“Richens. He was an a**hole.”
“Aye,” Callaghan agreed.
“And now I feel terrible to have thought about him in that way,” she muttered.
Reed smiled.
“How much longer do we have to stay?” she asked.
“As soon as they go,” he gestured across the street with a jerk of his chin, “we can go.”
“What do they want?”
“To prove or disprove that there is paranormal activity in Anytown.”
“Where is a tengu when you need one?” she groused.
Reed paused, considering. A sense of déjà vu washed over him, as if he was meant to think of the idea that popped into his head. “Good idea.”
“Excuse me?”
“Why wait for them to figure it out for themselves?” He looked at Callaghan. “Let’s go with them now. We’ll rig something to give them the proof they want, then there won’t be any reason for them to stay.”
“They dinnae want proof of it,” Callaghan said. “They’re here tae disprove.”
“I watched the video they gave Hollis,” Claire said. “Mostly it was nothing for the first half an hour or so. Then they went to the video store and there was a shadow that looked like a DVD case floating in midair.”
“Perfect. So we give them a reasonable explanation for what the other crew saw and they’re done here.”
“Can I accompany you?” Claire asked. “I cannot go back in that house. Not now.”
“Where’s Hollis?”
“Helping Edwards. He is worse than me. He liked Richens.”
“And Hogan and Garza?”
“Hogan is fine with the corpse. Better than the rest of us. Garza accompanied Hank back to Anytown. He had to carry the equipment.”
“Let’s keep Hollis out of this.” Eve was safer surrounded by her class, the guards, and the E.P.D. investigators than she was anywhere else.
“Callaghan.” Reed looked at the Scottsman. “Offer to accompany the ghost hunters to Anytown, then lead them around to the video store. Claire and I will go on ahead, and set things up.”
“Will do.” Callaghan set off across the street.
Reed turned his attention to Claire. “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Let’s get—”
A wolf howled. A long, drawn out cry followed by excited yips.
The rapid whirring of an approaching helicopter’s blades shouldn’t have bothered Reed, not considering the number of military installations in the area. But the wolf—far from indigenous to the area—sounded almost . . . joyful at the sound. Welcoming. Its tone set off alarms. Reed listened to them.
“Callaghan.”
The Mark turned back. “Aye?”
“Get the redhead in the house, and keep the rest of the kids in there.”
The urgency of his tone brought a gleam to Callaghan’s eyes. The Mark nodded grimly and stepped up his pace.
“I will go with him,” Claire offered. “At least there are no dead bodies in their house.”
“Yes, go. No one comes in or goes out until I say otherwise.”
She took a step forward, then looked at him with blue eyes wide behind her trendy black-framed spectacles. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
He reached out to her, touching her shoulder in a silent offer of comfort. “You can do whatever needs to be done. God would not have chosen you otherwise.”
Seemingly reassured, she jogged after Callaghan.
Reed pivoted on his heel and strode toward the house.
CHAPTER 18
Eve woke to a dull throbbing at the back of her head and a phantom shiver coursing down her spine. The howl of a wolf had woken her. Had it been a dream, or reality?
She wiggled, trying to find a more comfortable position. Instead, she realized she was strapped to a wobbly metal chair with her wrists bound behind her. A gag was in her mouth, the knot of which was pressing hard to a sore spot at the back of her skull. She must have been nearly brained during the attack, otherwise the mark would have healed her by now.
Groaning, she willed her foggy mind to catch up with her circumstances. She sat in near darkness, light filtering in through two thin vertical cracks on either side of her. She extended one leg, trying to gauge the amount of space around her. It connected with hollow wood that swayed outward, briefly allowing more light to enter. She tried to rock backward, but discovered a wall behind her.
She was in a closet with sliding track doors. The kind of closet that was in the McCroskey duplexes.
Was she still in the home Raguel had arranged for? Or had she been moved to a vacant one? Where was everyone else?
Eve focused on her superhearing, but registered only her own breathing. Then it came again, unmistakable and chilling—a wolf howling in what sounded like victory.
