We stopped in front of the residents’ door at the side of the building. The first floor was taken up by a bookstore, one of my favorite places to spend time. “My hands are full, Fran. Can you get your keys?”
I set my latte on the large metal mailbox that was attached to the building and hunted through the backpack I used as a bag for my keys, my fingers groping blindly in its depths.
“I tell you, if I could, I’d trade Carmen for your Brent any day.”
“Ben,” I corrected, his name bringing another little zap of pain to my chest. “He’s not mine. You can have him.”
“He’s like the ideal man, leaving you alone except for when you want him. If I was into guys as much as girls—and I’m not because some men are okay, but most of them have way too many issues for me—then I’d definitely give you a run for your money with him. But I’m not, so you don’t have to worry.”
“That’s reassuring,” I murmured, the tiniest of smiles making an appearance as I pulled out a couple of paperbacks in order to grope around the bottom of my backpack. If there was one thing I knew about Ben, it was that he wasn’t looking for another woman.
At least I didn’t think he was. I frowned, thinking about the last time I’d spoken to him. It was the last and biggest in a series of arguments, and he’d sounded so distant and cold. . . .
“I’m loyal that way. It’s one of the reasons why we’re such good roomies. Because seriously, there are some weirdos out there you can get stuck with. And you’re just as normal as they come.” She glanced toward my hands. “Well, almost as normal as they come. But you know, hey, everyone has their little quirks, right? And I can definitely put up with you being a tiny bit paranoid about germs and insisting on wearing latex gloves all the time. It doesn’t bother me at all. It’s probably good, actually, given all the colds and flus that go around nowadays, and if you want to look like a goth by wearing black lace gloves over the latex ones . . . Well, that’s no big deal, either. My last roomie was into that Lolita crap, and you looking a bit gothy is a big improvement on that, let me tell you! Although you don’t really look goth anymore since you cut your hair and dyed it auburn—”
I frowned harder into the blackness of my bag, still not finding my keys, so frustrated by that fact, it took me a few seconds to realize that Geoff wasn’t talking anymore. I looked around, my eyes opening in surprise as a large man in black overalls shoved Geoff into a van.
“Goddess!” I yelled, dropping my backpack to run toward them. “Stop that! Help! Someone help! My friend is being kidnapped!”
“Mmrph!” Geoff said, the man’s hand over her mouth. Her eyes were filled with panic as she struggled. A second man was in the back of the van, grabbing her legs as she tried to kick the first guy.
“Help!” I screamed again, but the street, normally filled with shoppers, was strangely devoid of anyone else. It was up to me to save Geoff. Without thinking, I leaped forward as the driver of the van gunned the engine, throwing myself into the back of the van on top of Geoff and the first man, who was in the process of slamming shut the door.
“Let go of her,” I growled, curling my fingers into a fist the way Ben had showed me all those years ago. “Or you’re going to be really, really sorry!”
“You’ll be the one who is sorry,” the man said in a heavy Scandinavian accent, his eyes holding a red light that warned me he wasn’t a common, average kidnapper. “The master seeks this one. Begone.”
Before I could land the punch I was about to make, the man threw his weight against me, sending me flying backward. Frantic to keep from falling, I grabbed at him, but it did little good. All I got was a necklace the man had been wearing before I tumbled out of the van, hitting the street hard enough to knock me silly for a few seconds. When I looked up, trying desperately to clear my vision, the street was empty.
“The master,” I repeated, getting painfully to my feet and hobbling over to the sidewalk. I’d heard someone refer to the master five years ago. “Oh, no, it couldn’t be him. What on earth does he want with Geoff? It’s me he swore to get revenge against!”
I looked down at the necklace in my hand. Because of my gloves, I couldn’t feel anything other than the weight of the gold chain. I should have called the police and reported an abduction. I should have screamed until someone came to help me. I should have let someone with power get Geoff back. I should have . . .
“Bloody boiling bullfrogs!” I snarled, ripping off one of my black lace gloves and the thin latex glove beneath it, taking a deep breath. If it really was who I thought it was behind the kidnapping, the police wouldn’t be able to help at all, which meant it was up to me to find out who was behind the abduction of Geoff.
The second my bare hand touched the chain, my head was filled with images, a variety of faces that I didn’t recognize, a confusing jumble of women in old-fashioned outfits with bodices and long skirts, of men riding horses across a coastline, waving swords and yelling at the top of their lungs, and of a big structure burning while screams ripped into the night.
“And if that doesn’t say Loki at work a millennium ago, then I don’t know what does,” I growled a minute later, stuffing the necklace into my pocket as I pulled on my gloves again, hurrying down the road to a busy cross street. I hesitated at the bus stop, knowing time was of the essence. If the emotions I’d felt on the kidnapper’s necklace was right—and I had no reason to doubt my psychometric abilities—then he and his buddies were planning on hustling Geoff to the airport in a few hours. I had little time to make it to the warehouse they were using before she was out of my reach.
“This situation calls for a little splurging. After all, if you can’t spend a little mad money when your roomie is kidnapped, when can you?” I muttered to myself as I hunted down a cab. I finally found one and gave the driver instructions on where to go. “I don’t know the address, but I do know it’s on Knowles Street. Big warehouse with the picture of a penguin painted on the side.”
“Sounds like the old Icy Treats place,” she said, punching in a couple of buttons on her laptop before pulling out into traffic. “Shouldn’t take us long to get there.”
Fifteen minutes later we pulled up a half block away. I looked at the warehouse, worried that we were too late, but no, there was the nose of a black van just barely visible from behind an industrial-sized trash bin. I glanced back at the cab, gnawing on my lower lip for a second. “Um . . . how much would it cost for you to wait here for me?”
“How long will you be?” the driver asked me. She had bright yellow hair—not blond, actual yellow—and so many piercings on her head I couldn’t count them all.
“I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes?”
She named a figure. “But you’ll have to pay me what you owe me now. I’m not allowed to let customers leave without paying.”
I flinched at the amount she mentioned, but gave a mental shrug as I pulled out some cash, thrusting it toward her. “Wait for me. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Ten minutes. After that, I leave,” she said, getting out of her cab to lean a hip against it. “I need a smoke anyway.”
I nodded and hurried behind the trash bin, peering around it in the very best James Bond “sneaking up on kidnappers” manner. No one was in the van, and although the warehouse had windows, they were boarded up. I prayed they had no sort of high-tech security system as I dashed to a small door along the wall, pausing to snatch up a big piece of metal pipe that was lying near the trash bin. I weighed it for a couple of seconds, trying to decide if I could actually bring myself to use it, but the memory of the stark horror in Geoff’s eyes had me clutching it tight. “You are going to be one sorry god if she’s hurt,” I snarled under my breath.
The door creaked a little when I opened it a few inches, making me flinch and hold my breath, but no sound emerged from the warehouse, and nothing met my gaze as I peeked in. Sending a little prayer to the god and goddess my mother always swore would always protect me, I slid inside, braced for an outcry or attack.