Demonic Dreams

by Hadena James

  When I pointed out he’d at least been nice enough to cut it off before trying to eat it, she had left the room. The doctor had managed to stay stoic throughout the examination of it. It and my hand were cleaned well and then bandaged. Since the skin had been cooked and then pitched, they couldn’t reattach it and I was told I was going to need a skin graft if it didn’t start healing on its own in the next few days.

  My fingers weren’t broken just dislocated, and the doctor had insisted on giving me a shot before setting them back into the joints properly. I had fallen asleep during this part of the ER visit. The drugs and lack of adrenaline making me so tired it was impossible to stay awake, even though they were putting my fingers back into place.

  During all of it, Gabriel sat with me. He’d x-rayed from head to toe, as had Xavier, making sure we didn’t have any serious unfelt fractures from the helicopter landing very hard on the ground. None of us did and Xavier was given something to help with his nose bleed. Once he had realized he wasn’t going to get to be a doctor in this hospital regardless of his standing with the SCTU, he had gone to check on Fiona for me.

  Gabriel had called Peter West, and the NSA and army were taking care of the bunker and everything around it. However, we still had the director to deal with and Raphael wasn’t saying a word, probably his last bid at survival despite being given a white board and told he could be taken into protective custody if he talked.

  I was resting in an actual room. I’d been too tired to protest when they admitted me for observation for twenty-four hours and put me on strong antibiotics as a precaution while I was there, especially after I told them I was stabbed by a tree. They were admitting Gabriel as well, it turned out he couldn’t live on sandwiches and potato chips and was showing some signs of malnutrition, specifically a steep and sudden decline in calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin C, some of which was probably the result of being kept underground for an extended period of time.

  Caleb had brought a phone charger to me, but my phone had gotten smashed in the pocket of the jeans I had stolen from Raphael. I wasn’t sure if it had happened during the crash or when he’d tossed me several feet away from him. Not that it mattered, after figuring out my phone was not salvageable Lucas had taken it from me to get it replaced. Technically, it was a work phone and belonged to the US Marshals, so replacing it wasn’t going to cost me anything unless the US Marshals decided not to pay for it.

  Fiona had been nice enough to pack me some clothes and bring them with her. Caleb brought them to me while we waited on Lucas to return with my phone. I had been told I could wear pajamas, which was nice since hospital gowns made me feel vulnerable, and even more exciting, Fiona had packed me a set of pajamas. I dressed in the small attached bathroom while Caleb stood outside ready to help if I needed it. However, despite some swelling, my fingers were working fine now that they were all back where they were supposed to be.

  Everyone, myself included, was surprised that Raphael was still alive. I think everyone had expected me to kill him the moment I found Gabriel. I had expected to kill him the moment he took me to Gabriel, if Gabriel had been dead, I would have, no chance at redemption or explanation. I would have found a way to kill him, even if I’d had to use a plastic fork.

  However, I was surprised because at least one of Gabriel’s bullets hadn’t just grazed Raphael’s scalp. It had penetrated and he, Malachi, and rest of Malachi’s team were taking him to Bangor, Maine to have emergency brain surgery.

  Caleb had been told to stay behind and help Gabriel’s unit if needed, because we were all beaten and banged up except Lucas, who kept complaining about a headache from the stress of watching our helicopter go into distress and then barely miss a house as the rotor broke off and sent our helicopter blades whizzing through the air like missiles and then watching us crash land in a field about four hundred feet from the house we had missed and in an area surrounded heavily by woods.

  My ER doctor had been nice enough to give Lucas a prescription for a sedative to help him sleep for a few days as well as some muscle relaxers and something for his blood pressure which had been incredibly high. Since Lucas didn’t have high blood pressure normally, I was guessing he really was incredibly stressed. If it had been me in his shoes and I had watched his helicopter nearly crash multiple times, I probably would have needed a sedative and something for a migraine as well.

