Guardian (The Protectors Series) (21 page)

Thompson turned the canoe toward the shore, pushing the prow onto the ground with powerful strokes. Mel hopped out to pull it farther ashore.

Per protocol, she always carried a round chambered to avoid the noise of racking the slide. Burton had sent her a 12-gauge, short pump shotgun, the type commonly used for riot control. Mel slid the sling over her shoulder. Thompson also carried a 12-gauge along with his county-issue .40 caliber sidearm. If these were moonshiners or drug runners, they would be heavily armed.

Together, Mel and Thompson crept through the trees to the prairie’s edge. More men were visible in the clearing now, a dozen, all masked. Could a mask like that have been what Hettie’s friend saw?

Worse than the masks, though, were the handguns at their hips and the MAC-10 machine pistols two of them carried in shoulder rigs. Mel and Thompson were outgunned. Radioing for backup, once they knew what was happening, would be smarter than taking on this crowd.

Half a dozen pickup trucks stood near the end of the dirt road across the clearing. Maybe because the spongy ground near the water couldn’t support their weight?

Another truck arrived, driving twenty yards farther in. It parked, and a trio of masked men climbed out. They walked forward, into the light, and their jaundiced complexions and muddy eyes became visible. Mel’s heart jolted.

The clearing faded, the interior of a little house filling her vision, and a man like these, but bigger, purple-eyed, advanced on her with a roar. She backpedaled, firing, the bullets bouncing off. Center mass, head shots, nothing connecting. Panic churning in her veins, the bitter, metallic taste of adrenaline in her mouth—

“Spies,” a hoarse voice shouted. Mel snapped back to the present with that metallic taste on her tongue again.

The masked men in the clearing drew their weapons, heads moving as though they scanned the area.

“There,” one of the new arrivals rapped out, pointing.

He’d pinned the spot where Mel and Thompson crouched.
Shit.

M
el leveled her Glock as she backed away, seeking cover, a big cypress, anything. At her side, Thompson had his shotgun trained on the clearing. The men with submachine guns leveled them.

Oh, crap!
She dived for the ground as a fusillade of bullets tore through the vegetation above her. If the shooters lowered their aim, she was dead.

Thompson gave a wordless cry. As she twisted to look, his body jerked. Blood stained his shoulder and one arm.

The gunfire stopped. The men started toward the trees, spreading out.

Mel touched his shoulder. “Walt, can you move?”

His face tight with pain, he shook his head. But he had two fingers on the radio mic at his injured shoulder. “Go,” he choked. With his good hand, he fumbled for his sidearm.

“I’ll draw them off.” Mel grabbed his shotgun, useless to him now. If she used all seven rounds in hers, she could switch out without the delay of reloading. She holstered her Glock. Heart in her throat and weapon leveled, she stood.

“FBI! Freeze,” she shouted. Firing a blast from the shotgun, she dived to the side, behind a big log.

Bullets tore into it, but she was already scrambling away, pumping the weapon.

Bullets zinged past her and ripped through the undergrowth. She jumped behind a big tree, knelt, and fired at one of the big guys heading toward Thompson. The blast of 00 Buck staggered him. He fell to one knee, clutching his side, but his gaze stayed on her. He pointed directly at her. But how?

She scrambled through the trees, but his pointing finger tracked her.
Damn it.
He looked like the guy she and Stefan had fought in the road, but his eyes were muddy looking, not purple.

His buddies were moving toward her. Converging. Away from Walt, but she couldn’t evade them forever.

Mel fired and pumped, fired and pumped as she ran, doubling back toward the canoe.

Something slammed into her shoulder, knocking her down. Dazed, she rolled to see a devil-mask bringing his weapon to bear. Mel fired. The blast struck him in the chest. As he collapsed, she rolled toward the water. Alligators or no, if she could get under it, swim away…

Gunfire came from behind her, then a fusillade interspersed with shotgun blasts. What?

Mel spun in time to see Stefan knock a MAC-10 out of a devil-mask’s hands. He put the guy down with one blow to the forehead. Her skin tingled with the same energy she’d felt at Cinda’s, but stronger.

“Stefan, how—?” She was glad to see him, but he was in danger now, too.

“We heard Thompson call for backup.” Stefan caught her hand. “I’m shielding us. Come on, we’ll flank them.”

“Why don’t you have your sword?”

“I don’t want them to see me use it.” He tugged her to her feet and led her around the clearing, toward the trucks.

Mel pulled on his hand. “Back toward the canoe is smarter.”

He grinned. “I didn’t come alone.”

From her left, a man shouted, “Deputy Sheriff! Freeze! Drop your weapons!”

“Griff,” Stefan said.

The men swung toward the sound of Griff’s voice, unleashing another burst of gunfire, but the three big ones, the ones whose masks looked real, peeled off. Glowing muddy yellow now—glowing?—one charged directly at Mel and Stefan while another dashed toward Griff’s apparent position and the third raced toward Mel’s left.

