Free War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Coven (War-N-Wit, Inc. - Book 3) by Gail Roughton

the pit of my stomach and dark spots started dancing in my line of vision.
    “Ari!” Stacy’s voice was muffled, hitting my eardrums through some barrier that distorted and slowed the vibration of her voice. “ Arrriii! ” And then I didn’t hear her anymore. Because I wasn’t there. I was somewhere else.
     
    * * *
     
    It was night. I was on a motorcycle. A big one. Not as a passenger, as the sole rider. Riding with a pack. The pack pulled off the road and into a building. A warehouse. That was it. A warehouse. Somewhere. I didn’t know where. Sound echoed and bounced off the metal walls as the riders cut engines and dismounted.
    “Damn fine work tonight, men! ‘Specially from the Snowman! Celebration time!”
    A sound system blared. Heavy metal. Beer cans popped, liquor bottles splashed. Bodies gyrated in the center of the floor.
    “Snowman!” A huge bearded biker thrust a woman toward the rider called Snowman. “Here! You deserve the best tonight!”
    Snowman moved into my sight. Red hair and beard. Tight spiral curls halfway down his back. He grinned as the woman threw her arms around his neck and snaked her body up and down his. He didn’t like it but he did. He wasn’t one of them but he was. He was their brother. Except he wasn’t. Two men. Outlaw. Law enforcement. At war with each other, each vying for survival.
    “Do an min’ if I do.”
     
    * * *
     
    Nobody’s going to recognize me… ain’t nobody goan connect Chad Garrett’s voice wid’a Alabama Sno’man, darlin’, ya know whut I mean, c’mon back?
    I whispered. “Except they did.”
    “Ari, don’t do that! You scared the crap out of me!”
    Stacy shook my arm. I was sitting on a bench in front of a souvenir store.
    “You almost fell flat on the sidewalk! I barely got you over to the bench! What happened?”
    “A flashback. I think. But not mine. Chad’s. And it was them. At least, the woman. And one of the men.”
    “Who was them?”
    “The bikers in the jazz club last night. They did recognize him. I knew it.”

 
    Chapter Nine
     
     
     
    “ Meeeooowwww!”
    Micah curled around our feet, displeased with the delay.
    “Well, excuse me to hell and back,” I said. “Hard to keep movin’ when you’re passin’ out.”
    “ Hssssssssssssss! ”
    I stood up and waved my hand in an “over to you” gesture.
    “Lead the way.”
    He tore off down the street. We took off after him in hot pursuit, trying to keep him in sight in the press of people. A crowd coming out of a restaurant cost us several seconds while we negotiated through them and when we emerged from the throng, he was gone.
    “ Damn it! If he wants us to follow him so damn bad, he’s goin’ to have to make allowances for this freakin’ crowd!”
    “Don’t waste time complainin’,” Stacy said. “Just keep goin’. We’ll catch up with him.”
    There ! Further down the street, almost to the next block. We put it in high gear. At least until the world went out of kilter again.
     
    * * *
     
    The Alabama Snowman—I couldn’t think of him as Chad—slouched in the corner of the dark parking lot, watching the doors. A roadside biker bar. I didn’t know where. The flashing neon sign, missing half its bulbs, spelled out “Hell on Wheels”.
    He had a cell phone to his ear. A relic from another time, a time when cell phones small enough to carry were just coming into common usag e. Cell phones huge by today’s standards. A call he didn’t want to make. A call he couldn’t wait to make.
    “Highway 47. Mile marker 16. Tomorrow night, 0200 hours.”
    He paused and listened.
    “Just be there.”
    He pocketed the phone and walked toward Hell . Hell on Wheels.
     
    * * *
     
    “Ari!” Stacy was making a career out of shaking my arm. “At least this time you didn’t almost fall down. Where you been?”
    “Listenin’ to the Snowman set up the Dark Rulers. Something he didn’t want to do at all. Something he wanted to do more than anything he’d ever