The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  I woke up on my back, naked, surrounded by faces staring down at me. My vision spun, but I recognized them by smell.

  “He goin’ to make it?” Istaqua asked and then bit into a cracker.

  “If you’re going to take a bullet, the best place is in the ass,” Bran said. “Plenty of padding.”

  “If Ed had an ass, maybe,” Sal added. I couldn’t see where he was, but I had the weirdest pressure in my left hip, going down my left leg. “He should be ready now. Roll him.”

  “Wait,” I croaked, but nobody listened. Istaqua grabbed my feet and Bran my shoulders. On a three count, they flipped me like a pancake face down onto the sofa.

  “All right, hold his arms.”

  “Thought you said he’d be numb?” Istaqua said as Bran grabbed my wrists and pinned them to the pillow.

  “I said ready. I don’t have any of the good stuff left. Best I can do is dull it. Digging out bullets hurts like a son of a bitch either way. Hold him good, Bran.”

  I turned my head sideways and choked out a panicked, “Wait.”

  Sal didn’t listen.

  On a pain scale from one to ten, getting shot rates somewhere around a ten. Digging out the bullet with decade-old army medic tools while lying face down on a sofa is probably at least a sixteen. I think I ate half the pillow and had started in on the cushion before it was over. While he was digging, I could barely breathe, so talking was out of the question. When it was over, I didn’t want to talk. My throat was scratchy from all the screaming and whining. But I didn’t have a choice.

  “They’ve got Judah,” I moaned as soon as Sal started bandaging.

  His hands paused in their work. “I know.”

  I told him everything I knew, down to the last detail. I wasn’t sure if they needed every detail, but I also didn’t know what would help. It was always best to overshare than not say enough in my experience, at least when it came to werewolves. Sal would know if I lied or left something out, and with Istaqua and Bran sitting right there, I didn’t want to give them any excuse to not like me. That could be bad for my health.

  When I’d finished telling everyone everything, the room fell silent. Istaqua was the first to speak. He crossed his arms, tilted his head up, and said, “Judah Black is a human and not bound to the pack. I see no reason that pack should risk their life to rescue her. She chose her path. There are consequences for going in alone. No more blood needs to be shed over this.”

  A loud growl echoed through the room. I pushed up but didn’t dare flip over onto my back. My ass was still way too sore.

  “That’s my mother you’re talking about,” Hunter growled. “Maybe you’re too much of a coward to go after her, but I’m not.”

  The front door opened.

  “Hunter, wait,” Sal called. He stepped into my field of vision to glare at Istaqua. “We’re going for her. You going to stop us?”

  Istaqua narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “You should let the humans see to humans, Saloso. You are overextending your reach. How many times have you run to save her?”

  “Fewer times than she’s saved the rest of us. We owe her, but this isn’t about that. Life isn’t a scale to be balanced.” Sal raised a finger and pointed in Istaqua’s face. “It’s not about exploiting people to get something back that helps you. That’s not how we do things here in Paint Rock. Here, we look after our own. That means pack and the family and friends of pack and anyone else I feel like taking care of. This is my territory. My people. And I’m going after her, me and anyone else who wants to come.”

  “Hell, yeah,” said Angel. “Count me in.”

  Bran nodded his head. “I’m with you.”

  I winced as I pushed up off the couch to stand and stumbled. Bran helped me stay on my feet. “Me too.”

  “No, friend,” Bran said, shaking his head. “You’re already injured.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “If you don’t take me with you, I’m just going to go anyway. I don’t need your permission.”

  “And if I forbid it?”

  I turned to face Sal, unable to read his face. The scent coming from him was a mix of worry and fear, but also anger. “My alpha is about to walk into hostile territory with a bear shifter and a packless werewolf and leave the heart of his pack behind?” I raised my head. “After he took a bullet for the alpha’s girlfriend?”

  Sal grabbed his leather Kings jacket from the back of a chair and shrugged it on. “Ed took a bullet and got back up. I’d say he’s proven himself. If he wants to come, I won’t turn him away.”

