Releasing the Hunter

Chapter 18

True to Ivy’s command, they were back on the road within ten minutes. Ronan had easily hot-wired the old T-Bird and they were cruising down the main road in the baby-blue car. Ronan was grinning the whole time, clearly enjoying the fact that he was driving the classic car.

She couldn’t care less. It was a vehicle and it would get them from point A to point B. Point B being, hopefully, where Quinn was located. She almost felt frantic now that she was so close. This was the best lead she’d had on his location in the past three years. Everything else had been rumors or mistaken identity.

She was still trying to decide the first thing she was going to do when she saw Quinn again. Either hug him or punch him in his pointy chin. Right now she was still fifty-one, forty-nine, the former being the punch.

If only it was that easy with another man.

She glanced briefly at Ronan. He’d made her admit something she wasn’t quite ready to cop to. But his kiss had been fierce and it had pulled at something inside her. It had been more than a lusty punch in the gut; it had tugged at her heart. Just a little, mind you. But it was enough that she couldn’t ignore it.

And the feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. Especially since she was still saddled with the cambion for another few days at least. Once they found Quinn, then what? Would he go his own way? She hoped so. Then she could shake him from her psyche.

Until then, he was firmly planted there. It was an inconvenient truth, but she had to deal with it.

After another couple of hours, they drove through Salem, stopping for lunch and much-needed coffee. They grabbed a couple of burgers and got back onto the highway. Another few hours and they would hit Washington, then the small town of Sumner, where supposedly her brother was holed up.

It seemed like a really odd place for him to be. But knowing Quinn, he had his reasons. Strange they might be, but he had them. He was always like that. Doing things unconventionally, but when he explained why, it would all make perfect sense.

Ivy missed him a lot. He’d always been her strength and her direction. Living without his leadership had been hard. But she’d done it. Thrived even. Maybe that had been his whole point.

“What are you thinking about?”

She turned and looked at Ronan.

“Your brow is creased. Looks like you’re thinking about killing someone.”

“Quinn. When I see him.”

He chuckled. “Ah. I thought maybe it was me.”

“Well, not right now.” She smirked. “Who’s going to drive this junker?”

“Good point.”

For the next few hours, they didn’t speak, which Ivy appreciated. The silence was surprisingly comfortable. As if they’d known each other for years instead of days. That was just another thing she liked about him. He knew when she needed the quiet. When she needed to be left to her thoughts.

It was late afternoon when they drove into Washington state. Only three more hours before they hit the town of Sumner. Ivy wasn’t sure what she expected when they arrived. Would Quinn still be there, or would he have moved on? For some reason she sensed the former. That he was still there. The closer they got, the more on edge she felt. Something was definitely going on in the small town of Sumner.

She’d looked up the place on the internet before they left. There was nothing remarkable about the town. It was like any other sleepy picturesque American town. The council met every Wednesday night, and the Thanksgiving parade promised a giant turkey and more pumpkin pie than the average person could eat. There was nothing supernatural about the place.

After another hour, Ivy’s head started to pound. She’d had plenty of headaches before, some self-induced, but this one was different. It came on like gangbusters and wouldn’t relent. It was as if some tiny person with a chisel and a hammer had crouched up inside her skull and was chipping away at her brain.

She brought a hand up to her temples and started to rub them hard, wincing the whole time.

“What’s wrong?”

“My head hurts.”

Frowning, he reached over the seat and touched her shoulder. “Did it just come on?”

She nodded, her tongue too thick to talk.

“I’m pulling over.” He swerved to the shoulder and came to a stop. Once parked, he turned toward her. “Let me see.”

She turned to him. He pushed her hands away from her temples and wrapped both his hands around her head, his fingers splayed wide. She could feel the pressure of his fingers on her skull and she wanted to pry them off, but she knew he was trying to take the pain away. After a few more minutes, the screaming agony in her head abated. She sighed and felt herself go lax. Ronan removed his hands from her head and set them on her shoulders.

She looked him in the eyes. “I have a feeling this means something.”

He nodded. “I can feel it in my head, too. It doesn’t hurt me as much, though.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means we’re going to be walking into a shit storm.”

“Demons?”

He nodded again. “I fear there’s more going on in Sumner than just Quinn hiding away.”

“How long until we get there?”

“Two hours max.”

“I suggest we arm ourselves, then, before we hit town.”

“Agreed.”

Twenty minutes later, they both had their knives strapped to their bodies with varying harnesses. Ronan had his shotgun laid across his lap, loaded with blessed rock salt and silver shots. Ivy outfitted herself with several holy-water ampuls and a liquid-silver spray. She’d put it together like a can of mace. Effectively, it was used in the same way. A silver shot to a demon’s eyes was enough to blind.

The silence was palpable as they drove down the highway toward town. Ivy could feel Ronan’s edginess as well as her own. His gaze darted everywhere at once, looking for something, anything to be out of place.

She just kept her eyes on the road ahead. In the distance, large rolling black clouds gathered. It looked like they were waiting for them to drive right into their dark folds. They had that ominous quality reserved for black magic and demons.

Usually she wasn’t afraid when she went on a hunt. It was a job, a job she was good at and had trained for, for many years. Sometimes it was a cakewalk to take out the hellspawn. This all felt different. Something major was happening. And she wasn’t confident that she was prepared enough to handle it.

For the next hour and a half, Ronan drove in silence, his gaze fierce and alert. She glanced out the side window every now and then, but for the most part watched the road in front of them. One thing she did notice was there was virtually no traffic on the highway. No cars in front of them, nothing behind them and no vehicles in the opposite lanes. Which was odd even for an untraveled highway.

As they took the ramp off I-5 and closed in on the town, evidence to confirm her paranoia started to show. At the sign welcoming them to Sumner, there were two cars in the ditch, the doors flung open but no sign of the occupants. Ronan slowed a little as Ivy peered into the empty vehicles.

“Do you see anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

They continued on, driving slowly down the street that headed into the main town square. They passed a few old houses along the way, cars in drives, but no one in the yards. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dark clouds did swirl overhead threateningly. Residents might be hunkering down inside waiting for the storm to pass.

But Ivy had a feeling this storm wasn’t going to move on anytime soon.

After another five minutes, Ronan drove the car into downtown Sumner. But it was like no downtown she’d ever seen. There were cars parked here and there, haphazardly, clearly not obeying any of the parking laws. One SUV was overturned on its side, all its windows bashed in.

Some of the storefront windows were also smashed in. Parts of the sidewalks were littered with broken glass. And if her eyes didn’t deceive her, she spotted blood splatters here and there on the cement and on the brick store walls.

But as they made a pass down the main street, they didn’t spy one person on the street, in their cars, or in the open store doors. It looked like a ghost town. Most recently deceased.

“Looks like a war zone,” Ronan muttered as they turned onto another street and off the main drag.

“Yeah, but a war between who?”

And that’s when a large something smashed on top of their car, denting in the roof.