Slayers: Friends and Traitors (31 page)

“Wait,” Bess called to Willow. “How will we find him?”

“Look for his truck”—Willow put her hand on the doorknob—“and he’ll find you.” She went inside without another word.

He’ll find you? Did that mean he would be waiting for them? And what was he doing up on a ridge on Halloween night anyway? Was he by himself?

Bess and Tori turned and walked toward the van, hurrying. Bess pulled off her bandana and shoved it into her jeans pocket. “Willow didn’t think it was strange that you came from Burlington to see Ryker. You know what this means, don’t you?” She smiled happily. “Ryker is totally hot. This is awesome. I am so ready to meet a Slayer who doesn’t feel like a brother.”

They climbed into the van. Dr. B moved it a little farther down the street so the Davises wouldn’t see them parked in front of their house and become suspicious. While Tori and Bess put on their body armor, neck mikes, and earpieces, they relayed what they had learned about Ryker.

“And depending on what Willow texted to him,” Tori finished up, “he might be expecting stalkers. Bess told her that I think Ryker is my soul mate.”

“Well,” Jesse said so softly that he probably didn’t mean for Tori to hear him, “that’s about how fast you move on to the next guy, isn’t it?”

Tori shot him a sharp look to let him know that she’d heard him.

“We’ll need to divide into two teams,” Dr. B said. “One will guard Ryker’s house in case Overdrake’s men show up, the other will look for Ryker. Captains?”

At first Tori thought Dr. B had forgotten Dirk was gone. When she raised her gaze to Dr. B, he was staring back at her. He was waiting for her opinion.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to lead.

“I’ll stay here to guard,” Jesse said. “I want Kody and Bess with me. They’ll be the most useful against Overdrake’s men.”

Bess let out a groan. “Seriously? The other three girls get to meet Ryker, while I have to stay here?”

“Sorry,” Jesse told her. “No one else can throw a shield up that protects against bullets.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bess adjusted her neck mike, then put in her earpiece. “If my fairy godmother shows up with a gown and some cool shoes—I’m totally out of here.”

Dr. B had downloaded directions to Bird Mountain on his phone. “Depending on where Ryker is on the ridge, he’s probably seven or eight miles away. That means while we’re gone, Jesse’s team will be out of range for part of the time.” Dr. B frowned, unhappy about this fact. “I can’t leave the simulator here, though. Tori’s team might need their night vision to find Ryker. And besides, they’ll need to show him their powers in order to convince him they really are Slayers.”

Jesse strapped his rifle sling onto his shoulder. “If it looks like you’ll be out of range for longer than a half an hour, drive back down here close enough to give us a recharge.”

Dr. B nodded in agreement. “Bess, keep me apprised of any developments.” Taking in Kody and Jesse with his gaze, he added, “If Overdrake’s men show up, be careful where and what you shoot. You don’t want to inadvertently hit trick-or-treaters.”

“We’ll try to remember that.” Bess opened the van door and stepped out. “No sniping small children, guys.”

Jesse and Kody joined her without comment. Dr. B turned in his seat so he could see Tori. He motioned to the passenger seat beside him. “Come sit next to me.”

She did so reluctantly. He was going to talk to her about being A-team’s captain and she didn’t want the responsibility. She had thought it would always be Dirk’s. He was so much better suited to that sort of thing—no, she wouldn’t think about him. She looked out the window at homes, trees, and the occasional trick-or-treater.

As they drove through Rutland, she waited for Dr. B to bring up the subject of A-team’s captain. He didn’t speak, though. In the backseat, Lilly and Rosa were discussing Alyssa. “She’s not as far gone as Leo and Danielle,” Lilly said. “We just need to make sure she doesn’t start going to keggers. We should be with her every weekend. I can take Friday nights. You shadow her on Saturdays.”

“We don’t even know where we’re going to live now,” Rosa pointed out.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lilly said. “We’re her friends.”

Finally Dr. B glanced at Tori. “It’s hard to lose a counterpart,” he said softly. “Perhaps it’s even harder for you. Dirk…”

He didn’t have to finish. They couldn’t hope for a way to restore Dirk’s powers like they could for Alyssa. Dirk chose to leave and betrayed them in the process. Tori didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“When you met Dirk’s family, how did his mother look?”

“Young, pretty, and rich.”

The answer made Dr. B smile in a sad sort of way. “Bianca always was beautiful. Did she seem happy?”

