Sacred Wrath

by Kristie Cook

  “Go, ma lykita!” he said. “Get them out of here. I can’t hold this for long.”

  Something hit us again, pitching the jet sideways. Another hole burst into the side of the plane.

  “GO!” Tristan yelled, his voice thundering in my head as he strained to hold the jet together.

  The copilot swept past me in midair and flew out of the hole. Sasha followed right behind him.

  “No!” I screamed as I dove after both of them.

  Daemoni mages waited outside, hovering in the air, as the ocean below surged toward me and wind roared in my ears. Squinting against the rain and rushing air, I couldn’t see Sasha, but the copilot was only feet below me. He instantly became my first concern, and I stretched my arms downward to try to catch his foot or leg. An orange light streaked through the rain and hit the warlock. His body jerked, then fell limp as he continued plunging toward the wall of black sea. I threw a bolt of electricity in the direction the spell had come from, then I tried to reach for our copilot again, but my hands only grabbed air. Another light streaked in my direction, yellow this time, but it missed. Someone screamed from a distance, but I didn’t recognize the voice. A big, white body flew by—Sasha as big as a horse—and another scream ripped through the night, followed by a round of thunder.

  A hand clamped onto my ankle. I tried to shake it off and twisted in the air to hit its owner with a jolt, but then my mind registered it belonged to an Amadis. I prayed it meant my team was close enough to follow my trail, and I flashed.

  I envisioned as our target the beach at Hilton Head Island where Mom and I had taken Dorian once. That wasn’t where we appeared.

  Like the other night when I’d tried to cross the border into Canada, my body slammed into an invisible wall, and I fell to my ass into a muddy puddle. Another body thudded next to me—Vanessa. We both jumped to our feet, squinting through the pouring rain for the others. Lightning lit up the area, immediately followed by an ear-piercing crack of thunder.

  Tristan! No response came. I mentally called out for the others.

  “Where are they?” Vanessa shouted over nature’s cacophony.

  Still hearing nothing from them, I reached out for their mind signatures, but they weren’t in my range. Unfortunately, others were nearby. Not Amadis or Daemoni. Only norms, but they were heavily armed.

  Grab my hand, and let’s go! I mind-yelled at Vanessa while I shared the thoughts I heard with her. We had to get away before we were seen. But when we tried to flash, we couldn’t.

  “Hold it right there!” a male voice called out. “Hands up where we can see them.”

  “Shit,” Vanessa muttered.

  “Yep,” I agreed. Shit was right. We hadn’t even made it to ground before one of their damn traps had caught us. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to suck in a level of calm with it so I could be diplomatic, as Rina and Mom had requested. Well, ordered.

  Five Norman police officers surrounded us, and it took every ounce of control Vanessa and I had to not fight them. Our self-preservation instincts bucked against us, but we cooperated as they handcuffed us and pushed us into a marked car. The whole time, I kept my mind open, but I could only find Norman mind signatures. Where were Tristan and everyone else? I tried not to think about what could have happened to them, especially to my husband. He’s Tristan. He’s okay. He and Charlotte are probably taking care of everyone else. I kept repeating this to myself until I believed it.

  “We have our proof now,” said a policeman as he ducked into the front passenger seat. “Whatever those Savannah folk did, it worked.”

  My eyes cut to Vanessa at the mention of Savannah, and she peered back at me with narrowed eyes as water slid off her hair and down her face.

  I don’t sense any Daemoni minds, I told her. She scowled, but didn’t reply.

  Another cop slid into the driver’s side, and they both yanked their doors shut before more rain poured inside. “Yeah, but I don’ trust ’em.”

  “You want to call Atlanta?” the passenger asked.

  “Don’ know yet. All I know is we ain’t bringin’ them nowhere. Whoever wants ’em can come see for theirselves that we got ’em, but they’re ours ’til we know what’s goin’ on.”

  “Damn straight,” the other said as the driver cranked the engine over.

