His brows lowered, and his lips tightened. “How did you find me?”
“Traditionally, the one doing the ass-kicking asks the questions and the ass-kickee answers. What do you want with me and my friends?”
“Like you don’t know.” He scooted closer and kicked, trying to sweep my feet.
I planted my weight and let his foot slam uselessly against my shin. I’d have a heck of a bruise in the morning, but right now I wanted him intimidated. Preferably without me having to commit excessive acts of violence.
There was a familiar script to these encounters. We’d gotten through the Introduction and moved on to the Reassessment, when the bad guy realized he’d badly underestimated me. Next would usually be Indignant Protests with Gratuitous Insults, a nearly universal response to getting whooped by a skinny little Asian girl—or a plump middle-aged Asian woman, now.
He pushed himself up on his elbows. I could tell from his quickened breathing and heartbeat that he was shaken, but his face didn’t show it. “Exorcizo, te, inundissine spiritus, omnis incursio adversarii, omne phantasma, omnis legio.”
He’d skipped Indignant Protests and jumped right to Trying a Different Tactic. “Is that supposed to be an exorcism?” I asked. “I think the word you’re looking for isimmundissime, notinundissine. And that drawl is not helping your Latin.”
“You’re not demon-possessed.” He looked me over. “Are you a witch?”
“A witch in Salem. How original.” I circled him. “Let’s start with an easy question. Where can I find your three friends from the Gauntlet?”
He stared at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Mind-reading wasn’t one of my gifts, but he sounded sincere. I didn’t believe for a second that the timing of the attacks was a coincidence, but maybe things were more complicated than I’d thought.
Who was I kidding? Things were always more complicated. I switched gears and hit him with the facts I knew. “Last night, you attacked a harvester. Tonight you were spying on our store. Why?”
He got an arrogant, haughty expression on his face that made me want to punch it. “I’m trying to save the world.”
“They say you should start with baby steps. Have you tried composting?” I cocked a thumb at the van. “Or you could trade your stalker-mobile in for a hybrid.”
A porch light came on two houses down. Time to relocate. I lowered my voice. “I’m going to take that knife and any other weapons you’re hiding now. Then we’re going to walk to my place. If you want to walk out again, you’ll behave yourself and answer every question we ask.”
From behind me came the growl of an engine, followed by the crunch-and-rubber sound of tires on blacktop. The van accelerated toward me. The wheels jumped the curb.
I grabbed Ronnie, threw him out of the way, and dove after him. Ronnie must have had a partner hiding in the van. How had I missed that? It was an amateur mistake, completely unforgiveable.
The van jolted to a stop. The driver’s seat was empty.
Ronnie didn’t appear to be mentally controlling it or anything like that, but he wasn’t freaking out about his van coming to life, either. He scooted sideways, putting distance between the two of us.
The van pulled back and lunged at me a second time.
I dodged again. “SeriousChristinevibes.”
Ronnie looked at me with his forehead crinkled.
“Stephen King’s book about a possessed car? They even made a movie about it.” I refused to be the middle-aged woman who grumbled about kids these days, but...“Seriously, put your phone away and spend some time at the library.”
More lights came on around us. A man shouted about calling the police.
The van’s side door slid open. Ronnie climbed inside, never taking his attention off me. With the driver’s seat still clearly empty, the van took off down the street.
I brushed dirt and grass from my pants. “That could have gone better.”
I imagined both Artemis and Felipe nodding in agreement.
“I want all of you to study these three pictures. I wasn’t planning to share these yet, but it seems some of you have gotten impatient. Meet Annette Thorne, Temple Finn, and Jenny Winter. They live on Chestnut Street, inSecond Life Books and Gifts.”
“I know that place. They’ve got a shelf that’s nothing but boxes of old comics for like fifty cents each. I once spent twenty bucks for—”
“These people are dangerous. Especially Jenny Winter. You might think you’re hot shit, thanks to the gifts I’ve given you, but any one of these three could swat you like a mosquito. Do. Not. Fuck with them. Do I make myself clear?”
