Divine Blood (Vampire Love Story #6) (18 page)

Now complete fear took over my body. I
panicked like never before. My heart was pounding so hard that the
tips of my fingers hurt, my ears were ringing, and I tasted the
metallic flavor of adrenaline in my saliva.

I yelled out, “Has anyone seen Jason
Reign?” Everyone kind of shook their heads.

But a girl in the Jacuzzi said that
Jason said he was going to dry off and sit in the front
yard.

So, once again, I returned to the
front yard. Jason wasn’t anywhere.

“
Dad, what’s wrong?”
Joshua said.

“
Jason’s
missing.”

“
What do you mean, he’s
missing?”

“
I mean he’s not
here.”

“
He’s always here. He was
just here a little bit ago. Where would he go?”

“
I don’t know, son. I
don’t know.”

My gut was telling me that Brock had
something to do with this. What I needed to do was have my vampire
friends all transition and scope out nearby areas, just in case he
went for a walk.

Chapter
Twenty-four

I fell on my knees in the front yard
of the old Victorville white house. I knew in my gut that having
Jason missing wasn’t good. My spidey-senses were tingling and
chills ripped down my spine like someone was dragging icicles over
my skin. This was the closest I would come to a panic attack, but I
had to hold myself together. We needed to find Jason. We needed to
find him as soon as possible and I needed to concentrate on how to
do that...

I went back into the house, and with
my old crew, I called a meeting in the conference room.

Most of my friends had always
understood that Jason was different: a little bit shy, a little bit
to himself and smart as hell. This was going to be the first time I
was going to tell them what the Deity had told me, about Jason, so
many years ago.

I brought Sion, Tommy, Wyatt, Hector
and Yari into the conference room and purposely left Lena in the
back yard to mind the party. I didn’t want to worry her about her
son, not yet, if I could help it.

Now that I had a roomful of my dearest
friends around me, I began to tell them all that the Deity had told
me, and how Jason was truly the Chosen One because he would die, an
innocent lamb.

“
Wait a minute,” Tommy
said. “Are you telling me the Triat are going to let him be
sacrificed?”

“
That’s what is
prophesied.”

“
Oh, hell no!” Tommy
said.

“
I agree with Tommy. What
does his death accomplish?” Yari asked. “I mean, if he’s going to
die a martyr’s death, then what is he doing it for?”

“
He’s going to do it for
the Mani,” I said. “He’s bridging our souls closer to the Creator.
We chose our paths when we decided to be vampires. It separated us
from the Creator. Jason’s innocence will bridge us back so we can
have a relationship with the Creator of the universe.”

The room was quiet. It was a deep
moment for everyone to take in.

“
Josiah, with all due
respect, it pains me to say this out loud, but if what you say is
true, shouldn’t we let destiny take its course?” Yari
asked.

“
No. He’s my son and I’m
not ready to lose him. Not yet. Not on this night.”

Again, the room was quiet.

“
I think we need one more
person in this room,” Tommy said. “Someone a lot physically
stronger who knows Jason even better than you.”

“
Joshua?”

“
He needs to be here. He’s
old enough.”

“
They turned eighteen
today.” I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. What I did
know was that Joshua knew someone had taken his brother, and that
he would start his own search party.

“
Let me go get him,” I
said. I left the conference room quietly and went to the back yard.
Joshua was in the pool talking to a couple of girls, both of whom
had flirty expressions on their faces and looked up at me guiltily
as I walked up.

I leaned down a little, not missing
that Joshua also had a good view of cleavage in bikinis. “Sorry,
girls. Joshua, I need to talk to you right now. Grab a towel and
meet me inside.”

When Joshua got inside the house, I
pulled him into one of the rooms where nobody was hanging
out.

“
What’s going on, Dad?”
Joshua said.

“
We’re going to have to
shut down the party. We have a big problem.”

“
What
happened?”

“
Jason’s missing and I
think Brock is behind it.”

“
What makes you think he’s
missing and why would Brock take him?”

“
I will fill you in with
the details, but this party needs to end. Please tell everyone
there was an emergency, but do not tell anyone Jason is
missing.”

“
They’re gonna notice that
he is missing when they say goodbye. It is our birthday
party.”

“
Make some excuse about
why he isn’t there to say goodbye.”

“
Okay. Does Mom
know?”

“
I’ll tell her if we can’t
find him shortly. Let
me
tell her.”

Joshua nodded and went outside, his
face creased with worry.

My mind was only on one thing: having
my son returned to me safely. This was no joke. It had been years
since I had to take on a task like this.

But in my core, I knew this was what
had been prophesied. At least that’s what they thought, but even
prophecies could be overturned—my son wasn’t ready to die. And I
was sure as hell not ready to watch him die.

So, I would do everything in my power
to find and return him to his mother.

Now, it was time to find my
son.

Tommy and Joshua stayed on foot
because they couldn’t transition into birds like the rest of
us.

Regardless, my friends Yari scoped
Victorville—every inch of it—from the sky but there was no sign of
Jason.

So, now we needed a plan. My son Jason
had gotten snatched up at his eighteenth birthday party, right out
from under my nose. Anyone who would dare to challenge me after all
I had been through had a huge set of balls and believed in some way
that he could beat me.

I hadn’t had a challenge like this in
years. I needed to keep my eyes focused on the love for my son. I
had had many challenges through the years, but nothing had been
this blatantly personal. Jason’s disappearance had Brock Houston’s
fingerprints all over it. But I needed to be sure.

