Ellis sprinted past me, leaving Kelso and me to run as fast as we could after him. I made a mental promise to myself never again to buy anything but flats. Kelso loped beside me, tongue lolling, evidently going with the flow of this new game we were playing.
“I should let you off your leash and send you to follow them, but I don’t want you getting lost again,” I told the dog in between pants. “You’ll just have to ... whew, I need to take up jogging or something. You’ll just have to put up with slow me.”
Ellis disappeared around a large parked bus into the parking lot, and I set up a little chant of “don’t get away, don’t get away” before I dashed around the bus into the lot.
In front of me, a black car squealed to a halt. I didn’t have to see who was behind the tinted windows before the door opened. I knew full well it was Carlo, and that he’d just set up the most obvious trap in the world—and I’d fallen for it. I turned quickly, whipping out my phone to call Merrick, but the text message screen was still open.
“Get the phone,” a voice snarled from the car at the same time that Ellis warbled, “Run, Tempest, run!”
“Too late—ow! Stop pulling my hair. Hey, don’t delete my text message! And don’t you dare leave Kelso behind! He has abandonment issues!”
The man behind me—to my surprise, not Giovanni—was short and dark, but built like a bull. My struggles to get free meant nothing to him, not even when I tried some backward kicks to his shin. Kelso leaped around, barking wildly, evidently unsure of whether we were playing, but even that didn’t bother the man. He just tightened his grip on my hair until tears stunned my eyes, and dragged me backward into the car, where he threw me onto the floor of the backseat.
“No!” I screamed, and pushed myself up off the floor, only to be slammed down again by a heavy weight. One that panted and licked my ear.
“Kelso, get off of me—hey!” I struggled to my knees, and managed to get myself and Kelso onto the seat next to an indignant Ellis.
“How dare you!” he said, trying to open the car door. “Unlock this at once! We are American citizens, and—”
“Shut up,” Carlo said, pointing a very real gun at Ellis, who gasped and blanched.
Giovanni, I was unhappy to note, was behind the wheel of the car, his emotionless eyes moving from Carlo to the rearview mirror, and back to Carlo, his gaze never resting very long on any one thing.
“Look, I imagine you think something is happening that hasn’t actually happened,” I said when Carlo dismissed the third man, and got into the car. “But I can assure you that my friend here has nothing to do with Merrick.”
“So you admit you are working with him.” Carlo’s voice was silky smooth. It gave me the shivers, and not the good kind.
“Not at all. What you saw on the video screens was Merrick kidnapping me. I didn’t know who he was before that. Well, that’s not strictly true,” I said, my conscience prompting me into full disclosure. I blamed my time in the cult for my inability to lie. “But it’s the first time I met him.”
Carlo’s eyes narrowed until they were little slits of anger. “You came to my house under the guise of my cousin’s daughter, when all along you were trying to infiltrate my home for the Dark One?” His voice was as flat as Giovanni’s eyes. “I see the truth now. You are to be congratulated on your deception. You are quite the actress.”
“I’m not!” I objected. Ellis made a wordless noise of protest, and gripped my arm. “I’m a horrible actress. Just ask anyone! I didn’t know you were Victor until Merrick told me after he kidnapped me.”
“Victor,” Carlo said slowly, allowing the syllables to roll over his tongue. “Is that what the Dark One thinks? How very interesting.”
“You’re not him? Er ... Victor?” I shook my head. “Now I’m lost. If you’re not the big bad guy, then why did you kidnap us? Why did you show up at Merrick’s hotel? Why did you leave your house in such a hurry with pictures of Merrick and me plastered all over your video screens?”
Carlo turned around to face front, clearly done with the conversation.
“Where are you taking us?” Ellis asked, his voice a bit higher than normal. “We’re Americans! You can’t just abduct us like this.”
There was no answer from the front seat. I exchanged glances with Ellis, and tried my door, but it was locked.
Kelso curled up between us, his head resting on my lap.
