Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,48
It wasn’t an easy job when the cards were stacked in favor of the supe every time. That was half the reason we were doing this in the morning. Less competent bounty hunters that might try to steal me off of Nathalie. With most of the supes asleep, I felt confident she could probably fend off any humans without much of an issue.
“You should make the catch here. It’s only twenty minutes from the casino.”
We looked down the empty street. There was an L station not far, probably only three or four minutes if I jogged. Around the corner, a little pizza place that survived the Magic Wars because the owner’s granddaughters were half-fae. A convenience store that wasn’t so lucky sat across from it. The windows were shattered, and the store emptied of anything remotely edible long ago. Balconies lined the buildings five or six stories tall, which meant this was largely a residential section where more fortunate humans lived. The not-lucky ones got the street or were sold into slavery.
“So how do you want to do this?” Nathalie asked. “Do you just start running and I chase you, or what—”
I slapped a pair of handcuffs in her loose fingers and then punched her in the gut. The air left her lungs as she hunched over. Her watery eyes went wide with shock, then narrowed. “Seriously?” she hissed.
“Now I run,” I said, then turned on my heel and took off down the street. The wind roared in my ears, and my heart rate picked up as I heard footsteps behind me. She was going to have a hard time catching me if I ran too far. I had a solid six inches in height and twice as much muscle from doing this job for a decade.
I turned at the corner where the convenience store had been and jogged toward the park. A place filled with rusted and spray-painted assortments of playground equipment looked like the perfect place for this. Public enough, but not many people.
The footsteps behind me gained speed, and I slowed just a fraction to let her eat up ground. I crossed from the grass to the more cushioned rubber pavement and jumped over a plastic unicorn that rocked back and forth on a giant spring.
The breath hissed between her teeth, and a low muttering of words were only just reaching me as the monkey bars broke apart in front of me. Their metal hands reached, trying to bind my own. I turned and lifted an eyebrow at Nathalie, my jaw locked tight, as if to ask her, really? Magic?
She lifted her shoulders in the slightest shrug as if responding, you wanted this to be believable, didn’t you?
I did, and I didn’t.
It was not even twenty-four hours ago I’d accused her of being a spy, and now here we were, her playing bounty hunter to hand me over. If that wasn’t ironic, I didn’t know what was.
“You won’t catch me,” I said, taunting her.
“I already have.” She grinned. I shot to the side, prepared to fend off the moving metal pipes reaching for me. Instead of circling my hands, though, they went for my feet. I jumped, trying to avoid their creeping grasp, but one I didn’t see came around to hook my ankle. It snagged. I went down.
The bar tried to tighten, and I shook my leg, a real panic beginning to sink in.
This is Nathalie, I reminded myself. She’s lived with you for a week and saved your ass again and again.
The cold metal wrapped around me, climbing my leg like a live vine.
I pulled my pistol and aimed it at her.
A small, not very rational part of me was tempted to shoot. She looked the part of a hunter, her face filled with impassioned arrogance as she stood over me. At seeing the gun pointed right between her eyes, her mask cracked, just a fraction.
She let me see her concern and silently seemed to ask me if I’d changed my mind.
My body went slack. I lowered the gun just enough to hold the ruse while letting her know to keep it up.
Another bar shot for my wrist, then froze. It quivered mid-air in front of me. Nathalie frowned. Then it began turning in on itself. The metal twisting and twining, retreating.
I could tell from the look on her face that wasn’t supposed to happen.
She muttered again. The bar paused. Quivered. Then completely disintegrated. All of them did. Including the one around my ankle.