Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel(55)

The rage spilled out of O’Shea, and with it he spoke of his own volition. “We’ll see about that.”
*-*-*-*
Will drove us out to the countryside. That was not terribly exciting; thank the gods for small mercies. I slept most of the way, the chatter of Pamela nattering at Will a good bit of background noise. My dreams were disjointed and disturbing. Milly killing Eve, Alex biting Pamela, O’Shea pinioned by stakes. That last jerked me awake with a gasp. I had never been a Dreamer, one of those people who prophesied via their nightmares. No, but that didn’t mean I didn’t take my dreams seriously. Sometimes they were trying to tell me something.
Like maybe I needed to go after O’Shea first. He wasn’t dead, the kids were.
Jack Feen’s’ voice seemed to drift over me. You made me a promise. Now fucking keep it.
Yeah, there was that. I did my best to push the dream away and looked around where we were. The rain sleeted sideways and gusts of wind actually pushed the car around on the dirt road. Add that into the dark night and it was a picturesque scene straight out of a horror movie. Fantastic, just what I wanted for night number two in London.
“Are we almost there?” I stretched my arms above my head and felt my spine pop from sleeping hunched over.
“Yes, a few more minutes. Then we walk.”
I glanced back outside. I wasn’t a prude about weather, shit I lived in North Dakota, so who was I to complain? But this was rain, not dry cold snow. Rain, lots and lots of rain. Lots and lots of wet.
A few minutes later, Will pulled into a, well, I suppose it could be called a turnoff. It looked more like an accidental dip to the right of the road. He was the first one out, Pamela followed, and I sat in the car looking out at the weather. Of course, Will didn’t need a flashlight, and we were to just blindly follow him in the dark, out in the woods, in the rain.
The weather wasn’t the issue, it was the whole trusting Will thing. I didn’t trust him, not fully. Pamela, I trusted her, even though she was a child. But that was just it, she was somewhat easy to read, she hadn’t learned yet to hide her emotions even with her tough upbringing. Yet, I’d been wrong about Milly. Was I wrong about Pamela too? Was I wrong to follow Will? I shook off my worries. No, I’d kill him if he made a step wrong. He wouldn’t be the first shifter I’d ended.
With teeth grit against the first gust of wind and rain, I stepped out of the car. The rain bitch slapped me, followed by a gust of wind that would make North Dakota proud.
“Let’s get this done,” I said. Why was it that every freaking Shaman or Shaman-like supernatural lived in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere? Seriously, couldn’t they find a nice apartment in town? Just once I’d like to have that as an option. Just bloody well once.
Pamela tucked in tight behind Will, and I followed the two of them. From time to time, I saw Will duck his head to speak to Pamela. I kept my eyes and ears open, wondering how exactly this was going to go down. Keeping my head up wasn’t easy; the rain was literally running in small rivers down my scalp and into the neck of my jacket. The front of my pants were soaked through, and already, I could feel the slight squish of water in my boots. I’d love to say at least the smell was fresh and refreshing, but it wasn’t. There was nothing I could smell over the heavy intrusion of water on my senses.
“If you don’t have a Shaman,” I said, raising my voice just enough to be heard over the wind. “What do you have?”
Will paused. “A Druid.”
I jerked my head up. “Really?” I knew Druids were still around, of course they were. But true Druids, like true psychics, weren’t easy to find, nor were they easy to get help from. The other part of the equation was that Druids, well, they weren’t known to be shall we say, personable. Every supernatural has their quirks, the things they’re known for.
Druids were known for being assholes. Ambiguous, but still assholes.
Earth powered, ambiguous, hide behind smoke and mirrors, assholes.
Which, combined with my rapier wit, was probably not the best of combinations.
Will paused, turning green eyes toward me. “You must promise to be on your best behaviour. Please.”
I made a peace sign with my fingers and put them to my temple. “Scouts honor.”
“That isn’t how you make the scouts’ sign,” he grumbled, a visible shiver running down his spine.
“You okay?” Pamela asked, obviously seeing the same thing I was.
He cleared his throat, shook his head, and stepped back from us. “I’ll lead, but I have to be in my other form. If we get separated, you need to keep going. I don’t think she’ll give us another chance to speak with her. She’s funny like that.”