“Lady, respectfully, either you come with us, or we stop being patient with you.”
I was about to ask him why I should care about their patience, but then the man looked meaningfully at a little girl running down the path well ahead of her parents, both of whom seemed only half-aware of where she was, like they didn’t have a worry in the world.
I understood the unspoken, loaded threat.
They could grab her or anyone like her and either kill her, run off with her, or use her as a bargaining chip to get me to cooperate. They were resting on the hope that my humanity and common decency outweighed my sense of self-preservation.
And dammit all, they were right.
“I’m not a big fan of you guys.” The problem with where we were was there really wasn’t anything nearby that allowed for privacy. The Greyshot Arch was just one among many paths. And with the green leaves emerging and the warmth in the air, there were too many people around us to risk having this conversation anywhere close.
We were spitting distance from the city proper though, which meant we might have to do what everyone said was a big no-no when it came to being kidnapped: we were going to have to go to a second location.
Grumble, grumble, grumble.
“Follow me, then.” I hefted a big sigh and went back through the tunnel and up a nearby path. I didn’t need to turn around to know they were behind me—I could sense their five bulky bodies without much imagination.
We couldn’t leave the park directly because of the low stone wall along Central Park West, so I navigated us towards the nearest exit at the corner of West 63rd St. and the hustle and bustle of the city streets. Out here everything was louder, busier, and even smelled different than it had under the protection of the branches and quieter paths of the park. I immediately felt like I could be forgotten here and vanish unseen off a sidewalk.
Precisely what these guys wanted.
We were so close to my house I could see the tower of our complex from where I was standing. But if I made a break for it, I was sure they’d grab the nearest person and shove them into traffic, or do something equally awful to prove their point.
It wouldn’t be the first time an innocent life was lost just to make me feel guilty.
I kept walking, familiar with the area well enough to know that privacy was hard to come by. I turned onto West 64th and got about halfway down the block until a twenty-four-hour parking garage appeared on my left. I stopped in front of it and then made a dramatic gesture towards the entrance. “Gentlemen.”
I wasn’t much in the mood to recreate a scene out of the music video for “Bad,” and there would still be people coming and going from the garage, but at least it would limit the availability of potential hostages.
The five men exchanged glances then seemed to decide there wouldn’t be any more difficulty taking me out of a parking garage than a public park, and followed me in.
The light dimmed inside, well out of the sun, replaced by the sickly green glow of overhead fluorescents. We passed row after row of parked cars until I settled on a place near the back where the bulbs had burned out and it was less likely parkers would gravitate this direction.
Things like that were common, little pockets of darkness human beings naturally learned to avoid. It was the world’s way of training us to keep away from trouble, and usually it worked without us even being aware of it. I, on the other hand, tended to head right for those patches of dark and deadly, like the danger-loving dumb-dumb I was.
“All right, let’s make one thing clear here.” I set my bag on the ground, barely remembering I’d been carrying it this whole time. There was an extra knife and bullets inside—you know, lady essentials—but my gun was under my coat in a holster, and my knife was in my boot as always. I was prepared for these guys.
“Sure, enlighten us.”
“You want to take me to Davos. You were willing to hurt innocent people to make that happen. I don’t want to be taken to Davos, and I’m willing to hurt you to make sure I don’t have to go.”
The head guy snickered, and a few of the stooges exchanged amused smirks. Now I was both offended and super ready to kick all their stupid stoogey asses. Bring it on, scumbags.
“It’s cute that you think you can stop us,” the leader said with a smirk.
“Cute is my middle name, buddy.” It was not. Merriweather was my middle name. I had my grandmere to thank for that one. Pretty sure she named me after one of those fairies in Sleeping Beauty, but she insisted that wasn’t the reason. Still, there was no way to convince me otherwise, no matter what she said.
“You guys followed me through the damn park, and you followed me in here because I asked nicely. You might be the dumbest lackeys a vampire has ever hired. In my experience.”
The smirks faded as they realized I wasn’t even a little bit scared of them, so they decided to up the menace.
“We were told to keep a low profile,” one of them said, and was immediately given a look by the leader that clearly meant, I’m not paying you to talk.
“Yeah, nothing says low profile quite like stalking women in a public park.”
“I am sick of listening to her jaw,” another one announced. “Can we knock her out and get this over with?”
A man of action. I could appreciate that.