Angel's Pain (8 page)

“Good. You three will be the back-up team, in case anyone gets into trouble.” When he sensed that Ilyana was about to object, he added, “You'll also be ready to go once we
do
find Gregor. Seth and Vixen, head to Oklahoma City. Topaz and Jack, you take Dallas. Once you check out those two crime scenes, you can decide where to go from there. Report in as you go. Don't take too much time, and don't be seen. This is not an assault on Gregor. If you find him, you stay low, do some recon and call it in. No one moves on him until we're all together. I don't want your bodies to be the next ones found lying bloodless in some death house.”

He eyed them, and saw and sensed that they all agreed—except for Ilyana. There was defiance in her eyes. Roxy met his gaze, though, and said, “I'll see to it.”

“Good. Go then, get on it. While you're doing that, Briar and I will track Crisa down.” He turned to Briar, took her arm and led her from the room, ignoring the stunned way she stared at him.

When they reached the stairs and he started up them, she whispered, “Why?”

“We need to put on some more practical clothes, toss a few supplies in a bag in case we're gone longer than we anticipate, pack up some first-aid gear in case she's hurt. It'll only take a few minutes, and then we're out of here, I promise.”

She shook her head. “No. I meant, why are you coming with me instead of going after Gregor?
He's
your mission. Not Crisa. Not me.”

He glanced at her, then shook his head. “I'd do the same if any one of the others had gone missing.”

“I'm not so sure about that.”

“Well, you should be, because I would. I never asked to feel responsible for this band of misfits, but I feel it anyway. I have to think there's a reason I ended up with a litter of pups to ride herd on, but I'm damned if I can figure out what it is.” He stopped outside her bedroom.

“Grab what you think you'll need. And don't forget to bring a tranq gun and plenty of darts in case…” He didn't finish, but he didn't have to. Briar had to know damn well what he meant: In case someone uttered his trigger word and sent him into a frenzy of violence.

“You were hired to find Gregor,” she said.

“And I will. Hell, it's not like I'm going to run out of time, Briar. He and I are both immortal.” He tried to inject a little lightness into his tone, because she seemed more tense and more worried than he'd ever seen her.

More vulnerable, too. He'd never thought of her that way, not once since he'd known her. But he saw it now. It was clear to him that if anything happened to Crisa, a girl she pretended to tolerate, and that only barely, she would be devastated. It was a weakness she would hate like hell to admit, but he was pretty sure she knew he could see it. And undoubtedly resented him for it.

“I'll meet you out back in ten minutes,” he told her.

She nodded, stared at him for one more moment, then shook herself and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

He was an idiot, Reaper told himself as he walked down the hall to his own room. She wouldn't appreciate his help. He was a little bit shocked she was even accepting it, but he knew that was more about Crisa than about herself. She cared about that kid.

The knowledge made him feel a bit lighter, though he had no idea why.

 

Crisa just walked. Her head hurt, but she ignored it. Her belly was painfully empty, and that made the pain in her head seem worse, but she didn't have time to eat. She just kept on walking. She had to find him. She had to find the boy.

And there was something else. That voice in her head.

It had changed, that voice. This evening, when it had woken her from her deep, deep sleep, it hadn't been the same as the voice she'd been hearing before. This voice was deeper, with a gruffness to it, and a coldness she hadn't felt before. But it seemed to come from the very same spot inside her head, and it reverberated and seemed to echo, just as the other voice had. It hurt, when the voice came. But it hurt a lot more when she tried to ignore it.

“I want you to come to me,” the voice said. “I want you to come to me, and I want you to bring Reaper and Briar with you. No one else. Just those two. That's your job, Crisa, and I will not let you rest until you've done it. So get busy.”

“Who are you?” she whispered. “You're different. I don't know you.”

“I'm your lord and master, Crisa. You do what I say, or I'll punish you.”

“I can't.” The words came weakly. It was exhausting, hearing this voice, trying to communicate with it when speaking aloud didn't really work. She had to
think
her replies, and really focus when she did so. But she couldn't do that in silence, so she spoke them aloud, as well.

“You can and you will,” he said.

“No. You can punish me if you want, but I can't. I have to go to him.”

“You dare defy me? Do you have any idea how much I can make you suffer? How efficiently I could take your life, Crisa?”

“I have to go to him,” she repeated. Because nothing else mattered.

“To
whom?
” the voice demanded. It was filled with impatience and anger, and those emotions shook Crisa. They scared her.

“The boy. He—he needs me.”

“The boy. Ah, yes, I've seen the boy. Do you know his name?”

“No.”

“Well, I do. His name is Matthias.”

She blinked, feeling with everything in her that this was true. Matthias. No. Matt. “His name is Matt,” she corrected.

