Desert Places by Morgan Blayde

Author:Morgan Blayde [Blayde, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2018-04-27T22:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Kra-crunch!

The metallic crumpling accompanied the sound of shattered glass—pulverized glass really. The noise, like a small bomb going off, commanded attention. Jaime watched the closest police car bounce a little on its shocks. The headroom above the seats no longer existed. Goliath stood on the caved-in roof, a snarl still on his fuzzy face. He followed her lead in not killing, or hurting much, but had no restraint where cars were concerned. In fact, he lifted a leg and pissed on his conquered foe.

“Hell-hound!” The female cop opened fire on the dog.

Jaime buckled her knees, dropping swiftly to the ground, her right fist striking the concrete, sinking deep, webbing the stone. Cracks and a shockwave spread. The police staggered off balance. Jaime rose in the air to stand on nothing. A violet light shimmered over her.

One of the cops spoke into his radio. “We need Special Measures personnel to deal with XE at our current location—ASAP.”

Floating, glowing, Jaime felt amazement, surprised she hadn’t mentally blacked out like the last time she’d somehow saved herself from danger. It took her a moment to realize the cops weren’t so ignorant of preternaturals as Opscuro might like. The police had people to deal with the weird.

Special measures. I wonder what they will be.

The store employee was nowhere to be seen, having run back inside. The cops straddled shattered chunks of concrete, moving slowly to diminish their threating posture, sliding guns back into holsters.

More intelligence than I expected.

The cop with the bent—useless—gun couldn’t fit it in his holster so he just dropped it. Looking up at Jaime, there was caution in his eyes, maybe even respect.

Maybe he’s dealt with non-humans before.

He said, “Look, I think we’ve all gotten a little too excited. If we can all settle down and talk this through, no one needs to get hurt.”

Jaime met his stare. “I told you I had a receipt. I didn’t do anything.”

He gave a ghost of a laugh. “You’re doing something now.” The cop’s nametag said: Williams.

“You were going to shoot my dog. And I even saved you from him.”

“At the cost of my gun, but that’s not important at the moment. The fey are coming. I hope you can explain yourself to them. Fey justice can be far more severe than the human kind. Maybe you want to build up some good faith here, and at least put away the magic before we all wind up on a U-Tube video.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Jaime.”

She saw Sam coming around the front of his truck. She hoped he’d left his gun there. He came toward her, hands up and empty to show his harmlessness to the police.

Williams studied Sam. “And you would be?”

“Sam Martel. The lady is with me.”

Floating effortlessly, Jaime wondered exactly how she was going to get down. The thought itself seemed to do the job; her feet dropped slowly to the broken concrete. A glow spread from her feet, into the stone. The chunks moved themselves, settling back in place, the cracks erasing themselves.

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