Drawn

by David Alan Jones

  Drawn

  A Rose Carver Novel

  David Alan Jones

  Contents

  1. The Pickup

  2. Fugues and Revelations

  3. Voluntold

  4. Besties

  5. Polydraw

  6. Drawing from Strength

  7. Talents

  8. The Rundown

  9. The Abduction of Emily Stone

  10. Debrief

  11. Of Geeks and Votaries

  12. Oh, Captain

  13. No Pomp, All Circumstance

  14. Conventional Thinking

  15. Guadalupe Victoria

  16. Overrun and Overwrought

  17. Sister, Sister

  18. My Enemy’s Enemy

  19. The Collection

  20. Thorn

  21. Breaking Trust

  22. Choice

  23. We All Fall Down

  24. The Envoy

  25. The Jailed Queen

  26. Drawn Together

  27. Fear Baiting

  28. Resistance

  29. End Times

  30. Faces of Fear

  About the Author

  Coming Soon!

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Deanna, and our children. Without you, I have no words.

  1

  The Pickup

  Anna Carver batted the remaining crumbs from table three onto her serving tray with a rag. They fell atop a wadded receipt one of the table’s former occupants had used to blot her lips. Crumbs and berry-red skid marks made for a shitty tip, but Anna didn’t blame her customers. They had probably planned to leave her a few dollars before they got distracted.

  Anna blamed the man at the bar.

  People clustered around him, beers forgotten in their limp hands, eyes wide in anticipation of the next climax in his story. He spoke in a rousing voice, one that lilted in just that perfect way to elicit interest from his audience. He smiled and talked and sipped Perrier, reveling in their attention.

  The jerk.

  Couldn’t he see how his antics robbed Anna and her fellow servers of potential tips? Probably not. People like him ignored the help unless the help made a mistake. Then you’d think the world had imploded. Three low-wage waitresses schlepping wings at a sports bar probably meant nothing to this guy. Though every now and again Anna caught him glancing her way.

  Later, while running for her life, Anna would kick herself for not pegging him from the start. She should have recognized an incubus when she saw one. But years of slinking from city to city, never once encountering the vaunted boogiemen her father had raised her to fear, had made Anna Rose Carver complacent. She had met her share of succubi and incubi in dive bars and greasy spoon diners. None were operatives of some shadow government bent on ruling her kind. They were just people like her. Nobodies, trying to make it in a down economy.

  Anna stopped next to Sherrilyn, the closest thing she had to a real friend these last three months, on her way back from the kitchen. “What are you doing standing around? You’ve got three tables tonight.”

  Sherri nodded at two couples next to her without taking her eyes from the man at the bar. “They’re tables five and six. Do they look like they’re ordering something?”

  “What about the guys at seven?”

  Sherri glanced over her shoulder. “They look happy enough. Stupid goons didn’t order beers after I told them it was buy-one-get-one night. Just steaks and water. Can you believe that?”

  Something clicked in Anna’s head. She took a longer, more meaningful look at the men sitting at table seven. Though handsome, they possessed a manicured plainness that made them forgettable with their close-cropped hair, clean-shaven faces, and identical off-the-rack suits. Matched almost perfectly at average height and build, Anna couldn’t distinguish them aside from their hair color: blond and black.

  “They didn’t order drinks?” she asked.

  Sherri shook her head. “Not a damn drop. Must be cops or something.”

  A tingle of fear coursed down Anna’s back. She rubbed her hands on her pants legs, alternately glancing from the suit clones to the guy at the bar. A sea of images floated through her head; all made up, all seeded by her father’s paranoia. Men in out-of-the-way places where they didn’t belong, watching and waiting. Men with the pungent stink of law about them, but not human law. Society law.

