I cringed.
“Find them!” Hades commanded. “Find and capture those motherfucking bastards!” And then he disappeared.
I looked at my mates, grinned, and waved. “Hi.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The hounds still had a tracker on Jackie's car. Remembering that was the only thing that kept them from losing their shit. I hate to say this, but they were very dog-like in the way they idolized Hades. He was their master, and they didn't just obey him, they also loved him. Blindly. He could do no wrong. The God of Gods. Disappointing Hades was heartbreaking for them.
It was so upsetting, in fact, that they didn't waste any time in seeing me home. Instead, we piled into Garret's truck and raced after Michael immediately.
It was surprisingly easy to hunt them down. Michael couldn't have known about the tracker on Jackie's car. If he had, he would have removed it or changed vehicles. But he thought he was safe. After they got out of Helena, Jackie slowed down. We caught up to them right before Boulder.
Darkness helped to disguise us as we approached Jackie's car. Garret was driving. He held back a couple of car lengths as we took stock of the situation. Jackie and Jake—or more likely Jackie and Michael—were having a heated discussion. Jackie kept taking a hand from the wheel to gesture wildly.
“Oh, she's not happy,” I said.
“She knows about Michael,” Gage said. “Or she's figured it out. She's already dealt with Silas and Michael in Spokane.”
“He's gonna jump bodies,” I said.
“How do you know that?” Gage asked.
“It's what I would do. Jake is compromised. Not only do you know him, but Jake is no longer complacent. Michael thinks he's escaped you. It would be safe for him to jump now, and then he'd have a new body that would be impossible for you to track.”
“Not impossible,” Gideon said. “We can sense an extra soul in a body. But it would be difficult to find him, yes.”
“Gage,” Garret said.
Gage, who was in the front passenger seat, leaned forward and narrowed his stare. “Yeah. If you race up on them as I jump, I can make it, no problem.”
“Jump?” I asked. “You're going to jump into their car?”
Gage glanced at me over his shoulder. “I'm going to jump through Jake. I'll be fine, sweetheart. I'll jump through him, grabbing Michael as I go, and head straight into the Underworld.”
“That seems difficult.”
“Gage can do it,” Gideon said.
“Okay,” I murmured.
Not that they were waiting for my approval. Garret was already speeding up while Gage was shoving off the only piece of clothing he wore—a pair of sweatpants. Once those were off, he crouched, and then his entire form shimmered. It occurred to me that the cab wasn't big enough for Gage's hound form, but as soon as his body hunched in, pressing against, well, everything, he went spectral. Coming out of his hunch, Gage burst throughthe vehicle, reminding me of a dog hanging his head out a window. Except this dog was a ghost, a giant, and had his head lifted through the roof instead of hanging out the window.
“Now!” Garret said just as we got within a foot of Jackie's car.
Jackie had seen us pulling up. First, she frowned at us in the rearview, then she looked over her shoulder, eyes gone wide in our headlights. Not one to waste time on hysterics, Jackie immediately faced forward and sped up. I thought it was too late, that she wouldn't have time to evade Gage. But her little sports car was fast, and Gage's ghost body fell short, dropping right through the trunk and sinking into the road.
“Gage!” I shouted as we rolled over him.
“He can't be hurt in that form,” Garret said as he sped up again.
We rammed into the back of Jackie's car, the massive grill on Garret's truck saving us from any damage while it crushed her trunk like a tin can. Calm, cool, and collected Jackie lost her cool and screamed, but Jake just stared at us, twisted around in his seat. No, not Jake—Michael. His expression went grim, and I knew he was going to jump.
“He's going,” I said.
“He can't,” Garret said. “Not in a moving vehicle.”
“We don't know what he can do,” Gideon said. “He shouldn't be able to jump bodies at all.”
