Poison Promise
Page 21
“I’m on my way. See you there.”
“Will do.”
Xavier and I hung up. A second later, my phone beeped with info on the route he and Bria had worked out—
A shadow fell over me, and someone cleared her throat.
The old woman I’d annoyed earlier with my cursing was standing in front of the cash register. She held out a twenty-dollar bill and her order ticket, even as she started tapping her high heel against the floor. I didn’t want to waste a second in getting to Bria and Catalina, but I couldn’t exactly run out the door when she was right in front of me.
So I gave her a bland smile and quickly cashed her out.
“You should watch yourself, young lady,” she said in a snippy tone as I handed over her change. “Some of us don’t appreciate such salty language.”
My smile sharpened. “Sorry, ma’am,” I drawled. “But I can assure you that cursing is going to be the least of my sins today.”
17
I told Sophia what was happening and asked her to watch over the restaurant. Sophia didn’t like staying behind, but she grunted and said that she’d call Jo-Jo and let her sister know what was going on, before she went back to slicing tomatoes.
I called Owen and Finn, but neither one of them answered, so I left them both messages. Then I dialed Bria.
As expected, my call went to her voice mail. Hi, you’ve reached Detective Bria Coolidge with the Ashland Police Department . . .
“Bria,” I snapped. “Pick up your damn phone. Benson knows that you’re on your way to the police station with Catalina. He’s going to set up roadblocks to try to catch you. Turn around. Go somewhere else, anywhere else. And call me back the second you get this.”
But I couldn’t afford to wait for anyone to return my calls, so I grabbed Silvio’s file, went into the back of the restaurant, and grabbed the same duffel bag from behind the same freezer that I had yesterday when Benson had been holding Roslyn hostage. Déjà vu all over again.
I hefted my bag onto my shoulder, opened the back door, and strode outside, scanning my surroundings as I hurried toward the far end of the alley. But no one was crouched down behind a trash can or lurking behind a Dumpster. Normally, I would have been happy that no one was lying in wait to try to kill me, but right now, the lack of assailants worried me.
Because if Benson didn’t have any vamps watching me, then that meant he’d most likely sent them all after Bria instead.
Dread filled me at the thought, making me walk faster and faster, until my boots were snap-snap-snapping against the pavement. A few folks on the street shot me curious or even aggravated looks as I rushed past them, but I didn’t care. Even if one of them had come up with a gun or a knife, I would have knocked them down and kept right on going.
But of course, today of all days, I’d decided to park my Aston Martin five long blocks from the restaurant, so it took me several minutes to reach the vehicle. I wanted to jump inside the car and peel away from the curb, but I made myself slow down and do my usual check for bombs and rune traps. I couldn’t help anyone if I was blown to bits.
But the car was clean, so I slung the duffel bag on top of the hood, unzipped it, and reached inside, pulling out a black vest covered with all sorts of zippered pockets—and, more important, lined with silverstone. I didn’t know how much of Benson’s vampiric Air power the magical metal would absorb, should it come to that, but the silverstone would at least stop any bullets zipping in my direction and keep them from blasting through my chest.
I patted down the pockets on the vest, making sure that I had all of my usual supplies, including some extra knives. Satisfied, I zipped up all the pockets, then the vest itself over my chest. I grabbed the duffel bag again, opened the car door, and threw it into the passenger seat. Then I slid behind the wheel, cranked the engine, and pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.
I called everyone again—Owen, Finn, and Bria—but no one answered. I cursed, even longer and louder than I had in the restaurant, but I forced myself to rein in my temper. If I couldn’t warn Bria, then maybe I could stop her before Benson and his men did. So I checked the info Xavier had sent me.
It was a map of directions from Catalina’s Northtown apartment to the main police station, which was downtown. But instead of taking the quickest, easiest route, Xavier’s map showed a series of side streets that curled around and came at the station from the opposite end of town—straight through Southtown and the heart of Benson’s territory.
Bria probably thought that she’d be better off taking the least expected route, and she would have been if she’d been dealing with anyone else. But Benson had more than enough vamps to cover every road around the station, not to mention all the dealers who worked for him and the regular folks who’d be too frightened not to do what he ordered them to do. No doubt, Benson had spread the word to watch out for a cop car cruising through Southtown and to let him know the second it was spotted. Then all he would have to do was close the jaws on his trap, and Bria and Catalina would be his for the taking.
That’s what I would do.
More dread twisted my heart, wringing it out like a wet dish rag, but I kept studying the map, and I realized that Xavier was right. There was only one spot that would work for an ambush: a bridge that arched over the Aneirin River about three miles away from the station. That’s where I would set up if I were Benson.
