“A couple of pairs,” she replied, stepping forward and quickly rolling the man onto his stomach. She pulled his arms behind his back and shackled him. Then she reached in her pocket, and her hand came out with a piece of black cloth. “And some of these nifty head bags.” Grabbing the man by the hair, she pulled his head back and slipped the bag over his head. Standing straight, she grinned at me. “As soon as I pass my firearms test, they’re going to give me a gun, and then I’ll have all the neat toys.”
“Talk to a detective named Cindy Mackle,” I said. “She has some neat toys that aren’t official issue.”
Shawna threw the guy over her shoulder, and we went to see what happened with Edmundson. He was nowhere to be seen, but a healer was working on Bailey, who was bleeding from his left shoulder.
“I didn’t see what happened to the third guy who came through the window,” Shawna told Frankie. “Do you want me to try and find him?”
“That’s not necessary,” I said, “I don’t think that he’s a problem anymore. What about the Hunters who came through the tunnel?”
Shawna and Frankie gave me a rather strange look, then Frankie said, “You were right, some of those people were illusions, but by the time we figured out who was real, three Hunters escaped. We captured one man in that mess, but he’s not a Hunter. He’s another member of the Columbia Club.”
“What happened to Edmundson?” I asked Frankie.
“He escaped.” She glanced over at Bailey. “Dan tried to stop him but got stabbed with one of those long knives like yours. Edmundson took off in that direction.” She pointed southwest.
Chapter 24
“Which way did they go?” Shawna asked about the Hunters who escaped the Harland Hall trap.
“They split up,” Dan Bailey said.
“We tried to follow them,” Frankie said, “but we lost them. They’re long gone by now.”
“How’s the shoulder?” I asked Bailey. “Not too bad.” He glanced up at the healer who was bending over him. “A lot better than it was.”
Shawna drew me aside. “Maybe humans can’t find them, but I’m a lot faster, and I can track them by scent. Magic users are pretty distinctive.”
The idea was intriguing, and at first, I was excited, but there was a problem. “I can’t keep up with you,” I said, “and you really don’t want to confront them alone because you can’t shield.”
The vampire shrugged. “If I can find them, I’ll just keep watching until you catch up. I saw what that guy did at Willard’s Green, and I’m not in a hurry to be a twice-dead hero.”
Jolene was close enough to overhear our conversation, and she moved in between us, putting a hand on each of our shoulders.
“Josh and Erin and I will follow in the car,” she said. “If you find one or more of them, just send Erin a text.”
Shawna’s brow furrowed as she looked down at the diminutive witch.
“She just placed a tracker on both of us,” I said. “If you can find one of them, we’ll find you.”
After a brief conversation with Bailey and Frankie, Shawna told us, “One of them is headed south, toward the city. I think that will be the easiest one for you to follow in a car.”
“Following that logic, can you pick up the scent of the guy who stabbed Sergeant Bailey?” I asked.
“Dunno.” She wandered over to where the healer was still working on Bailey, then sort of aimlessly walked around. When she stopped, she grinned at me. “Got him.” She turned and took off at a lope across the campus.
Frankie was chuckling as we passed her on our way to Josh’s van. “It never occurred to me that we could use a vampire as a bloodhound. This may work out even better than I hoped.”
“As long as you can keep her from munching on the rest of the help,” Josh grumbled.
I punched him in the shoulder. “C’mon, you’re not afraid of a girl, are you?”
He laughed. “The girls I hang around with are pretty scary.”
As we got into the van, with Josh driving and Jo sitting in front, she said, “She’s on the move.” Jo started giving him directions. Since they had lived in Westport their whole lives and I had barely been there a few months, I sat back to enjoy the ride.
We left the university and wound our way down the hill through a residential district. I leaned over the back of Jolene’s seat so I could see the little mirror she held. A red dot showed Shawna, and a green dot showed our location. It was all relative. There wasn’t any map, of course, and I wouldn’t have stood a chance of giving Josh any directions.
The method wasn’t fool proof. “Take the next right,” Jo said.
“It’s a dead end,” Josh replied. “I have to go two more blocks to find a through street.”
“Do it,” Jo said. “Then keep heading west. It looks like she’s heading for the coast.”
