Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (24 page)

“Maybe you should stay here until you can get a lawyer,”
I said to Kahina.

“Daniel has no intention of providing me a lawyer. I’ve
already asked.” She said. “We would all be best served by
fleeing to our homes.”

“So break me out, and we’ll go.” I rattled the
chain holding me.

“I’m not sure I should let you go, Jay. You haven’t
been kind to me.” She said.

“Do you want to do this now?”

“I’d love to. We’ve got things to settle.”
She responded to my question.

“After we’re out of here,” I said to her.

“You’ll owe me, Jay, and I will collect. Agreed?”
Kahina was too close. I could feel air passing from her lips over to
my ear. It tickled and teased. The scent of peppermint overwhelmed
the building's dry cedar.

“Bloodletter, I can only maintain this illusion for a limited
time. Then I will leave you.” Evan managed to sound a tad
angry.

“A pointless threat.” Years of being around her made the
face easy to guess. There would be a slight tilt to her head. Lowered
eyebrows. A half-opened mouth where she tickled a long tooth with her
tongue. The same look one gave a steak.

“It is no threat, only the truth,” Evan said.

“Would one of you break the chain, please?” I rattled
them again for emphasis.

“Fine. But you and I, we’ll have our talk, Jay. One where
you don’t run, don’t avoid, and talk to me.” I felt
a frightening moment of wonder when Kahina’s fingers slid over
my skin and zeroed in on the metal to crush it. “You need to
explain why you persist with this cruel lie.”

“Later.” My response was curt. Now was not the time to
deal with this.

“I still do not understand why you couldn't break the chains
yourself,” Evan stated. His voice made me feel tired.

“Done, let’s go,” She said.

“The door? Is it open?” I asked.

“
It never closed,” Evan confirmed. I stepped
over towards the door as quietly as possible and leaned outside.
There was no one there watching over any of us. The hallway was short
and looked like it belonged to a re-purposed house of some sort.

“
Don’t bother sneaking, they’re all
gone.” She walked past me calmly and gestured around. Evan
slumped against a wall with sweat dripping down his forehead. He
huffed slowly.

“
What?” I asked.

“
I believe Daniel is using you as bait.”
Kahina tilted her gaze towards Evan. “To follow us to your elf
minion here.”

“
What?” I was thoroughly confused now. Why
would Daniel trap me then be sloppy enough to let us all escape? Evan
was right here. Not that Daniel even wanted Evan. He wanted Arnold.

Oh. Oh, Hell. Daniel really was playing a game. Kahina
was right. The woman was too smart for me to keep up with sometimes.
First thing’s first, we had to escape past all the guards.

“
You’re being used as bait by Daniel.”
Kahina was calm about the whole thing. There was something in the way
she walked that was quite possessive. The way her body leaned or how
she kept looking in my direction anytime my eyes shifted elsewhere.

“
Anyone have a plan?” I asked.

“
I’ll be picking whatever exit you’re
not leaving by.” Stacy showed up shortly after with Julianne.
“Being as they’re after you two idiots, and not us.”

“
What about you, Kahina?” I turned towards
the black woman.

“
What do you want me to do, Jay?” Kahina
asked. She was suddenly standing a few feet away. Her pose seemed shy
with both arms clasped behind her back.

“
I don’t know.” And now wasn’t a
good time to think about it. There were more immediate problems to
deal with.

“
Fine. I’ll decide for you.” Kahina
snapped out of the pose and glared. “Pointy ears, go with those
two and keep them unseen and get them out, I’ll bet anything
Daniel has people on guard. I’ll go with big and dumb to keep
him clear.”

“
And if they have additional grenades? They were
fairly well geared. Surviving a second time will be hard, no matter
how well Jay was at throwing agents around.” Julianne said. She
had a hand on Stacy’s shoulder.

“
I did what?” I asked.

“
Don’t you remember, Jay?”

“
Not a bit.” There was nothing more than
flashes in my head. The memories felt both familiar and foreign at
the same time.

