by E. A. Copen
I walked to the center of the yard and stood in front of the porch. The door opened and three men poured out onto the porch, pausing when they saw me standing off from the others.
Keep calm, Ed. Keep calm and kick ass. You got this. I let out a heavy huff. “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.” I threaded the cord that ran between the nunchuck and the remote through my fingers and lifted the remote high. “And I’m all out of bubblegum!”
I pointed it in the general direction of the three men and powered it up.
An arc of blue lightning shot out of the end of the remote and struck the front of the house next to one of them. It erupted into a big puff of sparks and smoke, not quite the explosion I’d gotten in the car. Maybe the spell had a better effect at close range. Either way, it didn’t have exactly the intended effect. The other two sneered and raised their rifles to fire.
And that’s when they were blindsided by a grizzly in blue jeans.
Well, torn up bits of blue jeans, anyway. Bran, who was now a seven-foot grizzly with teeth and claws, jumped over the porch railing and knocked over both gunmen. I’m pretty sure that, when he roared in their faces, both of them wet themselves. Bran didn’t kill them. Not that the guy had any qualms about killing. I knew the katana he kept on his motorcycle wasn’t for show. But he suddenly had bigger fish to fry. A whole new group of people stumbled into the front room with more guns.
When they realized there was a grizzly in the way, some of them must have turned and decided to come out the back because, a minute later, they were pouring from either side of the house.
“Keep them coming out front!” Reed yelled and hopped off the truck. There was a glint of moonlight on metal as he did, and a second later, he had driven his sword into someone’s chest. Fire raced down the blade, setting the man alight. Reed kicked him off the sword and swung it at another.
I am not a fighter. Even when I play RPGs, I prefer to hang back and assess the field before acting. In a real fight, I didn’t have time to think like that. There was no pause button. It was chaos, and I couldn’t think.
I froze up.
The crack of gunfire echoed through the front yard and something whizzed past my face, close enough I could smell the air cook. One of the men who’d come out of the house ran up closer to me, pointing the gun straight at me. I knew what I should do, but I didn’t want to. My brain was still in a fog of confusion, stuck between the desire to survive and the commandment against killing.
Before I could get myself straightened out, Angel flew by in a blur and socked the guy with a mean right hook. Blood went flying out of his mouth and he fell over, jaw broken, dazed but not dead. She wrenched the gun from his hands and tossed it aside.
“You okay, little buddy?” Angel asked, standing up straight.
I swallowed and nodded.
“Then stay close. I’ve got your back.”
I smiled and took a step closer to her when a flash of light from the center second-story window lit the yard. I shielded my eyes against it. Was that Abe, Sal, and Creven going in or Warren coming out? No way to tell from where I stood. And no time.
More and more people were pouring out of the house. Only some of them engaged us. Others took off running through the fields beside and behind the house. Shauna turned as if to go after some of the fleeing people. I got off a shot of blue magick that hit the ground right in front of her, and she turned to snarl at me. “We’re not here to kill everyone!” I shouted. “Let them go.”
Daphne fell into step beside me after she was done shaking a gun from someone’s hand. My sister stopped in front of Shauna and growled, showing her teeth. I felt a twinge of pride, knowing my big sister had my back, too.
Shauna huffed and sat down, panting.
“It looks like most of the riffraff is taken care of,” Angel commented and pointed to the porch.
Bran the bear sat down and yawned.
I glanced through the crowd, looking for the people on my side to make sure they were all standing. I counted everyone except for one. “Hey, has anybody seen Reed? Where’s Gideon Reed?”
Angel scanned the faces next to me, and Bran stood up on his hind legs for a look.
Just then, an unfamiliar engine roared to life. Bright headlights blinded us. Rocks crunched as tires spun and then squealed. The car lurched forward, plowing straight for us. If Angel hadn’t reached over to jerk me out of the way, I would have ended the night as a hood ornament. As the car cruised by, I caught sight of Warren in the driver’s seat. I fought free of Angel and chased them, but they were too fast. They were gone.
