Falter Read online

  The woman and the little girl were curled up in the bottom bunk together.

  Everyone was asleep, then.

  I tried to move.

  It hurt.

  But my bladder was also full, and I needed to empty it. I could see the door to a small bathroom next to the kitchen area of the cabin. It took me several tries, but eventually, I managed to get up and stagger to the bathroom.

  When I came out, the woman was sitting up in the bunk.

  She had long, red curls, and she looked tiny and frail, like a big gust of wind could take her apart. She reminded me of Patience, of Polly, of the concubines at Jasontown. She was totally my type.

  She looked up at me, her expression defiant.

  That was when I realized that she had a cell phone on her lap.

  “What are you doing with that?” I would have gone to her and ripped the thing away from her, but it hurt too much to move, and I wouldn’t be able to get there quickly.

  She pulled her lips back from her teeth—a grin or a grimace, I wasn’t sure.

  “You trying to tell someone we’re here?” I said. She could be texting someone, alerting the police to our presence. Or… there was something else I remembered from the night before. Someone’s name. Someone who had Grace.

  “Imri,” she said. “Imri wants you.”

  That was the name. Imri. I fumbled, finding a gun tucked into the waist of my pants. After everything I’d been through, I still had my gun. “Put the phone down.”

  She froze. Her gaze darted to the little girl lying next to her, still asleep. “Please,” she said. “Not in front of my little girl.”

  “Put the phone down,” I said.

  Her thumb moved against it rapidly. She was typing. She could be about to send the message.

  I was wounded. Azazel and Jude were obviously exhausted. If we were ambushed here by a group of armed men, I didn’t know if we’d be able to take them.

  “Put it down,” I repeated, cocking the gun. Aiming it.

  Her thumb kept moving.

  I pulled the trigger.

  The sound was loud inside the small cabin.

  But at least my shot was nice and neat. Right in the middle of her forehead. She fell back on the bed, lifeless.

  And everyone was awake. Jude stirred. Azazel stood up, brandishing her gun. And the little girl scooted to the corner of the bed, her eyes filling with tears.

  Jude covered his mouth with one hand.

  Azazel looked from me to the woman and put her gun back up.

  “She had a cell phone,” I said.

  Azazel saw the phone and snatched it up. “She was sending a text. It says, ‘They’re here. Jason and the Witch of the OF.’” She let the phone drop to her side. “She knew who we were.”

  “I can’t believe that you did that,” whispered Jude.

  The little girl was crying.

  Azazel tried to reach for her, but the girl slapped at her hands.

  Jude stalked across the room and shoved Azazel out of the way. “Katie, right?” He pulled her off the bed, picked her up.

  She didn’t resist.

  “Let’s go away from this,” Jude said to her. He started out of the cabin.

  Katie peered over Jude’s shoulder at me. “I wish you never would have woken up.”

  The words hit me hard. How many times had I said we shouldn’t have awoken from that coma? What did the little girl know?

  The door of the cabin slammed after Jude and Katie.

  Azazel looked at me. “She meant from sleeping. Just now. She didn’t mean the coma.”

  Right. It was getting too hard to stand up. Carefully, I lowered myself to the floor of the cabin, wincing in pain the whole time.

  Azazel came to me. “Take it easy.”

  I gritted my teeth. “How much longer until the leaves wear off, you think?”

  “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  “You’re the one holding her cell phone.”

  “Oh.” Azazel looked down. “It’s almost 10:00 a.m. You’ve got maybe an hour or so.” She set the phone down gingerly, like she wished she hadn’t touched it. “You seem stronger. Maybe it’s already wearing off.”

  It didn’t feel like it was wearing off. But she might be right, because I felt more lucid now than I had when we’d come into the cabin.

  She studied her fingernails. “What are we going to do with that little girl now?”

  I grunted. Fuck, everything hurt. “I don’t know.” I sighed. “I could have done something different, I guess. I saw the phone, and I didn’t think. I could have yelled for you, woken you up.”

  “Maybe. And if you did that, maybe she would have got the text off.” She shrugged. “What’s done is done.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  On the other side of the cabin, Jude had found a small, dirt road that cut through the woods. The woman’s car was parked there. He’d put Katie inside, strapped her in her car seat.

  Jude and I were standing behind the car.

  Jude’s hands were shoved in his pockets. “She told me that they don’t live here all the time. This is just a hunting cabin. Apparently, her mother brought her here last night because she had a fight with Katie’s dad.”

  “She’s got a dad,” I said. “That’s good.”

  “Why is it good?” His voice was a little choked. “How is anything about this situation good?”

  “She’s got someone,” I said.

  “It doesn’t even phase you, does it? You killed someone’s mother. And you don’t even care.”

  I put my hands in my pockets too. I took a deep breath.

  “You killed my mother.”

  “Our mother,” I said. “Is that what this is about? Still? After all this time?”

  Jude wouldn’t look at me.

  Azazel walked out to us, hanging up the cell phone we’d taken from the woman. She put her hand on my stomach, brushing away dried blood. “You’re looking good. I think you’re all healed up.”

