“Let him go now!”
He laughed. “Why should I?”
I wished I could think of a clever answer, but all my brain could focus on was the threat to the man I loved. Being in love sapped every ounce of logic from my mind, and I just sat on the floor and sputtered like an idiot. Lugh gave another push, and I mentally snarled at him to knock it off. I wasn’t letting him in, and that was final.
The moment of pain seemed to refocus some of my brain cells, and I found the will to answer Der Jäger’s question.
“Because if you don’t let him go now, I’ll know you never intend to let him go, and I won’t have any incentive to answer you.”
Der Jäger laughed. “And if I let him go, you have no incentive to answer me. I guess if it doesn’t matter to you one way or another, I should go ahead and take him now.”
I leapt to my feet. “Don’t!” I held out my hand beseechingly.
“Are you going to answer my questions?”
What choice did I have? I nodded.
“Good. Now why don’t we take this discussion somewhere more private?”
At the moment, my apartment was about as private as you could get, though Der Jäger didn’t know that. I wished I felt more hopeful that someone had heard my screams and called the police. But my neighbors on one side were on vacation somewhere, and my neighbor on the other side refused to admit he needed a hearing aid. I was on my own.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I said, holding my hands out to my sides. “Just don’t hurt Brian. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
I think Brian’s manly instincts were offended by my attempts to protect him, but Der Jäger was putting enough pressure on his windpipe so that he could barely breathe, much less protest.
“Your concern is touching,” Der Jäger said. “We’re going to go down to the garage and get your car. You’re going to drive, and your boyfriend and I will sit in the backseat. You aren’t going to try any heroic moves, and you aren’t going to talk to anyone. Is that all perfectly clear?”
I nodded, then started moving toward the table and my purse. The Taser beckoned from the floor, so tantalizing close and yet so far away.
“Stop right there!” Der Jäger barked.
I gave him my best innocent face. “I have to get my car keys,” I told him.
Der Jäger scowled. “Move very, very slowly, and keep your hands in plain sight. Get the keys and leave everything else.”
I did as he told me, moving practically in slow motion. I had to remind myself to breathe every once in a while. My fingers itched to reach for the Taser, but I knew if I did, Brian was dead. Lugh pounded at my head. He figured Brian was dead no matter what. But, damn it, I wasn’t giving up until all hope was lost.
All hope is lost, a voice that sounded disturbingly like Lugh’s whispered in my head. I shook it off.
I carefully unzipped the front compartment of my purse, then pulled it wide open so that Der Jäger could see that I wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Heart pounding in my throat, I drew out my keys and let the purse drop back down to the table.
Der Jäger kept his hand wrapped around Brian’s throat as he wiped blood away from his already-healing nose. “Lead the way,” he ordered.
And I did.
CHAPTER 26
It was getting late, and we didn’t run in to anyone on our way from my apartment to the car. Der Jäger gave up his choke hold on Brian, instead grabbing him by the back of the neck and jerking him around like a cop with a juvenile delinquent.
“Don’t you dare try anything!” I growled at Brian when the three of us piled into the elevator. “You’re not faster than a demon.”
Der Jäger seemed to find that terribly amusing, and Brian gave me a mutinous look. My heart almost stopped in fear that he was going to try the heroics after all, but even testosterone poisoning didn’t completely fry his intelligence. I knew he was just biding his time, that if Der Jäger let go of him for even an instant, he would try something and get himself killed.
Der Jäger’s going to kill him anyway, Lugh’s voice whispered in my mind. A chill shivered down my spine. Was I just imagining what he would say if he had a chance, or was he actually talking to me? I didn’t want to know.
I drove out of the garage without incident, the attendant not even bothering to glance at me or my parking pass before hitting the button to raise the gate. What can I say, my building has great security.
It didn’t take me long to figure out where Der Jäger was taking me. It isn’t exactly easy to find privacy in the middle of a city the size of Philadelphia, but as the Art Museum loomed in front of me, I remembered that nearby Fairmount Park covered thousands of acres. Easily enough room for our little threesome to disappear into.
The lights of the boathouses along the Schuylkill River looked incongruously picturesque and cheerful as we drove by them and plunged into the depths of the park.
Once upon a time in the mid—nineteenth century, Philadelphia’s water supply had been in jeopardy because of the rapid development of the city. The Fairmount Park system had been born when the great estate of Lemon Hill had been dedicated as a public park. As the years went by, more and more estates, particularly those situated by the Schuylkill, were absorbed by the park, until it became one of the largest urban parks in the country. Technically, all the parks throughout the city—and several beyond it—are part of the Fairmount Park system, but when Philadelphians think of Fairmount Park, they think of the grounds that had once been those old estates by the river.
Like the city, the park sprawls, some of it beautifully landscaped, with bike trails and horse trails and picnic areas, and some as close to natural forest as you can get in such a major metropolitan area. On a sunny spring day, the place would be teeming, but at this time of night, it was eerily deserted.
Eventually, we pulled into a closed parking lot. I had to drive through the chain over the driveway, but Der Jäger didn’t seem too concerned about the damage to my car. I might have hoped a cop would drive by, see the broken chain and my illegally parked car, and call in the cavalry. However, Der Jäger had chosen this location carefully, and when I pulled into the farthest corner and killed the lights, I realized the chances of anyone seeing us from the road were slim and none.
Lugh pounded at my head again as I followed Der Jäger’s orders and opened the door for him and Brian. If I’d been any less determined to keep him out, I probably would have crumbled under that assault. But I didn’t care how much pain Lugh put me through—I was going to save Brian if it killed me.
You can’t! Lugh protested, and I felt more sure this time that it was really him rather than my imagination.
Fuck off! was my pithy reply.
Apparently, the parking lot wasn’t private enough for Der Jäger’s taste, for he dragged Brian deeper into the park, until the feeble moonlight could barely penetrate the dense canopy of the trees. It felt for all the world like we were in the middle of some remote forest, rather than within the Philadelphia city limits.
Finally, Der Jäger was satisfied with our location and pushed Brian up against a tree, hand at his throat once more. In the thick gloom of the night, I could barely see either of them. Brian’s dark shirt and jeans disappeared against the trunk of the tree, until he looked almost like a disembodied head floating in the air.
“Now,” Der Jäger said, “I think it’s time we have a chat, don’t you?”
“He’s going to kill me anyway,” Brian started, but the sound choked off when Der Jäger’s hand tightened on his throat.
“Only one thing is certain,” Der Jäger said. “If you don’t talk to me, I will kill him. I’m sure you know I’m not bluffing.”