Janie was one, so that left two people to take down, so I can get her out of here and back to her family.
My body was smooth and silent as I descended the stairs one by one, watching for anybody who would catch me.
The two men who were talking to Janie walked off toward the cobwebbed kitchen to chat, giving me the opportunity to slither up to her chair. The men began to argue about how they were going to get the information out of Janie while I changed into a Macaw parrot. Their bite was hard enough to break bones and would make easy work of her bindings. Janie let out a little scream as my beak gripped the zip ties around her bound hands, snapping it in one bite.
Her hands were loose, but before she could try to run away both men came pounding back into the room. That wasn’t going to work. I shifted back into a bear, laughing hysterically inside at their faces as they watched me transform. Janie screamed and fell to the ground, scrambling on the dirty floor in terror. While I felt bad about scaring the poor girl, I had to do something about these men.
The shifting took care of it: both of them pissed themselves and ran away like little boys, leaving Janie alone in the old house with a large grizzly bear.
I had their scents and would find them shortly after I got Janie back home. Despite being naked, I needed to change back into a human form to help ease Janie’s fear, which was permeating the air.
Her eyes were wide as saucers as I became a human once again in front of her.
“My name is Echo Cross. I’m a detective for the Seahill P.D., and I’m gifted like you.” I willed my voice to be calm, letting her know she was safe. Tears started falling from her face, and whether my nakedness bothered her or not, she launched herself at me and cried hard. I held her awkwardly and patted her head. I wasn’t a big fan of touching.
“Okay, you’re safe, and we need to get you back home. Sound good?” I started to stand and pull her up with me.
She nodded, then froze. I started to ask her what was wrong when she blurted a string of words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
“I need you to take me to the Hero Society first. It’s urgent.”
“First, we need to let your parents know you’re alive, get a statement at the station, and then you are free to go where you want.” I did have a job to do. After she was gone, I would be hunting down those two men and bringing them in to be charged with kidnapping.
She took a step back and shook her head.
“This is more important. If you’re like me, then our very lives depend on it. I need to find them now.” Her voice was stern, which was surprising given her soft demeanor.
“I’ll make you a deal. I need my clothes back, then let me take you to the station, get all the info I need, then we’ll call Mr. Griffin for you. It’s not common knowledge where they are, but I do have his number. Deal?” I was getting impatient and cold, naked in a house that was drafty and falling apart.
“Deal.” She looked around, and I started walking toward the door.
“Where’s your clothes?” she asked, and I pointed toward the woods.
“Just follow me, please,” I told her, shifting back into a bear, which would keep me warm as we walked and also ready to take down those men should they come back. After we made it back to the rock pile where I had hidden my clothing, I quickly dressed in my signature black ass-kicker boots, black jeans, black shirt, and black leather jacket, and we hiked back to my car.
Chapter Six
Echo
Janie was compliant as I took down her statements and got everything into the system. But the moment she was free to go and call her parents, she made sure I hadn’t forgotten about our deal.
Call Phillip Griffin.
I wasn’t going to just give her his number and send her on her way, because I didn’t know what to make of their Hero Society yet. She was an innocent girl that’s wound up in shit, and I’ll be dammed if I let some superhero wannabes take advantage of her.
Not wanting to make the call inside the station, I suggested we go to my car for privacy, and have the call on speaker. She nodded, and we walked to my Camaro together.
“You sure?” I asked her one more time before entering in the number. She pulled her long hair to the front of her shoulder and started twisting it nervously.
“Yes.” Despite the actions of an unsure woman, her voice was completely confident.
Okay then. I finished putting in the number and hit dial.
Phillip answered after one ring.
“Afternoon, ladies, would you like to join me for some pizza at Pizza Pazza? I think this conversation is better suited for in person.”
Before I could say anything, Janie answered for both of us.
“We’ll be there!” I looked at her with a face that said what the hell, but she hit the end button and reached over to buckle her seat belt.
I sat there, trying to decide if I should drive us to the restaurant a few blocks over from here, or should I send Janie on her way and go back to just doing my job without messing with the Hero Society.
They did know who held me captive, so maybe this was my shot to talk to them about it without a proposal of joining them. I could maybe get an idea of what they are about, too. Something in me wanted to protect this girl, and that was also keeping me from ditching her to go about my own business.
“Fine. I’ll go with, but if I say we leave, then we leave right then and there, okay?” I was serious as I looked her in the eyes, and she nodded as her answer. I sighed and sped off toward the restaurant. My Camaro purred as we pulled up to the curb. I looked around for anything suspicious and didn’t see anything. So, I got out first, putting my gun in the holster and covering it up with my jacket.
I walked into the restaurant with Janie behind me, and spotted Phillip sitting at a table by himself sipping on his drink. His eyes lit up when he saw us.
“I ordered drinks for you ladies. Lemonade for you.” He pointed to Janie and she smiled.
“And a water for you.” He gestured to me. Water was my beverage of choice, lucky guess.
We sat down next to each other, across from him.
