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TODD STOOD AT A CROSS-roads. Should he go down the mountain and follow his heart after Jayne, responsible, at least in part, for who knew how many deaths? Or did he go up the mountain and let Franz know what he’d found out. He’d made so many poor decisions of late, it seemed. Each landing him deeper into the quagmire of trouble he found himself buried in. Time for a decision he could stand behind.
With one last wistful look down towards Purdy, Todd Tuttle went up. He wasn’t giving up on Jayne, but he had something else to do first.
#
WHEN HE BURST IN ON Franz Hubert, he was in the middle of a meeting with the other counselors. Not a one of them was smiling, and he didn’t get the impression it was because he’d just interrupted brunch. They stared at him in alarm when he burst through the door, but with no actual surprise.
He waited for Franz to blast him for bursting in unannounced. Instead, Franz took one look at his edgy face, wiped his chin with his napkin and stood up.
“If you will excuse me for a moment, this may be information that cannot wait. I’ll be right back.” To Todd, he nodded. “Let’s take this out on the porch, shall we?”
Outside Todd paced, unsure where to begin. “Jayne, or whatever her name is, is their sister. She’s mixed up in this whole mess. It’s her father and brother’s, the Sawyers, that have been terrorizing the town and others too up and down the coast. She’s been helping them all along. I don’t know how I could have been so blind. Sadie was right, she was lying to me from the start.”
He choked the last out, struggling to believe he’d been so easily duped.
Franz looked grim. “Where is she now, how are you here and telling me this?”
He shook his head. “There is a third brother. Special needs—autism, she said. She takes care of him. We didn’t know it, but he may have been in the building when it went up the other night. She went screaming down the mountain to find out what happened to him... do you think that’s the secret the authorities have been keeping? It makes sense.”
Franz nodded. “Probably, they would want to protect him if he made it out and wait to see who comes forward. She may be running straight into a hornet’s nest.”
“Hope so. She deserves what she gets, what she’s done...” Todd hissed, his stomach rolling with bitter acid.
“What about the scientist, the man that set the fire? She say anything about him?” Franz wondered.
“Yeah, said they picked him up along the road. He experiments on the Magicals to see what makes them tick, what their weaknesses are, how they can be killed. She said he’s always been off in the head. She thinks her crazy relatives picked up some serial killer hiking the highway. He was insane enough the night we saw him to qualify for sure. That was one scary dude.”
Franz nodded. “We need to check into the brother, I think. Maybe he will lead us to the sister and a few more answers. I’m worried about what the brother’s and father will do now. And the other one as well. That family may be dangerous, they may be killers... but they are by far not the most dangerous group out to destroy the Magical community and all it stands for. There are sects throughout the world that have banded together in secret, working to eradicate the disease they call it—that’s us. My fear is that they will call one of those much larger groups in. We don’t have a lot to fear from one small family, but the sheer numbers and firepower of the Hunter’s Guild? They could destroy everything we’ve built in this valley.”
Franz closed his eyes, and an overwhelming sadness crossed his features. “It would be like before, when the dragons were forced to flee in the middle of the night, all the senseless killing and bloodshed. I am getting old, but I haven’t forgotten all the stories my great uncles and grandmother used to tell me of that night. I have no desire to repeat it.
“What will they do to Jayne, I mean, anything she gets she deserves...”
Franz stared at him and shook his head. “Ah, Todd... were it that simple? What, I wonder, would you do to protect your family? What lengths would you go to? If it came down to it, would you break the law to protect them?”
Todd scowled, “That’s dumb. This isn’t the same thing. My family aren’t criminals, they didn’t break the law...”
“Neither did my family and the Others over 300 years ago. And still they hunted them like dogs, like they were worse than nothing. They killed men, women, and children Todd. None of them were guilty of anything but raising families and crops and living their lives peacefully on that mountain. And Jayne? What about her? Maybe she’s evil and in on the entire thing and deserves the worst she gets. Or, and you have to think hard on this one; perhaps she is doing what any of us would do and protecting what’s most important to her.”
“Her mad as hell family?”
“No. The brother that needs her and depends on her. The brother that was left in the fire. She’s not protecting her criminal family at all, she’s trying to save the good brother, the sibling she loves. Maybe it’s still wrong. But maybe she felt she had no other choice. If nothing else, I think you should listen and ask her. We all have shadows in our past we aren’t proud of, but we all deserve to be heard.
