Текст книги "Trammel "

Автор книги: Anah Crow

Соавторы: Dianne Fox
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. He waved off her questioning look and she let it go. She was right, they had to get going. Patches was expecting them. Besides, actions were better than apologies for something she hadn’t even known was going on in his head. He followed her out of the yard.

The little coffee bar in the basement under the Apollo 11 was busier than it had been last time. Kristan led him through the mix to where Patches was perched on the edge of the stage.

“Here you go,” Kristan said, gesturing at Lindsay. “Special delivery. All your jailbreak needs in one place.” She dropped her backpack on the stage and allowed a moment to give Patches a hug. “I’m gonna eat someone’s soul if I don’t get a coffee. You want one?”

It took Lindsay a moment—and Kristan turning to stare pointedly at him—to realize that last was directed at him. “Please, yes. Thank you.”

“Blond,” Kristan muttered. With a snort and a roll of her eyes, she disappeared behind a pair of matched slabs of beef wearing Apollo 11 T-shirts.

“Thanks for coming,” Patches said warmly. She looked like some kind of bohemian deity with her odd skin and clothes and the way people—literally—seemed willing to put her on a pedestal. “I’ll show you what I need from you. One of the children I’ve been keeping an eye on has been dropped into the local juvenile detention and the way people are disappearing, I can’t take any chances.”

“Tell me what you need.” Lindsay owed her and Rajan both and, after how Rajan had helped Noah, he’d do almost anything to repay the debt.

“You suggested that you could provide illusions.” Patches took a map from one of her bouncers and offered it to Lindsay. “You’ll see there that we’ve identified the cell where he’s being held. However, it would be safest if we removed him from the yard during the mandatory outdoor period. I have people who can do the physical work. All we need is a distraction to draw most of the guards.”

The exercise yard was backed by the detention center on two sides. A parking lot was laid out on the third side and a side street ran along the fourth. The two open sides were protected by an eight-foot-high concrete wall and twelve feet of chain link with a four-strand barbed-wire barrier on top. It would be difficult to get in and out, but Lindsay could see where it would be possible, with the right people.

“I can do that.” But he could do more. “It would be safer if I made sure no one sees any of you. And the boy, once you have him.”

“They have an extensive camera surveillance system.” Patches leaned over to tap the blue markings.

“Sadly, it’s more for legal ass-covering than to keep the kids from getting out.” The pale blue arcs must have indicated the camera coverage area, but that didn’t matter.

“I can handle it. If I cover the entire complex, there won’t be anyone to see.” As long as the guards watching the feed were in the same complex, there wouldn’t be any problems.

“You’re sure?” Patches looked at the map, then at Lindsay. “There are several hundred people to deal with. The distraction would be fine. Not that I’m saying no. It’s just...” She spread both hands expressively. “I would rather be safe than sorry.”

“He can do it.” Kristan sounded exceedingly sour. “There’s a reason he’s got his own harem.” She came up beside Lindsay and nudged him with her elbow so he’d take his coffee. “That doesn’t include me, thank God. No offense, but I’m allergic to perfection.”

“I’m not—” Lindsay stopped and stared at Kristan for a moment. “Harem?”

He took the coffee, shaking off the surprise, and turned back to Patches. “She’s right, though. I can do it. I didn’t explain before, when you asked what I could pay. It’s not always safe. But I can make certain no one gets caught.” Never again. Lindsay didn’t let himself continue with the thought. He would find Dane.

And, today, Lindsay would make sure what happened to him didn’t happen to this boy.

“Harem,” Kristan muttered under her breath before she took another sip of coffee. It was a welcome distraction from the memories welling up in the back of his mind.

“If you can keep them from seeing us.” Patches looked thoughtful, and she tweaked the map out of Lindsay’s hands. “Then all we have to do is get someone up and over, and back with the kid. How much can you...” She looked up at Lindsay from under her strangely shiny lashes. “Could you let... Can you do it on one person as well?”

“It’s only gonna get bigger.” Kristan’s voice drifted up from behind Lindsay as she flung herself into a chair.

“The prisoners and guards, and a separate illusion over this one person?” Lindsay asked, to clarify.

“Well, he doesn’t know we’re trying to get him out. And he is still a child. I don’t want him to be alarmed.” Patches cast a worried glance up into the shadows. When Lindsay tracked her gaze, he found himself looking at something—someone—who was almost indistinguishable from the shadows except for a flicker of pale green eyes. Possibly more than two eyes.

