Blood Ties: A Grace Harper Novel

by J. T. Hardy

  Zack and I dived into the truck, while Libby raced for the driver's side, tossing the spent water gun into the bed and nearly beaning Wil on the head. Daniel jumped into the truck bed and watched the tunnel collapse with a worried expression on his face. His gaze caught mine and he smiled.

  "You're alive."

  "For now. How long will that hold them?" I had no illusions a tunnel of rubble would trap Kokabiel. He'd built into the rock, not under it, and there wasn't enough rock here to bury him for good.

  "An hour at most."

  Libby floored it, the tires spitting out gravel as she fled down the trail, but running wasn't going to save any of us, not now. Kokabiel wasn't going to stop just because his pet humans got out of the yard.

  But for the next hour, maybe, we were safe.

  "I'm pleased as punch to see you, Butternut." Dad hugged me with one arm and held on tight with the other. I hugged him back, barely believing the strength he had. Last hospital visit, he'd hadn't had the strength to lift his arms for more than a faint squeeze. "That was a dumb thing to do," he said over the wind.

  "I know."

  "Daniel and I were worried."

  I glared, though it was just for show. "You two have a lot of explaining to do, young man."

  Dad grinned. "I know." His gaze shifted and I turned. Wil was looking at him like he'd come across Santa by the tree. "Hey kid. You doing okay?"

  Wil gaped, then nodded. "Thought you were dead."

  "So did I."

  The kid lurched up and threw his arms around Dad, knocking me out of the way. I staggered back and Jerry caught my arm and set me right again.

  "They kinda bonded," he said.

  "So I see."

  Libby was navigating the topsy-turvy elk-path of a road, but it was already sunset and night was coming fast. No sign of pursuit yet, but they'd be after us soon as they got out of the lair.

  I looked at Roberto. "Not that I'm complaining, but what are you doing here?"

  "You missed your eight a.m. sitrep."

  "So you grabbed grenades and drove on out here?"

  He nodded. "More or less."

  "He was en route when I called him," Libby added. "Daniel reconned where you were and we got creative with a holy assault vehicle."

  Seriously? "How did she convince you of that?" I didn't know what Libby had told him, but he was taking this all in remarkable stride.

  Roberto tipped his head at Daniel. "He picked up a car. I've seen my share of strange and I trust my Liberty."

  Me, too, and I'd never thought I'd trust anyone other than Dad. "Where are we?"

  "Somewhere between Sedona and I-40. Too many twisty dirt roads and trails to know for sure. I'd never have found you if Daniel hadn't followed."

  "Thank you," I told Daniel.

  He smiled again and reached for my hand. I hesitated, but he deserved it. His gaze zipped up over my shoulder to the rear window. It didn't stay long. Not enough light for a reflection I guessed, but he didn't let go of my hand. He looked at my neck and frowned. "You're hurt."

  "It's fine. Doesn't even sting anymore. Any ideas on how we can get Kokabiel off our backs?"

  "Heavy ordinance?" Roberto offered.

  Daniel shook his head. "Not strong enough."

  "All we can do is run, my radish," Dad said. He looked at the shell-shocked group huddled in the truck bed and sighed. I knew what he was thinking--all those families, all those lives disrupted like ours had been.

  Ivy was crying, pressing ruined lace trim against her eyes. Anita was comforting her, but she looked ready to crumble as well. Wil wasn't in his usual ball of denial but still clinging to Dad, and Jerry looked like he was just trying to keep from freaking out. These people didn't deserve to have their lives ruined.

  "I'm not running anymore." I watched rocks and juniper flash by, trying my damnedest to ignore Daniel, who kept petting my fingers like I was some kind of cat.

  "Will you please stop doing that."

  "Sorry. Touching you is...compelling."

  "I've got a squirt gun full of holy water if you don't keep your hands to yourself, Bucko."

  He bowed his head and pouted, but I didn't think he was sorry at all. Dad raised his eyebrows and gave me a protective look.

  I sighed. It was fine, really. Sweet, in a weird way. I'd had a lot worse guys paw at me, and he did risk his life to save us. Besides, he was easy on the eyes. Stop having those thoughts! I cleared my throat. "Uh, what about that knife of yours? Can we use that?"

