The Return (Haunted Series Book 21)

by Alexie Aaron

  “No, we were angel-napped.”

  “Michael?” Ted asked hopefully.

  “No, a new one, Raphael. I think he removed the tumor.”

  “What tumor?” Ted asked, his heart in his throat.

  “That’s what was giving her the nose bleeds,” Lazar said offhandedly. “Evidently, her genes were unbalanced with too much light and not enough darkness. This caused the tumor.”

  “I think that about covers it…” Mia said, stepping away.

  “Mia, there’s something else. Tell me,” Ted begged. “The demon isn’t back, is she?”

  “No, but our family may have just gotten bigger.”

  “Are you pregnant?” Ted asked, totally confused.

  “Remember how my blood transfusion connected me to Ed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I was given Crone magic to balance the light.”

  “So, my line will pass through your next child,” Lazar said and added, “Heaven help you. Wait, Heaven did help. What a ride!”

  “Are we having more children?” Ted asked, narrowing his eyes at Lazar.

  Mia stepped between them. “Not presently. Right now, I have to locate Blair and Murphy. You let him leave with two energon cubes. Lord knows what the farmer could do with that much power. We can create a child later. Much later,” Mia added for her own sanity.

  Ted stopped Mia and looked deeply into her eyes. “Wherever the next path takes us, we go together.”

  “I love you, Teddy Bear,” Mia said, enjoying their connection.

  “I know,” he said and held her to him and whispered, “Nothing from Heaven, Earth or Hell will ever stop me from loving you.”

  Mia trembled.

  “Here’s my tracker and earcom. I expect to hear from you soon,” he said, placing the items in her hand.

  Mia put in the earcom. “Mia Martin on com.”

  “I hear you loud and clear,” Cid responded. “Good luck.”

  Mia tucked the tracker inside her neckline before she touched her collar and released her body armor. She blew a kiss to Ted before she added the helmet. The wings emerged, and the armor came down. Each feather created a small crater in the ground. The dust swirled as she shot upwards into the sky.

  “I’ll never get tired of seeing that,” Ted mused. “Lazar, you and Mia didn’t…”

  “Please, we had a chaperone,” he said, moving towards the command post.

  Ted could hear Cid laughing in his ear.

  “Sorry, if he didn’t have such a self-satisfied look on his face...”

  “Let it go, Ted. I need you in here. You know Mia works better when you’re in charge of communication.”

  “She says I make her brave,” Ted said.

  “Yes, I know. Come on, dude, I have to pee,” Cid said.

  Burt passed Ted on his way in. He had a supporting hand under Sean’s arm. “I really hate to turn him over to the cops.”

  “It’s the fastest way of getting him and Vince together again,” Ted said. “Let the courts figure out who gets punished and who gets to go back to Go.”

  “Dude, that guy is tall,” Sean said to Burt. “Did you see the nose on him?”

  “Sean, shut up,” Burt said and walked him to Tom Braverman.

  Tom looked at Sean. “Are you alright?”

  “I skinned my knee, but I’m fine. I don’t remember much. Can you fill me in?”

  “Your brother’s worried. I’m going to put you in the capable hands of one of my deputies. Sean, for what it’s worth, you can change your life in a moment. All you have to do is want to.”

  “Lecture heard and filed,” Sean said, giving Tom a weak salute.

  “Somehow, I doubt it,” Tom responded. He waved a deputy over. “Take him and put him in a cell with Vince. Check his pockets first.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mia flew high above the treetops. She then glided, circling the area, paying attention to the sounds coming from her scanner. “Cid, I’m getting the strongest indications of the chip in the northwestern quarter of the woods where the creek flows under the road. He may be hoping to slip away using the culvert there. The water would keep the creature away from him.”

  “I’ll let Cid know,” Ted said. “He relinquished the headset of power.”

  “Glad to hear your voice in my ear. I’m going to drop down and see if I can find Murphy. It would be a good idea for Tom to send a car to the area, just in case Blair’s moving faster than I anticipate.”

  “Will do. So, when you were talking about making a child, it was with me,” Ted confirmed.

