Creatus Series Boxed Set

by Carmen DeSousa

  “Perfect,” Jonas said. “Nine o’clock. In the parking garage of the hospital? And the girl will be there too? Wonderful.” He nodded at his younger brother. “Great job, Ry. I’m impressed. How did you manage all that?”

  Always the humble one, Ry shrugged. “I have my sources.”

  Jonas smiled. “Yeah…Mike’s not going to be too happy when he finds out you’ve been using all the systems he put into place against him.”

  “And, Victoria, will she be there?”

  Ry narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly, but then bobbed his head a few times. “I’m sure she will be.”

  Jonas stared across the table at his brother. “You okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ry, you can tell me anything. Did something happen that I should know about?”

  His brother sighed long and deep. “No, man. Just tired.”

  “Well, after tonight, we’ll be out of Boston. We can’t very well stay here if they know where we are.”

  “Exactly.” Ryan pushed away from the table and stood. “I’ll let the family know.”

  “Ry,” Jonas said. “You know I didn’t kill those people they accused me of, right? They were already dead.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Ry turned the knob and left his office.

  Jonas turned and stared out at the sunset. It was still early. They had a couple more hours before they confronted Reece, proving to him who the real enemy was. That was the goal, of course. They needed strong soldiers. If they could get creatus like Reece and Victoria…maybe even Mike, the other creatus would follow.

  At what expense, though. Had his brother lost faith in him? They only had each other, really. Their mother was here, but she wasn’t.

  And they both loved the same woman. Ry had backed down, even told Jonas that Victoria had asked about him. Of course, she was just trying to make Derrick jealous at the time. He still saw the way Ry looked at her, though. He’d always been crazy about her. Victoria, of course, had missed all the attention from him, all men for that matter. From the time she was a teenager, she’d had her eyes set on Derrick.

  Derrick had been older, though, and she’d been too much of a tomboy for any of them to pursue her. Her hands-off attitude had made sure that they all were too embarrassed even to hint at anything other than a ‘friend’ relationship. Then Derrick had gone home. He’d met Kristina’s mother immediately after returning to the states, and then he’d met Kristina. Victoria had a few more years of college, but she’d called home nightly, and then she’d pulled into a shell. They still had five years of teaching left in London before they could go home. Usually that’s when creatus met their partners, while teaching at the college they’d just graduated from.

  But Victoria returned to her dorm alone every night, refused to hang out with them, and literally just slept away the next five years of her life.

  Jonas had never understood what was so special about Derrick. It wasn’t as though any of them looked that different from each other. Derrick had been stronger than most of them, but it wasn’t as though Victoria needed protecting. No creatus male would ever hurt her, and she could tear a human male into pieces if one ever attacked her.

  Jonas strolled around the office and ended up back at the window again. He’d miss this safe house. It had plenty of room, it was quiet, and he’d miss being close to Victoria. But she’d been afraid of him, something he’d never wanted. He’d just wanted a chance to talk with her.

  When he left Boston this evening, he’d regroup. There had to be a way to let humans know they existed without revealing himself. He wasn’t stupid. If he just announced he was the ancestor of what humans had tried to kill because of their strength and because of the fact that they ate raw meat, authorities would try to commit him as a lunatic.

  When they realized they couldn’t contain a creatus, the powers that be would have him shot. Before humans had guns, they’d tried to kill creatus—what they’d called vampires--by hanging or burning them. Only problem was, creatus were too strong and could break any ropes used to restrain them. When humans buried them in crypts, creatus dug their way out.

  Creatus had been invincible until one human had learned a secret. Creatus were just flesh, and they slept just as humans did. So one man decided to kill a creatus that his family had been afraid would eat their cattle by sneaking into his house and stabbing him and his family through the heart.

  It worked, of course. Because creatus did have hearts; in fact, they had more heart than humans could ever dream of. They loved their children, spouses, and siblings more than they loved themselves.

