Shattered Spirits (22 page)

“Shit.” Capri pushed around Ryan and shoved through the men between her and Boyd. She shouldered open the employee door and drew her firearm. Boyd raced to the end of the hall. He shoved aside a girl in fluttery red feathers and stumbled to the back exit.

He was getting away and they needed him alive to identify the rest of the mages.

She subvocalized her power word and shoved her magic into his head. “Stop.”

Pain exploded across her temples. Her knees buckled, and she grabbed the wall to keep her balance.

Miller drew his sidearm.

Boyd staggered. He wrenched around to face her, his expression going blank for a heartbeat. With a growl, he drew a gun, but his hands shook, ruining whatever aim he had. “Get out of my head, snake!”

“Put the weapon down.” Agony burned through her. Her earth magic wavered, the thread in his mind thinning and growing weak.

The muscle in Miller’s jaw twitched.

“I said, get out!” Boyd fired. The bullet zinged into the wall beside her head.

Miller yanked her behind him and fired, hitting Boyd in the shoulder.

Boyd scrambled out the back door.

Son of a—

“We need him alive.” She grabbed Miller and jerked him to face her. “And if you pull me behind you again, I’ll shoot you myself.”

She shoved past him and rushed to the door. Boyd was getting away and all she wanted was to stay in the hall and kiss Ryan.

CHAPTER 26

Ryan rushed after Capri, out the back door and into the parking lot. He had no idea what the hell had just happened. Capri hadn’t shot at Boyd even after he’d fired at her. She’d just stood there, staring at him. Instinct had kicked in: protect Capri, and he’d fired.

If he’d been thinking, he should have known Capri would have been pissed at that. And yet, she hadn’t fired back. Even a rookie on his first day knew that when shot at by a cornered suspect, you fired back.

Now Eddie Boyd had probably gotten into a car, and they’d lost him. But Capri ran across the lot to the snow bank on the far side. She crouched, her gun in one hand, her other pressed against the frozen asphalt. She squeezed her eyes shut, her pain clear. Something was wrong, but he hadn’t seen any blood on her in the hall, so she couldn’t have been shot.

“You got him good.” She pointed to the dark blood in the snow.

“I should have aimed for his leg.”

“Center of mass is always the safer bet when they’re firing at you.” She pulled out her phone. “Boyd recognized me and ran. He’s injured and in the industrial park behind the club. Have Gig zone in on my phone.”

She pocketed her phone and straightened. More pain flashed across her expression. With a growl, she climbed over the snowbank. Beyond lay twenty feet of unfenced yard with towering evergreens and maples. Three paths had been trampled into the snow, each going to adjoining streets or parking lots. Capri scanned the ground for a second, no more than two, then followed the one to the right. There, a few feet down, were more drops of blood.

Ryan had no idea how she’d managed to spot that in the dark so fast. There was so much more to this woman than met the eye. “What’s the ETA on backup?”

“Three minutes.” She picked up the pace.

Ryan followed, scanning the area for signs of Boyd.

The uneven path led around a clump of pines and down a steep incline to an auto wrecker’s lot. Skeletons of dead vehicles crowded the partially plowed lot, creating dark nooks and towering walls of rusted metal.

Ryan held his breath, straining to hear Boyd’s steps on the icy ground. The man had to be running. It was the only way for him to get so much distance between them, but the wrecker’s yard was silent. The wind hissed and the dead vehicles groaned, but still no sound of Boyd. Where the hell was he?

Capri knelt and pressed her fingers to something dark on the trail again. More blood. They were still on his path.

“This way,” she said, her voice low.

She skirted around a row of school bus shells into a wider area with a squat metal structure on the far side. A large garage door took up most of the one side, big enough for a big rig to drive in. Beside it stood a small human-sized door. A light above the small door cast an orange semi-circle on the ground, catching in the ice, and revealing streaks of sand that had been haphazardly strewn on the ground.

Capri stopped at the edge of the buses. “The trail leads to the door.”

“How—?”

“The door handle. It’s smeared with blood.”

He squinted. There might be a dark smudge on the door, but from this distance it was barely visible and might not be blood. “I’d say that’s just a guess.”

