No Peace for the Damned (14 page)

“We’re going to get him back,” Shane said and swung a second long gun with a leather strap over his shoulder. “We’re going to the estate and we are going to get him back.”

Yeah, OK, definitely not thinking rationally
.

“Uh, no, you’re not,” I said.

“No, Shane,” Thirteen said at the same time. “That’s not what we’re doing.”

Jon moved to get in Thirteen’s face. “Then what the hell are we doing?” he yelled. “We won’t wait for Banks’s body to show up weeks from now after being tortured in some supernatural way. We’re getting him back. Now!”

Thirteen stood at his full height, his jaw set.
Whoa
. Jon didn’t back down.

“To break into the Kelch estate now would be suicide,” Thirteen said. “We aren’t ready to fight them. We don’t know the layout of the private lands. At this point,
we
would be more likely to get arrested than one of the brothers. It would be counterproductive to go in there now.”

Theo cut in. “Then what are we going to do?”

Thirteen kept his eyes on Jon. “We are going back to Banks’s house. We don’t know for certain that he was taken back to the estate, but if we can find a trail that leads us in the general direction, we’ll have a better chance of finding him before it’s too late.”

Jon glared at Thirteen. “Fine.”

They all turned and started to walk out.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Was that a thud from my jaw hitting the floor? “What?”

“If Banks was taken by supernatural force, we won’t be able to find any traces of a trail to follow. You’re the only one who would recognize it.”

“Can I change?” I asked.

“There’s no time,” Jon called from the front door. “We have to be back here before dawn to brief the others and figure out what to do next. So just move it already!”

So much for a nice little “please join us on tonight’s mission” moment. I threw back the rest of my whiskey, tightened the drawstring
on my pajama shorts, slipped on my flip-flops, and we were on our way.

…

We rode together in Thirteen’s SUV, the extra weapons stored in the back. Fuzzy images of Banks kept flashing through my mind. His meaty hands, that metal eye patch—pieces of someone I knew. And now my family had him. I shifted in my seat. Turned up Korn on my iPod. It didn’t help. I was still uncomfortable.

Of course, it didn’t help either that I sat bitch between Jon and Shane. Theo had insisted on sitting shotgun.

I had no clue where Banks’s house was. We passed a street sign that probably said where we were, but Shane shot me such a glare that I turned away.
OK…I’ll just look out Jon’s window, then
.

Thirteen wound the car through side streets lined with pear trees. Pristine turn-of-the-century homes sat on wide manicured lawns. Thirteen pulled up to the curb in front of a line of dark brick brownstones. Each townhouse stood three stories high with cement steps that led to the front door. And the doors were exactly alike—thick, chiseled glass with iron detailing.

Except, of course, for the one with its glass door splintered into a thousand tiny pieces.

We parked under an old-fashioned lamppost, or at least one that was made to look old-fashioned. The warm gold light mixed with the bright silvery moonlight to create an eerie glow along the sidewalk. The instant I stepped out of the car I felt it. The fog of power was everywhere. It felt amazing: tingly and warm. For a moment I closed my eyes and just savored the familiarity.

“We have to hurry,” Thirteen said. “The police are on their way. One of the Network dispatchers rerouted the call, but it won’t take long before they arrive. We’ve got maybe five minutes, tops.”

“Can anyone else feel that?” I asked. The air was so much thicker than before, surely the others felt it too.

“What? The mosquitos?” Shane said, smacking a bug on his forearm. “Who can’t feel the little bloodsuckers?”

“No, the…this misty, foggy stuff. Can anyone else feel that?”

“I don’t think so,” Jon said. “What does it feel like?”

“My family was here,” I explained. “Whoever it was definitely used power I’m familiar with, but it doesn’t…I can’t tell who.”

“Can you follow it?” Theo asked. “Tell which direction Banks was taken?”

