Girls Can't Be Knights: (Spirit Knights Book 1) (18 page)

Relief flooded her. Claire dodged between the people and threw herself at the horse as impatient and incredulous voices bombarded her with too many questions and demands. Somehow, between the horse rolling her shoulders and pushing with her head, Claire wound up on Tariel’s back and held on to her mane while the mare darted out of the police station.

Outside the glass doors, Tariel reared up and flashed her front hooves out, discouraging anyone from following her. She landed with a jarring thud on the sidewalk, then shot up the street.

“Justin’s coming!” At least, she hoped he was.

Chapter 30

Justin

Three cops hurried after Claire as she fled the closet. With all the people in the room, Justin knew the cops wouldn’t shoot unless they had a clear shot. However, they could probably catch Claire. He hopped to his feet and tripped one, then threw his body at another. The two of them slammed into the third. “I wish I could let you interfere, but I can’t.” He glanced back and saw Avery hadn’t recovered yet. With Mark’s influence gone, the detective would need to spend some time putting his head on straight. Pushing him now would only make Avery’s next few weeks harder.

Several voices wanted him to stop, shut up, and get down on his knees with his hands behind his head. He sighed and wished things could be simpler. Later, Avery could straighten all of this out. Or the guy might have lost his marbles, leading him to blow his brains out. Justin preferred the former, but it wouldn’t happen until Avery had a chance to collect his scattered wits.

A few years ago, it had taken Justin two weeks to learn to step on his sword, flip it into the air, and catch it. Every second he’d “wasted” on that ridiculous skill paid off now, when he stomped down and wound up with the hilt of the blade in his hand. The cops, even those with their guns out, stared, and he liked to think it had to do with how impressive his display had been. In reality, he suspected they wanted to avoid hitting their fellow officers who currently littered the floor around him in various stages of standing up.

He hopped to the side, slammed the blade into the wall and slashed down to make a quick hole. He cut another wall and rushed through it, then another, until he found the outer wall of the building. Gunshots followed him as he ran at the window and thrust his sword into the only thing left standing between himself and escape. Without slowing, he threw his body forward and shattered the glass.

Three floors from the ground, he had time to reflect on how much hitting the road would hurt as he sailed through the air surrounded by chunks of safety glass. He landed feet-first on a police car with a grunt, denting it and rolling off the side to hit the ground less gracefully. More gunshots made people on the streets scream and scatter, and he scrambled to his feet with a groan.

Pain shot up his right leg. “Any time, Tariel,” he muttered. “I could really use an exit right about now.”

“Drop the weapon and put your hands up!”

Glancing behind him, Justin saw an arm with a gun poking out of the window of the car he’d landed on. “Really? Now? And here I thought everything would be easier with Mark out of the picture. But no, it’s just getting worse. Thank you, Portland. You’re now officially my least favorite place ever.” He glared at the arm. “Pull that back in or I’ll chop it off before you can fire. I just cut a hole in a window with this sword. A couple of bones aren’t going to be a problem. I’m just trying to get home to my family, for heaven’s sake.”

The cop in the car gulped and his arm wavered. “Uh, no, you need to drop the sword.”

Knowing he’d regret it, he smacked the gun with his elbow and knocked it aside. It fired and he felt a sharp impact in his side that he’d have to heal whenever he could scrape a minute together to relax. For now, this fresh pain drowned out all the tiny cuts and less tiny bruises to sing a harmony of agony with his leg. The gun clattered to the street, and he spared a moment to kick it under the car. No random idiot on the street should be able to pick it up from there.

To his immense relief, Tariel rounded the nearest corner and pounded up the street to him with Claire on her back. He slashed his sword through the car’s front tire and hopped around to face her. When she reached him, he gritted his teeth and grabbed her mane. Her power swirled around him, guiding his foot to the stirrup and lifting him off the ground. He focused on not stabbing either her or Claire.

Landing on her saddle jarred every bone in his body, and he cried out from the pain. Claire reached back and groped a hand over him until she found a belt loop, then held on. Her well-intentioned effort jerked his body, grinding the bullet in his side against his ribs.

