Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (29 page)

“Who knows if they’ll even answer now,” Molly countered with a glum frown.

“Worth a shot, at least.”

“Worst case, we’re on our own,” said Wade. “What’re our options? Do we even know where these assholes are? Y’all said they’re up in the Cascades. How far out an’ where?”

“We don’t know,” said Onyx. “Probably not too far into the mountains, at least. If they were on the other side, they probably wouldn’t even think about Seattle much. But it’s not like we’ve ever been there before. All we know is it’s some kind of compound.”

“Then it probably shows up on satellite photos,” suggested Jason. “It might take a while, but we can spend some time online trying to narrow it down.”

“That could be a huge chore and still get us nowhere,” said Taylor.

“I might have a magical option,” Molly thought out loud. “It might narrow things down with a little more info than Google would show us, too.”

“I thought you said stuff would probably be warded so you couldn’t see?” asked Taylor.

“Wards don’t cover everything up like a blanket,” said Molly. “They’ll block out a scrying spell, but they don’t turn anything invisible. If they really do have some sort of compound up there, we can probably find it.”

“Okay, then what?” asked Taylor. “Obviously we can’t let all this go, but it’s not like we can talk everything out all nice. Blowing them all up doesn’t seem like an option, either.”

“You don’t think so?” asked Wade. “Seems like the best option to me.”

“Dude. Seriously?” Drew frowned.

“It’s what we did with the vampires an’ the werewolves.”

“That shit wasn’t premeditated. We didn’t have no other options. Plus those were monsters, and these are—uh. I mean…” Drew’s voice trailed off as he considered his words. “Okay, that’s kinda fucked up. I’m not sure what I’m saying now.”

“It’s called de-humanizin’ your enemy,” Wade explained. “You’re more willin’ to take an enemy out if’n you stop thinkin’ of ‘em as people.”

“Vampires and werewolves are damned beyond redemption,” Lorelei spoke up softly. “Such curses can only take hold within people who are already monsters. Do not let those deaths trouble your conscience. Other foes are not so easy to condemn…though to commit so much murder and associate so closely with the Pit does not suggest much chance for redemption.”

“Even so,” said Taylor, “there’s gotta be some other option besides going straight to kill or be killed, right? Molly, Onyx, isn’t there any kind of…I dunno, sorcerer prison or something?” She waited only a few heartbeats for an answer while everyone stared at her—and then turned as she realized they were staring at the young man on the couch beside her.

“What?” asked Jason. Then he groaned. “Oh.
Them
. Yeah, I dunno. We haven’t talked about wizards.”

“Sorcerers,” Onyx gently corrected. “Or Practitioners.”

“Shitheads,” Molly grunted.

“Jason, what have you told Amber about tonight?” asked Lorelei.

“Nothing. What, you think as soon as a guy has a girlfriend, he’s gotta tell her everything about everything?”

“Alex does,” said Molly, Onyx, and Lorelei in unison.

Wade slipped one hand over his face. “Chrissake, Alex,” he muttered.

“I accuse you of nothing, Jason,” said Lorelei. “It seems only natural that you might have told her something.”

Jason glanced at Molly and Onyx again before he reluctantly answered, “I told her we were going with you to a meeting with some other people like you. We didn’t get into it.”

“Wait,
‘people like you?’
” Onyx teased. “What’s that mean?”

“Magic types, obviously. Look, we don’t talk about stuff like that over the phone unless it’s planned. She doesn’t want it going out over a random cell phone call or a Skype chat, y’know? She knew what I meant.”

“So you did tell her,” said Wade.

“I dropped a little hint about what I’d be up to tonight in case I never came home again ‘cause I got turned into a fucking toad or something.” He shot Wade an irritated look. “And that’s not weird or clingy.”

“Shit, I’m startin’ to think I need to leave notes for my family in case I never come home,” muttered Drew.

“I know, right?” Jason huffed.

