Society Rules (52 page)

“Will,” she whispered to him, fervently. “I’ll make it go away,” she promised. “All of the pain will leave you.” As she spoke, she slid into position to cradle Will in her arms. She slipped her free hand under his shirt and pressed her palm to his skin, directly above his heart.

Will stiffened and pulled in another deep breath as the blood flow increased, allowing more oxygen to nourish him.

The damage to his heart, however, was catastrophic. This would bring comfort and nothing more.

The burning in Indie’s gut was almost unbearable now, but she would endure it. Her warm tears fell, touching Will’s face, and he finally focused on her.

“Indie?” His whisper was uncertain. “I’m here, Will,” she answered in a trembling voice. She gently rubbed his chest, seeking to ease his breathing.

Will lifted his shaky right hand, just enough to stroke a tear from Indie’s cheek, and spoke in a sad attempt at humor.

“That bad, huh?” he breathed out the words.

“Pretty bad,” Indie admitted. She knew there was no point in lying to him. He wasn’t stupid. Besides, she was the world’s worst liar under the best of circumstances.

“The kids!” Will’s face clenched in a different kind of pain, as he remembered his mission. It slammed back into focus as he struggled to sit up, but Indie held him firmly.

“No, Will, you mustn’t move. Jackson is out there. He is going to rescue our kids.” Indie hoped that she was not inadvertently telling a lie, now.

She held tight as Will continued fighting to sit up with surprising strength, the temporary fix helping him immensely. “Will! Don’t move, unless you want to experience the phrase ‘sudden death.’” Indie’s voice wavered as she said this, but she had to keep him still.

Maybe he could at least hang on to see the outcome. If it was good, then he could die in peace . . . no chance of his becoming one of the lingering souls hanging around Earth, bemoaning their fate.

If the outcome was bad, however . . . .

No
. She could not think about that possibility.

“Indie.” He stopped struggling now, and was looking up at her with a heartbreaking expression on his face. “I . . . I’m sorry. For everything. I am a jerk. I never did right by you. I . . . .”

He broke off as a nasty cough took him by surprise. Indie cringed at the sound of fluid beginning to fill his lungs.

He began again.

“How could I not see? I look in your eyes, even now, and get lost, somehow. I know you were unhappy, and I never did a thing about it. I don’t know how, but I never even noticed, until it was too late. Now, all of a sudden, for the past twenty-four hours, I can’t think of anything
but
you and the kids. I don’t get it.” He rasped in a wet breath. “Can you forgive me?”

“Will,” Indie kissed his forehead gently, hesitantly. “Don’t torture yourself . . . it wasn’t anything in you. It was me. I have . . . I mean, there’s something in
me
, that makes people, well, kind of ignore me. It’s sort of an odd defense mechanism. I didn’t even know I was doing it before, but I understand it a little better now. I learned how to let down the wall yesterday, so maybe that’s why you were so able to . . . to think about me.”

Will was quiet as he contemplated this.

“So, my being the worst husband in the world wasn’t
all
my fault?” He coughed again.

“Stop it, Will.” Indie was trying not to be tearful, but it was difficult. “You were the best husband anyone could ask for.” Will looked at her skeptically.

“Except for the snooze alarm thing . . . that was really annoying.” She was trying desperately to take away his fear.

“Ah, that damned snooze alarm. Somehow I always knew I’d go to my grave hearing you complain about that.” Will smiled drowsily at her. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and sleepy, as if he had received an injection of morphine.

“Whad’ju do to me?” he asked, thickly, as his eyes became heavier

. “Just relax, Will.” Indie forced herself to assume a professional demeanor, but aware that the lack of oxygen was starting to take its toll on his body. Talking was not helping.

“You listen, I’ll talk, okay?” She stroked his hair and felt his body relax in her arms. “You provided for me, for our family. You took care of me, and saved me from a horrible fate. If you and I had not married, I might have had a very different outcome. And the kids . . . they never would have been. I don’t regret one second with you, Will. You’re a good man, just as I knew you were when we met.” She wiped impatiently at her tears that would not stop flowing.

“I’m sorry for what has happened, for leaving you. But I had no
choice
. I don’t want you to ever think that you were . . . inadequate in any way. This is a phenomenon that goes with what we are.

“We’re not aliens, Will, or anything exactly other worldly and definitely not evil, although the explanation would be tough for you to swallow. It’s a little theological, to say the least.” Will was struggling to keep his eyes open, and he started to speak. Indie pressed a finger to his lips.

“Shh, no. I’m just going to say it, okay? We are descended from . . .
angelic
beings
that came into the flesh of man, to procreate and to perfect humankind. We are
like
humans; the
forbearers
of humans, just the way we were all meant to be, and will be, eventually. If the human experiment survives its own tendency to try to destroy itself.”

There. It was out there, for him to do with what he would.

It crossed her mind that she was already breaking one of the biggest Society rules, but revealing herself to someone who already knew that she was, well,
different
, did not seem wrong somehow. Especially since he was—she gulped—dying.

Will’s eyes were now closed. His breathing was more regular, and even, although the sound of fluid building was impossible to ignore. He smiled, and reached up once more to stroke her cheek.

“An angel,” he murmured. “I
knew
it!”

*     *     *

Jackson made it through the tangle of woods to the back portion of the cemetery. He kept a tight eye on the blond she-devil, who was now pacing angrily.

