Chicks Kick Butt (36 page)

“Tea?” he offered.

When she didn’t move, Lukas took it and unscrewed the black matte plastic cap. He poured steaming brown tea into the cap and held it out to her. She wasn’t going to drink any of it, but she opened her mouth and the scalding, astringent liquid dribbled onto her tongue.

“It wasn’t a good time for any of us,” Heath said to her. “But at least we know it’s real. The Hunt.” His voice reeked with awe.

“Yeah, swell,” she retorted, to hide her freak-out. This was all a little too real for her comfort. “
You
didn’t get shot.”

Eddie turned around, looked down at Meg, and grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just a little…” He waggled his fingers. He had a special little Gift in addition to Second Sight—he could hurl blasts of debilitating energy from his hands. Sort of like hitting someone with just a little bit of lightning.

“I’m okay,” she told him, remembering her euphoria, wondering if that was why she was crashing so hard now. Nothing else would have stopped her. She’d been seized by madness, designed to lure her across the Pale, so she would die.

“We weren’t fast enough. We’ll get better,” Heath put in.

I
was fast enough
, Meg thought.

The van fell into another silence. Heath said, “We debriefed while you were out.” He smiled faintly. “Lukas told Eddie it was quite common to wet your pants the first few times.”

“
Guete ou.
Lucky for you,” Eddie shot back, but Heath didn’t even acknowledge his salvo.

It was very different back home, even after deaths and murders and some moron’s intestines exploding because they were filled with bags of heroin. Her
compadres
at the Border Patrol pulled crazy practical jokes on each other, drank together. That was why Jack had been so shaky when she had broken down crying over the baby.

Six months’ leave of absence. That left all kinds of doors open. Jack would probably be in the middle of his first rebound.

“We’re home,” Lukas announced, almost as if he could read her mind, and she needed reminding that Germany was home now.

The crowning jewel of Ritterberg was the castle, Schloss Ritter, only half of which stood intact. Wars and time had pulled it down. Meg didn’t understand why they didn’t repair it—they could use magick, couldn’t they? It was like a distressed version of Disneyland, fairy-tale chic: circular turrets, crenellated walls; it was truly spectacular. The vast refurbished rooms, updated kitchens, and bathrooms were the official home to the 357 members of Haus Ritter, one of the hundreds of houses that composed the world of the Gifted—people who could use magick.

What kind of magick? she’d demanded, throwing back more tequila and eating the nachos Lukas had ordered for her. Magick to read minds; to read memories off objects; to become invisible; to travel through time; to conjure and wound and kill. Magick to hurl fireballs and bursts of energy; magick to protect. Different Gifted possessed different Gifts. In Meg’s veins ran the blood of Haus Ritter—the German House of the Knights, sworn to guard the Bavarian section of Germany from all the supernatural elements that roamed within. She was a Border guard, maintaining a line watch of the Pale as it traced its route through the Black Forest, where the Erl King rode with the Great Hunt. There were four such units, and hers had been created a year ago, when Lukas and Sofie had found Eddie.

It was a world Meg had never dreamed existed until Lukas came up to her in the hallway of the Elephant Bar. It probably helped his case that he was very handsome and that she was drunk, and he got her drunker. He confessed later that he’d also used a bit of charm on her, plopping herbs in her drink that would make her listen. Drugging her, in other words.

It had taken her longer to believe him than he’d thought it would—nearly a month—during which he awakened her Second Sight and showed her the specters of their shared history: the ghosts of fallen knights whose last name was Zecherle, like hers; and Ritter, which was his.

In the Middle Ages,
Ritter
simply meant “knight” in German—any nobleman with a coat of arms who protected his lands and his folk. But
Haus
Ritter was another matter—a secretive, dedicated family of Gifted warriors, who were unaware that the world over, there were other magick-using families dedicated to other causes—in some cases good but in many, many others, evil.

That changed with World War II, and the Nazis’ fascination with the occult. Just as the Houses began to contact each other, fear of discovery by the Ungifted sent them underground. As Germans, Haus Ritter suffered terrible losses—conscripted into armies; shipped to the death camps; fleeing Europe. The Erl King was busy in those days, riding boldly across the Pale and stealing Bavarian children—Aryan, Jewish, Gypsy, Mediterranean, and African children—while the Nazis were blamed; and the weakened Ritters seemed powerless to stop him.

