Infernal Father of Mine Page 2

  One of the cloaked people turned David's head to face me—a final insult it seemed. He looked calm, or maybe it was just the paralysis. I was pissed at him. Angry with his disregard for our family. But this was too much. Somehow, I had to save him from the purge, whatever it was. A spasm moved my left arm. My right soon followed. I reached inside again, and found my demon half straining against the bonds of my own flesh-and-bone prison.

  Move, damn it. Move!

  Using every ounce of willpower I had, I wiggled my fingers. Felt my toes respond. Montjoy, obvious by his girth, climbed a tall pulpit, the wooden structure groaning with each step.

  "Gonna eat them. Gonna kill them. Blood, blood, blood," gibbered a man from somewhere behind me. "Bathe in their juices. Drink pretty brains from pretty skulls." He laughed maniacally.

  "Shut up, you filthy demon," someone said. I heard something impact flesh, and a grunt.

  "You first, you first, you first!" screamed the crazy man. Something rattled against metal.

  "Subdue him," Montjoy shouted from across the ring.

  The mental patient launched into another tirade and abruptly cut off mid-scream. I imagined they must have shot him with one of their paralyzing darts.

  The chunky figure on the pulpit raised his arms. Hooded Exorcists appeared from the shadows in the church, forming a ring around silver circle, hiding David from sight. Montjoy's voice rose in a chant. The figures in the ring raised their hands straight overhead, singing a response one might expect to hear from Gregorian monks. As they sang, their hands angled outward into V shapes, pressing against their neighbors' palms. The chant faded to echoes.

  For a moment, silence reigned. Then Montjoy shouted a word. It might have been Latin, but I couldn't understand any of what they were saying. The circle of Exorcists responded with a shout of acclamation. Montjoy sang at a low pitch, words rising in volume. As he sang, I saw a form rising from the center of the circle. David floated, arms and legs outstretched, held rigid by unseen force, even as his head lolled forward.

  My teeth clenched. A shudder ran through my body. I was awakening. Fingers responded to my commands. The leaden weight of my arms subsided. I could almost move my head. Is anyone watching me? I knew someone had been behind me a moment ago. Feigning paralysis until the last minute was vital.

  My father's head suddenly jerked back. A long cry of pain tore from his throat. Blue vapor emerged from his nose, mouth, ears. The volume of the chant rose higher and higher, the cadence moving faster. Azure mist shrouded David's head, rising like a genie from a bottle. As it grew in volume, a face formed from the nebulous smoke.

  "Oh, Montjoy," the face said playfully, even as David continued to shout hoarsely as if in great pain. "Your lifelong quest will end in disappointment, I'm afraid. For you see, I am not what you thought I was."

  The Exorcist seemed to ignore him, though it was hard for me to tell from this angle. Montjoy raised a fist. He shouted a single word, and made a vertical slashing motion with his hand. The sapphire arch burst into brilliance, sparkling like a gem. The space between the columns slit open. Blue light, similar in color to the mist and the arch, lit the sanctuary, dancing like moonlight on the surface of a pool.

  The blue mist swirled toward the opening. The smoky face cried out. "No, no! Please no! Don't send me back!"

  All I could do was watch helplessly.

  Chapter 2

  Elyssa

  Elyssa pushed herself up slowly, watching as a string of drool stretched from her face to the concrete. Someone had knocked her out. The ninja. She'd seen the shadow figure at the last minute but hadn't been quick enough to block the blow.

  Justin!

  She slid forward a few feet and peered over the edge of the twelfth floor of the unfinished condominium bordering the cemetery where Justin was meeting his father. Aside from a few black lines in the grass where the two men had been standing, there was no sign of anyone.

  "Really?" she growled. "Can't he even wait until the new year to be abducted?" Elyssa leapt from the side of the building, grabbed a piece of steel rebar where it jutted from the concrete support beam below, and flipped from it to another bar of steel a floor below. She landed on the gravel soil moments later and raced to the cemetery next door.

  Footprints littered patches of bare earth between clumps of dying grass. The ninja hadn't been alone—he'd had help. She counted at least ten separate pairs of footprints, not including David's and Justin's. They'd been standing at the center of the black ring. She snapped a picture with her arcphone, and called the one thing—person—she knew could help identify it.