She flashed him a quick smile. “Or maybe I’m just that good.” Her tone suggested she was good at other, more intimate things as well.

“I’m sure you are.”

A hint of pain edged her eyes, and she blew out a quick breath, the mist curling around her face. “He’s bleeding and needs medical attention. I’m guessing he’s hoping there’s a first aid kit in the garage. At the very least, we have to check the doors and clear it, unless we can find a blood trail going around the building.”

“I’ll—” He was going to say take point, but doubted she’d let him. Even if she was feeling bad enough that she needed him to take point, she couldn’t risk letting a detective from a different town with a questionable record ruin this, whatever this was. “I’ll cover you.”

“No. You need to go around back and cut off any possible exits.”

“You can’t go in alone.”

“I’m not. My team will be here in a minute. We’re just checking the door and getting eyes on Boyd again.”

Yeah, how much did he believe that?

“Unless you think you can’t follow that order?” she asked. “It’s going to be difficult enough explaining why I have an Elmsville detective assisting on a federal case.” That sense of feralness glowed from her pale eyes. Even with the pain, she was determined to follow through. She was more than just a petite strawberry blonde in a pantsuit. She was stronger than her diminutive package suggested, and he’d be a fool to stand in the way.

The air around her rippled, and a security door flew open behind her. Gunfire exploded. He ground his teeth. Focus. Pull it together.

Her eyes narrowed. “Can you follow orders?”

He nodded. Another explosion rattled through him. Capri didn’t react. It wasn’t real. It. Wasn’t. Real. “Let’s do this.”

She slipped around the front of the buses, her gun held ready, and rushed across the parking lot toward the door.

Ryan sucked in a quick breath and followed, running through the imaginary security door. He angled to the side of the real building, slowing as Capri reached the small entrance. She met his gaze and tried the door. It opened a fraction, and she froze. With a jerk of her chin, she told him to secure the back. She’d probably only give him a few seconds before sneaking in.

He forced himself to turn away and creep along the side of the garage to the back. Yep, covering the back was important, but so was covering your partner. She’d already been distracted in The Mansion’s back hall. Whatever was wrong hadn’t been fixed.

Sure enough, there was a back door. Ryan eased up beside it. A cloud scuttled over the moon, enveloping him in darkness. Something glimmered from under the edge of the door. There was definitely a light on inside, but that didn’t mean there was someone there.

“We’ve got to get moving,” a harsh voice said on the other side of the door.

Ryan froze, holding his breath and listening. Maybe Capri
had
seen blood on the door.

“Eddie needs a doctor,” another voice said. This one sounded young, maybe a teen.

“I’m fine,” another voice growled. That had to be Boyd.

There were at least three men in there. Cold seeped into Ryan’s coat, biting his cheeks and neck. He resisted the urge to call Capri’s cell and warn her. If he did, the guys in the garage might hear it, and he’d heard no indication that backup had arrived.

Besides, as much as Capri didn’t look like she was at the top of her game right now, he had to trust she knew how to do her job. She wasn’t some rookie he’d been assigned to train. She was an FBI agent. Except that was all he really knew about her. He had no idea how long she’d been on the job, or even what her team did.

“We have to get moving. The snakes are on my trail,” Boyd said.

“You brought the snakes here?” Young Guy’s voice jumped an octave.

“What the hell made you think to bring the snakes here?” Harsh Voice asked.

“They shot me. I wasn’t thinking,” Boyd said.

“Fucking moron,” Harsh growled.

Something whooshed on the other side of the door.

“What the hell?” Harsh yelled. “Snakes.”

“Not just any snake. Death,” a slick new tenor said.

Someone screamed. Something clattered to the floor, and two shots exploded. Something else boomed. It sounded like it was on the far side of the garage.

“Son of a—” That was Capri.

Another burst of gunfire.

Ryan yanked on the back door. It wouldn’t open.

More gunfire.

Shit shit shit. He had to get in there. Had to know what was going on. This could be his future flash coming true.

He kicked at the door. It still didn’t budge.

