Stolen

HOUDINI

"No," my stalker said into his radio. "What?… Yeah. Probably. You gonna check with Tucker?… Nah, I'll walk. Tell Pierce to park it around back… Yeah? Well, it's not far… See y a in a couple."

He stuffed the radio into his pocket. Then he lifted his gun and did something to make it smaller, folded back the barrel or unscrewed it or something. Hey, I'm Canadian. I don't know street guns. Somehow he made the weapon half the size, lifted his jacket, and stuck it in a holster.

I followed stalker-guy back to the street. There he met up with a second man, also dressed in the whole cat-burglar/gothic-fatigue getup. Both removed their ball-caps and shoved them in a collapsible knapsack. Then they unzipped their jackets, making themselves look as normal as possible without revealing the guns. They headed east. I followed.

By the third turn, I knew where they were going. We were still a half-mile away, but I knew. As I expected, they walked three blocks, made a left, made a right, walked three more blocks, and ended up in front of the hotel where I'd met the Winterbournes that afternoon. So my concern about gun-toting men hiding in the Winterbournes' hotel room hadn't been so paranoid after all. Only instead of having their cohorts/minions jump me there, they'd waited to go after me under cover of night.

I expected the men to walk straight in the front lobby. When they didn't I was surprised, then realized two guys dressed in black walking into the lobby of an expensive hotel at 4:00 A.M. would raise a few eyebrows… and a few alarms. Invited or not, they were taking the back route. They skirted around to a side door. My stalker leaned against the wall, blocking my view, while his friend fiddled with the lock. Two minutes passed. Then the door opened and they slipped inside. I counted to twenty then went after them.

The two men took the stairs. They climbed to the fourth floor, opened the exit door, and peered out. After a few moments of discussion, my stalker's companion slipped into the hall, leaving stalker-guy in the stairwell.

Now I had a dilemma. From my vantage point below the stalker, I couldn't see anything-not him and certainly not his companion, even though the door was propped open. I did have an option. When I'd come in with Paige, I'd noticed a second set of stairs on the far side of the lobby. I could exit on the third floor, find the alternate stairs, go up to the fifth, and circle back to the staircase. From the steps above, I'd be able to see. Plus, the stalker would be more likely to expect danger from below, someone coming up from ground level. On the other hand, the plan also meant I'd be out of hearing and smelling range for at least a few minutes. Was it better to stay where I could use those two senses? The longer I waited, the more risky it would be to leave. I crept down the stairs to the third floor.

Circling around wasn't a problem. The exits were marked at each end of the hall. I came back to the first stairwell, took off my shoes, slipped through the fifth-floor door, and eased down the stairs until I was a half-dozen steps from the fourth-floor landing where stalker-guy waited. Sliding my shoes back on, I crouched to peer through the railing. Perfect. Now I had sound, smell, and sight. My stalker's partner was at room 406. The Winterbournes. He was crouched before the door, fiddling with lock-pick tools. So they weren't invited guests. Maybe the Winterbournes had been telling the truth about being in danger. At least, telling the truth about themselves being in danger. And me? Well, I wouldn't have been in Pittsburgh if it weren't for them, right? Somehow I doubted these militia-wannabes would have been stalking me tonight if I'd stayed home. Whether or not the Winterbournes were complicit in this, I could still blame them for it. Lucky thing, because I definitely wanted to blame them for something.

Stalker-guy rolled from his heels to his toes, muttering under his breath. Down the hall, his companion wiped his sweaty face on his shoulder. He stood, stretched, and crouched again. Several times he tried the door handle, then turned to his partner and shook his head. Finally my stalker waved him back. I quickstepped up three stairs, out of sight. They came into the stairwell and closed the door.

"No go," lock-pick guy said. "I don't get it. I'm sure I popped the lock, but it won't open."

"Dead bolt?"

Lock-pick guy shook his head. "I checked out the place this morning. Old-fashioned key locks."

"Call Tucker. I saw a pay phone out front. Ground line. I'll wait here."

