by Tina Folsom
She nodded. “Absolutely. It has to be the other one.”
Logan exchanged looks with his friends. Hamish nodded, as did Manus.
“Let’s do it,” Logan said. He turned to Pearce. “You stay here. Keep trying Leila’s phone in case she has it with her and she switches it on. The rest of you, let’s go.” He opened a wall cupboard where several daggers were stored. He took two for himself, then handed one to Winter. “For self-defense only. Don’t attack the demons. Stay back. Only use this if they charge at you.”
She took the dagger and put it in the pocket of her jacket.
The drive to the shopping mall took too long, even with Hamish breaking every traffic law. Unfortunately there were no lost portals close to the shopping mall that they could have used instead. And Winter hadn’t seen anything that gave her an indication of the time when the attack was supposed to occur. For all Logan knew, they could already be too late. His heart clenched. He prayed that they would reach Aiden and his family in time.
When Hamish pulled the car into the large parking lot and drove up to the side entrance, Logan said, “We’ll go in invisibly. We don’t want the demons to latch onto us, or scare any bystanders. Make sure Winter can see you though.”
Hamish and Manus nodded.
“It’s up to Winter now to help us find the shop as quickly as possible.”
Hamish switched off the engine, and everybody jumped out.
At the door, his friends cloaked themselves, while Logan cloaked both Winter and himself. Then they marched into the indoor mall. As Logan had already seen on the map and during the drive, the place was about four city blocks long and one block wide, with additional wings toward the middle of the structure. Pop music droned from speakers in the walls and ceiling.
Winter immediately rushed to the information board and perused it quickly. She ran her finger over the list of stores under the heading apparel.
“Too many,” she murmured. “And the kids’ stores are all over the place. Shit!” She looked over her shoulder at him, looking stressed.
“Breathe, Winter. Concentrate and think back to the vision. Did you see any colors? Any columns, maybe the escalators? Or one of the stalls that line the middle of the walkway?”
He watched her close her eyes. Her chest rose and fell. “Something yellow, just outside the store window. It’s moving. An elephant.” She opened her eyes. “It doesn’t make sense.”
But Logan was already addressing Hamish and Manus. “Keep your eyes open for anything yellow. Possibly a kids’ ride that looks like an elephant.” Then he took Winter’s hand, and together they rushed down one side of the mall, while Manus and Hamish ran along the other side, parallel to them.
At each kids’ clothing store, they stopped briefly and looked inside, before continuing on. With every yard they covered, Logan’s heart pounded more frantically.
They reached one of the wings, and Logan looked down the length of it. There was only one stall in the middle of the wide walkway, as well as a board with rotating electronic advertising, but no kids’ ride shaped like an elephant.
“Nothing down there,” Logan said to Winter and motioned for them to continue.
“Wait!”
Winter’s voice jolted him and made him look over his shoulder.
~ ~ ~
Winter had already started following Logan, when something yellow caught her eye. She whipped her head in the direction: the advertising board. It had just turned to a yellow background, advertising a travel site. She stopped and pointed to it. “Yellow!”
“But there’s no kids ride down there.”
He was right, but something made her wait as she continued to stare at the board. Finally it changed screens again, and there it was: an ad featuring an elephant moving across the African plains.
“This is the elephant. It’s there. It’s down there,” she said excitedly, her pulse pounding wildly.
In a few moments, she’d have another encounter with the demons, and she was scared. But the lives of two children were on the line, and she couldn’t just stand by without acting. She rushed down the side wing toward the advertising board.
“Winter! Damn it!” Logan ran after her, catching up with her. He grabbed her arm, then put a finger to the communications device in his ear. “Hamish, Manus, down the east wing, toward the end. Opposite an advertising board.”
She couldn’t hear their response, but assumed they were coming, and continued walking. A few more steps and she and Logan could see the shop opposite the sign. It was indeed a children’s clothing store. Colorful decorations hung in the large store window and obstructed the view into the shop, forcing them to approach the door to look inside.
Winter slammed her hand over her mouth to smother her gasp. There, near the cash register lay a blond woman in a pool of her own blood. She lay on her front, obscuring a clear view of her face.
Please, don’t let it be Leila!
Winter’s eyes traveled past the dead woman toward the back of the shop, and she saw them: demons. Three of them from what she could tell. Aiden was fighting them off as well as he could, but he was injured. The kids were nowhere to be seen.
Logan stormed past her into the store and jumped one of the demons, ripping him off Aiden and slicing his throat. A second demon turned and aimed his dagger at him.
Winter rushed into the store, desperately looking for the twins so she could get them out. She peered past the cash register, bending over the low counter to see if they were hiding behind it, but the space was empty. Then a movement caught her eye and she whipped her head toward the door. Hamish and Manus stormed in.
Winter spun her head back to Logan and the demons. Logan was battling one demon, while Aiden was having trouble fighting the other, one of his arms hanging limply by his side. With horror, she saw the demon plunge his dagger toward the injured guardian. He stopped in mid-motion. Hamish had snatched him from behind, dragged him back, and was now slicing his throat from ear to ear.
