Darkest Powers Bonus Pack 2 (3 page)

I stopped in front of the window. “Can you get her trail from here?”

“Yeah.” He knelt, then glanced up at me. “Whatever happened, it’s not your—”

“Let’s just find her, okay?”

We could deal with my guilt later. I’d certainly had enough practice dealing with it, after killing Tori’s mother.

I didn’t say that, but he knew I was thinking it, and the look on his face—that mix of pain and anger and helplessness—reminded me why I was crazy about him. He wasn’t always the nicest guy. He wasn’t always the most romantic boyfriend. He wasn’t going to be writing me poetry or bringing me flowers. But that look said more about his feelings for me than all the flowers in the world.

I crouched and kissed him, whispering, “I’ll be okay. But thanks.”

He mumbled something, gruff and unintelligible. I started to stand. He squeezed my knee, then bent to pick up Tori’s trail.

She’d come in that window, as I thought. There wasn’t any blood on the floor, though, so no sign she’d hurt herself badly crawling through. He followed her scent into the front room. As soon as I walked through the doorway, I saw the hole. Not a big one. Barely two feet wide, the rotted floor freshly cracked, bits of sawdust still scattered around. Fresh blood glistened on a jagged piece of broken wood.

I raced over. Derek grabbed the back of my shirt when I leaned over the hole. Below, I saw a pale figure, arms and legs askew.

I ripped from Derek’s grasp and ran toward the kitchen, where I’d seen a basement door.

He caught me before I reached the doorway. Didn’t stop me. Just grabbed a handful of my shirt again, slowing me down.

“Be careful,” he said. “The floor’s rotted. The stairs—”

“Will be rotted, too. I know.”

Taking my time going down those basement stairs was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I kept leaning and bending and straining to try to see Tori. Finally, Derek scooped me up and lowered me over the side, then let me jump the last few feet to the floor.

“Go,” he said. “Just be—”

“Careful. I know.”

I ran across the room, my gaze on the floor so I wouldn’t trip over anything. There wasn’t much down here—vandals had stuck to the upper floors. I was almost to the front room when someone stepped in front of me.

I let out a yelp and stopped short. There stood an old woman with long, matted white hair. She was dressed in a frilly nightgown better suited to a five-year-old.

“What are you doing here?” she said, advancing on me, bony forefinger extended, yellowing nail headed for my eye. “Get out of my house.”

I stumbled back—right into Derek.

“It’s a ghost, Chloe.” He recognized my reaction, even if I no longer shrieked everytime I saw one. “That means you can go . . .” He put his hands around my waist, lifted me and walked forward. “Right through it.”

The old woman let out a screech and a string of curses.

“This is my house,” she screeched. “Rebecca Walker. My name is on the deed. I still own it.”

I ignored her and raced over to where Tori lay sprawled on the floor.

“Serves her right!” Rebecca shrieked. “Kids, breaking into my house, stealing my things. Almost as bad as those developers. The floorboards didn’t rot so fast on their own, you know. Those people wanted to cause an accident. Force my poor Timmy to sell.”

I dropped beside Tori and touched the side of her neck. I thought I could feel a pulse, but my fingers were trembling so much I wasn’t sure. I glanced at Derek. He was already kneeling on her other side and checking for a heartbeat.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Rebecca said. “Well, so long as she didn’t break her neck. But if she did, it would serve her right, breaking into other people’s property. Probably meeting some boy here. That’s what they all do. Boys and girls. In my house. Upstairs, in my—”

“Would you shut up?” I said, so loud I startled Derek. I turned to him. “Is she—?”

“I said she’s alive,” the old woman said. “I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d have seen her ghost and the only one I’ve seen is that woman who followed you here.”

I turned sharply. “Woman?”

“Oh,
now
you want to listen to me, do you? Is this how you treat ghosts, girl? Ignore them until it suits your fancy? Well, let me tell you, I don’t—”

She kept ranting. I turned back to Derek, who was on the phone, calling his dad. I shook Tori’s shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered and she groaned.

“She’s going to be okay,” Derek said. “Your aunt’s coming.” Aunt Lauren was a doctor. “What did the ghost say about a woman?”

“That one followed me here. Another ghost.”

I turned back to Rebecca Walker. A month ago, I’d have been tripping over myself to apologize for ignoring her. I credit Derek for that too—teaching me I don’t need to be so polite all the time. I still believe in being nice, but with ghosts, if they’re nasty to me, I have to give them attitude right back or they’ll take advantage.

“Do you want us to call the police, too?” I asked. “Report this accident? Or would you rather we kept it quiet so your son doesn’t get in trouble?”

She stopped ranting.

