Death Be Blue (The Terra Vane Series Book 1)

by Katie Epstein

  “Where are you?” he replied with urgency.

  I gave him directions as accurately as I could. “Try and follow the scent of blood. Follow it off the pathway. And Kaleb, you need to hurry.”

  “Alright. Terra, you’ve got this. Hold tight.”

  The comms crackled as he ended the transmission. I removed my vest, then yanked my shirt over my head. The cool breeze of the night caressed my skin, leaving only my bra covering my top half. Ignoring the cold, I pushed my shirt into Gaine’s open stomach as a pressure against the escaping blood. Gaines tried to rear up as he coughed, and I gently urged him down with my free arm.

  “Gaines, you’ve gotta stay down, okay?” I begged him. “I need to stop the blood. You need to lie down. Help is on its way.”

  “Terra.” He turned his head to look at me. “You … You need to get out of here. You need to go.”

  “I’m not leaving you. You need to stay calm and awake, okay? Stay with me. Healers are on their way. You’re going to be fine. I promise.”

  “They’re dead. All of them. Dead.” He grabbed my arm. “It’s you. They want you. Angry. They were so angry.”

  “Angry?” I asked as I let him hold on. “Who were angry?”

  “People who attacked us. They killed those we apprehended at the warehouse. All of them. Angry. They were angry you weren’t with us.” He coughed again, but this time blood spewed from his mouth.

  “Alright, Gaines. Don’t worry about that right now. We need to get you sorted, okay? Kaleb is getting help. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “Pills,” he choked out. “They were angry they’d been taken. They killed …” He coughed again. “Terra. Go … You have to …”

  His head fell back on the ground and I knew at that moment I’d lost him. He was dead.

  “Gaines!” I shouted as I felt his limp hand fall away from my arm. I grabbed his shoulder and started to shake. “You need to wake up. You need to wake up right now.” Tears fell as shock attempted to freeze me, but I was angry. I was so angry that he had dared to die on me like this. I was stopping the blood flow, wasn’t I? I was helping!

  “Gaines! Wake up. Wake up, you stupid idiot. I need you to come back right now. That’s an order. Do you hear me?” My voice broke, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t paying attention. I needed him to wake up and stop ignoring me. Why did everyone ignore me? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t …

  “Terra!” I heard Kaleb shout behind me. My heart beat so hard, as if it was about to leap out of my chest and join Gaines on the floor.

  “Kaleb!” I shouted, a part of me thinking we still had time to save Gaines. “Over here!”

  He came racing over and cursed when he saw who I was kneeling over.

  “I tried to save him,” I said as the sobs came unbidden. “I tried to stop the blood but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t listen and he died on me!”

  “Come on.” Kaleb gently urged my hand away from Gaine’s stomach. The shaking gripped me even harder as he encouraged me to stand. My throat hurt as it held the burden of my tears. I watched on, numb, as Kaleb removed his own shirt and pulled it over my head. He began leading me back to the pathway.

  “There’s more here,” I told him, looking ahead of me with blank eyes. Fear. Worry. Anger. Death. I felt it all as I stepped through the echoes of energy left behind. I could feel it with my shields so thin. It was still fresh, and it felt as if I was wading through water. I saw a flash of Agent Raken with a weapon in his hand, firing at someone with a wicked grin across his face, teeth bared, eyes hollow. I saw other men. Black masks. They were wearing masks with eyeholes cut out of them. They looked deadly. They held weapons. Earthside weapons. AK47. I knew that model. They were firing. They were angry with Raken. I was missing. Me. Agent Vane. They wanted me. That’s what they continued to say. And I heard it. Heard it all. They wanted me and the other agents dead. They were angry at Raken. They were angry I wasn’t there. But he didn’t care. He thought he’d done the job well. He’d done what they’d asked of him and brought the Ground Patrol Officers out to be killed before they could testify. Someone had knocked Raken out. There was darkness. Peace. Calm. They had carried him away from the dead. All dead. The SQR officers we’d arrested. The other agents. All dead on the ground. I didn’t want to look at the ground anymore. I didn’t want to see any more of them.

