Alexander Death (The Paranormals, Book 3) (35 page)

Except for Esmeralda. And Esmeralda wasn't really Esmeralda, and she never had been since she let Ashleigh take over her body in Charleston. The entire time they'd been in California, it was Ashleigh, tricking him.

Tommy had watched Ashleigh manipulate, use and discard one person after another. She'd pretended to be Jenny's friend in order to control her. She'd taken over Esmeralda's body, and she was never giving it back—a very sneaky kind of murder.

Now it was Tommy's turn to get screwed by Ashleigh. She was clearly done with him, had been done with him for weeks. Too wrapped up in her new politician boyfriend. Too concerned that it might “look bad” if she were seen with a lowlife like Tommy. Now she was kicking him out of her life the easiest way she could. As wicked as she was, Tommy hadn't expected Ashleigh to narc him out to the cops. He'd only broken out of prison in the first place because of her ghost harassing him in his dreams. Now she wanted him back there, out of her way.

Tommy pulled onto the freeway and gunned the engine. He wasn't going to get out of her way at all. He knew well enough what Ashleigh was after, and where he would eventually find her. He even knew the fastest way from Los Angeles to South Carolina.

***

Alexander glanced out the side at the Great Plains sprawling below in vast green and tan squares. It was a clear day, great for flying.

Ashleigh was beside him, catching up on the newspapers she'd downloaded to her Kindle before takeoff. She was keeping tabs on Eddie Brazer's campaign. It looked like the love-charmer intended to make the congressman her pet and her stepping stone, and naturally she was doing a fine job of it. He hated the charmer, but he respected her. You had to respect her, or you could find yourself with a poisoned dagger in your back.

For that matter, the plague-bringer had stabbed Alexander in the back, too, after he'd gone to all the trouble of saving her life and then waking her up to her own past lives. That had been a complicated, multi-stage process, which required her to get in touch with her power, just when she'd decided to never use it again.

So, step one had been to make Jenny use the pox in self-defense. He'd arranged that by having Jenny and Kisa attacked in the city, by a couple of toughs who had been instructed to kidnap and rape the two girls. They'd been paid a lump of cash and told that the attack was meant to be a “message” to somebody. Alexander had assumed that nobody would get too far with trying that on Jenny. And it had worked.

Then, step two: have Jenny kill someone out of vengeance. That was easy enough. Alexander had Manuel kill Kisa and her brothers, and one of Manuel's people picked up a random man from the barrio to blame for the crime. Jenny had killed an innocent man, but the most important thing was that she'd done it out of anger instead of self-defense, putting her in closer touch with who she really was.

Step three: once she was loosened up, blow the doors off her mind with the psychedelics. The more memories she could access, the more like herself she could become.

Step four had been to have Jenny kill someone in cold blood. Unfortunately, the healer had acted with greater speed, intelligence, and resourcefulness than Alexander had predicted, so Alexander had attempted to combine step four with step five: have Jenny kill the healer.

If she'd done that, it would have severed Jenny and Seth's connection for this lifetime. More importantly, it would drive a wedge through the strange, eerily human relationship they'd been forming in their last few lives. They'd spent so long incarnating as humans that they were close to going native, letting their humanity overtake their ancient nature. They were like wolves who'd stalked the sheep until they believed they were sheep themselves.

Instead, she'd betrayed him and left with the healer. For that, he would have to make her suffer. Alexander smiled.

“What are you thinking about?” Ashleigh asked. She was giving him a coy, flirty smile, which he knew better than to trust. He kept his gloves on for a reason.

“How much I look forward to destroying those two,” Alexander said. “I like your ideas. We're going to use them.”

“See, I can be useful.” She leaned closer to him and laid her hand on his arm, her smile faltering a little when she realized it was completely covered by his jacket sleeve. “We would make a powerful alliance, wouldn't we, Alexander? The world would be ours.”

“We've tried it before, my sweet little charmer,” he said. “We always end up trying to kill each other.”

“We could try it again.” She gave him another coy smile, and now he felt a sudden surge of desire for her. He hated her. She fascinated him. He wanted to take her to bed, dominate the powerful little bitch, but he'd already made the mistake of trying that in past lives. Not this time.

“We'll see,” Alexander said, and she pulled back, frowning and staring at him.

“This seems like such a bad idea,” Jenny said, as Seth parked Jenny's Lincoln on the street a few houses down from their destination, a two-story brick house surrounded by old-growth trees. They were in the Virginia Highlands, an upscale neighborhood in Atlanta not far from the CDC.

“She owes me,” Seth said. He turned off the car, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry to get out. “I told you about her daughter.”

“And that little girl is already healed, so this lady doesn't really have a reason to help you now.”

“Except gratitude.”

“That's a lot to hope for.”

“And I made her promise.”

“So everything depends on her keeping her promises,” Jenny said. “Great.”

“Let's see what she says.” Seth got out of the car, and Jenny followed.

They tiptoed up to the front window, where they saw Dr. Heather Reynard and a man who Jenny guessed was her husband. They were both reading. A small girl with a short, fuzzy haircut slept on the couch next to the man.

“That's the little girl?” Jenny whispered.

“That's her. I cured her cancer.”

Jenny couldn't help giving him a quick kiss. “Okay, do we knock on the door?”

“We should wait for a chance to talk to her alone,” Seth said. “We're kidnapping her, remember?”

“But...oh. Her husband won't be in on it.”

“Not yet,” Seth said. “It has to look believable. Let's go hide in the back yard before some neighbor calls the cops on us.”

