Free No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong Page A

help but—" She met my gaze, eyes deceptively mild. "You offered an exchange?"
    "I've heard you lost someone this year," I said. "Your common-law partner, I believe. A half-demon."
    She hesitated, gaze down, then nodded slowly. "Mike. Yes."
    I switched to my "dealing with the grief-stricken" voice. "If you'd like to make contact with him, I could try. With articles belonging to him plus access to his grave site, there's a good chance I can do it. Not perfect. But maybe a… ninety percent chance."
    Molly said nothing, just stared down into the glass cupped in her hands. Still grieving, as Savannah had said. Or maybe wondering if I was trying to con her.
    I hurried on. "If I don't make contact, I'll owe you. I will contact someone for you. Guaranteed."
    Still she stared into her glass, her thumbs now caressing the sides.
    Unlike humans, supernaturals know there's an afterlife. There must be, or there couldn't be necromancers. Through us, they also know that most ghosts are happy enough. If you know this, then perhaps contacting a loved one isn't such a wise idea. What if he's stopped grieving for his lost life, and you only rip open those wounds? What if you rip the scabs off your own grief?
    "If you'd rather not contact him, maybe there's something else—" Her head snapped up. "Why wouldn't I want to contact him?"
    "I just meant— I'm not trying to renege on the offer. I certainly will try, if that's what you want. But if this isn't what you want, then I'd completely understand—"
    "Would you?"
    Molly's voice had gone cold. She set her drink aside, deliberately. My gaze swung to the door. She followed it and gave a brittle smile. "Thinking of leaving already, Jaime? And why might that be?" I laughed. "Leaving? No. I was just wondering—" I leapt from the chair. Her hand flew up, lips moving in a sorcerer's knockback spell. I tried to duck, as Lucas taught me, but wasn't fast enough. Instead of hitting me in the torso, it slammed into my shoulder, whipping me around. My feet flew out. I saw the edge of the coffee table sailing up to meet me. Tried to twist. Too late. Impact. Pain. Darkness.

    I AWOKE to the blast of a car horn. Something held me down, tightening around my wrists and ankles when I moved. I opened my mouth to call out, but tasted plastic and glue.
    Everything was as dark as when I'd fallen. Blindfolded? I move my head, testing for that pulling sensation against my temples. Sadly, I know what a blindfold feels like. Know what being kidnapped feels like too. For a second, that's all I could think: Goddamn it, not again .
    But when I moved, instead of a blindfold, I felt something scratchy against my bare hands and face. Like an old blanket. Bound, gagged and covered.
    The floor vibrated beneath me. The steady hum of moving tires. I remembered the horn blast that woke me. I was in a vehicle. In the trunk— No, I wouldn't be able to see light in a trunk. I pictured the car in Molly's drive. An SUV.
    She'd bound and gagged me, then managed to haul me into the garage, drove in, put me in the back and was now taking me…
    Where?
    Well, I was pretty sure it wasn't out for daiquiris.
    I'd taken self-defense courses. They'd given me more confidence than skill, but one piece of advice I remembered was that if someone tries to get you into a vehicle, you do everything you can to fight it, because you can be damned sure that wherever he's taking you, it's someplace private, to do something you won't like.
    I had to get out before Molly—or whoever was driving—got wherever we were going. But how? I was trapped. I had no spells. No demonic powers. No superhuman strength. I was just a necromancer. Defenseless.
    Bullshit.
    Ordinary women got out of situations like this all the time. Okay, maybe not this exact situation, but if you took the black witch out of the equation, it wasn't that much different than any kidnapping. I wasn't sure what the statistics were for escaping a kidnapper, but I told myself they were pretty