“Hold still,” Thea said, prying the bullet out of my arm. “You’ll be fine…pretty much a flesh wound.”

I let out my breath as she moved to bandage the wound. A hospital would ask too many questions, but I could tell she knew what she was doing.

Kanesha was sat on the bed, her knees drawn to her chest, studiously not watching what was going on. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to think about it either. “Thanks,” I managed, then went over to her.

I didn’t ask if she was okay, the way most people probably would have. She clearly wasn’t okay, any more than I was, really. I’d be okay, but I wasn’t okay right now. Instead, I sat down next to her. “I’m…sorry.”

“What, that you have enemies?”

“That they got to you.” I was determined, now, to stop these people in their tracks. To stop them before they tried anything else.

Before somebody got killed, most especially somebody who wasn’t me. I didn’t want to die. I wanted somebody else to die even less.

Okay, that wasn’t true. I’d cheerfully kill the lot of them.

“So. What is really going on?” She turned towards me, unhooking her arms, curling her legs under her. She’d removed her shoes. “Other than…this is crazy, Jane.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to believe in magic.” She shivered, glancing at Thea. “But you can’t tell me that was a bike.”

“No. I can’t. Look…”

“Look what? I can’t leave the city…I’d end up on the streets. You know what I’d end up doing.”

I wished I could say otherwise, but I did know. “We’ll…we’ll work something out.”

“So, the only choice I have is to help you kick these people’s butts. Next time, they won’t catch me by surprise.”

“Kanesha…” I didn’t want her involved, black belt or no black belt. I didn’t want her part of this. “You’ll get…”

“Kidnapped? Hurt? I walk out of here they’ll just grab me again, now they know I’m usable bait.”

I frowned. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe if I’d ignored the entire thing they’d have let her go as useless. And gone for somebody else, like Barry again.

“They’re going down,” I said, finally. “I’m not putting up with this crap any more.” I glanced at Thea. No. If she’d thought it was that much of a screwup, she’d have stopped me. “Thea? We need a plan. How many of your sisters are available?”

“Four, right now.” She stretched a little bit. Then she turned to Kanesha. “You could get hurt or killed. We can probably get you to safety.”

“I’m staying.”

The insistence in her voice was not something I wanted to argue with.

There were half a dozen of them, armed to the teeth. Kanesha was in the middle of them. I was actually quite proud to see that she was gagged as well as bound.

She’d no doubt given them good reason to do so. Yes, this was my…friend? I rather thought she might be, for all that I’d somewhat fought against it.

Gagged and bound, and when she saw me, her eyes showed horror.

I couldn’t even mouth trust me or similar. They’d see it too.

“Let her go and I’ll come with you.” I kept my voice even.

“Oh, we’re not taking you anywhere.” One of them pushed Kanesha away from the group. She stumbled and fell to the ground.

I hesitated, moving towards her.

“Step away.”

I did so, smiling, and kicking in her direction. Giving up a blade had been a no brainer. If she could cut free, she could fight or run. Either way, she wouldn’t be helpless.

They pulled guns. I tossed the second knife at the nearest of them, not aiming to kill. To disarm. Killing them could get me arrested. Cutting them up was reasonable self defense.

As they fired, I rolled to the ground, landing next to the bike. Which just seemed to be a bike, but I sensed something. Almost…amusement.

So, I stayed next to it, using it as cover for a moment. Kanesha was trying to get the bonds off of her wrists.

One of them moved towards her. “Stop fighting, or you both die.”

“Nobody dies today,” I informed him, suddenly confident, and then leapt onto the bike. “Kanesha!”

She moved, at that point, trying to get towards the pillion, but there were too many bullets flying, she had to drop again, tossing the knife I had given her into somebody’s leg.

He yelped and dropped his gun. I hit the panic button, but I doubted it would do any good.

Then the bike moved under me, no cue, I hadn’t even kicked up the stand, and I reached to pull Kanesha behind me.

It wasn’t a bike any more, although I could still hear the roar. What I felt under me was a horse. A powerful one, leaping over the men and into the night, running faster than any equine had a right to, the grass under her hooves.

“What the…”

“Trust me. Hold on.” She weaved through a tree, sporadic fire still following us.

It was only then that I realized I’d been hit.

Alone. Effectively so, anyway. The interesting things did include a walkie talkie with a panic button, but there was no guarantee anyone would be close enough to respond before I turned up dead.

They included throwing knives, tucked into my boots, and a fighting knife in an underarm sheath, under my shirt. I knew how to use them.

I didn’t remember learning how, but I knew. Exile. That word had haunted my mind for the last couple of days, but I pushed it to one side.

Knew. Remembered. One day I would, and I felt an odd security in trusting in that. But now I felt no security at all.

I couldn’t leave Kanesha in their hands. I couldn’t…wouldn’t…get myself killed for her. These things went to and fro in my mind, then Thea smiled. “Take the bike.”

“I…”

“You won’t wreck her. I promise.”
She was up to something, but I had always gotten the impression her bike was somehow alive. So, maybe it was… “So, you are capable of cheating?”

She grinned. “Always have been. Take her.”

She’d called the bike a she before. I nodded, and then hopped on. It really was as if…it wasn’t as if I remembered how to ride so much as the bike was treating me as if I knew how and staying under me if I slipped a little bit.

Rather like the one time I’d had the privilege of riding a horse. And something niggled at my brain and I smiled.

I had to leave the concrete path to get to the spot. I did so without hesitation, knowing I wouldn’t fall. Knowing I couldn’t wreck. Wasn’t going to happen. And that gave me confidence that I could handle this situation.

