by Gary Jonas
“They haven’t seen us together.”
“You don’t know that,” Brand said. “They could have done a reconnaissance mission, in which case they’d know you were working with him. Seeing as how they’ve got to be shitting peach pits just thinking about what you’ll do to them, that does improve the odds that he’s alive.”
“It might diminish the odds. They might have killed him to upset me.”
“It’s always about you and Jonathan, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Worrying about Jonathan.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Would you be worried if I was the one missing?”
“No.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“You can take care of yourself.”
“So can Jonathan.”
“But he’s just a man.”
“He’s a tough son of a bitch so drop it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“It doesn’t do us any good. Just come out to The Steam Room. If they’re attacking and killing everyone, they may strike here next.”
“If they do, you make sure you don’t kill them all.”
“I’ll save a few for you.”
I ended the call and closed my eyes. Jonathan had better be okay.
oOo
“Where would they likely hole up?” I asked, looking at Graham. We were all in his office at The Steam Room. Brand leaned against the wall. Rayna sat in one chair in front of the desk, Graham in the chair behind the desk. I stood over Graham. Esther waited outside the door, keeping watch. She would pop in to alert me if anyone unsavory showed up.
“They’re used to village life,” Graham said. “They lived in a keep, so they’d be most comfortable in some stone building overlooking everything.”
“I’m not that familiar with Boulder. Can you think of a place that would suit their needs?”
“Maybe the Compton Castle?” Rayna said.
“Compton Castle?” I said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“That’s sort of a nickname,” she said. “Henry Compton, a real estate developer, built a castle in the foothills overlooking Boulder a few years ago. I was dating a guy who sold them a lot of the stone. He worked at Tribble Stone Company, and it was a huge order.”
“Star Trek fans?” Brand asked.
“Tribble is the owner’s last name,” Rayna said.
“Did he have any daughters?”
Rayna frowned as she turned to look at Brand. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Brand shrugged. “Just wondering if they were born pregnant.”
“Be serious,” I said. “If they have Jonathan, I’m going to find them.”
“Tribbles?” Brand asked.
I glared at him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t resist. So where is this Compton place?”
“You can see it from the highway. It’s just west of town.”
“And you think they’d just take over the place?” Brand asked. “Wouldn’t Mr. Compton have something to say about that?”
“He never moved in,” Rayna said. “The economy took a nosedive, and he ran out of discretionary funds, so they never finished building it.”
“And they’d know this how?”
“They’d seek the higher ground,” Graham said. “As you can see the castle from Highway 36, there’s a good chance they’d check it out.”
“It’s worth a look,” I said.
“I’m in,” Brand said.
“No, you need to look after Graham and Rayna.”
“We’ll go with you,” Rayna said.
“Right,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because taking the people we’re supposed to protect into the enemy’s stronghold is beyond stupid.”
“Not fair,” Brand said. “You get to go kill some people, and I get stuck with babysitting duty.”
“Get used to it,” I said.
“What did I do to piss you off?”
“You’re trying to make jokes, and you suck at it.”
“That’s not it,” Brand said.
“We can talk about that later. First, I have to find Jonathan.”
The look in his eyes told me all I needed to know. He was jealous that I cared more about Jonathan than I did about him. Sometimes he acted as though he were in high school. I wondered why I was still with him, but I had more important things to deal with, so I pushed it aside and left the spa.
oOo
I cruised out Highway 36 and hoped I wouldn’t miss the building. About the time I thought I should turn back, the road curved, and I saw the castle standing guard at the top of a rocky bluff. A moment later, I saw a dirt road for an exit, so I wheeled off the highway and bounced along until I drew close.
After parking, I climbed out of the truck, tucked a Glock in my pocket, grabbed my sword from behind the seat, and hiked the rest of the way to the castle. I don’t normally use guns, but I wanted to put these guys down fast in case Jonathan was with them.
Rayna was right. The place stood unfinished. There were pallets of stones stacked on the south side of the building. The back half was mostly wood and drywall. They needed to add the stone. The front side, however, looked like something you’d see in one of those Christopher Lee Dracula movies Jonathan made me watch a few years ago. I made a circle around the structure, keeping an eye out for sentries.
If the Marshall Clan lived here, they weren’t worried about unexpected guests.
When I was first being magically altered, I had failed a test because I walked straight to a door, not seeing the tripwire strung across the room. A massive mahogany beam dropped on me, breaking my collarbone and pinning me to the floor. I couldn’t breathe. No one would help me. The other future Sekutar warriors simply pointed and laughed. I was eight years old.
Since that day, I’ve never missed another tripwire. Today was no different. I spotted it easily enough. Until that moment, I wasn’t sure anyone had been to the castle since the construction crew had abandoned it.
I scanned for other traps. They were good at camouflaging them, but I was better at spotting them. I wove a path through the traps and made it to the building without triggering any of them.