  "Hello, Elyssa," Cinder, the golem said in his calm, unassuming voice.

  Elyssa had gotten somewhat used to the presence of Cinder despite its—his—origin as one of Mr. Gray's killing machines. He was also like a walking encyclopedia and seemed to relish research above all else. "I just sent you a picture."

  "I have received it," he said. "It appears to be a symbol burned into grass."

  "Can you identify what the symbol is, and how it was burnt into the grass?"

  He paused for a moment. "I will do my best, Elyssa. Is there something wrong?"

  "Justin has been taken."

  "By his father?"

  The question caught Elyssa off guard. She hadn't even thought of the possibility that David Slade might kidnap his son. After all, Justin was to play a very important role in the battle against Daelissa. What if his father had switched sides? Her stomach tightened. She couldn't rule out the possibility. "I don't know who took him. I saw them talking, and then someone snuck up behind me and knocked me out."

  "If someone was able to sneak up on you, they must be quite skilled," Cinder said. "According to Justin, you are an amazing badass. I must admit, I do not quite understand how being analogous to a defective posterior makes someone amazing, but having seen you in combat, I must agree with Justin's biased assessment."

  Elyssa wasn't sure what to say, so she changed back to the matter at hand. "Just find out where that symbol comes from. I'll be out in the field looking for leads."

  "Very well," he replied.

  She disconnected the call and stared for a long moment at the symbol, a circle with two lines crisscrossing each other. They didn't quite form an X since one line was a little higher than the other. It didn't look like any Cyrinthian or arcane symbol she'd seen before, but it did seem familiar. Elyssa didn't have any arcane abilities, so she couldn't fathom why a magical symbol would look even remotely familiar to her unless she'd seen Justin use it. To the best of her recollection, she hadn't. He stuck to plain circles anytime he needed one to cast a spell.

  Footprints surrounded the symbol. Elyssa tracked them into the small church up a slight rise from the cemetery. The quaint building was little more than a sanctuary with a few rows of pews. Dirt and soil marked the floor where the abductors had walked through the room. She continued on, emerging on a sidewalk covered by a cloth awning. It made sense why she hadn't spotted anyone entering the church. The covered sidewalk led to the street where cars would have to park along the curb or at a large parking deck across the road.

  It was a good bet the kidnappers had parked here, ambushed Justin, and brought him out the same way. She spotted an ATM cash machine at a small bank across the road. Not daring to hope, she ran to the other side of the street and found the small piece of glass hiding the camera. It appeared to be angled just right to capture whatever happened across the street.

  Elyssa wished she could contact Alysea, but Justin's mom and Nightliss had been called away on a Templar emergency in Colombia and were under a communications blackout. Plenty of options remained. She whipped out her phone and called Shelton. "I need you to meet me right away."

  "Cinder told me about Justin," Shelton said. "Kid can't keep himself out of trouble for two minutes."

  "I'm sending you a picture," Elyssa said. "Use the omniarch."

  Shelton sighed. "It might help if I knew what you want me to do once
I get there."

  "Hack a camera."

  "Got it. On my way." He disconnected.

  Elyssa took a picture of an alley between the bank and the art supply shop next door. A short time after texting the image to Shelton, a portal shimmered open in the air. Harry Shelton appeared on the other side wearing his leather duster and a wide-brimmed hat. He stepped through, followed by Bella. The portal closed behind them.

  "Elyssa, I'm so sorry," Bella said, her Spanish accent rolling the Rs ever so slightly. She brandished a wand. "I am ready to do whatever is necessary to help you get him back."

  Shelton held up a hand. "Before you go blasting holes in buildings, let's do a little digging."

  "Really, Harry, do you think I would go off on a rampage?" Bella quirked an eyebrow.

  "I've seen you and Elyssa in action," he said. His gaze shifted to Elyssa. "Where's the camera?"

  She showed him the ATM. "Can you hack the video feed from it?"

  He looked it over. "Adam gave me a spell that might do the trick."