“Behind me,” Stefan said.

“Hell with that.” Mel aimed at the big man. She was not going to miss.

But somehow, she did. “Fuck, what is wrong with my aim?” She fired again as she and Stefan scrambled right, flanking.
Missed
. “Dammit!”

“He’s shielded,” Stefan said.

This time, the term clicked in her brain.

Griff shouted again, and then his shotgun boomed. The blast caught one of the big men in the chest. He staggered backward, then fell.

Mel sighted on a guy with a MAC-10 as he swung toward Griff. Her double-tap nailed him in the temple, and he spun as he fell to the ground. She dropped her empty magazine and smacked another one home, then racked the slide to chamber the round. The crack of a handgun from the trees nailed another devil-mask.

“Val,” Stefan explained.

A second shotgun blast roared out, but the big, muddy-eyed guy was almost on them. Mel noted the devil-mask guy at his side and behind him.

Muddy Eyes blasted a six-inch stream of golden-brown energy out of his hand. Mel gaped.

Stefan shoved her out of the way and knocked Muddy Eyes’ legs out from under him.

They were both glowing, Stefan silvery and Muddy Eyes a murky, brownish yellow. Mel blinked, then rubbed her eyes. What the hell?

His companion aimed at Stefan, jolting her to action. Mel fired twice, nailing him center mass, as Stefan and the big guy grappled.

Mel wheeled to Stefan but didn’t have a good shot. He and his foe staggered toward the water, exchanging blows. Stefan said something odd and slammed his crossed hands into Muddy Eyes’ chest. The glow surrounding the man faded. He stiffened, then fell.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

“Over there!” He ran toward the trucks. Mel followed.

Four of the devil masks were running for the trucks, heading for the driver’s-side doors. Stefan’s friend Will stepped out from behind the high bed of the nearest one. His movements a blur, he seized the man’s gun hand, forcing it down, and took him out with a blow to the throat and, pivoting, an elbow strike to the face.

Before the next one could draw a bead, Will was on him, too.

Wow. A librarian who fought like a ninja. Cool. And…baffling.

The third and fourth men in the group jumped into a blue pickup and cut a sharp U-turn, heading for the road. Will stopped the truck with a shot to the engine block. The two climbed out with their hands raised. He said something, and they knelt.

Other devil-masks lay in the clearing, and the distant scream of sirens hovered in the night air.

Val and Griff were still battling devil-masks. Two ran, empty-handed, toward Mel and Stefan.

Mel jerked her weapon up, but Griff and Val were in her line of fire. She sidestepped, and the nearer of the two attackers lunged at her. She ducked his punch, slammed her own into his left kidney, and kneed him in the gut. An elbow strike to the back of his neck put him down for the count.

“Clear,” Val called out. She stood in the middle of the open space, Walther at the ready.

“Clear,” came from Griff, scanning the woods at the prairie’s far side with his shotgun leveled.

Mel turned to check the man Stefan had dispatched. He was gone. “Stefan.” She grabbed his arm. “Where’s the guy you put down?”

“Clear,” Will announced from beside the trucks.

Stefan pulled a flashlight from his back pocket. Holding it out to his side, he found a trail of flattened grasses leading to the water.

“Looks like a gator got him, dragged him into the water. They hunt at night.”

She’d read they were nocturnal and liked the water’s edge, but…there it was again, that
off
vibe. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that what happened, Stefan, really?”

“It’s a swamp. The guy was dead. Gators will take a free meal as quickly as anything else in the wild.” Turning his head slightly toward his friends, he kept his gaze on hers and called, “Clear.”

Mel headed back toward the canoe. “We need to check on Thompson.”

“I checked him on the way in and called for an ambulance. There’s someone with him, but I should check him again.”

“You were glowing,” she said, keeping her voice down so it wouldn’t carry. “You both were.”

“Yeah. It’s part of the deal. The energy shielding I mentioned. I shielded the two of us, too. You may have felt the energy.”

So that explained it. “What about that…whatever it was when he blasted power out of his hand. You said something the other night about moving energy with your hands. Is that the kind of thing you meant?”

“Yes.”

Oh, crap
. Mel steeled herself. “Don’t tell me that’s
energy manipulation
,
too.”

“Yes, it is, at a very high level.” His face set in unhappy lines, he added, “You wanted to take things slowly. I’d planned to tell you this part soon.”

Mel nodded, beginning to see just how much more there was than what he’d shared so far. But there were more pressing issues. “Energy manipulation doesn’t explain a vanishing corpse. Or a librarian with lethal combat skills.”

“I told you,” Stefan reminded her, “there are gators in the swamp. Will is a fifth-degree black belt in two different fighting disciplines.”