  "It wasn't the knife. It was you."

  "No, it--" I was tired of this debate. "Barky died when I stabbed him, right?"

  He nodded. "Baraqijal, but yes."

  "Then we can kill Kokabiel and the others."

  "No. There are too many."

  I rubbed my eyes, burning from the dust and dirt of the road. We had a reprieve of insanity, nothing more. Kokabiel had a network of minions to find us again, and if he gave up on us, he'd just grab the next likely subjects on his list. That would be on me.

  Fingers brushed my hand again.

  "If we can't kill him and his beastie boys," I said, "how can we trap them for, oh, say decades or more? Keep them from messing with humanity until we can permanently contain them."

  "You can't."

  "Yes we can," Cavanaugh called. He'd been stealing weird glances at me since his...don't say resurrection...remarkable recovery, but had so far stayed quiet about it. He duck-walked to the front of the truck bed, but didn't get too close to me. "Remember what Aaron said? The Watchers were bound in the earth and covered with darkness. They were imprisoned underground."

  "I thought fallen angels went to Hell."

  Daniel shook his head. "There's only one angel in Hell. We were bound in the earth."

  "Well, if we're stuffing them underground we'll need something with serious mass they can't dig through to bury them with, like a canyon, or a cave or..." I grinned. "Thank you Ms. Karmichael."

  "Who?"

  "One of my fifth-grade teachers. Woman was obsessed with reports and dioramas, and she was equally obsessed with the wild frontier of the Southwest." I'd gone to a lot of schools in my life, but she had been my favorite teacher and I'd loved that diorama. I'd copied one of Dad's favorite engineering marvels, and he'd gotten me real sand for it.

  "Daniel," I said, "will Kokabiel follow us?"

  "Definitely. He still wants your blood, and I suspect I've gone well past irksome to him now." He grinned at that, just a little. "If he fails this time, Suriel will use it to humiliate him and claim his dominions as his own. Kokabiel will lessen in the eyes of the others. He'll do whatever he can to maintain his status."

  "Good." I made my way to the open window behind the cab and crunched down. "Lib, on the way in, did you pass any mines?" If Ms. Karmichael knew her stuff, this whole area had been active back in the gold rush days, and had kept on mining up through the fifties.

  "I don't know. I wasn't looking for any. There were a few overgrown turnoffs and some old junk piles about twenty minutes from here. Might be something." Libby glanced at me, her eyes weary in the bouncing rear-view mirror. "How much blood did you lose again?"

  "I have a plan."

  "The four scariest words in the English language."

  I rubbed my hands together. "We're going to put those blood puppies back underground."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Daniel frowned. "They're too strong, and you're not God."

  Cavanaugh twitched and looked away as if that wasn't so far from the truth. I added him to the list of people I needed a long sit-down with, but not now.

  I looked at Daniel. "Doesn't mean I can't borrow from his greatest hits. Roberto, you have enough explosives to take out a mine shaft or two?"

  "I'm a Marine."

  "I could kiss you right now." I turned to the group. We didn't have much light--or time--left. "Everyone keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like a mine or campground. Even an old road might lead to something
we can use."

  Standing in the truck bed offered a pretty good view of the area, though it was hard to spot anything until we were practically on top of it. This part of Arizona went up as much as it went out, and judging distance and altitude was rough.

  There wasn't much for a while, until Libby called out and pointed. "That's the road I saw coming in." She slowed down and stopped.

  It was old, but wider than the trail we were on. A pile of old boards and what looked like a half-buried ore cart on its side marked the entrance to somewhere.

  "Zack, Daniel, you guys see anything that looks like a mine down there?"

  They both looked, peering into the lengthening shadows. "Some wooden buildings," Daniel said. "Mostly frames now. Old machinery. There's a few deep shadows in the rocks that could be tunnels."

  Good enough for me. "Libby, hang a left."

  "Eureka, folks!" I cried. "We've struck silver."

  The old road led to a long-abandoned silver mine. The camp itself was out front, the scattered buildings in various stages of decay. The interior walls were peeling and many of them had crumbled to the floor. Metal frames of bunk beds peeked out from inside the skeletal remains of one of the larger buildings on the left, with an old Coleman heater in the center that probably hadn't been made since the 40s or 50s.

