Casting Shadows, page 9
part #4 of The Magicsmith Series
He stroked a hand over my hair and whispered, “I’ll be fine.”
Sometimes I hated that he could see so much of what I was thinking and feeling, especially when we were pressed together like this. But right now, it was nice not to have to voice my worries. Not to struggle for words.
Chase was back a moment later, shifting smoothly to human as he reached us. “They had the number, but I couldn’t get through. Got one of those robot voices saying the line was out of service.”
I stepped back from James, but didn’t release his hand. Did a disconnected line mean Crossroads had been compromised? If so, Jynx and Emma would have no safe haven.
“Don’t panic yet,” Chase said. “Targe may simply be locking the place down.”
I nodded, hoping he was right.
“So.” James swung our joined hands to draw my attention. “Where to?”
I flicked my gaze between the two men. Neither blinked. Neither offered an opinion. I was the fugitive. It was up to me to decide.
“We’ll head to Crossroads,” I said. “I know time is a factor for May and the others, but we’ve got a better chance of getting her out if Emma’s with us. Besides, I can’t leave without knowing she and Jynx are safe.”
“And if they’re not at Crossroads?” Chase asked.
I circled to the passenger side of James’s car. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Chase shrank back to his cat form. I opened my door, and he slipped into the back seat where he curled into a furry gray ball on the black leather.
James settled behind the wheel and started the engine.
As he turned the car back down the dirt road, I tapped my knuckle against the window. “Whose car is this anyway?”
“It’s on loan from the nest. One of many they keep on hand for . . . discreet operations.”
It took less than ten minutes to get back to human habitation. I squirmed in my seat as we passed the city limit sign for Crestone, recalling the anti-magic protest we’d passed in front of the One Earth building on our last trip through.
James turned off the main street at the first opportunity, headed for a narrow country road that led out the west side of town. The meandering path would eat precious time, but we’d be less likely to draw unwanted attention.
Three turns later, we found a wooden blockade stretched across the road with the words “road closed” painted across the boards in big black letters. A uniformed PTF agent stood behind it. He waved us to the right, pointing to a small “detour” sign. It seemed someone wanted all traffic to and from the reservation to pass straight through the center of Crestone.
James eased the car back toward Alder Street, the town’s main thoroughfare.
In the day I’d been gone, the scene in front of the One Earth building had spread to engulf the whole town. Buildings were shuttered. Closed signs dangled from nearly every window along Alder Street. Men and women with steel batons patrolled the sidewalks, many in PTF uniforms.
Just before the road curved toward Birch Street and the way out of town, a heavy-set man in aviator lenses and a PTF windbreaker stepped into the road, waving us to a stop.
I stiffened in my seat. I could pass a fae blood check, but my face was all over the internet. There was no way an agent wouldn’t recognize me. My heartbeat ratcheted up. Leather creaked as I gripped my seat.
James eased the car to the shoulder. “Stay calm.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
A flush of cool calm washed through me, carried through our connection. James had a plan. He wasn’t worried, and his confidence lent me confidence.
I relaxed my fingers and tried to slow my breathing. I glanced in the rearview mirror, but Chase was no longer on the back seat.
The PTF agent rapped against James’s window. He hadn’t removed his sunglasses, so all I could see when I looked at his eyes was silver. Close-cropped brown hair stood stiff on his scalp, barely shifting in the wind. The skin around his mouth and neck was tan, rough, and wrinkled. Gray and brown whiskers peppered his chin.
“Security check,” the man said when James’s window was down. “What’s your business in Crestone?”
“We were attending a meditation seminar at the Dharma Sangha Mountain Center.”
The man grunted. “Are either of you registered paranaturals?”
“No.”
“I’ll need to check.” He pulled a blood test kit out of his pocket. “Put out your arm please.”
James did as he was told, extending his arm out the window so the man could prick his finger. Three drops of blood were squeezed into a small, clear container with a layer of iron shavings at the bottom, which the agent held up in front of his aviators.
He shook the vial, then tucked it back in his pocket and circled around the car.
I had my window down before he reached me, arm extended. I didn’t want to give him any reason to study my face.
A fresh needle came out of the man’s pocket. He popped off the cap and jabbed my index finger. My blood splattered the iron shavings in the bottom of a jar identical to James’s. Again the man lifted the jar as though the quality of light might make a difference to the test results. Then he nodded and stuffed the jar back in his pocket.
“Might want to avoid Crestone for a while. Not the most . . . meditative . . . place at the moment.” He slapped his hand twice on the roof of our car and made a twisting motion with his index finger. Farther along the road another agent lifted a hand in acknowledgement. We’d passed our test. We were free to go.
When we passed a sign that said “Leaving Crestone, come back soon!” I sank back against my seat. My muscles felt wrung out. I hadn’t even realized I’d been so tense until that tension was gone.
Chase slunk out from under my seat and shook himself in the space between my feet.
“At least you didn’t have to get jabbed with a needle.”
