Back in the car, Jolene pulled out the mirror and showed it to me. A green dot, like a faint light, showed in the middle of the mirror with a red dot almost on top of it.
“The green dot is us,” Jolene said. She pulled out another mirror that showed an identical pair of dots. “And this is the receiver for the tracker I planted in his glove. The glove is in his car.”
That made some sense. I certainly wouldn’t want to drive around wearing a Hunter’s uniform. He probably kept it in the trunk of his car, along with his weapons, and changed somewhere after dark.
We waited for half an hour, then followed Christian when he came out of the restaurant. He drove along the north side of the river, crossed the east bridge, and then turned back toward town. His route took him by Rosie’s, but he didn’t stop. He did pull into my apartment complex, drive around all the buildings, then pulled back onto the street and continued toward downtown.
He parked in a parking garage next to city hall, then went to a movie theater, bought a ticket, and went in.
“What is he doing?” Jolene asked.
“Killing time until dark,” I answered. “He’s been here two months, and he’s bored.”
I considered that a good thing. It meant his edge might be dulled a little bit. I walked up to the ticket office and asked what time the movie was over,
Lizzy called Jolene, and they decided on a place to meet for lunch. With the trackers, there wasn’t any reason for us to sit and wait on Christian. We would know when he began moving again.
We sat around and slowly drank a pitcher of beer until almost time for the movie to end, then walked back to the theater. Five minutes after we arrived, he came out.
We tracked him to a bar. And then we waited again, but not for long. Fifteen minutes after Christian entered the bar, Mietzner came down the street and also entered the bar.
“Well, I guess that solves the question about your spider,” Jolene said.
After half an hour, Christian left. When it became obvious he was going to his car, Jolene went and got her car, then picked up Lizzy and me.
The sun was setting. Christian drove to a steakhouse and went inside. We went to a pizza place and had our dinner, then made it back to the steakhouse to find his car was still there.
Another hour of waiting.
“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a cop or a private eye,” Lizzy said. “This is booorrrring.”
Christian finally came out and drove away. The tracking mirror lit up in the dark, and I was impressed with the elegance of the spell. We didn’t have to keep the car we were following in sight, and I relaxed a little.
He drove across the river and turned to the right on a road following the river. Shortly thereafter, he took a left up into the foothills, but didn’t go far, turning again into an upper-middle class neighborhood with nice homes on medium-sized lots.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jolene muttered as Christian took a couple more turns and then stopped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She didn’t answer but pulled to a stop and killed the lights, her attention down the street to our left. I could see Christian’s car with the lights out pulled to the curb. The street was on the edge of the neighborhood, with forest to the north behind the houses.
“The third house from the corner is Frankie Jones’s house,” Jolene said. The house she indicated didn’t have any lights on. Christian was parked several houses farther down the street.
We watched as he got out of his car, opened his trunk, then got back in his car. When he got out again, I could see that he’d changed clothes and was dressed all in black. He opened the trunk again, and in its light, I saw him pull a sword and some other things out. After closing the trunk, he walked toward us.
I opened my door. “Start the car, go back to where you can spot Frankie, and stop her when she comes home. Call her, and if you can’t get hold of her, call Blair. We can trap him right here.”
“Wait! Where are you going?” Lizzy asked.
“I’m just going to keep an eye on him. If Frankie gets by you and shows up, I’ll try and help her. Now go!”
I walked up the sidewalk to the house in front of me, aware that the Hunter was watching us. Jolene started the car, pulled a U-turn, and drove away. I went around the side of the house and through a gate into the backyard, praying that the people who owned the house didn’t have a dog.
Peeking over the fence, I saw the Hunter go past, not even looking in my direction, and disappearing into the forest that ran behind Frankie’s house.
While I wasn’t dressed in all-black like the Hunter was, I wore a navy coat and blue jeans, along with black boots. I took a black balaclava out of my pocket and pulled it over my head, covering my face.
The Hunter and I had received the same training, but he was much older than I was, and my training was more recent. I had already noted several actions he had taken that bordered on sloppy. I attributed that to overconfidence and the lack of any recent challenge to his skill and expertise.
I figured that as long as I felt close to terrified at the notion of confronting him directly, overconfidence wouldn’t be a problem. Other than sparring on the City’s training grounds, I had never faced another Hunter, and had rarely even worked with one. For all I knew, my Masters had lied in praising my abilities. They had lied about everything else.