There were a few windows, but they were blacked out, so I couldn’t peer inside. I moved toward the back of the building, straining to hear any activity inside.
Either they were very quiet or the place was built so well, sound couldn’t escape. I went with quiet.
After careful consideration, I decided stealth wasn’t doing me any good. I could wait for someone to show himself, but that could take hours, and if Jonathan was alive, they might be torturing him. As such, waiting wasn’t a viable option.
In the end, I opted for kicking in the door.
Subtlety is not my strong suit.
The door swung inward as the jamb splintered. Sword in hand, I walked in as if I owned the place.
“Anybody want to come out and die?” I called.
No answer.
I didn’t really expect a reply, of course.
I swept through the rooms on the main level. All of them were empty. No furniture. The floors weren’t finished. In two rooms, they hadn’t even finished laying the basic foundation.
The kitchen didn’t have any appliances, but there were small animal bones piled up on one of the counters and bloodstains on the Formica. The bones were probably from rabbits, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care to investigate that as it wasn’t pertinent. Jonathan might have known, but then again, he might have just said they were rabbit bones because anyone reading it wouldn’t have known the difference. So what the hell, they were rabbit bones.
I completed my sweep of the ground level then moved upstairs.
“Nobody wants to die today?” I called. “Come on, guys. I want to kill someone.”
The bedrooms showed sign
s of habitation. Bedrolls and a few packs with handmade clothing. Tolkien could have described them in intricate detail, but I didn’t care. They weren’t my size, and they weren’t being worn by someone I could slice apart, so they didn’t matter.
When I headed to the basement, I heard heavy breathing, but it sounded muffled. There were scratches on the stairs as if something heavy had been dragged down them. I descended the steps and saw two huge wooden crates in the center of the floor. They were each larger than an Egyptian sarcophagus. The breathing came from inside them.
I didn’t recognize the writing carved into the sides of the crates. Some sort of symbols. It could have been a warning not to open the crates or it could have read, Made in Middle Earth. Based on the breathing, I knew it wasn’t Jonathan.
I moved through the rest of the basement and found two more crates with living things inside, but the rest of place was vacant.
I sighed, went upstairs, and pulled out my phone. Brand answered on the first ring.
“What’s up?” he said. “Did you find Jonathan?”
“No. There’s nobody here. There are a number of huge wooden boxes in the basement, and there’s something alive inside them.”
“Did you open them?”
“I’m not here for them.”
“I’d be curious. I think you should open them up and tell me what’s inside.”
I heard Rayna’s voice, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Buzz off, I’m talking here,” Brand said away from the phone. “Get your own phone.” I heard more unintelligible talk in the background. “Oh, all right.” Then into the phone he said, “Rayna wants to talk to you.”
“Put her on.”
A moment later, Rayna said, “Kelly? What did Brand say to open?”
“There are several huge boxes here. Not a big deal.”
“Describe them.”
I told her about the symbols and the heavy breathing.
“Do not,” she said, “do not under any circumstances open those cages.”
“Cages?”
“That’s right. How many are there?”
“I count four.”
“Let’s hope they don’t get a chance to use them.”
“What are they?”
“Living nightmares.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“They’re trackers, hunters, and killers. They tend to kill everything they encounter that isn’t of their own species. We just call them destroyers.”
“They sound like fun.”
“Their claws will rip through you like tissue paper. You don’t want to face off against one of those things. Sekutar or no, they will kill you.”
“Can they get out of the cages on their own?”
“Not if the wards are still in place.”
“They must be, so I’m not going to worry about that. I think the Marshalls are using this place as a home base, but they aren’t here.”
“You drove, right?”
“Of course.”
“They don’t have a car.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re from my homeland. Trust me. They’ve never encountered cars before, so they’re either on foot or possibly on horseback.”
“So it could be a while.”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll settle in and wait.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JONATHAN SHADE
When I woke up, I found myself tied up in the back of a wagon. I shit you not. The Marshall Clowns sat all around me with their father up front, chiding the horses to go faster. I didn’t see Jenkins. Yes, it was a wooden wagon like they used in the old west, only this one rolled along a bike path in Boulder. It was an open-air affair or I’d have been wondering if I’d been zapped back in time to the 1880s.
I felt woozy so I pretended to still be unconscious, but I stole a few peeks through nearly closed eyes. My wrists and ankles were bound with rope. I wondered why they hadn’t killed me. They didn’t talk among themselves at all. They just sat there like immovable statues, stoic as can be.
Patience is not my strong suit.
Once the fog lifted from my brain, I sat up. “Are we there yet?” I asked.
“Lay back and be quiet,” one of them said, kicking me backward. There were so many of them, and they looked so much alike, I couldn’t tell you now which guy spoke.
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, struggling to sit up again. The ropes were too tight, so I couldn’t wriggle free.
“Mark, could you beat him unconscious?” the guy said.
