Irresistible Magic (22 page)

“Get me out of here.”

Without hesitation, she jumped up, slammed the computer closed, and tucked it under her arm. “You got it.”

“Let’s go, Link.” He sprang to his feet despite his injured leg and trotted beside us as we left without another word. Neither Harrison nor David stopped us. We climbed into Phoebe’s car, and it wasn’t until she turned the key that David materialized at his front door. The light from his hallway illuminated him, making him a dark shadow in the threshold. He held up a hand in a stop motion.

“Go,” I told Phoebe.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere he can’t find us.”

“You got it.” She slammed the car into gear and took off down the deserted street.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. The idea of David betraying me yet again was too much for me to process. I leaned back in the seat, wrapping my arm around Link. His familiar Shih Tzu weight comforted me and I pulled him closer. “We’ll find him, boy. I promise.”

Link responded by snuggling closer to my torso. He knew who I was talking about. He loved Tal more than anyone except me.

“I found something in those pictures,” Phoebe said.

My entire body went rigid with a combination of hope and fear. “You know where he is?”

“Not exactly.” She scanned the streets at a dark intersection and then turned down an even darker street. There wasn’t a streetlamp or a light in a window anywhere. “But I recognized one of the guys in the photos, and let’s just say he isn’t going to be nominated for citizen of the month anytime soon.”

“And you think he’s holding Tal?”

“If he isn’t, he’ll have a good idea who is.”

Ten minutes later, she pulled into a long driveway of a house obscured by trees on both sides. I peered out the window at the run-down shack that was being reclaimed by ivy. “Where are we?”

“A safe house.” She jumped out of the car and headed for the back door.

I gaped. She wasn’t seriously suggesting we go inside that structure, was she? It looked like one good wind would knock it down.

She paused and glanced back at me. Frowning, she headed back to the car and yanked my door open. “Come on. It’s not safe out here.”

I glanced around again and shivered. Yeah, there wasn’t anything about the neighborhood that made me want to exit the car, much less go inside the house. “Are you crazy?”

She shook her head and laughed. “Maybe, but no one is going to look for you here.”

That was true enough. And this was Phoebe. The house and property were probably protected with at least a dozen spells.

Link hunched over on full alert as we made our way to the back of the house. Paint was peeling off the porch and more than a few wooden boards on the side of the house appeared to be rotted. “Are you sure this place is stable?”

She snickered. “I’m sure.” A soft glow lit up her fingers as she clamped her hand over the door handle. The lock clicked and she pulled the door open, letting me and Link into the pitch-black house. Anything could be living in the run-down place. Visions of rats scurrying to the corners made my skin crawl.

But as soon as she closed the door, she whispered, “
Illuminate
.” Candles sprang to life, casting a soft glow in the room.

My eyes widened in total shock. Inside, the place had gleaming pinewood floors, comfortable-looking overstuffed couches, and three large desks all outfitted with state-of-the-art computers. It was like the witch Bat Cave. “Holy fae, Phoebs. Is this where you go when you disappear?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. Now come over here.” She flicked one of the computers on and typed in a password. The pictures I’d taken earlier flashed on the screen. “Anything look familiar to you?”

I scanned the images and started to shake my head. But there, off to the right, the man holding a brown paper bag jumped out at me. I gasped. “He’s one of the guards that held me captive last week. Pittman. Jesse Pittman.”

She nodded again. “Yep. He’s also trained in interrogation. And guess who he has ties to?”

I shook my head, praying she wasn’t going to say Allcot. If I found out he was behind Talisen’s abduction, I’d kill him.

“He was Felton’s second-in-command.”

Felton. The former director who had wanted me incarcerated so they could study my gifts.

“You think he’s taken up Felton’s cause?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

Chapter 17

I clicked on Pittman’s picture, making it fill the screen. His black eyes were bottomless pools of nothing. The way his lips turned up into a private smile gave him the deranged look of a crazy person. A chill of fear swept over me and my wings twitched in agitation. “He gives me the creeps.”

She nodded and clicked the mouse, bringing up another screen. “Me, too. When he’s on duty he manages to appear somewhat normal, but his personality is all anger and domination. Here he gives the impression of evil incarnate.”

I sank into a chair, unable to keep my eyes off the screen. “He has Tal,” I said, feeling the truth of my words all the way down to my bones, the pain of the realization leaving me bereft and desolate. That psycho could have done anything to Tal by now. I steeled myself, not allowing my mind to go there. The thoughts were unacceptable.

“That’s the suspicion.”

Shaking my head, I turned to her. “He absolutely does. And I have no idea how I know, but I’ve never been so sure about anything ever before. Do you know where he lives or where he could be holding him?”

“Let’s see.” She pulled out the book she’d found at the vamp lover’s house earlier that day and started typing in names at warp speed. After she hit enter, the computer flashed a green bar and counted down from three minutes while it calculated.

I fidgeted, picking at my fingernails, barely able to hold still. “What’s it doing?”

“I’ve had hunches like that before. It’s best to pay close attention to them, so I’m running a search on any businesses connecting Pittman and anyone on this list.” She tapped the book. Another click of the mouse and a map materialized. She typed something in and three tiny stars popped on the screen.

“Hot damn!” she said, smiling.

