Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  I opened the surgical kit and pulled out a scalpel. There were blades in sterile packaging. I opened one of those and affixed it to the handle as best I could and then I pressed the blade with shaky hands against her swollen belly. I had to make the incision just right. Too deep and I could cut the baby and, dammit, I wasn't going to let another child die just because of Andre LeDuc. “I promise,” I whispered back to Zoe and pressed in on the blade.

  I like to tell myself that Zoe Mathias died the day she showed up with her dead child on LeDuc's doorstep. Maybe she died before that. It's hard to say when the grief ate the last of her but it took a while for her body to finally catch up with her spirit. The last breath left her body in that bed but, before she left, she gave the world the finest gift a mother can give: a healthy baby girl. I pulled her free of her mother and turned her bottom side up to rub her back. When she cried, I let out a sigh of relief and reached up to push some hair out of my eyes. Then I started sawing away at the umbilical cord, trying to make sure to keep a good hold on the baby.

  “Holy shit.”

  I turned my head. Ed was sitting up in the wheelbarrow, a horrified look frozen on his face. I must have looked like a monster, blood and gore up to my elbows, a stolen baby in my arms with Zoe's whole abdominal cavity torn open. I tried to ignore the fear in his face and turned my attention to stripping a clean pillowcase off the bed to wrap the baby in. “We're out of time,” I told him. “LeDuc could be incinerating the children as we speak. We've got to hurry.”

  Hunter approached the far side of the bed and surveyed the mess of blood and guts spread out over the white silk sheets with an emotionless stare. He looked at me and then held his hands out. “Give me the baby.”

  Something about him seemed off. It had since he'd come out from behind that wall, the very same wall LeDuc had disappeared behind. “I've got her,” I said.

  “You'll need to take care of the body,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “I'll hold the baby. It'll only take a second.” When I didn't move, he barked at me, “Hurry up. We don't have time for you to sit there and think about it!”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked closer at Hunter. He looked awfully good for having been kidnapped and held captive by a bunch of werewolves, vampires and a couple of wendigos for almost two days. In fact, he didn't have a scratch on him. Hunter would have fought. As soon as he was aware, he would have fought his captors tooth and nail to be free. Hell, the kid fights with me almost every time we talk. He certainly would have never offered to hold a blood covered, screaming baby.

  As I sat there watching my son, a tiny drop of blood leaked out of the corner of his eye and streamed down the side of his face. “Hunter,” I said cautiously, holding the baby closer. “Your eye is bleeding.”

  He touched his fingers to the blood trail and looked at them. “Must've gotten scraped earlier.” I stood up and took two steps backward, away from the body. Hunter's face twisted in confusion. “Mother? What's wrong?”

  “You're not my son.”

  Hunter's mouth widened into a smile and then another mouth spread out into an even wider, sharper smile underneath. Andre LeDuc had shape shifted to look like my son. How had I not seen it sooner? “Do you want to know a secret about wendigos?” asked LeDuc, still in Hunter's voice. “We can only take on the forms of those we've eaten.”

  I swayed a little on my feet. That meant...Hunter was...No. That couldn't be true.

  LeDuc took a step toward me, wriggling out of my son's skin as if it were a wet suit. “Give me the child.”

  “Or what?” I said in a shaky voice. “You'll kill me?”

  “I was going to do that anyway.” He peeled his long claws out of the little boy's hands and flexed them, pulling away the last bit of skin that still clung to the side of his face with the other hand. “But, if you give me the child, I promise to eat you all in one setting rather than tear you apart bit by bit like I had to do with your priest friend.”

  I backed into the wheelbarrow and had to stop. It was the end of the line for us but, if I was going down, I was going down fighting. I closed my eyes and felt for the massive well of energy I knew was in the room. The baby in my arms jerked and let out a weak cry. Things like birth and death, they leave behind a special kind of power that's only available for a limited amount of time. If tapped into, the results could be unpredictable. I might blow us all to smithereens or it might not do anything at all. It was a gamble, my last if I was wrong.

