Summoner of Storms (7 page)

And hell, if Tiffany’s theory about mortals
corrupting NHEs was right, maybe John had a point. Maybe there
shouldn’t be any contact for the safety of the NHE as much as the
human. Why take the chance of turning them into monsters?

“
I do not regret being summoned.”

No, but you aren’t stuck in a haze of
hunger and cold and pain all the time, either.
The memory of
the wendigo sent a shiver through him.
That could have been
you.

“
But it was not. Why do you insist on
worrying about things that never happened?”

The car slowed abruptly, the seatbelt going
tight over his chest. “Something’s wrong,” Tiffany said.

Caleb peered out the front window, in between
the two seats. It reminded him inescapably of the day he’d become
possessed by Gray, sitting in the backseat of a Fist van and trying
to get a glimpse of the monster’s lair. Instead of a falling-down
ruin, though, he glimpsed a simple doublewide with a neat yard. An
older model van sat out front, and a swing set flanked the
driveway.

All the tires on the van were flat.

It would have been weird under other
circumstances, but in these... something was seriously off.

Tiffany stopped the car, engine idling. None
of the curtains twitched, and no one came out to greet them.

“What do you want to do?” John asked, tension
practically vibrating off him.

A long moment of silence. Tiffany switched
off the car. “We find out what the hell is going on here.”

Caleb unsnapped the buckle on his seatbelt.
“I’ll go first.”

“Caleb,” John began, but Caleb cut him
off.

“No. If there’s a sniper, or an ambush, or if
Tiffany’s cousin has freaked out and opens up with a shotgun, I’m
the one to take the bullet.” It would hurt like fuck, but he’d
probably survive it.

“Go,” Tiffany ordered.

“Aye-aye,
la capitaine,”
he muttered,
and climbed out. Every muscle drew tight, bracing for the impact of
a slug.

Nothing.

Closing the car door behind him, he walked
deliberately into the open space beside the van. Gray hovered just
beneath their skin, ready to heal their body as fast as possible so
they could get on with the ass-kicking part. His heart raced.
Electricity tingled over his skin, and his hair stirred of its own
accord, not a breath of wind to move it.

Still nothing.

No bullet. No shouted orders to freeze. Not
even a concealed land mine beneath the churned gravel of the
drive.

But a heavy vehicle had left tire tracks in
the dirt. And sunlight gleamed from a spent bullet casing.

The sedan’s doors slammed, John and Tiffany
having apparently decided it safe to come out. Caleb crouched down
and pointed at the casing. Tiffany hissed softly. She’d lost her
mom already, and now it didn’t look good for her extended family.
But she didn’t freak out, either from her training with the
Vigilant, or because she really was a SPECTR agent at heart.

“Okay,” she said, firming her grip on her
gun. “Let’s reconnoiter the house.”

* * *

John’s every muscle drew tight, senses taking
in each detail of the deserted yard. The only sounds came from
chirping birds and spring frogs. Yellow tulips lined the walk in
front of the house, and the first leaves budded on the trees. A
bright red ball lay in the green grass.

In any other circumstances, the homestead
would have struck him as idyllic. But given a van with flat tires
and spent bullet casings, the scene took on an ominous edge. “How
many people live here?”

Tiffany’s gaze swept the yard and surrounding
woods. “Ordinarily? Four. But this was supposed to be a ceremony.
Aunt DeeDee would be here to summon and exorcise. Marcus might
horse, or cousin Rhonda, if she could make it. As few as five, but
this is a family get-together, so possibly as many as eight.” She
swallowed convulsively. “Marcus’s kids are only in elementary
school.”

Sekhmet, Devourer of Evil, save them. He drew
his Glock and joined Tiffany on the porch, flanking the door with
their backs against the vinyl siding. He nodded at Caleb, who
kicked the door open.

It slammed against the wall, and Caleb went
through. No one shouted or started shooting. John wasn’t sure if he
could count that a good sign or not.

He and Tiffany slipped inside. The door
opened on an ordinary living room: recliner, wide-screen TV, couch,
pictures of children on the wall. A card table lay on its side, and
the pieces of a smashed porcelain figurine littered the carpet.
Someone had fought back.

