Shaker of Earth (SPECTR Series 2 Book 5) Page 5

  He and Karl had first seen her behind the counter of Aiken and Daughters Custom Motorcycles. They hadn’t gotten her name, because they’d been there for her sister. Isabelle Aiken.

  Drugoy’s renfield.

  “Oh God,” the woman babbled. “Oh God, what happened, what…”

  John dropped to his knees beside her. “Ms. Aiken,” he said, voice firm in the hopes of cutting through her panic, “your sister, Isabelle. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know!” She was crying in earnest now, great wrenching sobs. “I was on my way to work, and I saw that guy who comes by the shop sometimes, and then…and then…”

  John closed his hand around her arm, trying to stave off her panic. “Ms. Aiken, why did Azarov do this to you? Did he say anything?”

  “No.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “I’m not even sure he knew who I was.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Karl said. “I don’t think she can help us.”

  John sat back on his heels. The rest of the NHE pack were either dead or run off. An odd stillness had fallen over the street, broken only by the wails of the traumatized woman.

  “Noorzai had a good question,” Wells said as she joined them. “How were you able to exorcise her?”

  “I’ve been able to exorcise the possessed without using a circle for a while,” John said as he rose to his feet. “Barillo forbid me to continue, because it’s due to Gray’s…energy.”

  Wells scowled. “Christ, what an asshole. But aren’t these supposed to be permanent?”

  “Maybe Yuri accelerates the process,” John said slowly. “Make it so the victims can’t fight back, and the NHE is in control from the beginning. But there must still be a window. Maybe not forty days, I don’t know, but we can still exorcize them.”

  “The rest of us can’t,” Zahira said. Her dark eyes shone with a spark of hope as she met his gaze. “But you can. Do you see what this means? Thanks to Gray, you can save them. We have a chance to stop this without a lot of innocent victims dying.”

  His spirits lifted despite everything. “I’m only one man. And I don’t know how many charges I’ve got in me.”

  “Saving a few is better than saving none.” Wells clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s keep moving.”

  * * *

  Caleb pushed to the fore, grabbing the tire iron a second before it shattered their nose. “Whoa!”

  The woman tried to wrench the makeshift weapon away. Black hair straggled around her face, and she had a wild look in her eye. “Get away from my children!” she yelled. “Kids, run!”

  Of course. Bitterness coated his tongue. Every time he tried to save people—on Fort Sumter, on the drifting boat with Steele, here—they treated him like a monster. Why the fuck did he even bother?

  “Geez, Mom, get a grip!” exclaimed the unmistakably annoyed tones of a teenaged girl. “He saved Mahindar, so chill out and stop trying to beat his head in.”

  A girl of perhaps fifteen climbed out of the van and went to the side of the boy Gray had saved from the ogre. The boy stood up, and though he clung to his sister, he stared at Caleb with wide eyes.

  “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said in an awed voice. “Are you some kind of superhero?”

  Caleb snorted. “I wish.”

  Their mother blinked, as though coming out of a haze. “I…oh dear. I’m so sorry.” She let go of the tire iron and put her hands to her mouth. “I was in a panic. Mahindar, are you all right?”

  The boy, who Caleb guessed to be about ten years old, nodded. “I’m okay. I thought I was a goner for sure, though.”

  The woman put a hand to her chest. “I’m Mrs. Tavleen Chatwal, and this is my son Mahindar, and my daughter Hardeep.”

  “Harry,” the girl corrected. She ran her eyes over Caleb’s form, then tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Cool outfit.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Harry, check on Nardev. He’s the baby,” Mrs. Chatwal added as she turned back to Caleb. “Thank you so much. That thing came out of nowhere. If you hadn’t come along when you did…”

  For a horrible moment, Caleb thought she was going to break down in tears. But she took a deep breath and visibly steeled her spine. “Just…thank you.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Listen, you need to get under cover somewhere.”

  Harry returned with a toddler on her hip. “Can we go with you?”

  “That wouldn’t be safe,” he said.