“I can feel it all over the sidewalk.” I looked around but there was nothing to actually see. “I guess if we just keep walking around I’ll be able to feel when it disappears.”

“First, let’s check the house,” Thirteen said and led the way up the front steps to Banks’s splintered front door. The door had had a dark cherry frame and the glass had been etched with the same exquisite detail that was still evident on his neighbors’ homes.

“Did Banks have money?” I asked. I didn’t know how much the Network paid, but since Thirteen lived on the same block as my previous safe house I knew that he, at least, didn’t live like
this
.

“Earlier in the year he came into an inheritance,” Thirteen answered. We stepped carefully through what remained of the door and entered an elaborate foyer with high ceilings and an ornate chandelier. The floor was black-and-white checkered and classical artwork covered so much of the room I could barely make out the color of the wall paint.

“The blood was found in the bedroom,” Thirteen whispered and motioned us to the wide antique stair. The artwork continued along the staircase. Maybe there weren’t really walls at all. Maybe the home was simply held up by the paintings’ frames. We climbed twenty steps to a long, narrow landing at the second floor, then another twenty steps to the third.

No one spoke and no one turned on the lights. The two went hand in hand somehow. All the while, I felt the same silky fog on my skin, as if the energy circled me as I walked.

The stairs ran out at the third floor, ending where a set of double doors opened to Banks’s bedroom. We walked hesitantly into the room. A very large four-poster bed, high enough to need a step stool, faced the doorway. The bedding was rumpled, but the rest of the room seemed in order. On the far wall was a wide fireplace with no screen. The exposed bricks rose from the hearth to the ceiling. This was the only part of the house I’d seen where the walls weren’t hidden behind an endless array of artwork.

“The blood is over here,” Jon said, crouching by the fireplace.

I met Thirteen next to Jon and looked down at the blood.
That’s it? Seriously?
It was just a couple of drops on the carpet. The others crouched beside Jon. They might have been doing some important data gathering, but it looked just like staring to me. I bent down beside them, finding a space between Shane and Thirteen.

“Do you still feel the foggy stuff from outside?” Shane asked me in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, it’s all over the place in here.” I reached out and ran my finger through the blood.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Don’t touch it!”

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

And a barrage of other words and thoughts snapped at me in whispered yells. Theo grabbed my hand. For a moment I held my breath—now was
so
not the time for some supernatural reaction to his touch. Fortunately, the urge was manageable. A longing still flared inside of me—his touch so warm and firm—but there was no burst of energy. No disturbing images or feelings.

“You can’t touch the blood, Mag,” he said softly. “It’s evidence. We can’t tamper in any way with a crime scene. Ever.”

My face burned. I jerked my hand from his grip.

“I wanted to see if I could tell anything by it,” I hissed. “The power is so much stronger here. I figured if it was blood from my family, I’d feel it.”

“So was it?” Shane asked.

My cheeks burned hotter. “I can’t tell.”

We stood in a tight broken circle around the bloodstains. The gray moonlight was fading fast, the sky more purple now than black. Dawn was coming. Along with the police. The Network might work alongside the regular law enforcement when necessary, but the whole secret agency thing kinda made it a strained relationship.

Thirteen motioned us back to the stairs. “We got the confirmation we needed—one of the Kelches was definitely here in Banks’s room. Let’s head back outside and see if we can get a sense for anything more before we head out.”

Thankfully, no one said anything more about my CSI faux pas. We headed down the stairs single file, me taking up the rear. As the sky brightened, the images in the artwork became more apparent. Flashes of bright colors swam around us. Moving, swirling, almost alive. I watched the steps, clutched the railing, tried to avoid looking at the walls.

Outside, I took a steadying breath. Thirteen motioned me over to where he stood in the shadows around the streetlight. “I need you to walk up and down the sidewalk until you no longer feel the energy that you feel now.”