  “Yes. We are married. So far, we’ve made a genius sage and a super birdman. I think we’re on a roll. But I do want to wait awhile. There is no rush. We’re going to be together forever.”

  “In the meanwhile, I suggest lots of practice,” Ted said.

  “Teddy Bear, you’re distracting me. Remind me what was I going to do?”

  “It involved Murphy. Go get him, Mighty Mouse.”

  Murphy and the three trappers were moving quickly through the trees. Murphy didn’t have a spectral sign to follow because Blair was human, but he did see broken branches and trampled wild strawberries to clue him into the direction the man was heading.

  “He’s headed towards the creek,” Murphy said, pointing.

  “Oui,” the purple Frenchman responded.

  One of the other two had caught the arm of his compatriot and pointed up. Murphy looked up. Mia dropped down, hiding her wings as she did. Her armor, however, was still up.

  “Jeanne d’arc!” one of them exclaimed.

  “No, Mia,” she said, retracting her helmet.

  “Oui! Mia!” the purple Frenchman said, along with a few things Mia didn’t need to translate.

  “You had to pick these clowns,” Mia growled at Murphy who looked a little too pleased with himself.

  “Blair is headed for the creek. I think he thinks it will provide him the protection he needs to keep the creature at bay,” Murphy said.

  “That’s where I think he’s headed too,” Mia said, lifting a trapper’s hand off her behind. “Lâche-moi ou je vais te faire mal!”

  “Excusez-moi.”

  “Dear, do I have to call in the cavalry?” Ted asked.

  “I swear I’m going to turn the next trapper into ash who touches me.”

  “Mia, you must have missed it when the first one asked if you would like to lie in the woods with him. He said you would enjoy it,” Ted said.

  “I didn’t need that translated. Now I’m going to have to cut off his…”

  “Bad Mia!” Murphy said and directed the trappers back to the matter at hand. “Anglais is getting away!”

  “What a way to rally the French, Murph,” Mia said.

  “You try getting these frogs in line. All the time, they are jabbering about l’amour and you.”

  “Hang on. Ted, give me something to say to stop this unnecessary attention.”

  “Tell them, ‘Ce soir, je vais faire l’amour à une femme,’” Ted instructed.

  “But I’m not a lesbian,” Mia argued.

  “Tell them, and they will back off.”

  “Ce soir, je vais faire l’amour à une femme!”

  The trappers frowned. They moved away. Murphy tapped his axe in his hand and pointed to the creek. The trappers moved quickly along the shore.

  “What did you say?” Murphy asked.

  Mia translated, “I said, I’m making love to a woman tonight.”

  “That would do it,” Murphy said. “Are you?”

  “Connard!” Mia said.

  Ted laughed.

  Murphy didn’t react. He just continued to try to wipe his axe head free of the purple paint.

  Blair splashed to a stop. He listened and acknowledged that he was getting closer to a well-traveled road. The whine of wheels on asphalt was sweet to hear. He started to move up the embankment and stopped. A car pulled off the road. He backed down and looked up at the road. It was a sheriff’s
cruiser. He moved quickly to the culvert and stepped inside, sliding on the slimy interior.

  “Anglais,” hissed something behind him.

  Blair turned around, pulling his gun. He stopped himself from firing into the darkness. The sound would alert the deputy to his position. He had no delusions; he knew that the cops were looking for him. “Who’s there?” he whispered.

  “Anglais,” a more guttural male voice enunciated slowly. “Anglais, vous mourrez!”

  “Hold on. I’m an American. Not English,” Blair corrected.

  “He lies,” Mia said outside the large culvert. “Il aimerait votre mère.”

  “I would not make love to his mother. Mrs. Martin, you’re not playing fair.”

  “I’m not playing fair? I’m not the one holding a loaded weapon,” Mia said, stepping out of the light and into the culvert with Blair. “Come on, Blair, it’s time to go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200.”

  “Anglais,” the voice hissed directly in his ear.

  Blair batted the air behind him. “Where the hell is that coming from?”

  “Drop your weapon and come with me. I promise you it will hurt a lot otherwise.”