“
I don’t care,” Stacy said. “All
I want to know is which way you’re leaving so we can go the
other direction.” She reached up and placed her hand over
Julianne’s.

“
Then does it matter which way we go?” I
asked.

“
No.” The mousy girl said. “Not to
me.”

“
Where are you going to take Evan?” I needed
to know where Evan and Julianne were going. Otherwise, it would be
difficult to meet up later. Worst case scenario my tracking abilities
could be put to use.

“
I don’t know. Pack woods?” Julianne
said. She was looking at Stacy. Then they both nodded.

“
Lord, we have to talk, without everyone else.”

“
Sure. Once we’re safe.” I said to
Evan.

There was a lot going on that didn’t make sense
and my mind kept coming back to the inconsistencies. Daniel was my
friend. He broke into the house, knocked me out, then drug us all
off. We didn’t end up in a Sector holding cell, though. We
ended up in some off the record house that no sane Western Sector
agent would use.

“
Whatever we do, we’ll need to move fast.
Elf, how good are your illusions?” Kahina focused far better
than I did.

“
Good enough to escape humans trained to watch for
it.” He puffed up proudly. Evan was well within rights to be
smug.

“
Can you make it seem like we’re running
with Jay while the rest of us head the other direction?” She
asked. He looked at me, and I shrugged back. It would be a neat trick
if he could.

“
For now.” Evan seemed hesitant to answer.

“
For now?” Kahina raised an eyebrow. Evan
didn’t respond.

“
We should go shouldn’t we?” Julianne
was vulnerable compared to the rest of us.

“
As I said, I go with Jay. Pointy ears here can do
his illusions and cover you.” Kah
ina said. She looked
bored with the situation. One hand was up as she inspected her nails.

Evan looked at me again. Plans were not my strong suit. My job had
always been simple. Find my stuff. Punch those in the way. Come home
and eat.

“Can you do that, Evan?” I asked.

“Yes, but I may need an awakening afterward,” He said.
What on earth was an awakening?

“They’re headed back this way.” Stacy’s ears
were turned towards the hallway. “We’ve got a plan, let’s
go.”

Evan was looking around, his eyes doing the brief flickers of
starbursts before he closed them. Flares of color could be seen from
under his eyelids. I had never actually witnesses an elf doing magic
before. Then again no one was sure how many elves could actually do
magic.

“It’s done.” Then he fell sideways towards the
floor. Stacy stepped in and caught him. She hefted the elf over a
shoulder and turned away.

“I’ll carry him. Jan, you stay behind me.” Stacy
said.

“We’d better go, who knows what kind of timer he’s
got on his illusions.” Kahina waved the other girls off.

“I’ll go first,” I said. My earlier question had
grown unimportant as everyone zeroed in on the escape process.

I turned and headed down the hallway, looking for a back door out of
here to ‘escape’ through. A few turns of the hallway
later and it was just me and Kahina. Thankfully she seemed to be
focused on something other than draining me of blood. If anything she
seemed wired. Almost angry.

“Let’s try not to kill anyone.” Getting on Daniel’s
bad side, even while we were escaping, seemed like a terrible idea.

“You’re a few steps behind as usual, Jay,” She
said.

“Where should I be then?” My voice came out a little
snide.

“Put a good show on, pretend to talk to the others, and then
run in front of us.” Once again Kahina sounded bored. Her gaze
focused on a strand of hair between her fingers. Why she picked the
middle of an escape to preen was beyond me.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Daniel thinks you’re the leader of this group, and he’s
hoping you’ll lead him to the slant ear,” She said. It
sounded like a joke to me. I was not a leader of any sort.

My hand was on the doorknob. I turned and looked at Kahina. She
smiled a strange mix between anger and excitement that I could never
sort out. Her clothes were as ragged as I felt. Still, to me, she
looked beautiful. Who knows what they had done to capture her.
Probably held a cross to her face and terrified the vampirism.
Thinking about it made me enraged.

“You know they’ve probably been instructed to keep us
alive,” I stated with unexpected composure.