  “But you beat up the monster,” Mahindar protested. He glanced at the ogre, its body already rotting, and looked away with a shudder. “Going with you has to be safer than being on our own.”

  “They will slow us down,” Gray said uncertainly. “But there are other demons in the area. I can smell them.”

  Whiffs of rot and mange and corruption gusted on the breeze. Faint now, but the demons wouldn’t stay put. If the rich people were actually hiding behind spirit wards, anyone on the street would end up the target of the feeding frenzy.

  Mrs. Chatwal fixed Caleb with a steely eye. “What are you?” she asked bluntly. “I might not have gotten the best look during the fight, but you’re not human. But you saved Mahindar, and you aren’t attacking us, so you aren’t one of those things, either.”

  Christ. They didn’t have time for any of this. “We’re drakul,” he said. “It would take too long to explain, but we’re not like werewolves, or ghouls, or any of the regular NHEs. We hunt them. You don’t have to be scared of us.”

  “I’m not,” Harry said quickly.

  “We?” Mrs. Chatwal asked.

  “I’m Caleb. Gray is the one who fought the ogre. We have a sort of permanent timeshare on my body.”

  He expected her to back away, maybe go for the tire iron again. After all, he’d just confirmed he was possessed, which was usually enough to send most people screaming in the opposite direction. Not that he could really blame them at the moment.

  She seemed to ponder—then nodded, as though she’d come to a decision. “Very well. We’re going with you.”

  “Um…” He wanted to protest. But the smell of demons was getting stronger. If he told her to hide and then left, would something nasty track the family by scent?

  If they could find some SPECTR operatives, maybe Caleb could turn the Chatwals over to them. “Fine. But stay out of my way, and for God’s sake, run and hide if I tell you. Understand?”

  “I understand.” Mrs. Chatwal glanced at her kids. “Harry? Mahindar? Do you understand?”

  Mahindar nodded. “Yeah, anything you say.”

  Him, Caleb believed. Mahindar had been traumatized enough for one day. He was less sure about Harry’s mumbled “Yes, Mom.”

  “All right, then,” Caleb said. He took a deep breath.

  Come on out, Gray. If you’re manifested, maybe any demons will at least hesitate before attacking us.

  Gray rose up, teeth sharpening and claws slipping free. Their hair swirled and crackled about their shoulders. Mrs. Chatwal’s eyes all but bulged from her head at the sight, and Caleb wondered if she was having second thoughts.

  “Follow me,” Gray told the Chatwals. Then he turned and started down the street, the family scurrying to keep up.

  * * *

  “You’re so cool,” one of the mortal children says breathlessly. “Not like the guys at my high school. They’re lame.”

  Gray moves as quickly through the street has he can, with the mortals clustered behind him. The smallest child was unable to keep up, and when the mother began to struggle holding it, Gray took it from her. It clings to his left shoulder now, body cradled effortlessly in his arm, his other hand free.

  “His name is Nardev, and he’s a boy, not an it,” Caleb says.

  Mortal nonsense. Names and genders and all the rest of it. But very well.

  They have made their way further down Legare Street, in accordance with Caleb’s original plan. The demons have left them alone, so far, recognizing Gray as the larger predator.

  Yuri might be controlling some of the demons he has summoned, but even he cannot command them all. They passed a pack of ghouls, who fled the moment they saw Gray, and once a werewolf bounded out of an alley, only to turn tail when he growled at it. So far, none have dared challenge him for the mortals clustered tightly around him.

  “I am not cool,” he informs the child who spoke to him. Harry. Her. “I do not feel heat and cold as mortals do.”

  The girl laughs. “That’s not…I mean, I guess that’s why you’re walking around Charleston in the middle of summer in all that leather.” Her brown face takes on a redder hue. “It looks really good on you, though.”

  “She’s got a crush on you, Gray.”

  “So you’re a vampire, right?” she asks. “I thought they weren’t real. Everyone says they’re just a story.”

  “I’ll bet the government has been hiding them!” the boy—Mahindar—chimes in excitedly. “It’s a conspiracy!”

  The toddler grabs a handful of Gray’s hair and stuffs it in his mouth.

