I had to be somewhere in the woods. There were old abandoned houses in the woods. It would only make sense that those who lived there would have had a graveyard. A really old graveyard. This was very, very bad.
I worked against the bonds on my hands some more, but only succeeded in scraping and probably bloodying my wrists. My arms and shoulders ached from supporting the weight of my body. I took a deep breath to try and scream.
I found I could scream, but was cut off quickly as someone suddenly appeared out of the darkness in front of me. It was the psychotic, gun-toting blonde. So, I was officially in the last place I wanted to be, staring down at the last person I wanted to see. Heck, I’d even take Nick over her.
“Hello again,” she said cheerfully.
I glared down at her, not saying anything. She had a black eye and deep scratches running down one side of her face.
“Don’t wanna talk huh?” she asked. She smiled a truly wicked smile. “That’s okay,” she went on. “You don’t have to talk. All we need is your blood.”
My blood? Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. I swung my foot out in an attempt to kick her in her smug little face, but she easily dodged to the side and out of reach. She laughed a horrible jingling little laugh that I would remember forever (however long forever might be) and walked away.
I didn’t have to wait alone for long. Nick came swaggering into sight to stand several feet away from me. His air of superiority was slightly tainted by his battered face, courtesy of Lela. Unfortunately his werewolf blood had already healed the bruises to an ugly yellow.
“Afraid to get too close?” I mocked.
“Not afraid,” he countered. “Just smart.”
“That’s debatable,” I mumbled.
“What the hell are you, anyway?” he asked. “I saw what you did to Claude and Michael.”
Michael must have been crew-cut man’s name. “I’ll tell you what I am,” I offered, “if you tell me what the heck you plan to do with me.”
“We plan to slit your throat and steal your powers,” he stated calmly.
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, I knew they were planning to kill me, but hearing it stated so coldly put ice in my veins. “Did you steal the others’ powers? The ones you abducted?” I asked weakly.
“Yep,” he answered cheerfully. “I mean, I was already a werewolf, but Jaime promised to give me more powers if I helped her get hers. She promised me your powers, and now that I’ve seen what you can do, I’m very glad that she did.”
Okay, I thought, keep him talking, buy more time. “Jaime?” I asked. “Is that the blonde? How does she do it? Steal the powers I mean.”
He traced the toe of his shoe in the dirt absentmindedly. “I don’t know,” he answered. “She lights the funny smelling fire and calls to . . . something. As far as I can tell, it’s like a spirit or something. You’ll see. It appears in the fire. Then she slits our captive’s throat. That would be you,” he pointed a despicable finger at me. “Then she puts your blood into a big bowl and pours it into the fire for the spirit thingy. As far as I can tell, the spirit takes the powers from the blood, and gives them to her or to whoever she tells it to.”
I was getting dizzy. I had to swallow back the bile that was climbing up my throat to ask, “If all you need is blood, can’t you just take it from a non-lethal place. You can have my powers,” I pleaded. “I don’t want them.”
“Nope,” he said with a smile. “The spirit says that the captive has to die before it can take their powers. It has to separate them from your soul. Now that’s enough explanation. Tell me what you are.”
“I’m something you really don’t want to mess with,” I threatened.
He laughed at that. “Sorry honey. Threats don’t really work when you’re tied to a tree.”
I forced myself to smile back at him, but it was more just a baring of teeth. “Remember when we met?” I asked. “And I told you I’d kill you if you betrayed me?”
He nodded. “Yep. It makes this situation all the more gratifying.”
Ignoring his lack of fear I went on. “Well,” I began, “I may not be able to kill you myself, but you’ll still end up just as dead.”
“And how’s that?” he asked, still smiling.
“Because of what I am,” I answered. “I’m a demon, which in and of itself might not deter you, but demons run together, and you so don’t want demons after you.”
“Get out of town,” he said jovially. “A demon? Yours have to be like, the coolest powers ever.”