Then World War II ended. Resuming the title of Guardian of the House—
Wächter
—Andreas Ritter, Lukas and Sofie’s grandfather, began the slow process of finding the scattered family members. Their father, Marcus, had been killed in a car crash in 1990—Lukas and Sofie didn’t believe it had been an accident—and the leadership of the Border patrol had fallen to the twins. Through rites and rituals, they continued the search for more personnel.

On the damn desert day that Meg had let down her guard and cried, Lukas had found her. Then he boarded a plane to San Diego to meet her.

To woo her to Germany, he had shown her proof of her magickal Gift—the Gift of Second Sight. Sitting in his room at the Hotel del Coronado, giving her a cracked, weathered leather glove, he lit candles and told her to close her eyes while he whispered strange words. After about thirty minutes, she saw visions of Ritter midnight rides, and a redheaded man who could have been her own twin, gazing at her from centuries ago and nodding encouragement. Despite herself, she was drawn in, pulled hard; she knew him, deep in her soul; blood sang to blood.

But when she’d snapped out of the trance she’d turned down Lukas’s invitation, insisting he had drugged her again, and pointing out that she had a life in San Diego, and her own border to protect.

“You have more boundaries than that,” Lukas had drawled. “More walls.”

She took offense, even though he was right.

Lukas had suggested she come with him to Germany just to see. To visit. Then to train, just a bit. Take six months to be fair. And now, tonight, to ride with them for the first time.

What an epic fail.

She stared up at the Ritter coat of arms, barely visible in the storm: a shield bisected into fields of blue and white, superimposed by a tree trunk sawed nearly down to the roots. The Erl King’s name had been mistranslated; to some, he was known as the Alder King, alder being a kind of wood. But he was King of the Other Side—the elves and goblins, the baby thieves.

Sofie downshifted and the van climbed the hill on which the castle was perched. Moving gingerly, Meg pulled her cell phone out of a Velcro pocket in her pants. The face remained black. Crap, had it fried?

“It’s only two a.m.,” Lukas informed her. They had gone on duty at ten p.m., and gotten the call about the child abduction at midnight. It seemed like much longer to her.

The van stopped and Lukas pulled back the door. He unfolded himself and reached out a hand to Meg. It was warm. The wound at her side was warm, too.

She moved from the door and crowded beneath an umbrella that Eddie snapped open. Lukas looked at the two of them as if they were exotic creatures, then turned and joined Sofie at the back of the van. Heath followed. Breath rising like steam, they began unpacking the weaponry, passing out the crossbows and Uzis. The horses would be seen to and trailered back to the castle barn by stable hands.

“You don’t have to carry your gear,” Lukas said, but Meg gave him a look and slung the strap to the Uzi over her head, then her crossbow quiver, still loaded with bolts, and the crossbow itself. There were several metal containers of ammo; she hoisted one up, grunting under her breath at the pull in her side, and headed for the castle. Two bundled Ritter security guards stood at attention before the large ornate wooden door, which had once borne a carving of knights in pursuit of the Erl King. It was worn nearly away, and everyone used a smaller door cut into the old one.

The five filed inside, Lukas and Sofie leading. Meg was in the middle, then Heath, and finally Eddie. The entrance to the castle glowed with firelight and golden magick; it was warm if not cozy, as the cavernous ceiling stretched up into the front turret.

Wächter
Andreas Ritter, the Guardian of the Haus, strode toward them as staff approached and took their weapons and ammo. Tall, gangly, with a shock of white hair and gray eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, he was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater, black wool trousers, and boots. With his salt-and-pepper beard, he looked like an intellectual—some kind of college professor. It was hard to believe that he was over 165 years old. It was said that his great-grandfather had tried to parley a truce with the Erl King. No one could tell Meg if that was true.

The lithe older man spoke to the group in German, and everyone was galvanized by his attention. He was their resident sorcerer and guru. Sofie and Lukas spoke earnestly, and attention turned to Meg.

