Page 30 of Relentless (Relentless 1)
Chapter 17
“SARA, ARE YOU insane? Do you know what that is?” Roland yelled, running toward me.
“He’s my friend!” I shouted at them. I threw up my hands to let Roland and Nikolas know I was okay. “His name is Remy.”
Roland skidded to a stop and stared at me in stunned silence. His eyes moved warily from me to Remy and back again as if he could not believe his eyes. “That is Remy?”
“Yes. Now back off, both of you.” I turned to Remy and took his hand in mine. “Are you okay?” Something really bad must have happened to make him come here and reveal himself to other people. I’d never seen him look this distraught.
“Is he okay?” Roland asked in disbelief. “I nearly had a heart attack and she’s worried about a troll. A goddamn troll!”
“Roland, shut up,” I said more harshly than I’d ever spoken to him. “Remy, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”
Remy’s large eyes finally met mine, and I saw something I’d never expected to see in a troll’s eyes: fear.
“Minka gone. Creah and Sinah, too.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
He gripped my hand painfully, but I didn’t cry out. “Humans take them,” he said, bringing one of my worst fears to life. Ever since we’d sold that troll bile I’d worried that someone might track it back to my friends. The thought of sweet little Minka in the hands of someone like that made my blood run cold.
“We’ll find them,” I promised him fiercely. “We’ll get them back.”
Nikolas spoke for the first time. “Does your uncle have any alcohol here?”
I shot him a puzzled look. “How will that help us?”
“It won’t. I need a drink.”
“I’ll help you look,” Roland added weakly.
“You guys are not helping the situation,” I told them irritably. “Remy’s little cousins are in a lot of danger, and we have to find them.”
Nikolas leaned against a wall, looking at a loss for the first time since I met him. “We have enough problems to deal with without going out looking for missing trolls. Have you forgotten your own considerable troubles?”
“But this is my fault,” I said. “I have to help them.”
“Is our fault,” Remy corrected me. “Sara warn me it dangerous but I not believe it. I need medicine for boggie.”
“What on earth is he talking about?” Roland asked me.
I bit my lip as I gathered my courage. “Remy has this boggie friend who was sick, and they needed a special medicine that you can’t get here. It only comes from Africa, and it’s very hard to find – and really expensive. I found someone to get it for us, but we needed it as soon as possible so Remy gave me something to trade for it… something very hard to find.”
Nikolas straightened, and his eyes widened in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
I shook my head slowly, and he let out a string of Russian curses that made my ears burn even though I couldn’t understand them.
“What? What am I missing?” Roland asked, looking between us.
“Iisus Khristos!” Nikolas began pacing the hallway. “You used troll bile to buy the medicine? What the hell were you thinking?”
Roland shot me a horrified look. “Oh, Sara, you didn’t.”
“I was careful,” I protested. “I went through a guy I used a few times before for other things, and he’s always careful. He said he went through a middle man with an overseas buyer and there was no way to trace it back to me. But a few weeks later I found out that someone was posting on some of the message boards, asking about troll bile, and I got worried.” I rubbed my eyes miserably. “I never believed they would find us, let alone be brave enough to do something like this.”
“Not brave, incredibly stupid,” Nikolas said wearily. He looked at Remy. “How long do we have?”
“Elders meet now. I come find Sara to see if we find little ones before.”
“Before what?” Roland asked just as it dawned on me what Nikolas and Remy were talking about. I gasped as the full seriousness of the situation hit me.
“A rampage,” I whispered. “The elders are going to rampage.”
“That does not sound good,” Roland said weakly.
There was no humor in Nikolas’s laugh. “There is a reason why no one – not even a vampire – tangles with trolls. If you mess with one troll, you get the whole clan, and if you harm one of their young, you die. And if a young troll goes missing, the clan rises up to find them – or who took them. Trolls are even better trackers than crocotta, and once they are worked up into a rage, they will kill anyone who has come into contact with their missing children. And during a rampage, trolls do not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.”
Roland blanched.
The doorbell rang, making me and Roland jump. Nikolas opened the door to admit Chris whose good-natured smile did not falter even when he saw our grim faces. Then he saw Remy. I didn’t think I had ever seen someone’s eyes go that round before. Roland shoved a glass of Nate’s whiskey into Chris’s hand while Nikolas brought him up to speed on all he had missed.
