I don’t think the landing was what Ashes had expected. Her foot caught an old light fixture on the ceiling, and she tumbled down to the floor, crashing into an old wooden case full of a ceramic bell collection. The werewolves wasted no time and were on Ashes in an instant, pinning her down. She let out a forceful growl, knocking the werewolves back. One of her blows struck the black werewolf, sending it tumbling through the air. It hit the wall and yelped, but in an instant, it was back on his feet and back on Ashes.
Instead of trying to pull the werewolves off, I threw my hands out and grabbed Ashes with my mind, yanking her from under the werewolves and splintered wood, flinging her to the other side of the room. She hit the wall hard, knocking the guns from her hands. She was back on her feet before the dust could settle.
The werewolves were now circling each side of the room, keeping one eye on me as they stalked Ashes. She ripped the legs off a broken chair near her. The two wooden clubs were useless against the werewolves, but any weapon in a Shadow Vampire’s hands was a deadly one.
The werewolf at the furthest distance attacked Ashes. The beast sprung from its hind legs, lunging with razor sharp fangs open wide. Ashes smashed one of the chair legs into the hard wooden door frame next to her, shattering it at the tip, leaving a deadly sharp spear tip. She swung the other chair leg, connecting with the werewolf’s head. The werewolf yelped in pain as she crushed it against its skull. Ashes forced the jagged end of the spear-tipped chair leg into the werewolf’s chest, until the bloody tip of the wooden dagger punctured through its back.
The second werewolf attacked me on the stairs. Saliva dripped from its mouth. Its eyes were black as night and showed no apprehension. These creatures were bred to be unafraid of death. My hands may not move as fast as Ashes, but my mind could run circles around any werewolf. I raised my right hand beside me, the palm facing out. The werewolf leapt up the stairs, snarling like a beast. Halfway up the stairs, the wolf’s snout crushed against the invisible wall I had created. The werewolf backed up and tried a second time with the same result. I placed another transparent wall behind it. The werewolf was confounded by the invisible walls. I created a wall on either side of the werewolf, and one more on top to complete the enclosure.
The werewolf was puzzled, trapped in a virtual glass cage. It threw itself into all four sides of the enclosure and tried to break free. Streaks of blood smeared the invisible walls. Realizing it was trapped, the werewolf began to claw at the wooden steps, attempting to dig its way out.
Ashes retrieved her guns from the pile of splintered wood in the corner. “Stop messing around!” she yelled. “Kill it!”
I used Aerona’s trick of squeezing water molecules from the atmosphere to create a rainstorm inside the glass cage. The cage filled rapidly with water. The werewolf floated to the top of the cage, kicking its legs furiously, trying to swim free as it gulped for air. It didn’t take long for the werewolf to drown and transform back to its human form.
The werewolf transformed into a young, dark-skinned woman with jet black hair and an athletic muscular body. I released the invisible walls. Water gushed down to the main room, leaving the woman’s soaking wet nude body on the stairs.
Ashes quickly fired two bullets into the woman’s head. “Where’s Rain?” she asked, firing a third shot.
“He went out the window,” I said, rushing down the stairs and out the door.
Outside, another werewolf lay dead on the porch alongside two vampires with pieces of the wooden swing protruding from their chests. Rain had a third vampire pinned against a police car in the driveway.
Ashes, with both guns drawn, covered us from the sides.
“This,” Rain said, squeezing the vampire’s neck, “is Jake.”
Jake struggled to say something under Rain’s powerful grip. He released Jake’s throat, then forced him to his knees.
“Fuck you!” Jake cried, spitting blood on the ground.
Rain grabbed Jake by his jaw and pulled his head back.
“Wait!” I yelled to Rain. “We need him.”
Jake, not realizing who he was dealing with, tried to flee as soon as Rain released his grip. Jake’s reactions were fast, but he was definitely created in this world. Rain caught him effortlessly within the first five steps. He grabbed hold of Jake from the back, tossing him through the air into the side of the police car. The passenger side door caved in from the impact. Jake shook his head, dazed.
