Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  “Except that it wasn't,” I pointed out. “LeDuc and Zoe Mathias were using Ways to get into houses and steal the children and I'm willing to bet there just happened to be one inside the Garcia house.”

  “Elias saw the whole thing,” said Maria with a backhanded gesture. “That woman didn't even care that she'd been seen. She didn't think Elias would do anything about it. Elias shouldn't have.” She reached up and rubbed the tightness out of her throat. “But Elias wanted to win Valentino's respect back any way he could so, the idiot called me and, like a fool, I drove him out to the clinic where LeDuc laughed in his face. Elias tried to force his way back into the lab to get Leo but LeDuc's goons escorted him out. When we got back to Valentino's...” She shook her head. “We went back that night, both of us. Elias said he was only going to try and talk to LeDuc again but he had a gun and silver bullets. I heard the gun go off and I got scared. I...I knew I shouldn't have but I got out of there as fast as I could before Elias or LeDuc came out. If I had just stayed, maybe I could have saved him. I could have...”

  She started sobbing then, burying her head in her arms. I didn't know what to do. Maria still hadn't told me where to find LeDuc or how to kill him but she probably wasn't going to answer any more questions until I got her calmed down. “It's okay,” I promised and patted her back gently. “I'm going to stop him. You just have to tell me how.”

  “Reed called me,” Robbie said across the room. “She must've gone to him for protection after getting out of there. That stupid priest, he knew how this would go down. I had an obligation to bring her back in to The Master. It's not my fault.”

  I ignored Robbie. “Maria, I know it's hard. I know it's been really tough but I need your help. My son needs your help. Tell me where LeDuc takes the children so I can stop him.”

  “You can't,” she bawled. “You can't stop him! No one can.”

  “She can.” I looked up at Robbie who had turned around to glare at me. “The Master believes she can, anyway. Otherwise, he wouldn't have ordered all of us to help.”

  “What the hell does Marcus Kelly have to do with all of this?” I demanded. Robbie's jaw clamped tightly shut and he stared down at the floor with his arms crossed.

  “Okay,” Maria said after a couple of deep breaths. “All right. I'll tell you. Just remember our deal.”

  She stood, smoothing her hands over her shirt and walked to the center of the room. There, she stood, eyes closed and breathing deeply. I was just about to insist again that she tell me what she knew when she threw her hands up. A light appeared in the air at each fingertip. Then, Maria opened her eyes and began to move her fingers around, bringing the lights with them, drawing in the air with the lights as if they were paints.

  I'd seen a lot of magick and read about even more but what Maria did that day I'd never heard of and I have never seen since. Maybe she was the only one of her kind. Whatever she was doing, it was both beautiful and helpful. As she drew, I started seeing some familiar landmarks. She put in the church, Chanter's pawn shop and even Valentino's garage.

  “It's a map of the reservation,” I whispered.

  “It's more,” Robbie promised as he came to stand beside me. “Just wait.”

  After putting in all of the major landmarks and roads, Maria repeated her process of bringing up lights, this time in red. She dragged them around as pinpoints, dropping them in what seemed like a random pattern all over. It wasn't until she dragged one over to the far side of the reservation where my house would have been that I realized he was drawing the Ways. “Jesus Christ. How did she get this map?”

  “She told you she was an investment,” Robbie said. “This level of scrying ability is quite rare. The map's still incomplete but all of the stable entrances are there, the ones that don't move around and change much. Then, of course, there are the ones that can open at will. Not many can do that but we know that LeDuc can. We think he may have been teaching Zoe how to do it.”

  It made sense. After all, Zoe had used a Way to kidnap Hunter. All of the houses that belonged to the missing kids had Ways. LeDuc and Zoe could get in and out without ever having to unlock a door or disturb anything. They could just grab the kids and run, leaving no evidence behind. It was a genius way of moving around, especially since most people didn't know how to access the Ways. Zoe or LeDuc had probably used a Way to access the Summers house to murder Donald Summers, too. When they left through the front door, looking like Sal, that could have easily been a glamour.