I threw the car into gear, slammed down on the gas, and zoomed away from the curb.
As I drove, I tried Bria a third time. No answer. I cursed again and had started to toss my phone aside in disgust when I realized that there was one person I hadn’t called yet. So I scrolled through my contacts until I found her number. The phone rang . . . and rang . . . and rang . . .
“Hello?” Catalina’s voice filled my ear.
“It’s Gin,” I snapped. “I know you’re with Bria, and I know what you’re doing and where you’re going. Where are you right now?”
Her phone beeped. “Can you hold on a second?” she asked. “Silvio just texted me.”
“No, I can’t hold on. Tell me where you are.”
Silence. I thought that she wasn’t going to answer me—or, worse, that she’d hang up—but she finally sighed.
“We’re driving through Southtown. We’re almost to the police station.” She hesitated. “Why?”
“Tell Bria to stop and turn around right f**king now. Benson knows that she’s bringing you in. He’s sure to have men waiting for you. And whatever you do, don’t get on the Carver Street Bridge.”
“But we just pulled onto the bridge—”
Catalina’s voice was lost in the sudden screech-screech-screech of tires. But the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. For a moment, everything was eerily quiet. Then—
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
The sounds of gunfire shot through the phone and echoed in my ear.
“Get down!” I heard Bria yell. “Get down!”
Catalina screamed. Something thumped, like she’d dropped her phone.
Then the line went dead.
•
I clutched the phone to my ear, hoping that Catalina would come back on the line.
But she didn’t.
And she wouldn’t, unless I got to Bria and her in time.
So I tossed my phone aside, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and zipped around a corner, driving faster than ever. For the first time, I was glad that Finn had badgered me into buying the Aston, because the car purred into high gear with no visible effort and hugged the road better than a creepy old uncle at Christmas, not wanting to let go of his pretty young relatives.
I took another corner even faster, and the Carver Street Bridge popped into view about a quarter-mile ahead. The bridge was one of the most interesting structures in Ashland, made of jagged pieces of gray river rock that had been fitted together, so that the whole thing resembled a life-size jigsaw puzzle. Walkways on either side of the two lanes let folks meander along the span and snap photos of the Aneirin River snaking by fifty feet below, while iron streetlamps curlicued up into the air, lining both sides of the bridge like soldiers snapped to attention.
I was on a road that ran parallel to the river, with brick storefronts off to my left and a narrow strip of grass off to my right before the slope plummeted down to the gray, gleaming surface of the water. Normally, at this time in the afternoon, the sidewalk would be full of people wandering in and out of the shops, with cars cruising by. But right now, everything was strangely still, the shops shuttered, the street deserted. No lights, no people, nobody open for business. I didn’t even see any other vehicles.
Except for the ones at the bridge.
Two black cars were stopped at my end of the bridge, sitting nose-to-nose and creating a crude roadblock. Two more black cars were positioned the same way at the far end of the bridge, with one lone vehicle sitting sideways by itself in the center of the span—Bria’s sedan.
Benson and his vamps must have been waiting on the side streets. Then, once they’d gotten word of Bria’s location, they’d set up here. As soon as Bria had driven her car onto the bridge, they’d roared up and blocked both exits. That was bad enough, but even worse were the three vamps on my side of the bridge, standing behind their cars, all with guns out and firing at Bria’s vehicle.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
I could hear the shots even above the smooth hum of the Aston’s engine. The vamps kept up a steady assault with their weapons. They’d only been firing at the sedan a minute, two tops, but they’d made it count. The front tires were flat, the windshield had been completely busted out, and the engine block was smoking from all the bullets that had ping-ping-pinged into it.
The vamps stopped to reload. I didn’t even realize that I was holding my breath until a hand holding a gun reached out the shattered passenger’s-side window of the sedan and fired back, making the vamps duck down behind their own cars.
I exhaled. Bria was alive, which meant that I still had a chance to save her and Catalina.
I was driving so fast that I couldn’t tell which side of the bridge Benson was on, but I was sure that he was here somewhere. I would have been. But it didn’t much matter. I was killing everyone who stood between Bria and Catalina and me. If I got Benson here at the bridge, all the better. But if I had to come back for him later, that was fine too.
I was fifty feet away from the bridge and closing fast.
Forty feet . . . thirty . . .
I reached up, tightening the seat belt over my chest.
Twenty feet . . . ten . . .
I grabbed hold of my Stone magic and used it to harden my body into an impenetrable shell. The crash would be brutal, and I couldn’t afford to get knocked unconscious.
Seven feet . . . five . . . three . . . two . . . one—
My car rammed into the roadblock.