I stood glaring down the empty lane, grinding my teeth, and considering shifting to chase after them. Then, all of a sudden, the lane wasn’t empty anymore. A pair of headlights shone through the darkness, followed by another. Then, another. As they came closer, I could make out the shape of armored trucks.
“Shit!” Angel shouted and grabbed me by the back of the shirt. “We’re out of time! BSI is here!”
Everybody scrambled. I tried to run, but with Angel gripping my shirt, it was all but impossible. Even running, we weren’t as fast as the trucks coming down the lane. We made it just a few yards farther toward the house before the first shots rang out. A few of the Adventists who hadn’t run off fell to my right. Another, an unarmed female Adventist, took off running for the woods. A shot hit her in the back of the head and she fell, eerily still.
Shocked and panicked, I stopped running, pulling Angel to a stop with me. “What are you doing?” she screamed. “Run!”
But there was no time. Little red dots danced all over us. Spotlights clicked to life, scanning the yard as men with guns checked the fallen, placing bullets in every Adventist just to make sure.
Against the light, a figure in a long coat emerged. I squinted to try to get a better look at him, but it was no use with the spotlights. His scent was masked heavily by cigarette ash and an undertone of rot. Whoever this man was, he was dying.
“Mister Petersen,” said the man.
I flinched as he flicked on a lighter. Long fingers with thin skin lifted a delicate-looking cigarette to his mouth. The flame illuminated only the lower half of his face when he held it to the cigarette, revealing he was probably a middle-aged white guy in an expensive-looking suit.
The man sucked on the cigarette a moment before flipping the lighter closed. “I think it’s time we had a chat.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Warren’s goons tied me to the cross good and tight. They had to unhook my cuffs from each other to do it, and when they did, I tried to take a swing at one of them. It landed, but with as weak as I was and without access to my magick, he barely noticed it. Even my best struggling was wasted and so I resigned myself to focusing on compartmentalizing my mind, creating a safe space that not even Warren could touch. I was ready to withstand whatever physical torture they were about to throw at me.
Too bad that wasn’t what he had in mind.
Once I was strung up, a rope tied around each arm and my ankles, my chains locked securely to the back of the wooden crossbeam, Warren stepped up to me, rolling his sleeves back. “Last time, you still had a little fight in you. I doubt it’s still there. You’re hungry, alone. No one is coming for you.” He readied his pointer and middle fingers, stretching each out toward me.
I jerked my head back. There was nowhere to go.
“Now, I will break you, just as I did your friend.”
My breathing was fast, my body stiff, and Warren was right. I was hungry and alone. But I was still me, dammit, and if some basket case was going to turn my brain to mush, I was going to make damn sure he remembered me for the rest of his life. When his fingers got close, I snapped at him with my teeth, managing to get one of his pointer fingers. The bone crunched when I closed on it. Warren tried to jerk away, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Something hard struck me in the stomach and I had to let him go so I could breathe.
“Bitch!” Warren cr
adled his hand as blood streamed from his finger.
I smiled, and his blood dripped down my chin.
Rather than make a hasty retreat to see to his bleeding finger, Warren rushed forward and gripped my head, digging his fingers into my temples.
Images flooded my brain, pictures of death, rot, disease, and suffering from all over the world and all through history. I saw pits and trenches full of burning bodies, tanks and napalm and swords and fists when men had no other weapons. I saw war.
War brought famine. People wandering in desolate wastelands with the distended bellies of starvation, bodies left to rot by the side of the road during some migration to only God knew where. Mothers wept dry tears, holding the emaciated bodies of children.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Armies marched on the unarmed. It was slaughter, bloody, bloody slaughter until the world was left dead and bare. And I had to watch every single one of them die, helpless to do anything about it.
