“Yes, but we should call the Sheriff if you think she’s in danger.”
“Sage, give me your damn phone,” Gideon said.
I shot him a look. “Stop that.”
“How do you even trace a number?” Sage said, drawing away from me to pass him her phone. “Isn’t that illegal?”
“No,” I said, shifting closer to Gideon to watch as he opened the contact list. “There are hundreds of apps available.”
“Well it sounds like a gross invasion of privacy,” Sage countered. “If you’re really that worried about Callie, we should talk to the Sheriff.”
“Sage, you do not want to involve the Sheriff,” Gideon said, his head down, his thumb still scrolling through her contact list. “You have nothing to be concerned about. You trust us to handle this.”
My foot jabbed out at his calf. He wasn’t even trying to reason before resorting to compulsion.
He didn’t look up, but he got the message. “Fine, you play twenty-one questions with her... Aah, here we go.” He cocked a brow at me and offered Sage her phone. As she took it from his hand, he looked her in the eye. “Forget everything that has happened since Haley left.”
She tucked the phone into the pocket of her sweats and scowled at him. No longer worried about Callie, just back to glaring daggers at his rudeness, the minutes between now and Haley’s departure gone from her mind, evaporated into thin air. I hated this. I hated everything we were doing to her.
Gideon shrugged off her scowl and strolled out the door like he didn’t give a fuck.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Sage and went after him.
Gideon had turned the room adjacent to his bedroom into a private office with all the comforts of the den. When I got there, he was already seated at the desk with his laptop open.
I moved in behind to look over his shoulder, my mouth clamped down on my irritation with him. The Moon had access to technology that rivalled systems used by federal institutions with one exception—we didn’t require a warrant.
The GPS locator on Callie’s phone was off.
Gideon searched a layer deeper.
The phone was turned off.
He went deeper.
You’d have to smash the phone to smithereens or burn it to a pile of ash to hide from us. This was the reason I’d left my old cell phone behind in Philly.
The software displayed a map with the phone’s location pinned in red. Gideon zoomed out to get his bearings. The pin was roughly three miles south of us, a place named East Wells.
Gideon sent the coordinates to his phone and stood. “You stay here with Sage.”
“Absolutely fucking not,” I stamped out. “This is my mess. I’ll clean it.”
“It is your mess.” His eyes draw narrow, deadly serious. “But consider the possibilities. This could be a pre-emptive strike to see how I react. Or it could be a means to go after what he really wants. The girl means nothing special to me. Taking her won’t detract me from my purpose or weaken my defenses. Luring me away, however, does leave Sage exposed and vulnerable.”
I was less worried about Sage’s immediate safety. Rolling Stones didn’t have her face. If he had her name, he didn’t have the most important dots to connect the relevance—a portrait painted lovingly by an artist who obviously cares.
“Maybe he’s just having some fun in his downtime with an innocent girl,” I said. “Maybe Callie slept over at a friend and isn’t even missing. I’ve considered all the possibilities, Gideon, and it could also be a trap. I’m going with you.”
He looked at me, thinking, weighing my determination against the strength of his argument. He couldn’t stop me. I’d seen the address and unluckily for him, he couldn’t compel me to his will.
“Sage stays,” he finally relented.
I had no problem with that. On the way out, I detoured by the kitchen to say goodbye to her.
Gideon was right behind, cutting between us. He scraped his knuckles beneath her chin, tipping her eyes to him. “Keep the doors locked and don’t let anyone inside. If there’s any trouble, call Lex first.”
I held my tongue until we were outside. “Was that really necessary?”
“I thought we agreed,” he said, climbing behind the wheel. “This whole thing could be a diversion.”
I got in on the passenger side and slammed the door of his precious Audi. “I mean the compelling. If you want Sage to do something, you could try asking nicely once in a while.”
“If I ask, she has the option to refuse or go back on her word.” He snapped his phone to the dashboard and brought up the directions. “When it comes to her safety, I’d rather be certain. What’s the matter?” He slanted me a grin as he started the engine. “Jealous?”
“Excessive compulsion,” I said, the official definition of which was ‘constant compulsion over an extended period’, whatever the hell that meant. “It can break a person’s mind.”
“Then I guess it’s just as well Sage won’t be needing her mind for much longer.”
“Don’t.” I ripped my view from him to the side window and closed my eyes. The weight of our fucking world was pressing down, crushing my chest. “Don’t do that.”
“That was callous,” he said after a while. “Sorry.”
He probably was. Not that it’d change anything. Sacrificing the individual for the greater good was one of our seven commandments. The theory had been drummed into my skull, but Gideon lived it. We are taught our magic builds a wall to separate the things we have to do from the things we have to feel and Gideon had already shoved Sage behind his.
“I’ll try,” he said into the lengthening silence. “I’ll try to do better.”
I opened my eyes to the countryside flashing past. “You compel her so you don’t have to engage. You’re afraid she’ll become too real.”
“Her purpose in this world has already been decided, Lex. Not by me. Not by you. She was born to fulfil one function.”
