by Laken Cane
“Not the birds,” he said. “Murdering one of their own is punishable by banishment. To the birds, exile is worse than death.” His voice was grim. “Much worse. Killing one of their own is the only taboo the birds have, and they can barely bring themselves to speak of it.”
“The birds fight and kill each other when they challenge a scepter,” Owen said.
The berserker glared at him. “That’s not murder. That’s a fair fight to the death for a position of power.”
The scepters were the leaders of the nest. Owen had told her there were seven of them, various ages. Once they won their spot they ruled absolutely. The only way for a scepter to lose his or her spot was if they were challenged by another bird and lost the ensuing fight.
Those challenges were a way for the birds to kill their own without it being considered murder.
Yeah. Everyone was capable of killing their own.
Owen shrugged. “So the birds do kill each other.”
“They don’t secretly torture and murder their own,” Strad said. “I’m not saying it’s logical. I’m saying that’s how they operate.”
Rune folded her arms. “The birds are involved. Maybe they didn’t kill the two Others, but they know something about the deaths.”
“Just because you got a whiff of birds doesn’t mean anything, Rune. The birds are everywhere.”
“I know you have a history with the feathered fucks, but you’ve never let history cloud your judgment before.” She very nearly forgot anyone else was in the room. The berserker was pushing her buttons, and the anger was overwhelming. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”
She wanted to snatch the words back before they were out of her mouth. Fuck me. Fuck. She closed her eyes in the silence, realizing that her feelings for the berserker had turned her into something of an emotional idiot.
And she didn’t like it.
Strad was watching her when she opened her eyes, and he saw something there he didn’t like.
“Rune,” he said. “Don’t.”
Those in the room looked everywhere but at her. Except for Ellie. He left his chair and hurried to her. He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “Leave her alone,” he said, as though they were bothering her.
She stiffened immediately as Ellie gave her a quick hug from behind and the fang pressed against the back of her head. He kept it inside his shirt, but the fabric was too thin to fully protect her from its effects.
She leaned gently away from him. “Guys. I apologize. I realize I’m behaving like a…” She shook her head, unable to find the right word. She reached up to squeeze Ellie’s hands when he rested them once more on her shoulders. “Bill, I’d like to go to Spikemoss Mountain and question the birds.” She didn’t look at Strad but heard him blow out a tired breath.
“I’ll go with her,” he said.
Finally, she looked at him. “No. You’re too close to the birds and can’t be objective.”
He smiled, but it was not a nice smile. “I will go with you.”
Bill cleared his throat. “Not yet, Rune. I don’t want to antagonize the scepters when we have nothing more to go on than your sense of smell.”
“Then what do you think we should do, Rice? Wait for the killer to nail another body to a fucking wall?”
“We have to tread carefully with the birds. They live in their own world. They don’t cause trouble for the humans or the rest of the Others. They maintain their own law and order. If we change that, we’ll have to have an extremely good reason to make it worth the trouble that will follow.”
She snorted and sat back in her chair. “There aren’t that many of them, Bill. And even if there were…they might think they live in their own world, but they don’t. They live in this world with the rest of us.”
He said nothing.
She shook her head, mystified. “Are you that afraid of them? I haven’t seen you back down from any group. You’re going to back down from the birds?”
“You don’t understand.” Bill’s voice was firm but he darted his eyes, as though unable to find a place to settle his gaze, and his face reddened.
“No, she doesn’t,” Strad said.
Bill stood. “You need to make her understand.” He started to stride from the room, but at the door he stopped and turned back. He pointed at Rune. “Stay away from the fucking birds.”
For a moment she was too stunned to speak. “What the hell is going on here? I’ve faced Damascus and mad vampires and a fucking bomb that nearly destroyed me.” She stared at Strad. “You expect me to believe the birds are more badass than that?”
He stood. “Yes, Rune. That’s exactly what I expect you to believe.”
Chapter Twelve
She held up her hands. “Well, I’m terribly sorry, but that’s a ridiculous fucking notion.” She looked around at her crew. “Do any of you know anything about the birds?”
“Only what I told you,” Owen said.
Jack shook his head. “I never felt they were a threat.”
“They keep their secrets,” Ellis said.
Raze stood. “I’m going to call the clinic and check on Lex.”
“If the birds are so mean,” Rune asked, “how did one of them manage to get tortured and nailed to a wall?”
“I don’t know,” Strad replied.
She stared up at him. “I don’t believe you.”
He softened his voice, despite his obvious and lingering anger. “I don’t know, Rune.”
“Then why the hell won’t you consider that they know something about what’s going on with the twins?”
“Because I know them. The scepters won’t keep secrets for COS.”
For a second, the bleakness overwhelmed her. She wanted life to go back to the way it was. The crew had taken too many hits.
“You look better.” Ellie pulled her away from Strad, his gaze going to her growing hair. It hung past her shoulders. Only the ends remained white as the natural black chased away the snowy color. “How do you feel? Physically, I mean.”
“I’m fine, baby.” She allowed him to distract her. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t. I’m stronger than people believe.”
“No one knows that better than I do.”
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “So stop worrying. I’ll be okay. We all will.”
