by LW Herndon
“So what now?” asked Decibel.
We had headed to the diner near the hospital. The small buzz of people around us and the nearby pulse of the hospital’s backup generators created an electronic footprint strong enough to make a search for our physical signatures difficult. A back booth allowed each of us to monitor an exit. Less an act of teamwork than mutual distrust.
“I need more information on what happened.” I looked to Jez. Her expression relayed nothing. No eye contact, no facial response, and shoulders tense, she sat mute. The lack of tears didn’t worry me yet, but if she continued this way, I’d find her therapy. The bony, white grip of her fingers remained interlaced around a cup of coffee she didn’t bother to drink.
She sat beside me in the booth, but mentally she was miles away. While the timing wasn’t good for this conversation, I didn’t think we had the luxury of more time. Things were escalating, with Jez, with Anne, with Chaz, and I had a bad feeling that more problems lurked in the wings that I wasn’t aware of yet.
I don’t like surprises, especially when I seem to be in the middle of them. It had taken only a millisecond for Jez’s sorrow to melt to anger, but if she stayed true to form, she wouldn’t give up. I was counting on that anger morphing into something else soon. Sol’s training had assured Jezrielle’s diligent focus, and habit is a good fallback in times of uncertainty. As Jez’s rigid posture grew tighter, I prepared to take the brunt of whatever was coming.
“We had a lead on another kid. Sixteen, male, up in the valley, adopted as an infant.” She turned the cup around in her hands and swirled it slowly in a wet slosh on the tabletop. “His profile was a little different than the others.” She paused, and the silence grew.
“As in?” I prodded.
“He had a record. Several minor offenses: underage drinking, joy riding, public disturbance.”
Decibel said nothing but leaned back, her arms crossed, and waited.
A sick, sour taste built in my throat, though I kept my initial thoughts to myself. “You hadn’t run across that before?”
Jez shook her head.
“Sol’s tracked a lot of kids. It figures some might get into trouble.” I offered the out I didn’t actually believe. The whole thing stank of a setup.
She looked up. The tension etched in lines around her eyes and mouth created an expression she was too young to possess. “No, it didn’t. That’s why he wanted to let this one pass.”
I wanted to look away but didn’t. I could feel disaster coming. Whatever my feelings, Jez had it in spades and her regret would last a whole lot longer than mine.
“He didn’t want anything to do with this kid. I was the one desperate to make a connection.” She rolled her eyes and closed them, then gave her head a small shake, accompanied by a bitter look. “I wanted to save one of these kids.”
“And it was a trap.”
When she didn’t reply, I looked to Decibel. “When did you come into this picture?”
“It had already hit the fan.” She nodded to Jez. “They’d followed the kid to a building where he met with this band.” She spat the last word in obvious disbelief.
Jez pursed her lips.
“You knew where they were because…”
“I’d marked Sol.” Decibel delivered the words with the ease of reading a grocery list. Broccoli, chicken, tagging, stalking—no big deal.
I put a hand on Jez’s arm to keep her from launching across the table. Normally, I might take issue with Decibel’s approach. Not today.
Decibel leaned forward and snapped, “If I hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be alive. All you both had to do was stick with the original agreement.” She waved a finger toward me. “And let me or him know what you had planned. I would have told you this was a trap!”
Though Jez clenched her fists, she glared out the window into the night at the shadowed parking lot. I let out the breath I’d been holding, drew my hand back from Jez’s arm, and leaned my head against the booth for a second, playing the scene through my mind.
“So how did the Consortium know to set up the trap?”
Decibel flicked a crumb off the table. “Too much going on. Too many near saves, too much new involvement. Something flagged their interest, no telling what. You, the kid in the hospital—maybe they can sense her and Sol in close proximity to other targets—then there’s another option.”
My stomach clenched, sensing Decibel preparing to go rogue on me.
“But you’ve already guessed that one, right, Kane?”