“It is entirely up to you how much you tell her,” said Lorelei. “None of us expect you to keep secrets from your girlfriend. Yet given the situation now, it may be best if you call her. Unless that puts you in a bind with your peers?” she asked the witches.

The pair glanced at one another and shrugged. “We’re paying the rent with that bind,” said Molly. “Sure. Call her up and tell her what’s going on. Maybe she can give us some advice.”

“Advice? You’re kidding, right? She’s gonna be on the first flight up tomorrow. What else do you think she’s got goin’ on right now?”

* * *

“I’ll kill you all! You’ll choke on your own blood as I feast on your entrails,” snarled the hog-tied man on the sidewalk. “Let go of me or face my wrath!”

“Just ignore him,” Agent Nguyen counseled. She stood close in case he did anything stupid, but otherwise didn’t touch him further.

“I’ll hunt you bitches down in your sleep!”

“Threatening Federal agents is a crime, George,” sighed the young agent leaning on the car parked at the curb. Amber held her cell phone up with the recorder going. “We’ve already read your rights. Are you sure you want to say things like that?”

“Rights?” George spat a nasty wad of bile onto her phone. “You think rights mean anything to La Chupacabra?”

“That’s assault, and you are not la chupacabra,” Amber repeated with some disappointment. She grimaced at the bile sliding down the screen of her phone before setting it down on the hood of the car. Thankfully, she came prepared for things like this. Antiseptic swabs ranked only below her pistol and handcuff keys as daily necessities. She fished around for one in her jacket pocket with her clean hand.

By now, several porch lights had come on as the shouting drew neighborhood interest. Not far away, Agent Lanier offered another apology to an irate homeowner about the racket their arrest had made in his backyard.

“Yes, I am. I am la chupacabra, you
puntus
, and I’ll—”

“Oh for the love of—you can’t even drop slang right. It’s not puntu, it’s
punta
. Who doesn’t know that? You don’t speak a lick of Spanish, do you? Christ, you sound like a Jersey Shore reject, anyway,” Amber grumbled as she tore a swab from its packet to wipe her hand clean. “You aren’t la chupacabra. More like the chupaca-
bro
.”

“Oh, fuck you, bitch.”

Nguyen looked up curiously. “Wouldn’t that be the correct conjugation anyway?”

“Whatever,” Amber fumed.

“Let me go!” George demanded again. “I am la chupacabra!”

“Swear to God, we should be allowed to charge him with felony cultural misappropriation,” said Amber.

“Okay, San Diego PD is on the way,” announced Agent Bridger as he rejoined the group. He hadn’t gone far. George’s shouting drove him down the block so he could make the call in relative peace. “They should be here in only a few minutes.”

“Good,” grunted Amber. She wiped the spit from her phone, but soon decided she might as well use another swab on it for good measure.

“Are you angry at his bad Spanish, or are you angry we didn’t find a real chupacabra?” asked Nguyen.

“Yes,” Amber replied.

“I really am la chupa—”

“You’re a jackass neighborhood creeper,” Amber cut him off. “Shut your hole and go to county lock-up until they give you a psych eval.”

“What’s wrong with your phone?” asked Bridger.

“He spit on it,” said Nguyen.

“Why’d you put it out where he could spit on it?”

Amber shot him a dirty look. “Way to blame the victim there, Doug.” Her phone vibrated in her hand as she wiped it off again, causing her to nearly drop it on the ground. “Who’s calling at two in the—?” Then she looked at the name on the screen. “Hey guys, I probably better take this, okay?” she murmured before stepping away from the group.

“It’s Amber,” she said into her phone.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I’m waking you up,” said the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

Amber glanced back to the others. “Not at all. I’m wide awake and having the dumbest night on the job ever. What’s up with you? How’d your thing go tonight?”

“Not so good,” said Jason. “Remember how you said I should always call you immediately if certain things happened? Tonight pretty much fell straight into that category. With a cannonball dive, really.”