The air bag exploded in my face, momentarily obscuring my vision before finally deflating. The vamps had been so focused on killing Bria and Catalina that they didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Two of them dived out of the way, but the third man wasn’t so lucky. He rolled up and over my windshield, cracking the glass with his head, before vanishing from view. Even if he wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t be getting up from that anytime soon.
I’d built up so much speed that the force of the crash was hard and violent enough to slam the vamps’ first vehicle into the second one, forcing it up and back over a curb and then careening across the thin strip of grass, down the briar-covered bank, and into the river fifty feet below. One of the men had ducked behind that second car for cover, and a scream tore through the air as it slammed into him, knocking him out into the open air. A loud splat sounded as he belly-flopped into the surface of the river. A second later, the water grabbed hold of the car and sucked it under too.
I grinned. Well, that was one way to break up a roadblock.
But I wasn’t done yet. I threw my car into reverse, backing up about twenty feet, then shoved it into drive and rammed forward into the first car again, sending it up and over the curb too. But this impact wasn’t as hard as the initial one, so I kept my foot on the gas, engine whining, tires screeching, the acrid scents of burning rubber and exhaust flooding the air. Finally, gravity took over, and that first car started sliding down the riverbank and crashing through the tangle of briars to join the second one already in the water. This end of the bridge was now clear.
I threw my vehicle into park. Then I grabbed a couple of guns out of my bag, unsnapped my seat belt, and kicked open the driver’s-side door. I got to my feet and had started to run around the front of my car when I spotted a movement out of the corner of my eye. I pivoted in that direction—
Crack!
A bullet thunked into my chest, but my silverstone vest caught the projectile. Even if it hadn’t, I was still holding on to my Stone magic to protect myself. My gaze snapped over to the third vamp, who had somehow survived the crashes and careening cars. With one hand, he clutched the bridge railing for support. With the other, he raised his gun at me again, his finger squeezing back the trigger.
Click.
Click. Click.
Click.
He kept pulling and pulling the trigger, with the same empty result every time. I smiled, raised one of my own guns, and shot him three times in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
But I was already moving, running toward the sedan in the middle of the bridge, my boots crunching through the glass, bullet casings, and smoking, twisted bits of metal that littered the asphalt.
“Bria! Catalina!” I screamed.
“Gin!” Bria yelled back. “We’re here!”
“Will do.”
Xavier and I hung up. A second later, my phone beeped with info on the route he and Bria had worked out—
A shadow fell over me, and someone cleared her throat.
The old woman I’d annoyed earlier with my cursing was standing in front of the cash register. She held out a twenty-dollar bill and her order ticket, even as she started tapping her high heel against the floor. I didn’t want to waste a second in getting to Bria and Catalina, but I couldn’t exactly run out the door when she was right in front of me.
So I gave her a bland smile and quickly cashed her out.
“You should watch yourself, young lady,” she said in a snippy tone as I handed over her change. “Some of us don’t appreciate such salty language.”
My smile sharpened. “Sorry, ma’am,” I drawled. “But I can assure you that cursing is going to be the least of my sins today.”
17
I told Sophia what was happening and asked her to watch over the restaurant. Sophia didn’t like staying behind, but she grunted and said that she’d call Jo-Jo and let her sister know what was going on, before she went back to slicing tomatoes.
I called Owen and Finn, but neither one of them answered, so I left them both messages. Then I dialed Bria.
As expected, my call went to her voice mail. Hi, you’ve reached Detective Bria Coolidge with the Ashland Police Department . . .
“Bria,” I snapped. “Pick up your damn phone. Benson knows that you’re on your way to the police station with Catalina. He’s going to set up roadblocks to try to catch you. Turn around. Go somewhere else, anywhere else. And call me back the second you get this.”
But I couldn’t afford to wait for anyone to return my calls, so I grabbed Silvio’s file, went into the back of the restaurant, and grabbed the same duffel bag from behind the same freezer that I had yesterday when Benson had been holding Roslyn hostage. Déjà vu all over again.
I hefted my bag onto my shoulder, opened the back door, and strode outside, scanning my surroundings as I hurried toward the far end of the alley. But no one was crouched down behind a trash can or lurking behind a Dumpster. Normally, I would have been happy that no one was lying in wait to try to kill me, but right now, the lack of assailants worried me.
Because if Benson didn’t have any vamps watching me, then that meant he’d most likely sent them all after Bria instead.
Dread filled me at the thought, making me walk faster and faster, until my boots were snap-snap-snapping against the pavement. A few folks on the street shot me curious or even aggravated looks as I rushed past them, but I didn’t care. Even if one of them had come up with a gun or a knife, I would have knocked them down and kept right on going.
