Bad Grace (Watcher Chronicles Book 1)

by N. P. Martin

  “Almost twenty four hours at this point.”

  “Jesus.” He tried to sit up, but a searing pain in his lower back made him stop and cry out.

  “Careful,” Eva said, rushing over. “You took a bullet to your back. You were lucky. Only your grace prevented it from hitting anything vital.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Frank groaned. “Why does my leg feel like it’s been skewered?”

  “It was. By a bullet.”

  Frank remembered diving on Eva. “You were hit.”

  “In the shoulder. The bullet went right through. I’m almost healed.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Your injuries were a bit more extensive, to say the least. It will take another day or so for you to heal fully.”

  Frank sighed as he let his head sink into the pillow. “Jesus, what a fucking mess.”

  “Indeed,” Eva said. “And one which your demon friend, Lucas, pulled us out of.”

  “Lucas,” Frank said, suddenly remembering being in the demon’s office before he blacked out. “He teleported us?”

  “I never thought I would ever be grateful to a demon, but I am. We were all dead, Frank.”

  “I know.” He drifted back for a second into his last moments in the cemetery, lying over Eva as bullets seemed to rain on them, then before that to when Tyreese pushed him out of the way of a bullet. Then to Tyreese’s head exploding in a mess of red. “Tyreese is dead.”

  “I know,” Eva said, her voice heavy with constrained emotion.

  “He saved me from getting shot.”

  “I know.”

  “God damn it…”

  Eva put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Frank.”

  A rush of anger suddenly hit him. “He was killed by one of his own. That fucker Cunningham. He has to die.”

  “Not now, Frank,” Eva said. “Please. You need to rest.”

  He tried to sit up again. “No! I have to get that bastard…”

  Pain slammed him back down on the bed again. He thought he felt something break inside him. A tide of emotion overcame him and it felt like he was drowning in it.

  “Frank! Stop Frank!”

  He felt a pricking sensation in his arm and he looked to a see a needle going into it. Eva pulled the syringe away and stood back, tears in her eyes as she looked at him.

  “Tyreese… Jack…”

  The world went black again.

  CHAPTER 23

  Frank was out until the following evening, thanks to Eva’s drug induced sleep. When he awoke, he got straight out of bed, a little unsteady on his feet, but otherwise much better than he felt the last time he was awake. His dirty bloodstained clothes had been dumped in the corner of the room. He went and put them on, then he left the basement medical room and went upstairs to find Eva drinking in the living room. Their conversation was brief. Frank didn’t feel like talking much. The deaths of Jack and Tyreese were weighing heavily on him, as they were on Eva as well. She rarely drank, but to Frank she looked half drunk. Frank told her he needed to go back to the cabin, that he needed to think about to do next. Eva just nodded, her obvious grief making her indifferent to the apocalyptic situation still going on in the city. “They betrayed us,” she said to him just before he left.

  There was nothing to say to that. The betrayal of the High Council was gut wrenching, even to Frank, who lost all love for it, if he ever had it in the first place. Regardless, they were still his people in that facility. They were all supposed to be on the same side. Now the people who purported to be on the side of good were now colluding with the very evil they had been fighting for millennia. A betrayal like that can leave you feeling a little unsure of where you now stood, to say the least.

  It took Frank twice as long to negotiate the city and drive to the cabin than it normally did. The city was in rapid decline. The streets were littered with burning cars, buildings were burning, and people were running scared, screaming about monsters. Monsters who chased them. Monsters who killed their families. Frank had never seen such chaos in action. It was unsettling to say the least and he felt powerless to do anything about it. There was just too much of it and he couldn’t get to those who were causing it. The only thing he wanted to do was get to the cabin in the mountains, to escape the madness going on in the city.

