Free The Hidden Goddess by M K Hobson

the restorative elixir was, it did seem to be helping. The buzzing in her body was subsiding slowly, leaving only soreness and a faint nausea in its wake. The military had finally arrived, and dozens of soldiers were surveying the damage. They shouted as they clambered over the wreckage of the street.
    “Come along,” Dmitri said, casting a meaningful glance atthe soldiers. “I don’t expect you want to be delayed answering questions.”
    “Delayed?” Emily started as fresh panic surged through her. How long had she been out?
    She looked up at the clock on the top of the Chronicle building. She did a swift terrible calculation.
    It was 1:41 p.m. in New York.
    Emily closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out.
    “Oh … fiddlesticks,” she muttered.
    She climbed to her feet, wincing. Her ankle was badly twisted. She took an experimental step, stumbled; Dmitri caught her. She pushed him away, willing herself to be steady, increasing the weight on her bad ankle slowly. After a bit, she was able to walk—hobblingly—over the broken jumble of brick and cobblestone toward Kearny Street.
    Dmitri followed.
    “Leave me alone!” she yelled over her shoulder, as if scolding a persistent cat.
    “It is a free country, Miss Edwards,” Dmitri called back. “I have as much right to walk in this direction as you do.”
    Emily stopped and waited for Dmitri to catch up with her. When he did, she whirled on him fiercely.
    “You tell the Sini Mira that I don’t have anything for them.” She jabbed a finger at him for emphasis. “If you wanted the stone, that’s gone.”
    “We know,” Dmitri said.
    “Then there’s nothing else to discuss,” Emily said, starting along Kearny Street again. “And while I appreciate your help with the cockroaches, I do
not
need your protection.”
    “Miss Edwards, if you think it pleases me to protect a Witch, you are deeply mistaken,” Dmitri said. “But it is the assignment I have been given, and I will do it to the best of my ability, whether you like it or not.”
    Shaking her head, Emily walked on as quickly as her sore ankle would allow. Dmitri continued to follow in silence. He did not speak again until they’d turned up Clay Street.
    “I am sorry you do not trust us,” he said finally.
    “
Trust
you?” Emily growled. “You people sent a bountyhunter to capture me … a very brutal bounty hunter.” She shuddered, remembering how her will had melted like butter under the command of the Manipulator Antonio Grimaldi. Under the bounty hunter’s psychic control, she’d handed the knife that murdered Professor Mirabilis into the hands of his assassin without a moment’s hesitation.
    “It was a matter of necessity,” Dmitri said. “Nonetheless, you have our apologies for it.”
    Emily snorted derisively.
    “Not enough,” she said, remembering how the knife had cut Mirabilis’ still-beating heart from his chest. “Not enough at all.”

CHAPTER FIVE

     

Dreadnought
     
    Emily knocked on the door of the butter-yellow house, leaning heavily against the doorjamb. She felt rather bad for dirtying up the nice clean paint job with all the black slime and insect guts that covered her, but her ankle was throbbing from the steep climb up the hill. Behind her, on the sidewalk below, Dmitri waited silently. She’d given up telling him to shove off; it did no good.
    After a few moments, the Haälbeck attendant, a girl named Dinah, opened the front door, staring at Emily in astonishment.
    “What the—Miss Edwards?” She looked Emily up and down. “My gracious! Everyone’s been looking for you! You missed Mrs. Stanton’s lunch.”
    Emily sighed, pushed herself away from the doorjamb.
    “Good day, Miss Edwards,” Dmitri’s voice called up to her from the street. Emily turned just enough to see the brown man tip his hat before walking briskly away, hands tucked in his pockets. Dinah craned her neck over Emily’s shoulder, watching him go. She looked at Emily