Page 19 of First Blood
I went cold all over, colder than the frigid air could account for. “Everything, Esther. What’s going on, and don’t fuck around with me.”
There were two things going on, as she told me succinctly. First, a quartet of trolls had come down from the hills to the northwest and were ripping the shit out of a suburb on the edge of Lancaster. Most of Fenwick’s people were headed there now. And just because the universe apparently fucking hated us, the asshole I’d killed had friends, and they were pissed about his death. They’d come to Lancaster looking for me, and they’d hoped to ambush me somewhere I wouldn’t necessarily have any backup.
Which meant the same neighborhood where their friend had picked up Laurie.
I left the troll problem alone, because at the moment, I didn’t fucking care. “How the fuck did they know about Laurie? How the fuck — did the fucker I killed, what, contact them from the afterlife? And how did you find out about this?”
I’d started back to my car, knowing that whatever happened next I’d need to move quickly, and I dropped into the driver’s seat, putting Esther on speaker and tossing the phone into the center console so I didn’t crush it accidentally.
Her voice came out tinny and muffled as she said, “Courtesy call from Chesnakov. I guess one of these fuckers is another employee of his, but he took some vacation days for this, so Chesnakov doesn’t consider it his problem. I guess the guy told some coworkers what he had in mind to do this weekend. And your first question? I’m not sure. I think the one you killed may have texted a photo of his plans to entertain himself to his friend. And you’ve been seen with this boy, don’t try to pretend you haven’t. Anyone who works on that street could’ve given them some information for a fee, given that they already knew why you’d killed their buddy, in general outline.”
Yeah, probably the same guy who’d givenmethe information for a fee. For all I knew they’d scoped out the street the night before, while Laurie had been at home with me. They probably had.
And Laurie — fuck, fuck,fuck, why hadn’t I gone back when he’d called my name?
“Victor? You still there?”
“Yeah,” I managed. “Yeah. I’m here. Call Chesnakov. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks is his problem or not. If something happens to —” Pure rage overwhelmed me, thickening my throat and cutting off the rest of what I wanted to say. More images of Laurie dead, only now I had an even more vivid idea of what would probably happen to him first.
Of what might be happening to him right at that moment.
I swallowed hard. “He can probably track his employee, right? The car. The fucker’s phone. Or good old-fashioned magic. If he doesn’t, the next personI’mgoing to track will be him.”
“I’ve already asked. I’m waiting for a call back. Chesnakov didn’t sound all that urgent about it, though.”
“Tell him,” I growled. “Tell him I’m coming for him next if he doesn’t hurry the fuck up.”
“Fenwick won’t let you do that, Victor.” She sounded apologetic, but there wasn’t any room for compromise there, either.
“Then I’ll quit. And Fenwick can fucking kill me if he wants after I rip Chesnakov’s head off and stuff it up his ass. I don’t care.”
“Victor…” Esther sighed heavily. “I’ll call Chesnakov again. And I’ll have Doran try to trace them himself, if he has the time in between chopping up trolls. In the meantime, don’t do anything stupid.”
The screen flashed as she hung up on me.
Don’t do anything stupid. Well, that covered a lot of ground. I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my skin. The steering wheel started to flex under my hands, and I forced myself to let it go before I disintegrated it and ripped what was left out of the steering column.
I sent a quick text to a police sergeant I got along with, asking him to have his patrolling officers look out for a silver SUV with an Oregon plate. He sent me back a thumbs-up, but I knew that even if his guys were doing anything but cordoning off trolls, it was a needle in a haystack.
They could be anywhere. Laurie had a phone, but I didn’t even have his number or his last name — there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be able to trace that.
Nothing left to do but wait, and I was going to go out of my mind.
I started the engine. I’d drive in concentric circles, looking for the vehicle myself. I might get lucky. I probably wouldn’t. But it’d be better than sitting there with nothing to do but imagine Laurie screaming, Laurie terrified, Laurie broken and battered and raped, wondering the whole time why I hadn’t come for him. Why I’d let him down.
There were a surprising number of gray or silver SUVs in Lancaster, it turned out, even some with Oregon plates. Every time I spotted something likely, my heart gave a ferocious thud — and then settled into a sick, uneven tattoo when I realized it was nothing. The two with the right plates were a bust. One had three kids’ car seats in the back and a Coexist bumper sticker with the stupid fucking symbols, and the other was occupied: two teenagers trying to get each other’s clothes off who jumped high enough to hit their heads on the roof of the car when I appeared at the window.
It took two hours for my phone to ring.
“I’ve got a location for you,” Esther said without preamble before I could even speak. “I’m sending it to your phone. Victor, you know I can’t give you any backup. This couldn’t have come at a worse time, and I can’t spare anyone. I’m sorry.”
I was just grateful she hadn’t tried to tell me to abandon Laurie and go deal with the trolls, because she could’ve. Not that I’d have listened to her — I’d have told her and Fenwick to go fuck themselves.
But she was kind enough not to push me into going there, and I’d tell her I appreciated it later. Much later.
“Good luck,” was all I said.
As I hung up, I heard her say, “You too.”
