Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (11 page)

“
That’s
what you got out of what I just said?” George glanced over her shoulder and took a step back, her sneakers slipping along the ice.

“I’m just saying that if you want to compare him to a superhero, Batman is the wrong choice. He’d never carry a gun. Captain America, maybe, though that’d be giving this guy way too much credit.” I shrugged. “Besides, I don’t think he’s trying to trick us into anything.”

George gaped at me.

“It’s okay.” John hauled his weapon higher on his shoulder and turned toward the warehouse doors. “I’ll go tell Bennett we’ve arrived.”

John crunched along the icy gravel and disappeared inside the building. Immediately, George lowered her voice into a hiss. “Here’s our chance. I can hot-wire that truck, and we can get the hell out of here.”

“You know how to hot-wire a truck?” Laura asked.

George’s mouth fell open. “You’re both nuts. Why does that matter right now? We need to get out of here before that guy comes back outside.”

My eyes wandered to the open warehouse door. Light spilled out onto the snow-crusted grass and the steady hum of voices drifted toward us. “I think we should see what my dad has to say.”

“Do you actually know that guy?” George jerked her thumb at the dilapidated warehouse. “Because it sure sounds like you don’t. If your dad wanted to come after you, don’t you think he’d do it himself instead of sending a stranger in his place?”

George’s words stung, because they weren’t true. Of course Dad would send one of his minions. After all this time, he still avoided me every chance he got. But I didn’t have to explain all of that to George, because a moment later, my dad’s familiar frame darkened the door.

“Holly, come on inside.” His voice bellowed in the quiet night. “We have a lot to talk about.”

That shut George right up.

When we entered the warehouse, a million things assaulted my senses all at once. Computers were everywhere, and a big-screen TV was mounted in the middle of the room. Armed guys like John bustled around us, and men and women dressed in jeans and t-shirts were hunched over laptops and speaking quietly into their radios. It was an assault of light and sound that almost took my breath away.

“What is this place?” Laura’s voice was hushed as her eyes drank in the activity around us.

“This is our headquarters until we rectify the situation in Seaport.” Dad nodded to the large screen where two armed men were approaching a house along the eastern boardwalk. “When the Congress got my update about the newest attacks, they sent in reinforcements. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to destroy all of the spirits by morning.”

“The Congress?” I raised my eyebrows. “But I thought they were trying to track you down so they could hand you over to the human authorities.”

“They caught me about a year ago. Some shamans were out on a mission in Chile, where I was hiding at the time, and they got a glimpse of me.” Dad ran a weathered hand across his bristly beard and sighed. “I thought I was done for. But instead of handing me over to the human police force, Congress made an offer for me. A full pardon of my crimes if I’d head up a new kind of spirit termination team.”

“To kill spirits,” I said. “Instead of banish them.”

“That’s right. It was time we made some moves to take control of the spirit situation in our world. Your mother didn’t agree, of course.”

“Wait a minute. Mom knew?”

“Your mother knew and greatly opposed it. So did Anthony Lombardi.” Dad’s eyes zeroed in on the screen as two armored men exited the boardwalk house and made a signal to the camera. “He’d been developing his own method for handling the spirit problem, which you unfortunately discovered for yourself.”

“He bound them to his blood so they could only feed when he let them.” Shivers coursed along my skin just thinking about it. “And took whatever life they stole for himself.”

“Exactly. His own personal Fountain of Youth. He had some support, of course, but most of Congress was against his plan. Unfortunately for your mother, she was more vocal about her opposition, and he had no intention of letting her stop him.”

Dad fell silent, and I tried to wrap my mind around this new information. Even after Mom returned to normal, she hadn’t told me much about the whys and whats of the situation that had caused her attack. She’d let it slip that it had something to do with politics, but I’d never imagined it was something like this.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I glanced up at my dad. “After all the secrecy?”

He sighed. “It was becoming very clear that you weren’t going to stop getting involved. I hoped when you heard the full story, you’d understand why you need to let us do our work without any interference.”

“I wasn’t interfering.” Frowning, I gestured to the screen where soldiers were approaching another house. “My next door neighbor was getting attacked, and none of your men were around. Was I supposed to just let him die?”

“Holly.” His voice was heavy as he took my shoulders and turned my body to face him. “You have to listen to me. Nothing you can do will stop these spirits. All you’ll do is put your own life in danger.”

“Okay, fine.” My eyes darted to the rifles lining the wall. “Then teach me how to do it your way. Let me help. This is my town. These are my people. And it’s my fault the spirits are on the loose in the first place.”

“You’re too young.”

“I’m old enough.” I gave a pointed nod toward John Smith, who was hovering nearby and listening to our conversation. “I’ve seen your soldiers. Some of them are barely older than I am.”

Sighing, Dad stared at the TV screen perched in the center of the room, his jaw clenching and unclenching. The monitor showed his men exiting another house and shooting a signal at the camera before the screen went black. After several silent moments, he finally spoke.

“Fine,” he said. “Tomorrow, you can be shown how to kill a spirit.”

“Tomorrow? But I want to help tonight.”

“The final target was just destroyed,” he said, pointing to the blank screen. “We’ll spend the remainder of the night here, monitoring the situation to ensure no more spirits appear.”

“So, let me stay and help. I could do something.”

“Not tonight and not for this war,” he said. “You can learn our technique so you know what to do in case this happens again when I’m not around, but only then. Do you understand?”

I nodded, my heartbeat kicking up a notch. Dad was going to stick around, at least for one more day, and he was going to teach me how to destroy spirits once and for all. Mom would be pissed as hell when she found out, but that wasn’t going to stop me from soaking up as much magic experience as I could.

