Because if Benson didn’t have any vamps watching me, then that meant he’d most likely sent them all after Bria instead.
Dread filled me at the thought, making me walk faster and faster, until my boots were snap-snap-snapping against the pavement. A few folks on the street shot me curious or even aggravated looks as I rushed past them, but I didn’t care. Even if one of them had come up with a gun or a knife, I would have knocked them down and kept right on going.
But of course, today of all days, I’d decided to park my Aston Martin five long blocks from the restaurant, so it took me several minutes to reach the vehicle. I wanted to jump inside the car and peel away from the curb, but I made myself slow down and do my usual check for bombs and rune traps. I couldn’t help anyone if I was blown to bits.
But the car was clean, so I slung the duffel bag on top of the hood, unzipped it, and reached inside, pulling out a black vest covered with all sorts of zippered pockets—and, more important, lined with silverstone. I didn’t know how much of Benson’s vampiric Air power the magical metal would absorb, should it come to that, but the silverstone would at least stop any bullets zipping in my direction and keep them from blasting through my chest.
I patted down the pockets on the vest, making sure that I had all of my usual supplies, including some extra knives. Satisfied, I zipped up all the pockets, then the vest itself over my chest. I grabbed the duffel bag again, opened the car door, and threw it into the passenger seat. Then I slid behind the wheel, cranked the engine, and pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.
I called everyone again—Owen, Finn, and Bria—but no one answered. I cursed, even longer and louder than I had in the restaurant, but I forced myself to rein in my temper. If I couldn’t warn Bria, then maybe I could stop her before Benson and his men did. So I checked the info Xavier had sent me.
It was a map of directions from Catalina’s Northtown apartment to the main police station, which was downtown. But instead of taking the quickest, easiest route, Xavier’s map showed a series of side streets that curled around and came at the station from the opposite end of town—straight through Southtown and the heart of Benson’s territory.
Bria probably thought that she’d be better off taking the least expected route, and she would have been if she’d been dealing with anyone else. But Benson had more than enough vamps to cover every road around the station, not to mention all the dealers who worked for him and the regular folks who’d be too frightened not to do what he ordered them to do. No doubt, Benson had spread the word to watch out for a cop car cruising through Southtown and to let him know the second it was spotted. Then all he would have to do was close the jaws on his trap, and Bria and Catalina would be his for the taking.
That’s what I would do.
More dread twisted my heart, wringing it out like a wet dish rag, but I kept studying the map, and I realized that Xavier was right. There was only one spot that would work for an ambush: a bridge that arched over the Aneirin River about three miles away from the station. That’s where I would set up if I were Benson.
I threw the car into gear, slammed down on the gas, and zoomed away from the curb.
As I drove, I tried Bria a third time. No answer. I cursed again and had started to toss my phone aside in disgust when I realized that there was one person I hadn’t called yet. So I scrolled through my contacts until I found her number. The phone rang . . . and rang . . . and rang . . .
“Hello?” Catalina’s voice filled my ear.
“It’s Gin,” I snapped. “I know you’re with Bria, and I know what you’re doing and where you’re going. Where are you right now?”
Her phone beeped. “Can you hold on a second?” she asked. “Silvio just texted me.”
“No, I can’t hold on. Tell me where you are.”
Silence. I thought that she wasn’t going to answer me—or, worse, that she’d hang up—but she finally sighed.
“We’re driving through Southtown. We’re almost to the police station.” She hesitated. “Why?”
“Tell Bria to stop and turn around right f**king now. Benson knows that she’s bringing you in. He’s sure to have men waiting for you. And whatever you do, don’t get on the Carver Street Bridge.”
“But we just pulled onto the bridge—”
Catalina’s voice was lost in the sudden screech-screech-screech of tires. But the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. For a moment, everything was eerily quiet. Then—
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
The sounds of gunfire shot through the phone and echoed in my ear.
“Get down!” I heard Bria yell. “Get down!”
Catalina screamed. Something thumped, like she’d dropped her phone.
Then the line went dead.
•
I clutched the phone to my ear, hoping that Catalina would come back on the line.
But she didn’t.
And she wouldn’t, unless I got to Bria and her in time.
So I tossed my phone aside, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and zipped around a corner, driving faster than ever. For the first time, I was glad that Finn had badgered me into buying the Aston, because the car purred into high gear with no visible effort and hugged the road better than a creepy old uncle at Christmas, not wanting to let go of his pretty young relatives.
I took another corner even faster, and the Carver Street Bridge popped into view about a quarter-mile ahead. The bridge was one of the most interesting structures in Ashland, made of jagged pieces of gray river rock that had been fitted together, so that the whole thing resembled a life-size jigsaw puzzle. Walkways on either side of the two lanes let folks meander along the span and snap photos of the Aneirin River snaking by fifty feet below, while iron streetlamps curlicued up into the air, lining both sides of the bridge like soldiers snapped to attention.
I was on a road that ran parallel to the river, with brick storefronts off to my left and a narrow strip of grass off to my right before the slope plummeted down to the gray, gleaming surface of the water. Normally, at this time in the afternoon, the sidewalk would be full of people wandering in and out of the shops, with cars cruising by. But right now, everything was strangely still, the shops shuttered, the street deserted. No lights, no people, nobody open for business. I didn’t even see any other vehicles.
Except for the ones at the bridge.
Two black cars were stopped at my end of the bridge, sitting nose-to-nose and creating a crude roadblock. Two more black cars were positioned the same way at the far end of the bridge, with one lone vehicle sitting sideways by itself in the center of the span—Bria’s sedan.