CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LOGAN PULLED INTO a parking spot beside a picnic table in the recreational area directly west of the Easy Shopper.
He tried to lean back in the seat and relax. But he found it was impossible to simply sit in the car and wait for Ross. He got out and looked up at the afternoon sky, amazed at how much time had slipped through his fingers.
He wanted to find Rinna immediately, but it didn't seem to be happening. After pacing to the far end of the parking lot, he stepped into the woods, thinking that he'd have a look at the convenience store, then come back. Just then another car pulled into the parking lot.
He tensed, then saw it was Ross. He got out and trotted over to him.
"What can I do to help?" his cousin asked, and Logan felt a surge of gratitude. He'd gone straight to Lance because he lived closer. But he saw now that if he'd found Ross first, they wouldn't have ended up fighting. His cousin was determined to make relationships work in the Marshall family, and he was good at keeping tempers at a manageable level.
Logan struggled to keep his voice steady. "My lifemate has disappeared. I think she's been kidnapped by a guy named Falcone, the same one who already raped her."
Ross winced.
They'd spoken a little on the way over. But Logan knew that cell phone transmissions were far from secure, and he hadn't wanted to give any paranormal details that someone else could pick up.
"The executive summary is that she's the woman we saw through the doorway when we were fighting that monster in the basement of the Castle. She helped us kill the damn thing."
"I was upstairs getting Kevin and Erica free. But Megan told me all about it."
"Rinna is a shape-shifter—from a parallel universe. She can change into either a white wolf or a white hawk. And she has other powers as well. But this guy has already crippled her abilities to some extent, and I think he'll do more if has her for any length of time."
"Okay," Ross answered in a perfectly deadpan voice, and Logan appreciated that he wasn't having any trouble dealing with the strange facts. Not like the cop.
As they talked, Lance climbed out of the car and joined them. Logan clasped his shoulder. A few hours ago they had been fighting. But now he knew that his brother and his cousin were there for him.
"We need to track her," Logan continued. "And I know she was at the convenience store recently. The portal to her world is at the back of the store. From what a confused cop told me, I'm betting that the bad guy and some soldiers came through last night, and that they were using some kind of invisibility shield."
"It's kind of inconvenient if they're still using it," Ross muttered.
"Let's assume that they can't hide a large group of soldiers like that for long."
Ross nodded.
"We can leave that problem for now. We have to find Rinna. I think the bad guy started tracking her as soon as he came through."
"And he caught up with her?"
Logan clenched his hands into fist. "I think she went back to him—to keep him away from me. She used her power to plant the idea in my head that I should go for help. When I got to Lance's house I realized that she sent me away, leaving herself totally unprotected. If he's got her, they're going to be between here and my house."
"Okay."
"I was thinking that we could go as wolves to the convenience store and start in the direction of my place."
Ross nodded, then asked in a perfectly conversational voice. "And when we find the bastard who's got her, do we attack as wolves? Or as men?"
"Wolves. We'll change here, and I'll show you where to find the store." He started toward the woods, then stopped as he thought about the kind of danger he was getting his brother and his cousin into. "He's not alone. He's got soldiers from his private army with him. Maybe we'd better not attack until we see what we're up against."
"We'll play it by ear," Ross said. "So maybe we need to be prepared with clothing."
"I've started carrying stuff in my car," Logan said, "but I don't have any way to take clothing with me."
"I have a couple of backpacks," Ross said. "We'll put as much as we can in there. And we can wear whistles so we can communicate."
"Good idea."
"They each have a different call," Ross explained. "I'll be a dove. Lance can be a cardinal and Logan can be a blue jay."
They all spent a lot of time in the woods, so they all knew the calls.
They got the packs ready, then moved into a tangle of brambles, where they changed to wolf form.
When they were ready, they started toward the convenience store.
Logan stopped at the edge of the woods, when he saw Jake Cooper standing in front of the Easy Shopper. Lance had been right; the bastard hadn't wasted any time getting back there.
And apparently searching the place. The area in front of the building was roped off with familiar yellow tape. As Logan watched, two men emerged and shook their heads.
Cooper's features hardened as he stepped toward them. He turned his back on the crowd, and talked to the men, exchanging information in low voices. The men walked back to a police car. Cooper stayed where he was.
So what was he doing, looking for the portal that he'd said flat out he didn't believe existed?
Or did he think this convenience store had a tunnel in the back where drug smugglers were coming in from the next county?
Yeah, that was probably it
! Logan gave a bark of a laugh. And the drug smugglers had sprayed the area with a hallucinogen, so Cooper thought they were invisible. That would work as a rationalization. Logan was sorry he hadn't suggested it to the detective instead of that wild story about alternate universes.
A crowd of people, including the clerk who had ratted him out, were standing in back of the yellow tape, staring at the store.
Cooper folded his arms across his chest and stared at the building.
As Logan watched the scene, he knew something was wrong. Something he wouldn't have been able to articulate even if he'd been in human form. He felt a thickening in the air, a building pressure that he didn't understand. But on a subliminal level, he knew something bad was about to happen.
Beside him Ross growled. Lance pawed the ground, and he knew that they felt it, too.
He looked from one of them to the other, then dashed out of the woods. Skirting the crowd, he ran toward the detective, who glanced up in astonishment as he saw a wolf—or maybe a German shepherd heading straight toward him. A wolf wearing a backpack.
Logan made a yipping sound.
As Cooper stared at him, he grabbed the man's sleeve, tugging at him, tugging him away from the building.
Come on. Come on
, he silently shouted. But the words stayed locked in his throat.
Someone in the crowd gasped. Then more gasps and screams erupted as two other wolves joined the scene. One of them got behind Cooper and pushed. The other one grabbed his free arm and tried to move him away from the building.
