter area.
Inside that, Evalle now saw a footprint she seriously doubted anything natural had made. Whatever it was had some wicked claws and ... crud. That looked suspiciously like her beast footprint before she evolved into a gryphon.
She suggested, “Misstag, can you track that—”
Her voice faded as she turned to find the spot where he’d been standing empty. “Misstag? Misstag?”
“He abandoned us,” Adrianna groused.
“You hear that?” Evalle murmured.
“Hear what?” Adrianna asked. The witch opened her palm and Witchlock swirled, growing to the size of a grapefruit as the witch powered up the ball of majik.
“Silence?” Evalle replied. The trickle of concern climbing her neck was not due to Misstag having obviously left them on their own, but the sudden stillness of the woods.
Just as quickly, the dead quiet gave way to something large crashing through the woods behind them ... and coming in their direction.
“Get ready,” Evalle snapped, spinning around to face the threat.
“Can’t get much more ready than this.”
Evalle glanced at the glowing ball of Witchlock. “Why isn’t it any bigger?”
Louder pounding approached.
Adrianna scowled. “I can manage this size. Things get hairy when it gets twice as big.”
“We may need hairy if that thing coming this way is Misstag’s monster. It sounds the size of an elephant.”
“You can’t handle an elephant?” Adrianna challenged, splitting her attention between the spinning ball of energy she held and the noise in the woods.
“Maybe not if the elephant is jacked up on demon power,” Evalle shot back. She prepared for an attack and raised her hands to wield her kinetic ability.
A tree thicker than her body snapped and fell straight at them like it had a rocket booster.