  “You don’t scare me,” Blair said and fired, aiming at Mia’s head. The bullet seemed to ricochet off her and then bounced off the side of the culvert and whizzed by his ear.

  “Murph, bring him out of there. I’m bored,” Mia said.

  “What the fuck is a Murph?” he asked as his gun was knocked away and his arm pulled up painfully behind him.

  “I am,” Murphy said, pushing him out of the darkness. He shoved him against the bank of the stream, pinning him to the ground with his foot. “Mia?” Murphy asked.

  Mia walked out holding a wet gun by her fingertips. “Ted, communicate with the deputy and ask him to come down to the creek bed.”

  “Yes, dear. How are you?”

  “One purple axe away from a hell of a headache,” she admitted. Mia touched her collar and retracted her armor. She knelt and straddled Blair’s back, putting his gun’s muzzle to the side of his head. “Please move. Please try to get away. I’m up to my neck sick of you.”

  “Mrs. Martin, you wouldn’t kill me.”

  “No, but I would,” Ethan said from the other side of the creek.

  “Ethan, leave,” Mia ordered.

  “I think you may need someone more solid to help you hold Blair.”

  “You’re probably right,” Mia said. “The cops are coming. Before they do, do you have anything you want to say to Blair?”

  “No. It doesn’t do any good. There is something so vile inside of… this…”

  “Anglais.”

  “Not the word I would have used, but thank you whoever you are.” Ethan looked around him. He saw Murphy and Mia, but the others were invisible to the teen. “What I was saying is that I won’t waste my breath. He belongs in jail. It was his influence that got Keith killed. Jason, well, that’s pure Jason. But, Blair, you killed your brother. I’m willing to testify to that.”

  “What are you babbling about? The creature killed my brother.”

  “What creature? Did this so-called creature benefit by Keith’s death?” Ethan asked. “You brought us all into these woods hoping that we all would die. All except you.”

  “Yes, that is exactly what I did,” Blair said. “I killed Keith, Jason and, soon, you.”

  “I think I can count that as a confession,” Tom said, following two other deputies.

  “Ted said he has it recorded if it helps,” Mia said, getting up and handing Blair’s gun to Tom.

  “Thanks, we may need that. But I’m sure his lawyers will have it thrown out. All I care about is getting him behind bars. No more running home to Daddy.”

  Blair started coughing and coughing hard. One of the Deputies eased off him, thinking he was in distress. This gave him enough time to reach his loose hand into his pocket. “Stand back or…”

  “Or you’ll toss rocks at us?” Mia asked, having already picked his pocket and replaced the two hand grenades with two wet creek stones.

  Blair dropped the rock and slumped to the ground, frustrated.

  “Get him cuffed and into that cruiser,” Tom ordered.

  “Anglais!” was heard, followed by a lot of spitting.

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask.”

  “Would it have anything to do with the three men wearing furs?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, I forgot you can see them,” Mia said.

  Tom winked at Mia. “Come on. Blair Summerfield, I charge you with possession of a semi-automatic gun and the attempted murder of Rory Kline.” He went on to read him his rights as the two deputies pulled him up to the waiting cruiser.

  A spectral paintball splattered against Ethan’s chest. He didn’t see it, but he felt it. “Ooof. What was that?”

  “Jason Jones, and it’s my bad,” Mia admitted. “I may have riled him up masquerading as you.”

  Ethan took another paintball to the chest. “Jason, give me an effing break here.”

  “Mia, if Jason is here then…” Murphy alerted.

  A growl was heard from the woods. Mia pushed Ethan behind her. “Get up that embankment and as far away from these woods as you can.”

  “My jeep?”

  “I’ll find it and…”

  The creature now stood in the way of the exit. Its long roots spanning either side of the creek. Mia had only seen it this big one time before.

  “Murph, you didn’t feed it an energon cube, did you?”

  “I needed help.”

  “Does this look like help to you?”

  The French trappers flew in the face of the monster, trying to give Mia a chance to get away. She grabbed Ethan’s hand and started running. She glanced above her, looking in vain for a break in the tree canopy. “Ethan, run in front of me.”