But of course, today of all days, I’d decided to park my Aston Martin five long blocks from the restaurant, so it took me several minutes to reach the vehicle. I wanted to jump inside the car and peel away from the curb, but I made myself slow down and do my usual check for bombs and rune traps. I couldn’t help anyone if I was blown to bits.
But the car was clean, so I slung the duffel bag on top of the hood, unzipped it, and reached inside, pulling out a black vest covered with all sorts of zippered pockets—and, more important, lined with silverstone. I didn’t know how much of Benson’s vampiric Air power the magical metal would absorb, should it come to that, but the silverstone would at least stop any bullets zipping in my direction and keep them from blasting through my chest.
I patted down the pockets on the vest, making sure that I had all of my usual supplies, including some extra knives. Satisfied, I zipped up all the pockets, then the vest itself over my chest. I grabbed the duffel bag again, opened the car door, and threw it into the passenger seat. Then I slid behind the wheel, cranked the engine, and pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.
I called everyone again—Owen, Finn, and Bria—but no one answered. I cursed, even longer and louder than I had in the restaurant, but I forced myself to rein in my temper. If I couldn’t warn Bria, then maybe I could stop her before Benson and his men did. So I checked the info Xavier had sent me.
It was a map of directions from Catalina’s Northtown apartment to the main police station, which was downtown. But instead of taking the quickest, easiest route, Xavier’s map showed a series of side streets that curled around and came at the station from the opposite end of town—straight through Southtown and the heart of Benson’s territory.
Bria probably thought that she’d be better off taking the least expected route, and she would have been if she’d been dealing with anyone else. But Benson had more than enough vamps to cover every road around the station, not to mention all the dealers who worked for him and the regular folks who’d be too frightened not to do what he ordered them to do. No doubt, Benson had spread the word to watch out for a cop car cruising through Southtown and to let him know the second it was spotted. Then all he would have to do was close the jaws on his trap, and Bria and Catalina would be his for the taking.
That’s what I would do.
More dread twisted my heart, wringing it out like a wet dish rag, but I kept studying the map, and I realized that Xavier was right. There was only one spot that would work for an ambush: a bridge that arched over the Aneirin River about three miles away from the station. That’s where I would set up if I were Benson.
I threw the car into gear, slammed down on the gas, and zoomed away from the curb.
As I drove, I tried Bria a third time. No answer. I cursed again and had started to toss my phone aside in disgust when I realized that there was one person I hadn’t called yet. So I scrolled through my contacts until I found her number. The phone rang . . . and rang . . . and rang . . .
“Hello?” Catalina’s voice filled my ear.
“It’s Gin,” I snapped. “I know you’re with Bria, and I know what you’re doing and where you’re going. Where are you right now?”
Her phone beeped. “Can you hold on a second?” she asked. “Silvio just texted me.”
“No, I can’t hold on. Tell me where you are.”
Silence. I thought that she wasn’t going to answer me—or, worse, that she’d hang up—but she finally sighed.
“We’re driving through Southtown. We’re almost to the police station.” She hesitated. “Why?”
“Tell Bria to stop and turn around right f**king now. Benson knows that she’s bringing you in. He’s sure to have men waiting for you. And whatever you do, don’t get on the Carver Street Bridge.”
“But we just pulled onto the bridge—”
Catalina’s voice was lost in the sudden screech-screech-screech of tires. But the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. For a moment, everything was eerily quiet. Then—
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
The sounds of gunfire shot through the phone and echoed in my ear.
“Get down!” I heard Bria yell. “Get down!”
Catalina screamed. Something thumped, like she’d dropped her phone.
Then the line went dead.
•
I clutched the phone to my ear, hoping that Catalina would come back on the line.
But she didn’t.
And she wouldn’t, unless I got to Bria and her in time.
So I tossed my phone aside, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and zipped around a corner, driving faster than ever. For the first time, I was glad that Finn had badgered me into buying the Aston, because the car purred into high gear with no visible effort and hugged the road better than a creepy old uncle at Christmas, not wanting to let go of his pretty young relatives.
I took another corner even faster, and the Carver Street Bridge popped into view about a quarter-mile ahead. The bridge was one of the most interesting structures in Ashland, made of jagged pieces of gray river rock that had been fitted together, so that the whole thing resembled a life-size jigsaw puzzle. Walkways on either side of the two lanes let folks meander along the span and snap photos of the Aneirin River snaking by fifty feet below, while iron streetlamps curlicued up into the air, lining both sides of the bridge like soldiers snapped to attention.