“Don’t move,” Rain warned him.
I turned to Ashes to help find the others. “Ember, Jess, and Evan made it out the back. Please find them and bring them back here.”
Ashes disappeared around the corner of the farmhouse.
I bent down to Jake’s level. “Where’s Atmoro?” I demanded.
Jake hung his head down and shook it from side to side. “Go to hell,” he said, breaking into an evil, hysterical laugh. “Go to hell!”
Rain’s arm moved too fast for me to see, slamming Jake’s head back into the car’s door.
“Let’s try this again,” I said. “Has Atmoro found the stone?”
Jake rested his head back against the car. “Are you deaf? I said go—”
Rain stepped on Jake’s leg just below the knee, pinning him to the ground. Jake showed his fangs and snarled. Rain pressed on the leg, snapping it like a twig. The sound of the bone breaking sent a chill up my spine.
Jess, Evan, and Ashes came walking out of the darkness. A flash of light shined from the corner of the house, followed by Ember. A shower of sparkling dust fell to the ground around her.
“Why is he still alive?” Jess asked.
“We need him to tell us Atmoro’s location,” I said, walking away from Jake, irritated by his loyalty to Atmoro.
“Atmoro doesn’t know shit!” Jake shouted. “I’ll kill him myself if I ever see him again! I never asked for him to make me a vampire! I’ll kill him!”
I gave Jake another chance. “Tell us what you know, and we’ll make this painless.”
Rain put his foot on Jake’s other leg.
“OK! OK! OK!” Jake pleaded. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Rain grabbed Jake by his shirt and lifted him up to his feet.
“Atmoro has a mole in your operation,” Jake said, cringing from the pain of his broken, healing leg. “He’s using the mole to track your movements, hoping you’ll find the stone for him.”
“A mole?” I said in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
Jake laughed. “How else do you think he’s been able to find you across the country and back?”
I looked at Rain, then at Ashes, trying to piece together Jake’s allegation. No one in our team could possibly be feeding Atmoro information. We didn’t run across Ashes until we were in Montana, and we found Rain and Ember in Erie; they didn’t come to us. The only thing that made sense was Jake making a last effort to save himself.
I turned back to Jake. “Does Atmoro have the location of the hidden door to the Shadow World?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped. “Google it.”
Jake held up his hands in defense as Rain moved in again to grab hold of him. “Whoa!” Jake begged. “Tell your super vampire to back off, and I’ll tell what I know.”
“Let him go,” I instructed. “Jake, you better start talking. Now!”
Jake straightened his shirt. “Atmoro told me this one thing. I’ll be breaking his trust if I tell you, and he’ll be pissed. It’s like top secret information, but you guys are my friends, so I’ll tell you.” Jake cracked a smile. “Aeron, he said your sister is a nice piece—”
Ashes fired two shots into Jake’s stomach. He fell to his knees.
“Shit!” he gurgled, spitting more blood. “Don’t kill the messenger!”
Ashes moved in closer. “Wrong,” she declared. “Killing the messenger sends a message.”
Jake forced his head up to look at Ashes. “You bitch!”
Ashes fired two shots into Jake’s forehead. “We w
ere wasting time.” Jake’s body toppled over. “He was never going to tell us anything.”
Rain popped the trunk of the police cruiser. He pulled out a small red gas container in one hand and an orange road flare in the other. Ashes dragged Jake’s body away from the car, dropping it next to the other two vampires and the werewolf. Rain poured gasoline over the bodies, then ripped off the top from the flare to ignite a red-hot spray of sparks. He tossed the flare, setting fire to the bodies.
Without a warning, a sharp pain squeezed my head from the inside. The pain intensified, knocking me to my knees. I clinched my head from both sides and screamed.
Jess ran to my side. “What is it, Aeron?”
This pain was something I had never felt before. It was as if a tiny demon was sitting on my brain, poking my eyeballs with a knife. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. My brain was on fire.
