by J. R. Ward
When she could no longer see his taillights, she put her hand into her pocket and got out the things she’d taken from his when they’d embraced: The Life Alert and the business card and the strips of cloth had not in fact left with him.
Alistair Childe had been absolutely correct about one thing: She was nothing if not his daughter.
Which meant she wasn’t going to be sidelined in this.
You’re crazy, you know that, her ghostly brother said from beside her.
“Not a news flash.” She glanced over at him. “I’ve been talking to a dead guy for the past two years.”
This is serious, Grier.
She looked down at the things in her hands. “Yes. I know.”
CHAPTER 22
When night finally fell, Isaac was ready to scream, About fucking time, at the top of his lungs. But instead of going the Tarzan route, he ducked out the back way of the townhouse, slipping from the window he’d unlatched that morning, closing it up behind himself, and dropping without a sound onto the rear brick terrace.
He was lucky that it was a cloudy night, because that drained the light even faster from the sky. And yet he was screwed, because the neighborhood was lit up like a goddamn jewelry store: From the streetlamps to the fixtures around all those shiny black doors to the headlights of cars, he was going to have hell’s own amount of trouble hiding himself.
He made the trip to Grier’s at turtle speed, finding all the shadows to be had and taking advantage of them.
Forty-five minutes.
That was how long he spent going no more than twenty yards across the street and into her backyard. Then, again, he went up the hill two blocks and doubled back before dropping down another street past her and taking an alley over to her walled garden.
A jump up . . . a quick hard grip on the top of the brick lip . . . a full-bodied swing . . . and he was in among her rhododendrons.
He froze where he landed in a crouch.
There was no one that he could see or sense. Which meant he could scope the place through the glass panes—
As Grier entered the kitchen, he took a deep breath, the kind that gave him a powerful shot of energy and focus in spite of the fact that he hadn’t eaten or taken a drink in almost twenty-four hours.
It felt like forever since he’d seen her last, and he hated how exhausted and pale she looked as she paced around, like a bird in the wind searching for a branch to perch upon. She was on the phone, talking with animation, gesturing with her hands. . . . Then she ended the call and tossed the receiver across the counter.
He waited to see if anyone came to check on what had undoubtedly been some noise. When nobody did, he assumed she was alone—
Something moved. Over on the left.
His eyes shot across the garden, but his head didn’t shift and his weight didn’t pivot. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what had changed positions, because there were a lot of—
Jim Heron stepped out of the darkness. And wasn’t that a surprise, given the wall that ran around everything. Then again, maybe he’d been there before Isaac had come—which was even more disturbing because Isaac should have teased out his presence.
Although the guy had always been very, very good at making like the landscape.
“What are you doing here?” Isaac demanded, his hand finding the butt of a gun as he straightened.
“Looking for you.”
Isaac glanced around and didn’t see anyone else. “Well, you found me.” And shit, maybe Heron could help on a limited scale. “Your timing is good, by the way.”
“And yet you didn’t call? I gave you my number.”
Isaac nodded up to Grier. “Complications.”
Jim cursed under his breath. “Without even knowing the particulars, I can tell you your solution. Leave. Now. You’re worried about her? Let me put you on an airplane.”
“They gave her something.”
“Fucking hell. What.”
“I don’t know.” He stared through the glass at Grier. “And that’s why I’m not leaving.”
“Isaac. Look at me.” When he didn’t comply, Jim grabbed his biceps and squeezed. “Now.”
Isaac slid his stare over. “I can’t have her . . . hurt.”
Another curse. “Okay, fine, so let me clean up the mess. You’re too valuable to sacrifice. We need to get you to somewhere safe, far, far away from anyone or anybody who knows you or could find you. I’ll take care of her—”
“No.” God, he couldn’t explain it and he knew it wasn’t logical. But when it came to Grier . . . he couldn’t trust anyone.
“Be reasonable here, Isaac—you’re the gun pointed at her head. You’re the trigger and you’re the bullet and you’re the shot that’s going to kill her. You hang around here? You’re putting paid to her tombstone.”
“I’ll get myself in between her and Matthias. I’ll—”
“The only way to save you both is for you to get the fuck out of here. Besides, maybe if we can keep you hidden for long enough, he’ll give up—he won’t be able to afford the diversion of resources for an endless search.”
Isaac slowly shook his head. “You know what Matthias has been like the last couple of years. He’s running XOps like a clubhouse, moving his own agenda. He used to take orders . . . but lately? He’s been making them up. He’s out of control. The assignments now are about . . . something else. I don’t know what. And that means he’ll hunt me until he dies. He has to—it’s the only way to protect himself.”
“Then let him track you all over the globe. We’ll make sure you stay two steps ahead of him for the rest of your natural life.”
Isaac refocused on Grier through the glass. She was bracing herself against the counter he’d sat at, her head dropping down, her shoulders bowing as if they bore all her weight. Her hair had been left loose and the long, wavy lengths nearly touched the granite.
“I’m beginning to think that I made a mistake,” he heard himself say. “I should have stayed in XOps.”
