The Messenger: A Novel (21 page)

T
yler and Amanda made their way down the steep slope below the deck and reached the gate without any sign of the dog, which they referred to as Wraith. Shade made his way alongside them, although at times Amanda could not see him in the darkness.

Tyler unlocked the gate and they stepped through it onto more level ground. Amanda could now see her house. Every light seemed to be on, including the outdoor floodlights. “I guess Rebecca is all for global warming,” she said.

“Perhaps she feels afraid, being there alone.” He glanced at his watch. “Alex will be sending someone to patrol in a few minutes.”

Between the lights from the house and the light of the moon, Amanda’s eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. She only used the flashlight because she didn’t want to trip over a root or step in a hole. Which, she reflected, would be just like her.

The day had been warm, and the trees and shrubs that grew throughout this little patch of woods gave the air a sweet scent. As she looked out at the sea of lights that was Los Angeles, she sensed something odd. It took her a moment to realize what it was. “I wonder why the crickets are so quiet.”

Tyler, who was a few feet away, stood still, as did she, listening.

“It’s as if there aren’t any,” he said, frowning.

When they started walking again, Shade began to circle them, as if trying to get them to move closer together. Once they were next to each other, they stood still.

“What is he doing?” Amanda said.

“Herding us.” He looked down at the dog and said, “All right, Shade, we’re together. We’re staying right here.”

Shade sat and stared up at him.

“What is it?” Tyler asked.

The dog looked from Tyler to Amanda and back again.

“Now?” Tyler asked. “Out here?”

Shade barked, making Amanda jump.

“You’re scaring her,” Tyler said.

“I think I’m over being scared of him,” she said. “He just startled me.”

Shade continued to stare at Tyler.

“What’s going on?” Amanda asked.

“I believe he’s requesting—or insisting—that I have a conversation with you.”

Shade wagged his tail.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “We’ve been talking to each other all evening.”

“Yes, well…he wants me to have a particular conversation.” He turned to the dog. “Not now. Your timing couldn’t be worse.”

Shade didn’t budge. When Tyler tried to take a step forward, the dog blocked his way.

Amanda found she hadn’t completely overcome her fear of Shade after all.

“Is the arrangement,” Tyler asked Shade in a low voice, “that you command me? Or even that I, in reality, command you?”

Shade looked away for a moment, glanced back at Tyler, then moved out of their way.

“Thank you,” Tyler said. “Now, if you don’t mind helping us find Wraith…”

But Shade kept moving, and trotted back toward the house.

“Shade!”

The dog ignored him. He soon disappeared in the darkness.

Amanda stared after him, then looked up at Tyler. She could just make out his features and thought he looked bereft. She moved closer to him and took his hand. “Maybe we should go after him. The ghosts…”

“No, he’ll come back to me if I’m in real need, or when he’s decided he wants my company again. If he doesn’t care to be with me right now, we’ll spend the whole night running through the canyon trying to catch up with him.”

“Has this happened before?”

“Yes, but not very often. I suppose he needs a break from me now and then.”

They were distracted from their conversation as, below them, the lights outside Amanda’s house were turned off. Next the indoor lights went off, downstairs first, then upstairs, until only one remained on. Oblivious to their presence, Rebecca was calling it a night.

“Do you want to wait for Shade to come back?” Amanda asked.

“This would undoubtedly be easier if he helped, but since he’s on strike or pouting or whatever, let’s do what we can on our own. Are the ghosts here?”

She looked around. “Not at the moment.”

“Well, we’ll do what we can. Let me know if you see them.”

“Do you mind if we search up here first, away from my house? I want to give Rebecca a chance to fall asleep—I’d rather not have to explain to her what we’re doing out here.”

He agreed to this. He kept hold of her hand as they walked. Not perhaps the most efficient way to search, she thought, but she was glad to have him at her side. She could not shake a feeling of foreboding.

