by A. P. Jensen
“What is the significance of Louisiana and these pictures?” Angel asked gently. “Answer and I won’t hurt you.”
Once more, Raven’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. Snatches of soundtracks flickered through her mind, but her mind couldn’t reach for the right words. Angel began to roll up his sleeves and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. Tears blinded her as the next hit landed in her abdomen.
“Master?”
Raven cracked open one eye as a man shoved a little girl on her knees across the room. One side of the girl’s face was mottled with bruises and her black curls were tangled and caked with dried blood. Angel strolled away from Raven and looked down at the trembling little girl who wrapped her arms around herself.
“What now, Maggie?” Angel sighed.
“Angel, please,” Maggie said in a voice choked with tears.
“Please what?”
“You need to let us go,” Maggie sobbed.
Angel knelt in front of Maggie and used his finger to raise her face to his. The tears in Maggie’s voice were nowhere to be found on her face. Maggie glared at Angel with hate blazing in her eyes.
“Let G-Ma go,” Maggie hissed.
Angel grinned and brushed his thumb over the swollen apple of Maggie’s cheek. “No.”
“What you’re doing is wrong,” Maggie said and her eyes filled with tears. “You hurt Grandpa.”
“I meant to kill him,” Angel said conversationally and showed blinding white teeth when he smiled. “But your dad got in the way, as usual.”
“Cain won’t let you get away with this!”
Angel brushed her hair back from her face. “I already have, darling. No one can stop me.”
“Raven will kick your ass,” Maggie said.
Angel chuckled. “I’m counting on it, sweet pea.”
“Don’t call me that!” Maggie bellowed. “You’re not my brother anymore! You tried to kill Grandpa and Cain!”
Angel clucked his tongue. “Cain tried to kill me first.”
“You probably deserved it.”
“So bloodthirsty,” Angel crooned. “If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you watch the world change around us. It’s going to be glorious.”
“Cain won’t let that happen.”
Angel got to his feet and shook his head. “I never understood why you all have such faith in him. I’m going to make our world so much better. We don’t have to hide. Why should we?”
Maggie shook her head. “Don’t do this, Angel.”
Even as Angel opened his mouth to reply, a clap of thunder shook the house. Angel stared at Maggie who glared up at him defiantly.
“You clever bitch,” Angel said and raised his hand to strike her.
Even as Raven opened her mouth to scream, she was ripped from Sunshine’s body and thrown into another one that was smaller, but contained no less panic.
“Finally!”
Delilah jumped up and down in the cage, wringing her hands in panic. Bloodcurdling screams echoed from above. Delilah and the others in the cage were delirious with terror. Marlie was shaking the bars of the cage like an animal. Blasts of thunder sounded like fireworks overhead and the house shuddered.
“We’re in Utah!” Delilah sobbed. “Maggie says it’s an old hunting cabin an hour from G-Ma’s house. Hurry, Raven, hurry!”
The door at the top of the stairs opened. Angel appeared, eyes alight with excitement. The kids quieted immediately and plastered themselves into the corners of the cage. Angel walked over and examined each of them in turn before his eyes focused on Delilah.
“Who are you contacting?” Angel asked.
Delilah trembled and shook her head. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who?” Angel roared.
Even as Angel unlocked the cage and reached for her, everything faded to black.
***
“No!” Raven screamed.
She lurched upright in bed with her hand clasped around her knife and tears streaming down her face. Angel had signed his death warrant several times over. Maggie, Sunshine, Delilah, G-Ma...
Where’s Cain?! she raged through the Unmemorable link. The hostages are in Utah, in a hunting cabin an hour from G-Ma’s house. Get the location.
The bedroom door opened and Bones and Luester appeared. She stared at Luester who was completely expressionless. Her heart bled as she thought of Sunshine in Angel’s hands. Sunshine was scared and in pain and didn’t know how to defend himself. Had Sunshine been aware of her presence on some level?
“We’re gonna get Sunshine back,” Raven said in a shaky voice and took a deep breath. “Where’s Cain?”