  That came as no surprise to Elyssa. Adam Nosti had once been a conspiracy nut and was probably the best spell hacker she'd ever seen. "Well, why aren't you using it?" she said, impatient to begin. For all she knew, Justin wasn't even in Atlanta anymore.

  Shelton's forehead wrinkled. "Don't rush me, woman." He took out his arcphone and fiddled with it. He grunted, tapped the screen, and nodded. "Hope this works." Standing to the side of the camera, presumably so it wouldn't record him, he pressed the arcphone over the glass.

  Symbols flashed past on the screen followed by green static. Images of people and cars zipped past in reverse across the field of view of the camera, as did patrons visiting the ATM. A man in a huge fur coat reversed course from the camera to reveal two large black vans parked across the road. A procession of people in long, hooded robes walked backwards up the sidewalk and into the church.

  "That's got to be the kidnappers!" Elyssa said.

  "He was kidnapped by monks?" Bella said.

  "Don't look like no monks I've ever seen," Shelton said.

  The video rewound all the way back to the vans driving away from the parallel parking spaces in reverse. Shelton moved as if to pull his arcphone away.

  "Wait," Elyssa said.

  A few minutes later, David Slade exited the church from the front door, walking backwards and vanishing down the sidewalk. Justin had taken an omniarch portal to an adjoining construction site. Elyssa had given him a moment or two and used the portal herself to shadow him. She'd promised not to follow him, but had he really expected her not to?

  "David was alone," Shelton said. "Dollars to dog nuts he had nothing to do with the abduction." He raised an eyebrow. "Can I stop recording now?"

  Elyssa nodded.

  Shelton took the phone off. Electricity sparked from the machine followed by a puff of smoke and the whirring of something spinning. Cash suddenly spewed from the front of the ATM and an alarm wailed.

  "That's not supposed to happen," Shelton said, looking at the money wafting through the air.

  "Call someone to open the portal," Elyssa said.

  "Son of a—" Shelton gave her a disgusted look. "There ain't nobody there to open it."

  "What about Ivy?" Elyssa asked.

  Shelton shuddered. "That kid gives me the creeps."

  Bella elbowed him. "Be polite, Harry." She looked at Elyssa. "She's there, but I don't have her number. Do you?"

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Elyssa frantically waved everyone down the alley. "I have her number, but it's in a text Justin sent me. I'll have to look, but we don't have time right now."

  A metal gate blocked the end of the alley. Bella took out her wand and, with a word, sliced the hinges with a thin beam of magic. The gate fell to the ground with a clang. Their path took a sharp right turn into another alley leading to a street. They hadn't gone more than a few feet when two police cars blockaded the exit. Elyssa spun and looked back the way they'd come. The police cars with flashing lights had cut it off as well.

  "You'd think somebody just robbed a bank," Shelton said, jaw tight.

  Elyssa looked up at the three-story buildings on all sides. There were no ladders, no fire escapes—no way up, and no way out.

  Chapter 3

  I saw a smile break out on Montjoy's face as the sapphire portal sucked at the billowing cloud of mist coming from David's mouth. Whatever the man was doing, it was probably about to kill my father.

  "Please don't send me away!" the nebulous face in the cloud cried. Just as it neared the threshold between worlds, the smoky mass stopped swirling. The face bared wickedly sharp teeth. "Just kidding." Then it bellowed like a tyrannosaurus rex on steroids. The gale blew hoods from Exorcists and sent candelabras tumbling. Candles flickered out, leaving most of the sanctuary in pitch black. Someone screamed.

  My night vision flickered on. I saw a smoky tendrils extending in all directions from the cloudy mass. They whipped around the circle like an octopus gone mad. One of the panicking Exorcists fell, crossing the silver line of the ring. A tendril lashed out, gripping the cloaked figure by the leg and lifting him high. It spun the Exorcist and flung him. The cry of terror cut off as the body smacked into a stone column.

  A metal candelabra fell across the silver ring. I felt a rush of magic as the seal around the circle broke. Now free, the blue tendrils reached further, gripping another victim and throwing him across the sanctuary. Wood cracked as he smashed into a wooden pew. Shouts of terror echoed as Exorcists ran blindly. The smoky arms snatched each one with ease, sending them on short, brutal flights across the room.

