Beautifully Unnatural: A Young Adult Paranormal Boxed Set (131 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Gabby stared at the worn journal in her hands. Why hadn’t he told her the truth?

All this time he’d professed to be hunting down bad guys for the government, terrorists and criminals threatening the innocent.

Oh God. What if he was out there right now, hunting them? Running through all the possible outcomes, nothing looked good. If they fought back, her father would die. If they didn’t…

She choked and spun around the room, looking for answers. There had to be a way to warn the others. Pawing her pockets one last time in the vain hope that her cell phone would magically be there, she cursed and yanked the drawers from her father’s dresser. She searched under the bed, in the boxes, everywhere for an answer, but found nothing.

If she couldn’t call them, she’d have to get to them on foot. She raced toward the front door, but Patronus didn’t budge. He stood in the doorway of her father’s bedroom, barking at her.

“Come on, boy. We have to go.”

Patronus growled in response, as though he knew something she didn’t. But if she didn’t warn them soon, what would happen?

Her breathing sped up and her hands shook. The all too familiar rise of anxiety surged through her body. She clutched the molding around the door and willed the panic to recede.

After several calming breaths, she straightened. Only a prickling of electricity remained on her skin. Feeling empowered at having halted the attack, she released her grip on the molding.

“Okay, Patronus. I’ll try to figure something else out. If not, we go to Grace’s.”

Patronus seemed placated as he lay down in the bedroom doorway with a whine.

Walking back to her father’s room, she tried to think of another option. There had to be more, something to help protect everyone. A piece of the puzzle was missing and she needed to figure it out.

She stood over the boxes and papers still spread across the floor. As she stared down at them, a flash of images invaded her mind. Her knees buckled and she slammed against the hard floor. Pain throbbed like a heartbeat in her head as screeching sounds rang in her ears.

Gasping, she clutched her head. She couldn’t make out the vision, but as the pain and noise faded, she grabbed a piece of paper and stumbled upstairs for her charcoal pencils. Shapes and colors filled the page, somewhat distorted from the shaking in her hands. A sense of urgency overwhelmed her. Drawing faster and harder, she almost ripped the page several times. If it could be a solution to save them all, she couldn’t draw fast enough.

When it was finished, she turned the drawing in several directions, trying to decipher what it was. A cave with wooden doors? A large box? It was hard to say.

A bark echoed through the house. She grabbed the drawing and ran back downstairs to see what was going on.

“What is it, boy?” she called from the bottom of the stairs.

Entering her father’s room, she saw Patronus sitting on the floor beside his bed. As she got closer, he rested his head on his outstretched paw, over the pictures that remained on the floor.

She sat down next to him and patted his head, staring at the picture in her hand. Looking around the room, she thought the wooden baseboard and closet door resembled the wood box in her picture, but the rest of it didn’t look anything like the room.

She went to the closet door and opened it, the squeak echoing through the house, unnerving her. As she inspected the closet, a crack in the corner caught her eye. Placing her hand against the rough service, she ran it along the splintered old cedar.

Nothing. Silly, but there always seemed to be some secret passage in the movies. Never in reality.

Patronus barked and she turned to see him standing behind her in the closet doorway.

“What is it, boy? Something in the closet?”

He barked, as if confirming, and jumped in the air several times.

Scanning the space again, she noticed a rectangular cutout in the ceiling, like the drop-down ladder for an attic. She had assumed her bedroom was a converted attic, which meant there wasn’t one anymore. With no string to pull the ladder down, she dragged the chair over from her father’s desk and used a letter opener to try to pry it open.

After a few failed attempts, she retrieved a flat head screwdriver from a drawer in the kitchen and pried it out enough to get her hands under it. Yanking on it as hard as she could, the piece came loose and dropped to the floor with a thud. The opening wasn’t an attic, but a small cutout in the ceiling between the roof trusses.

A box sat on the rafters just inside the opening. She easily maneuvered it out then stepped down off the chair to set it on the desk. It was an exact match to the picture she’d just drawn.

Patronus returned to his spot in the doorway.

“Aren’t you a little curious?” She lifted the lid and peered inside.

There were only a few items in the box. A strange looking old-fashioned pistol, another map, and some documents. The dark revolver sat heavy and clunky in her hand, different from the modern guns she was used to firing. Etched into the handle was a symbol of two lightning bolts. She stared at it for a moment then yanked her shirt up. The design matched Forras’ mark on her abdomen. Had this gun belonged to a demon? Or was it used to kill them?

She unfolded the map and froze in terror. Like the one she’d found under her father’s bed, this map also had a red circle around Grace’s house, with
fallen angel
written next to it. Other circles had the word
demon
next to it and at the bottom was a note.

Here are the locations of the last earthbound creatures I will hunt and kill. The gun will be returned to you after the final demon is sent back to Hell. The angel’s sword will be delivered after the last fallen angel is slaughtered. Do not contact me again. This map will provide any information about the region for your future reference.

“Oh God. No!” Her father knew about Alexander and his family and planned to murder them. But why? Just because he was some sort of earthbound hunter and it was his job? Or was there more to it? Did he know about Alexander’s involvement in her mother’s death? Did they move here because of Alexander? Did he allow her to attend school and cheerleading practice only because he’d found his targets and wanted to murder them? Were there others? Who sent the letters?

Hatred, fear, and so many other emotions whirled in a fierce cyclone inside her head.

Gabby spun around. “What if he kills them, Patronus? We have to save them.” She had to stop this before it was too late. Her father was probably out there right now, killing off the demons before moving on to the fallen angels. “Come on, boy. We have to warn them.”

Patronus followed her to the front door.

