by Fran Tullo
“No, you’re not.” Jace gripped her shoulder gently before running his hand down his arm. “You have us. And we’ll help in any way we can.” He glanced at Braydon, who smiled and nodded. “Especially since it seems like Bray’s dealing with it too. So, we’re gonna figure this out, one way or another.”
Several hours later, they were deep into the books. Jace admitted that he wasn’t very good at research, so he labeled himself the errand boy, grabbing lunch and then dinner for them. While they looked, he marked places that they found interesting to future research, and scrolled through his phone for new furnishings for Lexi’s spartan apartment. Conversation was mostly limited to ‘check this out’ or ‘I think I found something’. As midnight rolled around, they had several books set aside to look at the next day, but they hadn’t really found anything definitive.
An email dinged on her computer, catching all of their attention. Lexi opened it and heaved a sigh of relief. “Fucking finally… the Council got back to me.” She read through the email, muttered a curse and slammed her fist on the floor next to her. “Gods damn it! Not only can’t they help with information, they also said no Red has been found for the South American region.” Her sarcastic voice was biting as she read out loud, “We appreciate the notification of the death of Red Melina. Her Grandmother will be notified. At this time, we are extending your range to include the South American continent as well until such time as we find her replacement.” She snarled, slamming her fist down again. “I knew I was going to have to cover for her, but it should have only been for a couple days. Not ‘until such time’. That’s such bullshit…”
Jace came up behind her, rubbing her shoulders. “It’s fine. We’ll help, like we told you.” Lexi tilted her head back to look at him, sighing heavily.
“I know, but now I’m going to be doing twice the…”
“Hey, Lex?” Braydon broke through her rant, flipping a page back and forth a couple times. “I actually think I have something here. It mentions Patience, and a couple other… well, I’m assuming they’re names, but it sounds more like a list of virtues.”
She blinked and both she and Jace moved over next to him to read over his shoulder. “Patience, Temperance, Modesty… you’re right, they sound more like virtues, except you said you actually talked to Patience…” She took the book from him gently, checking a couple pages beforehand and then after. “There’s more here… Pride, Fury, Greed… Holy shit. Holy shit.” The boys looked at her in confusion, so she explained. “When I killed… Melina… I had a conversation similar to what Braydon described. The woman… women, they said their names were Pride and Lust. So… maybe this is a list of… I dunno, souls? Avatars?”
“Whatever it is, it definitely seems to have something to do with you being a Red.” Braydon tapped the first paragraph. “It literally says ‘Aspects of the Crimson Hunter’, which I’m assuming is an old way they referred to Reds?”
“Yeah, there are a couple books that refer to Reds that way.” She was interrupted by her phone going off. Hitting the answer button, she pressed it against her ear. After a couple seconds, she hung up, glaring at her laptop.
“Well, I hope you two understand what you got yourselves into… we’re heading to Guyana. Flight leaves in two days.”
“What are we going after?”
“Zombies, apparently.”
THE END