Ajouter un extrait
Liste des extraits
1
PARANORMAL PI
As my father and I drove through San Francisco at a snail’s pace, our truck spluttered and let out a loud belch. Thankfully, it didn’t expel any black smoke. The last thing we needed right now was to attract attention to ourselves.
We had to get out of here. Now. But our getaway had stalled when the highway melted into a normal road. I stole a glance behind me. Jack, the ten-year-old boy we’d rescued from a goblin gangster, was still fast asleep in the backseat. I didn’t blame him. He’d had a rough week.
Four days ago, Jack had gone missing on his way home from school. His parents hired us to find him. Father and I tracked him to Earth. Every Saturday night, a group of supernatural misfits held a high-stakes poker game inside a warehouse in a small town south of San Francisco. They didn’t bet with money; they bet with children. My stomach churned, and I gripped my armrest, my fingers digging into the squishy-soft leather. The black eye I’d given Silvertongue, Jack’s goblin kidnapper, was far better than he deserved.
“We have to report this to the Galactic Assembly.” My voice shook with anger. “They can’t get away with this.”
Father reached over and gave my arm a comforting squeeze. “We will. And they won’t.”
The Galactic Assembly was our galaxy’s governing body. They made and upheld the rules with merciless, cold-hearted efficiency. I had no love for them or their methods, but they had their uses. The Assembly had strict laws against child trafficking—and especially against doing that here, where the Veil of Secrecy was still in place. The people of Earth didn’t know about magic or the existence of thriving planets beyond their own, and the Galactic Assembly was adamant about keeping it that way. Silvertongue would pay for his crimes. Eventually.
Unfortunately, he’d gotten away. It had come down to a choice between saving the boy and capturing the goblin. The goblin himself hadn’t given us much trouble. His minions were another matter altogether. Silvertongue hailed from Goldstone, a world known for its flower gardens, beaches, and deadly robot bodyguards.
We’d made it out of the warehouse. Barely. And now we were cruising away through traffic at the impressive speed of—I glanced at the dashboard—ten kilometers per hour. I could have walked faster than that.
“Are you sure we lost Silvertongue’s forces?” I asked.
The robots were gone. Father had blown them up inside the warehouse. But robots weren’t the only pets the goblin had brought to Earth.
Father tapped the steering wheel with perfect serenity. “We’ll make it.”
Blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror. I turned to find a police car driving right behind us. Shit.
His face still perfectly calm, Father pulled our truck over to the side of the road. I opened the glove compartment and shuffled a black leather folder to find our vehicle’s registration information for Earth. I handed them to Father, along with his shiny California license. I knew a guy—a girl, actually—who could forge documents and hack any computer system on Earth.
Father rolled down his window. A female police officer stepped up to the truck. I placed her somewhere in her mid-thirties. She was tall and packed with lean muscle, but she’d still kept her feminine curves. A long braid hung over her shoulder, as black as her full eyelashes.
“Good evening,” Father said, hitting her with a pleasant smile. He handed her the documents before she even asked.
Her dark eyes panned across the page, then she leveled a cool, professional stare on him. “Are you aware that you have a broken bumper?”
Broken was an understatement. The thing was holding on by a few strands.
Father’s smile didn’t fade. “A large moving object hit us.”
The object being one of the goblin’s robots smashing into the truck.
“A large moving object?”
Afficher en entier