The Chronicles of the Immortal Council: The complete 10-book collection

by D C Young

  “It’s stuck right now, honey,” her mom replied. “Sledge and I are going to grab some waffles and coffee… well, Sledge is. Anyway, we’ve got to talk about the case a little bit. Are you and Amber behaving yourselves?”

  “Of course,” Tammy laughed. “You’re not talking to Anthony, you’re talking to your good kid.”

  “How was pizza and the mall?”

  “It was good, pretty much the same thing as usual, except I saw a pair of shoes in Masso’s…”

  “You didn’t buy any shoes,” her mother interrupted.

  “Of course not,” Tammy groaned. “I didn’t have anywhere close to enough money, but they were… O-M-G.”

  “You can show them to me next time we go shopping, maybe I’ll see what I can do,” her mom replied.

  That was a major signal to Tammy. Her mom didn’t ever offer to buy her some expensive shoes next time they went shopping unless she was in the dumps. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You just offered to buy me an expensive pair of shoes.”

  “Did I?”

  “You did. That’s a major depressed mom signal.”

  “Yeah, well, things are pretty tough with the case, but I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure? I can come home if you want.”

  “No point, honey. I might not be there for a while yet. You and Amber have fun.”

  “We’re going to eat ice cream and watch something on TV”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then?”

  “I’ve got school tomorrow, so why don’t you make it afternoon?”

  “You’re staying at a friend’s house on a school night?”

  “O-M-G, Mom,” Tammy laughed. “We aren’t in school right now, that’s why Anthony is away on a scouting trip. You sure you’re okay?”

  “You did that on purpose,” her mother growled.

  “Yeah, well, it isn’t usually that easy to get things by you.”

  “I’m fine, really,” her mom insisted. “I’ll call you in the morning. Have fun and behave yourselves.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  Tammy was still worried when she hung up the phone, but she didn’t worry long because Amber had just walked into the room with two quart tubs of cookie dough ice cream.

  “So, what you want to watch?” Amber asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Amber tossed her the remote. “Find something.”

  As Tammy was flipping through the channels, she stopped on a late night talk show, just as the host started to introduce his next guest.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, when we come back our guest will be the lovely and talented, Jasmine Bain.”

  “Jasmine Bain,” Amber called out. “Stay there. I love her.”

  Tammy started to tell her about Jasmine Bain being on her mom’s investigation list, but she knew that she wasn’t supposed to be talking about those things with other people. Her mother had made it very clear that talking about her investigations could be dangerous for her and for whoever she talked to, instead, she brought up the fact that she knew someone who knew Jasmine.

  “A friend of mine is really good friends with her,” she pointed out.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Remember when my family went on vacation last summer and I told you about staying at that mansion on the beach?”

  Amber nodded, because her mouth was too full of ice cream to respond.

  “The guy that owns that mansion knows her.”

  “Of course,” Amber responded when she finally cleared her mouth. “All those rich people hang out together. Hey, maybe he’ll have you back and invite her at the same time. That would be so cool.”

  “Maybe, I don’t know if…”

  “Shoosh, they’re back.”

  “Who is that old dude sitting on the couch beside her?” Tammy asked.

  “I think that’s Aaron Coventry or something like that, I think he’s some sort of producer or something. Now shoosh and turn it up, I want to hear this?”

  Tammy turned up the volume and stayed quiet, after a few moments into the interview, she felt the world begin to block out around her. Though she was conscious that it was happening, there was nothing she could do to stop it. She tried to hold back her panic, like she’d been taught, and pay attention to whatever message was about to come to her.

  Her vision started off with a little girl watching a video presentation with four others. She didn’t hear all of the video, but she got an understanding of what it was about; it was about a career as an actor. The video stopped talking about acting and turned into a spinning red and yellow spiral. A man’s voice started repeating a set of instruction over and over and then suddenly a cartoon dog came on the screen and blew a trumpet. The spinning spiral stopped. The vision flashed away a moment and showed the same little with a gag in her mouth. It skipped to when she was older and in a school for actors. It showed her on stage doing a show at an amusement park. It showed her undressing in front of a man and then beginning to have intercourse with him. As the girl aged, the features of her face changed until she was recognizable as the actress, Jasmine Bain and then the vision stopped and Tammy was watching the talk show program again.

  Tammy took several deep breaths and tried to keep from going into a panic. The vision had been intense and there was no mistaking its message. She reached for her cell phone to call her mom, but before she could focus on it to press the speed dial button, the voice of the man on the couch beside Jasmine drew her into another vision. The second vision was intense and full of quick flashing scenes. The man behind a two-way mirror watching the children watch a video. The same man’s voice continued speaking throughout the vision, talking about what was next, but he was not seen. He was watching the monitor behind another two-way mirror when the older Jasmine was being filmed with the man. The vision stopped and the face and voice of Aaron Coventry on the talk show program was in the focus of the camera, with Jasmine and the host turned and listening to him intently.

  “O-M-G!” Tammy exclaimed, scrambling to get control of her phone and her shaking fingers as she rushed out of Amber’s room. “I gotta call my mom!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Mom, you’ve got to come home and you’ve got to come get me.”

