Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

She swung, so fast his slackening grip fell from her arm. He grabbed for her, catching her wrist. And that is when the Aikido lessons paid off, Hope's body instinctively recognizing the hold and reacting without instructions. A wrench, a grab, a flip and he was on the ground with his arm now pinned up behind his back.

At that moment, someone decided to notice. A burly middle-aged man lumbered from the parking lot, glaring at Hope from under bushy brows. A woman being forced along a motel sidewalk hadn't been worthy of his attention, but apparently, that same woman pinning a man twice her size was somewhat suspicious.

"He - he attacked me," she said, gulping air between words.

"Hope," Rhys said under his breath. "You don't want to - "

"The - the manager. Get the manager. Please."

Hope lifted her teary, reddened eyes, and the man jogged off toward the front office. She flew off Rhys, gave him one hard kick in the ribs and ran.

A man shouted. Rhys? The burly man? She didn't know and, frankly, didn't care, just hunched down and pummeled the pavement.

As she veered into the lot, she slowed to a jog. A very fast jog, arms pumping, trying to look like an ordinary runner.

She jogged to the edge of the motel lot, just past the boundary fence, then wheeled, running along it. She measured the distance until she'd be at the rear of the motel. Then she turned to the fence, ready to climb.

In front of Hope was an eight-foot-high sheet of solid two-by-fours. Not a finger-or foothold to be seen, and not a chance in hell of jumping up and grabbing the top.

In the past twenty-four hours, she'd scaled two fences, so she'd seen this one and thought no sweat without making sure it could be scaled without grappling hooks.

The demon growled in her gut. Get the hell over that fence. Get through it. Smash it down. Karl is over there, in danger.

Which was all very fine, but unless the demon could conjure up real superpowers for her, she wasn't flying over or through that fence. She kept jogging along, hoping a way over would miraculously appear. A ladder would be good. A rope just fine. Hell, at this point, she'd settle for a strong vine or overhanging branch. She found two knotholes, but even her size-five toes weren't squeezing in them.

Could she get around the back end? If the fence belonged to the motel, it would stretch the full perimeter.

Just get past it, the demon screamed. Around, over, through. Get Karl!

Every second she fussed was another second for the Cabal to load him into a van... if they hadn't already. She had to go back the way she'd come. She turned... and there was Rhys, running full tilt toward her.

* * *

FINN

Finn sat in the car and watched the building. A cookie-cutter motel - an ugly block of rooms with an office at one end, a cleaning cubby and vending machines in the middle. He imagined a motel salesman back in the fifties, drumming up customers. "You want one of our Model A roadside motels. Model B? Well, actually, we don't have a Model B..."

The problem with Model A was parking. The layout presumed you were in the fifties, heading down Route 66 on a family road trip and, naturally, you only needed one parking spot, which was conveniently located right outside your room door. If you brought a friend or towed a trailer, you needed to park it in the dirt lot out back, which was quite possibly the worst location for a stakeout. So Finn was stuck in one of the empty spots along the front. Uncomfortably exposed and, worse, unable to see one half of the building, now that a billboard of a minivan had pulled in beside him.

He'd gotten out once to scout, but he wasn't inconspicuous enough to loiter for long, so he was stuck with two hopes. One, that Adams was in the part of the motel he could see. Two, that Damon would get his phantom ass the hell back from wherever he'd gone and tell Finn where Adams was.

Making Damon hitchhike in the taxi had been an inspired plan. And like all his inspired plans these last few days, it had played out much better in his mind than in reality. Finn had managed to follow Adams's cab for a few miles. Then he'd lost it as a transport cut him off. When the transport had passed, the cab was gone. A half-mile later in his rearview mirror he'd seen the cab pull from this motel.

All he had to do then was pull in and wait for Damon to come out and tell him which unit Adams was in. That had been ten minutes ago.

As Finn leaned back in his seat, a man jogged past his car. Anytime Finn saw someone running in L.A. without a jogging suit - hell, sometimes even with one - he paid attention. The guy was nearing forty, clean shaven, wearing a team jacket and a ball cap, heading toward the road, no sign that he was chasing or being chased.

Finn relaxed. Then another man, older and heavyset, ran past, this one along the sidewalk in front of the motel rooms.

"Hey!" the second man yelled. "Hey! Someone stop that guy!"

That got Finn out of the car. He strode to the sidewalk. Ahead of the running man stood a girl, no more than eleven, dressed in a halter top and denim skirt that wouldn't be out of place on a street hooker.

"What's happening here?" Finn said, flashing his badge to the big man, who'd stopped now, doubled over, panting.

"There was a girl..."

"That girl?" Finn jerked a thumb at the preteen.