“Right,” She said.

“And we don’t have to be gentle just because we’re
trying not to kill anyone.” I continued.

“I had no intention of being kind to them,” She said. For
a moment, her eyes went red with blood before shifting back. The
suddenness left me disturbed. How close was she to her transition?
Months? Weeks? Days?

I couldn’t defend her. Not the way she wanted. The man I was
and the man I had become in the last four years were not the same. I
was trying to recover. Getting Evan out, getting answers from him,
both would help. Still. Maybe I had summed it up best when talking to
Kahina, time doesn’t march backward.

“If they’re any good, they’ll have a few watching
us from higher vantage points. I’ll head for them, you and our
friends-” she smirked at the illusions “-should stick to
walls and between buildings. If we get clear then we can head to my
home and plan from there.”

My eyebrow raised at her statement. The last house of hers that I had
officially been in was a condo downtown.

“I’ve moved since you were last in town,” She said.
“As I told you, I’ve been preparing.”

I turned the doorknob then yanked the door open. There was only a
fleeting glimpse of the outside before Kahina dashed away. If I
hadn’t known where she was headed I might have missed her
leaping upwards to the top of an opposing roof in the span of a few
seconds. My eyes lingered on her backside as it leaped through the
air. Beautiful. Not only did the angle look good, but she was going
to beat someone into the ground. Aside from the blood thirst she was
an amazing woman.

The faded light made seeing difficult. At first glance, we were in a
giant housing project. Many buildings were nothing more than the
framework. Some were pretty close to done.

I slipped out and headed left. This direction led toward home. That
pull was the only useful guide available to me. The illusions Evan
had put out were taking off out other doors and windows. They wore
false expressions of worry and panic but kept close to where I was.
It was time to add realism.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here,” I said. A
second illusion ran by me. An illusion of Stacy and I hightailing it
across the yard appeared. Gunshots rang out from nearby. The false
copies and I kept to our path out of the construction zone.

Coming around the corner, I found myself facing one of the armed men
Daniel had brought. I knocked the gun wide and laid a fist into his
face. The guard survived the first punch and let loose of the gun.
His free hand went for a sidearm. My fist was faster. A second shot
landed on his temple. The impact jarred us both, but I stayed
upright. He slumped.

There was a flicker of movement next to me. I saw Kahina pick up both
guns, grin, then vanish in a whirl of speed. Moments later a second
set of gunshots rang out. I hadn’t known Kahina was willing to
fire a gun. Most other races tended to shy away from them. They were
a tool of humans and the different races had their own abilities. Of
course, she had always been a modern sort of girl.

Another trio of images flickered past me. These looked like ghostly
versions of Kahina, Julianne, and myself. That illusion was more
believable than The Bitch and me together.

Increasing in number, Daniel’s people kept on coming. This
time, there were three men at the end of a corridor. I turned and
fled through a doorway to one of the partially completed houses.
Hopefully, there was a passageway out that wasn’t guarded.
Another round of gunshots rang out nearby. Small lights were mounted
on the end of rifles. Two Sector agents were inside the house
searching for me. The fakes were being eliminated. At least my own
personal phantasm escort was still traveling next to me. The elf had
done quite a number on these illusions.

Each house was roughly the same. Two stories, three or four bedrooms,
and a garage. I took an exit out of the bottom floor’s
partially constructed garage. The next building was fifteen feet away
tops. At this one, I stopped inside the doorway and waited in a
corner. My illusionary partner kept running through the house.

Two of the Daniel’s men came inside. I used my advantage and
dropped both of them using boards that had been left at the
construction site. I yanked off their helmets to look at something
then promptly moved on. Once those two were down I doubled back to
the previous house and headed in a new direction. I could hear
bullets from further away as Kahina rained chaos upon the
battlefield.

Something about this was wrong. Western Sector didn't only hire
humans. Not one of these people had displayed anything above the
standard reactions. No speed, no strength or heightened reflexes.
Nothing.