  He refused to stop as he negotiated the streets, trying to get to the city limits. Even when people banged on his car asking for his help, he never stopped. He just looked straight ahead and did his best to ignore anyone who tried to get his attention. Even when he saw some kind of beast—not a werewolf, but a massive dog like thing—attack a group of people who were running down the street with suitcases, he never stopped. It wasn’t his job anymore. He had done enough to try and help this city. Two of his friends had died trying to save it.

  And to save what? An already corrupt and rotten city, full of indifferent and apathetic citizens who turned a blind eye to the corruption going on around them so they could keep on watching TV and going to the gym? Half these people didn’t even deserve his help anyway. Maybe Leland had the right idea after all. A change in regime could be exactly what this city needs, he thought. Not just the city. The world.

  A new world order.

  Stop it, Frank. You don’t believe any of that.

  He carried on driving, carried on helping no one, until he got to the cabin. Once there he got out of the car and stood looking down the mountain at the city in the distance. Stared at it for a long time. Then he went inside and grabbed a full bottle of whiskey from the kitchen cupboard, went to the living room and started drinking.

  A couple of hours later when he had drank over half of the bottle of whiskey he held in his hand, his phone rang inside his jacket somewhere. He drunkenly fished it out of his pocket and looked at it. The screen was smashed so he couldn’t see who was calling. As he stared at the smashed phone that was barely ringing in his hand, he contemplated dropping it on the floor and crushing it underfoot. Before he knew it though, he had hit the button to accept the call and was bringing the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” he said in a flat voice.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.” It was Lucas. “Frank?”

  “What do you want, Lucas?”

  “That’s a nice way to greet someone who saved your ass the other night.”

  “What do you want? A fucking medal?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, then Lucas said, “I’m sorry about your friends, Frank.”

  “You’re a fucking demon. How can you be sorry about anything?”

  “Are you drinking, Frank?”

  “Fuck off, Lucas.”

  Frank hung up the phone.

  It rang again a second later. He shook his head, but answered it. “Didn’t I just tell you to fuck off?”

  “Get a hold of yourself, Frank,” Lucas said. “I was only calling to tell you that I know the whereabouts of the demon who took your friend Rachel’s soul.”

  Frank sat forward in his chair, set the whiskey bottle on the floor. “Where?”

  “Not so fast, Frank. We had a deal, remember? And considering I also saved you and your friends from certain death, I’d say you owe me first before I give you anything. That’s business.”

  Frank’s jaw clenched and unclenched for a moment. The deep despondency he had been sitting in began to drop away. “I still don’t know where Krakus is.”

  “You’ll find him at the same factory where you lost him last time, following Tolloch’s orders no doubt. Sticking to the plan, as they say.”

  Frank’s senses became less and less dulled by the drink. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve had people keep an eye on the factory. The latest batch of humans has been loaded in. The ritual will start soon.”

  Soon? He would never get there in time. “Why can’t you just teleport in and get the feather yourself?”

  “I can’t risk Hell hearing about my interference, especially if the Generals are backing T
olloch’s activities here in the city.”

  “But you’ll have the feather,” Frank said. “They can’t touch you then.”

  “They may not be able to take me back to Hell, but they can certainly make things difficult for me here on Earth.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Frank said, rubbing his face. “So am I just supposed to waltz in there on my own, is that it? I’ll get fucking killed. Krakus had vampires backing him up last time.”

  “You’re a smart guy, Frank,” Lucas said. “You’ll find a way. Let me know when it’s done. I’ll tell you what you want to know then.”

  Lucas hung up the phone.

  “Fuck!” Frank said. No way could he take on Krakus and his minions alone. He couldn’t ask Eva along either. This wasn’t her fight. It was his and his alone.

  You don’t have to do this, Frank. Let me stay dead.

  “No,” he growled. “You gave yourself for me.”

  So you could live. Not so you could die again trying to bring me back. Let me go, Frank. Let me go…

  He grabbed the whiskey bottle and took a long swig.

  Then bright light suddenly streamed through the living room window from outside.

  The security lights.

