Free Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers by Scott Nicholson, Robert J. Crane, Daniel Arenson, S.M. Reine, J. R. Rain

through her eyes. They were dark brown, the color of rain-moistened grave dirt. “You’re not with them?”
    “Yeah, right, glad we’re on the same page. We gotta get out of here before they see us,” I whispered. “Can you climb the fence?”
    “I could if I had use of my hands.” She wasn’t fighting me anymore. I relaxed my grip on her.
    Stonecrow kneed me between the legs.
    It was like having a hot poker shoved into the middle of my intestines and then twisted. Nausea spread over my skin, from the tips of my hair to my fingernails, and I momentarily entertained the mental image of vomiting in her face.
    My grunt of surprise was louder than I intended. By the time Stonecrow grabbed the brick wall and hefted her body halfway up, the Union suits were breaking past the line of RVs, searching for the source of the noise.
    Eyes fell on me.
    I realized that I recognized these guys. They weren’t just any random, anonymous Union apes; they were Joey and Eduardo, Suzy’s drinking buddies. Nice couple of young guys. Both of them had more muscles than brains and twice the strength of normal human men. Any doubts I’d had about Suzy tipping off her superiors were gone.
    They ran at me as fast as they could sprint, which was, unfortunately, way too fast. Super strength comes with super speed. Not like the Flash or Superman, but a hell of a lot faster than me.
    Eduardo grabbed for the back of the necrocognitive’s sweater and missed. He caught her hair instead, jerking her to the ground, pulling out a fistful of her glossy black locks as he did it. I didn’t think that was in the Union playbook.
    “Hey!” I protested, just as Joey punched me in the gut. It was a little too close to where Stonecrow had hit. I crumpled. Even a big tough guy starts crying for Mama when the juevos take a double tap. Low blow from another dude, especially one who’d been buying me shots of tequila the other night. Real low blow.
    “What do we do with this…thing?” Joey asked.
    Eduardo shrugged. “Tie him up, toss him somewhere dark? Wait.” He peered closely at my face then began to laugh. “Oh, that’s too fucking good. Joe, check him out. Suzy was right.”
    Now they were both laughing. After a second, I worked up a halfhearted smile, trying to chuckle along. I probably would have laughed at them if they got dusted in the face, too. “Yeah, it’s me. Suzy sent you this way to pick me up?”
    “No, just Stonecrow,” Eduardo said. “None of us thought you’d be dumb enough to show up too.”
    Guess I was that dumb. “You want to untie me now?”
    Joey punched me in the stomach again. I fell to my knees.
    “Guess not,” I gasped.
    “So?” Joey asked.
    After a moment of silent deliberation, Eduardo seemed to come to a decision. “We’ll just take care of both of them. Lucky day, Joey, lucky day.”
    I tried to feel satisfied at the sight of Stonecrow’s wrists zip tied and her petite form hauled toward the black SUVs, but even though it was her fault that I was in custody, I couldn’t work up the satisfaction. This was my necrocognitive. Not the Union’s. And I didn’t like it when any woman got treated like a piece of meat, even if she’d worked hard at deserving it.
    “Come on, guys,” I said. “You’re asking for about six different citations with this behavior.”
    “Shut up, Hawke,” Joey said. He pushed my wrists together and zip tied them.
    My heart climbed into my throat, thudding with panic, as Joey opened the back door of the SUV and I came face to face with the yawning maw of its interior.
    Briefly, I pitied everyone we’d ever made disappear into one of these black cars.
    Then I was inside and the door slammed behind me.

 

11
     
    Note to self: Being arrested by the Union sucks.
    As it turned out, our guys were crazy fucking drivers. When Eduardo wasn’t hitting the brakes so hard that my head nearly snapped off my neck, he seemed to be veering around to catch every pothole under his