The kitchen was getting crowded, so we moved into the living room. I took the chair by the fireplace, and Remy sat on the ottoman beside me. Roland and Chris sat on either end of the sofa. Nikolas stood by the window looking like a sentry.
“Your little orphan is just full of surprises,” Chris quipped to Nikolas. “Never a dull moment.”
I bristled at Chris’s words. “I’m nobody’s little orphan.”
Chris ignored my denial. “So, what’s the plan?”
There was no question in my mind about what had to be done. “We’ve got to find them.” No one said anything so I said, “They’re only babies. God knows what those people will do to them.”
Roland pointed at Remy. “Can’t he track them?”
Remy shook his head unhappily. “Only elders know tracking. If I close, I find them.”
I pulled out my phone. “I’m calling Malloy. If anyone has heard about this, it’s him.”
“Who is Malloy?” Nikolas asked suspiciously.
“Buyer,” Roland offered as I dialed the number. Nikolas shot him a questioning look, and Roland grimaced, no doubt remembering his last encounter with Malloy. “Don’t ask.”
Malloy picked up right away, and I cut right to the chase about the missing trolls. “If you’ve heard anything at all, tell me now. If we don’t find them, their parents are going to come looking, and you really don’t want that, especially after what I sold you.”
“You got to be crazy to mess with them trolls,” he uttered in a frightened voice. “Don’t I always tell you that?” There was a short pause, and then he said, “Give me half an hour and if there is anything to find out, I’ll know it.”
I hung up. “He’s checking into it.”
I saw that Nikolas had pulled out his own phone and was speaking in a low voice to someone. He hung up and looked at Chris. “I called in Erik’s team. It has to be a big player to risk the trolls’ wrath. I guess we know who sent the witch, too. It had to be someone with a lot of power and influence to get one of them.”
His words sank in, and the pieces began to slam into place like bullets sliding into a gun chamber. A big player who was able to employ a desert witch who lived in a tribal region of Africa. The man on the yacht. Tarek with his Middle Eastern accent. Malloy’s wealthy overseas buyer.
Oh God, what have I done?
The weight of my actions threatened to suffocate me. I’d been so caught up in all the drama in my life the last few weeks that I did not see this new threat until it was right on top of us. I’d thought I was helping Remy by getting the Baktu, but all I’d done was put his family in danger. If the trolls went on a rampage, a lot of people were going to die and that would all be on my head. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry, Remy.”
He laid his slender hand over mine on the arm of the chair. “It my fault, too.”
; I leaned toward him and gave him a quick hug. “I promise we’ll get them back.”
We pulled apart, and I saw three pairs of eyes watching us with open curiosity. It occurred to me how strange it must look – a teenage girl with a troll friend – but I was in no mood to offer explanations. There would be time for that after Remy’s little cousins were safe.
“Am I delirious, or do I really see a troll over there?” Peter stood in the doorway, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head. Except for the mussed hair and bloody T-shirt, I never would have believed he’d been stabbed an hour ago.
Roland gave him the condensed version of the story. Peter listened open-mouthed, his eyes never leaving me and Remy, and when Roland finished, Peter sat on the floor with his back against the archway, not saying a word.
Malloy called me back ten minutes later. “Now you did not hear this from me, understand?” he said as soon as I picked up. “I got nothing about those trolls specifically, but supposedly there are some very rare goods being shipped out of Portland tomorrow morning on a private jet. More security than anyone’s seen around here. Word is that it’s living cargo.”
My pulse quickened. “That’s it. It has to be. Do you know where the shipment is now?”
The others watched me expectantly when I hung up. I related what Malloy had told me and jumped to my feet. “Come on, we have to go before it’s too late.”
“Chris and I will go,” Nikolas said. “I think we can handle whatever kind of security they have in place.”
“I’m coming, too. I got them into this nightmare, and I’ll get them out.”
Nikolas crossed his arms. “Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”
I matched his stance. “Stop telling me what to do. I’m going whether you like it or not.” The trolls were my friends and my responsibility. How dare he try to stop me from helping them?
A tic started at the corner of his jaw, and he took a step toward me. “Like hell. I’ll tie your little ass to that chair over there if I have to.”
