Any Other Name (The Split Worlds) - By Emma Newman Page 0,128
the next day and move somewhere a long way away that was completely his.
Car doors slammed outside and he went to the window. The street was filled with parked cars now all the commuters were home. He saw neighbours from either side of the house and a couple of people he didn’t recognise all pull out and drive off at the same time, leaving the road outside his house and his neighbour’s completely free of parked cars.
Normally he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but now he knew about the Fae-touched and Sorcerers he felt distinctly unsettled. He wondered if Cathy’s husband had found out about him or if Ekstrand was planning to do something that required easy access to his house. Then he realised neither party would want to do anything in the real world; they’d be sneaking through the Nether. He shivered and looked behind him at the empty room.
The sound of a car outside brought his attention back to the road. A stretch limousine was crawling down the narrow street and pulled into the space that had just been made. Sam went to the side of the window so he’d be out of sight from the road, fearing that Neugent would step out any moment. Once it was parked, a man got out of the front passenger seat dressed in a dark suit. He looked like a broad-shouldered security man or FBI mook from a silly American thriller. He even had an earpiece and a flesh-coloured curly wire reaching down beneath the collar of his white shirt.
The man looked the street up and down, spoke into a concealed mouthpiece and then moved to open the rear passenger door. Another burly guard got out, followed by another. Sam’s breath sped up as the adrenalin kicked in. He considered leaving by the back door, not wanting to find out who was inside, even if it was Neugent. Nobody brought blokes that big with them for a tea party. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spectacle in his quiet suburban street.
The third man to get out was the one they were there to protect; his neck wasn’t as wide as his head and he was at least a foot shorter than the guards. His suit was well-cut and fitted perfectly. He buttoned his jacket when he got out. He had the air of confidence that the super-wealthy exude effortlessly and appeared to be of mixed-race descent, his hair black and cropped short. He was looking at Sam’s house.
He gave a nod to one of the men, who opened the garden gate and came up the path. Panicking, Sam dashed into the hallway and went into the kitchen only to see another suited guard posted at the end of the garden, so tall his head was visible despite the six-foot-high gate.
The doorbell rang. Sam jumped and then winced as the movement aggravated the wounds. He could pretend to be out; the lights were off, after all. But then he realised they’d arrived only minutes after he’d got home. They’d probably followed him or could already have been watching the house.
The doorbell rang again, followed by a loud knock. There was nowhere to run even if he had been fit enough to do so. If the events of recent weeks had taught him anything it was that when powerful people made him their business, there wasn’t much to be done about it.
Sam opened the door and looked up at the guard.
“Mr Samuel Westonville?” the man asked in a predictably deep voice.
“Yeah.” He tried not to sound nervous.
The man stepped aside and his boss walked up the path to the doorstep. “May I come in, Mr Westonville? I have something to discuss with you.”
“Who are you?”
“If I may?” He wanted to come in before anything else was said. Sam looked at the two mooks standing behind him and gestured for them all to come inside, leaving them to close the door.
Sam went into the living room and switched on the light. The guards came in before the boss, one sweeping the room with a trained eye, the other pulling down the blind and closing the curtains. “Clear, sir,” the curtain-closer said and the man entered.
Sam stood in front of the TV, trying to look as calm and capable as he could with an arm in a sling. After glancing around the room, the boss came in further but didn’t sit down.