I heard Jess’s voice, but it sounded as though she was yelling from miles away. “Aeron!” she shouted. “What’s wrong with him?”
And then, just as suddenly as the pain appeared, it vanished. I lay on the ground in a cold sweat, and that’s when it hit me. “AERONA!”
Rain and Ashes vanished in a flash.
“Get in the car!” I barked to Jess, Ember, and Evan. “Now!”
The police cruiser screeched onto the pavement as we turned off the dirt road. I floored the accelerator. A mile down the road, the black Raptor was parked in plain view. Aerona’s cloaking spell was down.
I skidded the police car to a stop at the center of the road, leaving the car running as I jumped out and ran to where Rain and Ashes were kneeling over a body wearing a bright pink shirt.
“Get back!” I ordered them.
Rain held me back with his iron grip. “Aeron, she’s gone.”
“NO!” I screamed. “I can feel her! She’s still here!”
Ashes touched Rain’s shoulder. “Let him go.”
I collapsed next to my sister’s lifeless body. She was on her back. Thick lines of blood ran down her nostrils and the corner of her mouth. Rain was right; her heart had stopped, but I could feel her energy. There wasn’t much there, but I could feel her. I had to work quickly. I ripped her pink shirt open, exposing her black bra. Removing the stun gun from Aerona’s side pocket, I yanked out the electrodes with wires attached, placing one just below each of her breasts. I pulled the trigger.
Aerona’s body thrashed violently from the high voltage.
I released the trigger, but Aerona’s body lay lifeless.
I pulled the trigger a second time.
Aerona’s muscles contracted, and her body shook violently again.
I released the trigger, and Aerona’s body went still.
“She’s gone,” Ashes said from behind me.
“NO!” I yelled. “She wouldn’t give up on me!”
I placed my hands just above her head and shut my eyes. I felt my energy pass from me to my sister. I opened my eyes and saw Aerona’s body begin to glow bright white. I pulled in every ounce of energy I could manage to control, passing it all to Aerona. Her body began to rise up off the road, hovering a few inches above the pavement as energy passed between us. Gradually, I began to lose control. I felt my mind losing its connection with Aerona, and I set her back down gently.
She lay motionless on the pavement, and for the first time in nearly a century, a tear rolled down my face. I lowered my head and shut my eyes. Amy flashed through my mind. I finally understood the pain Kasiah had felt when she lost her sister.
“Are you crying?” Aerona asked in a weak voice.
I thought for sure my mind was burned out, playing tricks on me. I opened my eyes to see Aerona’s smiling face looking back at me. She brushed the hair from her eyes.
“Awe, you’re the little sister I’ve never wanted,” she said, sitting up and looking down at her torn shirt. “You ripped my shirt and shot me with a stun gun?”
Ready to pass out from exhaustion, I gave Aerona the biggest hug I could manage. “You are one of a kind.”
“Aeron,” Rain cut in from beside us, “you need to see this.”
“It’s alright,” Jess said, holding her hand out to Aerona. “I’ve got her, Aeron.”
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“Better than new, little brother.”
Rain helped me up and took me over to the Raptor. A body lay on the ground next to the truck’s driver side door. Rain bent down and rolled the body over—it was Morgan. His eyes were open, frozen in shock after capturing his last breath of life. His neck was ripped open, and the front of his shirt was soaked with blood from a violent vampire attack.
I didn’t want to look inside the truck or ask the next question, but I did anyway. “Jade and Kasiah?”
“There’s no sign of either one,” Rain said. “They’re gone.”
I placed my hand on the truck to prop myself up. “I should have listened to Kasiah,” I said in sadness. “She was right. We served Jade up on a silver platter, and Kasiah is probably—”
I couldn’t get the words out. I walked away from Morgan’s body and back to Aerona, where Jess and Evan had pulled the police cruiser off the road. Evan was handing Jess a jacket with POLICE stenciled in bold letters on the back.
“What happened here?” I asked Aerona.
She stuck her arms into the jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t remember a single moment from when you guys left to just now. It’s like my memory has been erased. There’s an empty hole where these memories should be.”