  The panicked voice of Tammy, sent my pulse into overdrive.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, getting up from the table where Sledge and I had just taken a seat and started toward the door. I called out an explanation to Sledge as I hurried on my way. “It’s Tammy.”

  The moment he heard her name, Sledge got up from the table and started toward the door. He waved off the waitress who was coming in our direction to take our order.

  “I had another vision, mom,” Tammy sobbed. “It was really intense this time. It was Jasmine and some other dude. Some dude named Aaron Coventry. It was scary mom. I think Jasmine was kidnapped when she was a child. I think it was Aaron. It wasn’t him, but he was part of it. Mom, hurry, please. I’m scared.”

  “Just relax, honey,” I replied. I was thankful that I had met Sledge at Caroline and Taz’s house after coming back from dropping off Rennie instead of riding their with him. I called out the window to him as he followed me out the van. “She’s okay, but I gotta go get her.”

  “I’ll see you at the house,” he growled. The sound was almost like a roar as he turned and hurried to his Harley.

  “Okay, honey, I’m on my way. Where are you?”

  “I’m at Amber’s house, mom!” she almost screamed.

  “I know you’re at Amber’s house,” I replied, trying to keep my voice calm. “Are you still in Amber’s room?”

  “No, I’m in the bathroom.”

  I could hear muffled voices calling to her in the background.

  “I’m okay. I think it was the pizza.” I heard her respond and then her voice rejoined me. “Oh god, hurry, mom, I’m scared. This one was two visions and they were intense.”
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  “Okay, honey, I know you’re scared. Just take deep breaths, listen to my voice and try to stay calm.”

  “I can’t say calm, mom. I’m scared.”

  “I know you’re scared. What was scary about it?”

  “It was so freakin’ real, mom. It was like I was right there. Like I was living it myself.”

  “Like you were being kidnapped.”

  “Yes.”

  “But it wasn’t you, it was Jasmine, right?”

  “Yes, but what difference does it make? It was Jasmine, but it was me too. And that man. Oh my god, mom, that man. His voice. His face and then he was on TV too. He was looking right at me from the TV screen.”

  “I’m almost there,” I assured her. “Can you hold yourself together long enough to put down the phone, get your stuff and get ready to come out to the curb and meet me?”

  “Oh my god, mom, don’t hang up.”

  It was a stupid mom thing I’d said a moment before and I realized it the instant she almost took my ear off with her scream. Moms always have a thing about gathering our stuff together and getting ready to go somewhere. Tammy wasn’t even slightly worried about getting her stuff together in that moment. I stuck to my soothing tone. “I’m not going to hang up. I’m almost there.”

  “Okay, well just don’t hang up.”

  I could hear Amber and Amber’s mother asking Tammy questions as she came out of the bathroom.

  “Are you here, yet?”

  “I’m coming down the street, about two blocks away.”

  I heard Tammy’s voice responding to Amber and her mom as they followed her from the bathroom and through the house toward the front door. “My mom is here right now. She’s going to get me out front. I’ll get my stuff tomorrow. I’m fine, really, I just think it was the pizza. I’m sorry, Amber.”

  As I pulled up to the curb in front of Amber’s house, I saw Tammy coming out the door with Amber and her mother tailing along behind her. Tammy disconnected the call and hurried out to the van.

  “Just go, mom,” Tammy said when she opened the door and plopped into the seat.

  Amber and her mom had started to follow her out to the van. I called out to them. “I’ll call you when we get home.”

  I hurried away from the curb and started down the street, realizing that Tammy needed to get away. She’d freaked out in front of her best friend, which had embarrassed her, but I could also see by the look in her eyes that she was terrified.

  “It’s okay, honey,” I said, reaching over to take hold of her hand. “You’re with me. You’re safe.”

  Tammy broke into sobbing and stayed in that state until we pulled up into the driveway at our house where Sledge was waiting on his Harley. As I pulled the van into the garage, he pulled the bike up into the driveway and came into the garage. Tammy and I were getting out of the van when he came in.

  “You okay, partner?” Sledge growled when he saw Tammy.

  “I think I’ll live,” Tammy responded, trying to be cool for Sledge’s benefit.

  Sledge followed us through the door from the garage to the kitchen. It was then that I noticed that Sledge was a presence. He wasn’t speaking and he wasn’t doing anything in particular, but he was a presence with us, like a protector or a source of strength. I’d never considered him in that light before, but with the way things had unfolded, I felt something powerful in him. I don’t know if Tammy felt it too, but…

  “What happened?”

  “She had a vision.”

  “Two of them.” Tammy corrected me as she looked up at Sledge.

  “Like one of those psychic things?” Sledge asked.

  For a moment, I considered protecting Tammy from his questions. She had been totally freaked out by her visions and the two of us needed to process them. As I opened my mouth to speak, I noticed that there was a change in Tammy’s demeanor.

  “Yeah. One of those psychic things.”

  “Cool,” he growled. “I’ve never had any experience with anything like that. What are they like?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “They’re weird. It’s like you’re watching a movie or something, but you’re somehow also there.”