  “You’re very good with children, Mr. Gray,” Mrs. Chatwal says from behind him. Her breath comes in short pants, as though she isn’t used to walking so far so quickly. “Do you have any of your own?”

  “I am not capable of mortal reproduction,” he replies.

  “Really, dude? Not how I would have phrased it.”

  “Right!” Harry’s eyes brighten with excitement. “You bite people and they turn into vampires! Is that what happened to Caleb?”

  “This kid needs to lay off the bad movies.”

  “That is mortal nonsense,” Gray says. “I was summoned from the etheric plane five-thousand years ago. I have walked this earth ever since.”

  “Wow,” Mahindar breathes. “You’re old.”

  Harry clasps her hands in front of her. “So, do you have an eternal romance? A great love, reborn life after life, who you meet again and again?”

  “Harry,” her mother says. “Excuse her, Mr. Gray, she’s fifteen. She has…ideas.”

  The grief they managed to put aside slips back. John’s absence is like a cloud over the sun. The colors that have seemed so bright since Gray first awakened in Caleb’s body are muted now. “We did have a love,” he admits. “But he does not wish to be with us anymore.”

  Caleb feels very small in the shared space of their thoughts. “You don’t have to answer her.”

  But Gray does not mind. It is simply the truth. Sometimes the truth is wonderful, and sometimes painful, but that is the way of things.

  “He?” Harry’s face falls. “So, you’re gay?”

  “No. I do not have a gender, and I do not care about such things in others.” He pauses. “Though I am learning these things are important for mortals.”

  “Oh.” Her expressions clears. “Agender pansexual it is.”

  Mrs. Chatwal clicks her tongue. “Harry, leave Mr. Gray alone.”

  “I don’t want to use the wrong pronouns!” Harry protests.

  “Same here,” Mahindar says quickly. “So do you use they/them?”

  It is not something he has given consideration to before. “We are a they, so that would not be incorrect no matter what. But I do not mind ‘he.’ Mortals change their minds so often as to whether there are three genders, or five, or two. A thousand years yields as many variations.”

  No one speaks for a few moments. Just as he thinks he has at last escaped the conversation, Mrs. Chatwal says, “We must seem so insignificant to you.”

  Gray stops. A haze of smoke hangs on the air, drifting from the fires they glimpsed from the steeple. The houses on the street have become less estate-like, more run down, and the windows of one are shattered. The scent of blood drifts from within; someone who could not afford a spirit ward like their neighbors has become prey.

  Fire and chaos and death.

  Yuri and Drugoy have done this. Out of madness and greed and jealousy, out of malice and cruelty. But also out of ignorance.

  “No.” He turns to Mrs. Chatwal and looks down at her. “There is another drakul here. He has been in this world mere decades, but in his hubris he has decided mortal lives are lesser because they are short.”

  If only things had been different. If only he could have made Drugoy understand. There had been such joy in hunting together. Even in sitting silently, much as they had once curled together on the etheric plane, so long ago.

  “But they are not lesser,” he finishes. “Because no moment in time is greater than any other. Each second is made equal, and the one I experience is no more real than the one you experience, simply because I have seen more of them.”

  She is silent for a long moment. “I see,” she says at last. “How many of you are there? Drakul, I mean?”

  The question is too complicated, so he settles for, “There is only one other like me.”

  “And he did this? I mean, they did this?” She looks appalled. “What are you going to do?”

  “I am going to kill them, if I can.” The heaviness of it lays on his heart. Drugoy and Yuri have done terrible things. They wished to kill everyone Caleb and Gray loved, to take them away from the network of mortal life that had made Caleb so briefly happy. To take away John and Zahira.

  And yet, when they are gone, there will be no one else who understands. No one to hunt with. No one to talk to.

  The mortals are quiet for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Chatwal offers at last. “That must be hard for you.”

  The scent of demons strengthens on the wind. Fur and rot and slime, spiked with blood. Howls echo, mingled with growls and the strange whine of ghouls. All underlain with the meat-locker stench of a wendigo.

