Whisper and Morgan had stayed behind to meet up with the jet in Wyoming. Two hours back, we got a call from Candice; they had touched down in Chicago without incident. Whisper had yet to triangulate the origin of Jess’s text message. The cell phone wasn’t giving off a useable signal, which meant it was off or that the battery was dead. Whisper was tapping into a military satellite to try and track the phone’s embedded GPS chip. According to Whisper, a cell phone sends out its last known position just before the battery dies.
My cell phone rang loudly through the Raptor’s hands-free synchronization software that Ashes had set up when we started. “Hello,” I greeted Whisper. “You’re on speaker. Tell me you have good news.”
Whisper’s voice echoed through the truck’s stereo speakers. “I’m downloading Jess’s location to the Raptor’s onboard GPS unit. The signal is twenty miles southwest of Chicago. The satellite image shows an old, rundown farmhouse at the end of a dead-end. There’s not another building for miles in either direction.”
“Good work, Whisper. Were you and Morgan able to secure transportation from the airport?”
“Yes, Candice used one of her aliases to rent us a suitable vehicle. We’re an equal distance from the target location. Morgan will meet you there. I’m staying here to secure the jet for our departure.”
“Thanks for all your help, Whisper. Tell Morgan we’ll see him within an hour.
Forty minutes later, we pulled up behind a small, white compact rental car. We were a mile and a half down the main road from the turnoff to the farmhouse.
Morgan was leaning against the trunk of the car. “Don’t say anything,” he warned Aerona as she stepped out of the Raptor.
Aerona, wearing a bright pink t-shirt with On Medication stenciled in bold, black script letters, threw her hands up in defense. “Who, me? I like your little white car. I think it’s cute.”
“Let’s focus here,” I said, shooting Aerona a save-it-for-later look.
Ember immediately took flight, vanishing into the night sky to check the area around the farmhouse. My eyes followed the trail of sparkling dust trailing Ember.
“What do we know so far?” Ashes asked, buckling the silver clasps on her belt.
Morgan spread a map on the hood of the little white car. “The house is two miles down this dirt road,” he said, pointing to the location on the map. “When I stopped at the turnoff, I didn’t see signs of fresh tire tracks coming or going.”
“If Atmoro’s here,” I said, walking several steps away from the vehicles, staring down the road into the darkness, “he’ll know we’re coming before we get there.”
Kasiah stepped in beside me. “Aeron, you still haven’t had positive contact with Jess?”
I touched the cell phone in my pocket. “Just that one text message.”
“You could be walking into an ambush,” Kasiah cautioned. “There’s no way of telling who really sent that message.”
“If Atmoro sent the message,” I said, hoping he did not, “then he’ll keep her alive until he lures us in.”
A bright light flashed behind us. Ember had returned from her surveillance flight.
“Did you find the house?” I asked, walking back to the vehicles with Kasiah.
“Yes,” she said, running her fingers through her wind ruffled hair, “I didn’t want to risk being spotted, so I stayed above the trees. The place is pretty secluded. It appears to be abandoned. There’s no sign of guards, and there are no lights on inside or outside the house. Everything is quiet.”
“Good work. We’ll need you in the sky watching our backs when we take the house.”
Morgan folded the map and tossed it through the open window of his car, then pulled out a small leather drawstring pouch, handing it to me. “Aeron, Whisper asked me to give this to you.”
“What is it?” I asked, studying the pouch carefully in Morgan’s hand.
“I’m not sure. He said Ember would know.”
I opened the drawstring, pouring the contents into my hand. A tiny, bright white sphere of light hovered above my palm. The marble-sized light appeared to be spinning at a very high rate of rotation. Looking closer, I noticed the ball of light appeared as though millions of microscopic lightning bolts were creating an electrical storm.
“What is it?” I asked Ember.
“It’s a grimlight,” she explained. “It’s a defense mechanism.”
Rain bent down to get a closer look. “It looks more like a miniature thunder storm.”
