by Rob Cornell
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. Said I couldn’t take it.”
Kress scratched the side of his neck, the sound of his fingernails against his scruff loud in the interim silence.
“Why?” Kate asked. “Do you know?”
Kress shook his head. “The last bit of concrete intel we have on Lockman came when he went up against Otto Dolan in Detroit. We had eyes and ears on Dolan for some time. That’s how we learned about you and Jessie. After Lockman took out Dolan, a little research made the connection between the prophecy of the Chosen One and your daughter. But Lockman took the two of you into hiding and that’s the last we had.”
That didn’t explain the hemming and hawing over Thom’s warning. They were keeping something from her, just like Craig used to do. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Perhaps it’s better if you don’t know.”
“That’s not going to fly. You want my help, you stay honest with me. Craig kept me in the dark about so many things, that’s how I ended up here.” She looked Kress square in the eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Kress met her gaze and stared long and hard.
Wertz’s small feet shuffled nervously on the polished wooden floor.
The air felt thicker.
“Fine,” Kress said. “Some members of my team are concerned that something may have happened to Jessie.”
Kate’s stomach clenched. “Like what?”
“No one is certain. Much of this was gleaned through supernatural means. Scrying. Tarot. Induced visions. These techniques aren’t always reliable. Your story seems to back up that something happened, though. Why else would Lockman take Jessie away from you?”
He was still holding back. Kate could feel it. “You must have some idea. You don’t make a prediction about the world’s end on a whim. If you’re trying to spare my feelings, you’re wasting your time.”
“The specifics do not matter. I’m not going to make you suffer through a bunch of possibilities when that’s all they are. The important thing is that something has changed, and I’m worried that if we don’t find Jessie and put things back on course, we’ll lose our chance at bringing about The Return. And that means your mortal plane could become overrun with all manner of dangerous creatures.”
He leaned forward. “Mortals will become the minority.”
Chapter Fifteen
The stream of blood pumped out of Father Caruthers’s stump of a neck in time to his heartbeat. He remained standing for a surreal few seconds before tumbling sideways to the floor. Meanwhile, his head sailed across the room and bounced off the wall like a tossed basketball, leaving a slap of blood on the white paint.
The smell of iron bit at Lockman’s nose and made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
Dr. Truman screamed. He spun and ran for the door.
Jessie—it’s Gabriel now, don’t let yourself forget that—leapt out of her seat and into a perfect arc that had her landing on Truman’s back. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locked her arms across his chest, and sank her fangs into the side of his neck.
He screamed again, a wet gurgle dulling the pitch this time. With her on him, he lost his balance and fell forward. Jessie—Gabriel, damn it!—stayed on his back a few seconds longer. The moist sucking sounds made Lockman’s stomach do flips. As disgusted as he was, his instincts remained lithe.
He drew his weapon and trained it on Jessie, lining up the notch on the barrel with the center of her back.
As if she sensed the move, she tore her mouth loose from Truman’s throat and looked over her shoulder at Lockman. The blood around her grin made her look like a deranged clown with a bad makeup job. “Oh, Daddy, you’re not going to shoot me are you?”
Most frightening in all this, he could see his Jessie hidden beneath the horror show. Despite the blood, the gray complexion, the fangs, and her new, Gabriel-twisted voice, he could see his daughter in her eyes. A random memory from before the vamp king had turned her scrolled through his mind. The taste of pumpkin spice coffee. She had made him try some at a coffee house when they were living in Illinois with Kate, during those days he thought he had made them safe. He had insisted he would hate the coffee, but once he had a sip he was hooked. It was one of a handful of good memories with her during that time, when her obsession with mojo hadn’t kept her locked in her room and cutting herself.
Jessie stood and squared off with Lockman. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and only managed to smear the blood across her cheek. “So here we are. My body facing off against my soul. Strange, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t your body. Hasn’t been for a long time.” Lockman’s words sounded hollow to himself. He wished he hadn’t said anything at all. Bantering with Gabriel would get him nowhere.
“What about this body?” Jessie—Gabriel!—dragged a slow hand down her chest to her waist, stopping just at her belt. “Is this my body now?”
“No,” Lockman ground through his teeth. “And it’s time you got out.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”
Both Truman’s and Father Caruthers’s bodies made squirting noises as blood pumped out of them. The room smelled more and more like a meat locker with the cold turned off. Lockman remained frozen in his shooter’s stance, no palatable options before him. He considered winging her. But a shot to a vampire’s arm or leg, even with silver rounds, wouldn’t slow her down much. He also didn’t want to hurt Jessie. Gabriel might have somehow got control of her body, but it was still her body, and he didn’t know how much she could still feel of it.
An old voice spoke up in his head. A voice straight from his Agency days.
It didn’t matter whose body that was. Gabriel had control of it now, and Lockman could not let Gabriel Dolan, one of the world’s most dangerous supernatural terrorists, escape.
Which meant what? Shooting his daughter in the head?
Nice to know that old voice still had a say, but Lockman had come too far to let its cold calculations make all the decisions for him. There had to be another way. There had to be a way to get Jessie back.
