Another wave of self-recrimination washed over me. I should have suspected something was up the moment he said Nicholas had been one of his favorite students, that he wasn’t what people believed him to be. Shoulda coulda woulda.
But I’d been too busy dealing with Ruby’s attack on me, the sickness spreading through the House of Wonder, and trying to stay alive as the Sandman trained me with fists and feet to pay attention to what was going on around me.
The Sandman.
Shit, he had a connection to me through the pendant I wore to mark me as a Shade.
A pendant that was no longer with me, but maybe . . . I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath, and the constriction eased around my chest. Another slow breath, and I focused all my mental energy on a shout.
CAN YOU HEAR ME?
Professor Ash gave a low grunt and his leathery wings rustled. “He cannot hear you, though I can. I have replaced myself as the one who can track you.”
My eyes flew open, and I twisted into a more upright sitting position before the spell clamped down on my arms and legs again, freezing me in place once more. My uncle calmly leaned over and buckled me in, as if he was bringing me to the park to pitch balls.
Questions pinged through my head, not least among them where they were taking me, whether they planned to kill me, and who’d killed Tommy.
Which meant I couldn’t slump into a pile of goo. I had to be aware.
Professor Ash twisted around in the front passenger seat to face me, his eyes full of intelligence. He wasn’t the one driving, then. I considered checking, but I couldn’t look away from the gargoyle.
“There are many questions rolling through you. Focus on one, and I will do my best to answer. You need to understand that there are some things I cannot answer because of my loyalties and the ties that bind me to them,” Ash dipped his head toward my left, where the Shadowkiller sat. “But I will share with you what I can.”
My uncle said nothing, his body still except for one hand tapping away rapidly on his leg, a staccato beat.
I didn’t close my eyes, but went through the list of questions quickly, settling on the most obvious.
Are you two going to kill me?
The professor shook his head. “No, your death is not the plan, not in the least. There is much to discuss, and very little time in which to do so.”
Not in the plan? That meant it could happen though.
The SUV took a sharp left, which tipped me to the side and changed my field of vision as the vehicle picked up speed once more. I couldn’t see who was driving, and even if I’d been able to turn my head more, I wouldn’t have been able to. There was a partial plexi-glass partition between the front and back seats on that side, and it was shaded out between me and the driver.
I tried another question, seeing as talking was not happening.
Where are we going?
Ash tipped his head. “Ah, that is not something I can tell you. Because despite cutting off your connection to Rufus, I cannot cut off your connection to your friends. And I am quite sure they will come looking for you. We need them, of course, but away from the House of Wonder. You are the bait.”
Beside me, my uncle grunted in agreement. “They are stronger than anyone realized, especially together.”
You want my crew too?
They nodded in tandem, and I managed to move my head a little to look from one to the other. Damn it, I could not let them use me as bait, but I didn’t have a lot of say at the moment.
“We have company, boss!” the driver shouted, his voice high-pitched and squealy. And a hell of a lot of afraid. Goblin was my first thought.
A bellow outside like the boom of a train horn echoed heavy through the air, reverberating in my chest. The start of a warning ran down my spine, but there was nothing I could do about it. No running away for me.
I turned my head a little to the left and got a glimpse of dark gray hide and the brilliant white of a massively curved horn only a second before we were hit broadside with the force of some serious tonnage.
The metal around us screeched, and every window imploded, sending shards of glass shooting through the air.
The SUV was sent airborne and tumbled sideways, spinning away from our attacker.
I was suddenly glad for the fact that ol’ Uncle Shadowkiller had buckled my butt in, as we were far from done with the whole rolling over business.
Three times the vehicle tumbled before it finally crashed to a halt against a building, the horn stuck and blaring, other vehicles honking around us, a woman outside screaming for someone to call 9-1-1.
Upside down, hanging from my seat belt, I realized the spell Nicholas had put on me was gone. I turned quickly to see my uncle out cold, blood running from his head into his blond hair, breathing shallow.
A bellow rippled through the air again and I twisted to see another glimmer of dark gray hide lit up by streetlights and billboards. Another hit was coming, and if I didn’t get out, I was going to have some serious bruises.
I wasn’t getting another chance like this. Scrambling, I yanked the belt off, flopped unceremoniously onto the ceiling, turned and crawled out the window closest to me, the frame bent but still big enough for me to slide out.
“No!” Ash yelled, but I was not slowing down for him. Maybe he wasn’t yelling at me, though. Maybe he was yelling at whatever hit us.
In my escape from the window, I sliced my left arm in a long gash that went from the top of my wrist almost to my elbow, but the pain barely registered. I didn’t have long before my uncle would be awake—I had to move fast.
I stumbled a half step as I hit the sidewalk, taking in the people around the wreck, staring and pointing. Taking pictures. More screaming as the rolling thunder filled the air. Not from the night sky above, but from below.
What felt like an earthquake rumbled from the soles of my feet up through my calves, and the world slowed enough that I turned to see a freaking rhino charging the SUV. A damn rhino, loose in the middle of New York City. Only . . . it was bigger than any rhino I’d ever seen or heard of. Closer to the size of an elephant. The critter’s horn had to be at least seven feet long, and a foot around at the base where it connected to the forehead.
That was what had slammed into us. And it was closing in for round two.
There was no doubt I was seeing one of the shifters from the House of Claw trying to stop the Shadowkiller.
“Cats on fire.” I whispered one of Pete’s sayings as time sped back up, and I dove out of the way. The muscular beast lowered its head and slammed its horn deep into the SUV, lifting the vehicle on the point in order to ram it again into the building’s wall.
Above us, people in the building cried out, and the sound of breaking glass had me covering my head and springing back to my feet.
I ended up in the middle of the street, but traffic had stopped as the scene around us played out. What the hell did the humans here think of this madness? They probably assumed the impossibly proportioned rhino had escaped from a zoo. Did New York even have a zoo?
More important than the zoo situation . . . did I stay to make sure the Shadowkiller was done?
No, I wasn’t that stupid. I knew when I was outgunned.
Did I go back to get my friends?
Bait, they’d said I was bait to draw my friends away from the House of Wonder.
The decision was made for me.
As I turned on my heel to run, the gargoyle burst out the front windshield of the SUV, dragging someone with him. He had the Shadowkiller gripped under the arms with his powerful foot claws—saving him from the shifter. I watched as Ash flew past me, body shimmering with some sort of soft glow. The humans didn’t see them, their eyes riveted on the accident scene.