Priceless

How terrifying would it be as a little kid, to be forced to go there with people in cloaks, people you didn’t know or trust?
    I took a deep breath, the faintest scent of sage wafting up to my nose, a common herb burned in all Covens. “Alex, come smell.”
    Loping over to me, he stuck his head down the pipe. I laid a hand on his collar, just in case.
    “Witches,” he grunted, then took another sniff. “Demons.” He whimpered, and on the third sniff, he cocked his head. “One more.” He took a long drag and curled his lip, showing his teeth. “Don’t know. Funny smell.”
    Hmm. It was never good when Alex couldn’t identify a scent. “Okay, let’s go get ready.”
    “That’s it?” O’Shea asked, peeking into the pipe. “We don’t dive in?”
    “Not without the right gear—of which you have none. Mine is all back at my house, where the pack is currently staked out. Which means we need to go where I can get us the right weapons. Unless you have a grappling hook, harness and rope stowed away in your pants pocket?”
    He didn’t answer except with a glower.
    I cast out for India while O’Shea mulled that over. She was not any easier to trace here, but I could feel her. The fear was almost gone, but the most important thing was that she was alive. They—the Coven—hadn’t used her for a sacrifice yet.
    O’Shea followed me and Alex back to the Jeep. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”
    I froze between one step and the next, but didn’t turn around to face him. In a way, I was surprised it had taken him this long. “You finally believe me?”
    The shuffle of clothes told me he’d shrugged. “I’m having a hard time with believing any of this, but I’m seeing it whether I want to or not.”
    “Maybe one day I’ll tell you the whole story,” I said, knowing that would pique his interest.
    He caught up to me in split second, grabbed my arm, and spun me to face him. “You didn’t tell us the truth?”
    In all the interrogations after Berget had gone missing, I’d adamantly stuck to my story. We’d been at a park, she’d been on the swings one second, gone the next. Nothing else to say. But how was I going to explain to the police what had really happened? It was bad enough they thought I was guilty, that I thought I was guilty, even though I’d done nothing. All along, that was the problem. I hadn’t saved her and that made me guilty in my own eyes. In our parent’s eyes.
    “You’d believe me now, because you’ve seen what the world holds in truth. But not then,” I said, brushing his hand off my arm.
    We started to pile into the Jeep when a hair-raising screech spun me around, my eyes searching the skies above for the only thing that could have made the sound.
    Harpies; three of them. They were each the size of a large cow, well over a thousand pounds per, and had greasy brown feathers covering their lumpy, bird-like bodies. While legends sometimes pinned them as having the upper bodies of beautiful women, that wasn’t quite true. Hypnotizing eyes making you believe they were beautiful were the main gear the Harpies employed when it came to seduction. They didn’t look like much as far as being dangerous, but the two sets of claws—one off the bottom of their feet and one set at the tips of their wings—were enough to cut a man in half with a single squeeze. They could rip my Jeep open like a tin can and have us for dinner without breaking a sweat.
    Damn it all to motherfucking hell, this was about to get ugly. The last time I’d faced Harpies had been five years ago, and that had only been one Harpy. It’d taken Giselle and Milly at my side to knock her out, and we’d barely made it out alive.
    I pulled a sword out as the first Harpy struck, her claws skimming precariously close to my stomach, ripping through my thin t-shirt and exposing the flak jacket below. Spinning, I swung my blade overhead, arcing toward where the Harpy’s wings should be. My aim was true and the spelled sword cut deep into what would be the bicep of the Harpy, taking her right wing completely off. Howling and flailing, she rolled on the ground, brilliant red blood spurting in a fountain from where her wing had been only moments before. She flopped on the ground, arterial spurts shooting out around us.
    That had been lucky, like as in ridiculously so. Of course, there were two more, so I wasn’t counting us out of danger just yet.
    “Get in!” I ran for the Jeep.
    O’Shea listened for once,