“But for now, I have to get back to my meeting. Now we have more to discuss. You’ve brought us useful information. We are right now discussing what would happen in the event of an unsolicited attack on the valley. There are steps that have to be taken to prepare and I believe we are running out of time, so if you will excuse me.”
Todd watched the door close behind Franz Hobert. Now what. He wanted to hate Jayne for the lies and the deceit. But he also had to consider what Franz had shared. What would he do to protect his family? The answer wasn’t long in coming.
Anything.
He trotted down off the porch and set off in a ground-eating lope for Purdy. If he’d been thinking more clearly, he might have remembered there was safety in numbers.
His mind was a whirl as he entered the outskirts of the little town. His breath was sawing in his lungs and he was out of breath as he angled up the street towards the hospital. The real hospital for humans and Magicals who didn’t need special treatment only a doctor versed in Magic could give. If they had the brother anywhere, it would be there.
He needed to talk to Jayne, hear her side of the story. He wasn’t ready to forgive her, but he needed to hear her version. Was she only protecting her brother? Why not turn her family in? Surely there had been other, better choices. He wondered if there was more to the story.
Preoccupied with all the twisting thoughts keeping his brain in a muddle, he never saw the dark shadow that stepped away from the corner of the building until he was nearly abreast of it. When he did, his last thought as he stared into Terrence Sawyers cold black eyes was that maybe he’d never have a chance now to ask her. And then Terrence shot him.
#
SOMEWHERE THERE WAS a leak. He could hear the plop, plop, plop, of water dripping off pipes and hitting the concrete below. And the smell was musty and old. He was really getting to hate basements and being underground. Seems he’d spent way too much time there in recent months if you asked him. He opened his eyes just a slit, waiting for the room to stop spinning and the grey fog to clear from his eyes. Partly, it was due in fact to the dimness of the basement. He could feel another cold table at his back, and he didn’t have to move to know they had him tied down—again. The burn at his wrists and ankles told him the restraints were too tight, cutting off his circulation and making his hands go numb.
He opened his eyes wider, and then they went wide when the pain coursed through his left thigh like liquid fire. He let out a yowl and bucked on the platform, staring at the four men. The two brothers stood back and to the side, one of them looking overtly satisfied at his current predicament. The older man, the father he guessed, stood grim and watchful. But it was the crazed maniac with the small sharp scalpel that stood over him, the slim blade dripping with his blood, that held his attention. One look in Jonah Whiting’s icy dead eyes told him the only thing that stood between him being carved up and living to take his next breath was what happened in the next few minutes. He turned to look at the father.
“Terrence Sawyer, I presume?” Todd gasped, keeping track of Jonah out of the corner of his eyes.
If Terrence Sawyer was surprised that Todd knew his name, he hid it well.
“Good, I’m glad to see you’re awake, and we have your attention. We need some information from you. How much you share determines how long I hold Mr. Whiting off. As you may have discovered, he enjoys his work. Right now he’s not real fond of the way you helped destroy his lab the other day. Lucky for us, he’s willing to work anywhere.” He shook his head with a rueful smile that did not reach his eyes.
“So, first thing. Where is my daughter, where is Lucy?”
Todd frowned. Who the hell was Lucy?
“I don’t... Ahh!” he screamed as the knife sliced downward, cutting another ribbon of agony along his thigh to join the first.
His brain scrambled to catch up. “Um, do you mean Jayne? Where is Jayne?”
Terrence held his hand up to stall the freak who frowned in annoyance and hesitated, hand in the air, scalpel at the ready.
“That’s her middle name, but yes. Where is my lovely daughter, we need to speak to her? I’m trying to find my son, Blaine.”
I struggled to think past the agony. “I don’t know. Maybe he burned up in the fire... Grrruck!” he screamed once more, this time the slice bisected the meaty part of his upper shoulder. More dripping reached his ears, but he was sure it wasn’t leaking pipes this time.
“I don’t know where she is, okay? She ran down the mountain to find him...”
“Well, now. That wouldn’t be good news for you. See, I’m counting on you being able to tell me where she is. I figure; find her... and find the brother. We are kind of eager to have us a reunion. We aren’t quite convinced that Lucy is on the same page as we are anymore.”
