Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  Father Reed scrambled free of the vehicle just in time to avoid being tossed a hundred feet down the road along with it, his sword already free of the scabbard. His eyes went wide and his face paled as both of us got our first glimpse at the most terrifying creature I'd ever encountered.

  It couldn't have been a man. The limbs were all wrong, way too long and gangly. The mouth was too wide and full of serrated teeth. But LeDuc's face was stretched over all of it, as if the human version of him had simply been a mask. “If you want something done right,” LeDuc spat, rolling his head and shoulders. “Best to do it yourself.” He pointed one claw at me. “I told you to mind your tongue but you bitches... You just can't shut that cake eating hole of yours, can you? You think this whole world revolves around you and the pathetic spawns that crawl out of your broken bodies.”

  LeDuc took a step toward me and lifted a hand. Unseen energy blasted me off my feet and I skidded across the road, taking up bits of gravel in my face and hands. Reed rose and let out a war cry as he swung the sword. LeDuc dismissed him with a flick of his hand and the same force that had struck me sent Reed tumbling end over end and pinned him to the ground. Then, LeDuc walked over to where Ed was lying, moaning in pain and holding his broken leg. My hands shaking, I started trying to get the battery back in my phone again while LeDuc loomed over Ed. Come on, I told myself and jammed the battery back in. I didn't even put the back on before I flipped it over and tried to turn the stupid thing on.

  “That's adorable,” LeDuc said squatting next to Ed. “Did you really think I would let you call for help?” He extended a single finger in my direction and searing cold sank into my fingers. Frost crept up over the face of my phone until the whole display cracked. The screen flashed once and then went dark.

  “You son of a bitch,” I said, lowering the phone. “What did you do to my son?” LeDuc cackled. It sounded a lot like a broken stereo squeal. Then, he turned and slammed his foot into Ed's other leg. Ed gave an agonizing cry, rolled over and threw up. I fished out my gun and pointed it at LeDuc's head. “Step away from him. Slowly. And get your hands where I can see them.”

  “Silver plated bullets with an iron core,” LeDuc remarked and spat on Ed. “I'd stake my life on it. Maybe you've even gone so far as to bless them or dip them in holy water. The creative ones always do.” He walked toward me. No. LeDuc didn't walk, not in that form. He shambled, spreading his arms wide. “Go ahead. Unload your clip. What is it you Americans say? I double dog dare you?”

  He got closer. My hand started shaking all on its own and I had to use both hands on the gun to keep it steady and aimed at his head. I pulled the trigger and the first round hit its mark, sailing right into his eye. LeDuc's head jerked back and to the side. He staggered but didn't go down so I fired again, this time lodging a bullet into his jaw. I put a third one in his neck before I realized he was still coming. He wasn't even bleeding.

  “You fucking Americans and your guns,” said LeDuc as he shambled forward. His unusually long arm swept forward and struck my wrist, knocking the gun from my hands. It went sailing through the air and into the desert sand before discharging again in a flash of light as it landed. I scrambled backward when LeDuc hissed at me.

  “Tell me, little girl. Tell me what it feels like to be so helpless.”

  A shape moved behind him. LeDuc realized before I did that it was Reed, somehow free of the binding he'd laid on him, still trying to get LeDuc with that sword. LeDuc stood and twisted. There was a sickening, squishing thud and then a pop. I couldn't see what he'd done but all the color drained from Reed's face. “I'll take that.” LeDuc mused. The sword clattered to the ground. Father Reed fell to the road, limp and wide eyed, his breathing fast. Blood swelled out onto the pavement from a hole in his lower right side. LeDuc turned around, a bloody, bean shaped wad of flesh in his hand. I almost threw up when he lifted it above his head and dropped it into his mouth to swallow in a single bite.

  “Don't look so upset,” he said and squatted down in front of me. “God saw fit to bless man with two kidneys. I've gotten quite good at pulling bits and pieces out of you humans without killing you. My favorite is the liver. Did you know that if you only remove a small bit the rest of it will compensate and, generally, even regrow the lost part? Fascinating.”

