Rain cleared the broken glass from the driver’s seat, and we both climbed in and shut the doors.
“Dammit!” Rain cursed. “The thieves stole our GPS!”
We both looked at each other and started laughing uncontrollably. It felt good—just the thing we needed.
“I hope that crazy GPS drives the thieves off a cliff,” Rain laughed.
I’ve never seen this side of Rain. Laughter was an unusual quality to find in a Shadow Vampire. However, over the past few days, I’ve learned Rain is anything but your ordinary Shadow Vampire.
The girls appeared around the corner of the bank. They looked like three sexy young women on their way home from the clubs.
“You two monkeys could be heard a mile away,” Aerona said, climbing into the back seat with Ember and Kasiah. “What’s so damn funny? And why did you break the window?”
Rain and I both answered her at the same time. “What window?”
“Well, it’s good to see you’ve bonded,” Ember said.
Kasiah powered down the back window. “Jade should be just another minute around that corner over there,” she said, “And why did you break the window?”
“Well,” Rain started, pointing to the empty slot in the dashboard, “someone broke the window and stole the GPS while we were out getting mugged by the locals.”
“Sounds like a story to me,” Ember smiled, shaking her head.
“Hey, there’s our girl.” Rain said, pointing in the distance.
Jade walked slowly with her hands in her pockets. She didn’t have a care in the world. Her bright blonde hair was blown back slightly as the night’s cool breeze picked up. I couldn’t help but notice the carefree smile painted on her face. She was an angel.
“How on earth did God let that girl fall from heaven?” Rain whispered.
“Oh please,” Aerona said sarcastically. “First of all, she’s the accidental child of two cast-out angels who did who knows what to who knows who to get sent down to this wasteland. Second, she’s just a girl. Give me five minutes with any trailer-trash bimbo, and I could make her look twice as hot as her.”
We all ignored Aerona’s rant, which only fueled her jealousy. Jade paused for a brief second to punch in the security code at the front door to the apartments upstairs. She disappeared through the door.
Kasiah stuck her head between us in the front seat. “Now we see which lights turn on,” she said curiously.
I shifted over so she could get a better look out the windshield. “This stalking stuff is surprisingly easy,” I remarked.
A cute smile crossed Kasiah’s lips. “The FBI prefers the term ‘stakeout’ over stalking,” she corrected me.
“Stakeout probably does sound better in court,” Ember commented from the backseat.
A light switched on in an upper window on the far-right corner of the building. Unfortunately, like every good angel, Jade had the window shades drawn.
“So, what’s the FBI’s protocol when the shades are drawn?” I asked.
“According to section C-22 of the handbook,” Kasiah explained, as though instructing a training session, “when confronted by a window shade, the next step is to kick in the door with guns blazing, shoot everything in sight, and take no prisoners.”
“That sounds about right,” I smiled, matching her enthusiastic instructor voice.
“In reality,” Kasiah said, sitting back in her seat, “we need to make a decision if we go knocking on her door now or in the morning.”
I looked at Rain, and he nodded.
“We should probably talk about Ashes,” I said hesitantly.
“Who’s Ashes?” the girls asked in unison.
THIRTY-TWO
Evan pushed his legs to run faster into the darkness. His heart practically beat out of his chest. The pitch-black forest made it nearly impossible for him to see anything more than the blurry outline of trees passing by just inches from his head. He grabbed one of the trees, spinning him around to the backside as he fell to the wet ground, fighting to catch his breath.
“HOLY SHIT!” he shouted, taking deep breaths as dripping sweat burned his eyes. “This is insane!” He let his head fall back against the tree. “I need to work out more. Buy an elliptical or something.”
Evan shut his eyes and held his breath, listening for sounds of anyone chasing after him. The only thing he could hear was the typical deep, dark creepy forest sounds of leaves rustling in the wind.
