by JL Terra
Daire said, “Sorry to interrupt.”
Ben looked up like, No, you’re not. His lips twitched. “Bryn, right?” He came over and shook her hand, then waved to the other two. “This is Malachi and Shadrach—who I believe you’ve met.”
“We have.” The death-glare she sent Shadrach made him laugh.
Daire led her back to the room with the two chairs.
She didn’t sit but walked to the window even though she wouldn’t be able to see out. “What did that prove, except that you work with four people and a dog?”
“There are actually seven of us in total. Plus another woman I’ve never met who does admin for the public side of the business.”
“Okay.” She lifted her hands and let them fall back to her sides.
“I know it doesn’t get you to the point where you’ll trust me, but I think you know what kind of a business this is. You were a fed. You’ve seen private firms before.”
“Security?”
“Among other things, which include personal vendettas against an ancient evil,” Daire said. “Although that addendum was only added recently.”
She didn’t need the whole story about Ben and the golem. It would only freak her out. Still, she had to know that he was fine with whatever she would tell him. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t seen myself. At least a version of it.”
He gave her a minute to absorb that, then said, “Since I saw you last, I’ve traveled to England, fought more of those things like Roy, unearthed an ancient book I had buried a long time ago, and nearly been imprisoned under the earth for the rest of eternity.”
She sucked in a shallow breath. “Imprisoned?”
“Wrapped in barbed branches that tore my skin to shreds and dragged me underground. Buried alive.”
“How did you get out?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“How did you?”
Bryn backed up to the wall. Her legs bent and she sank to the floor, knees tucked to her chest.
Daire went over and sat beside her. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t even know when the first kid went missing. Open cases dated back years, and they didn’t stop. Almost like a lifetime of work. For a while there, I thought father and son, maybe. A legacy handed down.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even tell SAC Kenton that. He would have laughed me out of his office.”
Remy had looked up her entire career. Special Agent in Charge Kenton had retired days after the horrific events Bryn went through came to light. He’d moved to Florida, as though one of his agents being terrorized and traumatized was little more than a blip on the radar of his career.
She spoke softly. “I drove to Lexington in March of last year, booked a hotel, and set a meeting with the father of a twelve-year-old girl. She walked home from school every day, except one day she left school as usual and then just…vanished. The sheriff had no leads. No witnesses. No evidence. The girl didn’t have a phone. No one knew what had happened to her, and her father didn’t even want to talk about the possibilities. It was a waste of a trip, but I had to see where she’d lived. I had to take the same road she’d walked home from school. Safe, every day, except that one.”
Daire’s stomach knotted.
“It was weeks after her disappearance, so I didn’t expect to find evidence.”
“What did you find?”
She glanced at him then. “Nothing. And then he found me.”
Daire let her take the time she needed to figure out how to explain it. After a few minutes of quiet, she said, “At first it was just a whisper. The trees shifted in the breeze, and I swore I could hear a voice. A man, talking to me. Like in the cave.” She paused a second. “Now I don’t even know if he was ever there, or not. I probably am crazy.”
“What did he say?”
“He sang me a song. A lullaby my mother used to sing, passed down from her mother. No one speaks that language now. I don’t even know what the words mean, but when it was her…it soothed me.” She paused. “His voice sent a shiver down my spine.”
Daire watched the hairs on her forearm lift. “He isn’t here. I am. And I’m not going to let him touch you again.”
“You were there with Roy, and I still got bitten.”
“Because you ran.”
“So it was my fault?”
He’d walked right into that one. “Honestly, yes. You were a fed. You know how much harder it is to protect someone when they don’t follow your instructions.”
“So I’m your protectee? I thought you just wanted information, and then you’d cut me loose.”
“You were Amelia’s guest.”
“And now?” she asked, though likely she already knew the answer to that.
Daire said, “I have to finish this.”
“How noble.” She turned away, an edge to her tone that he heard loud and clear. “I know your type.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You said it, I was a fed. I spent my career surrounded by men who live and breathe protecting people. You think I don’t know what it’s like to have a mission to make the world a better place, no matter how that comes about?” She shook her head. “I wanted to save those children. To find out who was taking them, and put a stop to it so that no one else got hurt.”
“But that’s not what happened.”
“No,” she barked at him. “It’s not what happened.”
“He pulled you in, and you got hurt.”
“But for what? I mean, nothing happened right? So what was he waiting for?”
Daire’s thoughts snagged on that last question. “And he said nothing in the cave?”
“I don’t even know if he was really there. Amelia didn’t see him.”
“Indulge me.”
“You’re the missing piece.” Her gaze flitted around. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”
“How do I know you aren’t going to hurt me the same way he did, or worse?”
“Because I probably hate him even more than you do.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Maybe we do have something in common.”
That didn’t mean he was going to allow her to help. Daire wanted her as far away from this as possible.
