Against the Dawn (14 page)

Lorik took off to where he’d parked the SUV and I slowly approached the werewolf, my steps precise, my eyes locked on his. When asserting dominance, eye contact was essential, and no matter his situation, I couldn’t let Steve think I was weaker than he was. He didn’t know me and he certainly didn’t have to trust me. Right now, I was nothing more than an accomplice to his kidnapping and I wouldn’t blame him if he decided I was vulnerable enough to attack.

Steve eyed me warily. Or more to the point like I might make a decent snack. Either way it was unnerving. When I closed the distance between us to less than a foot, I bent down to his ear, careful not to touch him and said, “Okay, Steve. Let’s go for a ride. If you understand me, nod your head.” It was worth a shot, right?

Steve bucked his head in the air, knocking my elbow. The silver chain rattled in my grip and he released a chuff of breath. “Cool. All right, so, did Mithras’s guys kidnap you?” He threw his head up again. “You could just be saying that, though. How do I know I can trust you?” Steve responded with a low growl that I felt in the soles of my feet. “Gotcha. You don’t like being called a liar.”

“Darian!” Lorik called from somewhere up ahead. “Hurry up! I haven’t got all night.”

I looked at Steve and rolled my eyes. Lorik was such a pain in the ass. “Here’s the deal, Steve. If I had it my way, I’d let you go right now. But if I do, it’ll be my ass.” If we failed to perform this task, Mithras would sever any hopes of a professional relationship—and probably our heads. And I wasn’t going to help anyone if I was dead. “If you cooperate, I swear I’ll get you out of this.”

He let out a low whine that built into another mournful howl. I couldn’t say I was any more thrilled with the situation than he was.

“Believe me, I know how you feel.” No one likes to feel powerless, and I sensed that this situation was tough for the wolf to deal with. The predator in him must have been going out of its mind. “Walk beside me,” I suggested. “Maybe you won’t feel so much like you’re on a leash, then?”

His body twitched as he stood and shook out his fur. His claws clicked on the pier as he walked beside me and we headed in Lorik’s direction. There was no doubt in my mind that things were going to get a hell of a lot worse before they got better. And we only had a half an hour left to get Steve across the city to his destination point. I sure as hell hoped that werewolves were the trustworthy sort because I was about to take a huge risk in trying to get him to Mithras in one piece
and
set him free.

And I was going to need the help of my genie to pull it off.

When we got to the car, I let out a long, drawn out sigh. Lorik had to be the stupidest criminal I’d ever met in my life. “Don’t you think that’s a bit obvious?” I said, indicating the Cadillac Escalade. Jesus, why didn’t he just steal a police patrol car? “A car like that is going to have GPS tracking, Lorik, not to mention an anti-theft system that’ll have us dead in the water.” Had he never watched Bait Car before? Probably not. “OnStar is going to kill the engine before we even make it out of downtown.”

We were already pretty conspicuous walking around with a pony-sized wolf on a length of silver chain. And for some damned reason, Lorik thought that stealing a luxury SUV was a perfectly logical decision. How had he survived for so many years? Maybe he truly was immortal and not merely eternally youthful. Because seriously, he was so clueless, he should’ve been dead a hundred times over by now.

“I disabled the GPS. And the onboard navigation system. No one’s going to shut us down, Darian. Really, do you think I’m stupid?”

I was going to operate on the assumption that he didn’t want me to answer that. “How did you disable it?” There was no way he could’ve done it. Cars like that were outfitted with microchips and all sorts of technology that I couldn’t figure out.

“Don’t worry about how I did it,” he snapped. “Get in.”

He opened the hatchback and jerked his head toward the interior. I took a couple of cleansing breaths—because I really, really wanted to poke him with something sharp—and urged Steve toward the Escalade. “Jump in the back, buddy. It’ll be okay.”

He turned his blue-eyed stare to me for a moment before swinging his head toward Lorik. With a low, warning growl, he jumped up into the back and I piled the length of chain beside him.

“I see you’ve made friends with the beast,” Lorik snickered as he shut the hatch. “Isn’t that precious?”