I nodded and moved in exaggerated steps down the sidewalk. The misty energy tingled along my skin. After a few steps, I felt like an idiot walking so deliberately, so I just strolled normally.
Just before reaching the first neighbor, the tingling lightened then pulled away. I took one more step forward then one more back just to be sure I felt the difference.

“Right here. I don’t feel it anymore over here.”

“That’s not real far,” Jon pointed out.

“Try the other direction, Magnolia,” Thirteen said from his place in the shadows.

This time I walked two houses down before the feeling started to fade. Instinctively, I moved toward the curb. The fogginess abruptly disappeared.

“I think they got in a car, because it’s just suddenly gone here at the curb.”

Thirteen nodded thoughtfully. “OK,” he said. “Come back and let’s get back to HQ.”

We filed back into Thirteen’s car. Thirteen spoke quietly from the driver’s seat. “What use of power would be necessary from the sidewalk, all through the house, and back outside?”

There was a long pause. Thirteen peered at me from the rearview mirror.

“Oh!” Guess that wasn’t rhetorical. “Probably just a camouflage illusion. Unless, well, who called the police?”

“I did,” Thirteen said. “I reported the break-in on our way over here.”

“Then they definitely used a camouflage. You know, it’s like an illusion to cover themselves, make everything appear normal so none of the neighbors would see what was really happening.”

“But would that mask the sound?” asked Shane. “I mean, that door was shattered, exploded. Surely someone heard that.”

I nodded. “They probably did hear something, but if there was nothing to see to go with the sound, then…”

“You can do that?” Jon asked. “Explode a door without anyone knowing you did it?”

“Sure,” I said. “As long as they were there to hold the illusion. They could have even talked to the neighbors and no one would have known what happened. It’s just like what you guys have been training on. Of course, if it were me, I wouldn’t even need a camouflage illusion. I’d just turn invisible, unlock the door, and make any bodies I was hauling with me invisible too. Then there wouldn’t be any threat of discovery at all. The others can’t do that, though, so even if they were doing an illusion, which I can pretty much guarantee they were, it would be hard for them to cover a sound and a body at the same time. Especially one as big as Banks.”

Silence filled the car. All eyes were on me; the men’s faces turned hard.

OK, what did I do now?

I quickly peeked in their minds.
Shit
. “I didn’t mean like a
body
body! Like I’d carry out a
dead
body,” I spoke in a rush. “Banks probably isn’t even dead yet. He had to be able to walk out on his own, right? Since they wouldn’t have been able to camouflage his appearance at the same time they were covering the door and themselves and who knows what else. So I didn’t mean he’s really a
body
body. Not like that.”

“No,” growled Shane, “he’s not dead yet. He’s just being tortured at some unknown location. That’s all.”

Everyone turned forward again. Great.

I sat alone on the front porch and watched the sun set. Training had been canceled again so everyone could have a catch-up day at the office. In order to keep my involvement secret from the rest of the Network, Thirteen had made everything about the task force confidential. Which was fine, except that confidentiality meant the folks on our team were now forced to do research and paperwork they would have otherwise pawned off to other staff members.

I, for one, was glad for the day off. Things were so…strange right now. Banks was gone. They knew who had him, but with no physical proof their hands were tied. Everyone was on edge. Conversations were snarled rather than spoken. People were as quick to throw a punch as a sarcastic retort. Hell, the other day Charles had even asked to up the combat training just so everyone could work out some of the frustration.

But that wasn’t all.

I was changing. I didn’t know how or why, but at my very core, I was…evolving. I could feel it as certainly as I could feel the hot evening air.

I jumped up and walked out into the yard. I couldn’t just sit here anymore. My pace quickened until I was running past the wide back field. Faster and faster I moved. The trees tore at my clothes but I didn’t care. I hadn’t run like this since my escape. It felt good to feel the wind gain speed around me. Free. I’d never been in control of my life. But now, recently, I wasn’t even in control of
me
. Intense dreams. Unexpected powers. Theo. All these…feelings.