Shadow Hunt

In some parts of Los Angeles, finding a single Mercedes might have been impossible, but this area was San Pedro’s answer to a commercial district: Chinese food and liquor stores and Laundromats. He didn’t see any Mercedes.

Jesse was just beginning to despair when he had to stop at a light on Pacific. Oncoming traffic had the green, with a left-turn arrow, and Jesse spotted a weird-looking black car, sort of halfway between a limo and a sedan. It was turning left, trying to get off Pacific Ave. He saw the Mercedes logo on the grill and, without really thinking it through, pressed his foot on the gas.

He wasn’t flooring it, and the Mercedes wasn’t going very fast, but Jesse’s airbag still popped as the Lexus’s bumper hit the side of the Mercedes, just in front of the passenger seat. His head snapped back and forth, but he was already unbuckling and tipping himself out of the car when the driver of the Mercedes stepped out with a handgun raised. Disoriented, Jesse pulled his own gun and crouched, duckwalking to the back door of the Mercedes.

He tugged it open, and a gunshot instantly whipped past his ear. He half-stood and peeked through the window into the car.

The shot had come from a bodyguard-looking man who lay on his back on the floor of the car. Scarlett was in the seat closest to the door, facing backward. There was also an old man lying halfway across the seat, partially tipped off it. Jesse’s quick impression was of a turtle trying to right itself.

“Get back!” Scarlett yelled to him, and she kicked the hands of the bodyguard, sending his gun tumbling away. The man started to rise, but Scarlett stomped down hard, right on his nuts. It looked excruciating.

Meanwhile, the driver of the Mercedes had come around the nose of the car, climbing and sliding over the point where it still connected to the Lexus. He had his gun out, but Jesse raised his own weapon before the driver could shoot. He put two bullets in the man’s chest, realized he was wearing a vest, and shot him in the head.

Scarlett fell out of the still-open car door, kicking it shut behind her. One of the two men must have been reaching for her, because there was a scream of pain. Jesse struggled to his feet.

Scarlett’s eyes were huge and panicked. “Run!” she yelled.

Chapter 40

The moment the cars impacted, there was some part of my hindbrain that started doing my job. Camera phones, traffic cameras, witnesses . . .

But like it or not, cleaning up a supernatural mess wasn’t currently my problem. The problem was surviving one.

When I tumbled out of the back seat of the car, Jesse took my hand, and we dashed away into a crowd of onlookers. No one followed us. Aldric was too old, Roland was too injured, and the driver, as it turned out, was too dead. No one in the crowd was interested in pursuing people with at least one gun.

A big part of me wanted to stay and fight, to hold my ground until Aldric was dead or at least really, really hurt. But for one thing, there were way too many witnesses, and for another, I had to get back to Shadow before the Luparii could. If Aldric gathered his wits enough to send his guy after Shadow, there was a possibility that she’d let herself be captured again, thinking it might save my life.

The car accident was two and a half miles from Sunken City. At first, as we ran, I was looking for a cab, but traffic was picking up, and it was only going to get worse now that we’d blocked off a huge chunk of Pacific Ave.

Then I figured we could just run the whole way there—I ran five miles, three days a week, so three wasn’t out of the question. But I got a stitch in my side, and my boots were hurting my feet, and at one point Jesse looked over his shoulder at me and skidded to a stop. “Scar? You okay?”

“I’m great,” I said, breathing hard. “Let’s go get Shadow.”

“We need a pit stop.” Jesse glanced around for a moment. There was a 7-Eleven on the west side of the street, and he walked me over there and went straight to a cooler of bottled water.

“If you try to give me any fucking crackers, I’m going to feed them to you, and I don’t mean through your mouth,” I warned him.

He flashed that heart-stopping smile at me, but it disappeared right away. “I want you to stay here,” he said, his eyes pleading. We were standing in the back of the store, away from the windows “The Luparii don’t know you’re here, and if they did, they wouldn’t attack you in the middle of a convenience store with video cameras. I’ll get Shadow and Astrid’s truck and come back for you.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I pulled out the keys and handed them to him.

He looked shocked. “Okay?”

“Jesse, I’m exhausted, and I feel like crap, and we’ve got a long night of trying to stop the Wild Hunt ahead of us. Shadow trusts you. I trust you. So bring back my dog.”

“I’m gonna tell her you called her that.” He leaned in and kissed me, hard and fast. “I’ll be right back.”

“Be careful,” I yelled after him. I wasn’t too worried, though. When I’d expanded my radius back at Sunken City, I hadn’t felt any witches besides Aldric. Whoever he’d left behind was human, and Jesse could handle himself against a human.

While I waited, I went to the counter with an armful of snacks and a new disposable cell phone, since mine had gone out the Mercedes window. As the clerk rang me up, I said bluntly, “Listen . . . my boyfriend went to change our tire, a couple of blocks away. Would you have somewhere I could sit down? I’m six weeks pregnant, and I feel like crap.”

The clerk, a Middle Eastern woman in a hijab, glanced up from the register and really looked at me for the first time, taking in the scratches on my face and arms and my general air of exhaustion. Then she smiled and came out from around the counter with a folding chair and told me to help myself to a magazine.

It took more than an hour, but finally Jesse returned, looking as tired as I felt. He entered the store alone, and I jumped up from my chair. “Is she—”

His face broke into a smile. “We don’t have her little assistance cape, remember? She’s in the parking lot.”

I practically ran for the door, yelling a thank-you in the general direction of the clerk.

Shadow was waiting just on the other side of the glass, her breath creating a foggy spot. She backed up so I could come out, then reared up on her hind legs, rested her front paws on my shoulders, and began licking my cheek. She let out a soft, happy bark.

I laughed and pushed her gently away. “I’ve never heard her do that,” Jesse said, sounding amazed.

“That’s because the Luparii trained enthusiasm out of her,” I said, rubbing vigorously at Shadow’s neck. She dropped down to sniff all around me in a circle, and Jesse took the opportunity to step closer.

“Are you okay?” he said, studying my face.

“More or less.” I reached up and draped my arms around him, leaning some of my body weight on him. I closed my eyes. All I wanted was to fall asleep like this. Or at least have another serious make-out session.

When she was satisfied that I was in one piece, Shadow sat down and looked up at us, head cocked to one side as if to say, “Now what?”

“It’s time to go wake Dashiell,” I told her. First, though, I looked at Jesse. “What happened to the Luparii guy that Aldric left behind?”

He snorted. “There was no guy. Aldric just said that to keep Shadow from coming after you.”

God, he was a dick. “How’s Noah?”

Jesse’s face lit up. “He’s great, actually. Sashi showed up around one.”

“What? Really?”

“Yup!” He told me about Sashi arriving at the hospital from Vegas. “She called while I was on my way back here with Shadow, and Noah is out of the woods. His ankle is broken, and he’s banged up, but the doctors are decreasing the sedatives. They think he might wake up as early as tonight. Your friend Sashi is really good.”

I felt my whole body unknot a little. “We’re gonna have to figure out what to tell him.”

“What did they want with you?” Jesse asked, meaning the Luparii. A couple of kids chose that moment to practically gallop past us in their rush to get into the 7-Eleven. I made a face.

“Come on, let’s talk in the truck.”