  Jonas loved his brother like that…he’d die for him. He just wanted a world where he and his family could live as they wanted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Reece held back behind Derrick’s Navigator. Dressed all in black, Derrick stood beside him.

  Waiting…not sure for what, but Reece was almost certain he knew for whom. Only the four of them were inside the garage, as Derrick didn’t want to involve anyone else in the family.

  Since Reece was sure he knew which one of them their esteemed guest wanted, he’d asked Derrick to stay with him and suggested that Victoria and Mike remain on the other side of the garage. He hadn’t wanted Victoria to be here at all, but he knew that was impossible. If he’d pushed the subject, he would have only made her angry.

  At precisely twenty-one hundred hours, a black van pulled into the garage, just as he’d suspected. It was possible that when Frank Cooper wrote out the rogue’s request to meet him at nine p.m. that he’d changed it to twenty-one hundred hours, but he doubted it.

  Frank Cooper had let Reece go for one reason and one reason only; he wanted Derrick Ashton—the one person he had footage on—and Reece in his custody.

  The van pulled into a parking space on the far side of the garage. Seconds later the back doors swung open and a ramp slid out from the rear of the van. A wheelchair started down the ramp, seemingly on its own. After further inspection, though, Reece saw that his daughter wasn’t manning the chair. Meghan was alive, but her head lolled to the side as if she’d been drugged.

  Cooper crouched behind the chair, his left hand wrapped around a syringe taped to Meghan’s neck. When he reached the bottom of the ramp, he removed his G27 from its harness. The .40 caliber was small and light, but it was also powerful and accurate. He was alone, of course. After all, it’d be difficult explaining that he was planning to use an eighteen-year-old girl as a hostage. Few agents or officers would sign up for that. Besides, Frank wanted to bring in his missing link alone. To prove to everyone in the department that he hadn’t been chasing a phantom for twenty years. He was just arrogant enough to think he could pull it off too.

  “Buckley,” Cooper called, his voice echoing in the cold and damp concrete garage. “You ready to talk now, my friend?”

  Friend? Reece scoffed. They’d never been friends, and now, he was using his daughter as a hostage. Reece didn’t hesitate. Not that he cared whether he lived or died, but Cooper didn’t want to kill him; he wanted him alive. He took a step, and Derrick rested his hand on his forearm.

  “We won’t let him take her, Reece,” Derrick whispered. “Just distract him, and Michael will take him out.”

  “No… No one hurts him. He wants me, so I’ll go.” Cooper wanted Derrick too, Reece knew, but he would have to wait and see what Derrick did when the agent made his demands. Reece stepped out from behind the SUV. “I told you if you hurt my daughter I’d kill you, Frank. I wasn’t jokin’, friend.”

  “She’s not hurt, Buck, just sedated. However, if you don’t cooperate, I’ll plunge the entire syringe into her neck, and she will die. M99, by the way. Nasty stuff. Even a drop of this stuff is so deadly to humans that they package an antidote with every vial. Of course, I didn’t bring the antidote.”

  Without a doubt, Reece could shoot off Cooper’s hand, but he couldn’t take the chance that the veteran agent would keep his cool long enough to discharge a bullet i
nto his daughter’s head. Agents were trained to act under pressure, the reason many of them would still shoot, even after falling from a mortal wound.

  “What do you want, Frank?”

  “I want what I’ve hunted for twenty years—you. And your new buddy, Dr. Ashton, too. We’ll round up the others eventually.” Cooper laughed. “Don’t look so surprised, Buck. I knew all along. I found you the same way we find all our leads. Or should I call you, Eidolon? Here I am looking all over the country for my missing link, and you already worked for the government. I just needed you to work for me, and then I knew together we’d find others like you.”

  Derrick walked from behind the Navigator and stood beside him. “Fine. Let the girl go, and I’ll come peacefully.”

  Reece had suspected that Derrick would be willing to offer up himself to save a girl he didn’t even know. Derrick was a good man.