“I’ve seen a grimlight,” Ashes said, stepping back. “You should put that back in the pouch before it gets away from you.”
“She’s right,” Ember nodded. “That’s to be used only as a last resort. Toss that into the sky, and it will light the night like a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon. It’ll knock any vampire right to their knees and send werewolves yelping home. I’ve seen them burn demons to nothing but a pile of dust.” Ember looked at Rain and Ashes. “I’m not sure what it’ll do to you, so if it’s used, take cover.”
Rain took a step back. “Good to know.”
I slid the grimlight carefully back into the pouch, then pulled the drawstring.
Ashes checked the magazines of both her handguns. “Time to go,” she said, strapping the guns into their holsters.
Kasiah and Morgan stayed behind with Aerona to watch over Jade. If all went well, we’d be back at the truck in ten minutes.
I hugged Kasiah tight. “Keep Jade safe.”
She squeezed me back. “Keep you safe.”
I turned to Aerona. “Don’t hesitate to get these guys out of here if you sense things going wrong.”
Aerona, as usual, played big sister. “You take care of yourself, little brother. Get Jess and get back here, so we can go have a margarita on Ember’s yacht.”
“Sounds like good a plan to me,” I said.
We left Kasiah, Morgan, and Aerona with Jade in the Raptor. Aerona cast a transparency spell on the truck as we walked away. When I looked back, the truck had vanished. It was still sitting right where we left it, but Aerona’s spell was bending the available light around the truck. They’d be safe until we returned.
The sky looked as though it was made of black velvet with millions of pinholes from the burning stars. The light of the moon, mostly hidden behind the tall trees, illuminated the gravel road as we made our way to the farmhouse. The three of us stopped at the last turn before reaching the house, and exactly as Ember had described, we saw a two-story farmhouse just off the road. The windows were dark. The white paint on the porch has mostly peeled off, leaving the old wood exposed to the elements. A broken porch swing hung at a sharp angle; one of the rusty chains must have broken long ago. The lawn had not been cared for in years. Tall weeds and saplings had taken over. I noticed a rusty old tractor through the rubble of the small barn that lay collapsed to the left of the house.
I looked at Ashes. Her eyes glowed brightly in the darkness.
“There are two human hearts beating inside,” she said, not taking her eyes off the house.
“What about Atmoro?” I asked. “Can you sense him or anyone else?”
“I can hear the two hearts beating in rhythm. One of them is tired and injured. I can tell by their labored breathing. If Atmoro is here, listening to your heartbeat, he will be still and silent.”
I hadn’t realized it until then, but my heart was running a marathon. I took a second to get myself under control, breathing slow and evenly.
The dirty windows of the house made it impossible to see inside, leaving us only one choice—we had to enter the house blind.
Ashes switched to stealth mode. She pointed to herself, then to her left, and then she pointed for me to move right with Rain. We nodded in agreement.
Ashes disappeared into the darkness.
Rain and I inched our way along the tree line. I stayed close behind as he led the way, stopping several times to listen. Each time, Rain stood as still as a bronze sculpture, holding his bre
ath and listening intently. An owl hooted somewhere deep in the forest behind us. We continued to make our way to the back of the house. There was still no sign of movement from within.
Abruptly, Rain stopped and crouched behind an old, forgotten woodpile stacked just inside the tree line.
“What is it?” I asked quietly, bending down next to him.
Rain shifted his position to get a better view over the chopped wood. “I hear voices,” he said, listening intently. “There are two of them… one male and one female.”
I struggled to hear the voices. “What are they saying?”
“I can’t make out the words,” he said. “They’re whispering.”
The distinct sound of metal clanging on metal echoed from inside the house, breaking the silence. It sounded like someone was grunting in frustration as they thrashed violently at a pipe with a small chain. The clanging and grunting went on for nearly a minute before stopping.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
I jolted when Ashes, with her English accent, answered from behind us. “They are in the room to the far right.”
