Three, two, one. Out.
Celia reared, swinging her arms in a frenzy. Her clawed hand closed on Alessandro’s shotgun and she tore it from his grasp, knocking him back. He stumbled and she chased him, claws rending the air.
“Celia!” I snapped. “Look at me!”
She spun toward me. I opened my wings and let my magic rip. The focused torrent of power drowned her.
“Come here,” I called, sinking enough magic to seduce a room full of people into it.
Celia rushed me. Her huge arm swung, and she backhanded me. I flew and hit a hard surface with my right side. Pain tore through my hip. Something crunched. Ow. A dump truck had thoughtfully broken my fall.
I looked up and saw Celia leaping toward me, claws ready to rend, mouth gaping. I dropped to my knees and scrambled under the truck.
Celia slammed into the vehicle with a thud and hugged the ground. Her terrible face thrust into the gap between the wheels. Tiny hate-filled eyes bore into me. She tried to squeeze in after me. I held my breath. She wiggled, pushing in another inch, and stopped. The truck sat too low.
Celia bared a mouthful of monster teeth and thrust her arm under the truck, trying to hook me with her claws. I shimmied back. She shrieked, frustrated, jumped to her feet, and gripped the truck, trying to lift it. The huge vehicle rocked.
How strong was she?
Celia shrieked again and dropped down to the ground, her face only feet away from mine. I pulled the mace out of my pocket and sprayed her in the eyes.
Celia screamed and clawed at her face. The telltale roar of a chain saw answered. Blood spray wet the asphalt. Celia squirmed from under the truck and disappeared.
I crawled to the right, out from under the vehicle, and dashed around it.
Alessandro chased Celia with a chain saw. She dashed back and forth. Her left arm hung off her shoulder on a string of flesh, gushing blood. Bone glared from the stump. A gash sliced across her left hind leg.
I pulled my sword out and sprinted after them.
Alessandro backed Celia against the pavement roller and sliced the chain saw across her stomach. A horrible scream tore out of Celia. She threw herself at him, and the sheer weight of her took Alessandro off his feet. He fell, buried under her bleeding body.
No! I ran like I’d never run before in my whole life.
She opened her mouth and aimed for his face.
I drove my gladius into her neck. The sword slid into flesh and found bone.
Boom!
Bullets tore out of the back of her skull. Bone and brain exploded, spraying me.
I yanked the gladius out and brought it back down with everything I had. The blade carved through reinforced vertebrae. Celia jerked and collapsed. Who is your pretty little lamb now?
I dropped to my knees. “Alessandro?”
Please be alive, please be alive . . .
Celia’s body shuddered, rose, and Alessandro heaved it aside, pulling a Smith & Wesson 460XVR revolver out of her mouth. He stared at the massive gun’s fourteen-inch barrel and then looked at me, his eyes incredulous.
“It’s a hunting revolver.” I slumped back. “It’s for big game hunting.”
“Texas,” Alessandro said, loading a state’s worth of meaning into a single word.
The Alfa still worked. It wasn’t as fast or as smooth, and riding without a windshield in a tiny seat with every bump jabbing a spike of pain through my hip was a new kind of torture, but we made it off the exit onto Frontage Road.
I hugged the dog to me with one hand and dialed our lawyer with the other. Sabrian listened to my recap without a word.
“Any injured civilians?”
“Not that we know of.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m on it. I’ll be emailing you documents. Read, print, sign, scan, email back, get the originals to me by courier, today.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, just be on time with papers and payment.”
I hung up.
Next to me, Alessandro drove as if we were enjoying a pleasant excursion on the Pacific Coast Highway, winding our way through picturesque hills with a blue ocean on our side. A relaxed smile played on his lips.
“What are you so happy about?”
“We’re alive. I told you it would work.”
“Your car is ruined.”
“It’s just a car. It’s replaceable. You’re not.”
What did it mean? Why did he even care? He saw me for fifteen minutes during the trials, then for another fifteen minutes when he showed up asking me to go for a drive, and then we hadn’t spoken for three years.
“How are you involved in this?”
The smile died. It was like the sun being turned off. I felt like a moment of silence was in order.
“Not that again,” he said.
“Yes, again. I have to find Halle.”
“What part of ‘drop it’ don’t you understand?”
“The part where you keep interfering with my investigation and shooting people I need to interrogate.”
“Interrogate? I must not understand the meaning of that word, because from where I’m sitting, you blunder around asking people questions until they try to kill you.”
Oh, you ass.
“You haven’t even thanked me for the elephant. When someone saves your life, you’re supposed to be grateful. Do they have laws against expressing gratitude here?”
Argh. “Thank you so much, Alessandro, for providing help I didn’t need. I so appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule of Instagram posing and luxury car wrecking to murder every person who could conceivably shed some light on this investigation. Thank you ever, ever so much.”
We glared at each other.
He raised his eyebrows. “Wait, I know. Since you insist on doing the opposite of what I tell you, let’s try this. Don’t stay home, Catalina. Don’t drop this case. Don’t stay safe. Is it working? Please tell me it’s working.”
“God, you are an asshole.” It just kind of came out.
Alessandro drew back. “Such a dirty mouth. Oh, the possibilities.”
“You have no possibilities with my mouth! Nobody has any possibilities with my mouth!” I did not just say that.
He laughed. He laughed at me.
“Halle’s seventeen, Alessandro. She’s innocent. Whatever her mother did or didn’t do, she shouldn’t be paying the price for it. Tell me what’s going on so I can find her. Don’t you have any compassion at all?”
“The sooner you realize that I’ll tell you nothing, the easier it will be. Give up, Catalina. It’s being handled.”
He turned onto our street.
“Stop the car.”
The Alfa slid to a stop with a metallic groan. I unbuckled my seat belt.
“Catalina, let me take you to the door. I know your leg hurts.”
I climbed out of the car clutching my dog and my sword.
“Don’t be a hero,” he called.
I wished I had a free hand so I could flip him off. I marched toward the security booth, grimly determined to not limp.
“Hey,” he shouted. “At least we finally had our drive.”
“Drop dead.”
I marched to the booth, the grinding noise of the Alfa driving away receding behind me.
The two guards in the booth stared at me. I saw my reflection in the glass as I passed them. Most of me was covered with a uniform layer of dirt and dust from lying on the floor of the mall. Blood splattered my face, my neck, and my white turtleneck. Bits of Celia’s skull and brains hung in my hair. Two bullet holes punctured my coat, right in the middle of the chest and a little to the left.