  A truck squealed into the garage, blocking Reece’s view. The passenger and driver-side doors swung open, and Jonas and Ry hopped out of the vehicle.

  “Cooper,” Reece shouted, “they’re not with us. Don’t do anything rash.” He bounded over the truck, landing between the brothers and Cooper.

  Frank Cooper’s eyes widened, realizing he’d been right in his assumption. But the numbers weren’t in his favor anymore. Cooper wouldn’t go down alone, though, and the person most at risk of death was the only life Reece cared about at the moment.

  “Frank,” Reece raised his hands as he approached him, “let my daughter go and walk away. This is bigger than we thought. Live to fight this battle on another day.”

  Cooper shook his head and took aim at Reece’s chest.

  Jonas stepped up beside Reece, nodding toward Cooper. “Is this what you want to protect? Pond scum? We’re superior to them, always have been.”

  Ry walked past both of them, edging closer to Cooper. “These worthless pieces of garbage, who rape women, molest children, murder their kind…” he continued his brother’s thoughts.

  Cooper turned his Glock on his closest threat. “Stay back. This has nothing to do with you,” he said to Ry.

  Ry’s lips turned up at the corners. “This has everything to do with me. I’m the one you want. I killed that man who molested his daughter, that piece of crud who raped women then slit their throats. You waste your few years on this planet hunting down a peaceful race of people, while your kind are willing to turn your own children into the government for notoriety.”

  “Ry,” Reece said, “Don’t…”

  Ry turned on Reece. “Don’t talk to me. I’m not your friend, and I don’t give a damn about your daughter. I’m just sick of living under the reign of the human species.”

  Cooper’s gaze traveled back and forth between Reece and Ry, but his gun remained trained on Ry.

  At Cooper’s six, Victoria soundlessly inched her way out of the shadows. Reece had seen that look in her eyes. She was a woman of action. She didn’t believe in negotiating with an irrational aggressor. Before Reece could beg her not to move, she launched forward, slamming into the side of the wheelchair, shoving it away from Cooper.

  Cooper fired off a round, hitting Ry, but Ry surged forward, knocking full force into the older agent’s midsection, sending him into the wall. The gun came up again, but Cooper’s body was pinned; only his hand was free beneath Ry’s inert body.

  Reece heard the pull of the trigger; the trigger travel was less than half an inch on that Glock. He had no time to think. He pounced in front of its trajectory—Victoria.

  The gunshot echoed in his ears. He clawed at his chest, wanting to remove the foreign object from his system. Blood stained his hands, but the pain hadn’t come yet. He’d been shot once before, during the Gulf War. He knew the pain that came after the initial shock to his body, once his brain finally registered the injury.

  Victoria screamed behind him and rushed to his side, and then the fire came. As if a red-hot poker had been plunged into his chest, and the embers had made home on his skin, singeing every molecule. He wished he were falling again; that was a good pain.

  Her arms gripped him as he finally started to collapse. “Reece, oh, God. Don’t—”

  “I love you, Victoria,” he managed as the darkness began to envelope him.

  He closed his eyes as his blood’s life-giving force seeped from his body. He suddenly felt light, as though he were floating. He struggled to open his eyes again, to see her one more time. Wind brushed his face. The garage whipped past him, and he saw her eyes, pensive, controlled. Victoria was carrying him, shouting something.

  A piercing scream shredded the air. Had it come from his throat? No… It was a different voice.

  The heat had subsided. Now he only felt tired. He just wanted to sleep. He tried to open his eyes one more time, but he was too weak.

  “Vic…” he tried, not sure if he managed to get out her name, but he had to beg for one favor. “Take care…Meg…”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Jonas watched as Victoria tore off into the hospital carrying Reece; Derrick and Michael followed.

  No one cared about Ry.

  A scream ripped from his lungs as he dropped down in front of him, yanking the lifeless agent out from underneath him. Ry had hit the man so hard that he probably died of internal wounds.

  He scooped up his brother and carried him to the truck. Blood covered him. His brother’s blood. There was no saving Ry; the shot had torn through his heart.