This wasn’t the time to get nervous about exposing the scope of his magic. If he was going to get Patches and her friends in and out of the detention center in one piece, they’d all know what he could do, anyway. “I can put him to sleep, if you’d like.”

He glanced at Kristan over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows. Bigger?

“It’s not just your awesome power that’s a commodity,” Kristan said under her breath. It was like having a very sarcastic little devil on his shoulder.

Lindsay shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t have a harem, still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up with Dane and Noah both. Between him and Kristan, Lindsay knew which was the more attractive, and it certainly wasn’t him.

“We’ll go with that. That makes it easier on us.” Patches gave Kristan a sweet smile. “I can always count on this one to come through. We’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.” She moved to hop off the stage and one of the huge bouncers was right there to take her hand and help her down.

Lindsay watched her walk away before turning his attention to Kristan. “I’m not– It’s not like that, you know.”

“Like what?” She was the picture of limpid-eyed innocence for all of three seconds, then she laughed.

“Not like you’re building a harem of ridiculously hot men? I think the old man must have had a very naughty mind.” She waggled her eyebrows at him. At least she’d keep him from getting too full of himself.

Lindsay nearly choked on his coffee. “I do not want to think about Cyrus thinking about my sex life.

Really.”

“Oh, please.” Kristan shook her head. “Everyone’s got to get their fun somewhere. And as for the harem thing, well...even if you’re not putting one together, you’re going to get plenty of volunteers sooner than later. I don’t have to know any of this old-ways shit to see that one coming.”

“I’m not...” Lindsay sighed. “I don’t see why.” Kristan was everything he wasn’t. Beautiful, full of color and life, she exuded sexuality even when she wasn’t using her magic. He knew Dane’s affections were real, but that didn’t mean he understood why Dane had chosen him. Or Noah.

“As soon as people know even a little of what you can do, you’ll have them falling over themselves to be near you,” Kristan said with a little shrug. “You could have anyone you wanted anyway, but this is less work.”

“Less work.” Lindsay didn’t want his magic to be the reason someone was with him. “I think I’ll pass.”

“You’d better become a hermit, then.” Kristan looked almost sympathetic. “Or you could hire out the dirty work.” She winked at him.

Lindsay couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re welcome to it.”

“We’ve got the van here.” Patches came out in the shadows with the hush of fabric against the floor.

She was wrapping herself in a dark cloak that hid her pale, patchwork skin. “Let’s go and get our young friend.”

As he pulled his illusion back from the juvenile detention center, Lindsay was sure that the only things keeping his feet on the ground were his grief over losing Cyrus and his fear for Dane. He wished they could have been present to see his success today. Both of them would have understood what it meant to him to watch Patches’s people deliver a sleeping boy into her arms.

The boy, barely in his teens, looked worse for wear with a black eye and a split lip. He was safe now, though, and Lindsay had helped make that happen. Sitting across from Patches in the old RV she used as a mobile headquarters, he opened the bottle of water she’d offered him earlier and took a drink to loosen the tightness in his throat.

If Cyrus could have saved me...he might not have. Not until he was ready . That was true enough.

Cyrus was—had been—an enigmatic and unsentimental old man. It was only now, in the lull as Lindsay watched Patches gently washing the boy’s face, that the differences between his situation and Zoey’s began to surface.

Maybe he tried so hard to save her because of what happened to me. That thought had him nearly inhaling the next mouthful of water. He had to stifle his cough so as not to wake the boy. Until today, he never would have imagined that his experiences would have pricked anyone’s conscience except, perhaps, Dane’s.

When they returned to Apollo 11, Patches startled Lindsay by kissing his cheek before she disappeared deeper into the space under the restaurant, with the boy carried along in the arms of one of her bouncers.

“Harem,” Kristan said, disguising the word behind a cough. Lindsay glared at her and she laughed at him. “No, it means you did good. Come on. We’ll grab something to eat here and then see if your boy is home yet.”

His...yes. Noah was his. It felt good to hear Kristan say it—without her usual sarcasm, no less. Like it was a fact.

As the rush of accomplishment faded, something else took its place like a weight at the edges of his mind. The sensation was familiar and not, at once. He felt along the threads of tension but stopped when he realized it wasn’t Lourdes at the other end. Someone else was out there. Maybe someone harmless, but Lindsay didn’t want to take too many chances.

