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His heart thundered in his chest. He’d just found his daughter, and he wasn’t about to let some brujo-wannabe steal her away from him.
Adrenaline surged through his body and he rose to his feet, bringing Christina with him. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake, as much for his benefit as for hers. “Think. What does he want with Kendall?”
She sniffled, but her jaw formed a hard line. “He wants her blood. He wants the power that a third-generation legacy will give him.”
He released her and drew his hand across his mouth. “The other legacy victims—Olivia, Juarez, Liz and Nora—they weren’t enough for him. He was determined to get the blood of the most powerful brujo in that coven—your father.”
“Right. He thought he’d start with Vivi, and then found out about me. Maybe he figured the half-diluted blood of Octavio Sandoval was good enough, but when he discovered that I was an only child and that I had an only child, he wanted to improve his chances.”
“How else could he improve his chances? He’ll want to make sure this time.”
“By following the old rituals.” She dashed a tear from her cheek. “He obviously knows more about this stuff than I do.”
With his fingertips buzzing, he grabbed Christina again. “And where’s the best place to perform those ancient rituals and when?”
Her eyes widened. “The old union hall in The Haight—at the witching hour.”
* * *
THE HAIGHT-ASHBURY DISTRICT—the event that marked his life forever began here and it would end here.
Christina parked the car down the block from the union hall. They took side streets so they could approach the old building from the back. A few homeless people stirred in their makeshift beds in doorways and on city benches, but nobody disturbed them.
A lone car huddled against the chain-link fence that wound its way behind the union hall property. Had that been where Darius parked his car the night he attacked Christina?
She must’ve had the same thought as she jerked her thumb at the vehicle.
Eric slipped wire cutters from his jacket and quickly pinched a succession of links on the fence to create a hole. He held up his hand to Christina as he crawled through first.
She joined him on the other side, and he pulled her against the wall of the building where Uma had sent her looking for the restroom.
They flattened themselves against the building and edged around the corner. The high windows of the union hall were dark, but Eric’s nostrils flared at the smell of smoke.
Grabbing his belt loop, Christina pressed her lips to his ear. “I smell fire.”
He nodded and scoped out the building.
He hadn’t called in the cops. He couldn’t afford to take orders from anyone this time, couldn’t afford to lose his daughter like he’d lost Noah. He’d do this his way.
Drawing his weapon, he hunched forward and darted from tree to planter across the quad, Christina hot on his heels.
They confronted the double doors into the hall, firmly closed. Eric pressed his hand against the cool metal of the door, but it didn’t budge.
He stepped back and surveyed the building. A tree nestled against the building, its branches lookout posts into the high windows that ringed the hall.
He nudged Christina and pointed up at the tree.
She got it. She knew what they had to do. No waiting around. No surrounding the building waiting for law enforcement. No talking to the kidnapper as he held Noah...Kendall.
Eric boosted Christina into the tree first. She held on to a branch and walked up the trunk, sure-footed in her running shoes.
Holstering his gun, he followed her into the reaches of the tree until she stopped right above him. She cupped her hand around her mouth and hissed down at him, “Fire.”
He pulled himself up beside her and peered through the murky window. A light flickered on the floor of the hall, and then he saw a dark shape emerge from the front of the room—a man carrying a child.
Drawing his weapon, he nodded to Christina. “I’m going in. We can’t wait.”
He wouldn’t wait.
He bent his leg at the knee and then thrust his foot forward, his heavy motorcycle boot crashing through the window. He dropped through the jagged glass, grabbing the cord from the blinds and swinging into the building like a clumsy Tarzan.
The man inside the hall yelled and stumbled back, but not far enough.
By the time Eric staggered to his feet, shaking broken glass from his hair, Darius Cole had regained his footing and had a limp Kendall tucked beneath one arm—a knife to her throat.
Christina screamed as she hit the wall, dropping the cord and falling to her knees. “Leave my daughter alone.”