“Your mistake is staying in this garden.”
Probably. But he wasn’t leaving.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jim bit out. “Take this.”
At the sound of a rustling, Isaac glanced over and found a paper bag being held out to him.
“It’s a turkey sandwich,” Jim said. “Mayo. Lettuce. Tomato. And a cookie. From DeLuca’s on the corner. I’ll even take a bite to prove I haven’t poisoned it.”
Jim shoved his hand into the bag, pulled a reveal on the sandwich, and peeled back the cellophane with one hand. Then he cranked his jaw around the thing, bit hard, and chewed with his mouth closed.
Which naturally caused Isaac’s gut to go two-year-old and start howling. “What kind of cookie.”
Jim talked around his mouthful. “Chocolate chip. No nuts. Fucking hate nuts in chocolate-chip cookies.”
“I’m much obliged,” Isaac said softly. Holding out his left palm, he took what was offered and ate with efficiency.
“Cookie?” Jim murmured.
It pained him to say it, but he had to: “You take a bite first. Please.”
That big mitt disappeared into the bag again and came out with something the size of a car wheel. Unwrap. Bite. Chew.
“Thank you kindly,” Isaac said as dessert changed hands.
“I have a bottle of water in my back pocket.” Jim took the thing out, made a show of cracking the lid, and grabbed a healthy swig.
Isaac leaned forward, and accepted the FIJI bottle. “You’ve saved me.”
“That’s the plan,” the guy muttered.
Inside the kitchen, Grier started to make dinner, and damn, she was vulnerable as hell over that cooktop—all the glass turned the room into a TV set that stayed tuned to the Childe Channel twenty-four/seven.
“I’m leaving her undefended if I take off.”
“You’re making her a target if you stay. You shouldn’t be here now. You shouldn’t have spent all day in that house across the street.”
Isaac looked over sharply. “How did you know?”
Jim just rolled his eyes. “Remember what I did for a living for over a decade? Look, be realistic. Let me watch over her once we get you settled.”
“FYI, I know you a little too well—so this Boy Scout routine’s kind of hard to buy.”
“You can choke on the shit as far as I care. Just take advantage of it—”
A cold breeze wafted in from an indiscernible direction . . . and Isaac felt a chill run up his spine that had nothing to do with air temperature and everything to do with instinct.
Beside him, Jim stiffened and looked around—
Two huge men came out of the shadows behind him.
Isaac was quick on the draw, palming his other gun and leveling a muzzle at each of them. But it turned out they were just Jim’s boys, the one who was pierced like a pincushion and the other who was the size of a mountain.
“We got company, my man,” Mr. Needle Fetish hissed to Jim. “Bad company. ETA about a minute and a half.”
“Get him into the house,” the one with that rope-thick braid said. “He’ll be safe there.”
Right, time to cut in, boys: “Hi, my name is Isaac. This is Lefty . . . and Bob.” He lifted his guns accordingly to make the introductions. “And none of us take orders well anymore.”
Jim’s eyes burned as they shifted over. “Listen to me, Isaac . . . get in the house . . . get in the fucking house and stay there. No matter what you see or hear—do not leave. We clear?”
From out of nowhere, the guy pulled a knife that made no sense. Damn thing was made of glass . . . ? What the—
A low whistle started to hum through the air, and Isaac glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the sound. It was the kind of thing that had to be just the wind. . . . There was no other explanation for it. And yet he didn’t feel any breeze on his skin.
“Get in the house if you want to live,” someone said.
Jim grabbed his arm. “You can’t fight this enemy, but I can. If you’re inside there, you’ll be safe—and you can protect that woman. Keep her with you and keep her safe.”
Well, that was one order he could follow—
All at once, Grier’s house seemed to glow with an ethereal light, as if it had been hit with red floodlights from the foundation up. As his eyes struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, a buzzing on the back of his neck grew so intense he worried his head was going to play 7-Up and pop off his spine.
Isaac didn’t stick around.
He tore across the backyard as the unholy wind got louder and louder, praying he got inside and to Grier in time.
Grier hated fighting with her father. Absolutely despised it.
Flipping her omelet in the pan, she centered the thing and then stared at the cell phone she’d just tossed across the island.
Their first call had taken place about an hour after he’d left, and he’d done the dialing. Naturally, he’d discovered her little sleight-of-hand trick and that had led to all sorts of trouble—none of which had been resolved, because she wasn’t giving the stuff back and he wasn’t taking no for an answer and they’d had to cover that rocky ground in code because God knew who was listening.
After going around and around for a while like boxers in a ring, they’d taken a time-out; she’d tried to work while her father had gone into that shadowy world of his.
Although she was just guessing at that part. It wasn’t as if he told her anything concrete.
Still.
Like always.
Second trip through the phone park, and her fingers had done the walking. Her intent had been to make some kind of peace and find out what he was doing, but that had quickly devolved into more half-assed accusations in a language that appeared to be one part pig latin and one part charades.
The former working only slightly better than the latter over the connection.
