Feeding Frenzy (The Summoner Sisters Book 1) (23 page)

“Jesus, girl!  What do you think I am?  I’m a
detective
.  I uphold the law.  I’m not a magician.”

“What’s he saying?” Lia whispers.

“Dammit, I’m a doctor, not a magician!”

“Is this funny to you?” Kline asks incredulously.

“I almost got killed by a tree yesterday, detective.  Everything’s been funny ever since I saw corn this morning.”

“I can’t tell if that’s another joke or not.  Look.  Where are you?”

“Greencastle, P. A.”

“Okay.  I gotta go.  Lay low.  I’ll try to get in contact with you if this blows over.”

“I don’t think that went well,” I say to Lia as I hang up.

I relay the important parts of our conversation.

“This is less than great,” Lia agrees with my assessment when I finish my summary.  “Well, we have to do something, right?  Either way, our car is back there.  And it sounds like Detective Kline could use a war buddy right now.”

“We keep getting pulled into stuff by this so-called buddy system,” I muse.  “I don’t think we’re using it correctly.”

“But…we’re gonna do it anyways, right?”

“Yeah…the frying pan will be a nice change of pace.”

We find the sheriff.  “Sorry to bother, officer, but looks like we’re stranded.  Is there any way we could get a lift at least to a main drag?  We can take it from there.  I understand if you can’t—we don’t want to abuse your kindness any further than we have.”

“No, no, that’s fine.  I can have someone take you as far as the borough line, how’s that?”

“That’d be amazing,” Lia says appreciatively.

About an hour later, a uniform drops us off at a road stop.  We’ve wrapped our battered jackets around our waists in the warmth of the real afternoon sunshine.  In tank tops and racing pants with our crosses out and fingers bejeweled, I feel like a model for extreme sports.

We don’t stay at the stop—it smells like food we can’t pay for, and is full of truckers who are pretty adamant about not taking on hitchhikers.  We begin strolling down the road, putting our thumbs out for any car we hear.  We walk about a mile before someone stops.

“You girls all right?” a man in glasses asks.

“Just stranded,” I say.  “Trying to go south.”

“Well, I’m not going far, but I can take you a little ways.”

“It’d be appreciated.  Just so you know, we don’t have any gas money.”

“It’s not going to cost me more than it was initially,” he says reasonably.

He passes my test, so we hop in without another thought.  You always hear horror stories about people picking up hitchhikers, but Lia and I have used this mode of transportation with some regularity.  It helps being trained in grappling as we are, and being deceptively small, but we also find people’s responses to our predicament pretty telling.  If they seem cagey about it, it’s not a good situation.  Otherwise, you thank the kind soul, and hope to pass it along some day.  Sometimes our intuition is wrong, but that’s always been more of a problem for the creep than for us.

This guy is no creep, and saves us about six hours of marching time.  So begins our slow procession back to spooky old Roanoke.  We’re fairly lucky with our string of rides back to town, and so we get there in less than ten hours.

“Thank you!”  Lia waves to the last of our saviors as we reach the entrance to Roanoke proper.

Our first order of business is to find a public restroom.  We
reek.
  I can’t believe people volunteered to take us anywhere in a small, enclosed environment.  We freshen up as best we can with hand soap and blown air.  I can’t wait to wash my hair.  If ever there was a compelling argument for shaving my head, sink showers would be it.

Both of us then turn our heads downward, looking for Phase Two of our plan.

“Score!” I say, picking up some change that’s fallen near a parking meter.  Next, we have to find a pay phone.  They’re surprisingly hard to come by these days, so Lia and I begin wandering around the busier areas of town in search of one.

“So,” I start nonchalantly as we mosey.  “Since when you been into girls?”

Ophelia snorts.  “All the shit going on, and
that’s
what you wanna talk about?”

“Well, yeah.  I don’t wanna talk about the shit.  It was shitty.  I wanna talk about the smoky-eyed nudie you unleashed.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Lia replies.  “Hey!  Phone!  I win!”

