Shattered Dreams (Banshee Book 3)
Page 14
“Of course they did,” Benton smirked.
They rounded the corner and entered into the museum just as the screeching horde found the now gaping hole in the wall. Sprinting quicker into the displays of antiques, they barreled towards the back door. Despite the glass shards lodged within his joints, Benton took the lead, and using his shoulder, barged his way through the emergency exit.
Cold air rushed to meet him. Nicole didn’t pause. Gripping his hand, she slipped past him and rushed out to the water slick concrete that ran the length to the tower. His sneakers were slippery as he tried to pick up his pace. The flood of monsters streamed out of the door to follow him, their gales of laughter drawing the attention off the others. His lungs burned. His muscles felt like grinding stone, and the doorway always seemed too far away.
A sudden whack against his spine spun him off of his feet. He hit the ground hard, his grip on Nicole bringing her down with him. Their momentum dragged them a few feet before they finally stopped. Zack jumped over them, wrenched the door open, and reached back to snatch them up. Between him and the twins, Nicole and Benton were hurled into the space. The door slammed shut and muted the mocking cackles of the creatures. On all fours, Benton struggled to catch his breath and adjust his eyes to the darkened space. It was only then that the pain, streaking across his back, inched into his awareness. The gashes weren’t deep but stung like fire. He blinked rapidly but there was only the impenetrable darkness.
“Nicole?” he gasped.
“I’m okay,” came the instant reply.
“We’re good too,” Zack huffed, his voice coming out breathing and needy, like he was desperate for anything to lighten the mood.
“I was just about to ask,” Benton smiled. “Can anyone find a light switch?”
“Why?” Meg asked.
Nicole didn’t hesitate. “Benton, what do you see?”
His stomach plummeted. “Nothing.”
Ignoring the questions that began to churn, he rocked back onto his knees and glanced around. The desperate sensation within his chest only grew worse when he saw that it wasn’t complete darkness. Splotches of white circled him. The grim reapers towered over him, closing in around him until they filled his vision.
“Benton,” Nicole gasped as the sound of tearing wood and breaking stone filled his ears. “Benton, we have to move. There are a lot of stairs.”
Solid thuds bore down around him. He could feel the splintered chunks of wood crash down, but he couldn’t see what was causing the damage. He pushed himself up onto his feet. The reapers didn’t pull back but pressed closer still. Benton hesitated to reach through the rising smoke of their bodies in a blind search for Nicole.
“Benton!” Nicole yelled over the laughter and the crashing of stone against stone.
The ebony specters pushed in until the curling trails of their bodies brushed over his skin. Screams bounced off the small confines of the room, blurring with the cackles of the coming creatures. They’re coming through the roof, Benton realized. The sounds grew louder and he forced his face up until he met the gaping, bottomless holes of Death’s face.
“Okay,” he said.
He didn’t know what he was agreeing to, but they had helped once before. He clung to that hope as the reapers pressed against him, flooded into him, clawing and scraping his flesh. They forced themselves into his skin and slipped from his sight. Ghostly faces swept down towards him. Their eyes burned. Their smiles stretched wide. Their laughter rattled the cells of his being and he felt something inside rush up to meet it.
Benton’s mouth dropped open to release a scream, like the world was drawing in a deep breath as wind scurried forcefully towards him. It was strong enough to snap the door open and strong enough to draw the others off of their feet and drag them towards him. The gale force never touched his skin. The pressure grew, pressing against his body, taking up every inch of space within him. Rushing wind covered every other sound the world held. For one agonizing moment, there was only silence and the crushing vacuum that held him.
Then Benton shrieked.
The sound rushed from him as a physical force that shattered the walls and sent the others flying. The creatures above him melted and burst, droplets of their bodies thrown aside by the sheer force of the sound. Stones shattered, wood splintered, and the concrete cracked open beneath him as the pressure was released upon the banshee wail. He screamed until he was empty and collapsed into oblivion.
***
Colors played across the metal inner doors of the ambulance, copying the sunset that turned clear sky into shades of pink and purple. Benton sat towards the open back of door of the ambulance and watched the display. It seemed like an eternity had passed since he had actually seen a blue sky. He hadn’t realized how suffocating the clouds had been.
The scratches on his back hadn’t been that bad. Nicole had given him a few swipes of an antibacterial wipe and a clean dressing, ensuring that he wouldn’t have to show his back to any of the emergency medical workers that were now working their way through the streets. He only knew that because she had told him so, once he regained consciousness. To be more accurate, she had screamed it. It seemed that quite a few people were currently experiencing some hearing problems. That gave him a perfect opportunity to call Dorothy before Nicole could.
