Convinced she was utterly insane, she did as the disembodied voice said, then parked the car. Her nerves were pretty much shot by the time she opened the door and got out. She half-expected the cat to leap out, but instead it was lying on the backseat... completely covered in blood. Her heart clenched at the sight.
Was it dead?
Terrified, she opened the back door. She touched the cat's shoulder only to have it hiss at her. "Easy," she said, pulling back.
The cat rose up slowly so that it could limp out of the car, toward the dock.
"Hey!" a cute young man with short black hair snapped at her. "You can't park..." His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the cat.
His face went instantly pale before he shouted inside the door. "Mom, we got Ravyn out here! Code Red." He grabbed a coarse blanket from a stack of them that was piled on the edge of the dock, then jumped down to wrap it around the cat.
Carefully, he picked the cat up, cradled it in his arms, then took it back to the loading dock.
Unsure of what she should be doing, Susan locked her car (and immediately wondered why she bothered since one window had been completely shot out and the rest of the car looked like it'd survived a war zone-but then old habits die hard) and followed them into the dock, which led to a small storeroom. As soon as the kid shut the door and set the cat down, Ravyn returned to being human. He braced one bloodied and blistered hand against the right wall and kept his head bent down as if he was exhausted.
Sure, why not? He really was the cat. Made about as much sense as the rest of her day. And hey, if she had to be delusional, at least he had the best naked backside she'd ever seen, except for the fact that there were numerous bullet holes riddling almost every inch of his exposed flesh.
But then he was only naked for a few brief seconds before a pair of jeans and a T-shirt appeared on him. It didn't take long before the shirt was saturated in blood.
Susan cringed at the sight of it. How could he still be alive, never mind standing upright? Just play along with the delusion, Sue. What the hell? "He needs an ambulance," she said to the kid.
Ravyn lifted his head to look at her over his shoulder. There was a small bit of blood on his lips, and for the first time she saw his fangs when he spoke. "I'll be all right. I just need some sleep."
"I have got to start taking drugs," she mumbled. "At least then I'd have an explanation for all this."
A door on the opposite side of the small storeroom was flung open to show two more people running in. A young woman who was around the age of the boy and a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-fifties. The older woman paused as soon as she saw Susan. "Who are you?"
Ravyn rubbed his bleeding arm. "She's with me, Patricia."
Patricia gave her a suspicious look but didn't argue. "What happened?" she asked Ravyn, moving to examine the bullet wound he had in his right biceps.
"The Daimons have declared war on us and they have some of the police department on their side. I don't know how they managed it or how many they have, but it's enough to warrant our undivided attention. They claimed they killed at least one Dark-Hunter, didn't say who, and they almost got me. We need to warn the others, ASAP."
The color faded from the older woman's face. "How is that possible?"
Ravyn shook his head. "I don't know. But they're coming after us one by one."
Patricia turned to the girl behind her, who was a younger version of her-obviously her daughter. "Alicia, start the calls." Then she looked to the guy who'd met them on the dock. "Jack, I need you to make sure someone goes to Cael's to warn him. Since he lives with Apollites, he's probably in the greatest danger, and I've never known the man to answer his cell phone until the sun goes down."
"Okay, Mom." Jack took off immediately to obey her.
Susan was completely baffled by what the woman was talking about. Apollite? What was that? Some sort of diet soda? And what the devil was a Daimon? The only time she'd ever heard that term was when her e-mail bounced back with trailer-daimon attached to it.
Alicia handed her mother more bandages before she left to do her mother's bidding.
As soon as they were alone, Patricia moved to grab a small doctor's bag. "We'll need to get those bullets out of you so you can heal."
Sure, and why not just give the man a piece of leather to bite on for the pain, too, while they were at it? How backwards were these people?
"He needs a doctor," Susan insisted.
Patricia ignored her as she started setting out her supplies on a nearby table while Ravyn sat down on a stool. "Are you sure she's a Squire?"
Ravyn shrugged. "She said she worked with Leo."
Patricia paused. "With... or for?"
"For," Susan said.
That got Ravyn's full attention as he turned those deeply annoyed black eyes on her. "You're not a Squire?"
Before she could answer, the door opened again. "Mom," Jack said. "We have a serious problem."
"What?"
Jack held up a Sony portable TV monitor that had a breaking news story.
Susan's heart froze as she saw the news cameras that were trained on her little Cape Cod house.
"According to police, three unidentified men and two local officers were just reported as slain while trying to apprehend two people suspected of murdering a local veterinarian, her husband, and a clerk earlier this afternoon in a local animal shelter." Disbelief filled her.