  Jonas laid his body across the backseat and then turned to the girl strapped in the wheelchair. He snapped apart the quick cuffs and then tore the taped syringe from her neck. Lifting her, he carried her to the passenger side of the truck. She stirred, but was still highly medicated.

  Tears stung his eyes as he backed up and turned toward the exit. He’d hoped that it hadn’t been Ry killing those people, but he knew that hope had been feeble.

  Had he been responsible? Had his hatred helped fuel his brother’s rage? Ry held more animosity and remembered their father more than Jonas had thought. His words about a parent turning his kid over to the government had pierced his heart, just as Ry’s had been.

  He hadn’t asked Ry to kill anyone, though. They’d only been using the corpses, the bodies that the humans had already slaughtered.

  His mother wouldn’t recover from Ry’s death. Although he’d lost her years ago, this would finish her off.

  He picked up his cell and hit redial. “My brother died tonight. So did the agent, though. He took him with him.”

  “What about the girl?”

  Jonas seethed inside. No condolences, no concerns. He’d been right. He was a pawn, as his brother had been.

  “She’s safe.”

  “Good. Come back, and we’ll regroup.”

  “No. Not yet. Tell my mom I love her. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “Jonas, we need to—”

  “We don’t need to do anything. I don’t work for you.” The line remained silent for once, so Jonas continued, “Go find the evidence you wanted so badly; it should be easy now. I’ll continue my work elsewhere.”

  Jonas hung up and drove to Victoria’s place. It’d give him time to think. She wouldn’t be home for a while, and no one would think to look for him there.

  He parked Ry’s truck in an alley a few blocks away, hating that he had to leave his brother there, but he couldn’t do anything for him now. He carried Meghan to Victoria’s building, staying hidden in the shadows.

  Rounding her brownstone, he waited for the sidewalk to clear and then popped the front door open with one tug. He entered the stairwell and leapt to her floor. Her door was more secure, but one kick sent the lock flying across the inside of her apartment.

  He carried the woman to Victoria’s bed and set her down. Rummaging through Victoria’s dresser, he pulled out a large t-shirt to replace the bloody one he wore. He went to the kitchen for water. The girl would have a massive headache when she woke up.

  By the time he made it ba
ck to the bedroom, she’d started to groan. That agent must have kept her pumped full of drugs every few hours, as most creatus burned through medication quickly.

  He sat down beside her, and she bolted upright in the bed, as if he’d used a defibrillator on her.

  She jerked her head from left to right. “What happened? Who’re you?”

  He dipped his head. “I’m Jonas, a friend of your father’s.” He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but figured she wouldn’t be afraid of him if he knew her father.

  She scowled.

  So maybe it wasn’t a good thing.

  “Where’s Reece?”

  “Reece? I thought he was your father?”

  “You have to be around to be a father,” she sneered.

  Jonas nodded. “True.” He wasn’t sure what to tell her, but he didn’t want to tell Meghan that her father had been shot yet, because then she’d probably come to her senses and want to see him. No matter what parents did, their children still loved them. He’d always loved his father and had always wondered if his mother could have done something other than kill him.

  “How did you find…there was a man, an older man… He snuck into my room and drugged me. Every time I woke up, he’d stick me before I was strong enough to escape.” She dropped her head as if she’d said too much. “Did my dad try to save me?”

  Jonas questioned whether he should let her continue to hate him, which might make talking her into joining him easier, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t turn her against her father any more than she already was. Besides, he hoped he wouldn’t need to. “Yes. He did. I’m in charge of keeping you safe, though, so no one finds you again.”

  “Will he be coming here, then?” Though she sat straight now, attempting to look larger and stronger than she was, he could hear the fear lacing her words.

  “He’ll be here as soon as he’s able, I assure you.” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “But you don’t need to worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  She gulped and then stared up at him with bright green eyes. Her fair hair and skin didn’t resemble a creatus, but she had to be. “Do you know my father well?”