Taken by the Others (7 page)

What was the point of this story other than to give me heartburn and a bad case of the heebie-jeebies? Was Royce behind it? Max Carlyle? Someone else entirely?

I tossed the paper on top of my groceries on the counter, feeling ill and shocked as I waited to be checked out. I felt like I was being railroaded toward some unknown destination and that each of the events of the last few days were tied into it. But untangling how it came together was beyond me right then.

Once everything was paid for and loaded back into my cart, I trudged to my car. I’d almost forgotten about Officers O’Donnell and Grady. They fell in step on either side of me once I emerged, drawing yet more unneeded attention. Sigh.

Officer O’Donnell piped up, his serious-cop-face on. “Ma’am, can we escort you home? We heard on the radio that there are an unusual number of paparazzi at the station asking about you. It might be best to get you back to the privacy of your home.”

“Ugh, thanks for telling me. Yeah, let’s go.” I paused. “Actually, do you guys want to come up for coffee or anything once we get back? I’ve got enough food here to feed a herd of elephants.”

Officer Grady finally cracked a smile, looking like a grumpy old bear who’d just been given a pot of honey instead of one woken from hibernation. His voice was surprisingly mellow, and didn’t match the gruff exterior. “Thanks, miss, but we should probably stay posted at our vehicle and keep watch outside.”

I shrugged and nodded, pulling open my trunk as I got to the car. As I dumped the groceries in the back, I thought about what to do next. The rest of my errands could wait. I could watch movies or fart around on the Internet until I needed to start cooking dinner. My answering machine was probably overloaded if paparazzi were asking about me at the police station. I could while away some time by returning a few calls and threatening to bring a suit if they didn’t retract the ridiculous stories about me.

Hopefully none of my friends or family had seen the stupid article.

Chapter 8

Though it was a little chilly, I put the windows down while I drove to help wake myself up. The cold air was nothing compared to the chill I was feeling wondering what would happen if Chaz or my parents stumbled across that article before I had a chance to explain.

The cops were once again in tow. At any other time it would’ve been funny how everyone around me all of a sudden found it vitally important to slow their pace to a crawl, but I was not in the mood for a laugh. The mix of good music and fresh air was helping my sour frame of mind. It’s hard to stay mad when you’ve got the wind in your hair with rock ‘n’ roll blasting out of the speakers.

I was only a few blocks away from home when a black sports car with tinted windows screeched around a corner and zoomed past us. It scraped a good chunk of paint off the cop car behind me and clipped my side mirror on its way, making me yelp in surprise. Jeez, the guy must’ve been going ninety in a residential area. Blue and red lights flashed to life, followed by the wail of sirens as my escort slid around my car to give chase.

“Stay put!” Officer O’Donnell shouted out the passenger window as they pulled away. I watched as they zipped out of sight, shaken and hardly able to believe some idiot would pull a stunt like that right in front of the cops.

I was so close to home that it would be stupid to let my groceries spoil while the officers were off chasing the speed demon. I started to take my foot off the brake when another black car pulled up at a slant in front of me, blocking any attempt to pull into traffic and forcing me to slam on my brakes again. I saw through my rearview that a similar car had pulled the same move right behind me. Now I couldn’t back up either.

Shit.

I put the car in park, rolled up the windows, and locked all the doors, watching with narrowed eyes as two men stepped out of the car in front of me. They looked like feds with their matching black suits and reflective shades. One of them walked up to the driver’s side door and unnecessarily rapped on my window with his knuckles. This close, he looked more like a bodyguard than a government official. Eyeing him nervously, I turned off the radio, but didn’t roll down the window.

“Ms. Waynest? Shiarra Waynest?”

His voice was muffled by the glass, but I heard him well enough. “Yes?” I gestured at the car in front of me, blocking my path. Other cars were forced to maneuver around and people were honking irritably at the hold up. “Do you mind?”

“Don’t worry about that. Could you step out of the car? We have a few questions.”

Something wasn’t right about this. If they were official and it was that much of an emergency, they would’ve met me at my house or had my cop escorts pull me over. As they showed up right after my cops left me to chase a highly unusual distraction, their appearance was extremely suspicious.

“Let’s see some ID first.”

The two men shared a look. As I suspected, no ID was forthcoming, so I stayed put. They stepped away from the car and spoke to each other for a moment, too quietly for me to make out. After a short debate, the other man came forward. He was short, skinny, and didn’t fill out the suit very well. His eyes kept darting around, not focusing on anything in particular. Despite his slight frame, something about him scared me more than the other guy. He radiated wrongness on some fundamental level, in a far more subtle way than his failure to fill out his suit properly. Whatever it was about him, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

He was smiling absently at nothing, and I watched nervously as he placed his hand against my door, fingers splayed directly above the handle. I couldn’t tell what he was doing, though I pressed against the glass to try to see. His lips moved, and there was a brief flash of bluish light from his palm that left me blinking spots out of my eyes.

Right after the flash, my car died. What the hell?

Another flash of light and the doors unlocked of their own accord. Oh crap. A mage!

The bigger guy stepped in, reaching out to open the door. Cursing under my breath, I slapped at the lock to keep the crazies out. At the same time, I reached for my purse on the passenger seat, scrambling for mace or my cell or something I could use against them.

Too late. I missed the lock on the first try, my fingers scraping the handle as he yanked the door open. Instead of Mr. Muscles reaching for me, it was the creepy guy pressing clammy fingers to the side of my face. “Sorry, lady. You should’ve come quietly.”

In response, I kicked at him, satisfied with his wheezed “oof” as he was driven back. It wasn’t a hard blow. The angle was awkward since I was still in the seat, but he was surprised and in enough pain that he staggered back a step. I had just enough time to grab my purse and undo the seat belt before the buff guy reached for me.