  “Who controls access to the Ways?” I asked as I watched Maria continue to move around more dots.

  “It used to be the Master,” Robbie said. “He and LeDuc had a business partnership until there was a falling out recently. When the two split, control over the Ways in Concho County became an arms race between the two of them. The Master had the means and the men but he didn't have Alejandro. We don't know how but we do know LeDuc has a way of getting into people's heads, leeching their powers away for himself. That’s why LeDuc is so dangerous. We need him gone.”

  I turned to Robbie. “So, if Marcus is all great and powerful, why doesn't he do it himself?”

  Robbie smirked and winked at me. “Vigilantism is against the law, love. The Master abides by the law to the best of his ability. Less paperwork that way. Besides, he isn't free to act openly. He and LeDuc have a history. LeDuc would have expected the Master to move against him. You were a wild card, the ace up his sleeve that LeDuc never saw coming.”

  “And I played right into it,” I muttered, though I couldn't see any other way for this to have played out. There was no way I was going to walk away from a family and a community in need, even if my goals did happen to align with those of a shady character like Marcus Kelley.

  “There,” Maria said, taking a step back. “Every entrance and exit that I know of, though I don't know where all of them go. I know that there was one in the place they were doing the treatments. It will take you close to LeDuc's lair.”

  She took two steps to the right and made a big swipe with her hand, drawing a thick line that curved in a few places. Then, she drew a circle around one particular bend. “What's that?”

  “Concho River,” Maria said. “Paint Rock is named for those Native American paintings that overlook the river. There's an entrance near there. The Way you want is there.” She turned around to look at me, her face grave. “But you won't be able to open it. Andre is the only one whose magick can open that Way. He has it sealed so it will only respond to him.”

  “I'll find a way,” I said and stood. “Now, all I need to know is how to kill him.”

  “I wish I knew,” Maria said, shaking her head. “God save me, I wish I knew.”

  I turned to Robbie. “Take me back now.”

  “Wait,” Maria stammered. “You promised. You promised you'd kill me.”

  I frowned at her and shook my head. “I never promised you anything.”

  “Well, you can't just leave me like this. They'll turn me! I don't want to be one of them!” She crossed the cell in a hurry. I thought she was coming in for a swing and I prepared to answer it with one of my own. Instead, she sank down to her knees and hugged my leg. “Please. You don't know what it's like. You can't...You can't leave me like this!”

  I tried to jerk my leg away but she was too strong. Maria held me fast. “I won't kill you. I won't.”

  “You have to,” she sobbed. “You have to!”

  Robbie leaned over Maria, his hands outstretched to me. “You're sure this is what you want?” he asked me, his eyes empty of all emotion. “Once we go, we're not coming back.”

  “Don't go,” Maria pleaded. “I don't want to turn. I don't want...”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my hand, the one holding the stake, down where Maria could reach it. “I won't kill you,” I said again. “And I won't stay to watch. But I won't take that decision away, either.”

  “I don't know if I can do it myself.”

  “We
ll I'm sure as hell not going to do it for you.”

  Her fingers came up and shakily wrapped around the stake as if it were some sort of holy relic and I a saint. I didn't feel like a saint. I felt...dirty. “Thank you,” she whispered. “God bless you.”

  There was a sudden scraping noise down the hall. “Time to go,” Robbie said and grabbed onto my forearms.

  In the blink of an eye, Robbie and I were back in the VIP room of Aisling. The sudden heavy scent of smoke burned my nose and I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the flashing lights. The next thing I knew, there was sixty pounds of wolf on me, licking my face and whining at me. “Jesus, Ed,” I managed and shoved him away. “I was only gone a couple of minutes.”

  “Oh yeah, he's threatening,” Robbie scoffed as he sank back down into his booth. “You two put on one hell of a show.”

  I finally managed to get Ed off of me and clean most of the doggie drool away with my shirt. He sat a foot away and panted, tilting his head inquisitively to the side. “Yeah, I got what we needed,” I said wiping away more drool.