About to yank it open, she hesitated. She needed to warn Alexander’s family but she also had to try to convince her father that fallen angels weren’t his enemies. But she couldn’t be in two places at once. She glanced down at Patronus, patiently waiting beside her.

“Patronus, can you go to Grace’s? Can you find Alex or Grace? I have to warn them.”

Patronus barked. He was such a smart dog.

“Be careful, boy.” She gave his neck a hug then opened the door. “Go to Grace’s.”

Patronus barked once more before racing off into the darkness.

Now for the hard part. She had to find her father and explain how each of her pictures had come true. Tell him how Alexander had saved them both. Maybe he would see that Alexander and Grace were innocent, not the demons he thought them to be. Based on the years’ worth of documents and correspondence in his bedroom, it wasn’t going to be easy.

She dashed back to his room and scooped the pictures up in her arms. As she went to stuff them back in her portfolio, her foot caught on the edge of one of the boxes and she slammed chin first into the floor, sending the papers everywhere. Struggling to pick herself back up, she rubbed her chin then reached to retrieve the scattered pictures, but stopped short. They lay on the floor in a kind of sequence. The car accident, angel wings, her father drunk and wounded, Sammy’s wing, each picture in chronological order to the ones around it.

She lifted one of the images that displayed something yet to come and noticed a familiar gold circle sketched at the bottom right corner of the page. Her father’s watch. Turning it, the image became clear. Her father was imprisoned in an old abandoned structure in the woods. Alexander and Sammy weren’t in trouble, her father was.

Blood covered the rope binding his dirty arms. Another severe wound marred his temple. He lay on the floor unconscious. A demon lurked around outside, two more in the woods. She would have never known what this picture showed if she hadn’t deciphered so many others. Brown fur mixed in with green tree limbs, glowing red eyes, her father’s watch on his wrist. She’d learned how to look at clues to figure out who and what was going on.

The structure had glass panes and a black fan.

No, it wasn’t a fan.

It was a propeller.

The boathouse.

She grabbed the old revolver from the box and bolted outside. “Patronus!”

No bark. Nothing but the wind howling through the trees.

She glanced at the cold revolver in her hand then slid it into the waistband of her shorts.

The woods stood dark and uninviting in front of her, making her hesitate. But she had no choice. The sting of anxiety nudged at her but instead of freaking out, she channeled it, using it to spur her forward. She launched off the creaky bottom step at a full sprint.

Winded, she stopped in a clearing and doubled over, bracing her hands on her knees. Two heaves and she was ready to start running again, but her head had begun to throb. Just a dull rhythmic pulse at first, but then it intensified. She grabbed her head as a vivid picture flashed in her mind. Pain, like an icy dagger, shot through her skull and she fell against a nearby tree, gasping for air. She forced herself up, only to stumble, scraping her knees on tree roots.

The image etched clearly before her eyes. Forras, with a knife at her father’s throat.

Nothing had ever been so clear or urgent.

No time
, a whisper swept her ears as if traveling on the wind. It was going to happen soon. Too soon.

She tried to keep to the path but the woods were so thick and dark, she kept veering off course. Prickly bushes and plants pierced and cut her arms and legs. Closing in on the boathouse, she pulled the gun from her waistband and held it up toward the sky, thankful for all the times her father had taken her to practice shooting. Little did she know then that it was to defend herself against demons and not bad guys.

Why had her parents kept this from her? Wait. Had her mother known what his job was? Was that his occupation back before her mother died? Could Forras have been after her father the whole time?

Once the boathouse came into view, she crouched down behind a tree, listening for any noise. If she took Forras by surprise, there was a chance she could take him out before the two in the woods came to his aid.

Several minutes passed, but nothing moved. Pointing the gun toward the building, she started to rise when another vision flooded her mind.

Their positions had changed. The demons were on the other side of the boathouse, heading away into the woods. Forras was on the floor, kneeling over her father, his knife pointed at her father’s chest. At least her father was alive and awake. But there wasn’t much time. The look in Forras’ eyes said it all.

She rushed toward the boathouse until she reached the back corner, and then crouched down. Edging toward one of the dusty windows, she stretched up, trying to peer inside, but all she could see was darkness. She needed to know where inside the building her father was. Now would be a good time for another vision, but they only seemed to come at random.

She couldn’t just go in there, shooting blindly. What if she shot her dad instead of Forras? She could feel her anxiety trying to take over again, the weight of the gun heavy and ominous in her hand. Maybe she should just try to get the gun to him. Her father was the better shot between them anyway, not to mention the one with experience killing demons.

She looked at the gun as a sudden realization struck her. How could she have been so stupid? She hadn’t even checked to see if there were bullets in it. Wanting to kick herself, she slid the cylinder open and spun it. To her relief, each chamber held a bullet. Six shots. Hopefully that would be enough.

Flipping it closed, she pulled the hammer back. But how would she get close enough to guarantee the shot? Older weapons tended to lack the accuracy of modern guns, and this revolver was the oldest she’d ever held. She needed a plan. It was one of the things her father had taught her, to always have a plan before you execute it. If the element of surprise could be used to your advantage, that was your best course of action.

Crouching in the darkness beside the boathouse, she ran through several scenarios in her head, but each ended in an undesirable outcome. Then another vision flashed. She braced her head in her hands, gritting her teeth against the pain as the scene played out in her mind.

Captured by two demons, they dragged her into the boathouse.

That was it. Her plan. She would give herself up. They wouldn’t know she had the gun. She could pretend she was running to Alexander’s house and scream into the night, acting frantic with worry. Gremory and Donn weren’t very bright. It could work. It had to work.