Secret Worlds (440 page)

I found Charlie just before lunch. He was in the exact position I’d left him in earlier that morning, but this time papers were scattered all over his desk. He didn’t seem to be focused on any one particular.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“It’s as good as it’s going to get,” he answered, his eyes downcast. “How did it go with Dr. Skinner?”

“It went well. I’m working at the Academy tomorrow morning with some special children that are going to help me.” I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. “Look, I know you barely know me, but I feel like I know you really well. Something bad happened that’s changed you, and I’d like to help. It’s the least I could do.”

He raised his eyes, meeting my gaze. “I will be the only one to take care of this problem.”

“And what is the problem exactly?”

“A man. I’ve been searching for him for several four years.”

“Can’t you use your ability to find him?”

His eyes narrowed, and his voice chilled. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? It’s all I do every day, every night. I think of him, picture him in my mind, feel my hatred for him, and yet, he still escaped me, but two days ago he was spotted. In this city.”

I lowered into a chair, my legs weak by his confession. This was not the Charlie I remembered. “Who is he?”

“Someone who should’ve died a long time ago. He took something very precious from me, and I won’t rest until he ceases to exist.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. You’re not ready.”

“But I am—”

The door flew open. A young man was panting heavily like he’d just run up several flights of stairs. “They’ve got a hit, Charlie. They’re leaving now.”

Charlie stood up, knocking his chair backwards. “Without telling me?”

“I told them to wait for you, but they wouldn’t.” The young man saw me for the first time and frowned. “Who’s this?”

Charlie rounded his desk. “We have to go. Now, Lance. Get my gear ready.”

“Yes, Sir.” Lance ducked out the door.

Charlie hurried after him, but I stood and grabbed his arm. “I want to help.”

He shrugged it off. “Not now.”

I wanted to say more, but he was already down the hall, walking quickly away from me. I blinked. Then blinked again. For years, I’d been holed up in my own prison, doing nothing to atone for the many sins I’d committed against others. Now finally I have a chance. I may not be ready, but I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines anymore. Too much of my life already had been spent doing
nothing
.

Without any further hesitation, I hurried after Charlie, but when I reached Sarah’s desk, I couldn’t find him anywhere. “Where did Charlie go?”

“One sec.” Sarah lowered a cell phone from her ear. “Um, he didn’t really say, but I bet it was the second floor.”

I turned to my right and pushed open a stairwell door. Just as I did so, a door closing echoed below me. He was close.

I bounded down the stairs, but stopped when I reached the door to the second floor to peer through an elongated window. Just on the other side was a large, gym-like room, the floor covered in blue mats. Hanging punching bags and all kinds of weight lifting equipment were on the left. On the right, at least a dozen people were pulling on black vests and grabbing weapons from off of the wall. Their movements were hurried, almost panicked as they prepared for what looked like some kind of police raid.

But these people weren’t police or any kind of military. They worked for the Deific, restoring balance to any one group or person who might be a threat to mankind. That’s what Charlie had said, anyway, all those years ago.

Near the front of the pack, Charlie was in a heated debate with a tall and broad shouldered man with red hair. I quickly slipped inside.

“You should’ve told me!” Charlie yelled.

The man with red hair shook his head. “We need them alive. I can’t trust that you will have the restraint to make that happen.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Charlie said and shoved past him to exit through a glass door.

While the rest of them continued to dress, I took my place among them as if I was meant to be there. I removed a black full-body suit from off of the wall and pushed my feet through the leg holes. The leather-like material was thick yet felt incredibly light. I wondered what we might be encountering to need something like this. Maybe I was in way over my head.

“Who are you?” asked a woman with dark skin. She was standing a few feet away, her feet shoulder width apart.

I pulled the sleeve over my arm and zipped up the front. “Charlie asked me to join.”

“Are you from the Seattle office?”

I nodded and held out my hand. “Name’s, Eve.”

“I’m Kelley.” She shook my hand.

“So what are we up against?” I asked her.

