Keeper Chronicles: Awakening (33 page)

“Gabe!” she screamed, running for the house.

Heat and flames pummeled her, stopping her as surely as any wall. When she couldn’t get in near the front door, she ran around the back of the house, looking for any way in—any sign that he might have escaped. Her parents had never really taught her to track or hunt game, so she didn’t know what she was looking for as she scoured the brush around back. All she knew was that the fire was too hot for her to search the house, and she had to do something.

Gabe might be unconscious. He could have been thrown from the house by the blast like her or ran off in pursuit of the demon. If he thought it’d keep her safe, she wouldn’t put anything past him.

The wail of sirens grew so loud she couldn’t hear herself think by the time she found the tracks leading away from the house. Whoever had run that way hadn’t made any effort to cover their trail, blazing through the undergrowth and wearing down the grass with each step. It must be Gabe. The demon would’ve known better. Would’ve tried to hide.

Hurrying, she followed the path of broken sticks and trampled undergrowth easily, ignoring the bare tree branches that clawed at her with their spidery fingers. The chill of November crept into her chest as she ran, breath misting in front of her once she was far enough away from the fire for the air to be less affected. The further she pressed into the woods, the more distant echoed the greedy crunch of fire and shouts of rescue workers. Of course the demon would have gone this way, running from the road and pursuit. And, of course, Gabe would have followed. It was his duty, after all. He always did his duty.

Each step she made into the woods, the more certain she became that Gabe was alive and she would soon see him. He’d told her about the connection—the link Keepers have that warns them if one of their number passes away. She’d not felt it. Not since her father died.

That only left one possible interpretation.

Gabe lived.

After about ten minutes, the trail made by Gabe and the demon merged with that of one of the local trails that crossed the region for hunters and campers. Rebekah stopped at the fork, unsure which path to take: right or left.

“Shit,” she whispered, looking both ways down the vacant trail. Little more than a trodden dirt path, the trail looked like any other trail looked: covered in footsteps. How was she going to figure out which set belonged to Gabe in all this confusion?

Taking a short breath, she turned down the right trail and went about fifty feet, scanning the ground and trees for anything unusual. Nothing. She doubled back, jogging the other way down the trail as she lost herself in all the details made visible through her sharper vision. If she focused in any one place, her sight magnified, enlarging what she was looking at.

That was how she found the drop of blood.

Just one drop, half covered by dirt, down the road. Gabe’s or the demon’s?

It didn’t matter. Even if the blood wasn’t his, Gabe would not have given up his pursuit so easily. He’d have seen the drop and kept running, so she would to do the same.

A small sliver of hope, just a shaving, crept into her thoughts as she ran.

Rebekah saw it the same moment a chill shook her from head to toe as though someone had put a bell in her body and rung it.

Death.

One of the Keepers had just died.

There, off to the side of the trail, sprawled a body covered in dirt and leaves.

“No,” she whispered, running over to the limp form. “Please don’t let it be him. Please let it be anyone else.” Parks Services—the body wore a Park Services uniform. Her heart sank as she knelt in the leaves. She rolled over the body and froze.

“Hello, princess,” Dylan said with a grin, his body reeking of smoke as his voice sounded frightening like her mother’s. “Miss me?”

Dylan? He was supposed to be in Michigan. What was he doing...Rebekah seized as the Taser sent wave after wave of voltage blasting her chest, knocking her over. Then she felt nothing.

****

“Stay in the car,
mon ange
,” Colette said, looking over her shoulder into the back seat. Jenna, her head resting on the coat Nicholas had given her, lay curled up in a small ball. Elder Sloan had been hesitant to release the child to their custody, but Hunter authority superseded all. He was forced to comply. Since then, the girl had barely said more than ten words to the both of them; Colette wondered if they’d made a terrible mistake. What if something happened to the girl? How would she be able to live with herself?

She got out and shut the door behind her.

Nicholas got out on the driver’s side, one hand on the short sword strapped at his waist. She looked at him, then Jenna, and smiled despite the new fear that coiled around her heart like a snake. Was this what it felt like to be responsible for another human being? She understood why some people chose not to have kids.

