“My son is missing! They did it to get at you!” she shrieked.
He shook her off violently, but she was too frantic to be terrified. “Explain.”
“My son started bragging about how he had a friend in the Blood Oath pack. He’s just a kid. He wants to be tough. He didn’t mean anything by it.” Andrea choked on a sob.
“And?”
“And he went to visither,and she was hiding out in the Bianchi’s territory -” She pointed at Cin, furiously. Cin shriveled in on herself. “And they took him!” Andrea’s face crumpled. “Save my son. Please! I’ll give you everything I have.”
Dominic shook his head impatiently. “I don’t want your money. Where was he taken from?” He glowered at Cin.
She started talking really fast. “We were dumpster diving at 37thand Fillmore. He saw a bunch of the Bianchi pack members headed right for us, and he ran out to distract them so I could get away. I didn’t want to leave him, I swear I really didn’t, but he said if they grabbed both of us, nobody would know we’d been taken. He said I had to find Zoey and get help.”
Giuliana came running down the steps to join them. She glanced at Zoey askance, but didn’t say anything. Dominic quickly filled her in on what was happening.
“All right. Approaching them directly won’t help,” he said, thinking out loud. “We can grab up someone from the Bianchi pack and put the screws to them, and hope that they know where he’s been taken. We’ll also have ourStregado a locate spell. Do you have anything of his, some hair, an item of clothing?” TheStregawas the witch the pack contracted with.
“No!” Andrea looked panicked. “Oh, God, I’m so stupid! I can go back home and get it – but that will take so long! They could be killing him!” She burst into loud sobs and collapsed in Stewart’s arms.
“You can find the kid,” Giuliana said to Zoey.
“Me? How?”
“You’ve got some kind of magic location powers, right?”
Dominic looked at Giuliana suspiciously. How did she know that? He hadn’t told anybody.
“My powers? They’re useless for this,” Zoey protested. “I’m just a map witch. My power guides me through town, it helps me avoid obstacles, but it doesn’t find missing people. I’d do anything to find Lorenzo, but I can’t.”
“I’ve heard of map witches,” Giuliana mused. “You can find any destination. Can’t you imagine Lorenzo as your destination?”
“A person, as my destination? I…” Zoey looked at Andrea, who was staring at her now, tear-stained eyes shining with hope. “I’ll try.” She closed her eyes. She pictured Lorenzo. She imagined his narrow face topped by the mop of brown hair, his tall skinny frame…she pictured being in a car and driving towards him…and she knew exactly where he was.
“Thirty-fifth and East Main!” she cried out happily. “In an office building. In the basement. Not only that, I can see the obstacles.” She quickly described them to Dominic; every obstacle was almost certainly a group of Bianchi shifter guards. And she knew how to steer him and his boys around them.
“Call the boys,” Dominic said to Romano, who took off at a dead run. He’d quickly round up the foot soldiers.
Dominic guided Zoey away from the rest of the group, a grim look on his face.
She put her hand on his arm, her brow crinkling with worry. “Be careful,” she said to him. “And thank you so much. I hate to ask you to do something dangerous, but the Bianchi pack is going to make an example of Lorenzo to get at you guys, and he’s just a dumb naïve kid. I’d get him myself if I were capable.”
“You’ve done your part. And I would never let you go on a mission like that. Now here’s the deal, Zoey. If you want us to get your friend back, you agree to stay here. And you don’t leave the property until the feud with the Bianchi pack is settled.”
Her hand dropped from his arm, and she took a step back.
“You would leave him there to die?” Acid dripped from every word.
“He’s not one of us.” It was what Arturo would have said – without conscience, without a second thought. It didn’t make the words taste any better in his mouth.
He saw the blaze of fury in her eyes, but she gave a sharp, abrupt nod. “Fine.” She bit the words out. The look on her face when she said that – it hurt.
He’d been hit run over by a truck, shot, stabbed, set on fire, bitten by ghouls, punched by an ogre, and thrown off a fifty foot cliff.
But having Zoey look at him like that – ithurt.
He turned and hurried down the steps, praying that he wouldn’t be too late to save Lorenzo…because if he was, it would break Zoey’s heart.
Chapter Fifteen