  His hand shot forward and wrapped around my throat, cutting off the air. A thought pounded in my head, something important, something I needed to remember, but it lingered just out of reach. All I could think of was how badly I needed to breathe. I was fighting him, clawing at his hands with the fingernails on my good hand, but even if I had been ten men I wouldn't have been strong enough to free myself. The edges of my vision started to go black and LeDuc tightened his grip. “I'm going to kill all three of you nice and slow.”

  My arms went limp. I was losing consciousness and there was nothing I could do about it. All the bad guys in all the world and I was going to get choked to death by this freak in the middle of the desert. That's all I could think about, how damn unlucky I was. The last thing I remember seeing before I went out were three more shadows coming up from the desert, surrounding Ed's body. I closed my eyes and prayed they would finish him fast.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The next thing I was vaguely aware of was the sound of gravel crunching under boots and my legs dragging limply over hard, uneven ground. Someone had bound my hands behind my back with a length of wire. From the feel of it, they'd given my ankles a similar treatment. Whoever it was hauled me by the collar of my shirt with a steady but uneven gait. The pace of the march changed and my hands brushed against something wet and slimy.

  “What the hell, man? Don't just stop.”

  “She's heavy for a little bitch.”

  “The boss is going to have your ass for supper if you don't get her in the pen.” The two voices shared a laugh and they went back to dragging me.

  I opened my eyes but tried not to move my head or give any other indication that I was awake. Looking around didn't make any difference, though, because I was in complete darkness. I'm blindfolded, I realized. But they hadn't gagged me. That was a bad sign. It probably meant they expected me to talk. These bastards, they weren't just going to string me up and kill me.

  My hosts dragged me over a particularly sharp rock and I let out a small gasp of pain. “Well, well. Sleeping beauty awakens.” It wasn't LeDuc speaking to me, that I knew for sure. I didn't hear his smug French-Canadian accent anywhere.

  “Oh, thank God. I thought you were dead!”

  I twisted my head around at the sound of the familiar voice. “Ed?”

  Ed let out a sharp cry. “Shut up,” said the second voice. “Or I'll break your arms, too,” he spat.

  The one dragging me turned. I could tell by the way my shirt twisted. “Don't go spoiling him, now. Rations are tight as it is.”

  “Father Reed,” I called out.

  Ed coughed, spat and answered me in the good father's stead. “LeDuc has him.”

  “I said shut up!” There was a loud thump. Ed whimpered. “Next time, it won't be a finger.”

  They started forward again at a quicker pace, dragging me more roughly now. I tried not to think about where they were taking us or how they might have dragged Hunter this way, bound and blindfolded to his death. I had to hold on, to believe he was still alive somewhere. Maybe they hadn't killed him right away. After all, they'd kept Ed and I alive this long. Maybe they were waiting for something. To eat us alive, maybe, I thought and had to force the thought from my head. If these assholes had hurt my son, I was going to make them pay inch by inch, limb by limb, tooth by tooth.

  So, as I was dragged, I started to think about where I was and what I knew about my situation. The ground beneath me was cold, hard and rocky. It was damp, too, and the voices carried pretty distinctly. I was almost sure we were in a cave. If we were lucky, LeDuc had done some of the work for us and brought us into his lair. Ed was with me, which meant I had an ally.
That ally, though, wasn't going to be much help with both his legs broken and next to no combat experience. I wasn't even sure if he could shift like that. LeDuc had already taken a bite out of Reed and decided he liked the taste. Father Reed was probably already dead.

  We stopped suddenly. “Down there?”

  “That's what he said.”

  “God damn. He must have something really special planned for you two.” A boot came up and struck me in the ribs and then came down on top of me before I could draw in another breath. I curled up as best I could to try and protect myself but there wasn't much I could do bound up like that.

  “That's enough.” Zoe's voice echoed off the walls. I never thought I'd be so thankful to hear her high pitched voice or the way her heels clicked as she came down the corridor. “Just what the hell do you think you're doing?”