The taller brother came in close, running his finger along the long thin slice on his arm and holding the smear of blood up to the dim light and rubbing it curiously between thumb and forefinger. “Hmm. Looks like ours. But it’s not, is it? Magical blood. Different, dangerous... evil. We’ve been experimenting, you see. With the drugs in that dart? Added something to prevent the change; in case you wondered why you hadn’t.” He looked thoughtfully at Todd. “Well, if you’ve had your first change yet. You’re what, 18? If you haven’t already, you will soon... or would have...” he smiled.
The other brother, staring at the first in disgust, spoke. “See, you burnt our home down and we had to move. This... house... isn’t near as big as that warehouse was, or as nice. But it’s plenty big enough to wait for our back-up to arrive. Did you think you had it bad when you were dealing with just the four of us? Well, things are about to get real exciting... for us.”
They were sharing way too much information, came the unbidden knowledge. Way too much to let him out of this alive. He gave a vicious pull at the restraints holding his arms down. It wasn’t looking good, not for him, and not for everyone else, either. Silently he cursed his stupidity in coming alone, not telling the others. He’d led with his emotions and left his brain on the back-burner.
“Just to be clear, those are the questions we most need you to answer. But we have a few more.” Terrence smiled.
And Todd continued to scream.
#
THE KISS MADE SADIE walk around in a cloud of warmth, reliving the experience as she tucked into bed and rolled over to face the wall. They’d walked back together, Niel never mentioned once. She might have told Nick he was an idiot for assuming and never asking her the right questions. He might have, for once, agreed with her.
The next morning she took just a tad more care with her appearance, applying her liner with a judicious hand and dressing in her newest shirt. She followed Sirris and Fern to breakfast, aware that they were shooting her perplexed looks.
“Okay Cross, what gives. You never smile this early in the morning.” Sirris asked.
I glanced at Fern, who was staring at me with suspicion as well. “Sirris is right. You are a real bore when you get up. What’s with the cheesy grin? Who’d you kill?”
But I didn’t answer, my slight smile widening into my own little secret I hugged close.
We entered the dining hall and joined the others at the table. They were just starting to serve breakfast when Thomas burst into the room, looking madly around and then making a beeline for our table.
“Where is he? Where is my brother?” His hair stood up in spikes and his eyes flared werewolf yellow.
My smile slipped sideways and the butterflies of euphoria flitting around in my chest dropped like little pebbles of white-hot lava to roll around in my empty stomach.
“He’s with you, isn’t he? Slow down Thomas, you aren’t making any sense.”
“Dammit, pay attention then. Todd never came in last night, he never slept in his bed. I’ve checked everywhere—he’s missing.”
I could feel the blood fading from my cheeks as my eyes met Nick’s across the table. His were cold with knowledge.
They had Todd.
#
I KNEW AS WE PACKED for war that time was not on our side. They’d had Todd in their clutches before. I figured maybe the only thing that might afford us a sliver of time was that Todd would have information they needed. I grit my teeth. We needed Todd to hold them off long enough for us to get there.
My vision clouded and I straightened my shoulders. Wherever there was, because we had no idea where they were holding him, not with the warehouse burned.
I slung my pack over my shoulder and ran for the door, Sirris and Fern right behind me. The boys were just heading up the path from their own cabin. I looked at the hastily penned note in my hand and almost reconsidered. Then I was running up the steps to Franz Hobert’s cabin and slapping it on the door. The sliver of duck-tape would hold until he found it. After we were gone and it was too late to stop us from our foolish mission. I’d had a lengthy conversation with Franz the night before. He’d confirmed much of what I already had suspected concerning Jayne Martin. She was smack in the middle of the entire mess. Sometimes it sucked to be right.
“Ready for this?” I shouted at them all, grim faced.
“No.” Nick ground out. But it was his tall form that took the lead. I had to run to catch his steady lope. For once, he hadn’t questioned the stupidity of our decisions. We were all aware of what the stakes were if we didn’t hurry. There was no time for misgivings or discussion.
We hit the road hard, not pausing and all of us gasping by the time we made it into Purdy.
None of us were more surprised than I when we interrupted Jayne Sawyer on her way up.
Rage was immediate and I surged to the front, scales slithering along my arms and up over my shoulders. The bitter anger inside of me bloomed and I wanted to rip her apart. I reined it in long enough for her to utter her last words.