“We have no way of knowing how many Eclipses have come and gone without ever being discovered.” I rolled my head to look at him. “They get to live their lives without ever knowing about their higher purpose. We don’t decide, but we can choose. If you hadn’t found her—”
“I can’t un-find her.”
“You can.”
“I won’t.”
“There it is.” I watched him for a moment, watched his jaw clench and unclench. His fingers drummed the steering wheel.
“I’m Moon,” he said. “So are you. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Is that a threat?”
He glanced at me. Away. “Of course it damn well isn’t.”
We rode the rest of the way with me staring out the side window, Gideon drumming his fingers on the wheel, my guilt-ridden heart pounding toxic blood through my veins. He said he’d try. It was a start.
East Wells wasn’t a town. It was just a gas station, a feed store and rows of dilapidated houses with dust and weed gardens. It quickly became apparent we couldn’t park outside the address. The Audi Sportback screamed imposter.
We kept going until the urban settlement was out of our rearview and parked off the side of the road. The day was a clusterfuck of broiling black clouds and spitting rain and humid heat. I was soaked and sweaty by the time we’d jogged the half mile back to the sad-looking clapboard.
The house was set back from the road, no trees or bushes. The windows were grimy and bare. No furniture on the rickety porch.
I shared a look with Gideon. “It looks deserted.”
He checked his phone one last time and tucked it away. “This is definitely the place. I’ll go in the front, you go round the back.”
I gave a sharp nod, relieved he wasn’t sidelining me to stand guard here on the curb. Or trying to. I had no intention of sitting this one out.
Since there was no vegetation to cover our approach, there was no point in being subtle. We cut a direct path across the weed patch, Gideon loose-limbed with a bored express
ion. My nerves were pulled taut, every sense on high alert for movement or signs of occupation. It wasn’t like I went head-to-head with demons or their playthings every other day.
Gideon went for the porch, the steps creaking beneath his booted step. I crept around the peeling, slatted wall, my pulse ticking more erratically then I’d ever admit out loud.
I wasn’t so much afraid of Rolling Stones. I was terrified of what we might find. There was nothing about this place to give impressions of girly sleepovers or even revenge sex. Visions of a young girl’s body ripped to shreds flared to life. I shook it off, running my hands through my rain-soaked hair to get the wetness off my face.
A curtain twitched in the house on the adjacent lot. I kept my eyes there as I stalked close to the wall. It didn’t twitch again.
I reached the back door and tested the handle.
Locked.
There was no curtain on the window. The glass was stained with grime, but I got a clear enough view when I peered through into a miserable kitchen. There was a small pine table—no chairs. The surfaces were completely clear except for a lone mug near the sink. The door leading out was partially open but I couldn’t see beyond into the dim passage.
The place looked deserted. But that didn’t mean no one was here. This was definitely the correct address and our tracing software had never lied before.
I tried the handle again, taking a closer look at the rusted keyhole. A spit of magic would make quick work of it, no doubt exactly how Gideon would enter via the front door.
Fuck that.
I moved back a couple of paces and charged the door with my shoulder. The door rattled in the flimsy frame but didn’t break. Rubbing my shoulder, I set my eyes on the window. I could simply go back around the house to the front. Gideon was probably already inside. But what did that prove? That I was less without magic?
That I was useless until I invoked? Gideon had never pressurized me before, but presenting Sage to me was a clear and loud message of where he stood. For all I knew, this was a test he’d set to use against me the next time I insisted I didn’t need fucking magic.
I stripped my t-shirt off and wound it around my arm as I aligned myself with the window. Deep breath. I smashed my elbow hard.
The glass splintered.
It took another moment to register the stabbing pain. Fuck. I bit down on my back teeth and pulled the large shard from my forearm. Blood gushed at an alarming rate. Fuck. Fuck.
Blanking out the pain, I used the same arm to smash out the remaining glass. The pieces still embedded in the frame tore at the grip of my palms as I hefted myself up and through the narrow space.
“Don’t come another fucking step.”
I froze.
“I said stay the fuck where you are!”
The voice came from deeper within the house. He wasn’t talking to me.
A loud thump reverberated the thin clapboard walls. A strangled cry.
“What name does your master go by?” Gideon’s distinct drawl this time, low and controlled.
“I don’t have a master.”
“He calls to you. He whispers his name in your ear.”
A chill crawled down my spine. Gideon was asking about the demon’s true name. That’s what he’d come here for. Not for Callie.
I got my feet moving, unwinding the t-shirt and using it to bind the deep cut as I crossed the kitchen into a short passage. I’d seen a Gideon interrogation once before and it hadn’t lasted long. He was single-minded and made split-second decisions he was too arrogant to doubt. If he decided Rolling Stones wasn’t going to talk, he’d end the man and we’d be left without a clue as to Callie’s fate or whereabouts.
Sacrifice the individual for the greater good. Our teachings were no fucking good to me right now. Callie was the first innocent blood I had on my hands and all I saw was red as I raced from the kitchen toward the sound of another strangled cry. Red blurring my sight. Red dripping from my body. Red pounding at my skull.
“Give me his name.” Gideon’s voice pulled me through the doorway on my left.