When Dad strode away to resume his duties, George and Laura pulled me into the far corner of the warehouse next to a mound of helmets and combat boots. I wrinkled my nose. It smelled like gym socks and armpits over here.

“Holly.” Laura bit her lip and glanced at George. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”

“What do you mean?” I picked a helmet off the floor and internally groaned at the weight. If I joined the team, I’d need a much smaller version than this.

“George says there could be some really bad consequences to killing spirits.” Laura flicked her eyes behind me as John ambled by us, his eyes trained on our little group.

“No offense, George,” I said, dropping the helmet back onto the pile, “but you keep saying this kind of thing when you aren’t even a shaman.”

“I don’t have to be a shaman to know how the worlds work,” she whispered. “Just hear me out.”

“Fine,” I said. “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill them.”

“It really is all about balance. These demons you fight, they live on another plane of existence. Right now, we’re separated from them by the Borderland.” George dropped her voice when John strode by again. “The more you upset the balance, the harder the Borderland has to work to maintain it. If you make it work too hard, the whole thing will just implode on itself.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re saying the Borderland can be destroyed? But wouldn’t that mean…”

Laura spoke in a harsh whisper. “It means there’d be nothing between our worlds anymore. The spirits would be here. Permanently.”

CHAPTER 10

N
athan was sprawled on the couch watching my Pulp Fiction DVD when I returned from Dad’s headquarters. I rushed to his side and dropped to my knees, pressing my fingers against his forehead to feel his temperature. His skin was still clammy and damp, but the blazing heat had died away. He’d recovered in record time.

“What happened?” He sat up, pausing the movie. “One minute we’re in the cemetery staring at Anthony Lombardi’s headstone and the next I’m passed out on your couch with nobody around.”

“I’m so sorry, Nathan,” I said, easing onto the edge of the couch and taking his hand in mine. “Some spirits were in the cemetery, and they attacked you. We brought you back here, and I gave you some healing herbs. It looks like it’s helped.”

He frowned and pulled his hand away, voice sharp. “Where have you guys been? I woke up and had no idea what was going on.”

“We went to see my dad.” Slowly, I stood, my lungs tightening as I took my next breath. Nathan had never acted like this toward me before, even when things got crazy with Anthony. “He didn’t give us much of a choice.”

“Right.” Nathan swept off the couch, and his eyes stayed rooted to the carpet as he began to back away. “It’s late, and I’m exhausted. I’m going to head home.”

“You should stay over.” I lifted a hand to stop him. “No one else is here, and you’ve had a rough night. Plus, your car is still at the cemetery.”

“I just need to go home, Holls.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “A walk will help clear my head. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“Nathan.” Tears stung my eyes, my hand dropping to my side like a lead balloon. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to get hurt.”

“I know you didn’t.” He finally lifted his dark green eyes to meet mine, and they held so much pain, it sent daggers into my heart. “I don’t blame you. I promise. I just need to get away from spirit stuff for a night.”

“I understand.” My lips formed a wobbly smile. “Call me tomorrow when you want to talk.”

A moment later, he was gone.

***

The next morning, I woke to the frantic blaring of my cell. Groaning, I rolled over and pressed the plastic to my ear, trying to remember what year it was. Everything about last night felt fuzzy, except for Nathan’s hasty escape from my house when I’d tried to get him to stay the night with me. Everything about that moment made me want to crawl into a hole and stay there until I was thirty.

“Holly, are you okay?” Mom’s voice filtered over the line. She sounded normal, healthy, alive.

“Mom.” I sat up straight and dizziness pounded through my skull. “Thank god. Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course I’m fine. Listen, I just wanted to check in to make sure you’re okay. I heard from the Congress that there was a massive spirit attack in Seaport last night.”

“Oh my god, Mom. It was awful. They were all over the place, but a team of shamans showed up to get rid of them.”

“They were using that new rifle method, weren’t they?” In the background, something crashed and echoed across the phone line. “Listen, Holly. I need to go. If anything else happens, lock your doors and don’t let anyone in.”

“Mom, wait—” The phone clicked off, and I fought the urge to throw it across the room. Just when she’d managed to return my million calls, she didn’t stay on the line long enough for me to ask to her about Anthony’s grave or tell her it was Dad who had busted into town to destroy the “demons” as George liked to call them. George. I frowned, thinking back to what she’d told me the night before.

She’d made a compelling argument against killing spirits, but something about that girl didn’t sit right in my gut.

A loud bang erupted on the front door. With a groan, I swept out of bed and padded down the hallway, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. When I swung open the door, John Smith stood on the porch, his SUV idling in the driveway puffing smog into the crisp morning air. Instead of last night’s military ensemble, today he wore dark jeans and a solid gray t-shirt that hugged every muscle of his carved chest and arms. He flicked his eyes to where my Marvel shirt hung just below my butt, my legs exposed for all to see. I tugged at the hem and took a step back, noting the absence of the sun in the sky.

“What are you doing here?” I squinted at the antique clock on the entry table. “It’s like five a.m.”

“Get dressed. Your dad sent me to get you.” His voice was gruff, and his expression hid behind a pair of darkly-tinted sunglasses. Of course ‘John Smith’ would wear sunglasses before the sun came up.

“I have school today. I thought we’d be doing this in the afternoon.” At a sane time of day.

“We’ll be done in time for your first class,” he said.

“Dad couldn’t come get me himself?” I shot over my shoulder as I turned and padded back down the hall, leaving the door wide open for John to come inside. I heard it slam just as I reached the bathroom door.

“You should be more grateful,” he called after me. “He’s a busy man. You’re lucky he agreed to this.”