Jez scrutinized us both. “What?”
I rotated the coffee spoon in my hand. Up. Down. I slid it through my fingers to ease the slow, cold dread, but Decibel got it out before I did.
“Your clan could have known about Jez and Sol and sold them out.”
I knew that wasn’t true. My glare at Decibel indicated as much. Perhaps she knew and had thrown out the ridiculous accusation to stave off Jez’s desperation. I didn’t reply, hoping to give Jez some time. Time without the ten-ton bag of guilt she carried for targeting the location that had gotten Sol killed. However, I owed Decibel big-time for making my job with Jez harder than it needed to be.
***
The nurse at the critical-care desk gave me a sad shake of her head when I asked about Samuel’s condition, but she told me to go on back to see him.
I had left the two women at the diner. No more substantive conversation would occur with me around. Perhaps Decibel would have better luck with Jez.
I walked into Samuel’s room. He had no roommate, just quiet. The intermittent beep of the monitor that gauged his heart rate and blood pressure was out of rhythm with an erratic flicker from the hallway ceiling light.
The boy was ghostly pale, even after the three transfusions it had taken to keep him alive. Bandages still covered his wrists and neck from the wounds the sorcerer had inflicted. The fact that I’d incinerated his attacker gave me only minimal satisfaction. I would have sacrificed my win to have the boy awake and alert. Then again I had no idea what the condition of his mind would be even if he did come out of his coma.
I sat for a moment beside the bed and watched Samuel’s monitor flicker, because it was easier than searching for the faint breath in the boy’s chest and less painful to watch. He’d lost enough blood that the staff had trouble finding veins to administer fluids and meds. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the veins; they’d just collapsed like everything else in his body.
A rather sick irony was that this was the first time in the last three days that I’d been anywhere with such quiet. Not a price I found tolerable.
Sorting through the information I had so far, delivered a jumble of disconnected pieces. Why would the Consortium choose now to attack the Irin? And the demons, for that matter? According to Sol, Jez and her kind had been around since the dawn of time. The demon clans were notorious for remaining in their territories and not “playing” well with others, but they were no threat. So with the exception of the occasional apocalyptic battles, which usually coincided with human propensities for war and dominance, demons kept to their own agendas. Certainly they posed no new threat. None I could link to the Consortium, anyway.
Samuel’s, Marco’s, and Aisha’s victimization was beyond disgusting. I had pegged them as runaways and strays. Easy targets. Now, based on my knowledge of Anne and my discussion with Naberius, I had a rigid grasp on the insidious nature of the Consortium’s depravity.
Killing their own young—seeking innocent wizard-born humans, beings born with elemental magic not yet turned to the dark and black of evil. A pretty big, but sick, payout for the sorcerers’ Consortium—to eliminate their own kind for the guarantee of more power. Limit the gene pool and increase one’s own potential. A detestable premise.
Another strike against humanity. In spite of all their faults and predilections, at least demons treated their young as treasured beings. Granted, they were few and rare, but definitely another point in their favor.
And the I
rin? I had no basis to judge, though Sol had surely sacrificed himself for his child due to threats from his own kind. Based on Jez’s brief history with him, they’d endeavored to save others as well. Whatever their faults, at least the Irin weren’t committing selective genocide.
I leaned forward and reached a hand to cover Samuel’s. His fingers were cold as I cupped my hands around his and focused.
With my eyes closed, I waited through the silence and listened for Samuel’s breathing—faint, but fixed. I rode the sound of his breath and targeted the feel of my hands around his. His vibration fluttered, weak and pale, just like the boy’s visage, with colors so translucent I could only acknowledge them for the gray veil of death.
Samuel hung on the precipice. His vibration echoed sound and tone, though so faint that his breathing almost blocked it out. I forced myself deeper, to inner quiet, and blocked out the sounds outside his body to observe only what was within. This wasn’t his aura; this was the chemistry of who Samuel was to become. The sounds chimed, bells ringing through a waterfall, discordant and wild, lacking symmetry and balance. But they were ringing. Somehow the Consortium had heard them and found him, and perpetrated murder for pints of his blood and the remnants of his power.
