The second EMT laid the stretcher down on the ground, then grabbed me by the arms so he and the other guy could lift me onto it. I tried to struggle, but I was weak and dizzy, and the men held me down easily. To the onlookers, I was probably just a dazed and confused patient, in shock, unable to process what was going on.
But I wasn’t that out of it. The nausea rolling in my gut wasn’t just from the pain. These guys were bad news, and I had to get away.
“You just sit tight, Miss Palladino,” the EMT who’d dragged me from my car said as I was loaded into the back of the ambulance. “We’ll have you to the hospital in no time.”
My blood turned to ice. I’d never told him my name. How the hell did he know it? Fear punched through my veins, driving me into action, and I tried to launch myself from the stretcher. But the doors were already closed, and the space was so tight that I only succeeded into slamming straight into the EMT.
“Hey!” he snapped, catching me before I crashed to the floor. He pushed me back onto the stretcher. As his face hovered above mine, I could have sworn his eyes flashed red for just a moment. “Relax, Ms. Palladino,” he said, grabbing my arm and pushing my sleeve up. “We’re under strict orders to take good care of you. I promise.”
“You bastard,” I croaked as a needle pricked the crook of my elbow. I tried to punch him with my free arm, but he caught the blow, and then pushed me back down again. The interior of the ambulance began to swirl until the colors melded into darkness. Reeling, I tried to cling to consciousness, but my mind buckled under the influence of whatever drug he’d injected. In the next second, I was gone.
3
Brodie
Istoodout in the meadow for another hour. I didn’t expect the grass to tell me anything, but I still felt there was something I needed to hear. The vision from last night had been so sparse—a mere glimpse into a terrible future. Just that fiercely beautiful woman, burning alive over a pit of hellfire, while a blond man with the devil’s eyes watched from above with a cruel smile. This vision would come to pass someday. Somewhere, out in Gaia’s great and bountiful world, that wicked man would try to kill such a bonny lass. And, for some reason, Gaia had seen fit to place me in her path.
There had been no one there to save that woman. And no one would be… not unless I got off my arse and did something.
Of course, a map would have been helpful. The vision had given me no inkling as to her location. Neither the man nor the woman had spoken, so I didn’t even know what nationality they were. Nothing besides the fact that they were Caucasian. They could have been in France, or Alaska for all I knew. All Gaia had given me aside from the vision was a whispered name—Arabella Palladino. A name as beautiful and noble looking as the woman herself.
The wind shifted then, bringing a sudden chill that summoned goose bumps to the surface of my skin. I frowned—the night had been so mild, and it was the middle of summer. I was about to head inside, away from the wind, when a different sort of cold settled over me, inside me, worming its way into my heart. Dread began to form in my stomach, a leaden weight that I couldn’t quite explain. It twined itself with anger and fear, with burning resentment, and a caged, stifled feeling that I’d never before experienced out here in the wide open.
Suddenly, I realized what was going on, as though a veil had lifted from my eyes. These feelings were not my own. They belonged to the woman who needed my help. She was calling out for aid, to anyone who might hear. Trouble had found her already.Damn! Was I too late?
Desperation filled me, and I turned back to the dancing meadow one more time. I drew in a breath, squared my shoulders, and then asked the only question that mattered.
“Where are ye, lass?”
Something slammed into my chest, and I stumbled back. Her emotions were even stronger now, as if her soul lay atop mine, joining us together. Her heart thundered in my chest. Her breath, labored and shallow, whistled in and out between my lips. Pain blossomed, bright and true, in my side, as if my rib had cracked.
And that was when I saw her. Tied to a chair in the middle of an industrial-looking room, two goons in front of her. Shark teeth and bloody eyes.
“Demonkin,” I muttered. I knew the word, knew the descriptions from those lessons I’d only half-paid attention to, though I’d never met one. The Druids did not typically concern themselves with those abominations, but we made it our business to learn about the other power players who walked this earth. As well as their weaknesses, in case we ever crossed paths.
The woman wasn’t all Gaia saw fit to show me. The vision shifted, revealing a city by the sea with great buildings and shining lights. Much more modern than Inverness, the closest town to where Agnid and I lived. She was in America, out on the western coast—I could feel it. I could feelher. And although the woman and the city faded from my sight, it left something I’d been longing for ever since I’d laid eyes on her, etched right into the back of my eyelids.
A map.
4
Arabella
Asplashof water shocked me back to my senses. My eyes flew wide, and I sputtered as icy liquid slid down my skin and beneath my collar. Blinking hard, I fought to clear my vision. After a few seconds, the two EMTs who’d hauled me into the ambulance swam into view. They stood a few feet away, arms crossed as they studied me. We were in what looked a lot like an empty, abandoned warehouse.
“Ah, good. You’re awake.” The dark-haired man who’d pulled me from the wreck stepped forward, a cocky smile on his face. He was still dressed in his EMT uniform, but his eyes glowed an unholy red, not the grey I’d seen earlier. That strange darkness brushed up against me again, and I blinked. Was I hallucinating?
“I was wondering if we were going to have to resort to fire.” The man lifted his palm, and a ball of flame whooshed to life above his hand. My eyes about popped out of my skull, and he gave me a wicked smile. “Too bad the water worked after all.”
“That’s some magic trick,” I choked as my heart thundered in my chest. Instinctively, I tried to cross myself, but my arms were tied to the sides of the wooden chair I was sitting in. Panic tightened my chest as I realized my legs were bound as well. What the hell was going on here?
“All right, you guys have had your fun,” I blustered, putting on a brave face, as if I wasn’t scared out of my mind. “Now tell me where the cameras are so I can wave to Mom and Dad.” My voice cracked a little, and I swallowed hard.
The second EMT laughed. He was blond, with the same glowing eyes as his companion, and he would have been considerably more handsome if he hadn’t just exposed a set of sharp, green-tinted fangs. “This isn’t some kind of reality-TV prank, Arabella.”
The panic rose to my throat, tightening like a noose around my neck until I could barely breathe. “How do you know my name?” I asked, keeping my voice low and even as I forced the emotions back down. I decided not to ask about the shark teeth or the glowing eyes—there was only so much I could handle right now. Besides, between the pain and the drugs they’d shot me up with, I was probably hallucinating like nobody’s business. That made a hell of a lot more sense than monsters, or aliens, or whatever my whacked-out brain was trying to convince me I was seeing right now.
Redeye shrugged. “Don’t act so violated. You’re really not that interesting, especially for a Sentinel. We know a lot about you,” he said. “More than you know about yourself, by the looks of things.” He stepped closer, lifting his hand so that the fireball danced only a few inches from my face. “But there’s something we need, and you’re the only one who knows where it is. So, if you want to get out of here alive, you’d better cooperate.”