  But this couldn’t be. Anna chided herself for borrowing fear. Her father had spent most of his life that way, dragging his family across the nation every time a vacuum salesman looked at him funny or a co-worker asked too many personal questions. And here Anna stood, succumbing to the same stupid anxiety. Society didn’t care about some waitress in a dive bar in Georgia. So what if she used charm to sweeten her tips every once in a while? Busting her would be like taking down a shoplifter when there were serial killers on the streets.

  The couple at table two, whom Anna had hoped would order a few mixed drinks to cap off their meal, stood to join the crowd at the bar, yanking her from her reverie. The guy telling stories seemed to be building to a climax, his audience’s laughter coming in more frequent and louder bursts.

  “You think he’d go home with me?” Sherrilyn asked.

  Anna jumped. “What? Who?”

  Sherri rolled her eyes. “The guy at the bar, Matt Snow. I’m gonna ask him before some other girl gets in there.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anna asked. “You’ve got a three-year-old at home.”

  Sherri shrugged. “Aimee will have Tucker down way before I get home. Matt won’t even know he’s there.”

  Anna peered at the guy. “He’s not even your type. I mean he’s, ya know, short. I thought you liked brawny guys.”

  The look that flashed across Sherrilyn’s face could have frozen a glacier. “Either you’ve gone blind, or you’re trying to throw me off. And I know you ain’t blind.”

  The crowd exploded with laughter. Several people nearly fell over, leaning on one another for support, faces red, stomachs hitching, eyes watering. And in the center of it all, Matt’s blue eyes found Anna.

  He grinned, and a wash of charm rolled over her like hot steam. Her heart raced not from shock or fear as she might have expected, but from a sudden, all-encompassing urge to know this man, to stand in his presence, to never leave his side.

  Anna frowned. These were not her feelings. She drew a breath, let it out slowly, and then pulled charm from the only source at her disposal: her family.

  Matt’s eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t expected Anna to outcharm him. Did he know her nature? He must have. Why turn his attention on her otherwise?

  The fear Anna had earlier shrugged off returned like a thunderclap. Though this Matt Snow wasn’t dressed like the guys at table seven—he wore jeans and a collared golf shirt—their appearance together couldn’t be a coincidence. Three incubi in a little no-nothing bar in Georgia? Impossible. Her dad had been right.

  Time to run.

  Anna focused her charm on Sherrilyn. She took her friend by the arms. “Sherri, listen. That guy Matt is trouble. You understand?”

  Sherri’s eyes glistened, wobbling like orbs of jelly. She nodded.

  “You won’t remember this in the morning, but he’s no good. You understand? Stay the hell away from him.”

  “Okay.”

  Matt watched them while bargoers jabbered at him, clapping him on the shoulders, buying him rounds of beers he would never drink. He set his empty Perrier on the bar and started toward Anna.

  Anna headed for the back, pulling Sherri along. She stole a glance at table seven. The two plain suits had stood, eyes tracking the women.

  Anna dragged Sherri into Pete’s office—a tiny, windowless room with a second-hand computer desk, a mini-fridge, and the bar’s reinforced b
ack exit. She slammed the office door shut behind them. “I’m not feeling well.”

  “Sorry.” Sherrilyn gazed around as if lost.

  “I’m going home early, but I need you to do me a favor first.” Anna shot the bolt home on the door, thankful her shaky hands could manage the feat.

  “Okay.”

  Anna spun Sherrilyn to face the back exit. “Drop the bar on the security door the second I’m out. Can you do that?”

  Sherrilyn shook her head, frowning. “Pete raises hell when it gets stuck, says the Fire Marshall’s gonna fine him.”

  Someone rattled the office door behind them. Anna ignored it.

  “I know, but tonight we need this back door locked down tight.” Anna focused more charm on her friend, though she felt horrible doing so, and Sherrilyn nodded.

  Something heavy hit the office door. It rattled in its frame but held. Probably the incubi were trying to be discreet. Anna had no doubt any one of them could kick his way inside with little effort, but even with charm, they wouldn’t want to draw that much attention to themselves.