I shook off my building rage and focused, using what little I’d gleaned from Sol’s death to monitor deeper within Samuel’s body. Not knowing what to look for earlier, I wouldn’t have found the organism. Now, the sinuous white threads and tentacles were easy for my mind’s eye to detect. The parasite was sucking the life from Samuel, even as the hospital staff pumped every resource they could into his body.
The knowledge didn’t help me. Or Samuel. I could now see the problem, but I had no cure, no resolution.
I released Samuel’s hand, sat back, and slowly released the breath I’d been holding.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, jarring me back to reality. I flipped it open as I headed out into the hallway.
“Kane. Thought you’d want to know the boy’s awake.” Caulder’s voice sounded strong but tired.
“How does he seem?”
“As if he’s been six rounds with someone five levels above his weight class, but I think he’s holding his own.”
“I’ll be there in thirty.”
“Roger that.”
I glanced back at Samuel’s room. The Consortium’s goal was no clearer now than before. They definitely didn’t play within rules that I could predict. The questions pointed to what had put them on this path. I gave more credence to Naberius’s caution of the shadow partner, one as obscure as its name.
CHAPTER 14
Thirty minutes later, I pulled into Caulder’s driveway. I’d switched vehicles back at home and circled through several less-traveled parts of town to confirm no one was on my tail before showing up at his door.
At my knock, multiple locks and levers released from the other side until the door swung open to Ray in his chair, shotgun cradled predictably in his lap. “Took you long enough.”
“Precautions.”
He gestured me inside and re-secured all the mechanisms before he followed. “They’re in the kitchen. He’s none too steady, but he’s up and around a bit.”
I paused before I got within earshot of the kids. “You still okay with them being here?”
He gave me a long look. Not much about this situation had escaped his seasoned assessment. “Their problems are worse than you thought?”
My expression must have given him the confirmation he sought. “Care to share?”
I shrugged. “Not much I can add to what you know, except maybe the kids have more connection to the abductors than I suspected.”
“Relatives?”
“More like human predators.”
He raised a brow. “You’re certain?”
“It’s the only thing I’m positive of at this point.”
“You know I’m not kicking them back onto the streets, no matter what.”
I never doubted it but clasped his shoulder in gratitude.
Aisha and Marco sat at the kitchen table, bowls of half-finished chicken soup doing time before them. A pad of paper at Aisha’s elbow depicted several surprisingly ornate mandalas spattered around some random pencil sketches of Marco’s face.
Pale as a honeydew melon, Marco appeared nervous and jerky. Though, as Ray had noted, he was upright and his pupils were normal, not the size of dimes. He also didn’t recognize me.
Aisha offered me a brief nod but remained still as if waiting for fallout now that I’d arrived.
I pulled out a chair between Ray and Marco. In response, the boy shifted toward his sister. She put her hand on his arm, delaying his escape. “This is Kane.”
That was it, no explanation. From their nervous glances, Aisha had evidently already brought her brother up to speed. It was obvious they hadn’t agreed on whether or not I was a problem.
Marco jerked away from his sister slightly, pretending interest in some riveting spot on the refrigerator. His few inches of distance created a chasm with his sister, though Aisha did nothing to cut the tension.
“So, you’re back,” she said and looked to Ray. “What does that mean for us?”
“Depends entirely on both of you,” I said as amicable and unthreateningly as possible. I even smiled.
She scowled and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Mr. Caulder is willing to keep you guys here, under his protection, given you comply with a few points.”
Marco had turned back to everyone at the table, as his eyes widened, fear evident. He gave Aisha a quick glance. She shook her head and raised her chin. “We don’t need protection.”
