The NightShade Forensic Files: Under Dark Skies (Book 1)

by A. J. Scudiere

  9

  Donovan felt the weight of the guard’s stare as the man sighted him down the long barrel of the gun.

  One good bullet and Donovan would be dead. Then again, he figured he was hard to hit. He made a bad target.

  Staring back, he offered what he could of a smile and waited. It was his only gambit. Everything was up to the guard now.

  With a swear word harsher than what one would expect of the godly, the man lowered his gun and turned away. Resuming his path, the black-clad guard turned the corner of the nearest building. All Donovan heard was the soft sounds of his feet in the low grass as he walked away, dismissing what he’d seen.

  Donovan turned away, too, the circle around the camp not yet complete, but the GPS would clearly define where this little self-contained mecca lay. The scent of blood was compelling and he followed it.

  In colorless clarity he saw broken branches and the set of footprints leading into the woods in uneven patterns. A smattering of larger booted prints swarmed the area at the edge of the tree line, telling him the soldiers had looked for something they hadn’t found. A long time ago he’d learned to quit asking how others couldn’t see it. Clear as day, the first set of prints went the direction they checked, but it seemed they made it to the woods and lost the trail.

  Donovan knew he wasn’t supposed to form judgments without more evidence, but he was glad the one had gotten away. Loping farther into the woods and checking for signs, he found the first drop of blood.

  The smell had been there, but the tracks erased the visible drops, scattered the condensed smell. Here it was then, the first drop. Dirty blood. Not a clean arterial spurt of a dying animal. Had the tracks of shoes not given it away, the smell would have. It was definitely human. And definitely recent.

  Picking up his pace a little, he followed along. But his speed only came in spurts—he was following a trail and sometimes it would disappear. The wounded person wouldn’t bleed for a while, and Donovan was stuck wandering and sniffing until he found another drop, spotted a broken branch, or smelled where the person had rubbed against the landscape as he blundered through. Wounded, there wasn’t much more the victim could do but leave a wide and relatively well-marked path.

  Donovan wondered why the people at the village didn’t have dogs. While he was thinking, he almost put his foot in it.

  He bet dogs didn’t have this problem. They probably just got curious and followed a smell, but here he was, thinking about all the little issues and almost stepped into a disturbingly large puddle of human blood.

  He should have been paying attention; he should have smelled it. Something like that, a concentrated source, and the odors came up the way the smells of baking wafted from a kitchen. The way skunk hit you long before you saw it. He’d caught the scent, but then again his mind was elsewhere and he almost stepped in it.

  Suddenly, this wasn’t a search for whatever he would find. This was now a man hunt. The blood was a puddle, not a drop. He sniffed harder; the runner was a boy, not yet a man and he stood here and bled for a while. Maybe he pulled away a bandage or stabbed himself a second time. It still wasn’t high velocity, not arterial, but it was no longer the drip of a man running with something as simple as a cut hand.

  This was fresh, very recent.

  Since there was no body here, this person must still be alive, still moving. But it was clear he was leaking too fast to stay that way much longer without medical help.

  Donovan stopped. Listened. Slowly turning his head, he monitored the woods for sounds from any direction. Alive around him, the forest had its own white noise and he picked out specific sounds. Behind him he could still make out the faint chug of the generators. He could hear the rustling movements of a community asleep—branches on windows, feet on patrol—but not what he was listening for.

  To his right, a large animal moved.

  Cat. It smelled of large feline. Puma, maybe ocelot. They were both out here. He’d scented them before; they’d crossed the path he was taking tonight more than once, though he hadn’t seen them. Now he saw the movement in the distance, between the trees, up in the branches.

  It smelled the blood, too.

  Donovan redoubled his efforts, sucking in air through his sinuses. Using all his senses, he added together the smells, the broken branches, the visible blood still actively soaking into the dirt. And he moved faster.