He wanted to get back now, but he knew he had to eat, and Noah had made it sound like the work would take a long time. He added another layer to the illusion he’d put in place to hide them from Lourdes, then followed Kristan to a table by the coffee bar and let her order for both of them. If Dane wasn’t there to make sure he ate, he’d have to be extra careful.

Apollo 11 wasn’t just a safe haven, the food was really good, and Lindsay was surprised to find he was starving. The mushroom and Swiss cheese omelet tasted like heaven, and instead of toast, there were hot, buttery English muffins. Real coffee too. Lindsay felt guilty for having so much and not sharing it with Noah, but he’d make it up to him somehow.

It was strange to be with Kristan like this. He hadn’t had anything like a friend since childhood—not that they were actually friends but at least they weren’t at odds anymore. They had a huge loss in common

Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

now. He’d told her about Cyrus while she was teaching him how to use the gun. She’d taken it hard, but in that cold, sharp way he’d come to expect from her.

They came back to an empty house. Kristan muttered something about being up all night for all the wrong reasons—belatedly, Lindsay realized she must be exhausted—and disappeared into her room.

Lindsay was left to wander the house until he found copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post that Kristan had brought back earlier. He’d been hoping to find something to tidy, but it was all done.

He found a pencil in a backpack in the front hall and gave up on doing anything constructive. He’d wait for Noah in bed as he read and did the crosswords to pass the time.

His mind wandered horribly. When he wasn’t trying not to think about Dane and Cyrus, memories of Noah bubbled up.

It had been sweet and unexpected, both the sex in the night and Noah sucking him off that morning.

Suddenly, he remembered the incident with Kristan, and Noah saying he would never disrespect his beloved wife. Lindsay knew—without knowing how, except that it was impossible to imagine Noah otherwise—that Noah loved her as much now as before. That Noah had asked Lindsay to be his lover, though... Lindsay wanted him to come home.

Noah would come back, and they would go find Ylli and Zoey. They would find Dane, and they would go home to Vivian. Lindsay clung to the thought as he gave up on the crossword and curled in on himself, tugging a blanket up and letting his eyes close.

A sound woke him and the watery gray light in the room told Lindsay that it was nearly morning. He froze, wishing he’d thought to bring the gun to bed with him. With Dane missing and Cyrus...gone, he felt infinitely vulnerable.

Low voices filtered through the thin walls. A brief bubble of laughter, something like a shoe hitting a wall, and a door closing—Noah was back, and he’d come in through Kristan’s window. The way they had to lock the door made it impossible to get in at the front.

Noah. Lindsay felt like he’d been holding his breath all night. Noah passed the bedroom door and started down the stairs.

“Noah.” Lindsay was out in the hall before Noah was halfway down.

“Did I wake you?” Noah had a rucksack over his shoulder and a map in one hand. He gave Lindsay a brilliant smile. Seeing him whole hit Lindsay with an unexpected surge of desire. “I think I know where we’re going, but we’ll need to travel at night. I’ll use the time to double-check my work.”

“Great.” Lindsay’s brain tried to catch up with what Noah had said while he was wrestling with how gorgeous Noah was now. He’d always been attracted, but... “Anything you want.”

“I want to get Dane back.” Noah’s smile faded and his jaw tightened. “But we’ll do this first. Do you want me to get your breakfast before I set up?”

“No, I can do it. I’ll go pick something up for all of us.” It would keep Lindsay’s mind on task. “But thank you for asking. Do what you need, and get some sleep before we go.” He wasn’t going to forget that Noah was freshly back from—literally—the brink of death.

“As you will.” Noah gave him that smile again, just a flash, and he went on his way downstairs.

I want to get Dane back. So did Lindsay. But, at the same time, he was incredibly grateful for what he still had. Moreso all the time.

Chapter Twelve

Noah spent the morning working on things Lindsay couldn’t understand. Pins, playing cards, mirrors, a Chinese coin on a string—it was all beyond him and he couldn’t help. Noah’s concentration was so intense that Lindsay knew he would be in the way just by being in the living room with him, so he and Kristan packed their few belongings for the trip. They’d leave nothing behind.

“They don’t make these in kids’ sizes, but this’ll have to do.” Kristan stood in the doorway of his bedroom, swinging what looked like an oversized belt from one finger. When he straightened and tossed the folded sheets into his bag, she threw it to him. “If you think you’re gonna need to shoot someone, get your gun out straight up. I’ll show you how to draw properly later. We need way more time for you to be any good, but at least I know you’ll actually pull the trigger.”