I slumped back, wondering what plans Carlo had, and how we could escape.
We stopped about an hour later. Ellis was asleep next to me, slumped sideways, snoring, his face mashed against the window, where he was drooling slightly. Kelso was also sound asleep, although his ears and feet twitched as if he was chasing something in his dreams.
Only I was awake when we slowed down and pulled into a gas station. We were still in France, or so I assumed because we hadn’t passed over a border. I’d given up trying to get Carlo to talk to me, and instead made and discarded any number of escape plans.
I could knock down whoever opened the car door, and run away ... except that would leave Kelso and Ellis behind.
I could wake up Ellis, whisper the plan, and have a firm grip on Kelso’s leash when the car door was open, then burst out of it, knocking down whoever was there, and then fleeing. But still ... high heels and running did not equal good fleeing skills.
Could I go barefoot?
I looked at the gritty asphalt, and discarded that idea.
What if I hit Giovanni on the head with something while he was driving, and escaped that way?
I looked around the backseat, but there was nothing there but the bag slung across my chest, which was hardly a blunt weapon.
I couldn’t even call Merrick, since Carlo had my phone.
I kicked Ellis with my toes a couple of times until he snorted, murmuring sleepily.
“Wake up,” I whispered in his ear. “Ellis, wake up!”
He murmured again, and turned his back to me, the jet lag clearly having caught up to him. I nudged and kicked him a few more times, but he just mumbled and started snoring again.
There was nothing for it—I couldn’t see a way to save Ellis and me, but if I got away from Carlo, then they’d be likely to dump Ellis somewhere. They wanted me, not him, so I was fairly confident that they wouldn’t want to be bothered with a captive who had no use.
They might kill him, Inner Tempest pointed out, but I reminded her that Carlo had had the chance to do that already, and hadn’t, which boded well for Ellis.
I had a strong feeling I was in a different situation, which meant I couldn’t just sit back here and wait for them to use me to get to Merrick.
I turned my head slightly to look out of the window. Giovanni stood outside the car, filling the gas tank. In front of me, Carlo had leaned back in his seat, if not asleep, then clearly relaxed.
Giovanni finished with the gas and, with a stretch, bent down to say something through the window to Carlo. The latter just grunted. Giovanni headed for the gas station building, probably to use the bathroom.
It was now or never.
Without telegraphing my intentions, I suddenly flung myself forward, slamming my fist into the side of Carlo’s head and causing his head to knock painfully into the window. He snarled in pain, one hand up to the eye I’d punched, the other scrabbling at nothing. He was effectively trapped by his seat belt when I scrambled over the seat, but turned to look when I snatched up my phone, which sat next to him on the seat. I punched him again, snapping his head back with a dull crack, and climbed out of the car, unlocking the back doors as I did so.
“Ellis! Wake up! This is our only chance!” I jerked open the door, and tried to pull him out, but like Carlo, he was strapped in tight. “ELLIS!”
He just mumbled something, and returned to snoring. With no time left, I snapped, “Kelso, come!”
The dog leaped over Ellis and came straight to me, his tail up and ears alert.
“Good boy. Let’s go.” I grabbed his lea
sh but, in doing so, dropped my phone, which bounced under a display stand of various grades of motor oil. I paused for a moment, wanting my phone, but knowing it was more important that I get away. Carlo started shaking his head groggily, which decided for me. We ran for the street; all the while I half expected to hear Carlo bellowing for Giovanni at any moment.
We made it down the block before we heard the sound of an engine roaring and tires squealing. Since we were in a quasi-residential area, I immediately turned off the street, and ran for the side of the nearest house, hoping to get in the backyard before Carlo’s car passed. We didn’t quite make it, but a small waist-high stack of chopped wood provided Kelso and me with cover. We crouched behind and peered around it, watching as the car sped past.
“We’re staying here,” I whispered to Kelso, urging him to lie flat on the ground. “I bet they’ll come back looking for us, and if we try to go, they’ll see us.”
