The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 24

  The fire in Lockman’s throat still raged, but nothing like the stove in his belly, stoked by the knowledge of all this monster was responsible for. Worst of which was driving Lockman away from someone he loved and someone he could have spent the last fifteen years loving if he hadn’t been forced to run away and hide.

  “Get on with it,” he said.

  “All right.” Dolan looked across the gurney and nodded to Alec.

  Alec slipped out the open door. A moment later he entered holding Kate by the arm. Behind him another of Dolan’s mortal goons in black fatigues dragged a squirming Jessie into the room. Both women hand their hands bound behind them and gags in their mouths.

  Jessie’s eyes went wide at the sight of Lockman on the gurney. She screamed through her gag.

  Lockman turned to Dolan. “Leave them out of this. You’ve got me. You don’t need to hurt them.”

  “But by hurting them, I can hurt you without having to hurt you.”

  “No. This is between me and you. What happened to your brother was a mistake.”

  Dolan’s face lit up. He laughed. “Have you been feeling guilty about that all these years?”

  Lockman stared silently at this monster, worse than anything from beyond the veil.

  “How ironic. Really, you have no idea.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me for dusting off an old cliché, but you’re a madman.”

  “So many visionaries were seen as mad. Now we look at them as heroes. Great thinkers. All I’ve ever wanted was what was best for the world. The truth. To share the untapped power to everyone who wishes to wield it.”

  “What you want is to give evil even more of a grasp on our world than it already has.”

  “Evil? I am not evil. Is it my fault that nature dictates I can obtain great power at the expense of other lives? It’s really very Darwinian. Survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed.”

  “Let them go, Dolan.”

  “I’ll let one of them go,” Dolan said. “But I need the other to power this for me.” He held up the cube and turned it in his hand as if appraising a precious jewel. “And I’ll let you pick.”

  “No.”

  “No what? You’d rather they both die?”

  Lockman ground his teeth together. He looked at Jessie and Kate. Kate looked so resigned. All this time he thought Dolan had done something to her, used some mojo to change her, because he couldn’t accept that her strange behavior was his fault for bringing this horrific world of monsters and mojo into her life. Of course she wasn’t acting like herself. She was scared out of her mind.

  Yet Jessie still fought. She pulled and kicked at the man holding her until he had to push her down to the floor.

  Lockman shook his head. “You can torture me to make it work. That’s how they did it in the first place. You don’t need them.”

  Dolan winced. “And you say I’m evil? I won’t harm you physically, because your body isn’t going to be yours for much longer.”

  “Who cares? I won’t remember.”

  “But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  “Craig Lockman doesn’t even exist. You don’t have to hurt them to punish someone who doesn’t exist.”

  “This is so complicated.” Dolan blinked quickly and rattled his head. “Who is who and what is what? No. I can’t torture you. You’re my brother.”

  A legion of worms crawled over Lockman’s skin and writhed in his belly.

  Dolan leaned close and spoke with a rasp. “Pick one, Lockman. I’d like to hurry up and get back the brother they made you think you killed.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Marcus VanDemere could not believe his luck. In Kate’s body he had managed to get kidnapped and brought right to Otto Dolan. No need to convince Craig Lockman and his team to let her come with them. No need to abandon Kate’s body, which he grew more and more fond of with each passing minute.

  Now he stood in the room with Dolan, the only mortal standing between him and a life on the mortal plane.

  Unfortunately, Dolan was not alone. Not counting the little girl and Lockman tied up on the gurney, he had three other men to worry about. He might have time to possess one of the men and use his weapon against the others. That would mean leaving Kate’s body, and like many things in this world, he knew instinctively he could not return to a body with a ruined soul.

  Ah, well. There would be other bodies to possess. Poor Kate. VanDemere felt bad at the prospect of leaving her stark raving mad.

