Shaker of Earth (SPECTR Series 2 Book 5)
Table of Contents
Shaker of Earth (SPECTR Series 2 #5) © 2018 Jordan L. Hawk
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Share Your Experience
Books by Jordan L. Hawk:
About the Author
Shaker of Earth
(SPECTR Series 2 #5)
Jordan L. Hawk
Shaker of Earth (SPECTR Series 2 #5) © 2018 Jordan L. Hawk
ISBN: 978-1-941230-32-9
All rights reserved.
Cover art © 2018 Lou Harper
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Annetta Ribken
Chapter 1
A memory, fragmented as a dream seen through a sheer curtain, hazy and strange.
Hunting. The prey scatters, sensing him above it. They flee down, only to be ambushed by the other drakul who waits below.
Together they feast. It is not the same as drinking blood in the mortal world, but there is satisfaction in the act. When it is done, they retreat and curl up around one another in silence. Waiting and watching, until more prey is spotted and they hunt again.
The hunt is good. But it is also good not to be alone.
Then a split opens in the world, and he is dragged through. The other drakul clutches at him, tries to keep them together, but cannot.
After, there is mortal flesh, with strange and alien memories crowding out his own. There is the hunt, and it is good, and that is enough. It must be enough.
He is alone for a very, very long time.
* * *
“Caleb? Hey? You still in there?”
Caleb’s eyes fluttered open, the lids scraping over dry corneas.
Pain filled the world from side to side, clouding his vision with red and black, and he wished he hadn’t woken up after all. His head felt like it might explode, his throat ached with dryness, and muscles he didn’t even know he had screamed as though he’d wrenched each one. But none of it compared to the agony centered in his chest.
His heart strove to beat normally, but the steel rebar through it made that impossible. Instead, it quivered without rhythm, striving to pump blood to his lungs and failing. He tried to catch a breath, but nothing seemed to be working right.
He’d never felt this bad, not even when that asshole Sean had shot him through the head. What had happened?
Memories sparked and stuttered, like an engine struggling to fire. John’s face, twisted with fear and horror. “Go! Get out! Don’t come back!”
Drugoy’s lips on theirs, his hurt look when Gray pulled away.
Yuri’s eyes, full of rage, giving way to Drugoy as he snarled: “If you love mortals so much, you will die like one.”
Fuck.
Caleb tried to swear aloud, but it came out as a groan. “Shit,” said the voice that had brought him back to consciousness in the first place. “Okay. Hold on and let me see if I can take care of the rebar.”
Caleb’s eyes focused lethargically. A figure crouched anxiously beside him. Red hair. Green eyes. Cute face.
“Deacon,” he managed to say, before speech failed him. You’re one of Drugoy’s renfields. You pretended to be my friend, and the whole time you were watching and reporting back to Yuri.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Deacon’s pale skin had gone the color of curdled milk. “Hold still. I’m going to use my TK.”
Deacon stood up and held out his hands. Taking a deep breath, he locked his gaze on the steel rod.
Drugoy had thrown it with enough force to penetrate the steel lamp post Caleb was chained to. There came a tortured squeal of metal. The sensation of the rusty metal twisting and shifting inside his body drew a weak scream from Caleb’s throat. The world collapsed into a point of agony, and he wanted to beg Deacon to stop, to leave him be, to—
The steel rebar tore free and flew ten feet, to clang against the shattered concrete.
Caleb dragged in great, heaving breaths. Ordinarily, Gray would heal him, if not instantly then within minutes. His heart ought to be stitching back together, broken bones popping into alignment.
But Drugoy had fed on them to the point they had almost no blood left. He felt a splinter of sternum work its way free, but even that seemed to take great effort on Gray’s part.
Not good. He wanted to check in with Gray, but distracting him when he was the only thing keeping them barely alive seemed like a terrible idea.
Though the heavy chain had been wrapped around them multiple times, the ends weren’t secured. Deacon grabbed one end and trotted around them in a circle, unwinding it. It made a hellish amount of noise, and he winced.
“Damn it. Going to attract the attention of those werewolves.”
Caleb became aware of the sound of distant screams and howls. The sun was coming up over the Atlantic, but a red glow lit the sky to the west as well. Fire?
“I might be able to knock them away with my TK,” Deacon went on. “And maybe if they smell Gray, they’ll stay clear. I hope so, because you’re in no shape to fight them.”
Caleb wanted to ask why the hell Deacon was letting him go. Had Yuri and Drugoy sent him, just to make sure Gray didn’t die until they were done with him? “One more chance,” Drugoy had said. Like he seriously thought Gray was going to change his mind after everything.
“No,” Caleb grated. The links of the chain loosened around him, and he slumped to the side. “Louder. More.” He grabbed at the chain and shook it weakly.
Deacon didn’t look at all certain. “You can’t fight, Caleb. You can’t even stand up. And what about Gray? Is he still in there?”
A clot of anger lodged in Caleb’s veins. It was partially Deacon’s fault this had happened in the first place. But he couldn’t spare the strength to be pissed. “Make noise!”
