The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  Ed screamed so loud I thought he would bring LeDuc and the others down on top of us. He bit into the belt I'd put through his teeth and almost bit it in half. His hands closed on my shoulders in a grip that was surprising for a skinny kid. I had the bone almost back into place when Ed suddenly fell silent and his arms went limp.

  “Dammit,” I growled, knowing I could either stop, check on Ed and then have to start all over again, or just finish up and hope for the best. I told myself he couldn't be dead. He hadn't lost enough blood. He'd passed out from the pain. I pushed through, forced the bone back into place and aligned it as best I could before splinting. The tattered remains of Ed’s jeans became a bandage for Ed, held on by strips of belt.

  It was a long half-hour or so before I was able to verify that I wasn't splinting and caring for a dead man. I pressed my head to Ed's chest and listened to him draw a strained breath. He was in shock, maybe, but there wasn't much I could do for that other than drag him out of the water and do my best to keep him warm, dry and safe.

  “Come on, Ed,” I said, bending over behind him and wrapping my arms under his to drag him back against the wall. “Stay with me.” I dragged him back against the wall of the pit. He was unconscious, but I still felt like I needed to reassure him. “I'll be right back. I'm going to walk the perimeter and look for anything useful.” I started to walk away but hesitated and turned back. “Stay here.”

  I must have walked the perimeter of that pit half a dozen times, finding nothing before I came back and plopped down, exhausted, next to Ed.

  “There's nothing,” I told his still unconscious body and wiped sweat, dirt, and blood from my face. “There's nothing, Ed, and I'm too damn weak to even manage a spell. Not that I even know one that would help us get out of here.”

  My chest rose and fell with a great sigh as I tried to contain my tears of frustration. “When I get out of here, I'm going to rip LeDuc apart. You hear me, LeDuc?” I screamed the last sentence as loud as I could and watched the torch flame quiver as my voice ran through it. “I'm going to kill you!” The only thing that answered me was the sound of my own voice, echoing back on itself.

  I settled in against the wall and pulled Ed closer. The pit was cold enough that I could see my breath, and it was getting colder as time went on. If we had any chance of surviving the next few hours, we were going to have to share body heat. More than that, I didn't want to be alone and useless. If I could keep myself busy taking care of Ed and trying to find a way out, maybe I wouldn't have to think about Hunter. Maybe I could rest.

  I closed my eyes and imagined it was daylight outside. There were birds in the sky and sand on the ground, just the way it always was.

  “People are looking for us,” I told Ed. “They'll come. Tindall and Quincy and the rest. They'll find the car all wrecked in the middle of the road, and they'll come. You'll see.”

  I didn't believe it. Not even for a second. Ed and I, we were on our own.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I dreamed shallow dreams that slipped away too quickly when I opened my eyes to the darkness again. Above us, the torch hissed and burned, dropping a few cinders here and there.

  Someone or something was scraping around up there, too. I could hear them and see the shadows moving, though the sound got too jumbled in echoes for me to make out what they were saying. I lifted the hand I'd thrown around Ed's shoulders and put it against his forehead. He was sweating out one hell of a fever. That meant infection, which meant we were officially in a worst-case scenario. Dammit.

  I moved his head aside and stood, pacing over underneath the torch and flexing my hands. Maybe I'd recovered enough to try a little magick. I raised my hands and focused all my will, feeling the flow of energy within myself. It started to rise, to move where I wanted it... Then dissipated into nothingness. I tried again and, this time barely got any juice at all. Dammit, I thought and plopped down where I was. Something's blocking me. He must have warded this whole place.

  Magick was out. So was climbing, and no one was going to throw us a ladder. The only way out was if someone came down to get us, and that wasn't going to happen until LeDuc ordered it. By that time, Hunter would be dead.

  Seventy-two hours. That was the magic number. Everyone in law enforcement across the country knew that number when it came to kids. You had seventy-two hours to find a missing kid. After that, you were looking for a body. With my passing out and falling asleep, it was hard to judge how long it had been since Hunter disappeared, but it had to have been at least twenty-four hours. To come after me so blatantly, LeDuc must have been desperate to end this quickly. Chances were good that my son was already dead.