I was on a road that ran parallel to the river, with brick storefronts off to my left and a narrow strip of grass off to my right before the slope plummeted down to the gray, gleaming surface of the water. Normally, at this time in the afternoon, the sidewalk would be full of people wandering in and out of the shops, with cars cruising by. But right now, everything was strangely still, the shops shuttered, the street deserted. No lights, no people, nobody open for business. I didn’t even see any other vehicles.
Except for the ones at the bridge.
Two black cars were stopped at my end of the bridge, sitting nose-to-nose and creating a crude roadblock. Two more black cars were positioned the same way at the far end of the bridge, with one lone vehicle sitting sideways by itself in the center of the span—Bria’s sedan.
Benson and his vamps must have been waiting on the side streets. Then, once they’d gotten word of Bria’s location, they’d set up here. As soon as Bria had driven her car onto the bridge, they’d roared up and blocked both exits. That was bad enough, but even worse were the three vamps on my side of the bridge, standing behind their cars, all with guns out and firing at Bria’s vehicle.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
I could hear the shots even above the smooth hum of the Aston’s engine. The vamps kept up a steady assault with their weapons. They’d only been firing at the sedan a minute, two tops, but they’d made it count. The front tires were flat, the windshield had been completely busted out, and the engine block was smoking from all the bullets that had ping-ping-pinged into it.
The vamps stopped to reload. I didn’t even realize that I was holding my breath until a hand holding a gun reached out the shattered passenger’s-side window of the sedan and fired back, making the vamps duck down behind their own cars.
I exhaled. Bria was alive, which meant that I still had a chance to save her and Catalina.
I was driving so fast that I couldn’t tell which side of the bridge Benson was on, but I was sure that he was here somewhere. I would have been. But it didn’t much matter. I was killing everyone who stood between Bria and Catalina and me. If I got Benson here at the bridge, all the better. But if I had to come back for him later, that was fine too.
I was fifty feet away from the bridge and closing fast.
Forty feet . . . thirty . . .
I reached up, tightening the seat belt over my chest.
Twenty feet . . . ten . . .
I grabbed hold of my Stone magic and used it to harden my body into an impenetrable shell. The crash would be brutal, and I couldn’t afford to get knocked unconscious.
Seven feet . . . five . . . three . . . two . . . one—
My car rammed into the roadblock.
The air bag exploded in my face, momentarily obscuring my vision before finally deflating. The vamps had been so focused on killing Bria and Catalina that they didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Two of them dived out of the way, but the third man wasn’t so lucky. He rolled up and over my windshield, cracking the glass with his head, before vanishing from view. Even if he wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t be getting up from that anytime soon.
I’d built up so much speed that the force of the crash was hard and violent enough to slam the vamps’ first vehicle into the second one, forcing it up and back over a curb and then careening across the thin strip of grass, down the briar-covered bank, and into the river fifty feet below. One of the men had ducked behind that second car for cover, and a scream tore through the air as it slammed into him, knocking him out into the open air. A loud splat sounded as he belly-flopped into the surface of the river. A second later, the water grabbed hold of the car and sucked it under too.
I grinned. Well, that was one way to break up a roadblock.
But I wasn’t done yet. I threw my car into reverse, backing up about twenty feet, then shoved it into drive and rammed forward into the first car again, sending it up and over the curb too. But this impact wasn’t as hard as the initial one, so I kept my foot on the gas, engine whining, tires screeching, the acrid scents of burning rubber and exhaust flooding the air. Finally, gravity took over, and that first car started sliding down the riverbank and crashing through the tangle of briars to join the second one already in the water. This end of the bridge was now clear.
I threw my vehicle into park. Then I grabbed a couple of guns out of my bag, unsnapped my seat belt, and kicked open the driver’s-side door. I got to my feet and had started to run around the front of my car when I spotted a movement out of the corner of my eye. I pivoted in that direction—
Crack!
A bullet thunked into my chest, but my silverstone vest caught the projectile. Even if it hadn’t, I was still holding on to my Stone magic to protect myself. My gaze snapped over to the third vamp, who had somehow survived the crashes and careening cars. With one hand, he clutched the bridge railing for support. With the other, he raised his gun at me again, his finger squeezing back the trigger.
Click.
Click. Click.
Click.
He kept pulling and pulling the trigger, with the same empty result every time. I smiled, raised one of my own guns, and shot him three times in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
But I was already moving, running toward the sedan in the middle of the bridge, my boots crunching through the glass, bullet casings, and smoking, twisted bits of metal that littered the asphalt.
“Bria! Catalina!” I screamed.
“Gin!” Bria yelled back. “We’re here!”