Yeah, I was so goddamned cute. “Get us to the freeway,” I said as I jumped in the back seat. “Traffic will move faster and there’ll be less chance of someone spotting us if the car’s reported as stolen.”

“Why are you sitting back there?” Lorik tried to sound pouty but all I heard was suspicion in his tone. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I gave him credit for. “I’ll look like a fucking chauffer. Get in the front.”

What a snob. That aspect of his personality hadn’t changed over the decades. “Lorik,” I tried to keep my tone level, but I really just wanted to punch him in the face. “If we’re both up front, no one is watching the wolf. These are close quarters and if you hadn’t noticed, he’s pretty damned big. Do you want to run the risk that he jumps over the seat and bites your head off?” Really, I should have planted the suggestion and let Steve follow through. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking one of us should keep an eye on him while the other drives.”

Lorik grumbled an agreement of sorts which was good enough for me, because I was through arguing with him. I’d been brought on as security in his little business endeavor and my position had deteriorated into comedic sidekick. What a fiasco. I could only hope that Mithras waited for us at the end of tonight’s excursion. Otherwise, I was going to be seriously pissed off.

I made sure to sit directly behind Lorik, so he wouldn’t be able to watch me through the rearview mirror. Using my phone in the dark interior of the car was problematic and I tried to shield the glow from my screen as much as I could as I opened a text message window.

Heading to 2573 Tamarack Drive with Lorik to drop off a package for Mithras. Incidentally, the package is a werewolf. Pretty sure he’s a good guy. And a prisoner. Can you help?

My phone vibrated fifteen seconds later with Ty’s response:
What do you need?

Not sure
, I typed back as quickly as my thumbs would work.
If you swoop in to save the day, it could blow my cover and I’ll never get to Mithras. On the other hand, if he’s at our destination, maybe I can kill him and save Steve all at once.

I waited a few seconds for his reply.
Who’s Steve?

Ugh. Seriously, Ty?
Steve’s the werewolf. I’ll explain later. I’m hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. Working on the assumption Mithras is going to give us the slip. This is a test of loyalty. If I drop Steve off, can you get him out of there?

I hit send right at the moment that Lorik looked up at the mirror. “What are you doing back there?”

“Playing Candy Crush. I’m bored.”

My phone vibrated in my palm and I swiped my finger across the screen. “You’re not supposed to be playing games, Darian. You’re supposed to be watching the wolf.”

I looked down at Ty’s text,
I’ll be there. Just say the word. In the meantime, be careful.

Tyler never disappoints.

“I am watching the wolf.” I looked back at Steve for good measure who happened to be reading over my shoulder. Werewolves could read in their animal forms? Who would have thought…? “He’s fine.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth when a set of bright lights came at us from our right side. The vehicle slammed into us, sending the front end of the Cadillac into the other lane as we spun a one-eighty in the middle of the road. My head whipped to the left from the impact, smacking the window. The glass shattered and shards of glass rained down on my head. We’d been hit pretty damn hard for that sort of damage. Intentional? Absolutely. Traffic ground to a halt, horns blared and I shook my head to try to clear the fog that settled over my addled mind. Nothing like breaking glass with your head to make an already shitty night worse.

“I think someone wants Steve back,” I managed to say though in my own ears my voice was a little thick. I wasn’t worried about any cuts or scrapes—I healed faster than most supernaturals—but damn, my head was pounding from the impact. “Lorik, are you hurt?’

“Hold on!” he shouted as he gunned the accelerator heading down the highway in the opposite direction.

Don’t you just hate it when your plans go to shit?

Chapter Twelve

It’s not like I could coordinate with Steve to find out if he knew what in the hell was going on. And likewise, playing the “nod your head if…” game was sort of implausible with Lorik speeding down the highway at over a hundred miles an hour, swerving in and out of traffic in a smashed car that shook like it was trying to fall apart.

I watched from the rear window as a set of headlights flipped around in the road and took off after us. Great. Two vehicles involved in a collision flee the scene with about ten witnesses. I doubted that’d do much to keep us off the radar. Lorik threw his hand over the seat, a Beretta clutched in his grip. “Here.”

