Playing Hooky (Paranormal Investigations) (5 page)

Chapter 8

~ EMMA ~

THE WIND WHIPS around us and nips at our skin with its icy breath. The sun, lying low in the horizon, casts a golden glow over the streets of Anchorage. We don’t have a lot of time left.

Jason and I strap our skis back on while the Hunter stands with his back to us, sniffing the air.

“Ready?” Jason asks.

The Hunter rips his Stetson off, and his body shimmers, skin rippling over his face, fur spreading up his hands and arms, over a long snout. His clothes have mysteriously disappeared, save for a loin cloth and a torque around his neck, feather earrings in his pointed ears.

White as the snow swirling around us, he stands nine feet tall, back legs shaped like a dog’s but ending in bird talons, and front legs shaped like a wolf’s. White wings, specked with brown feathers, fold in over his back. Sharp teeth protrude from his snarling lips, and he throws his head back, spreading his wings wide, and howls.

Chills spread up my spine as the wolf-man plunges deeper into the network of alleyways in the city.

“Try to keep up,” he snarls, then turns the corner, and hand in hand, Jason and I chase after. I slip on a patch of snow, and Jason steadies me with a tug of my arm.

“A werewolf?” I ask Jason. “A bird-wolf? What is he?”

“
Taylon
calls these animal hybrids chimera.”

“I thought that was some weird combination of a lion, a goat, and a snake, and I thought it was supposed to be a girl.”

“I’m just telling you what he said.”

“Did the Hunter change shape?”

“No, I think it’s a glamour. Like the
fae
have.”

“How would you know that?” I ask.

“Just a guess. When we were inside, he
kinda
shimmered like the door to Bailey’s did.”

On silent feet, loping on all fours, the wolf races through the city, sometimes spreading his wings and banking around a corner. We turn down alley after alley until I’m lost in the labyrinth of shadows. The snow swallows the sound of our skis swishing on the snow behind him and blinds us from everything around us. Walls of thick white flakes surround me.

Anchorage, in all its winter glory.

My heart beats so hard, I think it will pound its way out of my chest. I pause, bending over with my hands on my knees, ski poles pointing behind me, and pant to catch my breath, the cold air burning my lungs. Maybe I really don’t want to find that siren after all.

“Can’t. Stop. Now. We’re losing him.” Jason grabs a handful of my coat and drags me around another corner.

We stop in front of an old factory, red brick crumbled into a pile of rubble on one side. A condemned sign, splattered with snow, clings to the six-foot chain link fence, with barbed wire spiraled at the top.

Someone cut the fence high enough for us to sneak through. A few strands of curly, blond hair are snagged in the fence.

The wolf stands on his bird talons and grabs the hair with his hand—not a paw, a HAND! with four digits and a thumb like me, each ending with a silver two-inch claw, sharp as a knife—and sniffs the hair.

Part man, part wolf, part bird of some kind. And it all flows together into one seamless body.

And he’s beautiful—white fur and feathers, rippling muscles across his human-like shoulders. And with that package, this was definitely
not
a she-monster.

He sniffs the air and then turns his cold amber eyes on me. For a moment, his tongue lolls in a wolfish smile—as if he’d smelled my thoughts on the air and found them amusing—and then he turns back toward the fence and rips it apart with his claws.

Note to self:
 
Don’t think
interesting
thoughts when a wolf-man is around.

And don’t ever get in the way of those claws.

As we approach the big double doors, one crooked on its hinges, I can hear music . . . if you can call high-pitched squealing as music. I clamp my hands over my ears and glance over at Jason, a silly smile plastered on his face. He wobbles and drunkenly staggers inside.

So much for scoping the place out and coming up with a plan.

The Hunter shakes his head, growling, and then leaps into the building before disappearing into the shadows.

I stand alone at the door and take a deep breath. I can’t even see a foot into the shadows, but the sound of that singing crawls along my skin, making me feel slimy, and drills into my ears. Every cell in my body screams to run the other way.

Inside, some girl wants to kill a siren in order to control the emotions of the boy she’s got a crush on. To save both girl and boy plus the siren too, I have to go in there.

But my feet refuse to budge.

Somewhere in there, Jason is trapped by the siren’s song, and he needs my help. Gritting my teeth, I pick up one foot and take a step forward, just to do it again with the next foot.

Following the sounds of the horrible music, I sneak up to an open door, light spilling into the hallway. The wolf, covered in dust and mud and blending into the shadows, crouches by the door; he glances at me and then away.

I look inside. Jason sits at the feet of the siren and stares up at her as if she were an angel. She has long green hair that leaves her skin so pale, it almost looks see-through, and her green eyes are haunted.

I see the pain in her eyes, and somehow, I know she cannot stop singing; without the magic in the collar to stop her voice, she must sing day and night. And the magic in her song rips her apart.

