Forest Moon Rising (39 page)

I froze in place. The sweat on my brow and back turned to ice.

My mind whirled, trying to figure a way to get the gun away from him. Could I block a bullet with the blade?

“We want the girl,” Blondie sneered.

“You can’t have her.”

“Her father said we could,” he laughed, an evil sound that had no humor in it.

“The Nörglein isn’t her dad. I am,” Gollum insisted. He shifted his feet and hands, gathering energy again.

“Please, Miss Tess, don’t fight us,” Oak pleaded.

“Did he hurt you?” Phonetia called from behind me.

Oak stood stalwart, off the path but still part of the action.

“He whipped you, didn’t he!” Phonetia cried. She sidled toward her brother.

Before I could stop her, or protest, her broad-shouldered middle brother grabbed her arm with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her throat.

“Try to stop us and I kill her,” he said.

“Cedar, no!” Oak took one step closer.

Cedar tightened his pressure on my daughter’s throat.

She gargled something, struggling for air.

Cedar backed up, dragging his sister with him. “Father whipped me too, for letting the girls get away. I won’t let that happen again.” Anger and pain warred for dominance in his voice.

The demon tats moved between the retreating boy and me. The leader kept his gun leveled on me as I tried to follow.

I slashed at his gun hand.

The weapon exploded, near deafening me. I dove for the ground.

Ducks and geese squawked mightily, rising from the water with much awkward fluttering.

Boaters paused and reached for communications.

“Follow her!” I commanded Scrap and dropped my blade. He dissolved into the barest outline of an imp. Then he was gone.

I returned to my knees, checking to see who was hurt.

Gollum held E.T. tightly against his chest, her mouth working in protest.

“You want to fight dirty?” I asked Blondie. Nothing left to lose. Before the last syllable escaped I hit the gun with a roundhouse kick and smashed the flat of my hand against Blondie’s nose.

The gun skittered across the ground until it plopped into the water.

Blondie grabbed his bleeding nose with both hands and fled.

His minions followed close on his heels.

“Scrap? Where are they taking my girl?”

“License plate?” I asked, noting Gollum had his cell phone out.

I repeated the number. Gollum spat it into the phone. “Police are on the way. Amber alert in progress.”

“I’m going after them.”

“Without Scrap?”

“He’ll be there when I catch up. Take care of E.T.”

“I must help,” Oak said. Fir slunk behind him. “They will hurt my sister a lot before they turn her over to my father,” he added quietly. “I can’t allow that.”

“Your father hurt her a lot every day she lived with him,” I told him, fists clenched and aching to slam them into his face.

“I know. That is why I sent the girls to you.”

“Then why did you agree to bring them back?” This time I yelled loud enough to startle the geese again.

Mutely, he turned around and lifted his T-shirt.

I gasped at the bloody mess of his skin.

“The only way I could get him to stop was to promise to bring Blackberry back to him.”

“We’ll
all
go after them. Two cars. You take E.T., I’ll take the brothers,” Gollum decided for us.

Cruising up Pill Hill, back road,
Scrap informed me.

The Medical School and VA Hospital connected by a sky bridge crowned a couple of hills southwest of downtown—a lot of trees, ravines, and places to get lost around and behind. The forest there melded into Forest Park, the home of the Nörglein.

“On our way!”

Phonetia struggles against the duct tape binding her. Something about the unnatural fibers keeps her from morphing into her native plant. Otherwise, she could sprout fat thorns sharp enough to slice through the tape.

The Hummer careens around a twist in the narrow road. I’m nearly flung off the car. Only my talons latched around the roof rack keep me in my observation post. The wind tries to catch beneath my wings and lift me wide and free.

We come to an abrupt halt on a gravel shoulder that overlooks the city spread out far below. A pretty city. I don’t have time to admire the view. No guard rail between us and the steep cliff. The Hummer barely fits. Half of two wheels rest on the pavement. A couple of cars pass, honking at the intrusion of the wide vehicle into their space.

When the traffic passes, leaving the road open and free for a bit, the back door flies open. Blondie and Cedar jump out, dragging my Phonetia with them. They cross the road and head into the woods. The Hummer speeds away.

Cedar leads along a creek and up a narrow ravine.

I flash images of the spot to Tess. Then I fly after our fleeing quarry. Fatigue drags at my wings. Adrenaline pushes me forward.

If only I could rest a bit by perching on Phonetia’s head.

Can’t risk it. Cedar will be aware of me if I get too close.

Phonetia drops to her knees, dragging Blondie with her. He yanks and yanks at her arms trying to get her to stand up and follow them.

She goes limp and slides through his grasp. Good girl.

Then she thrashes around breaking sword fern fronds and snagging alder branches. A blind man could follow the path she leaves. Cedar closes his eyes and concentrates hard. I can feel the plant life flowing over the break in its growth where deer, coyote, and raccoons have beaten the ground hard. Their roots resist pushing through the narrow game trail. He’s too young and inexperienced to make them obey. He’s close to panic and loses his concentration before the plants complete their task. Then he has to start over.

