Wrath (11 page)

“In the weather? It’s rainin’ calves and hogs out there.”

I shrugged. “Our car broke down.”

“And where were ya’ll headed?”

I paused, trying to remember my Georgia and South Carolina geography from our time in Atlanta. I didn’t remember much from that era of near insanity. “Statesboro?”

His brow rose. “Lemme get this straight. Your car broke down while ya’ll were headed for Statesboro, and you decided to walk there?”

I widened my eyes and lifted my brows to portray innocence. “Exactly.”

He sat back in his chair. “Statesboro, huh? Or do you mean Walterboro?”

“Um . . .” Was that near Hilton Head, too? I had no idea.

He shook his head. “It don’t matter. Either one would be a hell of a long walk in the rain.”

“We like the rain. Thunderstorms are beautiful.”

“So ya’ll think you were gonna walk over forty miles in it?” He cocked his head as he studied my face. I couldn’t come up with any more lies. Lying wasn’t exactly my strong suit. “So, what are you, you and your friend? How do you do it? What else can you do?”

I didn’t answer him. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him anyway, and I could have showed him some things I could do—like give him a shot of electricity—but that was exactly what Mom and Rina had warned me about. When he finally accepted that I wouldn’t answer, the metal feet of his chair scraped against the linoleum as he pushed it back and stood up. His hands gripped the edge of the table, and he leaned over me.

“Well, then, I guess ya’ll get to spend the night with us,” he said as though he’d delivered a horrible threat, “and we’ll decide what to do with you and your friend in the mornin’.”

Now that could have been horrible, if they decided to call the Daemoni, but I wasn’t sure yet what they planned to do.
They
weren’t sure yet, according to their thoughts.

Taking a risk, I went for a different angle.

“All you need to know is we’re the good guys. If we wanted to hurt you, we would have already,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and non-threatening. “Your facilities aren’t built to contain us, though.”

He leaned over closer to me, his eyes became slits. “I’d like to see you try to break out. We have silver ammo.”

So he did know
something
. But not enough. I smiled. “Then give us your best shot. The silver only works against the bad guys.”

He pulled back and cocked his head again as he glared at me. Then without a word, he strode out of the room.

A few minutes later, I let another officer escort me to a small cellblock, where the fumes of human urine mixed with body odor hung heavily in the air. They separated Vanessa and me by one cell, as though it would keep us from conspiring against them. There were only three cells, though, so I supposed they had no choice.

“Do I get my phone call?” I asked the guard as he shook the barred door, making sure I was locked in. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. They thought these bars and walls could hold us, so they really didn’t know much.

“Ya’ll ain’t human. You don’t get no human rights,” he snapped, and I stared after him with my mouth hanging open as he walked through the door to the offices beyond.

“
We’re flashing out of here, right?
” Vanessa asked me as I sat down on a wooden bench, the only furniture in the cell besides a round metal toilet in the corner.

Ugh. I dropped my head into my hands and massaged my temples while listening to the rhythm of her pacing. I could not believe I was actually in jail. I’d never been sent to the principal’s office as a kid and never even had a speeding ticket. And I hadn’t done anything wrong this time, either, yet here we were, locked up like criminals. I’d given up on wanting to be normal years ago, but I never imagined being imprisoned because I wasn’t.

As much as I want to, we can’t
, I replied
. I promised Rina I’d cooperate, and I will . . . as long as my patience lasts, anyway.

“
Where do you think the others are?
”

I chewed on my lip with worry about Blossom, Jax, Charlotte, and Sheree, and the pilot, too. I already knew the co-pilot hadn’t survived, and I had to believe Tristan made it out fine, because if he hadn’t . . . no, I wouldn’t go there. Dorian’s disappearance was bad enough. I would not think about anything happening to my husband.
He’s okay. He’s Tristan.
The stone in my chest would surely alert me if something were wrong with him.

But what about the others? Had they all survived? If so, where had they landed? I couldn’t sense any of their mind signatures in my range, and I wondered if they’d been caught in a different trap. Were they being held prisoner somewhere else? My breath caught in my throat with a thought. What if the Daemoni had captured them? What if their captors took them straight to Savannah? Oh, God. What if they appeared right in the middle of Savannah, a minor cluster for the Daemoni? We’d never see them again. Not alive anyway.

Unless Tristan appeared with them. And Charlotte may have been powerful enough to get them out, too.

