I tried to wiggle out of his grasp. “The hell I will. Those are my girls.” I pointed to the two figures ahead of us, rapidly disappearing around a curve.

They bent their heads together in close sisterly discussion.

“Their brothers are waiting for them. Family. Blood kin. They need to see them,” Gollum said.

“No. You don’t know half of what their father has done to all of them.” I slipped my jacket, leaving him standing there, holding the damp garment while I ran forward, full tilt. My left leg ached. I ignored the protest of atrophied muscles just coming to life again. Good thing I’d doubled up on my PT exercises. My therapist was nearly ready to dismiss me because I’d recovered strength and maneuverability so rapidly.

“Scrap, what’s happening?” Between the mist rising from the river and the drizzle sliding into my eyes, I could barely see the two blocks to where the girls had passed beyond my sight. A fat raindrop plopped from my tangled hair into my left eye, further blurring my perception.

I cursed and shook my head like a dog shedding bathwater.

“What has the elf done?” Gollum demanded. He kept up an easy loping stride; his long legs matched my running pace.

“He’s training the boys to continue his work of begetting an entire tribe of Nörglein. He wants them to practice on Phonetia and E.T. and strengthen the DNA in their children. I think he may have given Phonetia to his marijuana growing minions as a reward.”

“Shit!” He increased his pace, quickly outdistancing me.

I couldn’t remember ever hearing him curse. I wondered if outrage of this magnitude would push him to break his vow of nonviolence.

Better hurry, babe. I’m getting hot and thin, Scrap snarled.

A burst of adrenaline gave my feet near levitation. Blood flowed strongly through my legs, eliminating lingering traces of my injury.

“Scrap, report,” I barked as the girls came into view again.

They ambled forward, oblivious to our pursuit or the danger that awaited them in the little hollow where the trail dipped and blackberries crowded close.

Damn.

I held out my hand as I ran, willing Scrap to land there and transform.

He obeyed.

A deadly calm replaced my panic. My stride evened out and stretched. Scrap elongated, thinned, curved. Faster than I’d ever seen him he sharpened the inner curve of the twin blades and extruded tines from the outside.

The quarter staff balanced precisely in my hand.

I bounced around the girls and skidded to a halt, blade at the ready, feet en garde just as Oak, Cedar, and Fir stepped onto the path.

“Oak!” Phonetia called. “You didn’t answer the phone.”

I brought the Celestial Blade horizontal, blocking him.

Both Phonetia and Oak took one step forward, looked at the blade, then at me, and back again to my weapon.

“I will protect the girls with my life,” I announced.

Six men, late teens and early twenties, who sorely needed showers and shaves, stepped from the concealing shrubbery. They twirled long chains with barbed links and unsheathed long knives. Their demon tats on their inside wrists pulsed red beneath the black ink.

“We can take her,” the leader, a stocky, bleached blond with swarthy skin, said. He wore a silver pendant on a black thong that replicated his tattoo. He extended the length of chain, coming dangerously close to Phonetia.

E.T. wisely retreated behind Gollum.

Easy pickings, Scrap snarled to me.

None of the forest elf children or the demon-protected seemed to hear him.

Gollum came up beside me. He held his hands up, closed his eyes, and relaxed into an easy martial arts pose.

“What are you, some kind of blind Ninja?” the blond delinquent asked. He started swinging his chain.

“Something like that,” I replied, not wanting to break Gollum’s concentration.

Before I finished speaking I swished the blade, tangling the chain in the tines. I yanked.

This guy wisely released his weapon. I stumbled backward with the unexpected change in balance. E.T. yelped and retreated as I stepped on her toes.

Blondie’s comrades flanked him, trying to ease around our backs.

Gollum pushed his hands out in front of him.

I heard air displacement. I felt the recoil as the leader flew backward and landed on his butt in a tangle of blackberry vines and jutting teasel thistle, a nasty place. He had to hurt almost as if the Nörglein thrashed him with his wicked whip.

Gollum hadn’t laid a hand on him.

The five remaining men flowed into the space left vacant, advancing with weapons drawn.

The tree boys faded out of my periphery.

Duck, parry, turn, jab. I flew into action. Scrap took a long strip of skin off of one arm. Blood flowed freely. At the moment crimson drops touched the tattoo the elven minion yowled as if he’d been burned. The enchanted ink dissolved. His entire arm flushed with a serious inflammation. He rolled into the wet grass trying to extinguish the magical fire raging within him.

The men gave ground until we came abreast of where the leader pulled himself upright. He brandished a gun at me.

A little gun easily concealed inside his pant leg. A big magazine, almost as big as the gun itself hung below the barrel. He pushed the muzzle forward until his reach ended mere inches from my chest.

I froze in place. The sweat on my brow and back turned to ice.

My mind whirled, trying to figure a way to get the gun away from him. Could I block a bullet with the blade?

