Shadowed Blade (Colbana Files Book 6) Page 2

  “Yeah, well...I blame you for that. I’m tempted to make you look rather corpse-like.” The grim humor in my voice didn’t make him smile though.

  Justin actually looked away. “I thought...”

  He didn’t finish, but I heard the things he didn’t say. Once we’d mounted the crumbling concrete steps, I eased away from him. “It’s okay, Justin. I know what you thought. But I already told you...it’s done.”

  Turning from the guilt I saw in his eyes, I dealt with the locks on the door—one of them was newer and I didn’t have a key. That was just a minor hitch, not a deterrent. After I’d picked the lock, I slid a hand inside one of the pockets on my vest, coming out with a small flashlight. Sending a stream of light shining inside, I waited for Justin to join me. “Once we clear the place, you can put your car down in the garage.”

  We had the code to open those doors, but neither of us were going to put away our means of escape without clearing a building. Maybe we were getting more paranoid, but despite the fact that I’d been assured that the building was secure, we’d both agreed we’d ascertain that fact for ourselves.

  After we did that, I was finding someplace horizontal, even if it was only for about twenty minutes.

  “What’s your boss going to think about me horning in on this with you?” Just asked after we’d cleared each floor, checking every room. He’d already moved the car into the garage, facing out so we could blast the hell out of there in a blink if need be.

  If that happened, I just hoped it didn’t happen today.

  “Funny that you’d ask that now.” I collapsed into the only chair in the small kitchen and eased my head down onto the cool surface. It felt like heaven against my overheated flesh. “I mean, you were nagging me to come along, whining about how bored you were.”

  “Well, yeah. But that’s not answering my question.” He opened the small refrigerator. “He definitely didn’t plan on feeding you. There’s water. That’s it.”

  “I don’t want food.” I didn’t want anything. Why had I told Colleen I’d swing by and check out that so-called faith healer?

  Although she had been healing people…sort of.

  For a few blind, hopeful seconds, I’d thought maybe she’d find a way to heal me, too. Fix the bond between me and my sword—but that hadn’t happened.

  It was still as broken as it had been before I’d seen her.

  Another series of vicious pulses went through my head and I wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

  Justin came over and pressed his hand to the back of my head.

  I went to bat him away, but he was doing…something.

  Cool energy radiated out from his hand, seeped into my skull.

  I groaned in relief as some of the pain eased back.

  “We can start tomorrow,” he said. “You’re useless right now.”

  “Somehow, I get the feeling this didn’t go as planned.”

  Justin stood over me, blood dripping from a gash that ran from the corner of his eye down his cheek. It was deep and blood had flowed freely until he had staunched it using magic. It wasn’t healed, though so he was just sucking up the pain.

  The lines around his mouth cut deep grooves into his cheeks as he held a hand out to me.

  I was in marginally better shape than he was, but that was just luck.

  And that was kind of my fault.

  Luck always tended to play in my favor—and sometimes his, if he happened to be around me. It was something coded into my DNA, just like my affinity with weapons and my ability to go invisible. It wasn’t the kind of luck that meant I had an easy life—don’t I wish—but it did mean shit like what we’d just gone through didn’t end up with us dead.

  Justin held out a hand in lieu of answering and I took it, letting him help me to my feet. Pain streaked my side and when I sucked in a breath; it only got worse. I winced, pressing a hand to the area.

  He shot me a look.

  “Ribs. At least one is broken.”

  “You’re going to have to suck it up.” He turned his head and stared up at the smoking ruin of the building we’d been watching.

  Keep it under surveillance for a few days and report back. I have reason to believe that individuals with connections to Blackstone are carrying out meetings there. I want faces—pictures, if you can get them. Don’t try to approach them. They are...sly.

  That was the last assignment I’d been given, four days ago.

  So far, I’d seen one individual.

  In the weeks since the dryad I had died, I’d had a few other jobs that felt like…bullshit. Although I had gotten the name of several more missing NHs, tracked down four NHs who were actually working with the bastards to help capture loners and the like. Nobody high up the food chain—and while the other jobs had been strange, none of them had been like the dryad.

  I hadn’t liked any of them. I’d walked away from one because it hadn’t felt right.

  This one, though…

  Blowing out a breath, I stared out at the blazing remains of the building.

  If Justin hadn’t come along, I might be a pile of blazing remains.

  “You said you pissed him off on the last job?” Justin asked as we studied the smoke rising into the sky.

  “Eh. Yeah.” Grimacing, I swiped the sweat from my brow.

  I hadn’t gone into any details, mostly because I didn’t know how Justin—or one other man in my life—might take it if I mentioned I thought there was something on that last job that wanted to eat me.

  I’d related my concerns to my boss. He’d implied I was being paranoid. I’d told him I’d go if I could take my own back-up. He’d refused. I’d politely told him where the job could go.

  Four hours later, I was given the specifics for this job.

  “You think maybe he wants you dead?” Justin shifted around restlessly, his eyes flicking all over. He didn’t wait for an answer, his gaze moving to the north. “We need to move—now. That fire wasn’t natural and there’s no witch close enough who could have started it and kept it burning—which means she used something to do it.”