  As soon as my phone arrived and was turned on, I had a dozen or so voicemails. I read the transcript of each of them without listening to them. Most were from Malachi before he realized my phone was dead and we only had Gabriel’s and Raphael’s phones between us. One was from Patterson. He didn’t say his name, just the moniker he had gained during his days of prolific killing. The number was registered to a pay phone in Pennsylvania.

  Caleb called it for me and no one answered, not that I had expected someone to answer. It was nearly dawn and I wanted to sleep more than anything else on the planet at the moment. However, Lucas had brought food, real food, not potato chips, sandwiches, and granola bars back with him from getting my replacement phone. I had never thought of McDonald’s as real food or been excited to know a town had a McDonald’s, but at 5 am, being able to eat a double cheeseburger with bacon, a medium order of French fries, and drink a Coca Cola was pretty close to heavenly.

  The hospital cafeteria had been closed when we arrived and wouldn’t open until eight in the morning. So, McDonald’s was actually delicious. I had eaten yesterday, I knew I had, but my stomach had argued with my brain on the matter because it was positive I hadn’t eaten enough to deal with all the adrenaline and drugs.

  Caleb left my room shortly after I finished eating. He was now heading to the hotel where our stuff was going to be. Gabriel and I were here for a day and Fiona was being kept for a few days. Lucas was playing on his phone in my room when both our phones suddenly alerted. I pulled up the news bulletin that had caused the alert.

  “Skeletons dug up in a small Pennsylvania town are said to belong to a FBI Agent and his wife that have been missing for the last 16 years.” Patterson had called me from the same town the news report was coming from. I frowned at the article.

  “Who digs up a skeleton, puts it in a plastic container, and leaves it for the police to find along with a note proclaiming it belongs to a murdered FBI agent and manages to wipe their fingerprints off the container even though the police are only a couple feet away?” Lucas asked.

  “Patterson,” I mumbled to him. I looked at my phone very intently, my stomach churning with the McDonald’s I had just eaten. I had a terrible feeling about the skeletons in the plastic container and Lucas. Yet, I was positive that the Director had killed them not Patterson. Patterson didn’t have a reason to kill Lucas’s parents, did he?

  Was I wrong and my grandfather had been playing for the other team even though they murdered his son and granddaughter and had tried to eliminate his other granddaughters and grandson. I didn’t know, but now Patterson’s phone call that I had missed felt oppressive. He hadn’t left a number where I could call him back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  MY PHONE RANG, AND the caller ID said it was Peter West. I had known Peter for almost as long as I had known Malachi. Peter had been a nerdy teenager, but he was Malachi’s Nyleena, Malachi and Peter were first cousins on their father’s side and they were as close as brothers. Malachi had scared off a few bullies for Peter despite being a handful of years younger than Malachi.

  “How are you feeling?” Peter West asked me when I answered the phone.

  “Not so great. Can I send you a text message?” I asked not wanting to talk with Lucas in the room since I was fairly sure that my grandfather had murdered his parents but didn’t have a clue why.

  “Lucas with you?”

  “Yes, and I’m exhausted.”

  “Ok, I do have some questions for you, so I will get rid of him.”

  “How?” I asked, not looking up. It didn’t take but a few moments for Xavier to come into the
room.

  “Lucas, our boss called, they need a new DNA sample from you and for some reason they want multiple samples.

  “The skeletons,” Lucas said showing Xavier his phone.

  “What skeletons?” Xavier asked.

  “I’ll explain as we walk, especially since Aislinn is about to be interrogated,” Lucas told him.

  “That was much faster than I expected,” I told Peter.

  “I had someone at the ready because I was pretty sure you wouldn’t be alone.”

  “Good thinking,” I told Peter.

  “The note in the box identified the skeletons as the McMichaels. The NSA is taking over the case in conjunction with the US Marshals.”

  “Why is the NSA involved in a murder case on US soil especially since I’m fairly certain Patterson is involved, and you must be too since you called me.”