“Yeah.”
Raze came back into the room, his cell in his hand. His eyes were a little too wide. “Lex wants to see you.”
Rune’s heart jumped. “She’s alert?”
“Yes. She is. Let’s go.”
She drove to the clinic with Raze riding her ass, breaking every speed limit posted. Lex had come back to them. Maybe not for long, but right then, she was back.
When Rune and Raze arrived at the clinic, they leaped from their cars.
And just as suddenly, they froze.
Lex waited for them, her hands clasped behind her back. She wore a hospital gown and a pair of socks, and her wild, black hair lay in sad tangles around her shoulders.
Her eyes danced, and best of all, her body vibrated.
Lex was back.
“Hello,” she said.
Rune put a hand to her stomach and looked at Raze. “Is she…”
Real, she’d started to say.
Lex laughed. “I’m here. I’m…okay.” She gestured at the two nurses hovering near her, one of whom rested her hands on the back of a wheelchair. “It wasn’t easy convincing them to let me come outside, but I had to have the air. I had to have the sun on my face.”
Rune and Raze walked cautiously toward her. Rune wanted to run to her, to snatch the girl into her arms, but she was afraid. “Lex?” she asked.
Raze hung back, and when Rune glanced at him, she saw an unfamiliar shyness in his face. Raze was more afraid than she was. And maybe not of the same things.
Lex put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. “Will you two stop acting like I’m a mirage and get the fuck over here? I need a hug.”
; That was all Rune needed to hear. She rushed to the blind Other and yanked her into a crushing hug. “Lex, how?”
Lex appeared calm. Too calm. “I was with the twins. I was right there with my Levi and Denim until I couldn’t be any longer. Then I had to come back.”
“Lex,” Raze said, still a good six feet away, “where are they?”
“I don’t know,” Lex whispered, and her too thin body shivered. “I don’t know.”
Rune closed her eyes in a long, slow blink. “Do you feel like telling us everything you saw?” She wouldn’t have been too disappointed had Lex said no.
“Yes,” Lex said. “It’s all I can do.” She took a deep breath and then swayed, a hand to her chest.
“You,” Raze said, pointing at the nurse with the chair. “Bring it here.”
Lex didn’t argue, and gingerly lowered herself into the wheelchair when the nurse had it behind her. “Some privacy,” she said, and the nurses walked away.
The girl was different. Older. Sadder. The shadows from her horrible past still lived inside her eyes, but they were even deeper. Darker. She turned her face to Raze. “Don’t be afraid of me now.”
He swallowed, shifted from foot to foot, and finally crossed his huge arms. His shivs and guns gleamed against the black of his clothes, and his dark red hair shone like threads of gold in the sun.
“You’re such a beautiful man,” Lex continued, when he said nothing. “In every way. Thank you for helping take care of me. Thank you for…” She paused and turned her face from him, a blush climbing her cheeks. “For caring.”
“I…” Raze cleared his throat, squinted at Rune, then at the sky, then pursed his lips and said no more.
Rune took pity on both of them. “Do you want to talk out here, Lex?”
“Yes,” Lex answered. “I want to stay in the sun forever. I was in the dark for so long. Where the twins are…” She put the back of her hand against her mouth, but still a sob escaped. “It’s so hopeless and cold. The pain is so red. Oh.” She stuffed her fist against her lips, holding up her other hand when Raze started toward her.
So he and Rune stood silent and agonized, waiting for the little Other to regain control. Rune shuddered uncontrollably, feeling Lex’s pain, and fearing what the girl was about to tell her.
Lex lowered her hand. “Do you remember the twins,” she cried. “Do you remember them?”
“Of course we do, baby. Of course we do.”
“They’re not like that now. Now they’re shattered. They’re broken.” She bent forward in her chair, clutching at her midsection. “Oh God, they’re broken.”
Rune threw herself to the ground at Lex’s feet and wrapped her arms around the girl’s legs. “Help me find them. Help me save them.”
“They’re…” Lex shook her head. “They’re somewhere close. The twins are together. Sometimes they are not.” She reached a shaky hand out and ran it over Rune’s hair. “I can tell you what’s being done to them. It’s hard to explain but I was there, in some way. I felt…sometimes I felt their emptiness. I had to come back when I was afraid one more second would trap me forever. They didn’t know I was with them,” she cried. “They couldn’t feel me and I can’t tell you where they are.” She swallowed hard and her vibrations became so hard the chair shook. “I couldn’t do anything.”
“Lex,” Rune said. “What does COS want with them?”
“They want to hurt them. But soon, they want to kill them.”
“Sacrifice,” Rune murmured.
Lex didn’t look surprised. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“To call a demon. I remember talk of demons when I was a child in the church. My mother was trying to find a way to be possessed by one. I think they found a way. And even if my mother isn’t freed, the slayers will try to carry the demon to her—I don’t know how. If that happens, Karin Love will be unstoppable.”
Rune leaned her head against Lex’s knees. “Oh, God.” Karin Love a demon? Who could take down a demon? No one she’d ever heard of. “When, Lex?”
