Unholy Torment

by Kristie Cook

  We’d been discussing our next plans and how we might extract information out of Noah, when we’d fallen into one of those thick silences as everyone became lost in their own thoughts.

  “What’s that sound?” I suddenly blurted, a faint rhythm catching my attention. I sat up on Tristan’s lap, listening for signs from the basement, but this strange dut-dut-dut-dut came from the very room we sat in.

  Sitting next to Owen on the couch on the far side of the room, Vanessa cocked her head. “I hear it, too. It’s over by you.”

  I jumped off Tristan’s lap and to my feet, and he joined me.

  “Sounds like a really fast heartbeat,” he said. “A bird?”

  “A cloaked shifter?” I asked, and I spun in a circle, swatting at the air in case an invisible bat or Jax’s friend the eagle, who’d spied on us before, watched us now.

  “Hold on.” Vanessa said as she moved nearer to me. The sound was so close to me, but my fists didn’t land on anything. Owen and Char both flipped a spell in my direction, but nothing showed itself. Vanessa crouched lower, placed her hands on my shoulders to stop me, and leaned her head down further. She bit her lip. “Tristan, come down here.”

  He knelt on one knee, and we all fell stone-still to let him listen. He tilted his head and leaned closer to me. Pressed his ear against my lower belly. His brows furrowed for a moment, and then he looked up at me, his eyes full of awe and adoration . . . and hope. He smiled.

  “No way,” I squeaked.

  He beamed brighter as he sprang up and scooped me into a hug, swinging me around in circles. Everyone jumped to their feet, whooping and cheering and congratulating each other. As if they were all a part of it. I supposed they were.

  Tristan finally set me down, and I pressed my hands to my abdomen, still not able to believe it. The enthusiastic commotion around me faded so all I could hear was my baby’s heartbeat and my own. Tears filled my eyes, threatening to spill over the rims, and not tears of joy. While everyone else apparently wanted to celebrate, I couldn’t bring myself to be thrilled with this major change in circumstances like they obviously were. I just wanted to run away. To hide. To be by myself and think. Because my mind, my heart, my soul remained stuck on one question.

  How the hell could we bring an innocent baby into this world?

  As if to emphasize this predicament, a loud crack cut through the air over us, and the roof fell to the floor.

  Chapter 22

  The walls shook, and screams came from the upstairs bedrooms.

  “Dorian!” I yelled as I ran up the stairs. The ceiling caved in over me, and a beam dropped on the steps ahead. I hurdled it, swinging my arms as I ran to knock away the plaster and pieces of wood falling around me. I grabbed the doorknob and shoved my whole body into it, pulling it off its hinges as the wall it had been attached to fell over. I threw the door to the side and swept my arms around my son who’d been stumbling toward the door.

  “You two get out of here,” Tristan yelled at us over the blasts that kept hitting the mansion, knocking more parts of it down.

  “I got you, Mom,” Dorian said, and he lifted us out of the wreckage.

  “Noah!” I yelled at Tristan as we soared higher in the air. I watched him run for the basement, Jax meeting him at the door, and when they disappeared down the stairs, I feared I’d never see them again.

  The lights of magic spells, in various colors, streaked through the night as Daemoni mages attacked the mansion, and Owen, Charlotte, and Blossom fought back. My mind still remained blank, but Jeana and Merrick played a role in this, no doubt. If not them, then another sorcerer, because Owen and Char had had the mansion shielded.

  Dorian set us down on a branch at the top of a tall pine. Right below us stood two young women wearing leather jackets, jeans, and knee-high boots, with hair down to their butts, one raven-haired and the other blonde. I recognized the dark-haired one—a were-cheetah who’d chased after Vanessa and me in Hades. Rene was her name.

  “What do you think, Cruz?” she asked. “Shall we join the fun?”

  The blonde purred. “I’ve always wanted a taste of Seth.”

  They both ran into the clearing, transforming on the way. Cruz, the blond, changed into a lithe jaguar as they ran toward the mansion, presumably after Tristan. I shot a bolt of lightning at Rene’s feet, sending her rolling across the overgrown lawn. Dorian threw a stream of water at them that immediately iced over on contact, freezing them in place, with Cruz’s mouth wide open in a roar.