I waited for about ten minutes, fearful that the Hunter might be watching, then clambered over the fence into the next yard, then the next, until I was past where I’d last seen him. Crossing into the house’s front yard and clinging to the shadows, I continued north, with houses behind me and forest across the street in front of me, until I reached the end of the street, where it dead-ended at the forest.
Circling around, I tried to spot the Hunter, knowing he was probably resting and perfectly still. Time stretched, and eventually, so did he, readjusting his position, then settling back. He was about thirty feet in front of me and twenty feet to my right in a place where he could see between Frankie’s house and the one next door. He would know immediately if she pulled into her driveway.
It had been more than forty minutes since Jolene drove away. I had no idea of when Frankie would come home, or even if she would come home at all that night. Neither did the Hunter, unless Mietzner had given him some kind of inside information. When I was stalking a target, I had sometimes done a stakeout like that night after night, waiting for the perfect opening. Rarely was there an urgency factor. The Illuminati took the long view, and making sure of the kill without any suspicion was the paramount consideration.
Chapter 27
Almost two hours after Jolene and Lizzy dropped me off at Frankie Jones’s house, a car came down the street and pulled into the driveway. I heard the garage door open, and the Hunter moved from his position toward the house. The motor and clanking of the door opening smothered any noise that he made. I followed him.
I had strengthened my personal shield as much as I could and filled myself with power from the nearest ley line. I formed ley missiles in both of my hands.
The Hunter leapt over Frankie’s fence and raced across the backyard, then hurdled the front fence. I followed him, but when I got to the front fence, I opened the gate and peered out. He stood in the light from the garage, sword in hand.
I pushed one of the ley missiles I held. He was unprepared for it—his shield flared, and he stumbled. Almost immediately, two fireballs came from the front of the house, dowsing him in flame. That was followed by a lightning bolt. Next, a mini-tornado enveloped him, and he staggered. I pushed the other energy ball I held and saw his shield flare again.
He whirled and ran directly toward me. I pulled on the ley line again and pushed the power at him. He bounced, just as if he’d run into a wall. Another fireball hit him from behind.
The Hunter stumbled backward, his head swiveling back and forth between me and his attackers in the front yard. I hit him with another ley missile, and I guess he made a decision, because he spun, raising his sword, and took off away from me at a run.
“Don’t get in his way!” I screamed, chasing after him. “Move! Move!”
I saw Trevor standing in the middle of the street. He loosed a bolt of lightning at the Hunter, then dove out of the way as the black-clothed figure kept coming. I pushed another ley missile at the Hunter, and his shield flared again. I had the feeling that I could probably destroy the shield if I could hit him repeatedly, so I pushed another one at him. He broke to his left, and the ley missile missed, taking out a fire hydrant with spectacular results. A fountain erupted, bathing the street.
I chased after him, but he was at least six inches taller than I was, with longer legs. He headed toward the forest and disappeared into it. By the time I got there, I couldn’t see anything, and I knew that to follow him farther would be suicide.
“Erin!” I heard Blair call from behind me. I turned and trudged toward him.
“He got away,” I said. “I wasn’t fast enough.”
“Are you all right?” Blair raised his arms as though to draw me into a hug.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, ducking around him and admiring the fountain. A column of water shot forty feet in the air. I spotted Trevor and Josh, Frankie, and three or four of Blair’s team. Jolene’s car was parked down the street, with Lizzy and Jolene leaning against it.
Trevor walked over to me and bent close. Speaking softly, he said, “I could have tackled him. Why were you so freaked out? I was shielded.”
“His sword is more than a sword,” I said. “It’s spelled. It’s a magical artifact, and part of its magic is a nullification spell. It will cut right through all but the strongest shields. It will even cut through weak wards. That’s why I didn’t want to get close to him.”
He gave me a shocked look, then said, “I see. Thanks.”
Frankie approached, and I pointed at the Hunter’s car. “That’s his car. I’ll bet you can lift prints from it. We also know where he’s been staying. It’s a house owned by Charles Mietzner. If you get a team up there in a hurry, he’ll be stuck. Wearing his Hunter’s garb and carrying that sword will make him a little conspicuous.”