“I don’t use guns,” I replied. Too impersonal. “And besides, it’s pitch black outside, I’m not taking the chance that I accidentally hit someone.”

“Well, you’d better do something,” Lorik snapped. “Because if you don’t get them off our ass, it’s going to be yours that’s in a sling. Understand?”

I wracked my brain for a possible solution while Steve teetered on unsteady feet in the cargo area behind me. He let out a warning growl, something I suspected translated to:
hurt my friends and I’ll hurt you
.

“I got your back, Steve.” I ruffled his fur which I’m not sure if he appreciated or not and turned to Lorik. “Keep driving. I’ll take care of it.”

I took a deep breath and called on the shadows. They flowed over my skin in a rush of delicious heat that put me at ease. I never felt more comfortable in my own skin than I did when the shadows held me. A reflection on my dark soul, perhaps. But I didn’t really have time to contemplate any of that now. I needed to get Steve’s friends off our backs before they got themselves killed.

The Cadillac swept out from beneath me and I watched as Lorik continued to race down the highway. In the amount of time it took to take a breath, the pursuing car had caught up and I allowed my ethereal form to settle in the back seat. One man, the driver, shifted into a higher gear while his passenger, a woman, rolled down her window and took aim with a monster .40 caliber.

This all would’ve been so much easier if we could just sit down and talk it out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to explain the situation—or ask what Steve’s real name was. Thoughts focused, I reached out and wound a shadowy ribbon around the barrel of the gun and jerked it from the woman’s grip. It flew into the air and landed somewhere on the highway. Well, that’s what she got for holding it outside the window.

“What the hell…?”

Now all I needed to do was disable the car without wrecking or killing anyone. Easy-peasy. While the driver and passenger argued over what happened to the gun—namely the passenger’s butterfingers—I knocked the gear shift into neutral. The driver depressed the accelerator and the engine revved while the car slowed down. He threw the gear back into sixth, and I countered by knocking it back into neutral. And then I broke the damned thing off completely.

“Fuck!” the driver shouted as the shifter seemed to bend and break on its own. Ghosts had nothing on me. “There’s someone in here with us!” the woman said and I immediately counted her as the smarter of the two. “Pull over, Kevin. Now!”

Kevin the werewolf? See, Steve wasn’t quite so implausible.

With the car disabled and a few minutes of time bought, I slipped from the car and sped toward the Escalade. Even as fast as my shadow-self could glide through the air, I had a hard time keeping up with Lorik. The tires squealed as the car swerved into the next lane, barely missing an oncoming pickup.
Damn it, Steve
. I guess the werewolf took my absence as a cue to jump into the fray and try to secure his own freedom. I couldn’t blame him, really. It’s what I would have done.

I pushed myself as fast as I could go, gliding right above the pavement as I dodged oncoming traffic. The moment I reached the undercarriage of the Cadillac, Lorik swerved again, making it difficult for me to hit my target and get back inside the car. I’d lost ground but I pushed ahead, this time angling myself so that I was facing the vehicle rather than catching up to it. I slid through the windshield, nothing more than a whisper of dark air and settled into the back seat as Steve took another shot at sinking his teeth into Lorik’s jugular.

“I can’t leave you alone for even a second, can I, Steve?” I grabbed onto the collar around his neck and gave it a solid yank, preventing him from taking hold of Lorik’s throat. He righted the car on the road, but not before he clipped an oncoming sedan which sent us careening into the guard rail on the right side of the highway. “Calm down, buddy.” I regained my corporeal form and wrapped my arms around Steve’s neck, which was so thick my hands barely met. I held onto him as much to keep myself steady as to keep him away from Lorik. I put my mouth close to his ear and murmured, “Let’s get out of the car in one piece, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you. Trust me.”

Steve snarled and I added, “I didn’t kill your friends. I didn’t even hurt them. Just disabled their car. Now, calm down or we’re all dead. Do you understand?”

Chances were good we’d all walk away from a crash, but I wasn’t interested in testing that theory out. Especially if we exploded into a ball of flames. The werewolf lunged at Lorik one last time and I dug my heels into the center console as I held him back. His breath heaved in his chest and I could feel the barely restrained anger shivering over every inch of his thick, black fur.