Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) (49 page)

“They haven't, but Ward and Gale said that it
was going to be a permanent rule or whatever soon,” I said.

“A sanction?” Bry clarified.

I nodded.

“That makes sense. Look at what would happen if
a bonehead like Carson decided to do crime professionally.”
Everyone nodded their agreement. “And two regular cops showed up?”
Jade stated.

“Sish-kabobs! Cop-kabobs!” Jonesy yelled,
making the up in flames noise.

Nice visual.

“The original human torch,” Bry agreed.

“My point exactly. There's got to be a counter
for that level of power, like a John,” she said.

We all looked at him. “Bet there's a ton of
Nulls on the force,” Bry stated logically.

Sophie nodded. “Jade's right. Psychic Nulls
would mean the negation of all those freak-a-zoids.”

“Negation!
Are you one of those smart girls?” Jonesy asked, eying Sophie.

“Sometimes,” she smiled and even I saw the
wink in the moonlight.

“Okay I give, what does that mean?” Jonesy
asked.

“I can neutralize other paranormals' abilities.”

“Oh yeah, I remember, you do the whammy and they
can't zap us.” Jonesy nodded, shaking a finger at John.

“That was alarmingly close to girl-speak, my
friend,” Bry said warningly.

“That's
okay, I'm diversified, and consider my girl-speak to be my second
language.”

“Nice,” Sophie said, unimpressed.

Jonesy grinned again, his teeth a pale sliver.

“That will count for college,” John laughed.

Suddenly, Onyx emitted a soft growl of alarm at
the same moment that Jade asked, “What's that noise?”

I looked around but didn't see anything. Then I
heard it, a soft thump-thump-thump. If I hadn't known better, it
sounded like a giant's heartbeat thumping through a pillowcase loaded
with feathers. We frantically looked around but didn't see anything.
Onyx gave a single sharp bark, looking up. The trees above us parted
like a dark invitation, exposing a helicopter over our heads, over
the graveyard, over our lives.

****

Jonesy stepped forward, legs planted wide apart,
stabilizing his balance as the helicopter swept the trees in a silent
hurricane, their tops bending back to accommodate it. The stealth
helicopter descended like a black spider. The sky was its web, a fat
body with chopper blades like legs ready to spring down.

Our loose group watched, Onyx outright growling
with a random bark underscoring the oncoming threat.

Some spark of understanding swam to the surface
and it was in that moment of self-realization that I felt responsible
for more than just me and Jade.

I turned to the group, yelling over the wind
tunnel noise of the chopper, its bulk blotting out the moonlight,
“Get to the graveyard now!” I shouted out, “Bry!”

“Yeah!” he yelled back.

“Protect the girls, get them out of here!”

“
Tiff,
I need you!” She ran to me, her hoodie falling away from her face,
leaving it exposed and vulnerable. I had a stab of guilt as she raced
at me, but we needed to survive this, survive the
now
.

John and Jonesy gave me a profound stare; I was
the leader here, whether I liked it or not.

“Stay with Jade and Sophie, Bry will help,” I
yelled.

Ropes dropped like snakes out of the belly of the
helicopter; I counted: one, two, three. Resolve solidified into a
tight knot of dread.

I would get us through this.

Tiff stood by me, her stance like Jonesy. I was
counting on her being a guy right now, even though she looked
so
girl. Her slight body stood next to me, hands balled into fists. If
things hadn't been so dire, I would've smiled.

The shadow of the chopper blades made her face a
jagged dance of light. “We're in deep shit,” she said.

“Yeah, it'll be okay.” The closest to a lie
I'd ever told.

“Take care of my sister, Caleb,” Bry shouted.

We stared at each other across the space of the
graveyard, he at the back with Sophie and Jade behind him and the Js
in front, their bodies a shield.

“Yes!” I bellowed.

Onyx stood on all fours, his head lowered, as the
three men dropped to the ground, the ropes loose and swinging.

The Bad Males had arrived and a grinding fear
was covering the Boy, its smell permeating his nose like a coating of
oil, slimy and alive.

He would protect the Boy.

Onyx crouched, preparing to lunge. “No!” I
yelled, leaping at him, doing the superman, arms out in front.

“Not the boy!” the man in the center yelled
over the noise of the chopper, their guns trained on me and Onyx.

Onyx and I rolled together and he sprang up. I got
up on my knees and was greeted with the muzzle of a gun in my face. I
was glad that my parents had been thorough in their potty training
because I swear I felt my bowels hiccup.

“Easy there, young fella,” Gun-Holder said.

It
was an M-16, its black tip a solid circle in front of me. My eyes ran
the length of the barrel, the spiral shape distorted, to lock gazes
with Gun-Holder's lifeless eyes... killer's eyes
.

The middle guy sauntered up to Gun-Holder and used
his finger, pushing the end of the gun barrel up in the air toward
the chopper.

“What the hell, Parker?” Gun-Holder said.

“We're not here to kill but to acquire, there is
no threat in that, best to remember it.”

My head snapped to the middle guy, who removed his
knitted black ski-mask, and there he was.

I'd
know him anywhere,
Jeffrey
Parker
.

He looked the same except no glasses, the geek in
him peeking through at the edges but inside a mid-twenties body that
was hard and lean with a face to match. That unfinished quality that
he had in the last photo I'd seen was gone forever.

“Stand up, Caleb,” Parker spoke in a clear,
ringing voice.

I did, but I was going to be in charge. This was
not how I had thought I'd meet Parker, it was going to be on my
terms. I glanced at the gun. Besides, they weren't here to kill me.
They wanted me. That was almost worst.

It was my only leverage.

I turned around, sparing a glance for Tiff, who
was standing with Man-Three a short guy as wide as I was tall, a gun
trained on her.