He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the car. As my feet hit the ground, I steadied myself and used all the momentum I could muster to swing my purse up and around to whack the side of his head. He cried out and staggered to the side, letting me go so he could clutch at his bleeding cheek. The cute little buckle on my bag must have caught his skin. Poor baby.

I whipped around, shocked, as a gunshot went off and pedestrians screamed and scattered. Another crazy guy had stepped out of the other car and shot a round into the air from what appeared to be a Desert Eagle. Color me impressed–and scared shitless. Guns meant that Very Bad Things were bound to happen.

The small, creepy guy took advantage of my surprise to make a grab at me.

Without much thought, I drove my elbow back into his sternum, once again knocking him away from me. Gasping like a landed fish, he staggered toward the black car in front of mine while I was still trying to figure out what was going on and what the hell to do about it.

One of the benefits of having used the hunter’s belt given to me by The Circle was that the fighting skills of all previous users were retained by it and then shared with the next person to wear it. I knew I didn’t remember everything about fighting, nor had I retained all the skills I would have had with it on, but it still made me a far more formidable opponent than I used to be. Though I wasn’t as effective without it, I’d also started taking self-defense classes, and I’d kept enough knowledge from the belt to hold my ground against human attackers. For the most part. If they all came at me at once, I was screwed.

The guy who’d shot into the air leveled the gun at me. “Stop fighting us! Put your hands up!”

I told myself that if he’d meant to shoot me, he would’ve done it already. And that they weren’t out to hurt me too badly or the mage would’ve blown up my car instead of killing the engine. I still couldn’t ignore the gun, though. Especially when Mr. Muscles and another beefy guy from the second car came after me, hands out for another shot at grabbing my arms. They were going for subduing, not killing. I hoped.

Rather than stick around to be grabbed, I ducked across the car, weaved past their outstretched arms, and ran down the street. My apartment was only a couple of blocks from where I’d stopped, but my keys were still in the ignition. Maybe I could scream for help at the manager’s door.

One of the black cars roared to life and started after me while the men pounded the pavement behind me. I quickly veered onto the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians left and right. I was in shape, but I was more of a slow and steady marathon runner than a sprinter. At least one of the guys was catching up.

Breathing hard, I glanced over my shoulder to see how close. He was way too close for comfort. It was the guy I’d decked with my purse, the right side of his face now twisted into a hateful mask of blood.

I still had the purse with me. What worked once should work again. I stopped abruptly and pivoted, swinging my purse up to bash him on top of the head.

This time he blocked, swinging an arm up to deflect the blow. Shit. I backpedaled as he barreled right into me, taking me down to the concrete in an incredibly painful tackle. My turn to have the air knocked out of me and little stars in my vision.

Though I wasn’t in the right position for it, I tried shoving him off me. He was growling curses and highly uncomplimentary remarks as he grabbed at my hands, forcing them down to the pavement on either side of me. So I did the next best thing and rammed my knee up as hard as I could into his crotch.

His eyes bugged out so much I could see the whites behind his sunglasses, which had somehow managed to stay on his face during the fight. Unfortunately, my tactic didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. He didn’t let up his grip on me, the other two guys ran up, and as some of the stars cleared from my peripheral vision, I could see the two black cars double-parked and idling beside where I was pinned to the pavement.

Each of the suits grabbed an arm, hefting me to my feet as the guy with the bloodied face slowly levered himself up to stand. I kicked at kneecaps and bit at the hands on my shoulders and arms, but they had me pretty well pinned. It was hard to keep fighting after the first guy jabbed a harsh punch into my stomach, once again driving the air painfully out of my lungs. I prayed he hadn’t hit me hard enough to crack any ribs.

“You’re under arrest for attempted murder,” the bloody-faced guy said loudly in a wheezy, slightly higher-pitched voice than before. I imagine that was due to my kneeing him right in the ‘nads. Lots of people were staring at us, watching open-mouthed from apartment windows, out of their cars as they passed by, or peeking from storefronts. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

Gasping back some air, I spat at him. “You lying sack of shit! Somebody call the police, these aren’t cops!” I cried out louder, hoping someone in the crowd would believe me. “Help, they’re kidnapping me!”

Nobody moved. Goddamn useless rubberneckers!

The two guys holding my arms wrestled my hands together at the small of my back so that bloody-face could whip out some handcuffs from a back pocket and snap them around my wrists. I struggled and screamed again, trying to twist out of the cuffs even though I knew it wasn’t doing much more than bruising my wrists.

“Shut up,” he growled into my ear as he leaned in at my back, soft enough that only the guys holding my arms and I could hear. “Nobody in this crowd believes you, and I’m pissed off enough right now to punch your face into the back of your skull. Nicolas is a good enough mage to make you feel like I did that and more a few times over without leaving a mark, and I will give him the green light if you keep this up. So shut … up.”

I did as I was told, panting slightly as I tried to think of a way out of this. The men at my side used their grip on my upper arms to practically lift me off the pavement, dragging me to one of the cars. The other guy picked up my purse and trailed behind us. Once I saw that creepy little mage glaring at me from the back seat of the car they were dragging me toward, I started struggling again.

I did not want him anywhere near me! Thanks to Arnold, I knew a bit about what magi were capable of and was not interested in being within touching distance of one again. God only knew what the jerk was trying to cast on me earlier. Whatever it was happened to be nasty enough to require a physical touch. I’d seen enough magic, and had enough discussions with Arnold, to know that only the strongest, nastiest, most illegal sorts of spells were cast by that method.

The two men shoved me into the back seat, right up next to Nicolas, Creepy Mage Extraordinaire. The guy in charge slid in next to me on the other side and shut the door, trapping me between them. The driver twisted around in his seat, brows raised. “Jesus, Logan, looks like she did a number on you.”