I would follow Marcus’s lead, and nothing about the way he was standing led me to believe he thought this guy was an immediate threat.
“I mean all four of the bikes were tethered together, and only Adam could have overridden the system.” He gestured to the dark-haired man behind him. “As he doesn’t particularly want me to punch through his chest and pull his heart out, I don’t think he did it.”
Adam’s eyes rolled. His visor was up, but like Taggart, he hadn’t taken it off, and I had to wonder if that had something to do with the sunlight. After all, these were vampires we were dealing with. “As if, but no I didn’t do it. According to these readings the bikes simply stopped on their own and now the electrical systems are fried. I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you sure her power is bound?”
Taggart nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Summer there wanted to stop and suddenly we stopped. That can’t be a coincidence. According to my wife, she’s got serious power. She was a legend in Tír na nÓg for her magic, though she apparently didn’t use it often.”
“She doesn’t use it at all,” Marcus pointed out. “According to Summer, she cannot access her power in any way. She fears it to the point of obsession.”
“She’s not the only one with magic.” I was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Dean, could Erna have shut down the bikes?”
Dean looked up from his conversation with the werewolf chick. “Sure. She could probably even do it if they had wards on them. She’s good at getting through wards. She’s incredibly powerful.”
Taggart’s hand went to his belt where he had some kind of weapon. It was in the shape of a gun but looked way more technologically advanced than any gun I’d played around with. And I’ve played with them all. “Where’s the witch? Do you know if she’s alone?”
“I don’t believe she’s involved with the witches who are chasing Summer,” Marcus commented. “After all, she is the one who convinced Summer to steal the book in the first place. I would like to have gotten a look at it.”
“Hey, your insect friend looks like she has the zoomies.” Adam pointed to Arwyna, who was zipping around my head. “That’s what we call it when a dog runs crazy.”
“Yeah, we call it that, too.” I stepped back to try to see what had Arwyna all up in arms. “What’s going on?”
She was pointing at a bunch of trees, or at least it seemed like she was.
“Hey, dark-haired chick, get behind me. There’s dangerous shit in this forest,” Taggart called out.
I let my arm turn and waved his way. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Even that big, badass-looking vampire took a step back. Must have been something in my eyes.
“Kelsey, be careful,” Marcus said, but did nothing to stop me from moving forward.
“So you’re a shapeshifter of some kind.” Taggart moved in beside me and he had that big gun in his hand now.
“Sort of,” I replied as we moved off the path and into the forest. Arwyna was flying in front of me, leading the way. “And you’re a vampire, but you don’t do cool shit like the vamps on my plane.”
“I do lots of cool shit,” Taggart replied, his voice low. “But not the mental stuff Vorenus does. What are we looking for out here? And why are we following a butterfly?”
“I’m worried the witch is lurking around.” I stopped and listened for a moment when Arwyna landed on a bush and seemed to be trying to get her bearings.
“I’m warded up against witches.” Taggart did a slow study of our surroundings. “I’ve got tats in places I didn’t want tats because witches can be mean. It’s fun to joke about one turning your dick into a pretzel, but that shit hurts. A lot.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be pissing off witches.” I didn’t sense anything. All I could hear was the wind in the trees.
No animals. Shouldn’t there have been animals running around? The forest was lush and green. It should have been teeming with life.
“I pissed off a lot of people before I met my Charlie.” He straightened up. “It’s too quiet.”
“I agree. How familiar are you with this plane?”
“I know it’s usually got a lot going on,” Taggart allowed. “What it doesn’t have is a lot of silence. I’m getting a bad feeling. We should get back and make sure we know