“How do you want to approach this?” he asked.

Examining the dilapidated trailer, a broken swing set and some mangled plastic animals scattered around the yard, there didn’t seem to be too many places to hide. “I’ll take the front; go around back in case he tries to run that way. Keep your eye open for any traps. Something about this feels wrong.”

Nicholas nodded and ran in a crouch toward the back of the house, drawing his weapon.

With one final look toward the car, Colette walked up to the front door and knocked. “Police. Is anyone inside?” She tried to look in through the curtain, but the inside the house was dark. She knocked again, louder this time. “Miss Wythrop? Are you in there? We are here to help! Please, open the door!”

Still no response. Colette dropped to her knees and put her ear against the fiberglass door. The inside the trailer was quiet at first, until the soft scraping of wood on tile drew her attention. Like someone scooted across the floor in a chair. The soft beating of one heart echoed off the walls.

“I’m coming in!” she yelled, kicking down the door and drawing her gun in the same motion.

Scooting across the floor—mouth taped, arms and legs strapped to a chair, an explosive vest around her shoulders—was the witch Mia. Her bloodshot eyes looked terrified.

“Oh, God, don’t move. I’m going to get you out of there.” Colette hurried over and ripped the gray duct tape off.

“You need to leave,” Mia licked her cracked lips and leaned away. “He took the woman, and he’s going to kill her.”

“When?”

“Not long. Maybe a couple of hours. He seemed...”

Colette looked up from examining the bomb. “How?”

Mia grinned. “Frantic.”

The witch was right; the demon had to be the priority. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” She looked around, but since there weren’t any other exists to the small trailer, she hurried back to the front door and looked out. “Nicholas! Get in here.”

“What’s wrong?” As he ran around the corner, she looked past him to the patrol car where Jenna’s small head looked out one of the windows. “Colette...?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Mia’s inside. Nicholas, the demon has her wired up with a bomb.”

“What about the pregnant girl?”

“No. He’s already got her and a lead of a couple hours.” Colette hesitated. “I don’t want to leave her here like this, but we have to go after him, don’t we? We can’t let him break open one of the seals. What about Gabe? He’s skilled. We could send him to the lighthouse after it.”

As he rubbed one hand through his hair and looked at the ground, she had a bad feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say next. Nicholas shook his head. “The house he was investigating exploded.”

“Rebekah?”

“Was there, too. I’m sorry. It’s us or no one.”

Colette looked over at Jenna. “But I didn’t feel anything?”

“You wouldn’t have. They’re not of our region, remember?” His voice was heavy with sympathy, and he touched her left arm, caressing it in apology.

A calm spread through her, soothing her raging emotions as her breathing normalized. The demon would pay for what it’d done. It would pay and she was the one going to make it. She turned to her husband. “Stay here with Jenna and see if you can disarm the bomb.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m going to go kill this damn thing once and for all.” Colette took his face in her hands and kissed him. “And when he’s dead, that’s it. I’m done Hunting.”

Nicholas touched her face. “I’d like that. Now go.”

She ran for the car. Opening the back door, she reached inside for Jenna. The girl looked tired to the point of tears, though she didn’t resist when Colette tried to pull her out. “I need you to stay with Nicholas, okay? There’s something I have to do. I’ll be back real soon, I promise.”

Jumping in the driver’s seat, Colette turned the key in the ignition and drove for the Meceta Head lighthouse. For a demon to be able to unseal any of the gates, it would have to perform the sacrifice at the exact same location where it had made its first kill. Given what she learned through the spell on Halloween, she knew it had come in near the lighthouse. Otherwise, the old keeper wouldn’t have been the first victim.

She sped away from Florence and toward the coast when she saw the first set of fire trucks pass, probably headed to fight the blaze claiming the lives of Rebekah and Gabe. So much senseless death, so much suffering, all because of one demon. Where others would have held on to the hope that their friends might still be alive, she knew that such thoughts were illusions at best. Fatal distractions at worst. If she let herself worry about them, she’d never be able to do her job with Adam. She’d never be able to kill him.