Another scream. High pitched. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

He kicked the door again. Come on. Come on. He wrenched back to kick again, and the door flew open. Boyd stood in the opening, one hand pressing a rag to his shoulder, his eyes wide.

Ryan yanked his gun up. “Freeze.”

Faster than Ryan thought possible, Boyd leapt forward, knocked Ryan’s gun aside, and shoved past him.

Ryan staggered back. His foot hit ice and swept out, slamming him to one knee. Someone inside the garage screamed again. Inside, the man he and Capri had hid from, back at Andy’s house, pounded his fists into a large man’s gut. A small man on the ground scrambled away, while four more men rushed toward Ryan and the door.

Capri raced after them from the other side of the room, her eyes narrowed with pain. “Stop,” she yelled. One man stopped, his expression stunned. The other three stormed toward Ryan.

He fired, hitting one man in the leg, dropping him to his knees. The other two barreled past, the first man seizing the front of Ryan’s jacket and tossing him against the side of the garage.

He slammed into it with so much force the air burst from his lungs, and his head snapped back. Pain raced across his chest and skull, and his knees buckled. He struggled to catch his breath, breathe past the agony.

The man from Andy’s house zip-tied his unconscious suspect to a pipe then raced to the back door. He was on the far side of the garage one second and then beside Ryan the next, glaring at him. Ryan tensed, gun raised.

“He’s with us,” Capri said, but Ryan couldn’t tell if it was directed at him or the man.

She grabbed the man Ryan had shot, yanked him over to the back door, and zip-tied him to the handle. “Funny seeing you here, Diablo.”

The man, Diablo, snorted. “Didn’t think you’d need help.” His gaze jumped to where the other men had fled. “When were you going to tell me you had a line on their den?”

“When I had them in custody. Now do you mind? They’re getting away.”

“Give it a moment.” Diablo’s eyes grew unfocused and he rolled his shoulders as if trying to relax. “Two went to the left, one to the right.”

Headlights flashed across the garage from the front door.

“Looks like your backup is here. I’ll start with the single then go after the double.”

“Not if I catch them first. Miller, stay here.” She bolted to the left, along a path between the shattered carcasses of cars.

“Hell, no.” He raced after her.

“I said, stay with the perps.”

“They’re secure, your team has them, and I’m not leaving you without backup.” There were two of them, one of her, and she still looked like she was in pain.

“I said, stay with the perps,” she growled, still running along the path.

“And I said, no.”

She wrenched toward him, radiating that feral monster again, making her seem bigger, more powerful than her tiny frame implied.

He squared his shoulders.

She hissed and flashed him a hard smile—he wasn’t even sure it was a smile.

“They’re getting away, Special Agent.”

Her expression darkened and turned sensual. Standing his ground against her turned her on. “What am I going to do with you, Detective?”

“I can think of a few things.” It turned him on, too.

She jerked to the path, gun ready, back on the hunt.

He followed. He had no idea what had just happened, but a part of him really liked it.

CHAPTER 27

They chased the men out of the trees onto the street of a new development. The road twisted down into a valley; half the lots were empty, the other half had houses in various stages of construction. Capri picked up her speed and Ryan pushed to match her, worry and excitement pounding through him. His breath puffed around him in white clouds that sparkled in the streetlights, but he stayed focused on the men.

The smaller of the two, a man with a torn jean jacket and a wild blond beard, stumbled. The other, a broad-shouldered black man with a jagged scar running down the side of his face, didn’t hesitate. He careened to the right, into the shadows between two partially sided houses. The first man, Blond Beard, shoved up to his feet and headed left.

Ryan glanced at Capri. With a nod, she headed after Scar. That was all the communication they’d needed. No words. Again, he was struck with the sense that they’d been partners for years.

Blond Beard ducked up the driveway of a finished house and rushed into the shadows beside it. If he managed to get back into the woods behind the development, Ryan might not be able to find him.

Ryan put on a burst of speed. His chest burned from the cold air and effort. He raced into the fenced-in yard.

Blond Beard staggered to a stop before hitting the fence at the back.

Ryan trained his gun on him. “Hands where I can see them.”

The man spun around, hands up. He glared at Ryan.