Giving me a flat look, he twitched his ears and hopped over the center console to curl once more on the back seat.
“I thought for sure he’d recognize me.”
The corner of James’s mouth lifted. “He wasn’t looking for a blond with brown eyes.”
I glanced over, studying the profile of his satisfied smirk. “You changed my appearance.”
“I changed his perception,” he corrected. “Vampires are illusionists, not enchanters.”
“And what did you look like?”
His smile grew. “A portly, balding businessman with a bulbous nose.”
The car was silent for a moment, then I burst out laughing. James joined me and the car echoed with our mirth.
It felt good to laugh, and I carried on slightly longer than I might have under normal circumstances, burning off residual adrenaline. When the laughter subsided, I wiped my eyes and turned my attention to the rolling hills beyond the windshield. I had a feeling there wouldn’t be many occasions to laugh in the coming days.
Chapter 8
CRESTING A HILL on US Highway 36, I squinted at Boulder spread out in the valley below. Light glinted off windows and the backs of cars as they raced along the road ahead of us. The sun shone from a pale-blue sky that stretched horizon to horizon. The traffic leading into Boulder moved steadily until we passed Foothills Parkway. Then it slowed and stopped. The lanes leaving the city were dotted with evenly spaced cars where there should have been bumper-to-bumper traffic.
I frowned, a knot of worry twisting my gut.
As we rounded the bend that would merge us onto Twenty-eighth Street, I spotted the cause of the slowdown. Checkpoints had been set up across all the lanes entering and leaving the city. The exit for Baseline, the last escape route before the checkpoint, was blocked off by a police cruiser. We were being funneled into a choke point where people in uniforms checked each vehicle before sending it on its way.
Two cars ahead of us, a cop lifted a printed image to compare with a female passenger whose red hair was a few shades closer to orange than my own.
A lump lodged in my throat. “Can your illusions get us past this?”
The steering wheel creaked in James’s grip. “I don’t know.”
The orange-haired woman was waved on. We inched forward.
I gripped the door as our turn came. We rolled into place, even with a stand of harsh floodlights that shone despite the adequate morning light. A cop with a pot belly and receding hairline tapped on James’s window while a tall, blond man approached my side of the car.
“Evening, officer,” James said with an easy smile.
I forced my face to relax and rolled down my window.
The blond cop looked at the picture on his clipboard. He studied my face. Then he glanced over his shoulder.
I looked up. There was a traffic camera pointed directly at me.
The blond man pressed a hand to his ear and nodded.
Cold seeped through my limbs. I spun to James. “They’ve seen us.”
My back slammed against my seat as the car rocketed forward, engine whining. Guns were pulled from holsters by the officers on the side of the road. They leveled their weapons. Bursts of noise were followed by a rapid series of metallic pings as bullets bit into the doors and trunk of the speeding car.
There was a loud crack, and an opaque spiderweb appeared on my window. Wind whistled through the dark hole at its center. The windshield bore a second, smaller web, like a cataract blocking my view. A deformed wad of lead rolled off the dashboard and fell to the floor.
The gunshots faded behind us as James swerved around the SUV and the car with the orange-haired woman that had been waved through ahead of us. He jerked the wheel hard to the left at the first intersection. Rubber screeched. Our back wheel jumped the curb, then dropped back to the street with a bone-jarring thud.
Sirens wailed behind us. Lights flashed in the rear view.
“Hold on!” James swerved around a blue pickup and took a hard right on Folsom. He was leaning forward, eyes narrowed, deep lines of concentration etched on his face.
I was hanging onto the “oh shit” bar above my door for dear life, my other hand braced against the dash.
The outline of our car seemed to haze, creating a double image as though I’d crossed my eyes.
I blinked and shook my head.
“One more,” James said.
This time, when he careened around the corner, the car seemed to split in two. While James and I moved west, a copy of our car, complete with duplicate passengers, continued to the north.
James pulled into the Folsom parking garage and cut the engine. A second later, a stream of cruisers zipped north, lights flashing, sirens blaring, chasing an illusion.
“That won’t keep them distracted for long.”
“This car’s too conspicuous.” I unsnapped my seatbelt with shaking fingers. “Crossroads is about two miles away, northwest of Chautauqua.”
He nodded. “Let’s head for the creek. There’s an underpass on Folsom.”
“But that’s the wrong direction. And it’s where all those cops are headed.”
“We need somewhere without cameras,” he said. “Trust me.”
Sighing, I climbed out of the car. My legs wobbled, and I held the door for a moment to catch my balance. Gray pock marks decorated the side of the shiny black car.
Chase hopped down to the pavement. If the turbulent ride had unsettled him, he didn’t show it.
Together, we slunk out of the parking garage and along the path to Boulder Creek. The sirens, which had grown quieter with distance, were getting loud again. James’s illusion must have worn out. Or maybe someone watching the traffic cams had noticed our detour and called it in. Either way, we didn’t have much time.