  No longer quiet, he took his chances. The cat now tracked him, pacing off to one side, and he wondered if she was willing to fight him for the prey. Pausing, he turned his head, sniffing again as the cat got closer. Puma—dammit—and she was nursing. She had cubs to feed, which would only make her more aggressive.

  In front of him, the woods were thinning out and there was a quality to what he sensed that he couldn’t put his finger on but he could identify it. Roadway. It must be the tar or additives they used. These back roads baked in the sun and gave that heat back at night. They radiated chemicals that oozed up and into the air like steam off a hot lake.

  Ahead of him, he heard sounds. Grunting, stumbling noises. Muttering.

  The young man was talking to himself, telling himself to keep going. Stumbling again, yelping in pain, and scrambling back up.

  Still Donovan trailed. This kid—it had to be a kid—wouldn’t know it, but Donovan was by far the better option. The puma would not hesitate to take out a wounded child.

  Beside him the cat started her own lope. No longer in stalking mode, she sped up to a full run, her strides clearing the ground cover and closing the distance. Donovan had to pace her or she’d get to the kid first, tear him limb from limb, and feed the parts to her cubs.

  Stretching, he reached for every leap, pushing a little further, until—at the same time—he and the cat cleared the forest edge. Between them and the road, a boy, early teens, screamed at the sight of them rushing him.

  As Donovan watched, the boy stumbled, went down on his ass and scrambled back up. At this point the fear kept him from noticing that one arm didn’t push, didn’t work. One pant leg was soaked in blood, and the cut there screamed of fresh meat.

  The cat’s mouth opened, long teeth glinting, catching the bare amount of moonlight and framing the screech that emanated from her. She was taking those last bounding steps to close on her prey. She leapt even as the boy was running into the road, screaming. He waved his arms as if anyone came along this road in the daylight, let alone at night.

  There was no answering drone of tires on pavement, no purr of an engine, no faint spot of light rounding the corner to save the boy. There was only Donovan.

  So he threw himself at the cat, catching her side mid-leap and not quite able to keep her claws from reaching the boy. Donovan braced, and though he kept the worst of it from the kid, he wasn’t sure if he would survive her claws himself. There were rumors that men like him healed fast, were immortal, could only be stopped by certain metals. It was all bullshit. She could kill him as easily as she could kill the boy.

  But he got lucky. She rolled onto her back and didn’t like it there.

  Donovan shoved himself off her, his main goal to escape her claws and teeth. Given the way they tumbled, it left him handily between her and the boy. However, the boy was screaming his fool head off. He’d worked so hard to get away from the little city, but everyone would likely hear this. Then again, maybe not; he had run for miles.

  Rapidly regaining her feet, the cat stood her ground, hissing at the broken kid, wanting dinner for her cubs. Donovan faced her. Just taller than she was, he could intimidate a bit by height. His mass was greater, too; she was a big girl, but adult female pumas clocked in around one hundred pounds. Donovan was double that. He bared his teeth and waited. He’d rather not fight. Puma claws were nothing to balk at, and he did not want to explain that one in an ER. Or to Eleri.

  When the cat didn’t move, he let out a low growl, speaking a language she understood. You didn’t live on the edge of thousands of acres of national forest and not learn a thin
g or two about big cats. Getting back to her cubs alive was more important than getting this particular meal.

  Still, she was pissed as hell. Hissing at him, she backed away, ass in the air. As she melted into the forest, Donovan entertained the fleeting thought that she was beautiful—or she would have been if she hadn’t been trying to fight him and eat a wounded person.

  He turned back to the boy—who took one look at him and promptly fainted dead away, cracking his head on the pavement.

  Shit.

  What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t communicate with an unconscious kid. He could bring pointy sticks so the kid could defend himself until Donovan could get the car and bring it around. Or he could hang out. But the best he could offer was a naked man, and a naked man wasn’t much help. He literally didn’t have anything on.

  Anything but a damn dog collar with a tracking device.

  Shit.