  “I’m coming, too.”

  Every head in the room turned to the hallway where Gideon Reed stood, hand gripping his side. He was pale and sweaty, but I still jumped back at the sight of him. Last time I saw him, he was trying to kill me, after all.

  Sal pushed toward him. “You need to get back inside that ash circle right now.”

  Reed lifted his clenched hand, letting a small trail of ash fall from his fist to the floor. “Cedar, sage, tobacco, and rose.”

  “You forgot the redwood.” Sal crossed his arms. “What of it?”

  “For the last day, it’s protected me against that spell. It may work to keep the rest of you from falling under it if it can be applied. Right now, I have some tucked in my pocket and some in my hand here. It’s weakening the effect, even if I can still feel it pulling at me.” Reed held his hand out, the silvery ash resting in his palm. “Without it, you’ve got no chance of resisting him.”

  Sal sighed. “I have more and I can apply it, but that still doesn’t mean you should come. Look at you. You’re half-dead. These people have already done a number on you.”

  Reed pushed off the wall with a shoulder. “These people are making a mockery of my beliefs, hiding behind their church and using God as their excuse to do evil. And if I had stopped them a decade ago, they wouldn’t have been able to do what they are doing. They are here because of me, and that gives me more right than anyone to fight.”

  “If you want to come, I won’t stop you,” Sal said, nodding.

  Reed nodded back in thanks.

  “What about Mom’s new partner? That half-vampire guy?” Hunter asked.

  The room went quiet, and everyone exchanged glances.

  “Hunter,” Bran said after a long pause, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Tell him the truth, Bran.” Sal gripped the back of a chair. “The night Judah got the shit beat out of her, his scent was all over her.”

  “Are you saying Abe broke her arm?” I shook my head. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t trust him.”

  I sighed and looked down at my hands. Without some kind of focus, I wasn’t going to be much use to Sal in a fight. My teeth and claws were mostly for looks. Still, I’d be damned if I was going to sit this one out. Judah needed me. I needed to be there for Mara, too.

  Sal sighed. “Ed, you go with Bran and Angel. Reed, you’re with me. I’ll drop Hunter and Mia off with Nina.”

  Hunter huffed. “I can fight.”

  “Not if I say you can’t!” Every wolf in the room, Angel aside, lowered their heads when Sal barked in his alpha voice. “You’re going to stay with Nina and stay safe. Now, go and get your sister and her diaper bag. We’re going.” Sal turned the collar on his jacket up and grabbed his keys off the counter before turning to face Istaqua. “You need to get gone before I come back.” He jerked open the front door.

  “Careful, Sal, that you don’t let a human dictate your decision-making again,” Istaqua called after him. “You know how that turned out last time.” The old coyote spun his keys on his finger, took to whistling a tune, and swaggered out of the house.

  Angel frowned at me as I stumbled forward to grab the wall. “You sure you want to go? You don’t look like you’re in the best shape, Ed.”

  “I just need something to lean on,” I answered her. “Now that the silver’s out, I’ll heal pretty fast.” Angel came to my side and an idea hit me,
the best idea I’d had all day. “You guys mind if we swing by my place to pick up something? I’ve got an idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Time loses meaning in the dark. Eventually, exhaustion won out, and I found a way to balance myself to minimize the pain in my wrists and ankles to sleep lightly. That just made keeping track of time even more hopeless. When noise woke me, I was too groggy to remember my plan. My throat hurt, and my head swam with pain and congestion. The blood that had flowed down my arms and over my chest was dry and itchy, but I couldn’t scratch it.

  The noise that roused me turned out to be the lock turning on the door. Light flooded the room and I jerked back as before, shielding my eyes. Judging by the size and shape of the shadow, it was Warren, but he wasn’t alone.

  Slumped over, motionless in his arms was a body. Because of the painful light and long shadows, I couldn’t make out who it was, but my heart thundered and my head raced with possibilities. He took two steps into the room and dropped the body with a dull thud, letting it roll forward to stop just out of reach.