“I think I know his name a bit better than you do, Crisa. But fine, call him Matt, if you want to. It makes no difference. Do you know where he is?”

She blinked and tried to translate her feelings, the compass inside her that kept turning her toward him as she trudged through forests and over roads and across fields. “North,” she said. “He's north.”

“He's with me,” the voice said.

And for the first time since she'd leapt from her bedroom window, Crisa stopped walking. She stood very still. “You…you're real?”

“Of course I'm real. What did you think I was, part of your imagination?”

She breathed. In. Out. In. Out. Inout, inout, inout. She was agitated. It hurt more now. Her head pulsed in time with her increasing respirations. “So many things are,” she said. “That's what Rey-Rey used to tell me. That so many things were just my imagination. That he had to tell me what was real and what wasn't. But now he's not here to tell me. There's only Briar, but she's kind of mean to me, and—”

“Yes, yes, that's all very interesting. But let's get back to the subject at hand, Crisa. You want the boy. You are determined to get to the boy. I have the boy. And unless you do as I tell you, I'll hurt the boy. Do you understand me?”

“No! No, don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. Don't—”

“Shut up!”

Crisa's hands flew to her ears, as she dropped to her knees on the forest floor. She screamed aloud, tears springing to her eyes at the power of the shout inside her mind. It was deafening and painful.

And as the echoes slowly died and she pried her eyes open again, she sought the source, carefully, like poking at a sore spot. She found it, inside her, and she whispered, “Please don't shout anymore. I'll do whatever you say. Just don't hurt the boy.”

“Good. Now get Briar and Reaper, and bring them to me.”

“I will,” she promised.

And then he withdrew. She sensed him pulling out of her mind, and she wished she knew how to close the door tightly enough to keep him out. She knew how to block her thoughts. Roxy had taught her. But for some reason, those techniques didn't work against this invader.

She believed him when he said he had the boy.

She also knew he would hurt her, or hurt Matt, if he said he would.

She knew more than that now, though. She knew he was evil. His energy reeked of it. And she knew he was a vampire. Not the more-or-less gentle soul who'd spoken to her in this same unusual way before. That man had been mortal. She hadn't been afraid of him.

This man was dark, powerful and dangerous. And Crisa was
very
afraid of
him
.

But she wasn't going to do what he told her. She would pretend to. She would promise to. But she wouldn't do it. She wouldn't bring Reaper and Briar with her. And there were several reasons for that dancing around in her brain.

First and foremost, going back for them would mean losing time, and she was compelled to keep moving forward, ever forward, ever closer to the boy. She couldn't go back. Literally. She was convinced that even if she tried to turn and walk in the other direction, her feet would not obey. They insisted, as did her entire body and her mind, on moving north. She was having trouble even getting her limbs to cooperate when she came to a barrier in her path and had to veer around it. And that made no sense. It was as if her body had a mind of its own. As if she were being steered by some outside force.

Her second reason for not going back to get Briar and Reaper was because she knew they would try to keep her from leaving again. They might try to stop her from going to the boy. To Matt.

And her third reason was that she had sensed something in the evil vampire's voice and in his essence when he'd said their names inside her head. He wanted to hurt them. He wanted it so badly he couldn't even keep her from sensing it. He wanted to kill them. Make them go away forever, like Rey-Rey.

“I can't let him do that,” she whispered as she continued lumbering onward. “I love them. So I can't let him do that.”

And so she walked on to the north, and she kept her mind blocked to keep her friends from finding her, wondering why she could keep Briar out but not this intruder.

When she came to a river and decided to turn east in search of a bridge, every step got harder. It felt as if there were a giant rubber band wrapped around her, pulling her toward the boy, and every step away stretched it farther. Every step made it pull back harder, until she couldn't bear to put one foot in front of the other again. She turned, and the moment she faced north again, the resistance vanished.

So she walked into the river, and it got deeper and deeper. And she kept walking. Water rose up to her waist, then to her breasts, then to her neck, and still she moved on. The current tried to sweep her westward, but she felt that resistance again, holding her to her course in spite of the current. And she began to swim when she could no longer walk, and the power that pulled her helped her make it across.

Soon her tired feet dragged the bottom, and she planted them and walked, and the water level dropped as she moved, to her breasts, to her hips, to her knees. She sloshed out of the water, up onto the shore and onward.

Ever onward, toward the boy.

W
hen Gregor returned to his Byram castle, leaving all Dwyer's computer equipment and files in the Jeep, he sensed trouble immediately.

His brow furrowed as he felt the absence of his prisoner. The elation of knowing his enemies were on their way to being delivered to him vanished. Slamming the door and bellowing for the drones, he surged through the mansion, down the basement stairs and into the room where the prisoner had been kept.