He slumped against the ambulance and repositioned the phone to his ear, waiting for Dorothy to absorb the information. Telling her the whole story had been harder than he had expected. There wasn’t exactly a nice way to inform a police officer that their daughter had killed someone, but waiting for a response was excruciating.
“And you’re sure the bodies are gone?” Dorothy asked slowly. “They won’t be showing up anytime soon?”
“I think so. I can’t imagine that Allison or the others will be willing to give them up. It felt like they had been waiting quite a while to get their hands on them,” Benton said.
“And the car?” Dorothy pressed.
“It’s pretty banged up. But there are a lot of displaced cars and even more injured people. No one really cares at the moment.”
“Displaced and driven through a wall are slightly different,” Dorothy said. It seemed to pain Dorothy to add, “When you can, go make sure that the bullet isn’t lodged in the seat.”
There was a long moment of silence before she asked, “How is she holding up?”
“Good so far,” he said as he watched Nicole running around. She had offered to help with the general first-aid. Given how overrun they currently were, they had accepted. “But you know her. She’s not going to dwell on it as long as someone needs her.”
“Don’t suppose you can keep her busy until I get back?”
“I’m a walking disaster. I can keep her busy until the second coming,” Benton said with a slight smile. It was harder to keep it. “How are my parents?”
“Annoyed. And worried.”
Benton shuffled into a more comfortable position. “Can you tell them I’m okay? And sorry. And, you know, that I love them.”
“I will,” Dorothy said. “And you’re a hero now. I’m sure they’ll overlook this.”
“A hero?”
“Our story is that you all went because you knew the storm was coming and wanted to raise the alarm. So as long as we’re using that, your actions are heroic, so don’t mess it up.”
“Right,” Benton said.
“I still don’t know what we’re going to tell everyone here.”
“Nothing. You’re only going to run into trouble trying to explain it. Just keep your silence and it’ll be an urban legend in a week.” Benton rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the now familiar shift of the iron bracelet over his forearm.
“You sound very sure about that.”
“Done this dance a few times,” he said. “Oh, they said that a bus will be heading up to you guys soon. It’s just going to take a little longer than expected. There’s a bit of damage.”
He shifted his eyes over the destru
ction. The tower hadn’t been the only thing damaged during the storm. Streets were swamped with water and debris. Hunks of roofs were broken and twisted, and he couldn’t spot one window that was still intact.
Dorothy sucked in a pained breath but only replied, “We can wait it out.”
Through the crowd, he spotted Nicole coming his way. Quickly, he said goodbye and ended the call. He made sure to tuck the device securely into the shelf the EMT had asked him to leave it in. Benton honestly had no idea where he had lost his phone and he made a mental note to check the car.
Nicole pulled herself up into the ambulance and sat down on the seat next to him.
“Hi,” she practically shouted. “They say my hearing will come back in a day or two, but I think I’m already better.”
“Obviously,” he laughed.
Her brow furrowed. “What did you say?”
Shaking his head, Benton wasn’t exactly surprised when Nicole pulled out her mobile phone. Of course she had managed to keep ahold of it and still have it in working order. She opened up its notebook, fluttered her thumbs over the keys and passed it to him.
‘Are you in any pain?’ he read. Meeting her eyes, he shook his head and then pointed to her to shoot the question back her way. She shook her head but took the phone.
‘Sluagh.’
Benton’s brow furrowed and typed back, ‘What did you just call me?’
‘Not you. The faces. They made me take a lunch break and I did some research. I think they’re called Sluaghs.’
Reading the message, his first instinct was to ask her if she had at least eaten. But that was a question for later. She loved to cook and she loved to protest his bad eating habits, so, if he played it right, he could wrangle her into cooking dinner, effectively giving her two things to keep her mind busy.
‘Awesome,’ he typed back. ‘Will you let me get up and help soon?’
‘I’m not the boss of you,’ she replied before snatching the phone out of his hand, clicking off a few keys, and handing it back. ‘But no.’
He laughed and let himself lean against her a little more. Heat had risen back up into his body, but she was still so delightfully warm that he felt himself relaxing into it. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself from typing out the question.
‘You know, if there is any truth behind the theory that the death of a paranormal creature will draw more in, we could have a problem.’
She read it. But instead of the hesitation he had expected, her fingers were instantly in motion.
‘Maybe. But we have a bigger team now. We can take care of it.’
Benton looked at it for a moment before he scanned the crowd. Zack was still helping to clear some rubble from the street. At the far corner, he spotted Meg passing out hot drinks and Danny trying to simultaneously entertain a group of children, while keeping them from running into the mess. He wasn’t exactly in a position to call any of them a friend. But he couldn’t deny that, to some extent, he really did trust them. And that was an odd sensation.
With Nicole a constant weight by his side, he tapped the phone against his wrist, listening to it click against his bracelet, and watched the sun set across the Alberta sky.
* * *
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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