  Someone had seen where our powers came from, though, because a spell shot in our direction, hitting the trunk two feet below us. Dorian grabbed me again and flew up and away right before the tree split in two. Another spell soared at us, but Owen threw a shield around us just in time, and the light ricocheted off the bubble and into what remained of the mansion.

  “By the garage,” I said to Dorian, pointing at three figures running from the mansion toward the detached building. Tristan and Jax, with Noah slung between them.

  Dorian swooped downward. As our feet hit the ground, that god-awful ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta sound of automatic gunfire ripped through the night. Jax threw the door to the garage open and ushered Dorian and me in. Tristan followed and set Noah on the floor before running back outside. I lunged for the door to follow him, but Jax held me back.

  “No way, princess,” he said.

  I pushed against the solid bar of his arm that blocked my way, watching as Vanessa grabbed Blossom, Sonya snatched up Heather, and they blurred toward us. Tristan followed with Teah and Teal under his arms like oversized footballs. Owen and Char sprinted across the mansion’s lawn with Sheree right behind them. I gasped in horror as her body launched forward in the air, her spine arching backward as if she’d been hit, but then she burst into tiger form and bounded for us.

  Jax slammed the door after her. I watched through the window as the soldiers and the mages turned their attention to the mansion, blasting at it continuously until it was demolished so completely, it couldn’t be rebuilt by magic. The ice on the were-cats dripped as they began to thaw.

  “There’s the van and enough bikes to get us out of here if we pair up,” Tristan said, and I spun away from the window to see what he meant. A bullet pierced through the glass and soared over my head. We all dropped to the floor as more gunfire blasted into the garage. “Let’s go!”

  Tristan and Jax shoved Noah’s unconscious body into the back of the van, and Sheree, still a tiger, climbed in to guard him. Sonya hopped into the back, too, and the Norman girls huddled together on the center seat. Blossom claimed the driver’s side and had the van started before Jax had even hopped into the passenger seat. I ordered Dorian to ride with Charlotte, and the rest of us jumped on the motorcycles. Owen and Charlotte cloaked and shielded us, I grabbed hold of Tristan’s waist, and he blasted the garage door open. Blossom pealed through it, and the rest of us followed, barely escaping before the garage’s roof collapsed.

  Because Owen and Char had us under a single cloak and shield rather than separate ones for each vehicle, we had to ride close together as a group. At least there was no traffic to dodge on the roads because the other drivers couldn’t see us. We had no plan, and Blossom only knew the area from when we’d searched for Dorian, so she followed the same main streets we’d traveled then, taking us closer to Washington, D.C. Eventually, Tristan sped up and around the van to take the lead, pulling in front before he moved too far ahead to keep us hidden. I tried to break through the block in my head so we could communicate and form a plan without stopping, but the best I could do was pick up a stray thought here and there from any of them, like a crappy radio unable to tune into a specific station.

  “Where should we go?” I asked Tristan.

  We passed a shopping plaza where a handful of people ran in and out of stores, carrying what looked like old-fashioned torches to light their way as they scavenged for goods.

  “Any idea where your fans might hideout? Any clues in your books?”


  I wracked my brain, trying to remember everything about the stories, the characters, and the settings. Writing those books felt like a whole other lifetime. It really had been a different life then.

  “When the human’s in danger, there’s the part where the vamp tells him the safest place for him to hide would be a convent, monastery, or a religious boarding school. A church, if nothing else.”

  Headlights and flashlights shone ahead of us, pointed in our direction. Armed soldiers marched toward us, accompanied by a Hummer and a tank. A freakin’ tank! Down Main-Street Suburbia! Although they couldn’t see us, Tristan leaned the bike into a left turn, taking us away from what would probably be a bloodbath between the looters and the so-called militia police. I’d thought things would be different here in the States than they’d been in Europe and that coming home would bring a sense of familiarity and peace. But nothing familiar remained in this world anymore, even in these places where I’d lived before. And definitely no sense of peace.

