Fingers shaking, I hit the next message and put the car in drive, tires popping on the loose gravel as I headed for downtown Cincinnati.
“Rachel, it’s Nash.” His voice was more even, and a hard anger had replaced his fear. “I’m at the I.S. They aren’t going to do anything. They say he ran away again and they can’t do anything for three days. I’m going back to the monastery to get something of his so you can make a finding charm.”
Horn beeping, I ran a yellow, my head almost hitting the low roof when I took a bump hard. My phone lurched, and I scrambled to catch it, managing to start the next message.
“It’s Nash,” Nash said, his voice soft but bitter with anger. “Where are you, Rachel? I just saw Landon. The smug bastard gave Zack to the vampires. He as much as admitted it. They won’t let Zack go until he makes a public statement acknowledging that he looks to Constance for direction. He won’t do it, Rachel. I know he won’t do it. He wants the dewar to stay independent as it’s always been. If they bind him by blood, he can’t lead the dewar, and the dewar will put Landon back in control. The I.S. is giving me the runaround, and I can’t get anywhere.” His voice broke, and I could hear him trying to compose himself.
“Damn it back to the Turn!” I exclaimed as I flicked on my flashers and began weaving through traffic. “I should have let the bastard die on my church floor.”
First Ivy, then Trent, then David. I should have seen this coming. All of them were unofficial city leaders that the average Joe depended on to keep them safe: Ivy with the Cincy vampires, Trent with the elves, David with the Weres. All of them had fended off Constance, laughing at her threats and demands, secure in their own strength, hard-won as they survived being my friend.
The only one she managed to take was the one I’d never thought to be worried about. Zack: head of the dewar in waiting, and vulnerable. So vulnerable.
“This was my fault,” Nash said, voice cracking. “I turned my back on Landon for one second, and they took him. I know he’s here somewhere. I’ll call you if I find anything out.”
He didn’t say good-bye. The call simply ended.
“Get out of the way!” I shouted, smacking the side of my car just under the window, and, recognizing me, the driver sent his wolf-and-moon-painted van skidding to the shoulder to let me pass, gravel popping and tattooed arm waving me on.
Fear soaked in as I glanced down at my phone. Jenks had left me a message, too. If he wasn’t okay . . .
“Rache?” His voice came out strong when I hit the icon, and relief filled me. “I’m on my way to the I.S. That slug snot Landon helped Constance abduct Zack. If Zack is there, I can sniff him out. See ya after your date with Dali.”
The phone blanked off by itself, and I drove faster.
CHAPTER
9
The man in front of me was frustratingly slow as he set his phone on the belt to go through the metal/spell detector. The I.S. lobby was noisy with the sound of bureaucracy even on a Saturday, the high ceilings sending the soft conversations bouncing against the cold marble walls and tiled floors until they blended into a background haze of nothing. Eavesdrop charms wouldn’t work well, and the magic spelled into the huge I.S. emblem mosaic in the center of the large space would block all but the most powerful ley line charms.
“Come on. Sometime before the sun goes nova?” I moaned softly as I checked my phone. Nash hadn’t gotten back to me, and I had no idea where he or Jenks was.
Finally the guy went through, the detector glowing a faint orange. Maintenance charms, most likely.
“Anything to declare?” the bored-to-near-death living vampire behind the belt said, and I smiled to try to hide my impatience.
I set my bag on the conveyer, then my keys, and finally, reluctantly, my phone. “Spell pistol, extra shot,” I said, and the guy’s eyes flicked up in interest. “There’s some lethal-magic detecting charms on the key ring. I think that’s it.” Head high, I walked through the arch, stopping when it began to faintly bong.
I was pinging orange, just like the last guy, and I shrugged. “Oh, and I’ve got an I’m-dead-and-can’t-get-up ring.”
I held out my hand for him to wand, but a second vampire had joined him, and my arm dropped when neither of them moved to check it out.
“Could you please step over here?” the second vamp said, small teeth showing in a fake smile. “In the white box, Ms. Morgan?”
Crap on toast, they know who I am. “Seriously?” I looked at my bag being dumped out on a nearby table. I hadn’t shown them any ID yet, and my face burned. “If you know who I am, you know why I’m here,” I said loudly.
But the click of a finger stick snapping spun me around, hands in the air.
“Okay, okay,” I said to the bulky witch in his too-tight uniform. “White box. Got it.”
The two vamps behind the belt seemed disappointed, and the witch tossed the unused finger stick in the trash. I could feel his eyes on me as I went to stand in the white box taped on the floor. I was inside the I.S., but trapped in limbo as people in suits, jeans, and pretty, flower-print dresses flowed past. My arms were over my middle, and I wanted my phone.
The rasp of pixy wings brought my head up, and I gave Jenks a sour smile when he dropped to hover beside me. “Hi, Rache. Making friends?”
“Make sure they don’t take or add anything, will you?” I said, chin rising to indicate the two vamps pawing through my stuff, and he flew over, startling them.
Three more people went through the detector, every single one of them pinging orange and even red. No one cared. This was harassment, a feeling that strengthened when I noticed Doyle grinning at me from the second-story balcony.
My breath slipped from me in a sigh and I slumped. Sure, I could start some trouble, try to break the no-magic seal on the floor and bust their heads against the wall of underestimating Rachel Morgan. But no. I wanted to live here, and unless I wanted to become the demon subrosa and kick some major ass, over and over and over, that meant playing by the rules.
Which got me in the white box.
I glanced up to find Doyle gone. “Hey, can I have my phone?” I said, but the two stooges weren’t listening, both of them now on their radios. One looked confident and in control, but the other was scared as something came in. Something that probably had to do with me if Jenks’s worried expression meant anything. My things were still on the table. Maybe they were waiting for someone to bring up a twenty-spot bag of Brimstone to plant on me. That would get me in lockup for at least three days.
Distressed, I scanned the busy floor: people coming in, going out, some in cuffs. The back must be busy.
I reached a thought out to find a ley line, and the humming in my head grew worse. It would take a lot to break the no-magic zone in the lobby. I’d seen it done, but the resurrected ghost who’d managed it had probably used a black spell. Not going to go there.