Jared, they branded him with some kind of symbol.”
“They branded him?” I asked, appalled. “Do you mean they burned him?”
“Yes. I saw the scar on his back when we were restraining him.”
I closed my eyes. Starving for answers, I asked, “What kind of symbol? What does it do?”
“I don’t know. I’m not into that voodoo-hoodoo stuff. But, for lack of a better phrase, it seems to be blocking the light. All I see when I look at him now is darkness. And not a normal darkness. Comparing the color black to what he is encased in is like comparing a picture of the Grand Canyon to actually standing on its edge and looking down. It’s so deep, it’s disorienting. That’s what looking at Jared is like.
An endless darkness that is just as frightening as it is deep.”
“Can you draw it?” Grandma asked. “The symbol. Do you remember what it looks like?”
He shrugged. “I can try.”
She stood to scrounge up a pen and a piece of paper and handed them to Cameron.
“So, it’s a symbol, right? It’s sending a signal,” Glitch said. “Then why don’t we just disrupt the signal?”
Glitch, ever the techie, but he did seem to have a point.
Cameron sat with head bowed in thought. “There’s something even more strange about this.”
How could this get any stranger?
“It’ll heal,” he continued. “They’re descendants of nephilim. They had to know that. They have to know how fast he heals. And when he heals, whatever power that binding spell had over him will cease to exist. Or are they too stupid to realize that once that scar heals and the light resurfaces, he’ll kill them all?”
“You’re right,” Granddad said. “Branding Jared was like putting duct tape on a collapsing dam. It might hold for a little while, but when that dam breaks, nothing will stop it.”
“Absolutely nothing,” Cameron agreed.
“I think they are very aware of that fact,” Granddad continued. “But it was obviously a risk they were willing to take.”
“So why now? Binding Jared can’t last more than a few days.”
Grandma looked at him. “He could kill us all in the flash of a moment. Can you imagine what he could do in a few days?”
“That’s true,” Brooke said. “But maybe they know something we don’t. You guys keep talking about a war. Maybe it’s coming now and they wanted him out of the way.”
“But why?” I asked, no closer to understanding. “What would they have to gain? This a war that has nothing to do with them.”
“It has everything to do with every human being on Earth,” Cameron said, “so that’s a definite possibility. Whatever the case, we need to reverse the spell. We need him on our side.” He glanced at
Granddad, a worried expression drawing his brows together. “We can’t fight what’s coming alone. If we’re going to have even the slightest chance, we need him.”
“But what if that’s not it?” the sheriff asked. “What other motive could they possibly have?”
“A pretty simple one, actually.” Cameron stopped drawing the symbol. “They needed him out of the way for another reason.” He nodded toward me. “Just long enough to take out the prophet.”
I straightened when the focus shifted my way. “You still think they’re after me?”
Granddad put a hand over mine. I saw for the first time the sadness that pressed on his shoulders. They didn’t seem quite so broad as usual. Quite so strong. “Either way, this needs to be dealt with now.”
Cameron placed a hard gaze on Granddad. “I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“There’s nothing about this I do like. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Glitch-head is right.”
“Can you not call me that?”
Cameron ignored him. “We need to disrupt the signal. We need to distort the symbol somehow.”
“Of course,” Grandma said. “We need to break the lines, to make it not mean what it means.”
“And how do we do that?” the sheriff asked. “It took three tranquilizer darts and a nephilim just to get him to the ground.”
“Then we’ll use four this time,” Cameron said.
The sheriff seemed doubtful. “He’ll see that coming.”
Cameron looked at me, his eyes suddenly glistening with hope. “Maybe not.”
BARGAINING CHIP
I tiptoed into the room where the monitor was set up. The screen was still black, no signal whatsoever, but the audio was on. I heard a sound here and there. A tap. A scrape.
Filtering as much hope as I could into my voice, I whispered, “Jared?” The sounds stopped. I waited a full minute, gathering my courage, before asking, “Can you hear me?”
After a long moment, he said, “Yes.”
My eyes slammed shut. I turned up the audio so I could hear from a distance, then walked to the vault door. “If I let you out, will you take only me and spare my family and friends?”
He waited again before asking, “Bargaining now?”
I looked over at Cameron. His mouth formed a grim line as he beckoned me to continue with a nod. I took a steadying breath, looked behind me into the dark anteroom of the bunker, knowing an army stood behind me, and said, “I’m going to open the door now.”
After another long pause, he said, “I wouldn’t.”
With a hard swallow, I ignored him. vzyl “The door is heavy. You’ll have to push from your side.”
Never taking Cameron for the Catholic type, I was surprised when he did the sign of the cross. He bowed his head, took a deep breath of his own, then turned the huge locking mechanism.
I hurried forward and helped him pull. It opened far easier than it had closed. When the breadth spanned about three feet, I stepped around and expected to see Jared there helping, but he was standing back, his arms folded over his chest. I had also expected to see wings, huge and black and all consuming, but he was in his torn T-shirt and jeans, both bloodied from the fight.
“You’re taking a huge chance,” he said.
“We made a deal, though, right?” My body shook so uncontrollably, I felt like I was having a seizure, but I couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I tried to force myself to calm, I couldn’t stop the shaking. I stepped close to him. “Just me, and you leave Riley’s Switch.”
Without moving, he graced me with another of his smiles, this one all too knowing. “So all those people in the other room are just there to make sure you opened the door correctly.”
I put a shaking hand on his chest, fear consuming me to such a degree, the edges of my vision darkened.
“Jared, please.”
Then I was airborne. I flew straight out of the vault and skidded into the wall, the air knocked out of my lungs. And the fighting began anew. Jared was ready for Cameron this time. He didn’t stand still long enough to be shot with the dart gun. The sheriff kneeled and took aim, but he was helpless. They moved at inhuman speeds. Blurs of color and light. At one point Jared was on the ground. The next, Cameron was on the ceiling, their strength and agility incredible.
No one could help. Granddad pulled me to my feet and we just stood there, watching with our mouths hanging open. Sheriff Villanueva’s finger stayed wrapped around the trigger, waiting for the opportunity to tranq Jared. But it just didn’t come. The second one of them would get the upper hand, the other would employ some technique to reverse the odds.
Grandma had pulled me back and was holding on to me for dear life.
A group of men hurried to the vault door, prepared to close it again, to lock Cameron in there with the
Angel of Death.
I tugged at Grandma’s arm. “I want to try something.”
Her eyes rounded. “No, pix.”
