“What’s wrong?” I resisted the urge to look around and flicked the sun visor down instead, looking into the vanity mirror. The traffic behind us looked normal. Certainly there wasn’t anything I could see that jumped out and screamed Problem.
“See that green Toyota on the right two cars back?”
I frowned. “Yeah. What of it?”
“I noticed it pulling out of a parking space several cars back from us when we left the restaurant. It’s been shadowing us very carefully ever since.”
“He could be just going the same way as us.”
“He could.” His gaze met mine. “But do you really want to take that chance, given what happened yesterday?”
I drew in a breath and released it slowly. “No.”
“Then we’ll question them.”
“How? The minute they have any idea we’re on to them, they’ll fuck off.”
His sudden grin was fierce. “I’ve been a soldier and a cop several times over in my long lifetime. Trust me when I say I know a little about dealing with tails.”
“Then deal away.”
I grabbed the other half of my sandwich and bolted it down. I had a feeling I was going to need the sustenance.
He flicked on the left-hand blinker and turned, keeping his speed even and giving our tail no reason to suspect we were aware of them. After several minutes of cruising, he turned right.
“Okay,” he said, as I brushed the crumbs off my shirt and lap. “We’re going to do another left up ahead. It’s a through-road, but when I traveled down here yesterday they were doing road work and there was only one passing lane. They’ll make us stop.”
“What if there’s no traffic and we’re just waved through?”
“Then we think of something else.” He gave me a smile, his bright eyes alight with anticipation. “I must warn you, I do like a good chase. It makes me hungry.”
And the look in his eyes suggested he didn’t mean food. “I’ve satisfied your hunger enough for one day,” I said, voice dry. “You’ll just have to find someone else, or wait until tomorrow.”
He laughed again and swung left onto a street. Up ahead was the promised road work, and a little man in an orange vest was leaning casually against a stop sign. Lucian slowed, his gaze flicking to the rearview mirror. “Okay, we’ve struck the jackpot. There’s another car stopping behind them. You ready?”
I licked my lips, clenched my fingers around the door handle, and nodded. The car came to a stop. He pulled on the handbrake, slid the gear into neutral, then said, “Go.”
He was out his door before I even had mine open, but the men in the car were faster still. They were out and running in an instant, going separate ways, forcing us to do the same.
The guy on my side was thin and angular, with legs as long as a giraffe’s but possessing none of their ungainly gait. He was over the front fence of the nearest house with an impossibly high leap and quickly disappeared from sight. I leapt, grabbed the top of the fence, and hauled my ass over it—far less elegant, but effective nonetheless.
He was already disappearing around the side of the small brick house. I gave chase, hurdling the trash cans and other bits and pieces he tossed into my path, trying to keep up with him—or at least not let him out of my sight.
He leapt another fence, ran into another yard. I followed, catching my jeans on a nail, the sharp edge tearing the material and my calf. I cursed and dropped down, my fingers brushing the ground to steady myself before I ran on. He was already out into the next street. This one was busier—several cars screeched to a stop, their tires smoking as he leapt over their hoods. I followed, leaving dents in the metal, unable to leap the entire width of the vehicle as he had. Abuse followed me down the street.
A small shopping center came into view. He swung into it, no doubt hoping to lose me in the crowd. I sucked in air, sorting through the flavors running within it, picking out his scent—fear, sweat, and shifter. A mammal of some sort.
He bolted through the doors and into the bright, wide walkway. People scattered, and those who didn’t were knocked aside. A old woman was sent flying, her arms flailing as she teetered toward an escalator. I slowed and grabbed her fingers to prevent her falling, but it cost me. The distance between me and the shifter had suddenly doubled.
I swore and ran on. He crashed through a stairwell door and disappeared from sight. I leapt over a prone teenager and three seconds later hit the door myself, my heart racing and sweat beginning to dribble down my spine. Steps echoed in the concrete well—some going up, some coming down. None of them were running. I flared my nostrils to catch his scent and stepped forward, looking up. I couldn’t see him, but the stairs curled upward for a good five or six floors.
If I ran, he’d hear me. And if I walked, I’d risk losing him.
I took a deep breath, then reached down inside myself to the place where the Aedh resided. She came in a tide of fierce energy that swept across my body, brushing away the pain of my torn skin even as she dissolved my flesh and made me little more than smoke.
I swirled upward through the center of the stairwell. Several people were using them, but none of them was the man I was after. I continued to rise.
I found him near the top floor. He’d paused by the exit into the parking area, his head tilted slightly to one side, expression intent. I waited, hovering near the ceiling, itching to attack but not wanting to run the risk of someone coming through the door and perhaps getting hurt in the fight.