Sure enough, five minutes later, the car crawled past, obviously looking for signs of us. Evidently they didn’t feel the woodpile was suspicious, although they drove by four more times in the next few minutes. I sat cross-legged with my back against the house, and decided to wait a half hour before venturing out.
“I just hope Ellis is OK,” I said softly, stroking Kelso’s head. He gave me his paw, which I gravely shook.
The sun was beginning to set when we finally left our hiding spot. Just as we emerged from the side of the house, a car pulled up and a family of five got out of their car, all of them staring at me.
“Hi,” I said, waving awkwardly as Kelso and I shuffled toward the road. “Sorry, my ... uh ... dog ...” I gestured toward the side of the house just as if that explained everything, and added, “Bonjour! Ça va! A bientôt.” And then I hurried off in the direction of the gas station, where I hoped my phone would still be under the display of oil.
Chapter Twelve
The odd feeling came while Merrick was about an hour outside Nice, accompanying the thief taker.
“Yes, I’m fairly certain we’re on the right track,” Savian said, examining the ground outside a small café. “There’s definitely signs of him here. I’m willing to bet you that he was originally headed for Nice.”
“We just came from there,” Merrick objected, trying to pinpoint why he was suddenly uneasy.
“Yes, but we were following the trail the wrong way. That or he doubled back over his track, and I don’t see why he’d do that.” Savian looked up and down the highway, just as if the answer were written there. “Then again, maybe he did. Hmm. If I had to guess, I’d say ...”
Merrick waited, struggling with his impatience. He glanced at his phone, but there was no message from Tempest. He had no doubt she’d text him if she was in any trouble ... or had a question ... or even just to say something outrageous.
Damn, but he wanted to hear from her. He wanted to know what she was thinking. And doing. And he wanted to touch her. The taste of her was still fresh in his mind, and dwelling on it had the hunger that growled around inside him roaring to life.
“I’d say they went that way.” Savian pointed away from Nice. “The signs are just a smidgen fresher that way.”
“I still don’t understand how you can see a trail from someone in a car,” Merrick couldn’t help but say, getting into the car nonetheless.
“Remember when I said that you lot shed an arcane-based blood residue? That stuff gets everywhere. It’s like a superfine powder that flies out the window, or is spread when the door is opened, or even when air is cycled through the inside of the car. It’s lying on the road like a faint copper shimmer,” Savian replied, nodding in the direction that led toward Monaco and, beyond it, Italy. “I wish you could see it. It’s really quite lovely.”
Merrick felt like all he’d done for the last few days was travel the same stretch of road over and over. “I just want to find the man. I don’t care about scenic Dark One residue.”
They drove on, Merrick puzzling over his odd feeling that something was wrong—and, more important, his need to know that Tempest was well—until a traffic delay gave him a moment to consult his phone. He pulled it out and frowned at it, lost a mental struggle, and finally texted her.
To: Tempest
What are you doing now?
There was no answer, a fact that left him feeling oddly bereft. Damn the woman, didn’t she know he was busy, and if he texted her now, it was obviously of importance?
“Wait.” Savian, who had been humming to himself and staring at the road ahead, suddenly lifted up his hand. “Can you pull over?”
Merrick did so. Savian got out and ran down the shoulder of the road a few yards, before standing with his hands on his hips, staring first in one direction, then the other. Merrick wondered if he dare get out to see what was the matter with the thief taker, but as there was no shade on the side of the road, he stayed put.
After a minute or two of the thief taker’s odd antics, he returned to the car. “We need to go back.”
“Why? Did you lose the trail?”
“No, it’s on the other side of the road, but it’s not here. There was a sign a little ways back, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. It was for the road going north.”
“Let’s go back and see if that’s what happened.”
Merrick said nothing, but he was annoyed. The whole purpose of getting the thief taker was to eliminate errors.
They retraced their route, and Merrick duly turned onto a new highway, Savian urging him forward. “This is it. See that? Waves of sanguine all over the place. Bet they had a window down somewhere. There’s something else there.”