  After ensuring our group had stayed with us, Tristan stayed silent for a few minutes, and I assumed he contemplated what I told him. “Thinking about your readers’ age group,” he finally said, “there’s one place I’d expect them to go.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked, because I could think of many options with all of the churches and private schools in the area. Did he plan to visit each one, hoping to find the A.K.’s Angels group? “The National Cathedral is the most well-known, but too many politicians and government officials would probably go there. If there were any good ones left . . .”

  “Right. I don’t see a group like A.K.’s Angels going there. Your younger readers would be in college now, right, like Heather? Or close to that age, like Sonya or the two cousins? And there happens to be a Jesuit-Catholic university that fits your suggestion perfectly.”

  I knew exactly which one he meant. “Oh, you’re right. Good thinking!”

  “From what I know of the campus and the school, it should be considered sacred grounds. And it would have everything these people would need.”

  “True. But is it far enough from the Capitol? From all of the military bases around here? You know they’re all controlled by Lucas.”

  “The cell in London made their new home right across the street from Parliament. They stayed to help people.”

  The squawk of braking tires on asphalt stopped me from replying, and I looked over my shoulder. The black van swerved all over the road, and Blossom’s face blanched white as snow as she tried to regain control. Tristan turned us to the side and hopped the curb to the sidewalk before she ran over us. The van spun as though on ice, leaned too much to the outside, and flipped on its side. The grinding of metal against road screeched through the night until the van finally came to a stop when the back end plowed into a light post with a definitive crunch. My head snapped to the right to make sure Dorian and the others were okay before I sprang off the bike and ran for the van.

  Jax crawled out through his window first and helped Blossom who was already bawling.

  “Are you okay?” I yelled.

  “I’m so sorry!” she cried, obviously shaken, but physically okay. “I was worried about Sheree and turned to look at her but then I almost ran over Tristan and Alexis so I tried to avoid them by swerving and hitting the brakes, but that sent me into a tailspin and now, ohmygod, are the girls okay? Is everyone okay?”

  Vanessa yanked the side door completely off the van and threw it behind her, while Charlotte jumped onto the vehicle’s side to help Sonya, Heather, Teal, and Teah out.

  “Sheree and Noah are stuck in the back,” Char said with her body half in and half out of the van. “I can’t get to them.”

  “Hang on,” Tristan said from the rear at the light post, and he shoved on the van’s back end. The vehicle stayed attached to the post, pulling the entire street lamp with it as it skidded across the pavement several yards. He grasped hold of the post, and I ran to the van and gave it another push as he jerked the pole out of the bumper’s grip. The metal pole clanged on the ground when he tossed it aside, and a loud creak and crack followed as I pulled open the scrunched up back doors.

  “Oh, no,” I gasped.

  Noah lay crumpled up against the side window that now pressed against the street, and Sheree’s naked and bloody body was sprawled out on top of him.

  “I’m afraid to move her,” I said, backing out of the van, my heart growing heavy. “Tristan . . .”

  He pushed past me and gently lifted her out of the vehicle.

  “Blossom, do you have clothes for her?” I asked. The girl deserved some dignity.

  Blossom shook her head. “I don’t have my bag.”

  “There’s a blanket up front,” Heather said, and she jogged around the van.

  The vehicle moaned as she climbed onto it, but a moment later she returned with a black, wool blanket. I wrapped it around Sheree the best I could before Tristan laid her on the street. Her brows pushed together, and her closed eyes winced.

  “Anything broken?” I asked her while Tristan and Jax pulled Noah from the wreckage.

  “I . . . don’t . . . think so,” she whispered. Her eyes fluttered open. “Just my lower spine. Can’t feel my legs very well.”

  “What?”

  “She was shot, Alexis,” Blossom said tearfully from behind me. “That’s what started all this.”

  Tristan gently pulled the blanket back and turned Sheree to her side to inspect her back. He frowned, looked at me, and gave a small shake of his head.

