Parker unleashed a fiery blast and sent it careening right at me. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the same guy I’d met the day before.
I tried to dodge, but the surge of magic shot out so fast I didn’t have a chance. The flames crashed straight into me, but I hardly felt a thing. Only warmth, acknowledgment. The light in my chest glowed as the borrowed angel armor absorbed the full impact.
“They know,” Parker growled, and for a moment he looked too stunned to take any further action.
But that moment quickly passed and he hurled himself onto me, trapping my smaller body beneath his large, muscly one.
“Let me go!” I flailed against him.
“Tell me where the others are,” he demanded, but still he couldn’t force me to do it against my will. This wasn’t Parker. He didn’t have the same powers.
“No,” I told him with another grunt. “I won’t tell you anything until you explain who you are and what you want.”
If I could get and keep him talking until Greta returned, then everything would be okay. I was definitely doing my job as bait. Now I just had to hope my fisherman would come to the rescue before the armor took one too many hits and I got gobbled up whole.
“Who are you? Why are you even a part of this?” fake Parker demanded rather than offering any answers of his own.
“I’m Tawny,” I said blithely. The goal was to keep him talking, so if he wanted to hear about me, I was more than ready to offer up some info. “I’m just a temp.”
“They took your magic and kicked you out. Why are you in this house? What are you looking for?”
I absolutely was not going to tell him that I was only here to distract him, so instead I reached for my writer skills and concocted a story—a bit of pure and simple fiction to save the day.
“I live in the guest house out back. When they took my magic and kicked me out, I figured I’d been stiffed. I needed the money, though, that’s why I even took the lousy job in the first place. Figured with everyone’s attention focused elsewhere I could creep in here and find something to hock. Make sure I got some kind of payment for all my efforts.”
“You made a bad choice,” he hissed above me. “Because, see, now that you’re here, I can’t just let you go.”
“Then let me help you,” I suggested, giving up the struggle. The safest way to avoid getting hurt was to make him think I was on his side.
But it was to no avail. “I don’t need help from a normie. This will be easier without you here to get in the way.” He sent another surge of flames into my body, but I felt nothing this time. Just how long could this angel armor hold out? I really, really didn’t want to find out.
“What’s protecting you?” my attacker asked, further proof that he was not the Parker Barnes I knew and had even begun to care about a little.
“I don’t know,” I lied. I would have shrugged, but I still couldn’t move beneath him. “Magical residue, maybe? As you said, I’m nothing but a normie. Please just let me go.”
Another roar of ineffectual flames crashed against me.
“Use me as bait,” I suggested in a squeaky voice. Panic had begun to set it. Would Greta make it back in time, or would the next blast be the one to break through my armor?
“What?” he asked, his hand lifted to conjure another blow, then paused.
“Don’t just kill me. Use me as a bargaining piece for whatever it is you want.” If I could be the bait for the good guys, then I could be the bait for the bad guys, too. Only Greta had the full picture. I had to trust that she would be back soon and make sure I escaped this scuffle alive. I mean, if you couldn’t trust an angel, then who could you trust?
He pondered this for a few moments, and when at last he spoke again, it wasn’t to me. “There you are. Now get in here, and help me tie her up,” he said, pressing me harder into the ground. My face now lay flat against the heavy pile carpet in Mrs. Haberdash’s bedroom.
The echoing footsteps paused just outside the doorway.
“Well? Were you able to incapacitate any of them?” fake Parker pressed.
“No, unfortunately. They went to the power points as you anticipated, but they were unable to complete the ritual,” a husky feminine voice answered.
I couldn’t see much from my unfortunate position, but it was enough to recognize the pair of feet that joined us, dressed in thick black combat boots and a long flowy skirt.
Melony had arrived.
“Why not?” the man holding me down asked with a growl.
“One of their members suspected something and came to alert the others. I was just about to converge on the cat when it happened.”
“What did she say? Come out with it already!” My attacker shoved me into the floor with all his might, but the angel armor held strong.
Melony drew closer but remained a couple steps back. “I couldn’t hear, but the two of them took off together.”
“They’re going to warn the others. That means we don’t have much time,” the man said. “We have to finish this now. We might never get the chance again.”
I swallowed hard.
Whatever came next, I knew it wouldn’t be good.