  “I don't know how helpful her information is going to be in saving your son. Even if you do find a way to open that Way, you'll have to fight your way through a maze to get to him and then, if you're lucky, you'll only have to deal with a few of his bodyguards. That's to say nothing of LeDuc himself. LeDuc is very old, older than the Master and most of the people here. You don't get to be that old without being very good at surviving. In our world, that means killing. What's a little human girl with a couple of silver bullets, an over-sized puppy and a man of God going to do to someone like LeDuc?”

  I checked the rounds in my gun and looked down at Ed who was whining at my feet. “He took my son,” I said tucking the gun away. “That's going to be his last and biggest mistake. If I have to blow up the whole damn mountain to kill Andre LeDuc and save Hunter, that's what I'm going to do. Nobody's going to stop me. Not him, not you and not your enigmatic so-called master.”

  Robbie sat there for a moment, still in his chair and deep in thought. “I believe you,” he said eventually. “I see why he chose you. The last person I met with that kind of determination... It didn't end well for her either, though.” He cleared his throat. “The Master would want me to ask how I could assist you.”

  Robbie flinched when I reached out to grab the lighter sticking out of his pocket. I looked it over and tucked it into my own pocket. Fire is never not useful. “You can stay out of my way,” I told Robbie and went to collect Reed who was standing with his back to the door, watching the room with hungry eyes. “Come on. I'll drive.”

  “Good luck,” Robbie shouted after us as we left. “You're going to need it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “So,” said Ed, wriggling into his jeans in the backseat of the Prius. “You're not really just going to go in guns blazing and kill this guy, are you? ’Cause that'd be stupid.”

  The car complained as I directed it into a tight left turn that would lead us back into bounds of the rez. “He has a point,” Reed commented. He was sitting in the front seat next to me, the sleeve of his nice, black shirt rolled up while he went about replacing a bandage.

  “I don't know if you two have noticed but I'm not exactly in the habit of making smart choices. Going off halfcocked is pretty much what I do, especially where my son is involved.”

  Ed poked his head up between the seats, still shirtless and shoeless. He was the skinniest, whitest guy that I'd ever met. I could have counted his ribs. “You don't even know how to kill him.”

  “I'm open to ideas.”

  Reed rolled his sleeve back down and calmly clasped the button around his wrist. “In my experience, the more pieces something is in, the more likely it is to stay dead, especially if you burn and scatter the pieces when you're done with them.”

  Ed wrestled with his shirt and almost let it win. “Hey, I think Sal knows a guy with an actual katana. Maybe he'd let me borrow it?”

  I sighed. “I think it's time for you to tag out, Ed, and let us take LeDuc on.”

  Ed's face twisted up in confusion. “Tag out now? Are you kidding? And miss the final boss? Are you crazy?”

  “This isn't a video game, son,” said Reed, glancing back at him. “There is a good chance that one or more of us won't come home.”

  “I know,” Ed barked in a tone I'd never heard him use. He sounded more like Sal or Chanter in that moment than himself. “I know,” he repeated after closing his eyes and counting audibly to three. “I'm not a little kid, okay? I'm not the biggest or the scariest werewolf ever but...Dammit, I'm tired of being told all the things I can and can't do. Maybe I'm not the hero of this story, maybe I don't get to deal out the final blow but I'm not going to just stand by and do nothing, not while two members of my pack are in danger. That's not how we do things. We protect our own.”

  I stopped the car at the intersection of This and That streets, watching Paint Rock's one traffic light blink. “Two members of your pack?”

  “Yeah,” Ed said a little sheepishly. “Leo and Hunter both. They're as much my brothers as anyone else. If Chanter's taught me one thing since I came here, it's that you don't leave your brother. No one gets left behind.” He swallowed audibly. “And if you go in there and die...”

  I reached over and put a hand on Ed's shoulder. “Okay, Ed. You can come.”