  Frank froze for a second, then reached for the shotgun that was leaning against the chair he was sitting in. He stood up and walked to the door just as there was a knock on it. “Frank?” said a woman’s voice he vaguely recognized but couldn’t think where from.

  He went to the door, took a breath and then pulled it open, putting the shotgun to his shoulder straight after. Aimed it at the woman standing there with her hands up in front of her. It only took him a second to realize he knew the woman, even without the glasses she wore the last time they spoke. “Michelle, isn’t it?” he said, shoving the barrel of the shotgun in her face.

  Michelle, dressed in tight black sleeveless top and black fatigues, never flinched. “Take it easy. I’m just here to talk.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” Frank glanced past her out into the darkness, looking for signs of other people. He saw no one, which didn’t mean no one was there, the woods not being far from the cabin and offering perfect cover.

  “I’m here to talk about Leland Cunningham,” Michelle said.

  “What, he send you here to take me out?” He tightened his grip on the shotgun, ready to blow this woman’s head off if she so much as breathed wrong.

  Michelle held his gaze. “If that were the case, which it isn’t, you’d be dead already.”

  He didn’t doubt it. In fact, he was surprised a team hadn’t been dispatched to the cabin already. Or maybe this woman was sent here on her own to kill him quietly after luring him in with the promise of help. Frank saw the sincerity in her blue eyes, but that didn’t mean she was telling the truth. Most likely she was just well trained. It didn’t make any sense that someone working closely with Leland, as she so obviously did, would suddenly show up on his doorstep with an offer of help. “Leland killed two of my friends the other night,” he said through gritted teeth. “He murdered Jack Burnharte, for fuck’s sake, one of his top men. Why?”

  “Why don’t you let me in and I’ll tell you what I know?” She made a slight gesture downwards with her hands. “I’m unarmed. You can keep your gun on me as we talk.”

  He considered her a moment. The offer for him to keep the gun on her was a nice touch. Maybe trying to lure him into a false sense of security before she turned on him. She looked capable enough. Tall at just under six feet, hardly an ounce of fat on her lithe musculature. Frank knew she was dangerous. He backed into the cabin a couple of steps and motioned for her to come inside. “You try anything and you die,” he said, the gun sighted on her as she moved across the living room to the chair he directed her into. When she was sitting down, he stood a few feet away, the shotgun still trained on her.

  Michelle seemed outwardly calm and unbothered about the fact that there was a gun trained on her, but underneath he could tell she was unsettled slightly, as anyone would be, especially when a man like him was on the other end of said gun. He noticed the flashes of irritation in her eyes that showed through every so often. He knew all she wanted to do was take the gun off him, change the power balance. She reminded him of Rachel in that way. Always wanting to be in control. She stared straight at him with her stunning blue eyes. “Jack Burnharte was my father,” she said bluntly, then waited.

  After the initial shock and disbelief of her admission, a wave of confusion washed over Frank, quickly followed by anger. “That’s the line you’re going to feed me? That’s your attempt to gain my trust?” He was shaking with boiling rage.

  Michelle had her hands up again. “It’s true. I’m Jack’s daughter.”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me! Jack doesn’t have a daughter.”

  “I can prove it.” She began to reach into the side pocket of her combat pants.

  “Don’t!” Frank shouted, moving a step closer, the gun held tight.

  She stopped moving. “Hey, take it easy. I’m just getting some photographs, that’s all.”

  Frank said nothing, but kept the gun on her. Michelle started moving her hand very slowly again, her eyes on Frank the whole time. He watched her reach into the pocket and take out some photos. She slowly held them out for him to take. “These photos were taken when I was younger. Jack, my father, is in them with me.”

  “Photographs mean nothing,” Frank said. “They can be easily faked.”

  A quiet intensity came over her as she tried to keep her cool. “I can assure you, these are not faked.”

  “Throw them across the floor to me. Slowly.”

