by J. R. Rain
I’m always the cool one, I thought. I’m always the collected one. The one who thinks clearly.
But I couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever again. My mind was spinning, spinning. Out of control...
Lord, please help him, I managed to pray. Please help my baby boy.
Two support technicians were poring over the school’s security set-up, bringing up files, bringing up video. Most police forces hired such civilian technicians, along with many other non-investigative jobs. The techs were good. I knew them by name. Had worked with them on a number of other cases. I knew one of them knew the security camera system well. Now, he had isolated the footage.
Sherbet watched it, glancing at me once or twice. Now, he wanted me with him, to watch it, too. But I shook my head. I couldn’t watch it. Not now, not now. No, no—just no, goddammit!
But he wouldn’t have it. He needed me. Needed my input. Time was of the essence.
My baby boy...
He took my elbow, yanked me around. It was harsh, rough, but I wouldn’t have responded otherwise. I blinked at him through tears.
“We need you to see this, Sam.”
“Detective... help me...”
The alarmed look on his face softened with a slow blink. Beyond him, I could see Kingsley studying the principal’s computer screen. The men were riveted, shaking their heads, and then, wincing... and finally dropping their heads.
“You need to see this, Sam.”
I nodded. Yes, of course. I understood. But then, I shook my head and burst into tears, and the detective pulled me in close—and when I’d had a good cry, I was startled to find myself in Kingsley’s arms. At some point, Kingsley and the detective had traded places. At least, that’s what I hoped. Either that, or I had completely lost my marbles.
“Sam,” said Kingsley, looking down at me, his shaggy hair hanging forward. “We need you. Your son needs you.”
“I know,” I said, nodding, but the tears came again and again.
“Sam,” he whispered, shaking me a little. And a little for Kingsley was actually a lot. I think I might have looked like a bobble-head toy. Little did the others know that Kingsley couldn’t hurt me. Not really. And he needed to be rough with me. He needed to shake me out of it.
Finally, I took in some air, and he shook me again, but this time, I knocked his hands away went into his arms... into the comforting solidness that I knew and loved. That was what I needed from him. A huge bear hug that gave me strength. He said very softly in my ear, “I’m here for you, Sam. No matter what it takes, we’ll find him.”
Sherbet made room for me on the other side of the desk. And with Kingsley and Sherbet on either side, the detective reached out and pressed “Play” on the oversized touchscreen monitor.
Within seconds, I saw my son standing alone in front of the school. I watched him kick something too small to see—a rock maybe—but Anthony seemed pleased with himself. I knew that look all too well.
It was then that the black van stopped in front of him.
And all hell broke loose.
Chapter Nineteen
Worst. Three. Minutes. Ever.
Standing there and watching the men surround my son—and watching him fight for his life, was hell on earth for me. I took some consolation in watching him dispatch two of the larger men. Two of the very fast men. Lightning-fast. Except my son was just that much faster.
Not just any men, I thought.
The first time through, I was sick and sweating and holding myself, even as Kingsley held me. I screamed when the man rose behind my son, wielding the silver-tipped arrow like a dagger. My mouth dropped open and something pitiful and terrible and sorrowful came out of me when the arrow plunged down, down into my son’s shoulder.
My son’s shoulder.
His shoulder. A little boy’s shoulder. A shoulder I had held in my hands when he was so very tiny—
He threw back his arms and cried out, and it was then that the other men pounced... and dragged him into the open van. A moment later, a cell phone was tossed out through the van doors. My son’s cell. Then the doors slammed closed and the van squealed off. It had happened so quickly. No one had time to react, and, in the video, the poor old lady who did come to his aid was still lying face-first on the pavement. I would thank her later. I would check on her later...
Later...
The license plate turned out to be a fake. That plate number had never been issued.
I had the techs replay the stabbing over and over. I had to verify my son was alive. I had to know the arrow had not found his heart, even if through the shoulder.
