Storm Warning

by Sydney Somers

  “Like you.”

  Jordan laughed, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I didn’t know anyone else like me then. I was on my own for a few years. A Rogue Destroyer. Until a few months ago, I had no idea any kind of outfit like this existed.”

  Blair didn’t want to think about having to go through the last couple of weeks without knowing there were people like her, without having access to the information in the archives or Rae patiently answering every question she could come up with. “So how did you learn about Shadow Demons, how to vanquish them?”

  Jordan’s expression turned wistful, and she flipped a Sai around in her hand. “Brady.”

  “But he wasn’t a Destroyer,” she guessed.

  “No, his wife was, actually. He died a few months ago.” Sadness, raw and deep, radiated from Jordan, and all Blair could do was brace herself until the suffocating sensation passed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, sharing in Jordan’s pain, even if the other woman didn’t know it.

  “Me too.” Hurt gave way to frustration, and Jordan palmed one of her Sai, then swiveled around and fired it at the far wall.

  “It must have been a change, then, working with everyone.”

  “You don’t really want to talk about me,” Jordan said softly.

  Blair walked the perimeter of the mat. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.” God, how had it all come to this? Why her? Why a storm demon? If she had to carry this damn Destroyer gene, why couldn’t it have been triggered by a telepath demon or war demon? At least the others had control over their gifts, didn’t worry about it taking them over from the inside out.

  “Because you know what’s out there now.”

  “I almost wish I didn’t.” She closed her fist, stilling the restless energy that flickered inside her. “Wish this hadn’t happened.”

  “Would you really want to be ignorant of the truth?”

  “And what about everyone else? Don’t they deserve to know the truth too?”

  “Is it fair to make the rest of the world constantly look over their shoulder, the way you do now?”

  “People are exposed to bad stuff all the time. Murders and senseless slaughter.” She’d covered enough tragedies to know.

  Jordan arched a brow. “Society can explain a murderer, can psychoanalyze and categorize just about every type of violent offender out there.” She retrieved her Sai from the wall. “People are more comfortable with what they can be made to understand, even when it’s dark and ugly. Shadow Demons can’t be labeled and shoved into a neat category or dressed up as a statistic that distances people from it. They are ruthless, unpredictable and don’t care about how much money you have, what you look like or the kind of car you drive.”

  “And you don’t think people can understand that?”

  “Do you? Hell, I slay the fuckers and I still have trouble understanding them some days. For them it’s all about survival. They need us to feel and for them, that basic survival instinct trumps everything else. Everything.”

  “I can feel it,” Blair breathed, taking a step back.

  Jordan frowned. “What?”

  “Your hatred of them.”

  “Three times they’ve taken people from me that I care about. First my brother, then Gage and Brady. How can I not hate them for that?”

  Blair closed her eyes as though that would somehow shut off the ability to pick up on Jordan’s emotions.

  “Do you need to sit down for a second? You’re not looking too hot.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want this.”

  “Sometimes we don’t get to choose and all we can do is hang on for the ride.”

  But was it a ride she could survive?

  “She’s tighter than Braxton,” Darcy admitted, leaning forward on the edge of the picnic table in Drew’s parents’ backyard.

  “Nothing?” Rae had again suggested he bring Molly in for testing, and although he hadn’t changed his mind about letting her become the network’s next guinea pig, he needed some kind of answer. Needed to figure out how she seemed to know when he was vanquishing demons, and why it was, aside from her dream about Blair, that she didn’t seem more freaked out by them.

  “If I push too hard I’ll make her uncomfortable. Some people have a natural ability to keep their minds tightly sealed.”

  “She’s only five.”

  Darcy leaned forward, but the strain of trying to get a fix on Molly’s thoughts was wearing on her. She sighed. “Maybe Braxton—”

  “He still doesn’t know.”

  “What about Molly’s mother? Did she have any precognitive abilities?”

  “Not that I know about. Molly’s grandmother didn’t mention anything.” He was half afraid to talk to Leanna’s mother about it. As if he wasn’t already up for the crappiest dad award without knowing his life had somehow triggered this in Molly.

  Molly wandered over, her knees stained with dirt and grass. She gave Darcy a beaming smile and held out a bright purple ball. “Want to play with me?”

  “Sure.” Darcy took the ball, waited until Molly backed up and held out her arms to catch it. “Your daddy told me you have some bad dreams sometimes. About monsters.”

  Molly nodded, scrunching up her nose. A moment later she grinned, her teeth pink from the candy she’d been sucking on.

  Strike number two—bribing his daughter to play twenty questions. Not that she seemed to mind that Darcy had been asking her all sorts of things for the better part of a half-hour.

  “What other things do you dream about, Molly?”

  She puffed up her cheeks thoughtfully, then answered, “Ponies. My daddy says I’m not big enough to have my own yet, but if I had one I’d call her Lady. Want to hear what she would sound like?” She didn’t wait for a response before galloping in a circle and practicing her pony imitation.

  Drew and Darcy laughed, and Molly grinned.