  Why hadn’t they left Matt at the bar? He could have distracted the crowd.

  Idiots.

  “Sherri?” Anna snapped her fingers before her friend’s face.

  The older woman looked around from the door, eyes glazed, drunk on charm. “Yeah?”

  “The security bar?”

  “I’ll drop it,” Sherrilyn said with a lazy smile. “I hope you get to feeling better.”

  Anna gave her friend a swift hug. “It was great knowing you.” A wash of sadness swept through her. She would probably never see Sherrilyn again.

  “Bye, hon.”

  Anna stepped into a frosty midwinter’s night. She hadn’t taken time to grab her jacket from the back room, and her bare arms, exposed in her low-cut top, puckered instantly with gooseflesh. Good thing she had worn jeans tonight instead of a skirt.

  The security bar screeched into place behind her, and Anna felt a pang of guilt for leaving Sherri with those Society creeps. But they weren’t likely to harm a human.

  Needing no draw of dexterity, Anna planted a hand on the railing and sailed over it. She landed with a quiet thump that nevertheless echoed in the alleyway.

  Had she seriously considered her dad a paranoid fool not twenty minutes ago? The man who had taught her to always wear sensible footwear? She would have to send him something, a thank you, when all this blew over.

  Anna considered where to run. Her car? Her tiny apartment that perpetually smelled of kerosene and old cigarettes? Both out of the question. No doubt Society knew about them. She could maybe—

  “Anna Rose Carver.”

  Anna froze, compelled by a sudden flood of charm. It slammed into her like a ‘78 LTD. Against her will, she turned to find Mr. Popularity, the guy Sherrilyn had called Matt Snow, standing behind her, his face cast in shadow.

  The people who had been fawning over this guy in the bar moments ago probably felt like social misfits right now. They believed they knew this man, and wanted to know him better. That desire forged a link strong enough for Matt to steal their charm and turn it against Anna.

  “Come with me,” he said. “You’re in danger.”

  Anna ground her teeth, drawing charm of her own, battling against his control. “No.”

  Matt quirked a little half grin. “That’s some draw on charm you’ve got there.” He started forward, taking slow, measured steps. “Come with me, and I’ll teach you how to get more.”

  “I don’t need more.” Anna could feel the limits of Matt’s charm. His grip on her weakened every passing second, his influence sloughing away like dead skin.

  He drew another step closer, still smiling. “Don’t run.”

  “What do you want? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  A series of thumps and scraping sounds told Anna that Matt’s friends were trying to lift the security bar inside. She had to get away before that happened.

  “Did I accuse you of something?” Matt took another step, bringing him close enough to touch her if he wanted.

  “Go away,” she hissed. Inside her head, she screamed, railing against his control, pushing her charm to its limits.

  “Listen to me, Anna,” Matt said. His voice quavered. “I’m not part of Society. I’m trying to help you. You’re a slinker, so I don’t expect you to understand this, but—”

  Matt’s charm shattered.

  Anna attacked.

  It had been years since she had sparred with her brother and sister under their dad’s watchful eye. He had taught all three of his children, even Anna’s older brother Troy, who hadn’t inherited the ability to draw, how and when to fight. Though her skills might be a little rusty, Anna figured speed would make up for lost finesse.

  She closed the distance between them faster than an Olympic sprinter, intending to land a blistering jab-cross-hook combination. To her surprise, Matt slipped the jab, deflected the cross, and somehow caught her hook, twisting her arm painfully behind her.

  “Will you just—” he began.

  Before he could finish, Anna drew strength—all she could safely gather—and bent away from his hold on her arm to snag his pants leg and jerk it upward, stealing his balance.

  Before Matt even struck the ground, Anna had switched from drawing strength to speed. With perfect timing, she kicked him in the ribs. The blow landed with a sickening crack that sent the incubus hurtling into the brick wall of the Old Siam Restaurant.