“We’ll make you a deal,” I said. “We won’t tell anyone what happened here. In fact, we’ll alert your son to what the developers did. In return, you’ll tell me everything you know about this woman.”

Now she started squawking that she didn’t know much, that it was just some lady who must have been following me because of my necromancer’s glow. She’s come in here, seen Tori fall, and taken off.

“I can’t tell you more than I saw, girl, so you’d better not hold out on me.”

There was genuine panic in her voice. That’s another thing Derek made me realize—I often feel that I’m at the mercy of ghosts, but really, it’s the other way around. They’re stuck and I’m their only chance for contact with the living world.

“We had a deal,” I said. “I’ll do my part, if you tell me what this ghost looked like.”

Rebecca jabbed a finger in Tori’s direction. “Like her. Same height. Same hair. Skinny. Blue eyes, though. And older. Maybe forty. Dressed all fancy, too, like she thought she was something special.”

“Diane Enright,” I whispered. “She’s describing Tori’s mom.”

He swore under his breath. “She used a glamour spell.”

“A what?”

“Glamour spell. It makes the spell-caster look like someone else. It only works if you’re
expecting
to see the other person.”

“Like when that other person disappears from sight, then returns. Or seems to.”

I marched from the room. Derek came after me.

“Stay with Tori,” I said. “Please. I don’t want her to wake up and hear this.”

He hesitated, but agreed, and watched me head up the stairs. I went out the back door, then I gazed around the empty yard.

I swallowed. I might have marched up those stairs, but my knees were trembling. This was Diane Enright. Tori’s mother. The woman I’d killed. Murdered.

Oh God. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face her. Couldn’t—

No, I had to.

“Mrs—” I took a deep breath to steady my voice, then channeled Derek, putting a snap into my voice as I shouted. “Diane! I know you’re out there.”

She popped up in front of me, so fast I blanched. I crossed my arms, willed my feet to stay still and reminded myself she was just a ghost.

“Little Chloe Saunders, looking so fierce,” she said. “I suppose that’s what happens after you kill someone, isn’t it?”

I tried not to flinch, but I must have, because she laughed again. “Or not so fierce after all.”

“What do you want?”

She looked down at me, and she was still smiling, but it gave me goose bumps. “I think you know.”

I just stood there, staring up at her.

“You killed Dr. Davidoff, Chloe. You used me to do it. I’m sure you’re telling yourself you didn’t, that I fired the gun and you had nothing to do with that. A terrible misunderstanding.”

No, I’d told her to do it. I knew that. I accepted responsibility.

But did I completely believe it? Or was there part of me that wanted to pretend it was a misunderstanding? It wasn’t. Seeing Diane Enright again, I knew that. What she’d just done to Tori reminded me of everything else she’d done to Tori and threatened to do to Derek and Aunt Lauren, and in that moment, I was back in the laboratory hall, feeling what I’d felt then. Clarity. Resolution.

“No, it wasn’t a misunderstanding,” I said. “I told you to shoot him. You were a zombie. You had to obey me.”

The look she gave me then was even more chilling, because there was no anger in it. She was studying me, appraisingly, as if murdering someone was a sign of character.

“You want revenge,” I said. “You were following me on the other side of the veil, so I couldn’t see you. When Tori fell, you lured me away. You left your daughter to die. Then you tried to kill me.”

“Please, Chloe, I know you love movies, but drama doesn’t suit you. Victoria wasn’t in mortal danger and neither were you. It was simply . . .” She pursed her lips. “A lesson. A small show of what I can do, if I wish.”

“Again, what do you want?”

“Nothing. Yet.” She stepped forward and I resisted the urge to back up. “I merely wish you to remain open to the possibility that we can help one another. I find you interesting, Chloe. You know that.”

“No, you find me useful, especially now, when your options are so limited that you’re willing to work with your killer.” I looked up at her. “You told me before that we could help each other. That I was stronger than your daughter.”

“You are.”

“No, I’m not. It was never about who was smarter or stronger. It was about who you could control. You couldn’t control Tori. You thought you could control me. You still think you can. That’s what this was about. Show me what you can do—leave Tori alone and hurt, lead me into another hole, where I can lie, alone and hurt, until I’m rescued. Then I’ll do whatever you say. Only I won’t.”

I imagined giving her a mental shove. She staggered back.

“Don’t you dare, Chloe Saunders. If you banish me—”

“You’ll come back. I’m sure you will. But you won’t trick me again, and by then, I’ll have learned a way to get rid of you for good.” I stepped forward, right under her nose. “I’m not sorry you’re dead. I just feel sorry for myself because I had to do it. But if I didn’t, someone else would have had to, and that would only put the guilt on them. So I’m going to stop thinking of all the other ways we could have stopped you, because there weren’t any. And when I find a way to banish you for good, I won’t worry about where you might go. Once again, I’m just going to stop you.”

