His lips quirked. “I promise you, Melena, if there is anything in this world you can count on, it is that I will not give you up. Not for anyone or anything. Until the end of your days I will always be near.”
An exasperated sigh came from nearby. “I do believe the worst torture of being on earth is watching you two get mushy. There was a time when I would have staked my life on Lucas never speaking this way. It makes me long for my home and how things used to be.”
Kerbasi. How could I have possibly forgotten about him? It was a miracle he’d stayed quiet for this long.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The men followed me toward the house. As we got closer the bombardment of emotions hit me until I almost couldn’t breathe. Pain, regret, anger, and frustration—all pushing their way into the barriers of my mind. Charlie’s human relatives were in deep grief over his death. Though I’d liked and respected him, they’d loved him.
We came through the door into a full house. People were gathered in the living room, speaking in low tones and crying. Others stood around in the dining room eating from a buffet of baked goods on the table. Death and food—Kerbasi would be pleased.
A few people I vaguely recognized nodded as we passed them. I led Lucas and the guardian toward the den, knowing that’s where we needed to go. The pain and sorrow hitting my senses had the heaviest concentration there.
The shroud covering his body was the first thing I saw. He’d been laid out on a table covered with a white sheet. Trinkets, flower cuttings, and other symbols of love circled him. A year ago I’d attended a wake with Charlie after a niece of his—at least that’s what he called her—passed away. They’d done the same thing with her.
He’d said it was a family tradition started when he first became a shaman. Those who wished to do so could leave an item that held some kind of significance and it would get buried with the body. I’d forgotten about the practice until now and wished I had something to offer.
A man and woman stood at the table, blocking my view of Charlie’s head. A few more people sat in chairs off to the side, saying nothing, but their eyes were red and swollen and one of them sniffled. I stood back and waited to pay my respects.
Whatever I was about to see, it wouldn’t be easy. Someone had cast a spell over him to conceal the damage from the attack. They wouldn’t do that unless it was beyond what makeup could hide. As it was, I could tell from the shape of his legs under the shroud that they didn’t quite look right. Too thin and uneven.
The couple finally moved away and I had to grip Lucas’ arm. A cry rose from deep within me. I fought to suppress it, swallowing hard. People were looking at me and they knew about my abilities. If I revealed the horror of what I was seeing it would only upset them.
Charlie’s body was mostly covered, saving me from the worst, but not his face. It was beyond recognition. Blackened holes where his eyes should have been. Cheeks burned to a crisp and he had no nose. All his hair was gone, too. If there was any doubt before about how he’d been taken down, it was gone now. Only explosives could have done this kind of damage.
I didn’t breathe. Lucas stayed by my side as I took slow steps toward the body. Everything in me screamed to look away. That Charlie wouldn’t want me to see him like this, but I had to do it. For the relatives who didn’t know how truly horrifying his death had been. I couldn’t imagine the psychological damage it had done to those who’d found and tended to him.
How long had he fought before his body gave out?
I stared down at his ruined form, knowing he would have kept pushing the attackers back until his dying breath. Charlie may have been a difficult man, but he’d never shirked his duties. He’d had honor and they’d dared to do this to him.
Somehow I knew my father must have been involved—either in the planning or the operation itself. He was cold and indifferent enough to do it. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to give him a taste of his own medicine.
A full minute passed, then two. That was enough and all I could take. I turned and headed out of the room at a normal pace, letting nothing show beyond a hint of sorrow. We’d almost reached the front door when a middle-aged woman with gray hair and deeply tanned skin stepped in front of us.
Beth. A granddaughter—many generations removed—who I’d met a few times since moving to Fairbanks. She’d taken it upon herself to look after Charlie and make sure he ate properly. She had a motherly way about her.
“Melena.” She gave me a sad smile. “I’m glad you made it in time.”
My brows furrowed. “In time?”
“Yes.” Beth nodded. “We could only do the wake for one day. It is tradition that the new shaman bury the old one by sunset.”
“There’s a new one already?”
Her eyes misted. “My son, actually. His abilities awakened when my grandfather passed. He’s out preparing the burial site now.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
It seemed like the proper thing to ask, though I had no idea what I could do. They’d built up their own private customs to support the shaman in their family.
“Thank you, no. The burial will be private and the family will mourn together.” She lifted her hand, revealing a white envelope. “You can take this.”
I stared at it for a moment before accepting it from her. “What is it?”
“Charlie must have known his time was at an end. I found several letters on his nightstand, this one addressed to you.”
Had he given clues indicating his death was imminent? Did I miss them? He’d been such a private man that maybe he hadn’t wanted anyone to know, to worry about him.
I clutched at the envelope. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Beth gave me a hug, crushing me to her soft form.
Letting her go, Lucas and I stepped out of the house. I tapped at the envelope and considered reading it then, but didn’t think I was ready. Instead I folded, then stuffed it into my back pocket.
“Did you want to check the cellar?” I asked Lucas.
He nodded. “It could not hurt.”
“Okay, let’s…”
My senses sparked and dread crawled in my belly. Jerome was coming, and he wasn't alone. A half-dozen other sensors accompanied him. They were driving fast and would be at the house within a couple of minutes. While I wanted to confront him, this was the worst possible time for it.
Chapter Thirty-four
I shoved the front door open and ducked my head inside.
“Everyone head to the back door now! Charlie’s attackers are returning.”