  “Stop it,” I said and slapped myself in the face. “Don't focus on that. Focus on the task at hand. Survive. Escape. Then, search and rescue, Judah. This is just like any other situation.”

  But it wasn't. This was Hunter.

  I was about to get up and pace around the edge again when there was a loud thump off to my right. A rope ladder fell into the pit. “Stay where you are, princess,” came Ozzie's voice down from the top. “My man's got his gun on you. Don't try anything funny, now.”

  I looked up. The red dot of a laser sight trailed down the wall behind me and landed dead center on my forehead. “Tell me why I should. If my boy's dead, I've got nothing to lose by charging you.”

  Ozzie's big shape swung over the edge of the pit, and he hooked one boot into the rope ladder. “Calm your tits, lady. Your boy's fine. The apple of the boss' eye these days. So long as you cooperate, that’ll continue to be true.” He dropped down from the ladder with a thud.

  Ozzie was a vampire, and a big one. He was built like a pro linebacker, with shoulders twice as wide as Ed. All of Ed. He wore hiking boots, black and tan fatigues, and a black tank top. There was probably a nice military-style buzz cut on top of his head, too, but I couldn't see it thanks to the cap he wore backward. He grinned at me, showing off his fangs.

  “Your boss. That'd be LeDuc?”

  “Don't interrogate me, bitch.”

  “Bitch?” I raised an eyebrow. “I'm not the one being ordered around on grunt duty by a good-for-nothing Frenchman. I'd say you're the bitch.”

  Ozzie laughed. “Oh, I ain't here on orders. The way I see it, LeDuc owes me for this.”

  He stepped into the torchlight, where I could see his face. Three deep gashes ran down the right side of his face through his eye which was lidless, white, and cloudy. He turned his gnarled lips upward in a smile. “That wetback werewolf gave me this when I helped LeDuc's whore grab that brat.”

  Elias, I thought. He must've scratched Ozzie's face up when they took Leo. So, he did try to stop it.

  “That's fine,” Ozzie continued. “I gave the brat one to match, right across his little baby belly. Guts spilling out everywhere. It was beautiful.”

  I put a hand to my mouth and turned away, trying not to imagine a baby ripped open like that. He was gloating. Maybe he was lying to get under my skin.

  “It's a shame, really. Kid was tough as nails. I chewed on that one for days.” Ozzie had started circling me, his chin tucked low, eyes glued to me. “If we'd known the pack was this easy to take out, we would have done it ages ago. As it is, it was stupid to think a pack of rabid dogs would stand in our way. Andre's too cautious.”

  “Andre's smart. The last thing you guys wanted was a bunch of pissed off werewolves.”

  “Like that wet pussy over there?” Ozzie jerked his head toward Ed. “Or the old man on the breathers in the hospital? Or maybe you mean the asshole sitting behind bars at the station?” In the blink of an eye, Ozzie closed the distance between us.

  I closed my eyes and winced at the feeling of his breath on my neck.

  “Maybe you mean those dike bitches you were with at the ranch. Let me clue you in, sweetheart. I ain't afraid of dogs.”

  I turned and stepped away from him, for whatever good it was going to do me. I needed to get my back against a wall for sure. That wa
y, he could only come at me from one direction. “Maybe you should be.”

  He laughed again and casually strolled toward me. “The way I see it, the only thing I've got to be afraid of is the Master in his high rise raising an army and sending it our way. 'Cause that's the only way his ass is taking this town back. Marcus should've known better than to send his little BSI bitch. You ain't even special. You're human. You're food.”

  I kept backing up, glancing toward the source of the laser sight to gauge which direction I should go. There was enough of a height difference between Ozzie and me that if I backed the right way, his sniper wouldn't have a clear shot at me. If I was quick, if everything went perfect, I could take Ozzie down and make a run for the ladder. Maybe I could climb up it before he shot me in the head, though that wasn't likely.