Jessie’s lips curled in what Gabriel probably thought qualified as a smile. “I can see the agony in your eyes. You must feel like Abraham at the stone, knife raised to sacrifice your own son. Or daughter in this case. Only God isn’t going to stay your hand, Craig.” She spat his name like a curse.
“Get out of my daughter.”
“I’ve nowhere else to go. Besides, she’s the one who let me in. She took up the artifact.”
“She didn’t let you in.”
“Well, not exactly. You’re right. Let’s not blame the girl.” Jessie tapped the corner of her bloody mouth. “Hmm. Who can we lay this on? I know. How about the man who chose not to destroy an artifact he knew nothing about because he thought he could someday use it? Who would that be?”
The palms of Lockman’s hands oozed with sweat, his grip on his weapon slick. His finger curled a little tighter around the trigger.
“How did that work out for you?”
The son of a bitch was right, of course. All Jessie’s suffering led back to Lockman’s choices, starting with the one to bury the memory artifact that held Gabriel’s soul, among others, instead of destroy it like he had promised Kate he had. He had intended keeping it as another failsafe in his effort to protect Jess and her mom. That intention turned into another paver for the road to hell he had led them on.
“You know, during all that internal struggle you’re suffering through, I could have killed you by now?”
“You don’t want to damage your old body in case you can get back in.”
Jessie shrugged. “Maybe. Really, I just want to prolong your suffering. You have taken so much from me. My brother. My legacy. My dignity. To trap my soul, use my own body as an agent against my aspirations. That’s just sick.”
“You would be the expert on sickness.”
“Let’s face it, Craig Lockman. You’re a straw man. Th
at agency created you like a Frankenstein monster. They used not just my body, but my power to make you. They had no idea what they were doing. Your precious Victor Creed was jealous that I knew how to harness the supernatural unlike anyone else. That’s what this really comes down to.”
“Are you trying to convince me of something?”
“I posses my power and knowledge because I have access to a million ancient minds. Don’t you know what that means? What I could accomplish? I can remake the world.”
“Spoken like a true terrorist.”
Jessie shook her head like a disappointed parent. “After all you’ve seen, you’re still brainwashed.”
“The only thing I care about is my daughter’s safety. I will find a way to get you out of her and then I will banish your soul to oblivion like I should have when I had the chance.”
“You’ll run out of priests with heads long before you get me out. The only way I’m leaving this vessel is by my own decision.”
This whole time, Lockman watched Gabriel speak through his daughter down the length of his gun’s barrel. His arms ached from holding them out for so long. He stank of sweat. The air tasted like blood. He’d run out of things to say. He couldn’t reason with this madman. He couldn’t kill him without harming Jessie. Never in his life, even at the hands of the vampire king, had he felt so impotent.
Then his brain caught up with what Gabriel had just said. The only way he would leave Jessie was if he decided to on his own. So how could Lockman convince him to leave?
By offering him something better.
“You can have my body back,” he said.
Jessie cocked her head to one side. Her gray brow wrinkled. A lock of her night black hair dangled down the center of her face. “Excuse me?”
“Leave Jessie. Take me instead.”
Jessie laughed so hard her body shook. She pressed a hand to her chest, threw her head back, mouth wide and flashing her fangs.
Lockman’s shoulders knotted. Her wild laughter made his nerves curl. “Stop it.”
After a handful of seconds, she got control of herself—or Gabriel did, anyway. The laughter petered out and in its place Jessie looked at Lockman with what seemed like pity. “You sad little man. You have no idea. I don’t want your body back. I spent too much time creating this.” She held her hands out at her sides. “What happened to your daughter was no mistake. This is destiny...prophecy.” Her voice slithered around the last word.
A shiver ran the length of Lockman’s spine. “You planned this?”
“I simply took my place in Fate’s grand scheme. Everyone has their take on what is to become of young Jessie. The ogres, the vampires, the werewolves, the fey. Only I have all the pieces and know the true prophecy. Remember those millions of ancient voices I told you about?”
“Bullshit. All of those prophecies are guesses. They might have some mojo behind them, but they’re no more accurate than a ten-day weather forecast. If that.”
“Believe what you’d like. But know this—your new supernatural friends are all right about one thing. Your daughter has been chosen to bring about great change to the mortal world. I will be there to help make it happen.”
Lockman blinked, and the darkness within that blink was all the time it took for Jessie to cross the room, wrench the gun from his hands, and throw him to the floor. He landed in a puddle of Father Caruthers’ blood which seeped through his shirt straight to his skin.
Jessie pounced on Lockman’s chest, using her knees to pin his arms. Despite her small frame, her strength gave her enough leverage to hold him for a second. Long enough to whisper in his face. “I’ll make sure you live long enough to see your own progeny destroy everything you’ve tried to protect.”
Vampire strength or no, Jessie still had the body of an early teen and weighed as much. Lockman twisted under her, worked his arms loose, then grabbed her by the waist and tossed her off of him. By the time he collected his gun, Jessie had reached the door.