Logan felt as though time had slowed down. Each second was like the frame of a movie held in suspended animation on the screen.
Somewhere in the neighborhood, he heard a dog howl, then another.
"Get the dogs off him," someone shouted.
"Those are goddamned wolves," another voice called out.
Some people backed away. Others moved in closer for a better look.
"Turn me loose. What the hell are you doing?" Cooper shouted, trying to wrench himself free.
Luckily Ross had his right arm, because that kept him from going for the sidearm in his shoulder holster.
A man left the scene and ran toward his truck, and Logan hoped to hell he wasn't coming back with a gun. Would he be stupid enough to shoot into the middle of a crowd if he got to his weapon?
Every self-protective instinct urged Logan to turn and run. From Cooper. From the crowd. But he knew he couldn't abandon the detective, even if he didn't understand exactly what was wrong.
He found out in the next second as an enormous clap of thunder split the air.
Screams erupted from the onlookers, as the building exploded, sending a shower of debris into the sky, which rained down around the crater where the store had been.
People scattered in all directions, some of them calling out in pain as chunks of the building hit them on the head and shoulders.
IN the tent, the three men around Rinna staggered back, gasping as the psychic shock wave hit them. Avery fell onto the ground, his body curling into a fetal position. Brusco sat down heavily on a chair, missed the seat, and plopped to the floor. Falcone stayed on his feet, but he had to grab a tent pole, shaking the makeshift structure and almost bringing the whole thing down around them.
The pain that filled Rinna's head was almost too great to bear, but she stared at the men with satisfaction.
Working together, these three had been going to destroy her brain, and she had come up with a desperate plan to defeat them. It was like nothing she had ever done before. But she had learned the theory at school. And understood that it was her only chance to leave with her mind intact.
Falcone recovered first. With a savage cry, he lunged forward, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her so hard her bones rattled. "What the hell did you do?"
Her head felt like demons were inside banging on the walls of her skull with pickaxes. Taking a breath, she struggled not to scream.
"What happened?" he bellowed. "What in Carfolian Hell did you do?"
By gathering all her resolve, she managed to keep her own voice low and steady. "I grabbed hold of the energy you three beamed at me and sent it into the portal. It's gone. You're trapped here. And if you destroy my brain, you'll never get back."
"I have men who can open portals," he bellowed. "How do you think I got the one we just used?"
She tipped her head to one side, looking at him as though he'd just claimed he could speak to the dead—his worst subject in school. "But they're back in Sun Acres, aren't they?"
He gave her one more shake, then took a step back, his eyes narrowing as he focused on her.
Pushing himself to a sitting position, Avery made a gagging sound, and Rinna directed her next remark to him.
"I'm sorry the psychic transfer was painful to you. Now you have some idea of what it feels like to have someone inside your head throwing energy bolts around."
Avery swallowed but said nothing. Brusco looked at Falcone. "You didn't warn us that she could do something like that."
"Do you think I would have proceeded with the operation if I'd known?" he bellowed.
"What are we going to do?" Avery asked.
Falcone turned back to Rinna, and she saw he was struggling to keep his features from twisting into a mask of anger. Or maybe it was fear. She liked that better. "I order you to open another portal."
Even through her pain, she managed a harsh laugh. "You order me? I don't think so. This isn't Sun Acres. I have choices here. So what's the advantage to me in following your orders?"
His voice turned into a growl, and he reached under her chin, tipping her head up. "Because if you defy me, I can make your life very painful."
Still tied to the chair, she was forced to look into his fierce eyes. "That would give you pleasure," she answered. "But it won't get you back to Sun Acres."
Either she had temporarily disabled his psychic abilities or he was so angry that only physical violence would satisfy his needs. He raised his hand to strike her, but Brusco swayed forward and caught his arm.
Falcone whirled to face him. "How dare you?"
"Think about what you're doing before you act," the other man advised.
Almost totally out of control, Falcone looked at the faces staring at him. "I don't need her. I was planning to invade this world, anyway," he bellowed.
The other two men looked away. But Rinna kept her gaze on him—and her voice even. "But your supply lines have been cut off. And you don't know enough about this place, do you? The longer you stay here without knowing how things work, the more likely that you'll get into serious trouble. Take this tent," she said, gesturing toward the canvas walls. "It's nothing like the tents they use here. It will be conspicuous. People will come nosing around. You could kill them, of course. But that's going to call even more attention to you. And probably you're on private property, so somebody will show up trying to find out what you and a squad of men are doing on their land. Unless you can make them invisible," she added.
"We did that when we came through," Brusco said. "We can't do it again so soon."
Falcone turned and glared at the man, and he closed his mouth abruptly, undoubtedly sorry that he'd given anything away.
She watched Falcone press his fingers to his forehead, massaging his skin, and she knew that his head hurt.
Good
.
"If you want me to open a portal, you're going to have to help me do it," she murmured.
WHEN Logan reached the woods, he turned back to the detective. Cooper was staring at him with a confused expression on his face.
"How did you know what was going down?" the detective called out.
Did he expect a wolf to come up with an answer? Obviously that was out of the question. And even if Logan could have gotten words out of his mouth, he didn't know what to say. He'd felt a dangerous vibration in the air, and he'd known something bad was going to happen.
Something connected with the building. But he hadn't known exactly what.
Cooper reached out a hand toward the wolf.
Logan shook his head, then turned and ran deeper into the woods, where the other Marshalls were waiting for him.
They raced back to the spot where they'd previously changed and all reversed the process. Once they'd returned to human form, they dragged on the clothing that Ross had stuffed in the backpacks.
Logan was the first to speak. "Did you feel it?" he asked his brother and his cousin.
"You mean feel a vibration in the air before the building exploded?" Ross answered.