Lindsay stopped trying to work out how to put the holster on—he’d figured out that it was a shoulder holster, at least—and gave her a curious look. How...? He would, he knew it, but Kristan didn’t have reason to think so.

“I’m not stupid, Lindsay.” She shook her head as she turned away. “I wouldn’t waste my time teaching you if you wouldn’t shoot someone with it,” she called over her shoulder.

Lindsay pulled on the holster and pulled himself another step closer to the man his father had wished he’d become. The man Lindsay had been certain he would never be. A man like his father, who wore a gun, who went to war and never regretted what he’d done. Well, this was war now.

He loaded his gun, then slipped it into place in the holster. He felt a little better, having it right there.

Kristan had bought him a jacket, an old suede thing that looked like it was from the seventies. When he put it on, it covered up the gun, and even in the heat, he didn’t mind an extra layer. When he stepped into the bathroom, someone he didn’t know looked back at him from the mirror, a stern, thin man with hard gray eyes and fine white hair, a tight mouth and a smudge of pale stubble on his jaw.

He looked like a survivor. In the moment before he recognized himself, he saw it clearly. He could do this.

They could do this. Kristan was downstairs talking to Noah. Even if they failed to save anyone else, the three of them would survive together. Maybe even get strong enough to make Moore regret being born.

And that idea made him feel more secure than he ever had, at a time when he’d expected to feel utterly lost.

“Yes, you’re pretty.” Noah’s low voice shook Lindsay out of his haze, and he realized he’d been staring through himself in the mirror, imagining all the things he’d like to happen to Moore.

“Hush.” Lindsay made a face at Noah. “Are you going to get some rest now?”

“Only if you come with me.” Noah leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. Lindsay didn’t pretend he was going to resist.

“There’s no bedding,” he warned, “but go lie down. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Noah went obediently, and Lindsay was left to shrug out of jacket and holster. When he came into the bedroom, he hung them on the back of the door as he closed it behind him. He couldn’t help Noah work out where they were going, but he could do this.

Noah was lying in bed, using the bag of bedclothes as a pillow, and Lindsay crawled in beside him.

Wordlessly, Noah rolled into his arms and Lindsay held him close, pressing a kiss to his softly fuzzy head.

“Sleep sweet,” Lindsay ordered. He had no idea when the joy of having Noah whole and well would fade.

“Make me.” There was only a little challenge in Noah’s voice, and Lindsay could hear the ache under it. He didn’t know what had caused it—Noah had a wealth of reasons—but he didn’t question. He let a web of magic drift down over Noah and wrap him up in sleep.

They left the house as the sun was setting. Kristan brought the car around to the alley so they wouldn’t draw attention out on the street. When Noah took the keys from her, she opened her mouth to protest, but shut it just as fast. She gave Lindsay a questioning look, and he only shrugged. He trusted Noah. To his surprise, Kristan got into the backseat without comment. It was time to go.

Noah pulled in at the last coffee shop before they cleared the outskirts of Detroit, and Kristan slipped out to get three cups for the road. Lindsay flailed at the map Noah handed him, trying to fold and settle it in his lap so it wasn’t obscuring the windshield. He still had only the vaguest understanding of what Noah had done to figure out their destination. The map was marked with symbols he couldn’t decipher, even once he had it properly folded and oriented.

“We’re here.” Noah held his hand over the map and a tiny drop of flame fell onto the paper.

Lindsay startled, ready to slap out the fire, but the paper didn’t burn. Instead, the droplet cracked like a minute egg, turned inside out, and became a tiny, tiny snake. It was only a half-inch long, but Lindsay could see that it had scales and pinpoint bright eyes, and a flicker of a tongue. It raised its head, testing the air, and settled itself along the highway that led out of town, wriggling impatiently.

“Oh.” Noah never ceased to amaze him.

“It’ll show us where to go.” Noah sounded distant, but Lindsay let him be. He was doing enough already.

Now they knew how to get to where the “old ways” predicted Cyrus would tell the others to meet them. They were finally on their way to finding Ylli and Zoey. As long as Cyrus had managed to tell them where to go before he died.

“Coffee for you two.” Kristan passed them through Noah’s open window. “I’m going to sleep. Some of us didn’t get a nice cuddle this afternoon.”

Lindsay rolled his eyes at her and busied himself putting his coffee where he could get at it without disturbing the little snake. Once they were on the road, everything was dark and quiet. He sipped his coffee and tried to make himself ignore Noah’s tension. He did well enough for about twenty minutes, when he finally cracked.