  Her smile widened as she paused in front of Darcy. “She’ll be happy when you find him,” she said shyly.

  He and Darcy exchanged looks.

  “Who’ll be happy?” Darcy asked.

  “Jordan.” Molly scampered away, giggling when she caught sight of a butterfly.

  “Find who?”

  “I have no idea,” Drew said, listening to his little girl’s contagious laughter as she flapped her arms and bounded around the yard.

  She’d slept soundly all night, not even stirring the dozen or so times he’d awakened, one hand going for his sword and the other reaching for her. She’d only mumbled something along the lines of “cool” when she spotted his sword that morning, then jumped out of bed and yelled down the hall about wanting pancakes for breakfast like the entire scene had been typical.

  He’d rolled over, closed his eyes and then remembered he hadn’t called Blair. A fact her angry blue eyes had been quick to remind him of when he caught up with her at the field office. He’d tried her cell phone all morning, but every time her voicemail kicked in, he’d hung up.

  If he was going to apologize for being an insensitive asshole, it was going to be in person, or at least with her real voice on the other end of the phone and not a recorded one. He’d been so tempted to get into it at the field office, to tell her he was sorry for pushing her the night before. At the time, it had seemed that provoking her was his best bet, forcing her to acknowledge the changes inside her.

  One look at her face this morning and he felt like the biggest jerk for taking things so far. There hadn’t been an opportunity to tell her yet about what happened with Molly and how freaked out he’d been afterwards. That was not a conversation for the field office. Not a conversation he really wanted to have at all. His insides were still locked tight, the hostile’s twisted smile and taunting comments set on permanent replay in his head.

  Drew picked up the ball Molly had left behind. “If she can see them somehow, then how can I keep exposing her to that?” How long before the images Molly was picking up on became permanently trau
matizing? Risking himself was one thing, but the thought of his daughter suffering because he didn’t know how to let go of his career left him cold inside.

  “From everything you’ve told me, she’s not nearly as troubled by them as you are.”

  He glanced at his free-spirited little girl. “Yeah, but how long will that last?”

  “Where are you?”

  Blair didn’t take her eyes off the street corner opposite the diner where she sat, waiting. “Having coffee,” she answered, trying not to be distracted by the fact that Drew was calling her. Part of her—okay, most of her—had honestly believed he’d been brushing her off this morning.

  “Sorry I couldn’t talk earlier.”

  “You were busy,” she said, sweeping her gaze back and forth over the passersby across the street and keeping an eye on the man who lingered next to a newspaper stand.

  Short, thin and a candidate for premature balding, the guy had been hanging around for the last ten minutes and every now and then scanned the length of the street. He was slightly less obvious when he checked his watch. Already she was twenty minutes past their meeting time, and as far as she could tell, he was the only one hanging around the spot where she’d been asked to meet with Kenny.

  If he was a legitimate source, however, he would have called without pretending to be Kenny.

  “Meet me at my place?”

  “When?” She paused in the process of tossing some bills on the table, surprised by his request.

  “Half an hour?”

  “I’m in the middle of something. Will an hour be okay?” She moved to the door, wanting to be able to follow the guy when he gave up on waiting for her to show. She’d tucked her hair back in a ball cap and pulled it low over her eyes which she masked with a pair of cheap sunglasses she’d picked up on her way over. Even if the man knew what she looked like he’d have to be looking really hard to recognize her.

  “Are you at work?”

  “Yeah,” she lied, then cringed as she realized she’d already admitted to being out for coffee.

  “See you in a while then,” he said hesitantly.

  “Sure.” She hung up feeling only a little guilty lying about what she was up to. But then she didn’t need his permission or approval to follow a lead. Literally, as it turned out, when the guy gave up waiting and she trailed him at a discreet distance.

  She was thankful for the early evening traffic that made it easy to blend into the crowd. Unfortunately, it also made it a little harder to keep track of her mystery guy. She couldn’t be certain he was the one who’d been trying to pass himself off as Kenny, but if not, her gut said he was connected somehow.

  The sidewalk traffic gradually thinned the farther they walked from the diner. She wouldn’t be able to escape notice for much longer, not even by sticking close to a trio of college kids yakking about their plans for the night.

  In front of them, the man withdrew a cell phone from his pocket and pressed it to his ear. She slowed down as the guy jogged up the steps of what looked to be a church. A structure in need of serious renovation judging by the roof’s lifted shingles and boarded up second-story windows she guessed had once been stained glass.

  From across the street, she watched a couple trail up the steps a few moments later and disappear inside. Curious, she didn’t move. Within two minutes the same man she’d been following emerged, slid into a car parked out front and drove away.

  She frowned at the church’s double-doors, then crossed the street. There were no hours posted to list the time of the next service, so it was impossible to know how many people might be inside already. Could be some bible study group or an actual church service. Maybe the last couple had been running late and the rest of the congregation had already begun the service.

  If that was the case, wouldn’t she be getting some kind of vibe by now, a collective swell of faith or something? Of course, that would make her ability halfway predictable and, if anything, she’d learned more than once that wasn’t the case.

