‘Get out of here.’
‘It’s a manual,’ she shouted back at me. ‘I only know how to drive an automatic.’
‘Are you serious?’ I asked, even as I moved closer to the driver’s seat, thankful it was a bench seat. I put my hands on the gear stick, concentrating on making my astral form as solid as possible, stretching until I could get a foot on the clutch. ‘You handle the accelerator and the brakes. I’ll take care of the gears.’
It must have been such a crazy time for her, having to rely on someone she couldn’t see, but she lifted her chin and gave a quick nod. ‘Okay, let’s do this,’ she said.
The black sedan drove slowly into the shed, stopping beside the van, and I heard a clank as the roller door began to close.
‘Time to go,’ I said. ‘Start her up.’
I put the van in reverse as the engine roared to life. The tyres screeched as it took off, backwards. A tall young man with dark brown hair bounded out of the black sedan, features obscured by a dark haze as he ran after the van. But I didn’t need to see his face to recognise him.
Talaom.
A dark reaper, brought back to life in a stolen body.
An abomination, like me.
12
A loud bang at the back of the van shook me out of my horror induced daze as we shuddered to a halt.
‘What the hell was that?’
I tore my eyes away from Talaom to look in the side mirror. ‘The roller door. We hit it.’ The bottom of the door had slammed into the roof of the van. ‘Hit the accelerator. Keep going.’
‘It’s not working.’
‘I’ll fix this,’ I said, looking out the front window to where Talaom was smirking as he stalked towards the van. ‘You need to get out of here. Don’t stop, for anything, until you are safe.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be fine. Just be ready to get out of here the second I blast the door out of the way.’
I slipped out of the van and faced Talaom, calling on the aether surrounding us and wrapping it around me like a cloak. Then I did something I thought I would never do. I turned my back on him, sending a wide blast of aether into the roller door that whipped it off the van and tore it away from the shed completely.
Rebecca and the van hurtled out of the shed. I spun around to face Talaom, ready to blast him. It was disconcerting, to have him standing there, in the body of a young man around my own age when I knew he was far older. His new body was a leaner version of the original, swarthy and handsome but with an intensity that made him look more like a bad boy than boy next door.
He wore a satisfied smile as he performed a series of slow claps. ‘Well done, Tyler. You’ve saved the day. Again.’ He stepped forward.
‘Don’t come any closer.’ I readied myself to blast him, confused by his actions. Why hadn’t he attacked me when I’d had my back turned? Perhaps he’d been able to see the barrier of aether I’d formed around me and had known it would be useless to even try.
He stopped walking and held his hands palm out. ‘Relax, I have no intention of hurting you.’
‘You expect me to believe that? You shot me, and you tried to reap my soul.’
‘That was during battle. This is different. I’m different. I would never harm another member of Clan Davila.’
‘Bullshit. You just forced a man to ram the car I was in, to kill me, and Sam and Chris.’
His brown eyes went wide. ‘You were in the car with Chris Bradbury.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you would be with him. I just wanted to kill the Godden scum, to send a message. I never meant for him to hurt you. Are you okay? Is your physical body damaged?’
Arms crossed, hovering just off the ground, I glared at him. ‘Is that why you’ve been killing Killian’s people, and kidnapped his daughter? To send a message?’
He recoiled, vehemently shaking his head. ‘Do you think I wanted to torture and kill those men? They’ve left me no choice.’
‘Murder and kidnapping are not choices. They’re crimes.’
‘If you just let me explain, you’ll understand why I had to do what I did.’
‘What makes you think I would believe anything you say?’ I shifted my hands to my hips, wings stretching as I prepared to propel myself out of the shed.
Talaom took a step towards me, entreaty on his face. ‘I know you must hate me, and I understand why, but if you just listen I can explain everything.’
After everything he had said and done to hurt me and those I cared about I was in no way convinced by his statement of contrition. But the longer I stayed gave Rebecca more time to get away. ‘Start talking.’