He took hold of her fingers. Lifted her hand and turned both of their forearms so they were side by side. The pale skin of her arm was laced with white lines, the darker tone of his lined in pinks.
She sucked in a breath.
“I’ll heal,” he said. “In a day or two mine will be gone. But you have to live with these scars for the rest of your life. And that’s on me. I’m responsible for the people who are being hurt. The children have gone missing for years. I thought I killed him, but it’s becoming clear that—just like with Roy and others—he might still be alive. Somehow.”
“I never saw him.” She tugged her hand from his and he let her, cautious that this didn’t develop into something he didn’t need, which would leave her hurt by him. That wasn’t what he wanted.
“I felt him,” she said. “I heard his voice. The branches…” She swallowed. “It was like being broken open so that everything inside was suddenly on the outside. And it feels like I was put back together wrong.”
“Did you find the children?”
She shut her eyes. “Some of them, I think. It’s all a mess of images and the sound of rushing water.”
“How did you get away?”
“I remember being underground in a cave. I couldn’t move. My stomach burned.”
He set his hand on hers.
“After a while, I could wiggle my fingers. I worked my way out of the bonds. Like they didn’t have as much power to secure me as I’d thought. It took hours. Longer maybe, but I managed to walk out of the cave. I was in the middle of nowhere.
“It felt like it took days to find a road. No food. Water I’d drunk from an ice cold stream. I was practically delirious. When I finally flagged down a car, a fa
mily on a scenic tour, I collapsed. Woke up in the hospital. I’d been missing for about three hours.”
Daire shifted to face her. “Hours?”
“I walked through those woods, bleeding onto the grass in sunlight. Then in the dark. Then in sunlight again. I watched the sun rise and set more than once. How could it have been just three hours?”
“He messed with your perception of time.”
“Then he’s still doing it. Because not one thing has been right in my life since then.” She sucked in a breath. “I woke up in a hospital and they figured I’d cut myself because I couldn’t handle the pressure of the case. That I’d snapped and played the victim instead because it was easier to be crazy than to admit I couldn’t find anything. That it was all nothing. And just because a bunch of kids had gone missing didn’t mean their disappearances were connected.”
“Bryn—”
She shifted away from him but turned so she faced him. A retreat, but one she didn’t agree with when she wanted to be strong. “Please. I can’t handle sympathy. Not if you think I’m just as crazy as the rest of them do.”
“And the psychiatric facility?”
“They wore me down. Doctors, nurses, counselors. My husband even came. They wouldn’t stop talking. It was relentless. When I hadn’t seen him in months, and the last I heard about him was that he was glad the divorce was going through.” She reached up with both hands and gripped the sides of her face. “I started to believe it. There was no evidence anything had happened to me. Dogs couldn’t find my scent in the woods. They never found the cave. Maybe I had just imagined it after all.”
“Did you?”
“It hurt.”
“I know.”
She stared at him, as though willing him to be telling her the truth. That he did know precisely what it felt like.
“Bryn,” he said. “I know.”
“Who are you?”
Instead of answering that, he said, “I’m the man who’s going to kill him.”
He told her about the three books he’d taken and hidden. About how he’d gotten one of them back just yesterday. “He’s back. I know he is. I killed him. So long ago. But somehow he has returned.”
Bryn frowned. “Like resurrected?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Have you seen him?”
He shook his head.
“I think I saw him, but Amelia didn’t. Maybe he’s like a ghost.”
There was so much hope in her gaze, he wanted to tell her that it was likely. But he just couldn’t do it. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. “I want to hope that you’re right.”
She studied him for a while, then said, “Can I see the book?”
Daire took her back to the conference room. She was clearly wrung out, mentally and physically. She needed to crash before her body simply shut down. In order to heal after the ordeal he’d put her through, and the stress of the last few days.
Daire entered the door code and let them both in. Remy was gone now, the screen of her computer flashing with text that said, “Don’t even try it.”
He didn’t smile at that. He needed to show Bryn the book, and then get her somewhere she could sleep. It was as strong as a compulsion, but he wasn’t going to think more of it than what it was. Nothing except the same need he felt to take care of Amelia.
Providence had put them both under his care, and he would gladly fulfill the duty he had of making sure they were safe. It had been his doing that put their lives on this path in the first place. It was the least he could do.
Daire flipped the latches on a hard-sided case that held the second book. The Present.
One book was now lost to his enemy, stolen from his New York apartment.
One had been lost in time, protected in anonymity. He hoped.
The third book right here, where Daire would never allow anyone else to get their hands on it. Because without all three, and the knowledge the books contained, the Druid had no way to end the world. Could the Druid even come back to physical life? Perhaps Bryn was right and he wasn’t back. Did he need the books, collected by his acolytes, to find physical form again?
Daire unwrapped the cloth covering it and let Bryn see. She leaned close to trace her fingers along the surface of the cover, then across each rune printed into the leather binding. One by one, reading aloud. Speaking the old tongue. Words he hadn’t heard in centuries.