  Ed grinned back at me as if I'd just offered him a million bucks and I hit the gas, turning up the road on the way out of town and toward the river. Honestly, I had no intention of letting Ed walk into that Way with Reed and I. It wasn't that I didn't believe Ed had his uses. I did. I just knew that in a life or death situation someone like Ed was going to freeze. He wasn't trained to deal with this. Hell, I wasn't trained to deal with that. This mission was going to be dangerous enough without having him along for me to protect. I needed to distract him, get him busy doing something else and slip away while he wasn't looking. I hadn't even wanted Ed to come along with me to the club. If I'd been in any condition to drive at the time, I would have left him in the dust. I had enough blood on my hands already.

  I still had no idea how I was going to open the Way or if, once I got it open the first time, I could get the four of us out. Sure, I had that eagle's talon Chanter had given me but who knew if it worked in any Way aside from the one he used? Maria had said that LeDuc had the Way set up so it would only react to his commands. Even his own men couldn't come and go without LeDuc opening the Way for them.

  I was still thinking about it when my phone rang and I had to go fishing through my pockets to get it, cursing up a storm. I hadn't even realized I'd brought the dumb thing with me. “Black.”

  “Black,” said Tindall's voice excitedly on the other end. “We got him. The car's a match. It's registered to Andre LeDuc and that's not even the icing on the cake. I just got off the phone with Montreal and he's wanted for questioning up there in connection with five more kidnappings. I'm scrambling a team to go and execute an arrest warrant.”

  “No,” I nearly screamed into the phone. “If you move on him before I get the kids out of there he might kill Hunter!”

  Tindall paused. “Hunter? That's your son, isn't it? Dammit, Black. Why didn't you report this?”

  “I've been busy.”

  “If I'd known this was a hostage situation I could have handled it differently! It's too late. We're already moving to seize his passport and the APB is out. I can't undo that.”

  “Listen to me, Tindall. I've got this handled.”

  “Like hell you do!”

  I swear, I only closed my eyes for a second, just long enough to draw in a deep breath and let it out. That was long enough. Ed screamed. My eyes snapped open and I saw the shadow in the road just a fraction of a second before we hit it. The body slammed into our car on impact and I jumped on the brakes, dropping my phone. A mess of blood and gore splattered on my windshield. The Prius squealed to a stop and we sat there in the middle of th
e road, looking at the mess of cracked glass and blood all over Daphne's car.

  “Holy shit,” Ed breathed.

  “I think that was human,” Reed said. Even his cool confidence had been shaken.

  Ed gulped. “Do you...Do you think he's dead?”

  I unbuckled my seat belt and retrieved my cell from the floor. The impact had knocked the battery loose. “Stay here,” I said opening my door. “I'm going to check it out.”

  The wreckage didn't look as bad from the outside. The windshield was cracked and covered in bits of hair and blood but the body itself had slid down to the pavement and was mostly underneath the car. The only thing sticking out was a pair of boots. I knelt down, still trying to get the battery into my phone. That's when I heard Hunter's voice, tiny and weak, coming from under my car. “Mommy?”

  My blood went cold and my limbs numb. Everything in my gut dropped down into my feet and I screamed his name back at him. Ed scrambled out of the car. “It's Hunter! Help me!” Ed didn't even hesitate. He grabbed the front end of the Prius and did what he could to lift it up while I tugged on Hunter's legs. “Lift it higher!” Ed's response was a grunt. I got him about a quarter of the way out when I realized something was wrong. This wasn't Hunter. It couldn't be. The body was too big, too heavy. This had to be a full grown man.

  As soon as the thought crossed my mind that not all was as it seemed, a hand shot out from under the car and closed around my forearm. The fingers were too long to belong to a human, wrapping all the way around my arm as if it were a spaghetti noodle. Claws, long and black, dug into my skin. It felt like they went clear through. I screamed for Ed to drop the car but he didn't seem to understand what was happening. That moment of hesitation cost him. The creature under the car swung its legs and a boot made contact with Ed's shin. There was a loud crack, a gasp and then Ed was down. The entire weight of the car slammed back down on top of the creature but, whatever it was, it bore all that weight without any trouble. The only difference that the car made was that it had to let go of me in order to lift the car.