Priceless

face, leaving me unable to give any sort of an impression of whether it was even a man or a woman.
    Freaky.
    “You will not come for the girl. She belongs to us.” The voice was a monotone, giving nothing away.
    I leaned forward on one of the swords. “Well, I can’t do that. How do I know you aren’t molesting her, or worse, making her into the next Martha Stewart?”
    Silence. “You are insolent.”
    “I’ve been told that a time or two,” I said, a distinct throb starting at the base of my neck. “Tell you what, I won’t come for her if I can keep you tied up here in my basement and make use of you as I will. I mean, that’s a fair trade—”’
    The door slammed shut and I laughed. “Really? Locking me in my room because I’ve been naughty? That’s the best you can do?”
    I didn’t hear the flames right away, not over my laughing. I shrugged, not worried in the least. There was a second way out leading to the trap door in my kitchen below the table. Trotting down the dirt hallway, I climbed the four-step ladder, grabbed the handle and twisted hard to the left.
    Alex whimpered and I frowned. Twisting it again, I jammed my shoulder against the trap door and pushed again. Nothing.
    “Alex, help me,” I said, feeling the first stirrings of panic. How had they known the trap door was even there?
    The werewolf climbed the ladder beside me, his movements awkward and the space tight. “Now push, buddy.”
    Together we shoved hard on the door as the room filled with smoke. It wouldn’t be the flames that killed us. Shit, shit, shit.
    Even with both of us pushing with all we had, the door didn’t budge; the wood didn’t even splinter and break. They’d re-enforced it with a spell.
    We were trapped.

~15~
    H e sped the whole way back from New Mexico to make up time, lights flashing on his SUV, sporting a massive hangover. O’Shea picked up Martins and filled him in before they raced to catch Adamson, the tracking device working well for once, showing him she’d gone home.
    “There’s got to be a ring of them working together. I think she’s working with someone who kidnaps the kids, then she ‘finds’ them for a cost. A perfect sting on parents who are desperate.” O’Shea actually wasn’t sure of his new theory, he was just so pissed she’d dodged him again, he’d grasp at anything.
    “Why wouldn’t she just phone?”
    “Taps.”
    “She doesn’t look like the type to kill anyone, especially not her own sister. Nor the type to kidnap kids for money.”
    O’Shea snorted. “That’s what she’d like us to believe, no doubt. But we can have a chat with her, try to loosen up her tongue.” That brought a far too intimate image to mind, one that he quickly banished. He took the turn-off leading up to her home without pausing to even check the road sign. There were many nights he’d staked out her house early on, waiting, hoping for the break he’d need to finally put her behind bars. But what he’d seen was a woman who’d grown up with no family, alone in the middle of nowhere. He tried not to think about how it must feel for her to be alienated from everything she knew.
    As they pulled into the yard, a strange sight met them. Four hooded figures stood near the back of the house, not trying to conceal themselves, but standing there, not moving. Smoke curled around their feet, looking like it came from the other side of the house.
    “What the hell is this?” Martins asked.
    O’Shea shrugged. “No idea.”
    They stepped out of the SUV in tandem.
    Martins walked forward first, taking the lead, showing initiative, which was a surprise.
    “Hello, we’re looking for—” His words were cut off when the figures shot at them.
    Except ‘shot’ wasn’t quite the right word. They lifted their hands and
stuff
poured out of their fingertips, straight at the two agents. Bright blue and green, the ‘stuff’ zipped toward the junior agent first. Martins reacted faster than O’Shea thought he would, diving behind a hedge alongside the house. O’Shea used the SUV as a cover, his mind struggling to make sense of what he’d just seen.
    “FBI Agents! Put your weapons down!” He fully expected them to react accordingly. Not so much, as it turned out.
    They continued to send that sparkling crap toward both of the agents, which left the agents no other choice. Martins shot first, his aim way off the mark if the way the scarecrow in the field behind the figures jumped was any