“No fair, I didn’t know we were racing.”

“Sucks to be you,” she taunts me.  “Got a plan?”

“As always.  But unlike yours, mine involves no nekkid chicks.”

“Oh, so then what?  Just making out with monsters?”

Being fed on by an incubus seems to be from another lifetime.  “Whoa, so
that’s
how we’re playing this, is it?  We did
not
make out.  Why, is that what you did?”

“Let it go, Summer, it’s not a thing like you’re making it.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Well, keep that up, then.  Go get us arrested.”

“How come we never do what I want?”  I joke as I feed the phone and dial the Roanoke Police Department again off of the crumpled sticky note I took from the Greencastle sheriff’s office.

“Yes, Detective Kline, please.”

This time there’s no arguing.  Less than a minute later, Kline picks up.

“Hey, what did you tell them about us?” I ask when he introduces himself.

“Where the hell are you?  I told you to stay in Greencastle—I was looking for you.”

“I’m at a pay phone, don’t have a lot of time,” I tell him.  “We couldn’t stay there.  It was not an option.  What did you tell them?  We’ll corroborate.”

He sighs and I can picture him focusing on a distant spot.  “I told them some unknown hostile picked us up, drugged us, killed Rodgers and left us all for dead.  Said you were MIA.”

“Good,” I say, impressed.  “That sounds fairly realistic.  I can work with that.”

“What does that mean?” he demands.

“Easy Kline-ster, we’re just gonna come patch this up and get our stuff and you’ll never hear from us again.”

“What does that mean!” he asks again.

“See you soon!”

The dial tone tells me that my money has been consumed.

“Well, got the important parts,” I tell Lia.  “Let’s go get changed.”

We plot as we walk to the city impound lot in the darkness.  It’s just a patch of concrete surrounded by chain link and barbed wire, with only the one, guarded exit.  We tie our jackets together and lay them over the barbed wire.  Lia boosts over, after we’ve made sure no one’s watching, and helps pull me over afterwards.  We wind through the cars.  I take a spare key from my pocket and quietly open the door to our Lexus.  We both get in and lock it back up.

“It’s good to be back,” Lia says, lying down for a second on the third row.

“And they left most of our crap!  That’s so helpful!”  I reach greedily for a protein bar; never have I been so happy to see granola.  I munch on the first “real” food we’ve had since our donuts about thirteen hours ago, and my first protein in about two days.

I root through my bag, looking for the outfits we picked out on the way.  I shave my legs awkwardly with the help of a moist towelette, and shimmy into a dress that billows around my waist, accentuating my thin frame and hinting subtly at my better features.  Out of my armor, I really do look like I’ve been through the meat grinder.  No part of me is without some bruise or scratch or welt.

Ophelia finishes her own preparation, similarly dressing to show off her injuries.  She, too, is pretty well beaten up.  She has cuts across the bridge of her nose, forearm and wrists; bruises dapple her shins.  We finish our new disguise with careful hair and makeup.

“Great, you look like a very sorry victim,” I tell her once we’re satisfied.

“And you are the picture of a tortured civilian,” she compliments me, wincing as I do a slow turn for her.  “A little late now, I know, but you
do
know that fighting is more than impersonating a punching bag, right?  You get to try to avoid getting hurt.”

“Ohh…”  I exaggerate.  “Well, I see now what I did wrong.”

“Jesus.  With your manticore scar, you look more like you’re covered in some sort of tribal tattoo than anything.”

I push my lips out as I think about that idea.  “It would be pretty cool to turn all my scars into designs,” I muse as we begin staggering to the guard booth.  “Show time!”

“Help!” Lia calls out, un-focusing her eyes slightly.

The guard comes rushing out.  “What the hell are you doing here?” the officer asks.

“Where…where are we?” I ask, shivering genuinely in the nighttime breeze.

