“Well, it looks as if you were too late to save the brat. Stupid, Tracker. You didn’t really think I’d let you get close enough to kill me and save the kid, did you?”

I wanted to rush him, slice him up and serve him to the fishes in small, bite-sized pieces, and if I had my way, before the day was done, that’s exactly what was going to happen.

“Stupid. The Lighteater gave the brat a fake heart beat. And you fell for it.”

Ricky was gone, his threads to this world cut before I could get to him, a perfect bait to draw me in. And the Troll’s plan had worked. Maybe I’d been underestimating Trolls; maybe they were smarter than I’d been giving them credit for.

He stood, his two-pronged dick starting to get a hard on, stretched and flipped me off. “Come get me, if you dare.”

Challenging the Tracker you’d just told you’d fooled, egging her on to come at you? Nope, still dumb as dirt.

O’Shea circled to the left and I circled to the right.

The Troll backed up a step. “That’s not fair; you can’t go two at a time.”

“I’m not interested in fair,” I said, my anger raging to the surface. As with every case I took on, it felt, in a way, like Berget’s case all over again. It was my fault this kid was snatched, my fault he was dead. Guilt flamed the anger into a boiling rage that exploded in a flurry of movement. I closed on the Troll, blade singing through the air. He backed up and right into O’Shea, who took the Troll’s right arm off with a single downward slice.

Screaming, he fell to his knees, sobbing and pleading, his one arm flopping on the ground like a fish out of water, the stump where it had been scabbing over in less than a second. I stepped forward to finish him off when he launched from the ground, teeth snapping at my face, claws digging into my shoulder. My hand went numb and I dropped my sword. With his powerful hand he could easily snap my arm, even rip it off and leave me to bleed out.

I shoved my free hand under the glass and metal cage covering his remaining eye, my fingers digging in around the soft orb. Voice as calm as I could make it under the circumstances, I said, “Let me go, or I’ll take this one too.”

The Troll froze, his teeth digging through several layers of skin.

“I’ll let you go, if you take your hands off me. Otherwise, you’ll lose the eye, you bastard,” I said.

O’Shea stood just back from us, sword raised and pointed at the base of the Troll’s neck. “Don’t,” I said. “I will make the deal with him. Just trust me.”

The agent’s jaw twitched and he slowly lowered his sword.

“Let go of my arm, and then I’ll let go of your eye. Deal?”

He grunted, which I took for a yes. As he removed his claws from around my shoulder, we stood up together, my fingers still dug in around his eye.

“Let it go now; you promised,” he whined, his free hand resting against my arm. There was no way he’d push me, even he wasn’t that much of a dumbass.

I squeezed the orb and yanked, ripping it from its socket. “I lied, you piece of shit.”

The Troll wailed and writhed, flailing about, his screams echoing off the walls of the ‘shop.’

When I moved to finish him, O’Shea blocked me. “Wait, I want to ask him a question.”

Snorting, I backed up a step, waving for the agent to go ahead. Either way, the Troll was going to die. Ricky was gone; there was no other amends I could make, except to kill his killer.

So what punishment will you receive, for taking so long, for being a party to the kid’s death? Guilt rolled in me, making me weak with its truth.

“Why did you really take the kid?”

I made a move as if to answer. We already knew this.

“Fuck you, human,” the Troll screamed, a mixture of clear liquid and orange blood dripping from between his fingers.

Again, O’Shea pressed him. “No, this is more than just you going after the Tracker.”

Whimpering, the Troll crouched on the ground, his sniffles pitiful. “I can’t tell you.”

My jaw dropped. What the hell?

“You are going to die, either way,” O’Shea said, running the tip of his sword across the Trolls remaining arm. The stump of his other arm vibrated with each pump of his seven-valve heart, faster with each swipe of O’Shea’s blade.

“Tell me,” the agent said. “And I’ll make it clean.” Wrong thing to say to a Troll, but O’Shea couldn’t know that.

With a roar, the Troll threw himself at O’Shea, taking the agent’s sword deep into his chest, but not through his heart. They tumbled to the ground, O’Shea underneath; the Troll rearing his head back for a strike that would sever O’Shea’s head.

I didn’t even think about whether or not what I was doing was wrong. My sword flashed in the dim light as I whipped it forward, taking the Troll’s head, silencing him permanently. With a thump, his floppy-skinned head hit the floor, tongue hanging out, sightless holes staring up into nothing.

O’Shea lay on his back for another second. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, anytime.” The image of O’Shea under the Troll unsettled me.

“I’m okay.”

I stared at him. “I know.”

