Tall, Silent and Lethal

by R. L. Mathewson

  Papa had forbidden her to go into Christofer’s room, but he’d been her favorite person in the world and sometimes when she got too lonely while he was having his lessons or when the nannies were vexed with her, she’d sneak into his room, sit in front of the fire and look through all of his drawings. She loved looking at his artwork. Even as a child she’d known that it was special. She used to think that Christofer used magic to create his drawings and statues the way that he could capture the exact detail of someone’s face, every perfection and flaw with such ease. It didn’t hurt that he’d agree with a chuckle and a wink as he worked, creating works of art that rivaled masters. To this day, she’d never seen any piece of art come close to her brother’s skill.

  It wasn’t just because he could capture someone’s likeness perfectly and without a single flaw, but that he seemed to be able to capture the heart and soul of a person. It was in their expression, the tilt of their lips and the way they held themselves that made you believe that Christofer had found a way to turn people into images on paper and into stone and marble. She loved to watch him work, loved everything that he created, but this piece of aged parchment……

  This was her favorite.

  The paper was simple, the kind that he used to use when he was doodling. Some of the graphite had smudged over the years, but it was still just as perfect as it had been the day that she’d found it stuck inside of one of Christofer’s school books. It was a drawing of Christofer holding her when she was just a baby, probably only a few hours old, but the look of adoration on his face as he peered down at her had made her feel special, safe. He’d always made her feel that way even those times when she’d probably deserved a swat on the bottom, she thought, smiling as she ran her fingers one more time over the picture that she’d cherished for most of her life.

  “I’ll protect them,” Christofer’s words carried up through the grate in her floor just as more pain sliced through her tired body, “I’ll protect them both.”

  No, he couldn’t, she thought with a wistful smile as she picked up another bottle of the pills that Christofer didn’t know about. One by one, she began to swallow them, taking small sips of water every few minutes to help the pills go down. Once the bottle was empty, she carefully lowered herself to the floor and pushed aside the small throw rug that Christofer had given her one Christmas so that her feet wouldn’t have to touch the cold floor in the winter.

  As quietly as possible, and praying that Christofer was still focused on what was going on downstairs, she pried open the loose board that she’d discovered after Christofer had bought the house for her, with trembling fingers and removed it. She was taking a chance by doing this while Christofer was home, something that she’d never done before, but right now she didn’t have a choice if she wanted a chance to tell him how much she loved him.

  She reached for the shoe box that she kept in the space just as another shot of pain surged through her stomach and down to her legs, almost making her do the one thing that she’d been struggling not to do for the past year, cry out in pain. Gripping the edge of the opening tightly, she closed her eyes and calmed her breathing, knowing that if she didn’t Christofer would hear her heart racing and he’d rush up here to check up on her.

  After a few minutes when her body started to go numb and the trembling worsened, she finally managed to calm her breathing enough so that she could reach down with an unsteady hand and push the lid off the box. On top was the letter, the one that she’d written a year ago when the doctor had told her the news.

  She picked it up and held it against her chest as she used her other arm to help pull herself up and back onto the bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she closed her eyes and tightened her grip around the letter, wishing that she’d been able to say more, to make things right for Christofer, but there was no time.

  If what she’d heard coming from the vent was true, then everything had just changed for Christofer. He had a chance now, a chance to live, to have someone of his own who could make him happy and she refused to take that away from him. He’d sacrificed enough for her.

  Opening her eyes, she released a shaky breath, laid back on the bed and placed the letter on the bed by the drawing. Sending up one last prayer for Christofer and Cloe, she closed her eyes for the last time.

  Chapter 21

  “Look, I’ve gotta get going before the sun…….” Seth’s words trailed off. He shot Christofer a questioning look just as a rather sweet and enticing aroma teased Christofer’s senses, making his stomach growl.

  “What is that?” Christofer asked even as he opened his senses. What he heard had him taking a step towards the stairs. The instinct to protect his sister was so well ingrained that he found himself heading towards the stairs, but for the first time in his life, he hesitated. He looked over his shoulder at the pale, defenseless woman that needed him and growled out a vicious curse.

  He couldn’t leave her.

  “Pull the tube out,” he ordered Seth as he quickly moved back to the bed to scoop Cloe up in his arms, but before he could pick her up there was a knock at his door.

  “Oh, this can’t be good,” Seth grumbled, sounding drained as he plopped down on the edge of the bed and dropped his head in his hands.

  “What the hell is going on?” Christofer demanded, not really sure how he should be reacting.

  Seth just sat there, looking tired and a little annoyed as the knocking continued. There wasn’t a hint of fear or anger coming off him to alert Christofer to any impending danger. He just looked…….

  Resigned.

  “Sentinels,” Seth said, seconds before he tilted his head to the side, scented the air, frowned, shook his head and cursed softly before adding, “and a shifter and humans.”

