“Sierra,” a whisper came from the other side of the room.
Gareth!
I made my way towards him. He was already getting to his feet and I noticed the holy water burns were gone from his face. There was only blood and sweat staining his shirt.
“Is it gone?” he whispered, running both hands over his arms as if he expected the demon to be clinging on.
“Yeah,” Lavie answered.
“I’m so sorry.” His eyes were on mine but I couldn’t deal with apologies, appreciation—or any other emotion he wanted to share. He was free of the demonic influence, and that’s all that mattered.
It was time to help Michael with the other pooka kids, and then I had to find Willow and Papan. I turned away from him, ascended the stairs as fast as I could and didn’t stop until I reached my bedroom. I knew he’d follow me so I crouched to pick up the evidence bag and shoved it into one of my dresser drawers before he reached me.
“Sierra!” Gareth caught my hand and spun me around.
I didn’t have the energy to fight the momentum. “What do you want? It’s done.”
He dropped my hand as if it was poisoned. “I want to thank you for what you did.”
“Thank Lavie. She’s the one—”
“I did thank her.” He ran a hand through his growing curls. “Look, I don’t want things to be awkward between us, okay? I had no control over what’s been happening lately. The demon pushed me onto you. I…”
“It’s okay. I understand. The demon did the same to Jonathan, no big deal.” I sighed. The demon had attached itself to guys who’d had feelings for me to begin with, and I wasn’t ready to have
that
conversation. “You and I are friends and the demon tried to ruin—”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “The demon did push me to do things and drop my inhibitions, but I was attracted to you from the moment I saw you.”
I made a move to turn away, but he grabbed my wrist. “Wait a second. I need to tell you this, okay? I was—
am
—very attracted to you, Sierra. But it’s not what you think.” He paused for a moment, squeezing my bones so tightly I thought I heard them squeak. “Sure, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want to be with you, but my attraction stems from something I don’t quite understand.”
I understood. “It’s your magic,” I whispered.
He frowned. “What magic?”
“I’m not sure why you don’t know, but you’ve got a well of magic deep down inside that you haven’t tapped into. The Lamia told me, and I’ve experienced it firsthand.”
“What, how?”
“You walked into my dream, or dragged me into yours,” I answered. “But we don’t have time for this now.”
“So we’re cool—you understand that I would never try to come between you and Jason? It was the demon who couldn’t accept the fact,” he said. “I just want you to be happy.”
I looked at him, glad to see his hazel eyes were back.
“Are we still friends?”
“Of course we are,” I said with a smile. “And like a true friend, I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Come with me.” As I was about to walk out of my bedroom with Gareth close behind, I noticed Lavie stepping into the bedroom. She offered me a rueful smile.
I raced down the stairs calling, “Michael, come out now!”
“Who’s Michael?” Gareth asked.
“He’s a kid who needs our help.”
“Are we going to help the others now?” Michael asked, cautiously stepping out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He was dressed in a different pair of sweatpants and a zipped-up sports jacket. He must have grabbed them from Willow’s room. He caught me staring and said, “Hope Willow doesn’t mind, but I found these boy pants in her closet and borrowed one of her jackets.”
“She won’t.”
“Wait a second! What’s Michael Dunn doing in your house?”
I looked at Gareth. “You know him?”
“Sure, this is the runaway I’ve been looking for.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I can’t believe this,” Gareth said with a shake of his head. He looked bewildered, angry and sickened.
We were standing in a large room inside the house where the pooka children were imprisoned. I cringed at the amount of cages and chains crowding this dirty area, which stunk like urine, feces and sweat. The two windows—in what anyone else would have used as an upstairs bedroom—were nailed closed. The mechanism for the shutters had been ruined to keep anyone from seeing the horrors trapped within these walls. It also ensured the kids couldn’t break out.
“Are you going to call it in?” I asked, because if he was, Lavie and I had to make ourselves scarce.
He nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you guys enough time to leave.”
“What kind of monsters would do this?” Lavie looked as horrified as Gareth and I.
“Monsters who are into trafficking children,” Gareth answered with a disgusted shake of his head. “I’ve seen these kinds of squalors before, but usually it’s for prostitution or slavery.”
As soon as we arrived at the house and entered through the unlocked front door, we’d found a bunch of kids still trapped inside these filthy cages. All of them were human, so whatever the couple injected into the kids to entrap them in their animal form had worn off. The kitchen table downstairs had an array of dirty syringes—some with clear liquid I assumed was tranquilizer. The others were filled with some foreign black gunk I didn’t recognize.
Lavie had pocketed one of the needles so she could show Sally and Oren later on. Maybe they would know what these poor pookas had been exposed to.
The rest was left for the police to deal with.
“All of these kids were shifted into animals when they were taken,” I said. “There must be some operation that specializes in abducting and selling them. They’ll be safe now.” Well, they would be after the grueling process of giving statements and answering police questions. Michael was downstairs with the survivors, constructing a cover story they could all stick to that didn’t include anything pooka.
“Some people are sick,” Lavie added, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t understand anyone willing to hurt kids.”
“We really have to leave,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. I agreed with her, yet both of us would soon use a child as bait to enter the shadow patch.
Best not to think about that because it’s not the same thing.
Gareth nodded, following Lavie and me downstairs and into the open-plan living room. A dozen children of different ages were sitting under clean blankets, sheets and towels we’d found inside this dump. I’d gone through the main bedroom but hadn’t found any evidence to identify the culprits. If assholes capable of doing this to youngsters now had Willow and Papan, it couldn’t be for good intentions.
I need to get a move on.