“What?”
Savian was silent for a minute. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like there is a second sanguine, only it’s different from the first one.”
Merrick said nothing, his mind still on Tempest and the texts. Why hadn’t she answered him? Was it a ploy to make him worry? Or had something happened to her, something that prohibited her from reassuring him that she was all right?
Dammit, he disliked worrying about her. This was one more reason against ever having a Beloved.
“Hold up.”
Still thinking dark thoughts about women who made you care about them, Merrick obligingly pulled over next to a petrol station. Savian got out and made a brief search of the area around one of the pumps. Then he stood next to the car and looked down the road, a confused expression on his face.
“What’s wrong now?” Merrick asked, wishing he hadn’t engaged the thief taker. The man clearly had no idea of how to track people who weren’t immortals.
“Nothing’s wrong other than there are now multiple trails. That way, I think.” He pointed down the road, and got back into the car.
“Are you sure you are on the right trail?”
Savian flashed a grin at him. “Not impressed, eh? Well, don’t worry, you will be. Left here. No, right, go right. We’ll follow the new trail.”
“What new trail? I thought you said there were multiples?”
“There are, but this one is newer. The shimmer has a bit more gold to it. And another right turn up here.”
Merrick frowned as Savian instructed him through a residential neighborhood, the streets of which were full of children and dogs playing. He had the highest doubts that Victor would place himself into such a scene.
“And a left ahead. Very fresh trail now.”
Merrick turned the corner, and instantly hit the gas. Up ahead, he caught sight of a woman leading a white dog.
“Whoa! I can’t follow the trail if you drive like this—ack!” Savian was thrown forward against his seat belt when Merrick came to a quick stop.
He was out of the car and had his hands on Tempest before the fact registered in his brain. “Where the hell have you been? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you answer my text?” The need to kiss her grew until it was unbearable.
“Merrick! Oh, what are you doing he—” Tempest was forced to stop speaking whe
n he gave in to the demand, and kissed the words right off her tongue. Her mouth was as hot and sweet as he knew it would be, and immediately, he wanted more.
“Wowzers,” she said when a tingling at the back of his neck warned him that he’d left the car without grabbing his hat. “That was ... hoo, baby! That was quite the greeting. Ack! You’re turning red. Merrick! What are you doing out in the sun!”
To his mingled amusement and annoyance, she started shooing him toward the car. Part of his mind protested that if he wanted to stand out and get burned by the sun, then he would do so, but luckily, sanity overrode that stubborn idiocy, and he hustled her and the dog into the car before taking his seat behind the wheel.
“Hullo,” Savian said, turning around in the seat to look at Tempest. “Savian Bartholomew at your service.”
“Hi, Savian. I’m Tempest Keye. Merrick, your neck is bright red. Do you have some aloe vera?”
“No. It will be fine.” He shot a little glare at Savian to warn the man to stop ogling Tempest. “Why didn’t you answer my text?”
She held up her phone. It was cracked and dirty. “A car ran over it. I had to use a stick to get it out from under an oil stand at the gas station, and just my luck, someone pulled in at the same time that I got it free. I don’t suppose my text got sent? The one telling you we were kidnapped?”
Merrick sighed softly to himself, and once again pulled off the road. “Would you mind changing seats with Tempest?” he asked Savian.
“No,” Savian said slowly, his eyebrows high on his forehead as he looked first at Merrick, then at Tempest. “Not at all. Happy to. Er ... the dog won’t mind?”
“Kelso is very chill. He seems to like most people,” Tempest said, and went around to take the front passenger seat.
Merrick waited until everyone was settled before asking, “Who was kidnapped?”
“I was. Well, Ellis and Kelso and me.” She leaned forward, putting her hand on his arm, sending streaks of heat rolling through his body. He breathed deeply to try to get a grip on the sensations that filled him, but that just heightened his awareness of the scent of her, sun-warmed, with hints of wood and petrol. “But that’s not the worst of it.”