  Demons of different kinds do not hunt together. This must be Yuri’s doing.

  “Which means they probably won’t run from us. Damn it. We need to get the Chatwals to safety.”

  “There are demons nearby.” Gray casts about for shelter. Nowhere will be safe for long, but perhaps the low hedge behind the iron fence will do. He hands Nardev to Harry, then strides to the iron gate and rips off the chain holding it closed. “Hide behind the hedge, and I will deal with them.”

  Uncertainty appears in Mrs. Chatwal’s eyes—then vanishes as gunfire breaks out, just around the intersection up ahead. “Go,” she starts, but he is already running toward the scent of blood.

  Chapter 6

  Gray races around the corner and into chaos.

  Cars line much of the road, either parked along the curb or abandoned by panicked mortals. An SUV with Strategic Paranormal Entity ConTRol emblazoned on the side blocks the road, lights flashing off the spray of glass on the pavement from the shattered rear window.

  The agents inside abandoned the vehicle and tried to find refuge behind some of the parked cars. It has not gone well for them, judging by the blood spreading across the pavement.

  A ghoul lies dead, body already going to rot, but a werewolf, two more ghouls, and a wendigo stalk the remaining two mortals. A telekinetic seems to be holding off the werewolf temporarily, but the situation will not remain in his favor for long. The wendigo has paused to eat one of the dead agents. As it rips a hunk of meat free, Gray glimpses the dead agent’s face. Quackenbush, that was the name on the mortal’s cubicle.

  “You heard what Starkweather said over the radio!” the other surviving agent says. An exorcist, though not one Gray has ever seen out from behind a desk. “If I can cut those silver cords, we’ll have a better chance.”

  “Damn it,” Caleb says. “John must not have gotten our text telling him to stay put.”

  Or he chose not to. John is not one to hide when others are in peril.

  For an instant, indecision stutters through them. So long as Drugoy and Yuri are free, John is in terrible danger. None of the mortal agents can stand against a drakul. The only hope is for Gray and Caleb to find Drugoy and Yuri, before they can find John.

  “But we can’t just leave the Chatwals. And that wendigo is going to tear apart these agents if we don’t stop it.”

  Caleb is right. With a snarl of frustration, Gray launches himself high into one of the palmetto trees lining the road.

  The movement distracts the demons, as he hoped it would. The wendigo is nearly below him; it looks up, red eyes bulging from its skeletal face. Lips draw back from teeth like dinner knives.

  “It’s Jansen!” one of the agents shouts. “Oh shit!”

  The telekinetic breaks cover, fleeing…them?

  It takes only a moment for the werewolf to catch the man. His screams of pain madden the ghouls, who rush to join the werewolf’s attack.

  Sick horror flashes through Caleb—but they have no time to dwell. The wendigo lets out a snarl of rage and swipes at them. Though skeletal, it is nearly ten feet tall, and its nails almost snag on their boot.

  With a snarl of his own, Gray drops onto the wendigo, claws extended and fangs bared. The wendigo is nothing but skin stretched over bone, but it is nevertheless hellishly strong. It grabs at him with long arms, twisting unnaturally far in their sockets, but the leather of his coat foils its attack.

  Frost forms on its skin, making it hard to hold onto. Gray tries to sink his claws in, but the fish-belly white skin tears, and there isn’t enough muscle beneath to give a solid hold. He bites blindly, teeth scraping on the bones of its shoulder. The vein is there, he knows it—

  The cold radiating out from the wendigo flares suddenly, burning his skin. It slams back into the palmetto, catching Gray between the tree and its own body. The blow loosens his hold, and it wrenches free.

  He half expects it to flee, but it turns on him in an instant. A forest of razor teeth flash in front of his eyes—and then he feels them scrape and crunch into the bones of his face.

  “It’s trying to bite our fucking head in half!” Caleb shouts, as if Gray might somehow have failed to notice.

  Pain explodes through their skull, the delicate arch of one eye orbit collapsing beneath the hideous pressure. The wendigo’s breath reeks of ketosis and rot, its tongue rasping their skin from bone.