A whirring in the periphery of her consciousness grew in volume and she recognized it as an approaching helicopter. There was no reason to put the two together, aside from her instinctive belief that they were connected.
Follow your gut, Alec had said.
Using her feet, Eve worked the closet door over in small but regular intervals. Her mind was working as well, reaching out to Reed and Alec, then recoiling as pain lanced through her skull. She moaned into the gag, wishing her hands were free so she could check the back of her head for the stake that had to be driven through it.
How the f**k was she going to get out of here? She tried again to connect to either of the brothers. Same result. Pain intense enough to make her fear unconsciousness.
She needed a knife. And a new brain, because the one she had was killing her.
Feeling completely hypocritical, Eve closed her eyes and asked—as nicely as she could under the circumstances—for a sword. Frankly, she would prefer that such things were provided without her begging or that she could get a gun instead, but she knew the drill. The Almighty preferred the biblical flame-covered sword for a dash of drama. Flashy intimidation was one of his fortes.
She hadn’t told Reed earlier when he asked, but truth was, she was always surprised when her request for the weapon was granted. She believed that one day the Almighty would turn his nose up at her and say her lack of faith had tried his patience one too many times. The possibility didn’t inspire confidence.
Thankfully, this time wasn’t the time when God left her to the wolves. The sword materialized in her hand. Actually, it was more like an envelope opener. She almost dropped it, but retained it with a fumbling grasp and a muffled scream. Even as it burned through the rope around her wrists, it scorched and blistered her flesh. The smell reminded her of dying in a men’s bathroom at Qualcomm Stadium and strengthened her resolve.
Damned if she’d let these f**kers kill her again.
The rope gave way and Eve dropped the knife. She pulled her sizzling hands into her lap and felt the blood rush into the extremities with sharp tingles. The damage repaired before her eyes, the ruined flesh dropping away like torn gloves, leaving unmarred skin behind. The pain faded away at a much slower rate, but Eve pushed it aside. She didn’t have time to focus on herself. She had to know where the rest of the class was, and she had some Infernal killing to do.
Tugging the gag from her mouth, Eve sucked in a deep breath. She stood and bumped her head into the underside of a shelf. Cursing, she froze, wondering if anyone had heard her. Wondering if it mattered.
The dagger continued to burn on the floor. She could stop it by sending the blade away, but she didn’t. There was more than one way to call for help, and she’d use the old-fashioned smoke signal just as well as preternatural means. As the varnish melted and exposed the vulnerable wood beneath, smoke began to tendril upward. Pushing aside one of the closet doors, Eve rushed out and found herself in the bedroom where she’d been knocked out. She also found the mauled and lifeless corpse of another classmate.
A scream was trapped in her tightening throat.
Behind her, the drywall caught fire and burst into flames.
Etheric projection was never easy. The concentration required to be in two places at once was always draining. Fortunately, the rush inherent in the hunt and subsequent kill energized. Without that, there was no way to have maintained the duplicity this long.
In less than an hour, they would all be dead.
What a coup! Just weeks ago, all had seemed lost. All had been lost—killed, destroyed, ruined. Then, exactly like a phoenix emerging from the ashes, the hopes and dreams of every Infernal had arisen from the remnants of the Upland masonry.
Since that night, they had achieved more than any demon ever dreamed was possible. They had lived with an archangel, spoken face-to-face with both Cain and Abel, mingled among the most traitorous of their own kind, and through it all they remained undetected.
The entire balance of power had shifted now. They could do anything, go anywhere. Soon, Abel would be in Hell. He’d killed Malachai at the masonry. He deserved to suffer the torments of the damned. He deserved to watch Evangeline Hollis die to see what it was like to lose someone he cared for.
But that was not to be . . . yet. Sammael planned to use her. One day, though, she would be expendable, too. And the next time she died, they would be certain it was irreversible. They would sever her pretty head and impale it on the gate to Sammael’s palace for all to see. They would be heroes, revered and feared in every corner of Hell.