  She was right. It had happened quickly, within the last half hour or so. There wasn’t any pain anymore.

  “I got hold of Boone,” she said. “He’s in the area. He drove down the minute he lost touch with us. He’s got a hotel room, and he wants us to go there.”

  “What did you tell him?” asked Jude.

  “Everything that we know,” said Azazel.

  “Even about Katie?”

  She nodded.

  “And what did he say about that?” said Jude.

  “He says he knows what we can do about the little girl,” she said. “He wants us to bring her too.”

  * * *

  ~azazel~

  Boone met our car in the parking lot. He opened the back door and leaned across the seat. “Hi Katie,” he said.

  The little girl had been crying off and on for the whole drive. If she spoke, she only spoke to Jude. So I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond to Boone.

  Boone brandished a syringe. “You’re going to have to be a brave girl, because you’re going to get a shot. It’ll only hurt for a second, I promise.” He plunged the needle into Katie’s neck.

  She shrieked.

  Boone emptied the syringe.

  Katie’s cries grew louder. And then she slumped to one side, fast asleep.

  “Little something I found in storage at headquarters,” said Boone. “Should knock her out for hours.”

  “That’s your idea of what to do about the girl?” asked Jude, disgusted. “Are any of you actually human beings?”

  “I think we’re part god or something, right?” said Boone. “Isn’t that what you figured out?”

  “Not funny,” said Jude.

  Boone shrugged. “Hey, drive the car down the street to that McDonald’s parking lot, roll down the windows, and come back to the hotel.” He patted Jude on the arm and eased out of the car.

  “We’re leaving her in a parking lot?” said Jude.

  “Someone will find her,” said Boone. “You
think she wants to hang out with the people who killed her mother?”

  Jude didn’t like it, but he took the car as Boone had said.

  Jason and I trooped into Boone’s hotel room. One of the beds was covered with open laptops, and other blinking gadgets. He gestured for us to sit down on the other bed.

  We did.

  Boone began handing us earpieces and cell phones. “I got the phones activated and ready to go. The earpieces shouldn’t have any problem keeping in touch, even out the boonies where this Imri guy lives.”

  “You got his address?” I said.

  “That and more,” said Boone. He picked up one of the laptops and showed us the screen. There was a picture of a man. “This is Imri Black.” He looked familiar.

  “That’s the guy who shot me,” said Jason.

  He was right. He was the man from the travel agency. “So, I guess we’ve met Imri.”

  “Mr. Black owns a farm outside of town, and—from tax records—seems to employ half of the town there.”

  “Doing farm work?” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Boone. “He’s the head of our blood ring. No doubt about it.” He began pulling up stuff for us to see. “The guy’s a local hero. There are all these news stories about him giving money to this or that. About how active he is in the community. That kind of stuff.” Headlines flashed in front of us. Pictures of Imri hugging children and shaking hands with old ladies.

  “So, you think the farm is the cover for the blood ring,” said Jason. “And that he employs the town to help run the business selling blood.”

  “Yeah,” said Boone. “Everybody’s in on it, and everybody’s profiting from it. So, they’re all very protective of Imri and anyone who’d try to stop him.”

  “Like us,” I said.

  Boone nodded. “But the farm doesn’t look heavily guarded or anything. I think you guys can easily go in and poke around. Maybe you’ll find where he’s keeping Grace.”

  “He’s got to have Nephilim stashed up there too,” I said. “Where else would he get the blood to sell? That’s got to be our priority, getting them out.”

  “Grace is our priority,” said Jason.

  “Yeah, you guys got to bring her back,” said Boone.

  “We will,” I said.

  Jason stroked his chin. “So, Imri lives on this farm by himself, or does he have a live-in staff too? Guards?”

  “Oh, he’s got a family,” said Boone. He pulled up a photo for us. Imri, a pretty woman standing next to him, and three children, all smiling at the camera.

  “A family,” said Jason. “Then I don’t think we poke around. I think we take a direct approach. We don’t have a lot more time to waste on this mission. We all want Grace back, and we should get her back the quickest way possible.”

  “Agreed,” said Boone.

  Jason explained his plan.

  “Jude’s going to hate this,” I said.

  * * *

  Jude did hate it.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. “Are we going to pop them off if Imri doesn’t cooperate?”

  “Maybe,” said Jason. “Azazel and I will decide.”

  “You know, maybe Jude doesn’t have to be there,” I said. “Maybe he can stay here with Boone?”

  “No, because once I’m off with Imri, then you’ll need help to hold down the fort,” said Jason.

  “But he’ll probably be a big baby about it the way he was in that cabin,” I said. “He’ll be no help at all.”

  “I can do it,” Jude said. “You guys are assholes.”

  * * *

  We parked the van that Boone gave us at the edge of the property and went in towards Imri’s farmhouse on foot.

  The grass was tall in the fields, so we crouched. We waded through seas of grass. Imri sure didn’t seem to be growing anything on this farm.

  “Crossed the first fence,” I said to Boone.