Not knowing about the others wore my patience thin. Vanessa and I had to get out of here. I had to find out what happened to everyone else. I had to get a hold of Tristan. If only my telepathy could reach a few hundred miles farther. The only minds in my range were the couple of Normans in the police station and a couple thousand Normans in the sleepy town beyond. I studied the cops’ minds to try to grasp onto something that could be helpful. Finally, a thought about the local pastor doing an exorcism skittered into the guard’s mind. Mom had said many clergy would know to help us, and I had a whole list of them in my head that I’d memorized while waiting to leave the Island.

I banged on the bars and yelled for the guard. After several minutes, he finally stepped through the door.

“What?” he growled, though his Norman growl sounded more like a whine compared to what I was used to.

“I’d like to see Reverend Stephens, please,” I said sweetly.

“You know Rev. Stephens?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes,” I lied straight through my teeth. Hopefully,
he
knew
me
. Or at least knew Rina.

The guard eyed me for a minute then disappeared again through the door. I paced the stupid little cell as I waited for Rev. Stephens. And waited. And waited. Maybe the guard hadn’t called for the good pastor after all, but a search of the guard’s thoughts told me he had. The reverend didn’t understand my urgency, apparently. He needed to hurry up. Promise or no promise to Rina, Vanessa and I would be getting out of here soon, whether we flashed or walked out. I understood public relations was important for the Amadis in this war, but I could only restrain myself for so long. The lives of my team and my son were at stake.

Besides, as long as we remained here, we were sitting ducks for the Daemoni.

Finally, a tall, lanky African-American man with dark, wrinkly skin and a head full of wiry gray hair walked through the door and down the corridor along the jail cells. He eyed Vanessa with curiosity as he passed her, and then came to a stop at my cell.

“Do you know the Amadis?” I asked him, getting straight to the point.

He squinted his eyes with confusion.

“Katerina Ames?” I asked with a trace of hope, but he shook his head. I started going through a list of the clergy names, monitoring his thoughts to make sure he told me the truth.

“Oh, yes,” he finally said. “I do know McCorkle. Who doesn’t now? He’s well known throughout the Southeast.”

“I would like to see him,” I said firmly.

His white brows jumped. “You know Pastor Richard McCorkle?”

“Yes, and I don’t think he’ll be very happy to see me in here.” Of course, I’d never met the guy, but what did Rev. Stephens know?

His eyes squinted again as he seemed to consider me.

“Make sure you tell him Alexis Katerina Ames needs him,” I said, hoping the name would be enough to bring this McCorkle guy to our rescue.

The older man finally nodded and strode back out to the police station. More hours passed and although no windows broke up the smooth expanse of gray concrete wall surrounding the cellblock, I sensed we were well into the next day. Damn. It.

All right. We’re not risking it any longer
, I told Vanessa. Her mind perked up.

“
You’re finally ready to get out of this godforsaken piss pot?
”

Any ideas on the best way out? If we flash, they could catch us again.

Before she could answer, the door swung open and a forty-something guy with a smooth face and salt-and-pepper hair strode in, a new guard following after him.

“Ms. Alexis,” he said, “I am so sorry about—”

He stopped in front of my cell, and his jaw literally fell open. I stared at him with a lifted brow.

“Um . . . pardon me. I just, uh . . .” He stammered as his eyes seemed to drink me in. “I, uh, never met any of ya’ll in person. You’re, uh . . .”

His throat worked although no more words came out of his mouth, but I heard the rest of his thought:
real
. Again I wanted to roll my eyes. Seemingly speechless, he waved his hand at the guard, who unlocked my jail cell.

“Thank you,” I said, holding my hand out for a handshake, assuming he was McCorkle. He gawked at it. “I’ll, uh, make sure Rina knows about your helpfulness.”

He grabbed my hand and pumped it nonstop. “Oh, thank you, yes, thank you very much, anything I can ever do for ya’ll, I’m at your service, just call, use my name like you did, whatever you need, I’m here to help . . .”

Before, he didn’t know what to say, and now he apparently couldn’t shut up.

The police had our few belongings ready for us, and Vanessa and I finally sauntered out of the jail, after wasting nine hours of precious time. I sure hoped it was worth it for Rina and the Amadis. As soon as we were out of earshot of the police station, I turned on my phone to call Tristan. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a text from him, which meant he was okay. “
Rendezvous at Rincon, GA.
” He sent an address, but I barely saw the whole thing before the screen went blank. The battery was dead.