“Right. I’m Phillip Griffin, head of Griffin Enterprises and part of the Hero Society. Which you both know. My gift is I can see futures, but they are not set in stone so it’s more like percentages or odds. And before you ask, I don’t know which way this conversation is going to go, but I did know that having it in person was the best way.” He smiled, the movement lighting up his face. He was nice looking: blond, hazel eyes, regal looking, but he had a nerdy edge to him. There was some muscle underneath his sweater, but nothing that showed he worked out a lot.
“I’m Janie, and I’m like you guys. My power, um, came to me when I turned sixteen. Not sure why, but anything I look at, even in passing, I remember. I remember everything. A week ago, a woman came in to the library with a box of books. Her dad had died, and she was donating them. Most were nothing important, but one book was hand-written, like a journal. I scanned through it, so of course I remember everything, but when I came back from my lunch break it was gone.” Janie took a sip of her drink as soon as the waiter dropped it off, and then we ordered our food.
“The men who took me wanted to know what I knew. I’ve heard about you guys and knew I needed to be here. And I know those people still want me, so I need a place to stay. You said on TV after that fire that you could provide safety for people like us.” Janie looked around as if the men who took her were going to jump through the glass wall and grab her. A growl stirred in my chest. One of my animals did not like that look of fear in her eyes.
“Of course. I have an apartment ready for you. And whenever you are ready, we can talk more about the book.” His face was gentle as he spoke to her, but I recognized the protective instincts in him, too. Just seeing that made me believe that he was a good man.
“What do you know of my captors?” I asked, ready to get down to business and clear the air, truly figure shit out.
“A man named Emanuel was trying to cr
eate an army of people like us. They were doing experiments on people, attempting to steal their powers and then killing them. He was on the island when it blew up—which we didn’t do, by the way. That was all him, but he didn’t make it out. We thought it was over, but apparently, he was just working for someone, and we don’t know who yet. So, we train, keep trying to help mankind the best we can, and when the time comes, we will fight against the darkness.” Phillip just laid it all out there. I digested it and felt his energy out, trying to determine if he was lying. All my instincts inside told me he wasn’t. They really were just trying to help make the world a better place and give people like us a fighting chance.
“We also know so much more about our kind of people with powers. Why we have them, how we got them. If you’d like, we could talk about it at HQ.”
That was something I wasn’t expecting. They knew about why we had our powers? That was something I had always wondered but never had means to know. Had my parents had them, and it was passed down, or did something happen to me, and I didn’t remember it? I looked at Janie and saw what I would imagine was the same expression I was wearing. We needed to know why we were the way we were. Why us? Taking the initiative, it was my turn to speak for the both of us.
“Let’s go to your HQ, and then you can tell us everything.”
Chapter Seven
Asher
“Got about ten minutes before I’m closing up for the night,” I told the only person in the bar, who was drinking her sadness away with some good old-fashioned Irish whiskey.
She looked at me with those tear-stained cheeks and gave me a pitiful smile. Many different mental states came in here, and it wasn’t my job to be a therapist to them all. But when they did try starting conversations with me about their issues, I would listen, and then give them advice. Which was usually not what they wanted to hear. The truth is hard to handle sometimes.
I walked into the back room to my office for a few minutes, knowing that the woman was just going to drink as much from her glass as she could until I had to kick her out. I checked to make sure everything was ready for me to start shutting down the system, then grabbed some cleaner before heading back out to the bar top.
“All right, time to start heading out.” I looked up from my boots as I was walking to give the poor woman a warm smile, but she wasn’t there anymore. Interesting. I honestly thought I was going to have to call the woman a cab and walk her out. Definitely would have preferred that rather than her face the city alone in her mental and physical state. Walking behind the long wooden bar, I double-checked to make sure nothing was taken, even though I’d spelled my liquor to only be touched by certain people. If she’d tried, she would have felt like she was trying to lift a car instead of a bottle.
Seemed like everything was in order; she just ran out. I looked along the bar top and saw some cash. Well, at least she didn’t skip out on paying for the drink. I grabbed the cash and realized the glass she was nursing was missing. Maybe she knocked it off the bar on her way out, or even took it with her. People have done stranger things.
I walked around the corner to see if her glass was on the floor when my whole body froze.
The woman was there, on the ground, and she was bleeding out onto my wood floors. Shit.
In just three steps I was at her body. She was still breathing but barely. Little cuts had been made all over her body, and her shirt was completely torn in the back, exposing her skin that was marred by two slits that had been made in between her shoulder blades. Blood was gushing out from those marks.
Her watery eyes were looking at me as best as she could, and I knew she was dying. Without thinking, I placed my hands on her skin and chanted a spell to seal the wounds that had been inflicted on her. Whispering it over and over until the magic began suturing every slice, one by one.
The energy to heal her cuts had been taken from the earth, below the foundation, rising from the core, where energy is infinite. The magic merged with her own earth essence to heal her body.
She was weak when the magic had done its job—too much blood had been lost. Calling the authorities could ruin the bar’s reputation, but I needed help with this.
