Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,111
muddled in her life. Was… this not supposed to happen anymore? Didn’t Cain do something to stop minds from muddling… or… or something? It’s the pain, she thought to herself. It has to be. But that was her only solid thought. Nausea roiled in Anna’s belly.
She heard the woman’s voice, angry and defensive. “She’ll live, I promise. It’s only a flesh wound.”
Silence in response.
The woman continued, “You have to understand, she wouldn’t cooperate! You can see what she did to my dogs!”
They were dogs. I was right.
But when Randall’s footfalls resumed walking toward her, Anna’s thoughts became laser focused. Her head snapped back up. She still couldn’t see, so she blinked up at him through the blur and wet of pain that made her tremble.
He closed the remaining distance between them, took a knee right in front of her, and peered steadily into her eyes. Anna blinked a few times, trying not to moan in misery. One of Price’s eyes was the green she remembered. But the other was white. And his glasses were gone. Oddly enough, it didn’t look bad, just unsettling.
You’re losing it, her inner voice said.
“My perfect angel,” Randall said softly, his words filled with genuine regret. “I’m so very sorry for what they’ve done to you. I’ll make it right, I promise. And then I’m going to take the pain away.” She didn’t bother flinching away when he gently cupped her cheek. She felt so weird…. “I’m going to take care of you,” he told her, brushing his thumb along her cheek bone.
She heard something scrape lightly, metal against concrete. Randall lowered his hand and looked away but remained where he was kneeling before her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asked icily. “You were given strict orders not to harm her.” He paused, then almost in a whisper, he said, “You’ve taken a child’s marker to a masterpiece.” He met Anna’s eyes again, holding them with the sway of someone resolved. “Fortunately, marker can in fact be erased.”
The woman started to say something, but stopped short.
Then Randall Price stood and spun in one fluid motion, aiming and firing the gun at each of Annaleia’s three attackers in turn, emptying its chamber.
He hadn’t expected this. He had certainly expected them to refuse to negotiate, and he’d expected them to instead figure out a way to take Randall Price down. The man was killing women left and right, he was threatening one of their own, and surely he needed to be stopped. At least Victor had assumed they would see it that way.
And if they failed to take Price down for whatever reason, then Victor had assumed his worst case scenario would be dealing with an irate “partner.” He figured when Price demanded Victor keep his end of the bargain and deliver the girl once and for all, Victor would simply shrug helplessly and say, “Well, I did try.”
But he hadn’t expected this. Katrielle and her minions had turned the tables on him, completely ignoring Randall Price entirely in favor of coming after Victor instead.
“Bravo, Kat,” he said softly as the essences of a hundred wardens closed in on him like an approaching tidal wave. He took a deep breath and considered his options. But when it came down to it, he only really had one.
He knew any transport magic he cast at this point would be very rapidly traced, but it didn’t matter. He had a few seconds head start to do what he needed to do, and then he actually needed them to follow him.
Victor transported from his warded location – right into the middle of the room where Annaleia Faith’s two friends remained tied to their respective chairs. They’d given up on trying to loosen their bonds, exhaustion most likely settling in.
This location, so close to Sixth Street, had been chosen for a number of reasons. One, it was usually a safe bet that people expected you to take your stolen prize and run as fast and as far away as you could at the first opportunity. So remaining nearby was often unexpected. And two, right outside the door of the abandoned building where they were being held, half a dozen transients tried to carve out some form of existence for themselves using shopping carts, trash cans, thrown away leftovers, and lots of plastic bags.
Sometimes it was good to have broken people nearby. They were easy to control, and they