That feeling, she realized, probably had to do with this “conversation” Tyler had mentioned. She didn’t want to bring it up—if he was willing to be at odds with Shade over it, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it now. Not a good time to push.

They found fresh tracks—prints made by a large dog—leading toward Tyler’s house, then realized they’d probably been made by Shade.

They were again distracted, this time by the Danton’s Security car going down the driveway at Amanda’s house. They heard rather than saw the guard get out of the car, and the lights in and outside the house started going on again. Rebecca must have stepped outside to talk to the guard, because although they couldn’t make out what was being said, they could hear male and female voices.

When traffic let up, Evan and Daniel drove the truck closer to the house but parked at the side of the road when they saw a security patrol car leaving the driveway. They got out of the truck and made their way on foot, even though both of them feared being so vulnerable to the dog. Lights were on all around the house—not good for their purposes.

But almost as if they had wished for it, the lights started going out again.

“Let’s not sit around out here waiting to get caught by that dog,” Evan said.

Several of the windows upstairs were open, and Daniel could have entered by any of them, but sooner or later they would need to use a door, so he went to the alarm box. Setting up a bypass on the alarm system, which would make everything appear to be in fine order to the security company, took only a few minutes, and the lock on the kitchen door even less time. This was their old profession, and Daniel felt some comfort in returning to it.

The woman was upstairs. Evan signaled that he would get her, for Daniel to keep a lookout. Daniel started to protest, then decided even Evan wouldn’t be such a fool as to do damage to a woman Adrian wanted for himself. Let him be the one to haul her down here.

Tyler told himself that he had made the right choice in not talking to Amanda just yet. If Wraith was meant to be hers, then nothing he said or didn’t say would make a difference. He had been told, though, that he had a choice, and he would never choose to make her into what he was.

Still, he began to wonder what would happen if she called to the dog.

They stood on the slope, watching as the lights at Amanda’s place started to go out again.

“The ghosts haven’t shown up yet, have they?”

She looked around and tensed. “Oh, no,” she said, “Tyler, they’re nearby! Maybe you should call to Shade—something strange is going on…”

“What?”

“My mom and dad are here. My aunt and uncle aren’t. They’ve never split up before. My dad is pointing toward the house. They seem to want us to go down there. Wait—they’re gone again.”

In the next moment, they heard a sound—not quite a scream—coming from Amanda’s house.

A
manda!” Tyler said, grabbing her arm to keep her from running toward the house. He moved with her to a hiding place behind a large tree. “Let’s not give them three hostages instead of one, all right?”

Reluctantly, she agreed. “Do you think it’s Evan and Daniel?”

“In all likelihood. But they must have approached on foot, which gives us an advantage.”

He took Amanda’s hand and began to cautiously move from tree to tree, until they were at a vantage point from which they would be able to see anyone leaving by either the front or the back door of Amanda’s house.

“The back door’s open,” Amanda said.

Tyler’s cell phone rang.

Daniel heard the sound of terror the woman made, which Evan apparently quickly cut off.

Daniel rushed up the stairs and found Evan struggling to hold her still. Daniel grabbed her feet. Evan took out his gun, and for an awful moment Daniel thought he might shoot her, but before Daniel could protest, Evan rapped it against her head. Her struggles ceased.

“You moron!” Daniel whispered. “You hit someone on the head, you can kill them!”

“She’s not dead, she was screeching before I even stepped into the room, and she won’t be out for long, so help me make sure she doesn’t yell her head off when she comes to—moron!”

Daniel took a closer look at the woman. “This isn’t the one!”

“What do you mean, this isn’t the one?”

“The one we want has dark hair, remember?”

The woman moaned. Her eyelids fluttered.

Evan swore bitterly. “Well, I still don’t want her screaming when she wakes up. Damn it, Adrian’s going to have my hide!”

They quickly bound and gagged her.

“Who the hell is she?” Evan asked.

Daniel spotted a purse and rifled through its contents. “Rebecca Clarke. Damn. This is Brad’s sister.”

“Maybe we can use her to get the other one down here.”