If I had only seen it, maybe I could have endured, but Warren’s illusion was too strong. I didn’t just see death and the end of all things. I felt it, felt knives go in and twist, felt it when a child was snatched from my arms to have his head dashed against the rocks. I knew the pangs of hunger, the dry and bloody sandpaper tongue, the empty, indescribable feeling of loss.
Hopelessness. That was what Warren showed me while I hung on his cross.
I don’t recall it being over. I don’t know when he stopped or how I was taken down. The images didn’t stop for a very long time.
The next thing I was aware of, I was back in my cell, curled into the fetal position, sobbing dry tears. My fingers were bloody, nails torn down to the cuticle. Scratch marks covered the floor. I must have tried to claw away from the horrible sights, sounds, and feelings. Seeing death once was enough to drive most people to insanity. With what I had just gone through, I had no idea how bad the damage was.
I lay there, numb to everything for a long time. The cell was still dark. I was still hungry, still cold, still trapped. My fight had been for nothing. What was the point of fighting? Warren had already won. Any resistance at this point was just a waste of my energy. Whatever he wanted from me, it would be easier on everyone if I’d just let him have it.
No, said a small, distant voice in my head. We have to keep fighting.
There’s no point, I answered and shook my head before muttering aloud, “There’s no point.”
You want Hunter to find out you just gave up? What kind of example is that to set for your kid, Judah?
I shook my head again and pressed my nose to the cool floor. “It doesn’t matter. Warren won. He can tell any story he likes. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t take another session like that, not again. I’m lucky I’m not drooling on myself and screaming in the corner after the first one.”
But if you give up—
“Nothing. Nothing happens if I give up. Nothing different than if I don’t. I just don’t have to fight anymore.”
I slumped and pressed my forehead to my hands. The movement felt oddly uncomfortable, like I strained something doing it. And then I realized why. Before, I hadn’t been able to touch the floor. I jerked my head up and moved my hands to my wrists, feeling for the metal teeth that had been biting into my wrists. They were gone.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered into the dark. “Why? Why aren’t I bound?”
I turned my head toward where the tiniest sliver of light usually crept under the door. The light was gone, too. The room beyond was dark. They left me, I thought. They locked me up here and left me to die. It really is over.
I curled up on the floor facing where I thought the door was and drew my knees up to my chest, waiting to die.
Just as I gave up hope, I heard a sound. It was a new sound, and at first, I didn’t think it was real. Then I heard it again. My head went up as footsteps came near my little room. They stopped in front of my door. Warren was back. I shrank against the wall, too tired and defeated to think about fighting back. The door opened and I threw my arms over my head, screaming, “No! No, leave me alone! I’m done! I’ve had enough!”
Hands came down on my head, on my shoulders, warm, calloused hands. “Judah?”
I pushed them away, frantic. “I won’t fight you anymore! I won’t fight! Just don’t…don’t make me see it, not again. Please.”
“Judah, it’s me.”
“Please, I’ll do anything! Just don’t…”
Hands tightened my shoulders firmly and shook me before one of them moved to my chin and tilted it up. “Judah, it’s me. It’s Sal. You’re safe.”
I stared at the shadow in front of me. It couldn’t be. This was a trick, another one of Warren’s games. “No.”
“It’s me. You’re safe.”
He tried to pull me against him and I did my best to fight back, but I was so weak and he was so warm. Who cared if he was real? Wouldn’t I rather die with a warm illusion than in cold reality? Wouldn’t I rather go with his arms around me, wrapped in his scent with the promise of false safety, than alone in filth?
He pushed dirty, grimy hair out of my face. Dim light flooded the room and I flinched away from it, afraid it would get too bright. It didn’t. For once, it was light I could bear to look at, soft, warm, and yellow. It hovered at the end of a long piece of wood in front of another familiar face. “Oh, lass,” he said with pity in his voice.
“Creven?”