In less than an hour, they would have it all.
From the singular vantage attained by hovering over the ghost hunter group, it was easy to see that Callaghan was destined for greatness. He studied the nearly empty living room with narrowed eyes, his enhanced senses picking up the anomalous etheric body hovering over him and the others. He was the only one to notice; even the rambunctious dog seemed oblivious to the malevolence waiting to strike.
The redhead in the pink and purple dress studied photos of Anytown. “These dummies are creepy looking.”
“Psychological warfare,” the brunette in orange said from her seated position atop an ice chest. “They could easily replace those mannequins, if they wanted to. But then they’d lose the freak-out factor inherent in having them decayed and riddled with vermin.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” the goateed man at her feet drawled. “Makes me hot.”
“Roger.” The brunette poked his thigh playfully with a pedicured toe. “I can only imagine how much worse the place looks at night, with shadows thrown into the mix. I can see why Paranormal Territory would get psyched out enough to think they saw something here. But I researched the area thoroughly. While it’s a training ground for both military and local law enforcement, there have been no deaths or unfortunate accidents here.”
“We should have gone to Alcatraz,” Roger muttered.
“We were asked to come here,” the brunette said, sounding exasperated. “It would have been f**ked up to take off just because we got a better offer.”
The sound of an approaching helicopter grew un-customarily loud and snared the attention of everyone in the room. Callaghan, in particular, widened his stance as if preparing for battle.
“Why does that chopper sound like it’s flying directly over us?” the redhead breathed, her arms wrapping around her middle.
“I am certain that is normal for a military base,” Claire said, but the quaver in her voice ruined any chance of her words soothing.
They were completely clueless. It was all too much fun.
The brunette stood and moved to the front picture window. “It does sound awfully close. Almost like it’s going to land.”
They were too distracted to notice when the doors and windows were sealed, both with secular locks and a containment/warding spell. No one could come in, and no one could get out. There would be no escape.
Within the hour, they would all be dead . . .
The men’s side of the duplex was abuzz with activity.
Richens’s pale cadaver was splayed on a collapsible gurney. Two E.P.D. investigators bent over his remains, probing into the gaping wounds to collect evidence and reach some helpful conclusions.
There had been a lot to like about Richens—selfishness, arrogance, lack of remorse, the way his intestines had gushed out of his body like fat, slippery sausages. A shame he’d been marked. With his fondness for half-truths and manipulation, he would have made an amusing court jester.
“Hey.” One of investigators looked up with a smile, which faded when she saw the bloodstains on his clothes. “What happened to you?”
Laurel turned to face him, her pretty glittered face changing from welcoming to concern. “Oh no! Are you hurt?”
With Havoc home with Sammael, there was no longer any need to save the Mark blood to feed the hellhound with. And with the Marks’ deaths imminent, there was no more reason to hide who he was. He would greet the Alpha with his war paint on—the evidence of his kills dripping from his muzzle and claws.
He took in the room’s occupants with a sweeping glance. Two investigators and two female Mark trainees—Seiler and Hogan. Three guards and Montevista were locked outside. Callaghan and Dubois were across the street. Hank—the only possible fly in the ointment—was occupied in Anytown, along with two more guards. They all expected the threat to come from without rather than from within.
He made a show of stumbling as if wounded and was caught by Laurel’s soft, pale arms. She was sexy, susceptible to manipulation, and blessed with a ravenous juicy cunt. Just the way he liked his women. She’d spread her legs every time he snapped his fingers and in doing so, had spread her Mark scent all over him.
“Let her go, Garza.”
Hollis’s voice momentarily took him aback, then a slow smile curved his mouth. What few weapons they’d brought with them were packed in the Suburban and Hollis’s skill with a sword was mediocre, at best. He had every confidence he could take her.
Deliberately keeping his back to her because he knew nonchalance would rattle a newbie Mark, he said, “Make me, bella.”