“Vampires. A whole nest of them living right under our noses.” She motioned me to follow her. “Is there a weapon you prefer?”

I looked them over, knowing exactly what I wanted. I skipped over the guns, knives, and daggers, stopping only when I found a crossbow near the bottom of the wall. I picked it up. “This will work nicely.”

“Good choice for vamps. Wooden arrows are over there on the shelf.” She nodded toward a few rows of black shelves a good head taller than me. “Personally, I’ve never liked them. I prefer the Colt 45-70 Peacemaker. No matter what kind of bullets, it always brings the peace.” She smiled and patted the side of her hips where two handguns were holstered.

While I found the arrows, Kelley explained to a few of the others who I was. None of them questioned my presence. Maybe people came from the Seattle office often? Still, it confused me how they could be so trusting.

The glass door opened, and the redheaded man Charlie had been speaking to earlier stuck in his head. “Let’s move!”

I finished placing the rest of the wooden arrows into the quiver on my hip and followed the others out, keeping my head down in case Charlie saw me. Our footsteps echoed as we descended all three flights of stairs. My heart pounded, and I could barely catch my breath. It wasn’t the fear of danger I was about to put myself in, but more the fear of using magic. I hadn’t used it in years and didn’t want to, but what if I had to use my abilities to save my life? I gripped the bow tighter, hoping that time wouldn’t come.

Outside, three black SUV’s were parked on the curb, their engines idling. Charlie was sitting in the passenger seat of the first one, staring straight ahead. When told, I climbed into the backseat of the last vehicle with two men. As soon as the doors closed, the driver—a woman—pressed on the gas. Kelley was sitting in the front passenger seat.

Even though the car was full, no one said a word. The air was heavy, and I could practically taste the nervous energy on my tongue. The weight of the crossbow helped calm my nerves. Had I not learned how to use it, I may not have come.

We had only been driving for ten minutes, when the car came to a stop in a run-down part of the city. Many of the small homes looked abandoned with their windows boarded up and grass as high as my knees. I was glad it was daytime.

“Everyone out,” Kelley said. “Cut through a couple of back yards to your right until you reach a home with olive green siding. When you get the go-ahead, swarm the place like its frat house on homecoming night. And remember, we’re trying to take at least one of them alive.”

Kelley jumped from the SUV, followed by the others. I was the last one out. Charlie was already scampering across the backyard of the vacant home in front me. I was pretty sure he would be upset if he knew I was here, but he’d said once that he wanted me to choose which side to fight on. This was me doing just that.

I waded through tall grass then ducked through a broken fence like everyone else. The house we were descending upon looked worse than the neighborhood. Overgrown trees and shrubs had grown all around the warped structure, breaking even the back porch and a few of the windows. Little daylight touched the partially collapsed roof. Vampires must love it here. From what Boaz had told me, most vampires didn’t live a life of luxury like him. They chose to exist in the shadows, hidden from both mankind and other supernaturals where they felt it was safer. But Boaz never feared others. I know now it was because he could use magic where other vamps couldn’t.

Kelley signaled with her hand for us to stop. I froze, partially blocked behind a shed. Charlie turned to me just then, but I quickly lowered my face and waited several seconds before I looked up again. Charlie was facing the house, seemingly unaware of my presence. I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.

“Get ready,” Kelley whispered.

I unhooked an arrow from the quiver on my hip and loaded it into the crossbow, careful to keep my finger off the trigger. A few men closer to the home pulled down what looked like binoculars over their eyes. My guess was they were night vision goggles.

A moment later, Charlie motioned for these men to go into the house first. They carefully stepped around the broken steps and onto the porch where one of them attempted to open the back door, but it was closed tight. Had I wanted to use magic, I could’ve easily opened it, but fear clenched my heart at the very thought.

Charlie made a motion with his hand I didn’t understand. The lead man near the door shoved his shoulder into the door, knocking it down and making me jump. Kelley gave me a funny look, but I ignored her and tried to calm my racing pulse.