  A low growl vibrated behind me. Somehow, Ed had managed to shift without any of us noticing and her leapt free of the wheelbarrow before I had the chance to yell at him to wait. Andre moved to bat him down mid leap but Ed's legs were still all messed up so his jump didn't clear the distance Andre expected. Ed came down on the floor between us and bared his teeth. LeDuc laughed. “Two broken legs and you're still up and kicking. Looks like I underestimated you, little wolf.” LeDuc took a step forward.

  Instead of attacking, Ed threw his head back and let out a shrill, high pitched howl so loud that I had to close my eyes against it and try to cover the baby's ears. The sound vibrated through my skull until I couldn't stand it anymore and then went on for another few seconds. Somewhere above us, glass cracked. I chanced a look up in time to see a big crack spread along the face in the mural.

  “You idiot!” LeDuc screamed and stepped forward. He swept a powerful arm out and knocked Ed aside, sending him sprawling all the way across the room to crash into a bookcase. Finally, Ed fell silent but it was too late.

  I put the baby down on the ground, wrapped as best as I could in the sheet. Then, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and turned it over, protecting the baby. As the first bits of colored glass rained down from the ceiling, I turned on LeDuc and unleashed all the power I could gather in a single beam of white energy.

  LeDuc deflected it with nothing but a flick of his hand and then sent another blast of energy back at me. The blast hit me square in the chest and sent me tumbling back through a mix of falling stained glass and rock. I hit the wall and then sailed through to hit another cave wall. Andre climbed through the wreckage. “You people,” he screamed. “You can't even die right!”

  I was barely conscious when he blasted me a second time. Everything below my neck was numb and the only thing my vision registered was a vibrating blue halo of energy coming straight at me. I flew backward again but, this time, I was smart enough to get as low to the ground as I could before it hit me. Instead of sailing through the air, I skidded across the cave floor and bumped up against something fleshy that groaned when I hit it.

  A hand reached out clamped onto my shoulder. “Judah?”

  I coughed up some blood and tried to blink the stars from my eyes. “Reed! You're alive?”

  “For the moment,” he managed.

  How was he even still conscious? I’d watched LeDuc rip an organ out of him and eat it. Certainly, no normal human being could still be standing, even in the amount of pain he was in. But I didn’t have time to really think about it, not now, not with LeDuc breathing down my neck.

  I looked around. We were sitting inside what looked like some kind of circular, metal drum. It was massive with only one entrance and exit. Somehow, I'd managed to tumble right inside the gaping hole that served as both.

  LeDuc bounded through the hole kangaroo style and landed hard. “Yes,” he hissed. “But not for long. Soon, all of you will be dead and this failed experiment will be nothing but a memory, a learning experience. I'll rebuild. It will take me decades thanks to you, Agent Black, but I will rebuild.” He walked on past me, his big feet thumping as he moved.

  “Mom?” My son's voice cut through the air.

  “Hunter!” I forced myself to sit up just in time for him to throw his arms around me. I hesitated to hug back. This could be another trick, but no. Zoe was lying in a pool of her own blood and organs, buried now by shards of broken glass and LeDuc was off behind us doing something that sounded ominous. This was my bo
y, my son. He was alive. I kissed his forehead and pulled him closer. “You're alive! Oh God, I thought you were dead!”

  I pulled him away from me and checked him over. There were bruises and scrapes all over and a big bandage that covered his left hand. My whole body was shaking as he held up the bandages. “He...He took my finger,” Hunter explained in a numb voice.

  Reed winced, grabbed at his side and half sat up. “Leo and Marian are here, too, Black. I'm afraid we came too late for Sara.”

  “Don't get too excited,” LeDuc said. “Soon, you'll all be dead.” He pushed a straw laden crib next to us with a grunt. It contained two babies, both of them sleeping peacefully. I tried to stand but my brain was all wobbly inside my skull. Leduc grinned at me and then jumped back out. The door slammed shut behind him.

  I swallowed. “Where the hell are we?”

  “I don't know,” Hunter said and he curled up next to me.

  Reed let out an audible gasp and pulled himself up, using the crib as leverage. He almost fell right back over but caught himself. “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it.”