Lock-pick guy trotted down the stairs. As the first-floor door swung shut behind him, I heard another door open, this one on the fourth floor. Stalker-guy cracked open the exit to look down the hall. Then he made a noise deep in his throat, a stifled chuckle. I sneaked down a few steps, crouched again, and looked through the door crack.

Paige Winterbourne stood in the hall, arms folded across her chest, dressed in a green silk chemise and matching wrap. Frowning, she surveyed the corridor. Then she stopped and stared at the exit where we hid. Though the door was open only a couple of inches, she must have seen light or shadow peeking through. As she watched, stalker-guy hesitated, holding the door handle, ready to close it. If she'd gone back into her room to call security, he would have bolted. But she didn't. She narrowed her eyes and started toward us. Yet another horror movie cliché. When the ditzy ingenue hears a bump in the night, does she retreat to safety and phone for help? Of course not. She has to see what's behind that partly open door. All Paige needed now was to lose the negligee, so she could run naked and screaming down the hall when she flung open the door and found the killer lurking behind it.

Stalker-guy broke from the script. Instead of waiting for Paige to throw open the door, he took out his gun and snapped it back together. Then he eased the door open another half-inch and lifted the gun to the door crack. Last year, I'd seen an innocent woman gunned down because of me. Whether Paige was innocent or not was a matter of some debate, but I doubted she deserved to be murdered in a hotel hallway. I leaped over the railing and landed on the man's back. He fell forward. I grabbed his head and twisted his neck. The simplest, quietest, and cleanest kill.

As he dropped face-first to the floor, I looked up to see Paige holding the door open and staring.

"Stand guard," I said. "Is your room unlocked?"

"My-? Umm, yes."

I hoisted the dead man onto my shoulder and pushed past her into the hall. "I said to stand guard. He wasn't alone."

"Where are you-oh, wait. My room? You can't put him-" She stopped. "Take him to the suite next to ours. The near side. It's empty."

"All the better."

"I can unlock the door with a spell," she said.

She hurried down the hallway alongside me, murmuring words in a foreign language. While she was talking, I covered my hand with my shirt, reached over, and snapped the vacant room's doorknob.

"Run back and get the gun," I said. "Then wake your aunt and get in here."

Paige hesitated, like a knee-jerk reaction against taking orders. She seemed to think better of arguing and paused only a second before jogging to the stairwell. I dragged the dead man into the bathroom, closed the door, and checked his pockets for ID. Nothing. Seeing the two-way radio in his pocket reminded me that there was a second gunman, and Paige and her aunt were taking their sweet time evacuating their room.

I opened the bathroom door as they walked into the vacant room. Paige was still wearing her chemise and wrapper. Ruth's long housecoat covered her nightwear. Both carried a change of clothing and their purses, and Paige had the gun.

"Good idea," I said. "Is all your ID in there?"

"No sense leaving them any clues if they break in," Paige said. "If we have to, we can leave the rest of the stuff behind."

"Paige told me what happened," Ruth said. "We're very grateful. Also very impressed. You have excellent reflexes."

"Self-defense classes," I said.

"Still not admitting to the werewolf thing?" Paige asked.

I walked to the bathroom and held open the door. "Either of you ever see this guy before? Don't touch anything. The cops will dust for prints."

"Cops?" Paige repeated.

"Yes, cops. Who do you think will handle the murder investigation? Hotel security?"

"Murder? You mean he's dead?"

"No. He's resting comfortably," I said. "People always sleep best with their heads at a ninety-degree angle. He looks comfortable, doesn't he?"

"There's no need for sarcasm," Paige said tightly. "Maybe you're used to hauling corpses around, but I'm not."

"Sheltered life. You're supposed to be a witch and you've never had to kill anyone?"

Paige's voice tightened another notch. "We use alternate methods of defense."

"Like what? Cast a spell to make your attackers think happy thoughts? Turn their guns into flowers? Peace and love for all?"

