Page 1

Chapter

One

ALPHABET

T he door to the barn was partially open, and lent more evidence to Gracie being in there. Goblin remained on point next to me. His whole body seemed to vibrate with tension. I flattened my hand.

“Goblin , bewaken ,” I said in Dutch. Goblin’s hackles went up and the low tonal growl he responded with told me he was ready. The smell of copper and dirt in the air aggravated me, irritating my nose. If it smelled that bad to me it had to be worse inside.

A flash of Gracie being hurt again flashed across my mind. I shuttled it aside and stuffed it into a compartment where it couldn’t distract me. Find her, secure her, clear the scene and then I could deal with the rest.

The faint drag to my right foot had me making sure I stepped carefully. No way whoever was in there didn’t know I was here. Goblin paced me, his aggressive posture didn’t have him lunging forward. Not yet, he wouldn’t until I gave him the command.

Not wanting to get my head blown off, I crouched as I slid around the door. Duck walking was a bitch, but I ignored my body’s complaints. The interior of the barn was all shadows and motes of dust. The lack of a breeze said the only way to disturb that much into the air was activity.

Goblin snapped his head to the left even as a thump of sound reached me. It took less than three seconds to assess the situation playing out in the gloom. A match struck fire to my temper at the man holding Gracie aloft with a fat hand over her mouth. He shook her like a rag doll. The thump was her head hitting the two by four stud.

“ Loop ,” I said, snapping my left hand forward. Goblin lunged. He crossed the distance between me and the assailant in mere seconds. He hit the man on the calf and sank his teeth in.

I was already moving as the man let out a shout, his yowl of pain was only a momentary beat of savage satisfaction before he tried to lash out at Goblin. The Staffy avoided the blow and attacked the other leg. The vicious bites penetrated the denim, adding the stain of fresh copper to the air.

To try and fend off Goblin, he had to release Gracie. She dropped, collapsing to the dirt floor like someone had sliced all her strings. Goblin drove the son of a bitch back and right toward me.

“Goblin, erop ,” I ordered and Goblin released the bastard and darted back toward Gracie to protect her. The command pulled the man around to face me. Big dude, but I’d fought bigger.

I ducked the back swing of the guy’s meaty paw and slammed my left fist into his kidney as he stumbled past me, then slapped him across his face with the side of my pistol. A knife flashed in his hand and it sliced through the fabric of my shirt, but no pain followed its path.

Despite his behemoth of a size, he was far more spry than I expected. He caught me in the side of the head with a blow from his fist. I twisted, catching his arm with the knife and putting it in a hold. Even as he locked a hand on the wrist of my gun hand.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to fire wildly with Gracie and Goblin right there. Our assailant lacked a firearm, and I wasn’t letting him have mine. The pressure he put on my wrist was brutal, but I didn’t let go of the gun and I kept it pointed away Gracie and Goblin.

The beast of a man let out a growl that vibrated up from his chest. With bared teeth he tried to slam his head into mine. I stumbled back a step, avoiding the strike, and it pulled him off balance. Then I snapped my head forward and slammed it into his nose.

Nose had cartilage, and it didn’t hurt as much to strike it with my forehead. But it definitely hurt him. He let out a shriek of pain as blood sprayed from his nose. It covered me but it also caused him to let go of my wrist and he dropped his knife.

He staggered back a few steps, putting a hand up to his bloodied face. The blow had definitely given me a headache, but I really didn’t give a shit about that at the moment.

If anything, I wanted to pistol whip him with the Glock until he couldn’t move.

Then I wanted to tie him down, and remove all of his digits, one at a time, then his extremities. Answers would be nice. His pain would be better. Sadly, we didn’t have that kind of time.

The few scattered seconds between my head butt and his releasing me were far too fleeting. He recovered quicker than I would have liked and he crashed into me, hitting me at the midsection and sending me crashing back through some old boards into what was probably an old stall.

Heavy fucker knocked the breath out of me as we landed. The gun was sliding out of my hand and rather than let him grab it, I sent it skittering into the darkness away from us. He swore in Spanish, but between the nasal obstruction from his bloodied nose and the spittle flying from his lips, I didn’t understand him.

It wasn’t important, cause he had the knife again, but I got my legs up between us as he reared back and then slammed both feet into his gut. He let out a harsh grunt as I shoved the air out of him. It didn’t send him back far enough and he struck with the knife, slamming it right into my right calf and then into the top of my foot.

Ignoring it, I swung my left leg and this one clocked him right in the ear with my foot. He staggered to the side. No more games. No more playing with him. I pulled a knife from the sheath on my belt and I made it to my feet before he made it to his.

