Dark Knight of the Skye (17 page)

They were backing the truck out of the driveway when the first blast blew out the windows of the house. Grady slammed the truck in gear, and floored the gas right before the second blast took the house up in flames. The bright glow shined on the girl’s faces as they watched through the rear window of the truck. Tears glistened on D`nae’s face as she thought about what had happened to that unfortunate unsuspecting family, who had probably thought their cozy little home was as safe as could be. Her mind kept replaying what her eyes hadn’t even witnessed, Grady removing the head of that poor little boy. She grabbed her mouth and turned back around in the seat. Tabitha turned with her, watching the horror course across D`nae’s face. Danny also turned around in the front, reaching his arm over and lying his hand on D`nae’s leg, smiling at her as if it would comfort her in some small way.

“I’m okay… I just want that son of a bitch dead,” she hiccupped a sob. “You hear me, Grady? Dead!”

“I want the same thing.”

“Really? Then why haven’t you and your people killed him by now? Y’all have been seeing this kind of crap for years…why haven’t you done it already?”

“Give it enough time and you’ll see for yourself. He didn’t get so old by letting the likes of me and my men get close enough to take him out.”

“Once, but the man that was caught in the room with him paid one hell of a price. We found him with his shoulders pinned down by his hips, back snapped over like a twig. Still don’t know how he got away, but it was like he vanished into thin air.”

“Do some of us have different gifts, you know like in the movies?” D`nae asked, causing Danny and Grady to look back at her. “What? It’s a good question.”

“He can fly, but there’s no turning to mist or anything like that, if that’s what you’re asking. And if there is a special gift, I sure haven’t heard of it,” Grady explained.

“He can claim the color of almost any wall that he is near,” Tabitha interjected.

“He can what?” Grady asked, swerving the truck.

“It is true. The first time I saw it, I thought he was coming through the wall. Later, he stepped back up to the wall, and waited there while his others brought a man in to be questioned. I watched the whole thing from my cage.”

“Did he show the others that he could come out of the wall?” Grady asked.

“No, he waited until they had gone, then stepped out shaking his head. I do not understand why he did what he was doing, but he indeed disappeared when he leaned on the wall.”

D`nae reached over the seat and slapped Grady in the back of the head, not realizing her own strength. Grady’s head flung forward and the truck went off the side of the road. Danny grabbed the wheel and took control of the truck, bringing it to a stop in bar ditch. Grady was slumped over like a rag doll. D`nae grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back up in the seat.

“Sorry, babe. I should have known you were the one to be leading. You just tell me where to turn, sister, and we’ll catch that beast ourselves… no offense.”

“None taken,” she replied, then actually snickered under her breath.

Tabitha told D`nae where to turn, and they drove down a bumpy dirt road, while Grady’s limp body leaned on Danny’s shoulder. Halfway down the road he started to moan, then sat up too fast, grabbing the back of his head.

“What happened?” he slurred. D`nae looked out the window and kept driving, not wanting to be the one to say that she popped him in the back of the head. The lights were on inside the little white two-story home when they pulled up in front of it. Grady was still rubbing the back of his head, and Danny was smiling with the satisfaction of a cat that had finally landed that mouse he’d been trying to catch for a year.

The four walked up to the house, all three of the non-humans smelling the death on the inside, but none saying a word. “Can you guy’s smell that?” Grady asked walking up next to them. Tabitha looked at him sharply, then just as quickly turned away. She knew what he denied so desperately, but now even the signs of slow transformation had begun. He smelled the same stench as the three of them, and that was only possible if he were closer to being like them than he’d ever hoped to be. The door was ajar and Danny was the first to make his way up. Tabitha followed, using her extra senses to make sure that there were no others waiting to give them more of a surprise than they were already expecting.

“Keek, blad dreepin aff the dyke,” Danny whispered, pointing at the wall inside the front door. “Fit eer wen an in here, wis nae fer ye eyes, luv. Gae back an wait,” he said, turning around and looking at D`nae.

“I’m not going anywhere,” D`nae replied. “I might as well get used to it, it’s not like I’m ever going back to my old life.”

Danny froze as if he had been shot through the heart. She noticed and wrapped her arms around his waist, rubbing her face into his chest. “I’m right where I have always wanted to be, babe.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

“Thank you,” he said, low enough for only her to hear. She squeezed him, then stepped back, smiling up at him. He encircled her in one arm and the two followed Tabitha and Grady inside. Blood was spread in every direction that they looked. It was dripping from the ceiling fan in long thick droplets, splattering on the wet tile floor below. All the lights were on, so nothing was hidden from their view.

“There is a body in this room,” Tabitha said standing next to a closed door.

Grady rushed to her side, pulling out his gun. He took her arm and moved her back. She looked back at the others and frowned. D`nae shook her head and raised her shoulders, mouthing the words, ‘he’s a man’, then smiled at her. Tabitha rolled her eyes and stepped back up behind Grady, just in case something jumped out that she needed to catch. Someone has to protect the weakest of the three, she thought as he opened the door with the tip of his gun. He put his hand back, touching her stomach. She grabbed his wrist, and put one hand on his back, indicating for him to keep going. The room they were entering was one of the only rooms that had the light turned off.

Grady hit the switch and took two steps back, leaving Tabitha where she stood. The two old people lie in their bed, gutted like cattle. Their heads had been placed on each other’s torsos, and their insides were what was spread all over the house. While they were in there, Danny became curious as to why blood would still be dripping from the ceiling fan, and reached up, finding a heart on each blade. “Four?” he said under his breath. He walked in and saw the two elderly people, before stepping back out.

“Twa mair else whaur.”

D`nae backed out of the room with her hand over her mouth and nose. She turned and put her back up against the wall, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she saw Danny holding both hands full of what looked like fresh meat. She ran for the front door and lost everything that Tabitha had so freely offered earlier. She came back in, wiping her mouth, and watched him lay the four mounds of meat on the coffee table for Grady to view.

“Two more bodies,” he said, standing back up after examining what Danny had placed on the table. “My men never said anything about two more.”

“Have you heard anything from those men since they sent you the last message from here?” D`nae asked walking up beside Tabitha.

Grady turned around and looked at her, then took off searching the house. They all did, but found nothing, not even in the basement that was torn apart, every window broken out. It seemed that no one wanted them to be using this home for a refuge at any cost. The moment Grady stepped out the back door, he knew that Alasdair was taunting him. Both of his men were hanging upside down from the tree in the backyard. They were placed in the same position as that first victim he had seen during a case of the A.A.D.F., the very case that brought him in as an agent. Both were hanging by their left leg while the other dangled freely out into space, their arms waving above where their heads would have been had they not been removed by his tempter. The abdomens were opened and their insides were like morbid ropes hanging from jetting rib cages, just like the old mans, and he knew it wasn’t just Danny that Alasdair was playing with.

D`nae’s mouth fell open when she saw what he was staring at, stepping back into Danny who was already looking at the carnage. Tabitha was the only one that wasn’t looking up. She was too afraid that she might see the one who placed them there, pass by, if Grady was indeed correct.

“Let’s move. We’re running out of time to find you guys a place for the day,” Grady said, then started walking around the side of the house instead of going back through.

“Listen, if you have a better idea then speak up, because you have about thirty minutes before the sun comes up over that hill, and then you’re going to go up in flames.”