Before Tariel could reach full speed again, a crow dove at them from above and managed to scrape Claire’s scalp. She shrieked. Justin clenched his jaws together and curled around her. When it dove again, he used his head by smashing the side of his skull against the bird to stun it. The crow fell before he could catch it, and Tariel’s hooves trampled it.

“Get us out of here,” he growled.

The horse sped up, carrying them away from sirens, shouting, and screaming. Running like this took too much of Tariel’s power for him to heal before they stopped. At least she knew he needed it. Stupid cops had to take away his stupid armor. If he’d had it, that gunshot would’ve only grazed him and left a bruise. Instead, he now had to worry about bleeding to death.

As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything bad enough to justify the cops requesting help from Vancouver’s finest. That meant he only needed to keep a firm grip on consciousness until they crossed the state line. Every hoof hitting the street jarred him enough that he worried he might not last that long.

Chapter 31

Claire

Confused and terrified, Claire glanced back repeatedly to make sure Justin was still breathing. When they found him, he had a bloodstain spreading on his shirt and a wretched grimace on his face. Even with that, he still leaned over to protect her when that demented crow tried to rip her head off. One hand holding her head, the other firmly lodged in Justin’s belt loop, she tried to shoulder some of his weight.

To her horror, the hand wrapped in Tariel’s mane went slack and he bounced, then the two of them slid off Tariel’s back and hit the ground at high speed. She tumbled and rolled, scraping her hands, elbows, and knees on the asphalt. Winding up flat on her back, she stared at the puffy clouds skimming past. Darker ones loomed to the west, promising rain soon.

Screeching snapped her to the present and she groaned. Several feet away, Justin lay in the road, not moving. The noise had come from cars, braking hard to avoid hitting him. Thank goodness they’d seen him. Claire rolled to her hands and knees, which hurt, and forced herself to crawl to his side.

“No, you can’t die.” She curled both hands in his blood-soaked shirt and shook him feebly, willing him to wake up. Too many things had forced her to shed too many tears, and she refused to let this be yet another. “It’s not allowed. You’re going to be my dad, you said so. I’m going to have little sisters and a place to stay forever. Wake up, you big dope!”

Voices around her asked stupid questions. Someone put a hand on her shoulder. Someone else tried to nudge her away from Justin. She clung to him and couldn’t tell if he breathed or not. A shrill whinny rang out, and everyone scattered. Tariel’s head reached over Claire’s shoulder with a squirrel wriggling in the horse’s teeth and chittering up a storm.

Justin groaned and his eyes fluttered. Through clenched jaws, he said, “Did anyone get the number of that horse?”

More relieved than she’d ever been about anything, Claire threw herself across his chest.

He grunted. “Ease up, Claire. It takes time to heal. And shut that stupid ur up, it’s going to drive me nuts.”

Sitting up, Claire wanted to scowl at him but couldn’t stop a smile from leaking through. “You big dork. I thought your stupid butt died from falling off your horse.”

“If I died, rest assured it would have been from getting shot.” Wincing, he eased himself up to sit with a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

She wiped her nose. “More or less. We’re in the middle of the street.”

“I just need another half a minute here.” He leaned on his elbows, making tiny noises of pain. “And I need that—” He grunted something unintelligible. Claire thought it might have been him biting back a curse word. “—ur to shut up.” Tariel brought the squirrel closer to him, and he grabbed it out of her mouth. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t lop off your head right now.”

Claire looked around and saw people watching them. Some had their cellphones out, taking pictures or video. “I can think of a reason.” She gulped. “It might be on the Internet in thirty seconds if you do.”

Chapter 32

Justin

“Crap.” The pain faded away as Tariel healed him. He spotted his sword lying in the gutter. Aware of how awful he must look, he hopped to his feet and gave Claire a hand up. Because he had an audience, he paced to the side of the road, stomped on the sword’s hilt, and caught it. Several onlookers obliged him by gasping at the feat.

“What’re you gonna do to that squirrel?” A spindly young man with dreadlocks and patched jeans crossed his arms and gave Justin a suspicious glare.

