Deceptions: A Cainsville Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “It must be some kind of Jedi mind trick.”
    “I believe you are conflating your fantasy worlds.”
    “You know what I mean. He alters our perception so we no longer see him. Rather than actually vanishing.”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Yes. I want limits, damn it. I’ll accept omens and portents and second sight. I’ll accept giant black hounds and creepy ravens and magpies. I’m still working out the fae and Wild Hunt thing. But I draw the line at people disappearing into thin air. Don’t give me that look, either.”
    “Look?”
    “You’re laughing at me.”
    “I’m quite certain I didn’t even smile.”
    “I can
feel
the laughing.”
    His lips twitched. That’s when Ransom
did
disappear, if only around the side of a coin laundry. I picked up my pace. Gabriel laid his fingers against my back. “Careful, Olivia.”
    He was right—I’d left my purse in the car, to avoid checking it at security, which meant I was unarmed.
    We caught another glimpse of Ransom as he turned into the gap between two buildings. Gabriel stopped me before I could follow. He surveyed the area and then swung his gaze back to that gap, his eyes narrowed. If he were a cat, his fur would have been standing on end.
    “Trouble?” I said.
    “We’ve been led up and down these streets. Now our target has vanished into a dark alley. I don’t believe it takes an omen to signal we’re being led into a trap.”
    “So we retreat?”
    “No, we proceed with extreme caution.”
    The dark alley was actually a narrow road between buildings. It wasn’t all that dark, either, only dim from the shadow of one building stretching across to the other. It was still midday, and we could hear the shouts of men at a construction site a block over. The last dangerous place I’d ventured had been an abandoned psychiatric hospital at 2 A.M . This was nothing.
    There was no sign of Ransom. When we got halfway down the lane, Gabriel pointed to the mouth of an adjoining alley. Which meant that Ransom could have gone that way . . . or be lying in wait there to pounce on us.
    “I’m going to check,” Gabriel said. “Wait here and stand watch, please.”
    When he reached the intersection, he peered around it. At a noise behind me, I glanced around to see a plastic bag tumbling my way. I turned back and . . .
    No Gabriel.
    I was almost ashamed of the sudden impulse to run and see where he’d gone. Um, down the side alley obviously. I waited a minute. Then I walked to the intersection and looked around the corner to see . . .
    A dead end.
    The alley was only about ten feet long and stopped at a chain-link fence. I couldn’t imagine Gabriel hopping that fence. He’s too big to be agile, and his dignity stops him from doing anything that could look, well, undignified.
    I walked to the fence and peered through. No sign of Gabriel. That’s when my heart started pounding in earnest. And when I started cursing us both out for not retrieving our cell phones from the car before we set off to follow a Huntsman.
    I returned to the lane and walked along it. When a dark shadow loomed over me, I turned with a greeting on my lips. No one was there. The shadow stayed, though, and I craned my neck to see an owl perched on the roof above.
    Owl in daytime. Always a bad sign.
    I rubbed the back of my neck.
    Across the road at the end of the lane was a block of housing. An old woman stood in a rear yard scrubbing clothing in a basin with a washboard. I crossed the road, pulled by the archaic sight. She had her head down, scrubbing diligently while crooning to herself. I walked right up to the fence and peered over. I could see her long, snarled hair and her reed-thin, wizened arms. When she raised her head, I knew what I’d see. Those blackened, jagged teeth. That long nose and sunken eyes—one black and one gray.
    “Y mae mor salw â Gwrach y Rhibyn,”
I whispered.
    Her mouth opened.
“Fy mhlentyn, fy mhlentyn bach,”
she shrieked.
“Fy mhlentyn, fy