“Maybe…”

Hoping the details of a plan B might come to them, they stared in silence at the blonde, who continued to moan softly. Her eyes opened briefly—she seemed to be trying to rouse herself.

Daniel heard the sound of a cell phone somewhere outside and moved to the window. He carefully parted a curtain. “Someone’s coming!”

Tyler muted the ringing cell phone in frustration, and nearly didn’t answer the phone, but then he saw that the caller was Alex.

“Tyler—I thought I’d better let you know—Rebecca was all bent out of shape because supposedly Shade was nosing around Amanda’s house, and she asked my guard to take your dog back home—and he agreed and put it in his car and brought it here. Problem is, it wasn’t Shade. And now there are two dogs here—two Shades.”

“The second dog is up there?” He breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s fine. Its name is Wraith, I think. Can you tell them apart?”

“Well, yes, very easily. The new one—Wraith?—is a female.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,” Alex said. “She’s big for a bitch, nearly Shade’s size. They look almost identical otherwise. Rebecca apparently didn’t notice the dog’s sex.”

“Alex, listen to me carefully. This is extremely important.”

“All right…”

“Do not let that dog—or anyone from the house—come down here. Lock the gates, shut the dogs in—and don’t let anyone out, no matter what you hear down here.”

“Tyler, what’s going on?”

“I’ll explain it later. Don’t let any stranger who claims his dog is missing take Wraith. In fact, absolutely no one else enters or leaves until one of us calls you and uses the code word ‘ring’ in a sentence to let you know we’re not calling under duress, all right?”

There was silence, then Alex said, “Are you sure this is wise?”

“Alex, as of this moment, I can’t give you a more important job than making sure that those dogs do not fall into the wrong hands.”

“Someone wants to steal Shade?”

“Yes. And Wraith. So keep them there. They’ll also protect you and Ron and Brad.”

She laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence…”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Of course I’m depending on you to protect everyone there. I think the people who attacked Brad may be at Amanda’s house, so keep an eye on things for me where you are, all right?”

“Sure. Call me if you need me down there.”

He hung up and gave the phone to Amanda. “I want to rescue Rebecca, and you know I can do it—I’m able to defend myself, and they can’t really harm me. But I can’t be worrying about you, Amanda, which I would, and you’d just be—”

“In the way.”

She looked away from him, and he knew he’d hurt her. “I know you want to help, to be useful, but if anything happened to you—”

“I’ll stay here and call Alex if you aren’t out in a few minutes,” she said with a kind of determined calm. “I remember the code word.”

“This is important—if you really think I’ve been…taken out of
action, ask Alex to release Shade. Run back to the house and stay there. And no police, right?”

“I understand,” she said. She hesitated, then hugged him hard and whispered, “Tyler, please be safe. I have such a bad feeling about this.”

“‘Be safe,’ huh? Not a wish I usually think of needing, but I’ll do my best.”

“Hurry—I don’t want them to hurt her. Yell if—well, if you think I can be of help.”

“I will. And if you see them taking her out by the front door as I go in the back, scream bloody murder, then run to a new hiding place.” He gave her a quick kiss and ran toward the house.

Daniel said, “It’s Hawthorne and the girl!”

“Wherever he is, that dog’s not far behind,” Evan said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They moved downstairs as quietly as possible, abandoning the blonde, and watched for a chance to leave.

“They’re moving closer!” Evan said.

“I don’t see the dog with them.”

“So what? Remember the last time? That thing disappears in the dark.”

“Hawthorne’s the one Adrian really wants,” Daniel said, “or his ring anyway. Why bother with the girl?”

As if to provide for Daniel’s plan, Hawthorne started moving closer to the house—without the girl, and with no sign of the dog.

“Fine,” said Evan, pulling out the gun again, “but I’m not taking any chances.”

“Don’t be stupid! The two of us can take him without all that noise.”

Evan ignored him.