I immediately put Sion on the case. He
jumped on his laptop and went into the conference room and went to
work to see what he could figure out. The rest of us waited. I knew
each second was one second longer that my son would be subjected to
whatever they were doing to him by whoever had taken him. That
thought alone was enough to make me want to go berserk and
manhandle anyone who had taken him. I might even kill again, but I
hoped I wouldn’t have to.

I used a text blast to notify everyone
of my old guard that they had 24 hours to get to Helena. Once they
were there, we would regroup and figure out what the next course of
action would be. I wondered if Atticai would come. I needed him.
Badly.

Sion wasn’t able to find much, but I
was certain that Brock was desperate as his son’s life quickly
slipped further away. I had feared this day would come where he
would try to force Jason against his will to heal his son, Pierce.
It was maddening that this had happened, that someone could kidnap
my son right out from under me. They snatched him up like the
thieves in the night that they were. And, sitting there with
friends, I had been completely unaware and off guard.

Sion ran some simulation software and
then said he believed that there was a strong probability that
Jason was on the island of Attica. If Sion believed it, then that
was good enough for me. So, we were going to pursue forward on the
strong probability that Brock was the one who took Jason. No one
else had a motive to do it. That we knew of.

Sion came from a practical point of
view. He added up the facts in his head and with his software to
come up with the location of my son. I could usually separate my
instincts from my emotions. But the fact that we were dealing with
my son might’ve gotten me more emotional than logical. I was glad
Sion was here to assure me that my instincts were right on.
Everything made sense. Brock had turned for the worse and now that
Pierce was on his deathbed, he was desperate. Now he’d decided to
take me on in a way that was much more personal than sending his
ten henchmen vampires to Helena Island to try to beat the crap out
of me. That he had snatched Jason was his second mistake. Possibly,
even, his fatal mistake.

Tonight was the first time in a long
time that I’d truly wanted to kill someone. Not since I’d fought
Krull and his men had I felt so negatively charged by blood lust
and pounding rage.

I tried to calm down that blood lust
for a few minutes. Now that we assumed that Jason was on the island
of Attica, I knew it was going to be more than a few minutes before
I would see my son again. So, I was about to have to deliver some
pretty bad news to Lena and I needed to calm down to her level or
she would freak out even more than I expected. I needed to find her
in the back yard.

One by one, my friends would leave for
Helena. I would soon be on my way after them and would most likely
overtake them, but first, I had to have a conversation with my
wife. It was one that I never dreamed I would have when I’d held
Jason in my arms as a baby and looked into his all-knowing
eyes.

Chapter
Twenty-five

I stepped into the back yard to find
my wife. Joshua stood nearby, his fists balled.

She immediately walked up to me and
said, “What’s going on? Joshua won’t tell me. Why are we ending
this party early?”

I reached out my hand and held Lena’s
hand tightly.

“
What’s going on, Josiah?
What’s happening?” Lena asked, pulling her hand away. Then her
motherly instinct hit it on the nose. She looked all around. “Oh
no! Where’s Jason?”

I painfully looked Lena square in the
face. “He’s missing,” I said.

“
Missing?” she asked. “How
could he be missing? I saw him out by the Jacuzzi—it must not have
been an hour ago.”

“
Sweetheart, listen. You
know me, you know when I know something. Jason was taken from here.
Someone wanted him and this was actually the perfect time to strike
because we least expected it. I am certain that it was Brock
Houston who has done this.”

“
I’m not ready, Josiah.”
Lena looked at me, scared to death. “I’m not ready for this part of
the journey.”

Joshua hung on her every word, and
mine.

I hugged my wife tightly and said. “I
know, neither am I.” I knew exactly what she meant. I wanted more
years with my son. I was not even sure how any of this played into
the prophecy. I just know it did. Lena did, too.

“
Is this just Brock doing
this, or is this really prophecy of the Triat?” she
asked.

“
Either way, he is our
son, first. I will do everything in my power,
everything
, to bring him back
safe.”

“
I know you
will.”

Joshua came closer and said, “I’m
coming with you, Dad.”

“
You can’t.”

“
Turn me.”

“
What? No. I can’t. We’ve
never even talked about this.”

“
We’re talking about it
now. He’s my brother. Turn me!”

Lena gasped, her eyes shimmering with
tears.

Firmly, I said, “No, Joshua. I need
you to stay with your mom and protect her.”

Torn, Joshua gulped and finally nodded
and put his arm around Lena. “I won’t leave her side.”

“
Good. I’m counting on
you, Joshua. This monster is trying to tear apart our family for
his own diabolical purposes. If anything happened to your mom,
nothing would ever be the same again.”

“
If anything happens to
Jason, nothing will ever be the same again,” Joshua
said.

“
They won’t kill him if he
hasn’t healed Pierce yet.”

“
Is that what this is
about?” Joshua asked.

“
I’m sure.”

“
They might hurt him to
try to make him do that,” Joshua said, his face pale.

“
I know,” I said. “At this
time, I hope he is just verbally negotiating with them, for his
release, playing for time, until I get there.”

Lena burst into tears.

“
Lena, you should take the
jet back to Helena with Joshua, Sion and Tommy. I’m flying back as
the White Eagle. I’m going straight to the Island of Attica. Brock
will answer to me for this outrage to our family unit. Now.” I held
her tightly and told her I loved her.

She nodded her head and said, “Please,
find our son.”