Betrayals
Page 66

The elders agreed to the terms Gabriel had suggested. One week maximum, during which the lamiae would stay with Veronica and a few others. They would be introduced in town as exchange students from Greece.
We were driving back to Chicago to get the girls when Ricky texted.
Still on for a hunt tonight?
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Ricky?”
“Mmm, yeah. We—”
“You’re supposed to go looking for that hound again to see if it can lead you to our rogue Huntsman.”
“Which we’ll have to postpone.”
“Absolutely not. It is connected to the case, and the case is our priority. You will meet with Ricky and find the hound. I will escort the lamiae to Cainsville. Melanie said only four of them are ready to go tonight.”
I shook my head. “You go with Ricky. Avoid the king-adoration.”
“That is primarily Pepper, and given her condition, I can hardly fault her for that. As for the others, I would appreciate it if you might take them aside and advise them that we have names and any other designation is … not complimentary.”
I looked over at him and thought of Gwynn. Of the boy with the rabbit, and the boy in the swimming hole, and the young man in the cave. A good boy. A good man. One who’d made a critical mistake.
I remembered the little girl telling me I judged them too harshly, that they—all three of them—were young and made youthful mistakes. There was more to them than those terrible mistakes. A lifetime more.
We did judge too harshly. I had to figure out how to tell Gabriel that, if he would listen. To tell him that my memories of Gwynn—like Gwynn himself—were golden and bright, all up until the end, and even then, in his grief, he redeemed himself.
“I’ll speak to the lamiae,” I said.
Tonight we hunted a hound. Yes, the fact it had been at the drop-in center when Erin was murdered suggested a link between its “owner” and the lamiae killings. Yet a stronger reason drove Ricky onto the streets that night.
Someone had broken his hound. Someone would pay for that.
As for how Ricky would find a semi-spectral hound in a city of three million people … Well, that might take a bit of magic. Our hope was that the hound retained enough of its severed psychic bond that Ricky could find it again. Not so much magic, then, as faith.
As we rode, Ricky left his helmet off, which is perfectly legal in Illinois—he just wears one because he’s more interested in protecting that brain of his than in looking the part of the badass biker. He did, however, ask me to leave mine on.
Ricky rolled up and down the streets of the neighborhoods where the lamiae lived and hunted. He wore his Saints jacket, which meant we got our share of shouts and taunts from the local wildlife. Ricky ignored them until we’d been out for two hours without a trace of the hound, and a car veered into our path and forced us to stop.
“Hey, cracker,” a guy shouted from the passenger window. “You lost?”
“Yeah, Hardly Davidson,” another called from the backseat. “Redneck country is thataway. You come down here, we might decide that’s a mighty fine bike you’re riding. And a mighty fine bitch on the back of it.”
The guys in the car laughed. Ricky just idled there, the put-a-put-a-put of the bike engine filling the night. The laughter trailed off into awkward silence.
“Hey,” one yelled. “You hear us, blondie?”
Ricky said nothing.
“You deaf? Or just dumb?”
“He’s definitely dumb,” one said. “Dumbass cracker. You waiting for your posse, cracker? We’ll hear them long before they show up. Which means we can kick your ass long before they show up.”
Ricky turned to me. I lifted my visor. His eyes glittered with frustration over not finding the hound. He wasn’t spoiling for a fight. That is another side of Arawn, but there was none of that tonight—just a glimmer that said he wanted to work off his frustration.
“Go ahead,” I mouthed.
He put his hand on my knee, telling me to hang on tight. I leaned into his back and wrapped my arms around him. Feet planted, he began wheeling the bike backward.
“You running away, boy?” one called.
Ricky just kept backing up the bike. Two guys leaned out the window.
“You think you can reverse all the way outta our neighborhood? Is that some dumbass cracker code about not turning your back? If you keep going, we’ll—”
Ricky stopped the bike. He laid one hand on my leg and tapped it with his fingers, counting down. Three, two …
The bike shot forward. The guys yelled something. One leapt out of the car, as if we were going to ram it. Ricky leaned down nearly flat against the bike, with me holding on for dear life, feeling the rush of the wind, the delicious, incredible rush, my eyes squeezed shut and then—
And then Ricky sat up, fast enough that I was glad I was holding him tight. The front end of the bike popped right onto the trunk of that big old Cadillac, and then we were airborne, shooting over the car. And I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was terrifying and exhilarating and absolutely mad, and I hugged Ricky tight and I laughed.
The bike landed with a jolt. Ricky hit the throttle and we were gone, zooming along the empty streets at impossible speeds, and it was like I was back in that vision, behind Arawn on the horse, holding tight and laughing with sheer joy.
He veered down a dark side street about a mile away and then turned into an even darker alley. His hand went to my leg, squeezing it, his fingers trembling as he turned back and mouthed, “You okay?”