A smoky haze floated near the ceiling,
accompanied by the acrid smell of food charring to ash. Tiffany
frowned and stepped past a breakfast nook, into the kitchen. A soft
click announced she’d turned off the stove.

“Charlene was in the middle of cooking,” she
said. John joined her beside the blackened remains of what appeared
to be chicken in a skillet, a half-chopped carrot still on the
cutting board.

“Knife’s gone,” he said, noting the empty
place in the block.

Tiffany nodded tightly. “I hope she got one
of the bastards.”

“I hear something,” Caleb called from the
living room.

John hurried to join him, Tiffany following.
Caleb stood at the entrance to a hall coming off the den. The
crackle of Gray’s energy brushed against John’s perception, the
drakul ready to act at a moment’s notice. More pictures of kids
hung in the hall, accompanied by a wedding portrait and a couple of
framed college degrees.

All of the doors stood open except for the
one at the end.

“It’s coming from behind the closed door,”
Caleb said. He eased down the hall, glancing through the open doors
as he passed. No one jumped out at him. Still, John took a careful
look around the doorways before crossing in front of them. A
bedroom, bath, and small office, all empty. The computer in the
office was still on, monitor displaying a spreadsheet.

Caleb paused at the end of the hall. John
heard the sound now, too, like the low murmur of voices, muffled by
the door. Was someone in there? But anyone inside would surely have
heard them walking down the hall.

John covered the door with his Glock,
prepared to fire. At his nod, Caleb threw open the door.

High, bright laughter poured out from a TV
turned to a children’s station. Bright colors decorated the room,
and toys lay strewn about on the floor. A bunk bed with rocket ship
comforters stood against the wall, and a mobile of the solar system
hung from the ceiling.

“The girls are really into all this space
stuff,” Tiffany said, staring at the mobile. Her voice shook
slightly. “I planned on taking them up to DC, to the Air and Space
Museum, this summer after school let out.”

“Yeah,” John said. How must she feel right
now? Her mother dead, and now this...whatever this was. Thank the
Goddess they hadn’t found any bodies. Yet. “Sounds like fun.”

“Come on.” She led the way back to the living
room. Caleb shut off the TV before joining them. “What the hell is
going on here?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” John nodded in the direction
of the back door. “Let’s search the back yard, see if we can find
any clues.”

Caleb looked dubious, but made for the door
anyway. As they stepped outside, he froze, nostrils flaring.
“Shit.”

“What is it?” John asked, his stomach going
sour.

“I smell blood. Lots of blood.”

Caleb took another breath and scanned the
small yard behind the doublewide. There was a garden, its earth
newly turned, in preparation for the spring planting. A trampoline,
probably for the kids to jump around on. And, of course, the reek
of blood, human and untainted by any scent of demon.

God, if the blood belonged to one of the
little girls whose room they’d seen...

Gray hovered just under his skin, reflecting
back Caleb’s tension.
“There.”
A splash of red on the grass
near the edge of the woods. Someone shot while trying to run?

But a little splash wasn’t enough to explain
the strength of the scent.
Time to play tracker dog again, I
guess.

Caleb led the way to the woods, pausing to
touch the bloody grass. “Still tacky.”

“No more than an hour old,” John said.
“Probably less.” Tiffany didn’t say anything, and Caleb remembered
this blood probably belonged to someone she knew. Maybe even a
relative. Maybe a child.

Caleb stepped into the thick woods. Shrubs
and small trees snagged at his coat, and sticks popped under his
boots. He didn’t know anything about the woods, but even without
his amped-up sense of smell, he could have followed the blood
trail. Drips and drops spattered leaves and the ground.

The land sloped gently down toward a creek.
The rusty stink grew stronger. “Hello?” Caleb called. “Is someone
out here? We’re here to help.”

“It’s Tiffany,” Tiffany added. “Anyone here?
Marcus? Charlene?”

Was that a moan? Caleb turned in the
direction of the sound, and spotted the edge of a green shirt, just
visible on the other side of a fallen tree on the creek’s edge.

A man sprawled there, legs stretched out in
front of him, his shirt and jeans soaked with blood. From the
amount of gray in his hair and wrinkles around his eyes, he looked
to be in his sixties. His breath rattled ominously, and his polo
shirt sported a black hole just under the pocket.