They stared at me. Most of them were too caught up in their grief to comprehend what I was saying. A few men and women caught my urgency and started to move their families toward the back, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to get out faster.
“From the road?” Lucas asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, and my father is with them. There’s no time to get everyone away, but we have to try.”
If it was anyone except sensors Lucas could have used some kind of magic to protect Charlie’s family. If we hadn’t already seen their willingness to use heavy weaponry we might have tried keeping the people indoors and out of sight. These were unusual circumstances and there was no time to come up with a better plan.
Kerbasi yawned. “I’ll be in the Jeep taking a nap. Wake me when the family drama is over.”
He stalked off without a backward glance. It was probably just as well he stayed out of the way. The guardian had a tendency to make things worse more often than not. There was no telling how Jerome would react to the guardian’s snarky comments.
“I’ll get them out,” Lucas said.
He went inside and started grabbing women and children one by one to flash them away to the nearby woods. It wasn’t an instant process and the farther he went the longer it took to get there and back. Dropping them off close by allowed him to move people faster.
I started working my way around the house, urging people to go out the back door. The hardest part was getting the children to leave. Many of them were separated from their mothers and looking for them rather than fleeing.
We hadn’t cleared more than half of them before Jerome and his cronies pulled up, slamming to a halt behind a row of parked cars. I caught sight of them through the window and rushed to the front porch, ready to stop them by myself if I had to.
Until I saw what they’d brought with them.
Four men leaped out of their vehicle with RPGs and machine guns in their arms. Jerome, wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying his own weapon, came striding toward the house. He stopped once to glance at Kerbasi—who gave a friendly little wave from the Jeep—and kept going. Yeah, no threat there. Word had spread that the guardian couldn’t harm anyone unless provoked. As well-connected as Jerome seemed to be, he must have known that.
“Lucas!” I yelled as soon as I sensed him return to the house.
He came out to join me on the porch.
“I could go over and break all their necks,” he suggested.
“Not if you want Melena to live, you won’t,” Jerome said. He now stood twenty feet away next to an old Cadillac.
I put a hand on my hip. “And how do you plan to do that?”
He let out a slow smile. “My guy back there has an RPG trained on you, but he’s not the only one. I’ve got friends out in the woods—humans you can’t detect—who have rockets aimed in this direction. Their instructions are to fire if anyone makes a move on me or my guys. As a final precaution, this house is wired with explosives and one of my men has the detonator. Does that spell it out for you simply enough?”
“Is he telling the truth?” Lucas asked in a low tone.
“Yes,” I hissed out.
And there was no way to be sure if I could survive an RPG attack or bombs any better than Charlie. Who knew what they’d wired up or how much explosives they’d used when they’d broken Zoe out.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What do you want?”
“Would you believe I missed my daughter and wanted to check up on her?”
The sorry bastard stood there making jokes while threatening innocent people.
“If you wanted to talk, I could think of about a hundred ways that would be better than this.” I glared at him.
“Maybe for you.” He looked beyond the house and his jaw hardened. “You better tell your nephilim to stop those people from leaving or I’ll have my guys detonate the bombs now.”
Damn. I was hoping we could stall him long enough for them to get free. Standing outside with the ability to run away, I had a chance of surviving, but not the humans.
“Do it,” I said to Lucas. “He isn’t kidding. He’ll blow them up if we don’t keep them from leaving.”
He flashed away and my senses caught him resurfacing behind the house. It was too bad Lucas couldn’t have grabbed the whole group and gotten them out of the line of fire before Jerome’s arrival, but even his magic had limits. Now he had to herd the stragglers back inside, though I couldn’t be sure how many were left.
“You’re supposed to protect humans. Not threaten their lives,” I accused.
“I don’t want to kill them.” Jerome took a step forward. “But this was the only safe way I could find to talk to you face-to-face. It’s up to you to keep the folks in there from dying.”
Oh, sure. My decision. What a bunch of crap.
I balled my fists. “Then how about you say what you want to say and get the hell away from here?”
“If I’d raised you…” He shook his head. “You’d never talk to me like that.”
Lucas flashed back onto the porch. I didn’t glance at him and neither did Jerome.
“If you’d raised me, I wouldn’t have talked to you like that because I would have slit your throat by the time I was ten.” Maybe younger. I barely knew him and I hated him.
Jerome’s face hardened. “Then I’ll get to the point. Don’t look for Zoe if you know what’s good for you. She’s long gone and you ain’t gonna get her.”
“That’s what you came here to tell me?” I lifted a brow.
He took a step forward. “There’s one more thing. Tell the alpha to call off his wolves from the airstrip. If he doesn’t, this house blows and everyone in it. Don’t any of you try to leave during that time, either. My guys out in the woods will hang around until they either get confirmation from me that we’re good—or they don’t. Then you and your friends die.”
He’d been smart, putting humans as his back-up in the woods. No easy way to find them.
“Do you swear they’ll back off once the werewolves are gone?” I asked. No way was I taking chances on this one if I had to let him escape.
“As soon as I’m in the air, I’ll give them the all-clear.”
In that moment I hated my father even more than I thought possible. How could I have come from such an evil man? The very thought of it made me want to take a long, hot shower and scrub myself clean of him.
“Fine. I’ll call Derrick.”
He looked at Lucas. “You both stay right here on the porch where my men can see you. If you move from it or go inside, they will fire. While you might survive, your woman and the rest of the people here probably won’t.”