  I squinted against the light to glance at the body he’d tossed at me. “Mara?” She, too, had been stripped down. Her body was bruised and battered, blood crusted over her nose and mouth. Mara’s entire chest was purple.

  She cracked open a blood-crusted eye. “Heya, teach.” She winced.

  “Don’t talk, Mara. Please.”

  “Shut up, you two. This isn’t a social call.” Warren strode into the room, stopping behind Mara. “I’ve been told BSI officers are conditioned to resist physical torture. Is that true?”

  I shifted my weight, wincing when the metal bit further into my wrists and ankles. “Why bother? If you’re going to kill me, just kill me.”

  A white smile flashed in the darkness. “Oh, you know better than that. You’re no good to me dead.”

  “That’s right. You think I’m one of Han’s fucked-up experiments.”

  “Wrong again.” Warren’s foot shot out of the darkness and stomped down hard on the side of Mara’s knee. Mara screamed in pain, trying to writhe and twist away, but Warren held her by applying more pressure. “I believe you’re a success like me, like those two bodies you saw in that little clinic of yours. Only nobody knew. Maybe your abilities didn’t manifest right away. Maybe someone covered it all up. Who knows? But you are like me.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” I spat at him through clenched teeth.

  “Then how do you explain that shadow fire, hmm?” He kicked Mara aside and closed the distance to stand in front of me. His cool, thin fingers wrapped around my jaw and squeezed. “Seamus told me all about what you can do.”

  I grimaced. Seamus, that son of a bitch!

  “Did you think it was coincidence that led to you developing that ability? Chance? Fate?” With each question, his fingers tightened until I saw stars. “You may not be immortal like me, but you’re not entirely human, either. There’s a part of you that wants power, to be worshipped and feared, and I am going to draw that part of you out.” He released me and chuckled to himself before pacing away.

  I stared down at the light reflecting off the slick floor, remembering the last time I had called up that shadow flame. It had felt sentient, like it had a life of its own. The overwhelming need to devour and destroy had nearly taken over. Whatever that power was, it was dark and frightening enough that I never wanted to use it again.

  “What’s your connection to Seamus?”

  Warren shrugged. “My father and he had a deal having to do with those plants. But father was short-sighted. Seamus is a lord of the fae, and soon he’ll be High King. Seems wasteful to treat transactions with him as simple business when you can win favor and power instead.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I raised my eyes to Warren’s shadow. “How do you plan on doing that?”

  He flicked his hand out, and something metallic clattered to the floor next to Mara. “Take that. Get up.”

  In Mara’s condition, I didn’t think she could stand, especially after what Warren had done to her leg. It shouldn’t have been possible, but Warren’s magick was strong enough that Mara had no choice but to obey. She growled and grunted in pain, hissing and breathing hard, but she eventually rose, placing most of her weight on the uninjured leg.

  Warren turned sideways so that the light illuminated him in profile as he stared at me. “Place the point of the blade against your stomach, about an inch above the navel.”

  Mara’s whole body shook as she fought Warren’s control.

  I strained against my restraints. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Illustrating a point. Get it? A point?” He laughed at his own joke, even though no one laughed with him. “If you want to save her, you’ll call your power forth. Go ahead. Use it to strike me down.”

  “If you’re so damn powerful, why don’t you just make me?”

  Warren glared at me before sneering and gesturing to Mara with two fingers.

  Mara lifted the dagger away from her skin and then promptly plunged it back in. Mara doubled over, the knife still in her stomach.

  “No! Stop this!”

  Warren rotated his fingers and the knife in Mara moved with them.

  “You son of a bitch! You’ll kill her!”

  “A small sacrifice to pave the way to future glory.” Warren went to stand behind Mara, putting his hands on her shoulders. “She’s utterly insignificant, just like everyone else. Completely replaceable. If she dies, I’ll just bring your cop friend in here next. Then, maybe I’ll have my people grab that little girl I saw you with outside the clinic the other day. How old is she, by the way? Very cute.”

