Impulse

“Maybe. Is that one of those pieces from Patrick’s whackjob suppliers?”

“Yeah. Mitchell, maybe?”

“We’ll find out.” Alec glanced at the other two council members. Both men stared back, expressions tense. “Levesque, Reed—”

“Go,” Levesque said. He swallowed hard, then looked at Julio. “I hope you find her.”

“I will.” He’d find her, hunt her down with any and all resources at his disposal. And there was no question in his mind this time what to do with Josh Hill.

Julio threw open the hotel room door. “The police located the car. Alec and Andrew are talking to them now, but there’s no way to know—” He bit off the words with a growl. “Tell me something good, Patrick.”

Patrick stepped aside and prodded a leggy blonde into the room. She was dressed in leather from her pink hair to her shit-kicking boots, and her pierced eyebrows drew together as she stared at the iPad in her hands. “Need one of the bullets.”

“For Sera’s gun,” Patrick clarified, looking at Julio. “This is Kristen. She’s a techno-wizard who used to do jobs with Ben from time to time.”

Kristen didn’t look up from the iPad. “This one’s on the house. For Ben. But I still need an anchor.”

“I have some of the extra ammo in my bag.” Julio dug through his duffel and found the beat-up cardboard box. “Be careful. I think these explode.”

“Ooh, exciting.” She set the tablet on the table and swung her bag off her shoulder. “I need a knife, some drinking glasses and a lighter. And for one of you to be willing to bleed.”

“Pocketknife.” Julio tossed his on the table with a thud, then sat and stretched out his arm beside her iPad. “The glasses are on the ice tray.”

Patrick fetched them as Kristen began to unpack items. Four stubby pillar candles in various colors, a half- dozen plastic baggies with different herbs, and a metal bowl joined the glasses and lighter that Patrick provided.

She worked in silence, setting the candles out around Julio’s arm. Then she flipped the iPad face-down and sprinkled something that smelled like cinnamon across the back of it. “I need about an inch of your blood in the bottom of one of these glasses. The magic needs an anchor to the technology, and blood’s the strongest anchor there is.”

If she needed every drop he could squeeze from his veins, he’d have given it to her. The pocketknife was dull enough to hurt, and he winced as he drew it across the heel of his hand and watched blood drip into the glass. Halfway through, the wound began to knit closed, and he had to slice his palm again.

She mixed herbs into the other glass and watched him, finally nodding. “That’s enough.

Patrick? Light the candles.”

Patrick obeyed, and Kristen rolled up her sleeves. “This part’s pretty damn cool,” she murmured, setting the metal bowl down on the back of the iPad. “Pull your arm out of the circle formed by the candles. You do not want this spell trying to latch on to your brainwaves instead of the 3G signal.”

Julio jerked his arm away. “What will it do, map the signature from the gun?”

“Mm-hmm.” She dropped a bullet into the bowl, then swirled the blade of the knife in Julio’s blood before dipping it in the herbs. She held the tip over the first candle, filling the room with the pungent scent of scorched blood and burning herbs. By the time she’d burned the herbs off the blade on the fourth candle, the area in between them had begun to glow.

Kristen set the knife aside and picked up the two glasses, holding them a foot above the metal bowl. “You two might want to take a step back. There shouldn’t be a physical explosion, but the power might bitchslap you pretty hard.”

“I’m fine,” Julio growled. “Just—hurry.”

“If you say so…” She closed her eyes with a hum, and light arced between the candles, a silver square of power that spun out like yarn connecting each flame. She peeked at the bowl, adjusted her aim, and dumped the mixed herbs and Julio’s blood on top of the bullet.

Magic cracked through the room as Kristen jerked her hands back. A glowing column formed in the center of the bowl, thrusting skyward like a floodlight before collapsing in on itself. It rushed outward in a perfect circle, slicing through Julio with an uncomfortable jolt. Next to him, Patrick grunted in pain.

Kristen seemed unbothered. She watched, poised on her toes, her hands hovering outside the barrier formed by the candles. A moment later it collapsed, and she snatched up the metal bowl and stirred its contents with her finger as she counted under her breath. When she hit five, she removed her blood-covered finger and traced a rune on the back of the iPad. “Tape,” she muttered, dabbing her finger in the bowl again. “Get me the tape from my bag. And the towel.”

As she traced a second rune, Patrick dug through her bag and surfaced with a towel and a roll of clear packing tape. Kristen carefully wiped her finger clean before picking up the tape.

“This’ll be good for twenty-four hours, give or take.” She tore a long strip of the tape off and carefully set it over the first of the bloodied runes, smoothing down the edges with a look of fierce concentration. “More take than give, if you stray out of 3G range. There’s a little magic in there that can boost a signal, but if you’re burning through that, it’ll mean less to spare for the spell.”

As she fitted a second piece of tape over the back, she looked up at Julio. “If it comes down to it, pull up the tape and bleed on the thing. There’s power in blood. And yours has a hell of a kick. But until then…” She flipped the device over and activated the screen. A map appeared, zoomed out to show the entire country. A silver dot pulsed in Georgia. “There’s the gun.”

His eyes fixed on that point. It didn’t matter that finding the gun didn’t necessarily mean finding Sera. It was hope, a concrete direction in which to travel, and Julio snatched the tablet.

“Whatever you want,” he promised hoarsely. “I’m good for the money.”

“For Ben,” she said again, already packing up her supplies. “But if you want to send me a grand to cover the supplies, I won’t spit on you. Patrick knows how to find me. You’ve got more important shit to get done.”

He looked up, met Patrick’s gaze. “This time, it is my call to make. I’m going to kill that fucker.”

Chapter Seventeen

She heard his voice in her dreams.

Slow. Familiar. Coaxing and wheedling, whispering for her to open her eyes, whining for her to wake up. Her head throbbed and her body felt bruised from nose to toes, but it was his voice that dragged her into consciousness, and the sick dread that came with it.

Paper touched her lips. “Wake up and drink it. You got a little banged up in the crash.”

Josh.

She pressed her lips together as tightly as she could and turned her face, not caring that something wet splashed against her cheek.

He sighed, exasperated and impatient. His fingers curled tight in her hair, and he forcibly pulled her face back to the cup. “Drink.”

It smelled like water. Shuddering, she parted her lips, and she was so parched she let the liquid wash over her tongue and only considered spitting it back at him for a few moments. It might be satisfying, but it wouldn’t be smart.

Right now, she needed to be smart.

“Touching.” Another voice, this one low and irritated. “When you’re finished, can we talk about how you fucked everything up?”

Sera tried to turn her head, but Josh’s grip in her hair hadn’t eased. She only caught a glimpse of the room’s other occupant out of the corner of her eye, but it was enough. He looked like an older, angrier version of Miguel, which meant he had to be Diego Mendoza.

Okay, she had to be really smart.