“Jason? How did you . . . ? Where’s Emma?” My sister’s voice comes from the side of the room. I peer around the corner and see her standing in a dark doorway, a needle for drawing blood in one hand, an ancient leather bound book in the other.

It all clicks. The blond hair on the fence. A girl with an angelic face and evil in her heart, the witch said. A girl who looked like me, except for the pink hair. Blond hair. Green eyes.

My good little sister.

Stealing sirens and killing them for their blood.

Plotting to enslave Jason with a love potion.

Sweet Angelina who never did anything wrong.

Evil in her heart?

This can’t be real. It’s all a nightmare.

“Angelina?” I step out of my dark shadow and into the open room.

She’s already stepped close to Jason, and her back is to me. She whips around, her face full of hate. “How did you get here?”

I shrug. “We were exploring the city and heard the music. What are you doing here?”

She raises a gun and points it at me. Our dad taught us both how to shoot. He’s a cop.

I’m a better shot, but at this range, Angelina can still put a bullet in my heart. I put my hands up in the air to show I’m unarmed.

“Angelina, I’m your sister. Why are you pointing a gun at me?”

“I won’t let you stop me. You get everything and do nothing to earn it. You have no appreciation for Jason, not like I do. I deserve him. I’m the perfect one. You’re a slob. You grades suck. You barely get enough to pass and keep your scholarship. I’m the one who bakes him cookies. I’m the one who sends him cards for his birthday and Christmas and Valentine’s Day.” She flails the gun about as she talks, gesturing with her hands. “And all he does is moon over you, and you wear dirty clothes, no makeup, and your hair is a rat’s nest. Now I’m going to make him forget you.”

“But he’ll never really love you,” I whisper. “Love is a choice. One you have to make every day. If you force him, he’ll just be a slave to your whim.”

“Shut up. Shut up!” Tears pour down her face, and she uses the back of her hand holding the gun to wipe her face.

With the gun pointed away from me, I leap forward, grab her hand, force the gun up, and pull the trigger until the gun is empty. A shower of debris rains down on us, and she shoves me away.

I tackle her, and the air whooshes out of her as I land with my knee in her stomach. She groans and grabs my hair and yanks. A handful rips out in her hand. Ouch.

I punch her in the gut, and she rakes her fingernails down my face. Geez, where did she learn to fight? Oh, she was the sweet one. I was the one who got suspended for fighting in the school gym. But I never put up with bullies.

Flipping her over onto her stomach, I yank her right arm up behind her back. “Do you give?”

“Stop. Please stop.”

“Your gun is out of ammo, and I’ve proven I can overpower you. Let’s just go home and forget this ever happened.”

“Of course.”

I let her up and retrieve my backpack from where I dropped it before I lunged for the gun. Bending down, I rifle through the notebooks and paper until my hand closes around the thin iron band. I stand up—

Something hits me over the back of the head.

The room goes blurry. I’ve been hit. She hit me.

Everything blackens for a split second.

She hit me.

Oh, I already thought that.

I should do something. Fight back.

She hit me. At least, I think so.

The room tilts at odd angles, and my legs buckle underneath me. Then I black out for real.

THE BACK OF my head is numb. Like I’m missing a piece of my brain. Something horrible happened, but I can’t remember what.

“You always underestimate me. You think I am too delicate. Just because I didn’t go kayaking and climbing trees. Just because I thought frogs were slimy.”

Huh? I can hear her words, but they make no sense. The individual words—frogs, delicate, slime—don’t combine into anything meaningful.

I try to move, but my hands are trapped behind my back. Funny, I can’t move them.

Wiggling, I feel something slide along my wrist as it digs into my skin.

Oh, she tied me up.

I’m tied up. I’m not quite sure what to do with that problem. I used to know and if I could just focus . . .

Jason still sits at the siren’s feet, his face enraptured by her song. Ugh, when we get out of this, I will rub his nose into how I saved him.

A wet nose nuzzles my hand, and something sharp—teeth? a knife?—scrapes the palm of my hand.

Angelina stands near the siren and stabs the woman’s arm with a needle. The siren’s song turns to shrieks, and she writhes and squirms, trying to get away, but Angelina holds her arm tight.

Maybe Angelina can’t fight, climb trees, or play in the mud, but at least studying to be a nurse—doing something
real
with her life—she can draw blood and manhandle patients.

The ropes fall away from my wrists, and ignoring the pounding in my head, I dive and tumble across the floor—my gymnastics instructor would be proud—and, grabbing the collar, snap it around the siren’s neck. She disappears and the vial of blood clatters to the floor.

Angelina raises her tiny gun again.

“It’s empty,” I say.

She presses the cold barrel against the thrumming at the back of my skull. “I reloaded.”

“Okay, fine.” I have no way of knowing if she’s bluffing or not, and it’s not worth the risk of finding out.