Blondie grows impatient and drags Phonetia deeper into the woods, oblivious to signs she leaves in their wake.

Gollum will know what to look for.

If they get here in time, before we meet up with the Nörglein and he truly obscures the path.

“W
HERE IS IT, where is it, where is it?”I murmured as I yanked the steering wheel right and left, taking the curves uphill way too fast.

Behind me, Gollum, driving his new SUV, trailed at a moderate speed. He braked and accelerated smoothly. When did he learn to drive!

“There, there, there,” E.T. pointed excitedly to a widening of the shoulder on our left.

I stomped on the brake and clutch so abruptly Gollum’s vehicle came within inches of rear-ending me. Thankfully, he has amazing reactions. All that Aikido and other martial arts training. We squeezed both cars into the miniscule gravel area.

“This way,” E.T. called over her shoulder as she flung open the door and scooted across the road without looking for traffic.

My heart nearly stopped as a car coming downhill way too fast skidded and screeched to avoid hitting her. The middle-aged woman driving leaned out her window and yelled obscenities. But she didn’t slow down much or stop to make sure E.T. was okay.

I ran after my daughter just as recklessly. Gollum and the two boys jogged along hard on my heels.

“They came through here just minutes ago,” Oak said, glancing at a swath of wreckage to the underbrush.

“Scrap?”

Under log bridge. Left uphill away from the creek.
He sounded breathless and anxious.

I spotted the huge Douglas fir that had uprooted and fallen across the ravine, its top branches bent and broken against the opposite hillside. We all ducked and squeezed beneath it then stopped.

If anyone had gone this way within the last century, I couldn’t spot it.

Fir did. He loped upward, pulling himself along by grabbing branches, ferns, and protruding roots that formed steps across the path. Oak paralleled him, using his greater strength to kick footholds into the steep incline.

E.T. climbed as nimbly as her brothers, inserting her wiry body between branches and trunks.

Gollum and I looked to each other in puzzlement, shrugged, and followed more slowly.

We crested the slope. Nothing around us but underbrush, fallen trees, and impenetrable blackberry thickets.

The boys had disappeared. E.T. looked as confused as Gollum and I.

“Scrap, now where?”

I don’t know,
he wailed landing heavily on my head.
I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired. Couldn’t go sharp if I had to
. He curled up and started snoring.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I shouldn’t have asked so much of you, transforming, fighting, barely tasting blood, then chasing the bad guys without a break or food.” I reached up and petted him.

A lump formed in my throat. Tears of frustration and despair pricked my eyes. I checked the link between me and Phonetia. A faint tendril of life glowed in my heart. Unharmed, but frightened.

“I hear something. This way.” Gollum blinked rapidly behind his glasses as he held back crossing fir branches. Sure enough, another narrow pathway opened before us.

Shouts ahead drew us onward. Gollum led, breaking the way through and beneath the overgrown bush.

“Bushwhacking in Africa,” he explained briefly. He didn’t have his backpack filled with essential tools. But he had experience. I trusted him to get me to my daughter.

The link between Phonetia and me suddenly flared.

I surged forward, passing Gollum.

“Put the gun down, little boy, before you hurt yourself,” Blondie sneered.

“Let my sister go or I’ll shoot,” Fir announced firmly, not a bit of a quaver in his voice.

Hope flared within me, fueled by Phonetia as much as the conversation.

“Fir, they wear Father’s protection. The gun won’t kill them,” Oak explained calmly. Anxiety tinged his voice.

“Maybe I can’t kill him. But I can hurt him.”

We burst through the last thicket of alder saplings just as Fir lowered his aim from Blondie’s chest to his groin.

Phonetia threw herself sideways and down. She rolled until she fetched up at Gollum’s feet. He pulled her upright as he produced a pocketknife and began sawing away at the multiple layers of duct tape around her wrists. More strips covered her mouth.

He seemed absorbed with his task, but I saw his eyes flicker, keeping the boys and the marijuana farmers under close observation. “At the first opportunity you and your sister need to run. Get back to the cars and lock yourselves in,” he whispered.

I nodded firmly, seconding his order. My connection to the girls surged with agreement. They were both scared enough not to fight me.

A quick scan of the miniature clearing and Blondie was the only demon tat I could see. I closed my eyes for half a second, concentrating on the tiny sounds of the forest.

Where had the others gone?

Waiting with elf daddy at the home base
, Scrap murmured, half awake.

“Give me the gun, Fir,” Blondie ordered, holding out his hand.

The weapon exploded. Blondie flew backward from the impact. I cringed.

“Run!” Oak commanded.

Gollum grabbed both girls and headed back the way we’d come. Downhill. He only needed to keep going downhill and he’d hit the road sooner or later.

I stayed put. My feet took a defensive stance.

Oak and Fir closed ranks between me and Blondie. Cedar crouched over the fallen man, oblivious to the poison oak that brushed at his legs and hands.