Between one bell tone and the next, the tracker marble fell silent.
I looked back to the ground. The Flayer of Mithrans and EJ were—“What? What happened?” I demanded. “Where are they?”
“I do not know how he did it, little goddess,” Gee said, “but . . . I believe he is gone. EJ and the Flayer of Mithrans.”
“How? We’re right here. No cars got by us. No trucks, no helo, nothing.” Shivering, beak suddenly clattering with cold, I understood. “Oh crap. He timewalked. He took EJ with him and he timewalked right out of here. Right under our wings. EJ’s gone.” But where? Where had the Flayer taken him?
CHAPTER 20
Gack. E Stop.
The answer was there, in my own last thought. Shimon had had access to the mind and memories of Legolas.
It was a feeling, only a feeling, but that was better than nothing.
Gee could follow my Anzu magic, so I didn’t have to explain. “Gee, check out the Shookers’ place and make sure they aren’t doing something with a time circle. Make sure they aren’t being forced to assist the Flayer in some way. Then find me.” I wheeled and stroked my wings, hard and hard and hard, rising, searching for a thermal that might lift and carry me. I was already so dang tired and so very hungry. But I could rest later. Hopefully.
I reached an altitude with a slightly warmer layer of air, one sandwiched between two colder ones, which was just weird. They were things I could actually see with Anzu eyes, sparkling in warmer and cooler colors. Aching, exhausted, I stretched out and soared.
Hoping the cell and charger were still working, breathless, I said, “Alex.”
“Yes, Janie.”
“Inform Eli to follow my cell as long as it’s safe. If the helo starts icing, set down immediately.”
“Copy. Wanna tell me where you’re going?”
“A place I can’t describe and can’t explain,” I said, stretching out in a long glide. “Tell him it’s near the coordinates where he got to play with his new toy, but maybe . . . half a mile away? It’s a crevasse in the rock. I’ll get there a lot faster than he will and I’ll take off the cell phone and hang it in the trees if I have time. If I don’t, then he’ll have to figure it out from where my cell signal disappears. Climbing gear might be smart.”
“Climbing gear. Copy.” But Alex didn’t sound happy about it.
The daylight died and night fell. I flew into a rainsquall, warmer winds buffeting me, then directly into a crosswind that froze the rain and cut me with sleet. Shivering, wet, starving, and miserable, I was a hundred twenty pounds of wretchedness. I fought to find warmer air and when I finally did, I aligned my course according to the mountain peaks shrouded in the low-lying clouds and by lights from the city behind me. If I was right about his location, and if Shimon had timewalked, he could have arrived at any time. If he even went where I was guessing. And I was only guessing because he’d had access to Legolas. The lovely white-blond vamp who had been injured near the rift. Whom I had left not-true-dead.
“Tell me about Legolas,” I said, my bird croak almost unrecognizable.
“I had to go back into some of the older files, Reach’s stuff, to find him. He’s of Swedish ancestry, turned in 1602. Until a few months ago, he was the MOC of Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Helsinki. He decided to make use of the instability among the EuroVamps and attempted to take over Berlin, I’m guessing to get longer periods of night in summer.”
Vamps in the extreme North and South had almost no active time six months out of the year, nights lasting only a few hours. “And?” I asked.
“Berlin had just been defeated by the new upstart, Grégoire, Blood Master of Clan Arceneau, the Master of the City of Paris, Berlin, and assorted other hunting territories. Lego was defeated and barely escaped with his undeath. His name is Melker, no surname. Apparently he escaped and came to NOLA. I have confirmed hotel security cam footage of him checking in to the Rose Manor B and B Inn, a five-star hotel near the river. I also have footage of a small group of vamps taking Ronald Roland outside of the clan home. One person in the car seemed to have white hair, and the car was registered to another guest at the inn.