In her youth, she might have called in a coven and tried to contain the demon through magic; now, her blood fully awakened as a Hunter, her other skills were far sharper. This demon’s head was going to roll if she had anything to say about it. The thing deserved no less. Far worse, actually.

Colette looked in her rearview mirror. Behind her, a thick plume of black smoke rose to the sky. A moment later, it was joined by a second to her left.

The sharp hiss of static from the radio in the patrol car startled her. “Hunter 097 are you there? Please come in, over.”

She picked up the hand device and squeezed the trigger. “This is 097.”

“We’re under attack. Gunmen have fired on the main office. Two junior officers are dead, several more wounded. They have us surrounded.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” she asked.

The voice that came back on belonged to Gabe’s mother. Colette wondered if she knew about her son. Wondered if she knew he’d most likely been killed. “Please, Colette. I know you’re a good person. He says he won’t stop until he has you. Until you surrender to him. Every moment you delay is costing one of my people their lives.”

Shit. She slammed on the brakes. “Have you seen him, Mrs. McDaniel?”

The static in the machine couldn’t disguise the woman’s grief. “No. But I know it’s him. It’s the monster that killed my son. Please, you have to stop him before he kills anyone else. Come back to the station.”

For an instant, the space it took her to breathe in and out once, she almost turned the car around and drove back. Almost. Colette didn’t doubt that the demon had his puppet minions attacking the office; however, she knew it for the distraction it was. First with Gabe, then Mia and the bombs, now attacking the office—Adam desperately wanted her away from the lighthouse. That made it the place she most needed to be.

“Tell them I’ll be right there,” she lied into the radio as she slammed on the gas. Angry clouds began to gather overhead.

Adam had begun the sacrifice.

****

Colette parked at the entrance of the gravel lane connecting the bed-n-breakfast and the tower, not wanting to give away her presence with unnecessary vehicle noises. Although Adam would be counting on having occupied them all with the destruction around town, it didn’t pay to take chances when so much depended on success.

The pines, scraggly thin things worn away from years of storms and rough coastal winds, offered a modicum of cover as she slipped into them and took the trail that followed the shoreline to the tower. A squirrel chatted at her from a nearby branch, an acorn in its claws as it scolded her for invading its territory.

“Shhh,” she hissed, shooing it away before it gave up her position.

Her breath misted, steaming around her mouth like a dragon’s while she slithered through underbrush toward the tower where the demon had to have taken the girl. For a second, she glimpsed the house through the trees to her right and paused. Although she couldn’t see anything wrong—no fire or magical aura—the feeling persisted so strongly she almost turned and headed up to the house. No. She couldn’t afford the distraction. The sacrifice had to take place where the demon made his first kill. That was the tower. She could check on the house afterward.

Thanks to the trees, she made it all the way to the area around the tower unseen as above her the darkening clouds coalesced into thunderheads, taking the noontime light and transforming it to an early twilight. Colette hesitated at the tree line; she wouldn’t put it past him to have some kind of trap just in case someone got through. After all, she’d shared his memories and seen into his mind; she knew better than anyone what he was capable of—anything. And he knew enough not to underestimate her tenacity.

A woman screamed, the sound carrying on the rising wind as a soft snow began to fall. Although she didn’t like crossing the open space in front of the tower without time to really study her surroundings, the scream didn’t leave her with much of a choice. She had to risk it. He might be moments away from breaking the seal.

Keeping her hands near her hatchets, Colette looked both ways to see if anyone watched and ran for the tower, sticking close to the base as she angled around for the door. She took a breath to calm herself then opened the door and went inside.

The base of the tower was dominated by a huge metal stairwell. Her fingers freed the twin hatchets, flexing around the shaft as she slowly began climbing the stairs. The Keeper had died in the watch room. Above her, a woman sobbed noisily, begging the demon Adam not to do it. Please don’t hurt her. The demon said nothing.