“Then why do you look like you’re going to cry?” His own eyes had a soft glimmer to them, as if he was affected by how I was feeling. Which it couldn’t be, because although we’d slept together, I wasn’t altogether sure he felt anything but lust for me. Whereas I knew I was falling hard for the bloody agent. Damn, I was no good at this.

I turned away from him, unsettled by seeing my own emotions reflected on his face. I made my way to Ricky’s side, dropped to my knees beside him, and put my hands on his chest. In a last ditch effort, hoping my ability to Track had failed me, I pressed hard, whispered a prayer to anyone who would listen. He was already cold, but I’d known he would be before I ever put a hand to him. The threads of his life had been cut and there was no coming back for Ricky.

Nothing, there was nothing.

I leaned back on my heels and tipped my head back.

O’Shea stepped up beside me then crouched down, his shoulder brushing against mine. “Even you can’t save them all.”

“He died because I made a mistake. Died because I couldn’t get to him in time, because I put myself first.” I shoved the agent, sending him sprawling on the ground. Standing up, I looked around for something to wrap the kid in, something to pack him out in.

“It isn’t your fault, Adamson. They faked it; the kid wasn’t even alive.”

I went to shove him again, anger and pain all wrapped up inside me, desperate for release. The tinkle of rocks under foot stopped me. I held a finger up and touched my ear. O’Shea went silent and we listened.

There was nothing else, or at least, I couldn’t hear anything.

“More Trolls,” O’Shea said with a confidence that surprised me.

“I didn’t hear—”

He grabbed my arm. “Trust me,” he said, his face grim as he pulled me along. “There’s more Trolls, and they’re hungry.”

19

I couldn’t leave without Ricky. It was the least I could do, returning him to his mother. He was light, maybe a hundred pounds, but it was a dead weight. O’Shea slung him over his shoulder like it was nothing, surprising me, and we ran for the ladder.

Behind us, the noises grew louder, and then a roar of angry voices permeated the air. The scent of Troll shit and fermenting meat grew stronger. It didn’t matter which end of a Troll you had to deal with, it was vile.

I hoped they’d stop for a snack on their buddy. Maybe they would decide to eat him before coming after us. Gruesome, but it would give us the time we needed.

Pushing O’Shea ahead of me, I guarded the bottom of the ladder while the agent climbed with his awkward load. “I’m up.” He called down, and I started up the ladder, feet and hands scrabbling at the rungs.

Hot breath swirled around me and I dared a look down. Four Trolls below me, staring up with their beady, somewhat sagging eyes. “Light!” O’Shea flashed the beam down. Swearing and cursing floated up around me along with their nasty breath, and I rushed up the last few rungs. “Go, go, go!”

Alex bolted ahead of us, and O’Shea’s light bobbed crazily, but we made it out of the shop to the SUV without any problem.

Flinging open the side door and reaching for my black box, I grabbed one of Milly’s spell bombs and cracked it open. Spinning on my heel, I cocked my arm like a shot putter, and threw it hard at the shop, the ignition word falling from my lips.

“Incendio!”

The bomb hit the corner and exploded into flame that raced across the wooden timbers, even though they were wet. A whoosh of thick black smoke exploded out the front window, shards of glass spraying around us. I grabbed a second spell bomb in case the Trolls tried to make it past the flames. Apparently, they were going to play it smart for once. Carefully, I put the second spell bomb back into my black hard case and tucked it into my bag.

I stared at the tattoo parlour, smoke billowing out of it, flames licking up the sides and putting out the neon sign completely.

“We should go,” I said, getting into the front seat.

O’Shea nodded, wrapping Ricky in a blue tarp and placing him in the very back of the SUV.

Alex bounced around us, giving yips of excitement, until his nose wrinkled and he poked at Ricky’s body with a single claw. “Dead.”

I didn’t answer him; his nose was on the mark again. Alex curled up beside me, his feet and our shoes and clothes reeking of Troll shit.

“We’ve got to get cleaned up before we take Ricky to his mom,” O’Shea said.

I didn’t argue, he was right and I didn’t have the strength to do anything more than nod.

The fact that Adamson was silent on their drive away from the Trolls concerned O’Shea, but he put it aside and stepped on the gas. The faster he got them cleaned up and Ricky taken home, the faster he could deal with whatever plagued his body. Rage and hunger roared within him, and it was all he could do to keep it under control. And it wasn’t just hunger of the belly, either. The scent of Rylee’s hair and skin made him hard, even with the overlying scent of Troll. All of which he didn’t like thinking about because he shouldn’t have been able to smell any of it. He might be able to function, dealing with the supernatural as it was thrown at him, but with his own senses kicking into overdrive, his grasp on reality was slipping.