“He’s in the room next door...” Bones began.
Raven? What’s this about Utah? Jackie asked.
Get those planes ready. Angel knows we’re coming. We need to get the exact location from Cain or Rich. She walked out of her room and slammed into the bedroom next door to hers.
The scene that met her eyes wiped her mind clean. Cain and Jane stood beside the bed. Jane had her arms wrapped around Cain’s neck. Her head tilted to the side as she kissed him deeply. There was a sharp smack as their lips parted and Cain’s eyes moved over Jane’s face for several seconds before he became aware of Raven’s presence. He looked at her over Jane’s shoulder before Jane turned with a frown and swollen lips.
“What’s going on?” Jane asked in a disgruntled voice.
Raven tightened her hold on the knife and shook with the effort it took not to plant it in the middle of Jane’s chest. Raven opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. She stared at Cain and waited for him to say something, anything, but he just stared at her.
“Where’s the hunting cabin an hour from G-Ma’s cabin?” Luester asked behind Raven.
Cain frowned. “How do you know about that?”
“Where is it?” Luester snapped.
“Let’s go!” someone shouted down the hallway. “We’re heading out!”
Raven turned away from Cain with Bones at her side. She walked through the halls, which were teeming with Unmemorables and soldiers. She jogged outside into the cold darkness and tightened her hands on her blades, looking suspiciously around at the ruined forest. She crossed the golf course to the planes, which were revving up. Half of the Unmemorables and Council soldiers were staying behind and they didn’t look happy. Raven followed Bones onto a plane. Jackie, Ace and Luester were already seated. She sat beside Bones and wasn’t happy when Gerald sat on her other side, but she was too numb to put up much of a fight.
“Buckle up,” Gerald ordered.
She did as she was told because she hadn’t flown before and didn’t want to die. She froze when Cain walked onto the plane with Jane and his parents. She gripped the armrests and closed her eyes as emotions exploded inside of her with the force of canon blasts. What was happening to Sunshine, Maggie and Delilah in Utah made her body pulse with the need for revenge, but what she witnessed between Cain and Jane made her sick to her stomach. Raven went over the fight with Cain in her mind and remembered the disgust on his face. Was this his way of telling her it was over? He couldn’t make it any clearer, could he?
“He isn’t wearing your braid,” Bones said in a low voice.
Her eyes flashed open as the plane began to move. “What?”
“The braid’s gone from Cain’s wrist.”
Had he taken it off or had someone else done it? Over the seats, Jane’s fluffy pink hat rested against Cain’s shoulder. Raven tasted bile in her mouth. The plane gained speed and she clutched the armrests as the plane left the ground.
“What’s going on?”
She cracked open one eye and found Bam Bam leaning over the seat in front of her.
“Put on your seatbelt!” she said through clenched teeth as her stomach flipped.
“Barbie’s with Cain,” Bam Bam stated the obvious.
“Cain’s not wearing her braid,” Bones repeated.
Bam Bam reached for her
hair and she slapped his hand away. “Leave me alone!”
Gerald watched all of this in silence before he raised a brow. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Apparently, I’m too much like an Unmemorable for his taste,” Raven said, swallowing hard against the need to vomit. “He doesn’t want to be tied to a killer.”
“Bullshit,” Jackie said from across the aisle. “Give him your hair and then find out. What if his parents cut off your braid?”
“Does he look like he’s being forced to forget?” Raven retorted and closed her eyes.
“Raven walked in on them making out,” Bones informed the surrounding Unmemorables.
She drew her knife and Gerald disarmed her. When she went for her next weapon, Gerald pulled out twist ties and pinned her wrist to the armrest. Bones did the same on his side. She glared daggers at them.
“I never thought Cain would end it like this,” Bam Bam said, glancing over his shoulder.
“Cain and Jane. Their names have a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Gerald taunted.
“Come on, Pop, that’s messed up,” Jackie protested when she strained against her bonds.
