The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (43 page)

He turned to where Constantine’s
armies had been, but they had all melted back into the forest as
well.

Constantine had won this
battle—
much too easily
. So why hadn’t he stayed to finish them off?

Realizing why Constantine had gone
this way, he faced the direction of the shack, but then paused as a
much stronger feeling poured through his every sense.

“
Jes,” he said out
loud.

Dracon was standing near enough to
physically hear him, even if he hadn’t already heard what Justice
was screaming inside of his head.

Jes and her sisters were in
trouble!

Justice shifted to his predatory
form. He couldn’t take his sword this way, but he
could
move more quickly.
Dracon was long gone, running like lightning toward the shack
before Justice had even made the forest’s edge. Justice was over
halfway there when he ran into Roman in the woods. They quickly
spotted each other, and shifted back to their human forms so that
Roman could explain everything as they ran, but they were quick to
shift back into their Jaguar forms once the information was passed,
allowing them to cover the ground more quickly.

Dracon was going to beat them there
either way. No Jaguar could move as fast as a vamp.

Yet, nothing could have prepared
them for what they found.

Justice was nearly frantic when he
saw the Sisters of Three lying there. Dracon also, for once, had a
good amount of emotion showing in his eyes.

Roman had finished helping Morgi
take Justice’s sisters through the doorway, but they still were not
able take the Sisters of Three through, and that was when he had
gone to find Justice and Dracon instead. He knew it was imperative
that they get the sisters away from there; they were too vulnerable
to Constantine in their present condition. And it wouldn’t be long,
now that the battle had ended, before he returned for his
prize.

After all, he had planned it all
out so carefully.

But he hadn’t planned for the
return of Shira.

When Justice got there, Dracon was
staring in shock at the circle of dark earth where the shack had
once stood.

Micah was holding Mira, and there
were silent tears rolling down his face. He stared at Justice and
Dracon. Justice looked at Dracon.

Dracon’s eyes were dark, and his
fangs were showing; since they weren’t about to fight, and he
wasn’t about to feed, Justice knew that it was the power of his
emotions that had changed him. And Dracon generally wasn’t known
for letting emotions rule his head, that knowledge said all Justice
needed to know.

“
I scouted the perimeters. There’s
no one around here—yet,” Dracon said. He actually more growled it,
but Justice got the gist of it.

The two of them walked across the
charred earth, not caring if they were burned.

“
It’s okay,” Micah said quickly as
though he had finally realized how it must have looked. “They have
just taken a goodly amount of time returning to their physical
form.”

“
Physical form
?” Dracon’s tone demanded an explanation.

It was obvious to Justice that
Micah was still too stunned, most likely by the blast, to give him
much of one. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They might have all
been… killed.”

“
We’ll talk about it later!”
Justice growled. “Why didn’t they go back through the
doorway?”

Micah frowned at him as if he’d
lost his mind. “Their bodies were nothing but light. Have you ever
tried to carry light?”

Dracon had just started reaching
for Dara, and Justice had moved to stand in front of Jes, but that
stopped both Justice and Dracon in their tracks.

Justice turned to warn Dracon, just
in time to see him pull back his hand. He seemed afraid to touch
her now. His gaze quickly scanned her body. It was obvious that he
was afraid he’d hurt her.

But Justice was more afraid that it
would hurt Dracon than that it would hurt Dara. “Dracon, don’t
touch her yet,” he warned.

Dracon frowned. He looked back to
Micah. “Can they be taken home?

Micah stared down at Mira. “I have
only been able to touch her—without my hands going straight through
her—in the last few minutes,” he explained. “I think that we can
take them through the doorway now.”

He seemed hesitant about that, and
Justice didn’t like it. “But you don’t know.”

Roman had stayed outside the
charred earth, but hearing this, he now entered it. “It might be
too hard on them to take them through the doorway when they’ve been
put through such a thing,” he said.

Dracon frowned at him, now. “If we
don’t, they’ll be sitting ducks for that one.” He shrugged toward
where the battle had taken place, still refusing to name his
enemy.

Justice made a mental note to talk
to him about that sometime, but right now, he had more pressing
things to worry about. “Roman,” he said, “we’ll just have to take
that chance.” He stared at their charred surroundings. “Dracon’s
right. If we don’t, there is a much greater danger to them here. We
will never be able to protect them from all those vamps,” he looked
at the sisters then, “with them in their current
condition.”

Roman nodded, turned, and formed a
doorway. Dracon picked up Dara and was quick to go through it
first. Micah stood then, lifting Mira easily off the ground, and
went through the doorway next. Justice had picked up Jes, by that
time, and followed the others through it, while Roman brought up
the rear—and closed the doorway.

But not before he had spotted
Constantine coming out of the woods—and behind him—were hundreds of
vamps.

He blinked when thought he also saw
Morgi high up on the bluff behind them. He shook his head: but that
couldn’t be right—he had left her with Justice’s sisters back at
the manor.

Roman had exited the doorway right
into the Sisters of Three’s ritual room. They had readied the beds,
which had been set up for the sisters in the corner of the room,
long before. The men gently placed the sisters upon them
now.

Roman informed the men about whom
he thought he had seen when closing the doorway. Dracon was quick
to demand that he reopen it.