The wind felt good on Evan’s face. After a minute, his breathing finally slowed, and his heart rate steadied. He opened his eyes and peered around the tree trunk carefully, seeing nothing other than the silhouettes of even more trees in every direction. His pupils were fully dilated to absorb each tiny photon of light, desperately trying to make out the shadows of the night. Still, Evan couldn’t see more than a few feet from his resting spot.
His fear returned and started to take over Evan’s mind. He realized he had no idea of the direction he had been running. His original path was straight back to his car. Unfortunately, after two stumbles and a smack in the face by an unseen branch, he had lost his sense of direction.
“Good job, jackass,” Evan said, closing his eyes again. “Lost in the woods while trying to save some chick you don’t even know. That’ll look great on your tombstone, assuming anyone ever finds the body pieces.”
Evan’s options were simple: he could sit and wait for Jake to find him, or he could get up and get moving again. His major dilemma was choosing the direction to run. He couldn’t determine if he would be running away from Jake and the abandoned house or right back to it.
Evan held his breath again, listening out for anything out of the ordinary. Thirty long seconds ticked by before something off to the right caught his senses. Was that a car horn? he thought to himself. It was distant, maybe a mile or two. He wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him, deceiving him into thinking there was hope when all that was out there was certain death.
He heard the sound again—it was definitely a horn. It sounded strong, maybe a big rig driver blowing his horn at a car for cutting him off. The highway was Evan’s only chance, particularly since he had no idea now which direction his own car was in. If he could find the highway, he could flag down a passing driver to call the police and let the professionals handle the Jake.
Every muscle in Evan’s body told him not to move. He was going to ache from head to toe in the morning, assuming he would live to see the sunrise; but somehow, Evan managed to convince his muscles to find that last bit of energy and get him up on his feet. He had only taken two steps in the direction of the highway when a loud crack of a branch broke from behind the tree. He spun toward the sound instinctively, frantically searching in every direction for what had broken the branch. He stepped backwards, straining to hear or see anything.
The ground wasn’t where it should have been. Evan tumbled backwards down a ravine, grasping anything to break his fall. He rolled head-over-heels, crashing through everything in his path. Finally, after bouncing off a large tree, he came to an abrupt stop at the bottom, splashing into cold water. He lay motionless in the middle of a shallow, fast-moving creek at the base of the ravine.
“REALLY!” Evan hollered, staring up at the night sky.
The cool, gushing water gave Evan a second wind. He slammed his fists at the bottom of the creek bed, struggling to stand in the shallow water. He slipped and fell several times on the wet rocks before making it to the bank on the opposite side. It took every ounce of strength Evan had to pull himself up with the help of a few roots that stuck out like ladder rungs. The muddy bank made the climb nearly impossible.
After what seemed like forever, Evan collapsed at the top of the ravine, out of energy. He strained to see across the creek. Two deer, frozen in place, stared back from the opposite side. The deer had implemented their never failing if I don’t move then he can’t see me camouflage technique.
Evan started laughing. “You two scared me half to deat
h!” he yelled, as though the deer could understand him. “Hunting season’s only a few months away. I’ll be back for you two.”
The larger of the two deer trained its ears straight towards Evan, then back again to the sides. Its eyes darted back and forth, searching the darkness. The deer looked more terrified than Evan. It obviously knew something Evan did not.
“BOO!” Evan shouted at the deer.
The reaction from the deer was not what Evan had expected. They drew back on their hind legs and leapt high up in the air, not away from Evan, but toward him. Both the deer cleared the creek in two jumps, digging their hooves to climb the muddy ravine wall. Evan covered his head with his arms, expecting a painful impact. Unexpectedly, the deer raced right past him on either side. They were gone with a flash of their white tails.
Evan slowly lowered his arms, stunned at what just happened. “That’s right!” Evan’s shout followed the deer. “You better run!”