“Okay, I can buy that Will likes a good fight and that a gator could take a corpse near the water.” No matter how uneasy that last was making her. “How do we explain the doctor who doesn’t flinch from a hand-to-hand encounter? Practice is one thing. Fighting a live opponent is altogether different. Even hard sparring, full contact, doesn’t explain this. Val and Griff, I can see. They’ve been cops. Stefan, you and Will fight as though you’ve done it before, for real. Lives-on-the-line real.”

And Stefan showed no shock or other after-effects of having taken a life. With his bare hands, at that. What was he, really?

He raised an eyebrow. “If I’d known ahead of time that you were coming out here, I would’ve moved up my timetable on our talk.”

“You still could’ve, on the way to meet Walt.”

He looked tense, worried. “It’s not a simple conversation, Mel.”

“Why not? What’s stopping you from being honest with me?” She’d listened to him, accepted him, despite her misgivings, and to be fair, he’d told her he could do a lot more. The shock of how much more was hitting her hard.

He shook his head. “Mel,” he said wearily, “why won’t you trust me? Haven’t I proven myself to you?”

The question stung. She kept her voice even with an effort. “I want to. I wish I could. Unfortunately, nothing about this has been
simple
for us.”

This was the second time a body had disappeared when Stefan was involved. That was once too often for coincidence. Not to mention she felt that weird vibe again.

They reached Thompson. A broad-shouldered, chestnut-haired man knelt beside him. The man stood to greet them.

“Carter,” Stefan said, “this is FBI Special Agent Mel Wray. Mel, Carter Lockwood. He happened to be in the area.”

Yeah, and maybe she might
happen
by the Eiffel Tower tomorrow. She exchanged courteous nods and handshakes with the man.

A backpack, probably with medical supplies, lay beside Walt. Stefan knelt to check him as the approaching sirens grew louder.

Sooner or later, they would have this out, but with the ambulance and the sheriff’s department cars screaming down the dirt road, it would have to wait.

Mop-up occupied them until well into the morning’s early hours. At five a.m., Burton assembled everyone in the courthouse conference room.

He beamed around the table. “As I said at the scene, boys and girls, damn good work.” Rubbing his hands together, he added, “We got us three hundred and thirty-two bricks of cocaine locked in our evidence room. I’m guessing those sumbitches brought it into the country through Florida, then up here for distribution where they figured nobody would see it.”

“No sign of the missing bodies, Sheriff,” Deputy Garner reported. “Looks like maybe gators got those three. Or they swam away.”

“Mine had a chest full of double-aught buckshot,” Griffin said.

“Mine was dead,” Stefan said. “I hit him hard. I guess his heart stopped, but I’m sure he was dead.”

“It’s damn weird, all right, but let’s just say I’m not real broken up over a gator gettin’ the body of somebody who tried to kill my team.” Burton shook his head. “If gators did get ’em, they’ll turn up sooner or later. Bits of ’em, anyway. Go home and get some sleep. I’m going to do the same, then read your reports.”

Mel fumed in silence. Three bodies disappearing—coincidentally only the three that looked like their assault and murder perps—while no one in the clearing noticed, was stretching possibility. Alligators couldn’t exactly move fast or quietly while dragging something big, and two of those bodies had fallen a good thirty to forty feet from the water.

She and Stefan left the sheriff’s department together. As he opened the passenger door of his car for her, he said, “We should try to get some sleep. We’re both beat.”

He was right about one thing. She was bone tired, but Mel shook her head. “I’m sorry, Stefan, but I’m going back to Cinda’s alone. There’s so much going on, and I’m struggling to wrap my head around everything.”

“Mel—”

“Please, Stefan. I’m trying on the trust issues. On the acceptance. But that isn’t going to work if you hide things from me. Or lie to investigators. I remember the fight at Wiley Boone’s house now, and I have this nasty feeling you and your friends tampered with evidence tonight.”

His eyes narrowed. “The bodies are gone, Mel. I didn’t take them. What do you want from me?”

“The truth. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you.”

“I’m taking this slowly, like you wanted. Trust is all I’ve ever wanted from you, and you can’t seem to give me that.”

“Then we’re at an impasse.” She rubbed the ache starting between her eyebrows. “I can’t trust you if I know you’re keeping things from me. That matters even more than the glowing, the energy bursts, the general weirdness.”

Stefan’s eyes reflected her pain. “Don’t shut me out,” he said. “If I’m going to lie awake, I’d rather be beside you while I do it.”

And she longed to have him there. The idea of going to bed without him made her heart hurt. But no relationship could last without mutual trust. “Do you know what happened to those bodies?”

His eyes softened. “Please Mel, just give me some time. I promise to tell you everything when the time is right.”

“Wrong answer.” It made the ache in her chest spread until she could hardly breathe.

Stefan turned into Cinda’s driveway and turned off the engine. He climbed out of the car as Mel did and met her in front of the hood, determination in the set of his jaw and the lines of his body.