They walked around the house, moving as quietly as they could. The back yard was small, but fortunately two of the neighbors had fences, making it less likely that Jenny and Seth would be noticed. They found a window at the back through which they could see the family in the front parlor.

And they waited.

Eventually, the little girl stirred. Heather's husband smiled, said something to Heather, picked up the girl. He carried her toward the window where Jenny and Seth were hiding. They ducked, then Jenny peeked in again after a few seconds, to see the man carrying the girl upstairs.

“Okay, this is the best chance we're going to get,” Jenny whispered.

They stood and tiptoed across the patio to the sliding glass door. Seth took the handle.

“Let's hope it's unlocked,” he whispered.

He pulled, and the door slid open.

They crept through the kitchen. As they approached the front room, Seth spoke in a stage whisper: “Heather. It's Seth.”

Heather jumped as Seth and Jenny stepped into her parlor. Heather's eyes shifted from Seth to Jenny, and then she glanced at the ceiling. Jenny could guess what she was thinking—she didn't like the idea of having Jenny in her house, so close to her daughter.

“What are you—?” Heather began to ask, but Seth pressed a finger to his lips. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

Seth made a gun with his thumb and forefinger, and he pointed it at Heather with a grin. “We're kidnapping you.”

“What?” Heather looked between them, panicked. “Why?”

“Because I need your help,” Seth said.

“I can't right now. I have to work in the morning.”

“But you won't show up, because you've been kidnapped,” Seth said. “See? It all works out.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because that's going to be the story,” Seth said. “Jenny and I kidnapped you, determined to make our side of the story clear.”

“You can just tell me your side of the story right here,” Heather whispered. “I'll listen.”

“That's not the real reason we're taking you. That's going to be your story, though.”

“Where are we going?”

“Fallen Oak,” Seth told her.

“For how long?”

“We don't know,” Seth said. “Until things happen.”

“It won't be long,” Jenny said. “I know Alexander. I've spent enough time in his campaign tents, watching him plan battles. He's going to move fast and with overwhelming force. We're lucky we've had so much time already.”

“Who is Alexander?” Heather asked.

“The zombie master,” Seth said. “He's coming back for Jenny, and he wants me dead.”

“What do you want me to do?” Heather asked. Floorboards creaked overhead—it sounded like her husband was returning to the stairs.

“We have to get going,” Jenny said. “There's plenty of time to explain on the way.”

Heather looked at Seth, then sighed. “Fine. Let me just tell Liam where I'm going.” She stood up and walked toward the stairs, but Seth stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“You can't,” Seth said. “You're being kidnapped, remember?”

“He's going to worry. He might call the police.”

“He should do whatever he would normally do if you went missing,” Jenny said. “That will make your story more believable. We want people to think you were taken against your will.”

“That's not far off from the truth,” Heather said. Liam's footsteps approached down the steps.

“Let's go,” Seth said.

They left through the front door. Jenny quietly closed it behind them just as Liam reached the bottom floor.

Seth hurried Heather across the front yard and down the sidewalk. They'd come in Jenny's car, since Seth's Roadster didn't have much in the way of a back seat. Jenny's dad had fixed the window that Seth had smashed out with his fist.

Seth opened the passenger side door for Heather.

“You're such a gentleman about your kidnapping,” Heather said, and Seth grinned at her. Jenny felt just a twinge of jealousy at the look they shared. Heather seemed a little attracted to Seth, the handsome miracle worker who'd saved her daughter's life.

“You keep driving,” Jenny told Seth while she climbed into the back of her car and stretched her legs. “I hate driving in the city.”

It was four hours to Fallen Oak.

***

Alexander pulled up to the gate of the warehouse. They were in a rundown industrial area just east of Atlanta, off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, and they were driving a large refrigerated box truck with a cartoon pig on the side. The pig had a bib and a crazed, elated expression as he was about to dig into a pile of barbecue. “Larry's Best Pork – Reheats in Minutes!” was painted under the logo.

The truck's original driver was probably still in a rental shower stall at the truck stop, waiting for Ashleigh's promised rendezvous with him.

“Can I help you?” the guard asked, stepping out of the gate booth. He cast a dubious look at the pig on the side of the truck. He was chunky, balding man in his late forties, wearing a black security uniform. The logo on his badge read “SyntaCorp, LLC.”

“We're supposed to make a delivery,” Alexander told him.

“I don't have anything on the clipboard. You sure you got the right place? We're not in the grocery business here.”

“Neither am I,” Alexander said. “SyntaCorp just wanted to keep things discreet.”

“Oh, gotcha.” The guard relaxed a little. “Just hand me your corporate ID card, and I'll swipe it for the records.”

“I have it, sorry.” Ashleigh took a deep breath and climbed over Alexander to smile at the guard through the window. She'd opened the top four buttons of her shirt, and the bait worked—the guard took in the very generous view of her breasts.

Ashleigh breathed out a cloud of spores that looked like pink dandelion heads. They snowed down on the guard's hair, face and uniform, and his mouth gaped open.

Alexander held his breath and tried to avoid breathing in the airborne love charms, but a few landed on his face, intensifying his genuine desire for Ashleigh. It took all his willpower to keep his hands off her—grabbing for her would let her know the charm had worked on Alexander. Although, he thought, he didn't really need to hide things from Ashleigh. They were friends now, and with any luck, they'd be lovers soon. He could probably trust her now. He was kind of in love with her.

Alexander shook his head, trying to fight back those feelings.

The security guard was staring at Ashleigh with a dazed, wide-eyed look.

“Can I see your ID card?” Ashleigh asked, with a fake giggle. “I bet your picture is so cute.”