Tori hadn’t realized until then that Dr. B knew Dirk’s mother. It made sense, she supposed. He and Overdrake had grown up together on St. Helena. “I met Dirk’s stepmother,” Tori clarified. “Overdrake divorced his first wife when Dirk was six. He hasn’t seen her since.”

A flash of surprise crossed Dr. B’s expression. “I can understand why Bianca would divorce Brant Overdrake, but it’s not like her to abandon her son.”

“I don’t think Overdrake gave her a choice.”

Dr. B let out a disapproving grunt and shook his head. The van turned from one tree-lined street onto another. “I can’t believe that Dirk is Bianca Fenton’s son. I feel like I should have known, like I should have seen some part of Bianca in him. If I could have only…” He let the sentence drift off into a ragged, painful silence.

They had all loved Dirk. How did a person get over that sort of gaping loss? To stop her sadness, Tori concentrated on what Dirk had done. She concentrated on Alyssa, who couldn’t help them anymore. On Jesse, who’d been attacked by Overdrake’s men. On Ryker, who was in danger now.

Thinking of all of this only made her feel angry at herself. “I should have figured out the truth about Dirk last summer,” she said. “We were together every day for months and not once did I ever feel like he was an enemy. When he was practicing with us—none of it felt like a lie. How could I have missed that?”

Instead of making excuses for her, Dr. B brightened. “Really? You never sensed any malice from him?”

She shook her head. “I knew he was hiding things sometimes, and I knew talking about his family made him tense, but I figured that was normal stuff.”

Dr. B smiled. “That’s wonderful news.”

“That I’m clueless?”

“No. You couldn’t have missed that much betrayal. That means after Dirk helped us escape from his father’s compound, his loyalties were with us. For the rest of the summer he intended to help us, not fight us. His heart isn’t as dark as I feared.”

Tori hadn’t considered this. She wasn’t sure whether it made her feel better or worse. It made it harder to erase Dirk from her own heart. “What do you think changed his mind?”

“His father,” Dr. B said simply.

“Why didn’t he just tell us the truth last summer? We could have kept his father away from him.”

Dr. B’s gaze remained on the road. “I’m sure Dirk loves his father. Which of us doesn’t? And when you’re looking for approval from someone you love, well, sometimes you do things you shouldn’t.”

Over the last few months, Tori had done things that she knew she shouldn’t have. Asking Jesse to meet her, giving Dirk her phone number, telling him about Ryker—they had seemed like little things at the time. Now the weight of them pressed down on her. “I should have followed your rules. I’m sorry”

“Are you?” Dr. B asked with surprise. “I was just wondering if it was wise to have that no-contact rule. You realized Dirk was Overdrake’s son because you met his family. Breaking that rule helped us.”

Again, Tori wasn’t sure whether that made her feel better or worse. It reminded her of Dirk’s commentary on wars—that more often than not they were decided by luck. The roll of the dice.

If luck were the deciding factor, the Slayers were in trouble. You couldn’t depend on luck.

“I didn’t tell you everything about Ryker,” Dr. B said. “So there may still be things Overdrake doesn’t know. For a short while I posted instructions on how to build a simulator on the Ryker website. He built one. He’s been practicing. If Overdrake’s men come here expecting an easy mark, they won’t find it.”

It was the first piece of good news Tori had heard all night. “Let’s hope he’s practiced a lot.”

They left Rutland and drove up the road to Bird Mountain. Dr. B kept checking his odometer to see how far they’d gone. They climbed higher. The trees around them flashed into and out of the van’s headlights. A few clung stubbornly to their leaves. Most were bare, staking the night sky with gray branches. Shadows flickered through the leaves and the tangled underbrush.

Finally Dr. B spotted a pickup truck parked in a grassy area at the side of the road. It was one of those tricked-up models that rode high off the ground. Something in the truck bed was covered with a tarp. No one was in sight.

Dr. B pulled up next to the truck, turned off the van, and everyone got out. The night smelled of autumn, of things changing. The Slayers not only had their body armor on, they wore their helmets as well. Dr. B insisted they wear them until they were certain Overdrake’s men hadn’t gotten here first.

Rosa, Lilly, and Tori walked around the truck, peering into the muted shapes of the surrounding forest. Dr. B put on his night vision goggles and joined them. Willow had said Ryker would find them, but nobody appeared from behind any of the trees. Maybe he wouldn’t come near them as long as they looked like hit men.

“It might not be the right truck,” Rosa said.

“It’s the right one,” Tori said, looking into a dense stand of trees. “He’s got a simulator in the back.”