  They’re acting on their own, I told Vanessa after listening to their thoughts as they drove us toward the lights of a small town. Not with the Amadis or Daemoni. They don’t know exactly why they have us except that we appeared out of nowhere, so there’s obviously something wrong with us. They don’t really know what to do. They know Savannah, Atlanta, and a few other nearby cities and clusters are looking for people like us, but they don’t know who to trust.

  “Hopefully not the Daemoni,” Vanessa said. “I’ll fight if they do. I won’t be captured by them.”

  Just do as Rina said for now until we know for sure.

  I hated being passive as much as Vanessa did. Probably more because not only did I worry about the risk of being captured by the Daemoni, but now the search for my son had been delayed even longer. An angry growl threatened to escape my lips, but I kept it suppressed. I didn’t want to piss off Rina by ruining anything or exposing our secrets. I didn’t need to give her or the council an excuse to change her mind about our mission.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the cop who’d been on the passenger side of the car asked me a while later as we sat in a small room with no windows, a wooden table, and two folding chairs. A cliché interrogation room. He had greenish-gray eyes, which were about the only attractive feature on him. A reddish five-o’clock shadow covered his soft jaw, and his coarse orange-red hair was flattened around his crown with police-cap hat-head. His tobacco-stained fingers drummed the wooden table as he waited for my answer.

  “Only that I’ve done nothing wrong,” I said.

  He let out a flat guffaw. “And what makes you think I’d believe that? Anyone who can do what we saw you do ain’t no good. Not in no one’s book.”

  “And what did you see us do?” I asked innocently.

  He jabbed his yellowed finger at me. “You and your friend appeared out of nowhere.”

  I had to try to convince him he hadn’t seen anything, and I suddenly wished for Mom’s power of persuasion. “That’s absurd. How would we be able to do such a thing?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It’s impossible, isn’t it? Are you sure the lightning wasn’t playing tricks on your eyes?”

  “We’ve been watchin’ that locale for days,” he said, leaning toward me. “We’d heard through the grapevine of freaky stuff like this happenin’. Wanted to see for ourselves, and, finally, there y’all were. Right outta nowhere!”

  I rolled my eyes. “We were simply out for a walk.”

  “In the weather? It’s rainin’ calves and hogs out there.”

  I shrugged. “Our car broke down.”

  “And where were y’all headed?”

  I paused, trying to remember my Georgia and South Carolina geography from our time in Atlanta. I didn’t remember much from that era—the Ang’dora had taken me back to when I was mentally strongest at nineteen, so most memories for those seven years had been dulled, pretty much forgotten. The only ones that really survived my transformation were special moments with Dorian. “Statesboro?”

  His brow rose. “Lemme get this straight. Your car broke down while y’all were headed for Statesboro, and you decided to walk there?”

  I widened my eyes and lifted my brows to portray innocence. “Exactly.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Statesboro, huh? Or do you mean Walterboro?”

  “Um . . .” Was that near Hilton Head, too? I had no idea.

  He shook his head. “It don’t matter. Either one would be a hell of a long walk in the rain.”

  “We like the rain. Thunderstorms are beautiful.”

  “So y’all think you were gonna walk over forty miles in it?” He cocked his he
ad as he studied my face. I couldn’t come up with any more lies. Lying wasn’t exactly my strong suit. “So what are you, you and your friend? How do you do it? What else can you do?”

  I didn’t answer him. He might have believed what Vanessa was because she was a creature he likely knew from pop culture, but he wouldn’t understand, nor believe, me, part Angel and part everything else. And what people didn’t understand, they feared. I could have shown him some things I could do—like give him a shot of electricity—but showing off and instilling fear of us were exactly what Mom and Rina had warned me not to do. When he finally accepted that I wouldn’t answer, the metal feet of his chair scraped against the linoleum as he pushed it back and stood up. His hands gripped the edge of the table, and he leaned over me.

  “Well, then, I guess y’all get to spend the night with us,” he said as though he’d delivered a horrible threat, “and we’ll decide what to do with you and your friend in the mornin’.”

  Now that could have been horrible, if they decided to call the Daemoni, but I wasn’t sure yet what they planned to do. They weren’t sure yet, according to their thoughts.

  Taking a risk, I went for a different angle.

