The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series (28 page)

“It sounded like dragon or dargon.” Mel pursed her brow in concentration.

“Dagan!” Tara remembered.

“Corey, wasn’t that the name of the dragon cat thing who bonded with Kate in our first jump?”

“Yeah. I think she may be under his influence again, Trip. I mean, we did go to that world with all the dragons and that is when she started acting differently. Do you think it could be the same world we were on before? Do you think he might have found her and bonded with her again?”

“It’s a long shot, Corey,” Trip said.

“We weren’t even there that long. I don’t see how it could be,” Dirk agreed.

“This is Kate we are talking about,” I reminded them. “All of the jumps seem to focus on her, and she is our team leader.”

“And this is Corey putting these facts together,” Tara interjected. “I think we should listen to him.”

I smiled at her, always reminding the others of my status as team leader, Tara remained a loyal friend.

Dirk rubbed the stubble on his chin in concentration. “We’ll keep open minds.”

Trip looked heartsick. I understood that if an outside influence controlled Kate, it changed everything that happened between them. I think he had begun to hope that she gravitated toward him again. I knew the moment he told me they had made love I had a fight on my hands over her. He would never just let her go now that he had a taste of her. My stomach curdled at the thought.

I knew that the treasure of Kate lay in her very soul, the most precious of all her many assets. The hours of hearing her heart cry for her family and the love she had for her friends confirmed my belief in her unique value. This tender soul endured as the most incredible person I had ever known. Her capacity to give of herself unselfishly and lather affection on others never ceased to amaze. Trip might understand a small part of that, but he had no clue to the unmined depths of her soul. The true treasure of my darling wife hid there. Though lately, that treasure remained well buried.

I frowned.

My Kate had to be in there, somewhere. I would bend heaven and earth to find her and bring her back to the surface. I feared Trip would hold her in this altered state so that she would choose him. I couldn’t let him do that, for Kate’s sake. I’d fight for her.

It felt like a line drawn in the sand between Trip and me as I stared at him, and the unspoken challenge rang between us.

Eunavae walked in and the screen slammed behind her. “So, I’m a Keeper now, huh? I’ve been promoted to badass, then?”

We all laughed and predictably, the sphere fell.

We literally hit the ground running. We were back in the tornado city and twin demon twisters bore down on us.

“Run, run, run!” Dirk shouted. We abandoned our supplies and turned to scatter. Tara and I banged through the first door we found and ended up in the dirty bathroom of a market while the tornados pounded the building.

“Did you see where the others headed?” I asked.

“No, I just covered my head and followed your feet.”

“Is this the same place we came before?”

“I think so. Have you ever heard of jump teams revisiting a site? Before us, I mean.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You think Mama Ty is trying to tell us something by bringing us back here?”

“Maybe. Seems likely, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. The door to the bathroom shuddered on its hinges. Tara curled into a ball, and I draped myself over her.

We must have come in at the end of the night, because the tornados only haunted us for about an hour before they receded. Stiff, sore, and smelling like urine and cheap pine scented cleaner, we emerged from our hiding place.

We walked woodenly out to the street and saw Mel sobbing into Trip’s arms. I glanced around. We were missing some team members.

“What happened?” Tara ran to Mel.

“They took them,” she sobbed.

I looked at Trip. “Dirk, Donnie, and Pinky got sucked up into the tornado just like—” he blew out a huff of air. “Gregory,” he finished huskily.

“No!” Denial blistered through me. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we saw them. I barely managed to hold onto Mel, she kept trying to get back to them.”

“Why do we keep coming back here?” I fought for an elusive control.

Trip shook his head. “Let’s get to the subway.”

“No need. The sphere should come for us any minute. Now, that Eunavae is gone.” I cracked, tears stung my eyes.

Trip put his arm on my shoulder, tears welling. Mel and Tara pressed into us and we all put our heads together, embracing, and waiting for the sphere. We didn’t have to wait long, but it wasn’t the sphere that fell down out of the sky on top of us.

The tornado descended lightning fast and snatched us up into its maw. I tried to hold onto Tara’s arm, but she wrenched out of my grasp. The vortex vacuumed every last particle of air out of my lungs, and I felt it would suck my lungs right out of my body. I kept my arms over my head, afraid of debris, tumbling through my last few moments of life.

I thought of Kate.

Not the Kate that betrayed me or tried so hard to seduce me, but my Kate. The one I had fallen for in the parking lot the first time I saw her; Kate of a Thousand Years who shared her very soul with me; Kate, the tender soul.

My Kate.

Her eyes gazed into mine, full of love and passion. Her lips sought to please me. Her scent drove me wild. I thought of my Kate. With my last remaining breath, I whispered her name, and then passed away into the black void.

QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DONNIE DUDGEON

Donnie’s feet left the ground. He still had an iron grip on Mel’s hand. Fearing she would be sucked in with him, he flung her hand away. She stumbled forward, reaching for him as he flew away into the cyclone. Caught up in the maelstrom, he covered his head and closed his eyes.

Memories of his childhood, being passed from foster home to foster home, flitted through his mind. His brother in Alaska, who never came to rescue him, raised his own kids in Seward. The memory of meeting Mel in the sixth grade, how she took him in, showed him what it meant to be loved, scraped through his head.

He saw them standing on a hill in the Crags, with Corey in front of them and the Chartreuse jump team behind them. Mel had a wreath of blue flowers in her hair and a long coat of white fur, his beautiful bride. Mel and Donnie were the first of the jump team to pair up. They were the oldest and he had loved her since sixth grade, naturally they’d end up together. Corey pronounced them husband and wife and Donnie took her beaming face in his hands and pledged himself.

They got busy making babies, seven within the first ten years. Gorgeous, a beautiful combination between fair Mel and his dark features, the children completed them as a family. Donnie ran their faces and names through his head as he spun in the twister, then his grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Mel and Donnie didn’t age, so they just kept having kids. Mel got pregnant the same time their grandchildren were having babies. Weird, but true. Everyone else seemed to be sad that they jumped for 212 years. Not Donnie. It stood out as the only time he lived surrounded by loving family. He treasured every moment of it.

Now, dying in this spinning nightmare, he wanted his last thoughts to be of happy times with Mel and the kids. With Mel’s beautiful face in his mind, he hit something. Hard. It knocked the breath out of him —what breath he had left that the tornado didn’t steal.

This is it. This is where I die.

He didn’t die. Very much alive, he lay in a field of dirt. He levered himself up and took in his surroundings. Seeing a massive shape about a hundred yards away, he crawled, then walked, then ran over to see Dirk lying face down. “Dirk!”

Donnie rolled him over and saw he had some cuts and scrapes, but otherwise seemed fine.

He blinked. “Auugghh,” he groaned and sat up. “Donnie, where are the others?”

Donnie scanned the field but didn’t see any other bodies. He shook his head. “I don’t see anyone else.”

“Pinky,” Dirk said. “I mean Eunavae got caught in the funnel. I saw her.”

Donnie panned the area, again. They were on an abandoned farm. A thatched roof house to the left and a small barn beside it stood steadfast against the barren land.

“Maybe she is on the other side of the house. Can you walk?” Donnie held out his hand.

“Yeah. Let’s go find her,” Dirk grunted, rising.

They walked toward the house leaning heavily on each other. Noting the door to the little shack ajar, they passed between the house and the barn and gazed into the dirt field beyond. “Where do you think we are?”

“I don’t know, but no zombies is a definite improvement.”

“Would somebody please get me DOWN FROM HERE?”

They spun around and saw Eunavae buried to her waist in the thatch roof of the barn. She struggled futilely, red in the face in complete exasperation.

Dirk and Donnie burst out laughing. She let out a string of curses while she wiggled. CRACK! Eunavae disappeared into the barn.

Their laughs died on their faces and they rushed into the barn to find Eunavae rising up from the center of a huge mound of stale hay.

“Are you okay?” Dirk rushed to her.

Donnie looked up at the huge hole in the ceiling. “She did more damage to the barn than herself.”

“Funny boys!” she snapped, picking hay out of her hair.

“Well, let’s go find the owner and see if we can help him repair his barn,” Dirk suggested biting the corner of his lip to squelch the smile.

Donnie patted Eunavae’s shoulder and whispered, “You okay?”

She wobbled her hand back and forth and rubbed her elbow as she followed Dirk into the yard. Donnie stepped out of the barn and scanned the yard and house. A shutter hung at an angle, rattling in the breeze. A small picketed area overgrown with weeds sported a few vegetables growing wild. A half rotten tomato and some string beans hung tenuously to the vines. Weeds choked out the remainder of the garden.

Wedged between the front step and a dry scrub brush, a wicker basket sat upturned. A rusty plow anchored deeply in an unfinished row beyond the house appeared to have been suddenly abandoned.

They walked back to the small slat board house and Dirk called, “Is anyone here?”

Pushing open the door, Dirk walked in and Donnie and Eunavae followed. The room smelled musty, the ashes in the fireplace cold. The house stood fully stocked with overturned furniture, tables, chairs, and canned food with strange writing on the labels.

Eunavae walked over to a bookshelf and opened one. “Is this Russian?”

Donnie took the book out of her hands and shrugged. He didn’t know the difference between German, Russian, or Polish. It could have been any of those.

She fingered the stacks of books, removed what appeared to be a scrapbook and opened it.

It contained lessons in a child’s hand. “English to Polish Words” scribbled across the top of the front page. The book, chock full of English to Polish translations, seemed to span years as the handwriting became more and more legible and the lessons became more and more difficult. The last pages of the book were completely in Polish.