  At some point in the last sixty years, an outbuilding on the slope of the hill had collapsed into a pile of dark-brown wood and corrugated metal, with old mattresses and furniture poking through the broken beams and fallen walls. A pot-bellied stove had tipped over on its side and its iron stovepipe poked out at an angle parallel to the hill.

  I hopped out of the truck. "Let's see what we've got."

  Dad pointed to some rails running around the side of one of the buildings. "Those ore cart rails'll lead to the entrance."

  "Lead the way."

  We walked single file down the middle of the rails, sliding a bit down the hill's slope. A second set of rails joined us and both ran directly into the mine, the two rails barely sticking out of the dirt leading into a boarded up entry maybe twenty feet across. Heavy timbers framed the entrance, like the facades of old Western buildings. It looked old, authentic. Some mines had gone all touristy after they'd dried up, but not this old gal. She wasn't a sellout.

  She'd clearly been mined out long ago, but I'd bet enough trace silver still lived in her rocks to make a fallen angel uncomfortable.

  The warning signs screaming, "Abandoned Mines Will Kill You" and "Keep Out--Danger" were enough to make me uncomfortable.

  "Will this work?" I asked, though we didn't have any other choice. We were short on time as it was.

  Dad paused, hands on his hips, and surveyed the site. "Depends how big the mine is, but those double tracks into the incline shaft are a good sign. It ought to be a good-sized mine, so there are probably tunnels on other levels. We ought to scout around that hill there. Look for the tailings pile--a lot of rocks and gravel--odds are you'll find another tunnel near there."

  "Zack?" I called.

  "On it." He blurred and zipped around the hill, gravel clattering down the slope as he moved.

  "Daniel," I asked next, "could you rip off those boards, please?"

  He hesitated. "Must we go down there?"

  Oh. Right. Kokabiel and his dominions weren't the only ones who'd been trapped beneath the earth for millennia.

  "You okay with this? We can't do it without you."

  He swallowed, jaw tight. "I'll manage."

  "That's all I ask."

  Anita seemed uncertain. "They know who we are and where we live," she said. "What's to stop them from kidnapping us again?"

  "This plan succeeding."

  The group exchanged uneasy looks. I didn't blame them. If someone suggested a better idea, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

  Nails screamed as Daniel ripped the boards off and tossed them away. I winced. Worse than fingernails on a chalkboard.

  I ignored it best I could and stayed focused on the group. "I promise I'll do everything I can to keep you all safe."

  I left them by the truck and returned to the varsity team. Daniel caught up to me, dusting his hands off as he approached. "We'll need to scout out the mine first," I said. "Find the right spot to lure them in."

  Dad frowned. "Lotta mine down there."

  "I know." I glanced at Daniel. He wasn't going to like this. "Daniel, I'm sorry, but you're the only one who can safely scout down there fast enough to see if this plan will even work." If too many wood beams had rotted, or there'd been heavy cave-ins, the mine might not be safe enough for us to use as a trap.

  Roberto pulled out a small leather notebook. "Take this. A rough map is better than no map."

  Strong as he was, Daniel shifted from foot to foot, eying the dark entrance to the mine. "How deep?"

  "How much mountain will it take to bury Kokabiel?" More than what he was hiding under in his lair for sure.

  Daniel cringed and closed his eyes for a moment. I didn't need physical contact to know what memories haunted him this time. "We'd need to go deep. Hundreds of feet at least."

  Silver mines ran deep. And the silver would weaken them. "It's our only option. Kokabiel is probably already through the tunnel, and we left a clear trail here."

  "What if it's not safe?"

  "Then we fight and hope we can kill them."

  Daniel sighed, then took Roberto's notebook. "All right." He walked stiffly to the mine, pausing at the now-exposed entrance as if he expected to die down there. I gave him a thumbs up and a smile, and he flashed a tight grin back and vanished into the darkness.