“What?” Rosa asked. Apparently she and Lilly hadn’t heard Dr. B tell Tori about that.

“A simulator?” Lilly asked, stepping toward it. “How can you tell?”

“I can hear it,” Tori said. She’d heard the familiar thumping as soon as she’d stepped out of the van.

Dr. B adjusted his goggles. “Ryker must come up here to practice.” After making a sweep of the area, he called, “Ryker, I need to talk to you! It’s urgent!”

No one answered. The wind blew through the trees, picking up dried leaves and making them scurry across the ground. Branches creaked. Somewhere down below them an owl hooted.

After another minute, Dr. B called out, “Ryker, it’s me, Dr. B!”

Still no answer.

Dr. B checked the time on his cell phone. “Spread out in standard formation. Walk ten minutes into the forest, calling Ryker’s name in intervals, then report back to me.”

The Slayers’ neck mikes and earpieces were turned off now. While they searched for Ryker, they needed to hear him, not one another. They would turn them back on to report.

Dr. B peered around at the forest. “If we haven’t found Ryker in ten minutes, I’ll take our simulator back to his house, leave it for Jesse’s team, and come back to help you look. Ryker’s simulator should keep your powers working.”

Rosa started off into the trees, but Tori and Lilly hesitated. “We don’t have our watches,” Tori reminded him, “and we took the batteries out of our cell phones. We’ll have to estimate ten minutes.”

“Right,” Lilly said. “And we all know how well estimating time worked for you the last time.”

Dr. B motioned to Lilly. “You estimate the ten minutes.” Then he motioned to Tori. “You check back in five.”

Man, you nearly plunge to your death once and people never trust your internal clock again.

Tori walked into the forest, her gaze constantly scanning the area. The helmet made it harder to see clearly, harder to hear. All around her, tree branches rippled in the wind, making a shushing sound. The constant motion was distracting. It made it hard to sense other things in the forest. Tori drifted upward an inch. Not enough so that someone seeing her would be able to tell she was flying, but enough so that the sound of her own footsteps didn’t get in the way of the noises she was listening for.

“Ryker!” she called.

She got no answer except for the rustling of branches.

She glided farther into the forest, kept listening. In the back of her mind she counted off the minutes. She called Ryker’s name three more times. If he was around, he was ignoring her.

When five minutes were nearly up, Tori heard a noise. Not one of the usual forest noises. Heavier. A thunk of some sort. Then she saw a shadow in the trees. A figure, perhaps. It disappeared behind a trunk. A deer? Or was someone hiding? It could be Ryker. It could be someone else, though. She didn’t call out his name again.

She drifted soundlessly over to the spot, all the while watching the tree. Its leaves fluttered in the breeze, made dark, changing shapes. When she got to the tree, she quickly peered around the trunk. Nothing was there. She was sure she hadn’t imagined the shape. She stood still, listening. A creaking noise like a footstep came from a thick-trunked tree a little ways off. Carefully scanning the forest around her, she went in that direction. When she got to the place, it too was empty.

She stood, looking around in frustration, then turned on her mike. It was past time to report, and Dr. B was probably trying to get a hold of her. She was about to turn on her earpiece when she stiffened.

She only had a couple seconds’ warning—a bristling of her senses telling her something was coming up behind her fast. She spun around and lifted her arms in protection. It was too late, though. A hulking figure plowed into her.

CHAPTER 30

Jesse surveyed Ryker’s lawn from the top of a tree near the roof. Kody was stationed in the trees that bordered the Davises’ back lawn. Bess was in a tree in the front yard. They all had binoculars to scope out the area. In their other hand, they each carried a tranquilizer gun. Killing was a last but necessary defense, so they wore rifles in slings on their backs.

Every three minutes the group checked in with one another. Jesse would whisper, “All clear.” Bess and then Kody would echo the report.

Jesse tried to concentrate on this part of the mission, on the yard and trees and the sounds of the night. His mind kept turning to Dirk, though. Memories slashed at him. The two of them talking and laughing every summer, figuring out what they were supposed to do as captains. They had worked on drills, plans, procedures together. Dirk had undoubtedly given his father their entire playbook. Perhaps even more damaging, Dirk knew how each Slayer would react in situations. He knew their weaknesses. He knew that Lilly didn’t always listen to orders, that Kody got hotheaded under pressure, that Tori was inexperienced, and that Dr. B—for all of his attempts at fairness—worried about Bess’ safety more than the rest of theirs.