I leaned against the car next to Aerona. “Atmoro has a warlock working with him,” I said, finally making sense of how Atmoro was able to track us. “I should have seen this.”
“How could you have possibly known Atmoro had recruited a warlock?” Aerona disputed, zipping up the police jacket. “Don’t beat yourself up. Use that energy to find Jade and Kasiah.”
I thought about it for a minute. I knew what we had to do. “Atmoro will keep Jade alive until the last possible minute. He won’t risk losing her blood. He’ll sacrifice her at the secret door to the Forgotten Shadow City.” I looked at Jess. “We need to find how Atmoro plans on crossing into the Shadow World.”
“I think,” Evan added hesitantly, “I may know the place you’re looking for.”
FORTY
“You sure know how to travel in style,” Evan commented, climbing the stairs into Ember’s Star II.
“Welcome aboard,” Andrea greeted him. “A computer is ready at the table. It’s linked to a secure fairy satellite.”
Evan thanked Andrea, then sat down to get to work. On the way to the airport, Evan had explained to us that Atmoro employed him as a freelance hacker. Several weeks back, Atmoro contacted Evan to hack the U.S. Social Security database to compile a list of names and addresses of anyone with a name related to rare stones. Less than a week after Evan provided Atmoro the final list, he had requested Evan to hack the U.S. Geological Society database to compile a detailed list of their entire inventory and locations around the country. Atmoro seemed particularly interested in finding a rare, glowing nodule.
According to Evan, Atmoro always paid on time through wire transfers. Evan had assumed Atmoro was a typical white-collar criminal, trying to build his rare stone collection with unusual pieces that would make his rich friends jealous. He had no idea the stone Atmoro coveted was a flesh and blood human, one he intended to sacrifice in order to open a secret door to an inescapable prison deep within a different world.
As Ember’s Star II rocketed down the runway, I watched Jess hovering over Evan’s shoulder as lines of code streamed down the laptop’s screen.
“Tell the pilot to head south toward Arizona,” Evan directed, hacking through cyberspace. “As a precautionary measure, I always destroy all original information for all my customers, including Atmoro. It’s basically a safety step, in case they get any ideas about incriminating me in their crime
s.”
“That’s understandable,” I said, watching the runway grow smaller out my window. “Any information will be useful.”
Evan typed a few more commands. “Got it,” he said, excitedly, leaning back in his chair. “Atmoro’s smart, very smart. He did make one mistake, though, assuming he was smarter than me. I destroy any data trails to my front door, but I also build backdoors for future access of any server I touch. Atmoro always used the same e-mail server to receive my files, and apparently, he never permanently deleted any of my e-mails or files. Sedona, Arizona is our target.”
“Sedona, Arizona?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Evan stated, typing in a few more commands, then pointing at the screen. “According to these e-mail confirmations, Atmoro chartered a plane to Sedona from right here in Chicago. The plane departed an hour ago.”
I nodded to Andrea. She rushed to the cockpit to inform Candice of our destination.
“Good work, Evan,” I said, standing up. “Copy everything from that server but do it discreetly. We don’t want Atmoro knowing we can track his movements.”
Rain and Ashes were seated at the rear of the plane. Rain had his headphones on and stared into the emptiness of the night sky. Drained of energy, Aerona was already fast asleep in the seat next to Rain.
“We have a location,” I said, sitting beside Ashes. “Sedona, Arizona.”
Ashes nodded. “We’re going to need a recharge when we land.”
“A recharge?” I asked, swallowing hard, realizing what she had meant. She and Rain needed human blood to supercharge their strength before taking on Atmoro.
I looked towards the front of the jet at Jess and Evan. “You don’t mean?” I asked quietly.
“No,” she reassured me. “We’ll hunt once we land… find someone local. Rain has considerable control over his thirst for human blood. Don’t worry, we won’t kill them.”
“I don’t want to know the details,” I said, sighing heavily. “I’m going to get some rest. Please wake me before we land.”
The Blood of a Stone Page 31