Nothing. The manacles lay on the floor, the key still in their lock. And that was all. Dammit!

“Matthias!” he shouted, stomping out of the room and up the basement stairs. “I told you to unchain him, not let him go. Matthias, where the hell are you, boy?”

No answer.

And suddenly he was aware of the
other
absence he sensed: that of his son.

As he entered the hallway from the basement stairwell, one of his drones, one he called Brutus, though they all pretty much looked alike, stood there looking at his own feet. “Master, the prisoner and the boy were gone when we awoke from the day sleep. We didn't know what to do.”

In his hand, the drone held a sheet of paper with handwriting covering one side.

“What the hell is that?” Gregor demanded.

“It was in the boy's room.”

Gregor snatched the sheet from the drone's hand, and read it rapidly.

“You promised I'd be home before dark!”

When they stepped out of the arcade and onto the sidewalk, Matt was shocked to see that it was dark outside. The sun was long gone. His father had to be home by now, and he was going to be in big trouble.

Still, it had been the best day he'd spent in a long time—since before his mom had died. Even though Derry had been hurting pretty badly most of the day, he had been fun. Once they got the car, he'd found some medicine in the glove compartment, and that had seemed to make him feel better. He still had to be sore, though.

Their first stop had been lunch. Derry let Matt pick the place, and Matt picked his favorite fast-food chain, one he used to visit with his mom sometimes. Then they'd gone to the zoo. Derry rented a golf cart to drive around the place, probably 'cause he was too sore to walk all that way. He stayed in the cart most of the time, just rested, and he took some more of his pills while Matt was busy looking at the tigers.

Then they sat on a bench in the shade for a long time, sipping lemonade and resting some more. And finally Derry had driven him to the arcade, handed him a whole role of quarters and then sat where he could watch over him and let him play until he could barely move his thumbs.

It had been great. But Derry had been looking more and more worn out as the day went on. And now it was dark.

“I am in
so much
trouble.”

“I guess we lost track of the time,” Derry said. He patted Matt's shoulder. “I don't want you to worry about it, though. You're not goin' to get into any hot water over this.”

“You don't know my father,” Matt told him.

“Actually, I do, Matt. I know him better than you do, I think.”

Matt frowned up at the man. “I know he's not a very nice person. And that he hurt you. Pretty bad.”

Derry nodded.

“I'd have let you go sooner if I could.”

“That wasn't your job, Matt. Don't waste any time feelin' guilty about that, okay?”

“It's just…my father's different. And special. Too special to have to follow the same rules as everyone else.”

“Did he tell you that, Matthias?”

Matt nodded. “He said I'm special, too. Not as special as him. Not yet, but I will be someday.”

“And is that what you want? To be like him?”

Matt pursed his lips in thought. “Not…
mean
like him.”

“What if you could have anythin' in the whole world, any kind of life you wanted, Matt? What would you want for yourself?”

“That's easy.” Matt lowered his head. “I'd want my mom back.”

“I don't blame you.”

“She wasn't like him. She wasn't mean like him, and she wasn't…you know.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. She didn't sleep durin' the day and have superhuman strength and all that kind of stuff, right?”

“Right.”

“And your father told you she was dead, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he tell you how she died?”

“Car accident,” he said.

“Hmm.”

Matt tipped his head to one side, looking at Derry and thinking the way he'd said “hmm” was odd. “I never really believed him, though. Not, you know, all the way.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we didn't have a funeral. Don't you usually have a funeral when someone dies?”

“Yeah, usually.”

“And I saw her car. After. It was in the garage, just like always. Not banged up or anything. I saw it right before Father and I left.”

“Where did you go?”

“I don't know. One place after another. Always a great big house someplace I'd never been before. I'm not allowed to go outside or go to school or leave at all, so the house is pretty much all I see.”

“How long has it been like that for you?”

“A year. Before that I lived with Mom. Dad left us. I barely even remembered him until he came back. And then they fought, and then she died, and he took me and we left. But one night, I swore I heard her voice, yelling at him.”

Derry was silent for a long moment. He said, “You know, I'm sort of like a cop.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. And keepin' track of your father has been a big part of my job for the past ten years. We didn't know he was goin' to go back to you and your mom, and end up takin' you away with him. Heck, I didn't even know he
had
a son. But we knew about your mom, and if there had been a car accident, we would have known about that, too.”

Matt's head came up slowly, his eyes widening as he searched Derry's face. “You mean there wasn't one?”

“No, Matt. When your father left with you, your mom was still alive. She disappeared a while later, but I'm fairly certain she went lookin' for you. And I've got no reason to believe she's dead.”

Matt felt something huge filling up his chest, something so big he thought he might bust right open. “My mom's alive?”