“You really tried it?” Andreas asked her in English. “To cross the Pale?”

She nodded, and he shook his head. “I’d like to talk to you about that. Could you come to my office in a little while? Shall we say at nine?”

“Okay,” she replied.

Then Andreas turned to Sofie and spoke in rapid German:
“This is your team, yours and your brother’s. Can you not control your people?”

Meg’s voice tingled with shock. She understood every word.

“Not her,”
Sofie replied, and Lukas shook his head.

“She’s new. She’s trying.”

“She’s dangerous,”
Sofie put in.

“Did you get the changeling?”
Lukas asked Andreas, changing the subject.

“The extraction team hasn’t reported in yet.”

Damn. Suddenly German was no longer a language barrier.

“Hey,” Meg began; then a wave of weariness crashed over her. She was too tired to go into it now. Too heartsick.

And not trusting enough.

“Yes?” Andreas prompted.

“I’ll see you at nine,” she said.

He dismissed them. The Border patrol units were elite squads with their own luxurious rooms and bathrooms. Located in a turret, hers was a large half circle, the stone floor covered with dark blue mohair carpets emblazoned with the Ritter crest, matching hangings warming the imposing heavily carved canopy bed. Medieval-looking gilt antiques—scooped chairs with leather slings, a table inlaid with a mosaic of a saint—and a real coat of armor finished off the decorations. It was so unlike her messy but pleasant condo. Her cell phone was working; she set the alarm for eight thirty. Shakily, she stripped out of her kicker boots, cat suit, and the sweater.

Naked, she shuffled into the bath and showered, luxuriating in the hot, hot water. In her mind, she replayed the mission; saw herself objectively, as if at a distance. Saw the Erl King.
He bowed his head to me. He knew me. And I knew him.

There was no way she was going to rest if she lay down. Her busy brain was too fully engaged. So she dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a white turtleneck sweater. She braided her wet hair and left her room. Her boots clacked as she walked down a stone corridor illuminated with overhanging mosaic lanterns powered by fluorescent bulbs.

I saw a demon king,
she thought.
And real goblins. They took a baby. And I couldn’t do shit. And now I can understand German and I’m hung up about who likes me and who trusts me and what the hell is wrong with me?

I nearly crossed into another dimension.

Her legs buckled and she held herself up against the wall. Her breath came in quick gasps; she was shaking, hard; then she slipped to the floor and pushed her back against the stone, bringing her knees to her chest and burying her head.

This is crazy, so crazy,
she thought. She could remember having this same conversation with Lukas, back in California:
Fifty years ago, people who saw your Border Patrol surveillance system would have thought it was magick. What’s to say that we aren’t simply using some other kind of technology?

All his rationalizations. All hers.

Maybe the Erl King was a man in a costume. The goblins, too. It’s an urban legend and these guys buy into it or perpetuate it, and I’m on a reality show. Or it’s some elaborate practical joke Jack cooked up. Speakers in the trees, special lighting.

Except … I speak German. And I was going to cross over. I couldn’t stop myself.

She rested her head on her knees.

Struck-by-lightning stories: August Hellman of Arkansas was struck twice and lived to tell the tale. No permanent injuries. No brain damage. Each time he was hit, he smelled ozone and felt “a terrible sense of foreboding” seconds before.

That monster took a baby. Why? What do they do to them?

No one could tell her. No one knew.

Someone was coming; she got to her feet and wiped her face, averting her head. Living in the castle was like living in a big office building, with people coming and going at all hours, busy, busy, busy. Guarding the Pale was only one of the duties of Haus Ritter. Apparently there were vampires called
Blutsauger.
And gnomes. A lot of guarding.

Hysterical laughter welled up inside her. She thought about calling Jack.
Guess what. I’m living in an
Underworld
movie.

She didn’t recognize the man ambling toward her, apparently texting, head down, fingers flying. He wore jeans and a dark brown sweatshirt with the Ritter crest silk-screened in black.

“Abend,”
he said casually.
Evening.

“Guten abend,”
she replied.

I should tell someone about all this. I shouldn’t wait until nine.