  “Something like...”

  Justin just grabbed my wrist and yanked as something hit the back of the building. I’d felt the power spike in the air, but not in time to recognize the threat. Justin, being what he was, had—and that was what saved us. We were running by the time we hit the crumbling frame of the doorway, all that was left from the first explosion.

  It wouldn’t survive this one, but maybe it would give us some protection.

  The world turned to flame around us and I crouched down, arms over my head as Justin closed his eyes and magic began to pulse out of him.

  Everything else faded away my very existence narrowing down to the man in front of me and the fire that raged just past the shields he created with his magic.

  If those failed…

  Eons seemed to pass before Justin’s body slumped and the shields fractured, then fell around us. The smoke was so thick in the air, I could barely see past it. The silence around us was so thick and pervasive, I fancied for a moment that I had gone deaf.

  I wanted to find a deep, dark hole and sleep…for a month. The lingering headache that had persisted ever since my encounter with Frankie the Freaky was no longer lingering. It was a monster rattling around inside my skull and chewing on my brain matter for a midday snack.

  But there wasn’t any time to curl up in a ball and whimper.

  I lurched to my feet and then bent down, grabbing Justin’s hand. It was cold, a sign of how much energy he’d expended. “Rock and roll, hotshot,” I told him, hauling him up.

  About half way through, he started to put some muscle into it.

  We were ten feet from his car before he really started to show signs of life, but by the time we climbed in, there was awareness in his eyes. “Gotta move,” he said, voice rough. “She’s not done. I feel her.”

  We were pulling away when the next wave of fire came. “How in the hell...”
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br />   “That’s why I said we gotta move.” Justin punched the car into action, and we took off while what looked like a dragon of fire chased it. “Kit, my friend...I think we just came into contact with a salamander.”

  My question was lost in the rattle and roar of the car as the fire below and behind us blazed hotter and tried to wrap around the vehicle as we fled. Justin’s eyes began to glow, the silver on his sleeves blazing as he fed more of his magic into...something.

  The roar faded.

  Slowly.

  I shot a look behind us, staring at the flames that punched into the air, impossibly high, impossibly tall.

  “That’s...” In between one breath and the next, the fire was gone. Just gone. “Crazy.”

  The rundown little no-tell motel we’d ended up in was a pre-pay affair; the kind where they didn’t ask questions and you didn’t, either. We’d stayed at this sort of place before. Between Justin and me, we probably knew every semi-safe spot in the south—and he knew quite a few outside of the region, too.

  While I couldn’t claim we’d never had trouble with one of these spots, we tended to do a lot better out in the middle of nowhere than we did trying our luck in cities outside of Orlando.

  Both Justin and I attracted attention.

  There was just no help for it.

  I could blend in and pass for human as long as we were in a heavily human populace, but Justin didn’t do that as well; even then, both of us just looked...well, we invited trouble.

  Neither of us were very good at walking away from it, either.

  Since we needed to lay low, heal up, and get back to Orlando, places like this were best.

  Plus, they had another benefit.

  It made it a hell of a lot easier to pick up on the presence of others.

  I came awake in the blink of an eye, no lingering grogginess, all the adrenaline rushing to the fore. Get ready...get ready…

  That had me flexing my hand, even though there was no point, not now.

  The sword I still tried to call leaned against the rickety excuse of a nightstand, waiting patiently. I reached for her.

  That simple movement had Justin stirring.

  A moment later, he was sitting up.

  Already at the window, I shot a quick glance his way as he rubbed at bleary eyes.

  Get ready...get ready... That little voice of warning, my instincts, all of those were still in perfect working order. Not quite a year ago, I’d been kidnapped and the skill of a witch who is no longer alive had damaged something inside me. The bond he’d broken still hurt, but I was learning to live without it, function—fight.

  “Get dressed,” I said softly. Not that Justin had much dressing to do. He had been working as a hired fighter ever since he’d left Banner, a government branch where he’d hunted down rogue NHs. Technically, I guess he’d been a hired fighter then, too—one paid by the government.

  He’d left them a while back. Lately, we’d been working together a lot.

  I was a jack-of-all-trades and while I used to make most of my money as a courier, lately, I was doing a lot of jobs that made me think I needed to find another way to make a living.

  Something that let me sleep naked more often than not, instead of just taking my boots off when I needed to sleep.

  Hearing the stamping of feet behind me, I went about gathering up my weapons.

  He had his boots on.

  He was dressed.

  I strapped my sword into place and slid the various blades I always carried home.

  Justin didn’t ask what had woken me.

  I didn’t offer any insight. At that point, I didn’t have any. I just knew we needed to move.

  We were outside when Justin grabbed my arm and started to drag me along behind him. “Hurry,” he said grimly. “It’s her.”

  I didn’t waste time asking him what he meant, just tore away from him and flung myself toward the car, drawing my body tight and then leaping over the hood. Behind me, I heard him mutter, “Show-off.”