“Uncle Frank?” Tiffany holstered her gun and
fell to her knees by the man.

He blinked sluggishly. “Tiffany?” he asked,
his voice so faint even Caleb had to strain to hear.

“Yeah, it’s me.” She reached for his shirt,
but he weakly batted her hands away.

“I’m done for.” A racking cough seized him.
When it ended, he spat out bloody froth to one side. “SPECTR did
this. Came and took everyone. I tried to run, thought I could get
help...”

“Shh. It’s okay.” Tiffany gently peeled the
edges of the shirt away from the wound. Fresh blood oozed free.

“Why? Why’d they take everybody? The girls
are just six.” The old man swallowed convulsively. “You got to get
them back, Tiff. You got to.”

Tiffany bit her lip. “I will, Uncle Frank. I
swear.”

He didn’t answer, just let out a long,
rattling breath before failing to draw another. Tiffany sank back
onto the forest floor and put her hand over her eyes.

Fuck. Caleb exchanged a glance with John,
neither of them sure what to say. Tiffany had lost her mom and an
uncle in just over twenty-four hours, and now SPECTR kidnapped her
young cousins on top of it?

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said at last,
helplessly.

Tiffany didn’t move. “Me too.”

Caleb peered around at the still woods. “Why
would SPECTR do this? Kidnapping people now? What the hell?”

John holstered his Glock. “Hostages? To
convince the Vigilant to turn themselves in?”

“Maybe.” A horrible thought occurred to
Caleb. “You don’t think Forsyth grabbed them to put demons in them,
do you?”

“Goddess,” John whispered, half-curse and
half-prayer. “I hope not.”

“How did Forsyth even know to send his goons
here?”

“A mole? Interrogating someone they’d already
captured?” John leaned past Tiffany and gently shut the dead man’s
eyes. “Without an empath, we can’t know who might have been
compromised.”

“Fuck,” Tiffany whispered. She dropped her
hand and stood up. She stared at her uncle for a long moment, then
turned away. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

Caleb gestured to the body. “Shouldn’t we...I
don’t know, do something?”

“We don’t have time to dig a grave. A pyre
would give off too much smoke—someone might come to investigate.”
She wiped a tear from her face. “The living have to come
first.”

Caleb glanced back at the body. It didn’t
seem right to leave him there.

“
It is only a husk.”

He was her uncle!

“
The mortal has ceased to exist. Burying
his corpse will change nothing.”

Remember how I tracked you down, trying to
get Ben’s body back? She doesn’t care any less about her uncle than
I did about my brother.

“
But Ben was gone. He could not care what
I did with his remains. Why did you?”

Caleb sighed and scrubbed at his face.
Because I didn’t have anything else left of him.

“
Ah.”
Gray considered, a tiger idly
twitching its tail.
“It was for your sake, not his. And burying
this mortal would be for Tiffany’s sake, not his.”

“What now?” John asked.

Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know. Go
somewhere we can think.” She started up the slope toward the
house.

John and Caleb fell in behind her. She led
the way back out of the woods and to the front lawn. The only
sounds were the crunch of leaves under their feet. Even the birds
and frogs fell silent.

As they reached the driveway, the growl of a
motor abruptly started from the direction of the road leading to
the house. Caleb spun. An armored Humvee roared around the bend in
the driveway and accelerated right at them.

“John!” he shouted, and half-shoved,
half-threw his lover out of the way. An instant later, the front of
the Humvee smashed into him.

* * *

Gray snarls.

Everything hurts, bones grinding back into
place and muscles binding together.
“They ran over us!”
Caleb seems shocked, angry.
“Fucking bastards!”

And they would have run over John as well,
had Caleb not moved him out of the way quickly enough. These
mortals have done too much to tolerate—threatened them, threatened
John. Taken innocent people, children even.

He has inhabited the corpses of the young on
occasion, knows how fragile they are, even for mortals. How
vulnerable. He never gave it a great deal of thought before, more
than any other aspect of human existence. Now...now it stirs heat
in his chest, and brings out his claws in the desire to rend.