Chapter Twenty-Six
Frantic knocking woke us hours later.
“Em, open the door!” Dylan shouted.
“Just a minute,” I yelled back, scrambling into my clothes.
“The shit just hit the fan,” Dylan told me the second I had the door open.
“Here?” London asked.
Dylan shook her head. “The field team. They found Julia.”
I darted down the hall toward the library, Dylan at my side and London right behind us. Once we were all assembled, Quinn addressed us.
“My field team has a positive ID on Julia,” he said, as Carmichael and Peterson did something scary and kind of noisy with what seemed like an army’s worth of weapons. “Ron, James, and I are going to meet with them to assess the situation—and hopefully bring this thing to an end.”
Martine took a step toward him, her fists clenched. “And I’m to stay behind?”
“We need fighters, Martine. You have your strengths, but we both know combat magic isn’t one of them.”
“I’m better than you,” she spat, her accent more pronounced than I’d ever heard it. “Better with a gun as well.”
“I’m the head of the fucking operation!” Quinn snapped.
“Quinn’s right,” Ashe said, stepping in between the two of them. “And so’s Martine. No, just shut up a minute, Robbie. You can do what you want. Like you said, it’s your operation. But you need to think about what’s really best for the operation and for your team.”
Quinn deflated like the last balloon left over from a kid’s birthday party. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, he met Ashe’s gaze. “You’re right. With this whole sending thing, they’ll probably need you, Martine.”
She nodded and started strapping on gear.
“Someone has to stay behind, to keep an eye on things here,” he added.
“Ashe will be here,” Peterson pointed out.
“Like hell.”
“You’re a civilian, Ashe,” Peterson said. “I know you and Quinn already had this argument.”
“I was wrong about that, too,” Quinn said, surprising everyone. “If anyone can get my people through this mess in one piece, it’s Ashe. I want you to take Martine and Peterson and rendezvous with the team.”
“You’re not going?” Martine asked at the same that Carmichael said, “I’m staying behind?”
Quinn nodded. “I have two priorities here—neutralizing the threat and keeping the civilians safe. Ashe is better suited to the former. I’m taking lead on the latter. It makes the most sense. I hate it, but it makes the most sense.”
“And why’m I staying here?” Carmichael asked. “They need all the help they can get.”
Quinn rubbed his forehead between his eyes. “I need someone else here. Just in case.”
Carmichael growled and turned away.
Peterson laid a hand on Carmichael’s arm. “You go. I’ll stay.”
Carmichael stared at him.
“I just have a feeling I need to be here.”
“Shit,” Carmichael said, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. “I hate when you ‘just have a feeling.’”
“Me, too,” Peterson admitted.
Ashe, Martine, and Carmichael suited up, armed up, and headed out to meet with the away team. The rest of us stayed put, not even venturing away from the library. We all wanted to be together, and we all wanted to be close to Quinn so we’d be in the loop, so we all hung out in the library. And we waited.
Waiting is one of the most difficult things that a human being can endure. Anyone who has ever taken a major exam, sat in a hospital chapel while a loved one underwent surgery, or applied for a job can attest to that. There have even been songs written about that particular grueling experience. Waiting is never easy, but sitting around wondering when—or if—we would hear from Ashe and the field team was sheer hell.
Peterson parked himself in front of the monitors, gun in hand, to wait. Brian sprawled in one of the big leather chairs not far from him, and Adrian curled up in its opposite number near the bookcases behind me. Dylan, true to her nature, started looking for a book to pass the time with. London, Quinn, and I paced.
I had only made two circuits of the library when Peterson sat bolt upright in his chair.
“The perimeter lights just went out,” he said.
Seconds later, the entire house went dark.
“Everyone move to the master bedroom,” Quinn said. I felt his hand on my shoulder, turning me toward the door, and then the world exploded.
Everything happened at once. Glass shattered, the loud bark of precise gunfire rang out, and I felt something warm and wet splatter against my arm even before I heard Quinn’s pained cry. In the next second, the wall behind me imploded in an avalanche of books, chunks of wood, pieces of drywall, and bits of brick. Something hit me in the back, and I went down, more stunned than hurt.
Moonlight streamed in through the gaping hole where the wall used to be, and I peered around as best I could without moving. Adrian and Dylan, who had been near the wall when it blew, lay sprawled on the ground, half buried in debris. Neither of them moved, and I sent up a silent prayer for them, that they—that we all—would make it through this night alive. From my position, I couldn’t see any of the others, and I couldn’t see the enemy.
But I could hear her, I realized. She was talking to London, who was pleading with her to leave Brian alone.
Taking a chance on my own safety, I turned my head toward the sound of their voices. Julia was kneeling over Brian, her hands on his face. From the way he was jerking and twitching, I had a feeling she was using her metaphysical cattle prod on him. I knew how much pain he had to be in, and I was scared for him.
London knelt nearby, yelling and pleading with Julia—and banging his hands against thin air. It took a moment for my brain to make sense of what I was seeing, but eventually it clicked. The psycho bitch had to have some sort of damned barrier up around her.
I lay my head against the cool, polished wood of the floor and tried to think. It was really damned hard to gather my thoughts when they kept bouncing from point to point: worrying about Brian, worrying about Adrian and Dylan, worrying about Quinn, wondering what was going on with Ashe and the others, wondering where Peterson had disappeared to, and most of all wondering how the hell we were going to take down the bitch while she was in her metaphysical panic room.