  I ground my teeth. “You lay a hand on Mia, and the pack will tear you apart.”

  “So you keep saying. But for big, bad wolves who supposedly protect their own, the one you had with you abandoned you rather quickly.”

  My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat. Ed! He was alive. He’d gotten away!

  “Don’t worry, though, he didn’t get far, not after that silver round we put in him. I can always bring him in next if you prefer.”

  Rage welled up inside me until it felt like my chest was about to burst. It erupted in a scream as I tried fruitlessly to tear my way out of the restraints.

  “You should be more concerned with your own well-being. Do you even know where you are? This Way is one of the few that naturally occurs in this part of the county. Time here passes at a different rate. What seems like days may well be years out there, or it could go the other way. It tends to be rather unpredictable. The more time you waste resisting, the more time you could be losing on the outside.”

  I screamed and fought the chains, letting the teeth dig deeper. “You’d be nothing without that rem, you pathetic coward. That’s why you’re so powerful. Even after those experiments fucked you up, you still couldn’t live up to Daddy’s expectations. This is nothing but an ego trip. You’re no god. You’re a teenage boy with low self-esteem and daddy issues.”

  Warren jumped forward with a scream and placed the palm of his hand over my face. I tried to struggle away, but I was weak and he had me in a death grip, palm pressed against my mouth and nose so that I couldn’t breathe.

  Suffocating wasn’t the worst of it. When his hand made contact with my skin, fingertips digging into my temple, the dark cell and all the pain associated with it faded away and I was treated to a horrific vision.

  I stood in the center of a dusty wasteland, blood and bodies all around me. My whole body ached head to toe as I limped along a filthy road on a foggy morning. My right arm hung limply. The left was caked in dried blood while I held an assault rifle in the left. Every breath hurt. With my next step, I stumbled and fell, pain shooting through me on impact. Tears burned in my eyes and an agonized scream caught in my throat. I blinked back the tears, opening my eyes to see what I had tripped on.

  The dead, glassy eyes of my son stared back at me. His body was dirty. A string of congealed blood stuck his face t
o the ground, and a massive concrete block had crushed everything from the neck down.

  I screamed in a panic at the sight. Magick surged into my muscles. Bone and tendon snapped as I gripped the block and pried it away. There were bloodstains on the other side. A twisted line of barbed wire marked the block of cement as belonging to the walls of the reservation.

  The more I dug through the rubble, the more bodies I found. Sal had been ripped apart, his insides strewn over the rocks. I fell to my knees, sobbing. My hands shook as I pushed tears away and left bloodstains behind. As I looked up, something else caught my eye. A tiny toddler hand protruded from the rubble a short distance away, the arm of one of Mia’s favorite dolls dangling from its still grip.

  Warren’s fingers left my face and I fell forward, gasping for air, still trying to cope with the scene he’d shown me. He staggered back a step and shook out his hand. “Stupid bitch. How are you fighting me? You should be cut off from most of your magick. That’s impossible.”

  “Maybe,” I gasped and spat, “you just can’t get it up without some rem.”

  “I am the Divine,” he hissed in response. “How dare you speak to me that way! I hold your life in my hands, Judah Black. Were I you, I would be more careful with my words.”

  “Can you even hear yourself?” I forced a bitter laugh. “Someone left the Heaven’s Gate tapes on repeat one too many times.”

  “You’ll be singing a very different tune shortly,” he promised me.

  I strained against my restraints to raise both middle fingers. “Kiss my scrawny white ass, you wannabe Jim Jones.”

  He sighed, unimpressed. “Then you leave me no choice. Do it.”

  My attention snapped to Mara, who was somehow still standing. She jerked and made a choking sound as she shifted the knife, and then drew it out before plunging it back in. I screamed and begged for her to stop, but my cries went unanswered. Mara stabbed herself maybe a dozen times before she was too weak to continue and fell over, bleeding everywhere.