  “We are looking for handwriting samples to compare the letter to, but someone described the person that left the container as being an older gentleman with a cane, but they couldn’t really give us an age, just described him as older, but not elderly and without a limp despite having an ornate cane.

  “That would definitely be Patterson. So why did my grandfather kill the McMichaels?”

  “According to the note, he didn’t, Special Agent George Belmont did. According to the note, he arrived at the McMichaels’ residence to warn them that Belmont was coming and found Belmont on the premises. He followed Belmont to a farm in Pennsylvania where Belmont had dug a shallow pit beforehand, he then executed both of the McMichaels and buried them. Since he named the director of the FBI as the murderer and your brother has also accused Director Belmont of murdering Donnelly Clachan and Isabelle Ward, we are taking the matter seriously. The day before Nathan Green was murdered, Nathan also brought some information to my attention, he says you claimed that when Callow took you as a child, you identified Belmont who was working in your town as being there and that the only people you told were your father, your sister, Lucas McMichaels’ father, and Nathan Green. Everyone on that list is dead now and Patterson is literally digging up bodies for us, so I have to believe Patterson suspected him of murdering Donnelly and Isabelle too.”

  “He was there, Peter. I have some proof. I had a book in the hiding spot Callow put me in. Belmont wore a mask, but I recognized his voice and he was trying to hurry Callow along to kill me because Donnelly was getting closer to discovering who was murdering teen girls in my hometown at the same time Callow was killing children. I bit him when he tried to grab me. I wiped my mouth on the back pages of the book. So, there should be a blood smear in it that has my DNA as well as his DNA. Since it was the late 1980s, DNA wasn’t really a thing yet and definitely not as big a thing as it is now.”

  “Am I supposed to search every book?” Peter asked me.

  “No, I am just a little Leary about telling anyone which book. It’s not you, it’s me.”

  “No, it’s me,” Peter told me. “If I was you and I realized there was a conspiracy to keep the truth about a serial killer quiet because he had risen to the level of power that Belmont has risen, I’d be paranoid too.”

  “I was told Raphael killed Nathan Green, how does Raphael connect to Belmont?”

  “Raphael is part of the serial killer ring. While I believe he was definitely sent to kill Nathan, I think he was also sent to kill Gabriel. I also think Belmont somehow managed to frame Raphael for the attack on the Henders’ sister and her family. Between playing shadow games with me, kidnapping Gabriel, and killing Nathan, I don’t think Raphael had time to attack his sister and her family.”

  “Raphael’s still alive, right?”

  “Yes, Malachi and the other SCTU team are with him because he’s in a different hospital.”

  “Malachi called me a while ago and said everyone was alive and safe but didn’t elaborate.” Peter told me.

  “Raphael was shot in the head. Gabriel shot him in the back of the head, so I have no idea how Raphael is still alive, however, I think if you tell everyone that he’s dead and move him into protective custody with either the NSA or US Marshals he stands a much better chance of continuing to be alive, because if Belmont did have Raphael do all this, Belmont is going to want Raphael dead.”

  “I will do what I can,” Peter told me. “However, this is going to be difficult.”

  “I know,” I told Peter. “However, I think Belmont might be the serial killer at the top, literally. I think he might be the serial killer that you guys thought existed back before Donnelly was killed but couldn’t prove or even get evidence for the theory on.”

  “If he is, I can see why Patterson is determined to bring him to justice.”

  “Don’t be fooled there, I don’t think justice is on Patterson’s mind. Revenge yes, but justice maybe not so much, unless he intends to get revenge by having Belmont sent to a prison other than the Fortress.”

  “Revenge and justice might be intertwined in this case,” Peter told me.

  “It’s probably a good thing you are in charge of spying on American soil,” I told Peter. “Because this is definitely not a conversation you want Belmont to know we have had.”

