Page 6 of Blood Bearon
“Allow me to assist you.”
“What the!” she shouted, jumping back.
He was standing nearby.
“How did you get so close?”
“I walked?” he asked, looking behind him, as if the answer was obvious.
Rachel bit her lip. “You move quietly.”
“I should certainly hope so. I’ve practiced it a lot. Now, if you don’t mind.” He squatted down next to the wall, hands out in front of him, fingers locked together.
“What?”
“Put your foot here,” he said, shaking his hands. “I’ll boost you.”
She frowned at him. “Right, of course.” Not entirely sure why she was trusting him, yet somehow feeling that it was okay, she put her foot into his hands and stepped up.
The wall suddenly blurred by as he assisted her, not to the top of the wall, but up and over it. Rachel shrieked as she missed the ledge, flopped over the far side and landed butt-first in the pile of snow she’d assembled.
“Pleasure meeting you, Detective,” the voice called back.
Grumbling, she extricated herself from the snow bank. “Do you know what happened here?” she called, desperately trying to get more information.
“Something struck the trees.”
She grit her teeth. He was trying to play the country yokel, but Rachel had seen the intelligence burning in his eyes. The huge man knew exactly what had happened, but wasn’t telling her.
“I’ll be back with a warrant!”
“We both know you won’t, Detective. This isn’t something for you to involve yourself in. My House will solve it, not you humans. Farewell.”
“You humans?” she repeated to herself, looking at the wall, picturing the man on the other side. “What the hell?”
Brushing off the snow, she headed back for her car, belatedly turning her radio back on.
“I’m fine,” she said, responding to Sherry’s frantic calls. “Had to go silent there, sorry. Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”
She got to her car and turned the heater on full blast, trying to puzzle out just what had happened to her back there. Glancing over at the wall, she blinked in surprise. The stranger was crouched on the top of it, looking back at her.
No, he was no country hick. The swords and his manner of talk were stranger, but whatever was going on here, he knew exactly what it was.
Rachel bounced her fist off the dash in frustration. She hated being left in the dark. The worst part of it was, there was no issue that really needed police intervention, which meant she was going to be forced to forget it and move on. That was what really irked her.
With a false smile and a wave, she put her car into gear and turned it back around toward Plymouth Falls. She had a long drive ahead of her.
In the rear view, the strange man stayed perched on the wall long after she’d gone. Watching.
4
Khove was in the practice gym lifting weights when the summons came.
“Me?” he asked, setting the loaded weight bar back on the rack. The specially-forged steel weights didn’t budge, even as he deposited over 500 pounds back onto it. “But I haven’t even finished warming up.”
“Quit your grumbling,” Knox said with a chuckle. “We both know she wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.”
That was true. “Any idea what it’s about?”