  Accepting this sacrifice, he turned his mind to how to tackle the problem at hand. Dolan was the largest threat. He knew much about the supernatural, how it worked. He had to get to Dolan first. He could hop right into Dolan’s body, but Dolan had information he needed—like how he had brought him here, and how he could make sure he stayed—and VanDemere, unfortunately, had no access to his host’s thoughts or memories. Besides, he wanted some time alone with the mortal. Time to torture him. Time to threaten his loved ones as he had threatened VanDemere’s.

  No. He had to get at Dolan without killing him outright. And Dolan had just given him the perfect opportunity.

  He made Kate step forward and grunt through the gag to get Dolan’s attention.

  Dolan looked up from Lockman. “You wish to say something?”

  VanDemere nodded.

  “Remove the gag. If she screams, no one can hear her. Besides, I have a feeling we’re in for a good debate.”

  The man that had posed as Kate’s husband—an ingenious move on Dolan’s part, VanDemere had to admit—pulled the gag down.

  VanDemere lifted Kate’s chin, trying to look as noble as possible while bound. “Pick me, Craig. If they have to kill one of us, you know it has to be me.”

  At her mother’s words, Jessie screamed through her own gag. She knelt on the floor where the guy in the fatigues had pushed her. Using her shoulder, she managed to work the gag out of her mouth. “No. Mom. You can’t.”

  Her mom looked down at Jessie. “I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

  “Well, I’m not going to let them hurt you.” She turned to Craig. Her heart hammered in her chest and the words that came from her mouth frightened her more than anything she had seen in the last few days. “Me, Craig. Don’t let them hurt Mom. She doesn’t deserve any of this. I’m the one that started this by running away to find you.”

  Craig’s intense eyes tracked back and forth between Jessie and her mom. “Both of you, stop. I’m not going to pick.”

  “You have to,” Jessie said. “Or he’ll kill us both and you know it.”

  “He’ll kill you both anyway.”

  Dolan laughed. “Wow, she’s a firecracker. If it helps, I might be less inclined to kill her since she is technically my niece. But I can’t make the decision for you.”

  “Please,” Jessie said.

  “I can’t,” Craig said. “I won’t. You have a whole life ahead of you.”

  “He’s right,” Mom said.

  “Then it’s settled.” Dolan nodded to Alec.

  Alec grabbed Mom by the elbow and pulled her forward.

  Jessie screamed, tears searing her eyes. She hopped to her feet and charged at Alec, slamming her shoulder into the small of his back.

  He barely budged.

  Jessie bounced off of him, lost her balance and, without the help of her hands, dropped to her ass on the tiled floor.

  Dolan drew a thin blade from a leather sheath on his belt. A filet knife. Not the ornate and bejeweled sort of blade one would expect for ritual sacrifice.

  “No!” Jessie cried.

  “Tanner,” Dolan called. “Come hold the artifact over my soon-to-be brother here.”

  Tanner took the cube from Dolan and held it about a foot over Craig’s face.

  Alec brought Mom around the gurney to Dolan’s side.

  Dolan touched the tip of his knife to the top of the cube as if the blade were a magic wand. “You see, Jessie, once upon a time, mortals conducted elaborate rituals t
o conjure spirits or bring down curses. But all that pomp and circumstance isn’t really necessary. You just need to shed blood or drain life and know why you’re doing it.”

  He swung the tip of the blade to point at her mom’s throat and held it an inch from her skin.

  “Add some super-charged emotion to the mix, and you have the greatest power ever granted mortal men. With enough sacrifices and enough suffering, I could rule the world. Which sounds so sinister, right? Not really my goal, though. I just want this power out there for the people. Let them decide for themselves who should rule. Certainly not the corporate owned bureaucrats pretending to be leaders.”

  “What if there was another way?” Jessie said through tears.

  Dolan cocked an eyebrow. “What other way?”

  “What if you could work magic without killing people?”

  “You can. You torture them. Feed off their pain. Bleed them, but not enough to kill them. It’s how your father’s friends turned him against me. Disgusting, no?”