I closed my eyes and gave her a huge mental slam. She let out a howl of rage, cut short as she was knocked into another dimension. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.

I let out a shuddering sigh. Then arms went around me, solid and warm, and I leaned against Derek.

“She’s gone,” I whispered. “For a little while.”

“I know.” He kissed the top of my head.

I let myself enjoy the embrace for a moment, then remembered and pulled away. “Tori.”

“Your aunt and my dad are here. They came in the front. Tori might have a broken ankle and a concussion, but she’s okay.” He reached down, hand going under my chin. “I know how hard that was for you, confronting Tori’s mom.”

He bent, lips coming to mine and—

“Derek? Chloe?” It was Kit, opening the back door.

Derek let out a low growl.

“Never fails.” I turned to Kit. “How is she?”

“We’re going to take her back to the house now. She’s unconscious again.”

“Then we’ll walk back,” Derek said. “Give you room in the van to lay her down.”

His dad agreed and went back inside. As we walked toward the steps, I looked down at Derek’s hand, holding mine.

“No one’s around,” he said. “And we can take the back way.”

“Good,” I said, and entwined my fingers with his.

BELONGING

Prologue

As Brad watched the three Cains devour their porterhouse steaks, he realized he should have added a couple hundred bucks to the price of his information, just to cover dinner. They were at a steakhouse in Dallas. The June heat meant they had the patio to themselves, which was good for privacy, but it also meant the Cains were on their second pitcher of beer—and only two of them were old enough to drink. Seventeen-year-old Carter had already gone through a pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade and looked ready for a second.

Brad was waiting until they’d eaten a little more before presenting his offer. It was never wise to interfere with a werewolf and his meal, and that went double for Cains. Brad was a werewolf himself, but at five-foot-seven and a hundred and fifty pounds, even the youngest Cain dwarfed him. The older two could eat him for dinner and then go looking for dessert.

It was Carter who slowed first. He was small for a Cain, barely over six feet tall, maybe two hundred pounds. Good-looking enough that the young server had been eying him. Must take after his mother—the Cains weren’t known for their looks. Or for their brains. In this regard, Carter was definitely part of the family.

“You said you’ve got information on some kid of Uncle Zack’s. But this here”—he pointed at the scrap of paper—”says the guy’s last name is Souza, not Cain.”

“He wasn’t raised as a Cain,” said the boy’s grandfather, Theo. “That’s why Brad here is offering to help us get him back.”

Theo was the clan patriarch. Also the brightest of the bunch, which wasn’t saying a lot, but it helped. Carter was the son of Theo’s youngest. The thirty-something guy between them was Nate, the son of Theo’s oldest. Zachary had been his middle child. Dead ten years now, when he got the damned fool idea to join an uprising against the Pack. Zack’s only known son had been killed by a rival werewolf a few years ago. The old man had taken that hard. Now Brad was offering him a replacement . . . with bonuses.

“You say the boy was part of an experiment?” Theo said as he finished his steak. “Making him into some kind of super-werewolf?”

“Exactly. The St. Cloud Cabal was running a secret experiment to genetically modify supernaturals in vitro, eliminating side-effects and enhancing the powers of sorcerers, witches, necromancers, half-demons . . .” Three pairs of eyes glazed over. Brad wasn’t sure if they didn’t understand or if they just didn’t care. Both were equally likely. Most werewolves took no interest in either Cabals or other supernatural types. It was only when he added, “And, of course, werewolves,” that the Cains perked up again.

“How many of these super-werewolves are there?” Theo asked.

“Your grandson is the only subject left.”

“Were the others Zack’s boys?” Theo asked.

“I don’t know. I was hired to track four escaped subjects and bring them back to the study. They only told me the absolute basics.”

“I don’t get it,” Carter said. “If you’re giving all the kids back to the scientists, how do we get Uncle Zack’s boy?”

“Brad isn’t returning them all,” Theo said. “He’s giving us the opportunity to take Zack’s boy first.”

“Oh.”

Carter still sounded confused. To be honest, Brad didn’t blame him. It was confusing and it raised lots of questions, but Brad had known better than to ask them of his employers. As far as most supernaturals were concerned, the Cains were merely representative of the entire breed—dumb brutes who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Sometimes it was better not to disabuse them of that notion.

Brad was just glad Theo didn’t ask exactly what modifications they’d done to the boy. He didn’t know—it hadn’t seemed wise to take too much interest. Theo, though, seemed happy with “super-werewolf.”