But they’d all known it wouldn’t work, she thought, and closed her eyes, which brimmed with tears. She swore a blue streak.
“How is it that you’re able to connect with this child, Delilah?” Gerald asked.
God, Delilah . . . if Angel hurt her, she’d gut him. They would get there in time. “Its part of her power. She connects to people through dreams.”
“Why didn’t she connect with someone in the Council? Why you?”
“Maggie,” she whispered, and against her will a tear slipped past her closed lids. “Cain’s sister trusts me. She saw me kick the Unmemorables’ ass. She thinks I can save them.”
“What else?” Gerald asked.
Her lips trembled and whispered, “For a moment, I was watching everything through Sunshine’s eyes. He’s at the cabin with Maggie.”
“Is he okay?” Luester asked across the aisle.
She opened her eyes and looked past Gerald to Luester who was barely holding it together. “He’s alive. Angel wants to know why he sent us to the swamp.”
“Did he tell?” Ace asked.
“He doesn’t know how,” she said.
“You said Angel knows we’re coming?” Gerald asked.
“Maggie throws these tantrums so she gets hauled in front of Angel and Delilah can contact me. Angel suspects and . . . I don’t know.”
“You saw through Sunshine’s eyes?” Gerald asked suspiciously.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, I don’t know how.”
“You’re a catalyst,” Bones said, shaking his head.
“Why would anyone take Sunshine? I don’t get it,” Gerald said.
“He can draw the future,” she whispered.
“Bullshit.”
“Ask Big Daddy.”
“He would’ve told me.”
She raised her brows. “Would he?” When he didn’t speak she said, “When we were on the road, Sunshine drew a picture of the mansion in flames. He’s the one that alerted me about the impersonator.”
“But his pictures look like comics!” Gerald exploded.
“So?”
“He was wrong about the swamp. You came back with a harebrained idiot.”
“It wasn’t a lost cause.”
“Is that so?”
“Belle is Olivie Belrose.”
Gerald snorted. “So the woman you brought into my home is six hundred years old?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying it’s impossible?”
“Olivie Belrose was a witch who had a talent for potions and curses. I’ve never heard of anyone having immortality.”
“Sunshine’s sketches say that both women are one and the same.”
“What bullshit,” Gerald muttered.
“Where’s Big Daddy?” she asked.
“He’s on another plane,” Ace said.
Something from the dream hit her with such force that she gasped. She turned her head and stared at Gerald.
“Maggie called Angel her brother.”
That little fact was part of the reason she’d been so intent on finding Cain, but when she found him, the question was forgotten beneath an overwhelming wave of betrayal.
Gerald’s mouth twisted. “Another thing Cain hasn’t told you, huh?”
“It’s true?” she croaked.
“They’re half-brothers,” Bones said quietly.
“But...”
“Vick is Angel’s father,” Gerald said. “Vick morphed into Bernt and tricked Pris into sleeping with him. Angel looks like Pris so they didn’t realize what happened until Angel’s power began to show itself. One of Vick’s ancestors was indestructible.”
She kissed Vick and jumped into his arms, thinking he was Cain. It would be easy for Vick to take it a step further since she hadn’t known such a thing was possible. If Sunshine hadn’t . . . she stopped that thought from going further and a conversation she had with Cain about his mother came back to her.
“She was seduced by a man from the Battalion before I was born.”
“Was she married to your father at the time?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she spill Council secrets?”
“No. She slept with the wrong man.”
Raven shrugged. “That happens a lot, doesn’t it?”
Raven swallowed hard. Both Cain and Angel had brilliant blue eyes, Pris’s eyes. Two brothers on opposite sides who were intent on killing each other... why hadn’t Cain told her? Her eyes rested on the back of his head and she tried to reach for that blank landscape that saved her life this morning, but it was being contrary. Apparently, her inner assassin decided she could handle this emotional crisis.
Fifteen minutes later, the planes began to lower and she gripped the armrests as they made an unsteady landing. Gerald snapped the twist ties from her wrists. She massaged blood into her hands and fumbled with the knives they handed back to her.