He looked down at the ur-phasm, grateful it had finally shut up. It looked up at him and gulped. “You could just let me go,” it said.

None of these people would believe that the thing in his hand had tried to kill Claire and devour her essence. “I think my horse hurt it. I’ll take it to a vet and let them check it over.” His stupid sheath had been left behind at the police station with his stupid armor, which meant he now had to keep a hold on the sword.

Both hands full, he vaulted himself into the saddle with two fingers. Claire had to climb up on her own, and he watched her wince from what must be dozens of tiny scratches and fresh bruises. He fervently hoped she’d get to the Palace soon so she could attract her own sprite and let it heal her.

As soon as they both settled, Tariel launched into a gallop up the street. “Now,” Justin said to the squirrel, “let’s have a chat. I’m sure nothing bad will happen to you if I let go while we’re moving this fast.”

“C’mon, I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Only because I stopped you.”

“I can’t help it if she’s tasty!”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Who do you work for?”

“Nobody! Just a free—
glrk
!”

He wanted to squeeze until its eyes popped out, but restrained himself to get information. “Try again.”

It gasped and wheezed as he eased the pressure off. “Terlizzi. Its name is Terlizzi.”

Justin flushed, remembering when that cat-shaped ur-phasm an eon ago had let “ter” slip. At the time, he’d assumed it meant “Terdan,” as in Mark, Claire’s father. It had never occurred to him there might be another corrupted spirit to deal with. If he’d known then, he would have gotten backup.

“Where can I find Terlizzi?”

“I don’t know.” When Justin squeezed again, it flailed. “I swear! It’s not tied to a demesne. It roams, like a person.”

He’d never heard of a ne-phasm that could roam wherever it wanted. Of course, he’d never asked about details like that. Maybe all the other Knights knew. “What does it look like?”

“Skinny. Short. Compact.”

As Tariel pounded over the I-205 bridge, he provided as much shelter for Claire as he could without his cloak and tried to think of anything else that might help locate the ne-phasm. Nothing came to mind, as it sounded like the thing had no preferred hunting or lurking area more specific than “Portland.” Rather than give this ur a warning or let it scream, he used a quick, sharp jerk to cut the thing’s head off and flung the body at the water.

“Take us home, Tariel.” Though Claire still represented a risk to his family, they couldn’t avoid the house forever. At least she could grab a decent meal while he left her behind to visit the Palace. Spending the night in Avery’s care probably hadn’t included much in the way of food.

He noticed Tariel turn her head enough to give him a long, slow blink. She
should
feel guilty for letting him fall off her back. Her power
should
have been strong enough to hold him in place, even when he passed out. At the worst, she should have stopped and come back before Claire had a chance to freak out. The kid had been through more than enough already over these past few days. He pulled her closer and rested his chin on her head. With luck, she’d be able to spend some time relaxing and coming to terms with her new life.

Chapter 33

Claire

The ride ended too soon. Claire wanted to stay wrapped in strong, warm arms forever, with no disasters or pity intruding. Justin already meant so much to her, which bothered her a tiny bit. Getting close to Drew had taken months, but only a few days ago, Justin had swept into her life and made her want to be a part of his family so much it ached. Then again, if Marie hadn’t turned out to be the sweetest person ever, she might not have latched onto him so fast and hard.

Tariel stopped in front of the farmhouse. This place would be her home now. They’d find space under their roof for her and share their joy with her. She hoped they’d let her crash in Lisa’s bed tonight instead of on the couch, because spending last night in a cold, empty cell left her craving companionship. Drew would suit her better, just to hold and be held by someone who wanted her, but the little girl would be her sister. That fact warmed a whole different part of her heart.

“I’m going to stop in and let Marie know I’m here, and then I need to go to the Palace,” Justin said as he helped her down. “Whenever you get there, by the way, my room is 557, on the fifth floor. Go there as soon as you can, because I won’t know your room number until you tell me. I’ll show you around and help you figure things out.” He pulled her suitcase and bag off Tariel’s saddle, where both had somehow managed to remain lashed down all this time.