  “T-they’re all dead,” I stammered in tears as I tried to pull my shields back around me full force.

  “I know,” Kaleb coaxed as he wrapped his arm more tightly around my shoulder. “We’ll find out who did it. I promise.”

  “I promised Gaines we would save him. I lied.”

  “You found him,” he reassured me. “You found him so he didn’t die alone.”

  “The others died alone.”

  “But Gaines didn’t. You were there.” He drew me close as he kissed my head and kept me walking forward. “You were there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  My bloodied hands were still shaking when Kaleb came into the locker room with some wet towels and a hot cup of coffee.

  He sat down beside me on the bench and silently began cleaning the blood from my skin. He threw the towels out of my eye-line once he was done and handed me the drink.

  “How is everyone?” I dared to ask as I blew on the steaming liquid. It tasted disgusting, but I sipped it regardless.

  “Angry. Mad. Exactly how you would expect hot headed shifters to feel,” he scoffed. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry I lost it out there. It was the shields, and …” I let out a deep breath. “It threw me when I saw the vision of him in my head. I thought I’d been shown it to save him. I thought he’d be okay.”

  “Shifters can only heal so much damage,” Kaleb explained. “His stomach was blown apart.”

  “What about the others?”

  “We found all the arrested SQR officers dead. They were killed with some form of weapon I couldn’t recognize.”

  “AK47,” I whispered as I recalled what I’d seen in my vision earlier. “It’s an Earthside weapon.”

  “An Earthside weapon? But how?” He frowned. “Weapon imports are heavily controlled by Immigration. Nothing comes in without Evolver or Consilium permission.”

  “I don’t know. But that’s what I saw. What about the other agents?”

  He rubbed his face before replying. He looked tired. “Four out of the five who were to transport the prisoners were found dead. Agent Raken is missing.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say. The next words wouldn’t form. “Kaleb, I need to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t just go on this, okay?” I pleaded. “You know how volatile the agents are right now. They’ll want blood, and I’m not sure what it all means.”

  “What?” he demanded, his eyes turning bright gold. “Terra, what did you see?”

  “My shields were low, and the energies left behind were fresh. But there were so many. So many different things spiraling through my head. I may have gotten confused.”

  Emotion still sat there, heavy in my chest, as I carried the burden of the energies I’d walked through. I would need to meditate when I got home and cleanse my shields—another thing Mayra had taught me. I’d feel better after that, revitalized and cleansed.

  I tried to think of a way to stall for time, hoping Kaleb wouldn’t push further. But the next thing I knew he was kneeling in front of me with a serious look etched across his features.

  “I trust you,” he said quietly as he put his hands on my legs in comfort. “I trust your visions. But now I need you to trust me, Terra. I need you to trust me and tell me what you saw.”

  As I looked into his eyes, I felt safe and whole. And the force of it surprised me a little. For a very long time, I didn’t want anyone to have such a power over me. I didn’t want to be dependent on something they offered. Yet there it was. And I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. The thought rankled.

  “I saw Age
nt Raken fire his Pulsar weapon at someone,” I snapped. “I don’t know who, but I was that someone for a moment and I felt the burn before falling. Then I saw the others in black masks as they fired the Earthside weapons. They were angry. Mad at something.” I hesitated over the part where they were mad at my absence. I couldn’t risk telling him that part yet. He would never leave my side. “Gaines said something about them being angry about the pills; that they were mad they’d taken them. And then I felt they were angry with Raken. Even though he believed he’d done all that was asked of him, they felt he had missed something important. Something he was supposed to do. Raken had arranged it so the SQR officers were in a position to be taken out. That’s all he thought he had to do. Then they knocked him out and took him with them.”

  “That’s it?” Kaleb asked. He breathed in and out very slowly while reining in his temper. “That’s what you saw?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. I hated lying to him. But if he knew it was also me they were after, he would tell Cole and I would be put on desk duty until it was all over.