  “What if you didn’t need blood or pain or any of that?”

  “It’s been tried. And it isn’t possible.”

  “How can you know for sure? There has to be some way.”

  Dolan shrugged. “Even if there were such a way, I don’t have time to find it. I’m sorry, Jessie. This is for your own good.” He turned to her mom. “You want to share a few words with your daughter before you die?”

  Mom’s lip curled. Her angry expression looked like nothing Jessie had seen on her before. She almost looked like someone else. “I think you’ve said enough.”

  The flash of spectral green jumped from her mother to Tanner, still standing over Craig and holding the artifact. Mom’s eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed to the floor. Tanner’s eyes jerked wide, then narrowed. He smiled.

  Dolan, busy looking down at Jessie’s mom, did not see Tanner swing his good arm at him. Tanner knocked the blade out of Dolan’s hands then followed up with a sucker punch to his ear.

  Dolan staggered aside.

  “What the hell?” Alec lifted his gun too slowly.

  Tanner drew his pistol and fired three times into Alec’s chest.

  Alec sailed off his feet, arms flailing, and dropped to the floor, his head making a sick tock against the concrete.

  More blasts of gunfire over Jessie’s head drove her face down on the floor. She could still see that flash of green. A familiar luminescence. She understood why Mom had been acting so strangely. And she realized her mom was long gone.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Lockman saw the flash of green pass between Kate and Tanner and realized the worst. He only had a nanosecond to let his heart break, though. Then the shooting started. Alec went down. The guy to his left in the black fatigues started firing at Tanner. The young guy had terrible aim. His shots went wide while Tanner dove to the floor.

  Lockman could feel the zip of bullets flying over him. He tried to flatten himself as much as he could against the gurney, helpless to do much else while strapped down in the middle of the crossfire.

  Tanner hit the floor and fired a cluster of shots out from under the gurney.

  The barrage shredded the kid’s crotch, blood spraying in a mist that fell over Jessie hugging the floor.

  She grimaced as her face was dotted with red, but she didn’t lift her head even while her hands remained bound behind her back.

  The kid flopped to the floor, screaming. His gun rattled across linoleum.

  “Now,” Tanner said, and got to his feet. He turned toward where Dolan had staggered, only Dolan was nowhere in sight. “Where did he go?” He spun to face Lockman, pressed his pistol against his breastbone. “Where?”

  “I didn’t see. But I can help you get him. I know who you are.”

  Tanner grinned. Lockman knew Tanner’s smile and this looked nothing like it. “Thanks for the offer, but I have a feeling you might try to take him from me. And I have plans for that fucker.”

  “You going to kill me, then?”

  “Nah. You’re too valuable to be dead. I still want the ascension Dolan promised. You’re the key to getting it.” He chucked Lockman’s chin with the barrel of his pistol then ran out the door. “I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch.” His voice echoed.

  Lockman turned his head to check on Jessie. “Jess, you good?”

  She lifted her head and scanned the room. Her gaze froze on something at floor level.

  He didn’t have to ask. He knew she was looking at Kate. “Maybe she’s all right.” His words tasted like dust.

  She rolled onto her side, then up to a sitting position. Tears streamed down her face, making the soldier’s blood run down like rain dappled war paint.

  Lockman wanted to offer some more comfort, but knew it wouldn’t do much good, and they had to get out of there. He began rocking his weight back and forth until the gurney rocked with him from one set of wheels to the next. Eventually he gained enough momentum to tip the whole gurney. He crashed sideways with it, the straps keeping him pinned to the contraption. In view now were Kate and Alec. Kate lay in a crumpled ball as if she had merely fallen asleep on the spot. Rivulets of dark blood ran off Alec’s chest and pooled on the floor around him. The hair on his face and arms had grown thick, nearly masking the skin beneath.

  His chest rose and fell.

  Not good.

  Lockman scanned the floor and found the knife Dolan had intended to use on Kate. It lay only a few feet away, but with his arms strapped at his sides, it might as well have been a mile.