The scene flashed to one of the men who'd chased Susan from her home. He was covered in blood and had a bandage wrapped around his head.
"I knew I should have ripped his throat out, too," Ravyn snarled.
"It was insane," the man said into the microphone. "We were just trying to sell magazine subscriptions and as soon as we knocked on the door, they pulled us in and killed my friend. I thought I was dead. I really did. If I hadn't been pretending I was dead, they would have killed me, too. They're crazy, man, crazy."
The scene went back to the anchorwoman. "As you can see, this is quite an unsettling event. Authorities are posting a reward for any information that leads them to the whereabouts of Ravyn Kontis and Susan Michaels, the two suspects for the murders. If you see either of them, please do not attempt to apprehend them, as they are considered extremely dangerous. Call the special line at 555-1924 and let the police know where they are."
Susan's jaw went slack as they flashed an old photograph of her and a police sketch of Ravyn. It was followed by a shot of her leaving the animal shelter with the cat cage. Jimmy had been right. There was a police conspiracy.
Her sight dimmed as her heart started racing. This couldn't be happening to her. It couldn't be.
But as shocking as that was, it was nothing compared to the next picture they showed.
It was the animal shelter again with all the yellow warning tape that kept it sectioned off from a small crowd of people.
"We finally have the names of the couple who was killed... Angela and James Warren. James, or Jimmy as he was known, had been married to Angela for the last five years and was known to often visit his wife at her clinic..."
Susan staggered backwards until the wall stopped her. Angie was dead? Jimmy?
And she was wanted for their murders...
From the deepest part of her soul, deep, wrenching sobs overwhelmed her.
Ravyn cringed as he heard the sound of her tears-he'd never been able to stand the tears of a woman. They tore through him and reminded him of a past he'd just as soon forget. "We've seen enough, Jack."
Jack cast a sympathetic look to Susan before he turned the monitor off and left.
Patricia moved toward Ravyn, but he brushed her off. "Give us a moment, okay?"
She nodded before she left them alone.
Ravyn's heart ached for the pain he heard in those soul-deep sobs. Better than anyone, he understood that kind of agony. The kind of loss that reached so far down into your being that it was all you could do to stand still and not launch into a hysterical tantrum of rage.
He'd been bred to that kind of misery. A Were-Hunter's life at best was one of burying family.
His had been even worse than that.
He wanted to tell her it would be all right, but he wasn't heartless enough to hand her that lie. In life, there were never any guarantees other than the one that said when you were down and out, someone would definitely come along to kick you.
So instead, he did something he hadn't done in countless centuries, he pulled her into his arms and held her. She wrapped her arms around him as she continued to sob. Ravyn ground his teeth as ragged emotions tore through him. Like her, he'd lost everything when he'd been mortal...
Even his life.
She would need to cry this out. To let out all the rage and agony until she was spent from it. All he could do was offer her some physical comfort. As paltry as it was, it was better than nothing.
And it was more than anyone had ever offered him.
He leaned his head against hers and closed his eyes while she clung to him.
Susan wanted to scream as countless memories of Angie and Jimmy haunted her. They were her friends. Her best friends. Both of them. She'd known Angie ever since they were children, playing house and dress-up together. As for Jimmy, Susan had been the one to introduce them. They'd even made her the best man at their wedding as a goof.
How could they be gone now? Like this? Who could have hurt them?
"Why?" she sobbed, wanting some kind of solace. Some kind of answer.
But there wasn't any. It was senseless and stupid, and it hurt so deep inside that she wanted to claw the pain out.
Why hadn't she believed Jimmy? Why? She should never have left that shelter without both of them being with her.
Now they were dead.
And it was her fault for being so stupid!
From the deepest part of her soul, anger swelled as she remembered Jimmy's earlier fear. That anger allowed her to gather her strength, and as it overrode her grief she became aware of the fact that she was clutching a complete stranger.
Pulling back, she stared into those obsidian eyes. "What the hell is going on here and don't lie to me. I want the truth about what happened today."
He took a deep breath before he answered. "You're not a Squire, are you?"
Her frustration mounted. "You keep asking me that. What is a Squire?"
He looked ill at her question.
Her gaze fell to the bullet wounds in his chest, which were no longer bleeding. They were all over his arms, his neck, and the bloodstains on the black shirt betrayed all the places where he'd been shot on his chest and back. Yet he was acting as if they were nothing but a nuisance.
Susan touched the bullet wound on his arm that had torn straight through the muscle and tissue. It wasn't makeup or some special effect, it was real and it was gory. "What are you?"
A tic worked in his jaw before he gave a clipped answer. "In short... the only hope you got."