“Shit, is everyone okay?”

“Mostly. Lorelei got seriously jacked up, but she’ll be okay. Alex is MIA. His girlfriend is out looking for him. The rest of us are fine. It got
real
ugly for the other people, though. Like, worse than the last time you were up here, y’know?”

“Where are you?” Amber asked. She glanced over to Nguyen and Bridger again to find them both watching. Though they were too far away to hear her side of the conversation, they surely noticed her change in posture.

“I’m safe,” he said. “We’re all at Lorelei’s place, trying to work out what we’re gonna do next about all this. It seemed like time to call you, ‘cause this shit isn’t over.”

Amber let out a heavy breath. The team already had other pressing cases. “La chupacabra” was an unwelcome distraction, and doubly so given the mundane truth behind his escapades. She didn’t doubt the seriousness of Jason’s situation, though. This went beyond mere concern for her long-distance boyfriend. “Okay, we probably don’t want to talk about this on the phone, right? So let’s cut to the chase. If I get to a secure line and you tell me the details, am I gonna be on the first flight to Seattle in the morning?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Do I bring the others? Is this like the world ending or something?”

“Doesn’t look like it, but it’s super shitty. You’re gonna want to know what’s going on.”

“Okay. Sounds like we’re gonna see each other sooner than we expected. Let me talk to my boss first before I make any promises.”

“Gotcha. Thanks. Sorry I’m dropping all this on you.”

“Don’t even worry about it, babe. I know you wouldn’t mess around about my job. If you say it’s serious, I trust you. We all trust you. I’ll call you back in a bit, okay?”

“Did I ever tell you I’m really hung up on you?” asked Jason.

In spite of her concerns, Amber grinned. “That’s convenient for me. Gotta go. Bye.” With that, she hung up and returned to her team.

“That looked serious,” observed Nguyen.

“It is.” Amber glanced down at their prisoner, now somewhat settled down but plainly listening to their conversation. She also noted a pair of patrol cars on approach as they passed under the streetlights up the road. “That was Jason. Our friends in the great wet north ran into some trouble again. Sounds like somebody better go up and talk to them.”

“Is it something dangerous?” Nguyen asked.

“It was. I don’t know if it still is. He couldn’t really tell me over the phone, but they’re okay for now. Mostly.” Amber shrugged. “One of us needs to make a personal visit.”

“I could go,” offered Bridger.

Nguyen glanced at him once before rolling her eyes. “We need you here for the other cases,” she said. “Amber, go ahead and book a flight. You can send a secure message to fill us in as soon as you know what’s going on. I’m also going to need your statement on this jackass as soon as you can make it, too.”

“Right. Thanks, boss,” she said.

Nguyen gave a nod before turning away to meet the local police. That left Amber alone with George and Bridger, who gave her an awkward look.

Amber sighed. “Yeah, I’ll tell her you said hi.”

“Who said anything about her?” Bridger asked defensively.

“Please. Like I don’t know what you’re thinking about right now.”

* * *

“If you aren’t using one of the beds, you gotta at least take one of the couches,” said Drew. “I can sleep on the chair. That thing is half pillow anyway.”

Standing with Drew at the sliding glass balcony door, Lorelei glanced back to the plush chair with a smirk. “You might not be so eager if you knew the sort of things that chair has—”

“Stop. Too much.” He held up one hand to cut her off. “Listen, I assume every square inch of this place has been used in some degree of freaky shit or another. Obviously you guys clean up after. Don’t go putting specifics into my head.”

“As you wish,” Lorelei chuckled, then winced.

Drew glanced back to the hallway. With Molly and Onyx in the master bedroom and the others in the two guest rooms—or on the phone, in Jason’s case—they had the living room to themselves. “How you holdin’ up?”

“I’ll survive.”

“Anything I can do for you?” he asked. He was unsurprised when she shook her head. “How bad is it? Like if you decided not to keep my spirits up and told me the truth instead?”