  Anna froze, one hand clamped over her mouth. Had she killed him? She had forgotten how light incubi could be.

  Matt sat up, holding his side. “Ow, dammit. Who taught you to fight dirty like that?” He stood and, leaning to one side, sucked in a deep breath. His ribs slipped back into place with a muffled series of pops.

  Anna gaped at him. Had he just healed broken bones in a matter of seconds? Everyone in the bar must be sick as lepers right now unless this Matt Snow had more votaries than the bargoers. A hell of a lot more.

  “My dad,” she said without meaning to speak.

  “Must be a mean son of a bitch.”

  The sounds of effort behind the security door fell silent. The other two must have given up getting out that way. Anna imagined she could hear them pushing through the crowd to reach the front entrance.

  Drawing speed, she spun and dashed along the alleyway onto Eleventh, which ran straight for a good five blocks before ending at Goldens Foundry. She poured on speed, topping out somewhere around fifty miles-per-hour. The crotch of her jeans started heating up, something they never mentioned in superhero movies. It burned, but she could endure it if it meant her freedom. Or her life.

  Anna thought she heard pounding footsteps trailing after her. She couldn’t say for certain, with the wind and the sound of her breathing thundering in her ears.

  She slowed to make a left-hand turn onto Sixth Avenue, a divided four-lane decorated with trees. At these speeds, course correction became more a matter of leaning into the curve and kicking the ground than simply pointing herself in the direction she wanted to go. And like fighting, it had been years since she had done it.

  A squirt of fear raced through Anna’s belly. She had misjudged the turn. She barreled across the street—luckily no cross traffic this time of night—nearly losing her footing, and slammed into the back of a Tahoe, crumpling its rear door to the tune of screeching metal and breaking glass. Glancing back, she spotted a figure coming her way: Matt Snow, pelting toward her at highway speeds.

  Anna hissed in pain and frustration but kept moving. She limped a few steps before finding her stride, the hurt lessening as she ran, the strident wails of the Tahoe’s alarm fading away behind her.

  Matt was gaining. She could hear his footfalls clearly now. They grew ever closer despite her draw on speed. She wasn’t going to outrun him. She needed a place to hide.

  Anna reached the intersection of Sixth and Twelfth and hung a right, this time giving herself plenty of space to slow be
fore making the turn. Twelfth ended at the railway yard behind Goldens Foundry—twenty-five rail lines crowded with freight cars that smelled of diesel fuel, rancid grease, and sawdust.

  Perfect.

  She raced toward the train cars, sighted one with both sliding doors open, and dove through it. She rolled to her feet on the other side, ever moving, worming her way across couplings and under enormous wheels with preternatural swiftness. She considered jumping atop one of the trains but dismissed the idea. A bright crescent moon hung overhead. Matt and his buddies would have no problem picking out her silhouette against the nighttime sky.

  Anna cleared the last of the freight cars and stopped to listen. She could hear someone weaving through the parked trains, but it sounded distant.

  Time to hide.

  A wooden privacy fence stood to her left. Anna couldn’t see what lay beyond it. Good. Drawing speed, she ran at the fence. At the last possible instant, she switched to strength and leaped. She cleared the hurdle by maybe half an inch, and wouldn’t have had she not pulled her knees to her chest.

  She hit the ground hard and stumbled into the side of a dingy trailer surrounded by heaps of discarded train parts and piles of wooden pallets. She winced at the racket she made, but it couldn’t be helped. Hopefully, her pursuers would mistake the direction and wander off.

  Anna spun, scanning the near darkness for a likely hiding spot while trying to quell her labored breathing. She started toward a large pile of rusted iron wheels when movement inside the fence caught her eye.

  That’s when the growling started.

  Two Dobermans, full-grown and pissed, advanced on her in the dark, their beady eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Though she desperately needed an infusion of stamina and strength, Anna instead drew all the charm she could muster.