  “This is all so messed up.” Kaleb stood up and pushed his hair back from his face. “It was Raken’s Pulsar weapon that was used to take down Gaines and Frobern. But everyone thinks his weapon was taken from him. When they hear that he’s crossed us all, that he’s killed one of his own …”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Your vision says it all.”

  “And like I said, I could have gotten it all wrong.”

  I knew that there was no love lost between Kaleb and Raken. There was no love lost for me either. But I didn’t want Raken hunted on my visions alone. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate in believing what I’d seen, but I was upset and in shock from all that had happened, I could have been wrong. I didn’t want to see the shifter punished if there was more to it than what I’d interpreted.

  “Every other agent is dead, except for him,” Kaleb spoke as he clung to his patience. “It was his weapon that took out two of the other agents. And the attackers knew when and where to attack as the agents made their way back to the agency. Why is Raken the only one not dead if he wasn’t a part of it?”

  “I’m only telling you to keep an open mind until we finally track him down. There’s no need to tell Cole all the details. Not yet.”

  “You’re covering for that asshole?” Kaleb hissed. “You know how he treated you.”

  “He was no different from anyone else.”

  “That’s crap and you know it!” he shouted then he put his hands up as if in an apology. He took a deep breath. “Look … I know a lot of the agents struggle to have you around and they don’t hide that fact. But I also know how they treat you behind my back. And that asshole, Raken, was the worst. You don’t need to cover for him.”

  “I’m not. I promise. I just don’t want you to put a target on his head for a charge I’m not a hundred percent sure on. You know they’re on the hunt for blood at the minute. Anyone’s blood.”

  Kaleb appeared sheepish all of a sudden at that comment and he dropped is eyes away from mine.

  “They want my blood?” I asked in surprise.

  “No. No … they don’t blame you.”

  “Then what?”

  “They’re trying to pressure Cole to get you back out there. To see if, and I quote, ‘your vision crap’ will work in locating Raken and the others who attacked. He’s refusing to do so.”

  “I’ll go,” I said, preparing to stand.

  “No. No, you won’t. There is nothing more for you to do out there that you haven’t already done. You need to go home, and get some rest. Boss’s orders.”

  “But if I can help …”

  “They’re all shifters: tigers, bears, wolves. Do you know the one thing they all have in common?”

  “What?”

  “They’re predators. Hunters. They have the ability to track and sniff things out. They can use that to hunt down one of their own. One who they should have realized was corrupt. They’re not bringing you into this. They’re not going to use you as a tool at their convenience. You’re an agent. Just like them. And they need to respect that.”

  Anger simmered beneath the calm facade he was trying to convey for my sake. I could see it in his tight jaw and the color of his eyes that burned brightly. He was angry for me. But he needn’t have been. I’d been in a lot worse positions than this. And tonight, all I’d done was find a dead and a dying body. I no longer deserved the shoulder or the support. He wasn’t my boyfriend, and he needed to stop acting like it.

  “I’ll go home when Cole tells me to. Not when you decide I should,” I snapped. “I’m all good if he needs my help. And I’m not your damsel to keep rescuing, Kaleb.”

  He flinched slightly as if I’d struck him, then a mask of nonchalance fell over his face. “Right,” was all he said, shrugging, and I could have kicked myself.

  “Kaleb …” But he was already walking away.

  “Get some sleep,” he threw back at me. “If Cole suggests it, of course. See you around.”

  A tear slid down my cheek as I watched him go. Then I lay down on the bench and let the hurt wash over me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Cole had dismissed me alright. And he’d also banned me from entering the agency for the next twenty-four hours.

  I’d tried to argue with him through the exhaustion. But when he’d played a dirty hand and called Chris to come and pick me up, I’d surrendered.

  Seeing my stepdad stricken with worry and concern broke me. I burrowed my head into his shoulder to hide the tears, and he said nothing as he silently comforted me and led me back to his place. I didn’t argue. And I said my thanks before heading off to the spare room where sleep assailed me as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  There I remained until the following afternoon when I finally opened my eyes after a dreamless sleep. After that, I lay there for another half hour to allow the grogginess to seep away.