As her omelet sizzled softly and she took a sip from her wineglass, a gust of wind hit the back of the house, whistling through the shutters, and fondling the wind chimes by the door. Frowning, she looked over her shoulder. Hell of a breeze, she thought, the subtle music of the clay pieces for once not calming her.
Which was what happened when you were being paranoid. Everything went creepy, even the—
A huge shape jumped up to the back door and filled the glass panes. As she let out a scream and leaped for the panic button on the security system remote, Isaac’s face was illuminated out of the darkness by the motion-activated light he triggered.
He started pounding with his fist, but he didn’t do that for long. He wheeled around to face the backyard, flattening against the house as if something were coming at him.
As she rushed over, she disarmed the system, and he all but fell into the kitchen when she opened up. He was the one who slammed them in together, locking the dead bolt and then putting his body against the panels as if someone were going to try to get in.
Between breaths, he commanded, “The system . . . put it back on. . . .”
She did so without hesitation—
Everything went dark.
Except for the blue glow of the flame under the pan on the stove and the yellow halo of the light over the stoop, the kitchen went utterly black—and it took her brain a second to catch up to the fact that he’d canned the lights.
The gun he brought up by his chest didn’t throw much reflection or shadow, but she knew exactly what was in his palm as he shifted over and settled against the wall by the door. He didn’t point the weapon anywhere near her—he wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were trained on the rear garden.
When she tried to come over to look, he put his heavy arm out and held her back. “Stay away from the glass.”
“What’s going on?”
A blast of wind hit the house, the chimes going haywire to the point where they were twisting around on their strings, all but screaming in pain.
And then a strange creaking noise beat out the racket.
Bracing herself on the counter, she looked up to the ceiling and realized it was the whole house. . . . Her family’s brick house, which had stood without budging on its solid foundation for two hundred years, was groaning as if it were about to be torn off from its hold on the ground.
Her eyes went to the glass wall. She couldn’t see anything but shadows moving because of the wind . . . except they weren’t right. They didn’t . . . move right.
Transfixed by the sight of dark patterns shifting around over the ground like thick oil, she felt her mind bend as it tried to form an explanation for what her eyes were taking in.
“What is . . . that?” she breathed.
“Get down behind the counter.” Isaac glanced up to the ceiling as the house let out another curse. “Come on, baby, hold your own.”
Falling to her knees, she looked at the old mirror across the way. On its wavy plane, she could see out the windows into the garden and watch those all-wrongs wending around.
“Isaac, get away from the door—”
A pealing scream filled the air, and Grier let out a shout and covered her ears. Isaac didn’t even flinch, however—and she took strength from him.
“Fire alarm,” he yelled. “It’s the fire alarm!”
He lunged for the cooktop and shoved the smoking omelet to the side, canning the flame on the burner with a quick twist. “Do what you have to,” he barked. “But make sure the fire department doesn’t show up!”
CHAPTER 23
Matthias drove the last leg of the trip himself. He’d been flown into this town from his little detour over in Boston because although he could pilot a number of different aircrafts, he’d been stripped of his wings since his injuries.
But at least he was still able to drive, goddamn it.
The flight from Beantown to Caldwell had been short and sweet, and the Caldwell International Airport was a breeze—although when you had his level of clearance, the TSA types never got anywhere near you or your bags.
Not that he’d brought any luggage with him—other than that which he carried around in his brain.
His car was yet another black-on-black unmarked with armor plating and glass thick enough to give any bullet a concussion. It was just like the one he’d had when he’d paid Grier Childe a visit . . . and just like the one he’d have in any city he went to, at home or abroad.
He’d told nobody but his number two where he was going—and even his most trusted didn’t know the why behind it. There were no problems with the secrecy, however: The good thing with being the darkest shadow among a legion of them was that when you up and disappeared, it was part of your fucking job and no one asked any questions.
And the truth was, this trip was beneath him, the kind of thing he’d ordinarily have assigned to his right-hand man—and yet he had to do this himself.
It felt like a pilgrimage.
Although if that was what he was on, things had better get inspiring pretty frickin’ quick. The road he was currently following was just a generic stretch of boutique shops and Walgreens and gas stations that could have been any city, anywhere. Traffic was light and of the pass-through variety; everything was shut up for the night, so you were here only if you were going somewhere else.
For most of the people, that was. Unlike the rest of them, his destination was . . . right here as a matter of fact.
Easing off on the accelerator, he pulled over to the side and parked parallel to the curb. Across a shallow lawn, the McCready Funeral Home was dark inside, but there were exterior lights on all over the place.
Not a problem.
Matthias placed a call and was routed around from person to person, skipping like a stone through the phones of others until he found the decision maker who could get him what he wanted.
And then he sat and waited.
He hated the silence and the darkness in the car—but not because he was worried that there was someone in his backseat or that somebody was about to go click-click, bang-bang from the shadows outside. He liked to keep moving. As long as he was in motion, he could outrun the twitchies that inevitably T-boned his adrenal glands when he was at rest.