“You are such an idiot,” I mumbled, losing hope.
“We’ll see about that,” he remarked, then disappeared back into the darkness.
“We’ll see about that,” I mimicked to myself as he left. My wrists were throbbing from the restraints cutting into them. I had to get out of there. I closed my eyes and focused, trying to muster even a spark of fire to do . . . something. If I could blow up appliances, maybe I could melt the metal restraints. Or maybe set the tree branch I was hanging from on fire?
I tried to focus on how mad I should be at the whole situation, at Nick’s casual talk about my death, but all I could feel was tired and scared.
I heard chanting behind me, from where I assumed the fire was. I was running out of time. What the heck kind of spirit steals powers only to give them back to a mortal anyhow? Was death what it wanted? That didn’t really sound like a spirit. As far as I knew spirits didn’t have, nor did they care about, that kind of power. No, this particular deal sounded more like a demon. Not all demons are good ya know.
There was a loud whoosh, and I shuddered with the sudden electric sensation. The demon was here.
“Where is it?” I heard Nick’s voice ask.
“I don’t know,” Jaime answered sharply. “Just shut up.”
The demon wasn’t here? But I had felt it . . .
“Maybe it ran away scared,” another voice chimed in.
A surge of hope washed through me when I realized that it was my dad’s voice. The whoosh had come from him! I smiled deliriously and tried to struggle against my restraints again. Then the screaming started.
Jaime screamed first, followed shortly by Nick. I watched in awe as glowing shadows decorated the forest in front of me from the flames. The screaming didn’t last long. A few moments later, my dad came walking around my tree to stand before me.
“Hello Alexondra!” he said cheerfully. He stood at ease with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, no sign of stress on his face for having just killed two people.
“Hi dad,” I answered, then cringed when I realized that I had called him dad. I’d been doing it in my head so much lately that it just came out.
He pretended not to notice my slip up as he set about examining the tree I was hanging from. Apparently seeing no other way, he hoisted himself up into the tree by some of the lower branches. I waited anxiously as his feet disappeared into the foliage.
“You ready?” He asked.
“Just do it,” I grumbled.
With a loud snap, the branch I was hanging from broke off and I fell to the ground in a heap. My dad thrust the branch off to the side as he let it drop so it wouldn’t land on me.
I stayed on the ground where I had landed, not quite ready to move. My dad’s feet landed right beside my head, then he was hoisting me up with his hands beneath my shoulders. Now that I was down, he took a closer look at my cuffs. “Wait here,” He ordered, then disappeared around the tree.
I stumbled after him, feeling like I somehow needed to see the carnage, if only to assure myself that it was really over. I expected a rather grisly scene, but it wasn’t all that bad. Was the fact that I could think of two charred corpses as ‘not all that bad’ a bad sign?
Don’t answer that.
My dad kicked the smaller of the blackened corpses, making parts of it disintegrate into ash. He walked a few steps away from the corpse, apparently spotting what he was looking for, then came up with a purse in his hand. Jaime’
s purse. Luckily she hadn’t been holding it when, well, you know.
He dug through it and came out with a set of keys. He tossed the purse into Jaime’s fire as he walked back to me. He shuffled through the key ring and separated the handcuff key from the rest.
He stuck the key into my cuffs and they blissfully fell from my hands, one wrist, then the other.
“What took you so long?” I asked. “I thought you could sense me.”
He furrowed his brow in annoyance. “I cannot sense you when you are underground or unconscious. Tonight was the first time you were awake long enough for me to get a mark on you.”
I glanced down at Jaime’s fire. “What happened to the other demon?”
My dad chuckled. “Turns out I know that particular demon. He is very skilled in illusions, and was making them believe that he gave them powers. It’s a game that he plays.”
“So what?” I asked. “He was having them kill people for no reason, so he could make Nick and the others think they were getting new powers?”
My dad nodded.
“But why?” I asked.
