by Jill Cooper
Relieved she was alive, Duncan sighed.
Her eyes were half lidded as she fell out of the hidden compartment onto the metal floor. Her face scrunched up against it, she moaned. “Duncan,” she whispered, “help…”
Didn’t make sense. What the hell was she doing in there? Duncan gritted his teeth and rolled over onto her back, bending over her. “We’ll get you some help, Gwen.”
“Jessica?” Gwen’s brow furrowed together with grief and a puzzled look creased her face. “Is she…”
“Gone.” Duncan’s mouth tasted sour and grief circled his heart. Didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to admit it, but what choice did he have?
His eyes were drawn to Gwen’s shoulder. He pushed against the leather fabric and Gwen pulled her breath in tight. A gunshot. One of the demons—no, Duncan squinted and lowered his face. It was too big for a gunshot.
It was a shotgun blast.
Duncan’s skin tingled. Jessica wasn’t the only one who used a shotgun, but then why did he feel so funny? Why did it feel so right that Jessica had done this? Had she shot her aunt right before tragedy struck?
He rose to his feet even though he couldn’t feel his legs. “I’m going to get something to stop the bleeding. Then, we need to move you.” His voice seemed to rise out of the ground and not in him. He said the words, but couldn’t believe what he was thinking.
If Jessica and Gwen weren’t on the same side….
Gwen edged her body up with a wince. “Please,” her voice was small and slight, “it’s not what you think, Duncan. It wasn’t…Jessica. She was stolen by that thing in the sky. Jessica didn’t shoot me. You have to believe me, Duncan.”
Duncan heard it all. The panic in her voice. The pleading. All of it sounded like a desperate woman.
He turned his head and went to his bike. He opened the black leather satchel on the back and retrieved a pair of handcuffs. Swinging them on his thumb, Duncan headed back to the train when Ron limped up.
“Trucks are loaded and ready to move out. We lost some good men today, Duncan, but…for what we’ve accomplished…” Ron shook his head.
Duncan gripped his shoulder, it was all he could do right then. “We have one more piece of cargo for the truck. Give me a second.” He stepped back inside the boxcar and lowered himself down.
Gwen was writhing on the ground. She lifted her head and peered at him with one eye. “You believe me, don’t you? I’d never hurt Jessica. She’s like…my own.”
Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t, but Duncan wasn’t going to take any chances. He handcuffed Gwen without a word and when she struggled against him, Duncan pushed his elbow just below her wound.
Gwen leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes. Her breath was labored, that of someone in extreme pain. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Maybe not,” Duncan helped her up, carrying most of her weight himself. “But until I find out what happened here, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Gwen’s fingers twitched into a bent position that he had seen before. Her face drained even further of color. Her complexion was the white of a sheet. “These handcuffs are enchanted. I can’t…”
Duncan felt a strange sense of satisfaction at the admission. “Until I prove you’re not working against us; your powers are bound.”
“I will never forgive this.” Gwen’s teeth clenched and rage reflected behind her eyes. “If my girls are lost forever because of this, you’ll pay, Jasper. I always knew you were a rotten egg!”
Duncan was willing to play the odds, take his chances that he was right. Jessica shot her aunt right before the vortex took her. He was going to find out why, damn it all to hell, Duncan was going to find out.
And if Jessica was gone forever, if Duncan couldn’t find a way to get her back, he would put a bullet right between Gwen’s eyes.
*****
Back at the bar, the drugs were stored in trucks and the Black Scorpions guarded them in shifts. With Gwen secure inside, Duncan helped give the area the once over. He couldn’t ignore the tightening across his chest, but he kept busy to keep his mind off Jessica.
Did his best to forget and just work.
When Ron exited the bar, he was wiping his hands on a dingy towel, now caked in Gwen’s blood. His eyes were sunken. “Got that bullet out. It wasn’t much work.” Ron sighed and gazed around. “Her arm was healing itself like she’s Lucifer herself.”
His words caused Duncan paused, but was he surprised? Hard to say anything surprised him anymore. “Help get these trucks rigged. We have to make sure they’re ready to blow when the time is right.”