I saw my son look up as they dragged him to the van, saw him look at one of the men who was waiting just inside the van. Their eyes lingered. I was sure of it. My son was okay. Why had their eyes lingered?
Knowing my son had made it out of here alive gave me hope. And with hope came rage. I let it grip me, take hold of me, because rage felt better than losing hope. With the rage, I saw answers. With the rage, I saw myself killing each of the men, slowly, quickly, painfully. There was a lot of blood in this mental image. Blood and lost limbs.
I had quit crying, too. The tears had stopped the instant the van had appeared. The tears were replaced first by horror and sickness, and then red-hot fury. Now, even the fury was gone. Fury wouldn’t find my son. Cool heads would. My cool head.
I breathed, paced, breathed, talked myself down.
I would kill them all.
Every last piece of shit.
His shoulder. His poor, sweet shoulder.
The fuckers.
I was back behind the monitor, nodding, and the tech played it through again, and again. We were all looking for something telling. Anything. After the van sped off, other people had appeared in the security footage, teachers and students, some of whom chased after the van.
We went through it again and again. I forced myself to watch, and to see beyond my son fighting for his life. To look for answers. I forced myself to watch the man take aim with the crossbow, watched my son’s impressive reflexes and fighting skills, watched him dispatch man after man, not realizing—or perhaps realizing, but fighting on anyway because that was all he could do—that the men were not like other men. Normal men would have stayed down. Normal men weren’t this fucking big.
These were not normal men.
I paced again, but this time with hands clenched. I ran my fingers through my hair. Too roughly—my longish, pointed nails inadvertently slashed my scalp. I felt the blood appear. Someone handed me a tissue, I snatched it and blotted the blood, but could feel my skin already healing.
“Get them out,” I said to Sherbet.
“Who—”
“Everyone! Get them all out! Kingsley, you stay. Detective, you stay, too.”
Sherbet nodded, jerked his thumb toward the only door. A half-dozen other detectives raised their eyebrows and murmured to each other, but they got moving. The principal demanded to stay—that is, until he got a look at my face, my eyes, and I didn’t need telepathic suggestion to get him moving, too.
The detective shut the door and came over to where I was now standing with Kingsley behind the desk, staring down at the frozen image of my son in the act of kicking a rock, just before all hell would break loose, just before he would be stabbed in the shoulder, and ripped from my life.
“Okay, Sam, the floor is yours.”
I looked at Kingsley; Kingsley looked at me. I said, “These weren’t men. Not mortal men, at least.”
The detective looked even sicker, paler, sweatier. “Okay, give me the worst. What are we dealing with? Goblins? Trolls?”
I nearly laughed. Nearly. No, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t close to laughing at all. But a part of me—a very deep part of me, a part that had nothing to do with Elizabeth—appreciated his small attempt to add a touch of humor here, especially since he really didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. The sad thing was, Anthony would have guffawed at the detective’s supernatural naïveté. Once
Anthony knew what naïveté meant, that is.
“Werewolves,” said Kingsley.
Sherbet exhaled through tight, pursed lips, an exhale that warbled into a nasally whistle. He sounded like an old, tired teakettle.
The detective might have picked up on that mental image of mine, because he gave me a quick sidelong glance, then said, “Why would werewolves want your son, Sam?”
I knew why, of course. Just a few months ago, I was told that my family lineage went all the way back to her Hermes Trismegistus, the original alchemist. And those within his bloodline sported a rather beautiful and rare calling card: a silvery serpent that wound through our auras. Many in my lineage were recruited to join other alchemists, becoming what was called Light Warriors. Others were discovered by the baddies in the world—often destroyed at young ages, wiped off the planet before they could even be trained to become said warriors. And not just wiped off... but consumed. The Hermes bloodline, the blood itself, gave immortals an invaluable and highly desirable edge.
Rather than explain all this, I gave Sherbet access to my thoughts, and soon, he was nodding grimly. “I get it, Sam—but I also don’t get it, too. You know?”