  “Reed?”

  He pointed up at the ceiling. Something that looked like little sprinklers jutted down out of it but I had the sinking feeling that they didn't spray water. “Holy Hell,” I breathed, my blood suddenly running cold. “We're in the incinerator.”

  “The minute he switches it on, we're dead,” Hunter said, his voice panicked. “How do we get out?”

  “We don't,” answered Reed, looking at me. “Tell me you have a plan.”

  Maybe it was because I'd been knocked upside the head one too many times. Maybe it was because I'd gone stark raving mad but I told him that I did. “That thing you did with your sword in my living room, pyromancy, right?”

  Reed conceded the point with a nod.

  “How good are you?”

  “Good enough. Why? What are you thinking?” I told him my plan and he nodded. “That might just work.”

  “We're all going to die,” Hunter cried.

  A hissing sound started up above our heads. “Well,” I said, inching in closer to Reed and pulling Hunter with me. “If we are, we're not going to get much time to think about it.”

  Reed crossed himself. For the first time in over a decade, I lowered my head in prayer as I worked. Please, God, if you are out there, don't let me die without taking that French-Canadian bastard with me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Fire rained down from the ceiling, super heating the air in the incinerator beyond breathability. Hunter, the babies, Reed and I were spared a fiery burning death but only because Reed worked ceaselessly to push the fire away from us. It came in all directions and slammed against the fragile wall of magick that I was able to drum up. If Reed failed to redirect the fire, my pathetic little wall wouldn't do much to save us for long. The entire plan revolved around him being strong enough for long enough.

  Because of the fire, there wasn't much air and so I tried to regulate my breathing to only a few times per minute. That was almost impossible considering the amount of effort I was expending. I'd thrown everything I had at LeDuc earlier, leaving me with next to no energy resources to tap for this. Instead, I had to rely on what I could glean from the emotions of those around me, Hunter's fear and Reed's calm, unwavering faith being the strongest. The two polar opposite forces of fear and faith butted heads inside the circle, making them difficult to harness.

  I didn't know how Father Reed even managed to stand, having had a kidney ripped out of him not so very long ago. Yet, he not only stood and directed the flame away, saving every one of us, but he sang while he did it. That's right, he stood inches from death singing some hymn in Latin. It must have been some kind of focus technique. Still, if I had been the bad guy trying to burn alive the good guys and they started singing in Latin, I would have been pretty freaked out.

  The whole ordeal lasted two, maybe three minutes before the fire sputtered and went out. Heat waves shimmered in the air. Reed wobbled on his feet and almost fell forward onto the searing hot metal floor but I caught him. “Thank you,” he managed and got back to his feet. “Though if he fires it up again, Judah...”

  “Message received,” I said. “Now, we have to figure out how to get out of here. The door probably locks from the outside, which is to say nothing of the steaming hot metal floor...”

  As if in answer, the lock creaked. The door fell open and LeDuc hopped up inside. Frost spread out from his feet, stretching the whole length of the floor. The air protested the cool with a hiss. “What a lucky, lucky bunch of ducks you are,” LeDuc chuckled. “And I thought I was the only one who couldn't die.”

  I decided to risk it and stepped out onto the unprotected floor. It was still warm but LeDuc had done me a favor, cooling it off enough that my shoes didn't melt. “You know, you say you're a god. You say you're powerful and immortal and yet you haven't lifted one finger to kill us. So far, you've sent goons, a pregnant woman and a little fire to do the job you could have done yourself hours ago. Why the game? Why not sack up and just kill us?”

  “If you wish,” LeDuc snarled and dashed forward. I got ready to take the hit from the biggest, scariest supernatural I'd ever met, bearing down and putting all my balance forward. He didn't go for me, though.

  In a flash, LeDuc was in front of Reed. He drew back a hand, flexed his claws and then jabbed them into Reed's belly. The priest grunted but held his screams as LeDuc went digging around in his insides. Bones snapped. Guts shifted audibly and still the priest didn't utter more than a gasp or a grunt. I reached over and grabbed one of the babies from the crib. Hunter followed my direction to do the same. If he killed Reed, I still meant to make it out of there alive.