Ronald nodded and he grabbed Duncan’s arm as Duncan moved past. “About Jessica, I’m sorry about last night. Real sorry, Duncan. I can be a real ass, but this?” He shook his head.
Duncan knew how he felt. “Get the trucks ready. We need to be ready to move when the call comes and when Mike gets here…”
“I’ll come get you.” Ronald cleared his throat. “Gwen’s downstairs, secured. Just…be careful. It took twice as much sedative to knock her out as it should’ve. It’s like she’s a horse or something.”
Duncan was going to bet on the “or something.”
Duncan’s best men were on point, told to keep an eye out for any trouble. No one was resting; no one was going to take a break to pee until this thing with Vaughn was over. By all accounts, it hadn’t even started yet.
But Duncan needed to know where he stood with Gwen. If there was a line in the sand, where did she stand? They took her to the basement, sat her up in a chair, and there Duncan watched and waited. For anything, a facial tic that wasn’t supposed to be there, a grimace, a laugh.
Something that told him that who he was dealing with wasn’t the real Aunt Gwen because the Gwen he knew would die before betraying Jessica. Sure, she wasn’t that cuddly person you baked cookies with, or someone who wiped your tears, but she loved the Blood girls something fierce.
Waiting never came easy to him, so he paced. He crossed his arms; he glanced up at the windows to see the sun was shifting. Moving. Time was passing and that didn’t set right with Duncan. He needed Gwen to wake up, answer some questions.
Time to face the truth.
Gwen’s head slumped forward so her chin touched her chest but in all honesty, Duncan didn’t trust she was asleep. When he walked, her eyelids twitched. And when he coughed, there was a sudden rise and fall of her shoulder. No, she was awake, biding her time. Trying to get rid of ol’ Jasper.
Couldn’t fool a kidder, isn’t that what they said?
“Wake up.” Duncan rattled her chair with his foot, but even that didn’t make her give up her little sleeping act.
Pulling his switchblade from his pocket, Duncan spun it in his hand and snapped the blade up. With his free hand, he gripped her face, squeezing her cheeks together. “I said wake up, princess. Do I need to push this against your flesh to make that happen?”
Gwen’s eyes flashed open and met his. There was a strange darkness, a calm before the storm sort of glint in her eye.
Duncan let her face go and stepped away from her. “Finally, sleeping beauty, you’re awake.” He placed his knife on a wooden table along the wall and spun it, idly watching the dying light play along the blade. He picked up a glass vial that was beside it, tossing it from hand to hand. “You like to keep the men waiting, is that it?”
Gwen glanced at her bandaged shoulder. “I don’t see any men. Just boys playing with toys they don’t understand.”
She was trying to get a rise out of him, but it just strengthened his resolve. He’d break the bitch. Duncan took a breath and flashed a winning smile. “We patched you up. Thanks aren’t necessary, really.”
Her eyes flashed open wider. “You really expect me to thank you? After this?” She lifted her hands, cuffed together in front of her.
“Not really. Not consider the wound was healing itself.” Duncan paused to let his words sink in, running his tongue al
ong his teeth. Gwen tilted her head to the side, but the look of surprise on her face wasn’t genuine. The way her mouth widened, it didn’t match the look of contempt in her eye.
No, she knew. All this time she knew and was playing them for fools. Setting Jessica up, because it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jessica wouldn’t doubt her aunt. Family was everything to Jessica. Now even that was ripped from her.
Duncan was going to get his vengeance, pound for pound, out of her flesh.
“Only way that can happen, unless you’re Amanda Blood, is if you self-generate from a wound that isn’t life threatening. And the only way flesh regenerates like that, sister, is if you’re a demon. So, are you? Are you a demon?” Duncan stepped up, but stopped short before his feet penetrated the circle lined in salt around Gwen’s chair.
She glanced down at it for the first time and her eyebrows rose. “Your delusion is going too far now, Duncan. We have to save the girls. We don’t have time—”
Duncan shook the vial in his hand and the liquid sloshed. “This is what I think. Now, let me finish before you explain, but I’ve been piecing it all together.” He rolled his shoulders and cleared his throat. When he was sure Gwen’s eyes were on him, he continued.