“I know,” I said.
He turned to Kingsley. “Do you know them?”
“More than likely. There’re not many of us, and noticeably fewer after Samantha and her old friend dispatched a pack of them a few years back.”
I felt something inside me snap, something that had been waiting to snap. Something that helped me focus all my anger and rage. And that something was Kingsley.
“Wait a fucking second,” I said. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him away from the monitor. No mean feat. “You more than likely know of a pack of kidnappers? Child killers? And all the while, you’ve let these fuckers walk the streets—”
“Hold on, Sam—”
I pounded his chest with a fist. If it hurt or fazed him, he didn’t show it. “No, you wait, you son of a bitch. Letting these monsters roam the streets makes you complicit, and if anything happens to Anthony—anything at all—I will fucking hate you for the rest of my fucking life. And that’s going to be a long-ass time—”
“Sam, please—”
But I couldn’t stop. I saw only red fury and I wanted to hurt Kingsley, and I wanted to hurt those who hurt my son so much more. I wanted to rip them from limb to limb and burn each limb. And then, burn them some more.
“Jesus...” said Sherbet, picking up on thoughts that Kingsley couldn’t hear or see.
“Sam,” he said, “I have no way of controlling these guys, nor could I have known they were capable... of such a thing. Just as you have no way of knowing the depth and depravity of the local vampires. No one could ever expect you to find them all and hunt them down.”
I understood his logic. But I still hated him. Or wanted to hate him. Yes, how could he have known they were capable of... this?
Now, Kingsley took hold of my shoulders. “Believe me, Sam. Had I known any of them were capable of such a heinous, brazen, despicable act, they would have long since been dead.”
I had another round or two of tears, and Sherbet gently cleared his throat, and when I turned and looked at him, I saw the many emotions crossing his reddish face. I also heard his thoughts. He didn’t like any talk of killing, especially around him. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he did understand that he was going to face a lot of people, including his own captain, who themselves were going to have to face the media about how and why a middle-school boy had been kidnapped at a public school in broad daylight.
Mostly—and I loved the detective for this with all my heart—he wanted to find my boy, and he wanted to find him now.
Enough with the tears, I told myself. Enough with the blame. Enough with anything that has nothing to do with finding my son.
The feed had been rewound again. On the screen, thanks to the wide-shot of the camera, I could see the black van approaching, east along Orangethorpe Avenue. The van had no plates, as had been noted earlier by Sherbet. The three of us gathered back around the monitor again, and Sherbet fast-forwarded to when the smallish, masked man came into view on the screen, the man sitting inside the van itself. He had not wanted to engage, clearly keeping back, and clearly fascinated.
“Here’s the anomaly,” said Sherbet. “Can either one of you tell me who he might be... as in, what kind of creature?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t read auras through TV, or security footage,” said Kingsley.
“Auras, the light around bodies,” said Sherbet. “Or lack thereof.”
“You’re learning, Detective,” I said. “Immortals have no auras.”
“Your son’s aura was black, at one point,” Sherbet pointed out, recalling our conversation from years ago.
“Yes. A sign of imminent death,” I said.
“So, you can’t tell if the guy in the van is, say, a vampire or not?” For once, the grizzled detective didn’t look sick to the stomach while asking such a ridiculous question.
“He’s not a vampire,” said Kingsley, moving up to the screen.
I nodded and pointed, my fingertip touching the crap out of the nice monitor. “His neck and arms are exposed. And no ring.”
“And no obvious sunscreen,” said Kingsley.
“Even with sunscreen, he would have been in a world of hurt,” I said. “And he’s not even trying to shy away from it.”
“Unless he’s wearing another medallion,” said Kingsley.
“Maximus has destroyed the only known one; a medallion he created, mind you.”