  He brought the sticks. The sharpest ones he could find. He wished he had a gun to leave, but then again, as soon as he put a gun in that one working hand, there was every reason to believe the kid would take aim at him. So, pointy sticks it was.

  Then he nudged the kid awake.

  The tall boy—blonde haired and with saucers of blue for eyes—took one look at him, screamed, clutched his arm, and passed right back out.

  The thoughts in Donovan’s head became less flattering. “You have to stay awake kid. Or that cat will come back and you won’t wake up until she drags you away. There won’t be anything I can do then.”

  He nudged the boy again.

  This time the kid screamed, but scrambled back away. Once he was firmly on his ass, he reached for one of the branches and brandished it at Donovan.

  “Good boy,” he thought.

  He could leave now. He had no idea how long it would take to loop back around, but he had a good idea where he was.

  With a single nod at the kid, Donovan aimed toward his car, creating a large triangle on the map and without thinking what the GPS would show, he took off like a shot.

  ELERI BLINKED RAPIDLY. Her vision was thick, her brain trying to shut down. For a moment she thought she actually was asleep.

  The red dot now left a blue trail on the map. Learning the system was a good way to stay awake at two-thirty in the morning when you were watching a tiny dot move on a satellite photo of the wide-open Texas landscape. Staying awake was important as she watched the map coordinates change, number by number, each time the right side of her screen updated. No wonder her brain was telling her to shut down.

  But Donovan was out there. Not only did she not believe in leaving him to fend for himself when she specifically told him she’d be watching, but she was also his senior officer. It was literally her responsibility to bring him back safely.

  She enjoyed the irony of being responsible for the older, better educated, physically larger agent. The only thing she had on him was FBI experience. They were a good team, that much was true. However, it depended on her keeping things working, on her eyes sticking to the red dot and making sure everything didn’t go to hell sideways.

  The dot had tracked northwest originally, zig-zagging its way through underbrush and across fields. After about ten miles of that—Eleri used the mapping feature to check the distance—the blue line wrapped around what must be the City of God. It was something roughly circular he was skirting there. The only question was how far out from the compound/town/whatever was he? Likely it was just a few homes, the circle wasn’t that wide. After that he took off almost due east. Once again moving side to side, slowing down, speeding up.

  Then there was an odd cluster of activity.

  Eleri frowned. She must be asleep. According to the computer he’d gone almost twenty-two miles. That was a marathon—in three and a half hours. Many people didn’t complete the marathon in that time and they sure as hell didn’t do it in the woods.

  It was her brain; it must have shorted out, or else the computer had. Either way her brain wasn’t awake enough to fix either. She discounted her desire to bang on the side of the screen as though bumping it would actually put the right pixels and bits back into place. She almost laughed.

  Yes. A sure sign she was losing it—sitting by herself in the middle of the night, laughing at her own stupidity. Traipsing to the fridge, she got out the second coffee. Clearly she needed it.

  It was a production, scooping the ice, pouring coffee from one cup into another, not spilling the sticky sweet liquid on the carpet. She wasn’t at her best, but she got it done, double-checked the lid and turned back to the screen after chugging a cold shot.

  Her eyes opened fully. She was awake now and the blue line still showed that he’d walked a tight space repeatedly. Only now she noticed that he was roadside. Was he talking to someone? Why would he pace like that? Given the map size he was going ten, maybe twenty, feet away and then coming back. That was odd. It was too big to be a signal to her that something was wrong.

  Thinking it through, she tried to imagine scenarios that might explain it. If someone found him, they wouldn’t let him go that far. He wouldn’t move like that if someone was chasing him, or had a gun on him. He couldn’t figure it out.

  Her forehead had a knot on the front; Eleri could feel it. She was thinking hard and trying to make sense of it all when the blue dot shot out. Heading southwest, back toward the starting point.

  Eleri almost took the flat of her hand and bumped the side of her head, as though doing so would realign her own pixels or bits. None of this could be right.