“You can kiss my – ”
Chris jumped between us, facing Nikolas. “I don’t think this little debate is getting us anywhere.” He turned sideways, and his eyebrow rose when he looked at me. “As entertaining as it promises to be.”
“There is no debate. She stays here,” Nikolas stated unwaveringly.
It was time for another tactic. “Alright Mr. I-Know-Better-Than-Everyone-Else, what will you do when you find them? I bet they didn’t teach you in warrior school how to handle a bunch of frightened troll kids.”
“Your troll friend will come with us.”
“And who will stay here with me while you guys are on your rescue mission?”
“The werewolves should be able to keep you safe here for a few hours,” he replied as if that settled everything.
“Really? And what happens if that witch finds us again? Wouldn’t I be safer with a bunch of warriors, two werewolves, and a troll?”
“Sara come. I keep her safe,” Remy vowed firmly, and I saw Roland shiver at my troll friend’s fierce face. No one in the room could argue that there was a better bodyguard in the world.
Nikolas glowered at me for a good ten seconds. “You do not leave his side.” His tone brooked no argument, and for once I conceded without a fight.
I grabbed my coat from the hall closet and felt the comforting shape of the Mohiri knife in the inside pocket. I really hoped I did not have to use the knife tonight, but lady luck appeared to have deserted me lately and I’d hate to be caught out without a weapon.
Peter called shotgun, and I glared at him when I was forced to share the back seat with Nikolas. Remy refused to go anywhere near the car and said he would follow us on foot.
I looked around for Chris, and Nikolas said, “Chris will follow us.”
A tense silence fell over the car as we headed for the interstate. I looked out my window, intending to ignore Nikolas the whole way to Portland. So much for the olive branch I’d offered him the night of the storm. The whole damn tree was going up in smoke now.
Peter lasted a whole ten minutes before he turned in his seat to fix me with a “don’t you think you have something to tell us?” look.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Really? That’s all you have to say about the troll who was just sitting in your living room?”
I felt Nikolas’s eyes on me, and I saw Roland darting glances at me in the rearview mirror. “I met Remy not long after I moved here to live with Nate, before I met you guys. I used to go exploring down by the old lumber mill, and one day he saw me and just decided to show himself to me. He was only a year older than me and pretty adventurous for a troll.” What I did not tell them was that Remy had spied on me healing a squirrel with a broken leg and he was so curious that he’d watched me for a few weeks before he finally decided to introduce himself.
“Weren’t you scared?” Roland asked. “I would have wet my pants if a troll walked up to me in the woods when I was that age.”
Peter snickered. “You still would.”
A smile broke over my face as I remembered that day. “I was scared at first. Even back then Remy looked pretty fierce. But he knew some broken English, so we were able to talk and I found out he was as nervous as me. It was a… pretty hard time for me. I’d just lost my dad and moved to a strange place, and I was lonely. Remy was my first friend here.” My chest tightened. It was the first time I’d ever talked to anyone about those dark days when I first came to New Hastings.
“But trolls don’t like anyone, especially humans,” Peter protested. “They kill anyone who gets near their young. Weren’t you afraid of the adult trolls?”
I laughed. “I didn’t know any better at first and Remy didn’t tell me. He was a lot of fun to be with. I taught him English, and he taught me all about the real world. He was the one who told me that vampires really did exist and most likely killed my dad. By the time he took me to meet his family, I didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid of them. They weren’t happy, but they didn’t threaten me either. Maybe it’s because I was a little kid or maybe they knew all along I wasn’t human – I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t see them very often. Usually, it’s just me and Remy.”
“Okay, you are officially the most badass girl I’ve ever met,” Peter declared. “To think we were worried you’d be afraid of us when you found out what we are.”
After that, Roland and Peter peppered me with questions until I threw up my hands and said no more. Nikolas remained silent throughout the entire conversation, but I felt his gaze on me the whole time. It took a lot of effort not to sneak a glance at him to see what he was thinking. He was probably wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.
I hadn’t been to Portland since that night at the Attic and I thought it would bother me, but I was too worried about Remy’s cousins to feel anything but worry for them. My hands clenched painfully in my lap while Roland drove around looking for the address Malloy had given me, and there were fingernail impressions in my palms by the time we found the gated estate. We drove by once to check it out then parked the car in a new development a street away to avoid detection.
