A SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK 2
As Easy as Finding a Unicorn
in a Grain Bin… Or Not
NELSON
People used the word “unicorn” to describe the rarest of the rare. The thing that was more myth than reality. The thing that made you question if it even existed.
Yeah.
I knew firsthand why that was an apt metaphor, because trying to find an abducted unicorn was about as easy as finding rocking-horse shit or teeth in a hen or whatever other similar idiom you like best, because I’d been searching for months with no joy.
This, though, would be the moment of my triumph.
I stared at the small grain bin in the abandoned farmyard and was filled with a sense of knowing. That had never happened to me before. So, this had to be it, right? The Eternal Magic was flashing me a big old two thumbs up. Here’s a pat on the back. You’re done. You can do something else now.
I know, I know. I shouldn’t celebrate before the unicorn was safe, but I couldn’t help myself.
This lead was solid. I knew it. It came right from the phone of the guy who’d been trafficking the unicorn.
Honestly, I was pissed it’d taken the SC this long to figure out that the lists of numbers were coordinates.
If they’d shown them to me from the beginning, I would have known exactly what they were.
I referred to coordinates all the time while geocaching. But the SC had finally done it.
I’d already searched the other sites. This was the last one. After today, I could rest.
I wouldn’t have to go to any more black markets. I wouldn’t have to haunt all the shady supernatural dives where assholes hung out. I wouldn’t have to keep guzzling coffee like it was an elixir capable of fixing all my worldly problems.
I could finally rest. My imagination could stop producing all those desperately disturbing images of the unicorn trapped in a cage, unable to escape, slowly fading away.
Because the unicorn would be here.
Then I could do… I don’t know what… but something else rather than spending all my waking hours thinking about some supe I’d never met. All I had to do was get in that grain bin on the other side of this otherwise derelict property .
I was in my shifted form, which as a shadow jumper meant I was more air than solid.
I hadn’t seen anyone coming or going since I arrived, but I hadn’t moved in yet.
It was better to be safe. And, in this form, I doubted anyone would notice me hanging out in the shadow of an ancient tractor that probably hadn’t moved since 1962.
Even through the thick layer of frost, I could see the machine was mostly rust.
The wintry morning enveloped me too, but I wasn’t solid enough to gather my own layer of frost. It was a good thing none of my old teammates had joined me today.
I hated listening to them whine. And they would definitely be whining about the temps today.
But me? I could have stayed like this all day and night if I had to, waiting for the right opportunity to sweep in and save the unicorn.
It looked like my precautions were unnecessary this time, but I waited, just to be sure.
I wasn’t usually an impatient person, but the longer I waited, the more I wanted to finish this.
Surely, if someone was here, I’d have seen them by now.
I wasn’t certain of the time—it wasn’t like I could check my phone when it had disappeared with the rest of my body and clothes when I shifted—but it felt like I’d been here for an eternity already.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
This all seemed too easy.
I strained to hear more sounds. The only noise was a vehicle going down a road about a mile or so away. Nothing else. Maybe I should have brought Adrian with me. As a wolf shifter, his senses were significantly more sensitive than mine.
I waited a little more as the shadows grew longer and longer.
Not that the length of the shadows meant much.
The days in November were always appallingly short, and they became progressively and unpleasantly shorter until the winter solstice.
I was probably the only shadow jumper in the world that hated this time of year.
All the rest of my kin loved when darkness overwhelmed light.
Well, no, that wasn’t really true. I liked the darkness as much as the next shadow jumper, but that didn’t mean I was like them.
I certainly didn’t feel the need to sink into the shadows at the winter solstice and stay there until the spring equinox like so many of my kind did.
Too many shadow jumpers lost themselves in the shadows and never emerged again that way.
To survive was seen as a point of valor by my gloom, but they weren’t the brightest beings around… literally.
Of course, that also explained why I didn’t live with my gloom anymore. I hadn’t for a long time.
Thoughts of my gloom made me restless. I needed to act.
I eyed the decrepit wooden structure again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I still didn’t see any trip wires, cameras, or shiny new locks.
“Let’s do this,” I whispered to myself.
I jumped into the shadow of the building.
When nothing happened, I slipped around the foundation slowly.
If I moved too quickly, I could trigger motion sensors, if there were any, and that was the last thing I needed.
Finally, I found a gap I could slip through.
I flowed into the shadow on the other side of the hole.
Okay. I was inside and nothing had happened yet. Good.
The windowless structure may be deteriorating, but it was still solid enough to keep out most of the light. The darkness was a sharp contrast to the bright white outside. Even in my shifted form, I needed a minute to adjust to the change.
But one thing I did know was that it was quiet. Too quiet.
I let my shift wash over me until I was human again. I crouched on the dirty wooden floor, ready to leap out of the way of an attack if necessary.
No one called out in surprise. No alarms rang out. I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight.
Aw, damn it.
The cage was exactly as I’d envisioned it, right down to the little wheels on the bottom, except for one big ugly problem. It was empty, as was the rest of the grain bin.
Fuck. Was this a trap?
I braced, ready to act. I could shift fast. They’d never catch me. People rarely anticipated a shadow jumper, so I’d be able to escape.
As I waited for an attack, I angled my light to the floor, then the walls, and lastly the ceiling. I didn’t find any runes etched into the wood planks to make a trap, nor could I sense any magic lingering in the air.
The only movement came from the small vapor clouds bursting from my mouth into the cold air on each exhale.
Seeing no attack coming my way, I slowly relaxed enough to search for clues. I needed to know what the hell was going on.
I studied what little evidence there was.
The dust on the floor had been disturbed, but not recently.
Already dust had started to settle on the one set of footprints leading from the cage to a small square access panel in the exterior wall.
The dirt was disturbed there, like someone—presumably Morgan Russell, the unicorn I was searching for—had wiggled through the small hole and then replaced the panel.
I inched closer to the cage, hoping for more clues. The door was ajar. It didn’t make any sense. All the interviews we’d conducted with others who’d been imprisoned with Morgan suggested he had been caged for a long time. If the damn unicorn could get out on his own, why hadn’t he?
What had changed?
Had the lock not been secure? The thin beam of light caught something reddish-brown smeared on the steel lock. I leaned closer. Ah shit. It was blood. My stomach churned.
Before I even realized what I was doing, I brushed my finger over it. My fingertip tingled. I yanked my hand back.
What the fuck was that?
I wasn’t a stranger to violence or death. I’d killed people. It would have been impossible not to have killed people when, until recently, I’d belonged to an elite team who worked for the Supernatural Council. So, I wasn’t sure why a little blood was making me queasy.
Except that it meant the guy I’d been trying to save had been injured.
I searched for more clues, but there was nothing more to find. Morgan Russell was gone.
Now, a newer SC agent might think that was the end of it, right? The unicorn was free. Everything should be right with the world.
Except I knew something that few others did: An oracle had foretold that the unicorn was in danger, and that I was destined to be the one to save him.
Which meant I wasn’t done yet.
Fuck my life.