  She pushed the door open, taking only a step inside the foyer. A set of double-doors kept her from seeing where the couple or the guy she’d been following had gone to.

  On the opposite side of those doors she found—an empty church.

  Drawn by the soft murmur of voices, she ventured down a narrow hall, the voices still too far away. Voices that became a quiet drone that spiraled up from a staircase she guessed led down to the lower level. Not a good idea, she decided. Backtracking to a short hallway she’d passed twenty feet back, she heard more voices. She was going to feel pretty damn stupid if she barged in on some catechism class, but if she played dumb she might be able to find out if anyone knew the man she’d followed.

  Another door opened up to a small balcony with three rows of chairs. Old tapestries hanging from the ceiling obscured most of her view of the area below, and she edged further down the row, sinking low into a chair.

  There had to be a couple of dozen people—humming people—in the lower level Maybe more. Lit candles cast grotesque shadows on the walls, and the chanting made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  Clearly not a catechism class.

  She frowned at the two lines of people wearing robes and standing before some kind of altar. The rest of the people were gathered behind the select few. Maybe she’d have better luck if she hung out by the main doors to talk to a few of them when they were finished here. Whatever the hell they were doing.

  She started to leave when the two lines of people parted, giving her an unobstructed view of a woman standing in front of them. Naked.

  The humming stopped and an eerie silence descended.

  Blair didn’t move.

  A man separated from the gathered crowd, circling the woman. He pushed her long pale hair over her shoulder, kissing her neck softly, reverently, then moved behind her.

  The woman dropped her head back, lifting her arms up as the man reached around and palmed her breasts. An approving murmur went through the crowd, and then the woman lay back on the altar.

  Jesus, had she’d busted in on an orgy?

  At the head of the altar, the man lowered his hood.

  Blair frowned, something familiar striking her about the distant figure. She pulled off her sunglasses and fumbled in her bag for her camera, watching the man circle the woman.

  Four men stepped forward, each first lowering their hoods, then stripping off their robes. All of them were naked.

  She used her camera to zoom in on the first man, almost losing her grip on it as he came into focus.

  Jonas Holson.

  She lifted her finger to capture the image at the exact moment her bag started to beep.

  It took her a moment to identify the sound—the tracking device Quinn had given her just that morning. Three moments for the crowd to turn their attention to the balcony. One more for her to spot the Shadow Demon on the fringe of the crowd.

  Fuck.

  Blair rocketed to her feet and took off running. She shoved her camera in her bag, wanting her hands free. A few shouts from the lower level reached her ears but she was already halfway down the hall and sprinting for the foyer.

  Ahead of her the double-doors opened. The man she’d followed earlier stepped inside, surprise registering on his face when he spotted her. Unfamiliar with the layout of the church and refusing to let herself get cornered, she did the only thing she could.

  She ran at him full tilt.

  The man’s eyes widened, and she dropped to her knees when he shot his arms out to catch a hold of her. Half stumbling, half sliding, she made it across the polished wood floor, slamming into the wall.

  Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet and yanked the door open. She tripped down the main steps, going down hard. A couple strolling by stopped to stare at her.

  Gritting her teeth, she dragged herself up, needing to get some distance between her and whoever might be in pursuit. Her knee was already swelling up, and her hip ached from where she’d tak
en the brunt of the impact with the wall. That didn’t stop her from getting half a block between them before she dared to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was following her.

  A solid wall stepped in her path, and she yelled, pulling out of the arms that came up to grab her.

  “Hey.”

  Blair stilled, then collapsed against Drew in relief.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t let go of him, not for a second. “The church. Some kind of ceremony with a naked woman and a Shadow Demon.”

  He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping the area. “How many people?”

  “Twenty or thirty. Maybe more.” Would she have managed to get out of there if she’d been stupid enough to take the stairs to the lower level? The thought made her shudder.

  “Do you have your cell with you? Call the police,” he ordered when she nodded.

  “Why the police? I thought the network preferred for demons to fly under the radar?”

  “A large group of people could mean a cult.” He didn’t sound surprised by the possibility.

  How brainwashed did a person have to be to take part in something like that?

  Drew turned her around. “There’s a pizza place across the street. Go there now. Stay put.”

  She couldn’t make herself let go of his hand. “What about you?”

  “Just taking a quick peek. Wait for me this time.” He kissed her forehead quickly. “No heroics, okay?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer before heading in the direction of the church.

  Not stupid enough to make herself a target out here on the street, she did as he said and slipped into the pizza place. Only one other table in the place appeared occupied and everything from the shabby benches and chipped tabletops to the dirty linoleum floor said why that was.

  She slipped into a booth and dug her phone out of her bag, her first call to the same police officer who’d told her about Kenny. She called Rae next and explained the situation, relieved when Rae said she’d send Darcy over for backup.

  She closed the phone, staring intently out the window, willing Drew to reappear.

  A shiver snaked down her spine, and someone slid into the booth opposite her.