“You know this—”
The window shattered. Glass sprayed across the table toward them. Daire grabbed the book, and knowing it meant they would both get cut, he barreled into her and shoved her from the room.
“Run!”
Chapter 18
Daire pulled Bryn in front of him, pushing her out the door first so that the glass sprayed at his jacket instead of her thin T-shirt. It rained down on him, stinging his neck until he threw himself at the door, slamming it shut. Bryn turned to him, wide eyed. Both of them were breathing heavy.
“Is he here? Did he find me?” Her hands shook as she lifted them, folding her arms in front of her, hugging her own body in self-defense. There was nothing crazy about this woman. She had been traumatized beyond belief.
Daire stared hard at her. “I thought he was dead. I killed him. Maybe that doesn’t mean what I thought it did.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Daire could have kicked himself. He softened his voice. “Come on. Stay with me. It’s going to be okay.”
He led her down the hallway. She heard the Druid’s voice when she’d been in his grasp before, even if she’d never seen him. That linked them in a way he hadn’t expected, but Daire wasn’t going to allow it to mean something to him. Not when one day Bryn—like everyone else he knew—would die of old age. Long before he had any hope of doing the same. What was the point in caring more than he should about any of these people?
“Which door is it?”
He slowed, one hand on the small of her back. They weren’t at the door yet, yet they’d been running. He glanced back at the room where the book had been.
The hallway rippled and swelled, making his head spin.
“What was…” Her voice trailed off.
“He’s here,” Daire said. “You’re right.”
The book was tucked under his arm. The old man could come at them all he wanted, but there was no way Daire would allow him to take the second book.
They were still only halfway between the conference room and the door where Ben, Shadrach, and Malachi had been. Where was Remy?
“Hello?” Daire called out as loudly as he could down the hall. If they could hear him, surely he’d get a response. He motioned forward. “Come on.”
But no matter how far they walked down the hall, the room stayed the same distance away. Bryn shifted away from the hand on her back and turned to Daire. “He’s messing with our perception.”
Daire frowned. “And it’s working.”
He turned to the closest door and tried the handle. If they couldn’t get to the room they were headed for, then maybe they should just try to get out of this hallway. It had worked for him and Shadrach in the stairwell at his penthouse. Which may have been exactly what the Druid wanted this time—to herd them into a corner and strike. He shuddered at the thought. Both he and Bryn had been at the Druid’s mercy before. And while his scars were healing, Bryn would wear hers for the rest of her life.
The door wouldn’t open. No matter how hard he twisted the handle and shook the door, it refused their entry. It had to have been locked from the inside.
Daire kicked at the door. It was like slamming his boot against a sheet of metal a foot thick. He turned to Bryn. Her wide eyes were on him, hands in her hair again. She had retreated all the way to the wall until her back was against it. Legs shaking.
He moved to her and leaned down so his face was in hers. “Bryn?”
Her gaze darted about, but he decided she was as focused as she was going to get.
He said, “Listen to m
e, okay? He might be here, but so am I.” He shifted closer to her. Crowded her against the wall. Cocooned her in his larger frame and prayed it made her feel safe, not boxed in. “You’re not all by yourself now. You’re with me, and we’re going to face this together. Okay?”
She sucked in a shaky breath and nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s what we’re going to figure out. You’re not lost this time, and you’re not alone.” He pulled out his phone. “No signal.”
He sent a few texts anyway. One to the company group, one to Remy separately. The last he sent to Mei on the off chance a message was able to get out. At least she would get it later when his phone reconnected to the cell tower. They needed all the help they could possibly get.
He took Bryn’s hand. They headed toward the same room as before, where Shadrach, Ben, and Malachi had been just a short time ago. If the men left, they’d have let Daire know with a text or call, which meant they were still here somewhere. And so were Dauntless and Remy.
“It’s doing it again.”
The nervousness in his stomach was evidently matched with hers. He heard it in the tone of her voice.
She was right. The hall seemed forever long, like a continuous loop in which they would never reach the end. Daire said, “We still have to try.”
“And just keep walking forever?” She tugged on his hand and made him stop. “I won’t play his game. Not again.”
He knew what it felt like to have the Druid destroy everything he cared about and leave him with nothing. He wanted to know why the Druid had targeted Bryn. Why the old man seemed to think she was some kind of “missing piece.” His enemy hadn’t been after the book her family had hidden. At least not according to her memory of what had happened.
Then again, she didn’t even know about the book.
How was that possible? But the answer to that question wouldn’t help them get out of this. So he pushed it aside and said, “He’s trying to freak us out so that he can make his move when we’re weak. When we’ve given in to the fear.”
She stared at him. “I gave in to the fear months ago, and he knows that. So why hasn’t he made his move yet? Why does it feel like he’s playing with me? Like this is all some kind of game to him.”