I knew my eyes must have been alive with color when she stopped dead, hers on all of us before widening in terror on my own. She held up her arms and hands defensively. It wouldn’t save her. I moved forward.
“Wait, please, just let me explain. Then if you still want to kill me, you can, right?” When we kept coming she added. “If you kill me first, you’ll never get the information you need to stop them...”
That made us pause. What harm was there in hearing her out before we smashed her.
“I can see by the look on your faces that you know about my family and my involvement. There are no excuses for what I’ve done. I did it to save my brother Blaine, I’m all he has. Still, I shouldn’t have let that impede what was right and that would have been to turn them in a long time ago. I know that, but listen, you gotta know. They won’t stop and they will have called in reinforcements by now. You will not be facing three or four guys. You’ll be facing upwards of thirty or more, depending on who they get. You need to think this through...”
“They have Todd.” Thomas interrupted, his hands forming claws as he shoved me to the side and advanced on her, his eyes changing and fur erupting along his jawline and neck and spreading. I looked at him in alarm. It appeared more than one of us approached that first change at breakneck speed.
“Oh, my God. They’ll kill him!” she screamed, unaware of the deadly intent in Thomas’ eyes.
He didn’t stop coming. Thomas was as bent on revenge as I was, and she was the object.
Her mouth suddenly firmed and her chin notched up. Before our eyes, the frightened young victim squared her shoulders and stiffened her spine. We watched her eyes fan an odd orange and anger suffuse her face. “Stop it! We don’t have time for this shit. They’ll kill him and you need my help. Do any of you know where they have him? Because I just might! You need me, so stop treating me like the enemy. You can do your worst later when he’s still alive and we have him back, okay?”
We halted, less at the venom in her words, than the ruddy glow to her cheeks. She seemed to light from within. Her skin shone with a bright orange glow. When we stopped advancing, the strange skin condition faded back to her normal alabaster complexion.
“Look, we need to hurry. I can explain on the way.” She turned at once and ran into Purdy. We joined, picking up speed.
The thought occurred to me she could even now be leading us into a trap. But what she’d said was right. We had to take a chance that she might know where they were holding him, because we didn’t.
She talked as she ran, “When we first came to town we did what we always do, we set up camp. We start by scoping out likely places for us to take up residence and remain hidden. Houses sometimes work if they are abandoned. Old warehouses are better because they have multiple levels.” Her face tightened in memory. “Easier to block out the screams after hours that way.”
Thomas growled, and I knew his wolf was close to the surface and raging.
“In Purdy we found three possibilities. One was the warehouse you burned. The others were an old abandoned marina building and a house. We must check them both out. My guess is the marina building, its farther away from the main drag and more isolated. It’s this way.” She led us down a side street, picking up speed until she was matching ours. A pace no human should have been able to maintain.
I stared at the young human running by our side in speculation. I met Nick’s eyes over the top of her head. His reflected a similar curiosity.
The Marina in question was on the east side of town, at the end of an enormous part of the wharf that had seen better days. Jayne paused when we neared and came to a choppy halt with the rest of us and frowned. It was no longer deserted. Someone—some enterprising businessman in the town of Purdy, had resurrected the old building. Orange caution signs and tape and a small trailer sat on site along with recent signs of renovation.
Grim faced, Jayne did an about face and started running the other way. “He must be at the house. Hurry, they won’t waste much time on him and Jonah is way too eager to do his job.” She screamed. She didn’t have to tell any of us twice. We kept pace and ran deeper into town until we were on the North-east corner of Purdy and down a street that boasted several homes that had fallen on disrepair. Two of them were abandoned, but it was the larger house at the end of the street that drew our eye.
Jayne held a hand up before we could rush the front door. We needed a better plan. Rushing in to join him wouldn’t do any of us any good.
We moved to the crumbling front porch of the smaller home, near several other houses that all looked to be inhabited by lower-income families, the rusted bikes and crumbling fences lending evidence of a lack of funds in light of the more pressing need for survival. We pulled back out of sight up the crumbling steps. Foot prints crisscrossed the dusty driveway in front of us along with the overgrown grass, trampled flat. We’d found the right place.
My lips tightened. It looked like the cavalry had arrived, like Jayne had said. No way was that from just three or four people. They’d chosen the location well at the end of a dead-end street and butting up to the surrounding woods and mountain. Easy to hide or escape.