  My skin still itched with the lingering sensation of Gaines’s blood. It felt as though it was stuck on me, and I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling.

  Kaleb had cleared it all away to the visible eye, but I could still see it there in my mind and I needed to scrub myself clean.

  After stripping the sheets from the bed to take to the laundry later on, I jumped into the hot shower. All water flowed into a recycling system for cleansing and fed back to its source, so I didn’t feel guilty about spending a long time in there. All I wanted to do was to make sure there was nothing of Gaines left on me. I wanted the memories to wash away along with it, to disappear down the drain with the soap suds.

  Chris had gone to work and left me a note saying to help myself to the food in the refrigerator. Once I was clean, I threw on a fresh set of clothes that I always kept at his, then put together something to eat.

  Chris didn’t have a Hologram TV, so once I’d eaten, I headed off to the Laundry House. There were similar set ups in the laundries of the Crystal Quarter like those I’d left behind on Earthside, but due to newer technologies, the speed of the wash time was twice as fast. Kaleb’s EFA shirt had gone in the bin though. I wanted no reminder of Gaines and his suffering; even if it simmered on the edge of my mind like a scab I was resisting to pick at.

  Once I’d finished the laundry, I attempted to hit a session of the Fey’s equivalent to yoga. I wanted to rid myself of the building anxiety in my stomach, but it didn’t help. Eventually, I decided to go for a jog in the Moors, but that only succeeded in giving me a headache. Finally, I tried calling Mayra who wasn’t picking up her comms. It frustrated me enough that I grabbed a piece of paper back at Chris’s and started mapping out everything that had happened so far.

  The wendigo. The rogue shifter. The blue pill. They were all connected to the SQR. And that connected the SQR to Rudolf who was connected to a bunch of rogue shifters. Rogue shifters who were possibly held prisoner somewhere. I circled that part of the puzzle because I didn’t know if it had occurred in the past or p
resent. I couldn’t even tell what warehouse it was since it shared the traits of a few. Cole couldn’t work on obtaining a search order since it would almost certainly alert the Consilium even quicker, and we were back at square one with most of the SQR officers dead and no leads on who killed them.

  If Rudolf was involved in all this, then why would he kill the SQR officers if they were dealing for him? And what connected the rogue shifter to the wendigo? The questions swirled around in my head so I scribbled everything down to try and connect the dots.

  Night began to fall and I felt the exhaustion settle in as the stars crept higher in the inky black sky. Chris had sent me a transmission to say that he’d gotten caught up with work and wouldn’t be home until late. Kaleb wasn’t answering his comms either so, feeling sorry for myself, I decided to climb back into bed. It wasn’t long until I was fast sleep.

  My feet felt cold. Freezing cold. And when I looked down at them, all I could see was a black marble floor beneath me. A foretelling view that I’d come to hate.

  Terror iced my veins as someone took me down to the basement where Dr. Warwick was about to perform his experiments on me. The threats and groping of the orderly, Edwin, felt real as his chubby hands forced my weakened state to the place I feared most.

  Bright lights assailed my vision as they strapped me down. And Dr. Warwick’s own hands felt as if they hovered a little too long in certain places.

  A mouse squeaked in my head and I chuckled with joy. Pipsqueak. The pet they’d allowed me to befriend. The cute, white rodent appeared in my line of sight as my head swirled from the lights shining above, and I beamed. He was my one and only friend in such a lonely place, where madness both divided and united the patients. I loved that little thing.

  I’d been too naive to realize why Dr. Warwick had bestowed such kindness in giving him to me all that time ago.

  I should have known it was another experiment. One where he had wanted me to bond with Pipsqueak, give it a name, an identity. He had wanted me to connect with the small animal to see if my gift would respond subconsciously to emotional tragedy when Edwin killed it in front of me.