We ducked into the underpass. Fast food wrappers and pieces of cardboard littered the ground, blown into corners and against the concrete pillars. There weren’t any other people.
“Now what?” I asked.
James stepped close and wrapped one arm around my waist. With the other, he scooped my knees. “Hold tight.”
I wrapped my arms around him, burrowing against his neck. The scent of raspberries and nutmeg wafted off his skin.
He glanced down at Chase, who tipped his head sideways, twitched his whiskers, and meowed.
“We’ll meet you at Chautauqua Park,” James said. He bent his knees and gripped me tighter. Then he ran.
The world blurred by in streaks of color. Even if a camera did catch us, we would have looked like a shadow passing in front of the lens. Wind roared in my ears. My hair whipped around my face, stinging my cheeks. I clung to James, feeling the rhythm of his muscles and the steady beat of his heart as he carried me across town.
All at once, the wind cut off. The world came back into focus.
James was standing on a shoveled path along the northern edge of Chautauqua Park. Beside us was a wide, grassy field covered in a thin layer of snow. He leaned down until my feet rested firmly on the sidewalk, then straightened. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
Reluctantly, I unclasped my hands and stood on my own. My heart was racing like I was the one who’d just sprinted across town. “That was amazing.”
“Glad you enjoyed it.” He brushed a wisp of hair back from his forehead and sighed.
I frowned. While he didn’t seem tired, he did look a little pale. Well, paler than usual. “When’s the last time you fed?”
He waved the question away. “Don’t worry about it.”
I pursed my lips.
A car passed on the nearby street. The frosted branches of winter trees blocked us from casual view, but I still felt exposed. I rubbed my hands over my upper arms. “How long do you think it will take Chase to catch up?”
James smiled. “Not too long. Cats are pretty fast.”
Especially cats who also happened to be fae. But even a fae couldn’t keep up with a vampire moving at full speed.
A moment later, a gray tabby came bounding up the street.
Chase leveled his green glare at James. His furry sides were heaving. His paws were wet.
I thought about teasing him, but decided against it. It’s not like I’d done any work to get there. Instead I said, “Let’s get moving, shall we? The sooner we’re off the street the better.”
Chase took the lead, and I laced my fingers with James’s so our joined arms swung like a pendulum between us as we walked. We didn’t have far to go, just a couple blocks. Strolling along the sidewalk hand-in-hand with James, I almost felt like the normal person I was pretending to be—just a woman out for a stroll with her boyfriend. Nothing to see here.
Talk about looks being deceiving.
Chase stopped at the mouth of the alley leading to Crossroads.
As James and I approached, he pulled up short. “Perhaps I should wait here.”
I turned. “Why would you say that?”
“The fae are not fans of my kind. Your associates thus far have been more tolerant than most, but shifters have a certain . . . blasé attitude toward other paranaturals, and Malakai knew me personally. That will not be the case in a fae sanctuary.”
He wasn’t wrong about the fae’s feelings toward vampires. Even Kai had his reservations about James—and James was a saint compared to most of his species. But leaving James alone and exposed on the street was not an option.
I tightened my grip. “You go where I go. If anyone has a problem with that, they can take it up with me.”
He squeezed my hand, a brief pulse of appreciation.
When we reached the mouth of the alley, Chase trotted to a door midway down its length and scratched at the weathered wood.
James stopped two steps into the alley and swayed on his feet. His eyes grew glazed and distant. Then he turned as though he planned to leave.
“Hey.” I tugged our joined hands, bringing his attention back to me.
He frowned. “I . . .” He glanced around the alley, then took a step back straining my grip. “I’m not sure I can proceed, despite your desire to remain together.”
I looked around the alley too, but there wasn’t much to see. Just some soggy newspapers and a rusty trash bin. Of course, what was stopping James wasn’t visible. On my first visit to Crossroads, Kai had told me there were powerful spells on the place. Spells that kept it hidden from those they didn’t want poking around.
The door to the club opened and a nine-foot troll who looked like he was carved from solid rock faced off with the tiny gray cat who’d called him out.
Chase meowed once, then looked back at me as though asking, “What’s the holdup?”
The troll, who I’d learned on a previous visit was named Arthur, turned to look at me as well. If rock could show emotion, I’d say he looked concerned.
“James is . . . having a problem. I think the spells around this place are affecting him.”
Chase continued to stare. His tail flicked once.
Arthur frowned, the corners of the craggy fissure that was his mouth turning down. I half-expected flakes of rock to chip off his face.
James stiffened, squeezing my fingers. He was looking up the street to his left.
A woman in a tattered coat was pushing a shopping cart loaded with random odds and ends down the sidewalk toward us. There was nowhere to hide in the mouth of the alley, not with James stuck as he was.
The wheels of the shopping cart squeaked as she approached. She was looking right at me.
“You’re still disguising us, right?” I asked under my breath.
“I was, but . . .” James frowned. “I lost the illusion when I got disoriented. It’s back in place.”
