Nerina dropped down on top of the high-rise apartment building. Still in dragon mode, she stalked across the sundeck, kicking her heels against the stacked sun chairs, and stopped before a locked door.
She jammed her claws into the metal. After a few yanks and grunts, the door fell off its hinges.
Nerina shifted back to human. Fortunately clothes weren’t a problem. She wasn’t sure how it worked with other shape-shifters, but she was really glad she didn’t have to walk around naked back in human form, like the cute guy who played the Hulk in the Avengers movies.
Although she kind of liked being naked. Especially with Roman.
She hustled down the stairs to the 14thfloor, breathing heavily. Tired. Shifting took energy. Flying all night took energy. She leaned against the door for a moment to caatch her breath, then pulled it open and stepped out into the hall. Focus, focus . . .
Apartment 1402. She looked up and down the hall. Empty in the middle of the day. Nerina took a deep breath and shifted again.
Sometimes it hurt. The spikes poking through her arms and jutting out from her knuckles. Right now she didn’t care. The pain actually helped.
Her head scraped the ceiling. She twisted the doorknob and ripped it away. Then she kicked, smashing the door back, and marched into the apartment.
A man and a woman sat on a sofa in underwear, watching TV. SpongeBob SquarePants.
The man jumped up in his boxers, dropping the remote. “What the hell?”
Talking while shifted was difficult—her thick reptilian tongue didn’t work right. But she could get the basic words out. “Where . . . is . . . he?” She stalked across the living room, the claws in her feet ripping the carpet. “R-R-Roman!”
The woman rose. She wore a black bra and panties, and long red socks. “Don’t worry, Marc. I’ve got this.”
Marc shivered. “Okay, Sharon. You’re in charge,”
“Just get down.” Sharon smiled at Nerina. “Are you ready, bitch?”
The Raen couldn’t shape-shift. Except for Dean, and Nerina had killed him in Barsch’s South Bend basement. She’d hated herself for that at the time. Now . . . she didn’t care.
But the Raen could create monsters—or at least draw them from other dimensions.
Sharon swung one hand in a circle. Like Doctor Strange. Also from the Avengers movies.
Then a giant spider rose in the middle of the living room on eight huge legs spread wide. It lunged forward, hairy legs scuttling across the carpet.
Nerina had a split second to react. She ducked her head and leaped, narrowly avoiding the ceiling, and landed on top of the spider’s body. She slashed an arm, digging spikes down into the creature’s back. Black blood—or something like blood—spurted up over her face.
Sharon shrieked, as if the spider’s pain hit her. Marc scrambled across the floor, picked up the TV remote, and hurled it at Nerina.
Nerina ducked and tumbled off the spider, falling on her butt. The spider pounced on top of her, covering her dragon body with its hairy legs. Webbing spurted out of its butt, covering Nerina’s hips almost instantly and gluing her to the floor. She kicked uselessly.
Don’t panic. One of the first things they’d taught her in Urbana. Keep thinking, keep moving, keep fighting . . . but don’t panic.
Nerina drove her clawed fists up into the spider’s wide abdomen and twisted. More black blood spilled down on her chest. The spider—or Sharon—screamed, and Nerina stabbed and twisted again.
Then she bit her lip and concentrated. She had one more weapon, but she’d never used it before. Come on, come on . . .
A long jagged horn erupted from her forehead. Nerina lurched up, driving the sharp point straight into the spider’s narrow thorax. More disgusting fluid. More screams. The spider squirted more webbing, its body throbbing in pain and terror as Nerina pushed her horn deeper and drove her spikes harder.
“No!” Sharon shrieked. “No!”
Then the spider was gone. Along with its webbing. Nerina clambered to her feet.
Sharon sat on the floor, sobbing. Marc wrapped his arms around her.
“Where . . . is . . . Roman?” Her voice was hoarse and raspy.
“I don’t know.” Sharon moaned. “They said . . . something about Ohio.”
Ohio? Nerina had never flown that far. A few miles took everything out of her. But if Roman was there . . .
She turned to the door. “Tell them. I’m coming. Tell them . . whatever.”
Out in the hall Nerina shifted back to her human form. She gasped for air. Shifting took a lot of energy. Both ways.
She punched the elevator button. Ohio? She rubbed her eyes.
Then her phone buzzed.
“Nerina? It’s Tom Jurgen.”
“H-hi, Tom.” She sounded exhausted. “How are you?”
“How are you? Where are you?”
“I don’t . . . know. Somewhere in Indianapolis.”
Rachel and I exchanged glances. “Nerina, what’s going on?”