  “She changed back to human, and that’s when Sonya noticed,” Heather said.

  “The blood started really gushing then,” Sonya clarified. “I guess her tiger scent masked it before.”

  “I was . . . trying to . . . heal myself . . .”

  The sounds of boots marching on pavement and heavy wheels rolling over anything in its path approached.

  “We need to get out of here,” Char said. “Owen?”

  “Where are we going?”

  Tristan told everyone his idea as he slid his arms under Sheree. “Just get us on campus, and we’ll get Sheree somewhere safe where we can heal her.”

  Owen rubbed his hands together and slowly pulled them apart to create the portal. Only, nothing happened. Usually we could see the air tremble and then the scene of the other side would gradually begin to show itself. Owen pressed his lips into a line, shook his head, then clasped his hands together again and tried once more. Still nothing.

  His shoulders slumped, and his hands dropped to his sides. “I can’t do it. It’s been too much too fast. I need some recovery time. I’m sorry.”

  Nobody could blame him—he’d done so much for us in the last twelve hours, saving our butts many times. But we couldn’t flash, and now we couldn’t portal. The van was useless, and no way could we all ride on the motorcycles. Not that Sheree, or Noah, for that matter, could make the ride.

  “We only have one option,” Tristan said. “Find a place to hide.”

  “There’s a motel a half-block back,” Vanessa said. “Not exactly five-star, but—”

  “It’ll work,” I replied.

  When we managed to break into the first room, I questioned whether I said that too soon. Some kind of rodent scuttled into the far corner, and I swore the entire floor rippled with movement. A crunch under Tristan’s boot with his first step inside confirmed the infestation of cockroaches.

  “Oh, that’s just nasty,” Char said, but with a few magical twists and thrusts of her hands, the room was cleaned up. Maybe not hospital-quality, but better than being on the streets. Especially as the SWAT team, or whatever they were, approached.

  Tristan laid Sheree onto one of the double beds, and Jax dropped Noah on the other one. Noah’s head lolled to the side on the orange quilted bedspread, and he let out a quiet moan, but he otherwise remained unconscious. I stayed nearby, ready to act if and when he finally came to, while Tristan tried to inspect Sheree’s injury as best as he could in t
he darkness with Vanessa standing by. She’d once said she’d studied medicine for a while out of sheer boredom, but it didn’t hold her interest long enough for her to earn a degree. She knew enough, though, to help Tristan if he needed her.

  Meanwhile, Char used her magic to cut doorways through the walls, connecting several rooms together, which she and Blossom cleaned up one by one. Sonya took the girls to one of them. After standing in the corner for a few minutes watching his dad, Dorian sulked off to another room. Owen followed him, and I hoped both were headed to catch some needed sleep.

  Tristan looked at me and tapped his finger to his temple. Once again, I tried to push through the block in my mind, but whatever Jeana or Merrick had done, they’d done it well. I could only pick up on a few words Tristan tried to convey. They were all I needed. “Lodged,” “spine,” “another,” and “bleed out.”

  Heal her! I ordered him, not knowing if he could hear me. Even when he shook his head, I didn’t know if he responded to my words or to the look on my face, which had to be one of anguish and desperation. I rushed over to Sheree’s side.

  “I’m so cold,” she whispered. “I’m . . . dying . . . aren’t I?”

  “No,” I barked out. “You won’t die. That’s an order from your matriarch.”

  She gave me a faint smile. “You’re so bossy.”

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and she passed out. Tristan and I moved to the corner of the room.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked him. Tears stung my eyes at the thought of losing Sheree. She’d been my first convert, and I’d almost killed her then. She’d become a friend and a special addition to the Amadis with a heart bigger and warmer than anyone I knew. I owed her so much. “We have to save her.”

  “I don’t know if a fully trained medical team in the most advanced operating room could save her,” Tristan said quietly. “Did you understand what I said?”

  “Telepathically? No. My head’s still broken. But we’re more than a Norman medical team, Tristan. Surely between you, Vanessa, and Sonya, there’s enough healing powers to help her, and she has her own.”