After falling down the ravine, Evan had again lost the bearings to the highway. He had no choice but to climb back up the other side and start over. As he brushed the mud off his jeans, a sudden feeling of being watched crept up his spine. He slowly lifted his head and looked across the creek—Jake!
Evan lunged forward through the trees. He was by now a professional forest runner, leaping over fallen trees and dodging branches left and right as though he was aiming for a gold medal in a new Olympic sport. Less than a minute had passed since he noticed Jake from across the creek. Don’t look back! Keep moving! he thought to himself.
Several minutes and a few dozen trees later, Evan found a new wave of hope. In the distance, he saw red and white lights. The highway wasn’t far now. He stumbled forward, pushing himself to run as fast as he could, running chest first right into Jake’s iron arms.
Evan landed on his back, hard, which knocked the air from his lungs.
Jake’s smiling face was the last thing Evan saw before he blacked out.
When Evan regained consciousness, his chest was throbbing with pain from his several broken ribs. His face was flat on the floor, covered with a thick layer of dirt. A dry musty smell filled his nostrils. He forced out several coughs, blowing a large cloud of dust around him, causing him to cough some more. Pain compressed his chest as he tried rolling to his back. His wrists were attached to something metal above his head, preventing him from turning completely over or sitting up. He yanked hard, letting out a shriek from the ache in his chest and now his wrists.
“There’s no use struggling,” Jess said from across the room.
Evan was startled. He couldn’t see who was speaking to him. “Who are you?” Evan managed to ask in between coughs. He had given up rolling over and somehow managed to get to his knees to see what was holding his wrists—handcuffs.
“Why am I handcuffed?” Evan demanded.
“Why is water wet?” Jess replied cynically. “Why is the sky blue? Why am I duct taped to this chair? All these questions may never be answered.”
Still on his knees, Evan scooted himself closer to his bound wrists, relieving the tension from the tight handcuffs. At closer inspection, he saw the handcuffs were looped around a copper pipe connected to an old sink in the corner. Evan hung his head down. “This is crazy,” he muttered.
“Crazy is one way of explaining our current situation,” Jess explained. “Although I would have gone with insane… or maybe fucked. This is fucked. Yes, that sounds much better. That phrase definitely suits our current situation better than simply saying it’s crazy.”
“You’re crazy!” Evan hollered. Another round of pain shot through his chest. He forced his head to turn far enough to notice Jess, and to his surprise, he found that she was most definitely duct taped to a chair on the opposite side of the room. She looked like hell; her clothes were filthy and torn, a thin streak of blood trailed down from her nose, and her red hair was tangled like a wild animal.
“Is that a knife through your hand?” he asked, tilting his head and squinting to see more clearly.
“Now, there’s something you don’t hear every day,” Jess replied irritably. “Look, who are you? You look like you’ve been rolling around in the mud and fighting with a tree.”
Evan looked down at his clothes. He was even more of a mess than Jess. His shirt and jeans were covered in mud and ripped in several places. His jacket was tossed out of reach on the other side of the room. Images of running through the forest raced through his mind. The creek, the mud, the deer, and Jake came crashing back all at one time. He looked around the room anxiously. “Where is he!” Evan hollered. “Where’s Jake?”
Jess ignored Evan’s hysteria. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jess. Tell me someone knows you’re here, and that same someone is bringing a small army to save you.”
The intense pain in Evan’s chest intensified with every breath. “My name is Evan, and well, actually, I’m here to rescue you.”
“Well, Evan,” Jess continued, “this must be the worst rescue in the long sad history of bad rescues. Did you happen to notice you are handcuffed to a pipe for the sole reason of keeping you fresh for Jake, the super-uptight-no-sense-of-humor vampire? You know that, right?”
Evan only heard one word of what Jess had said. “Vampire?” he asked quietly, more of a question to himself than to Jess.
“Oh my God,” Jess said, rolling her eyes and talking to herself. “How on earth did I get stuck with this guy as my designated hero?”
