The Catalyst (a paranormal romance: Preternaturals Book 3) Page 15

  The panther had been on his way. He could smell and track the pup. Her involvement hadn’t been needed or helpful. It had only made things worse. She tried not to think about how intense Z had been about protecting the pup from her, how intense he’d been about protecting her in the clearing. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have done those things. He would have left the pup and left her. She’d been the one who’d started the fight and insisted on going home.

  She’d been afraid that since Z didn’t need her for anything anymore, he’d toss her out. So she’d beaten him to the punch.

  “Speed up,” one of them said. She’d been dragging her feet. Well, of course she was dragging her feet. She was being kidnapped. This wasn’t a field trip to Disneyworld.

  Birds flew from tree to tree overhead. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. Their tones were self-righteous and shrill.

  She couldn’t take their taunting anymore. “Shut UP!” she screamed up at the sky.

  The sorcerers stopped. They’d been carrying on their own conversation which she’d been trying to ignore, because it wasn’t about her or where they were going or anything she could use to help her escape. They were too smart for that.

  “What did you just say to us?”

  Fiona froze. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the birds. They were mocking me.” It sounded insane, like she’d lost touch with reality. The forest did feel unreal.

  The men exchanged a look like they were trying to determine if she was telling the truth or just crazy. “Your gift better not be an act,” one of them said.

  “It’s not an act.” It was the only thing Fiona had that counted as a magical talent.

  The forest emptied into a gravel parking lot, empty except for a black sedan. Three guesses who that vehicle belonged to.

  One of them let go of her arm to unlock the car. “Get in.” The door stood open, like the jaws of a monster waiting to consume her.

  If they were normal men, she might have tried to break free and run or scream, hoping for a passerby. But though they had no guns on them, they were armed. Every magic user past a certain point in their training was perpetually armed with fireballs, energy balls, or whatever else they could conjure on the fly. Stomping on somebody’s foot and running wasn’t an option.

  She tried to stall, instead. “What about Father Hadrian?”

  “He went to talk to your bodyguard. You should have stayed with the panther. We were surprised to find your magic trail led back to the cottage. Did you two have a lovers’ quarrel?”

  Fiona blushed but didn’t answer. The more important part of that equation was magic trail. She had a magic trail? She’d thought it was only if she did magic. It was one of the reasons she’d been scared to try to learn anything, afraid someone would catch her magical signature and bring harm to her.

  What a joke. Most of her spells blew up in her face, but she’d left a trail just by going about her day.

  Wherever they were going, they didn’t care about her knowing the location, because they didn’t bother to blindfold her. Maybe they didn’t plan on her surviving. Fiona tried not to think about that and stared out the dark-tinted windows to distract herself. She had vague memories of the town from before her gift had started to show, before the birds had warned her.

  The town hadn’t changed at all. It was as if the place were frozen in time, but she was sure places changed. Each year new television shows displayed the changing fads and fashions. But not Golatha Falls.

  Fiona did a double take when they went through the historic district. One of the old antebellum houses had burned to the ground. Charred remains of the foundation was all that was left of the place. She tried to remember what the house had looked like. It had been large with columns in the front. When she’d been in school, she remembered going past the place, trying not to look at the windows for fear someone might be looking back out at her. That was one of the times the place had been for sale. It was always for sale. Everybody knew it was haunted.

  They were getting closer to the interstate. Fiona’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the seat. Her breath came too fast and she couldn’t slow it down. She wasn’t getting air. Her chest was tight, and then she was crying, which didn’t help the breathing situation at all.

  “Hey!”

  One of the sorcerers had a glowing red ball in his hand. “I will set you on fire if you don’t shut the fuck up.” He tossed an empty fast food bag into the back seat at her. “Breathe into that.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed into the bag until everything returned to normal, except for her pounding heartbeat. Maybe she should have let the vampire thrall her, then she wouldn’t be so scared.

  A couple of streets before the on-ramp, the sedan turned left. The road started out nice with the occasional peach tree, though the fruit was long gone since it was November. The air was starting to get that brisk bite to it. It didn’t get very cold in Golatha Falls, even out in the woods where there wasn’t much sun peeking through the trees.

  The road went from paved to gravel, and then from gravel to dirt. They’re taking you to the middle of nowhere to kill you. But that didn’t make sense.

  The trees gave way to open, flat land where the dark, clear sky rolled on forever like it might swallow her up into a sea of twinkling and never ending stars. Fiona gasped at the sight. It had been years since she’d seen this much sky in one place before. She’d only seen the tiny bits through the trees. There was the day in the clearing with the pup, but the space hadn’t been this big.

  This wasn’t safe. It was too open. Fiona wasn’t sure why her brain still glitched on this, but in her head, small, dark spaces were safe and hidden. This was open, and though beautiful, terrifying. Her mind had trouble with the idea that the magical thugs who had taken her were a greater danger than being out of her comfort zone in the cottage or the cave.

