Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [74]
“Received radio confirmation of search warrant from county sheriff,” the anonymous SWAT officer told me.
“Roger, Tac One,” I said. At least I wouldn’t add jail time to Morgan’s suspension for busting in on the O’Hallorans. Not that I cared anymore.
“Team will deploy from landing pad at rear of residence,” said the radio. The O’Hallorans had a helipad? Figured. “ETA ten minutes.”
Too long. The witches had already had a full three hours with Valerie. If she wasn’t dead or maimed beyond recognition already, she would be at the first whirr of SWAT rotors over the lodge.
“Roger, Tac One. Ten minutes.” I hung my speaker back on the dash and clicked the radio off. Then I put the Fairlane into reverse and backed into the parking area of the general store, across the highway from the gate. I carefully checked both ways for log trucks and drunken fishermen, then depressed the clutch and put the Fairlane in first. “I’m sorry,” I apologized to the car, then stomped on the gas pedal.
My six-cylinder block roared like a fighter jet taking off, and the tachometer jumped into the four thousand range. I slipped my foot off the clutch and the Fairlane jumped forward, across the highway and through the O’Hallorans’ gate with an impact that ricocheted me off the steering wheel and whipcracked my seat belt against my body.
Ignoring the ringing in my head, I wrestled the car under control as it headed for the ditch at the side of the gravel road. A piece of my undercarriage fell off and I ran over it, wincing at the hellacious grinding sound coming from my engine.
I shifted and gunned up the road, spraying pebbles from my back tires. Belatedly, I dug my flasher out of the glove compartment and stuck it to the Velcro strips on the dashboard, starting it revolving as I raced up the mountain toward the lodge.
The O’Hallorans’ lodge, if it could be called that, was one of those new buildings made to look old and not pulling it off very well. The aged patina of the wide porch and the carefully arranged log walls looked like a giant-sized challenge on a miniature golf course.
It was also surprisingly deserted. One black Humvee sat in the driveway, but no sentries sighted me in their crosshairs from any of the gabled windows and the only sounds after I killed the engine were water birds crying over the lake.
The silence creeped me out far more than if I’d faced an armed regiment of Seamus’s security people. It was a dead silence, like I imagined you’d find at Chernobyl just after the blast. Bad magick prickled around me like air, and the place just smelled wrong, an undertone that made the were snarl and retreat into its cave inside my subconscious mind.
Keeping the Fairlane between me and the lodge, I crawled out the passenger door and around to the trunk, where I pulled out my Kevlar vest and strapped it on over my T-shirt. Not like anyone inside couldn’t aim for my head, but it was better than nothing. I checked my Glock to ensure the clip was full and tucked the extras from my shoulder rig into my back pocket.
From the treeline across the lake, I heard the soft whud-whud-whud of the SWAT helicopter. All my training dictated I should wait for them to make entry before going in—seven hells, I shouldn’t even be here—but my imagination served up a mutilated Valerie Blackburn and I eased my shaking body out from behind the Fairlane and moved in a tactical crouch across the open expanse of gravel to land against one of the tree-sized porch posts.
My heart was hammering and sweat trickled underneath the forty pounds of Kevlar piggybacked on my torso. I wasn’t scared, any more than I’d been the other times I’d made entry on an armed suspect, but that unidentifiable wrongness was seeping into me, throwing my senses out of whack.
“Police!” I shouted. “Exit the building with your hands up!” That never does any good, but routine