I didn’t have a single clue how to go about taking out Julia or her shield wall, so I chose to concentrate on something I did know how to do. With slow, almost silent movements, I crawled across the two feet of space between Quinn and me, skimmed off my t-shirt, folded it, and pressed it against the wound in his shoulder that he’d been trying in vain to keep pressure on. I leaned on it hard, ignoring Quinn’s stifled grunts and groans. It was while I was playing nurse that I spotted his gun.
He had to have dropped the Glock when he’d been shot. It appeared to have hit the floor and then skidded, placing it just out of my reach. Using Quinn’s body to hide my movements, I crawled backward, sliding across the floor toward the gun. I had just closed my hand around its grip, wondering if I would ever get a chance to fire it, when I heard London speak five words that froze my heart: “I’ll do whatever you want.”
I turned to look at him, fear turning my blood to ice.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said again. “Please just let him go.”
Julia sat back, pulling her hands away from Brian’s face, and studied London for a moment. “I don’t think I believe you. I think you’re hoping I’ll drop my defenses so you can come swooping in and save him.”
London tried to speak, but couldn’t seem to find words. Julia laughed.
“I thought so. So stubborn.” She gave him a slow, lazy smile. “I’ve always known that about you. So I have a backup plan.”
For a moment they just looked at each other, and then London sat back and wrapped his arms around his raised knees in a
gesture I knew all too well.
“Come with me, and I’ll take you to her. Continue to fight me, and you won’t like the consequences.”
I didn’t know who the “her” in question might be, but I had no doubt that Julia was telling the truth about his not liking the consequences of continued resistance. London obviously had no doubts either. He staggered to his feet, looking broken, and held his hand out in front of him, his fingertips grazing the unseen barrier.
“Take me to her,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.
Julia stood and extended her arm, moving forward until her fingertips touched the wall that separated her from London. And then she slid her hand forward, her fingers meeting London’s.
I didn’t know for sure that she’d dropped the wall. For all I knew, she could have just made a hole for herself. But it was the only chance I was likely to get. I rose into a kneeling shooter’s pose, braced my right wrist in my left hand, and fired. Then I fired again.
The surprised look on Julia’s face as she crumpled to the floor is something I will never forget. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.
London stared at her in shock for a moment before moving to kneel at Brian’s side, his fingers feeling for a pulse. A few seconds later, he doubled over, his forehead resting against Brian’s chest, and my heart did a backflip. I couldn’t make myself move, though. I just knelt there, holding the gun, as if waiting for Julia to rise up and make a target of herself again.
Sometime later—it could have been seconds or minutes or years—someone took the gun from my hand and made it disappear. Then London was in front of me, taking my face in his hands. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t make sense of whatever he was saying.
He stood and pulled me to my feet, turning me toward the door. I watched Carmichael help Dylan stand and then escort her to where Brian lay, unmoving. A young man and woman I didn’t recognize knelt beside him, and I realize they had moved him onto a stretcher. I tried to ask what I desperately needed to know—if he was alive—but the answer came in a form I never would have imagined. Violent spasms wracked Brian’s body, and I heard someone say the word “seizure.” Funny how that one word made it through the fog around my brain.
“Will he be okay?” I heard myself ask.
“The medic says he’ll live,” London told me. “Too soon to tell how much damage was done.”
“Alive is good,” I said. And then the world went kind of gray around the edges.
I felt strong arms lifting me, and I snuggled in close. I felt weak as a kitten, like I couldn’t lift my arms or my head. Sound seemed far away and what words I heard were back to making no sense at all. I gave in to the feeling instead of fighting it, greeting darkness like an old friend.
Not much time could have passed between my passing out and my coming around again. I woke lying on the rug in the master bath with Ashe and London sitting beside me. Ashe smiled down at me as I looked up at him.
“There you are,” he said. “Knew you couldn’t stay away.”
I struggled to sit up, and the two of them helped me. London stood and pulled me to my feet—again—and I realized with a start that we were both covered in blood.
“Don’t freak out on me,” London said, pulling me into his arms.
I felt the warm emotional trickle of projected calm flowing over me and realized that I was no longer wearing my amulet. Pulling back, I reached up to feel for the chain, just to be sure.
“It’s in the bedroom,” Ashe said. “You needed help. You still do, but I’m going to let London take over from here.” He patted London on the shoulder as he moved past him toward the bathroom door. “You okay, Stretch?”
London nodded, and Ashe left, pulling the door shut behind him. Without letting go of me, London turned on the shower and fiddled with it until he got the temperature right. Then he stripped us both out of our clothes and pulled me into the shower.
I tried to clean myself up, but my hands didn’t seem to want to obey the commands from my brain. London ended up washing my hair and soaping my skin. The act should have been sexy as hell, but under the circumstances, I didn’t feel much of anything.
Once we were clean and dry, London draped my amulet around my neck and pulled me down onto the bed to snuggle, still naked. It wasn’t about sex, but about comfort, about the simple, basic need to hold and be held. Sometime later, I slept fitfully, my sleep punctuated with nightmares. Only after the sun had risen did we both finally fall into the deep, restful sleep of sheer exhaustion.