  When the sedan rolled to a stop, she noticed the plane. There was no way she was getting on that thing. Before the sorcerers could get out, Fiona opened her door and bolted for the cover of the trees. She was almost there when a wall of fire stopped her. She turned to find the fire circling around her, trapping her in the middle.

  The two men jogged up to the outside of the fire ring.

  “You shouldn’t waste your energy.” One said to the other.

  “She’s driving me batshit. I’m putting her to sleep.”

  “But the boss may want to talk to her.”

  “Then he can wake her up.”

  The other sorcerer shrugged, and they both began to chant. Fiona wasn’t sure if they’d put the fire out, but she felt cooler as she tumbled into blackness.

  Chapter Eleven

  Z parked his motorcycle across the street from the Java Junkie. Cherry worked all the damned time. If only he could learn her schedule, he might still be able to get his coffee during her off times. But not today he wouldn’t. Her car was right out front.

  He grumbled, his eyes changing briefly. He’d have to settle for the diner on State Street. Their coffee was too acidic.

  “What can I get for ya?” the bottle blonde asked when he stepped in the diner. She popped her gum and smelled of cigarettes. She had to be pushing hard against fifty.

  “Just a tuna melt and some coffee.”

  She raised a brow and cocked her head to the side like a curious poodle. “Tuna melt? You’re a brave one.”

  Z had a stomach like iron. You could pour poison straight down his throat, and his stomach would take care of it, no problem. He hadn’t tested the theory, but he’d never had a bout of food poisoning in his life, and he’d eaten in worse dives than this.

  He slipped into a corner booth and pulled out his cell phone to dial the number he’d been trying not to dial since he’d left Fiona at her cottage. He had no idea what he’d say to her. ‘Hey, sorry I’m such a schmuck, but how are you?’ It rang six or eight times, but no one picked up. She’s okay. She just doesn’t want to talk to you. L
eave her alone.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she answered the phone. How was that conversation going to go? He was still the same guy he’d been when he’d told her he couldn’t give her anything. Nothing monumental had happened to change that in the past several hours.

  Z stared out the window until a familiar figure passed into his line of sight. He tensed when he saw the priest’s collar. It was the vampire who liked to absolve people.

  The priest’s gaze locked with Z’s as the moon rose in the sky. If it had been the sun, with the way the vamp was standing in the middle of the street staring at him, he’d think he was being challenged to a duel.

  After a minute or two of intimidation, the priest began moving toward the diner. The bell over the door dinged, and ominous footsteps plodded to the back corner, stopping at his booth. Z tried to look bored, but he knew the vampire could hear the blood pumping faster than it should as his heart pounded out a staccato beat. At least therian minds couldn’t be controlled by vampires.

  “Panther,” the priest said.

  “Vampire,” Z mocked.

  The vamp glanced around, but there was nobody else in the diner save for the cook and the waitress, and they were busy with Z’s ever-so-complicated order of tuna and cheese on toasted bread.

  Without an invitation, the vampire slid into the seat across from him. “I don’t normally like to have my back to the door, but I’m sure you’ll watch out for me.”

  The waitress appeared with burnt coffee and a tuna melt that looked like it might be able to get up and walk off the plate on its own, but Z didn’t care. How this place had stayed in business even before the Java Junkie was anybody’s guess.

  “Can I get you something, Father?” the waitress asked. She’d gotten rid of her gum, or at least had the courtesy not to smack it at him.

  The priest’s smile was mild, but the disgust was clear in his eyes as he looked from the tuna melt to the waitress.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. She nodded and stuck her pencil behind her ear, then went back to wipe down the counters. The vampire turned his attention to Z. “Where’s your witch?”

  Z had only taken a couple of bites of the sandwich, but now he wasn’t hungry, and it wasn’t the less-than-appetizing food. “My what?” Maybe he hadn’t heard him right. Maybe he was just preoccupied with Fiona, and the moping was causing him to hear things.

  “Don’t play stupid. We know you have a witch in your care. Or she was in your care. Now she’s in our care.”

  Z lunged across the table, grabbing the vampire by the collar. The waitress came rushing out at the commotion with a burly, tattooed cook in tow.

  “Is there a problem here? You should leave the priest alone,” the cook said. He was simple-minded enough to assume religious clergy were all spotless lambs, so the priest couldn’t have instigated this scene.

  “You should listen to him,” the vampire said, forcing a thin smile to his lips.

  Z turned on the cook and bared his fangs, letting them see his sharp teeth and inhuman eyes. A low growl rumbled from his throat. “Go back to the fucking kitchen and learn how to make a proper tuna melt. This isn’t your concern.”

  The waitress had scurried to the back the moment Z’s face had shifted. The cook backed up slowly, not wanting to look weak, but not wanting to take the panther on, either. In the end, he followed the path she’d taken.

  When they were alone, Z turned back to the vampire. “You think you can take me in panther form? Are you that confident?”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me. You’ll have to thrall those two anyway, may as well make it a good show. You don’t feel very old to me. Not more than a few decades. I can probably take you, and I haven’t even hunted today.” He’d been too busy moping.