  Footsteps from the other side of the gurney, out of Lockman’s view.

  He tensed. Had Dolan come back?

  But the footfalls were light. Then Jessie came around the gurney. She sat down next to the knife and picked it up with her bound hands behind her back. She turned the blade and worked it under the zip tie around her wrists and sawed through the plastic, freeing her hands.

  “Nice work.”

  She didn’t speak. Her eyes were red and chapped around the rims. A seething glow in her eyes had replaced the tears. She crawled over to Lockman and unbuckled the straps.

  The relief when he rolled free of the gurney rushed to Lockman’s head and he was dizzy for a moment. He tried to stand and his foot slipped out from under him, sending him to his hands and knees. He saw the back of his right hand and realized the IV was still stuck in him. They must have pumped him full of something to sedate him. He yanked the needle out of his hand, shook his head to try and clear it, then attempted to stand. This time he found his feet.

  Jessie sat with her mother’s head in her lap, stroking her hair. Her touch looked so gentle, yet the fury in her face put a steel sheen on her. She looked older than her thirteen years. Too much older.

  Lockman crouched at her side. “We have to go.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “Alec isn’t dead. And he isn’t human. We can’t be here when he wakes up.”

  “I said I’m not leaving her.”

  He touched her shoulder. “You’ve shown a lot of strength for a girl your age. More than some of the men and woman I worked with at the Agency.”

  “I don’t want a pep talk, okay? Just leave me alone.”

  “No. Never.”

  She looked at him. “Suddenly you care?”

  “Suddenly?” Lockman glanced at Alec.

  The werewolf’s chest rose and fell a little more steadily. The blood had stopped flowing so freely. Tanner’s gun obviously hadn’t been loaded with any special rounds. The wolf would be up any second now.

  He returned his gaze to Jessie. “I cared from the moment I realized you could be real. My daughter. I haven’t been there for you your entire life. Now that I’m here, you can’t get rid of me.”

  “Dolan’s going to get away.”

  “So what? Dolan has nothing without me. And I’m not so sure that specter will let him get far.”

  “So what? We just leave? Leave mom?”

  Lockm
an looked down at Kate. When she woke, she would be insane. Who knew how the tearing of a soul would manifest itself? Jessie didn’t need to see her mother like that. But how could he leave her behind? Simple. He couldn’t.

  “Come on.” He lifted Kate’s limp body and threw her over his shoulder. “We’re all getting out of here.”

  Jessie got to her feet, started to say something, but a wolfish growl cut her off.

  Alec—or what used to be Alec—crouched on the floor, teeth bared and eyes shining. A wolf the size of a full-grown man, hate and hunger rumbling in its voice.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Charles ducked behind his car as more automatic gunfire cut a line through the air. Bullets pummeled the car and obliterated most of the windows. He kept low until the barrage stopped. Then he pulled his own weapon and skirted the back of the car. He rested his gun arm on the hood to steady his aim and fired into the doorway where the gunman who had pulled Millie inside still stood. Someone else had pulled her out of sight. Charles just hoped she wasn’t near the door anymore.

  He fired three shots, squeezing them off like his dad had taught him so long ago, back when Dad still talked to him. All three shots clustered in the middle of the gunman’s chest, just like hitting the paper targets at the range. The gunman dropped his mini Uzi and flailed backward into the house.

  Now what?

  Charge the house. He would be damned if he’d come all this way with Millie to let these guys kill her for Dolan. Gun up, he raced across the front lawn straight at the door, ready to dive to the ground at the first sight of a second soldier.

  All his focus on the door.

  His mistake.

  The shot came from the right, from the driveway. It spun Charles around and slammed him to the ground as if he’d been tackled by a linebacker instead of a .45 caliber round. He didn’t feel the pain right away. He lay on his back, looking up at the sky, trying to catch his breath but the wind had been knocked clean from his lungs.