Rain didn’t flinch at the sound of her voice. The look on his face showed he didn’t like the fact that Ashes was able to sneak up on him without a sound.
“There,” she said, pointing to the corner of the house. “They’re in that room.”
I looked at the dark window on the far right corner of the house but I couldn’t see anything.
Ashes opened her trench coat and crouched down next to us. “A vampire was here. It was a male. His scent tracked through the front door and back out. The trail leads into the woods behind us and returns several yards east.” She tilted her head towards the house. “The vampire came out of the woods with a human.”
“You’re sure the vampire is gone now?” I asked.
“Yes,” she reassured me. “The scent stops at the driveway. He left in a vehicle a day or so ago.”
“There’s blood inside the house,” Rain added, speaking for the first time since he was startled by Ashes. “It’s human. The blood isn’t freshly spilled, but it’s there.”
Ashes looked at Rain in a peculiar fashion, wondering how he was able to pick up the scent of blood when she could not.
“What do you think?” I asked Ashes.
Ashes peered down the dark dirt road. “I think we need to take the house before the vampire returns with whatever he went to retrieve.”
As we moved through the high weeds of the lawn, the owl hooted again from somewhere deep in the forest. Ashes walked backwards, her guns drawn, scanning the dirt road. I noticed the front door wasn’t fully closed as we climbed the three steps up to the porch. It looked like someone had slammed it shut too hard, then it sprung back open.
I turned back to check with Ashes.
She nodded her head to enter.
I knew I shouldn’t trust a Shadow Vampire with a mission to drag me back to the Shadow World for jumping, but I trusted her.
The house was definitely abandoned; the air was dry and dirty, and the furniture had a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. We moved through the main room to the rear of the house from where Rain and Ashes had heard the two voices.
Rain tried the door handle. It squeaked as it turned open.
“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice echoed from inside the room.
Rain looked at me for confirmation. I knew without a doubt this was Jess. I nodded once for Rain to open the door.
The door swung open slowly. Rain stepped in first, ready for anything on the other side. The room was empty, except for a young, terrified man handcuffed to a pipe in the far corner, and a red-haired girl duct taped to a fallen chair on the opposite side of the room. The chair was on its side, and the girl’s back was turned toward the door. She couldn’t see us as we entered.
I ran to the girl’s side and knelt beside the chair. “Jess?”
“Aeron!” she cried. “I knew you’d find me!”
Jess was injured. Her hand was bleeding, and her face looked like she had gone a few rounds in a cage match. Her clothes were torn and stained with blood, and her tangled red hair hung loosely on her face. Tears streamed from her eyes.
Ashes flipped her wrist to produce a glistening steel blade, then cut Jess free from the chair.
“Are you alright?” I asked, helping Jess up from the chair.
Jess rubbed her wrists and stretched her neck. “I am now.”
Ashes flipped the knife shut and tucked it back into her coat. “We need to leave,” she insisted.
“What about him?” Rain asked, standing over the guy in the corner.
“That’s Evan,” Jess said. “He’s with me.”
Rain grabbed Evan’s wrists and snapped the chain between the handcuffs that held him to the pipe.
Evan was amazed at how easily Rain was able to free him. “How did you—”
Rain ignored Evan’s question as Ember flew into the room, crash landing on Rain’s shoulder. She was completely out of breath.
Rain cupped Ember’s tiny fairy body in his hands.
Ember drew in a deep breath. “They’re…” she paused, sucking in another deep breath, “coming!”
Ashes quietly shut the door to the room. “Correction. They’re here.”
Ember caught her breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “They were driving with their lights out. I didn’t see them until it was too late.”
I grabbed Jess by her shoulders. “Who’s keeping you here? Is it Atmoro?”
Jess used the bottom of her shirt to wipe the tears from her eyes. “A vampire named Jake,” she said, wiping the blood from under her nose. “He works for Atmoro. A day or so ago, he left, saying he’d be back to finish us off.”
“I assume I know what they were after.” I said, not needing an answer.