  Before Christofer could react to the knowledge that a shifter was at his door, Seth added, “I wouldn’t worry about the shifter though since he’s with Sentinels.”

  He started to nod in the process of absorbing that information before a thought occurred to him. “What the hell is a Sentinel?”

  Pursing his lips up in thought, Seth asked, “I didn’t tell you about Sentinels?”

  “No,” he bit out, his patience wearing thin.

  “Oh,” Seth said, sighing as he lazily gestured towards the back door when the pounding started. “Those are Sentinels.”

  “That’s really fucking helpful!” he snapped, putting himself between the door and Cloe.

  He welcomed the shift in his eyesight and the tingle of his fangs sliding down. His gaze constantly shifted between the door and the stairway. This was wrong, his brain screamed, demanding that he go to Marta and protect her, but the rest of him….

  The rest of him demanded that he keep his ass right where it was and protect what was his. Cloe was defenseless and needed him. The idea of leaving her like this, even with Seth to watch over her, felt wrong. His gaze shifted back towards the stairs and he felt his body jerk in that direction, the instinct to go to his sister, to protect her so well ingrained that he couldn’t simply ignore it. Marta was his sister, his responsibility and he knew that she would always come first. He’d made a promise to his father and he planned on keeping it.

  “Protect her!” he snapped, ignoring the panic and terror that shot through him at the idea of turning his back on Cloe, but for his sister he did it.

  Ignoring Seth’s long-suffering sigh, he took the stairs two at time as he opened up his senses. Before he made it hallway up the stairs he knew three things, there were three people in his house, they weren’t human and he couldn’t hear Marta’s heartbeat.

  *-*-*-*

  “Wake up, sweetheart,” Ephraim said, giving the frail hand in his a small squeeze, already knowing that it was too late. He carefully pushed back a strand of gray hair away from the face that held the unmistakable expression of peace that he knew too well.

  She was gone.

  “Cancer,” Caine suddenly announced, confirming his suspicions.

  “Can you tell
what kind?” Ephraim asked, unable to pinpoint exactly where the scent was coming from. He could smell hints of the deadly growth all over her body, which surprised him since it wasn’t normally something that he could detect until it hit the skin. Then again, he’d been living with a woman who was doomed to die for eternity from the horrible disease so perhaps his senses were sharpened because of Danni.

  “Brain, heart, bone, stomach, uterus and kidneys,” Danni listed hollowly by his side.

  “How bad was the growth?” Ephraim asked as his gaze moved away from the frail old woman to settle on the note and drawing on the bed beside her.

  He didn’t need to open it to know what it was. It also confirmed his belief that the male downstairs had no idea that this woman was dead. If he had, that note wouldn’t be crisply folded by her side and placed neatly on the pillow still. His gaze moved over to the nightstand that was covered in prescription bottles, the five bottles by the edge were empty with their covers placed by their sides.

  “We need to warn him,” Ephraim said, giving the quickly cooling hand another small squeeze as he said a quick prayer for her soul, hoping that she’d found some peace.

  “He already knows,” Caine mumbled softly as he slowly backed up and moved away from the door, pausing only long enough to grab Danni’s hand and pull her back with him.

  With a small nod, Ephraim stood and stepped back away from the bed, wishing that they’d broken into the house sooner so that this woman hadn’t been all alone when she’d taken her last breath. Being with his brother Marc as he’d drawn his last breath had been the only thing that had made his death somewhat tolerable. He hadn’t been able to save Marc from the fever, but at least he’d been there to give his brother some comfort in his last moments. It was something that the Pyte they were here for was going to regret not being able to do for his sister for the rest of his unnatural life.

  “Marta?” the man they were here for said, his tone laced with desperation and dread. He stumbled into the room, no doubt already knowing what to expect, but still fighting it with every fiber of his being, not that Ephraim could blame him.

  “Marta?” Christofer murmured, confirming his suspicions that this was the woman listed as his sister. Christofer moved towards the bed, his voice cracking with emotion when he spotted her lying on the bed with her hands resting on her stomach. His gaze moved from the empty prescription bottles and then the note on the bed. “Oh………God……..”

  Danni took a step towards the grieving man, but Caine smartly kept her with him. Ephraim shifted to the side, putting himself between the Pyte dropping to his knees by the bed and Danni. Without taking his eyes off Christofer, he held up a hand and gave the signal for Caine to take Danni out of the room. Thankfully this time Danni didn’t argue. Instead, she allowed her mate to push her gently in front of him and left the room.

  Never taking his eyes off the Pyte trying to rouse Marta, Ephraim opened his senses and listened as Danni and Caine headed towards the woman, a marked woman judging by the scent that he’d picked up a half mile down the road, and a vampire in the basement. A few seconds later he heard Chris mutter a curse as he registered the click of a lock, letting him know that his son and the pain in the ass shifter that they were stuck with were now inside.