Crap. What the hell now?
We were in the middle of BFE South Carolina with no idea where everyone was and no way to get a hold of them. A string of profanities raced through my mind, but then I had an idea. Probably a stupid one, but what did I have to lose? With a trace of hope, I let electricity rise into my hand, out of my palm, and into the cell phone. A small squeak of excitement popped out of my mouth when the screen flashed an icon, but then it darkened again. Feeling encouraged, I pushed a little more power into the device, and the screen lit up . . . then the next thing I knew, the phone hissed and crackled and smoke rose from it, the acrid smell of burning electronics wafting in the air.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit.” I threw the phone on the ground and stomped on it until only a pile of broken plastic and glass remained. I turned to Vanessa with my hand out. She stared at me with a look of bewilderment. “I need to get a hold of Tristan. Can I use your phone?”

She gave me a pointed look. “I was locked up at the safe house for months, and we’ve been on all kinds of exciting adventures since the day I got out, but none of them have included a stop at the AT&T store. Remember?”

“So Rina gave you fighting leathers and weapons, but no phone?”

The vampire shrugged. “Smart phones don’t seem to be at the top of her list of necessities.”

She had a point. But what the hell were we supposed to do now?

Chapter 11

I glanced over my shoulder at the police station.

“I’m not going back in there,” Vanessa declared, and I couldn’t blame her. Not quite what I wanted to do, either.

So we stood in the middle of the sidewalk in some tiny South Carolina town near the Georgia border and probably near the ocean, but other than that, I didn’t know where exactly. I pushed my hand through my hair as I turned in a circle, hoping to find an answer. Also hoping to see Sasha patiently waiting for us. I didn’t see the lykora, though, and the police station’s sign gave me a county name, but it meant little since I wasn’t exactly an expert on South Carolina’s counties.

“Well, I guess we find our way to Rincon, Georgia,” I said.

“Where?”

“Rincon? Tristan sent a text with an address where we’re supposed to meet him.”

“So everyone survived in one piece?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. Tristan did, apparently, but I didn’t catch the time or who we’d be meeting, so I don’t know about the rest. We may have even missed them by now, since they don’t know we couldn’t exactly get there.” I glanced around our surroundings again, still hoping to catch a glimpse of Sasha. I hated leaving the area without her, but I didn’t sense her nearby. The last time I saw her, we were half a mile above the ocean. She could have been anywhere now, but since she wasn’t here, I could only hope she was with Tristan and the others. “We need to find a map and get directions, then figure out how we’re going to get there. We’ll probably have to run.”

“You shouldn’t say such things too loudly,” a warm male voice said from behind me. Pastor McCorkle had just stepped off the last stair to the police station. He seemed to have completely recovered from his earlier shyness. “Rincon’s a good ways from here—not running distance for normal people. It’s on my way to Atlanta, though, so I could give ya’ll a ride if you need it.”

Vanessa and I exchanged a look.

“
Ditch the slime ball
,” she silently said, then she took off in a run, leaving me there with the pastor.

What the hell?
Sure the dude was a little on the smarmy side—a little too much like a politician, and after what Rina and Mom had told us, the less contact we had with politicians, the better. But his thoughts seemed harmless enough, although as a pastor, he probably shouldn’t have been thinking about Vanessa and me in
that
way, even if it was a private fantasy he didn’t plan to act on. Besides, he’d bailed us out of jail
and
offered us a ride when probably everyone else in this town would have nothing to do with us. So why did she tell me to ditch him and then went and ditched me? I had half a mind to take the ride, ditching
her
ass because she didn’t have the address. Although, Rincon probably wasn’t too big for her to find us.

I opened my mouth to accept the ride, hoping it would piss Vanessa off because I didn’t follow her, when she came around the corner on a motorcycle.

“Hop on, little sis,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Relieved that I wouldn’t have to be cooped up in a car with this guy, I gave the pastor the best smile I could conjure. “Looks like we have a ride, Pastor McCorkle.”

“Rick,” he corrected. “Please, call me Rick.”

I didn’t know if we’d ever see him again to call him anything, but I went along with it. “Right, Rick. If you could just tell us which road to take to Rincon, we’ll be fine.”

His brows pushed together as his gaze swept over Vanessa on the bike. “Where did you get that?”

“Oh, it’s an Amadis thing,” she said with a winning smile. “We keep transportation in odd places so none of us ever get stranded.”

He stared at her for a moment longer and then seemed to buy the lie because he gladly gave us directions and went on his way. I couldn’t help the urge to wipe my hand on my pants after shaking his.