Deacon shook his head, then turned to a pile of steel scrap. A moment later, the pieces lifted into the air and scattered over the concrete, sending up a hellish clanging.
Caleb gripped the lamp post in both hands and dragged himself to his feet. The world spun, and he had to shut his eyes. “Yell.”
“Oh no!” Deacon shouted. “I’m trapped under this big pile of steel. I sure hope no werewolves come try to eat me while I’m lying here all helpless!”
In other circumstances, Caleb would have laughed, or at least cracked a grin. But Deacon had betrayed him, and he wasn’t at all sure the werewolves weren’t going to be the end of him and Gray. They didn’t have any blood to spare.
A growl sounded from nearby, and he glimpsed shadows slinking through the wreckage the fight with Drugoy had left behind. The pack coming back for another round.
He’d lost track of time, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour ago when the werewolves had been human security guards responding to the commotion. Before Yuri’s exorcist ability infected them with demons, bypassing the usual forty days required for the NHE to take over completely.
Deacon backed away from the loping figures. “They’re here. Three of them, it looks like. Now what?”
“The rebar.” Caleb’s words slurred drunkenly, his tongue heavy in his dry mouth. “Impale one with it. We’ll do the rest.”
Deacon shook his head but d
idn’t have time to comment. Two of the werewolves charged.
The rebar crashed into one, taking it through the shoulder. Blood gushed, and Caleb caught its scent.
Rational thought evaporated in the face of a hunger more powerful than anything he’d ever experienced before. It felt as though something tried to claw its way out of his belly, screaming and howling with need. The world shrank, vision tunneling. He heard a yelp from the other werewolf, but it seemed far away, inconsequential.
He hung on for a split second, waiting for Gray to rise and transform their teeth into fangs and nails into claws. But they didn’t even have enough energy for Gray to manifest.
Shit. This was going to be unpleasant.
He surrendered to hunger and lurched away from the lamppost at the werewolf. It let out a screech of pain as it ripped the length of steel bar from its shoulder. More blood gushed, the great artery in the arm torn, but it would only be a matter of seconds before it began to heal.
The fresh edge of sheered metal caught Caleb’s eye. A fragment of siding, ripped apart in the fight or as part of the demolition that had left behind the rubble, he didn’t know. Caleb picked it up and swung it as hard as he could at the werewolf’s neck.
The edge bit deep, slicing through hide and into a jugular. Before it could react, Caleb let go of the metal, grappled it from behind, and thrust his face in the wound.
The thing’s stench nearly suffocated him: mange clotted fur and rotting meat. His human fingers slipped in its coarse fur, but he sealed his mouth to the wound and caught as much of the foul blood on his tongue as he could.
Energy crackled through him, like a jolt of lightning. He swallowed once, twice—
The werewolf wrenched free of his weak grip and turned on him, claws flashing as it raised its paw-like hand.
The other werewolf slammed into it, hurled by Deacon’s telekinesis. “Run!” Deacon shouted. All the color had drained from his face, and he visibly shook as he raised his hands. He was running out of juice fast. “I can’t hold them off any longer!”
The etheric energy Caleb consumed in the demon’s blood spread through him. Not much, not nearly enough to start healing.
But enough for his teeth to sharpen and claws to erupt from his fingers.
There was no finesse. He fell onto the werewolves and bit blindly, sinking his teeth as deep into meat as he could.
Blood burst into his mouth, channeled by the grooves on the backs of his teeth, and a moan of ecstasy escaped him. The werewolf struggled to get away, but Caleb's leather coat foiled its claws. Energy flooded through his body, and the holes in his heart finally sealed. Its beat steadied, the shattered bits of sternum snapping back out and into place. Lungs inflated.
And he sensed something coalescing, rising up from where it had spent every second, every moment, keeping them from slipping away into death.
Gray.
* * *
Yuri and Ericsson were behind the siren attacks. Yuri can make a possession permanent from the start. Ericsson was working with him the whole time. In return for the sirens, Ericsson agreed to kill you, and possibly Zahira.
We’re going to put a stop to them.
We’re sorry. Just know, no matter what happens, we’ll always love you.
John’s phone lay in the center of the conference room table, Caleb’s texts displayed. He’d shut off his phone while Barillo grilled him about Ericsson’s death. About Gray bent over Ericsson’s body, teeth fastened in the dead agent’s neck, draining his blood.
He hadn’t thought to check the phone until he saw the scenes of mayhem relayed by traffic cams all around Charleston. Pandemonium reigned in each one, demons loose in the streets, fire raging, and in the center of it all, Yuri strolling down Calhoun Street as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
We’re going to put a stop to them.
He’d been so afraid Gray and Caleb were working with Yuri and Drugoy to make Charleston an all-you-can-eat drakul buffet. But it sounded as though the ex-Soviet intelligence officer had played them just as he had everyone else.
Karl sat to one side of John, Zahira to the other. Steele hovered uncomfortably at the end of the table. Barillo stood directly across from them, arms folded over his chest.
“I tried calling, but Caleb isn’t answering his phone,” John said, glad his voice didn’t shake. “It’s possible Gray fried the electronics accidentally.”