He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and said, ‘You’re fighting on the wrong side.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You can’t trust anyone from Clan Godden. Cade will kill every Davilian, including you, if we don’t stop him.’
‘There is no “we”, and if–’
I didn’t get a chance to say anything more. My astral form was yanked backwards. I twisted around, sure this was an attack organised by Talaom. No one was behind me, yet the tugging increased, pulling me further away from the shed.
I fought the pull but it was so strong, hurtling me along, I was at the outskirts of Easton within seconds. Before I knew it, I was nearing the Easton Base Hospital. I flitted through walls and rooms so fast it was all a blur, until I stopped suddenly, hovering in a room where hospital staff were leaning over my body.
‘Clear,’ said one of them as another placed two paddles on my chest. A machine whirred, and electricity zapped my body, the force of it zinging through my astral frame. I gasped as I was pulled the last few feet to my body, slamming into it.
I opened my eyes, wincing at the bright lights shining down on me.
‘She’s back.’ A male voice rattled off a series of medical mumbo jumbo and I tuned out as my eyes searched the room.
A woman’s face loomed in front of me, the bottom half covered by a surgical mask. ‘It’s all right, Tyler. You’re in the hospital. You were in a car accident but you’re going to be fine.’
I tried to sit up but she pushed me back down. ‘Take it easy. You need to lie still while we check you over.’ Her face disappeared and an oxygen mask was placed over my mouth and nose.
My head immediately started spinning. I blacked out, and when I opened my eyes the mask was gone and I was looking into Sam’s worried eyes.
‘Hey there,’ he said, voice husky. ‘You gave us quite a scare.’
‘Us?’ My voice cracked, and I swallowed, trying to create moisture to soothe the raspy dryness in the back of my throat.
‘Bradbury’s here, too. They’re doing a check-up on him in the next room,’ said Sam as he handed me a cup and a straw. I took slow sips, letting the cold water slip down my throat, disappointed when it was all gone.
I struggled to sit up, only to find I had electrodes with wires attached stuck to my chest and temples. My clothes were gone. In their place was a hospital issue gown.
‘Take it easy,’ said Sam, putting his free hand on my shoulder to pin me down. ‘The nurse said you need to keep still, or you’ll dislodge all their fancy gadgets.’
‘What’s wrong with Chris?’ I flopped back against the pillows, surprised by how exhausted the effort to move made me.
‘Don’t panic. He’s fine. Just a nasty bump on the head. Can’t be too bad or they would never have let him go home last night.’
‘What about you?’ Bruising covered the right side of his face and his movements were stiff.
‘A couple of bruised ribs. Nothing major.’ He grimaced. ‘The poor guy who hit us wasn’t so lucky. Unlike us, he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and didn’t have airbags. He didn’t make it.’
I scanned the room. Mine was the only bed, giving us some privacy, but I could hear voices and see hospital staff hurrying past the open door. I’d wait until Chris had finished his check-up, and the door wa
s closed, before telling them what I’d discovered.
Hang on.
Eye’s wide, I stared at Sam. ‘You said they let Chris go home last night. How long have I been out?’
‘Fourteen hours, give or take a minute or two.’
Fourteen hours. Rebecca could be anywhere by now. And so could Talaom.
I struggled to sit up. ‘I have to get out of here. We have to find Rebecca.’
‘Take it easy.’ Sam gently pushed me back down. ‘You’ve just woken up, after surviving a pretty nasty car accident. You can save the world after the doctors have checked you out and given the all clear.’
‘It wasn’t an accident. Talaom was trying to kill Chris.’
His grip on my shoulders firmed and his eyes narrowed. ‘Talaom was driving the other car?’
I shook my head, wincing when the movement made it ache. ‘No. It was the Tr’lirian Killian had sent to look after Rebecca.’ As quietly as I could, I told him what had happened from the moment I’d gone to reap the driver’s soul, until I’d been forcibly returned to my body.