  “Tenderizing,” said one of the men who had dragged Ed and I in. Then, he spat on me. “This one looks tough and chewy.”

  “You have your orders, Oswald.” Zoe sounded furious. I imagined her standing there with that crazed look in her eye, fists clenched. “See that you follow them to the letter.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  Zoe's footsteps retreated.

  “What the hell, Ozzie? You're going to get us both in trouble.”

  Ozzie gave me one more good kick and then grabbed me up by the front of my shirt. “There's more where that came from if you even look like you're going to try and crawl away. You got me?”

  I spat a mouthful of blood back at Ozzie and he dropped me hard. “Next time,” I managed after catching my breath from the fall, “you better make sure you kill me.”

  “You-”

  “Ozzie.” It was the other guy, the one that had Ed. “I don't want the boss up my ass, man. Let's just dump them and get on with it.”

  “Audios muchachos,” said Ozzie and gave me a hard shove with his boot.

  If I'd had the good sense to count, I would have known how deep the hole they tossed us into was. Since the fall didn't kill me or break any bones, I figure it was somewhere less than twenty feet. It felt like I was suspended in air way too long for twenty feet, though. I came down in a small puddle of water, maybe three inches deep. Underneath that was a bed of thick cave moss, which may have been the only reason my injuries weren't too bad. Ed scuffed and scraped all the way down one side before rolling into me with a grunt and a whine. Laughter echoed from above us and footsteps retreated.

  “Ed,” I said, struggling against the wire holding my wrists and ankles. I winced when I moved my shoulder. Shit. I must have dislocated it in the fall. “You okay?”

  He gave a few heavy breaths. “I don't know. I don't know...”

  The wire was secure enough but, with a little wriggling, I was pretty sure I could get free. The dislocated shoulder actually worked to my advantage in that situation, even though it hurt like hell. Maybe we could climb out. Then I'll find that son of a bitch and put a boot down his throat, I thought, though I wasn't sure if I was thinking of LeDuc or Ozzie.

  “Oh man,” Ed went on, while I worked on getting my wrists free. “My legs...”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Shit, Judah. The bone's all sticking out and everything. I'm bleeding out. We're going to die here.”

  I gave a hard pull against the wire and felt it move. I was almost free. “No we're not. We're going to get loose and get out. No one else is dying here today except for LeDuc and his flunkies.” Maybe I didn't believe it myself completely but I knew I needed to say it. Ed was a mess. I could hear in his voice that he was panicked. Panicked people aren't thinking people. I needed Ed's help if we were even going to stand a chance at getting out of that pit. My speech, though, didn't convince him. He just kept repeating it over and over again, that we were going to die.

  The wire cut into the side of my wrist and I winced but kept fighting it. I was almost loose; just a tiny bit more and I would be free. Who cared what skin came along with it and plenty did. It felt like it took hours. By the time I finally got the wire off, both my hands were soaked with my own blood. Then, I pulled off my blindfold and set myself to moving my dislocated shoulder back into place.

  On TV, they show the hero doing that kind of thing willy nilly. A quick jerk, a growl of pain and then it's done. It's much more complicated than that in real life. I had to crawl over to the cave wall and slam my shoulder against it while pulling it forward at the same time. I think a gunshot would have hurt less. It finally went back with a loud crack, sending a huge dose of pain down into the rest of my torso. I lay there in a heap, crying for a good ten minutes before I was able to sit up again. As soon as I was upright, I promptly had to bend over and throw up, which somehow reduced the pain to a dull roar.

  I sat up and looked around. We were in a pit, alright, with ninety degree slopes chiseled into the walls. Someone had painstakingly come down here and smoothed out all the rock, too, just to make sure no one could climb up. There were no roots, no branches, no protruding rocks...nothing. And the only light we had was a single torch burning about halfway up the pit wall.