The door led to the maze of cubicles set up in the larger structure. All the other “scientists” working in this building apparently hadn’t noticed any of the ruckus in the Father’s office. Jessie had killed both the father and doctor relatively silently, and Lockman knew most of the people working in the building stayed plenty distracted with their own studies and experiments. Jessie stepped out without meeting any resistance.
Lockman hurried after her.
She didn’t run, but she moved swiftly enough that she reached an outside door within twenty seconds. She looked back at Lockman again, hand on the door handle.
He stopped short, still holding his gun, but lose at his side. He knew he wasn’t going to shoot her. Knew he wouldn’t have to.
“See you later, Lockman.”
“It’s still daylight. You’re not going anywhere.”
Jessie smiled. “But you learn so much from a million ancient voices.”
She opened the door.
Sunlight blasted in, turning Jessie into a silhouette. Cool air blew through, carrying the smell of a Texas winter, which felt more like early fall compared to what Lockman grew used to while living in Illinois.
“Looks like a nice day,” Jessie said and stepped outside. Sunlight touched every inch of her exposed skin and did nothing.
Nothing.
The sunlight had no more effect on her than it would any mortal.
He should have raised his gun at that point. Should have fired and kept firing until he emptied his clip. Though if the sun didn’t harm her, silver bullets might not have bothered her either, not unless he got a clean headshot.
He should have at least tried.
He would have, too, if it had been anybody else besides Jessie.
Instead, he watched her turn and run, leaving him behind open-mouthed and squinting against the sunlight.
Chapter Sixteen
I failed.
All my efforts...
Failed.
Lost.
“Lockman.” Teresa snapped her fingers in his face. “Craig.”
Lockman blinked, found Teresa’s eyes. There were lines around them he hadn’t noticed before. Preparing for a looming war with the vamps had aged her. Had aged them all.
She slapped his cheek. “Snap out of it. What the hell’s going on?”
A siren wailed across their encampment. Armed supernaturals of every stripe that could handle sunlight raced back and forth. Someone had raised the alarm. When? How long had he been standing in this doorway?
Teresa’s eyes kept flicking toward something below Lockman’s neck. He looked down at himself. Father Caruthers’s blood had seeped around to the side of his shirt. His shirt stuck to his skin in the red mess.
“Jessie,” Lockman said. “Gabriel.”
Teresa’s eyes narrowed. “Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“You...you killed her?”
He looked at the gun in his hand, shook his head. “She walked out this door and ran off.”
Teresa grabbed him by the jaw and turned his head up to look in his eyes. Her nostrils flared. The color in her cheeks counteracted the age lines he’d noticed earlier and gave her back some youth. “You need to pull it together. I’ve got a report of two dead.” Her gaze dipped to his bloody shirt again. “What happened?”
“We attempted to get Gabriel out,” he said. He tried to ignore the smell of the father’s blood on him, never mind the tacky feel of it across his back and around his ribcage. “Doc Truman and Father Caruthers thought they could do it.”
Teresa’s lips curled back from her teeth. “You set this up on your own, without consulting any of us?”
An acid taste boiled up from the back of Lockman’s throat. “I don’t need your permission to help my daughter.”
“You blind son of a bitch. What happened to you? What happened to the professional I used to know?” She pointed at the gun in his hand. “Did you even fire that thing? No one heard gunshots.”
She expected h
im to shoot his own daughter. Of course she did. She had expected him to shoot her sister after she’d been turned into a vampire, and he had. Fair was fair, right? That’s what the arguments between them always came down to. Teresa was pissed because she didn’t get to kill Jessie in exchange for her sister.
He almost said as much, but they had covered this territory dozens of times already. Besides, after what happened with Gabriel taking over, Lockman didn’t have much of a case to argue.
“Where is she, Lockman?”
“I told you. She ran off.”
“So she’s hiding in the building?”
He tossed his hand out, waving at the grounds beyond them. “She ran out the door. Into the sunlight. And it didn’t do a damn thing to her.”
Mouth hanging open, Teresa stared at him a good ten seconds before speaking. “What else?”
“The ritual backfired. We didn’t get Gabriel out. He...took over.”
“Jesus Christ. We need to mobilize a team. Fan out. Bring her in.”
Lockman gazed past Teresa, out toward the tree line that surrounded the far edges of the acreage their compound sat on. Despite the cool air, the sun warmed his skin. “She’s a vampire that can travel by day. There’s no way we’ll track her. She’s long gone.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
He knew, but he let Teresa say it anyway.
“Our whole operation’s at risk. Everything we’ve accomplished here.”
“I just wanted to get him out of her.”
Teresa pointed a finger in his face. “You, of all people, should have known better than to play with Gabriel Dolan.”
He didn’t know what else to say. She was right. He had blown this big time. Fretting over it wouldn’t get them anywhere. “We can’t track her, but we can try to work out where Gabriel’s going with her. He said some things to me maybe we can use to get an idea of his plans. I’ll get Adam to pull together some scholars and—”