“You know,” Evan said, repositioning himself, “you’re not very nice. Maybe I should rethink my rescue strategy and leave your sarcastic ass here in this… where are we?”
“Strategy?” Jess asked angrily. “Was ending up captured with me a part of your little so-called strategy? Do I know you or something?”
“Or something,” Evan said, ignoring the rest of the question. There was no way Evan would confess he was the one who had led Jake right to her front door. “What do you mean vampire?” he asked.
“Vampire. As in break every bone in your body and suck your blood vampire.”
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Evan replied, trying to convince himself more than Jess.
“Well,” she continued, looking at the ceiling and laughing, “then you’re in for a rude awakening. Oh, and by the way, you never answered my question. How did you end up here to rescue me?”
Evan did the only thing he was good at without a computer—he lied through his teeth. “I live up the road,” he said, “and we don’t see many cops out here in the middle of nowhere. I was a little curious when I saw a cop car drive by, especially since the only thing at the end of this road is old man Snyder’s place, and he’s been dead for two years now. I followed the cop car here, and that’s when I saw you get carried into the house. I got scared and started to run home. Somehow, I got turned around in the woods. Then Jake found me, and I’m here with you. End of story.”
Jess stared at Evan, taking in his story. “And let me get this straight. When exactly did Jake introduce himself? Was it before or after he knocked you out, dragged you through the mud, or beat you against a tree?” Jess’s patience was wearing thin. “How do you know Jake’s name, and what are you doing here?”
Evan never would have made it as an undercover agent; he had always been lost without his computer to hide behind. He didn’t have an answer to Jess’s question.
Jess knew that Jake could return any minute, and she was not looking forward to another knife in the hand or watching Jake kill Evan. “OK, Evan,” she sighed, “I don’t care why or how you got here. Just tell me you’re not the only one who knows you’re here. Do you have a cell phone? Give me something. Anything!”
Evan looked down the front pocket of his jeans where he kept his cell phone. His kneeling position stretched the wet, muddy denim tightly around his leg. The pocket was empty. He hung his head down. His arms were practically numb. “My cell is gone,” he said halfheartedly. “Jake must have taken it. Not that I could reach it if he hadn
’t.”
Until Jake had carried Evan through the door and tossed him in the corner, Jess had lost all hope of escape. Everything happens for a reason, she told herself. Why did Evan end up handcuffed to a pipe here in the same room? Jake could have just killed him outside or left him in another room. That got her mind spinning again. Fate had put Evan there for a reason. Before Jess could finish her thought, Jake burst through the door.
“I know, Atmoro!” Jake shouted into his phone. “I’m not a mindless idiot! I won’t lose them again! Yes, sorry. Just keep me posted on their position in Montana. I’ll be at the airport soon. If you find that little prick Skywalker, tell him to get a hold of me. I have a damaged laptop that I need to pull some information off. It could help us find the stone.”
Jake slammed his finger on the phone’s screen, ending the call.
Evan swallowed hard at the sound of Atmoro’s name. He also wondered what Jake might do if he knew his hacker, Skywalker, was handcuffed to a pipe less than ten feet to his left.
Evan couldn’t get his mind wrapped around Jake being a vampire, even though it did explain how he was able to get up after Jess had struck him with her SUV, his incredible speed, and how the cop’s bullets didn’t stop him. Evan was always so careful in selecting his clients. He always performed proper background checks and research before committing to a job. He should have listened to his gut and dropped Atmoro just one day earlier.
Jake ignored Evan in the corner and went straight to Jess, yanking the knife out of her hand. She cried out in pain but was quickly silenced when Jake held the blade to her throat.
“Your laptop screen is smashed and unusable,” Jake said through clinched teeth. “You have one more chance to tell me where the stone is, or I’ll just leave you here for the rats.”
“Everything I know is on that laptop,” Jess replied. “Maybe you should have thought about that before running me off the road.”
The Blood of a Stone Page 23