“Are you sure you want to drive?” Even in the dark, he saw how tense Noah was behind the wheel.

Kristan could drive if she had to.

“Yes.” Noah reached for the coffee waiting for him in the cup holder, but stopped and put his hand back on the wheel. It was the third time he’d done it, at least that Lindsay had seen. “I can feel it better if I’m controlling our movement. If I have to stay on the road, I’ll find the way by the road. Otherwise, we’ll be trying to find the closest road and guessing all the way there.”

“All right. Then drink this.” Lindsay brought his own coffee cup to Noah’s lips. He held it carefully, so he wouldn’t spill and Noah wouldn’t have to take his eyes off the road or hands off the wheel to drink.

“You don’t...” Arguing about it was going to spill things. Noah shut up and took a drink. “Thanks.”

Lindsay heard him hold his breath as he stopped white-knuckling the wheel to touch Lindsay on the thigh, a light touch that was gone as soon as it came. “I need to get back to normal. To feeling normal.”

“Good fuckin’ luck with that,” Kristan mumbled sleepily. She was supposed to be asleep, but apparently she couldn’t resist being smart-mouthed.

“Play nice, kids.” Lindsay was trying to adjust to the way Noah and Kristan teased each other. There didn’t seem to be any heat behind the taunts, not anymore, but it still sent tension racing up his spine.

A couple large green signs mounted over the road warned of an upcoming split in the highway.

Lindsay checked the map and pointed to the left. “The little snake says we go that way.”

“Okay.” Noah checked his mirrors and changed lanes to accommodate the shift. “If you’re going to be up running your mouth, dick-wrapper, you can light me a cigarette.”

“Insult’s only good if it doesn’t apply to both of us, bitch.” Kristan didn’t sit up, but Lindsay could hear her rummaging around.

Noah had said he’d stop, but maybe insults didn’t count as hair-pulling. Or maybe he was so wound up that he couldn’t remember what he was doing, and it was as automatic for him as being polite was for Lindsay. Wound up hardly covered it, but he was doing a better job of driving than Kristan did.

At least the highway was relatively empty. They were one of only a few cars on the road; the rest were semis, but they generally stayed in the right lane. Once Kristan handed over Noah’s cigarette, she lay down on the backseat again and was silent, actually making an effort to sleep this time.

Even after the other two were quiet, Lindsay’s unease lingered. Trying to relax himself with reminders of how much they had going for them didn’t help. The strange feeling only built until he felt like

he was going to crawl out of his skin, and he had to bite his lip not to ask the others if they felt anything. He took a slow breath and pushed out an illusion to cover them, just to give himself some comfort.

Another highway shift led them farther from Lake Erie, but according to the map, they were now going straight south. With his illusion in place, Lindsay’s tension faded away. He got some more coffee into Noah, a few sips at a time, and tucked himself closer to Noah’s side in the process.

The longer they drove, the more Noah relaxed, until he was willing to let go of the wheel and put his hand on Lindsay’s thigh. Since Rajan had healed him, Noah was more comfortable with touching and being close. Not just comfortable—he needed it. Lindsay remembered the first time he’d offered Noah his hand and Noah had refused. The pain of being comforted had been too much, but that part of him had healed along with his body. Or started to heal—Lindsay could feel the little tremors in him now and even more when he fumbled to find Lindsay’s hand.

“Is she still sleeping?”

“I think so.” Lindsay glanced over his shoulder to confirm. “Sound asleep.” He rested his other hand on Noah’s, hoping that would soothe the wave of melancholy coloring Noah’s expression in the occasional headlights from oncoming traffic.

As far as Lindsay knew, this was the first time Noah had been behind the wheel since the accident that had killed his wife. The anxiety that had come with simply driving again had been enough to keep the sadness at bay before. Now that he’d relaxed, Lindsay could see that those half-memories of what should be were surfacing.

Early in the drive, Lindsay’d had the same problem, glancing over and expecting to see Dane behind the wheel. It left an ache inside him that he had to force himself to ignore. One step at a time. Ylli and Zoey first, because he’d need their help to find Dane and free him from Moore. If Dane’s absence was bothering Lindsay, he couldn’t imagine how Noah felt. The person Noah was looking for was never coming back, no matter what they did now.

“Do you need a break?” There was bound to be a rest stop somewhere up ahead that Noah could pull off at to rest while Lindsay kept watch.

