thought his palate far too sophisticated to sully it with mere
“Callie!” Donovan cried out, and rushed over to her.
Callie’s eyes widened at the sight of him, and she scrambled up off the bed. “Donovan! Oh, Donovan! I knew that you’d come for me! I just knew it!”
Tears streamed down her face, and she pressed her lips to his. Donovan hesitated a moment before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.
I wondered if the detective was thinking that he hadn’t really come for his fiancee after all—I had. If Donovan could have had his way, he would have knocked on the front door and one of Dekes’s giants probably would have put a bullet through his head a minute later.
But because I wasn’t a total bitch, I let them kiss for a few seconds before I cleared my throat. The two of them broke apart and looked at me, Callie with fear and wariness, and Donovan with guilt.
“Come on,” I said in a harsher voice than I would have liked. I wasn’t jealous of Callie, not really, but the detective had never looked that relieved to see me before—something that still hurt, despite all this time. “The reunion’s over. We’ve still got two more women to find and rescue.”
Donovan nodded. He took Callie’s hand and led her out of the room without a word. He didn’t look at me when he passed. He didn’t want to see the cold, mocking anger in my eyes.
Couldn’t blame him for that.
22
We rejoined Owen in the hallway. While we’d been rescuing Callie, he’d grabbed the guard’s cell phone and was listening to the crackles of conversation on the other end.
“Any sign of more guards?” I asked. “What are they saying?”
Owen shook his head. “Nothing much. I heard some footsteps and some shouts, but none of them seem to be headed in this direction. From the chatter on the phone, most of the guards are on the other side of the house, trying to figure out what’s going on, who’s in the mansion, and how they can stop them. I think that’s where Dekes is too, although I can’t be sure. They haven’t said anything about Vanessa or Victoria.”
“That’s because the two women are probably somewhere secure already. I bet that Dekes keeps them under lock and key the whole time, except for when he needs Vanessa to make an appearance for his friends. After all, it just wouldn’t do for Dekes to lose his elemental meal tickets,” I said.
I pulled my own cell phone out of my vest. “Callie’s secure,” I said. “Repeat, Callie is secure.”
“Roger that,” Finn responded a second later. “Still searching the first floor. No sign of the other two women yet.”
“Keep searching. We’ll do the same up here.”
I put the phone back in its slot on my vest, and we moved away from the door and the dead giant. We eased through the halls, looking and listening, but we didn’t encounter any more guards. Finn and the others had killed four already, and I’d put another one down. That made five. I didn’t know how many men Dekes had on his staff and how many might actually be in the mansion at the moment, but I was willing to bet that we’d put a good dent in their numbers.
We made it back to the crossway and started down the only other hall I hadn’t explored yet. I led the way, followed by Donovan, then Callie, with Owen serving as the rear guard. We didn’t pass any more of Dekes’s men, but we started to hear faint shouts, screams, and scuffles. The hoarse sounds grew louder the farther we walked down the hall, peppered here and there with the sharp sting of gunfire.
Looked like Finn, Bria, and Sophia had run into some more giants. The gunshots didn’t bother me, though, because they told me that the three of them were still alive and fighting. I would have been more worried if I hadn’t heard any noise at all. Besides, every once in a while, Finn’s triumphant shouts drifted out of the cell phone in the pocket of my vest, telling me that they were okay.
Eventually we reached another hallway that led to a dead end. I peered around the corner again, and just like before, I spotted a giant standing guard outside a door. Only this time he had two buddies with him. Jackpot.
I drew back before they saw me and looked at Owen. “Three of them, two of us. Care for a little tag-team action?”
Owen grinned and twirled his staff in his hands. “With you? Always.”
I looked over at Donovan. “You stay here with Callie and watch our backs. We shouldn’t be long.”
The detective nodded and made Callie stand against the wall beside him.
I palmed a second knife and turned my attention back to Owen. “Same rush job as before, with me in the lead, drawing their gunfire. On three. One . . . two . . . three!”
We both sprinted out from around the corner and ran down the hall toward the giants. They were taken off guard just like their buddy had been before, but they recovered much quicker. One of them managed to get his gun out from under his suit jacket, raise it, and fire. I was in front of Owen, making me the target instead of him, just like I’d planned.
Two bullets thunked into my chest, momentarily knocking me back, but the silverstone in my vest easily caught the bullets. The giant pulled the trigger again, but his buddy was also reaching for his gun at the same time and spoiled his aim. The third bullet plowed harmlessly into one of the walls.
Then Owen and I were on them, and it was far too late for guns.
Owen took the guy on the far right, bringing his staff down in a vicious arc on top of the giant’s head. It wasn’t enough to crack open his skull outright, but the snap of the metal was more than enough to daze him, and the giant’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. Owen brought the staff up, then swung it around, this time slamming the end of it into the guy’s temple. That blow opened up a gushing wound, and the guy staggered back into the wall. Owen brought the staff around a third time, driving the end into the giant’s throat. The giant immediately collapsed, choking and clawing at his crushed windpipe. Owen swung the staff a final time, snapping the giant’s head to one side. The giant didn’t move after that.
Meanwhile, I concentrated on the giant in the middle, the one with the gun, chopping at his hand with my knife. The blade sliced into his wrist, and he howled with pain. The gun clattered to the floor, and I used my foot to kick it behind me. The guy on the far left reached for me, but this time, his buddy stumbled into him, driving them both back against the opposite wall. After that, it was just a matter of keeping them penned in together while I went to work with my knives.
The blood spattered onto the wall, and they soon joined their dead friend on the floor. Once again, I leaned over and cut all their throats, just to be sure.
Owen tried the door, but of course it was locked. I slid one of my knives up my sleeve, then dug through the giants’ pockets with my free hand, but none of them had a key for the door. Not surprising. If I were Dekes and Vanessa was locked inside this room, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to give the giants the key either. Because if they had a key, for whatever reason, sooner or later, one of them would be dumb enough to open the door at the wrong moment, and that’s when Vanessa would strike. A couple of blasts of her Fire magic to the chest would be enough to put down a giant, and I was betting that the elemental had tried more than once to escape.
The door was made out of sturdy wood too heavy and solid to cut my way through with one of my knives, and it was reinforced with silverstone bars. Since the giants didn’t have the key, that left only one way to open the door and see who was waiting on the other side.
So I tucked my other knife back up my sleeve and reached for my Ice magic—and was surprised once again at just how little there was of it. Once more, only a few silvery sparks flickered in the palm of my hand.