They hid behind a large couch and watched as Hawthorne carefully peered around the back door. No sooner had Hawthorne stepped silently across the threshold than Evan fired three times in quick succession.

T
he report was deafening in the confined space of the house, but Daniel saw that Evan’s aim was true—Hawthorne crumpled to the floor. They hurried forward.

Although he was a fair shot himself, Daniel preferred not to use firearms. Gunshots were loud and messy. But looking at Tyler Hawthorne, whose eyes stared up, unseeing, Daniel couldn’t argue with their effectiveness. Hawthorne’s bloodstained fingers clutched weakly at his side. He strained to draw fading, burbling breaths. Evan had wisely aimed for his body—in the dark, a head would be a hard target to hit.

Hawthorne coughed softly once, blood pouring out over his chin and neck as he did, then closed his eyes. He didn’t draw another breath.

“Get the truck,” Evan ordered. “Hurry. We have to get our asses out of here before that damned dog comes after him.”

“Or the police,” Daniel said, stepping over Hawthorne’s body. “The girl is probably calling the cops right now.”

The truck was nearby, but Daniel ran as if the devil himself were after him, which, he thought, might not be far from the truth.

Amanda stifled a scream as she heard the gunfire, and fought an urge to run toward danger.

He can’t be killed. He can’t be killed.

But what if Adrian, with all his dabbling in the occult and centuries’ greater experience, knew some secret weakness of Tyler’s? Perhaps the bullets were coated with some poison or were made of silver or something. Wouldn’t it be just like Adrian to have had, from the very beginning, some way of killing Tyler? He wouldn’t leave the ability to reclaim his immortality to chance. He would make sure he could get his powers back from Tyler.

She saw a man run from the house, but he didn’t have Rebecca or Tyler with him. She forced herself to wait.

Then she saw a familiar truck roaring down the driveway, the one she had seen in the desert, the one that had struck Tyler. She fumbled the cell phone open and called Alex.

“Tyler?” Alex answered. “What the hell is going on? We just heard gunfire.”

“It’s Amanda. Um…thought I’d ring. Tyler said to tell you to let Shade loose.”

“Good, because just now, with the help of two of my biggest men, I barely managed to stop him from smashing through a window.” She yelled to a guard to let the dog loose.

“Also,” Amanda said, “no police. That’s really important.”

There was a brief silence, then Alex said, “Okay, but I can’t guarantee that someone else in the canyon didn’t already call them.”

“I know. Thanks. I have to go.”

She hung up, then watched in alarm as a tall man emerged from the house, carrying Tyler over his shoulder. The man hastily took Tyler’s lifeless body to the truck, then ran back toward the house.

No…dear God, please let him be all right! Let him live…

She heard a rustling sound behind her—Shade was running flat out, moving with amazing speed. He passed her as a black blur. She followed him as quickly as she could.

Evan dropped Hawthorne to the ground at the back of the big pickup truck and lifted the camper-shell door. He then lowered the tailgate and
tossed Hawthorne in the back. He thought he heard Hawthorne groan—but that was impossible. He had felt for a pulse before taking him out of the house—the guy was dead.

Daniel hadn’t left the cab of the truck. Lot of help he had been with all of this. Evan shut the tailgate and hurried back into the house. Hell if he was going to leave any witnesses behind.

Amanda had just reached level ground when she saw Shade gather himself and leap over the tailgate of the truck. Slowly, the truck began to move.

“Stop!” she shouted, but the truck picked up speed.

Evan would be safe, Daniel thought, now that the dog was in the truck. Even with the camper door up, the dog wouldn’t leave Hawthorne, and although Evan probably wouldn’t figure out that Daniel had just saved his life, he’d find a way home. If Evan had done what he was supposed to do and climbed back into the truck, they could have driven off without the dog as a passenger.

Adrian would know what to do with the animal.

Adrian would protect Daniel from the dog.

Something within him argued that he was a fool to believe this was true.

He looked in the mirror and saw the girl running after the truck.

He sped up.