Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (22 page)

I tilted my head to listen. The idle of the Harley made that impossible. Ricky turned off the engine without any sign from me.

We both looked into the silent night. Then his chin shot up, and he turned. I followed his gaze but saw nothing.

“I thought I heard …” He frowned and then said, “A horse whinny. I thought I heard a horse whinny.”

Perfect night for a hunt.

But the Cŵn Annwn couldn’t ride here. There wasn’t a forest
for miles. Ricky stayed tense, his sharp gaze cutting through the night, and when I leaned in to kiss the back of his neck, my lips brushed goose bumps.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

He said nothing. Just kept looking. Then I heard him inhale, and I caught the faintest whiff of horse.

With his gaze still on our surroundings, he reached back, took my hand, and moved it to my pocket. I pulled out the boar’s tusk. He felt it in my hand and nodded.

“But if it’s the Huntsmen …” I whispered. The tusk was
from
the Cŵn Annwn, to protect us against everything
else.

“It’s … wrong,” he said, still searching the street and the surrounding buildings.

“Not Cŵn Annwn?”

“I … I don’t know. It’s just wrong.” He rolled his shoulders. “Sorry. I’m—”

“No, stay with that.” I tugged his own tusk from his pocket and pressed it into his hand. “Follow your gut. Always.”

He nodded, started the bike, and rolled it slowly down the street. I kept my helmet off and continued searching the shadows. He stopped a few doors from the drop-in center, turned into a gap between the buildings, and killed the engine.

I hopped from the bike while he kept it steady. Helmet off, he scanned the street. Then he nodded, as if satisfied that whatever he’d sensed was gone. There was no one in sight. No one even peeked out from behind a window blind at the very distinct sound of a Harley rolling along their street.

We were about to cross the road when I noticed that flicker again, dark movement in the shadows. This time, I spotted a large shape hunkered down behind a parked car. I tapped Ricky’s elbow, but he was already turning that way.

As
I reached for my gun, his hand closed on mine, and he shook his head. He took a slow step toward the shadow. It moved, and the moonlight glinted off dark red eyes.

“A hound?” I whispered.

That couldn’t be right. Hounds didn’t cower. As Ricky walked toward the car, the dark shape shrunk back, and I thought for sure he was mistaken.

I tucked the tusk into my pocket and palmed my switchblade instead. Ricky didn’t seem to hear me even as I jogged up, gravel crunching. But then he lifted his fingers, holding me back as he continued until we were close enough to see black fur.

The beast lay flattened against the pavement, as if thinking itself safely hidden there. I lifted my switchblade and flicked on the penlight.

It was definitely a hound. And yet not like any hound I’d seen. Its fur was matted. One eye was glazed white. One ear a stump. A leg crooked, as if broken and not allowed to heal properly. The worst, though, was the look in its eyes: absolute terror.

“No,” Ricky whispered. “How …? Who …?” He dropped to one knee on the sidewalk and lowered his hand to the ground. “Come here.”

The hound backed up.

“It’s all right,” he said.

The hound stopped. It lifted its eyes to Ricky, and the hope in them was heartbreaking to see.

“Who would do this?” Ricky whispered. “Who would dare …?” He shook his head and crooned, “Come here. It’s all right.”

I turned off the penlight. The hound started at the click but then crept forward, still belly to the ground, gaze fixed on Ricky’s face.

“That’s it,” Ricky said. “Come on.”

The hound crawled closer, good ear pricking forward. Then a car skidded around the corner, tires squealing, music blaring, and the hound wheeled and took off running.

“No!” Ricky shouted. “Come back—”

He ran a few loping paces after the beast, but it disappeared down a side road.

“Fuck,” he said, shooting a glower at the car as it sped past. “What the hell happened to that hound? Who would do that?”

Rage pulsed from him, his eyes glowing with it. Rage and indignation, that one of his hounds could be so mistreated. Yes,
his
hounds. Arawn’s hounds. That’s what he felt—the fury of Arawn for his beasts.

“Go after it,” I said. “It was coming to you. It knows you.”