  Ethan did so without question. He felt Mia’s arms wrap around him as he was pulled out of the water and into the air. He tried not to freak out. He knew Mia was different. Right now, she was freakishly different. They moved quickly upwards towards a break in the trees.

  When Mia and Ethan cleared the canopy, Murphy watched, horrified, as one hand of the creature shot upwards.

  Mia saw the hand in her peripheral vision but not quickly enough to avoid it. She pulled Ethan in tight to her.

  The creature batted the flying woman down, spiking her like a volleyball deep into the heart of the forest. She grabbed the trappers and sucked out their energy before going to retrieve the bad boy and the woman who dared to defend him.

  Mia and Ethan tumbled through the thick canopy. Mia just managed to turn her body, so that when they landed, her wings and body protected Ethan from hitting the ground. It did take the wind out of her. She looked around. “Ethan, run. Run south,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “This is a place of stoning. She will systematically crush you to death. Go!”

  “Then she’ll kill you. No. You’re in pain. What can I do?”

  “My wing is twisted back. Help me to right it so I can retract it, and maybe just maybe, it will heal in time to get us out of here.”

  Ethan grabbed the injured left wing with both hands, amazed by the weight of it. But adrenaline was coursing through his veins, and he worked with it until he felt the front of the wing seem to pop into an elbow of sorts.

  “Good,” Mia said, gritting her teeth. “Help me up.”

  Ethan got Mia to her feet, and they started to move away from the clearing. The forest around them seemed to fill in. Brambles with inch-long thorns made leaving the killing ground impossible. Mia moved her wings, but as she did, the canopy overhead thickened and blocked most of the light.

  “She’s taken out any way of escape. We’re going to have to fight. Mia reached into her wing and drew out a sword. With her other hand, she produced a wicked looking dagger. “This is a demon blade. I’m not sure where the heart is in that creature, so we’re going to have to
prune it until we can kill it.”

  “Do we have to?” Ethan asked.

  Mia moved in front of Ethan and looked him in the eye. “Listen, there comes a time when we have to kill or be killed. Your sacrificing yourself will not save me. We have to fight this thing until Murphy can get here. The three of us stand a chance.”

  “Four,” Jason Jones said, tossing parts of the abandoned M110 down at Ethan’s feet. “Looky what I found.”

  All Ethan could see were the parts raining down on him. He caught as many pieces as he could. “Why can’t I see him?”

  “Because he doesn’t want you to see him. He’s afraid you’ll be put off,” Mia said.

  “Damn straight, I’m one twisted em effer,” Jason agreed.

  “There’s no bullets,” Mia said. “Lazar tossed them in the sinkhole.”

  “I found these by the creek bed,” Jason said, tossing two cartridges to Mia.

  “Why are you helping us?” Mia asked.

  “This is the game Blair started. He’s out. It’s our job to finish it. I figure, six teenage boys was the wrong call. One winged lady, two ghosts, and an asshole named Ethan is the right team to have.”

  “I hope you’re right. Speaking of ghosts…”

  “He’s trying to chop an exit for you two fleshes to use.”

  “Good call. Yours?”

  “Damn straight. There is only one subject I paid attention to in school, military history. I was just too hyped up on pills to follow it, but now… I can see clearly now…” he sang.

  “Shut up,” Ethan said. “Damn, we’re missing something.”

  “You have all the pieces,” Jason pointed out. “Maybe I dropped one? I’ll be right back.”

  “The military genius dropped part of a semi-automatic sniper rifle,” Ethan sneered.

  They started to hear the approach of the creature, who had resumed a humanoid form, lumbering in, carrying a large flat rock.

  Mia advanced, spreading her wings to give cover to Ethan. “We don’t want to hurt you. Let us leave, and we will never return,” Mia promised. “Rory is fine. The bad boy has been taken away. This child is not the boy you’re looking for.”

  The creature put down the megalith and craned her face close to Mia’s. A river of drool fell from her thorn-encrusted mouth. It ran in the colors of the paint the six had used in the woods. The creature pointed to Ethan and then the rock.