“Do I want to know where you got this?” I asked as I climbed onto the back.

“Probably not. But if so, there’s another one there if you want to ride your own. I wasn’t sure if you knew how.”

I did, but that was beside the point. If she’d stolen the motorcycle, which she must have, we certainly would not steal another one.

She revved the engine, and we took off, hopefully putting this place behind us forever.

I can’t believe you picked me up on a stolen vehicle in front of a police station
, I said, mind-talking instead of yelling over the rumble of the engine.
We’re going to end up back in jail.

“
I didn’t really steal it. I left a contact number on the other one.
”

A bogus number. You don’t have a phone, remember?

“
Tristan does. I left his number.
”

What?! Now he’ll end up in jail!

“
Nah. Nobody will mess with him, especially when he offers up the cash to more than pay for the bike. And they’ll get the bike, too. I mean, you guys are good for it, right?
”

That’s not the point. We’ll be lucky to even get that far. The owner just has to send the cops out to look for us, and we’ll be right back where we were.

“
Give me a little credit. The bikes were under a tarp in the lot of an abandoned building. Nobody’s going to miss it. We’ll get to this place Tristan said to meet him at, and we’ll pay someone to bring the bike back. No one’ll ever know.
”

Sheesh. This reminded me of the plane we’d taken to get out of Australia. In fact, the situation wasn’t really much different, so why did this feel so wrong when that hadn’t? Probably because it was Vanessa doing the stealing rather than Tristan.

She raced along the roads Pastor Rick told us to use, and I prayed we wouldn’t get caught. I also formulated a plan for how to return the motorcycle and remunerate the owner, enough so they wouldn’t press charges, which was the last thing we needed. Rina certainly wouldn’t be impressed, and that thought made me feel even worse. By the time we arrived in Rincon, guilt had almost overridden my primary emotion of anger.

We pulled into a gravel parking lot of what looked to be a biker bar, and I had to wonder if I’d remembered the address correctly. I climbed off the back of the stolen/borrowed bike, and my eyes scanned over the dozens of motorcycles outside the squat, concrete building.
Is this the place?
Not feeling too good about walking in blind, I opened my mind to those inside. The building was larger than it looked from the outside and was filled with . . . Were signatures. All Amadis and all wolves. But no Tristan. I reached my mind out to the surrounding area, and still no Tristan, Char, or Sheree, but I did find Blossom and Jax, about half a mile away.

Blossom, we’re here,
I said, and I could practically hear her squeal of joy.

“
On our way
,” she replied, relief heavy in her mental voice.

I turned to watch for them, feeling their mind signatures coming closer, and finally they came into sight. Jax sauntered toward us in his black leather pants and black t-shirt as he held his jacket over a shoulder. Although Blossom had the standard leather jacket and combat boots, for some reason they hadn’t given her pants and a bustier like they had to the rest of us girls. Rather, she wore a black smock that reached a few inches above her knees and black tights. She broke into a sprint for us and threw her arms around my neck as she nearly knocked me over in a hug.

She immediately spouted off like a geyser. “I was so worried about you, but we didn’t know what to do after everything Rina had told us about being cooperative, so we hoped you’d get out and everything would be okay, but Tristan said to come here, and we’d get you out if we had to, but it looks like you’re fine, and I’ve probably driven Jax up the wall—”

“She’s been yabberin’ away like a macaw on drugs,” Jax said, but he didn’t sound mad or even annoyed. In fact, I sensed a bit of awe and appreciation in his voice as he spoke of the witch. “We’ve all been worried as hell, princess.”

“I’ve been worried as hell, too,” I said, giving them each a hug, and then I glanced around. “Where are Tristan and the others?”

“They’re not here yet,” Blossom said, and I didn’t see Sasha with them, either. I hoped to God that meant Tristan had her. Blossom opened her mouth to launch into another monologue, but I stopped her.

“Can I use your phone?”

She lifted her brows. “It fried in the swamp, where we appeared.”

“Then how’d you talk to Tristan?”

“We didn’t. Jax and I were just making our way out of the swamp, thank God he was with me, because he made himself a crocodile and we clamored out of there without getting eaten by anything, and then Bree showed up out of nowhere right in front of us. She said she already talked to Tristan, and she told us all about you and Vanessa, and said Tristan, Charlotte, and Sheree—”

“They’re all okay?” I asked, having to interrupt her so she’d take a breath before she passed out from talking too much.

“Yeah, they’re all together.”

“Do they have Sasha?”