"I'd have used a binding spell," Paige said. "Kept the guy alive so we could question him. Wow. There's a novel idea. If you hadn't killed him, maybe we could have talked to him."

"Oh, that's right. Paige's ultra-efficient binding spell. Tell you what. Next time I see a guy pointing a gun at you, I'll let you do things your way. You start your invocation and see if you can finish before he guns you down. Deal?"

Paige lifted the gun, opened it, removed a tranquilizer dart, and held it up. "No one wanted to kill me."

"Are you sure about that?" a male voice asked.

Paige and I jumped. Even Ruth looked up, startled. In the corner of the bedroom stood a man dressed in the same black fatigues as the dead man on the floor. He was of average height and weight, with average brown hair cut short but not military short. Only one distinguishing feature-a paper-thin scar running from temple to nose-assured me I'd never seen this man before. I glanced toward the hall door. It was still closed and locked. Paige's change of clothing lay undisturbed in front of it. So how'd this guy get in?

"I'm glad to hear you wouldn't have killed poor Mark," the man said, sitting on the edge of the bed, stretching his legs and crossing his ankles. "Very sporting of you. I guess what they say about witches is true. So selfless, so concerned for others, so unbelievably naive."

I stepped toward him.

"Don't! "Paige hissed.

"This is the werewolf?" The man turned dirt-brown eyes on me in a smirking once-over. "Better than I expected. So, are you coming along, wolf-girl? Or do things have to get"-his smirk broadened to a grin-"physical."

I glanced at Paige and Ruth.

"Oh, they're coming too," the man said. "But I'm not worried about them. Only witches, you know. They'll do what they're told."

Paige made a noise in her throat, but Ruth laid a restraining hand on her arm.

"So you're kidnapping us?" I asked.

The man yawned. "Looks that way, doesn't it?"

"What's in it for you?" Paige asked.

"See?" The man looked at me. "That's witches for you. Make me feel guilty. Appeal to my kinder, gentler side. Which might work, if I had one."

"So you're working for Ty Winsloe?" I said.

"Oh, come on, ladies. As much as I'd love to chat about my motivations and the Yankees' chances at the World Series-"

I lunged at him, sailing the five feet between us. My hands went out, ready to catch him in the chest and topple him backward. But they didn't. Instead I hit empty air and tumbled onto the bed, twisting fast to right myself before the counterattack. It didn't come. I whirled around to see the man standing by the bedroom door, the same bored expression on his face.

"Is that the best you can do?" He sighed. "Major disappointment."

I advanced on him, slowly, eyes locked on his. When I was close enough to hear his heartbeat, I stopped. He grinned again and his eyes sparked with boyish anticipation, like a kid impatient for the game to begin. His throat pulsed, words moving up to his mouth. Before he could say anything, I swung my right foot out, hooked his legs, and yanked. He pitched backward. Then he vanished, one second dropping like a brick, the next-not there. Just not there.

"Clever," he said from somewhere behind me.

I spun to see him standing in the bathroom by the dead body.

"You're getting the hang of it," he said, a grin illuminating his eyes. "I'd love to give you another chance, but my compatriots are coming. Can't let them find me playing with the enemy. They wouldn't understand. Humans."

He bent to grab the tranquilizer gun Paige had dropped. Ruth's lips moved. The man stopped in mid-reach, fingers close enough to flex and touch the metal. But his hand didn't move.

"Go!" Ruth said, snatching her purse from the floor. "It won't last."

Paige sprinted across the room, grabbed my arm, and dragged me toward the door. I jerked away and turned back to the man. He was immobilized. It didn't matter if it wouldn't last. I didn't need long. I stepped toward him. Paige grabbed my arm again.

"No time! "she said. "He could break it any second."

"Go on," I said.

"No," Ruth said.

Together they propelled me out the door. I resisted, but it was clear they weren't going anywhere without me, and I wasn't about to risk anyone's life, including my own. So I ran for the stairwell. They followed.

