Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4)(98)

Shaking and sweating, tucked behind the door of the horse stall, Joseph prayed that magic was why Mackie had quit screaming. After a few minutes a new noise filled the air, a woman’s frustrated cry.

“Where are you?” She—she sounded like a she—roared the words out.

Yeah. Sure he was coming out, like he was still that dumb-shit kid in that bar in Phoenix. He’d learned a lot that day; some of it Charles had taught him. But most of it he’d learned from those World War II veterans who’d risked their lives for their country and came back to learn that their promises had to mean that they changed how they treated people who didn’t happen to look like them. They hadn’t learned that lesson until he’d taken them on and Charles had come to his rescue. His fists hadn’t taught them anything, but that soft-spoken, laconic Charles? His words, what few there had been, had flattened them and left them bleeding by the wayside. He’d bet that they never beat up on someone because they were a different color or different anything again.

Charles had had words for Joseph, too.

If you’re going to face someone bigger and stronger than you, kid, make damn sure you are better armed. He could hear Charles’s dry voice as though it were yesterday instead of seventy-odd years ago.

The only weapons he had were the knife in his hand and the brain in his head, and the knowledge that Charles would be coming as fast as he could. Between the knife and Charles, Joseph was well armed, as long as he picked his fight.

That woman came back into the barn with Mackie slung over her shoulder like a leg of beef. He tightened his hand on the knife but stayed still. She paused beside Hephzibah’s stall and growled, “Horses.” She didn’t sound happy, and she didn’t sound very female anymore, either.

He had a pretty good view of her as she dropped Mackie to the ground—his granddaughter’s staring eyes met his through the crack of daylight between the half-open stall door and the door frame.

The fae grabbed the bridle he’d left hanging on the hook and opened the door. “Come ’ere, nag,” the thing growled.

He’d worried a little about making Hephzibah a target—what if the fae had been one of those who could ride anything? Hephzibah was quick and strong. If that fae could ride her, they’d have had a fine time trying to run her down—since he’d effectively disabled all the motorized vehicles in the place, except for the lawn mowers.

But no one who could ride like that would ever use the word “nag” to describe Hephzibah, at least not until she’d made them kiss dirt a time or ten. Kage had no trouble calling her a nag.

Hephzibah walked out of the stall quietly, her ears up. That was what caught everyone the first time. She looked happy to have someone saddle her up. She was quiet and well mannered until she wasn’t.

The fae grabbed Mackie by a leg and got on the mare. He’d given it a fifty-fifty chance whether the fae would ride out the back of the stables or go through the big arena and out the front. Hephzibah stopped right in front of his hiding place. She lowered her head and snorted at him.

Anyone would know she was telling them that there was an old man hiding behind the door. But the fae jerked Hephzibah’s head up with the bit. The mare didn’t even flick her ears. Yep. This was not going to last long. He wished he had moved Nix over where he could get to him, but there had been too great a chance that it would be Nix the fae grabbed. And on Nix, she might actually have escaped.

Joseph would just have to make sure that he stayed with them. His chance to grab Mackie would come. He’d grab Mackie and run and hope that Charles had had enough time to make it down here.

Charles could be watching them right now, biding his time like Joseph was. He’d believe that. It gave him hope.

The fae rode Hephzibah on past Joseph’s stall and out toward the big arena that lay between them and the front door of the barn. Joseph counted to five after the sound of the mare’s hooves on the hard-packed sand of the aisle gave way to soft thumps in the arena. Then he slipped out of the stall and followed them.

He figured that mare would trot peacefully about halfway down the arena, the better to sucker her rider, and then it would be all over but the crying. About a 30 percent chance she’d decide to stomp the fae, about a 68 percent chance she’d just bolt for the hills, and a 2 percent chance he didn’t want to think about that she’d go after Mackie if the fae dropped her while trying to stay on.

One of the times Hephzibah had dumped Kage, she’d gone after his hat, which had rolled off his head when he hit. She’d chomped down on it, tore three or four times around the ring carrying it in her mouth. Then when she had everyone’s attention, she dropped and trampled it until there wasn’t anything left except a sad bundle of straw. Mostly, though, after she dumped her rider, she either ran for freedom or went after the person who’d had the gall to get on her back in the first place.

Joseph would be ready for either of those.

Charles bolted the rest of the way across the big arena when he heard the fae scream from somewhere in front of him. He thought she said, “Where are you?” but he couldn’t be certain. As soon as he was past the open space, he dropped to the slinking walk he used when he was hunting deer. His body lowered and his fur served to hide some of the movement that might attract the wary eye.

He turned into the corridor that ran between the rows of stalls and immediately quit moving. He found a place in the shadows of a pair of rubber barrels set right at the corner where he could gather the pack magic around and disappear. He saw Ms. Edison striding back into the barn from the big white truck parked in plain view through the big opening at the end of the run of stalls.