  The vampire growled and pried Z’s hands from his clerics. “We have your witch. By now she’s arrived at my employer’s compound. We have the pup as well. If you want to see her alive again, you will tell the wolf to come to us at this address.”

  Z backed off as the vampire slammed a piece of paper on the table with an address in Washington state. Fiona would be terrified being that far from home.

  “How do you know about the wolf?” Z knew the vamp was referring to daddy wolf.

  “He left a scent trail, but it disappears into nothing. We suspect he’s got some way to travel through dimensions. We just don’t know how that’s possible or where the portals are. If he was looking for his pup, he would have left a way to contact him in case you learned anything. Wouldn’t that be the normal thing to do in this situation?”

  Z got out of the booth and prowled around the diner, fighting not to change and rip the vampire apart. “Why did you bring her into it? She has nothing to do with whatever you want the pup for.”

  “You have an in with the wolf. I think the witch motivates you more than the pup. They told me what you did in the clearing. You killed two of ours for her, and you would have killed more. You chose her over the pup, so she has something to do with this now. Tell Cole to be at that address by 8pm tomorrow night and we’ll release her.”

  Z was taken aback that he knew the werewolf’s name. This wasn’t some random kidnapping of a therian born in his fur. They’d known who the pup belonged to from the start. The vampire slid gracefully out of the booth. To his credit, he didn’t flinch or show any fear of the panther as he made his way back to the kitchen to take care of the security leak.

  Z threw money down on the counter and headed for his motorcycle.

  When he got to the cave, he went straight for the kitchen and dumped the contents of the garbage can out on the floor. He cursed when he cut his hand on some glass, trying to sort through the trash to find the crumpled piece of paper with Cole’s number on it.

  Thank God he’d thrown it in the trash instead of the fire like he’d done with the priest’s number. But then, despite his bravado, he’d wanted to leave the door open to the werewolf in case he got a lead on the missing pup.

  ***

  Cole stared at his computer screen deep in thought when Jane came in and put a cup of coffee on the desk. He smiled sheepishly at her. “Thanks.” He was trying to forget about behaving like some whipped pup in front of her.

  “You looked like you could use it. Have you found any leads yet?”

  “A couple. Mick is sending the information now.”

  When he’d snapped out of his premature mourning, he’d realized that if somebody had taken the pup for a ritual, they still had a few days until the next full moon. Anyone who’d taken him to release and steal his power would wait until the time when it would give them the best results. Therians born in their fur were rare enough that you didn’t take their power half-assed on any night. There was still a chance this could end well.

  Whatever they needed it for, chances were good they’d tried to get werewolf blood through other means first. That was when the idea had come to check the theriantype.com order databases. He’d been emailing with Mick to determine who’d tried to order werewolf blood from their company. If Mick had turned somebody away, they might have started a hunt for someone with strong blood who was vulnerable. Which was where the pup came in.

  That left a huge mystery as to how they’d stumbled upon the pup to begin with, but the only thing that mattered right now was finding him and getting him back to the hive and his pack safe and sound.

  Cole swiveled in his chair as the fax machine spit out several pieces of paper.

  “I still think we should contact Dayne. He could do a spell and help us pinpoint the location.” Jane sounded defensive, like she thought he was going to argue with her. He wasn’t going to argue with her.

  He was finished being stupid and stubborn. Whatever they had to do to get the pup back, they’d do.

  “No, you’re right. It was a good idea. We need to know which of these suspects could have the pup, and we don’t have time to follow every lead, not before the full moon comes.” Cole’s money w
as on suspect one, though. The first suspect wasn’t a magic user, but a werewolf pack alpha from Alabama.

  Close proximity to Georgia. Check. And, being a werewolf, one could see how the pup’s power would benefit him. The other suspect was a male magic user who claimed to be a wizard, but had tripped something during the psychological screening. He’d been flagged, but it wasn’t obvious why he’d need a wolf pup. Plus he was in Maine.

  “Will you get me my cell? It’s in my pants in the bedroom where I shifted.”

  Jane nodded and slipped out of the room to retrieve the phone while Cole looked at the information and photos they’d gathered on the two suspects. He swiveled back to the computer and typed another email to his tech support guy:

  Mick, I know I asked you to go back just one month, but that might not be enough. Could you check the past year to be safe and forward me the files of anyone we turned away? I want to see everybody.

  Thx.

  Jane handed him the phone. “You missed a call.”

  “Hmmm. I must have had it on vibrate. I’ll call back later.”

  “I think you should call now. It might be that panther or the witch.”

  Cole was anxious to get on the phone with Dayne. He’d have to reinstate his ordering privileges with the site, and even then he wasn’t sure the sorcerer would help him, which was why he wanted to get that phone call over with so he could know if he was getting his hopes up for nothing. But the look in Jane’s eyes had him dialing the missed call first.

  “Cole?” The panther said in answer.

  Even as long as caller ID had been around, it still spooked him when somebody called him by name when they answered their phone.

  The werewolf tensed. “Yes? Do you know where my pup is?”