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A sultry, masculine musk drew her mind’s eye away from this conversation. The yearning to move, to fly through the forest, pounded through her thoughts.
Maria’s form stilled, and Erin could tell her attention was no doubt on the voice at the other end of the call. “Good morning to you, Chief. Yes, she’s right here.”
Maria nodded and spoke to Erin. “You’re to wait here for him.”
“Give him my apologies, Maria. I have to run.”Literally. Erin turned and walked toward the door.
“I’d advise against making him hunt for you,” Maria replied.
“I’m sure we’ll run into each other eventually,” Erin answered, not looking back as she shot out the door.
A moment later, she emerged onto the pavement downtown. There was nothing better than the sensation of the wind threading itself through her hair, the sun beaming down onto her face, and the smell of bonfire in the breeze.
“Blaine be damned.”
Erin ran toward drumbeats only she could hear.
CHAPTER19
BLAINE
“Iapologize, sir,” Maria explained over the open line. “I’m afraid she ran.”
Blaine ground his teeth, the view from the back of the limousine muted by the window tint. “It’s likely for the best, Maria. This wildling turns aggressive with little provocation. Alerting me toward her location and identity will allow us to bring her in for a proper discussion.”
“You’re quite welcome. I’m transferring her employee file over to your secured cloud location now,” Maria replied. “I have a confirmed home address, vehicle plates, and citizen ID included. All the standard documentation is in order. Hopefully, you find this useful.”
Blaine smiled, accessing the files sent over by Maria via a couple of air-tapping gestures as he accessed his neural interface. “It’s my luck she works for a devotee of Apollo. Other groups might not have been as thorough as you certainly have been.” He pulled up a picture of Erin Bevin, regarding her unkempt, light brown hair and unremarkable features. He’d somehow expected a maenad’s appearance to be as wild as her soul, but the woman in this picture, he’d describe as downright mousy. “Care to hazard a guess when she was elevated? A recent change, or something she hid during the time she’s been with you?”
“I can guarantee it happened over the weekend. Who she presented as today is nothing like the boring assistant I knew last week. I don’t even think she fully understands the impact of her elevation.”
If that was true, how was she already strong enough to win a brawl with Daniel?
“I appreciate your astute evaluation. No doubt I will confirm your suspicions shortly when we locate her.”
“There’s one more thing,” Maria said.
“More?” Blaine ground out.
“I’ll include this in my notes, but I want to make sure you understand. My assistant, Ted, was just in talking with the copier repairman, Gary. Gary hit his head and Erin helped him with his wound, making an utter mess of herself. Anyway, Gary is experiencing some odd symptoms.”
“And you think they’re related to Erin?”
“I’m certain. Ted was helping Gary clean up and discovered some new markings on Gary’s skin.”
Blaine felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. “God-touched markings?”
“No, no, more like tattoos, but they shifted in color as the doctor observed them. What’s more concerning, Gary had no recall of how they came to be on his skin.”
“We have to assume those marks are Erin’s doing. All the more reason to find out her purpose as quickly as possible and get her under council control. We don’t want some sort of infection hitting the city,” Blaine replied.
“What an absurd prospect,” Maria replied. “We’ve never had this sort of problem with a new god-touched before!”
“The problems will be under control soon enough, Maria, I assure you.”
“Best of luck on your hunt, Chief.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it.”