  His voice in my ear. “Good. You’ll see the next one ahead of you in about a few hundred feet. You can go right through that one. It’s not electrified.”

  We moved through the grass. It whispered around us. Insects jumped from blade to blade. Dragonflies buzzed. Gnats swarmed.

  We came to the next fence. It was made of barbed wire.

  Jason stepped on the bottom wire, careful not to step on the barbs. Gingerly, he held up the wire above it, making a wide gap.

  I crawled through. A barb snagged my shirt but not badly.

  Jude came after me.

  I took over holding the fence for Jason.

  He came through as well.

  “Cleared the next fence,” I told Boone.

  “Great,” he said. “Turn to your right, and you should have a visual on the farmhouse. It’s tucked into a grove of trees.”

  I did as he said. At first, I didn’t see a house. It only looked like a cluster of oak trees, tall and stately, brand new leaves dripping from their branches.

  Then I caught sight of a window, glinting in the sunlight, and the house became clear to me.

  “Okay, Boone, I see the house.”

  “There’s an electrified fence going all around it. I want you tell me right when you’re on the fence. I’ll knock out all the power, and then you’ll have to get over that fence and get in position before someone goes out to check the fuse box on the porch.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Got it,” said Jason.

  “Yeah,” said Jude.

  We set off through the grass again, crouching even lower so that we wouldn’t be seen. Down in the grass like this, everything smelled sweet like hay. It was muggy and itchy, and I was frightened that I’d run into a snake or something. Weren’t snakes supposed to like tall grass?

  It would be slithering along, looking for a rat or something, and I’d step on it.

  Angry, it would rear up and strike me, sinking its fangs into my leg.

  Jason would have to suck the poison out. I’d read that in a book once, that you could suck out snake poison. I couldn’t remember why it didn’t hurt the person sucking it out.

  Maybe it did.

  Maybe Jason would suck it out and then—

  But this was silly. We were invincible, even to snake poison.

  I tried to calm down as we pressed forward.

  Eventually, we came to the electric fence.

  “We’re at the final fence,” I told Boone.

  “Copy that,” said Boone. “Electricity going out in five seconds.” He counted down. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. And… it’s out. Go ahead.”

  We climbed over the fence as quickly as we could and dashed up onto the back porch of the farmhouse.

  The porch was screened in. There were plants hanging around the perimeter, several lawn chairs sitting around a few tiny tables.

  Jason pointed, and Jude and I both crouched down behind the chairs.

  Jason positioned himself behind the door.

  We waited.

  It was quiet, except for the noise of my own breath. I wondered if anyone else could hear it. I tried to hold my breath and listen for Jude’s.

  I couldn’t hear him breathing.

  However, maybe I was breathing louder than Jude. It was possible, after all. Maybe my breathing was really noisy, and it would give us away.

  Maybe that was why no one had come out on the porch. Imri was onto us.

  But then we heard the distance sound of voices from inside the house.

  “I don’t think it’s a fuse. Everything’s out,” said a male voice.

  “Check anyway. We’re sitting here in the dark.”

  “All right,” the male voice said, getting louder. “I’m going out to check.”

  The door opened.

  A boy came out. He was about thirteen, gawky and awkward with spindly limbs. He crossed to the fuse box, rolling his eyes at whoever had told him to check it.

  Jason pounced out from behind him, brandishing his gun. We’d gotten new ones from Boone, fresh loaded wi
th herb bullets in case we were dealing with vampires. It stood to reason that if Imri was dealing blood, he also used it. That had been the case with Bartholomew, the vampire that had imprisoned us.

  Jason put the barrel of the gun at the boy’s skull. “Hold it right there. I’ve got a gun pointed at your head.”

  The boy froze.

  Jude and I stood up. I could see from the expression on Jude’s face that he was less than thrilled about threatening to kill kids. I knew he wouldn’t like the plan.

  “Put your hands up slowly,” said Jason.

  The boy complied.

  “Okay,” said Jason. “We’re going to walk back inside now. If you yell, or scream, or give anyone any indication that something is wrong, I will shoot you. You understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Good,” said Jason. “Let’s go.”

  “Boone,” I said. “We’ve got a hostage. We’re going in.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m bringing the lights back up.”

  As we stepped inside the farmhouse, the lights sprang to life, illuminating the kitchen—a tile floor with antique appliances. However old they appeared, they were scrubbed clean, though. They looked in good condition.

  Jason walked the boy through the kitchen and into the next room, an empty dining room. There was a mahogany table in the center of the room and cupboards against the walls with glass doors, displaying antique china.

  “You did it!” called a voice from the next room. “Lights are back.”

  We went through the dining room and emerged into a living room. There were two floral print couches against the wall. The pretty woman from the picture sat on them with a little girl. The girl couldn’t have been more than ten.

  The woman looked up. At first she only saw her son. She didn’t see us behind him. “What’s with that face, Elijah? You did it.”

  Then Jason and the rest of us came into view.

  She gasped.

  “Stay calm,” said Jason. “Where are the other members of the family?”