“Yeah, as far as I know.”

Matt's eyes were burning, and he blinked fast to keep tears from spilling over. “You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Derry? Not about my mom.”

Matt didn't think the man was lying. The talent he had—the one his mom had called a gift and warned him not to tell anyone about—was telling him that Derry wasn't lying. But he was afraid to trust it about something this big.

“No, Matt. I wouldn't lie about that. Your father lied to you, not me. So here's the thing. I'd like you to stay with me, until I can find your mom for you and get you two back together.”

Matt's eyes widened. “But if Dad finds out—”

“We can keep him from findin' us. We'll just have to be careful, and you'll have pay attention to what I tell you and do what I say. But we can do it.”

“He'd
kill
me if he caught us!”

“If he should catch us—and he won't—but if he does, I'll say I kidnapped you. You know, to pay him back for hurtin' me like he did.”

“K-kidnapped me?”

“Sure. That way he can't be mad at you. Only at me. Okay?”

Matthias stared hard at Derry; then he narrowed his eyes. “That's what you really
are
doing, though, isn't it, Derry?” And when Derry looked at him in surprise, Matt went on, telling him what he knew, but not entirely how he knew it. Felt it. “I saw you writing the note, leaving it in my room. I kind of figured that's what was happening.”

“You knew I was kidnappin' you? And yet you came with me anyway?”

Lowering his head, Matt sighed. “I guess I figured I'd be better off with a kidnapper than staying with my father. And I think it will be easier to run away from you than it would be to run away from him. You know?”

“You don't have to run away from me, Matthias. You're goin' to be safe with me. I promise.”

Matt thinned his lips and slowly nodded his head. But he wasn't nodding because he believed Derry. Because he didn't.

That gift of his, the one that Derry didn't know about, let him hear people's thoughts. It hadn't always been as sharp as it was now. Maybe it had gotten better from living in a house full of vampires and drones who spoke more to each other with their minds than with their mouths. But whatever the reason, it had become stronger and stronger, until now, it happened without him even trying. He heard a lot of what people were thinking.

And just now, he'd heard Derry's thoughts.

He's a good kid. I sure as hell hope I don't have to kill him.

Matt hoped so, too. But he wouldn't count on it. If he wanted to survive, he was going to have to be smart, and not trust anybody besides himself. Because everyone else in the world would always put themselves first. His father had been right about that.

Matt wondered if his mom really was still alive, or if Derry had just been lying to him to get what he wanted. It had felt like the truth, when Derry said it. He hoped his gift was being honest with him.

It didn't matter. He would find out. And even though Derry was thinking about killing him, Matt thought, he was better off with him than he'd been before. One step closer to being free. Just like he'd planned from the day he'd seen his father drag Derrick Dwyer through the house and down to the basement. One look into the man's eyes and he'd known: this man would be his way out.

 

Briar knelt on the back lawn, just beneath Crisa's bedroom window, palms to the ground, feeling.

“Anything?” Reaper asked.

Rising slowly, Briar stared off toward the thick brush at the lawn's edge. “This way,” she said, and she started walking. Not running, because it would be far too easy to get off course, lose track of the signal in favor of speed, and that would do more harm than good.

Reaper caught up in short order, and they made their way into the brush and weeds, pushing through branches, limbs and undergrowth. Crisa hadn't left a physical trail, only a mental one, and that was what Briar followed as she moved through the tangled limbs.

“Does she feel close?” Reaper asked.

“You can't sense her for yourself?”

“I can, slightly. But my connection with Crisa is nowhere near as powerful as the one she has with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and who's to blame for that?” She shot a look over her shoulder at him as she asked the question and saw an amused look in his eyes, one he hid quickly.

“
Someone
had to give her blood to save her life, Briar. You were the closest.”

“I didn't want to do it. I didn't want—this.”

“What? To care about her?”

“It's not caring, it's a compulsion. I don't have a choice but to help her. The damn fact that
my
blood is running through
her
veins is what's driving me, nothing more.”

“Right. And there's no…feeling behind it.”

“None whatsoever.”

“So if she died, the bond would be broken, and you'd feel…?”

“Nothing,” she said, pushing limbs aside, pausing to look around, to try to sense where Crisa had gone.

“I don't believe that,” Reaper said softly.

She spun around to face him. “You're right. I
would
feel something. Relief to be rid of her. She's like a weight around my neck. I don't
like
feeling responsible for anyone besides myself.”

She turned forward again, putting her back to him and her nose to the wind; picking up Crisa's essence, she once again began moving toward her.

“That much I understand,” he said as they pressed on. “I didn't like it, either, when I started accumulating this…this gang of ours. I've always worked alone.”