“You didn’t go upstairs last night,” he pointed up, “because you knew it was warded to sound alarms if demons entered the bedrooms. So, you didn’t. But what I don’t get is, how you found the house I took Jessica and Amanda to. How’d you find that house if you were a demon and it was hidden from your sight?”
Duncan crossed his arms. Gwen’s upper lip curled in a snarl, but it subsided and the sad glint returned to her eye. She was the vilest and the twitchiest of creatures. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before. Couldn’t believe he let Jessica walk right into her trap.
“Then I realized, you didn’t. You didn’t find the house. You followed Vaughn’s fallen angel there. Only after she destroyed the ward, did you ride in and save the day. Only after Amanda was kidnapped, did you ride in to ‘save’ Jessica. The ward was destroyed and Amanda was no longer around to tell us what I now know is the truth.”
Duncan lowered his voice to an angry simmer, unable to contain it any longer. “You’re a demon.”
Gwen’s mouth opened, but Duncan snarled at it. “And I’m going to prove it so you can drop this charade and tell me what I want to know.” He snapped the top off his bottle and let it fall to the floor.
“Holy water?” Gwen snorted. “Please, you expect me to believe that you got your hand on holy water? Out here?”
She could try to deflect his words away, but the panic in her voice was real. Duncan liked listening to it, but they had a mission. Couldn’t sit around and play all day. He thumbed his nose at the basement door. “Father Mike’s out there. Good guy, totes a M-16. Have you met him? Because Aunt Gwen has,” Duncan laughed, “and she loves the guy. At least, she did.”
Her eyes ticked to the right and Duncan figured if the demon was sharing a mind with its possessed host, then that’s what it did trying to access information. Gwen must have been successful too from how her face fell.
“You wouldn’t.” Gwen’s lip trembled. “Duncan…”
Duncan splashed some of the water onto his hand and showed it to Gwen. “Just water if you’re a human being. But if you’re a demon—”
“Please…no…”
But Duncan did it. He splashed the water right onto Gwen’s face. She screamed instantly, her head falling back. Welts rose on her face and blood and pus oozed out. She thrashed her arms, attempting to raise them to her face while her feet kicked wildly.
Duncan did it again for emphasis and wherever a splash of water fell, a new wound rose. “Demon,” he snarled. “Who do you work for? Who had you take Jessica?”
Gwen’s sobs tapered. Her head rose up and her eyes shone red. Lip snarling, she gritted her answer. “Fool! Like I will ever tell you. Like I—”
Duncan charged her and put his knee against her groin and gripped her face. Rage pounded in his chest as he tilted her head back and opened her mouth. “I swear to God I will pour ever last bit of this down your muzzle if you refuse to answer me! Who has Jessica? What the hell did you do?”
Gwen didn’t move, didn’t attempt to speak, so Duncan lifted the bottle up to her mouth. He angled it, starting a slow drip and before the second drop touched her tongue, Gwen thrashed.
Satisfied, Duncan let her go long enough for her to talk. “Lourdes! I work for Lourdes herself!”
Damn. The underworld? No living human had ever been to the underworld and returned. It wasn’t possible. If Jessica was there—Duncan’s mouth dried at the mere thought that she might be lost to them.
Might? Oh God—Was. She would be lost to them and it was this demon’s fault.
Gwen smiled with satisfaction. “We don’t want Jessica. Lourdes wants Amanda, but since Vaughn has her…” Gwen shrugged. “Consolation prize.”
“You’re lying.” Jessica Blood was no one’s consolation prize, no one’s. Not even if you’re queen of the underworld.
Gwen laughed. “Gwen knew we’d come for them. She knew and wanted to stop us.” Her face twisted with disgust as she tilted it to the side. “Imagine, her? Stop Lourdes? Her arrogance was astounding to us.
“That’s how I managed to get into her in the first place. She was poking her head into places it didn’t belong. She got into magic she couldn’t control. She’s pretty strong, but not strong enough to control it like I can.” Gwen’s face twisted with a laugh. “I like this body. I think I’m going to keep it.”