“Sure. Tell me where to turn.” Noah was holding on to Lindsay’s hand as tightly as he’d been gripping the steering wheel. “It’s getting easier. Everything except the rearview mirror.”

Unbidden, Noah’s memories came back to Lindsay and he remembered the glare of headlights looming large in a rearview mirror. He shook the vision off before the impact came and put his free hand over Noah’s. Noah was so strong—that made Lindsay’s role of mentoring him even more important.

Lindsay watched the signs at the side of the road, pointing when one of them finally said REST

AREA AHEAD in big, white letters. “We should stop here. There’s a landmark coming up on the map, and there probably won’t be another rest stop until after that. You need a break.”

“Thanks.” Noah exhaled slowly and let go of Lindsay’s hand to make the lane change that would take them off the highway. “I keep telling myself that if I can somehow pull this off, find this girl, get Dane back for you, stop Moore, it would justify—somehow—that I’m here and she’s not. I used to say that the way people tried to make something good out of a tragedy was meaningless because death was inevitable.”

“Life gives it meaning,” Lindsay said softly. When Dane had died in Ezqel’s forest, it was Dane’s life—

everything Lindsay knew about him and everything he’d done for Lindsay—that had pushed Lindsay to keep going. That Ezqel and Izia had brought Dane back hadn’t changed Lindsay’s conviction that some risks were worth taking.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Noah slid his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and pressed his hot cheek to Lindsay’s hair for a moment. “I knew life owed me a break somewhere.”

Lindsay didn’t know how to answer that. He found Noah’s hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “I’m glad you’re here too.”

He was. He had no idea what he would’ve done these past few days if Noah hadn’t pulled through and Lindsay hadn’t had him to focus on while they worked out how to find the others. While Noah worked out how to find the others. The thought made anxiety surge up in him again—he was already so dependent on Noah.

“If there’s any kissing going on, I’m gonna puke.” With a grumble and groan, Kristan pushed herself to sit up. “Time for the little girls’ room.”

Lindsay waited until he was watching her walk away in the glow of the headlights, then turned to Noah. Focusing on Noah helped distract him from the pressure on his mind. “Are you all right?”

“Not great.” Noah let his head fall back and exhaled slowly. “I won’t let you down. There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just hard. I’ll manage.” He looked over at Lindsay and mustered up a smile.

“I know.” Lindsay gave him a soft kiss on the mouth as a reward.

Once they got back on the road, the rest of the drive went quickly, and when they exited the highway, they found their way into the parking lot of a museum that was closed for the night. The sign outside read The Great Circle Museum . Lindsay looked around, then back at the map. The snake flickered and faded away.

“This is that landmark I mentioned earlier,” Lindsay said. “It’s a Native American structure, a mound.

There are a lot of them in this part of Ohio.” That made sense, though Lindsay didn’t know nearly enough about magic. A site like this would be easy for someone like Noah to track down.

Noah let the car drift as far to the back of the parking lot as it would go, where the drooping branches of an untended tree scraped across the hood as he parked. He turned off the car and exhaled slowly.

“The confluence is here. No more river to follow, so to speak.”

“I love it when he speaks in tongues.” Kristan popped open her door and dragged herself out of the car with a groan.

“Will you need the map for this part?” Lindsay couldn’t make any more sense of Noah’s words than Kristan, but he was learning as fast as he could.

“No, it won’t do us any good. I need the plastic bag that’s on the floor there, though.” Now that Noah wasn’t paying attention to Kristan, he looked tense again.

“Got it.” Lindsay passed it to Noah. “Anything else? Anything I can do to help?”

“Make sure no one knows we’re here? That’s all.” The trunk banged shut and Noah got moving.

“Okay, Kristan has some other stuff I need back there. I hope I remember the way all of this goes.”

Lindsay stayed in the dark car. The moment he was alone, he had a name for the pressure on his mind, and he grabbed the door handle, expecting to be sick. They were being hunted. The nausea didn’t come, though, just a surge of anger.

The illusion he’d already cast would keep their little party hidden from human sight, but he didn’t know if it would deceive whatever hunted them. He pushed back, enough to know that the mind—no, the minds—that kept brushing his didn’t belong to Lourdes. Lourdes had seen through his illusions before—as far as Lindsay knew, only she and Dane and Jonas could best him—and Lindsay was certain that Moore held no better players in reserve. He knew her arrogance.