He shook off the idea. “No, it was just—”

“It knows you, Ricky,” I said. “At the very least, it recognizes your blood. Go after it, and I’ll take care of this.”

“You got a mysterious call in the middle of the night,” he said, already crossing the road, headed for the drop-in center. “From a freaked-out girl. Remember what happened the last time?”

“She’s not a girl.”

“Yep, which only makes her more dangerous. The hound can wait. I’ll talk to Ioan. See how the hell something like that can happen.”

He was pissed off enough that he nearly strode through the front door. It was only when I caught the back of his Saints jacket that he halted.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Sorry. Have you got—?”

“Gun out, switchblade and tusk in pocket.”

He nodded and took out his blade.

“We should circle the building,” I said as he reached for the knob. “See if the lamia is around.”

“Right. Sorry. Distracted.”

“I know, so fall in behind and watch my back.”

I added a “please,” but he was already moving behind me. We conducted a full circle of the building. There was no sign of Melanie or anyone else.

“Before we go in,” Ricky said, “text Gabriel, presuming you haven’t already.”

“I don’t want to bother him.”

“When he came after you the first time you were here, he texted me so someone knew where you both were. We should do the same.”

“I’ll leave a message at the office—”

“He didn’t ignore your cry for help when you were trapped, Liv. He ignored what he thought was just you trying to get in touch after your fight. He won’t do
that
again, either.”

“I know. I—”

“You don’t want to be proven wrong. You’d rather tell yourself he’ll never repeat that mistake, cross your fingers, and hope you never have to test the theory.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that, and I don’t blame you one bit. If you want me to text, I will, but we need to keep him in the loop.” He lowered his voice. “You’ve already tested him, Liv. You fell off a bridge.”

“I know.”

“Then you also know that jumping after you was a conscious choice, not a mistake he regrets. Text him. Please.”

I sent the message and let Ricky take the lead as we headed for the back door.

T
he
door was unlocked. As Ricky held it open, I leaned through to find the cold-forged iron Melanie had mentioned. As soon as I did, I felt that weirdly burning cold. When I shone my penlight around the door frame, the beam reflected off a glaze of iron shavings, encircling the entire frame. I touched them and felt the icy burn.

“Thou shalt not proceed,” I murmured.

“Innovative,” Ricky said. “It looks like they spray-glued a layer of the stuff. You said Gabriel feels it?”

“It burns him. I’m guessing for a full-blooded fae it would be like leaping through a ring of fire.” I set the knife down, took out my phone and texted a warning to Gabriel, on the off chance he needed to come after us.

I picked up the knife again and shone the light on the door frame, as Ricky ran his hand up and down it.

“Nothing?” I said.

“Just a tingle.”

As soon as we stepped from the back hall, I smelled blood. Ricky did, too, and we followed it into the main room. The first thing I saw was the portrait of the lamia who’d died in my vision. Blood spattered and streaked the glass. It spattered
and streaked the walls, too, and when we peered in, squinting against the darkness—

I fell back as moonlight lit a figure in the middle of the room.

Ricky caught my arm. He held me there a second and then whispered, “You can stay here.”

An offer. Not an order or even a request, and he only nodded when I shook my head.

Ricky barely spared a glance for the figure as he checked through the two open doors and closed them. Only once he was sure no one could surprise us did he turn to that figure. He let out a deep sigh, muttering, “Fuck.”

It was Erin—the young woman who worked with Aunika. She’d been bound to a chair and tortured. I’ll say no more about that, only that the room was flecked with blood and I suspected she hadn’t had the answers her killer wanted.

As Ricky crouched in front of Erin’s body, my phone rang. It was on vibrate, but in the silence, even that was loud enough to make me jump.

“Gabriel,” I said.

I told him what we’d found.

“Should we notify the police?” I asked.

“Not if you don’t have to.”

That’s what I’d figured. Considering the sheer number of dead bodies that turned up in my wake, I needed to avoid being associated with one whenever possible. Especially when I didn’t have a valid reason for being here at four in the morning.