Her stomach lurched as she saw the green blood ooze from the dead creature. She looked away, her gaze now landing on Logan, who’d finished the third demon.
“Didn’t leave me any,” Manus complained, waving his unused dagger.
Hamish rushed to Aiden and put his arm around his waist to prevent him from collapsing. “Leila, the kids?”
Aiden motioned to the back of the store, where only now, Winter saw a door. “Storeroom,” Aiden pressed out. Then he looked at the spot where the blond woman lay. “I couldn’t save the store owner.”
Manus opened the door to the store room. “Leila, Xander, Julia, it’s all clear.”
Leila popped her head out, her children clinging to her legs. When her eyes fell on her husband, she let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, God.”
Manus pulled Julia into his arms, and Xander ran to his father. Leila, tears in her eyes, put her arms around her husband.
Aiden looked at his compound mates. “How did you guys know we were in trouble?”
Three sets of eyes—Hamish’s, Manus’s, and Logan’s—landed on Winter.
“Winter had a vision,” Logan said.
Aiden looked at her, locking eyes. “I owe you my family’s lives.”
Winter sighed, tears stinging her eyes. “It’s all good now. It’s over.” But her heart was still pounding, and she hadn’t been able to prevent the death of the store owner. She glanced at the dead woman again and shuddered, when she felt Logan’s hand on her arm.
“We need to clean up here, but we’ll be as quick as we can,” he said. Then he leaned in. “You did good, real good. You just saved the lives of Barclay’s family. He’ll change his vote.”
“His vote?” Aiden said from behind them.
Winter looked at him, as did Logan.
“My father voted to let Winter live.”
“You spoke to him about Winter?”
Aiden shook his head and winced from the pain of his injuries. “It’s not what you think. He calls me sometim
es, talks to me about difficult decisions. When they voted on Winter’s fate, he called me without telling me any names or saying what the vote was about. But he was troubled by it. He said that he’d voted with the minority, but as the head of the council, he had to assure that the decision the council made was executed. I’m sorry. But he’s not the one you need to convince.” He smiled at Winter. “He already knows how valuable you are. But don’t despair. This incident might still convince another council member to change his or her vote. I’ll be your star witness.”
“Thank you, Aiden,” Winter said, forcing a smile.
“No. Thank you.”
While Hamish and Manus went about wrapping up the dead demons, using large black trash bags from the store room, Leila took care of Aiden’s injuries. The kids sat on the floor, playing with toys from the store.
“There’s a surveillance camera,” Logan said. “We need to find the recording.”
“I saw some electronic equipment in the storeroom,” Leila said.
“Thanks.” Logan marched into the storeroom.
Winter walked to the shop door and turned the sign in it to “We’re closed”, then closed the door. She was about to turn away from it to attend to the children, when a wheelchair entered her peripheral vision. She glanced down the walkway. An older woman in an electric wheelchair slowly drove by the store, her eyes looking forward, a colorful knitted bag on her lap. Winter stared at the bag. Her grandmother had had the same one: blue and orange with streaks of green and brown. It had been en vogue in the seventies, but it stuck out like a sore thumb now.
She shrugged and tried to turn away, but something stopped her. She stared at the bag again, but now the bag wasn’t sitting in the lap of the woman in the wheelchair. It was sitting on a chair next to a hospital bed. Her grandmother’s hospital bed. And there, in the bed, lay her grandmother. The medical staff had restrained her for fear she’d go into one of her fits and hurt herself.
Winter’s throat constricted. She looked so vulnerable.
A heart rate monitor beeped steadily.
A sound at the door made Winter turn her head. The door opened, and involuntarily, she stepped back into the shadows of the room. A man entered. He was tall and athletic and dressed in street clothes. Not one of the doctors or nurses that attended to Winter’s grandmother. He stepped closer to the bed and pulled something from his pocket.
Winter stared at it. It was a syringe. Gasping, she walked to the other side of the bed until she stood almost opposite him and could see his face. She froze, as did every drop of her blood. The man in her grandmother’s room, the man holding a syringe in his hand, was Logan.
She tried to scream, but no sound issued from her throat. All she could do was watch helplessly as Logan inserted the syringe into her grandmother’s arm and emptied it into her.
Her grandmother’s chest suddenly heaved, and a choking sound came from her throat. A second later, she collapsed back into the bed. The heart rate monitor started issuing one continuous sound. Flatline. Logan had killed her grandmother. Killed a helpless woman in her sleep.
Suddenly the room was gone. Winter spun around. She was back in the shop.
Logan came out of the storeroom. “I deleted the recording.”
“We’re almost done here, too,” Manus said.
Winter continued staring at Logan, who finally looked at her. A quizzical look on his face, he walked toward her. “Everything okay, love?”
How dare he call her love? Oh God, she’d made love to her grandmother’s killer. To the man who’d robbed her of the last member of her family.
“You killed her.”
“What?” He looked confused.
“I saw you. I saw you in her room. You injected her with poison. You killed her.”
An expression of dread crossed Logan’s face. She knew it then. He knew it too. It was true.
“You killed my grandmother.”
Tears now blurred her vision.
“Winter, I can explain.”