The place was empty. I dismounted, kicked out the stand, waited. Maybe they wouldn’t even show up. Maybe they were leading me here to…

No. I knew what they wanted, so I waited, but I was ready to move at the slightest thing. It did occur to me they could resolve this simply by shooting me.

But then I heard footsteps approaching through the trees.

We headed next to an all-ages club she liked to frequent. They wouldn’t be open yet, but there might be somebody around we could ask.

Loitering outside was the Englishman with the pearl-handled cane. “You.”

He lifted the cane in a salute.

“Do your friends have her?” I didn’t say who. I didn’t think I needed to. Thea stayed three steps behind me, protective. A bodyguard I neither wanted nor felt I needed for this, but a supportive presence. Once more I was torn about having her here.

“Yes. Straight exchange. You for her.”

“Where?”

“Rock Creek Park, 8pm, alone.” He gave more precise directions than that, of course, but the upshot was – alone in an area that would have no witnesses.

I glanced at Thea. She gave me a slight go ahead look.

“Alright.” I had to plan this carefully – I wasn’t going to let them kill me, but I wasn’t going to let them keep Kanesha either. They probably wouldn’t hurt her as long as they thought they could use her against me, but…

We walked away, then. Thea glanced at me. “Okay. We need to work this carefully. It would ruin our plans if they killed you.”

Her tone, though, didn’t lack affection. “I have no intention of letting that happen.”

“So, we need to make sure you have backup. But they think you’re alone.”

“Invisibility spell?” I asked, only half joking.

“Not that easy. Anything like that takes a moment to actually take down…so you’d be vulnerable. And they may have people who can see through it.”

“And if they think you’re around, they’ll disappear.” I frowned. They knew what they were doing when it came to avoiding witnesses, but the terrain in the park was actually quite conducive to hidden ninjaness. “So, stealth, then.”

She nodded. “Stealth, coming in from ways they don’t expect. This is actually a time when Mr. Otter would be useful. If he’d help.”

Her tone suggested that the odds were about even either way. I stored that up. Maybe he would help, maybe he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, I figured it would be because he didn’t know Kanesha, so why would he help her? I couldn’t expect him to.

But he might help me. “And they didn’t say anything about unarmed, did they.”

“A sword might make them back off, but…okay. Let’s swing by the base.”
Which we did. Thea had some quite, quite interesting things in her collection.

The next day I felt human again, completely back to myself. It might have been partly illusory, but I cherished it. The way things were going, I expected I’d be injured more before this was over, perhaps quite a lot more. I knew this could end with my death.

For some reason, that didn’t scare me as much as it had. Except that I couldn’t save the world if I was dead.

So I had to stay alive. I spent some time training with Thea, glad of the physical activity, the practice. It seemed that more and more came back to me with each session.

As we finished up, my phone rang. It wasn’t somebody I expected.

“Prue?”

“Yeah. Have you seen Kanesha?”

“I’ve been busy. Haven’t really seen anyone in a couple of days.” Maybe I should change this number, except…

“She didn’t come home last night and, unlike you, that’s not in character.”

I ignored the jibe. “I haven’t seen her, I promise.” But now I was worried. I’d already had to rescue Barry. Kanesha, black belt or no black belt, was vulnerable to the same crap.

Maybe she could hold her own in a fistfight, but…well. Or maybe she was just out, ended up at some boyfriend’s house. Did she have a boyfriend? I wasn’t sure, but that was also something that changed with the tide at our age.

I didn’t have one and now didn’t want one…between what was going on and the confusion of my feelings for Thea, it was best to stay relentlessly single.

Come to think of it, Kanesha wasn’t so…concentrate! I had to find her. “I’ll check out some of her haunts, if you haven’t already?”

“I got some, but not all. I’ll…call if you find her, okay?”

“I will,” I promised, then turned and cast a worried gaze on Thea.

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

In some ways I didn’t want her with me. In others? I would have felt naked without her.

I woke up with a splitting headache. I know, that’s a cliche, but I really did. I’d say I took time to gather my thoughts, but it wasn’t really like that. It was almost the reverse, as if I was descending from some level of clarity I hadn’t experienced before, but which fled my mind as I tried to seize onto it.

I only knew it had a rightness to it, then I was awake, with a splitting headache, and lying in a bed which smelled faintly of cats. No, actually, what smelled of cats was the weight on my stomach, which was now regarding me with one yellow eye and one blue and a distinct “are you awake yet?” expression on its face.

“I’m awake,” I told the cat. “Gerroff.” I didn’t have the energy, though, or maybe the heart, to actually evict the creature. A moment later, Bruce came in and lifted it off me.

“Sorry. It’s hard to keep track of them all. Drink this.” He offered me a glass of water.

I realized how thirsty I was and drank most of it in a gulp. “I think…”

“Mild concussion. You hit your head when it knocked you over, but we got it.”

“Worth a headache, then.” It was. I wasn’t sure it was worth more than that, but I’d gotten off lightly. I wasn’t going to forget it in a hurry.

“Anyone else I know would have been killed. Who…no, you don’t remember. You still don’t, right?”

I shook my head. Regretted it. “No. Sorry.” In stories, sometimes, a knock on the head restored lost memories. It hadn’t worked this time.

“Drat. Would have been handy…don’t move right away. You might be dizzy.”

I sat up slightly to test that. “No…I don’t think I’m dizzy. Just a headache.”

He handed me an aspirin. I took it with the rest of the water, waiting for it to take effect.

We’d got it. That was all that really mattered.