  “Is that why you're keeping me alive? You going to eat us like the rest?” My foot struck the wall behind me and I shrank up against it, as small and tight as I could.

  “You think you've got it all figured out. You and that stupid straight-arrow cop in town. You two think you're so smart. You don't even know what you're dealing with.”

  “Wendigo,” I said.

  The word stopped Ozzie in his tracks. The stupid, scarred up smirk faded from his face.

  “That's what they're called, right? That thing you're following? You know, he used to be a man, too, right?”

  “You don't know shit.” He took another step toward me. Two more steps and he'd block the shot. He only took one.

  “I didn't know for sure until I saw him toss that car like it was nothing. He sounded like my boy, trapped under there. It was very convincing, the way he mimicked his voice. And how he looked like Sal? They can do that, too, can't they? Shapeshift? They're supposed to be the perfect hunters, wendigos. So, what I can't figure out is why the perfect hunter needs someone else, a whole crew of people, to go out and find his food for him. I'm food?” I laughed. “You're nothing but a delivery boy for a French bastard who's too coward to hunt.”

  Ozzie roared and charged, head dropped as if he were going to tackle me. Vampires might be fast and strong, but their intelligence varies. Ozzie was apparently at the bottom of the barrel when it came to smarts. All I had to do was sidestep and let him slam headfirst into the cave wall. He went down with thud, followed by the crack of thunder from the sniper up on the lip of the pit. It hit right above Ozzie's head, which was stuck in the wall. I ducked under Ozzie and out of the range of fire but right into his reach. He grabbed me and squeezed. I did what comes naturally to a woman trapped by a threatening male that's bigger than her; I landed a good, hard kick to his balls. Vampire or not, a crack to the family jewels hurts. The force was enough to free him from the wall, taking with him the only cover I had from the sniper above.

  I made a mad dash for the other side of the pit, right under where the gunman was and where I thought I'd be harder to hit. No matter how fast I ran, I knew I couldn't outrun a bullet. It was the reload I was trying to beat. I made it with a fraction of a second to spare. I reached the other side and turned around in time for Ozzie to tackle me.

  Even if I'd been at my best, I was no competition for a vampire. It was only a matter of seconds before he had me pinned. “Oh, I'm going to enjoy this,” he said, running his tongue over his fangs.

  I turned my head to the side, still trying to free myself. It was no use, and I knew it. I wasn't strong enough.

  Of all the ways to die, I thought. Why a vampire? Couldn't it be something nice like a landmine or something?

  Ozzie leaned down. I could feel his breath on me, the dampness of his hungry mouth, coming in for the bite that was now unavoidable.

  And then his head exploded all over me.

  My eyes snapped open as his body slumped down on top of mine, limbs twitching. The echo of the gunshot still rang in my ears when I looked up and saw Zoe now had the rifle pointed where Ozzie's head had been. The man who had been shooting at me was nothing more than a pile of twitching skin lying next to her.

  She lifted the gun and pointed it at the ceiling. “Andre has requested your presence in the main hall. Both of you.”

  I pushed Ozzie away, which took a lot of grunting and squirming, and wiped the brains off my face. “Ed... He’s sick. I don't even know if he can stand.” I don't know why I told her that. She was as likely to shoot him as she was to understand why he couldn't climb the ladder.

  Zoe bit her lower lip and raised her chin. “Ed. That's the boy down there with you?”

  I nodded.

  Zoe stood, unhooked something from her belt, and tossed it down to me. It clanked to the floor, sounding like a metal canteen. “Give him that. I'll wait.”

  I hesitated, afraid that she would shoot the moment I moved.

  “Well? Go on. I don't have all day.”

  I tried not to take my eyes off her as I half-walked, half-crawled over the pit floor to collect the canteen. Before I could give it to Ed on good conscience, I needed to know what was in it so I pulled out the stopper and gave it a sniff. It smelled like dead skunk warmed over.

  “It's medicine,” Zoe shouted down. “Temporary, but it'll get him on his feet.”