“Whoa now, guys. Beating someone unconscious leads to concussions and all sorts of bad side effects. I don’t recommend it.”
“We don’t care.”
“Out of curiosity, why didn’t you kill me back there?”
“You work with the woman who won’t die.”
“Her name is Kelly,” I said. “She rips out hearts and eats them raw.”
“We’re going to use you as leverage against her. She’ll back down, or we’ll kill you.”
“Kelly doesn’t back down.”
“Then you’ll die. Now be quiet or Mark will damage you.”
“Which one of you is Mark?” I asked.
Mark nodded to me. He was a big guy with a sheathed dagger at his waist. I wanted that dagger.
“Tell me something, Mark. If I kill you, will your brothers here kill me in turn?”
“You’re not going to kill anyone. You’re tied up.”
Their father must have overheard because he turned in his seat. “What’s going on back there?”
“Keep your eyes on the trail,” I said. “You might run over a jogger.”
“If he won’t shut up,” the father said, “just cut his tongue out.”
“If you cut my tongue out, I’ll scream. Wouldn’t you prefer a regular conversation?”
Esther suddenly appeared in the wagon next to me. “Jonathan! Brand told me you were missing. Are you hurt?”
I started to answer her but didn’t get a chance.
“Hold him still, Ian,” Mark said, pulling his dagger.
“Look out!” Esther said.
Someone grabbed me from behind. Ian, of course. No need to remember his name. As soon as he grabbed me, I launched myself back and slammed my head into his face. I heard bones break, and evidently it was his nose. Based on the way he dropped, I’d say splinters from his nose went into his brain and killed him instantly.
Mark was up by then. I jumped into him like an outside linebacker sacking a quarterback, and we both fell out of the wagon. I landed on top of him, driving the wind from his lungs. The landing hurt, but pain is transitory, so I ignored it. Instead, I twisted around, looking for the dagger. Esther pointed to it, so I maneuvered around to grab it and used it to quickly cut the ropes around my ankles.
The wagon stopped and the Marshalls piled out of it to race after me.
“They’re coming!” Esther said. “Hurry, Jonathan. You have to run!”
With my legs free, I scrambled to my feet and took off running away from the wagon. Trees lined the trail, and because I knew they had archers, I left the path, keeping as many trees between us as I could. My chest hurt a little but not nearly as much as I expected. When I landed on Mark, I worried I might reopen the wound, but my shoulder hurt a lot more than the arrow injury.
I heard them in pursuit. We were in Boulder, though. I shouldn’t have to go too far to reach a street. I scrambled down an embankment to a dried streambed then clambered up the other side.
“Left!” Esther yelled.
I dodged around a tree, and an arrow thunked into the trunk. Had I been a wee bit slower, I’d have been shot again.
“Thanks, Esther.”
“Just run! You need distance!”
I wanted to stop for a moment to try to cut my hands free, but the Marshalls were too close. I kept running, using a serpentine path to weave around the trees. Esther kept up with me and
warned me twice more about arrows being fired.
Finally traffic noise reached my ears.
I sped up.
When I burst from the tree line, I slipped and slid down an embankment to a residential street. I regained my footing and darted across the road toward the houses.
Hunkering down behind a car, I took a few moments to catch my breath and slice the rope from my wrists. It was a difficult task, and the blade cut into my skin. Blood dripped from the wound, but I was free.
“Are they coming?” I asked.
Esther shook her head. “I don’t see them.”
I chanced a glance over the hood of the car. The Marshall boys gave up the chase at the tree line. Finally a stroke of luck.
“You’re a life saver, Esther.”
“I try.”
“You succeed.”
“Want me to get Kelly?”
I patted my pockets, searching for my cell. Good thing those clowns had no clue about technology. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went to recent calls.
“I’ll just call her. Let me know if the Marshalls come after me.”
She nodded.
I stabbed at Kelly’s name, and the phone took care of the rest.
Kelly answered on the second ring.
“Jonathan? Are you all right?”
“My shoulder hurts but I’m okay. I could use a ride, though.”
“I was worried the Marshall Clan got you.”
“They did but I got away with a little help from Esther.”
“How did they capture you?”
“Do we need to go over that now? Come pick me up, and I’ll tell you on the ride back to the Nobles’ place.”
“A few things you should know. Tess and Chantelle are dead. So is Jenkins.”
“Jenkins deserved it. The bastard drugged me. I’m sorry to hear about the girls.”
“I’m at the Marshalls’ hideout.”
“Hideout?” I asked.
“I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“Me too. Color me jealous.”
“I could stay here and kill them all when they get home.”
“Where is their hideout?”
“Just off thirty-six, west of town.”
“Might be a while. They’re in a wagon. Wooden wheels and the whole nine.”
“I’d have you call Brand, but I have his truck. He could borrow the Rolls, but I doubt Graham would like that much.”