He didn’t speak the other possibility aloud, that Caleb had caught up with Yuri and Drugoy, and the fight had gone badly for them.
“You knew about this other drakul, Starkweather,” Barillo said flatly. “And yet you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Ericsson knew, too,” Steele said. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet, no doubt reeling from his partner’s betrayal. “They did the sirens…I didn’t think it had been long enough, but if Jansen is right and this other drakul can make a possession permanent from the beginning…fuck.”
“I wasn’t asking about Ericsson,” Barillo said. “I was asking Starkweather.”
“Sir, we don’t have time for this,” Karl said, directing the words to Barillo. “We need every hand on deck, now. We can sort out blame later.”
“When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you, Rand,” Barillo said.
John’s pulse sped. “With all due respect—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Barillo snapped. “You don’t have any respect for the job or the organization. You only care about that thing you’re fucking.” His lip curled. “You know what I think? I think maybe you were fucking this second drakul, too. Is that why Azarov sent Ericsson after you, Starkweather? Lovers’ quarrel gone bad?”
John ground his teeth together until he feared they might crack. He’d had enough of Barillo’s insinuations. Yes, he’d screwed up about as much as it was possible to do as an agent, but—
No. Wait. Barillo might be an asshole, but he might inadvertently be onto something after all.
“Gray knew Drugoy from before he was summoned into this world,” John said slowly. “They hunted together.”
Zahira let out a gasp. “Drugoy was the other drakul Gray mentioned, the day I interviewed him?”
“It’s a weird coincidence, I admit.” John shrugged. “But Yuri and Drugoy wanted me dead, and they didn’t want Caleb and Gray to know who ordered the trigger pulled.”
John remembered all the little pangs of jealousy he’d had over the last few days. He’d been so sure he was losing Caleb and Gray to the other drakul. Not just because of the fact Dru was Gray’s former…something…but because of the time they spent together now. The lavish gift of the custom motorcycle from Isabelle Aiken’s shop. Fine dining for Caleb, and a feast of blood for Gray. Goddess only knew what else.
And John was just a mortal exorcist. He didn’t have Yuri’s money, or Drugoy’s previous connection. How could he possibly compete?
Except he hadn’t needed to. Gray and Caleb loved him. It had been Yuri and Dru who had tried to compete, and failed.
It sounded crazy, but he felt the truth of it in his bones.
“But Ericsson wasn’t supposed to kill only me,” he went on, feeling as though he were trying to find the shape of something in the dark. “Caleb’s text says Zahira might have been on his list as well. Gray doesn’t care about most mortals. He’s typically indifferent, unless they make themselves an annoyance. But there are two he cares about.”
“Gray is my friend, as well as my coworker,” Zahira said with a nod.
“Our relationships with him are different, obviously,” John hastened to add. “Yet we’re the ones Yuri and Dru wanted out of the way.”
There came a sharp knock on the door. “What?” Barillo barked.
One of the techs stuck her head inside. “We’ve gone through Ericsson’s phone, sir. He was using his birthdate as the lock code, so it wasn’t hard to open.”
“Well?” Barillo asked. “Did you find anything useful?”
The tech looked
oddly nervous. “We did. I…you might want to take a look for yourself.”
* * *
Gray roars.
The sound is one of fury and warning, as he flings aside the dead werewolf and hooks his claws into the second. Of defiance.
Of challenge.
Because Drugoy and Yuri have dared do this to him.
They hurt Caleb and tried to kill John. They loosed havoc in his city, and threatened his mortals, and he will not have it.
He bites the second werewolf, drinks it down as fast as he can, strength returning with every gulp. The third is circling Deacon, but when it spots Gray coming toward it, it tries to run.
Not fast enough.
He chases it down before it gets twenty feet, claws sinking into head and shoulder, yanking its skull back so hard something snaps in its neck before he drives in his fangs. His heart pounds now, whole again, and he welcomes the steady beat almost as much as Caleb’s overwhelming sense of relief.
The werewolf gives one last convulsion and dies, all of its etheric energy absorbed. Gray tosses its body aside and turns his gaze to the west.
The dawn light tints a rising column of smoke. The blare of alarms accompanies that of sirens, and the distant screams of mortals.
He holds still for a moment, letting memory spread through him, like a drop of blood through a pool of water.
Yuri and Drugoy betrayed them. Used them. Because Drugoy is as mad as any demon.
“Because he was summoned into a living body,” Caleb says, subdued now. “It isn’t his fault. Not really.”
It explains him. It does not excuse him. Or Yuri. Yuri, who wove this web for Drugoy’s sake, hoping to catch Gray and bind him and Caleb to them.
“Agreed.”
A shoe scuffs against concrete behind them. “Are…are you all right?” Deacon asks uncertainly. “Gray, isn’t it?”
He turns. The mortal stands behind him, looking up apprehensively.
This mortal broke Caleb’s heart, pretending to be afraid of Gray. All on Yuri’s orders.
Gray seizes him by the throat. Deacon’s eyes go wide, and he claws at Gray’s hand, but his attempts to free himself are pathetic.