Shadow Hunt

“Why?”

“Because they were Luparii leashes,” he said quietly.

Then I got it. “For controlling bargests,” I said.

Owen nodded. “I guess his family had been making them for hundreds of years. They might as well have been trademarked. Grandpa demanded that I take them off the shelves, like, that night. He wanted me to look up which customers had purchased them and try to get them back, but I was too embarrassed. We got into a huge fight about it, and that finally pushed him to tell me the story. That he was born into a cultish family of witches who thought their life’s purpose was to clear the earth of shapeshifter magic. The leashes were for the dogs they trained to hunt werewolves. It sounded so nuts.” He shook his head. “Then Grandpa had me bring this trunk down from the attic, and it was full of photos and spellbooks and things. There were a couple of pictures of the werewolves, and they were”—he shuddered—“they were terrifying. So when Grandpa said knowing anything else could get me killed, I believed him.”

That wasn’t the end of the story—at some point, Owen must have tried messing around with magic, activating his witchblood as a teen—but just then, a tiny chirping melody came out of Jesse’s jacket pocket, and I recognized part of the theme song from Super Mario Bros. Jesse made a face. “Sorry, that’s Noah, texting.”

Before Owen could continue his story, the phone chirped again. And then again. Annoyed, Jesse mumbled a curse in Spanish. We were a quarter mile from our exit, so he said to me, “Can you text him that I’ll call him back later?”

“Sure.” I dug the phone out of his jacket pocket and checked the screen.

Then I stopped breathing.

“Jesse,” I said very softly. “I need you to pull the car over.”

“What?” He gave me a sharp look. “We’re on the freeway.”

“Please, Jesse. Just pull over.”

He started cursing again, but he cut across two lanes and slowed to a stop, nearly blocking off the exit lane to get on the 10. A car swerved in front of him to get on the on-ramp and blared its horn, but Jesse ignored it and slammed his thumb into the parking button. “What is it?” he demanded.

I didn’t want to do it to him, but I handed over the phone, fighting the urge to vomit.

All three texts were the same picture: Jesse’s brother lying on an inconspicuous patch of bare dirt. He’d been beaten. His shirt had been removed, probably to show off the deep blue bruises that covered his chest. His eyes were closed, but the skin around one eye was so puffed out that you couldn’t even see it.

But that wasn’t the worse part. With shaking fingers, Jesse zoomed in on the photo, seeing what I’d already noticed. Noah’s hair was drenched, and his entire body shone with sweat.

“No,” Jesse whispered.

From the back seat, Owen’s alarmed voice said, “What? What is it?”

I didn’t bother turning around. “It’s the twisted slumber.”

Chapter 26

I think Jesse was about to call his brother’s phone, but his cell rang first. Jesse answered it, listened for a few seconds, and snarled, “I’m not doing shit until I know he’s alive.” Then his face clouded over with worry, and when I leaned closer, I could hear moaning. I’d only met Jesse’s brother a few times, but even I recognized Noah’s voice. It was so much like Jesse’s.

A man’s voice came back on the line. Jesse listened for a moment longer, started to talk, and realized that whoever it was had hung up on him. He threw the phone forcefully onto the dash, where it bounced up and thunked against the windshield.

“Jesse—” I began.

But he got out of the car.

That in itself shocked me, because we were on a Los Angeles freeway, which is basically certain death. It wasn’t that crowded this early on a Saturday, but that actually made it scarier, because the cars were zooming past the driver’s door at eighty miles per hour, so fast they looked like part of a video game.

But Jesse miraculously made it around the front of the car, and stormed over to the guardrail, placing both hands on the barrier.

“What’s going on?” Owen said from the back seat. He sounded totally unnerved. I was right there with him.

“Stay here,” I told him, unbuckling. “Shadow, you too.”

She made a sound of protest, but I slipped out of the car quickly and walked over to Jesse. Slowly, I rested one hand on his shoulder.

I could feel his back muscles bunch up as he leaned backward without letting go, rattling the railing as hard as he could.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” he practically screamed. “I knew they were going through my brain, that they knew everything about my life, but it never occurred to me that—” His voice broke off, and he bowed his head, still clutching the railing.

“What do they want?” I yelled over the noise from the freeway.

Jesse finally let go and turned around, leaning his lower back against the railing. His eyes were red. “They want you,” he said simply. “They want me to trade your life for Noah’s.”

I raised my eyebrows. “They said that?”

Jesse wiped at his face with the back of his hand. “Of course not. Killian told me you wouldn’t be harmed, that they’re just going to lock you up for a couple of days while they conclude their business. But they’ve already tried to kill you three different times. I’m an idiot, but I’m not that dumb.”

“When do they want to do the trade?”

His eyes narrowed. “Scarlett—”

I held up a hand to say Bear with me. “When?”

“In an hour, at the caves in Griffith Park. They don’t want us to have enough time to call anyone. He said they set a humans-go-away perimeter spell by the Canyon Drive entrance. They’ll know when you break it, so we can’t sneak into the park and go around them. If they see anyone other than you and me, he’ll kill my brother.”

“They’re desperate,” I said loudly, thinking it through. “Broad daylight on a Sunday morning? That’s bold even for them. They probably came up with the kidnapping scheme five minutes after they realized Shadow had escaped. They don’t know she’s already with us, and they’re hoping to get me out of the way before she finds me and goes into bodyguard mode.”

Jesse reached out and took my hand, drawing me close. The freeway noise was still loud, but at least we could use our normal speaking voices. “Listen. I want you to take Owen and go to Hair of the Dog. Keep him safe.”

“Hell no,” I said. “I’m going with you to get Noah back.”

He was already shaking his head. “Scar, they don’t have to wait for us to get all the way into the park. They could have a sniper rifle pointed at the entrance, and the moment we drive up, your head explodes.”

“How are you going to get into the park without me breaking the humans-go-away spell, huh?” I challenged. “They may have thrown this together last-minute, but they’ve thought it through. You need me just to get to Noah.”

He lowered his head so it was right by my ear. “You’re pregnant.”

I flinched back, the wind whipping my hair around my face. “Nobody’s perfect.”

He didn’t smile, so I pressed on. “And that doesn’t make me any less right. If I don’t go with you, Noah’s going to die.”

Jesse smoothed down my hair, cupping my face with his warm hands. “If you go with me, you’re going to die.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I can’t have that.”

He looked so broken, so sad and terrified, that I began to get very, very angry. So I did what I usually did when I get angry.

I lashed out like an asshole. This time, physically.

My right hand snapped up and slapped Jesse lightly across the face. Just enough to wake him up. He looked appropriately stunned, but at least I had his attention. “Fuck that,” I snarled. “We are not letting this happen. So get your head out of your ass and help me make a plan.”

“Okay, Jesus. Did you really have to hit me?”

I steered him back toward the car. “Probably not.”