“Are you sure he’ll Change?” Theo said. “That tinkering might have screwed him up. Nothing worse than a werewolf that can’t Change. Happened to a cousin of mine. Ripped him right apart.”

“He’s already Changing.”

“At sixteen?” Theo looked impressed.

Carter scowled. Obviously he hadn’t started shifting into a wolf yet. Sixteen wasn’t unheard of, but it was early.

“He’s smart, too,” Brad said. “Genius smart. Taking college math already.”

“That’s just
book
smart,” Carter said. “Don’t mean nothing.”

Only it did, and judging by Theo’s expression, he knew it. His clan had muscle and they had numbers. All they needed was brains. If this kid had that—in addition to other enhancements—he could be just the ticket to make the Cains serious contenders to the Pack.

“Are you sure he’s Zack’s boy? I can’t see my son getting mixed up in some mad science experiment.”

“He didn’t realize he was. He was seduced by a subject and seems to have died without realizing he’d fathered another son.”

“So are we sure he’s Zack’s, then?” By Carter’s tone, he really hoped the answer was no.

Brad laid a photo on the table. “This was taken a few months ago.”

Like Theo and Nate, the boy in the picture was dark-haired with green eyes. And he was big—over six feet already, with shoulders almost as broad as the doorway behind him. His hair was shaggy, hanging in his face, which wasn’t such a bad thing, considering the state of his skin. If all that didn’t confirm he was a Cain, the scowl did—a perfect match for the one on Carter’s face.

“Uncle Zack had light hair,” Carter said. “I’ve seen photos.”

“He took after his mother,” Theo said. “The boy is Zack’s. He has his eyes.” The old man’s voice softened as he picked up the picture.

“You can keep that,” Brad said. “I also have some newer ones from my surveillance.” He laid those out. “I couldn’t get close enough for a good shot, even with a telephoto lens, but he’s had his hair cut and his skin is clearing, probably as his hormones settle after his Change. Still, he’s easy to spot.”

“So you know where he is? And you can guarantee he’ll still be there when we arrive?”

“If he isn’t, I’ll track him again. But he’s been living in this rented house for two months with his foster father, three other subjects and one of the doctors from the experiment.”

Brad eased back and let them look at the photos. “So, all that’s needed is a yes and a cash payment. I’ll give you the address right away. Plus a sure-fire way to catch him.”

“He’s sixteen,” Nate said. “We can catch him.”

“Don’t be so sure. He’s smart and he’s a good fighter. You know a werewolf named Liam? Runs with a guy named Ramon?”

“Heard of them,” Theo said.

“Some folks hired them to track down your grandson. That’s why the St. Clouds hired me—they knew Liam and Ramon managed it, so they figured another werewolf could do the same. And they can’t hire Liam again . . . because he’s dead. Your boy killed him. His first challenge and he took down an experienced werewolf and made another one decide he didn’t want the job anymore.”

Theo practically beamed. Too bad Brad already set the price. He probably could have doubled it.

“But you know a way to catch him?” Nate said.

“I do.”

Brad slapped another photo on the table. A smiling teenage girl with blue eyes and blond hair streaked with red.

“Cute,” Carter grunted. “Let me guess—this guy has a crush on her.”

“More than just a crush. She’s his girlfriend.”

They looked surprised. The girl definitely did not seem like a romantic match for the scowling brute in the other photos. But Brad had done enough surveillance to be sure of his facts.

“She’s another subject, one who escaped with your grandson and his foster brother. She’s a necromancer.”

Carter’s face screwed up. “A what?”

“Someone who can speak to the dead,” Theo said. “Like the Alpha’s girlfriend. The one on TV.”

“She’s hot,” Nate said.

“Little young for you,” Carter said, still eying the photo.

“I meant the one on TV,” Nate said. “So the kid’s got it bad for this girl?”

“He does, and he already has a werewolf’s protective instinct. In spades. He’s the same way with his foster brother, which would be the backup plan, but the brother is a sorcerer and knows self-defense. A necromancer has no defensive powers and this one’s a tiny thing. She’s his weakness. That’s how Liam and Ramon got close enough to fight him. They made a tactical mistake, though. They settled for teasing and threatening her, which only pissed the boy off enough to fight. If you want him, take her. He’ll come running.”

The Cains paid. Didn’t haggle over the price, either. They even covered dinner. As Brad watched them struggling to calculate the tip, he felt a little sorry for Derek Souza. Being handed over to the Cains wasn’t a fate he’d wish on anyone, especially a bright kid like that. But business was business, and family was family. A werewolf belonged with his kin, whoever they were.