Partially transparent, glowing blue vines of magic extended from Gideon’s palm, arcing up high above Rolling Stones’ head and dangling into a hangman’s noose around his throat.
Gideon glanced at me, his mouth thinning as he clocked me wrapping the bloodied t-shirt around my arm. “You’re bleeding out.”
“I’ll live.” Keeping upright? That may be a problem. The room was beginning to tilt. “Callie?”
“Unless he’s tucked her under the floorboards, she’s not here.”
I tucked the ends of the material in to secure the makeshift bandage and turned my attention to Rolling Stones.
He was frantic, eyes bulging in their sockets as his fingers grappled at his neck. He couldn’t see the blue vines. He had no idea what was strangling him.
“Where is the girl you took last night?” I demanded.
Gideon jerked the noose up and tighter, lifting Rolling Stones onto his toes. The man gurgled out a cough, flapping the air above him, desperately searching for the invisible rope that was hanging him.
“Give him a chance to answer,” I snapped at Gideon.
“What name does he whisper in your ear?” He loosened the noose, lowering the man onto the balls of his feet again. “Give it to me.”
Wrong question. I moved closer, close enough to touch the bastard if I reached out. “Is she alive? We know you took her. You have her phone. Where is she?”
Rolling Stones rubbed his throat, looking at me with hate in his eyes. “Kill me and you’ll never find her in time,” he wheezed.
Gideon curled his hand into a slow rotation and the vine rope started winding around Rolling Stones’ throat, tighter and tighter. “He’s not going to talk.”
Panic overtook me. I stepped between Rolling Stones and Gideon to disrupt the magic. I was lightheaded, but I knew exactly what I was doing. I understood the consequences.
The multi-layered noose dissolved from Rolling Stones’ throat and wrapped around mine, thick vine tangling around and around, squeezing my neck until it felt like my head would pop off.
Gideon cursed and tapped his magic.
The vines fell away, but the restricted air supply on top of the blood loss was already too much. My knees buckled out from under me and I dropped, the room around me spinning.
“Lex!” Gideon rushed forward and came down beside me.
His face faded in and out, then in again as the compressed feeling on my throat released and my lungs drew in oxygen.
“I’m okay,” I said, the words coming out weaker than I would have liked.
I pushed up from the floor, couldn’t seem to find the strength to do more than shove myself into a sitting position against the wall. Rolling Stones. I squinted to focus my vision, to look for him. “He’s gone.”
Gideon seemed more concerned about my arm, unwinding the bandage, muttering, “What the hell did you do? Slice through a damn artery?”
“Gideon.” I yanked my arm away. “He won’t have gone far. Go after him.”
“Fuck the weasel.” He grabbed my arm again and took a look. “Jesus, Lex…” He folded the t-shirt into a wad and placed it over the gash, keeping it there with his palm pressing down to apply pressure. “Long breaths. In. Out. Let’s get that heartbeat down. It’s not that bad. You’re going to be just fine.”
So it was bad.
I sat there, staring at nothing, concentrating on my breathing. I knew the drill. I wouldn’t heal as fast as a fully invoked warlock, but I still had angel blood running through my veins and a lick of magic to bond it. I just needed to reduce the flowrate of blood pumping out the wound. I just needed to stay alive long enough for the magic to do its work.
Gideon propped himself against the wall beside me. There was nothing he could do. Nothing medical science could do that worked faster and better than my Eclipse genes.
After a couple of minutes, he examined my arm again. “The bleeding
has stopped. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ll live.” I bent my head, massaging my brow. “My head is fucking throbbing.”
“Good,” he said, the kid’s gloves off. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I sent him a sidelong look. “You sent me around the back to find a way inside.”
“Not to dive through a window. And when that didn’t kill you, you stepped into my kill shot.”
“Kill noose.” There was a difference. A full blast of his magic would have taken me out. “I knew you’d tap out before it hurt me. And last time I checked, we wanted Rolling Stones alive.”
“When he escaped, I was fully prepared to use that to my advantage but a Claimed is always better dead.” Gideon pushed up the wall to his feet. “He wasn’t going to talk.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He knew the moment he told us what we wanted to know, he’d be dead,” Gideon said quietly. “Most people would do anything to buy themselves time, even just another minute. A Claimed isn’t most people.”
His gaze dropped to meet mine. “His mind is corrupted. His soul is tortured. We don’t know if the choice to give us answers even still belongs to him. If he was going to talk, he would have talked. He would have jumped at the chance for redemption if he weren’t too far gone to care.”
His logic wasn’t unreasonable. Which didn’t leave me with much to argue. When it came to Rolling Stones, I’d made the wrong call. Again and again. And now a girl was missing, likely dead.
“You should have gone after him,” I muttered.
“That kill shot drained me.”
Alarm bells rang. “Shouldn’t you be fully recharged by now?”
“I expected this,” he said, unconcerned. “I cast a massive spell on a new moon. I didn’t think I’d need to keep the cloak up this long, however.”
“You should bring it down.”
“I’m considering that. Meanwhile, I’m limited and as fun as it may be to chase after Rolling Stones the hard way, I wasn’t about to leave you here alone.”
Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1) Page 13