  “Do you feel that?” the wendigo hissed. “That's your intestines I've got a hold of. I bet that feels pleasant, doesn't it?” He licked his lips. “And you don't have any of those to spare.” Father Reed took a deep breath and let out a chuckle. “What the hell is so damn funny?” asked LeDuc, twisting up his face.

  “I know something you don't,” said Reed, heaving a heavy breath and wincing.

  “Oh?” LeDuc twisted his whole arm. Reed gasped. “What's the big punchline, father?”

  “There's an angry werewolf right behind you.”

  LeDuc turned just in time to see the shape of a big black wolf charge into the incinerator. I only knew of one big black werewolf that would be angry enough with Andre LeDuc to come all the way out into the desert to exact his revenge: Valentino Garcia.

  LeDuc screeched an inhuman, ear splitting screech and withdrew his fingers from Reed’s belly. He leapt forward. Claws and teeth flashed as the two met. Valentino was only about a quarter of LeDuc's size, even in wolf form. Even I knew he wasn't experienced enough to take on a wendigo, no matter how angry he was. LeDuc quickly took the upper hand but he didn't bother just stabbing Valentino and ending it quickly. He wanted to play with his food first.

  Reed, clutching his bleeding stomach, shouted for us to go for the door. Hunter ran straight for the opening. I bent down and took Reed's arm over my shoulder and we limped forward to freedom. “Close it,” Reed screamed as soon as we were free.

  “Valentino's still inside!” Hunter protested. “We're not killing Valentino!”

  “You may not have a choice.”

  As soon as he finished speaking, a ball of black and red came spiraling out of the incinerator door. LeDuc had a hold on Valentino's front legs and pinned him as soon as they hit the floor. “I was just going to kill your boy,” LeDuc hissed in Valentino's face. “Now, I'm going to kill you, too.” He drew back a hand, claws extended.

  “Reed,” I screamed, though I knew his power had been expended inside the incinerator just like mine.

  Valentino growled and heaved his hind legs with an amazing level of strength, sending LeDuc flying back. He struck his head on the incinerator door. “You...” LeDuc hi
ssed and jumped back up. “Do you have any idea what you're doing? Any at all?” He stood and dusted himself off.

  Valentino didn't give him the chance to finish his speech. He charged and hit LeDuc with a gut shot. LeDuc stumbled backward, teetered for a moment, and then fell into the incinerator. I rushed forward, baby in hand, to swing the door shut. It was heavier than all hell. I wouldn’t have been able to budge it with one hand, not if Hunter hadn't come forward to help. The door slammed shut just as LeDuc bounded against it. I spun the lock. “Burn, you bastard.”

  “You're making a mistake,” he pleaded through the door. “If you kill me, you'll never stop Han. If you think what I’m doing is monstrous, just imagine what he’s doing behind closed doors with all the resources of the wealthiest governments in the entire world!”

  “Reed, light this asshole up.”

  Reed, who was doubled over next to the control board, pale as the undead, nodded. “With pleasure,” he said and slammed a fist down on the big red button. LeDuc screamed and pounded on the door for all of ten seconds before the whole room was silent of everything but our sighs of relief. It was over. Andre LeDuc was dead.

  * * * * *

  We walked back to LeDuc's bedchambers. Most of the glass had come down. I handed the baby I'd been carrying, which just happened to be Leo, off to Hunter, who somehow managed to juggle both babies, and turned the wheelbarrow back over. Zoe's baby was still there. She was weak and hungry but otherwise unhurt. I held her tight for a moment and whispered a generic prayer of thanks. Then, I wandered over to the remains of Andre LeDuc’s bed to finish burning Zoe’s remains.

  When I was within sight of the bed, though, I paused. The mattress and sheets were covered in blood and gore, just the way I had left them, and a few shards of glass and cave rocks had tumbled down onto it. None of them were large enough to conceal a body, however, and that was the one thing missing from the bed. I glanced around, looking for a trail of blood to track her with but I found nothing. Zoe was gone.