Why, oh why didn’t I bring my gun? I mourned.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure it would’ve mattered. The blitz attack had happened so fast that I might not have had time to draw my weapon even if I’d been carrying. Mulling back over the incident in the gardens, I had to wonder if some sort of shifter magic or stealth had protected my attacker until they were right up on me with no chance for me to respond or defend myself. After all, I’d been glancing about, surveying the area. I’d seen and heard no one, and I hadn’t been standing close to anything that would hide a person.
But that was part of the problem. No telling what form these shifters could take. They could’ve been hiding anywhere, because, so far as I knew, they didn’t necessarily have to be human-sized in their altered forms.
Speaking of altered forms, my mind now sprinted, trying to reconcile what had happened with what I knew to be true.
Fact: I knew Carter had been ordered by his boss to protect me. Our recent argument aside, he’d proven over and over again that he would willingly do anything to fulfill that command. I had no reason to suspect he could be involved with this—unless he was a master manipulator, an actor so skilled he deserved an Oscar. Which didn’t seem like the Carter I knew.
So, was that really him that called me? Was it him that set me up? Why would he do that, though? To be rid of me, maybe? That doesn’t seem like Carter. I just saved his life. Sure, he was mad at me earlier, but setting me up to be kidnapped?
It didn’t compute. None of it computed. Why would Carter betray me, betray his boss’s orders? Could he secretly be working for Nosizwe?
Or was this none of Carter’s doings at all?
Into my whirling thoughts flashed a memory, a memory of several months ago, the first night Carter and I had met. He’d left me alone in his apartment for a few minutes while he ran down to the corner store to purchase some supplies for me for the night. Before leaving he’d told me, Do not open this door, Ellie. Not for anyone, not for any reason. There are shifters out there who can imitate every voice, noise, and sound. I don’t care if there’s a fire alarm going off outside and the fire department is banging on the door saying you need to get out. I don’t care if your long-lost dead grandma resurrects and comes back and is out here talking to you, don’t get all sentimental and open this door.
Shifters who could imitate any noise, any sound, any voice. Did that mean someone could’ve been imitating Carter to trick me, get me outside the house?
I swallowed my fear so I could try and recall our phone conversation. Thinking back over it, I realized everything the caller said could have been easily supplied by somebody who knew Carter well, and that they could have been following my lead in the conversation, much of the time.
I’d been duped.
It had to be shifters and shifter-related, which led me to wonder if this wasn’t about me at all.
Maybe this is about Carter.
The idea clicked.
Everything James said about the messages they intercepted, the translations of the Stones. Maybe this really is about Carter. Maybe they’re using me to get to him, or using me to draw him out. If that’s the case, maybe they won’t kill me right away. Maybe—
There wasn’t time for more puzzle working. The sounds of the vehicle told me we were slowing, pulling to a stop. A lance of pure fear overrode my system. We must be here, wherever here was. I had no conception of how far or how long we’d been travelling, since I’d been unconscious for the first part of the ride. I didn’t want the van to stop. I didn’t want to have to face my kidnappers or what they were planning for me. And yet, at the same time, I did, because I wanted to know who had taken me and why. Perverse curiosity, if nothing else.
We drew to a complete halt. I heard the muffled echoes of doors opening then slamming. Muted footsteps. Very muted. Then the double doors at the back of the vehicle burst open. I lifted my head, squinting against the pain, the loss of my glasses. Whoever stood there was backlit by orange streetlights. My eyes struggled to focus, to adjust to the blinding glare after being trapped in total darkness. I couldn’t discern anything, except two figures stood there and they seemed to be wearing dark clothing or uniforms.
Without a word, one of them stepped up into the van and clomped over to me. The footsteps sounded heavy and the voice was masculine. Kneeling next to me, he said, “Get up.” Strong hands grabbed me around the shoulders, the waist. My captor picked me up and half dragged me towards the back where his ally waited to receive me. I felt myself practically tossed to the second man, caught, dragged out onto the street.
Despite my terror and my missing glasses, I did my best to register what I could of my surroundings. It was still dark, nighttime. I smelled the scent of asphalt after a rain. The air felt cooler, damp, like it had rained or at least sprinkled during the transport. We seemed to be on a city street, judging by the smell of asphalt and the feeling of pavement beneath my toes. They were all that touched the ground, since my kidnapper held most of my weight. However, it was quiet. None of the continual road noise of a busier Fort Worth avenue. A huge shaped loomed to my left, vaguely gothic and cathedral looking. A church?
If it was a church, I didn’t recognize it. Then again, this was Texas. Church buildings were a dime a dozen here. My blurry vision told me the architecture looked old, but I didn’t get to discern anything else because the two men, working together—one holding me by the arms and the other by the torso—tugged me off the street. I heard the sound of the van starting up, the crunch of tires on pavement as it drove off. A driver, meaning a third person had been involved in my kidnapping.
Possibly more than that, I told myself glumly.
My emotions alternated between despair, panic, resignation to my fate, and the all-consuming drive to fight whatever end my captors had plotted for me. Never had I wanted my gun more. Never had I wanted Carter more. I wished to no end that we hadn’t quarreled earlier. That I hadn’t been persuaded by him, or his imitator—and I was fairly certain it had to be an imitator—to leave the safety of the mansion itself.
I should’ve known better, I mourned. Carter tried to tell me not to trust anyone except him. Why didn’t I listen?
That was crux of the problem. I had been listening to him, or believed I was. That’s what had gotten me into this mess. My innate trust in a man I barely knew, but in whom I instinctively placed so much faith that I’d left the security of the house during a time of danger because I believed he wanted me to.
You better show up, Carter, I thought almost angrily, projecting mentally, willing him to hear me across the miles. You better show up and make this right.
Carter didn’t hear. Carter didn’t come. I writhed against the restraints, struggling against my captors, twisting, groaning as loudly as I could, desperately hoping to attract the attention of someone, anyone. If I did, nobody came. The two men dragged me into a side entrance of the church, nearly hidden by overgrown hedges and sprawling vines. I was probably about to face a hoard of enemy shapeshifters all on my own, with no Carter to assist or defend me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fort Worth Police Department, Investigative and Support Command
“Do you know what time it is?”