Michael had his arm wrapped around a tiny Asian girl who was shaking uncontrollably. He whispered something to a pale-skinned girl on his other side, and she slid close enough to hold the smaller kid. He stood and headed towards us. “Thank you for doing this.”
“No problem.” I hadn’t done much, considering the horrors these unfortunate kids had been through. All of them had the same haunted look in their eyes, were emaciated and shared track marks on their skinny arms and legs. I couldn’t look at any of them for long without feeling the urge to hug and protect, but two people I loved were in danger. “Listen, Michael, did you hear these people say anything to Papan when they attacked him?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t make out what they were saying.” He met my gaze. “But before Jason got out of the car, he said he recognized their scent, and that it couldn’t be possible. I didn’t know what he meant, but I could tell they were wolves.”
Could this have something to do with Hugo Papan’s reappearance and murder? Were the pooka abductions and pack politics connected?
“Are you going to go look for them?” he asked. “Because I want to come.”
“You can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, but you have to stay here.”
“No, I want to find Willow—”
“She’s right.” Gareth stepped up beside me. “I can’t let any of you kids go until detectives, forensics, and everyone else has interviewed and investigated what happened in this house. I also need you to make sure all these kids stick to the cover story. Okay?”
Michael didn’t look happy about the situation, but he knew what had to be done. He finally nodded and met my gaze. “Tell Willow I’ll see her again.” He didn’t wait for a response, instead turned away and went back to the other kids, rounding them up.
“That’s our cue to leave,” I whispered.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until I’m done?” Gareth asked. Was that hope in his voice? “I can come and help.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got this.” At least I sounded like I had a grip, but I was terrified of not finding them. That’s why I needed help—but not Gareth’s. He’d done his bit by coming to this horror house and agreeing to deal with it through the correct police channels. Besides, he’d been through enough.
“Be careful,” he said quietly, looking from me to Lavie. “They’re obviously dangerous.”
“I know.”
Lavie swung an arm over my shoulders. “We can handle this.”
“All right, get out of here.” Gareth motioned for us to leave.
I could feel his eyes on me as we made our way out the front door, down the overgrown grassy path and into my car. I started the ignition and reversed out of the driveway. Not only had night fallen, but I’d put a temporary cloaking spell on my car, Lavie and myself so no one could place us at the scene. I didn’t want to be here when the cavalry arrived.
“He’s right about one thing,” Lavie said once we’d left Horror House behind. “We
are
going to need help.”
“Yeah, about that…”
She swiveled in her seat and glared at me. “Uh-oh, what’s going on?”
“I’m taking you home,” I said with a sigh.
“What? No way, I’m coming with you.”
I shook my head. “Lavie, I don’t know how long this is going to take and I need you to meet with those parents. I can’t lose the opportunity of crossing into the shadow patch.” This sounded so wrong after what we’d just discovered. “I know I’m asking for a lot but I really need you to make sure they’re on Wallace Street tomorrow at ten. If not, Burr won’t be able to help.”
She didn’t look happy and I couldn’t blame her.
“Lavie?”
“Okay, I’ll deal with the parents. But I’ve got two conditions.”
“What conditions?” I asked, stopping at a red light.
Her eyes were twinkling when she said, “I get to go with you into the shadow patch.”
I didn’t hesitate because I was going to ask her anyway. “Sure. What else?”
“I’ll go home after I’ve called Saul and secured his help.”
I looked at her. Someone honked behind us and I drove on. “You want him to go into the shadow patch with us?” What was she talking about?
“No, I’m going to make sure he helps
you
find Jason and Willow.”
“I don’t need his help.” Well, I
did
need him to give me Papan’s exact location. But that was all. The back of my hand itched, but I refused to scratch it.
“Are you crazy? Of course you need his help,” she said, raising her voice. “There’s no one better than Saul to help you find his own van. Besides, Michael seems to think the people who took them are werewolves. If that’s the case and they’re headed west, you’re probably going to end up in pack territory. And Saul knows that too.”
“I don’t know…” Knowing so little about this guy made me feel uneasy. What did it mean that he could seemingly read my mind and randomly slip mysterious notes into my pocket?
Lavie was already pulling her phone out from her backpack. “You can trust Saul.” She started dialing. “Just leave it to me. By the time we get home, you’ll have all the help you need waiting for you.”
As she spoke on the phone, I lost myself in thoughts and drove in automatic mode to
Impressions
. I rounded the corner and was surprised to find Oren standing in the store’s doorway chatting to Sally. Saul was leaning against another black van, taking a drag of the cigarette in his hand and blowing out smoke rings.
“Ah, there they are!” Lavie said, leaning forward.
The street was relatively quiet at this time of night. Most of the shops were closed, but the street was lined with parked cars. So I took the first parking spot I found—big enough for my Fairlane—and backed into it. Lavie practically raced out of the car, but I took my time so I could stuff my hip utility belt with the weapons I’d grabbed before leaving the house—revolver, tranquilizer darts, silver bullets and spikes, were inside the pockets. The hand crossbow was hanging from the loop, and both of my daggers were safely secured in their usual places.
By the time I’d locked up and crossed the road, Lavie and Saul were deep in conversation and Oren stepped away from Sally. For once, his all-black shirt, pants, and jacket combo actually fit the mood and weather. Though it made his white hair and pale skin glow in the night, and I was instantly reminded of the man with the bowler hat. He’d stared at me so intently at the diner and then disappeared into thin air. It shouldn’t bother me—I shouldn’t be giving him a second thought. Yet for some reason I couldn’t shake him. There was something strange about that man, and it wasn’t just that he’d been speaking with Mace.