Page 59 of Shadow Scorching

As we assessed the damage,the house fell silent. Clean and open, the heart of the house had taken on new life, no longer operating on memories of the past, but with a fresh, new wonder, as though it had woken from a nightmare.

Penn was hurt, burned in several places, though none were third degree burns. But she needed a doctor. Orik was also burned, but he would be fine. I had a couple burns and bruises as well, but they weren’t serious.

Orik, Dante, Sophia, and Carson were exhausted from keeping the revenant at bay for so long. They weren’t in anyshape to drive. Lazenti was fine—if he had taken any damage, it didn’t show and he didn’t mention it.

I knelt by Penn. “I’ll call the doctor,” I said.

“I won’t be able to go with you to the hotel,” she said, grimacing. She hurt, that was obvious, but she was keeping the pain under as much control as she could.

“Of course.” I turned to the others. “We’re all exhausted. I can drive, and Lazenti, but the rest of you shouldn’t get behind a wheel.”

“I can drive them home, then come back for their cars. With my speed, I can be done in a couple of hours,” Lazenti said.

“You’ll do that?” I asked.

“Of course.” He shrugged. “We’ve all taken one for the team tonight, but I’m probably in better shape than most of you.”

“Thanks, dude,” Dante said. “We could use your help.”

“All right. I can set up the dampers at the hotel. I’m tired but my heritage gives me more strength than most of you.”

“I’ll come with you,” Dante said. “I came with Carson, so that will save Lazenti one trip.”

“Can you manage it?” I asked.

“I’m a shifter. I’m stronger than most of you, as well. Even you, big guy,” he said to Orik.

“Let’s get Penn to the ER—” I started to say, but she interrupted.

“I’ll call my high priestess. She’s a healer. She can meet me at our house.” Penn pulled out her phone, wincing. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

We waited while she confirmed that her high priestess would meet her at our house in half an hour. I walked through Michael’s house. Everything was calm and silent.

“All right, Lazenti, can you carry Penn to my car? I’m going to lock up and we can check tomorrow to make certain everything went off all right.”

And with that, we headed out of the house, and for once I didn’t feel like we were being watched.

Danteand I entered the hotel room at midnight in the morning.

Penn was safe, her high priestess had been waiting for us and was busy treating her even before we left. Lazenti texted me to tell me that he’d made sure the others got home first, and he was delivering Orik’s car—the last one left.

“Okay, Penn told me how to set these up. Then, tomorrow morning, I call Jet and let him know where to come, and we catch him. Penn will hand him over to the high priestess, who will deliver him to Hecate. Choku-yi are notorious escape artists from human jails. So, if we handed him to the police, he’d be back at it somewhere else in no time.” I yawned. “I’m so tired.”

“Don’t you think we should take a nap, then set these up after we’ve had a rest? We want to make certain that we don’t screw it up,” Dante said.

“All right. We can do that.” I eyed the beds. “They do look tempting, don’t they?”

Before we could change our minds, Dante and I each took one of the queen-sized beds. I texted Penn not to wait up, and we fell asleep to the sounds of gentle ocean waves, coming from my phone.

We sleptright through the alarms. In fact, I woke to the sound of Penn calling me.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice worried.

“Yeah, we decided to take a nap and didn’t even hear the alarm. We’re getting everything set up. I’m glad I rented this room for two nights.” I paused as my What-The-App sounded. “Hold on.” I glanced at it to find half a dozen texts from Jet. I didn’t like the way they made me feel. “His majesty demands to know why I haven’t texted him. I’m glad we’re putting a stop to this. So, will your high priestess be able to come over when we catch him?”

“She’ll be on her way over the moment you let us know. But why don’t you have her come early, so she can be there when you subdue him? Why take chances on him getting away?”

“Good idea, if she doesn’t mind. Tell her we’re setting up now, and I’ll be texting Jet right after that.” I paused, then asked, “How are the cats? I missed them last night, when I was sleeping.”

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