He noticed a tall young man standing near a large headstone, and felt the jolt of recognition.

Well
what
do
you
know
? He knew this man. They had crossed paths before, briefly.

Not in person, exactly, but the man had been stalking one of the law firms, a few years ago, attempting to follow the money trail that kept all Society Members afloat, and afforded legal protection, when needed. Jackson had been asked to monitor the man, and find out his habits.

After noting his penchant for expensive things, Jackson had decided that a visit from the IRS to ascertain
HIS
money trail, might keep him busy enough to stay off the backs of the Society’s legal team.

An anonymous tip detailing Mr. Baker’s spending habits and various other insinuations, had resulted in a lengthy and irritating investigation, that had almost cost Shawn his security clearance, and thus, his job. Fortunately, for Shawn Baker, the investigation had found nothing unlawful.

Just a tax error from years before, requiring the IRS to actually pay Shawn five hundred dollars.

This had not been enough to placate him for the trouble it caused, but it did interrupt his pursuit of the law firm’s money source. Jackson had accomplished that mission.

He was now directly behind the headstone where Shawn was standing, and he knelt on the ground while he whispered a small prayer.

The woman held all the cards. She had the kids. He had nothing to bargain with. He was able to peek around the headstone and steal a look at her.

He shivered with revulsion at the sheer evil emanating from her every pore. It seemed impossible to believe that everyone couldn’t see it.

Jackson was able to pull from her mind an infatuation for the man standing nearby. Not any kind of love, but a lust-driven obsession. Hmm. Maybe that could prove fortuitous.

He backed up a bit to shift his position, wanting to be able to see both the blond and the other Agent, at the same time. He waited patiently, until the moment the blond was busy speaking to the children, whom he could see only the very tops of their heads from this vantage point.

As luck would have it, Shawn Baker chose that very moment to back up closer to the headstone in response to something that had frightened him. Jackson made his move.

With a speed and strength that would seem inconceivable, Jackson stood up, lurched forward, locking his arm around Baker’s torso, covering his mouth with his other hand, and snatched him off his feet. This brought Shawn over the headstone, and some twenty feet back into the woods.

They were now completely hidden by the brush.

Shawn Baker suffered a near cardiac arrest of his own, being lifted and dragged through a graveyard by unseen hands, as if in instant replay from one of his darkest nightmares. For a moment, he was grateful for the hand clamped tightly over his mouth, as it prevented him from screaming like a girl for the second time of the day.

As he was slammed down to the ground with terrific force, he grunted in pain, his ribs quite sore from his make-out session with the end of Will’s boots. The impact now didn’t help.

“This has turned into one bitch of a day!” he thought as he looked up at his assailant. Shawn’s eyes bulged with disbelief, as he recognized immediately the man from the video Will had shown him.

“Aw,
hell!”
was all he could manage, in response to Jackson’s finger to the lips indicating that he should not try yelling. He backed up this gesture with a broken-off stick which was short, sharp and about as thick as his thumb, pressed ominously against Shawn’s throat.

Really
?

Well. Wasn’t this some shit? A gifted Federal agent such as himself. Held helpless.

At
stick
-
point
.

The humiliating spots in his day just continued to get better and better. Shawn stifled a sigh.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, Shawn Baker. But don’t feel bad. Others have suffered far more than simple humiliation at my hands, and with much more crude instruments. I am bound to use only my hands and what I find in nature as my weaponry. Call it a handicap, if you will.”

Shawn grappled furiously with the impulse to try to find an escape, only to be nudged with the point of the stick; the sharpness catching the skin of his throat.

“Mr. Baker,” Jackson whispered. “It would truly be in your best interest if I had your cooperation in this matter, so if you don’t mind, be very quiet, please!”

“Hey,” Baker whispered ferociously. “Listen, I . . .”

“Yes, Mr. Baker,” Jackson cut in. “I see the turmoil in your mind, and I’m happy that you don’t want the children harmed. That is the
most
important concern, but I am afraid it’s not quite enough. You see, I don’t want Indie hurt or captured and unfortunately, this means that nothing can happen to me either. Our destinies are one, if you will pardon the hyperbole.”

Jackson gestured toward Lockhart. “I do have to say; you certainly found a real
non-compos
mentis
to be your helper. Most unsettling.”

“What in the
hell
does that mean?” Shawn asked, rubbing his damaged ribcage.

“Insane. Not of sound mind, get it?” Jackson spoke while looking around the tombstone at the object of this description. Shawn said nothing. He had never been in such a position. He wasn’t sure if he was an ally to this thing or not, even in his own mind.

He looked at the Society Member, who clearly had the strength of a bull and the speed of a cat, noting once more, that he looked like a teenager.

And spoke like an English professor.

How deceptive. He wanted to ask him his age, absurd as this would be right now.

“Forty.” Jackson spoke while straining to see all movement in the clearing, glancing down only to check the other man’s reaction. “That’s crazy!” Shawn hissed, in hushed tones. The guy was almost twice his age. Jackson threw him a distracted nod.

“Not too shabby, for an old goat, eh?”

Shawn was speechless.

He thought about the children, now alone with Cassandra, and pictured, with a stab of guilt, the fear on their faces. At that moment Jackson turned, and seized him by the shoulders, staring at him in shock. He did not speak for a long moment, simply burning a look through Shawn with scorching eyes.

“No!” he whispered. “It can’t be . . . it simply can’t be possible . . .
can
it?”