Page 48 of Shadow of the Moon

Dev debated dropping down from the barn and hustling up there. It was less than half a mile, but he would be exposed.

A truck sped up the drive and for a moment he thought it was Amberly, arriving early. But the vehicle turned up the hill to the cabin, and Dev realized it was trying to rescue Regent.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, taking aim.

He couldn’t see the front wheels, but the back wheels were easy enough to take out. The car skidded wildly, but still seemed sound enough to pick someone up and turn back down the hill. Surely that had been Regent getting into the car… Aiming at the driver’s side of the windshield, he plowed round after round into it. The car suddenly accelerated as it slammed into the plank fence and jounced into the field, coming to rest against a tree.

That had been a devastating crash, and Dev doubted anyone would make it out. Pivoting, he scanned the area around the deck. There was a man on the ground waving his hand weakly, but that was the only movement.

He keyed on his coms unit. “Come get me. We have some cleanup to do.”

“Roger that,” Amberly said, voice calm.

Dev watched for another minute, waiting to hear the Jeep roaring up the driveway before he started making his way down through the hayloft. A couple of the horses nickered as he jogged through the barn and out the big door he’d originally come through. Amberly was there, parked at a hitching post.

It wasn’t easy getting into the passenger side of the Jeep, but he managed it, stowing Requiem on the back seat. Pulling his sidearm, he pointed for her to drive.

“We need to check that vehicle.”

She gassed the Jeep and they tore through the grass and gravel. She followed the path the previous truck had and looped wide around the tree. Slamming it into park, they both tumbled out, weapons up, and crept up the sides of the crumpled mass. Amberly took the driver’s side, Dev the passenger.

“This one isn’t going anywhere,” she said, peering in at the corpse.

“Neither is this one. And it’s not Regent. It’s one of the brothers.”

“And this is the other one,” she confirmed.

Just then they heard the roar of an engine, but it sounded different. They turned toward the cabin just in time to see a side by side ATV take off behind the cabin.

“You shoot, I drive,” Amberly called, darting for the open door of the Jeep.

Dev wasn’t even settled by the time she took off back through the crashed fence. “Stop at the cabin. I have to see if it’s Regent.”

The Jeep roared as it climbed the drive, then skidded as Amberly hit the brakes next to the truck the Blade had been using for cover. Dev jumped out and circled the bed, weapon up and ready. There were bodies everywhere, but none of them were Regent. He looked at the chair where the man had been sitting. Yes, there was a significant amount of blood on the wood, but not enough to debilitate him, obviously.

Dev scrambled up the steps and into the cabin, pushing the door wide.

And took a shotgun blast to the chest.

Dev flew back across the front porch and landed on his back at the base of the steps. A man staggered out of the cabin, gun raised, blood coating his front. He staggered, gaze locked on Dev, and took a bullet through the neck from Amberly’s gun, then another through the chest. He collapsed where he stood.

Then Amberly was there, peering down at him. “Get your ass up, you’re fine. Your vest took the shot.”

Dev gasped in air, gritting his teeth. Amberly ran up the porch steps and through the door, leaping over the body. She returned seconds later, as he was surging to his feet. The Beretta was still in his hand, miraculously.

“No one else in there. All the info on the bombings is, though. That must have been Regent taking off.”

She jerked on his vest, pulling him up, getting his legs moving. “Let’s go, Moon Devil. You’ve got work still to do.”

They clambered into the Jeep and Amberly followed the path of the ATV. It was easy enough to see, even in the dark, because it was lined with pine trees. Gunning the truck, they surged up the mountain. The Jeep wasn’t as nimble as the ATV probably, but it definitely had more power, and on this narrow track, power was more important for the moment.

Then they broke through the trees and into a meadow, it looked like. Amberly had to slow to get a direction of travel. The ATV, and its bouncing tail lights, had gone to the right, still climbing. She followed the path of crushed grass several hundred yards until it disappeared into another stand of pine. This track was even narrower, tree limbs scraping the sides of the truck. Dev held onto the ‘oh shit’ handle as Amberly expertly drove through an increasingly cluttered path. At one point, they jounced over a pine tree on the ground, bucking them up out of their seats.

When they broke out of the pines, Amberly had to slam on the brakes. They skidded right to the edge of a rocky embankment. “Fuck,” Amberly breathed.

His own balls might have sucked up a little as well, because that was a hell of a drop-off. “Good job, babe!”

Grinning, Amberly backed away from the cliff and turned. There was a narrow track running along the edge of the rock wall. “Will we fit?”

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