Priceless

other to death?”
    “Yup. Eventually. I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad way to go, and it certainly would be hard to pin on anyone.” I held my hand out. “Another towel, please.”
    He handed me a smaller towel, which I wrapped my hair in. “As soon as we dry out, we’ve got to move. The Coven who has India are the ones who attacked you and tried to kill me, and they will no doubt make another attempt to stop me.”
    “Why’s that?”’
    “Because I have a reputation for being stubborn,” I said. “And they know it.”
    He snorted.
    I glared at him.
    Putting his hands back on his hips he nodded, the hint of a smile flicking across his lips. “It doesn’t take supernatural ability to know that.”

~18~
    I n less than an hour we were on the road. I wanted to check out the mineshaft while there was still daylight and we were less likely to run into any uglies.
    “Uglies?” Alex barked from the back seat.
    O’Shea cringed. It would take him some time to get used to the werewolf.
    “Yup, uglies. What are they, Alex?” I wanted him to keep talking. Things had gotten awkward as we’d piled into the Jeep, my hand brushing against O’Shea’s thigh by accident, the heat flaring between us.
    “Demons.” Alex whispered and crouched low in the seat, his tail no longer wagging.
    “You have got to be kidding me.”
    I glanced over at O’Shea. “No. YOU have got to stop saying that. This is reality.” I debated whether or not to mention the Arcane division of the FBI. They might welcome him with open arms, but then, as I glanced over at him, they might not. Most likely, nobody was supposed to know about it. Certainly not me and definitely not someone who was on the lam for killing his partner.
    “If I can prove this exists, this supernatural side of things, they might re-instate me,” he said.
    We pulled off the main road onto a barely discernible track that had at one point been the main drag into the mine. Now it was filled with potholes and washouts. Just one more reason I had a serious love for my Jeep. I threw it into four-wheel drive and hit the gas, ignoring O’Shea’s statement.
    “Bumps!” Alex screeched from the back as we started to bounce down the track. I didn’t take it easy, despite O’Shea’s grunts of displeasure as he was jostled in the passenger seat. This was something Alex loved and I wouldn’t deny him this small pleasure, not with each day being one closer to the day the pack might finally catch him.
    “Slow the hell down, Adamson.” O’Shea snapped after his head got thrust into the not-so-well-padded roof.
    “Almost there, I think.” I took a deliberate sharp turn in order to hit one last big rut in the road. Alex squealed and I couldn’t help laughing. “Enjoy the ride, Agent. You never know when it might be your last.”
    He glared over at me, but said nothing, his hand gripping the Holy Shit handle with decidedly white knuckles. “Fuck.” He muttered it just low enough that I had to strain to hear him.
    I couldn’t resist poking at him. “What was that?”
    “FUCK!” Alex screeched from the back of the Jeep, and I burst out laughing. A glance at O’Shea and I caught a smile twisting his lips.
    “Admit it, that was funny.” I gunned the Jeep and slammed on the brakes so we skidded through the loose scree. I mean, who had a werewolf yell out “fuck” in the back of their Jeep?
    “No.”
    Of course, that only made me laugh harder. Never had I been so distracted on a case before, but in a weird way it felt like a good fit.
    I turned the Jeep off. “Here we are.”
    Lucky enough, I’d been right and there were no “uglies,” so to speak. But then, the gateway through the veil wasn’t open either. The mineshaft wasn’t particularly narrow, about two and a half people wide. Walking around the edge of it, I let my fingers trail over the metal rim, feeling the jagged cuts where grappling hooks would have been jammed in, in order to repel down. In my mind I tried to imagine how it would look.
    “There’s just enough for two people and a kid,” O’Shea said, coming to the same conclusion I had.
    Damn, how many others had this Coven stolen? “Have there been a lot of other missing kids lately? You know, ones with no leads?”
    O’Shea gave a sharp nod. “Three. All in the last six months. All within a two day drive of here.”
    Double damn, that was not good.
    Leaning over the rim, I put my weight in my heels as I stared into the pitch black hole.