“
No,” Justice ordered, and Dracon
frowned. “I cannot be with you on this one, brother.” Justice told
him. “We need to make sure the sisters are okay and we will need to
finish our other plan for dealing with Constantine, neither of
which will be helped by your committing suicide here this
night.”

So they sent for Amar and set up,
instead, the long vigil—of waiting for the sisters to awaken. Only
then they would know if they were okay—or even if they were the
same sisters who had gone into the war.

Roman went to look for
Morgi.

It was after daylight before the
sisters awoke.

The three simply opened their eyes,
as though someone had thrown a light switch: just like that. And
Dracon, who was taking his turn to watch them, stared from one to
the other with obvious suspicion.

Amar shooed him out of the room.
“It was time,” and that’s all she told him as she shut the door
behind him.

When he was gone, she had the
sisters tell her where they had been while they had been out. She
listened as they each told her about visiting family members on the
other side.

She looked at Jes. “I expect that
you have figured out what is different about your grandmother now,”
she said.

Jes frowned, and her eyes filled
with tears. “You mean about the fact that you are dead.”

Amar nodded. She looked at Mira.
“It took this child some time to figure it out too. It happened
when we were after Xavier Dubioux.”

Mira crawled over and put her arm
around Jes.

“
It was really hard for me to
accept,” she said with a sniff.

Jes nodded. She looked at Dara, who
had crawled up on the other side of her to join in a sisterly hug.
“How long have you known?” she asked Dara.

Dara smiled wanly. “Since, the
first time I looked at her.” She shook her head. “But I’ve had a
little more experience in dealing with the dead.”

Jes shook her head. “I don’t
understand. Other people can see you.”

Amar laughed. “I work with the Fae,
so I have an advantage.”

Jes half-smiled, wanly, and
nodded.

Justice came through the door,
then, with a look for Amar that dared her to try to throw him out.
Dracon was with him. The look on his face implied he’d chosen to
recruit Justice—so that the old woman couldn’t throw them
both
out.

The sisters giggled. And then they
all sat down to plan.

The sisters stood before the
cauldron, mixing together the spell they’d been working on for the
past several weeks. This was it. This is what all their hard work
came down to. They had done their homework. They had carefully
meditated and planned. They were ready.

They had to be.

Constantine had acted as though
they were merely pawns that were in his way last night. And he had
neatly swatted them out of the way, like flies.

No wonder Dracon had such respect
for him.

He was respecting a formidable
foe.

But Mia was sick. No one knew
exactly what was wrong with her, and Mia wasn’t talking.

Jes had never been so afraid for a
loved one. Justice’s sister was her best friend—and like another
sister to the sisters. She would never forgive herself if anything
were to happen to her—and they had not prevented her from going to
Constantine and placing herself in such danger.

Mira was stirring the pot when she
suddenly spoke, and Jes glanced at her in surprise.

“
Roman said that he saw Morgi on
the bluff behind Constantine and his men—before he had managed to
close the doorway last night,” she said.

Dara frowned. “How did she get out
there? I thought she had been left behind with Justice’s
unconscious sisters?”

Mira gave her a confused look and
nodded. “She was. Roman said that she had not returned through his
doorway, so he has no idea how he could have seen her back on the
other side.”

Dara raised her brows in surprise.
“It would seem that our witch has more powers than we know,” she
said.

Mira nodded. “So it would
seem.”

“
Amar!” Dara called.

Amar appeared right inside the room
this time, now that she didn’t have to hide the fact that she was
doing so from Jes.

It still surprised the heck out of
Jes to see her do so.

“
What is with Morgi?” Dara asked,
not bothering to explain what she was asking.

Amar shrugged. “She’s a powerful
witch,” she answered. “How do you think that Constantine and his
army of vamps did not get back to the shack before Dracon and
Justice?”

That had the sisters
frowning.

Amar nodded. “She kept them lost
until the men could get you three out of there.”

That one gave the sisters something
to think about. Not only had she been able to cross back—without
the use of one of Roman’s doorways—she had been able to confuse
someone as powerful as Constantine.

What kind of witch could have
managed such a feat?

Jes was sitting at the window,
later on that night, staring at Grandmother Moon. Those feelings
were back, and as Jes sat thinking about the night before, she
became even more determined to have a talk with Justice.

Though they had not actually
located Justice’s parents, Lucius had been correct about where they
might locate the vaccines. His parents had known that Lucius would
figure it out. They had left the vaccines there for them to
find.

Since that moment, a plan had
broken—like a dam had burst within Jes’s mind—the dam that had held
back the last of what she would need to know. A plan was taking
full form within her head. The plan was taking shape, and she had
to find out if he thought it would work.

It had come to her when she had
been having a soda—she had taken one look at the straw she was
using with which to drink her soda… and suddenly she knew how they
could use the vaccine.

Chapter
Forty-Nine

Jes and Justice

Justice had put hundreds of
workers together
to make the
blowguns—weapons that certain human tribes had used—and for the use
of which they had dipped their darts into poison. These darts, the
ones that would be needed to give the vaccines to the fledgling
vamps, were specially prepared to inject the necessary amount of
vaccine. They had been specifically prepared to inject the vaccine
with very little pressure.

He picked up a dart, careful not to
prick himself. Who knew what this stuff did?

Jes’s plan had been brilliant. He
knew where she was getting her intel, but it still never ceased to
amaze him.