My dad shrugged. “Why not? He thinks it’s fun. Convince people to kill supernaturals. Once he’s had his fun he kills the people he originally made the deal with.”
My jaw dropped in stunned understanding. I had almost died because of a . . . joke? “You’re kidding. It’s all for nothing? That is just . . . sick.”
He grinned like the proverbial crocodile. “Not all demons are good, you know.”
I shrugged off the fact that he had echoed my earlier thoughts exactly. He grabbed my left arm and draped it across his shoulder, and I let him, because my knees were going to give out any minute.
“You know, I still hate you,” I said, needing to reassure myself of that fact.
“Yes Alexondra, I know,” he answered, only the slightest mocking to his tone.
I looked down at Nick’s corpse. “I told you so,” I mumbled to it.
“What?” my dad asked.
“Nothing,” I answered. “Will I be able to do that someday?” I asked, gesturing to the remains.
“Oh yes Alexondra. I have very high hopes for you,” he answered.
Now that juicy little tidbit, was most definitely a bad thing. A very, very, very bad thing indeed.
Chapter Fourteen
I found out that my dad could take me with him when he teleported, though he scoffed at the word teleportation. He called it simply traveling.
Whatever it was called, I was soon out of the forest. I assumed we would be going to my house, but in the blink of an eye, we were in the parking lot of Jason’s apartment instead. My dad basically carried me up the stairs, though I pretended to walk as much as possible. Jason flung open his door before we could even knock.
He lifted my arm from my dad’s shoulder and took me into a crushing hug. “I got here as soon as I could,” he breathed into my hair. “I’m so sorry. I should have never left.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I mumbled. I ignored the painful protest of my bruised ribs and let Jason continue crushing me.
I felt wetness against my cheek and realized he was crying. He drew me further into his apartment, leaving the door open for my dad to come in. Jason sat me down on his generic apartment couch, then sat close beside me.
I looked questioningly at my dad as he hovered awkwardly above us. He nodded toward Jason. “He made me promise to bring you straight here.”
I rolled my head to the side to look at Jason. “He wouldn’t let me come,” he explained, sounding a bit petulant.
My dad sighed loudly. “I also told him that I can only carry one person when I travel, I needed to be able to carry Alexondra back.”
“And I told him . . . ” Jason began.
I cut him off with a hand in the air. I had a feeling that my dad was lying about only being able to carry one person, but I wasn’t going to point it out. I forgot whatever I was about to say as I got my first good look at my wrists. They had partially healed already, but were still a sickening greenish brown, with ugly scabs decorating where the cuffs had worn away my skin.
At that moment Chase, Lucy, Allison, Max, Lela, and even Brian came bursting into Jason’s apartment. At my startled expression, Jason explained, “I called them when your dad left to get you.”
Lucy and Allison were the first to crush me with their hugs. “You stink,” Allison remarked as she slowly pulled away.
Her remark made me giggle. Then that giggle turned into full out, gut-churning laughter. My friends stared at me as if I had just recited the Bhagavad-Gita, and I laughed all the more. I was probably delirious with shock and exhaustion, and I didn’t care in the least. We had once again come out of things alive.
My laughter ended just as abruptly as it started, as a truly horrifying thought dawned on me. “What did you guys tell my mom?”
No one answered me.
“Well?” I prompted.
“They drugged her,” Brian answered.
My jaw dropped as I met Brian’s serious brown eyes. I turned to Allison, seeing as she was the only other one who would meet my eyes. “You drugged my mom?” I asked skeptically.
Allison cringed. “Um, your dad did it.”
I turned my attention to the demon in question. “Care to explain?”
“I didn’t drug her,” he responded, his voice betraying not the slightest drop of guilt. “I gave her something to make her sleep, and to make her memory a little . . . foggy.”
“You drugged my mom!” I shouted.
My dad cocked his head and gave me a look that said I was being very silly. “What would you rather I had done?”
