Feverborn
Page 13

I threw myself into a somersault, tucking my head, extending my wounded arm to guide me through with each rotation, and rolled across the hardwood floor, wincing with pain.
Who was shooting at me?
No. Wait. How was anyone shooting at me? I was invisible!
Wasn’t I?
No time to check.
Men were yelling, footsteps pounding, more bullets.
I scrambled behind a bookcase, frantically trying to decide what to do next.
Run out the back?
Trash that idea. More footsteps and voices coming from that direction, too.
I was trapped. Apparently they’d been lurking in shadows, surrounding the store when I’d sauntered up to it, without noticing. I wasn’t keeping watch for humans. I was so accustomed to being invisible, I wasn’t watching for much of anything.
I nudged a sliding ladder to the left with my foot, bounded up it, kicked it away and vaulted four feet through the air to land on top of a tall, wide bookcase.
I flattened myself on my stomach and snatched a glance at my hand.
Still invisible.
Then how were they shooting at me? And why? Who knew I was invisible? Who could possibly have any reason to shoot at me? What had they done—hidden outside and waited for the door to open by an unseen hand then started firing blindly?
Grimacing with pain, I reared back like a cobra on its belly and stared down.
The Guardians.
Were shooting at me.
Spilling into my bookstore by the dozens.
It didn’t make any sense.
Two officers burst into the room from the rear. An auburn-haired man near the front door barked, “She’s in here somewhere! Find her.” He began shouting orders; dispatching men to sweep the main room, others upstairs, and more to my private quarters in the rear.
They didn’t just search, they wrecked my home. Needlessly. Swiping magazines from the racks, toppling my cash register from the counter, smashing my iPod and sound dock to the floor.
I was growing angrier with each passing moment. And worried.
I was a sitting duck.
I tallied my tactical advantages primarily by their dearth: no spear, no gun, the only weapon on my body was a single switchblade. I wasn’t carrying because I was invisible and had the cuff of Cruce on my wrist. I didn’t fear humans. Jada’s sidhe-seers had been leaving me alone. I only worried about Fae, and with the cuff I was supposedly untouchable.
I couldn’t achieve my normal agility at the moment because, damn it, bullets hurt! I might be hard to kill, healing even as I lay there, but it was still painful as hell. The store wasn’t warded against humans, only monsters. How else would I sell books?
I searched the cluster of angry men for Inspector Jayne. There were about thirty Guardians in the store, all wearing the recently adopted uniform of durable khaki jeans and black tee-shirts, draped in guns and ammo, many toting military backpacks.
Where was Jayne? Had he sent them here, and if so, why? Had he finally decided to come after my spear in force? Was he prepared to kill me for it? I’d heard he’d taken Dani’s sword when she was down, so I guessed I couldn’t put it past him.
Too bad I didn’t have the spear. Jada did. And how did he know I was—Oh God, had Jada told him? Would she betray me like that? Send someone else to eliminate me because she wasn’t feeling up to it, or didn’t want the blood of both Lane sisters on her hands? Maybe she just didn’t feel like wasting her or her sidhe-seer’s time on such a pesky detail.
“Find the bitch,” the auburn-haired man growled. “She killed our Mickey. Left him in a fucking pile of scraps. Find her now!”
I frowned. How did they know I’d killed one of their own? Had someone been watching me the day I’d slain the Gray Woman and inadvertently taken the life of a human in the process? Then why wait so long to come after me?
“Brody,” another man called, and the red-haired man’s head whipped in his direction. “There’s blood here. We hit her. I knew we did.”
I froze, staring down at the floor where the man was pointing. I’d left a trail of blood along with a long smear of water as I rolled across the hardwood floor. The trail ended where I’d leapt to my feet about ten feet from the bookcase upon which I was perched. I eased my hand to my thigh to see if I was still bleeding. It came away dry, thanks to whatever elixir Cruce had given me that made me regenerate. Shit. I had a bullet in my thigh. How was I going to get it out? Had I bled down the side of the bookcase before the wound closed? I inched my hand across the top of the bookcase. It was wet. I eased my fingers over the side.
Dry.
I felt my hair, wet from the rain but not dripping. Same with my clothes.
I bit back a sigh of relief and assessed the room. There were Guardians between me and both front and rear exits. Even if I managed to somehow silently descend the bookcase—which seem highly improbable, given that I’d shoved the ladder away—I’d still have to dodge a cluster of rampaging men. The odds of crashing into one of them or being struck by a flying piece of furniture were high.
“She couldn’t have gone far. She’s still in the room. There’d be a trail of blood if she’d left,” Brody said.
Apparently they didn’t know about my Fae-bequeathed healing ability. That was an advantage. A little Unseelie flesh might make me capable of kicking their asses, or at least outrunning them.
Too bad they ate it, too, and all my stock was spilling out of the overturned fridge one of them had ripped out of the wall. Again, not carrying. Not afraid of Fae.