  She did as he asked and slid the photos towards him, then sat back in the chair. Frank kept his eyes and the gun on her as he bent down to pick up the photos. There were three in all. He glanced back and forth between the photos and Michelle, who watched him intently. From his quick glances he saw a blonde girl in all the photos, at different ages, from very young to a teenager. Jack was with the girl in the photos, looking as Frank remembered him at the different times the photos were taken. In one of the photos there was a woman, vaguely reminiscent of Jack. “Who’s the woman?”

  “My aunt,” Michelle said, sounding slightly more relaxed than she did a moment ago. “She raised me until I went to the Facility to start my training.”

  “Jack had a sister?” Frank was confused by all of this. The whole time he had known him, Jack had never mentioned that he had family of any kind. His story always was he was an orphan and he never married. Definitely no kids. “That shit will just drag you down, Swanson,” he told Frank once. “Remember that.”

  “I hardly ever seen my father when I was growing up,” Michelle said. “I didn’t see him many more times than in those pictures. I thought he was in the army, that’s why I never seen him. Then my powers activated when I was eighteen and he came and took me to the Facility.”

  Frank tossed the photos back on the floor. “Why would he never mention he had a daughter?”

  Michelle shrugged, looked away for the first time. “Ashamed, I guess, for not being there when I was growing up. When he took me to the Facility, he said we had to keep our connection a secret. He said he didn’t want to have to treat me differently just because I was his daughter. I had to be just another trainee like everyone else there.” Her voice was tinged with bitterness.

  If she’s lying, Frank thought, she’s doing it well. “Why was Jack murdered? And by who?”

  Tears immediately began to well up in Michelle’s eyes. The more he looked at her, the more of Jack he began to see in her. Could have been suggestion, but he thought he saw the same steely resolve in her eyes that Jack always had. A look that said he had things under control, despite his outward appearance. “The demon killed him.”

  “Which demon? Tolloch?”

  Michelle shook her head. “I’m not sure what he’s called. I’ve hardly ever seen him. Before he killed my father, I’d only seen him once, hiding in the
shadows of Leland’s suite when I walked in unannounced a few months ago. Then I saw him… kill my father.”

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  A few tears escaped down her cheeks. “Because they knew he was working with you. Working against the plan.”

  “Who’s they? And what plan?”

  Michelle sighed. “You want to lower the gun first?”

  Frank hesitated a second, but he lowered the gun and then went and sat in the chair opposite her. He kept the shotgun sitting across his lap, his hands resting on it. The girl seemed to be telling the truth, but he wasn’t ready to let down his guard just yet. “Tell me exactly what happened Jack the night he was killed.”

  Michelle didn’t seem entirely comfortable at his request. If she was really Jack’s daughter, he didn’t blame her for being a bit reticent at first to talk about his murder, which she was. She straightened up though, kept herself in check, as any good soldier would. “I was off duty, in my quarters, when I was called to Leland’s suite. Something I’m used to. I was practically his PA as well a member of his security team when he went outside of the Facility. When I get to Leland’s suite, I find him in there with that demon, Tolloch you said his name was?”

  Frank nodded. “He’s working with Leland.”

  “I guessed that. My father was in the room too. He was stood in the middle of the room, stock still, apparently unable to move a muscle. He looked in pain. The demon was doing it to him. I ask Leland what’s going on and he says your father is about to die and that unless my father tells him what he wants to know, I would be killed as well.”

  Frank frowned. “Leland knew you were Jack’s daughter?”

  “He was the only one,” Michelle said. “My father just looked at me and I saw tears in his eyes. I had never seen tears in my father’s eyes before. That just wasn’t him, you know?”

  Frank knew. Jack was as old school as it gets. Men simply didn’t cry or show emotion in his world. Certainly not soldiers. “I know.”

  “So he tells Leland about you guy’s killing a load of demons at a bar in the Southside, and then about the demons in some old factory, stealing souls.” She paused for a second. “The whole time he’s saying all this, he looks… ashamed that he’s giving up his friends, but he wants me to stay alive so…”