Jess summed it up with one word, “Jade.”
She fought through the pain of her injured arm and tied her hair back. “Although I don’t believe neither Jake nor Atmoro know what they’re looking for exactly. Jake kept screaming about finding him the stone. He wanted to know who I was working for and what information I had about it. I tested him by asking what he wanted with a stupid rock, and he didn’t correct me. He just kept screaming about the stone as if it were an inanimate object, not a person. I didn’t give her up, Aeron, or you.”
“I’m so sorry I got you involved in this mess,” I said, hugging her. “You did great.”
Ashes held her hand up for us to be quiet. “There are two vehicles,” she said softly. “They’ve stopped in front of the house. I can hear six sets of feet on the gravel. Three of them walk lightly—vampires. That’s why they were driving with the lights out. The others are heavy footed, most likely werewolves in human form. They do not seem to be in a hurry.” Ashes paused to listen. “They’ve stopped on the porch. They’re discussing what to do with the girl. The one in charge told the other two that he has a fresh meal ready for them.”
Evan’s eyes shot open, knowing he was the meal. Rain wrapped his powerful arm around Evan, covering his mouth as he tried to speak.
Ashes cracked the door open and peered inside the main room. She waved for us to follow her out. We made our way inside and started up the stairs to the second floor. Halfway up, a board creaked loudly under Jess’s feet. We all froze. Jess looked at me, her eyes wide.
Two men rushed in through the front door; Ashes was right—werewolves. The two men were gigantic, at least seven feet tall with big, barrel chests and long, shaggy hair. Their arms and necks were as thick as tree trunks.
Ashes knelt down on the stairs and fired two shots at the werewolves, hitting one in the head and the other one in the arm. The wounded werewolf retreated out the door, transforming into his wolf form as he escaped. The other werewolf did not transform; he wasn’t dead either. He would recover from the head wound quickly.
“Move!” Ashes ordered us.
We ducked into side bedroom at the top of the stairs. Ashes fired several s
hots at the vampires trying to enter the house.
“I can’t hold them off forever!” she hollered back.
Rain’s eyes blazed a deep dark crimson. He released his grasp on Evan. I had seen this look on Rain’s face before. His lips curled into a smile, exposing his deadly, white fangs.
“No!” I yelled, but I was too late.
Rain crashed through the bedroom window, landing on the roof of the porch. Hearing the glass shatter, one of the vampires from outside leapt up to confront him. The vampire was no match for Rain’s incredible strength and speed. He sidestepped and spun backwards behind the vampire, breaking his arm in the process. Once behind him, Rain grabbed him by the chin, forcing his head back to expose his neck. The vampire hissed loudly. He was clearly overpowered and outmatched by Rain.
Enormous arms crashed through the porch’s wooden roof. A werewolf grabbed Rain by the ankles, pulling him and the vampire down through the splinters. They disappeared into a pile of broken boards.
I grabbed Jess and looked her right in the eyes. “Ember will take you and Evan down the hall to the furthest room. Find a window and climb out the back.”
“I’m not leaving without you, Aeron!” Jess urged back.
I admired her courage, but it was a fight she could never win. “It wasn’t a question!” I said forcefully. “When you hit the ground, run. You’ll find my sister at the end of the dirt road.”
Jess tried to argue more, but I wouldn’t let her. “Go! Now!” I yelled. “Ember, get them out of here!”
“He’s right, Jess!” Evan yelled, pulling her hand. “Let’s get out of here!”
With Ember leading the way, Evan pulled Jess out of the room and down the hallway towards the back of the house. I closed my eyes and drew in a breath, pulling in all the energy around me. A second later, I was at the stairs. Two werewolves were in their wolf form, one black and the other light brown. The two snarling beasts had Ashes cornered at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her retreat. It didn’t seem to faze her. She ran straight at the wall, using it as a springboard to kick herself up and back over the werewolves. She floated above their heads, the muzzles of her guns firing rapidly.
The Blood of a Stone Page 30