“They took—they took Roman!”
“Who’s Roman?”
Rachel snorted, as if the answer was obvious.
“He’s my boyfriend! The Raen—we were on a mission last night, and the house exploded, and they took—they took him. I’ve got to find him.”
Oh hell. “You don’t know where you are?”
“I’m in Indianapolis somewhere. I have to keep moving. He’s somewhere in Ohio. They could be torturing him—”
“Nerina, wait!” Rachel leaned forward. “Ohio’s a big state. And you sound tired.”
“I didn’t sleep. I had to fly . . . And I only have a little money.”
Rachel pulled my phone toward her. “Why don’t you find a coffee shop or something where you can sit and rest for a while? Then you can call us and tell us where you are.”
What the hell? Indianapolis was a three-hour drive from Chicago. But Rachel was right. We had to do something.
“I can’t. I have to find Roman. I’ll call you.” She hung up.
I could have called back, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t pick up again.
Instead I took my phone and called Russo. “Nerina’s somewhere in Indianapolis. She’s headed for Ohio, because the Raen have kidnapped her boyfriend.”
“How did you—she wouldn’t answer my calls. Damn it.”
“What’s Georgeanne doing in Ohio?” Rachel asked. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s Rossini business. Look, just let me know if you hear from her again.” Russo hung up.
“Asshole.” Rachel bounded to her computer. “Let me look up the Raen stuff I have and see if I can find an Ohio connection.”
“Smart as well as gorgeous.” She’d compiled a file of data on the Rossini and the Raen a year ago, during my death race to Urbana for my first job working for the Rossini. It had sounded like easy money that night, but now I was regretting ever taking Russo’s first phone call.
I called Carole Rossigna and got her voice mail. Probably Russo was talking to her right now. I left a message. Then I called Georgeanne. Voice mail again. Another message.
So now what? Yeah, it wasn’t really my problem. But I liked Nerina—and she didn’t deserve what destiny had handed her.
I watched Rachel working at her computer, but I didn’t bother her. She was perfectly capable of hurling her coffee mug over her shoulder without even looking up and whacking me in the forehead without pausing in her work. So I kept my mouth shut.
I thought about calling Barsch again, but I didn’t want to alert him to where Nerina might be headed. I didn’t trust the Rossini to have Nerina’s best interests at heart, but I trusted a doomsday cult even less.
I tried to switch back to other work—paying work, background checks and the like, until Rachel announced, after a half hour, “I think I’ve got something.”
“What is it?”
I didn’t exactly bound—I’m not as young and spry as I used to be—but I leaned over Rachel’s shoulder a moment later.
“Dayton. Home of the Wright Brothers.” She pointed at a Google Map. “Pretty much a straight shot from Indy. Anyway, a guy named Cameron Ryan owns two houses in a suburb.” She showed me a profile picture of a heavyset man in his fifties. “He’s connected to the Raen. I may have, uh, hacked his email.”
“That’s my girl.” I kissed the top of her head.
“So do we fire up the Batmobile?” She hit some keys. “I’ll send the data to my phone—”
“It’s a long drive to Ohio.” How fast could Nerina fly? “Let’s think this through for a minute.”
Rachel sighed. “I hate it when you’re reasonable.”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t happen very often.” I pulled my chair toward her desk. “Okay. Why did the Raen kidnap Roman?”
She rolled her eyes. “One, they just grabbed him randomly. Nerina said they were on some kind of mission, right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We don’t know enough about the mission. Or, two—”
“He’s bait.” Rachel’s eyes blazed. “They’d love to get their hands on Nerina. They tried that in South Bend.”
“Yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair. Barsch had tied Nerina up in a basement in South Bend, Indiana, and sent a young shape-shifter named Dean to attack her. Nerina won the fight, killing Dean—which only meant that the Raen were determined to find stronger, more powerful shape-shifters. Like Nerina.
“Three . . .” Rachel ticked off a third finger. “Georgeanne’s already in Ohio. So something’s up there.”
“Yeah.” I wanted more information. And more coffee. “So we have at least two options: One, call Russo and tell him where Nerina is headed, or two—”
“Get to Dayton ourselves and figure out what’s going on.” Rachel spun around and started tapping keys. “You pack. I’ll get us on a plane.”
“It’s like you know me.” I stood up. This was going to be complicated. We were going in without knowing all the facts, which happened most of the time, but still—
I couldn’t fight it. We had to help Nerina. “You don’t mind if I go through your underwear drawer, do you?”
“Just get me something comfortable. And not too flashy.”
“Right.”
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