This was going bad fast. Looking further back I
spied the Js, Jade and the others still where I put them. Bry looked
like the rock he was in the middle of the group. Jade's face was
burning in my mind when I turned to face Parker.

“What do you want?” I yelled.

Man-Three, pressed a small voice-activated mike
from his shoulder to his mouth, saying something quickly into it.

Suddenly, the noise of the helicopter toned way
down like air leaving a balloon.

“There, that's better,” Parker said. “Do you
know who I am?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, that saves time. We're here because we
know what your potential is, Caleb.”

“You're wasting your time, Parker. I tested out
as a two-point.”

He laughed, just short of braying; creepy and
false. “Yes, we're aware of that. Our operatives were watching
things very closely. We have high hopes for you, Caleb, and you won't
disappoint.”

I let the questions stand on my face. I was not
going anywhere with this guy. He made all the hair on my body stand
on end.

Like recognized like.

“
Who
do you think was in your house making a mess of your things? We know
every conversation that has happened since that moment. We are very
aware of what you and your clever father have been manufacturing for
the sake of keeping your gift a secret,” he explained patiently.

Like I wasn't going to get it.

I
got it.
“Here's
the thing,” I said. “I'm not going to be the government's bitch.”

Parker
smiled and said, “You'll be what we want you to be... to become.”

He signaled to Gun-Holder. “Get the girl. We can
use her to persuade Mr. Hart to our cause.”

I turned to look at Tiff but Gun-Holder was
jogging toward Jade.

Oh
no, he would try to force me through Jade.

Everything slowed down then, I calculated how far
Tiff was from me and she looked back at me, nodding. A gun tip like
an arrow was pointed inches away from her head; I had to gamble with
her life but we were all at stake.

I took two huge steps leaping for Tiff. She
extended her arm as Man-Three whipped his gun around, using the stock
as a weapon. She bent forward just as the butt whistled across her
forehead, grazing it, a gash opening up as I touched her hand. She
clasped the other one and we pulled toward each other as one, a
mid-air waltz. We landed just the right side of the cemetery, our
power shimmered together like a thing alive.

“No!” Parker shouted, realizing too late just
what Tiff was.

Their intelligence needed work.

I craned my neck to look again at our group and
Gun-Holder was within reach. Bry took the hand that he put forward
for Jade in both of his, using the guy's own momentum to keep him
moving. But he was an adult, a trained government assassin, and he
took Bry with him for the ride.

“Move!” I screamed at Jade, as she flung
herself out of reach and did the opposite of what the operative
thought she would.

The operative was landing a solid beating on Bry
(he never caught a break), and Jade ran through the tombstones, gray
flags in the failing light.

“Shit! Get that girl,” Parker yelled at
Man-Three.

Man-three, who was the tallest of the group,
ignored Tiff and me.

His fatal mistake, going for Jade.

Parker had been far enough away but was closing
the distance between us fast, Tiff and I holding hands.

Jade had stopped right in the middle of the
graveyard, the Js joining the scuffle to aid Bry. Sophie uncertainly
moved forward after Jade while Man-Three paced her, mirroring her
progress.

“Jade, run to me!” I screamed.

A violent anger for our situation, Jade being in
danger, our friends in jeopardy rolled like a huge heaving animal in
my body.

Man-Three roared like a lion, rushing forward
those fifteen feet to grab Jade who took evasive action, leaping to
the side, using her smallness to maneuver around a tombstone at the
extreme left.

I
let my power out of my body
that
fast, a precise laser sent straight in front of Jade, where a zombie
exploded out of a grave. He was a macabre thing of beauty, his arms
fully extended, knees bent up in the air, classic karate stance.

He
appeared before her as a warrior
and
I screamed inside its head the command:
protect
.

My zombie landed directly in front of Man-Three
who unceremoniously pressed the M-16's gun barrel to the zombie's
chest, using a palm on the zombie's shoulder, jerking him closer and
fired point blank.

“No!” I shouted, my zombie blown to
smithereens before my eyes.

But Jade kept coming, my zombie's sacrifice there
in her eyes and body as she moved to me. My zombie danced as the
rounds penetrated its body. Bits of flesh arced from behind it,
splattering tombstones, all the while leaning into the gun man, its
arms rising as it was getting blasted, going for the throat.

Man-Three must have had twenty-round clips. As he
clicked empty, my zombie's chest a hole that the starlight
penetrated, its face a dark prison of blood and gore.

Protect,
I thought at him.
Protect.

A
little slower due to damage, nevertheless
,
the
zombie surged forward, tearing the butt of the M-16 from Man-Three's
hands, tossing it like so much candy into one of the tombstones and
cracking the corner off like a chipped tooth.

“
God
dammit
!
Take its head, fool! It'll keep coming,” Parker screamed, reaching
us.

A knife glinted in the dark and sailed out toward
my zombie, embedding itself thickly in his neck, but not severing,
black blood flying outward and hitting everything in its path.

I whipped my head around in time to see that Bry
lay on the ground and Gun-Holder was making steady progress toward
us. His arm tightened like a noose around Jonesy, who was flailing
and struggling in his grasp. John and Sophie knelt by Bry, his other
hand empty of the knife he'd just thrown.

Don't give up.

My zombie was slowing down, each wound more
grievous than the last.

Gun-Holder was dragging my friend by the throat
and Jade was not to me yet.

Parker was on our ass as we made our way to Jade,
the zombie distracting Man-Three with Gun-Holder dragging Jonesy
towards us.

More zombies, that's the ticket.

As if on deadly cue, Tiff and I got busy with a
few more as Parker grabbed Tiff by her hood and zombies poured from
the ground.

Gun-Holder stopped in his tracks, Jonesy giving
him hell.

“Hold still or I'll choke you into
unconsciousness, shithead.” Jonesy did.