“How long?” Duncan asked. “When did you possess her?”
Gwen shrugged. “Five days ago now. It was touch and go, for a while. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold onto her. She’s a fighter. Even now,” she leaned forward in her chair, “even now she struggles to get free. To send you a message.” Gwen pouted and stared up at Duncan.
Duncan lowered himself to her level, the anger simmering to the top, about to blow the lid right off. “Let her go.” A simple request, but the power behind it was mighty as his eyes bore into her.
Gwen’s face twisted with fear. She sat up straighter and leaned forward as her eyes—something about her eyes changed. Duncan couldn’t put his finger on it until her mouth opened. “Duncan? Duncan!”
“Gwen?” Duncan lowered himself to one knee. With urgency he spoke to her. “You need to fight this. Don’t let her have control of you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t…she’s strong. One of the ancients from centuries long past. I was a fool—” Her eyes widened. “She’s…got me, Duncan.”
He wanted to touch her. He needed to comfort her, but Duncan’s hand twitched. He knew he couldn’t. It could be a trap. “If you love the girls, you’ll fight. They need you now, Gwen. Maybe now more than ever.”
“I know,” her voice trembled and her eyes closed. “I will only hurt them. Destroy them.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Kill me, Duncan. It’s the only way. Kill me so I can be free of this beast. And then you go get my girls.”
Duncan gripped the knife in his hand. Torn between the blade and his devotion to the sisters Blood. God, he just didn’t know what to do. At war with himself, with his decision, Duncan rose to his feet., Jessica might never forgive him if he plunged that blade into Gwen’s chest.
But he rose. He pulled his arm back, ready to strike.
Ready to kill.
“Duncan!” The booming voice of a preacher came behind him. “Lower that knife. You cannot give her what she wants.”
Footsteps rushed toward him, but Duncan only saw the twisted smile on Gwen’s face as she crossed her legs. Her foot bounced like she had all the time in the world. Like she was at a party and Duncan was nothing more than, what, a game?
A joke. Maybe he had never spoken to Gwen at all. Maybe it had just been an act. Duncan wasn’t sure, but he felt like there had been real humanity in those eyes. Demons. You couldn’t trust the lot
of them even when they tried to kill you.
Corruption of soul, mind, and spirit. That was their real game. That was the real danger and to them, it was all a game.
And now this one had Gwen.
She pouted and tossed her head to the side. “We were just about to have us some fun,” she slurred her words in a sultry way as Father Mike stepped up to Duncan. “Oh, she knows you. Gwen likes you.” The chains of her handcuffs jingled together as she tried to lean forward in her chair. “Let me go, so we can have some real fun.”
Gwen ran her tongue along her lips. Duncan was revolted. He glanced over at Mike, the priest had been at war with demons for most of his life, but he still wore the white collar. Now his hair was salted with gray, his face weathered, and a few wrinkles surrounded his eyes. He stared down Gwen and Duncan couldn’t read him. Couldn’t see how hard it was on his face, but Duncan knew it was.
It was hard for Duncan. It had to be crushing Mike, after everything that might have been with Gwen.
Mike laid hands on Duncan’s shoulder. “The demon wants free of the circle. She’ll give Gwen up to do it and then take one of us.”
“Always giving away our secrets, the likes of you.” Gwen hissed like a snake. “But one day, you’ll meet us. You’ll come to the underworld, Father. Then I’ll show you real pain.”
“I’ve had my share.” Mike made the sign of the cross in the air. “But none like you’re about to know.”
Gwen writhed in pain, turning her head to the side with a hiss.
“In His light, you cannot see. In his light, you are nothing.” Mike kissed his rosary beads and placed them at Gwen’s feet inside the circle. “We must speak outside, where her ears cannot reach.”
Gwen groaned like she was physically wounded. “Take it away! Take it away!”
Duncan tore his eyes away from Gwen and followed Mike to the door. Mike’s thick combat boots echoed as if they walked in a chamber as he threw the door open. He didn’t glance back at Duncan as he wiped his mouth.