“Collect her.” Abe stepped into the light and handed his shotgun to Creven so he could strip off his coat. He held it out to Sal, who knelt in front of me. “Put this on her, but we must go. The ambulance will be arriving at the compound any moment.”
“When I find the bastard who did this…” Sal’s growl shook every bone in my body.
“We must see to Judah’s safety first,” Abe reminded him.
My jaw quivered. It was all too much. Too much. This couldn’t be real, could it? It had to be a trick. Even if Creven, Abe, and Sal had come for me, he was probably waiting to kill us all. There had to be a spell that would activate as soon as I walked out the door, and it would kill us all.
Sal began to lower Abe’s coat over me.
“No,” I said, my voice slurred and dreamy sounding. “You don’t understand. I can’t go. I can’t go!” Sal hesitated when I screamed in his face, “No!” He looked like I had stabbed him in the heart.
“She is not in her right mind,” Abe said. “Collect her so we can get her medical care, despite what she says.”
Sal wrapped the coat around me and reached down to pick me up. Rather than fight, I went limp the moment the coat was around me. It was warm and comfortable, but more than that, it felt safe. If that was what it felt like all the time, no wonder Abe wore it everywhere he went. Sal adjusted me in his arms and turned around. “You’re safe,” he promised as we made for the door.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, burying my head in the leather of Abe’s coat. “Safe,” I repeated. It was the first time I fully understood the meaning of that word.
A scraping, shuffling sound made me look up. The blood in my veins went icy when I saw Hector standing in the doorway, armed with a sword. “I can’t allow her to leave.”
Abe flashed a set of fangs. “You don’t have a choice.”
Creven readied his staff.
Sal clutched me tighter to him.
Hector raised the sword stiffly. It was a broadsword, not dissimilar to Reed’s, but with a more intricate design.
Abe charged at him.
I tried to scream out a warning. Hector wasn’t a mere human, and it would take more than claws and fangs to take him down. Well, maybe Abe would have a chance if he could bite him, but I didn’t know what effect that would have on Abe.
It didn’t matter. Abe didn’t get close.
Hector swung the sword, forcing Abe to dodge. When Abe shifted to the side, Hector pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it with practiced efficiency. It caught Abe in the chest, right wh
ere his heart would be. Abe looked down at the blade sticking out of him. His hand drifted toward it, but it was too late. “Blood,” he cursed and fell back, as stiff as a dead man.
Creven sprang into action, throwing up a blue barrier around us. Hector hacked at it with a determined grimace on his face.
“I’m not sure how long I can hold it,” Creven said, wincing.
I closed a fist on Sal’s shirt. “He’s an immortal. You have to cut off his head or bleed him dry. You’ll never get close enough.”
“I’m not going to stand here and let him kill us!” Sal ground the words out through clenched teeth and moved to put me down.
“Hector Demetrius!” A voice rang out clear and strong through the chaos.
Hector immediately stopped and shifted his focus away from our barrier to the figure standing in the doorway. When the figure raised his sword and fire spread down the blade, there was no question in my mind. It was Gideon Reed.
“What the hell’s he doing here?” Sal growled.
“He must’ve opened his own Way.” Creven turned back. “I can’t extend the barrier far enough to cover him. Afraid he’ll be on his own unless you want me to drop this.”
Sal looked down at me and turned away. “No. Reed’s on his own.”
Reed didn’t seem to mind. He charged at Hector, their swords crossing. They pressed in against each other, each one grappling for control over the other, until Hector swung a knee into Reed’s side. Reed might have been immortal, but he was still hurt. He doubled over and Hector seized the opportunity, bringing the sword down at the back of Reed’s head.
Reed tumbled forward in a roll, allowing Hector’s blade to hit the ground instead. Hector drew the sword back again and took another swipe at Reed, who had rolled over onto his back. Instead of slicing across, however, Hector changed tactics at the last second and drove the blade straight down into Reed’s chest.