Remy ran up to me as soon as I climbed out of the car. “Little ones close!”
“I thought you couldn’t track them,” Roland said.
“Not unless they close,” Remy explained. He touched his chest. “Feel them here.”
A spark of hope lit in my chest. “Malloy was right.”
Chris joined us a few minutes later after he did a bit more surveillance. He described what he’d seen to Nikolas. “The place is heavily guarded but nothing we haven’t dealt with before. I’d say a dozen or so armed men on the perimeter with more inside the house.”
Nikolas turned to us, his eyes on me as he spoke. “Chris and I will go in and neutralize their defenses. Once it’s safe and we have located the young trolls, we’ll come back for you.”
“You expect us to stay here?” Roland asked,
waving around at the empty lot. The look on his face told me he had been looking forward to getting in on the action. But now that I knew we were close to Minka and the others, I was happy to let Nikolas and Chris handle the threat. I’d never admit it to Nikolas but I was still shaken from the attack earlier, and the thought of facing more dangerous men scared me more than a little. And werewolves or not, I wanted my friends here with me out of harm’s way. I had seen Nikolas fight vampires and crocotta, so I was confident he could handle a bunch of armed men.
“You can shift and be okay, unless those men are packing silver ammo, but what about Sara?” Nikolas said to Roland. “Are you willing to put her in that kind of danger?”
Roland started to say something then shook his head. “No.”
Satisfied, Nikolas said, “There will be several layers of security. Whoever orchestrated this will not take chances with so valuable an asset and will expect trouble. If you hear gunshots or other commotion, stay here out of sight with your heads down. We can handle this. Is everyone clear on that?”
“Yes,” I said for all of us. Nikolas nodded, and he and Chris began to arm themselves with weapons from the bag on Chris’s motorcycle. When they were ready, Nikolas looked like the warrior who had walked out of the shadows in the alley. The churning in my gut eased a little because I knew that if anyone could make this right, it was him. I trust him. The acknowledgement took me by surprise because trusting people did not come easily for me. But then I thought about all the things he had done to earn my trust even though I had fought him at every turn, and how time and time again he jumped into dangerous situations just like this because of me.
“Be careful,” I told them, but I was looking at Nikolas when I said it. He smiled confidently, like he was heading off to a rugby match instead of going into battle.
Chris smirked at me as he turned to leave. “Careful, Sara, or people might think you care.”
Left alone, the four of us were subdued as we waited for Nikolas and Chris to return. Roland and Peter paced the lot, stopping often to listen for sounds of fighting. I sat on a stack of plywood with Remy, clutching his hand.
“What will happen after we get Minka and the others back? Will the Elders still be angry?”
Remy hung his head. “I tell them about bile and they very angry. I think they will say we no longer friends.”
“No!” Remy was one of my dearest friends. He was going to be there when everyone else I knew grew old and died. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t.
“Maybe not forever but for long time,” he said sadly. “Elders not forget easy.”
I swallowed back my tears. I had messed up so many things, but I never imagined destroying my friendships. What else would I ruin before all of this was over?
“Where are they?” Peter fretted after ten minutes. “Shouldn’t we have heard something by now?”
“I don’t know.” Roland’s voice was uncertain. “We’ll give them a few more minutes and – ”
Remy shot to his feet, nearly knocking me over, his eyes wide and luminous in the darkness. “Little ones very frightened! Something bad happen.”
Roland and Peter came running over to us. “What is it?” Roland asked.
“Remy said something’s wrong with his cousins.” I refused to think what that could mean. “We have to go in.”
Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “What about the Mohiri? Shouldn’t we wait for them?”
“There’s no time. The trolls need us.” I strained to make out their faces. “Remy and I are going.”
“Okay, hold on for a minute,” Roland said. “It’ll be better if we shift first.”
He and Peter disappeared behind the structure and two large dark shapes returned in their place. I’d forgotten how ferocious they looked in wolf form, and my breath caught when they walked up to flank me. Standing on their hind legs they towered over me, making me feel very small and insignificant next to their powerful bodies.
“Don’t crowd me,” I chided, shoving at them until they gave me a bit more breathing room.