“Explain? You killed her! You killed an innocent woman! I hate you!” she screamed and pivoted.
She ripped the door open. She had to get out of here. She couldn’t be in the same space as Logan. She was suffocating.
“Winter, please!”
She ran outside into the hallway and turned toward the exit. She didn’t get far. She felt a hand on her arm.
“Let go, Logan!” she yelled and spun her head to him.
But it wasn’t Logan. Green demon eyes stared back at her. “Gotcha!”
The demon made a movement with his arm, and suddenly a swirling mass of fog and wind appeared out of nowhere. A vortex.
“Noooooo!”
It wasn’t Winter who screamed, but somebody else. It was Logan’s voice.
But the demon was already dragging her into the vortex, and she lost all sense of orientation. Panic overtook her body. Another one of her visions was coming true: the demon was taking her into the Underworld.
30
Logan raced toward the vortex, ready to jump inside. He lunged for it, felt the cold fog at his fingertips, catapulted himself forward—and landed on the stone floor. The vortex had closed and disappeared. And with it, Winter. Taken by the demons. Gone.
“Fuck!”
“Shit!” Manus echoed behind him. “They must have had a lookout.”
Logan turned around. “We have to get her back. I have to get her back.”
“Impossible,” Manus said, regret coloring his voice. “We’re fucked.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m going to get her back.”
“From the Underworld?” Manus shook his head. “It’s over, Logan. We screwed up.”
“We?” Logan shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I screwed up. I screwed everything up. If I’d told her immediately, she would have never been out here.”
“So it’s true what she said, that you killed her grandmother?”
Logan dropped his head. “She was a psychic too. The demons had gotten their hooks into her. I did what I was ordered to do. She was beyond saving. I just didn’t know that she was Winter’s grandmother. I only found out a few hours ago.”
“Oh fuck!”
“Yeah, fuck!” And he had to make it right. He couldn’t let Winter suffer in the Underworld. He had to save her. “I have to find a way to get to the Underworld.”
“There’s no way to get in. “
“There has to be. Winter had a vision. She saw me coming to her rescue in the Underworld. So there has to be a way in.”
Vehemently, Manus shook his head. “That’s suicide. Even if you found a way in—and there’s none—no Stealth Guardian has ever been in the Underworld.”
Logan suddenly stiffened. “You’re wrong. Virginia. She and Wesley. They got in. And they got out again.”
Manus’s eyes widened. “That was an accident. And nobody has ever tried to replicate it.”
“Then somebody has to try now.”
“You’re crazy.”
No, he wasn’t crazy. He was scared for Winter, worried about what the demons would do to her. He had to get her out of there as quickly as possible. “I’m going to San Francisco.”
He didn’t wait for a response, but charged out the side entrance and headed for the car.
Despite using the compound’s portal to San Francisco, it took almost two hours to reach Wesley’s house. He’d called ahead, advising Wesley that he was on his way and that he should make sure that Virginia was home, but not tell her that Logan was coming. He didn’t want her to alert the council. After telling Wesley it was a matter of life and death, the witch didn’t ask any more questions.
When he entered Wesley’s house and marched into the living room, not having used the door bell or the door, Virginia stared at him in disbelief.
“What the fuck, Logan?” Her hand went to the dagger that was sheathed at her hip. As so often, she wore the black uniform of the enforcers, the elite policing force of the Stealth Guard
ians she’d once been part of.
“Easy, babe,” Wes said, and put his hand on her arm. “I have a feeling Logan needs our help.”
She shot him a suspicious look. “You knew he was coming? That’s why you wanted me to be here?”
Wes shrugged. “Hear him out first before you strangle me or him.”
Logan could see that Virginia was fuming, but she seemed to get herself under control and said tightly, “Fine.” She tipped her chin in Logan’s direction. “Talk, and make it quick. You’re still a fugitive, and I intend to bring you in.”
“I’m aware of that. But I hope I can change your mind.”
Virginia sat down on the couch and motioned to an armchair. Logan sat down opposite her, while Wesley dropped onto the armrest of the sofa and rested his arm casually on the backrest behind Virginia.
Logan took a deep breath. “The psychic I was supposed to kill was taken by the demons about two hours ago.”
Virginia leaned forward. “Goddamn it! This is exactly why the council wanted her dead. Fuck!”
“But you didn’t, did you? You voted to let her live.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that? The council’s votes are secret.”
“I could sense it when I made my case in front of the council. That’s why I’ve come to you. Because I know you’ll give me a chance.”
Virginia scoffed. “A chance? Logan, the demons have her! You know what that means?”
He was fully aware of it. But he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He had to keep a clear head so he could rescue her. “I intend to get her back.”
“From the Underworld?” Virginia stared at him as if he had grown horns and a tail.
“And you and Wesley will help me. You’re the only two people who’ve ever been in the Underworld. With your help, I’m going to go down there and get her out.”
Virginia gasped.
“You’re fucking nuts!” Wesley exclaimed. “We barely made it out of there alive. And you want to go down there voluntarily? Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“No, I haven’t. But I know I’m meant to save Winter. She saw it.”