‘You were in the astral plane. That’s why the doctors couldn’t revive you.’ He sagged against me, hugging me tight. ‘Thank God. They thought there was something seriously wrong with you, a head injury, something they couldn’t see. You barely had a pulse, your vital signs were next to nothing, and the heart monitor was going crazy. That’s when they decided to use the defibrillator.’
I grimaced, rubbing my chest, the cannula in my left hand pulling with the movement. ‘Remind me to never take astral form when my body is going to be poked and prodded by doctors.’
‘How about we avoid car accidents as well,’ said Chris as he poked his head through the doorway, a white bandage on his left temple and bruising evident around his eyes.
‘You look like shit, Bradbury,’ said Sam as he helped me to sit up.
‘You’re not exactly the picture of health yourself, Lockwood.’ The two of them grinned at each other, and I shook my head.
‘Can one of you find a nurse so I can get unstrapped?’ I waved a hand over the wires and tubes connecting me to the machines monitoring my vital signs. ‘We need to go find Rebecca before Talaom gets hold of her again.’
‘You found her?’ Chris stiffened.
‘Yes, but that was hours ago. I told her to keep driving until she found help. Who knows where she ended up?’ I swung my legs over the side of the bed, while Sam hit the button that signalled for a nurse.
‘Where are my clothes?’ I asked as I peeled off the sticky pads connecting the electrodes to my chest.
‘Ah, they had to cut them off when they were working on you,’ said Sam, giving me a rueful shrug. ‘I called Rhonda first thing this morning. She’s going to swing by our place on the way here and pick some stuff up for us.’
I looked at him closely, noting the shadows in his eyes, the unshaven chin and rumpled shirt. The same shirt he’d been wearing yesterday. ‘You stayed here all night?’
He gave me a wry smile. ‘You were here. Where else would I be?’
I leaned into him. We stayed like that for ages, uncaring of Chris’s presence, until a nurse with grey hair twisted up into a bun bustled into the room.
‘Young lady, you should not be on your feet. You were supposed to be taking care of her, Detective. Shame on you.’
I smiled at the nurse, not wanting to get her off-side and make this more difficult than I feared it would be. ‘I’m feeling much better, and I’d like to go home now. Are there papers I need to sign so I can be released?’
‘You’re not going anywhere. You were in a car accident. You have possible head trauma. You need to lie back down in that bed, right now, and wait for the doctor to come and see you.’ Her pale blue eyes narrowed as she glared at me, hands on her hips.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. If you could please take care of those papers, I’d really appreciate it.’ I held out the hand with the cannula in it. ‘I’d take this out myself, but it’s probably better if you do it.’
The nurse’s eyebrows formed an arch. ‘Detective Lockwood, can you talk some sense into Miss Morgan. Surely you won’t condone such reckless behaviour?’
‘I’d do as she asked, if I were you. One way or the other, she’s leaving this hospital.’
The nurse’s face went red, eyebrows raised almost to the hairline. Chris stepped in front of her and blocked her view of me. He started to murmur to her in a quiet voice, leading her out of the room with a firm grip on her arm.
I scanned the room, looking for my handbag. ‘I need to call Anne, let her know I won’t be at work today.’ Anne Porteous was my boss at the Chronicle’s Classified’s Office.
Sam reached down and lifted my bag onto the bed. ‘Already done that. Considering you were in a car accident, and unconscious, you’re now on indefinite sick leave.’
I smiled, relieved he’d taken care of it. Anne was not the type of person to take it kindly when I called in sick. As long as she didn’t find out too soon that I was awake and relatively uninjured, I would be fine.
‘What about you? Is your boss okay with you taking off more time to be with me?’ I asked.
‘It’s all good. She understands how important you are to me, and that you come first.’
I was glad he wouldn’t be getting into trouble on my account. Besides, he had been in the same accident. He deserved some time off, time we would need to figure out what Talaom was up to.