We stood in indecision. “What now, sherlock?” I hissed at Jayne; well aware she couldn’t have any more of a plan than the rest of us. We all froze in indecision.
“I don’t...” was as far as she got when we blinked at the strange sight that came limping around the side of the building. Todd came at a full-on dash, dragging his leg behind him. It didn’t slow him down much. Hot on his heels, brandishing a scalpel, was the scientist, Jonah Whiting, screaming at the top of his lungs, cotton candy white hair flying as he gave chase. Thomas stepped away from the building. “Todd, over here!” The rest of us monitored the house as Todd veered in our direction. Insanity must have muddled Jonah’s instinct for survival because he never paused to wonder if he should rethink the chase. He just kept coming.
As Todd reached us, Thomas snatched his shoulder and hauled him around the corner out of sight. The scientist followed straight into Nick’s solid right, backed up with a heavy dose of Magic, the blue light exploding against his crumpled nose where Nick hit him. He dropped like a rock.
Niel and Thomas grabbed him and drug him around the corner. We needed a place out of sight and quick. I turned and called my dragon, the magic whispering in an instant along my arm as I reached out with a Magically enhanced shove, springing the boarded door open with a louder crash than I was comfortable with. The boards crisscrossing in front of the door jambs we left alone, climbing past them mostly undisturbed, dragging our captive with us and shoving the door closed much quieter as we heard the front door of the other house slam open, loud angry voices spilling into the dilapidated and overgrown yard. We huddled on the floor, silent and waiting. Praying they wouldn’t realize where their quarry had escaped to.
Fern crept to a side window. Warped off its casing, it revealed a tiny unfettered opening to the outside elements no bigger than a nickel. She looked through and held up fingers, 5, 8, 10, 20. She stopped somewhere around twenty-five. Her eyes were black cobalt in the gloom as they sparked back in our direction. And then she smiled.
Her fingers danced and a whisper of breath teased her lips. In a matter of seconds she opened her small fist to reveal a small dark moth, no bigger than a dime. She stared at the tiny winking antennae and whispered. The little bug took flight and flew true through the small opening.
She looked at us all in satisfaction. “And now we wait.”
Niel, who’d been curiously silent most of the way down the mountain, breathed, “That was spectacular.” He whispered in admiration.
She glared at him, chin jerking up. “Of course it was.”
It seemed like forever before there was a definite disturbance in the yard and Fern, still spying on them from her hidey hole, indicated they’d left. She was frowning in confusion when she held her hand up for the small winged moth as it fluttered back in and landed center of her palm. Her head cocked slightly sideways as she listened to what only she could hear.
Her frown deepened into fear. She looked up as the tiny insect seemed to waver and then disappear in a poof of smokey mist.
“They are launching an attack on the Valley. But they split up.” Fern’s eyes moved to Todd. “They have plans for you Todd. The Sawyers are coming to finish you later. First, though, they are planning to attack and kill Janice. Eliminate any witnesses. Any reason they would know where she’s being held because I thought that was a secret?” She looked at him accusingly, one fine dark brow arched.
Thomas growled. “What are you saying, my brothe...”
Todd interrupted, “Shut up, Thomas. This bastard—” he gave the unconscious man a savage kick, “—he’s lethal with that knife. I didn’t tell them exactly, but they got the street out of me. It won’t take them long to locate the only doctor with a residence on that block. They’ll find her and they’ll kill everyone in that house.”
“Then that’s where we go first.” I stated. Hating that it meant we would be late to join the fight in the valley. “We must stop the Sawyers first and then we head up to the valley. If we hurry, we won’t be that far behind them.”
“But everyone in that valley. They don’t know they are coming; they’ll have no warning.” Sirris protested.
I whirled on her. “Don’t you think I know that? What choice do we have?”
“Can’t you call?” Jayne wondered.
I hissed, frustrated. “Sure thing if there was any service. Its next to impossible to get a call through and did anyone bring a phone?” Nobody volunteered.
Nick interrupted our argument. “It doesn’t matter then. Right now we’re wasting time, let’s go,” he ground out. He was already at work tying Jonah’s hands and feet with a cord he’d clipped from an old lamp. It wouldn’t hold him forever, but maybe long enough.
Without another word, we broke back through the door, taking several loose boards with us, not bothering to shut it as we ran for the downtown district and Doc Flynn’s.