  I looked up at her and narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

  “Do you want to help your friend or not?” she spat back. “Fine, if it makes you feel better. It's a pain in the ass to retrieve bodies from the pit, that's why. Now, hurry up.”

  Ed opened his eyes weakly when I touched his cheek. “Thirsty.”

  “Here,” I said and tried to hand him the canteen, but he was too weak. I had to push it to his lips, but he drank it eagerly.

  After a few gulps, he pushed it away and doubled over coughing. “What the hell is that shit? Tastes like ass syrup.”

  “Ed.” I grabbed him by the arm. “I know your leg's not better yet. I'm pretty sure you've got an infection. That fever's bad. But we need to go up right now.”

  He looked at me, confused. “Up? Are we getting out?”

  I looked up at Zoe. Her face was stern, blank, and unreadable. “LeDuc wants to see us.”

  Ed looked around like a man seeing for the first time and his shoulders sank when his eyes settled on the rope ladder. “Judah, I'm not making it up a ladder.”

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “'Bout a hundred pounds. Why?”

  I sighed through my nose, turned my back, and squatted. “Get on my back. I'll carry you.”

  “Up a ladder? A rickety rope ladder? Judah...”

  “You can be my arms. We'll do it together.”

  He hesitated.

  “Come on,” I whispered. “We get to the top, and maybe we can find a way out. It might be our only chance.”

  I carried a werewolf with two broken legs in his underwear up a rope ladder. We must have looked the sight, him pulling, me stepping and doing my best to keep a balance by grabbing the rope with one hand, holding his legs with the other.

  At any time, Zoe could have lowered us a rope to tie around him and hoisted him up that way. LeDuc could have come to see us himself, and that would have made my life all that much easier. Someone who thought he was that important probably couldn't be bothered to do so.

  I thought we'd never reach the top that way but, somehow, we did. Ed pulled himself up and collapsed, exhausted. I climbed up in a hurry, placing myself between Zoe and Ed to make sure she didn't shoot him.

  Zoe frowned at us, lying there, gasping for breath. “Stubborn,” she growled and pointed to an old, rusty wheelbarrow leaned against the wall. “You can put him in that. This will take too long if you have to carry him the whole way.”

  I glanced around. “No other guards? What's to stop me from killing you and making a run for it?”

  “For one, I have the gun. Two, you'd never find your way out. This place is a labyrinth. Your friend would die of infection before you could get out. Third, we still have your son.”

  I closed my hand around a rock sitting next to me. “How do you know I won
't kill you out of spite?”

  Her eyes were cold and emotionless as she stared me down. “Because you love your son. You want him back, don't you?”

  I didn't tell Zoe that I wasn't going to make any deals with LeDuc to get my son back. That wouldn't have been true. I would have done anything to make sure he was safe.

  She pointed again to the wheelbarrow. “It's a limited time offer. You'd better hurry.”

  It took a lot of doing but, eventually, I managed to get Ed into the wheelbarrow. Meanwhile, Zoe sat by, taking some of the scopes off the sniper rifle so that it was more manageable at a walking pace. When she was done, she pointed it at me and waved me forward. “Walk. I'll tell you which way to go.”

  Zoe had called LeDuc's lair a labyrinth. That was the understatement of the century. Labyrinths have some sense of order and logic to them. Those caves had nothing of the sort. There were narrow walkways that opened into wide, gaping mouths of a room and wide openings that dropped off to nowhere. Alone, without a guide, I would have been trapped and wandering for days. To this day, I still have no idea how Zoe knew which way to go. It seemed as if we were walking around in circles. Doing that with a high caliber rifle pointed at your head was exhausting, especially when the only sound was your own footsteps echoing back against you.

  When I couldn't stand it anymore, I turned my head slightly and decided that it was worth the risk to appeal to her as a woman and mother-to-be. “How far along are you?”

  “None of your business,” Zoe snapped. “Keep walking.”

  I slowed my pace and turned a little more. “You've dropped. That means you've got less than two weeks to go. Is Andre going to make you raise your baby in a cave? Sounds pretty unsanitary to me.”