“Whoa. There are three matches!” A tiny bit of the weight on my heart lifted. “This isn’t Google Maps,” I said, watching multiple routes emerge and light up the screen.

“Cool, right? This handy program gives me detailed info on which streets to take based on a number of factors: time of day, residents, crime stats, schools, businesses, and socioeconomic demographics.” Another tap on the mouse and five avatars, all based on her more popular aliases, popped up. She clicked the one marked Tracker and the routes narrowed to two per location. She traced her pink fingernail over the green line. “This one is the most neutral. It’s probably the safest, but it’s also the one that’s the most predictable if anyone is looking for me.”

“So we’re taking the red one,” I said, realizing it would lead us right through vamp territory again. Being that it was already dark, it was the riskiest one if we had to stop for some unforeseen reason. Phoebe had over a hundred different ways to disguise herself, but all the vamps in town knew who she was and fooling them would be tricky at best.

“Was there ever any doubt?” She smirked and jumped to her feet. “Come on. We need to suit up before we go on our recon mission.”

“Recon? Not rescue?” My heart sped up and my chest tightened with emotion. We had to save Tal. We just had to.

“Recon first. Then rescue.” She grabbed my hand and tugged. “Trust me, Wil. The last thing we want to do is rush in unprepared.”

“Right. Of course.” But if it were solely up to me, I’d go in guns blazing, vampires and thugs be damned. I’d had just about as much as I could take and was ready to kick some serious ass.

She sent me a reassuring smile. “We’ll bring him home. I promise.”

Until we found him alive, no one could make that promise.

“Trust me.” Her voice went soft, as if she was speaking with a fragile victim and not another agent of the Void.

I straightened my spine, resolved. “Of course we will.”

Ten minutes later we were back in the car, laden with a new stun gun, binoculars, magically enhanced voice amplifiers for eavesdropping, a collection of nasty spells originally intended to paralyze vamps and whatever else Phoebe had in her bag of tricks. The paralyzing spells were normally too potent for humans, but if the people holding Tal were hopped up on his drug, the spells might be the only thing that could give us an advantage.

I sat back in my seat, trying to compartmentalize all that had happened that day: the attack from the mysterious daywalker, Tal being abducted, David and Allcot stepping up to help.

David.
What had happened to the man I’d met over a year ago in my shop? I now knew he’d been sent to watch over me. He’d been human then. And maybe he hadn’t been completely honest with me, but he had been real. This new David? He acted too much like his father.

Phoebe glanced over at me. “You all right?”

I clutched Link a little tighter and nodded. “Fine.” Link pressed into me, showing me support the only way he knew how.

“Good. ’Cause things are about to get sticky.”

“Huh?”

The car swerved right, then left, barely missing a truck that came out of nowhere.

“Who the hell was that?” I cried, holding on to the dash to keep from flying forward as she braked sharply and turned left down another darkened street. Three more turns and she popped out onto North Claiborne.

“Phoebs?”

She flew through a yellow light and let out a sigh of relief. “Sorry about that. The gang lord of that neighborhood likes to do traffic checks on unfamiliar vehicles sometimes. So far I’ve managed to avoid them all.”

“The gang lord? Traffic checks?” What was she thinking? “And that’s the neighborhood you chose for your ‘safe house’?”

She smiled sheepishly. “It’s the perfect hideout, right?”

“Until they find out who you are and use you against the Void,” I scoffed. “If they ever catch you, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

She stopped at a red light and I stared out the window at the convenience store sign for Noble Snacks. The first three letters had been burnt out for as long as I could remember. It now read le Snacks. Classy.

“Relax, Wil. I keep my spells with me at all times. Worst case, I’d knock them out and hit them with a memory spell. They’ll never see it coming.”

I slumped down in the seat, unconvinced. I hated the idea of her spending time in that neighborhood by herself. I had to admit, no one would go looking for her there. But if anyone cared to take a closer look at her operation, she’d go missing in a heartbeat. Gang lords didn’t take kindly to outsiders on their turf.

Phoebe reached over and pressed a button on her dashboard GPS. A moment later the same screen that had been on her computer showed up and the car calculated directions to our first stop.

“How did you choose where to go first?”

She shrugged. “Just call it a hunch.”

I raised my eyebrows in question.

“It’s where I’d take someone if I didn’t want anyone to see or hear what I was doing.”

My frown deepened. Like her fake shack house. Now I knew why she never took me on recon missions. Stalking vampires was one thing, but going into the slums was entirely another. Faeries didn’t go unnoticed. I bit down on the urge to protest and braced myself for whatever came next.

Before long, we were headed over the Crescent City Connection, the bridge that spanned the Mississippi River. She took the second exit, steering us into the heart of Algiers. It was a part of town I’d never been in before. The car bounced over uneven roads through the darkened streets. Once again, there wasn’t a working streetlight in sight. Parked cars lined the street, giving the illusion of inhabitants, but everything was so silent there was a feeling of desertion.

“It’s creepy here,” I said.

She nodded. “It really is. This neighborhood used to be a prime hunting ground for the city’s vamps. Now as soon as the sun goes down, everyone disappears. There hasn’t been a report of a vamp sighting in months, but people don’t forget that kind of thing quickly.”