  The screen updated.

  The numbers made her head pop forward and her heart race.

  The GPS was moving through the woods at thirty-two miles per hour.

  10

  Scrambling both physically and mentally, it took Eleri far too long to yank the cords and grab her bags. She almost forgot her jacket. Not that she needed it for heat, the ground was still radiating from the day. Donovan was out in thick stands of trees and underbrush. Contrary to what she thought Texas should be—desolate and brown—this area was lush and green. And that meant lakes, standing water from rain, and bugs. Lots of bugs.

  She was likely going into the woods to retrieve her partner. It wasn’t going to be pretty. Given the pacing of the GPS—it held a steady thirty-plus mile-per-hour rate—it was just as likely it had been taken from Donovan than that he was still with it.

  Eleri tried to stop her brain; she needed to stay calm. If she showed up with missing pieces, she would be of no use. Checklist: gun, holster, and two spare magazines. Jacket, long pants that she could move in, socks, and sneakers. Hair! She rushed into the bathroom and pulled it up into a ponytail, then looped it up and around. It wasn’t pretty, but it wouldn’t catch on anything.

  Scanning the room, she spotted her small weapons bag and quickly strapped her hunting knife to her ankle. Computer: check. Backup battery, cord for the car. She needed the laptop on. She still had to track Donovan, hopefully where he was now but maybe just from where he’d last been. Shit.

  Everything in place, it still took her two trips to get it all to the car. Though she was jacked up on adrenaline, she took the coffee with her and shoved a power bar into her face while she drove. She didn’t know what she’d be called upon to do or how long it would be before she ate again. Luckily the area was deserted this time of night, because she was constantly looking at the laptop she’d left open on the passenger’s seat.

  The drive was long enough for her to suck down all the cold coffee and even make her way through most of the ice. The blue line—the GPS—was headed back toward his car still at thirty-plus miles per hour, so something was wrong. Eleri couldn’t tell if she was going to beat him to the car or not. Also, there was no telling if she would meet up with Donovan, Donovan with someone else, or just the GPS. It was entirely possible that some bird had eaten the transceiver and was flying off with it. Though the likelihood that the bird ate it then headed straight for the rental car was slim to none.

>   As she got closer, Eleri used her left hand on the wheel and with her right she checked her weapon, pushed her spare magazines into her pockets—another good reason for a jacket that would be too hot to want, but not too hot to need. Who knew what she would meet up with at the rental car?

  The blue line burst faster, somehow picking up speed then stopped at a point in the woods just beyond the road.

  So it was not a bird or a big cat—those were no longer possibilities. Nothing like that would wait just beyond Donovan’s car. This couldn’t mean anything but trouble.

  She turned off the headlights about a mile away and let her eyes acclimate to the low light. She had great vision, but it took too long to get accustomed to the thin light of the moon branching through the trees. She crept the car forward, using her right hand to hit off all the interior lights as well. Glowing like a beacon when she opened the door was not only foolish but target-worthy. Parking well before reaching Donovan’s car, Eleri figured she was much better off coming up stealthy and on foot as she had no idea what was making the GPS run that fast.

  Holding the door handle up, she quietly pushed it closed, wishing she could take the laptop with her. Her brain muttered choice phrases about agents running off into the woods at night and agents who trusted them, but she kept the sounds vaulted. They might be running through her head at top volume, but they weren’t running from her mouth.

  Step over step, gun out, safety off, pointed at the ground in front of her, Eleri approached. Listening hard for anything of value, she stopped and finally heard a rustling noise from where she’d last seen the GPS on the screen. As she stepped into the tree line for cover, she heard him.

  “Eames! Eames! It’s me. Go to my car!”

  Donovan.

  He was safe and at least alive enough to yell for her.

  Did she trust him enough to just do as he said? What if someone had him?

  With the right incentive, even the best agents turned. It was more than possible someone had him and they wanted her, too. Could he have been coerced?