  Knowing that the situation downstairs was handled and that his son was safely away from the Pyte that was most likely seconds from losing it, he was able to focus on the man in front of him. His hair was shorter and his clothes were just as simple as they had been in the old black and white images that Izzy had sent to his iPad. This was definitely Christofer Petersen, the Pyte they’d been sent to retrieve before Masters saw that Facebook post and came after him.

  “Marta? Marta!” the Pyte cried, a sob breaking free as he gently shook the woman. “No! Goddamnit, no!”

  His grief was so raw that it damn near knocked Ephraim on his ass. If it had been anyone else he would have stepped out of the room and given the man some time alone with his sister, but this wasn’t anyone else. This was a Pyte who could lose it at any second and make the world pay for his pain and with his son in the house that wasn’t an option.

  Chris was a Sentinel. He was a hell of a lot stronger than humans. He could probably go a few rounds with a Pyte under normal circumstances, but once the Pyte lost control and went into bloodlust Chris was just as vulnerable as any human. Even though Chris had the ability to heal faster than humans, there were still some things that he would never be able to heal from and a Pyte on a rampage was one of those things.

  “Don’t leave me, Marta!” Christofer begged, gently pulling the woman’s frail body in his arms. “Don’t leave me,” he sobbed, gently rocking the woman in his arms as though she were a baby seconds before he began singing what sounded like a lullaby in German.

  Ephraim swallowed, wishing that he could be anywhere but here. God, he didn’t think that he could take another minute of this, because he knew without a doubt that one day that he would be in the same position when Madison’s grandmother passed away. He cared about that woman a great deal and it killed him that he couldn’t save her. Her loss was something that he wouldn’t be able to avoid, but his children…..

  He’d be damned if he was going to be forced to sit around and wait for any of his children or grandchildren to take their last breaths. When it was time, he was going to change Jill, his grandchildren and hopefully Chris and Izzy whether or not the Council approved. This wasn’t their call to make no matter what they believed.

  Christofer didn’t even look his way, no doubt blinded by his grief as he moved to sit on the bed and hold his sister in his arms. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face as he continued to rock the woman in his arms as he sang to her. As Ephraim watched, he couldn’t help but wonder why Christofer hadn’t changed her years ago when she’d been young enough to handle the change. Then again, maybe he already had a mate or he simply didn’t know how to change someone without killing them. The way that Christofer held his sister in his arms told him that it was the latter. He probably would have done anything to save her.

  They should be leaving, putting as much distance between themselves and this house as quickly as possible, but he just couldn’t force himself to interrupt this man’s grief. He needed a chance to say goodbye and he was going to give it to-

  A vicious growl suddenly tore through the small bedroom as Christofer’s head snapped up. His red eyes focused on the open doorway as he bared his fangs in another vicious snarl. Wondering if they were too late, Ephraim opened his senses expecting to hear a small army descending on the house, but there was nothing. He was just about to go outside and do a quick sweep of the area just in case they were being descended upon by demons when he heard it.

  “She needs to be moved to the van,” Chris said, just as Ephraim heard a bed dip beneath someone’s weight. With a curse, he detected the unmistakable scent of his son’s scent mingling with the marked woman’s. His son had seriously fucked up.

  “Relax,” Ephraim said, stepping in front of the door as he held up his hands, hoping to talk some sense into the Pyte before it was too late, “we’re here to help you, Christofer.”

  The vicious snarl that followed wasn’t exactly encouraging. Neither was the fact that the Pyte seemed to be looking right through him, oblivious to the fact that he was standing there, trying to stop him from tearing his son apart. So much for this being an easy extraction, Ephraim thought. He watched the Pyte press one last kiss against his sister’s forehead as his attention remained fixed on the door. With one last mumbled goodbye to his sister, Christofer headed for the door.

  “Christofer,” Ephraim said, stressing the Pyte’s name as he held up his hand in a stopping motion. “I’m going to need you to calm-oh, fuck,” he said, the last part leaving him in a pained grunt as a very large, and very pissed off, Pyte in bloodlust slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying across the hallway into the living room where an old television and
a wall broke his fall. He heard several sickening cracks as bones broke and his head was whacked against what felt like a fireplace before he was dropped on his ass with a weak grunt.

  “That’s the last fucking time that I ever try to negotiate with a Pyte in bloodlust,” he muttered, wincing in pain as he forced himself to get to his unsteady feet. Ignoring the black dots cascading his vision, he pulled his weapon free from its holster at his back and went after the Pyte.

  “Calm the fuck down!” he heard Chris shout as he made it into the kitchen.

  “I told you not to pick her up, you dumb bastard!” Kale snapped just as Ephraim headed down the stairs.

  When he made it down the last step, he found Kale standing in front of Chris. Holding the marked woman in his arms, Chris tried to back up towards the door where the vampire stood, looking terrified and for good reason.

  “Mine!” Christofer snarled as he backhanded Kale, sending the shifter flying across the room and getting rid of the one thing that was standing between him and Ephraim’s son.