“Unless there’s more than one and he’s not telling you the truth,” said Kingsley, glancing at me and looking away. Kingsley had dropped hints in the past that he wasn’t entirely sure that Archibald Maximus could be trusted. I tended to disagree, and defended Maximus to no end, certain that Kingsley’s concern arose from jealousy, and not anything tangible.
I waved off his asinine comment, and, with enough finality in my voice to permanently put an end to the subject, I said, “There are no more medallions.”
“Enough about the damn medallions,” said Sherbet, and he jabbed a flat, squarish fingertip at the screen. “Your son recognized one of them. Look.”
He played it again and we looked: Anthony, just after avoiding the first arrow—and after leaping forward and taking out the shooter in what could only be described as an impressive feat of strength and agility—he paused and glanced into the back of the van, where the man was sitting. No, not just glanced. Paused and stared, even if for a fraction of a second. I had Sherbet fast-forward to where the gang of men dragged my son into the van, to where my son looked over at the man again, to where I was sure their eyes made contact.
“What do you think?” asked Sherbet, looking at us. “The two of you ruled out he was a vampire.”
“A teacher?” asked Kingsley.
“One of his own teachers?” I added, and my own question just felt right to me. Damn right. Sweet Jesus...
Detective Sherbet said, “I’ll get the principal.”
Chapter Twenty
A short, agonizing while later, Mr. Russo, the middle-school principal, reported back to us. “All but two of his teachers are accounted for.”
“And the other two?” I asked.
“Mrs. Little, his English teacher, has been home all week, sick. And Mr. Matthews, his algebra teacher, who isn’t picking up.” Russo paused, then added, “We compared Ericka Tanner’s class schedule—”
“Who?” asked Kingsley.
“The student who disappeared after school three years ago,” said Russo, looking pained all over again. Kingsley nodded and the principal went on. “She and Anthony shared a common teacher.”
“Mr. Matthews,” I said. It had, after all, been a smallish man on the surveillance video. Not a woman.
The principal nodded, and truly looked sick to his stomach.
“Describe Mr. Matthews,” said Sherbet.
“What do you
mean—”
“How tall?” I snapped. “Big guy, little guy? Fat, thin?”
“Medium, I would say. Medium all around.”
I looked at Sherbet, then at Kingsley, and we all nodded. I took in a lot of air, and saw a lot of red, too.
Sherbet pulled out his department-issue cell and made a phone call. Shortly after that, he read off Matthews’ cell number. We waited. I wanted to pull my hair out while I waited. I also wanted to hurt someone very badly. A lot of someones.
“Thank you,” said Sherbet after a minute and disconnected the call. He turned to us. “I’m getting a court order to ping his cell phone.”
“Ping?” asked Russo.
“Locate his phone,” said Sherbet. “With luck, it could lead us right to him.”
Or them, I thought. To Anthony.
“Meanwhile,” said Sherbet, turning to the principal, “get me Matthews’ home address. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Once in the van, the ropes had appeared instantly, looping around and around him.
The men had removed their hoods—and Anthony instantly recognized his math teacher, Mr. Matthews, sitting off to one side and watching him, swaying with the speeding van. A rag had been shoved into Anthony’s mouth. Anthony was pretty sure he could spit out the rag, but he hadn’t tried. No one seemed to care that a thirteen-year-old boy was sporting a silver-tipped arrow from his shoulder. The arrow had hurt at first, but mostly it had been a shock to his system. Now, he was only barely aware of it. If anything, it was a minor irritant, especially when the ropes pulled at it.
No one spoke in the van, and no one spoke when they transferred him into a car with tinted windows. The guy sitting next to Anthony in the backseat was sporting a round shiner under his eye. Anthony could barely believe the shiner was from him. Anthony wasn’t scared, not really. Not yet, at least. He didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t think these guys could really hurt him. Anthony knew he was acting a little cocky, but being cocky was all he had right now. He also knew that if they gave him even a sliver of a chance to escape, he would do so. No way these big guys were going to catch him. No freakin’ way.