  I got busy freeing my ankles and looked over at Ed. He was right. The break was pretty bad on his left leg. The white of the bone had ripped through his jeans and was wiggling with every one of his sobs. The cavern floor around him looked to be free of blood, though his jeans were soaked with it. They'd bound his ankles and hands too, which had probably worked to Ed's advantage. It meant they'd kept the leg relatively still while moving him.

  As soon as my ankles were clear, I made my way over to him and pulled the blindfold off. Ed stared up at me, wild eyed. “I don't want to die.”

  “I'm not going to let you die, Ed. I promise. But I need you to calm down. We need to deal with your leg.”

  He swallowed. “It's bad, isn't it?”

  “The bleeding's not too bad but I'm not a doctor.” I glanced down at the bone and shook my head. “How fast do you guys heal?”

  “Um...” He took a few deep breaths. “I don't know. From something like that? Jesus. I don't know. I’m just the token geek. Jesus, I don’t know.” He threw his head back against the rock and tried to contain his panicked sobs.

  “I'm going to look at it. Both legs. I need you to stay as still as you can. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. It hurts real bad.”

  “Try.” I searched my person for something useful. Of course, my captors had stripped me of my gun, my knife and anything else that might have been useful. I turned out my pockets and only came up with that stupid lighter I'd taken from Robbie. Looks like I'm doing this the hard way, I thought. “Ed, I have to take off your jeans.”

  “What?” Ed lifted his head off the rocks. “Can't you just, you know, rip them at the knee or something?”

  “Are you kidding me, Ed?” I said undoing his belt. “You got a bone sticking out of your leg and all you can worry about is that I'm going to see your underwear?”

  “Just don't laugh at me, okay? I'd rather die with a little dignity.”

  I would have hesitated too if I'd been wearing an old pair of Power Rangers boxers. This wasn't the time or place to be cracking jokes about Ed's choice in attire, though, so I kept it to myself, focusing on the task at hand. It was pretty difficult, getting those jeans off without disturbing the protruding bone but I somehow managed it. His other leg wasn't so bad. It was twisted the wrong way and swollen where the break was but time would probably fix that. The first leg was pretty bad. Blood was still oozing from the wound but at least it looked like a clean break. There weren't any fragments that I could see.

  “It's bad, huh?”

  “If we weren't twenty feet down in a cave in the middle of nowhere, I'd be calling you an ambulance right now and they'd probably be rushing you off to surgery.” I touched the area around the wound and he jerked away, a move that probably hurt worse than my fingers. “We have to close it up. In this environment, you're at a
pretty big risk for infection if it stays open. Shock, too, and the bleeding could get worse.”

  “How are you going to close it with the bone all sticking out and stuff?” I looked up at Ed and watched his eyes go wide. “No. No fucking way, Judah. You can't.”

  “It's going to hurt like hell but I need you on your feet. I can't carry you and Hunter out of here and we're probably going to have to fight our way out. That can't happen unless you heal and the only chance you have at that is if I put you back together the way you're supposed to be.”

  “No,” he repeated. “Dammit, Judah just...Have you even looked around? We're not getting out of this.” He let his head go limp back against the rocks. “I'd rather die of infection than let one of them eat me like they're probably doing to your priest friend.”

  “I'm not giving up just because it's hard. You shouldn't either.”

  Ed rolled his head away from me. “It's pointless. Even if we did get out of this hole, I'm not a fighter. I'd just slow you down.”

  I crawled up and moved Ed's head back to face me. “Ed, you stood up to Daphne and Shauna. You helped me when no one else would. And Robbie, you scared the living hell out of him. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you, Ed.” He closed his eyes, as if that would block out my voice. “Maybe you're not the strongest or the fastest or even the smartest but you're the bravest.”

  Ed opened his eyes and frowned. “You really think that?”

  I smiled and lifted him so that I could free his hands. “You see Sal or Valentino down here with me? When was the last time you saw either of them demand something from Daphne or Shauna and then turn around and step on a Hobgoblin? That takes balls, Ed. And here you are, two broken legs in the bottom of a cave, ready to give up because it might hurt a little?”