Two minutes in the house and I’d already hit a nerve. One I recognized. Their world wasn’t safe. People who promised them haven and shelter were usually the enemy and nothing was free. Protection came with a price, usually a pound of flesh and always with a fair dose of humiliation and pain.
I held up my hand in an effort to stave off any escalation. “Hear me out. Then you can make your decision.”
She glared from me to Raymond, who slid his weapon into the holster on his chair and folded his hands peacefully in his lap. “What points?”
“These men who came after Marco will try to find him again. It’s not a probability. It’s a matter of when. Your brother isn’t the only one they’ve come after.” I didn’t add the inevitable conclusion. She was smart enough to hear what I didn’t want to voice. That the others hadn’t survived, and Marco was still alive.
She glanced at Marco and swallowed hard. Her brother had turned his gaze to the tabletop, shifting his arms around his body to keep warm, or maybe just attempting to disappear.
“I want to make sure both of you are better hidden, so they won’t be able to find you.”
“You can do that?”
“I can teach you some skills.”
“They didn’t come after me. Only Marco needs the protection.”
“Actually, they’ve seen you,” I said, restating the obvious. “You were with Marco when they came for him. If I’m right about why they want Marco, then they probably want you too. They just aren’t smart enough to realize it yet.”
Again her gaze flickered between Ray and me, her deliberation so intense that I could almost see the wheels turn in her head. She’d rejected what I had told her for her own safety, but she wasn’t ready to risk Marco based on her judgment. “So what do we have to do?”
“First, I want to check Marco.”
She bolted upright from her chair to stand next to Marco with her arms curled around him. He didn’t look up but leaned over and hid his face in the crook of his sister’s elbow. “You don’t touch Marco.”
Ray leaned forward in his chair when I opened my mouth to respond. “Look, little lady. So far you and your brother have a world full of trouble on your doorstep. Some of which it seems you can avoid. Now, regardless of who is after you, we haven’t done anything
to warrant your distrust. So how about you consider extending a little of that courtesy to us that’s been offered to you, and we can see where that gets us?”
I waited.
Aisha looked at me. I could see nothing of the young fifteen carefree, happy years that should be lighting her face. Instead a harsh strain of fatigue and fear wove in the lines around her mouth. The cast of her skin was tinged gray from lack of proper diet.
I could sympathize. But she and her brother didn’t have the luxury of being stubborn. This wasn’t just about being streetwise. This was about evolving to a higher level of smart, a reach for far thinking. While that was a luxury these kids hadn’t been able to afford before, the good news was that she seemed to figure out she had it now.
With a short sigh, she moved back from Marco. She let him cling to her arms as she sat back down, resigned to whatever horrible fate was coming.
“So now what?”
I placed my hand on the table, palm up. “I need Marco’s hand.”
She stood again, this time coming around to my side of the table and placing Marco’s hand in mine.
I curled my fingers lightly around his hand and looked at her. “I need you to not be touching him.”
She didn’t move, but she lifted her arms from her brother and held them out, her posture tense, waiting for any false move on my part. Marco gave a whine of protest, but his fear kept him still. I didn’t console him. It would have done him no good.
My probe went quickly this time, since I knew what to look for. I closed my eyes, calmed my breath, and focused on going deep beneath Marco’s skin, beyond the layer of flesh. The drugs still in his system added a layer of disorientation to my search. The hospital drugs had done the same for my search in Samuel. I pushed through the fuzz of concocted substances and searched for the veil, listened for the sounds.
As discordant as they had been with Samuel, they were more so with Marco. The bells, the chimes, erratic, louder, and frenzied. Whether a result of the drugs or an indication of whatever ability Marco had yet to manifest, I couldn’t tell. The volume and the frequency of sound was higher in pitch, though more somber in delivery than in Samuel. In both boys, the sound manifested into aural illusions. My mind filled in the notes and beats to counter for the lack of harmony in the tones and pitch of the bells.