Josh laughed as he took the corner. “Coast Road is only four blocks in front of us.”
Almost an hour later, after many twists and turns, Josh pulled into a parking lot overlooking the ocean. A sign at the back of the parking lot indicated a trail that looked like it simply led off a cliff, but when I got out of the car and approached where Shawna sat on the fence, I could see the trail sort of zig-zagged down the steep embankment.
“I don’t know what’s down there,” Shawna said. “Vampires don’t hang out at the beach much. I scouted around a bit, and I don’t think there’s another way out.”
“There’s an overlook with a kind of gazebo thing,” Josh said. “Big rocks down there and the waves hitting them are pretty impressive. Lots of tourists taking pictures on summer days.”
“Shelter out of the wind,” Jolene added.
I looked at Josh. “Let’s hope he’s not also a hydromancer.” Air and water were closely associated, and some mages could work with both. I didn’t know who had conjured that mini-storm that bogged me down at Harland Hall.
He nodded. “Yeah.” Turning to his sister, he said, “A ley line’s running right under our feet. Not a big one, but plenty of energy to power a storm.”
“Shawna, does he know you followed him?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I rarely had him in sight. No need to get close. He reeks of mage magic, so his trail was easy to follow.”
“You two stay here,” I told Shawna and Jo. “Ready?” I asked Josh.
“I can’t go watch?” Shawna pushed her lower lip out, pretending to pout.
“I’d rather have you alive to haul my broken and bleeding body back up to the ambulance,” Josh said. “Jo’s a little light for that sort of thing.” Turning to me, he said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
There was enough moonlight for us to see the trail, although occasionally the light was blanked out by clouds. Rock walls bordered the way—sometimes only knee high, at other places waist high—so I wasn’t worried about missing the trail and falling off the cliff. Josh followed about fifteen or twenty feet behind me, far enough that an ambush wouldn’t catch us both. The ley line allowed both of us to enhance our shields with plenty of power in reserve for our weapons.
I was about halfway down to the water when I first caught sight of the gazebo below me and off to my left. The waves pounding the rocks and the shore made more than enough noise, so I didn’t worry about making any sounds, but we would be easy to ambush for the same reason.
And then I saw him—leaning against one of the roof supports, gazing out at the waves, as though quietly contemplating the meaning of life. Considering how far Shawna had chased him, I wondered if he was tired and catching his breath, or if he thought that was a place to hide out until we gave up searching for him.
The sound of the waves drowned out all other sounds, so he couldn’t have heard us drive up. I waited for Josh to catch up with me. He leaned down so I could shout into his ear.
“Stay out of sight until I have his attention. I’ll try to maneuver him so he turns his back to you.”
“Got it.”
I picked my way down the trail until I got to a broad, sandy area. The trail became a wooden boardwalk at that point, leading to the gazebo, which was a white, thirty-foot octagonal platform with a pitched roof held up by eight square posts. Half of it hung out over the cliff, which fell about fifteen or twenty feet to the water.
The Hunter had his back to me, still facing out toward the ocean. I prepared the Sword spell, and as I stepped onto the platform, I hurled a ley line missile at him. My hope that he wasn’t shielded turned out to be false. He whirled around, and his sword whispered from its sheath as he spotted me.
“Ah, the little girl with the glowing sword,” he said. “Master Benedict’s whore. Did you come to dance with me in the moonlight, Tian? Which of my swords is your preference? We can dance upright or horizontally.”
“Hello, Gavin, if that’s really your name,” I said. “I think I prefer upright. I doubt that your little sword is large enough that a girl could find much use for it.”
He snarled an ugly laugh. “We’ll see. I look forward to hearing you beg, Tian. Master Rudolf has offered a fine reward for your head, but I’ll let you negotiate whether you’re still alive when I deliver it.”
Tian was my middle name, the name my mother called me and what the Illuminati had called me prior to giving me my battle name. I hadn’t heard it in years. It was the name Fritz Schottner and the other bullies had used when they teased and assaulted me. That had pretty much stopped after I finally got tired of the abuse and beat the hell out of one of them when I was seventeen.
“And where is dear Master Rudolf?” I asked. “Since you won’t live to do so, I would be more than happy to deliver my head to him personally.”
“Travelling at the moment, but he’ll be here soon enough.”