“We want the girl,” Blondie sneered.

“You can’t have her.”

“Her father said we could,” he laughed, an evil sound that had no humor in it.

“The Nörglein isn’t her dad. I am,” Gollum insisted. He shifted his feet and hands, gathering energy again.

“Please, Miss Tess, don’t fight us,” Oak pleaded.

“Did he hurt you?” Phonetia called from behind me.

Oak stood stalwart, off the path but still part of the action.

“He whipped you, didn’t he!” Phonetia cried. She sidled toward her brother.

Before I could stop her, or protest, her broad-shouldered middle brother grabbed her arm with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her throat.

“Try to stop us and I kill her,” he said.

“Cedar, no!” Oak took one step closer.

Cedar tightened his pressure on my daughter’s throat.

She gargled something, struggling for air.

Cedar backed up, dragging his sister with him. “Father whipped me too, for letting the girls get away. I won’t let that happen again.” Anger and pain warred for dominance in his voice.

The demon tats moved between the retreating boy and me. The leader kept his gun leveled on me as I tried to follow.

I slashed at his gun hand.

The weapon exploded, near deafening me. I dove for the ground.

Ducks and geese squawked mightily, rising from the water with much awkward fluttering.

Boaters paused and reached for communications.

“Follow her!” I commanded Scrap and dropped my blade. He dissolved into the barest outline of an imp. Then he was gone.

I returned to my knees, checking to see who was hurt.

Gollum held E.T. tightly against his chest, her mouth working in protest.

“You want to fight dirty?” I asked Blondie. Nothing left to lose. Before the last syllable escaped I hit the gun with a roundhouse kick and smashed the flat of my hand against Blondie’s nose.

The gun skittered across the ground until it plopped into the water.

Blondie grabbed his bleeding nose with both hands and fled.

His minions followed close on his heels.

“Scrap? Where are they taking my girl?”

“License plate?” I asked, noting Gollum had his cell phone out.

I repeated the number. Gollum spat it into the phone. “Police are on the way. Amber alert in progress.”

“I’m going after them.”

“Without Scrap?”

“He’ll be there when I catch up. Take care of E.T.”

“I must help,” Oak said. Fir slunk behind him. “They will hurt my sister a lot before they turn her over to my father,” he added quietly. “I can’t allow that.”

“Your father hurt her a lot every day she lived with him,” I told him, fists clenched and aching to slam them into his face.

“I know. That is why I sent the girls to you.”

“Then why did you agree to bring them back?” This time I yelled loud enough to startle the geese again.

Mutely, he turned around and lifted his T-shirt.

I gasped at the bloody mess of his skin.

“The only way I could get him to stop was to promise to bring Blackberry back to him.”

“We’ll all go after them. Two cars. You take E.T., I’ll take the brothers,” Gollum decided for us.

Cruising up Pill Hill, back road, Scrap informed me.

The Medical School and VA Hospital connected by a sky bridge crowned a couple of hills southwest of downtown—a lot of trees, ravines, and places to get lost around and behind. The forest there melded into Forest Park, the home of the Nörglein.

“On our way!”

The Hummer careens around a twist in the narrow road. I’m nearly flung off the car. Only my talons latched around the roof rack keep me in my observation post. The wind tries to catch beneath my wings and lift me wide and free.

We come to an abrupt halt on a gravel shoulder that overlooks the city spread out far below. A pretty city. I don’t have time to admire the view. No guard rail between us and the steep cliff. The Hummer barely fits. Half of two wheels rest on the pavement. A couple of cars pass, honking at the intrusion of the wide vehicle into their space.

When the traffic passes, leaving the road open and free for a bit, the back door flies open. Blondie and Cedar jump out, dragging my Phonetia with them. They cross the road and head into the woods. The Hummer speeds away.

Cedar leads along a creek and up a narrow ravine.

I flash images of the spot to Tess. Then I fly after our fleeing quarry. Fatigue drags at my wings. Adrenaline pushes me forward.

If only I could rest a bit by perching on Phonetia’s head.

Can’t risk it. Cedar will be aware of me if I get too close.

Phonetia drops to her knees, dragging Blondie with her. He yanks and yanks at her arms trying to get her to stand up and follow them.

She goes limp and slides through his grasp. Good girl.

Then she thrashes around breaking sword fern fronds and snagging alder branches. A blind man could follow the path she leaves. Cedar closes his eyes and concentrates hard. I can feel the plant life flowing over the break in its growth where deer, coyote, and raccoons have beaten the ground hard. Their roots resist pushing through the narrow game trail. He’s too young and inexperienced to make them obey. He’s close to panic and loses his concentration before the plants complete their task. Then he has to start over.

Blondie grows impatient and drags Phonetia deeper into the woods, oblivious to signs she leaves in their wake.

Gollum will know what to look for.

If they get here in time, before we meet up with the Nörglein and he truly obscures the path.