I was left once again with my mouth hanging open like an idiot. “I don’t know, but you shouldn’t have drugged her.”
My dad just shrugged and began to casually explore Jason’s apartment. I gave up on that particular argument and put my head in my hands. “What happened to the rest of our abductors?” I asked. I couldn’t help flashing back to Claude’s charred face. He’d seemed nice . . . for a kidnapper. The others could rot for all I cared.
“The red-haired woman will be dealt with,” my dad answered. “The others have disappeared.”
“Nick?” Lela asked sadly.
“Kindling,” I answered.
She nodded and slumped down onto the couch next to me.
“Now, when you say she’ll be dealt with,” I began, turning my attention back to my dad, “what exactly does that mean?”
“Do you really care?” Chase asked before my dad could answer.
I regarded him with a scowl. “Yes, I care.” Turning to my dad again I added, “Just don’t kill her okay?”
My dad nodded sharply. “Okay.”
Now that that was settled, on to the next emergency . . . I seriously stunk. “Can we go home now?” I whined. “I’m in dire need of a shower.”
Jason took my arm to help me stand. I was still feeling shaky, so I let him. After days of blocking out how much I missed him, it felt good just to be near him again.
We silently left Jason’s apartment, and I proceeded to wobble down the stairs to the parking lot. I managed to do it without much help from Jason, thanks to my death-grip on the railing. The only other vehicle I recognized in the lot was Chase’s, and I wondered how everyone had gotten to Jason’s together.
In answer to my question, Lela stepped up beside me. “Mind if I ride with you and Jason?” she asked. “The ride over in that excuse for a truck was none too comfortable.”
“Sure,” I mumbled as I shuffled over to the passenger’s side of Jason’s car. Jason unlocked the doors while the rest of my friends piled into Chase’s truck. My dad came to stand beside me, preventing me from escaping to the safety of the car.
“You need to let me teach you Alexondra,” he stated simply. Jason and Lela had already gotten inside the car, so I had no one to turn to for an interruption.
I glared up into my dad’s expressionless face. I realized his nos
e was slightly sharper than mine, not as similar as the rest of our faces, and I took a brief moment to revel in that fact.
“You could try actually asking me,” I said finally. “And it’s Xoe.”
I expected him to roll his eyes at me, but he met my gaze seriously. “Please let me teach you . . . Xoe.”
I closed my eyes and breathed in the crisp night air. This would be the final step to letting him into my life. “Fine,” I mumbled.
He smiled, and it was genuine. “I will see you soon then.”
I opened the car door, then turned to stop him before he disappeared. “Hey,” I began, “I have a question.”
He raised an eyebrow at me in response.
“When they kidnapped me, they gave me a bunch of tranquilizers,” I explained, “but I got over them really quickly, faster than Lela did.”
My dad chuckled to himself before answering. “You have enough oomph to create fire from nothing. A fast metabolism is part of the package.”
I couldn’t help my smile at the term oomph. I liked it a lot better than “demon power.” “Oomph huh?” I asked. “I guess I can deal with a little oomph,” I conceded.
I slipped into the car just as my dad disappeared in a cloud of smoke. He apparently didn’t care if anyone saw him. If only we all could be so secure.
Chapter Fifteen
When we got back to my house, Chase’s truck was already parked out front. I wanted nothing more than to be alone with Jason, but my friends had been worried about me, and I could stand to spend a few minutes to reassure them that everything was really okay.
Jason, Lela, and I went into the house to find Max, Lucy, and Chase waiting in the living room. I went to stand near the couch with Jason following me like a shadow. No one said anything.
I stood awkwardly for a moment more. I was way too tired for this. “I’m, um, gonna go shower,” I announced, pointing one finger half-heartedly toward the stairs. I hustled out of the living room and up to my room, Jason never more than two steps behind me the entire way.
The Xoe Meyers Trilogy (Xoe Meyers Young Adult Fantasy/Horror Series) Page 28