Echo.
An envelope had arrived this morning containing Echo’s number inside, with a note that only had a winking emoji on it. It wasn’t from her. At first, I thought it was because Phillip knew I wasn’t done with my once house cat, but now I’m wondering if it was because he knew I’d call in that favor she owed me. She hadn’t left her number after the kiss—just punched me in the gut and walked out the door.
I opened my hand and willed the air to carry the paper with the number to me, along with my phone, staying by the woman’s side, making sure she didn’t die.
My fingers were slightly shaking as I dialed her number and waited for her voice to come through the speaker.
“Detective Cross.”
“Echo, it’s Asher. I’m calling in that favor.” I was getting straight to the point. I heard a sigh on her side, but she didn’t hang up.
“What do you want?” she grumbled, and I wanted to laugh at her anti-enthusiasm, but considering the circumstances I held it back.
“I’ve got a woman dying in my bar. She was cut up bad, no clue what fucking happened. I’ve healed her, so she isn’t bleeding anymore, but she already lost a lot of blood. It’s like someone was trying to blood-let her or something. She had two big-ass slices in her back. Shit, I know I should call 911, but someone dying in my bar would literally kill business.”
I felt like shit saying that, but business had been off and on lately, and this would be the nail on the coffin for the bar on the off side. Someone being murdered in the bar? No witnesses? Shit, I would be the first suspect!
Echo hadn’t said anything for a few seconds, and I wondered if she was still on the line.
“Echo?”
“I’m on my way,” she said softly and hung up the phone.
“I’ll be right back; you are safe now,” I told the woman and then raced upstairs to grab a shirt for her, because the one she’d been wearing was shit now. Once Echo was here, she could help me get it on the woman.
I was back down in a flash, just talking to her, keeping her awake, and calm.
Echo showed up about ten minutes after my call and walked in with a look of horror on her face. Her tanned skin was unnaturally pale, and I worried she was going to faint.
“Help me get her in this shirt; the one she was wearing is all torn and bloody,” I demanded. I looked the woman in the eye and told her exactly what we were going to do. She gave me a weak nod. Then I helped her get up, holding her body as best as I could without touching anything inappropriate. Echo was subtly shaking as she walked over and grabbed the shirt.
We managed to get her clothed, but the woman was so weak.
“She needs blood. We have to take her to the hospital,” Echo stated, and I looked at her with a grim face. I knew she was right.
“Sweetheart, I just realized I never got your name.” I scooped up the woman and held her in my arms, resting her head on my chest.
“Lisa.” She whispered so low I strained to hear. We were running out of time.
“Let’s go.” Echo was right behind me as I walked out of the bar. With a quick finger flick toward the door, it locked.
“Handy,” Echo murmured and walked over to an all-black classic Camaro, then opened the door for me to put Lisa in.
“A girl after my own heart.”
Little did she know I too was a fan of old muscle cars.
In fact, in the parking lot behind the bar was my very own version of her car—but mine is red. Built it from a rust bucket to the perfection it was now. The pro section of the Echo-and-me list just kept on growing.
She drove us to the hospital without much delay; people weren’t really out and about this late on a Wednesday.
“What are we going to tell them? Can’t exactly say she was sliced open, and I healed her. I don’t want
that kind of attention,” I told her, and truly I didn’t. Something like this would attract the attention of my coven, and I was happy with them doing their thing and me doing mine.
“I know a girl that works there. She’s helped me out on a few occasions.” Echo pulled into the parking lot, and we got the girl out. I carried her into the hospital, ready for whatever fate had planned for me tonight.
Chapter Eight
Echo
I didn’t even talk to the nurses as we entered the emergency room. I simply requested Esme come to meet us, and while the woman at the desk gave me a stern look that would have probably frightened many people, she paged Esme to the floor.
We’d met when I’d been shot, and the chief forced me to go to the hospital. She was kind and knew about my powers but didn’t care. She was nice to people like me and had no quarrels with working with them. Anytime I had an issue that needed medical care, she was the one I trusted. So, in this situation, with a magical element to it, she was our girl.
I peeked a glance at Asher, who was standing to my right, holding Lisa in his arms easily.
At first, when he said his name on the phone, I thought he was calling in a favor for something way different. I’d thought about his kiss a few times when the silence surrounded me at night. I had been taken by surprise by his lips touching mine, then there was a low-running current of electricity moving between our connection. It was strange but somehow comforting. Then it hit me, everything that had happened, and I was in a bitchy mood, so I pulled back and punched him. Just a tap, with only ten percent of my strength, against his muscular gut, but he got the point. Then I left. I really didn’t think he would call me after that, but he did.
My eyes moved from him down to Lisa.
The M.O. was the same.
My legs had given out on me at the apartment when Asher started describing what happened to Lisa. It was the same as my mom. I didn’t want to believe it. That nightmare had been so long ago, tucked neatly away in my past.
Dusk (Hero Society Book 3) Page 3
