Night Magic by Karen Robards Page B

Screaming, the man dropped to his knees. The other two men, their attention caught by the scream, turned in time for one of them to be flattened with a flying drop kick that landed right beneath his chin. The third,finally free of Puff, who had leapt for safety to the top of a metal locker, fumbled inside his jacket for a gun. McClain ran toward him, butting him in the stomach with his head before the gun could be drawn. The man doubled over with a whoosh of escaping air.
    “Let’s get the hell out of here!” McClain roared, hardly looking over his shoulder at her as he bolted through the open door. Clara, who was still somewhat dazed but not stupid, ran after him. The three thugs were already recovering.
    McClain ran up the basement stairs, through a pantry and then a kitchen of what seemed to be a large, elegantly furnished house, and out onto the paved patio, where numerous vehicles were parked.
    “Check for keys,” he yelled at her. Clara ran to look in the window of the vehicle closest to her. It was a van, and the keys were in the ignition.
    “Here!”
    He was beside her even as she got the door open, shouldering her inside then dropping into the passenger seat.
    “Get us the hell out of here!”
    “But—”
    “Drive!” he bellowed. Clara turned the key over and started to pull away just as a gray furry ball erupted from the open door of the house, followed by three men.
    “Puff!” she screamed, barreling toward them. One of them was taking aim … She ducked, the bullet shattered the windshield, McClain yelled the foulest curses she had ever heard, the men leapt out of the way, and then Clara hit the brakes so hard that the van slid sideways to a screeching halt.
    “What the—” She barely registered McClain’s protest. Swearing under her breath, she jumped out of the van, ran to scoop Puff out of the driveway where he crouchedapparently frozen with fear, and jumped back into the van just as another bullet whistled over her head. Dumping Puff unceremoniously into the back, she put the van in gear and stepped on the gas so hard that the vehicle shot forward like a rock out of a slingshot.

VI
     
    “You almost got us killed over a damn cat?” McClain’s voice was a barely subdued roar.
    “He was sitting in the middle of the drive. I couldn’t just run over him.”
    “Those aren’t play bullets, you know. Those are real bad guys and they really would like to kill us.”
    “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
    “I can’t believe any rational human being would stop for a damn cat. …”
    Clara ignored this mutter and concentrated on driving. The twisty road opened out onto a two-lane blacktop. She barely paused at the stop sign; the van’s wheels spun as she pulled out. Every few seconds she glanced in the rearview mirror. McClain had said that they would be followed. What was taking them so long?
    “Where do you think you’re going, anyway?”
    Clara looked over at him, surprised. The darkness was kind to his bruised and battered face, but he was certainly no better looking than she had thought him at first meeting. With his square, pugnacious jaw distorted, a swelling thesize of one of her fists just below his ear and an ugly looking gash the size of her middle finger behind it, a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth and a dark purple circle surrounding one bright green eye, he looked like he had been made up for Halloween. Only Clara knew that the marks were not makeup.
    “Home,” she said, surprised that he should even ask. Then, thinking about it, she was surprised again at her own slow-wittedness. The drug they had sprayed her with must be having some residual effect. Of course she could not go home. If Rostov had sought her out twice, once at the home of the county sheriff, she was not safe anywhere. The thought was frightening.
    “Dumb idea, huh?”
    He nodded. “They’ll be looking for us. We’ll have to hide.”
    “Explain something to me. If they had you, why did they