We'd gone down almost two flights of steps when I heard the tramp of footsteps coming up from the bottom. I wheeled around and shoved Paige back up. As we ran for the third-floor exit, someone shouted from below. The clomp of footsteps turned to a fast beat as they hightailed it up the stairs after us.

I pushed past Ruth and Paige and led them down the hall to the opposite stairwell. Our pursuers were just coming onto the third floor as we bolted through the other door. Down the stairs. Out the first-floor emergency exit. Alarms blared.

Paige turned to the north. I grabbed her arm and wrenched her back.

"That's the street," I hissed, pushing her in front of me as we ran south.

"They won't gun us down in front of people," she called back at me.

"Wanna bet? How many people do you think are out there at four-thirty in the morning?"

"Just run," Ruth said. "Please."

The alarms seemed to slow the men down. Maybe someone stopped them. I didn't know and didn't care. All that mattered was that we made it to the south end of the alley, turned west, and were halfway down that one before I heard our pursuers come out of the hotel, barking orders. The west alley ended. Our choices were south to a dead end or north to the street. With Ruth and Paige in their nightgowns, I wasn't sure running to the possible safety of the street was such a good idea. But "dead end" had a really ominous ring to it. So I turned north and kept running. Actually, "running" was an overstatement. Call it a fast jog. While Paige managed to stay beside me, forcing her elderly aunt to run at my normal pace would have been as much a death warrant as leaving her behind.

Partway to the street, we hit a narrow alley that went off to the west and I veered down it. The men were now rounding the north corner, their heavy breathing like the baying of hounds at our heels. I was glad Ruth and Paige couldn't hear it. Ahead, a garbage dumpster blocked the west route. I could see a turn to the south and assumed there was a north fork as well. There wasn't. Worse yet, the south fork ended in an eight-foot wall.

"Over the dumpster," I whispered. "I'll jump on and pull you up."

Ruth shook her head. "Down there," she wheezed, pointing south.

"But there's no-"

"Hide," she said.

I squinted down the dark alley. There was no cover there but shadows. I turned to Ruth to say as much, then saw her face. It was crimson, her chest heaving, each rasping breath making her wince. She couldn't go any farther.

Nodding, I shepherded them down the south alley and motioned for us to stand against the west wall, where the shadows were deepest. I put Ruth, in her pale yellow nightgown, on the far side, sheltered by Paige and me. It wouldn't help. They'd see us. One glance down this alley and we were caught. All I could do now was prepare to confront them.

We were barely settled into the shadows when three men skidded to a halt in front of the dumpster. One was lock-pick guy, the other was Houdini from the hotel room, and the third was yet another military-style clone.

"Don't move," Paige whispered, touching my arm.

I didn't think it would help, but if it made them feel better, I'd stay still until we were discovered. The men looked at the dumpster, then glanced down the south alley, too quick to see us. Lock-pick guy walked from one end of the dumpster to the other.

"Blocked," he said. "No way but over."

"With an old lady?" the new guy said. "No way."

Houdini leaned against the north brick wall, took a cigarette from his pocket, and struck a match. The flame lit his face for a second, then sputtered into darkness. He took a drag while the two military guys argued over the likelihood of our having scaled the dumpster. Hello! We were twenty feet away, in almost plain sight. But no one ever said the military recruited for brains. Besides, the more I saw of these guys, the more I doubted they were acting under the auspices of any wing of the U.S. military. So what were they? Retired military maybe? More likely discharged. Or those militia groups who pop up with alarming frequency on American newscasts. It didn't matter. Bright, they were not.

As I turned back to Houdini, he looked right back at me. He knew exactly where we were. Why didn't he tell his comrades? Because he wanted us to sweat. Extending the game of cat and mouse. He lifted the cigarette and inhaled. The red ember glowed in the night, then fell, end over end, blinking in the darkness before hitting the ground in a shower of sparks. As he stepped toward the south alley, I tensed and held my breath. His eyes scanned the alley, on us then not on us. Cute. Pretend you can't see us. Lull us into a false sense of security. Sadistic bastard. I held my breath and prepared for the attack.