  “All you need to know is we’re the good guys. If we wanted to hurt you, we would have already,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and nonthreatening. “Your facilities aren’t built to contain us, though.”

  He leaned over closer to me, and his eyes became slits. “I’d like to see you try to break out. We have silver ammo.”

  So he did know something. But not enough. I smiled. “Then give us your best shot. The silver only works against the bad guys.”

  He pulled back and cocked his head again as he glared at me. Then without a word, he strode out of the room.

  A few minutes later, I let another officer escort me to a small cellblock, where the fumes of human urine mixed with body odor hung heavily in the air. They separated Vanessa and me by one cell, as though it would keep us from conspiring against them. There were only three cells, though, so I supposed they had no choice.

  “Do I get my phone call?” I asked the guard as he shook the barred door, making sure I was locked in. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. They thought these bars and walls could hold us, so they really didn’t know much.

  “Y’all ain’t human. You don’t get no human rights,” he snapped, and I stared after him with my mouth hanging open as he walked through the door to the offices beyond. Things really had changed, even in the good ol’ US of A.

  “We’re flashing out of here, right?” Vanessa asked me as I sat down on a wooden bench, the only furniture in the cell besides a small metal toilet in the corner.

  Ugh. I dropped my head into my hands and massaged my temples while listening to the rhythm of her pacing. I could not believe I was actually in jail. I’d never been sent to the principal’s office as a kid and never even had a speeding ticket. And I hadn’t done anything wrong this time, either, yet here we were, locked up like criminals. I’d given up on wanting to be normal years ago, but I never imagined being imprisoned because I wasn’t.

  As much as I want to, we can’t, I replied. I promised Rina I’d cooperate, and I will . . . as long as my patience lasts, anyway.

  “Where do you think the others are?”

  I chewed on my lip with worry about Blossom, Jax, Charlotte, and Sheree, and the pilot, too. I already knew the copilot hadn’t survived, and I had to believe Tristan made it out fine, because if he hadn’t . . . no, I wouldn’t go there. Dorian’s disappearance was bad enough. I would not think about anything happening to my husband. He’s okay. He’s Tristan. The stone in my chest would surely alert me if something were wrong with him.

  But what about the others? Had they all survived? If so, where had they landed? I couldn’t sense any of their mind signatures in my range, and I wondered if they’d been caught in a different trap. Were they being held prisoner somewhere else? My breath caught in my throat with a thought. What if the Daemoni had captured them? What if their captors took them straight to Savannah? Oh god. What if they appeared right in the middle of Savannah, a minor cluster for the Daemoni? We’d never see them again. Not alive, anyway.

  Unless Tristan appeared with them. And Charlotte may have been powerful enough to get them out, too.

  Not knowing about the others wore my patience thin. Vanessa and I had to get out of here, and I had to find out what happened to everyone else. I had to get a hold of Tristan. If only my telepathy could reach a few hundred miles farther. The only minds in my range were the couple of norms in the police station and a couple thousand norms in the sleepy town beyond. I studied the cops’ minds to try to grasp onto something that could be helpful. Finally, a thought about the local pastor doing an exorcism skittered into the guard’s mind. Mom had said many clergy would know to help us, and I had a whole list of them in my head that I’d memorized while waiting to leave the island.

  I banged on the bars and yelled for the guard. After several minutes, he finally stepped through the door.

  “What?” he growled, though his Norman growl sounded more like a whine compared to what I was used to.

  “I’d like to see Reverend Stephens, please,” I said sweetly.

  “You know Rev. Stephens?” he asked with surprise.

  “Yes,” I lied straight through my teeth. Hopefully, he knew me. Or at least knew Rina.

  The guard eyed me for a minute then disappeared again through the door. I paced the stupid little cell as I waited for Rev. Stephens. And waited. And waited. Maybe the guard hadn’t called for the good pastor after all, but a search of the guard’s thoughts told me he had. The reverend didn’t understand my urgency, apparently. He needed to hurry up. Promise or no promise to Rina, Vanessa and I would be getting out of here soon, whether we flashed or walked out. I understood public relations was important for the Amadis in this war, but I could only restrain myself for so long. The lives of my team and my son were at stake.