  “There are a lot of things I would prefer Belmont not know about me. There’s a reason that he was never brought into the movement. Apex has suggested Belmont is responsible for removing his real identity. After talking to Nathan about Belmont’s possible involvement in your kidnapping, I agree. The CIA and Homeland Security have taken it upon themselves to get Nadine Daniels and Zeke LaRouche out of Russia.”

  “Why would they need help leaving Russia?”

  “Nadine is a dual citizen and she’s wanted for murder by the Russians.”

  “You lost me there. Nadine is a lot of things, but a murderer isn’t one of them.”

  “According to the Russian Mafia who filed the report she is, she murdered one of their bag men.”

  “Their lying,” I told Peter.

  “We don’t think they are, we just think there were extenuating circumstances to the murder. That’s why we are working to get them home.”

  “What kind of circumstances would need to exist to get Nadine to kill someone? Other than them threatening to kill her, then she might defend herself to the death.”

  “You haven’t talked to her for a couple of days, have you?”

  “Well I spent the last day trying to escape Raphael Henders, so no.”

  “Oh, well, Gabriel’s been briefed, and he can fill you in on it. I only told you because I thought you knew.”

  “Great, now I have to figure out which room Gabriel’s in.” I sighed and hung up on Peter. I called Nadine’s brother Ivan instead. He answered on the first ring.

  “Welcome back to the land of the living.” He said instead of hello.

  “I just heard Nadine is a murder suspect in Russia.” I told him.

  “She’s escaped captivity,” Ivan told me. “Someone helped her, someone the Russians can’t seem to find or identify helped Nadine and Zeke escape from a jail cell using explosives and a sniper rifle.”

  “So, I called the wrong contact in my phone,” I told Ivan. “Why do they think she murdered someone?”

  “The Russian mob has had a serial killer preying on the higher-ranking members for a couple of months now. They wanted you to come with Nadine, but of course, you couldn’t. Long story short, Nadine got enough information to find the serial killer, which she did, and the mafia promptly killed him. Then they framed Nadine for it, two birds, one stone.”

  “Well, I’m glad she’s escaped, I guess the NSA is a little behind in their information because I just talked to Peter West and he thought she was still in custody in Russia.”

  “The Russians have called everyone in our family, even in the US, to find out who the ghost that broke them out was, but we don’t know. I expected it to be an alphabet agency and you would have more information than me, because Devlin doesn’t know much either.”

  Vladik had been poached by the US
Marshals from the NSA. Devlin, Nadine’s other younger brother worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, a division of the Department of Defense that most people didn’t actually know existed, unlike the NSA or CIA. They were a family full of spies except for Ivan and Nadine and one could argue about Nadine. Ivan was a homicide detective in Kansas City and one of the families that lived on our block at the FGN.

  Their mother and my mother had become good friends when the FGN was attacked by organized killers and they hid out with Ivan’s children in the panic room below his house. I didn’t mind Melina Daniels, but she made me thankful for my own mother not being like her.

  I thought about tracking down Gabriel to find out more, but Nadine was in good hands with Apex and I had to trust in their ability to get home because none of them were lacking in the skills department. Zeke was a former Navy SEAL and I had no idea what Apex had done exactly before becoming a contract killer with a moral code, but his skills surpassed pretty much everyone else I know.

  Patterson

  PATTERSON HAD BEEN driving since three in the morning. However, he was almost back in Washington D.C. He was ready to return to somewhere warmer and get away from this side of the country. It wasn’t that it wasn’t pretty, it was just too crowded for his tastes and too cold. He preferred warmer winters and fewer people. He had a nice little house in Nevada that was calling to him across the expanse. It was definitely a lot warmer in Nevada than it was in Virginia.

  It probably wouldn’t be long now. He had no doubt that Peter West was trying to find handwriting samples to compare his note to or that they were dragging their feet with DNA tests to prove the bones did belong to the McMichaels who had vanished without a trace when Lucas was a teenager.