  “That would be freakin’ scary,” he muttered.

  “It is,” Tammy replied. “What really freaks you out is when you see the people from the vision right in front of you, live, like they morphed.”

  “Really? How’s that happen?”

  “Well, I was watching the late show or whatever when Jasmine came on and started talking with the host and this other dude. I went into my visions and when I came back, the people who were in my visions were the ones being interviewed on the show.”

  I couldn’t help holding back the tears in my eyes as I watched Tammy transform in front of my eyes. She was drawing off of that same strong presence in Sledge which I’d felt earlier. As she explained more of what having these visions were like to him I saw her getting stronger and I began to see something even stronger in the biker than just his massive size.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Just do whatever it takes to get Jasmine to some place safe,” I told Rennie over the phone. I had made two calls once I’d gotten Tammy settled into her bed. One had been to Veronica and Bjorn and the other had been to Rennie.

  “I will do what I can,” Rennie responded. “Shouldn’t we consult the Elders on this?”

  “That was the other thing I wanted to ask of you,” I said. I knew that consulting with Julia or the Blackwell sisters or any of the others I might call to my aid would take up valuable time. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even sure how much of a crap storm I was going to stir up by making a move on Aaron Coventry and his associates. Besides having to deal with whatever was going to take place in the human realm, I was yet unconvinced that I also needed to cause waves in the paranormal one as well.

  “You’re going out on a pretty fragile limb, Sam, don’t you think?” Rennie asked.

  “More like a twig, but you know what they say, ‘strike while the iron is hot,’ right?” I was feeling some hesitation about moving so quickly with so little support, but I knew I couldn’t wait for anything else to be arranged or for a more in-depth plan to come together. Taylor had obviously been removed from Golden Bear some time before we started looking into the case, which meant, if the time line with Jasmine was correct, she would be starting the ‘audition training’ phase of her journey into darkness. I had to do everything I could to stop that from happening. Acting on my own on such a large scale, however, was a little bit bold and maybe beyond my authority. “I’m going to pay for this, aren’t I?”

  “I’ll do my best to smooth things over, but, yes, probably,” Rennie replied.

  “You think I should wait?”

  “Heavens no, Sam. My granddaddy always told me that it was easier to ask for forgiveness…”

  “Than to ask for permission,” I laughed as I finished the saying. “Bjorn and Veronica are getting a fix on locations we need to hit to keep Aaron from ruining a whole bunch of people’s lives all at once. They’re also getting a fix on where we’ll find Taylor among the holdings of Aaron and his associates. We’ll snatch Taylor out and do as much damage control as we can, but we’ll be leaving a lot of bases uncovered. I’d sure like to run all the names on that list.”

  “One thing at a time, my love,” Rennie responded. “You focus on what you can do right now. I have a suspicion that once you get started, others might fall into place.”

  “Other things or other people?”

  “Exactly!” Rennie responded. “Now you be careful, Sam.”

  “Exactly to which one?” I asked. My question was to a dead line and received no answer. “Well, isn’t that just peachy?” It didn’t matter, I’d already set my mind on doing what I was about to do. I’d loved to have had a little more help from the paranormal world and also from law enforcement, but we would have to make do with what we had. Veronica, Bjorn and myself could kick an awful lot of ass when necessa
ry. I let out a heavy sigh and whispered to myself as I started down back toward the kitchen where Sledge had been waiting. “Let’s do this.”

  As I walked into the kitchen, I started talking, letting Sledge in on my plan and what I’d accomplished in the past 20 minutes or so after making Tammy comfortable.

  “Okay, well, I’ve got some people…” Bjorn and Veronica weren’t people, so I paused and corrected myself. “They’re on reconnaissance; doing their best to scout key locations and put a mark on our girl. We’ll need to hit the location where Taylor is most likely to be, but we’ve also got to simultaneously get into wherever he’s keeping those videos too or a whole lot of people are going to get hurt. I sure wish I had a little more help.”

  “Would about 50 bikers help?” Sledge muttered.

  “Fifty bikers? How? What did you do?” I asked.

  “I’ve been making some calls of my own. I’ve got forty committed, but I’m sure they’ll get some of the others together.”

  “We can’t just run in there like the Hell’s Angels,” I protested. “There has to be some legitimacy to this.”

  “You mean like legal legitimacy?” he asked.

  “That would be helpful.”

  “Well, you haven’t heard the other part of what I’ve been doing.” There was a definite smile at one corner of his mouth and his eyes were sparkling. “I called some contacts at LAPD, they’re on standby to follow us in if needed.”

  “But how did you pull that off?”

  Sledge reached over his shoulder and tapped the red and white patch on the back of his jacket and revealed a full smile. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen it. “I’ve built up quite a rep among the LAPD.”

  “But we don’t know…”

  “Way ahead of you,” he interrupted. “I told them it was a possible child porn ring, which is something BACA is heavily involved in shutting down. We’ve got people across the globe ready to deal with fall out, but we’ve got to nail down some pretty solid evidence and hit the right places.”