“City Impound Lot,” he replies, eyeing us cautiously. 

“No, what city?”

“Uh...Roanoke.  What happened?”

“We were left here,” Lia tells him.

“Are you…Summer and Ophelia Watson?”  We both nod, wrapping our arms protectively around ourselves.  “Oh.  Oh,
man
.  All right, girls, come in the booth.  I’m going to call this in.”

He locks us in the guard station and gets on his radio.  Within a matter of minutes, flashing lights come to whisk us back to my favorite place on earth, where we’re read a very enthusiastic rendition of our rights.  We’re running a calculated game here.  I really want to sleep and to shower, but the lack of those things definitely adds a sense of authenticity to our story.  We need to be very sympathetic if we’re going to have any hope of walking away from this.

They are at a loss as to what to do with us at the precinct.  It seems that there are two factions: one that wants to send us to Guantanamo Bay, and one that wants to send us to the hospital.  As with all true compromises, neither happens; we’re sent back to the conference room we know so well.  The deputies watching over us go to cuff us again but hesitate.  We have very angry, raw skin on our wrists.  We turn on the puppy dog eyes.  This isn’t a stretch; if I have my druthers, I would prefer not to have anything on my wrists right now.  Again, a compromise—they cuff one leg each to the metal chairs.

We smile sadly at the deputies.  “Thanks, guys,” Lia says in a small voice.  They leave nervously and we watch them go back to someone higher up the food chain.  I quirk a devious smile when it’s clear that they’re arguing with their superior.

“Oh, my!” Lia exclaims when the sergeant pushes one of them.  A few heated minutes later, two different uniforms come in with a pitcher of water and two trauma blankets, soundlessly leaving them on the table.  Our plan must be working, then.

I grimace in pain as I reach for the water and blankets, passing Lia hers.  We sit for the better part of an hour, making low conversation about innocent things, and generally trying to seem non-threatening.

A detective who is not our detective finally walks in.

“So, the Watson sisters,” he says unceremoniously.  “Detective Dennison.  Sounds like you ladies have had one hell of a time lately.  Want to tell me about that?”

“Is Detective Kline okay?” Lia asks as I nod in mutual concern.

“Don’t worry about Detective Kline.  Go ahead and talk to me.”

“We got in trouble,” Lia starts in low tones, her eyes filling with tears.  “Sorry,” she sniffs, wiping them away.  “Needed some cash.  These guys said they could help us.  Just had to take a few boxes from Point A to Point B.  So…we did it.”

“But it went sideways,” I pick up the thread, putting a hand on her shoulder.  “They were doing more than just moving
things
, and we stumbled on it.

“Meaning what?”

“Those kidnapped kids.”  I reply while Lia looks on in contrition.

“Then what?”

“Well we freed the kids, and then we knew they’d come for us.  So, we prepared to run,” Lia continues.

“They caught up with us at that bar.  I guess the cops got caught in between,” I take over.

“That poor man,” Lia says, breaking down.  Detective Dennison shows no sign of this affecting him, but he slides her a box of tissues.

“We didn’t mean to get anyone k-killed,” I add tremulously.  We’ve carefully crafted this story so that I can tie it to what really happened.  Not having a poker face means that I can’t tell lies with sincerity and emotion.  So, I just tell a carefully edited version of the truth.

We continue the story, answering questions about our whereabouts for the past twenty-four hours.  With all of our visible injuries, it’s easy to paint a pretty gruesome story of being caught, beaten, and taken to Greencastle, where we were left mysteriously.  This part is easy—I don’t have to embellish at all; we just change the group that attacked us from monsters to humans.

When we’re done, Detective Dennison leans on the arm of his chair and tilts his head at us.  “It’s quite a story, girls.”  We look at each other anxiously.

“It was quite an experience,” I correct him.

“Why didn’t you tell us about the drugs when you came in the first time?  We could have helped.”