Hit List - Laurell K. Hamilton [51]
“Something like that.”
“I’d have pegged you for a city girl,” he said. All the time we talked we looked out into the coming dark, searching the trees for movement. He had his gun at his shoulder just like I did. I was beginning to like Newman and I didn’t want to, because I’d liked Karlton and now she was in the hospital breathing with help. The shapeshifter had collapsed one of her lungs. They were waiting to see if her body would heal it without operating. If she had caught some version of lycanthropy then she’d heal as good as new, so they waited. The waiting meant they thought her blood tests were going to come back contaminated with the virus. With deep puncture wounds, lycanthropy was usually a given.
“I’m a city girl now,” I said.
Edward came to us, the light pointed at the ground, and finally turned it off before he got to us. Even that much light for that small an amount of time seemed to make the thick twilight thicker.
One look at his face and I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“The blood pattern has changed. One of them is carrying the other, and he’s running with him. He’s been running through the woods while we crawled after them; that’s why we haven’t heard them.”
“They’re gone,” I said.
“Good as,” he said, and there was still enough light for me to see how disgusted he was with it all.
“If we can’t trail them, then Tilford is right—we need to get out of here before full dark.”
“We don’t have enough people to move the truck, Anita.”
“We can move the tree,” I said, “and we can all fit in our SUV.”
He nodded. “Done.”
Tilford didn’t argue, and Newman didn’t try to argue with the three of us. He was learning. If we could keep him alive, maybe he’d actually be good at the job.
21
THE TREE WAS an old deadfall. It wasn’t as heavy as a fresh tree would have been, but it was heavy enough, and big enough that the four of us had to think about how best to use the muscle we had available.
Tilford keep glancing up as well as out into the trees, while we decided where best to grab hold. “Why do you keep looking up?” Newman asked.
“Sometimes they fly,” Tilford said.
Edward and I just nodded.
Newman started glancing up, too. He was a quick study; I hoped he didn’t die. And the moment I thought it again, I realized I was being morbid. Crap.
We put Tilford and Newman at the front of the tree, and Edward and I took the back. That part was bigger, a little heavier, but there was less of it to shove across the road. Edward counted, “One, two, three,” and they pulled, and we shoved. I’d never really tried to use every bit of the new strength I’d gained through vampire marks and lycanthropy. I tried now. Our end of the tree moved, really moved, and it startled me and Edward. He slipped in the leaves a little. I slipped forward and scraped my arm on a jagged root. It was sharp, and immediate, and I knew it was going to bleed before I felt the first trickle. I cursed under my breath.
“How bad?” Edward asked.
“Keep shoving,” I said.
He took that to mean it wasn’t bad, and we shoved. The tree trunk was onto the road completely now. I felt the vampires wake like a jolt down my spine. It was still light enough that they couldn’t come for us, not yet, but we were minutes away. I dug my feet in, put my shoulder down, and prayed. I prayed that if I had any super-strength, I would use it now. I prayed, “God, if I can move this tree, let me move it now.”
I breathed out in a yell, the way you do sometimes in the gym when you’re lifting something heavy, something that you’re not sure you can move. But it moved. Edward put his shoulder beside mine, and the other men pulled, and the tree moved. I yelled again, and the tree slid across the road as if it were on wheels. It just gave. I fell to my knees, because I hadn’t expected it to move like that.
“Anita . . .” Edward started to help me up.
“Car, start it now.” I said.
He didn’t argue with me. He just did what I said. I liked that. I moved my gun around on its strap so it was in my hands and ready.
Tilford crashed through the trees on the other side of the road,