  Once we were inside, I pointed out, “You’re the one who said to hurry.” I was staring into the woods and it made it easier to see.

  Something red, fast…

  “Is that—”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. Getting out of here.”

  Chapter Three

  Sleep fogged my brain and I was so tired, it hurt to move, but the sound of my phone made me do it anyway.

  We’d been on the move for close to forty-eight hours, zig-zagging across the northern part of Florida, in and out of Alabama before circling back around. We’d collapsed to rest less than two hours ago, and even the thought of moving made me want to scream.

  The number didn’t immediately come into focus and when it did, I had to force my brain into functioning.

  I didn’t know the number. How had this person gotten my personal line? If it were a forward from my business, it would have gone to voicemail this late. Groaning, I flopped onto my back and answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to move.”

  The sound of the voice cleared away the fog of sleep, and adrenaline chased away the heaviness in my tired muscles.

  I didn’t know that voice. It was low and clipped and hard to determine the gender of the speaker. Uneasiness tripped down my spine and I shot a look at Justin. “Move.”

  “Yes. As in get your gear, get your friend, and leave. You have little time.”

  Justin was already sitting up, looking at me, his sleepy eyes clearing. Neither of us had slept much in the past few days—dealing with this salamander-toting witch had us both on edge. We couldn’t go back to Orlando with some fire-breathing, pocket-sized monster still tracking us.

  We were trying to keep a few steps ahead of her, and that’s about all we were doing—staying a few steps ahead.

  Justin frowned at me as he swung his legs around, the question in his eyes clear.

  I lifted a hand to indicate my confusion as I kept most of my attention focused on the phone.

  “Just who is—”

  The phone went dead.

  Justin and I studied each other for a span of two seconds, then without either of us speaking, we both got up and started grabbing our gear.

  We were out the door in under three minutes.

  We’d settled down inside an old, abandoned building on the outskirts of a town that had pretty much shuttered itself up after the war between the species. The few who still lived here did so in an uneasy truce. We’d seen signs in the yards and in a window of the one still remaining business. The store sign had read HUMANS ONLY.

  The signs on four or five houses had varied from that simple sentiment to GO AWAY, MEAT.

  That sentiment, while not quite so simple, made one thing clear. There were non-humans living in the pathetic, dying little town. I’d felt the prickle and crawl of some weak power as we battened down the hatches—so to speak, grab some rest before we got up and tried to come up with another game plan. But it was hard to think up a way to smoke out a witch who could send a little bitty lizard into your hidey-hole from miles off and burn you out. All without blinking an eye or showing herself.

  Once we were in the car, I tugged out my phone and pulled up the log. I studied the last number that had called me. After a few seconds of trying to prod loose some memory that didn’t exist, I did a search on the internet, hoping to find out who the phone belonged to, but no joy there. The phone number was assigned to a throwaway, one that had been purchased in the past couple of months. Most likely it had been bought with cash and registered under a fake name. Burner phones.

  I doubted whoever it was would answer, but I called back.

  To my surprise, I did get an answer. That same, sexless voice. “You are no fool, so I assume you are calling from the road.”

  Glancing out the window as Justin shot off into the night—via the sky—I said, “More or less. So, why am I leaving and who the hell are you?”

  “You are leaving because—”

/>   The rest of the words were lost.

  I’d dropped the phone.

  Justin had swung the car around and he was hovering. I hadn’t noticed anything out of place until just that moment. Now I couldn’t look away. “That bitch,” I said softly, staring at the flaming remains of the building where we’d been staying. Sleeping, up until maybe...shit, I doubted ten minutes had passed.

  There was another blast of fire—this coming directly toward us. Justin yanked hard on the steering controls and hit the power. We jerked to the right as a thin whippet of fire reached us.

  “Son of a bitch,” Justin said. “If you go fucking with my car...”

  I managed a weak laugh. “Something is pelting us with fire and almost burned us in our sleep, and you’re worried about your car. Priorities, Justin. Get us on the ground. We’re sitting ducks up here.”

  He nosed the car down one-handed while flipping at one of the gadgets on the dash. “That will help some,” he said with a mutter of disgust. “You know, I really... really want to know who this bitch is and why we were put on her tail.”

  That was something I’d like to know myself, something I’d be asking about as soon as we managed to shake her off our asses.

  Yeah, so maybe he didn’t like questions, but I didn’t like having buildings blow up around me.

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  I’d been watching the rear view mirror, but now I looked forward.

  I didn’t have to strain myself to see it. It was pretty obvious. A road block, made of trashed cars and dumpsters—all of it shoved into the road. Those responsible for the roadblock were loitering in front of it, sitting in a couple of plastic chairs, trading a bottle back and forth.

  I’d imagine the fumes coming off that bottle would be as strong as the shit used to fuel a jet, and although the bottle was half-empty, the eyes of the men watching us through the windshield were clear and sharp.

  Slowly, I reached down and fished out the phone I’d dropped.

  The line was still open.

  “It seems we’ve run into a roadblock,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Just an FYI...if you have any hand in this, you better hope both of us die. We’re really good at tracking people down.”