  Shrieks and cries erupted behind me, like those of overexcited chimpanzees. The cacophony rivaled the screams of the Exorcists as they battled the blue smoke creature in the middle of the sanctuary.

  My body spasmed. I felt my limbs respond with agonizing slowness to my commands. It wasn't much, but it would do. Using all my effort, I pushed into a sitting position. Digging inside myself I found the demon half slowly waking from slumber.

  "Subdue! Subdue!" Montjoy screamed.

  I saw a familiar figure across the room—the same one that had thrown the silver disc at me and David. Unlike the others, this one was dressed in tight black Nightingale armor. It pulled a short rod from a holster at its side. The rod expanded into a thick black bow. The figure pulled back on the string and an arrow appeared from nowhere, nocked and ready to fly straight at David 's hovering body.

  "No!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. My knees gave out as the attacker's head turned toward me. The arrow whistled for me. I ducked.

  The sound of shrieking metal sounded behind me. I looked back and saw a large cage filled with people. Some looked unconscious. Others looked insane out of their minds. A man foaming at the mouth punched himself in the face over and over. Drool leaked from the hanging jaw of a woman, her fists full of her own hair as she tore it out by the roots without uttering a sound.

  A short man with wisps of gray hair and wrinkly skin kicked at the cage door. The metal groaned as the man's bloody foot rammed it over and over again. I heard bones break. Saw the toes twist at odd angles. The man laughed hysterically and kept on kicking even as blood sprayed from the open wounds on his mangled foot.

  I turned away from the wackos in the cage and crawled on hands and knees toward the crouching figure as it lined up another shot on David. "Stop!" I shouted.

  This time, the attacker didn't turn to look. An arrow flashed forward. The blue smoke formed a wall, and deflected the projectile. The Exorcist ninja sprang forward, dodged a sweeping blow of a smoky tendril. A hand formed at the end of the nebulous tentacle and grasped for the attacker, but the ninja was too quick. The slim figure dove and slid on its chest beneath the giant fingers, sprang to its feet, and kicked away the candelabra short-circuiting the ring. The ninja turned. Performed a leaping backward flip to avoid another swing of the smoky hand. Then it slid across the silver line, dropped to a knee, and touched a thumb against i
t.

  I heard a faint hum as the circle snapped closed and saw the fingers on the giant hand sever and fade to sparkling mist where they'd crossed the silver line. David's body abruptly dropped to the floor. The blue vapor swirled back into him, vanishing.

  Strength returned to my legs. I stood. Something crashed behind me. I turned to see the short old man, now free from the cage, leap at me, rotted teeth gleaming green by the light of a standing candelabra. Blood trailed from his foot as he sailed through the air. I held up my hands in defense. His mouth opened wide an instant before clamping onto my forearm. I shouted in pain.

  "What the hell?" I tried to shake him off me. "Why are you biting me?" I gripped the few remaining strands of the man's hair and pulled. They came loose in my hand. His sweaty, oily head slipped from my grasp even as he opened his mouth and clamped down on my wrist, teeth gnawing at my flesh. I bellowed with fresh agony.

  I punched his face but the blow didn't faze the crazy coot. I wasn't nearly at full strength, and despite the little old man's apparent ancient age and bad health, his grip felt supernaturally strong. Redirecting all power to my legs, I ran toward a stone column and slammed the insane man's head against it. Blood spattered at the point of impact. He burst into maniacal laughter, freeing my arm. I backpedaled.

  A groggy Exorcist staggered from behind a pew. The old man saw a new victim and leapt on him, biting the robes and tearing at it with his teeth like a rabid dog. I ran, leaving the struggling pair behind, and headed toward David. A blur of black caught my peripheral vision. I ducked. Felt a foot clip my head, and stumbled to the side. My ribs glanced off a pew. My knees decided to give out again, and I fell in the aisle.

  The shadow ninja vaulted a pew, elbow aimed for my chest as I lay on the ground. I rolled away. Heard the thud of impact. Gaining my feet, I watched the dark figure spring from the ground. Up close I noticed the curve of breasts and hips beneath the tight fabric.

  A woman is about to kick my ass.