A knock at the door sounded a moment before Rhonda bustled in, holding two bags of clothes.
‘You go first,’ I said to Sam. ‘I need to get this stuff taken care of before I get cleaned up.’ I waved the hand with the cannula in it.
I don’t know what Chris said, but by the time Sam emerged from the adjourning bathroom the nurse had returned with a doctor and the paperwork to have me released from the hospital’s care.
I stole a few moments for a quick shower before dressing in the clothes Rhonda had selected for me, the hot water doing wonders for the aches and pains all over my body. A long purplish bruise indicated where the seatbelt had locked me in place, and my neck twinged each time I twisted it, but otherwise I considered myself lucky. It could have been a far worse outcome, for all three of us.
I pushed those thoughts aside as I stepped back into the room and found Connor had joined the others. He hugged me to him, and I stifled a wince as he connected with the bruise from the seatbelt.
‘I can’t believe you’re walking around,’ he said, hugging me even tighter. ‘When Mum said you’d been in a car accident, I was picturing broken bones and blood everywhere.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I managed to wheeze out.
‘Connor, let your sister breathe.’
Thankful for Rhonda’s intervention, I took a step back when he released me. I searched for something to say that wouldn’t cue Connor in on what was really going on. Rhonda hadn’t wanted him involved in the latest Tr’lirian drama, and I didn’t blame her.
‘I think it’s time we–’
‘Here’s your medica–’
‘We need to go out to the com–’
Sam, Chris and I all spoke at once, stopping mid-sentence when we realised we were talking over each other.
‘Relax. He already knows the basics,’ said Rhonda, giving me a rueful smile.
‘I thought you didn’t want him involved?’
‘I don’t. But after Sam called me and said you’d all been in a car accident, I knew your brother would never forgive me if anything happened to you because of your investigation and he’d been kept in the dark.’
I blew out a soft breath, half wishing he’d still been in the dark. The reappearance of Talaom in Easton was unsettling enough. His assertion I was fighting on the wrong side, and the Davilians were in danger, coupled with Killian’s evasiveness, made for troubling thoughts. I had to find out what Killian was hiding, and see if there was any truth to what Talaom had said.
I turned to Chris and
completed the sentence he had been half way through. ‘We need to go to the compound and speak with Killian. He may have heard from Rebecca. At the very least, we need to let him know it is Talaom who is going after his people. It’s time we found out why.’
13
Despite his objections, I refused to let Connor accompany us to the compound.
‘I need you to go out to the old service station on the highway heading to Westmere, see if there is any sign of Talaom or Rebecca there.’
‘Connor is not going anywhere near Talaom. It’s too dangerous,’ said Rhonda.
‘That’s why I want you to go with him. You can see into the astral plane. Besides, if Talaom was telling the truth about wanting to protect all the remaining Davilians then you won’t be in any danger.’
When it looked like she would protest some more, Connor stepped forward. ‘I’m doing this whether you come with me or not, Mum.’
With that settled, I described what Talaom now looked like, as well as Rebecca. ‘The van will have a big dent in the roof from when the roller door smashed into it.’
I turned to Sam and Chris. ‘Let’s go see Killian.’
The five of us walked out of the hospital together, separating at the carpark. Sam led Chris and me to a gold BMW. ‘You’ve been visiting the impound yard again.’
He shrugged. ‘Got to drive something while they see if they can fix my car. This is as good as any, and I’ll be putting it to a far better use than the drug dealer who had it before me.’
I slid inside, exhausted by the short walk, grateful for the plush interior of the BMW as I relaxed in the front passenger seat. During the twenty-minute drive to Killian’s compound I thought about what Talaom had said; that I was on the wrong side.
Almorthanos had planned on enslaving mankind, was ready to kill anyone who got in his way. That could never be the right side.
Silver Reaper (Reaper Series Book 3) Page 7