  Besides, as long as we remained here, we were sitting ducks for the Daemoni.

  Finally, a tall, lanky African-American man with dark, wrinkly skin and a head full of wiry gray hair walked through the door and down the corridor along the jail cells. He eyed Vanessa with curiosity as he passed her, and then came to a stop at my cell.

  “Do you know the Amadis?” I asked him, getting straight to the point.

  He squinted his eyes with confusion.

  “Katerina Ames?” I asked with a trace of hope, but he shook his head. I started going through a list of the clergy names, monitoring his thoughts to make sure he told me the truth.

  “Oh, yes,” he finally said. “I do know McCorkle. Who doesn’t now? He’s well-known throughout the Southeast.”

  “I would like to see him,” I said firmly.

  His white brows jumped. “You know Pastor Richard McCorkle?”

  “Yes, and I don’t think he’ll be very happy to see me in here.” Of course, I’d never met the guy, but what did Rev. Stephens know?

  His eyes squinted again as he seemed to consider me.

  “Make sure you tell him Alexis Katerina Ames needs him,” I said, hoping the name would be enough to bring this McCorkle guy to our rescue.

  The older man finally nodded and strode back out to the police station. More hours passed, and although no windows broke up the smooth expanse of gray concrete wall surrounding the cellblock, I sensed we were well into the next day. Damn. It.

  All right. We’re not risking it any longer, I told Vanessa. Her mind perked up.

  “You’re finally ready to get out of this godforsaken piss pot?”

  Any ideas on the best way out? If we flash, they could catch us again.

  Before she could answer, the door swung open, and a forty-something guy with a smooth face and salt-and-pepper hair strode in, a new guard following after him.

  “Ms. Alexis,” he said, “I am so sorry about—”

  He stopped in front of my cell, and his jaw literall
y fell open. I stared at him with a lifted brow.

  “Um . . . pardon me. I just, uh . . .” He stammered as his eyes seemed to drink me in. “I, uh, never met any of y’all in person. You’re, uh . . .”

  His throat worked although no more words came out of his mouth, but I heard the rest of his thought: real. Again I wanted to roll my eyes, but gave him my sweetest smile instead. Seemingly speechless, he waved his hand at the guard, who unlocked my jail cell.

  “Thank you,” I said, holding my hand out for a handshake, assuming he was McCorkle. He gawked at it. “I’ll, uh, make sure Rina knows about your helpfulness.”

  He grabbed my hand and pumped it nonstop. “Oh, thank you, yes, thank you very much, anything I can ever do for y’all, I’m at your service, just call, use my name like you did, whatever you need, I’m here to help . . .”

  Before, he didn’t know what to say, and now he apparently couldn’t shut up.

  The police had our few belongings ready for us, and Vanessa and I finally sauntered out of the jail, after wasting nine hours of precious time. I sure hoped it was worth it for Rina and the Amadis. As soon as we were out of earshot of the police station, I turned on my phone to call Tristan. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a text from him, which meant he was okay. “Rendezvous at Rincon, GA.” He sent an address, but I barely saw the whole thing before the screen went blank. The battery was dead.

  Crap. What the hell now? We were in the middle of BFE South Carolina with no idea where everyone was and no way to get a hold of them. A string of profanities raced through my mind, but then I had an idea. Probably a stupid one, but what did I have to lose? With a trace of hope, I let electricity rise into my hand, out of my palm, and into the cell phone. A small squeak of excitement popped out of my mouth when the screen flashed an icon, but then it darkened again. Feeling encouraged, I pushed a little more power into the device, and the screen lit up . . . then the next thing I knew, the phone hissed and crackled, and smoke rose from it, the acrid smell of burning electronics wafting in the air.

  “Shit! Shit, shit, shit.” I threw the phone on the ground and stomped on it until only a pile of broken plastic and glass remained. I turned to Vanessa with my hand out. She stared at me with a look of bewilderment. “I need to get a hold of Tristan. Can I use your phone?”