As soon as the men with the night goggles had gone inside, Charlie went in after them, indicating with a small nod that the rest of us should follow. When it was my turn to go inside, I hesitated for the briefest of moments when faced with the darkness within the home. Maybe I should’ve waited. Without my magic, I was only as good as the aim of my arrow, which wouldn’t be that great without light.

Kelley nudged me forward, so I stepped inside. The air was unusually cold, but then I heard the gentle hum of an air conditioner coming from somewhere within. Behind me, Kelley turned on a flashlight. Its beam lit up small sections of the room. There was a yellow couch covered in dust and crumpled up potato chip wrappers. A TV had fallen over on its side onto what I thought was brown carpet, but other parts of the floor were more gray in color. To my left was a narrow kitchen. I turned on the small light attached to the top of my crossbow, illuminating the space. Dishes were piled high in the sink. By the looks of them, they hadn’t been used in years. Vampires had no need of them.

A series of popping sounds made the other three in the room with me freeze. It wasn’t like a gun going off, but more like someone cracking their knuckles…only louder. I couldn’t see Charlie or the others as they had already moved farther into the home. Kelley was standing to my side, shining her light into a hallway. I raised my bow in that direction, my finger hovering over the trigger.

In a split second, everything changed. Kelley reacted much quicker than I did. She spun away just as someone,
or something
, attacked her. I wasn’t as lucky spotting the lightning-fast, inhuman movement, so when it slammed into me I flew back into the wall. I didn’t mean to cry out, but it had been so long since I had experienced any kind of physical pain that I couldn’t hold back the surprise.

I gritted my teeth and slid up the wall, back into a standing position, readjusting my bow to face forward. My small beam of light caught flashes of movement: an elbow to a cheek, a knee to a stomach, a splatter of blood across the wall. A gun went off. Kelley’s peacekeeper.

Do something!

I waited a few seconds for the pain in my back to heal, then raised my bow at eyelevel and tried to focus on something, but everyone was moving too fast. Screams were coming from below, probably in a basement.

Just then, my bow was knocked from my hands. At the same time, a fist that felt more like a rock smashed into the side of my head. I collapsed to the ground, my vision swimming within a dark pool that was more red than black. Someone cold and heavy was pressing down on me, clawing his or her way toward my neck. I tried to fight it, pushing and shoving, but I was no match for the vampire.

I smelled its breath, a mixture of basement mold and rusted iron pipes, before I felt its tongue lap at my forehead just above my right eye. But then the vampire’s body stiffened. He lifted up off me as if it wanted to get a better look at my face. The light from my crossbow caught the male vampire’s expression. It wasn’t hunger like I expected, but fear.

“What are you?” he asked, his milky-blue eyes wide.

I reached for the crossbow, but before I could grab it, the vampire was scurrying away from me and out the back door. One of the Deific’s men bolted after him.

“Help me,” a voice grunted.

I picked up the crossbow, rolled onto my stomach, and pointed it toward the hallway. Kelley was just inside, trying to fight off a vampire who had her pinned to the ground. My vision was still blurry, but I fired anyway, aiming just above Kelley. The arrow pierced the vampire in his shoulder. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it did give Kelley enough time to grab her gun and restore peace. His body burst into ashes and sprayed through the air. Kelley ran past the cloud, disappearing into the hallway and leaving me alone in the room.

I pulled myself into a sitting position, my back against the wall. Not far from me, the light from my crossbow shined on a body in a black jump suit lying on the floor face down in a growing puddle of blood. I instantly thought of Harriet, and my heart sunk into my gut. This was all my fault.

I attempted to move to help the woman, hoping she was still alive, but my vision continued to blur until the whole world went black.

“Wake up! Open your eyes!”

I heard the distorted voice, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

“How bad is the wound?” the same voice asked.

There was a pause, then, from someone else, “What wound? There’s nothing here. Maybe it was someone else’s blood?”

“I don’t think so,” the first voice said. This time I recognized it.
Charlie.
He touched my head. “Perhaps you’re right. Go ahead and go to the car. I’ll try to revive her.”