  We prepped the gear while Daniel scouted, refilling the Super Soakers and water pistols with whatever was left in the pressure cleaner's tank Dad had brought. I handed out the pistols to Anita and Jerry, but kept the bigger guns for us. Libby took a sawed-off shotgun out of a duffel bag and slid it into the coolest holster ever on her back. She dug out four flashlights from the same bag and hung a cool mini-lantern that looked like a giant Christmas tree light on her belt. She grinned ruefully.

  "If I'd known we were going spelunking, I would have stocked up."

  "We'll make do."

  "There's a penlight on the truck's key chain." She shrugged. "Not much, but maybe it's enough for Daniel and his super-vision."

  "Hope so." One flashlight per two people in a mine wasn't just dangerous, it was outright stupid.

  "Tony," Roberto said to Dad. "You got the civilians?"

  "I'll keep them calm." Dad gathered the others in a tight group, speaking in low tones. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I'd been on the receiving end of his "it's all going to be fine" pep talks enough to guess the gist of it.

  I watched the mine entrance. "Think he's okay?" I whispered. Sure, he was a bit handsy, but a good guy overall.

  Libby nodded. "He's tough."

  Zack returned first. "Two exit tunnels," he said. "I didn't go into them, but I heard Daniel in one and he followed my voice out. He's checking the last of the tunnels now."

  A ball of worry in my chest uncoiled. "That's good." Better than good.

  A few minutes later, Daniel popped back out of the mine like a groundhog who'd been under too long. "It's dangerous, but it should suffice." He showed the notebook to Dad. "The main tunnel goes down five levels, with multiple branches and a few excavated areas. One tunnel on the third level leads outside to where Zack was, and one on the fourth level might. I smelled fresh air, but didn't follow it too far. Level five is small, no exits, one shaft down."

  Dad ran a finger along the quickly drawn lines on Daniel's map. "Any lower tunnels with a lot of timbering? Wooden beams bracing the walls and ceiling?"

  "Several here, here, and here."

  "Good. Those are the weakest areas. We blow those tunnels, gravity'll do the rest. Which areas are closest to the exit?"

  "This one on level three, this one on level four. This one on three is the farthest away, but it had multiple shafts around it, and one big
ger area that might have had a bridge across it at one point. I didn't follow it all the way, but it looked like it went down to level four or deeper."

  Dad looked at me and I sighed. "That's the spot, right?" I said.

  "Sounds like it." He looked at Daniel. "How deep?"

  "Seven, eight hundred feet. I estimate the mine bottoms out around a thousand." He twitched, and Zack blanched.

  I didn't blame them. Even I didn't want to go down there. "Is it safe?"

  "No." Dad chuckled. "It's a mine."

  "Right." I rubbed my eyes. Dad and I had visited a lot of mines in my childhood. They had so many ways to kill us, Kokabiel would have to get in line. "It's go or no go time. We doing this?"

  Roberto and Libby nodded. So did Dad. Cavanaugh took a breath before agreeing. Daniel glanced back at the incline shaft and swallowed, but nodded. Zack stared, eyes wide and shook his head.

  "I can't," he whispered. "I can feel it. The darkness. The pressure."

  Daniel said something softly in the angel language, but Zack shook his head again.

  "It's fine," I said. "We'll need someone to protect the others anyway, and they know Zack."

  Cavanaugh's brow furrowed. "We're not all going in?"

  "Not if I can help it." I called over Anita and the others who'd been in the cells with me. "I know you've all been through a lot. The rest of us have to go into that mine, but you four don't. Zack will take you around back and hide you inside one of the exit tunnels. If we succeed, we'll pick you up on the way out. If we fail, there's enough water in the truck to hold you til morning. You'll be able to make it back to Sedona on your own then." If Kokabiel left them alone and didn't go after them after he'd killed us.

  Zack nodded, his shoulders slumping. "I'll protect them."

  That was it, then.

  "It's a go, people."

  "Stay frosty," Roberto said as we moved into the entrance shaft, one flashlight for each of us. Daniel took the penlight, but he used the lantern to guide us down.

  Twin rails entered, then sloped sharply downward about forty-five degrees. Heavy timbers braced the walls and ceiling, dusty and pale. Misty cobwebs draped the tunnel from beam to beam. Outside, the rocks had been red and brown, but in here, they faded to gray and white. Nothing was flat except the wood.