The bloodied mess of his face in the shadows, with all the dust flying that had been stirred up by our fight, gave him a gruesome appearance. As much as I wanted to question him, or at least tear him apart strip by strip, we didn’t have time for this shit.

Gracie didn’t have time for this.

I didn’t waste any more time playing with him. Grip firm on the combat knife, I slammed it through his throat from the side, piercing both carotid arteries. Shock rippled across the man’s face. I twisted the blade, severing the trachea and the vocal cords as I sliced down.

When I pulled the knife out, blood squirted from the injuries. He slapped his meaty hands against his throat like he could staunch the bleeding. His wet gurgling gasps filled the silence as he staggered. Cutting a person’s throat was never a silent or swift way to die—not like they tried to show it in the movies.

He had enough time to recognize he was going to die. To feel the fear leach into his blood as it sprayed out of his body. To want to fight to stay in the land of the living. Fight or flight kicked in, the furious pumping of his heart desperate to get blood to his brain would only serve to shove the blood out of him faster.

Three steps.

He made it all of three desperate steps as he staggered before he went to his knees.

Thirty seconds was an eternity when you couldn’t get air or stop the bleeding, when the world began to blink in and out as it faded. It was long enough for the very real fear to punch through the adrenaline.

I gripped his hair and yanked his head back as I stared down at him. “Burn in hell,” I told him. “Enjoy the downtime, because when I get there—I’m going to make it much worse.”

His mouth moved, the gasps of air punching more blood and bubbles from him, but no sound. He made it to almost forty-five seconds before his struggle ceased and he collapsed. I stared down at him. Slick with his blood, I gave it another ten seconds to make sure his chest didn’t rise or fall and that the gasping sounds truly ended.

Then, and only then, did I retrieve my gun. I cut a look over to where Goblin stood guard over Gracie. The good boy hadn’t left her. Not even once, his whole body seemed to tremble though. It was a lot to ask him to stay out of the fight, but if I’d lost—I needed to make sure she was safe.

I cleaned the knife off on the guy’s pant leg as best I could so I didn’t sheathe a bloodied knife. I’d have to clean it later regardless. Then searched the guy for ID. All I found were some keys for what looked like a four-wheeler. That would explain why we didn’t hear him arrive.

Asshole.

Phone out, I shoved the guy over and took his picture, then I got closeups of his hand. It wasn’t perfect, but I could use it to simulate prints and then I’d run them. Leaving him for the trash he was, I crossed over to Gracie and Goblin. My right leg protested and I was feeling the blows and the bruises.

“Goblin, vrij .” The release command had his tail wagging as Goblin glanced between me and Gracie. He let out a little whimpering noise and nudged her face. She didn’t react, but her chest rose and fell. I wiped my bloodied fingers on my jeans to try and clean them as much as possible before I pressed them to her throat.

Pulse.

A little uneven, but definitely there.

With care, I searched the back of her head. There was a lump and when I pulled my hand away, there was fresh blood on my fingers. I glanced over at the corpse. Too bad I couldn’t kill him twice.

“Let’s get her out of here,” I told Goblin. She needed medical treatment. The girl had taken way too many blows over the past few days. I didn’t doubt she’d had at least one concussion before. This would be another.

She weighed next to nothing as I lifted her. The blood on my clothes easily transferred to hers. With a grimace, I braced her against me. There was nothing to be done for it. I needed to get Gracie and our gear packed up and out of here.

It took me a minute to get her back to the house, I left Goblin guarding her as I retreated for the ancient van they’d left parked in the shed behind the barn. We’d only used it to get across the border. That wasn’t how we planned to return.

For now, it worked to evacuate us as swiftly as possible. It took me twenty minutes to load the gear and equipment in. I had three messages from the guys, but I ignored them all. I could answer once I had her on the road.

Each time I returned to the house, I checked on her. She was still out, but her breathing had steadied, as had her pulse. There were fresh red marks on her face and her throat.

Every glimpse of them just fired my temper hotter. Once I had everything in the van, I grabbed her bag and threw it in there, then I carried her out with Goblin following. I sent him to pee and then he hopped inside with her. I did one last sweep before I climbed in.

The engine gurgled to life and let out a backfire as we pulled out. Tired slammed into me in waves, but I ignored it and the vibrations of my phone until I’d put a solid couple of miles between us, the house, and the body.

It took effort to not glance back at her. I’d secured her to the bench seat with the ancient seat belts and Goblin lay on the floor right in front of her. Once I made it out to a paved road, I was able to accelerate.

The phone ceased its fits, and I had to call them when we’d gone far enough.

“What happened?” Bones demanded when he answered.

“We had one attacker. No idea who he was. Gracie is down. Assailant is dead. We’re on the road. I’m also covered in blood, so we need at least one stop and medical before we head anywhere else.”