It was almost midnight and snowing heavily. The energy in the cabin crackled as everyone checked their weapons. Bernt and Cain stood as the plane came to a full stop.
“We’re about a mile from G-Ma’s house and two from the hunting cabin. We haven’t been able to get in touch with G-Ma so we suspect she’s in Angel’s custody,” Bernt said, voice devoid of emotion. “A team from the other plane will go to G-Ma’s. The others will be led by Cain and I to the hunting cabin. We’re working with Unmemorables, and as you know, we can’t remember what they look like so I think its best if the Unmemorables stay behind us.”
Fat chance, Bam Bam said telepathically.
Conceited ass, Ace contributed.
We all have the same target so we do this shit together, but we’re not sitting in the back, Gerald said. We’ll follow in the trees since the Council’s known to be trigger-happy. They won’t even see us.
The door of the plane opened and Jackie, who had her Kevlar vest and a thick windbreaker, pulled her to a stop. She cursed and quickly stripped off her weapons, eyes on the soldiers who filed out of the plane and into swirling white. She quickly strapped her weapons on and noticed Pris and Bernt arguing. Bernt jabbed his finger at her and Pris stepped back with her head down. Raven would have felt sorry for Pris if she didn’t know how lethal she was. How could Pris be such a fighter, yet bend to Bernt when Maggie’s life hung in the balance? It didn’t make sense. How did Pris handle knowing she’d slept with the wrong man and given birth to a monster? Raven barely resisted the urge to knife Jane as she passed with Jackie at her back.
The planes were being guarded by a handful of people who shouted to each other since they couldn’t see one another through the thick snow. The Unmemorables were invisible to her eye, but her mind was filled with the sound of their voices. Raven refused to look for Cain as she scaled the nearest tree and let her body take over. She kept her mind quiet and as empty as possible. Fifty feet above
the ground was another world. Unmemorables leapt from branch to branch, not even disturbing the snow that was beginning to pile up. It looked like a scene from a kung fu movie, assassins floating through the air with such weightless grace, rifles strapped to their backs like swords. She shook herself as she and Jackie double-timed it to catch up with the others.
Spread out, Gerald ordered. Raven, Bones, stay behind me. Bones, if you feel anything, let us know.
Sharp pangs went off in her chest. Gerald wanted to know if Bones sensed any bodies. She watched the Unmemorables fan out and glanced down at the soldiers below. She saw Cain standing beneath her, watching them, his blue eyes a beacon in the monotone of white. For a second their eyes met and then she looked ahead and made a five-foot leap to another branch and kept running until she came up behind Gerald. Her lungs burned. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been this cold in her life. Memories of Sunshine, Maggie and Delilah pushed her onward.
Even as Gerald called a halt, Cain held his fist up to halt the Council soldiers below. In a small clearing ahead, barely discernible through the snow was the rundown cabin she’d seen through Sunshine’s eyes. Although the windows were covered, there were flickers of light through the curtains.
Its empty, Ace said.
Raven’s heart sank. It couldn’t be longer than two hours since she’d had the dream. Even though Ace pegged Belle accurately in the swamp, she couldn’t help but hope he was wrong. Cain and the soldiers approached the front door.
What about the basement? she asked.
Empty. I can smell Sunshine’s blood and the blood of three females. Two were young, the other is G-Ma’s, Ace said clinically.
Fan out and look for tracks, Gerald ordered.
There won’t be any. They would’ve used the Transporter, Raven said and wanted to scream.
Council soldiers filtered into the cabin. Within five minutes they came out, rifles pointing at the ground, rage palpable. They were too late. Cain was the last to come out of the cabin and his face was expressionless. Big Daddy dropped from his perch and walked toward the cabin. The soldiers started and would have fired, but Cain commanded them to stand down. Cain couldn’t remember the appearance of the Unmemorables, but apparently he could remember that they were working together. Raven watched Big Daddy walk into the cabin and turned away. She couldn’t watch. This was all her fault and there was nothing she could do.