“The next new moon.” She gave a confused frown. “I think. Everything is fuzzy. I don’t see like you do, but I heard someone talking about the new moon. The voices are all jumbled.” She pushed her fingers against her eyelids. “It hurts to try to make sense of it. I could be wrong. But I heard new moon. I know I did.”
“Ten days,” Rune said. “It makes sense. The new moon is often used for ritualistic magic.”
“Why,” Raze asked, stepping closer with a hesitancy not like him, “must it be our twins? Why haven’t they sacrificed other twins?”
“They have,” Lex answered, continuing to stroke Rune’s hair, “but the other twins weren’t powerful enough to call even smaller spirits. They were not magical enough. Levi and Denim are…” She shook her head, looking for the right word. “Mighty.”
“Tell us everything you heard,” Rune said. She took a deep breath before continuing. “And everything you saw. In there somewhere are hints we can use to find them.”
“And they’re alive,” Raze said. “They’re alive.”
But once again, Lex’s eyes overflowed with heartbroken tears. “They’d be better off dead,” she said, her voice breaking. “No one should have to bear what is being forced on them.”
Rune stood. “You bore the bad stuff. Our twins can bear it.” She squeezed Lex’s hand. “They are mighty.”
“Like me,” Lex whispered. And through her tears, she smiled. “It’s time to get them back.”
Raze spoke into his phone, calling in the crew.
It was time.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Lex finished talking, the sun had gone down.
The crew looked at each other with haunted eyes, their faces pale, their minds frozen with shock.
She’d given them a horror story.
A story of torture, pain, control. Black despair and torment and fear.
The sadistic members of COS weren’t happy with merely torturing the twins physically. They wanted to see them cry, to hear them beg, to humiliate them. To break them.
“Are they really broken, Lex?” Ellis asked. He stood off to the side, alone, holding up his palm when one of the crew got too close to him.
“I think so,” she told him, her voice mournful. “Maybe.”
He worked his mouth, trying to speak, but no words would come.
“Levi loves you,” she said.
Ellis bent forward, sobbing. “Levi,” he cried. “Levi.”
Rune strode to him and pulled him into her arms. She embraced him and she embraced the pain from the covered fang. Right then, she needed the pain to keep her mind from exploding.
“He saw me,” he said, his voice thick. “Levi saw me.”
“I see you, baby,” she whispered, but knew it wasn’t enough. And maybe none of them believed they’d get the twins back, but not one of them would stop trying.
“There has to be something,” Strad said.
Rune glanced at him. His eyes were full of murder. Before Lex had finished speaking, he’d reached for his spear, his face blank. She recognized the killing rage with which he held his favorite weapon.
Yes, there had to be something. Some clue, something they were missing, that would lead them to the twins.
But if so, they weren’t finding it in Lex’s grim account. She’d felt emotions. Pain, fear, horror. She’d heard words. Mostly she’d been somehow inside the twins, had felt what they felt, but there was no way to know where they were.
COS was hiding, and they were hiding well.
“They could be anywhere,” Owen said. “COS could have them in a basement in the city, or underground in Hawthorne Forest.”
Rune closed her eyes against the burning pain of the insidious fang and flinched the tiniest bit from Ellie’s body. When she opened her eyes, the berserker watched her.
Ellis gently extracted himself and turned his back to wipe his wet face. “Why can’t we find them?”
“COS had a long time to prepare for this,” Jack said.
“They may not be keeping them in River County,” Raze told them. “On the night of the new moon, they’ll bring the twins back for the ritual.”
Rune shook her head. “They’re close.”
Lex agreed. “I couldn’t have found them if they’d been far. They’re here.” She made a fist and hit her leg. “They’re here.”
“Strad,” Rune said. “Ask the birds. I feel it in my gut. They know something. Maybe they saw COS on Hook Road. They know something.”
“Any little bit of information can help.” Ellis stared up at Strad. “Please. Please.”
The berserker’s sharp gaze softened as he looked from Rune to Ellis. “I’ll talk to them. If the scepters know anything, they’ll tell me. But they don’t.”
For whatever reason, Strad had no doubt.
Ellis took Strad’s hand. “Thank you. Now help me understand. Why would a man deliberately torment another person? It can’t just be hatred, can it?” He peered around at the crew. “COS…they’re people. They were once children. All of them have brothers or sons or fathers. What makes them want so badly to hurt another man?”
But the crew had no answers for him.
At least none that would satisfy him or make him understand. Such brutality would always be beyond Ellis’s comprehension.
He was too good, too pure, to understand the monsters that lived inside the dark corners of one’s mind.
Rune understood them, though, and she shook with dread and fear.
No matter when they found the twins, the boys were not coming out of there the same as when they went in.
If they came out at all.
Stop it. We will save them.
Only what if they didn’t?
Strad handed Ellis off to her. “I’ll contact you after I’ve talked with the birds.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He shook his head. “If I take you up there, they won’t tell me anything.” He smiled. “And we’d probably have a full scale battle on our hands.”
She nodded, then gave him a weak smile. “Don’t look so shocked, Berserker. I know it’s not a good idea for me to go to Spikemoss Mountain.”