She tilted her head. “I don’t know. Bree didn’t mention Sasha, but they all appeared way down by Jacksonville, and had the pilot with them, so they had to find transportation and get him to the airport. And I guess Tristan already talked to your mom and the matriarch and told them everything that happened, too. I mean, I don’t know who knew what when, but Bree pretty much knew everything since she’d been watching us from the Otherworld, and she came to our realm to be our messenger because she saw we had no other way of communicating with each other, and we were all split up, and it was such a big mess. Anyway, the pilot’s already off to get a new Amadis jet, and Tristan, Charlotte, and Sheree are headed up this way—”

Jax put a hand on Blossom’s shoulder. “Stop a minute to breathe, woman.”

The witch inhaled a deep breath and blew it out. “Sorry, but there’s so much to tell, and I know Alexis has been scared to death, and you need to know what’s going on. So anyway, they were on their way here, but they’ve been a little delayed.”

My heart stuttered. “What’s wrong?”

“They found a newborn vamp on the side of the road,” she explained. “Charlotte couldn’t just leave him there.”

“Of course not,” I said as my heart returned to its normal rhythm, but then I realized what it meant. Hours, maybe a day or more, before they could hit the road again.

“Tristan told Bree to tell us he’d call when he had further info,” the witch added. “Or send her again, I don’t know.”

“Well, then, I guess we go in for a drink?” I asked, not knowing what else to do. Besides control my urge to punch something again. One thing after another. At least everyone was okay, but we were never going to find my son at this rate.
Blossom, do you think we could try your tracking spell while we’re waiting?

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug so small only I noticed the gesture. “
Maybe if there’s some place quiet here. It’s a Were den, though, so don’t get your hopes up.
”

As soon as we walked inside, the loud din of conversation fell to complete silence. Vanessa had entered first, followed by Blossom and Jax, with me trailing in behind. I could feel the animosity in the air as the Weres in the bar sniffed, sensing we were Amadis, but not wolves like them.

“Who do you think you are, stealing my pack’s bike?” bellowed a female voice as a figure rushed across the room. A tall, thin woman with raven hair, obsidian eyes, a flannel top tied into a knot between her breasts, and holey jeans that hung on her narrow hips stopped in front of Vanessa, her face dangerously close to the vampire’s. She apparently didn’t know who Vanessa was. Or maybe she didn’t care. She didn’t look like she’d be scared of too much in this world. “And don’t deny it. I get a call that it’s gone. I look out the window and there it is. And here you walk into my bar. The only people who don’t belong here.”

My team parted as I pushed my way to the front of them, knowing I needed to take responsibility for this misfortune (and planning how I’d get Vanessa back for this). More dead silence passed, followed by a loud ruckus with the scrape of bar stools against a wooden floor as everyone dropped to their knees, their heads down. The woman, who only a moment ago had been yelling at Vanessa, saw me and also went down.

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” a familiar voice called out as he came from what I assumed to be the kitchen behind the bar. I had to suppress a chuckle at his seemingly standard entrance when I was around. The large man, wearing a vest that showed off his burly muscles, hurried around the bar and to my group, then also dropped to a knee. “Ms. Alexis. Surprised to see you in these parts.”

“Trevor! What are you doing here?” I asked as soon as he rose and the others in the bar followed.

“Sundae,” he said, addressing the woman next to him, “you better let me handle this.”

Her dark eyes skated over each of us, and she let out a growl before striding back to the bar.

Trevor led us to a nearby table and shooed away the guys who had been sitting there. They quickly scattered and found a new table at one end of the building, near the dartboard, but their eyes never left us. Never left me, to be more specific. Booths lined the outside wall of the place, and at the other end was the only area with much light—a lamp hanging over a green felt-covered pool table. A couple of men leaned on their pool sticks as they watched us. Well, me, again. Sometimes, like with Rick, being Amadis royalty came in handy, but most of the time, I hated it.

“I banded up with the Georgia pack,” Trevor said in answer to my question, “and opened a second shop up here. We all gotta do what we gotta do these days. So what brings you here?”

“Long story,” I said as I sat on a stool at the bar-height table. “Tristan’s on his way, but it could be a few hours.”

Trevor’s hard gaze traveled over the others, lingering on Vanessa as a low growl rumbled in his chest. He narrowed his brown eyes at Jax. “You were the Were in the Everglades last year. You met some of my boys.”

Jax gave a curt nod. “That be me, mate.”

Trevor turned back to me. “Did you really steal a ride from Sundae’s pack?”