Tension springs out along Max’s jaw.
The sound of voices echo down the hall. With the racket this gargoyle made breaking into our room, I’m a little shocked it’s taken this long for our fellow motel guests to react. Chalk it up to a desire to avoid inconvenience at all possible. Desperation digs into my chest. We’ve got to get out of here.
“You have to trust me, Max,” I say. “The same way I trust that you’re not using your magic on me, trust that I’m not using this spell on you.”
Max shakes his head again, then grabs both of our arms.
I gasp. “Wait!” Before I can finish, a feeling like water rushes over me, and Max bamfs us out of the room.
16.
WE CRASH INTO THE MIDDLE of an empty field near the motel. As I stumble across the flat grass, Max collapses to his knees, coughing and wheezing. The woman lands in a three-point stance. Stone gray wings spring from her back, and with a battle cry, she lunges in my direction. Terror pulses like an electric current through my veins, but before she gets very far, Max grabs her ankle. She pulls him along the soggy grass for a few steps, then pauses to glare down at him.
“For the love of all that is good, and magical,” Max says around a gasp, “stop for two seconds.”
The woman glares at me, and I’m ashamed to admit, I crab walk a few feet away from her. “Fine,” she says. “But only if she takes that binding spell off you.”
Shaking with pure frustration, I spring to my feet, lower back screaming with pain. “Oh sure, I’ll get right on that. All we know about you is that you beat the junk out of me and broke into our motel room. How can I be sure you’re not just another bounty hunter trying to steal my mark?”
The woman’s eyes flash. “How dare you? No self-respecting gargoyle would ever take such a dishonorable job.”
I snort and cross my arms. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Gargoyles are practically perfect in all the ways. Good and pure, protectors of the innocent, all around good guys. My buddy Hank’s told me all about you self-righteous twats.”
Brows jumping to her hairline, the woman unclenches her fist. “Hank Theriot?”
I let my head drop back with a guttural groan. “Please don’t tell me you know him.”
Still at her feet, though now sitting back on his heels, Max lets out a sigh. “Please tell us you do, because it sounds like that might stop the fighting long enough to have a conversation without any ultimatums or bone breaking.”
She rubs her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Since you’re friendly with Hank, I’ll give you five minutes before I start swinging again.”
I shove my hands into my pockets. “Seeing as how you attacked us, how about you go first?”
Nostrils flaring, she rests her fists on her hips, midafternoon sun casting shadows across her impressive arm muscles. “Not an unreasonable request. My name is Brynn, and I was hired by Max’s mother to find him.”
I gape.
Losing his balance, Max drops onto his backside. “She what now?”
“That’s right.” Brynn looks down at him. “When she heard half the paranormal world had gone after you, she contacted me to find you.”
I shove both sets of fingers into my hair, foolish hope singing through my chest. “So, you know where she is?”
Rolling her gaze to me, her upper lip hooks into that sneer. “No. Aline is extremely careful about giving out her location considering the bounty on her. All she wanted was for me to free Max and get him back to his people in Houston.”
Max slumps over his knees, face in his hands, slightly pale from traveling us here. He sits there only for a moment before lifting his head with that mask of a smile. It fails halfway up his face, the confusion evident in his dark eyes.
“Who knew it would take this long for that latent maternal instinct to kick in,” he says, leaning back on his palms. “We sure could use her contact information if you’ve got it scribbled down somewhere. It might help get the bounty called off completely. Because chances are if you haul me back to Houston, hunters will just keep coming.”
Brynn lunges forward, reaching for my throat. I throw up an inside defense, redirecting her first attack, but missing the second. Her fingers crush my windpipe as she lifts me off the ground, leaving my feet dangling. Unable to breathe, I duck my chin, just barely relieving pressure so I can gulp down a little air.
“I’ll admit, you’re a much more powerful magic user than I anticipated,” she says, her voice harsh and low. “He doesn’t even sound charmed.”
I grip her forearm, and stupidly level a kick at her stomach. Though it probably wouldn’t have done much against her rock-hard skin — other than break my foot — she swivels her hips out of the way.
“I’m not—”
Her fingers tighten. “You will not speak again until you break your spell on the water spirit.”
Darkness closes in on my vision. Desperate, I attempt to shift into my phoenix shape again. Wings spring out from between my shoulder blades. Fiery power forces me back and out of her grip. I hover in the air, just beyond her reach, concentrating on maintaining my human form rather than fully transforming.
I rub my throat with a palm. “Breaking the spell puts Max in danger,” I say in a croak. “I won’t do it until I clear his name. Right now, all your plan does is put him right back where he was before, with countless bounty hunters after him.”
As Brynn glares up at me, Max stands. “She’s right,” he says. “I can’t keep existing in fear, hiding and hoping that another hunter won’t find me, putting the people I care about at risk. We have to find my mom. Give people closure if we can. Justice.”
Brynn’s chest heaves