Gabriel had me run through what we’d done so far, to determine how likely it was that we’d ever be tied to this crime. Then he said, “Exit the way you came in. Wheel the motorcycle. Don’t start the engine until you’re at least a block away. Have Ricky remove his Saints jacket until you’re a few miles from the scene. Then ask him to drive here. I want to discuss this with both of you.”

“Sure. We’ll—”

Sirens sounded in the distance. Gabriel must have heard them and said to me, “I’m sure they’re going elsewhere, given the neighborhood. But ask Ricky to check out a front window—”

“He’s already there.”

“Good. If you don’t see lights, leave through the back immediately. But make sure before you step onto the street.”

“Look both ways and don’t walk in front of any police cars?”

The flash of lights filled the room.

“They’ve turned the corner, heading this way,” Ricky said, striding back to me. “We need to go, just in case—”

Brakes screeched as we jogged into the back room.

“Shit!” Ricky said.

“Gabriel? They’re coming here. Do we—? No, wait. There’s a secret passage.”

Ricky looked back at me. “What?”

“That’s how Aunika and I got out. Gabriel—?”

“Do that,” he said.

“I’m going to lose you as soon as we go underground, so this is goodbye. We’ll call as soon as we can. Hopefully not from the police station.”

Ricky was as impressed by the escape hatch and subterranean passage as I’d been.

“We need one of these under the clubhouse,” he whispered. “You can dig a tunnel, but you aren’t going to get the ambiance of a proper nineteenth-century version.”

“We’ll decorate.”

I smiled and, we strained to listen to what was happening overhead. It only took a few minutes before someone banged on the front door hard enough to shake the ladder. Then a shout of “Police!” The door opened with a crash and boots stomped in,
and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to fall into memories of my parents’ arrest.

“It’s okay,” Ricky whispered, his arms going around me. “Look at me.”

I opened my eyes, and his face was right over mine.

“Just focus on me. Deep breaths.”

I wanted to say I was okay, but his arms tightened around me. I took a minute to recover and stepped back with a thank-you.

Ricky reached for my switchblade and pushed the off button for the light. “Just for a minute, okay?”

We didn’t want cops seeing light coming from a closet. Ricky found my hand in the dark again, entwining his fingers with mine while we listened.

The police found Erin. They called for assistance and began searching the building. Ricky flicked on my light just long enough to see our surroundings. Then he moved my free hand to hang on to his jacket while he led us deeper into the tunnels. My night vision is pretty good. His is better—another gift of his stronger Cŵn Annwn blood.

Once we were partway down the next tunnel, he turned on my light and held it out to me.

“You want it back?” he whispered.

“No, keep it,” I said.

He shone the beam around. “Wow. If we weren’t running from the cops, I’d totally want to go exploring down here.”

I chuckled. “That’s what I thought last time I was fleeing through here. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? All this, abandoned, and—” I stopped short, my head swinging to the left.

“You hear something?” he whispered.

“No, sorry, just … I’d totally forgotten what happened the last time I was down here.”

“Hypothermia, remember? The doctors said you might have black spots. Was it a vision?”

I nodded. “There were lamiae, they’d been held captive …”

I’d promised to see to their remains. I had to make sure I did that.

I continued, “The point for now is that the last time I was down here, I had visions.”

“Got it. Which means this time …” He took my hand. “Hold tight. If you see anything move, tell me. Don’t wait to be sure it’s not just a rat.”

“There are rats?”

“Underground? Near the river? Nah.”

I managed a soft laugh. “Right. Okay then, let’s press on.”

We couldn’t hear anything overhead. Which didn’t mean the police were gone—they’d be there for hours. We had to find our own way out. That would be much easier if I could recall anything about the layout of this place.

We continued down one passage after another.

“Starting to feel like we should have brought breadcrumbs,” Ricky said.

“Wouldn’t help. The rats would eat them.”

He chuckled and pushed open a door. It got partway open and stopped. He looked down. “What the—?”

The room strobed. I heard soft sobs. The rattle of chains. A man lay on the floor, his body decomposing. Another body lay near—

“—and wrong room, apparently.”

A yank on my arm, hard enough to make me stumble, and I found myself back in the corridor with Ricky, his fingers wrapped tight around my arm as he shut the door he’d been opening.